Here's a part of Isaiah's great
prophecy, verse 4, Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried
our sorrows. Now, in Matthew chapter 8, verse
5 through verse 17, and when Jesus was entered into Capernaum,
there came unto him a centurion beseeching him and saying, Lord,
my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented. Jesus said unto him, I will come
and heal him. The centurion answered and said,
Lord, I am not worthy that thou should come under my roof, but
speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man
under authority, having soldiers under me, and I say to this man,
Go, and he goes, and come, and he cometh, and to my servant
do this, and he does it. When Jesus heard, he marveled
and he said to them that followed, verily, I have not found so great
faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you that many
shall come from the east and the west. and shall sit down
with Abraham and with Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. But the children of the kingdom
shall be cast out into outer darkness. There shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth. Jesus said unto the centurion,
Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto
you. And his servant was healed in
the same hour. When Jesus saw, and when Jesus
was come into Peter's house, He saw his wife's mother laid,
and sick of a fever, and he touched her hand, and the fever left
her, and she arose and ministered unto them. When the evening was
come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils,
and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that
were sick." Now watch verse 17. that it might be fulfilled which
was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, himself took our infirmities
and bare our sicknesses." Now, that's our text today and we
will be looking at it. Let me do some explaining, however,
in the beginning. This reference here in verse
17, as we saw, is a part, only a tiny part, of that greatest
of all prophecy found in Isaiah chapter 53. It is one of the
clearest, it is one of the strongest of all of the Old Testament messianic
passages that describe the coming and the work Messiah. And Matthew, as we see here,
uses only a small part of that rather lengthy prophecy and is
quoted in the last time of Matthew 8 verse 17 as we read from Isaiah
53 and verse 4 and the first part, surely he has borne our
griefs and carried our sorrows. And by the way, the Apostle Peter
also cites briefly a part of Isaiah chapter 53. In 1 Peter
chapter 2 and verse 24, he quotes that part that says, by his stripes
we are healed. That's in verse 5 of Isaiah chapter
53. Now, I've chosen this passage
from the Gospel of Matthew because of the way that Matthew seems
to apply it. That is, the application that
Matthew is making of what is said in Isaiah, while the Apostle
Peter seems to make an altogether different application. It seems
to refer to bodily affliction here rather than the sin of the
soul of the mind and of the heart. It seems that Matthew is applying
it to the health of the body rather than unto salvation. That Matthew quotes it to support
temporal healing rather than eternal salvation in this one
particular reference that he makes here. And I think this
accounts for the title of our study or our message today, is
Healing in the Atonement. Meaning, did Christ die as much
for the illnesses and the sicknesses of the body as He did to put
away sin and save the soul? So therefore, can or should those
that are saved be able also to claim their healing and the health
in their flesh. We raise the question because
there are several or many today who are teaching and have taught
in the past that healing is in the atonement. that Christ died
for sicknesses and for diseases as well and as much as he died
for the sin of the soul. And at first sight we can see
how they might make use of these verses that we've read as proof
texts for their doctrine, especially here in Matthew 8, verse 16 and
verse 17, "...who himself carried our sorrows and there our sicknesses."
And 1 Peter 2 and verse 24, "...by his stripes our we heal, that if one wanted to
set forth the teaching that bodily diseases are also covered by
the death and atonement of the Lord, then these texts that we've
read might seem adequate to support such a teaching, at least in
their mind's eye without sounding out some of the depth of the
passages. Now, perhaps you or perhaps someone
else might ask, who are they that teach such a thing as this,
that healing is in the atonement? Maybe you're like some in the
Scripture. We've not heard this. We have
not heard about this or heard it taught. Well, this is something
that is better suited unto Pentecostalism. It is something that you might
expect to find in the deeper life movement. to that legion
of people who preach the, quote, name it and claim it, unquote,
doctrine of our day, that preach in some degree a second work
of the grace of God, that there is beyond salvation of the soul
blessings to be sought from God in addition to initial conversion
and salvation. such as the baptism of the Holy
Spirit or being filled with the Spirit, speaking in unknown tongues
as an evidence of a second work of grace. And then there are
those even teaching the attaining of wealth and of bodily healing
by and through Christ and what He has done on the cross. Now,
please, for a few minutes, give me leave to put this in its historical
perspective and that we might develop a thought which is, to
me, it seems that there has been a shift in these movements that
