Glorified Healing

I want to start this discussion by taking a glimpse back at the creation of man.

“Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.” (Gen 1:26a NASB).

We often talk of being formed by the hands of God, and being made in the image of God, and that is all true. However, we need to understand who “God” is. God is the trinity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. So, when we say that God formed us, in His image, really it was the 3 persons of the Godhead that formed man from the dust of the ground. Notice that the scripture says, “Let Us make man”.

Next, I want to look at a verse in Revelation:

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is and who was and who is to come, the Almighty.” (Rev. 1:8 NASB).

In this verse, Christ is declaring that He is all tenses, Past, Present and Future. Not just that He exists in all tenses, but that He is all tenses! When He was forming Adam from the dust of the ground and breathing life into his lungs, He could already see the fall of man. He could already see the life He would have to live as a man. He could already see His death on the cross for our sins. He could already see the day each of us accepted Him as our savior. And He could already see the day when heaven and earth have passed away with a new heaven and earth taking their place. In that day, Satan will be forever imprisoned in the Lake of Fire, and all things evil will be removed.

But Christ wasn’t only seeing these things. Revelation tells us that He is, He was and He is to come. In other words, He is the past, the present, and the future. He experiences everything at once, because He is eternity. This is a concept that is hard to understand and hard to explain, but true nonetheless. Christian musician Michael Card wrote a song called The Final Word in which he describes the incarnation as “Eternity stepped into time”. WOW! What an awesome picture of what Christ stepped away from for us.

I say all of that in the form of an introduction of sorts.

I have MS. I pray continually that I will be healed completely. It has been 16 years, and I still have this disease. I do not lose hope because my hope is in the Lord. Some people will say that it just isn’t the God’s time to heal me yet. So, I’d like to address several things concerning “timing”:

1. I just took some time to explain how Christ is eternal. I explained how He sees and experiences all of time at once. So, if that is the case, how can we say that anything is in His timing? If Christ is eternal and He sees everything happening at the same time, then how does He have timing?
2. Along the same lines, we have an expectation that God is going to heal us the instant that we ask. Then, if we do not see the healing in our timing, we start questioning what went wrong:
   1. 1. Did I have enough faith?
      2. Did I pray enough?
      3. Was it in God’s timing?
      4. Is it God’s will to heal me?

   Questioning all of this is a waste of our time! What we are trying to do here is force an eternal God into our time constraints.

3. According to Isaiah 53:4-5, Christ bore our sicknesses on the cross, and it was by His stripes (wounds) we are healed! The timing can’t be any clearer, Christ paid for it already. It has been accomplished. Now, we just wait for the manifestation of that healing to occur. That manifestation will occur in 1 of 4 methods:
   1. 1. Miraculous Healing
      2. Medical Intervention
      3. Over Time
      4. In Glory

   Based on some of the comments I have received, I know that some people do not agree with me on this. I think the disagreement is generally on whether this is God’s plan. I doubt that anyone can argue that sometimes we see healing through medical means or simply because a sickness has run its course. Personally, I have experienced healing in 3 of the 4 methods listed above. Hopefully, you can guess which one I have not!

It is to be understood that our earthly bodies are going to wear out. It should be understood that we are going to die someday:

“Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day.” (2 Cor. 4:16 NASB).

“And just as it is appointed for people to die once—and after this, judgment” (Heb. 9:27 HCSB).

“²⁰But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. ²¹For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. ²²For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor. 15:20-22 ESV).

We must realize that the Holy Spirit inspired each of these scriptures to be written. Even though The Apostle Paul was instrumental in healing many, he was still led to write that our bodies are decaying. It was well understood by this mighty man of God that as we get older, things are going to begin to fail.

Several years ago, I wrote a blog called “Threefold Salvation”. In it, I go into great detail to explain how we:

1. Were saved from our sins (Penalty)
2. Are currently being saved from our sins (Power)
3. Will be saved from our sins (Presence)

I believe that Healing works the same way:

1. We were healed from our diseases (Penalty)
2. Are currently being healed from our diseases (Power)
3. Will be healed from our diseases (Presence)

When Christ died on the cross, He took the penalty of sin, which included sickness. This is why the scripture tells us that He bore our sickness (see Isaiah 53:4 and Matthew 8:17). One day, when our bodies are in a glorified state, we will be free from the presence of all sickness (See 1 Cor. 15:42-53). Until that day, we are still in the presence of sickness, therefore, sometimes we find ourselves entangled under the power of sickness.

As someone who has a long-term illness, I pray daily for healing. I know that my healing was accomplished through the work on the cross. I understand that as a believer, it is a benefit of mine to be healed of all my diseases:

“Who pardons all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases;” (Ps. 103:3 NASB)

The method of the healing is the only thing not specifically spelled out in scripture. For me, there is no current medical cure, and MS does not go away over time. So, either I will be healed by a miracle, or I will be healed in glory.