The Lord for the Body Part 4

"I create the fruit of the lips; Peace, peace to him that is far off, and to him that is near, saith the Lord; and I will heal him" (Isaiah 57: 18, 19).

Here we have the picture of a soul that has gone astray and been suffering under the chastening of the Lord. "For the iniquity of his covetousness I was wroth and smote him." And the chastening for a time seemed to be in vain. "I hid me and was wroth. And he went on frowardly in the way of his heart." But at last the stubborn will broke and instantly the heart of G.o.d flew to meet His returning child. "I have seen his ways and will heal him." Here we have healing as the result of repentance and returning to G.o.d. But this is not all. "I will lead him also and will restore comforts unto him and to his mourners."

But there is another healing a little farther on. After the soul has been led into the fulness of Christ and the "peace, peace," of the Spirit's inbreathing, then, for the second time the Lord says, "I will heal him." This is different from the first healing. When first we come to G.o.d for physical help He meets us on the ground of faith and promise, not waiting for a deep spiritual experience, but blessing us immediately.

Our first experience of healing is usually easy and free from the tests and conflicts of our maturer life. But later, after we have entered into all the experiences of these verses, we reach a deeper physical life, one that draws its strength from Christ by the Holy Spirit and finds in Him a new source of health and life. This becomes the habit of faith. It is not mere deliverance from some sudden and special attack of disease, but a normal strength that draws its support continually from Jesus as the Head of our body and the life of all our being.

THE LIFE OF LOVE AND THE EXPERIENCE OF HEALING.

"Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thine health shall spring forth speedily: and thy righteousness shall go before thee; the glory of the Lord shall be thy reward."

"And the Lord shall guide thee continually, and satisfy thy soul in drought, and make fat thy bones: and thou shalt be like a watered garden, and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not" (Isaiah 58:8-11).

Here we have a still deeper experience of life and healing. It is not mere righteousness now, but love. The soul has been taught the true fast which the Lord loves, to undo the heavy burdens, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke, to deal out bread to the hungry, clothe the naked and bring the poor and outcast home. Then shall our light break forth as the morning and our health shall spring forth speedily. Then shall the Lord satisfy our soul in drought and make fat our bones, and we shall be like a watered garden and a spring of waters whose waters fail not. Here is the rich and overflowing life of G.o.d springing from a heart full of love and benevolence.

Watering others we become watered ourselves. Our health springs. It is not pumped up from a dry well, but the overflow of a great artesian fountain. Our very bones are made fat. There is something fine in this figure. It reaches to the marrow. This is not necessarily the fat that is on our bones, but in our bones. Some people are made of dry bones. They are parched and pinched and always seem to be at starvation point. There is no unction, freshness or heartiness about them. Their lives are hard and hidebound, like Baizac's dreadful hero whose skin was too tight for him and at last squeezed him to death. Others seem to be always mellow, whole hearted, fresh and overflowing with sympathy, cheer and help for others. Their bones have been made fat. They have got some marrow in them. This is the life that G.o.d gives.

It is a higher kind of health and imparts exhilaration and spring to every movement and impulse.

So we have found in the book of Isaiah three kinds of health. There is that which comes from waiting on the Lord (Isaiah 40: 31). There is that which comes from getting right with G.o.d (Isaiah 57: 18). And there is that which springs from the overflow of the life of love. How very significant it is that all these physical blessings spring from spiritual conditions and seem to belong to the very nature of things.

A man's health, therefore, is largely a matter of higher conditions. The more we ascend in the spiritual plane the more directly are we in touch with all the sources of divine and supernatural life which center in Christ the Living One and the Fountain of Life to all who abide in Him.

CHAPTER XII.

NATURAL AND SUPERNATURAL HEALING.

Until after the time of Solomon there seems to have been no departure from the simplicity of the ancient faith with respect to the body. But he laid the foundation for that departure from G.o.d by an alliance with the world which led to all the disasters of his people in the succeeding generations.

Allying himself with Egypt, and introducing its luxuries, refinements and intermarriages, there soon followed, no doubt, its physicians too, and the grandson of Solomon, king Asa, is the first example of their treatment in the entire Bible. His act is mentioned with manifest disapproval, as indicating distrust in G.o.d, and is marked by G.o.d's displeasure in its fatal termination. It is marked by a whole series of gradual departures from G.o.d through seeking human alliances in his exigencies. "Because thou hast relied upon the king of Syria, and relied not on the Lord," was the same principle which a little later caused his death. "In his sickness Asa sought not unto the Lord, but unto the physicians."

