Narrow Way with Steve Phillips Sick, Sick, Sick
I’m sick as I write this. No, it is not well. I am weak. No, I’m not strong. I’m sick, sick, sick.
Paul, who performed extraordinary healings, confessed this: “Trophimus I left sick at Miletus” -2 Timothy 4:20. Curious. Christ Himself has left me sick in Nigeria. Yet we must not question or quarrel Paul or Christ for lack of compassion or inability to relieve affliction. Neither is lack of faith the cause.
At least not in the case of Trophimus, nor of Timothy. This same Paul advised him to “take a little wine for your stomach’s sake and your frequent illnesses” -1 Timothy 5:23. Curious. No handkerchief was sent to lay upon his abdomen. No reproof for failing in faith. No appeal to healing in the atonement.
Paul did not urge Timothy to claim healing by faith as provided in the atonement, because there is none. Paul directed him to take a remedy for his bodily illness. It’s not a lack of faith to use natural or medical means to heal sickness. It may actually be disobedience not to do so.
O, yes, I did make a startling statement: That’s right; there is no physical healing obtained for all believers for every ailment in this life by Jesus’ death on the cross. He died for sin, not for sickness.
So just erase “healing in the atonement” from your mind. “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His stripes you were healed” -1 Peter 2:24. Sin was borne, not sickness. We are to die to sin and live to righteousness, not die to sickness and live to health. By the death of Christ we were healed: not of bodily ailments, but of iniquity.
“Heal my soul, for I have sinned against You” –Psalm 41:4. “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds” –Psalm 147:3. Jesus said: “It is not those who are well who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” –Luke 5:31,32.
It is why Peter quoted: “By His stripes we are healed.” That does not refer to sickness, but to sin.
“He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our peace fell upon Him” -Isaiah 53:5. Peter knew that Isaiah clearly spoke of sin, not of physical wellness.
In Matthew 8:16,17 we learn that Jesus “took our infirmities and carried away our diseases:” not on the cross, but during His earthly ministry when He “cast out spirits, and healed all who were sick.” That was to fulfill Isaiah 53:4: “Surely our sickness He Himself bore, and our pains He carried.”
Not every bodily disease and problem are relieved in the present time. Many remain sick, sick, sick.
Moses’ “eye was not dim” though living to 120 years old -Deuteronomy 34:7. But “when Isaac was old, his eyes were too dim to see” -Genesis 27:1 Curious: Same God to both of them who equally were His servants. And the Lord regularly refers to Himself as the God of Isaac, not the God of Moses.
Elijah was taken up in “a chariot of fire and whirlwind into heaven” -2 Kings 2:11. Elisha, with a double portion of his spirit, slowly suffered from “the sickness from which he died” -2 Kings 13:14.
“There were many lepers in Israel in the time of Elisha the prophet; yet none of them were cleansed except Naaman the Syrian” –Luke 4:27. The rest were sick, sick, sick. Healing for all was not God’s will.
Even Paul the apostle reminded the Galatians: “You know that it was because of a bodily illness, a weakness of the flesh, that I first preached the gospel to you” –Galatians 4:13.
He later confessed that he had a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan, sent by God to afflict him. After praying 3 times, it still remained [2 Corinthians 12:7-9]. Curious. Paul, the healer, is sick, sick, sick.
Make no mistake: there is no automatic healing in the atonement to simply be “claimed by faith.” No, far from it. “The sufferings of this present time cannot even be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us” -Romans 8:18. Yes, it is here on this earth that we suffer; sickness is part of that.
But, there is relief for all in the next life. “And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death will not exist anymore; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things are passed away” -Revelation 21:4. Not here below, but there above: none are sick, sick, sick.