Healing For Our Whole Person
Jesus’ blood was shed so we could receive healing: spirit, soul and body.
Broken relationships are the primary cause for our inner wounds. Most people, even Christians, attempt to “medicate” their inner wounds with vain and empty schemes. Often it is drugs, alcohol, food, pursuit of a perfect mate who can make one “happy,” pursuit of success and money or power, and the list goes on. We need to understand that working on the “fruit” of our wounds won’t heal them until we allow God to cut out the bad “roots.” These types of inner wounds can make us physically sick.
The only way that God, Who is love, could have a love relationship with the “apple of His eye,” you and me, was to turn His back on His Son, Jesus, actually God Himself, and allow Him to suffer the penalty and consequence of our broken relationships, especially the relationship with God Himself. This horrible shedding of blood and the turning of God's back on Jesus is what bought our wellbeing, our healing and our total restoration: spirit, soul and body.
Healing of our soul.
1 Peter 1:9-10 speaks about a mystery that the First Testament prophets had wondered about, that being the salvation of a person’s soul.
1 Peter 1:9-10 says,
9 “receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls.
10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you.”
Soul salvation means the well-being and the healing of and total restoration of the human mind, will and emotions. Jesus’ blood was shed for this salvation.
3 John 1:2 says,
2 “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”
In other words, when your soul prospers and is healed, all the other areas of your life will begin to line up with godly prosperity. God, in my opinion, prefers to bless from the inside out. Ephesians 3:20 says that God’s power will work in us.
Ephesians 3:20 says,
20 “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”
Jesus shed blood seven times.[1]
The Hebrew Scriptures foretold of this perfection. We have studied the Hebrew Scriptures for types and shadows of the Blood Covenant, now in this chapter we will see how Jesus, the spotless and perfect Lamb of God is the consummation of the Covenant.
Leviticus 16:14, 19 says,
14 “He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.”
19 “Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, cleanse it, and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.”
1. He shed blood in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane, Jesus facing the worst death and torture, gave up His will for God’s will. He purchased back our rebellious will. He was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:3). Our rebellious will has with it the fruit, or result, of being profane. He shed blood over His will to pay for our rebellious will (rebellion, disobedience).
2. He shed blood at the whipping post. We were redeemed from the curse of disease and sickness “and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:3) (physical healing).
3. He shed blood with the crown of thorns on His head. We were redeemed from the curse of poverty. When Adam and Eve sinned, they no longer enjoyed God’s prosperity, but rather thorns came up in their garden.
Genesis 3:17-18 says,
17 “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.’”
Matthew 27:29 (KJV) says,
29 “And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews!”
4. He shed blood in His hands (dominion over the things we touch).
Psalm 22:16 says,
16 “For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet.”
When Jesus was crucified they drove spikes into His hands. When God created Adam and Eve, He placed all authority into their hands. Satan took that authority, but Jesus has purchased it back for us. Adam was to listen to the Word of God, fellowship with Him, and then exercise the authority that resulted from that fellowship and rule. Any other doctrine about authority in Christ, is in my view, off target.
Psalm 8:4-7 says,
4 “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the son of man that You visit him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels [actual word means God], and You have crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen – Even the beasts of the field.”
Mark 16:18 says,
18 “[T]hey will take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”
5. He shed blood in His feet (defeat of Satan). Jesus’ feet were nailed to the cross. This has many aspects of importance. First, we were people who were walking the wrong path of life, and Jesus' sacrifice gives his obedient believers the opportunity to walk the path which is their appointed destiny and purpose for life. This is also a dominion and authority issue.
Deuteronomy 11:24a says,
24 “Every place on which the sole of your foot treads shall be yours…”
6. He shed blood in His pierced heart (rejection). Very often rejection, especially during our childhood, is the root of most inner wounds. Rejection is very often the cause of many unexplained negative issues in our lives. Rejection destroys joy and causes a “broken heart.”
Jesus won back our joy by taking our rejection on Himself.
Matthew 27:46 says,
46 “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”
Jesus died of a broken heart.
