A significant principle that those whose material I studied agree on, and that has been in our Statement of Faith for decades, is that divine healing is in the atonement—that Jesus not only died for our sins so that we could be saved, but He also suffered so that we could receive physical healing.
The concept of healing fitting within the atonement is based on Isaiah 53:4–5 and Matthew 8:16–17:
Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him, and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.[1]
The word translated as infirmities (griefs in the KJV) is the Hebrew word choliy, meaning sickness.
Donald Dunkerley comments:
So what can we conclude about healing and the atonement?
When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to Him, and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah: “He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases” (Matthew 8:16–17).
Matthew was telling us that when Jesus healed the sick, He was setting them free from illness in direct fulfillment of Isaiah 53. That beloved Old Testament prophecy cannot be spiritualized to mean that Jesus would take on Himself only our spiritual problems. Matthew saw it fulfilled in the healing of physical illness. And when Isaiah said, “By His wounds we are healed,” physical healing was very much a part of what he had in mind.
Christ died to deliver us from sin and all its consequences, including disease and death. He died to provide holiness for us in this life and resurrection and glory in the life to come. He did not, in His earthly ministry, tell people to wait for heaven before they could be healed. He healed many of them right then.[2]
Our founder David also taught that healing was part of the atonement.
He didn’t have to suffer for our sins, He only had to shed His blood and die for our sins. But His body suffered stripes, wounds, beatings, pain and agony so that through this He could also atone for our sicknesses: “By His stripes we are healed!” (Isaiah 53:5)[3]
Lord, You suffered in Your body for our sicknesses and our illnesses as well as for our sins. You took our infirmities in Your own body, by Your stripes we are healed. You didn’t have to do all that, Lord, but You did that for our health, to show by Your vicarious suffering that You atone for our physical bodies as well as our spiritual souls.[4]
It’s Jesus’ body that heals them, which is what we teach. Why else was He beaten? Why else did He suffer stripes? Why else did He suffer physically without dying? If it was only His blood that was necessary to save us, why didn’t He just die and why did the Lord let Him go through all that suffering? “By His stripes we are healed.” “This is My body which is broken for you!”—Not to save us, but to heal us! (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Corinthians 11:24) It’s in the atonement, praise God! Hallelujah![5]
So as you partake of this [bread in communion], it’s a symbol of our faith that His body was broken for us and it is for our healing and we can claim it through the sacrifice of Christ. It’s a part of His atonement, the whole salvation for the whole man—body, soul and spirit.[6]
While the fact that healing is part of the atonement is generally believed by those who teach healing evangelism, there is a variance in the way it is interpreted. Some believe that while physical healing is contained within the atonement and “by His stripes we are healed,” this doesn’t mean all sickness will be healed immediately or even in this lifetime. Others believe that because healing is in the atonement, this means God will heal all diseases now.
David expressed that while we can and do get healed in this life, it’s only a touch of the full healing we will experience eternally.
This little ceremony [communion] today, Lord, symbolizes our message, that You’re the whole Christ for the whole man! You meet every need, physical and spiritual. You not only save souls, but You heal bodies too. And You’re going to redeem our body completely one of these days, and give us a whole brand new one. We have experienced a little touch of it in healing. Thy healing is a little touch of resurrection life, a little bit of Heaven, it’s a little bit of redemption, a little bit of redemption of the body.
We already have the salvation of our souls by faith, but Lord, even our spirits are not yet made perfect. If we receive Thee by faith, Thy Spirit by faith and Thy healing by faith, we already have the Kingdom of God within us. We have this all by faith. We have everything, a little bit of Heaven in our bodies and in our hearts as a result of taking this by faith here and now. And yet, Lord, it’s not going to be really completely fulfilled until we receive our new Heavenly bodies and “the spirits of just men made perfect” (Hebrews 12:23)[7]
In his book Healing Evangelism, Don Dunkerley writes about his wife, Eileen, who was told she would not have any more children, yet had a miracle pregnancy and delivered a baby girl, Joy Anne. After her birth, the doctors found a congenital defect from which only one in ten survive. His church and others were praying for and expecting healing. Don says:
But the Lord took Joy Anne to heaven when she was just a half-hour short of one week old. This was a great blow to many who had prayed in faith. One member of our congregation told me recently that her prayer life was disturbed for years because she was so angry at God that Joy Anne had died when virtually the whole city of Pensacola was praying for her healing. Eileen and I were established enough in our understanding of God’s sovereignty that her death did not shake our faith or disturb our prayer lives.
