Did Jesus Redeem Us from Our Diseases When He Atoned for Our Sins?

(Note—If you, Reader, have been taught to regard sickness as a “thorn in the flesh” which must remain, we would urge you to read the sermon on “Paul’s Thorn” before you read any other sermon in this book. Otherwise you will likely miss the force of the scriptural arguments presented in other parts of the book.)

Before answering the above question from the Word of God, I invite your attention to a few facts taught in the Scriptures which bear on this subject.

The Scriptures declare, in Romans 5:12, that “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin.” Here it is plainly stated that death entered the world by sin. Therefore it is clear that disease, which is incipient death, entered into the world by sin. Now, since disease entered by sin, its true remedy must be found in the redemption of Christ. Since disease reached us through the power of Satan, it being called the oppression of the devil (Acts 10:38), what power, when nature fails, can remove it but the power of the Son of God? As soon as disease has advanced beyond the power of nature to recover us, it will result in death in every case unless removed by the power of God. This all honest physicians will admit, for they claim only the power to assist nature, not to heal. In this event, anything that would hinder the power of God thus supplementing nature would make recovery impossible. Accordingly, James says: “Confess your faults one to another . . . that ye may be healed” meaning that otherwise ye cannot be healed.

When disease has advanced beyond the power of nature, neither nature, nor the physician, nor even prayer, can save the sufferer until he confesses his sins, unless God, for some sovereign purpose of His own, removes the disease. Since disease is a part of the curse, its true remedy must be the cross, for who can remove the curse but God, and how can God justly do it except by substitution? The Bible teaches, as one writer puts it, that disease is the physical penalty of iniquity, but that Christ has borne in His body all our physical liabilities on account of sin, and that therefore our bodies are released judicially from disease. Through Christ’s redemption we may all have, as a part of the “earnest of our inheritance” the “life also of Jesus . . . made manifest in our mortal flesh,” to supplement nature until our work is finished. In the same way that we may receive the “firstfruits” of our spiritual salvation, we can receive the “firstfruits” of our physical salvation.

Now, to the question,

Did Jesus Redeem Us from Our Diseases When He Atoned for Our Sins?

If, as some teach, healing is not in the Atonement, why were types of the Atonement given in connection with bodily healing throughout the Old Testament? In the 12th chapter of Exodus, why were the Israelites required to eat the flesh of the passover lamb for physical strength, unless we can receive physical life, or strength, from Christ, who, Paul says, is “our Passover, sacrificed for us?” 765 years after the institution of the passover, we read in II Chronicles, 30th chapter, 20th verse, that, “The Lord hearkened to Hezekiah, and healed the people” when they kept the passover. Accordingly, Paul, in I Corinthians 11:30, speaks of the failure of the Corinthians to rightly “estimate the body” (Weymouth’s translation) of “Christ our Passover” as the reason why many among them were “weak and sickly . . .” The Lord’s Supper is more than an ordinance, because we may partake of Christ while we are partaking of the emblems of His death and the benefits thereof. In Christ there is both bodily and spiritual life, and surely there is no better time for availing ourselves of the privilege of having the “life also of Jesus . . . made manifest in our mortal flesh.” (II Cor. 4:11).

Healing Taught in Old Testament Types

Again, in Leviticus 14:18, we read of the priest making atonement for the cleansing of the leper. Why an atonement for the leper’s healing if healing for us is not in the Atonement of Christ? The types in Leviticus, 14th and 15th chapters, show us that it was invariably through atonement that sickness was healed. This, to our mind, is a complete answer to the question we are discussing, should we go no further, because all of these typical atonements point to, and prefigure Calvary.

Again, Jesus tells us, in Luke 4:19, that He was anointed “to preach the acceptable year of the Lord,” referring to the Old Testament year of Jubilee. This shows us that the year of Jubilee is strikingly typical of gospel blessings, for here He, Himself, applies the year of Jubilee to the Gospel era.

Leviticus 25:9 shows us that no blessing of the year of Jubilee was to be announced by the sounding of the trumpet until the Day of Atonement. On this day a bullock was slain as a sin-offering, and the mercy seat sprinkled with blood. No mercy was offered until the blood of the atonement sprinkled the mercy seat, because it would be a judgment seat if not sprinkled with blood. This teaches us that no mercy or blessing of the Gospel is offered to us irrespective of Christ’s Atonement.