I just mentioned over the last 25 to 50 years or something like
that. And I'm talking about from the
early days of Oral Roberts and J. Charles Jessop to the present
day crop of snake oil salesmen who are in our midst. In earlier days, I don't know
if you remember, but there was much preaching on the subject
of divine healing. Preachers on the radio were heralding
it out. They were preaching the doctrine
of divine healing. And I remember so well as a younger
person, people being exhorted by the radio preacher to put
their hand on the radio as, quote, a point of contact, unquote. They were invited to send off
prayer cloths and anointed cloths and healing oil and anointing
oil. And they were invited to send
a prove-me offering, a seed faith offering. In that day, more of
the emphasis seemed to be upon the healing of the sick, some
teaching even, that it was a lack of faith on the part of any that
resorted to doctors and to medicine to cure their bodily infirmity. And I remember one who called
himself, quote, God's man of faith and power. who would declare
a person healed. He would exhort them to throw
away their crutches and cease taking their medicine only to
see them become very, very ill in a short while and in some
cases even die after God's man of faith and power had declared
them healed in the name of Jesus. Many of their cures and miracles,
as they love to call them, prove to be nothing but deception and
fraud and hoaxes. I have a little book Very interesting. A man followed them around for
a while, and then he wrote a book. And he told a story about one
great healing evangelist who would pick up a hitchhiker on
the road on his way to his next great meeting and city, and he
would pay that man that night to be in the service and to come
forward and be healed as proof of the power of God. We've heard
stories of how These men use earpieces, and the man in line
is telling him in the earpiece what's wrong with a person coming
through the line. And so when a person gets there,
he says, oh yeah, you've got pain down in your lower back. Brother, you've got a serious
back injury. I discerned that by the Spirit. Or he would say, the Holy Spirit
has showed me that there is a person here tonight with high blood
pressure. Now what congregation could you
gather that didn't have somebody that had high blood pressure?
And he said, in the name of Jesus, you're healed. Quit taking your
medicine and believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. All of that we
heard in days gone by. But now the shift seems to have
been made primarily or principally to the prosperity doctrine. Now the emphasis in our day is
God wants to bless you financially. God wants you to do well. God wants you to prosper. He
don't want you to drive an old beat-up car or live in an old
house. He wants you to have much and
He wants you to have the finest of this world's good in order
that you might live well passing through this world. Turns out,
the one who has prospered is the preacher who has convinced
little old ladies and little old men to, quote, remember this
ministry in your will, unquote. while that creature lives in
a mansion, drives a high-powered sports car, owns a condo in the
mountains, a ranch, wears tailor-made suits that cost a thousand dollars
upon his back, while urging the faithful to give until it hurts. Now, with that as a little perspective
and background, let's go back to Matthew chapter 8 and the
application that he makes here of that part of Isaiah chapter
53, and applied by Matthew, and applied by Matthew when? applied by Matthew when the Lord
healed many different kinds of sicknesses and afflictions. And Matthew saying plain out,
this was a fulfillment of the words of the prophet Isaiah. He took our infirmities and He
bare our sicknesses. Now there is no question, there
is no doubt none at all, that the Lord Jesus Christ, during
his ministry among men, did many mighty works, miracles, wonders,
and such like, while tabernacling in the flesh as the God-man upon
the earth. including healing many, many
different kinds of sicknesses, of disease, of bodily infirmity,
of deformed limbs and deformed bodies, both by touching some
and simply by speaking the word in other cases. And those healings
included curing blindness and dumbness and blood diseases. And on and on we might go. And in Matthew chapter 8, the
evangelist records three examples in this chapter of the Lord healing
a person of a bodily ailment. We'll take a quick look at each
one of them, working our way then back unto our text. First of all, we didn't read
it, but back in verses 2 through verse 4, you have the cleansing
of a leper. Now, this leper came and he cast
himself down before the Lord with great humility and great
anxiety, doing something that was not common for a leper in
that time and in that society, and that was to mix and mingle
among other people. And he came and he said to the
Lord Jesus, the most humbling words to me you can find in the
New Testament, if you will, If you are willing, if it please
you, if you are so inclined, you can cleanse me. Notice, not heal me, but cleanse
me. You, if you are willing, can
cleanse me. Now, as you know, leprosy was
a most dreaded disease from ancient times, almost always fatal, when
it invaded the body, incurable by any then known medicines and
doctor. And Luke, the beloved physician,
according to Colossians chapter 2 and verse 14 that calls him
that, in his account, Dr. Luke, in Luke chapter 5, And
verse 12 describes this man this way, full of leprosy. The doctor's eye saw it as full
of leprosy, covered over with it, in advanced stages, as we