In a recently published address one speaks of those "who have not sufficient faith in G.o.d to see Him in and through the use of means," and adds, "The use of means ought not to lessen our faith in G.o.d, and our faith in G.o.d ought not to hinder our using those means which He has given us for the carrying out of His own purposes." It is strange that this distinction is not brought out by the Holy Spirit in this, the first reference to the subject in the Scriptures.

Why does the Lord not blame him for not asking a blessing on the physicians? How is it that the forbidden act was not the neglect of this, but the seeking unto the physicians instead of the Lord? His going to them is not regarded as an evidence or an opportunity for faith in G.o.d, but the reverse. And is it not the usual rule of human nature to lean harder on the smallest twig of the visible and the human than upon the whole Omnipotence of an unseen G.o.d? And the real test of faith is to be willing to step out on "the seeming void," and expect to find "the Rock beneath."

The case of Naaman, a little later, is a pleasing contrast. His disease was incurable, and especially suggestive of the connection between sickness and sin. His first application was about as far back as the most ignorant and blundering soul could wish for its encouragement. Overflowing with pride and self-consciousness, he came to the prophet's door, and expected attention and consideration, but received the deathblow, first to his self-will and then to his sickness. How wisely and bravely the old prophet left him with G.o.d, and let him down into the death of self!

So it must ever he. Naaman must die ere the leper can be cleansed and the healing come. And he dies, as every other must, by an act of faith; and how simple an act! Only implicit obedience to the Divine Word. He does just what the prophet tells him, and he does it through to the end. That is faith.

For salvation, for healing, for everything, faith is to do just what G.o.d tells us, and then leave the result with Him. Are you sick? There is a command in James as explicit as Elisha's orders. Simply, promptly, fully obey it, and G.o.d will hold Himself as much bound to honor His own word as He does you to obey it.

Naaman's faith had to be continuous, abiding and persistent. Seven times had he been commanded to wash in Jordan. This involved the very essence of faith; viz., an act which at first perceives no sign of the answer claimed. Once, twice, thrice he entered the sacred river and returned. Once, twice, thrice again he repeated it. But there was yet no sign of healing. So must we believe and act and expose ourselves to the humiliation of apparent failure.

How often must it have seemed to him like a vain repet.i.tion or foolish play! But he continued until every word had been fulfilled and the order of faith and obedience explicitly, completely carried through. And then the answer came-his flesh "as the flesh of a little child," his leprosy all gone, and his soul exulting in the consciousness of new, and pure, and perfect health. So let us believe and wait and finish the steps of faith.

His subsequent history is full of instruction. First, his grat.i.tude prompts him to make a generous return as a thank-offering, and the prophet, with a wise avoidance of even the appearance of mercenary considerations, declines at the time to receive his gift. Next, with a prompt and wholehearted consecration, he declares his steadfast dedication henceforth to the true G.o.d. And then, with a jealous perplexity about his precise duty while attending his royal master in the temples of idolatry, he asks the prophet's counsel.

The prophet throws him back on G.o.d, and he goes forth to be a witness for G.o.d throughout the whole of Syria.

There is one other instance of healing in the later years of the kingdom of Judah. It is the story of Hezekiah. That it was a supernatural and, indeed, a miraculous healing, and not the result of remedies, is evident from the fact that he had been declared by G.o.d to be in a dying condition, and the distinct statement in Chronicles that G.o.d "wrought a miracle for him" (margin) and healed him. If it were miraculous, this disposes at once of the whole question of the means used; they must have been symbolical and not remedial.

His prayer is given with considerable fullness by Isaiah. It began, like many of our prayers, with a wail of unbelief. "Like a crane or a swallow he chattered," and many a modern prayer is no better. But at length he reached the point of self-despair, and with the cry, "Lord, I am oppressed, undertake for me, the deliverance came. What shall I say? He hath both spoken to me and Himself hath done it."

The faith of Hezekiah in asking a sign was very great. He asked something harder even than his healing. G.o.d has given us a still greater sign-the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. After this, nothing is too hard for us to ask or Him to do.

Hezekiah did not make the most of his new life. He allowed his blessing to lift up his heart in foolish pride, and a greater blow had to come, which left his kingdom and household a heritage of sorrow.

The attempt of some to make the healing of Hezekiah a warrant for the use of medical remedies in our sickness is fatally weak in these respects: I. He was incurably sick, and no remedy could be a means.

2. His healing was called "a miracle," and if so, could not in any sense be natural.

3. The application used is called a sign. At least this seems to be implied in the last two verses of Isaiah.

4. It was administered by Isaiah through a special Divine revelation, and not through medical science.

5. There was no resort to physicians whatever, but from the first a simple waiting upon G.o.d.

6. The plaster of figs may have been no more than the anointing with oil in James; viz., a sign that the case had been committed to and undertaken by the Lord.

