![]() He wants us to see them as a promise of the salvation Jesus offers. But he deliberately speaks of these healings as acts of salvation. Luke was a doctor so presumably he had a rich vocabulary of medical terms for sickness. Then in verse 50 Jesus literally says to Jairus, whose daughter has just died of sickness, ‘Don’t be afraid just believe, and she will be saved’. It’s literally ‘your faith has saved you’. So Jesus says to a haemorrhaging woman, ‘Daughter, your faith has healed you’ (Luke 8:48). The healing miracles Jesus performed while on earth where therefore a sign of his salvation. Jesus has healed our wounds by dealing with the root problem: human sin. So we have good reason to expect the removal of sin to lead to the end of the sickness. It only made its entrance as a result of our rebellion against God. Human sickness was not an inherent part of the good world that God created. But not necessarily yet.īut sickness is not simply a picture of sin. One day every child of God will be healed of every sickness. Sickness is designed to point us to sin and healing is a picture of salvation.ĭid Jesus heal our diseases at the cross? Yes. It is Jesus who is destroyed in our place so we can be forgiven. ![]() The marvel of the cross is that Jesus cleanses unholy people so they can come into the presence of the holy God. The godly prophet of God who has proclaimed the very words of God now confesses, ‘I am a man of unclean lips.’ Even his best acts are unclean when compared to the overwhelming holiness of God. It’s as if the very molecules of Isaiah’s body are dissolving and about to crumble to the ground. And the phrase ‘I am ruined’ is literally ‘I’m destroyed’ or even ‘I’m disintegrating’. But he is forced to declare the seventh ‘Woe’ against himself. When Isaiah was confronted with the holy God before whom the seraphim hide their faces and about whom they sing, ‘Holy, holy, holy,’ Isaiah declares, ‘Woe to me! I am ruined!’ Six times in Isaiah 5 Isaiah has declared ‘Woe’ against sinful people. Isaiah’s ministry was shaped by an encounter with the holy God. ![]() Or rather the holiness of God is the big issue. What the cross is really about is not the cancer that eats away at our bodies, but the cancer of sin that infects our souls. We therefore all deserve the righteous judgment of God. We are all transgressors, people who have broken God’s holy law. Just before Isaiah says that ‘by his wounds we are healed,’ he says: ‘But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities.’ (Isaiah 53:5) This is the real issue. Instead illness is a picture of the real problem which is sin. We shouldn’t take ‘wounds’ literally, some people say. So what are we to make of the promise that ‘by his wounds we are healed’? Sickness and sin Christians and unbelievers alike continue to be beset by illness. Struggling with cancer is hard enough without compounding the challenge by mixing in a crisis of faith.ĭid Jesus heal our diseases at the cross? No. I’ve seen too many people who were convinced God had promised to heal them only for it to end in bitter disappointment. I do know I’ve been a pastor too long to share his confidence. ‘By his wounds we are healed,’ he says, ‘and therefore God will heal my cancer – I just need to believe.’ I admire his confidence. Add to basket The problemīut there's an obvious problem with this: our diseases are not all healed.Ĭolin is claiming this promise for his cancer. Lent devotional in Isaiah 52 - 53 to help you delight in the beauty of Christ. The Garden, the Curtain, and the Cross Series.
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