On my first Sunday back in the pulpit, I preached a sermon to reassure the congregation (and Eileen and me) that God had not failed to keep His promises. My text was Ephesians 1:5, and the sermon title, “His Kind Intention.” Healing is in the atonement, I told them, but heaven is in the atonement, too. When we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, we are instantly forgiven but we do not instantly go to heaven. Some of the blessings of the atonement we have in a partial sense now, and some we will have in a complete sense in the future, when we get to heaven. One day we shall all be perfectly healed of our diseases when we stand before the throne of the Lamb and sing His praises. It is God’s will ultimately that all His people be healed. Sometimes it is His will that we be healed instantly, but sometimes He has something better for us, because our illnesses and infirmities can be part of His wonderful work for our sanctification.
God did not heal Joy Anne in the way we were praying for, I said. He healed her by taking her to heaven.[8]
In his book When God Doesn’t Heal Now, Larry Keefauver tells a story of two situations, one in which a woman is hospitalized with an unknown condition which put her into a coma. The doctors had no idea what the problem was. Over the months, specialists were brought in from the top U.S. hospitals to attempt various procedures, but to no avail. The doctors told the husband his wife was brain dead. The husband believed God for his wife’s healing and continued to pray for her. He took her home and cared for her for months on end. In time, she began to regain consciousness, and after many more months she was completely healed.
He relates another account of a Christian couple who were serving the Lord for twenty years when the wife was diagnosed with cancer. After much prayer, over a period of time she improved, but not for long, and eventually she died of the cancer.
After sharing these two accounts, the author says:
Both couples walked by faith. In one instance, God healed physically in a miraculous way in time and space. In the other instance, God healed eternally.[9]
Keefauver makes the case that God always heals. Some He heals “in time”—that is, in this life, and others He heals “in eternity”—meaning that He heals them through delivering them from this life and taking them into eternity, where they are healed forever.
Healing evangelist Curry Blake teaches that healing is in the atonement, yet he takes a different stance regarding what results should be expected because of it. He makes the case that since healing is in the atonement, when someone is prayed for, their healing in this life is just as sure as salvation. He teaches that healing in this life is always God’s will. That if someone is prayed for and they aren’t healed, or at least the process of healing doesn’t start, then there is some failure on the part of the person praying. His premise is that because healing is in the atonement, it is always God’s will to heal, so healing in this lifetime is guaranteed. While the other healing evangelists believe that healing is in the atonement and is God’s will, they also believe that while many people will be healed in this lifetime, others will be healed in eternity.
I’m including Curry Blake’s point of view, though I must add that David’s teachings, as well as those of the other healing evangelists I’ve read, and the theologians I’ve studied, don’t agree with his point of view. Maria and I also differ from Curry Blake on this point. We don’t feel you can insist that everyone prayed for should be healed in this lifetime and that if they aren’t, there is something wrong.
Curry says:
All you need to know is that healing is in the atonement. It’s always God’s will.[10]
If God will never turn away a person who comes to Him for salvation and healing … and healing was paid for at the same time and to the same degree that sins were paid for, then the same rules apply to healing as apply to salvation.[11]
There’s only two things you need to know about healing: it is God’s will and it is in the atonement. If it is in the atonement, then it’s God’s will. Once you figure out it’s in the atonement and therefore is God’s will and therefore it’s always God’s will, then that means it can never not be God’s will. [12]
And let me tell you, if you think now that you know this, it’s not gonna hurt any more if somebody dies, let me tell you, it hurts more because now you know absolutely without a shadow of a doubt and with no excuses, they shouldn’t have died. I take away all your excuses, so now you know it was usually a failure somewhere in something that you didn’t do.[13]
You say that they had faith and the person who’s praying has faith, but if they didn’t get healed, then no. The Bible says if you pray the prayer of faith they will get healed. You’re saying that these people prayed the prayer of faith and they didn’t get healed. I can’t go with what you said. I have to go with what the Bible says.[14]
No spiritual-minded Christian ever died of sickness or disease. If a person dies of sickness or disease it is because they are carnally minded. Why? Because to be carnally minded is death. To be spiritually minded is life and peace.[15]
When discussing God’s will regarding healing, John and Sonja Decker quote Mark 1:40–42 to build their argument that it is God’s will to heal. They make reference to the two other times this story is told in the Gospels: in Matthew 8:2–3, and Luke 5:12–13.