7. Hezekiah did what he was told by the Lord exactly, and faith should do just what G.o.d's Word still teaches us in sickness.

CHAPTER XIII.

HEALING IN HIS WINGS.

"But unto you that fear My name shall the Sun of righteousness arise, with healing in His wings; and ye shall go forth, and grow up as calves of the stall" (Mal. 4:2).

This is a vision of the Springtime of the ages, with its glorious sunshine and its overflowing life. The vision came to the last of the Old Testament prophets as he looked out from the sere and cheerless winter of Israel's trials to the brighter future their Messiah was to bring.

I. The first picture is the Sunrise and the Light.

Another prophet had caught the same vision and had written, three centuries before, "The people which sat in darkness saw a great light, and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death, light is sprung up."

Looking across the gulf of four centuries, Malachi saw the rising dawn of the Christian age and the light which was to shine from the face of Jesus Christ on a lost and benighted world. It was the vision of a glorious sunrise. How literally our Lord fulfilled the prophecy and claimed the promise as He stood amid the false teachings and perverted light of His age and cried aloud, "I am the Light of the world, he that followeth Me shall not abide in darkness, but shall have the light of life."

Christ is the Sun of righteousness. All other teachers were but light bearers. They shone only with reflected light, but He came as a Divine luminary, bearing the direct light of G.o.d Himself into the world's darkness. "G.o.d, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in times past to our fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by His Son." The teachings and the example of Jesus Christ bring to us the revelation of G.o.d's will and His purposes of love and mercy toward our fallen race.

But Christ did not leave us merely with the light of His Word, and His pattern of grace, but has also left us His Holy Spirit as the personal Agent through whom the light is brought down to our very hearts and made plain to our blindness and ignorance. Not only does He give us light, but also sight. Just as the solar light would be useless to the physical universe were it not for the atmosphere which diffuses it and communicates to our sensitive organs of vision, so the Holy Spirit has been given to take of the things that are Christ's and reveal them unto us, and make G.o.d's light personal and sufficient for every quickened soul.

The sunrise that Malachi saw was not merely the dawn of the Christian era, and the rising of the Sun of righteousness in the personal ministry of Jesus Christ, but there is a sunrise just as real and glorious that comes to every soul which opens its vision to the light of G.o.d. The words become true to the individual heart that has long been sitting in darkness: "Sometimes a light surprises The Christian while he sings; It is the Lord who rises With healing in His wings."

This is especially true in connection with the ministry and experience of Divine healing to which this promise particularly refers. How difficult it is for the natural mind and heart to grasp this blessed truth and take the Lord for the body as freely as for spiritual need. Mere teaching cannot bring us to this. There must be a revelation of Christ by the Spirit, as our Almighty Healer.

We may read the most logical arguments, we may be familiar with all the literature on the subject, but it will all seem dim and distant until "the Sun of righteousness Himself arises with healing in His wings." Then it is all so plain that we wonder why we ever doubted, and it seems to us that all the world must fly to His arms if it only knew what we have come to know of His healing love and power. Then the Christ of Galilee becomes the Christ of today, "a living, bright reality," and the light that reveals Him to our trusting heart brings also the faith that receives Him and turns our pain into praise and our night into day.

Dear suffering one, perhaps you have had light enough from books and teachers; turn to Him and awake to His power, and it will be true of you, "Then shall thy light break forth as the morning and thine health shall spring forth speedily."

II. The Sun of Righteousness.

The light brings also with it the righteousness. We need not only light, but spiritual life and power. We need to be made right with a Divine righteousness. Our spiritual condition is intimately connected with our physical blessing.

It was G.o.d's ancient covenant with Israel, "If thou wilt diligently hearken to the voice of the Lord thy G.o.d, and wilt do that which is right in His sight, I will put none of these diseases upon thee which I have brought upon the Egyptians, for I am the Lord that healeth thee." Again, in Ezekiel, the covenant was renewed in this gracious promise, "In the day that I shall have cleansed you from all your iniquities I will cause you to dwell in your cities," and they shall say this land which was desolate has become like the garden of Eden. The moral and spiritual transformation brings a new world of material blessings.

Faith must begin with conscience void of offense, and this is something that all our struggles and efforts can never bring. This is the gift of Jesus Christ, this is that righteousness that looks down from heaven and afterwards springs up from the earth. It is a Divine righteousness that comes from the revelation of Jesus Christ and is as natural and spontaneous as the buds and blossoms that come from the kiss of the sunbeams that look down into their lifeless b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Oh, ye that are struggling to be good and holy, when will you learn that man did not make himself at the first and cannot make himself over again, and that when you cease your struggling and in self-surrender and true helplessness accept "the gift of righteousness" you shall "reign in life by One, Jesus Christ."

