ATONEMENT AND HEALING

ATONEMENT AND HEALING

“Surely our griefs He Himself bore, And our sorrows He carried; Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, Smitten of God, and afflicted.” Isa. 53:4

The story of the healing ministry of Jesus is a very great one. There are those who would like to tie the atonement prophesied in Isaiah improperly to His healing ministry. There are passages in the Bible which help us to properly link the atonement with the suffering and sorrow of humanity.

Matthew has given us the inspirational secret for the activity of Jesus as He laid His hands on all that multitude. His quotation was from Isaiah 53:4. Let us read it as we find it there:

"Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows."

The Hebrew which is here rendered "griefs" is sicknesses; Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our sorrows. I would ask you to notice carefully that saying has nothing of atonement in it. "He hath borne our sicknesses," that is not atonement "He hath carried our sorrows," that is not atonement. If you will go on,

"Yet we did esteem Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted," in spite of the fact that He bore our sicknesses, bare them sympathetically, carried our sorrows sympathetically; that is how we esteemed Him. Now, "He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed;" that is atonement. That is in vs. 5. Atonement is not in vs. 4. Vs. 4 is the public ministry of sympathy. He did not atone for sick­ness. He atoned for sin; and the healing of the body is not guaranteed in atonement in this life, any more than exemption from death is guaranteed. Sickness He can heal, and He often does heal today without any human means; but far more often He heals through means. I have no quarrel with the man who tells me he is healed by the Lord, providing he does not say he has been healed by his faith. Divine healing, yes; and there is no healing that is not Divine. God is able, if that be His will, to heal without means; but in the great majority of cases He uses means, and - blesses means.

Notice the word Matthew used in quoting Isaiah.

"Himself . . . bare our diseases."

Please remember the word "bare" there does not mean atonement. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews says, "He was offered to bear the sins of many." Peter says, "He bare our sins," but that is not the same word at all. In these cases an entirely different word is employed. The word, “bare our sicknesses" is the word that you get when Paul says,

"Bear the infirmities of the weak," or,

"Bear ye one another's burdens."

Jesus went forth, "bearing His Cross." Bearing our sicknesses is the Greek word bastazo, which means He gets under them with us in love, sympathy, and help. The word "bare;" in refer­ence to atonement, is anaphera, which means to lift up and carry away. He did that with sin; He did not do that with sicknesses. Out of the sympathy of His heart He bare the sicknesses, and He took them away, not by virtue of His atonement, but by virtue of His infinite compassion and Almighty power. Then beyond that, came the hour when He got down deeper, to the profound cause of all suffering and all sorrow, sin; then He bare sin in a new sense. He did not get under it merely, to carry it with us; He took it upon Himself, and bore it into the land of eternal forgetfulness and ex­tinction. That is atonement.

The Atonement. These verses (Isa. 53:4-6) are the heart of the prophecy of Isa 53. They present the atoning work of Jesus Christ and indicate why it is that He suffered and died.

            Christ's death was misunderstood in its significance (Isa. 53:4-5) - what really happened upon the Cross as God understood it and planned it was far different from what men thought was going on at the Cross as they watched.

1). What God knew was happening at the Cross.

a. Jesus was bearing our griefs (diseases-sicknesses). He had borne the griefs of some people during His public ministry (Matt. 8:17) - at this time the prophecy of Isa 53:4 was partially fulfilled. At glorification we shall receive the fullness of this prophecy.

b. He bore the griefs of all believers during His crucifixion - at this time the prophecy of Isa 53:4 was wholly fulfilled.

Modern faith healers fail to understand that the benefits of this aspect of the Cross work will not be experienced until the resurrection and rapture of believers. In the ministry of Jesus physical healing was a visual aid, a means to attract attention to Himself, so that people would believe the message concerning Who He was and why He had come (Matt. 9:1-6). Physical healing, as a sign miracle, is not occurring today.

2). Jesus was carrying our sorrows (Mat 11:28-29).

3). What men thought was happening at the Cross. That Jesus was being stricken by God much as Uzziah had been stricken with leprosy. <stricken> "naga" word in the Hebrew is often used for leprosy. This is what the Israelites believed to be true of Jesus as He hung on the cross. Stricken as with leprosy as King Uzziah was stricken with leprosy (2 Chron. 26:18-20). They made accusation to Jesus while on the Cross. "Look, He cannot come down from the Cross. He is defeated. He is afflicted, stricken of God, He is a leper" (leprosy was a symbol of God's hatred and curse). They also thought and made accusation that this was final proof of His wickedness - this was the same error which Job's 3 friends had made. Good health is not a sign of spiritual superiority. Some of God's greatest servants are the greatest sufferer's. The apostle Paul was one of them, Timothy for his oft infirmities and for his stomach sake. No faith healer for these but just advice to change your diet for your stomach's sake.