Recovery of All Lost in the Fall

Through the Fall we lost everything. Jesus recovered all through His atonement. It was on the Day of Atonement that God said, “Ye shall return every man to his possession.” The order in the year of Jubilee is, first the atonement, then the sounding of the trumpet of the Jubilee, with the glad tidings “ye shall return every man to his possession.” So, now, the order is the same; first, Calvary, then the Gospel trumpet that He “bare our sins” and “bare our sicknesses,” etc., to be sounded “to every creature;” showing us that we may return “every man to his possession.”

God’s seven redemptive names, one of which is Jehovah-Rapha, “I am the Lord that healeth thee,” shows us what lost possessions “every man” may return to during our dispensation. ‘The two outstanding possessions to be restored during the Gospel era are health for soul and body ; therefore, forgiveness and healing were offered universally wherever Christ preached “the acceptable year of the Lord,” in order that the “inner” and “outer” man might be whole and ready for the service of God, “thoroughly furnished unto every good work,” so they could finish their course.

Some of the Fundamentalists who attack the Christian Scientists for believing we can be saved irrespective of Calvary make exactly the same blunder when they say they believe in healing but that it is offered irrespective of Calvary. It is to me, as well as to them, a mystery how anyone can say that the blood of Christ was just as efficacious flowing in His veins as it was shed, in the face of every bleeding sacrifice of the Old Testament to the contrary and the statement “without the shedding of blood there is no remission of sins.” Adopt a bloodless religion and you have but a religion of ideas, and nothing but a human thrill, because “joy unspeakable and full of glory” can never be known except by those who have been saved through the blood of Christ. It is just as great a mystery to me how these Fundamentalists can say that healing is bestowed without reference to Christ’s death. The salvation of any part of man without sacrifice is unknown in Scripture.

If bodily healing is offered and is to be preached irrespective of Calvary, why was it that no blessing of the year of Jubilee was to be announced by the sounding of the trumpet until the Day of Atonement? Paul tells us that it is “in Him” that all the promises of God are yea and amen; which is another way of saying that all the promises of God, including His promise to heal, owe their existence and power exclusively to the redeeming work of Christ.

Healing Not Deferred Until the Millennium

Some ministers are trying to relegate bodily healing to the Millennial Day, but Jesus said “this day” (not the Millennial Day) is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.” It was in the Church (not the millennium) that God set (established) “teachers, miracles, gifts of healing,” etc. None in the Church will need healing during the millennium, because they will receive glorified bodies before the millennium, when they are “caught up to meet the Lord in the air,” when this mortal puts on immortality. If we are going to relegate healing to the millennium, we shall have to do so with the “teachers,” etc., that God set in the Church, with the “gifts of healing.” To say that healing is only for the millennium is synonymous with saying that we are now in the millennium, because God is healing many thousands in this day.

God’s all-inclusive promise is to pour His Spirit upon all flesh during the “acceptable year of the Lord,” which is the dispensation of the Holy Spirit. He comes as Christ’s executive, to execute for us all the blessings of redemption—to bring to us “the earnest” or “firstfruits” of our spiritual and physical inheritance, until the last enemy, which is death, is destroyed, thus admitting us to our full inheritance

Faith Comes by Hearing

The reason why many of the sick in our day have not returned to their physical possessions is that they have not heard the trumpet sound on this line. “Faith cometh by hearing,” and they have not heard; because many ministers had their Gospel trumpet put out of order while in the theological seminary. They remind me of a man whom I knew who played a trombone in a brass band. At the beginning of a rehearsal the boys put a small spike into the mouth-piece of his horn, so that, when he blew, his breath went against the head of the spike, making it impossible for him to produce much sound out of the horn, but he went through the whole rehearsal without discovering what was wrong. Some preachers, like this man, think they are blowing their Gospel trumpet all right, and have not discovered that there is not half as much coming out of it as there ought to be. They are not, like Paul, declaring “the whole counsel of God.”

As here in Leviticus the types show that healing was invariably through atonement, so Matthew 8:17 definitely states that Christ healed all diseases on the ground of the Atonement. The Atonement was His reason for making no exceptions while healing the sick. “He . . . healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias, the prophet, saying: Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” Since it is our sicknesses He bore, His Atonement embracing us all, it would require the healing of all to fulfil this prophecy. Jesus is still healing all who come to Him with living faith, “that it might be fulfilled ... ”

Since in the darker age of the types they all had the privilege of being healed, surely in this “better” dispensation, with its “better” Covenant and “better” promises, God has not withdrawn this Old Testament mercy. If so, we are robbed that much by the coming and Atonement of Christ.