III. His Healing Wings.

"The Sun of righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings."

Doubtless this includes all the ills of humanity and covers Christ's complete redemption work. But why should we exclude the literal healing which formed so large a part of the Master's earthly ministry? Had we lived in the days of the Messiah, we should have known Him chiefly as a healer and a wonder working Rabbi, who touched the brow of pain and made it whole, and whose presence and command drove away spirits of evil from the human breast and brought the demon-possessed victims of insanity to sit at his feet clothed and in their right minds.

The healing of the body through Jesus Christ was no new thought to the ancient prophets.

It had been included in the covenant of Moses. It had been the theme of David's songs and Solomon's proverbs. It had been part of the simple practical faith that took G.o.d as their Theocratic King for all the life of the nation. It had been a prime feature in the glorious picture which Isaiah gave of the Man of Sorrows. And, as we have already shown, it formed a leading part in the actual ministry of the Saviour. He pa.s.sed it on to His disciples when He went away, and they in turn bequeathed it to the Christian Church down to the latest generations.

G.o.d always meant the faith of His people to take real things from Him and make external blessings stepping stones to the higher experiences of the unseen. For if G.o.d has not become real to us in the things that are patent to our senses and the observation of all men, how can we be a.s.sured that the remoter blessings we are claiming for the future have any solid foundation. But when we see G.o.d come into our present life, and become as real as our misery and sin and as the pains and sicknesses He heals, then we know that our faith for the future is not a dream, but that these things are but the first fruits of the greater blessings of the ages to come.

The Lord is a G.o.d of infinite benevolence and goodness and "in Him is no darkness at all." Sickness and pain are as foreign to His nature and beneficent will as sin and death.

The original creation He made "very good," and the ravages of disease are wholly due to the presence and power of Satan. Christ has come to destroy the works of the devil, and His blessed Gospel includes the healing of our diseases as truly as the forgiveness of our sins. Only a prejudiced and faithless theology could restrict the blessings of His great salvation to mere spiritual blessings and rob a suffering world of the touch of His healing wings.

But there are two conditions stated by the language of this beautiful text that are very closely connected with the blessing of healing.

The first is a due sense of G.o.d's claims upon our obedience and a spirit of reverence and a humble, holy regard to His authority and will. It is expressed by the phrase, "You that fear My name." This text gives no encouragement to a profane and fanatical confidence that would dictate to G.o.d and claim any temporal blessing regardless of His will. We must first be yielded to that will in complete submission, and then only are we able to stand on the ground of faith and claim our blessing, not merely because we want it, but because He wills it.

Another condition is also expressed by the beautiful phrase, "in His wings." It is from close and trustful confidence alone that we can claim His healing. We must get under His very wings and in the bosom of His love before faith can claim its highest victories in our inmost being. This is the secret of many a failure. We are not close enough to His heart. We are not simple and childlike enough in our trust. We have not yet come like little birdlings to nestle under the mother wings of G.o.d.

It is to those that fear His name His healing pow'r the Saviour brings; Oh, let us hide with contrite hearts Beneath His healing wings.

It is His wings that heal our pains, And soothe the serpent's poisoned stings; Close to His bosom we must press To feel His healing wings.

IV. Spring Time.

The sunrise brings the spring-time. "Ye shall go forth and grow up as calves of the stall." This is a beautiful picture of the liberty of the animal world. As the young creatures go forth from the confinement of the winter and leap for joy in the freedom of the fields and the gladness of the spring, the life of Christ in a human body and spirit makes all things new, and even age grows young again in the buoyancy of pulses that beat with the energy of Divine life and health.

The ancient picture of it is strikingly beautiful, "His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; He shall return to the days of His youth." "Who satisfieth thy mouth with good, so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's." "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up on wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint."

Such a life is really the beginning of immortality and resurrection life. It is "the earnest" of the age to come. And it is the privilege of all who will recognize and receive G.o.d's blessed gift to lost humanity, the Prince of life, the Lord Jesus, our Living Head and Living Bread. This is the great secret that science has not found, that mythology and poetry have dreamed about and reached after, but that the Bible alone has revealed. It was the secret of the Master's life, and it should be ours. "As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father, even so He that eateth Me shall live by Me."

