healing

Deadly, neither cute nor attractive

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If there is a glimmer of unkindness in asking a miracle worker to be the beneficiary of his miracles then there should be no irrationality to demolish the idea that two people agreeing guarantees divine answers.  I know that “Physician, heal yourself” was pitched against Yeshua of Nazareth by people who were amazed that a hometown individual was a mover of unprecedented events.  We cannot miss the fact that the only success we can track of miracle workers are the prosperity (money making) schemes.  There is no evidence that Yeshua was ever leprous, epileptic, paralytic, deaf, mute, or blind, and if he was would we be justified in imagining him waving his divine wand to be seen as a perfectly fit and disease-free specimen, when his life mission was to submit to death?  People have every right to ask us to be examples of what we are pushing, and at the point our selling routine is neither cute nor attractive. When the Lord’s Supper is not a memorial of the Lord primary gift then perhaps someone thinks they  can improve or update an apostolic foundation.  The idea comes from a unique place of misinformation, is deadly, not at all cute or attractive.

And He said to them, “No doubt you will quote this proverb to Me, ‘Physician, heal yourself! Whatever we heard was done at Capernaum, do here in your hometown as well.’”

Luke 4:23, NASB

More papal scams than Christian foundations

I like to think of the things that Christ offers as necessarily fundamental or foundational, and if they were not, then they will be merely fly-by-night operations, a stack of temporary things.  So let us recall that the papacy claims that the bread and wine of the Communion Sacrament are a sacrifice, and stack that beside the Protestant practice of keeping the bread and wine as symbols of the Lord’s death. 

Body given, not broken, is the means of life

The breaking of the bread for distribution in the covenant meal has nothing to do with Christ’s atoning act, for in laying down his life there was a deliberate avoidance of breaking even a single bone of his body (John 19:36, Exo. 12:46, Psa. 34:20).  Attaching the flogging our Lord endured to the most profound act of God is akin to the sons of Israel attaching the entry into Canaan to their compliance with the Sinai Covenant.

And when He had taken some bread and given thanks, He broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me.”

Luke 22:19, NASB

His body, given to facilitate life for the world, is the same as his flesh.

“I am the living bread that came down out of heaven; if anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever; and the bread also which I will give for the life of the world is My flesh.”

John 6:51, NASB

Why is no one or his sister saying at the Communion Table”Eat this bread and get eternal life”? 

Blood poured is life

And in the same way He took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup which is poured out for you is the new covenant in My blood.

Luke 22:20, NASB

It should be clear that the covenant has everything to do with death.  What else are “body given” and “blood poured out” in the scheme of atonement?  So what is reason for bringing the flogging the Lord endured into the covenant?  Cheap distraction thrill seeking.

The Eucharist is neither special presence nor miracle doorway

The celebration of the Lord’s death is not an advancement on the permanent presence of the Holy Spirit, and it is things like this that people are willing to ignore so they can chase a miracle of healing.  There is no surprise that the only memorial of the eternal mercy seat in action is watered down into a temporary relief.  Healing of even a heart or brain does not alter the need for a new body at the last day.  You have to make Christ supremely insensitive to have sick people come to him for headaches on Saturday, toothaches on Sunday, seasonal allergies on Monday, worn out knees on Tuesday, high blood pressure on Wednesday, cancer on Thursday, sickle cell on Friday, and not give anyone a clean bill of health.  Saving is permanent and healing is not, even though the same verb (sozo, σώζω) covers both actions.

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until He comes. (1 Corinthians 11:26, NASB)

Healing through flogging is a demonic doctrine

It is dirt cheap, as are all demonic doctrines, to say that Christ’s flogging might have been needed to authorize healing, because untold thousands were healed in Judea and Samaria before Christ arrived in Pilate’s judgment hall.  The idea of atonement includes transfer, such as becoming sin for us is recognized as substitutionary, and no one dares to hint that Christ received the sicknesses and diseases of those he healed.  It is part of the bewitching that gets people to major in minors.  The death of Christ, understood through blood/death or bread/life, is in a class by itself.  Along with people pleading Christ’s blood over finances, personal relationships, trips or buildings, healing through flogging is a distraction, a verifiable case of putting a minor in the place of a major.  Why is no one or his sister saying “Eat this bread and get eternal life”? 

“Claim your healing” is a manifest example of the flu infected doctor coughing in his patients’ faces.  Eating bread and drinking wine to remember and proclaim the Lord’s death is uncomplicated and not susceptible to tampering.