In Numbers 16:46-50, after 14,700 had died of the plague, Aaron, as priest, in his mediatorial office, stood for the people between the dead and the living and made an atonement for the removal of the plague—the healing of the body. So Christ, our Mediator, by His Atonement, redeemed us from the “plague” of sin and sickness.

The Type of the Brazen Serpent

Again, in Numbers 21:9, we read of the Israelites all healed by looking at the brazen serpent which was lifted up as a type of the Atonement. If healing was not to be in the Atonement, why were these dying Israelites required to look at the type of the Atonement for bodily healing? Since both healing and forgiveness came through the type of the Atonement, why not to us through Christ, the Antitype? As their curse was removed by the lifting up of the brazen serpent, so Paul tells us that ours is removed by the lifting up of Christ. (Galatians 3:13).

Again, in Job 33:24-25, we read: “I have found a ransom (margin, atonement), his flesh shall be fresher than a child’s; he shall return to the days of his youth.” Here, we see Job’s flesh was healed through an atonement. Why not ours?

Again, David opens the 103d Psalm by calling upon his soul to bless the Lord and to “forget not all His benefits,” and then he specifies, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases.” How does God forgive sin? Of course, through the Atonement of Christ. He heals disease in the same way, because the Atonement of Jesus Christ is the only ground for any benefit to fallen man. How can God save any part of man except through the Atonement?

In I Corinthians 10:11, Paul tells us “All these things happened unto them for ensamples (margin, as types); and they are written for our admonition upon whom the ends of the world (ages) are come.” In Galatians 3:7,16,29, the Holy Spirit shows us clearly that these things are for us as well as for Israel. “Know ye, therefore, that they which are of faith the same are the children of Abraham . . . now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made... and if ye (Gentiles) be Christ’s ye are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” “Therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints and with the household of God.”

The Rev. Daniel Bryant, in his book “Christ Among Our Sick,” says, “The Church then learned what the Church needs, it seems, to learn again; namely, that there is no difference to the compassionate Christ between a sick Gentile and a sick Jew.”

The Seven Redemptive Names of Jehovah

To me, another unanswerable argument that healing is in the Atonement is to be found in the seven redemptive names of Jehovah. On pages 6 and 7 of the Schofield Bible, Mr. Schofield, in his foot-note on the redemptive names, says that the name “Jehovah is distinctly the redemptive name of deity,” and means “the Self-existent One Who reveals Himself.” These seven redemptive names, he says, “point to a continuous and increasing self-revelation.” He then says, “In His redemptive relation to man, Jehovah has seven compound names which reveal Him as meeting every need of man from his lost state to the end.”

Since it is His redemptive relation to us that these names reveal, they must each point to Calvary where we were redeemed, and the blessing that each name reveals must be provided by the Atonement. This the Scriptures clearly teach.

The following are the seven redemptive names:

JEHOVAH-SHAMMAH—“The Lord is there,” or present, revealing to us the redemptive privilege of enjoying His presence, Who says, “Lo, I am with you always.” That this blessing is provided by the Atonement is proven by the fact that we are “made nigh by the blood of Christ.”

JEHOVAH-SHALOM—The Lord our Peace, reveals to us the redemptive privilege of having His Peace. Accordingly Jesus says, “My peace I give unto thee.” This blessing is in the Atonement, because “the chastisement of our peace was upon Him” when He “made peace by the blood of His cross.”

JEHOVAH-RA-AH is translated “The Lord is my Shepherd.” He became our Shepherd by giving “His life for the sheep,” therefore this privilege is a redemptive privilege, purchased by the Atonement. JEHOVAH-JIREH, means “the Lord will provide” an offering, and Christ was the Offering provided for our complete redemption. JEHOVAH-NISSI, means “the Lord is our Banner,” or “Victor,” or “Captain.” It was when, by the cross, Christ triumphed over principalities and powers that He provided for us, through the Atonement, the redemptive privilege of saying, “thanks be unto God which giveth us the victory through our Lord, Jesus Christ.” JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU, is translated “the Lord our Righteousness.” He becomes our righteousness by bearing our sins on the cross; therefore our redemptive privilege of receiving “the gift of righteousness” is an Atonement blessing.