might say. And we read, the Lord was willing
to heal the leper, and he showed again his power over leprosy. And notice, he even touched the
miserable and filthy, unclean, leprous man, and immediately
he was cleansed of his leprosy. But the Lord was not infected
at all by having touched a man who was leprous. Now, the point
being, leprosy in the Old Testament, particularly in the book of Leviticus,
is a type of sin treated as uncleanness under the law rather than as
a sickness or as a disease. Our Lord cleansed a leper. He did that several times in
his ministry, one occasion, ten at the same time. But there's
a second one. This one is in verses 5 through
verse 13. It is an account of the Lord
healing the servant of an Italian centurion who, in verse 6, was
sick of the palsy and grievously tormented. And when our Lord
heard he said, I will go and heal the man. We see another
great act of humility in the eighth verse there, the centurion
disclaiming any right or any worthiness whatsoever for the
Lord to even set foot in his house or under his roof. And
he bid our blessed Lord, if he would but speak the word, he
was convinced that his servant would be well and whole. And
this humility pleased the Lord. He sent the man on the way with
assurance. And when the man got home, he
found that his servant had been healed at exactly the same time
our Lord had said so. Now, one more point. The leper
was probably a Jew, but this man was the servant of a Gentile,
a centurion, and a military officer. Thirdly, we have another one,
we read it in verse 14 and 15. That was when the Lord healed
the mother-in-law of the apostle Peter of a fever that had lain
her incapacitated upon the bed, stricken with a fever. And uh-oh,
there is a problem here. If Peter was the first pope,
he had a wife, he was a married man, he had a mother-in-law that
was sick. But the Lord touched her hand,
the fever left her, she got up and cooked dinner and ministered
unto the guests that were in her house. Now, from these three
healings we see, number one, the Lord cleanses progressed
leprosy, leprosy in advanced stages, as easily as He healed
a fever. Number two, He does it by a touch,
by a word of command, or He wills it to be so, and it is. Number three, He does it whether
He is present with the sick one or whether He is afar, and at
some distance speaking the word, willing it, and it is so. Now, in addition to these three
cases that we have looked at individually, we consider again
Matthew 8 and verse 16. When the even was come, they
brought unto him many that were possessed with devils. He cast
out the spirits with his word and healed all that were sick. Exorcism occurred and bodily
healing. Several times in our Lord's ministry
in the gospel and for some reason in Matthew We read of this sort
of mass healing done by the Lord, as in Matthew 4 and verse 24
again, where we read, diverse diseases, torments, demon-possessed,
lunatics, we would say moonstruck in our day, and palsy, and all
those things, and the Scripture said, and our Lord heal them. But now it's time to come to
the application that Matthew makes of that great prophecy
of the scripture. The Jews of old were convinced
that Isaiah chapter 53 was a passage that was a messianic text. of all they believed Messiah
was described here, only later they changed their interpretation
when they rejected Christ and turned him away as being the
Messiah. But for us, as well as for them,
as Gil states, the difficulty in the way that Matthew applies
the prophecy. Or as Gil wrote, Isaiah speaks
in that part not of actions and miracles, but of suffering and
death, not of bearing diseases of the body, but of bearing sin. in the rest of the remainder
of the prophecy, as saying, Isaiah, the Lord has laid upon him the
iniquity of us all. And Peter saying in 1 Peter 2
and 24, Christ bearing our sins in his own body on the tree by
whose stripes we are healed. How then does the text confirm
Matthew's point? How is it that this text is good
for confirming the point that Matthew had just recorded? And how does what he declared
about Christ's extensive healing and cures fulfill a part of Isaiah's
prophecy? Now, let's take a look at the
part of the prophecy found in Isaiah 53 and verse 4. Verse
3 describes the suffering servant of the Lord, a man of sorrow
and acquainted with grief. And as a result, even the Jews,
who lately had been converted, did at first hide their faces
from him and did esteem him not at his first appearance, and
the whole body of the Jews still do, until this day. But verse
4 of Isaiah 53, surely He has borne our grief and carried our
sorrow. Yet we, that is the Jew, did
take this grief and this sorrow of the Lord to be divinely inflicted
upon Him personally and upon His own account. Now, hear this
point well. It is pertinent unto our study
that Isaiah calls God's servant a Christ God's servant in Isaiah
52 and verse 13, and my righteous servant in Isaiah 53 and verse
11. But he did not wait until he
faced the cross and was upon it to become a man of sorrow
and acquainted with grief. Our Lord did not wait till then
to become a man of sorrow and acquainted with grief, though
the cross was in the eye of our Lord all of the time since His
creation and His ministry, just as it was not when He was on
the cross only that there was no beauty in him that we should
desire him, or that he was despised and rejected of men. Rather,
these things were factors from his first appearance, and these
things were factored in the Jews rejecting and killing the Prince
