30. Juli 2007 2
Healing V – the Gospel I – Redemption

The core questions are: Is healing for anyone who asks for it and does God want to heal everyone or not? My thesis is that it`s not debatable if God wants to heal but that we have to ask how we can receive this healing. Everything Jesus died for belongs to us, it is our inheritance. Anything else we are not entitled to and it is questionable whether we are able to receive it at all. In my opinion God`s hands are virtually tied outside the boundaries of the Gospel and because of that fact, death was God`s all-round solution for the problems of broken and dying mankind. I cannot think of one problem that God racks his brain over and says: “Had I thought of this before, I would have incorporated it into the sacrifice of Jesus.” This thesis leaves us with a responsibility: I don`t want Jesus` death to have been in vain. I want to own every area he bled for and everything he purchased for me shall be mine.
The term “Gospel” doesn`t mean much to Christians in Germany today. For most of us it is the essence of the Good News – that we will go to heaven one day. But that is only part of the picture. Paul longed to declare the Gospel to the Christians in Rome (Romans 1, 15). That tells us that there must be something in the Gospel even for Christians that have already been saved from hell. I am sure that even today the apostle would love to declare the gospel to most churches, because it is so widely unknown in our world. If you limit the Good News to the forgiveness of sin, you rob yourself of some of the most important things that God wants to give to you. The Gospel is the message of an all-encompassing kingdom and redemption.
In Greek Jesus is called the “soter”, the savior. The verb “sozo” is known at least to those familiar with the healing scene. It means “healing in the most comprehensive sense of the word. In his book “Power Healing” John Wimber quotes John Wilkinson as follows page 38):
It is clear that its (sozo`s) wide application in the Gospels indicates that the Christian concept of healing and the Christian concept of salvation overlap to a degree which varies in different situations, but are never completely separable. Healing of the body is never purely physical, and the salvation of the soul is never purely spiritual, but both are combined in the total deliverance of the whole man, a deliverance which is foreshadowed and illustrated in the healing miracles of Jesus in the Gospels.
The basic meaning of sozo is salvation. More detailed, there is salvation from 1.sin and death and 2.sickness, it is 3.the deliverance, 4. redemption and help 5.the preservation of the inner man (see Kittel`s theological dictionary). The last aspect does not appear in the New Testament though.
I counted how many times these aspects appear in the New Testament (I spare you the details of each verse):
1. Salvation from sin and death – 62 times
2 .and 3. Healing in every possible meaning, including deliverance from demons – 26 times
4. salvation from danger (including saving of one`s life) – 27 times
So Jesus has worked complete redemption for us. In other words: Redemption is an all-inclusive package and it is impermissible to accept this sacrifice for salvation but to reject it for healing. Forgiveness of sin, guilt and healing are mentioned as one way too often to justify this rejection. This Jesus who saves you is the same Jesus who heals you. We have to look at the whole person – holistic thinking is becoming rather popular again anyhow. Salvation concerns the whole person – his body, soul and spirit – and it is not enough to accept the salvation of one`s spirit only by becoming born again. God`s love is directed at the whole person as God has created him and we have no right to remove any part of it, therefore hurting the whole.
Healing is the bread for the children
In Mark 7, 25-30, Jesus heals a woman`s child from demonic bondage (this story can also be found in Matthew 15, 22-26):
Instead, at once a woman whose little daughter was under the control of an unclean spirit, heard about Him, and came and flung herself down at His feet. Now the woman was a Greek, a Syrophoenician, by race. And she kept begging Him to drive the demon out of her little daughter. And he said to her, First let the children be fed, for it is not proper to take the children`s bread and throw it to the dogs. But she answered Him, Yes, Lord; yet even the small pups under the table eat the children`s scraps of food. And He said to her, Because of this saying you may go your way; the demon has gone out of your daughter. And she went home, and found the child thrown on the couch, and the demon departed.
Matthew sheds light on why Jesus refused to heal the child at first. In verse 24 he responds to the question of his disciples:”I was only sent to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” He healed the daughter in anticipation of a fact that did not unfold completely until the time of the book of Acts: Salvation begins with the Jews but it is not limited to them. It goes forth to the nations and is available to everybody. Jesus` ministry was focused at the Jews still, but when the Holy Spirit came, it was about the new Israel – Hallelujah!
My point is that healing is called the bread for the children. Healing is God`s provision for his children. It is something that is due to us, our daily bread. This leads us back to the Lord`s prayer: “Give us today our daily bread” is a request for God`s provision in general, not just for our food. Healing is part of that provision.
I make a cut here, so this post won`t be too long, but later I will come back to why healing is part of the Gospel.
[translated by Marion, thank you! If you would like to translate one text or another, please drop me a line.]
2 Pingbacks
-
[...] Hier ist ein weiterer Beitrag, in dem diese Stelle behandelt wird. Tags: Heilung, Markus, Markus 7, Wunder [...]
-
[...] [Originalpost] [...]