The Lord Our Physician

JEHOVAH-RAPHA, is translated “I am the Lord thy Physician,” or “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” This name is given to reveal to us our redemptive privilege of being healed. This privilege is purchased by the Atonement, for Isaiah, in the Redemptive Chapter, declares, “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.” For the sake of the argument, I have reserved this name for the last. The fact is, that the very first Covenant God gave after the passage of the Red Sea, which was so distinctively typical of our redemption, was the covenant of healing, and it was at this time that God revealed Himself as our Physician, by the first redemptive and covenant name, Jehovah-Rapha, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” This is not only a promise, it is “a statute and an ordinance.” And so, corresponding to this ancient ordinance, we have, in the command of James 5:14, a positive ordinance of healing in Christ’s name as sacred and binding upon every church to-day as the ordinances of the Lord’s Supper and of Christian Baptism: Since Jehovah-Rapha is one of His redemptive names, sealing the covenant of healing Christ, during His exaltation, could no more abandon His office of Healer than that revealed by each of His other six redemptive names. Have any of the blessings which His redemptive names reveal been withdrawn from this “better” dispensation?

Having considered some of the types which teach healing, let us now consider the Antitype—the Atonement itself, as it is described in the great Redemptive Chapter, the 53d of Isaiah, the greatest chapter of the greatest of the prophets, in which is fully stated the doctrine of Atonement. Since the types of the Old Testament taught healing, it is certainly unwarranted and illogical to place the Antitype on lower ground.

He Carried Our Pains

Before quoting from this chapter, may I state that the Hebrew words choli and makob have been incorrectly translated “griefs” and “sorrows.” All who have taken the time to examine the original text have found, what is everywhere acknowledged, that these two words mean, respectively, “sicknesses” and “pains,” everywhere else throughout the Old Testament. This word, choli is interpreted “disease” and “sickness in Deut. 7:15; 28:61; I Kings 17:17; II Kings 1:2; 8:8; II Chron. 16:12; 21:15; and other texts. The word makob is rendered “pain” in Job 14:22; 33:19, etc. Therefore the prophet is saying, in this 4th verse, “Surely He hath borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.” The reader is referred to any standard Commentary for additional testimony on this point; but there is no better commentary than Matthew 8:16-17.

An Inspired Commentary

That Isaiah 53:4 cannot refer to disease of the soul, and that neither of the words translated “sickness” and “pain” have any reference to spiritual matters but to bodily sickness alone, is proven by Matthew 8:16,17,—“ . . . and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias, the Prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” This is an inspired commentary on this 4th verse of Isaiah 53, plainly declaring that the prophet refers to bodily ailments, and therefore the word “sickness,” choli, must be read literally in Isaiah. The same Holy Spirit who inspired this verse quotes it in Matthew as the explanation of the universal application by Christ of His power to heal the body. To take any other view is equal to accusing the Holy Spirit of making a mistake in quoting His own prediction.

I will here quote the learned translator, Dr. Young, in his version of the Bible:

3. He is despised, and left of men,
A man of pains (Heb., Makob), and acquainted with sickness (choli),
And as one hiding the face from us,
He is despised and we esteemed him not.

4. Surely our sicknesses (choli) he hath borne,
And our pains (makob) he hath carried them,
And we—we have esteemed him plagued,
Smitten of God and afflicted.

5. And he is pierced for our transgressions,
Bruised for our iniquities,
The chastisement of our peace is on him,
And by his bruise there is healing to us.

6. All of us like sheep have wandered,
Each to his own way we have turned,
And Jehovah hath caused to meet on him
The punishment of us all.

10. And Jehovah hath delighted to bruise him;
He hath made him sick (choli) ;
If his soul doth make an offering for guilt,
He seeth seed—he prolongeth days.

12. . . . With transgressors he was numbered,
And he the sin of many hath borne,
And for transgressors he intercedeth.

Dr. Isaac Leeser, the able translator of the Hebrew English Bible, renders these verses as follows:

3. “He was despised and shunned of men:
A man of pains and acquainted with disease.

4. “But only our diseases did he bear himself,
And our pains he carried.

5. “And through his bruises was healing granted to us.

10. “But the Lord was pleased to crush him through disease.”

Rotherham’s translation of the 10th verse is “He hath laid on Him sickness.”

From You and Me to Calvary

In the 4th verse, the word “borne” (nasa) means to lift up, to bear away, to convey, or to remove to a distance. It is a Levitical word, and is applied to the scapegoat, that bare away the sins of the people. “The goat shall bear (nasa) upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited; and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.” (Lev. 16:22). So Jesus bore my sins and sicknesses away “without the camp” to the cross. Sin and sickness have passed from me to Calvary—salvation and health have passed from Calvary to me.

