By His Stripes

[0:00] 1 Peter 2. Speaking of the stripes of our Lord and what it means,!

[0:30] It was ploughed. And it tells us of our Lord, 1 Peter 2, of Christ our Lord, it says, Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sin, should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes ye were healed.

[0:48] So that's a wounding that he took, that his body bare our sins on his self on the tree. And then it says, For ye were as sheep going astray, but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls.

[1:05] So just some thoughts around that theme of the stripes that our Lord took. I wanted to take the opportunity just to bring some clarity on an important issue while we touch on this scripture.

[1:16] And just to lead in, I can assure you that as a church we do believe God heals. He can and does heal according to his will. But there is some false teaching out there about the subject of healing.

[1:29] So I wanted to just touch on that as well. So some people try to use verses like these, like this one, to claim physical healing.

[1:40] And I'd like to demonstrate to you that this scripture actually is not talking about physical healing. Now there's teachers like Kenneth Copeland who say this, Jesus didn't merely die for our sins, he also died for our sickness and poverty.

[1:57] And this would mean that no genuine believer should ever be sick. Now it's kind of ironic, funnily enough, that Kenneth Copeland has got a pacemaker. So he doesn't follow his own teaching.

[2:08] Such false teachers are manipulating scripture to teach Christians always promise perfect health, and that healing is always God's will. They teach that physical healing is provided for in the atonement.

[2:21] And they quote the words, By whose stripes you were healed. Yet in the context, it's not talking about physical healing. It's talking about our souls, not about our bodies. And it's the same with the Isaiah scripture.

[2:33] Isaiah 53 verse 5. It says, So the prophet Isaiah said this some 700, 800 years before Christ came, telling us that he would come, and that he would be wounded for our transgressions, and that he would be bruised for our iniquities.

[2:56] And in the context, like Peter's reference, it talks about sin. So the sheep there again, All we like sheep have gone astray. Tells us that we've all gone astray.

[3:07] Who can identify with that? We've gone astray. We've gone our own way. The Lord's laid on him, it says, the iniquity or the sin of us all. So these verses, they're talking about spiritual healing of sin, about forgiveness of sin.

[3:21] That's the point. That's the point of the cross. That's why we come and gather and remember our Lord's death until he comes. It's about his death. It's about his healing of sin, his forgiveness of sin.

[3:33] And that's the context of what it means here. The primary meaning is that we're healed of sin. It's our worst affliction is sin, really, truly. It's about spiritual healing.

[3:44] It's like Matthew put it in Matthew 13. It talks about the people's heart has grown heavy. Their ears are dull of hearing. Their eyes, they've closed. Lest at any time they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears and should understand with their heart and should be converted and I should heal them.

[4:02] So again, it's talking about the healing of the heart. It's talking about the deeper issue, the disease of sin. And Peter in the New Testament tells how Christ was to bear our sins. Isaiah in the Old Testament says that the Lord laid on him the iniquity, the sin of us all.

[4:18] It's not about our sicknesses. It's about our sin. And the Old Testament offerings were all about that too. As they made offerings for atonement, it was always about sin, never for sickness.

[4:29] And so this false teaching says that just as God the Father made Jesus to be sin for us on the cross, he also made him to be sick for us on the cross. And it doesn't say that in the word of God.

[4:40] It's actually not true. The Lord Jesus, he did not bear our diseases on the cross. He bore our sin. And so the message of the gospel, the good news for you, is that there is a deliverance from sin.

[4:51] It's the good news about forgiveness, not our health. It's not to say that God doesn't heal. He does heal in answer to believing prayer. And we do pray for the sick, as they might call for prayer.

[5:03] They can be prayed for. And believing prayer can heal the sick if it's God's will. But we're not claiming these verses. That's the point I'm trying to make just now. When Christ was made sin, he wasn't made disease.

[5:15] He died on the cross for our sin, not for our sickness. So physical healing is nowhere in these passages of Peter and Isaiah. When Jesus came and he died on the cross, he paid for our sins.

[5:27] And he also paid for all the consequences of those sins, one of which is sickness and disease. But in a way, physical healing is provided, but it's not until heaven that it's fully realized.

[5:39] So some of the benefits of Christ's death and his victory is not going to be realized until heaven, when ultimately all our sickness and disease will be gone.