John 19:34 (KJV) says,
34 “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”
Jesus was crucified on the day before a Sabbath and Jewish law demanded that no one could be on a cross on the Sabbath. To comply with this the soldiers went to each of the crucified to break their legs in order to hasten their death. The Scriptures had prophesied that no bone in the Messiah’s body would be broken (Psalm 34:20). There are other Scriptures that imply that the bones of a righteous person would not be broken. There was no need to break Jesus’ legs because they found He was already dead. He had died of a broken heart, which was indicated medically when after piercing His heart, both water and blood flowed out separately (I am told that this is a medical sign that the tissue separating the water from the blood had ruptured).
Healing our broken hearts was one of Jesus’ primary missions.
Luke 4:18 (KJV) says,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”
7. He shed blood in His inner bruises. He was bruised to bring us deliverance from inner hurts and iniquities. If you have a bruise on your body it means that you are bleeding from the inside. Not only was He wounded for our outer transgressions, but He was bruised for our iniquities (generational curses) (see definition in Definitions from Isaiah 53 in the last chapter of this book).
Isaiah 53:5 (KJV) says,
5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
The word ‘iniquities’ means ‘a spirit that tries to break us down.’
It is a spiritual force on the inside that pressures us to bow or bend under its destructive nature. These are also known as “generational curses” as we sometimes talk about them. They are the wounds, bruises and sins perpetrated or suffered by our forefathers.
Exodus 34:5-8 says that curses are passed down to future generations.
Exodus 34:7 says,
7 “Keeping mercy for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the fourth generation.”
The solution is not to struggle against our iniquities or those things that attempt to defeat us from the inside, but to cooperate with God and believe His Word that He indeed did bear them. Notice in the Exodus 34 Scripture that God said that He both forgives iniquity and at the same time He visits the iniquity down to the fourth generation. This sounds like a paradox until you see that God can only forgive by visiting the iniquity upon His Son Jesus in your place! This is called forgiveness and is only possible because the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son was broken at the cross.
Hang on to the promise no matter what the circumstances.
In Genesis chapter 15 God put Abram to sleep while the two burning figures of Deity walked through the blood covenant ditch. That time of intense darkness comes on many of us when we do not understand what is going on. During this time all we need to see in our darkness is what the Holy Spirit will illuminate, and that is the emblem of the covenant. There are times when all we need to hang onto is the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus Christ! There are times when it may be difficult to discipline our minds to believe what is written in this chapter. During those times, keep the emblem of the covenant on the video screen of your mind.
When one in my family was facing a serious life and death surgery, all I could do for six hours was to see the serpent on the brazen pole in the Wilderness, being a type of Jesus on the Cross for our healing.
Numbers 21:9 says,
9 “So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the bronze serpent, he lived.”
The serpent on the brazen pole is still the symbol used by the medical profession for healing.
A great story showing how Jesus heals from heals from the inside out.
Jesus performed a miracle as recorded in Mark chapter 2 that I believe tells that story better than any theology.
Mark 2:1-12 says,
1 “And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house.
2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them.
3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men.
4 And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’
6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts,
7 ‘Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, ‘Why do you reason about these things in your hearts?
9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’?
10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins’ – He said to the paralytic,
11 ‘I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.’
12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!’”
Notice in verse 5 when Jesus said, “Son.” The word “son” in Greek is teknon, which carries this meaning; “You who have been begotten by a father and family but have no relationship with either.” Notice, this man’s family did not bring him to Jesus, but four men who had faith. I believe that is a picture of a real church, using their faith to bring paralyzed people to Jesus. Teknon does not necessarily mean there is no relationship, it simply means one who has been begotten. I believe the implication by Jesus was as I have stated. There are other words Jesus could have used.
You may not be paralyzed in body, but maybe in spirit or in lifestyle. Maybe you are paralyzed to stop drugs. Maybe you are overeating to medicate the emptiness in your relationships; maybe you are doing destructive things to your body like cutting or other such painful acts. Maybe you cannot stop inordinate sex, porno, anger, depression, and the list goes on. Your external paralysis has an inner cure for which Jesus paid the ultimate price.
Then Jesus said, “your sins are forgiven you.” In other words, those iniquities that have cut off your father son and family relationship were borne by Me. Forgive means to cut away and take away. That rejection and relationship void that had made this man paralyzed has been borne by Jesus at the Cross. Jesus could have just as easily said, “Son, I am going to the cross in a few years and there My Daddy will turn His head and reject Me, so that this sin you have endured will be forgiven and taken away from you.”
