Matthew 8:16-17 “When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, (17) that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.”
There can be no doubt that all sickness involves suffering to a greater or lesser degree. Sadly there are many in the body of Christ that do incur this type of suffering, and in writing this section I in no way want to belittle the suffering that many are going through, because of sickness and disease that has impacted their mortal bodies. Nevertheless this section is being written to reveal the truth of God’s word on the subject of suffering, the purpose of which is to set the believer free. For our Lord said, “If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” (John 8:32). And so the question is whether believers are called to suffer in the area of sickness and disease? Again, as with every other aspect of suffering, we look at our Lord Jesus as our example, for the scripture says that he who says he abides in Him ought himself also to walk just as He walked (1 John 2:6). And so when Jesus walked in the flesh He not only walked completely free from all sickness and all disease, but on the contrary, wherever He went He healed all manner of sickness and all manner disease. And so just by looking at the example set before us of how our Lord Jesus walked this earth, we can clearly see that as the Lord’s disciples, we are not only meant to walk free from all sickness and all disease, but on the contrary, wherever we go we are meant to heal all sickness and all disease. For the scripture says, “And these signs will follow those who believe: In My name they will cast out demons; … they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.” (Mark 16:17-18). That is the example give to us by our Lord Jesus, but there is also the substitutionary sacrifice that our Lord incurred for us in this area. When our Lord Jesus went to the cross He not only bore our sins, but the above-quoted passage of scripture says that He also bore our sicknesses. We have already seen that Jesus no longer suffers for sin, for He died to sin once for all. In the same manner Jesus has born our sicknesses and our infirmities once for all, and because He has already born them for us, we can walk free from sickness and disease just as we can walk free from sin.
1 Peter 2:21-24 “For to this you were called, because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that you should follow His steps: (22) "Who committed no sin, nor was deceit found in His mouth"; (23) who, when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten, but committed Himself to Him who judges righteously; (24) 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.”
We have already looked at the above-quoted passage of scripture in relation to our walking free from sin and thus not suffering for wrongdoing. But the same scripture speaks about our healing, for the scripture says that we were healed by the stripes of Jesus. In other words when Jesus endured the Roman scourging for us, He was paying the price for the healing of our physical bodies. Notice that the scripture states that we “were” healed by the stripes of Jesus i.e. this is past tense. As far as heaven is concerned we have already been healed, for Jesus has already paid the price for our healing in His own body. And so for us to suffer sickness in our bodies is to disregard the sacrifice that Jesus has already made for us in this area.
Galatians 3:13 “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us (for it is written, "Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree").”
We are looking at the substitutionary sacrifice that Jesus has incurred for His church, and we are saying that because Jesus incurred these particular sufferings as our substitute, that we do not have to incur these types of sufferings today. And so the particular suffering that we are discussing in this section is the suffering of sickness and disease. The above-quoted passage of scripture states that Jesus became a curse for us, because He hung on a tree. The scripture states that the reason Jesus did that was so that He could redeem us from the curse of the law. Deuteronomy chapter twenty-eight, lists all the curses of the law, and it is these curses which Jesus has redeemed us from. What that means is that as believers, we are no longer subject to any of the curses as recorded in scripture, and we can walk completely free from them. One of those curses is every form of sickness and every form of disease (Deuteronomy 28:61). And so from the above passages of scripture we can very clearly see that because of the substitutionary sacrifice of our Lord Jesus, His church is not called to suffer in the area of sickness and disease.
Michael E.B. Maher
Comentários