[5:51] So the context of Isaiah 53, it's not talking about physical healing, but about spiritual healing. He was wounded for our transgressions. He was bruised for our iniquity.

[6:03] He's talking about sin. And that's the context of it. One day, there's going to be a glorified body for you. Aren't you looking forward to that? I know.

[6:14] I'm looking forward to it. Now, I'll just put your hand up if you've got your glorified body yet. No, it's not happened yet. But one day it will. Amen? One day it will.

[6:24] And that's for sure when that will be evident, that you'll have a perfect body. There'll be no sickness. You won't need to get any extra bits added or any treatments.

[6:38] And you won't gradually age away. That perfect body will be a forever body. And so that's provided for you that believe in the atonement. But it's not yet.

[6:50] Not yet. When we die and we go to heaven, we're not taking our sickness with us. And we've got the redemption of the body. It's something yet future. Perfect health is promised.

[7:01] But not for this life. For heaven. As part of the resurrection. So in heaven, we're going to enjoy perfect resurrected bodies. Free from all weakness and aging and illness and decay and death.

[7:13] Ultimately, our glorified bodies will have no pain or sickness. If we're going to say that healing is in the atonement, then it is future. Yes, we could agree that. We're waiting for the adoption.

[7:24] We're waiting for the redemption of our bodies, as it says in Romans. You know, we're longing for it. We're longing for the redemption of our body, when we'll have that new body. And as it says in Philippians, we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body.

[7:43] So there'll be the ultimate deliverance from physical pain. But it's yet future. All right. And we see that, for example, in Revelation 21. It tells us how one day there's going to be no more tears.

[7:53] There's going to be no more pain, no more death, no more crying. The former things are passed away. Behold, I make all things new. It's going to wipe all tears from our eyes. In Isaiah 53 and 1 Peter 2, we see that the healing is in view.

[8:07] The healing for sin, the salvation of the soul, the redemption of the body, that's something yet future. And so it's important to get that right. The context tells of sheep going astray.

[8:19] It's talking about sin. That's the point of it. And the horror of the cross was not to provide us with a formula to help us overcome physical sickness and disease so we can live our best life now, as someone put it.

[8:32] The focus isn't our body's healing. It's about the salvation of our soul. That's what matters. That's what's important. That's what the cross is all about. These other teachers kind of get things a bit skew-whiffed and they put things in there that's not really so.

[8:47] Why was he wounded? He was wounded for our sins. So Isaiah clearly tells us that we're healed from our transgressions and our iniquities. And that's from that scripture where Peter writes it there in 1 Peter 2, of Christ who his own self bear our sins and his own body on the tree, that we being dead to sin should live unto righteousness, by whose stripes you are healed.

[9:13] Healed of what? Sin. It's sins. Peter is making it clear that he's talking about sin. And we can be healed from that most dreadful disease, the dread, deadliest disease.

[9:24] The wages of our sin is death. It's the sin that dogs us through life, isn't it? It's sin. It's sin nature. And so it's the truth of Isaiah 53 of 1 Peter 2 that it's about our sin, our iniquity.

[9:41] It's used four times, actually, in Isaiah 53, verse 5. Jesus is wounded for our transgressions. It says in verse 6, the Lord has caused the iniquities or sin of us all to fall on him.

[9:56] And we're told that he will bear our iniquities. In verse 12, we're told that he bore the sins of many, the sins of many. So Christ's death on the cross is for our spiritual healing from sin.

[10:09] All we like sheep have gone astray. The Lord has laid on him the iniquity, the iniquity of us all. He shall bear their iniquities. He bare the sin, the sin of many, made intercession for the transgressors.

[10:23] So again, just, it's important to get this clear because there's so much false teaching and it's very much these popular faith, health, wealth, prosperity preachers that are putting this wrong message out there, trying to really distort this.

[10:37] And really they're confusing the gospel when they put this kind of message out there because if Christ's death on the cross is for our sin and our sicknesses, then why are we sick if we believe? Of course, it's not that way.

[10:48] He died for our sins, for our forgiveness of sin. And this healing, it's spiritual, not physical. It's about redemption. And the Bible never says that Jesus died for our diseases. He died for our sin, our sins.

[11:02] But Jesus Christ did not die so that we can be healthy in this life. Healing for our mortal bodies is not in the atonement. It's about knowing Christ. It's knowing salvation, eternal life.

[11:14] He died for our sins, for our forgiveness of sin.