ISAIAH 53:4-6 Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted, but he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon him and by his stripes we are healed.
This passage is Isaiah's prophetic vision of what Jesus would accomplish on the cross. We must note here that on the very same cross, on the very same day, Jesus not only paid the full price for our sins to be forgiven, he also paid for our emotional and physical healing.
Note that in verse five he says that by his stripes we are healed. In the old testament all the covenants that God established with his people from Adam, to Abraham, Moses, through law and the prophets were all given for one reason, to point to people to the promised messiah (Jesus). See Romans 3:21-26 and Galatians 3:24. God promised that if they walked in his covenants and in obedience to them they would have good health and that none of the diseases that they had seen in Egypt would effect them(Exodus 15:26). What Isaiah is saying is that ultimately their forgiveness and healing is the result of what God is going to do through the messiah but that they can now claim that healing through the covenants that God had established with them.
1 PETER 2:24 "He himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sin, might live in righteousness, by whose stripes you were healed".
In this verse Peter quotes Isaiah 53 but note that he says that by his stripes you were healed. We must realise that the work of the cross was a complete work. There is nothing more God is going to do or can do to secure your forgiveness or healing. As far as God is concerned we are healed, it is now up to us to receive our healing in the same way that we receive our forgiveness.
MARK 11:24 "Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask for when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them."
Jesus tells us in this verse that when we pray and ask God for anything we must believe that we receive it, and when we do we will have the thing that we have asked for. This is how our faith works, we ask and then believe that we have received what we asked for. In verse 22 we see that Jesus says "Have faith in God", then in the next verse he goes on to show us how to remove the obstacles that come against us. The key to it is to believe when you pray that you have received what you have prayed for and not allow doubt to rob you from receiving your answer.
HEBREWS 11:1 "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not see."
Faith is the currency of Heaven and it operates in the now, it is neither past tense or future tense. It brings into substance the things that we are hoping for. Hope here is not some half hearted belief that maybe something will happen or maybe it won't. Biblical hope is based on the inner assurance that Gods word is true and totally reliable and that all his promises are "Yes and Amen in Jesus". In the case of our healing the hope is "By his stripes we were healed", Faith takes a hold of of that spiritual truth, that inner assurance that we know this to be true and causes that healing to be manifested in our physical bodies.
POINT TO PONDER.
If someone comes up to you and asks you do you know that you are saved, and on what basis do you believe, would you have any doubt or problem in assuring them that you know that you are saved based on what Jesus has done on the cross?. As I have already pointed out it was on the very same cross, on the very same day that Jesus paid for our sins, he paid for our healing, so when the question arises "Are you healed" based on what Jesus did on the cross what should our answer be?
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