Luke 4:38-44: Jesus the Healer

Why do we get sick? The Bible teaches that we get sick and die because of the curse upon sin. Adam would have lived in a world full of bacteria but because his body was whole and had not suffered any of the effects of sin He would have been immune to the powerful miniature agents God had created. Adam’s genetic code would have been flawless and the process of cell multiplication would have happened without a hitch so that no cancerous growths would form and no genetic diseases would have been passed on to his progeny. Adam would have been protected from the process of slow death or ageing. He would have been kept by the power of God from the ravaging forces of nature; he would even have been providentially protected by God from accidents and other ill effects like branches falling from trees, etc. Being in God’s favour He enjoyed the blessings of life and health and protection, but then He sinned. And all of a sudden the world from which he had enjoyed protection from by the blessing of God became a hostile and killing environment. Sickness, death and degeneration became the portion of humanity as Adam plunged us into a life in this world under God’s judgement. Man went the way of all flesh.

It was God’s plan for Adam that he should obey and endure and come through the test earning a permanent possession in a new creation type blessing. God made man to enjoy fellowship with Himself in a perfect creation serving Him and flourishing. Adam failed to accomplish that goal. The devil was let loose to afflict us, death held power over us, sickness was the common lot of us all. But God promised a day when another child of Adam would be born who would go to battle against satan, as well as endure the probation for the eternal possession of paradise in order to reverse and destroy all the effects of sin. Jesus is the Second Adam. Jesus has come as a second Adam to destroy satan’s hold on the earth, to reverse the curse so that once again God’s blessing rests upon creation. The full and final dawning of that victory will happen when Jesus comes again at His second coming.

The kingdom of God comes in an unexpected way, it comes in two stages. It is inaugurated with the resurrection of Christ and consummated with the second coming of Christ. The gospels have a special role in giving us a proleptic glimpse into that future kingdom. The Spirit, who will one day make all things new, shows us through the ministry of Jesus what the kingdom of God in the New Creation will be like. In the new creation there will be no death, so Jesus resurrects people; there is no blindness, so Jesus gives sight; there is no lameness, so Jesus causes people to walk; there are no demons, so He casts them out, you get the picture. The portion before us gives us a look at Jesus the healer. Last week we looked at Jesus authority over the demonic world, today we look at Jesus authority over sickness. We will look firstly at Jesus the healer and then the issue of healing today.