“who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins,
might live for righteousness– by whose stripes you were healed.
I Peter 1:24
Peter, who was reputed to be unlearned (Acts 4:13), shows his command of the Old Testament as he clearly refers to Isaiah 53:5 concerning Jesus who “was wounded for our transgressions and bruised for our iniquities.” Both Isaiah and Peter use the word wounds or stripes as a general reference– a synonym for the magnitude and intensity suffering He would absorb for our sin. The healing is spiritual, not physical. Does Jesus heal, absolutely! And every believer can be confident that the healing of Jesus will occur, and such will be at the perfect time… for many this perfect time will be when we are finally home in Heaven. A place with no more tears.
Disease and death will not be permanently removed until sin is permanently removed, the supreme work of Jesus was the conquering of sin on the cross. It was there He dealt with sin, death and sickness; and yet all three are still with us. When He died on the cross, he broke the power of sin, and the person who believes upon the Lord is immediately delivered from the eternal penalty of sin and one day will be delivered from the very presence of sin and its deadly consequences. The ultimate fulfillment of Christ’s redeeming work is yet future for the believer. Christ died for our sins, but Christians still stumble into sin; Christ conquered death, but Christians still die; He overcame agony and illness, yet Christians still suffer. The Christian is delivered from all three; yet awaits that glorious day the Lord will bring.
The great message of the gospel is deliverance from sin. It is the glorious news of forgiveness, not health. Christ was made sin, not disease, and He died on the cross for our sin, not our sickness. As Peter makes clear, Christ’s stripes heal us from sin, not disease.
If the work of the cross were fully realized now, no believer would ever die, let alone be sick. But obviously, all do. The Lord’s substitutionary sacrifice heals the soul of the believer now and a new body in Heaven… our home absent of all sin. A grand gospel!
Consider what Paul declares to the Corinthians – “For God caused Christ, who himself knew nothing of sin, actually to be sin for our sakes, so that in Christ we might be made good with the goodness of God.” And to the church in Rome– “The proof of God’s amazing love is this: that is was while we were sinners that Christ died for us” ( II Cor. 5:21 & Rom. 5:8 –Phillips ). Indeed, a very grand gospel from a perfect and perfectly loving God!
Maranatha!