Has someone ever told you God puts sickness on people for some mysterious reason? The tradition of crediting God for sickness or saying He allowed it for a redemptive purpose has been passed down for hundreds of years. When I heard these things growing up, it drove me into the Bible to find out what it says about sickness and disease. I thought, “If God causes sickness in our lives for a redemptive purpose, I’m crazy and rebellious to fight against it, but how do I know if God causes it? What if He doesn’t? What if people blame God for things He never put on us?”
Do you see the dilemma? Let’s look to the scripture and see what it says. Look at 1 Peter 2:24:
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.
This passage says Jesus’s stripes, which were the wounds He suffered at calvary healed us. Some say this is just a metaphorical healing of our sin condition. While I agree Jesus healed us of our sin condition, the context would indicate physical healing. Look at the previous verses:
20 For what credit is it if, when you are beaten for your faults, you take it patiently? But when you do good and suffer, if you take it patiently, this is commendable before God.
21 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;
In these verses Peter is addressing what happens when a Christian slave is physically beaten by their master. He reminds them Jesus also suffered and then he assures the reader with a promise that the stripes of Jesus would heal them. Based on the context, Peter wasn’t talking about spiritual healing, he was talking about physical healing.
This is further verified when we look at the Old Testament passage Peter quotes. It is Isaiah 53:5:
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
The word healed in this verse is the Hebrews word rāp̄ā‘. This is the same word that is used in Exodus 15:26, when the Lord told the children of Israel, I am the Lord Your Healer. Look at the verse:
26 and said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.”
Again we see the context is physical healing. God told the children of Israel He wouldn’t put any of the diseases on them that he put on the Egyptians. This verse isn’t about spiritual healing. It is about physical healing.
The verse is also quoted in Matthew 8:17:
17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
“He Himself took our infirmities
And bore our sicknesses.”
It is quoted right after Jesus healed the sick and cast out devils. This passage is about physical healing!
The point of all this is God doesn’t put sickness on people. Part of the redemptive package Jesus paid for on the cross is physical healing. God will never make a believer sick and He won’t refuse to take sickness from their midst! Period! If He did, He’d have to change His name because His name is The Lord Your Healer.
I wanted to share some of these things in this article because we have many new people in our church and some of you may have never heard this before. What awesome news that you don’t have to stay sick or diseased. Healing is a part of our redemption. Healing is a grace promise. The way you receive it is by putting faith in the promise of healing and declaring out of your mouth that you are healed. You receive healing the same way you receive salvation. You believe and speak.
I hope this article has encouraged you. If you’d like to learn more about physical healing, checking out this message I taught at Grace Life Church.
