Fear No Fear

When it was evening, many demon-possessed people were brought to him. He drove out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick. In this way what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah was fulfilled: “He took our weaknesses and carried our diseases.”
Matthew 8:16-17 (emphasis added)

Was it only physical healing here in Matthew? NO! How could it be? It is referencing Isaiah 53. It’s a great chapter in the Old Testament. The first of the Major Prophets – in the Hebrew scriptures it is usually third because of its thematic content. Chapter 53 is all about the Suffering Servant. This personage was first known and agreed by almost all to be a reference to the Messiah, though in the Middle Ages that switched and Rabbinical teaching says the Suffering Servant is the nation of Israel itself (and it is taught that way today too, though it is left out of the Torah Portions read weekly in synagogues the world over).

Isaiah is full of themes and prophetic language. The particular verse that Matthew is referring to is verse four of that chapter. “But he lifted up our illnesses, he carried our pain; even though we thought he was being punished, attacked by God, and afflicted for something he had done.” Many scholars cite this as a metaphor for sin and the effects of sin. When we go to the end of the chapter and look at verses 11 and 12 that becomes clear. “Having suffered, he will reflect on his work, he will be satisfied when he understands what he has done. My servant will acquit many, for he carried their sins. So I will assign him a portion with the multitudes, he will divide the spoils of victory with the powerful, because he willingly submitted to death and was numbered with the rebels, when he lifted up the sin of many and intervened on behalf of the rebels.“

It is obvious that this verse primarily is talking about sin itself and the effects of sin. Further, they show the removal of sin and the prevention of death. But this is EXACTLY what Matthew is ALSO talking about. Sin is the cause of negative things in our lives. Because sin takes us away from God. It puts us AND our bodies into a negative state where the BLESSING does not function. “My whole body is sick because of your judgment; I am deprived of health because of my sin” (Psalm 38:3). Sure, our individual sins can cause us issues (Zephaniah 1:7; John 5:14), but sin ITSELF causes us to be separated from the Will of the Father. Sin brings sickness upon the healthy by its very nature. Until Jesus, it also brought the wrath of God on US. “I will strike you brutally and destroy you because of your sin” (Micah 6:13).

So we know that Isaiah 53 is talking about sin, sickness, healing, and prevention of death on a SPIRITUAL level. We also know that sin and sickness are connected in a PHYSICAL way. The Rabbis understood this physical connection between sin and sickness/disease. The trouble with the Rabbinical teaching was that everyone assumed it was true in ALL cases. “His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who committed the sin that caused him to be born blind, this man or his parents?”” (John 9:2). Why is it that we humans ALWAYS want to see things in terms of absolutes? At least until they are absolutes about morality, salvation, and our own personal selves? The truth is that things are always VERY black and white from GOD’S point of view, but almost NEVER from OURS. That’s one of the reasons that Holy Spirit came to us. To teach us HIS ways (John 14:26).

God doesn’t just connect sin and sickness. God also connects sickness and the curse (Deuteronomy 28:20-24). It doesn’t seem to be so much that our personal sins call sickness onto us as sickness has opportunity to show up in areas we have not submitted to the Lord. We need to clear the curse out of our lives by realising that we are NOT SUBJECT to it anymore. God connects us and the ground we stand on (spiritually and physically). When we open the door to sin, it comes in and brings all it’s effects with it. When we stand on the Word, sin is under our feet and defeated (Genesis 4:7; Joshua 10:24-25). If we stand on the Word, the effects of sin will be under our feet where the curse went the moment we joined Jesus in His resurrection (Romans 6:1-7).

“Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us (because it is written, “Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree”)” (Galatians 3:13). We are SEPARATED from sin. It is APART from us. It CANNOT get to us. It can only yell from the other side of the door. Jesus took it ALL onto Himself. “He gave himself for us to set us free from every kind of lawlessness and to purify for himself a people who are truly his, who are eager to do good” (Titus 2:14). EVERY kind of lawlessness. Our bodies sick in ANY way is our bodies rebelling against the natural order of the kingdom. You see, we aren’t subject to everything of this world. We aren’t really part of it in the same way anymore. We have been REMADE in Jesus (Ephesians 4:24). “So then, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; what is old has passed away—look, what is new has come!” (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are NEW creatures and not subject to the laws of Fallen Creation, not if we are working from Kingdom to flesh, anyway (Romans 6:10-11).

IN Jesus, BY Jesus, and THROUGH Jesus, we are redeemed from sickness and disease – physical AND spiritual! “Therefore we do not despair, but even if our physical body is wearing away, our inner person is being renewed day by day. For our momentary, light suffering is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison because we are not looking at what can be seen but at what cannot be seen. For what can be seen is temporary, but what cannot be seen is eternal” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18).

Matthew CLEARLY references the physical healings that Jesus was accomplishing, but he also CLEARLY references the spiritual healing that Jesus’ sacrifice would accomplish. In Jesus, both types of healing were happening and would be happening from then onward. After all, Jesus is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8).

Daily Affirmation Jesus IS Messiah: Genesis 3:15

“And I will put hostility between you and the woman and between your offspring and her offspring; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.” Jesus was destined to crush the devil, that old user of snakes. From that prophecy onward, the devil has been trying to wipe out the line of the woman to avoid it. He started with Abel, was happy to twist Cain, and didn’t stop persecuting people and murdering babies until Jesus was ready to be killed. Oh, was he happy – at least the closest the devil can get to happy anyway. He thought he had finally done it. But each bruise. Each wound. Each stripe. Each ONE enabled our healing. With each blow the word went out on healing: spirit, soul, and body. It radiated out through time forward and backward. Reaching back to before the foundation of the world when He chose to lay down His life. Reaching forward to when the earth will be renewed and all sickness and death washed away. In that moment, Jesus had won. “Therefore, since the children share in flesh and blood, he likewise shared in their humanity, so that through death he could destroy the one who holds the power of death (that is, the devil)” (Hebrews 2:14). The devil thought he was winning, but he was nailing his own coffin shut. Jesus shared our humanity so that His suffering could destroy the hold the devil had on us through the curse. “The one who practices sin is of the devil because the devil has been sinning from the beginning. For this purpose the Son of God was revealed: to destroy the works of the devil” (1 John 3:8). Jesus fulfilled the promise of the Lord made in one Garden in another garden (Gethsemane). Jesus crushed the head of the snake. Jesus took back the keys to death and hell (Revelation 1:18). The devil’s authority was broken, his power wrested away, and his fate sealed. He was DONE. Jesus IS Messiah, the Anointed One.

Your Daily Confession of Jesus/Yeshua’s Identity:

Yeshua is the Christ, the Son of the living God.

Matthew 16:16b