“And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.” (Matthew 4:23, KJV, emphasis added.)
The words I have highlighted in the verse above summarize Jesus’ earthly ministry: teaching, preaching and healing. Most people are quite aware that Jesus ministered supernaturally while He was fulfilling His earthly ministry. Some call it “the time of miracles,” as though it were a one-time happenstance which has passed away.
No, Jesus healed during His earthly ministry, but He also heals today! In fact, we have record in the Old Testament that God has always been a God of healing. One of God’s seven redemptive names is “Jehovah-Rapha,” God, the Healer. He introduced His covenant personality of healing back then by saying, “I AM the God that healeth thee…” (Exodus 15:26) “So,” you may say, “God healed in the Old Testament, and His Son, Jesus, healed in the New Testament… what has that to do with me, today?” Ah, my friend, it has EVERYTHING to do with you TODAY! For in Hebrews Chapter 13, verse 8, it says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever!” He has not changed His Nature, He is still the God that heals!
F.F. Bosworth wrote one of the truly classic works on the healing ministry of Jesus, called “Christ the Healer” back in 1924. In this excellent book he says, “We have seen, in the great Redemption Chapter, the 53rd of Isaiah, that it is our sicknesses, as well as our sins that Jesus bore, making one privilege as universal as the other. What Jesus did for individuals who came to Him for blessings was for them, but what He did on Calvary was for all. It is clear that in all of these instances cited from the Old Testament it was God’s will to heal all who met the conditions. Wherever forgiveness was offered, healing was also offered. Let those who teach the people that God’s will in the matter of healing is not the same today answer the question, ‘Why would God withdraw this Old Testament mercy from this better dispensation?’ Is it not to be expected that He, Who ‘hath reserved better things for us’ and Who is ‘the same yesterday, today, and forever’ should continue these same mercies throughout this better dispensation?”1 Dr. Bosworth is referring to the scripture in Hebrews 8:6, “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.” If the New Covenant is a “better covenant, established on better promises,” why would healing of the body no longer be a part of it? The fact is, healing IS still part of our covenant. One simply has to, as Dr. Bosworth says, “meet the conditions.”
“What is the condition one needs to meet?,” you may ask. Simple. God is a God of faith. When He created the worlds, He did so Himself using His faith. We are told, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. For by it the elders obtained a good report. Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things which do appear.” (Hebrews 11:1-3) When God spoke in Genesis and said (as the Hebrew literally reads), “Light be… and light was,” He was calling things that were not in existence yet, as though they already existed. This is the underlying principle of how faith works. It is the way God used His faith to create the universe, and it is the way that Abraham used his faith to receive the fulfillment of the promise of God in his life. We are told, “Therefore it is of faith, that it might be by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed: not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all, (As it is written, I have made thee a father of many nations,) before him whom he believed, even God, who quickeneth the dead, and calleth those things which be not as though they were.” (Romans 4:16, 17) Abraham did as God did, he “called those things that be not (yet), as though they were.” In other words, he spoke what he wanted to exist as true in the natural realm, as though it already existed. Keep in mind that speaking these words of faith is not “denying the existence” of disease! There are cults and false religions that teach that sickness does not REALLY exist, and that matter is not real. They teach that we can simply shape “reality” in any way we see fit by merely thinking something is so, or not so, and it will “conform” to that thought, since matter does not exist. We are not referring to that false teaching. What we are speaking of here is the fact that FAITH is a force that can CHANGE the matter and reality of this world. God used His faith to create the worlds, is it then so strange that we can use His Word, and the application of faith in His Word to change it? That is, in fact, what Abraham did. He took the promise made to him… God’s Word… and he spoke of it as though it were already manifested in his life… and it came to pass! He did not deny reality, he superseded it with a higher law! When a plane flies though the air, it does not “defy” gravity… it supersedes the law of gravity with a “higher law,” the law of lift! This chapter in Romans goes on to say that these things were not written for his (Abraham’s) sake alone, but for us also! Abraham is the father of our faith, but we are children of faith! We, too, can find the promise of healing in the scriptures, and confess with our mouth that we are the healed of the Lord, that healing is our covenant right, and see healing manifested in our lives!
I have seen many notable supernatural healings in my life, and in the lives of friends and family members, and I am sure many of you know of those that have been supernaturally healed as well! No, my friend, healing has not “passed away,” no more than the God of healing, Jehovah-Rapha, has passed away! Jesus was, is, and ever will be, the Great Physician! I trust that you will study the scriptures diligently and see that healing is for today, and that speaking of things that God has promised us, as though they are manifest already in our lives, is the methodology we need to employ to see His power applied to correct physical issues in our lives, just as we can confess Him as Lord, and receive salvation spiritually! (Romans 10:9, 10)
1 F.F. Bosworth, Christ the Healer, Fleming H. Revell Publishing Company, pages 45 and 46.