of Light. But by the same token, what Matthew
says happened that fulfilled that in Isaiah chapter 53, did
not wait until Christ was hanged or nailed upon the cross in order
to be fulfilled. John Brown wrote in regard to
Matthew's reference to Isaiah's words. And I'm quoting, what
Isaiah says about bearing our grief and carrying our sorrow
was fulfilled in what Christ did on the occasion referred
to. Get that point. Matthew applies
it to what our Lord did on the occasion referred to, healing
many, many that came unto Him, not later only when He was upon
the cross. John Brown also wrote on this,
and I found some help with this passage from him, quote, this
is what his words mean, all that his words mean in Matthew chapter
8 and verse 17, unquote. And if we read it again from
that standpoint with this view in our mind, I think that it
will become crystal clear. So let's do so. Let's read Matthew
8, 16 and 17 again. And when the even was come, they
brought unto him many that were possessed with devils, and he
cast out the spirits by his word, healed all that were sick, that
it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet,
saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. Now, not to divert our attention
or break our train of thought, but let's just consider a passage
found in John's Gospel chapter 12 and verse 37 through 38. It said, Though he had done so
many miracles before them, yet they believed not upon him. Let's hear it again. though he
had done so many miracles before them, yet they believed not upon
him. And John adds this, that the
saying of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled which he spoke
in Isaiah 53 and verse 1, Lord who hath believed our report,
and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed. This occurred,
this was fulfilled during the public ministry of our Lord. So their unbelief even in the
face of many of his miracles, signs, and wonders, fulfilled
the saying of Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet. Even so, the
evangelist slash Author Matthew interprets for us a part of Isaiah
chapter 53, saying it was fulfilled when the Lord healed so many. What was said in Isaiah, He bore
our grief, He carried our sorrow. Matthew applies that to the Lord
healing and removing the bodily diseases and afflictions of the
Jew. We just stop here to reflect
and to exclaim, how many of them did He heal? My, how many were
blessed by our Lord. that in addition to the individual
healing, the casting out of demons, the Lord did at times heal many
in one and the same place and at the same time. Again, Matthew
4, 23 and 24, He did that. Matthew 8 and 16 that we read,
He healed all that were sick that came unto Him on that evening,
all in that place, all that came, all that made supplication unto
Him. Matthew 14 and 14, Jesus went
forth, saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion
toward them, and He healed their sick. That's Matthew 14 and verse
14. Luke 9 and verse 11. He healed all them that had need
of healing is how Luke describes it. Now, have we ever stopped
to consider, just stopped and meditated and considered and
cogitated upon how many our Lord healed during His ministry? the sheer number of healing and
of ailments of every and of all kind. And then again, have we
ever stopped, really considered that the majority of them were
Jews? That the majority of those that
our Lord met, that He healed during His ministry, were Jews? Not all of them. but the greater
majority of them were. And this fact is significant
in dealing with this subject and with the text that we have
read this morning. Now, we notice again the way
the prophet and the apostle word this thing that Isaiah has said
in behalf of those penitent ones who at first rejected the Lord
and did not believe on Him and then later were converted, admitting
their former blindness. Some have called this in Isaiah
53 a penitential confession of Jews. Look what it said, Surely
He has borne our grief and carried our sorrow. Now I'd like to put
emphasis upon two words that are there, the word born and
the word carry. And Matthew putting it this way,
himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses. And
again, two words are underlined or implicit, the word took and
the word bore. Now again, from the same text,
hear what he bore and he took and he carried. our griefs, our
sorrows, our infirmities, our sicknesses. I am confessing that
I lean heavily upon the commentary of John Brown on Isaiah 53, which
was published under the title, The Suffering and the Glory of
Messiah. Now we generally think of Isaiah
chapter 53 as only presenting the Lord as a vicarious sufferer
for the sins of his people. We're certainly not disappointed
there, for there we see the Lord as the great sin bearer. We see the servant of the Lord
as the great bearer of our sin. Jehovah made to light upon him
the iniquity of us all. He's the one that Jehovah bruised. He's the one Jehovah made his
soul to be an offering for sin. He's the one that justified many,
for he hath borne their iniquity. But anyway, John Brown wrote
the word griefs in Isaiah 53, and verse 4, can and does signify
bodily diseases, bodily maladies, one kind or another. Strong's
Concordat lists the meaning of the word as a malady, an anxiety,
a calamity, a disease, a sickness. The same word is in the third
verse of Isaiah chapter 53, and the same word is in Jeremiah
chapter 6 and verse 7. Now the word sorrows in Isaiah
chapter 53 and verse 4 carries, say those in the know, the meaning
of mental distresses. Mental distresses such as anguish