Again, in this 4th verse of the Redemption Chapter the Hebrew verbs for “borne” and “carried” (nasa and sabal) are both the same as are used in the 11th and 12th verses for the substitutionary bearing of sin, “He shall bear (carry) their iniquities,” and “He shall bear the sin of many.” Both words signify to assume as a heavy burden, and denote actual substitution, and a complete removal of the thing borne. When Jesus bore our sins, our sicknesses and our pains, He bore them away, or removed them. Both these words mean substitution, one bearing another’s load.

On this point, permit me to quote from “JESUS OuR HEALER,” a splendid tract written by the Rev. W. C. Stevens, published and sold by the Biola Book Store of the Torrey Bible Institute, Los Angeles, California. He says, “This prophecy presents healing as an integral part of the vicarious Atonement . . . Now, whatever be the sense of these two Hebrew verbs (nasa and sabal), the same sense must be applied in both cases, namely, of sin-bearing and sickness-bearing. To pervert the sense in one case would give liberty to pervert it in the other. And that the sense of the verbs as relating to sin, not only here in this prophecy, but everywhere else in the Old Testament, is strictly vicarious and expiatory, no evangelical student disputes. This prophecy, therefore, gives the same substitutionary and expiatory character to Christ’s connection with sickness that is everywhere given to His assumption of our sins.

An Inspired Translation

We are accordingly shut up by the Spirit to the redemptive sense of Christ’s bearing of sickness. This interpretation is fully sustained by Prof. Delitzsch’s exposition of Isaiah 53:4. Freely but faithfully does the Gospel of Matthew translate this text, “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sickness.” The help which Jesus rendered in all kinds of bodily sickness is taken in Matthew to be a fulfilment of what in Isaiah is prophesied of the Servant of Jehovah. The Hebrew verbs of the text, when used of sin, signify to assume as a heavy burden and bare away the guilt of sin as one’s own; that is, to bear sin mediatorially in order to atone for it. But here, where, not sins, but our sicknesses and our pains are the object, the mediatorial sense remains the same. It is not meant that the Servant of Jehovah merely entered into fellowship of our sufferings, but that He took upon Himself the sufferings which we had to bear and deserved to bear; and therefore He not only bore them away, but also in His own Person endured them in order to discharge us from them. Now, when one takes sufferings upon himself which another had to bear, and does this not merely in fellowship with him but in his stead, we call it substitution. Here, then, the best results of rigid exegesis show that the bearing and removal of human disease is an integral part of redeeming work, a provision of the Atonement, a part of the doctrine of Christ Crucified ; that Jesus is the Savior of the body as well as of the spirit, and that He comes to make His blessings flow Far as the curse is found.

“Bodily healing by direct Divine agency becomes a boon for every believer in any period of Gospel history. It settles the question of a preacher’s duty to preach it.”

An Objection Answered

A Canadian writer objects that Matthew 8:17 cannot refer to the Atonement, because since Christ had not yet been crucified, this would be “making Christ live an atoning life.” This, to me, is no argument at all, since Christ was “the Lamb of God slain from the foundation of the world.” He not only healed disease before Calvary, but He also forgave sins, and yet both of these mercies were bestowed on the ground of the Atonement yet future.

A prominent New York clergyman raises practically the same objection. He argues that the fact that Christ, in Matthew, is fulfiling Isaiah’s prophecy by healing the sick, proves that “Jesus bore our sickness not on the Cross, but when He was alive in the city of Capernaum.” In answering this, I have only to ask, Did Jesus bear our iniquities in Capernaum or on the Cross? His forgiving of sins as well as His healing of the sick were both done with respect to His coming Atonement, because “without the shedding of blood there is no remission.”

The prophecy states that “He hath borne our sicknesses.” This includes all others, as well as those at Capernaum. In verses 4 and 5 of this Redemption Chapter, we see Him dying for “OUR sicknesses”

“OUR pains”

“OUR transgressions”

“OUR iniquities”

“OUR peace”

“OUR healing” for “by His stripes we are healed.”

We would have to misquote to exclude ourselves from any of these blessings.

The only “surely” in the Redemption Chapter prefaces His provision for our healing. There could be no stronger statement of our complete redemption from pain and sickness by His Atoning death. If Christ, as some think, is unwilling to heal as universally during His exaltation as He did during His humiliation, then He would have to break His promise in St. John 14:12, 13, and He would not be “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today and forever.”

