Psalms 107:19-21 | NKJV (19) Then they cried out to the LORD in their trouble, And He saved them out of their distresses. (20) He sent His word and healed them, And delivered them from their destructions. (21) Oh, that men would give thanks to the LORD for His goodness, And for His wonderful works to the children of men!
Promise Vs. Fact
Promise (DEFINED) – A declaration that one will do or refrain from doing something specified.
The key to a promise is that something WILL happen.
Redemption and salvation as we know it was a promise of something to come in the Old Testament.
The promise always looked to the future.
Ezekiel 11:19-20 | NKJV (19) Then I will give them one heart, and I will put a new spirit within them, and take the stony heart out of their flesh, and give them a heart of flesh, (20) that they may walk in My statutes and keep My judgments and do them; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God.
Ezekiel 36:26-27 | NKJV (26) I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. (27) I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes, and you will keep My judgments and do them.
Joel 2:32 | NKJV (32) And it shall come to pass That whoever calls on the name of the LORD Shall be saved. For in Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there shall be deliverance, As the LORD has said, Among the remnant whom the LORD calls.
We must understand the difference between a promise of redemption and the fact that redemption has already taken place.
Fact: (DEFINED) the truth about events that HAVE taken place.
The work of redemption was begun by Jesus at the Cross and completed at His resurrection.
Salvation is no longer a promise. It is a fact of the completed work of redemption.
To be saved, we don’t receive the promise of salvation. We put our faith in the completed work of Jesus for our salvation.
Romans 10:9-10 | NKJV (9) that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. (10) For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation.
We can clearly see the promise of healing in the Old Testament.
Exodus 15:26 | NKJV (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.”
Exodus 23:25 | NKJV (25) “So you shall serve the LORD your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you.
Psalms 103:1-5 | NKJV (1) Bless the LORD, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! (2) Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: (3) Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, (4) Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, (5) Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
In the Old Testament, healing was a conditional promise of something that God would do for His people largely based on their obedience.
But then we see the Lord begin to talk about a work that was going to take place in the future.
Isaiah 53:3 | AMPC (3) He was despised and rejected and forsaken by men, a Man of sorrows and pains, and acquainted with grief and sickness; and like One from Whom men hide their faces He was despised, and we did not appreciate His worth or have any esteem for Him.
But sandwiched in the prophecy about the payment for our sins and iniquities, we something else about this work.
Isaiah 53:4-5 | AMPC (4) Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy]. [Matt. 8:17.] (5) But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.
Isaiah lets us know that there will be more to the work of redemption than just the purchasing of our spiritual salvation.
On this side of the cross, we see that the work spoken about has happened and is completed for us.
1 Peter 2:24 | NKJV (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.
In his book Sparkling Gems from the Greek, Rick Renner says,
In First Peter 2:24, the apostle Peter quoted Isaiah 53:5. He told his readers, “By whose stripes ye were healed.” The word “stripes” used in this verse is molopsi, which describes a full- body bruise. It refers to a terrible lashing that draws blood and that produces discoloration and swelling of the entire body. When Peter wrote this verse, he wasn’t speaking by revelation but by memory, for he vividly remembered what happened to Jesus that night and what His physical appearance looked like after His scourging.
After graphically reminding us of the beating, bleeding, and bruising that Jesus endured, Peter jubilantly declared that it was by these same stripes that we are “healed.” The word “healed” is the Greek word iaomai — a word that clearly refers to physical healing, as it is a word borrowed from the medical term to describe the physical healing or curing of the human body.
For those who think this promise refers to spiritual healing only, the Greek word emphatically speaks of the healing of a physical condition. This is a real declaration of bodily healing that belongs to all who have been washed in the blood of Jesus Christ!
Healing is something already purchased, and the work is already done.
It is received in the same way that salvation is received, by faith.
1 Timothy 6:12 | NKJV (12) Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also called and have confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses.
In the fight of faith, we need to learn to “lay hold” what is ours.
Very often, we see ourselves as people who don’t have something, and we are trying to get it.
Healing is already yours and the enemy would like to keep you from receiving it or take from you what is already yours.
When the devil comes to your mind and tells you that you are not going to get your healing, he actually should be saying, “You already have your healing and I want to take it from you…”
1 Peter 2:24 | NKJV (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.
Begin to see yourself as someone who was healed and if you were healed then you are healed.