Healing Now?

Healing Now?

"It says in 1 Peter 2:24, by his stripes we were healed. You aren’t waiting on God to heal you, God has already healed you. He’s already provided the power, it’s already done, it’s already released. It’s not a matter of whether God will heal you, but you have to reach out and receive, and this is what it took me 20 years to learn."
                                                                                                                    Andrew Wommack 

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/hb4kYFzKNxw


1 Peter 2:24, which the Apostle Peter quotes from Isaiah 53, is a common prooftext for false, word of faith teachers such as Andrew Wommack who attempt to show that Jesus, by dying on the cross has already healed you. You just need to do something, such as having enough faith, in order to appropriate it to your body. 

This is called “over-realised eschatology.” It is the idea that Jesus' Atonement, described in Isaiah 53 and other places in the Bible, provided healing, which is available to us now; we just need to claim it. The Atonement of Jesus did, in fact, provide us with a new body (Phil 3:20-21, 1 Cor 15:51-53), which we will have perfectly in heaven with the Lord, but nowhere does the Bible teach that we can access this now by just “having enough faith.” 


This is a serious twisting and gross misuse of these two texts. A cursory glance (which is all Wommack and others do) may lend credence to this idea; however, a closer, deeper, and contextual look will clearly show this to be a false teaching from these passages. 

In 1 Peter 2:24, the Apostle Peter speaks to believers and exhorts them to submit to authority. He uses the example of Jesus, who suffered for us. The purpose of his death was that “he himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (verse 24). There is nothing at all about physical healing; this isn’t even on Peter's radar. 
                                                                                                             
The immediate context, again, is not related to physical healing either. The rest of verse 24 and 25 reads, “By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.” This is clearly referring to salvation. The healing that his wounds on the cross paid for are our sins. The punishment that Christ took upon himself made us spiritually and morally whole. Nothing here about physical healing. 

To wrap this up and prove the point, let's look briefly at the text from which Peter draws this statement. Isaiah 53:5 states, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.” Transgressions, iniquities, our peace. These are words about our salvation and restoration to God. Nothing here about our physical healing.

Once again, even a cursory glance at the context of Isaiah 53:5 makes it evident that this verse speaks of the Messiah suffering for our spiritual healing, not our physical healing. Using this verse to try to prove that Jesus died to heal us, and now that he has done that, all we need to do is claim it, is spiritually damaging to people who are suffering from illnesses and are being told this lie. 
The truth is that God is the God who heals. But he heals when he wants and on his timetable, not on ours. We are told in James to pray for those who are sick (James 5:14-15). God, in his providence, can heal. Still, if he doesn't, then we trust in him and, like Paul, we rest in his sovereignty, knowing that even if he doesn’t take away our "thorn in the flesh," we can understand that his power is made perfect in our weakness, to sustain us and conform us through any suffering. (2 Cor 12:9)

Dear Christian, do not get caught up in the deception that God, through the atonement of Jesus, has healed you already and you just need to claim it. It will lead to disappointment, bitterness, or worse. Trust in the God who loves and cares for you, if he chooses to heal you, praise God! But even if his answer is no, trust him in your suffering as this will lead to contentment, trust and sanctification. 

Soli Deo Gloria 

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