The fact of healing in the Atonement necessitates the continuation of His healing ministry during His exaltation, because His redeeming work embraced all who live on earth while He is with the Father. Accordingly, He gives the above promise to do the same, and greater works, in answer to our prayers from God’s right hand. As long as the Church remained under the control of the Spirit the same works continued, and history reveals, as Dr. A. J. Gordon puts it, “that whenever we find a revival of primitive faith and Apostolic simplicity, there we find the Evangelical miracles which surely characterize the Apostolic age. The Apostle tells us, “He was made sin for us Who knew no sin” (of His own.) Likewise, “He hath made Him sick” (for us) Who knew no sickness (of His own.) Peter writes, “Who His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree,” and Isaiah declares, “Surely our sicknesses He hath borne, and our pains—He hath carried them.” But, as Leeser translates, “only our sickness did He bear,” having none of His own. Again, in the 4th verse of Dr. Young’s translation cited above, we read, “and Jehovah hath caused to meet on Him the punishment of us all.” One writer inquiries, on this point, “What are the punishments of sin?” and then says, in substance, all will admit that sin is punished by soulcondemnation, remorse, mental anxiety and frequently by sickness. . . and believe these are remitted because of vicarious Atonement. By what rule of Scripture or reason is the last-mentioned punishment severed from the rest? Mark the prophet’s words, “Jehovah hath caused to meet on Him the punishment of us all.” Since sickness is a part of that punishment, it is demonstrated by the immutable Word of God that sickness is included in the Atonement. He then asks, “Is it true that God will give deliverance from every penalty and consequence of sin except one, and that this one (sickness) must inevitably remain to the bitter end? Away with such a thought! Isaiah affirms that the entire punishment of us all was caused to meet on Him. . . He testified ‘It is finished.’ There was nothing incomplete about the work of our mighty Jesus.” I might add to this that, were it otherwise, the prophet should have said, “Jehovah hath caused to meet on Him only a part of the punishment of us all.”

The Cross a Perfect Remedy for the Whole Man

“Jesus went to the cross, spirit, soul and body, to redeem man, spirit, soul and body. Therefore, the Cross is the centre of the plan of salvation for man, spirit, soul and body.

Every form of sickness and disease known to man was included, and many of them even mentioned particularly, in the “curse of the law,” (Deut. 28:15-62, and other scriptures.) Now, in Galatians 3:13, we have the positive statement that “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us, for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on the tree.” What plainer declaration could we have than that Christ, Who was born under the law to redeem us, bore its curse, and therefore did redeem us from all sickness and disease. Here it is stated that it was on the cross that Jesus redeemed us from the law’s curse. In other words, He redeemed us from the following diseases, specified in Deuteronomy, “consumption” (tuberculosis,) “fever,” “inflammation,” “the botch of Egypt,” “emerods,” “scab,” “itch,” “madness” (insanity), “blindness,” “plagues,” “all the diseases of Egypt,” “also every sickness and every plague which is not written in the book of this law.” This would include cancer, influenza, mumps, measles and every other modern disease. If Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, and sickness is included in the curse, surely He redeemed us from sickness.

Redemption Synonymous with Calvary

Redemption is synonymous with Calvary, therefore we are redeemed from the entire curse, body, soul and spirit, solely through His Atonement. Now, since disease is a part of the curse, how could God justly remove this part of the curse by healing the sick without first redeeming us from it? Again, since “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law,” how can God justify us and at the same time require us to remain under the law’s curse, when, as the Apostle says, “ye are not under the law, but under grace?” (Romans 6:14.) In short, why should anyone remain under the law’s curse who is not under the law? To do so, would be the same as putting a man in prison for life after he had been proven innocent and the court had justified him from the charge of murder. Paul argues, in Romans the 3rd chapter, that “God set forth Christ to be a propitiation . . that He might be just and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus.” In other words, were it not for the Atonement, God would be unjust in justifying the sinner; and likewise He would be unjust in healing the sick without first redeeming them from the sickness. The fact that God ever healed anyone is to me the best of proof that healing was provided by the Atonement. If healing was not provided for all in redemption, how did all in the whole multitude obtain from Christ the healing that God did not provide? “He healed them all.”

An Important Question

If the body were not included in redemption, how can there be a resurrection? How can “corruption put on incorruption,” or “mortal put on immortality?” If we have not been redeemed from sickness, would we not be subject to disease in Heaven, if it were possible to be resurrected irrespective of redemption? Some one has well remarked, “Man’s future destiny being both spiritual and bodily, his redemption must be both spiritual and bodily.”

Why should not the “last Adam” take away all that the “first Adam” brought upon us?

Now let us consider a few Gospel parallels.

“The Inner Man”
“The Outer Man”

Adam, by his fall, brought sin into our souls.
Adam, by his fall, brought disease into our bodies.

Sin is therefore the work of the devil.
Disease is therefore the work of the devil. Jesus “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil.”

