God is serious about His covenant with man. So serious, that He confirmed the New Covenant in the blood of His own Son: “Jesus has become the guarantee of a better covenant.” (Hebrews 7:22)
If you ever doubt how serious God takes His promises, you only have to remember the cross, and what it cost Him to ratify this agreement. We’ve seen how the promise of physical healing showed up over and over in the Old Testament as part of the Abrahamic covenant. When Jesus shed His blood to confirm the Abrahamic covenant, it means that the promise of physical healing was settled once and for all for God’s people.
Know this: When you, as a child of the covenant, come to God for physical healing, He does not have to think about it. It’s not a matter up for discussion! He already decided that what Jesus bore in His body would be enough to purchase our healing.
“Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24) The word used for “healed” in this verse is one that specifically points to physical health. Peter links both our separation from sin and our physical healing to Christ’s sacrifice.
The last part of this verse, Peter quotes Isaiah the prophet, who foretold the crucifixion of Jesus hundreds of years before it happened. “Surely He has borne our griefs (literal Hebrew: sicknesses), and carried our sorrows (literal Hebrew: pains); … He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisesment for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:4-5)
Notice that Isaiah says we ARE healed and Peter says we WERE healed. One is speaking before the cross, and one after. This is an accomplished fact in the mind of God. We can renew our minds to this fact so that we are just as positive about it as God the Father is.
Isaiah, too, links our redemption from sin and our physical restoration in this chapter. He uses the same word for “borne” in v. 4 (He has borne our sicknesses) as he uses in v. 11-12 in discussing Christ’s bearing away our sins: “He shall bear their iniquities.” “He bore the sin of many.” Both references speak of a vicarious bearing of a load taken for us, by the sin- and sickness-bearer, Christ Jesus our Lord.
Confession: Jesus became sin for me so I can be made righteous; Jesus became sick for me so I can be healed.
Scriptures of meditation: 1 Peter 2:24; Isaiah 53
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Copyright © 2007 by David Hagni. All rights reserved.