What a wonder of life and grace is here revealed, a Life sent down from heaven to be the life of the world. No wonder that as Malachi looked down the ages, the shadows seemed to flee away, the night departed, and the sunrise of an everlasting day burst upon his vision.

Oh, ye who dwell in darkness and misery, "Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen upon you." "The night has gone, the day has come, let us cast off the work of darkness, let us put on an armor of light." And then let us go forth in the beauty and brightness of the Bride while the watchers say, "Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun and terrible as an army with banners."

CHAPTER XIV.

PAUL AND DIVINE HEALING.

"I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you; and having this confidence I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith." (Phil. 1: 23-25).

The Apostle Paul was not only a pattern of our spiritual life in Christ, but a striking example of right and privilege to receive the life of our Lord Jesus Christ into our mortal frame and to take Him for our physical strength as truly as for our spiritual need.

His life was a marvelous spiritual triumph in the face of unparalleled difficulties, pressures, sufferings, and mutilations. He seemed to carry a charmed life, and neither Roman rods nor Roman dungeons, malarial dungeons nor hardships of every kind, could hinder him from a single service for his Master, nor shorten his glorious life until all his work was accomplished, and he could say, "I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

What was the secret of that marvelous physical life? The answer involves the whole doctrine of Divine healing, and reveals to us its deepest and highest principles.

I. THE STANDPOINT OF DIVINE HEALING.

It is good for us to approach every Divine truth from the right standpoint. Promises unreservedly true and meant for our enjoyment may be beyond our reach because we are not approaching them from the right direction, and because we are not standing on the true ground of faith. In the verse already quoted, the apostle discloses the standpoint from which he was able to trust G.o.d for his body. It was because his life was not his own, but so dedicated to Jesus that he could truly, say, "For me to live is Christ."

It was because he had been delivered from the fear of death so fully that he could honestly say, "For me to die is gain." It was because he did not want to live for his own sake, but only for the sake of his Master, and for the sake of others, and that he could say in triumph and confidence, "I know that I shall abide and continue with you all."

Paul had so completely renounced his own will in the matter of life or death that he claimed Divine health not because it was his will, but because it was his Master's will and for his Master's glory. This is sublimely expressed in his n.o.ble words to the elders of Ephesus, "I count not my life dear unto myself, but that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify of the gospel of the grace of G.o.d." He counted his life dear, but not for himself.

It would have been dearer for him to go and be with his blessed Master, but he counted it dear because the Lord needed him, and the Lord's people needed him. It was a sacred trust, therefore he could take it from his Master without a doubt or fear, and go forward into the perils and privations that he knew it involved.

This, beloved, is the standpoint of Divine healing. This is the ground of faith. This is the only place where we have a right to claim any of G.o.d's promises. So long as we want blessings for ourselves they are selfish blessings, but so soon as we relinquish our rights and claims and take everything only for Christ, then we can take anything from G.o.d because it is for G.o.d we are taking it, and it is G.o.d's interest more than ours to bless us. This is aptly expressed by a dear old colored saint, who used to say when he got into any trouble, "Oh, Lord! your property is in danger; oh, Lord, take care of your property."

He was so wholly the Lord's that he could honestly feel in looking after himself he was looking after the Lord's property. All things are ours when we are Christ's. So G.o.d help us and bring us to the point where we let go even life itself, as a personal desire, and then take it back as G.o.d's will and G.o.d's choice, and for G.o.d's service and glory. It is the old story of Moriah. It is Isaac laid down and then given back as G.o.d's Isaac and no longer as ours. We gain by losing, we lose by holding. The surrendered life is the only safe life. Letting go is twice possessing.

II. THE SECRET OF DIVINE HEALING.

He had a secret. It was a very definite one. It expressed the philosophy of his experience. It was exactly the same secret that he had for his spiritual life. "Not I but Christ liveth in me."

Paul had no sanctification of his own, but it was all summed up in the indwelling life of Christ. And so Paul claimed no physical strength of his own, but he had learned the secret of resting in the physical life of his Master, and living upon the supernatural vitality he received from Christ, and "renewed day by day."

Listen to him as he says in 2 Cor. 4: 10, 11: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

We find a little expression repeated twice here, "THE LIFE ALSO OF JESUS." Paul had two lives. He had his own life which was mortal and frail and which was always ready to die. But he had another life, "the life also of Jesus," and when his own physical strength gave way, then the life of Jesus came to his aid and carried him through. In other words, he had, residing in him, the very Person of his blessed Master, and His supernatural life sustained the vital energy of the apostle, so that when ready to sink, exhausted, and all his powers had failed, there came to him directly from Christ, through the Holy Ghost, a quickening influence reviving and restoring him and sufficient for all his needs.