Jesus was “manifested to destroy the works of the devil” in the soul.
Jesus was “manifested to destroy the works of the devil” in the body.

The redemptive name “JEHOVAH-TSIDKENU” reveals His redemptive provision for our souls.
The redemptive name “JEHOVAH-RAPHA” reveals His redemptive provision for our bodies.

On Calvary Jesus “bare our sins.”
On Calvary Jesus bare our sicknesses.”

He was made “sin for us” (II Cor. 5:21) when “He bare our sins.” (I Peter 2:24).
He was “made a curse for us.” (Gal. 3:13) when He “bare our sicknesses.” (Matthew 8:17).

“Who His own self bare our sins in His body on the tree.”
“By whose stripes ye were healed.”

“Who forgiveth all thine iniquities.”
“Who healeth all thy diseases.”

“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your . . . spirit.”
“For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body . . . (I Cor. 6:20).

The spirit is bought with a price.
The body is bought with a price.

Is remaining in sin the way to glorify God in your spirit?
Is remaining sick the way to glorify God in your body?

Since He “bare our sins,” how many must it be God’s will to save, when they come to Him? “Whosoever believeth.”
Since He “bare our sicknesses,” how many must it be God’s will to heal, when they come to Him? “He healed them all.”

“As God ‘made Him to be sin for us who knew no sin’ ”—Rev. A. J. Gordon.
“So God made Him to be sick for us who knew no sickness.”—Rev. A. J. Gordon.

“Since our Substitute bore our sins, did He not do so that we might not bare them?”—Rev. A. J. Gordon.
“Since our Substitute bore our sicknesses, did He not do so that we might not bare them?”—Rev. A. J. Gordon.

“Christ bore our sins that we might be delivered from them. Not SYMPATHY—a suffering with, but SUBSTITUTION—a suffering for.”—Rev. A. J. Gordon.
Christ bore our sicknesses that we might be delivered from them. Not SYMPATHY—a suffering with, but SUBSTITUTION—a suffering for.

“If the fact that Jesus ‘bore our sins in His own body on the tree’ be a valid reason why we should all trust Him now for the forgiveness of our sins,
why is not the fact that He ‘bore our sicknesses’ an equally valid reason why we should all trust Him now to heal our bodies?” (Writer unknown).

Faith for salvation “cometh by hearing” the Gospel—He “bare our sins.”
Faith for healing “cometh by hearing”—He “bare our sicknesses.”

Therefore, Preach the Gospel (that He bore our sins) to every creature,”
and “the Gospel (that He bore our sicknesses) to every creature.”

Christ’s promise for the soul (“shall be saved”) is in the great commission (Mark 16).
Christ’s promise for the body (“shall recover”) is in the great commission. (Mark 16).

In connection with the ordinance of baptism, the Bible teaches that he that believeth and is baptized shall be saved (Mark 16).
In connection with the ordinance of anointing with oil, the Bible teaches that he that believeth and is anointed shall be healed. (James 5:14).

We are commanded to baptize in Christ’s name.
We are commanded to anoint “in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:14).

In the Lord’s Supper the wine is taken “in remembrance” of His death for our souls. (I Cor. 11:25).
In the Lord’s Supper the bread is eaten “in remembrance” of His death for our bodies. (I Cor. 11:23-24).

The sinner is to repent before believing the Gospel “unto righteousness.”
James 5:16 says, “Confess, therefore, your sins . . . that ye may be healed.”

Water baptism stands for total surrender and obedience.
Anointing with oil is the symbol and sign of consecration.

The sinner must accept God’s promise as true before he can feel the joy of salvation.
The sick must accept God’s promise as true before he can feel well.

“As many as received Him . . . were born . . . of God.” (St. John 1:12-13).
“As many as touched Him were made whole.” (Mark 6:56).

I will now cite one out of many hundreds of cases of sickness and affliction that have been healed while the sufferers listened to the preaching on the subject of healing in the Atonement. Their healing came through their own faith before having an opportunity of being anointed.

When but a child of eight years, Mrs. Clara Rupert of Lima, Ohio, had such a severe case of whooping-cough that she ruptured the muscles of one eye, leaving it entirely blind, and so dead that during all the years that followed she could rub her finger on the bare eyeball without pain. She said that on windy days, when particles would blow into the eye, it caused her no suffering.