A leper came to Him, imploring Him, and kneeling said to Him, “If You will, You can make me clean.” Moved with pity, He stretched out His hand and touched him and said to him, “I will; be clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.[16]
Their explanation is as follows:
The above Scriptures reveal God’s will concerning healing. His will is plainly revealed in these three passages. They all say the same thing: He is willing to heal us! He is willing not only to heal leprosy, He is willing to heal all manner of sickness and disease. Jesus has revealed His eternal compassion and mercy to heal the sick.
Most believe that God is able to do anything He wants. These passages proclaim that God is not only able, He is also willing to heal those who come to Him in faith. Therefore, we can preach with confidence that divine healing is now available through the mighty name of Jesus Christ.
Sick people (like this leper) who are serious and determined to get healed, demonstrate the kind of faith that will set the stage for healing.
The timing of when the healing will actually manifest is always left in the hands of the Lord. Even though He is willing to heal now, the full, physical manifestation may be instant or may take hours, days, or weeks.
Our confession remains: “God is willing to heal you now. Your healing starts today. We will continue to thank Him until the physical manifestation comes to pass.”
Only God knows those sicknesses that will end in death (see John 11:4).[17] This is why we need revelation knowledge from the Lord about how to pray in these kinds of situations. We contend for healing until the Lord reveals otherwise.[18]
Since John and Sonja Decker emphasize the use of revelation in healing, they seek for the guidance of the Holy Spirit regarding whom they minister to and for how long they should pray for physical healing for someone who is ill. This is why they say they fight for people’s healing until the Lord reveals otherwise. While they believe it’s God’s will to heal, they also understand that sometimes God chooses not to heal someone in time, but rather to take the person to Him and heal them in eternity.
When writing about God’s will in regard to healing, Don Dunkerley expresses it this way:
Sickness is no more God’s will than sin and unbelief are His will. God is always on the side of healing, just as He is always on the side of righteousness and faith. And ultimate healing for His people is always God's will. But there are mysteries about God’s plan. We know He allows and uses things of which He does not approve, and His plan for human history includes sin, unbelief, sickness, even death. God used Joseph’s slavery in Egypt to deliver many people, though He did not approve of Joseph’s being sold as a slave (Genesis 45:7–8; 50:20). God used the murder of Christ as the center of His plan of redemption, although that murder was wickedness (Acts 2:23).
The mystery here is that God does not approve of sickness any more than He approves of slavery and murder. But that does not mean He always heals. In fact, sometimes He actually uses sickness for our sanctification. So instead of praying, “If it be Thy will,” we should pray for healing “according to Your will.” Healing is His will; it’s just that His timing is not always immediate.[19]
Healing is part of the atonement. When Jesus was resurrected and then ascended into heaven, it wasn’t only His spirit that rose from the dead and ascended into heaven—His physical body did as well. When Jesus returns at the Rapture, we will meet Him in the air, and not just our spirits but our bodies too. We will have supernatural bodies like Jesus does, and those bodies will be fully healed for eternity. That’s the ultimate fulfillment of the atonement.
While there may be differences of opinion on whether healing in the atonement means everyone who is prayed for must be healed now, or that some will be healed now and others only in eternity, one thing we can count on is that because of Jesus’ suffering and death we will live forever, with resurrected bodies which will suffer no pain and will never be sick.
We can also know that healing is available to us and others while we live on earth, through Jesus’ atonement. We can bring that healing to many, if we have the faith to believe what Jesus said, and to step out and pray for those in need, thus bringing them the opportunity to receive healing at God’s hand.
(Next in this series: Process of Healing)
[1] Isaiah 53:4–5 NIV.
[2] HE 63.
[3] David Brandt Berg, "The Real Meaning of the Lord’s Supper," October 1978, 781:48.
[4] David Brandt Berg, "The Message of the Crucifixion," April 1984, 1768:90.
[5] David Brandt Berg, "What If? Part 3," June 1986, 2211-3:104.
[6] David Brandt Berg, "Sunday Communion and Prayer for Joseph," January 1982, 1315:4.
[7] David Brandt Berg, "I Am a Stranger Here," March 1982, 1533:4–5.
[8] HE 61.
[9] Larry Keefauver, When God Doesn’t Heal Now, chapter 2 (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000).
[10] DHT Video 9.
[11] DHT Video 7.
[12] CB Video 8.
[13] DHT Video 7.
[14] DHT Video 7.
[15] DHT Video 7.
[16] Mark 1:40–42 ESV.
[17] When Jesus heard it He said, “This illness does not lead to death. It is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4 ESV).
[18] DWJD 3.
[19] HE 69–70.
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