            But we know that it was not nails which held Him there. Love held Him there.

TERRIBLE

TERRIBLE

“He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth.” Psa. 76:12

Perfect in the fact that there is nothing lacking in Him that ought to be present in the one and only God of the universe. In His person or being He is perfect. We need to have that same attribute in order to rule and reign with Him in His Kingdom that is coming. He will take us to that end. Jude 24.

In His will or purpose He is perfect (Rom. 12:2). In His word or pronouncements He is perfect (Psa. 19:7). In His work or performance He is perfect (Deut.32:4). In His way or procedure He is perfect (Psa. 18:30; 2 Sam. 22:31). And in His gifts or presents He is perfect (James 1:17). The multiplicity and infinity of His splendors so far exceed anything that man can ask or even think that Paul is moved to exclaim, "O the depths of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments, and his ways past finding out" (Rom. 11:33).

When all these perfections of God are gathered into one grand picture displaying the solitariness of God, the rational creature that in some sense comprehends them in part is moved to spiritual and physical prostration in His presence. He is moved to exclaim that God is "terrible," to use the term of the King James Version. More correctly, the word means awesome or awe-inspiring, that is, humbled to the point of worship or consuming adoration. Moses encouraged the people of Israel with this term (Deut. 7:21). Bowed in prayerful worship, Nehemiah used this term in a pagan court (Neh. 1:5). The psalmists in their songs of praise resorted to this expression (Psa. 47:2; 76:12).

EARTH POLLUTION

EARTH POLLUTION

“The earth is also polluted by its inhabitants, for they transgressed laws, violated statutes, broke the everlasting covenant.” Isa. 24:5

Cause of this the disaster outlined in the previous chapter of Isaiah is moral and spiritual.. This and the following three chapters constitute one prophetic utterance. It is a vision of the Day of Jehovah. In the series of the Burdens of the nations the prophet had taken a wider outlook than that of his own people, but always with the nation of God at the center. Here his outlook is still further enlarged as it takes in the whole earth; but here also God's people are in mind from beginning to end, viewed in their relation to the earth. The vision is in two movements, the first dcscribes the desolation of the earth, (Isa. 24:1-20); the second describes the restoration which comes by the Day of Jehovah (Isa. 24:21-23). The desolation is first declared to be the result of Divine action. It is "Jehovah maketh the earth empty, and maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down, and scattereth abroad the inhabitants thereof." Then in these particular words, the reason of this desolate activity of God is revealed. It is that the earth is polluted under its inhabitants. The act of God is the operation of the laws by which the Divine creation is governed. Man has transgressed the laws, violated the statutes, and broken the covenant. For an interpretation of these words of Isaiah read Paul in Rom. 1:18-32. In these words we find a recognition of a true order. In it, man, keeping covenant, observing the ordinance, obeying law, reigns over the earth, and leads it out into all beauty and fruitfulness. When man breaks down in his relationship with God, His laws, His ordinances, His covenant, then he becomes polluted, and he communicates his pollution to the earth. This is the interpretation of all disease, all insanity, all the things of waste, of disorder, of strife, of misery in human history and human experience. A polluted race pollutes the earth, and chaos is the result.

CAIN

CAIN

“Now the man had relations with his wife Eve, and she conceived and gave birth to Cain, and she said, "I have gotten a manchild with the help of the LORD." Gen. 4:1

The name “Cain” means “acquisition,” expressing Eve’s thankfulness that the Lord was keeping His promise to her, and her faith that her son would grow to manhood. Possibly Eve jumped to the unwarranted conclusion that Cain was the promised Deliverer. Actually, however, he was “of that wicked one” (1 John 3:12), and thus was the first in the long line of the Serpent’s seed.

Cain is a type of the mere man of the earth. His religion was destitute of any adequate sense of sin or need of atonement. This religious type is described in 2 Pet 2.

Seven things are said of him: he

(1) worships in self-will;

(2) is angry with God;

(3) refuses to bring a sin offering;

(4) murders his brother;

(5) lies to God;

(6) becomes a wanderer; and

(7) is, nevertheless, the object of the Divine solicitude.

FORGETFULNESS

FORGETFULNESS

“And he said unto them, How is it that ye do not understand?” Mark 8:21

How many times do we forget the most recent things that cause delay in our progress to get the next thing accomplished? Material things but sad when true about spiritual things. These are the final words in a paragraph recording how our Lord rebuked His disciples. It begins in verse seventeen, and it is impossible to read it without feeling that there was a note of real severity in what He said to them. Notice the rush of His questions. "Why reason ye because ye have no bread? Do ye not yet perceive, neither understand? Have ye yout heart hardened? Having eyes, see ye not? And having ears, hear ye not? And do ye not remember? " What, then, was the fault of these men? They were missing the point of His spiritual teaching, because they were anxious about material things. He recalled them to a remembrance of what they had already witnessed of His ability to deal with material need. It is always a strange story, this. It seems inconceivable that these men, really remembering the facts, as their answers show that they did, should yet have failed to apply those past experiences to present needs. Yet is it strange? Is it not a peculiar and persistent failing of the human soul that in the presence of some immediate danger, it forgets, or fails to apply, the value of past deliverances? Yet it should not be so, and it was this very thing which our Lord rebuked. The true attitude of the soul is that of being without carefulness, in the consciousness of what has been done for us. The superlative statement of this is found in Paul's words: "He that spared not His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not also with Him freely give us all things?"

