LETTER

Ed: Many thanks for your letter, which actually raises an incredibly important point regarding the work of the cross.

The first two references you ask about are from Isaiah 53:4-5, which concerns the Suffering Servant — the Messiah and His atoning work on the cross.In order to understand this verse correctly, we must first appreciate that it is a poetic passage and, as such, employs specific literary methods. Hebrew poetry, like the poetry of other Semitic languages, does not use rhyme. Instead, it uses what we call meter — the structure of each line has a certain number of syllables or beats.This enables the poem to be recited according to a constant rhythm. Alongside this system of meter, Hebrew poetry employs another literary device called Semitic Parallelism (so-called because it is also used in the poetry of other Semitic languages such as Ugaritic). This parallelism involves making two statements, which say the same thing using different words. For example, Psalm 32:11 states: "Be glad in the LORD and rejoice ye righteous, and shout for joy all ye that are upright in heart." These two statements essentially say the same thing, but using different words. Thus "Be glad in the LORD and rejoice," corresponds to "and shout for joy", whilst "ye righteous" corresponds to "all ye that are upright in heart". This is done for emphasis.Understanding this feature of Hebrew poetry enables us to interpret Isaiah 53:5 correctly: "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." This verse uses the same parallelism to describe the work of the cross. Thus when we come to interpret the final phrase, "and with his stripes we are healed," we need to consider the equivalent phrase in the previous line — "he was bruised for our iniquities".The "stripes" corresponds to his "bruising" and the "healing" corresponds to "our iniquities." In other words, we are healed of our iniquities!!! This was the work of the cross — to deal with our sins.It is a far greater thing than any vain promise of physical perfection. Some of our readers may indeed struggle with this — the Assemblies of God in a number of countrieshas the doctrine of physical healing being part of the atonement in its fundamentals and Isaiah 53:5 is always quoted to this end. This is a very immature use of Isaiah 53:5, and it is time the Pentecostal movement "grew up".I have lost count of the number of times I have seen sincere believers rebuke Satan for bringing sickness upon a particular brother or sister. But if one actually reads the bible and examines who sends sicknesses upon whom,Satan is surprisingly absent!!I remember once when I was ill from a particularly bad ailment; a group of Christians offered to pray for me.
I wholeheartedly refused their kind offer.I knew what the Lord was accomplishing in me through the sickness and, to be quite frank, I also knew the Lord would remove it once it was accomplished.Obviously one cannot generalise, but it may not be the Lord's will that we live perfectly healthy lives — we must still say, "Thy will be done"!!
But if you don't believe me, let us see how the New Testament deals with this verse when it is given divinely inspired exegesis in 1 Peter 2:24.Under inspiration, the apostle wrote: "Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes you were healed."
There is no hint of physical healing in Peter's exegesis — it wholly concerns the "healing" which relates to dealing with sin. So we have the following situation.The divinely inspired Hebrew scriptures discuss the healing work of the cross in a context pertaining to dealing with our sins.The divinely inspired Greek scriptures discuss the healing work of the cross in a context pertaining to us being made dead to sins and alive to righteousness.The humanly inspired fundamentals of mainstream Pentecostalism interpret the same verse as referring to physical healing.
I think it is obvious who is right here. We do, of course, believe in a Saviour who also heals according to His good pleasure, and we follow the practise of calling upon the elders for theanointing with oil etc. But our prayer is always "Your will be done". We simply present our petitions to the Lord and trust in his provision.
Now, in this context, let us examine the Matthew 8:17 reference to Isaiah 53:4.We note that Matthew 8:17 uses Isaiah 53:4 in a context which concerns the healing and deliverance of many people. Does this mean that physical healing is also referred to in Isaiah 53:4 as being part of the atonement? The answer is no — for the following reasons.Firstly, the Matthew reference is nothing to do with the death of Jesus — it is simply an account of his life. Secondly, the miracles of Jesus are called signs — in other words, they are not performed for their own sake, but they demonstrate a spiritual truth in the physical realm.This is clear from the presentation of the signs in John's gospel.For example, the miraculous catch of fish in John 21:3-11 is more than a demonstration of the Lord's ability to make 153 fish swim into a net. It is symbolic of the restoration process in which Jesus demonstrates his desire to fulfil his earlier wordconcerning his disciples — c.f. Matthew 4:19.This is in the author's mind in Matthew 8:17 — the miracles performed by Jesus are signs which demonstrate his mission: the physical healings point towards the purpose of his coming which was to effect on the cross the great spiritual healing — the atonement.To confuse the physical sign with the spiritual truth — and associate physical healing with the atonement — is to miss the point.In fact, it is more than missing the point — it is misunderstanding the gospel, the work of the cross and the whole rationale for our Lord's mission. Thirdly, there is a method of New Testament exegesis, which few Christians (especially those in Pentecostal or charismatic circles) appear to have come to terms with.We call it right doctrine — wrong text methodology.This phrase is not intended to pronounce a moral judgement on the method of exegesis — it is simply a literary observation.For example, Galatians 3:11 states: "But that no man is justified by the law in the sight of God, it is evident: for, the just shall live by faith." Paul is here discussing the problem with the Mosaic Law — how it is impossible to keep it, so all who try are under a curse because they have failed.In contrast to the one who tries to live under Mosaic Law is the one who lives by faith and is thus declared justified.To demonstrate this, Paul quotes part of Habakkuk 2:4. Yet the context of Habakkuk 2:4 concerns the Babylonian exile, and how the righteous Jew will survive its turmoil through his faith, i.e. his faithfulness to the Mosaic Law.Thus we see how an Old Testament textcan be used by a New Testament author in a completely different, and possibly contrary, context.Both are under inspiration and both are valid — it is just that we have to understand the meaning of the original Old Testament passage, and then understand the use of a phrase from this passage in the New Testament. This is what is happening in Matthew 8:17.The author is using a phrase from Isaiah 53:4 to identify Jesus as the one who will effect the atonement it refers to.In the context in which he makes this identification, we have a classic example of the right doctrine — wrong text method. —SB

3 John 2 is a natural desire expressed by John the elder for the future well-being of Gaius, who is not identified elsewhere in scripture or church history but who was quite clearly held in affection by the writer (c/f v 1). The Greek eucomai euchomai (AV "wish") may refer to prayer to God or simply to wish something on or for someone (Strongs word study no 2172). So the verse may be viewed as a prayer or simply as a desire. Prosperity is not taught as a doctrine anywhere in the New Testament. Add to this the fact that the word translated "prosper" is derived from two Greek roots, which brought together signify simply to be "helped on the way", and the whole modern doctrine of wealth and prosperity is seen to be unfounded. John the Apostle, author of this third Epistle simply desires or prays for the health and well being of his friend, Gaius. Interestingly the words "prosper" and "health", as they apply to physical or material welfare, appear only once each whereas the word "truth" appears four times in the first four verses of this Epistle. John rejoices that Gaius is prospering spiritually and does what any caring pastor would do. He prays (desires) that he will have all that is required, including health and possessions, to help him on the way of his earthly pilgrimage. Give some too much and you will not help them ON the way but rather OUT OF the way. The health and wealth doctrine of today's apostate church cannot be argued from the bible. At best it is a distortion and wrong application of obscure tenets of the Old Covenant. I think the following ditty better explains the fallacy than anything I have come across and it equally applies to HEALTH and WEALTH:

A man said to God,
"What's a million years to you?"
And God said, "A second".
Then the man said to God,
"What's a million dollars too?"
And God said, "A penny".
So the man said to God,
"Will you give me a penny?"
And God said, "Sure, you just
need to wait a second".

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Appeared in Issue 6.1 April 2000