Isaiah 53:5 says that Jesus was bruised for our iniquities. Iniquities are inner wounds, and so are bruises inner wounds. Our inner wounds were borne by Jesus’ inner wounds.
Jeremiah 31:29-30 says,
29 “In those days they shall say no more: ‘The fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity; every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”
In other words, in the New Covenant, Jesus will absorb that which could not be absorbed in the Old Covenant.
Look what happened! “Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!’” (Mark 2:12)
When you allow Jesus to go down deep and forgive those things done to you, or perhaps issues that were inequities and were passed down to you by forefathers, and you agree with Him to issue that forgiveness, then your outer issues will be healed. Perhaps understanding this bigger picture about forgiveness will make it easier for you to forgive those who have hurt you or who have passed down inequities.
Healing starts from the inside and works its way out.
Remember our Scripture in 3 John and how God wants us to prosper to the same degree our soul is prospering. However, we need to submit ourselves to God for this inner healing.
There are ways in which we can cooperate with the Holy Spirit to allow Him to get down deep, underneath all of layers of “onion peels” to our inner wounds, and we will cover those in later chapters. However just as an introduction and in order to help you get a vision for your walk through this sometimes painful valley, we want to cover one more aspect of a true father, that being discipline.
Fathers are required to discipline. That is part of healing.
There are some wounds that may be buried deep down inside of us, and perhaps the only way to uncover them long enough for healing is to just have a good dose of hurt and pain. Receiving this good news, this wonderful Gospel message that Jesus takes away our wounds and heals them, is a means of grace. But another sometimes unnoticed means of grace is the discipline of the Holy Spirit. This is oftentimes referred to as breaking, the breaking of our outer man or our flesh nature.
Earthly fathers walk a very precarious and fine line with discipline not being misinterpreted as rejection. So many children perceive discipline as rejection even though the father never meant it that way. Others even see God as a harsh rejecting disciplinarian.
No earthly parent is perfect. Even if he/she were, just look at the perfect parent God and look what happened to His first children. Look at the Prodigal father and see if you can lay the blame for the son’s rebellion on him. Look at the Prodigal son’s thoughts as he returns to the father in waiting. Did he even subconsciously blame his father for his horrible experience? He received healing because of taking responsibility for his own actions.
The point is, if you make a habit of blaming your father, your father figure, your mother, even the passed down inequities of your generational curses, you will never become a free person. Blame is something from the toolbox of Satan. Ultimately if you do not see blame pasted on yourself and then immediately on Jesus on the Cross, you will never be free.
Look at Hebrews 12:5-13. Discipline opens us up for healing.
Hebrews12:5-13 says,
5 “And you have forgotten the exhortation which speaks to you as to sons: ‘My son, do not despise the chastening of the LORD, nor be discouraged when you are rebuked by Him;
6 For whom the LORD loves He chastens, and scourges every son whom He receives.’
7 If you endure chastening, God deals with you as with sons; for what son is there whom a father does not chasten?
8 But if you are without chastening, of which all have become partakers, then you are illegitimate and not sons.
9 Furthermore, we have had human fathers who corrected us, and we paid them respect. Shall we not much more readily be in subjection to the Father of spirits and live?
10 For they indeed for a few days chastened us as seemed best to them, but He for our profit, that we may be partakers of His holiness.
11 Now no chastening seems to be joyful for the present, but painful; nevertheless, afterward it yields the peaceable fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it.
12 Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down, and the feeble knees,
13 and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed.”
Notice in verse 10 it says that this discipline will bring about holiness, which is God’s character, and in verse 11 the fruit of righteousness part of which is peace, and in verse 13 it says that we may be healed.
I am not talking about every time we go through a hard time to assume that the Lord is disciplining us. He may be, but we also need to be wary of Satan’s devices as well. There is a fine line and balance in understanding that we can resist Satan and at the same time see how God may be trying to use this difficult time to peel one more layer of the onion off of our soul so that He may get to one of our scabs, one of our festering inner wounds, and heal it.
[1] Ideas and some text taken from Free At Last by author Larry Hutch. Published by Larry Hutch Ministries, Portland OR.
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