Just Because the Bible Says So

While listening to a sermon on the Atonement, during our revival in Lima, Ohio, she said in her heart: “If that is true, and it is because the Bible says so, then I am just as sure of receiving sight in my blind eye tonight when I go to the altar as I was sure of salvation when I went to the Methodist altar several years ago and was saved. Accordingly, with this logical reasoning, she came to the altar, and while we were praying with others she asked God to heal her. Before we had a chance to anoint her, she was on her feet weeping, and walked back and threw her arms around her father’s neck, the audience wondering why she left the altar without being anointed. Her father said: “What is the matter, daughter?” and she replied, “My eye!” He said: “Why, is it paining you?” She said: “No, I can see perfectly!”

A few months later, while we were holding a revival in St. Paul, Minn., we met this woman and her husband, who were there attending the Bible school, preparing for work for the Master. Her husband wanted to preach the Gospel of Christ, Who had so graciously healed his wife.

Almost daily in our revivals testimonies are given by those who have been healed while sitting in their seats listening to the Gospel.

What Eminent Men Have to Say

These views on healing in the Atonement are not new and peculiar only to myself. Many of the most godly and able teachers of the Church have seen and taught them. In addition to those teachers already quoted, I will add a few words from Dr. Torrey and others.

Dr. R. A. Torrey, in his book on “Divine Healing” declares: “The atoning death of Jesus Christ secured for us not only physical healing, but the resurrection and perfecting and glorifying of our bodies . . . The Gospel of Christ has salvation for the body as well as for the soul . . . Just as one gets the first-fruits of his spiritual salvation in the life that now is, so we get the first-fruits of our physical salvation in the life that now is . . . Individual believers, whether Elders or not, have the privilege and the duty to ‘pray one for another’ in case of sickness with the expectation that God will hear and heal.”

Dr. R. E. Stanton, a former moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church, gives the following in his Gospel Parallelisms: “It is my aim to show that the Atonement of Christ lays the foundation equally for deliverance from sin and for deliverance from disease. That complete provision has been made for both; that in the exercise of faith under the conditions prescribed, we have the same reason to believe that the body may be delivered from sickness that we have that the soul shall be delivered from sin; in short, that both branches of the deliverance stand on the same ground, and that it is necessary to include both in any true conception of what the gospel offers to mankind. The atoning sacrifice of Christ covers the physical as well as the spiritual needs of the race . . . Healing of the body is not, therefore, a ‘side-issue,’ as some represent it. It is no more this than the healing of the soul is a ‘side-issue.’ They are both but parts of the same Gospel, based equally upon the same great Atonement.”

The Episcopal Church on Divine Healing

In the report of the Commission on spiritual healing appointed by the Episcopal Church, sponsored by Bishop Reese, who for many years has practiced the healing ministry, and who was Chairman of the Commission, is the following statement: “The healing of the body is an essential element of the Gospel, and must be preached and practiced . . . God wills our health, that the Church, the ‘Body of Christ,’ has the same commission and the same power as ‘The Head,’ that we churchmen, with this true conception of God as Creative Love, must now give a sinning and suffering world this full Gospel of salvation from sin and its inevitable consequences.”

These conclusions were arrived at by this scholarly Commission after three years of study and research.

Bishop Charles H. Brent of the Episcopal Church, who as Head of all Chaplains in France, led the religious life of our armies overseas, affirms: “He who waives away the healing power of Christ as belonging only to the New Testament times is not preaching the whole Gospel. God was, and Is, the Saviour of the body as well as the soul.”

James Moore Hickson pleads: “A living Church is one in which the Living Christ lives and walks, doing through its members what He did in the days of His flesh. It must, therefore, be a healing Church as well as a soul-saving Church... Spiritual healing is sacramental. It is the extension through the members of His mystical body of His own incarnate life.” The late able writers, Dr. A. B. Simpson, Andrew Murray, A. T. Pierson, Dr. A. J. Gordon, and many present writers whom we might quote, have been teachers of healing in the Atonement. An unknown writer has said: “On the cross of Calvary Jesus has nailed the proclamation, ‘Deliver from going down to the pit (grave) for I have found an ‘Atonement.’” (Job 33:24)

Isaiah begins the Redemption Chapter with the question “Who hath believed our report, and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed?” And the report follows that He bore our sins and sicknesses. The answer to the question is, only those who have heard the report could believe it, because “faith cometh by hearing.” Since Jesus died to save and to heal it is surely worth reporting.

The purpose of this sermon is to prove that healing is provided by the Atonement and is therefore a part of the Gospel which Christ commanded to be preached To “all the world,” To “all nations,” To “every creature,” With “all Power,” Throughout “all the days, Even unto the end of the (present) age.”