The Healing Jesus

Jesus is the perfect revelation of God. Every revelation predating Him is progressive revelation meant to point to Him. That’s what Jesus taught: “You search the Scriptures because you think they give you eternal life. But the Scriptures point to me!” (John. 5:39, NLT). The scriptures, apart from Christ, are imperfect in revealing God to us. The Jewish people had the book of Moses; they had the prophets; they had the psalms and wisdom books; nevertheless, despite those things, they were ignorant of God’s Word. To demonstrate that, I’d like to point to the perfect revelation of God that was revealed through Jesus Christ — God is a healer. That’s what I’d like to talk about in this post. 

Before Christ came, God had revealed His will to heal the sick. In (Exodus 15:26, Christian Standard Bible), “If you will carefully obey the LORD your God, do what is right in his sight, pay attention to his commands, and keep all his statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.” Through Moses, we first learn God is the healer. In fact, that is His name — Jehovah Rapha — I Am the Lord who heals you. Simple. Concise. Powerful. 

Going forward in time and coming to King David, also being a prophet, (Acts 2:30, KJV), received a powerful revelation from God in (Psalm 103:2, 3, KJV).  “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases”. God forgives. God heals. Again, simple, concise, and powerful. Moses received the revelation of God as healer. King David received the progressive revelation of God as healer for ALL. Further, he took disparate truths and brought them together in one revelation — God forgives and God heals. Literally, forgiveness and healing go hand in hand. 

After King David, his son, King Solomon, received a revelation from his father and mother, “my words…are life to those who find them, And health to all their flesh.” (Proverbs 4:20, 22. NKJV). Right here, we see the effect words have on our physical bodies: they can bring life and healing or death and sickness. King David taught King Solomon: “Avoid all perverse talk; stay away from corrupt speech.” (Proverbs 4:24, NLT). From his father’s instructions, he discerned this truth: “Life and death are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.” (Proverbs 18:21, Berean Standard Bible). Put simply, healing comes through healing words and sickness comes through corrupt speech. Again, progressive revelation. 

When Jesus was born, the Jewish people had everything they needed to know that God is a healer, that He was willing to heal ALL sickness and disease and forgive ALL sin. Further, they had the revelation that healing came through words. Yet, when Christ came, there were many who were sick. The Jewish priests didn’t heal the people on the Sabbath. No, they turned a blind eye to the suffering of people. Why? Though they knew the scriptures, they were unable to discern the truth in them. The revelation contained in the scriptures didn’t impact lives. Nor did they teach on healing. Nor did they heal those who were sick. 

Then, Christ came. Jesus brought the revelation of God and made it a living reality. As the Apostle Peter says of Him, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” (Acts 10:38 NKJV). Jesus healed. He revealed God’s will to heal the sick and forever answered the question: Is it God’s will to heal me? The answer: An unequivocal YES. The question is settled. His life revealed the answer. His life was the perfect revelation of the Father: “I will come and heal him.” (Matthew 8:7 NKJV). Precise. Powerful. Authoritative. Simple. Clear. To the point. Yes, I will heal.

Further, Jesus trained a ragtag crew of men, turned them into disciples, and ordained them as apostles. In (Matthew 10:1, NKJV), we read, “He gave them power over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal all kinds of sickness and all kinds of disease.” Then, He gave them a GREAT commission and mission: “Go and preach the good news to everyone in the world…Everyone who believes me will be able to do wonderful things…They will [] heal sick people by placing their hands on them.” (Mark. 16:15-18, CEV). In the book of Acts, we see them doing what Jesus told them to do (with miraculous signs always being part and parcel of what they did). They healed the sick. Jesus confirmed He is the healer in and through them and what they did.

The writer of the book of Hebrews makes this point clear about who Christ is: “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8 KJV). Yet, in many respects, we have a different Jesus. What do I mean?, you might say. We know Jesus was a healer, we think He might still be a healer, we might even believe He can heal today…but, when push comes to shove, do we know Him as healer. When sickness or disease seeks to invade our lives, do we experience His healing power — not occasionally — but always and in every situation. But some may say, He may want to teach me something through my sickness and disease. If you believe that, then you deny everything He did, everything He stood for, the revelation of truth He brought.

                            “Though they knew the scriptures, they were unable to discern                                                                           the truth in them.” —Scott Wallis

I propose that Christianity has so divorced healing from salvation in the minds of many believers that it will take an act of God to mend that rift. That Satan has been able to delude the Church (at least, vast portions of the Church) into believing what is false about Jesus: That Jesus doesn’t heal today, as He once did. Like the Jewish people of Jesus’s day, we have the scriptures, we have the truth contained in them of who Jesus is, and we should practice what we see revealed in them. Yet, much of the Church obsesses over other things. And we ignore the GREAT commission given us — to preach the Good News AND heal the sick. We override what is clearly revealed in scripture — Jesus Christ healed them ALL.

I know, it’s simplistic, some might even say, I’ve it before, but my question: Are we doing it? John Wimber used to say, Let’s do the stuff! Yet, when starting in the healing ministry, he nearly gave up. Yes, he preached healing, but he had grown so discouraged by not seeing people healed that he didn’t really expect Jesus to heal. He described a moment where he went to minister to a woman who was deathly ill. The husband had called and asked him to pray for his wife. They had heard his message about Jesus still healing. He prayed. Then, turning to her husband, he began offering various theological reasons why his wife hadn’t been healed. Then, the husband pointed him towards his wife who was now standing behind Wimber. She was out of her sick bed. She had made the bed. She had been healed. 

We need the healing Jesus. Jesus is still the healer. He has never stopped being the healer. Let’s believe Him to heal the sick. Right now, each of us may know someone who is sick, really sick, and they need to hear this message — Jesus Christ heals the sick. Let’s share this message and stop denying what Jesus Christ paid so dear a price to obtain for us — healing. The healing of our bodies is important to Him. His body was broken for our healing. Healing was revealed in His earthly life and ministry, healing was revealed in the lives of those He sent with this message — Good News — that He heals the sick, and His healing power is waiting to be revealed through us. He is a healer.

Let’s do the stuff! 

Let us pray!

— Scott Wallis