SIN-LEPROSY

SIN-LEPROSY

“We had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence, shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live?” (Heb 12:9).

Sin is a spiritual malady, the physical is but the expression of it; behind every physical act of sin is the spiritual attitude. There is no sin of the flesh which is not inspired by sin of the spirit. I cannot sin with my hand until I have sinned with my heart. I cannot sin physically, except as I have sinned spiritually.

                Then is it inherited? If so, how? The Bible teaches that every man is offspring of God in his first creation, in his spirit  life. Or is the spiritual malady of sin contracted in man? If so, when? I would have you clearly to understand that I am asking questions I do not propose to answer, for the simple reason that I cannot answer them. I ask them in order to affirm that there is no answer. Neither the theologian nor the philosopher has ever answered either of these questions. If sin is inherited, how is sin transmitted in the spirit realm? I am not spiritually the son of the man whose name I bear. “We had the fathers of our flesh to chasten us, and we gave them reverence, shall we not much rather be in subjection unto the Father of spirits and live?” (Heb 12:9). Mark the clear distinction. If sin is of the spirit, and in the spirit, then some evil bacillus has been introduced poisoning the spirit.

                The nature of that poison is discovered in Biblical definitions. Paul speaks of “the mystery of lawlessness” (2 Thess. 2:7); John declares “sin is lawlessness.” (1 John 3:4). In the first we have the admission of the mystery. In the second we have a statement as to the true nature of sin. The sins which we denounce are but symptoms; sin lies deeper. Sin is “lawlessness,” which does not mean being without law, but being in revolt against law. This evil germ within the spirit of man that affects all his mind and heart and soul is lawlessness; it has a thousand manifestations, but it is always the same in essence. It is indeed the mystery of lawlessness. How is it, why is it, that all men find this principle at work within the soul? I recognize the mystery; but I face the fact. As leprosy is a mystery as to its origin, so also is sin; but it is an appalling fact.

                Leprosy is a symbol of sin in the method of its manifestation. The first appearance is at times discoverable only by the trained eye. Dr. Turner was a specialist, having a trained eye, yet the disease was on him and manifesting itself before he knew it. One morning, while shaving, he caught sight of marks on his hands that arrested him; he was a leper! The first symptoms are discoverable only to the trained eye. In the little child there may be a thousand things that you count sin that are not proofs of sin at all; a child romancing up to a certain age is not sinning. It is exercising a faculty of mind which belongs to it. 

                The time comes when the first sign of sin is manifested in the child; it is lawlessness.

                This leprosy of lawlessness is invariably progressive, never halting; it steals insidiously forward with varying degrees of speed, until, at last, the whole man is corrupt, mastered, strange paradox, by lawlessness; the whole life is in revolt against authority, against government.

                Leprosy is the symbol of sin in the nature of its effects. It excludes from fellowship with our fellow men. It renders the victim loathsome even to his fellow men. Not always in the more vulgar forms of sensuality, but with cold, hard, cynical, devilish self-centeredness, infinitely more loathsome than vulgar forms of sensuality. Sin, like leprosy, ultimately renders its victim insensible to the pain of his own disease. We have in the Scriptures of Truth such arresting phrases as “hardened,” “a conscience seared,” “past feeling”! Leprosy ultimately completely destroys the physical frame; so also sin ultimately completely destroys the spirit life, and all its powers.

REASON

REASON

“And it came to pass, that, while they communed together and reasoned, Jesus himself drew near, and went with them.” Luke 24:15 cf. vs. 25-27

reason  the power of the mind to think, understand, and form judgments by a process of logic. 

These men while reasoning were not considering all the facts which logically led to the answer they searched for. They failed to consider the words of God they had heard their whole lives from the OT. This Jesus brought into the picture as stated in vs.25-27. When considering all the prophets words He was the Messiah sent for their salvation and belief. Paul did this in 1 Cor. 15:1-4 and it was called the gospel, not only His death and burial but also His resurrection, all according to the scriptures which is the only true source to base your reasoning to form your logical conclusion.

“Then he said unto them, O fools, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken:  Ought not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?  And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

“Now I make known to you, brethren, the gospel which I preached to you, which also you received, in which also you stand, by which also you are saved, if you hold fast the word which I preached to you, unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures,  and that He was buried, and that He was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”