HEALING IN THE OLD COVENANT
No one in their right mind wants to be sick! We are created with a natural desire to be well. Our bodies were created with natural healing properties. God created us to be well! Sickness & death came as a result of the curse of man’s sin but God has promised healing to His People!
When God established His covenant with Abraham He revealed Himself as Almighty God–El Shaddai, God our Creator. When God established His covenant with Abraham’s descendants, a nation of oppressed Jewish slaves, He revealed Himself as the Lord–Jehovah, God our Redeemer.
On Israel’s first Passover as they ate the Passover Lamb and celebrated their covenant with God they experienced healing for their bodies.
- “He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.”–Psalm 105:37
When the children of Israel drank the bitter waters at Marah and became sick. God told Moses to place a tree in the water to make the water clean. That is a beautiful picture of the cross of Jesus Christ bringing healing to our bitter experience of sickness and disease.
- And when they came to Marah, they could not drink of the waters of Marah, for they were bitter: therefore the name of it was called Marah. [24] And the people murmured against Moses, saying, What shall we drink? [25] And he cried unto the LORD; and the LORD shewed him a tree, which when he had cast into the waters, the waters were made sweet: there he made for them a statute and an ordinance, and there he proved them.–Exodus 15:23-25 KJV
When the children of Israel were bitten by snakes in the wilderness, God gave instructions to Moses for their healing in Numbers 21:8-9 MEV.
- The LORD said to Moses, “Make a poisonous serpent, and put it on a pole, and it will be, that everyone who is bitten, when he looks at it, will live.” Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole, and if a serpent had bitten any man, when he looked at the bronze serpent he lived.
The bronze serpent on a pole was a picture of the cross of Jesus Christ, that brings redemption. Anyone who would look upon the serpent on the pole would be healed. So it is today, anyone who looks upon the cross of Christ and believes can receive healing.
Jesus made reference to this event as pointing to His work on the cross.
- As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in Him should not perish, but may have eternal life.–John 3:14-15 MEV
The Lord, Israel’s redeemer promised healing, health and long life…
- “If you listen carefully to the voice of the lord your God and do what is right in His eyes, if you pay attention to his commands and keep all his decrees, I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord, who heals you.”
- “Worship the Lord your God, and his blessing will be on your food and water. I will take away sickness from among you, and none will miscarry or be barren in your land. I will give you a full life span”
Jesus when responding to a Gentile woman’s request for healing told her that healing was the children’s bread under the Old Covenant. Yet because of her faith she received her healing.
- Jesus told her, “First I should feed the children-my own family, the Jews. It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even the dogs under the table are allowed to eat the scraps from the children’s plates.”–Mark 7:27-28 NLT
HEALING IN THE NEW COVENANT
The Bible says that God has spoken in these last days through His Son Jesus Christ. The Gospels record God’s will to forgive, heal and restore. The Apostle Luke sums up the ministry of Jesus…
- How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.—Acts 10:38
Jesus boldly declared His mission at the start of His ministry…
- The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”—Luke 4:18
The Gospel records Jesus’ three and half years of healing ministry…
- Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people.—Luke 4:18
Jesus made it perfectly clear when the leper asked Him about His will to heal…
- Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean.—Mark 1:41
Jesus not only took our sins to the cross but every sickness and disease!
- That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.—Matthew 8:17
Thank God that Jesus redeemed us from the curse of sickness and with His stripes we are healed. Healing belongs to you!
Finish Strong! 