and of grief and of sorrow that overtake us at one time or another. The word born in Isaiah chapter
53 and verse 4 means, like Samson did, to lift up and to carry
it away. And the word carried means to
lift up and to take it away, to bear it as a burden, thus
lifting it off of another. Thus, when Matthew tells the
multitude of the healings done by the Lord, he takes the occasion
to note how this fulfilled that small portion of the prophecy
of Isaiah. And for emphasis only, I repeat,
he did not wait until the cross to lift up, to bear, to carry
away the sicknesses and the diseases and the mental anguishes of his
countrymen. This he did all during his ministry,
time and time again. He lifted up and he took away
the sickness and the diseases and the sorrows and the anxiety
which he encountered in various persons in various places. As Thomas Goodwin wrote, Though
he touched the sick and the afflicted, and even the leper, yet he never
was infected with any. He cast out many demons, yet
never could an unclean spirit enter into him. And when he would,
he healed every manner of disease, extending a sympathy and a pity
to such poor wretches and lifting up their burdens off of them
in connection to the Lord's great, great work on the bodies of people. When he came to the grave, of
Lazarus. We read in John 11 and verse
38, he groaned within himself as he stood before the grave
of one that he loved. Mark 5 and verse 30, when the
woman with the issue of blood touched his clothes, his garment,
and immediately she was healed. And Jesus the Lord felt virtue
Power go out of him, Luke 6, 17 through 19. Now, Jesus was
in a certain place. Many came. to have their diseases
and their unclean spirits cured, and they were healed. And in verse 19, And the whole
multitude sought to touch him, for there went virtue out of
him, and healed them all, which the Scripture says very clearly. Now, the word virtue is akin
to the word power. But then let's go back to the
question. Is healing in the atonement? Did Jesus die that we might be
healed of our sicknesses? That those that are saved by
His death also have an access to bodily healing? What if we
were to say, well, yes and no? What if we were to answer it
at first in that way? Well, perfect health will not
come in this life. None will have perfect health
in this life, but will in the life to come by virtue of what
Christ has done. But in the life to come, we will
all get sick. And at some time, it will be
serious, we will not always recover. Let's ask again, has Jesus died
that we might live in sinless perfection? And what if we again
answer yes and no? We will not obtain sinless perfection
in this life, but in the world to come when we are glorified. For now, indwelling sin causes
us to moan like the Apostle Paul, O wretched man that I am. And I'd like to raise the question,
is prosperity in the atonement? Did Jesus die to make his people
to prosper? Is being poor a reproach upon
a Christian? Is it living below one's Christian
privilege? Did he become an object of abject
poverty on the cross that we might have prosperity? Oh, friend, we have riches to
come, riches to come. But now let us not miss a vital
connection that is far too often overlooked are denied even by
many that name the name Christian. And that point is that all sickness
and all diseases which can invade the body come on an account of
sin. As soon as sin entered into the
world by one man, There came with it sin, sorrow, sickness,
bodily weaknesses, growing old, and even physical death. Had there been no sin, there
had been none of these bodily infirmities. We live in what
Paul called in Philippians 3.21 a vile body. Some render it a
lowly body or a corrupt body, even though the body is a marvel
of the design of God in its creation and not attributed at all to
the process of evolution. But caution, we are not able
to say when personal sin is the cause of a particular illness
or sickness in us or in our brother. Now before time is up very quickly,
let's consider the greatest periods of miracles that are recorded
in the scripture and what they will tell us. that miracles were
not constant, they were not continual and always present. They were
numerous in one age but not in another. Generally, they came
in clusters. The miracles in the scripture,
and I'm up against time on the tape, let me give them very quickly. One, there was the time of Moses,
the deliverance from Egypt, the journey in the wilderness. Two,
there was the time of Elijah and Elisha the prophet, when
many great works were done by them. Third, there was the time
of the earthly ministry of our Lord. And number four, the time
of the apostolic era. We notice something about these
miracles. Many were judgments wrought in
and using nature. Many were upon inanimate objects. True, some of them blessed the
people, healing, even raising the dead by the Old Testament
prophet. But while the Lord showed His
power over nature on occasion, the greater majority of our Lord's
miracles, signs, and wonders were directed upon the people. He indeed carried their sorrow
and bore their sicknesses. When were such miracles needed? Only in the time of a new work
or a new revelation, not at other times. They were needed to confirm
Christ as the Messiah, the apostles as the servants of the Lord.
And because that revelation is introduced and firmly in place,
there is no need now for the confirmation of it. And who would
introduce it is guilty of unbelief. Well, I've crowded A lot into
a short time, but thank you for your consideration. Maybe we
can meditate on it in time that is to come.