The Fix-it God, part 1

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The Fix-it God idea is characterized by approaching God primarily as the One who addresses human problems by fixing them. This is the popular and time consuming proposition and practice of those who encourage believers to approach God exclusively on the basis that Messianic salvation is not only salvation from sin but that He has one response to human problems, namely instant and miraculous fixes. There is a Fix-it God in the Bible. The Serpent in the Wilderness narrative offers a view that God heals His people of life’s fatal bites. The snakebite healing was not salvation in the sense that humans are saved from sin, because the journeying Israelites were not unsaved persons. Yahweh had already saved the entire family of the Sons of Israel in the Exodus. The Fix-it God is therefore a picture of maintenance and ongoing healing to saved persons. We find in Moses’ narrative that divine healing is indeed on tap for the Israelites as they journeyed.

“And the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died”

Num. 21:6-9

The Fix-it God delivers needed healing for those on salvation’s journey. In this mode of divine intervention the invitation to healing is “Look and live”,

And Yahweh said to Moses, Make a fiery serpent, and set it upon a pole: and it shall be, that every one that is bitten, when he looks on it, shall live. Numbers 21:8

One could say that salvation from sin or the inheritance of life does come in exactly the same way. It is a “look and live” proposition. For example there is the global call found in Isaiah 45:22

Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else.

There is too the Pauline teaching (2 Cor. 3:18) that by gazing at Christ we access ongoing change towards the divine image. There is the prophecy of Micah (7:7) which expresses confidence in the saving power of God as one (the saved) looks to God and waits.

Is everything we call a problem a problem to God? On realizing that there are problems which are unresolvable by us and which need divine intervention, we can either find God’s answer or park our brains, set our mouth on automatic and recite all the things that earthlings and believers have ever said, looking for a way to use faith as a battering ram, when we should simply and first of all say “Amen”.

There is nothing wrong with confessing to Houston “We have a problem!” Learning to say “Amen” to wherever God places us is the right attitude setting with which we can console ourselves. We can also seek to be elevated to God’s thinking and operation, at which level we deceive ourselves with the emotional, unsubstantiated and unscriptural idea that (1) God wants to fix everything and (2) we only need to confess it or declare/decree it.

Does God face unsolvable problems?

No. Frankly, nothing is a problem to God. His healing power is not incidental. He does not rise as healer when sickness arises. Our appreciation of Yahweh as Salvation or Messiah as Salvation is our acknowledgement of the salvation that is in the godhead eternally. Our Lord’s eternal place as Son in the Godhead is inseparable from his place as pre-foundation Salvation.

Few fixes in nature and civic life

The evidence all around us is that God does not fix everything, whether we ask in faith or not. He knows every situation and condition in which we find ourselves and He chooses what gift to bestow and when to bestow it. We deny that we are related to God through and in Christ, acting as if His love must be expressed in giving us everything we ask for. His thinking, at the micro-level, is often beyond our ideas and beyond our capacity to perform. We are often not even listening to his voice.

Restoration and birth from above

What need is there in the church’s assemblies for the sentiment that there is no such thing as cross-bearing trials and adversities? No-one knows or can know the power of God in both its once-for-all manifestation and in its ongoing revelation and bestowal of a sanctified life, except through the weakness and humility of mortal life. Our only guaranteed victory is over the problem of the carnal and worldly nature.

The ultimate fix

The difference between what is possible and what is probable should not elude us. Just as the difference between the present and the future should be equally clear to all of us. The difference between what God wants and what He does is also clear – He wants all men to be saved, yet many are being lost. Since this is true for physical and mental disabilities how can it not be true for tears, death and sorrow?

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain. (Rev. 21:4)

Elbert Joseph, PhD

Trophies of Messiah’s Might

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You may be familiar with the record of the moment Yeshua died.  To say the earth moved is an understatement.  What can we expect when the designer of the ages ( αιων or the òlam eternity) is taking his last breath? What happened at the cross is  neither mediocre nor unimpressive.  The centurion’s confession, the mocking of Christ’s saving career, the cry of being forsaken, the  rending of the temple’s veil, pale in comparison with the happenings in the cemeteries.  The monumental dimension of Christ’s conclusion of his work calls for significant practical benefits and symbolic developments.  The events of the passion become affirmations of  the end of the oppressive levitical kingdom and they remain in our consciousness as trophies of Messiah’s might.

