Xtreme Life Church - Healing Belongs To You

Physical Healing in the Atonement
Christ Bore Our Sicknesses and Pains

In previous articles we saw that we can trust God to heal us because anyone who ate of the Passover Lamb was healed, everyone who looked at the Brazen Serpent was physically healed, Jesus showed us the Father's will to heal by the works He did in healing all that were oppressed of the devil, and He commissioned others to go into all the world and heal the sick. Now, we will examine physical healing in the atonement.

"When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." (Matthew 8:16-17)

It speaks here of Jesus Christ taking our infirmities and sicknesses as a fulfillment of prophecies by Isaiah. Let's take a close look at some words in Isaiah.

"Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. 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." (Isaiah 53:4-5)

The word "griefs" is the Hebrew word kholee which means sicknesses. This word is translated "sickness" in Dueteronomy 7:15, Dueteronomy 28:61, First Kings 17:17, Second Kings 1:2, Second Kings 8:8, and other places. Kholee is from chalah meaning to be weak, sick, or afflicted.

The word "sorrows" is the Hebrew word makob which means pains. It is translated "pain" in Job 33:19, "He is chastened also with pain." In Jeremiah 51:8 we read, "Take balm for her pain [makob]."

Isaiah 53:4 should read, "Surely He [Christ] has borne our sicknesses and carried our pains..." Now, let's examine the verbs in Isaiah 53:4, "borne" and "carried."

The word "borne" is the Hebrew word nasa which means to bear in the sense of suffering punishment for something. It is used in Isaiah 53:12, "...And He bore [nasa] the sin of many, And made intercession for the transgressors." How did Christ bear our sins? He did it vicariously, as our substitute. But this same verb is used in Isaiah 53:4 teaching us that Christ bore our sicknesses vicariously. The very same verb (nasa) is used of bearing our sins in Isaiah 53:12 as is used of bearing our sicknesses in Isaiah 53:4. The use of this same verb makes it clear that Christ bore our sicknesses in the very same way that He bore our sins.

The word "carried" is the Hebrew word sabal which means to bear something as a penalty or chastisement. It is used in Isaiah 53:11, "...My righteous Servant shall justify many, For He shall bear [sabal] their iniquities." Again, how did Christ bear our iniquities? Vicariously, as our substitute. The only logical conclusion is that Christ died for our sicknesses and pains in the very same way that He died for our sins and iniquities.

The Gospel of Matthew translates Isaiah 53:4 correctly by saying, "...He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." The use of nasa (borne) in Isaiah 53:4 implies not only the taking of it but the bearing of it away and sabal (carried) emphasizes the weight of the load. Christ did not merely enter into the fellowship of our sufferings, but He took upon Himself the sufferings that we had to bear and deserved to bear. Therefore, He not only bore them away, but also endured them in His own person in order to discharge us from them. He took the sufferings of our sins and sicknesses upon Himself, in our stead, as our substitute.

We can also be absolutely sure that this prediction is for us during the Church Age because of the word "our" in Isaiah and Matthew. The Hebrew word for "our" in Isaiah 53:5 referring to our sins is also used in referring to our sicknesses in Isaiah 53:4. Then Matthew expresses himself in the Greek by saying, "Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." "Our infirmities" reads in the Greek "the infirmities of us." "Our sicknesses" reads "the sicknesses of us."

First Corinthians 15:3 says, "Christ died for our sins." "For our sins" reads in the Greek "for the sins of us." That same word for "our" is used in First Peter 2:24, "...who Himself bore our sins [the sins of us] in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness -- by whose stripes you were healed." First John 4:10 says, "...and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins [for the sins of us]."

Since Matthew says, "Himself [Christ] took our infirmities [the infirmities of us], and bore our sicknesses [the sickness of us]," and uses the very same word for "us" (hemon) that Paul, Peter, and John use when telling us that Christ died for our sins; we can only conclude that Christ took the infirmities and sicknesses of the very same persons for whose sins He died. The Greek is such an exact language that if it was referring to different people, it would have indicated so by some other word or phrase.

Trying to make Isaiah 53:4 and Matthew 8:17 refer only to the people of Christ's own day and not to us is as absurd and unscholarly as saying that Christ did not die for our sins and that salvation from sin is not available to us today. The Scriptures clearly teach that the bearing and removing of our sicknesses and pains is an integral part of Christ's redeeming work; in other words, that bodily healing is in the Atonement.

In our next article we will see that by the stripes of Jesus we were healed. Go to Articles Archive for more inspirational teachings on how to receive healing and live in divine health.