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").”
The apostle Paul teaches us in the above quoted passage of scripture that our Lord Jesus has redeemed us from the curse of the law. The curse of the law that Paul is referring to is recorded in Deuteronomy chapter twenty-eight, which if you read you will see that every sickness and every disease is included under that curse. And so what Paul is telling the body of Christ is that Christ has redeemed us from all sickness and all disease. The bible teaches us that out of the mouth of two or three witnesses every word will be established (2 Corinthians 13:1). I have quoted three different writers from the New Testament who all say the same thing, for all three tell us that when Jesus took our sins on the cross He also took our sickness. And so we can clearly see that as far as God is concerned it has already been done, and whether we choose to believe it or not does not change the fact that Jesus has redeemed us from all sickness and disease. Salvation works in exactly the same manner, for our Lord Jesus has died for everyone and He has born everyone’s sin. And so whether people believe that or not does not change the fact that Jesus has done it. Those who choose not to believe that Jesus has born their sins do not experience salvation through the new birth. On the other hand those who do choose to believe that Jesus has born their sins experience salvation through the new birth. In the same manner those who choose not to believe that Jesus has born their sickness do not receive divine health for their physical bodies. On the other hand those who do choose to believe that Jesus has born their sickness will experience divine health in their physical bodies. So why is it important for Christians to believe the truth that healing and divine health belong to those who have been redeemed in Christ? The answer is simple, if the saints do not believe that it is the Lord’s will for them to be healed, then they certainly won’t believe that it is the Lord’s will to heal the unsaved either, and so they cannot fulfil the Lord’s mandate for the church to lay hands on the unsaved for their healing. In order for us to more clearly understand this point we can look at the example of salvation again, for the concept would be the same as one unbeliever witnessing to a fellow unbeliever by telling them that they need to believe the gospel to be saved. Nothing will happen. Therefore it is impossible for believers to have faith for others to be healed if they cannot exercise faith for their own healing and health. You will recall that I emphasized in a previous section that faith is required for the laying on of hands to work. And so for the child of God to be effective in laying hands on the unsaved, they are going to have to have an unwavering faith in the healing power of our Lord Jesus. And they are also going to have to have an unwavering faith in the fact that it is our Lord’s will to heal all today, including the unsaved. There is an added dimension to this point, which is that believers will themselves have to walk in divine health if they are going to be able to testify to the unsaved about the healing power of the Lord Jesus. Paul referred to it as being living epistles, known and read by all men (2 Corinthians 3:2-3). In other words believers are going to have to practice what they preach. So why is that important? The answer to that question is that there is no record in scripture of one blind person laying hands on another blind person and healing them. So what do I mean by that statement? Remember that we said that for the laying on of hands to be able to work faith must be operating in both parties. And so if saints are going to witness to the unsaved about the healing power of Jesus, then in order for their faith to be activated the unsaved will have to see evidence of His healing power in the saints. In other words believers are going to have a hard time trying to convince an unsaved person that God can heal them, if they can clearly see that the believer themselves are sick.
Michael E.B. Maher
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