Free those who died in faith



And what more shall I say? For time will fail me if I tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets,

Hebrews 11:32

The saying that the dead shall live may have had its first showing in the event in Matthew’s gospel (27:52).  Even before his own rising from the King of love deals an illustrative blow to the powers of death.  He orders the release of many of the saints.  The term “saints” has to refer those who died in faith (Hebrew 11:13) and their number is not insignificant because the writer of Hebrews confesses that time would fail him if he kept telling the story of those who died in faith.  It is a huge crowd.

The tombs were opened, and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised;

Mat. 27:52

It was not a secret occurrence.

and coming out of the tombs after His resurrection they entered the holy city and appeared to many.

Matthew 27:53

Holy ones who could not be held

For thou wilt not leave my soul to Sheol; neither wilt thou suffer thine holy one to see corruption.

Psalms 16:10

No sick and diseased healed

Who redeems your life from the pit, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion;

Psalms 103:4

We must remember that healing of diseases was promised to those who keep all of the statutes and judgments in the Mosaic Law.  Most of us have no idea how many there are and where to find them.  This kind of healing is a pipe dream.  Yeshua has a more relevant method of bringing health to his people.  It is called grace, by which he simply speaks the word.  Otherwise people should simply take better care of their bodies, because the human body is capable of fighting off debility.

While we do not argue from silence we must recognize that the evidence of what happened the moment Christ died was exclusively the release from the grave.  It makes us ask why the news that many tombs had been giving up their residents had not reached the disciples.  Yeshua had told the disciples that he would rise from the dead and that his resurrection was the only sign his generation would receive.   By his death he made his authority known, not in bestowing health or prosperity.  His shed blood was for sins, and the finishing of his work really needed a standout headline to that effect.  The connection between sin, death, and the law was out in the open; captivity and corruption rendered into trophies of his grace.  The uncontrovertible evidence and benefit of Yeshua’s death was not healthy people, but life from the dead.  The association of physical healing with  his stripes – like the healing from partaking of bread and wine in memorial – is nothing more than a downgrade of the eternal truth.

Healing sick folk is not a big deal at all compared to opening graves and giving the Holy Spirit to believers.

Bloody Messiah

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Who would have thought that the ruler of the age to come would make himself an offering for sin? The princes of this world did not for had they known it, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 1 Corinthians 2:7-8.  The bloody component of divine wisdom is scandalous, necessary and diagnostic.

Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him; he hath put him to grief: when thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.

Isaiah 53:10

His soul an offering for sin

If we do not know what sin is we might have an excuse.  With the conscience accusing every one, and the law condemning everyone who looks into it, an offering for sin is the only answer.  We know what a sin offering looks like.   It is the holy and undefiled Son of God, incarnate and separate from sinners (all humans).  Sin, for which Christ suffered himself, is unbelief.  This is the universal failure of the human race.  There is no one who is exempt from God’s evaluation of humanity.

Comparing missions

I know that tombs were emptied the moment Christ died. In the Bible we find neither rumor nor speculation that the sick and diseased were affected by the Lord’s death. On the cross is where the atonement takes place, not before or after.  It is to honour the Son that this timing is precise and public.  Christ on the cross is God’s exclusive answer to the human problem, and that problem is not the kind of thing that a doctor, prophet, priest or king can treat.  Sin calls for a life – “blood”, not a beating.  The idea that the physical abuse our Lord endured is atonement for infirmity (sickness and disease) has no biblical support. To remove disease requires no offering, least of all the offering of God’s Son. The idea that Christ went to Golgotha to change the physical wellbeing of the human race is a mouldy piece of bread.

Trafficking in trademark trash

It is obvious that the mission of the original missionaries did not include forgiveness of sins.  Jesus stopped funerals, reversed the corruption of death (in one case after four days). At his death all kinds of ancient dead came back to life.


Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give.

Matthew 10:8
  • The sick
  • The lepers
  • The dead
  • The demonized (those possessed by evil angels)
  • No price tag attached

Instead of believing the message we have turned the report into a set of fables.  Isaiah’s question still highly functional.  Who is believing the messsge of the evangelist?

Scandalous from the start

When the Hebrews slew a lamb and sprinkled its blood on their doorposts it saved their lives.  Noone questioned this use of blood.  There were no questions about the use of blood in the tabernacle day after day.  However, since a life is given to pay for sin, and the life is in the blood, there was no living link between the sinner and the animal that saved his life.  The priest sprinkled or poured the blood but that atoning blood never came into contact with the worshipper.  Blood was the last thing an Israelite wanted to handle.


26. Moreover ye shall eat no manner of blood, whether it be of fowl or of beast, in any of your dwellings. 27. Whatsoever soul it be that eateth any manner of blood, even that soul shall be cut off from his people.



Leviticus 7:26-27