Contributor: Ayomide Oladipo

INTRODUCTION

Last week we started our series in the topic Divine Healing through the Word of God. Divine healing as we learned in the study, is healing from God Himself through His written or spoken Word, and how sin robs us of good health. Psalm 107:20 “He sent his word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” The desire of God for our health in 3 John 1: 2 “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.” revealed to us that God wants us as believers to look at health from a holistic point of view of the spirit, soul and body, and anyone living below the standard of perfect health in all areas of our being needs ‘Divine Healing’.
We concluded the study by looking at 3 prescriptions from the God the Great Physician for a healthy life which are: (a) Regularly feeding on the Word of God (Pro 3: 1&8), (b) Exercising our spirit (Jude 1:20) and (c) Regular visits to God in retreats (Mark 4:35).

Today we will continue the series by looking at Divine Healing through the stripes of Jesus. Romans 3:23-26 “23 For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.”

Since the fall of man in the garden of Eden, all mankind became guilty of sin, and in Roman 8: 23 the scriptures tell us the consequence of sin is death. So, if all men have sinned, this means all men should die because of our sins. God knew the price for the sin of the world must be paid for, Heb 9:22 “And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.”
Out of His benevolence as a merciful God, He sent His Son Jesus who had never sinned to be the Lamb that would take away the sin of the world John 1:29.
The ‘stripes of Jesus’ symbolises the price that was paid for our sins, as we looked at last week how God sends His Word either spoken or written for our healing, today we would examine how God gave Himself for our healing.

WHY DID JESUS GIVE HIMSELF FOR OUR SIN?
Because of the Father’s love for the world – John 3:16 “For God so love the world, that he gave his only begotten son that whosoever believes in him will not perish but have evaluating life”.

By law, the world is guilty of death, because the entire world has sinned and come short of the glory of God. God is merciful, but just. Because of His justice, the scripture in Roman 6:23 “The wages of sin is death” must be fulfilled, which means all souls were required to pay for their transgressions against God with everlasting death, but for His mercy, He provided a way out for everyone. John 1:29 “The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him and said, Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!”

1 John 3:8 “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”
We were all created by God, imagine God having created us, and from the moment we were born, knowing He will never have us again because, we would have to pay for our own sins, and for the rest of our lives He would have to watch the devil afflict His hand work and He can’t do anything because the devil now owns them.
Because of God’s faithfulness, commitment and love as our Father, He gave Jesus to die, not for His own sins but the sin of the world, now anyone that accepts this love will be redeemed from eternal guilt of death to eternal life.

Romans 6:8-10 “Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. 9 For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. 10 The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God.”

Jesus came to pay the debt of sin of the world so that no one will have to end up in everlasting death by default because they were born into the world. He ended the reign of the devil and provided a path to salvage the world form death to life.

ONLY THOSE THAT HAVE ACCEPTED JESUS ARE TRULY HEALED!
You might ask what has this got to do with healing, this sounds like a salvation message to me. Well, you are right it is indeed a salvation message. The truth is anyone that has not been redeemed by accepting Jesus Christ as their Lord and Saviour is ‘sick’. Remember we said sickness is deviation from normalcy, in the sight of God it is abnormal for any soul He created to be afflicted by the devil because of sin.
Psalm 107: 17- 18 “Fools because of their transgression, and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. 18 Their soul abhors all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death.”

This passage shows us that a soul guilty of transgression and iniquity (sin) is living in affliction. Bible says in 1 John 3:8 “He that committeth sin is of the devil; for the devil sinneth from the beginning. For this purpose, the Son of God was manifested, that he might destroy the works of the devil.”

The Devil only comes to kill, steal and destroy. An unsaved individual can be assured this is all they get from the devil. The Bible says the soul that sinneth shall die Ezek.18: 20.
An unsaved individual is physically and spiritually dead. Ezekiel 18:20 made it clear “The soul that sinneth, it shall die. The son shall not bear the iniquity of the father, neither shall the father bear the iniquity of the son: the righteousness of the righteous shall be upon him, and the wickedness of the wicked shall be upon him.”
Which means that an unsaved person will bear the brunt of his sin while on earth and even in eternity. God sees an unsaved person as a sick person because such individual is willingly forfeiting his right to life.
The good news is it does not have to remain that way, healing by the stripes of Jesus is available of all men, but exclusively heals those that have accepted the redemption these stripes paid for.

HEALING BY THE STRIPES OF JESUS
1. Physical Healing By the Stripes of Jesus: 1 Peter 2:24 “He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.”
Physical affliction was inflicted on Jesus so that we don’t have to surfer physical sickness. Isaiah 53:5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

This scripture shows us Jesus already bore our burden, sickness, affliction and paid the price for our healing. All we need do if we have already been saved is believe Him for our physical healing.
The Bible already told us the desire of God in 3 John 1: 2 “Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
Jesus was hung on the tree for us to be healed from the curse of affliction to a life of wholeness Gal.3:13 “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us for it is written, “Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree”,

The wounds and bruises are physical afflictions Jesus suffered which lead to the gushing of blood from His body, by the risen of the blood of Jesus and by faith, we can administer physical
healing into our body, Jesus being hung on the cross healed us from every curse, and Him dying and rising again healed us from eternal death to eternal life. God chose the stripes of His only begotten Son to give us an opportunity to experience His desire for our physical health to prosper.

2. Spiritual Healing By The Stripe Of Jesus: By the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, our spiritual healing was bought and paid for. Through the finished work of Jesus, we can receive the Holy Spirit which is the Spirit of God Himself living in us. Romans 8:11 “And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.”.

The redemption of God through Jesus when accepted quickens the life and power of God in us ‘The Holy Spirit’. This passage tells us that the Holy Spirit was the One that raised Jesus Christ from the dead, Jesus had the Holy Spirit in Him which is the Spirit of the Father because He was without sin, so He could not remain dead. The chastisement of Jesus was for us, and by those stripes our spiritual healing was also provided for. As God has expressed His desire for us to be healthy in all areas of our lives, it is important for us to lay hold of the finished work of Jesus for our spiritual healing. Accepting Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior is not the end, but God desires for us to be healed in our spirit so we can be sons and daughters of God.

Romans 8: 14-17 “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God. 15. For ye have not received the spirit of bondage again to fear; but ye have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father.16. The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together.”

Our spiritual healing obtained by the suffering of Jesus, ends the reign of the devil over our lives and adopts us back into sonship of our Heavenly Father. James 2:26 “For as the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead also.” Our spiritual health reflects on our physical health.
The Word of God here guarantees that if our spiritual life is healthy, our mortal (physical) health will be simultaneously. How? The Spirit of God living in us is the power of God within us, when we invest in our spiritual health, we are simultaneously releasing the power of God into our mortal body.

CONCLUSION
Envision the finished work of Jesus as a trust fund account that our Heavenly Father opened and funded for us. It’s the path He made for us at any given time we decide to come back to Him, to be able to do so.
Even though our healing had been provided for by the stripes of Jesus, accepting or refusing it is our choice. Even though the account is fully funded, doubting its legitimacy, delaying withdrawal from it or even receiving it is all choices of ours.
The question is why suffer for what has been paid for?
Revelation 3:20 (NIV) “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me.”
To someone opening the door means accepting Jesus, to another it means accepting the finished work that He has given to you.