We have already discussed how "zoe" life from God quickens our spirit and how our spiritual condition ultimately effects the health of our bodies. Spiritual death, or separation from the life of God, will eventually show up as sickness in the body. The end result of sickness is physical death. Sin is the cause of spiritual death.

What is sin? The Hebrew word for sin "chata" and the Greek word "hamartia" both refer to "missing the mark". The image is of an archer and the mark is God’s will for your life. Sin is seen as breaking a commandment, falling short of God’s standard of righteousness, or failure to believe God’s word.

One could say that no one would deliberately sin knowing the consequences if they really believed God’s word.

Adam and Eve sinned by breaking God’s commandment not to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The result was spiritual death, separation from God and the life of God.

Spiritual death in Adam eventually resulted in his physical death. Adam did not die physically the day he sinned. He lived to raise a family.

Sins committed by an individual may effect their offspring.

Adam was the source of the entire human race and his sin effected all of his offspring.

The disciples knew that sickness was caused by sin. They asked Jesus about the man born blind:

Jesus answered: "Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents:". The sin of their forefathers right back to Adam was responsible.

This statement suggests that the sickness of the invalid at the pool of Bethesda was the result of sin he had committed at least 38 years earlier.

The wages of sin is death. In the Old Testament an innocent animal paid the price for a man’s sin to be covered. Now the man without sin, Jesus, has paid the penalty of death so that our sin could be permanently done away with. As I have already explained He was able to do this because of our covenant with Him as the bride of Christ. His physical body was broken so that our bodies could be healed.

The Hebrew word translated griefs in Isaiah 53:4 is "choliy" which means malady, calamity, disease or sickness. The Hebrew word translated sorrows in the same verse is "mak’ob" meaning sorrow, anguish or PAIN. Many people argue that this verse refers to "spiritual healing" but Matthew would disagree.

Peter, after Jesus died on the cross quoted the same verse, in reference to the completed work of Christ.

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Those stripes were the marks from the Roman whip that tore His flesh to mend ours. The price has been paid for our healing!

If Jesus died to forgive our sins and heal our bodies why are Christians sick and how do we get healing? Christians often are sick because of unconfessed or continued sin. They appropriate healing by getting forgiveness for that sin.

Christians sin every day intentionally or otherwise. We certainly cannot condemn Adam for we all do the same things. Thank God we have an advocate with the father who can be touched with the feeling of our infirmities. He gives forgiveness of sins and healing unto all men liberally and upbraideth not. Glory to His Holy Name!

I would like now to discuss the healing of Naaman the Syrian for it illustrates many important points. Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Syria. This was one of the most powerful armies on the face of the earth at that time. He was a leper. Leprosy in the Bible is a type of sin. What sin could Naaman have been guilty of? I would like to suggest that his sin was the same as satan’s sin, pride. He held the fate of thousands of people in his hands. He had conquered many nations despite their gods, in which they trusted and made them slaves. He saw himself and his master as the two most influential men in the east. He probably saw the two of them as greater than any god. Pride was the root cause of his leprosy. One of the Jewish girls he had taken captive happened to remark one day that Elisha could heal him. He told this to his king who sent him to the king of Israel to be healed. When he arrived with a letter from the king of Syria the king of Israel was terrified. He thought the king of Syria was trying to pick a fight with Israel by making an impossible request. He tore his robes. Elisha found out about it and sent a message to his king.

How could Elisha be so confident? Because he knew his God, or rather our God. Naaman went to Elisha expecting him to make a big fuss over him as a visiting dignitary but instead he sent his servant out to tell him to dip seven times in the Jordan river to be cleansed. Elisha wouldn’t even come out to see him. Naaman failed to understand how just dipping in a river could CLEANSE him especially the Jordan which was so DIRTY compared to the rivers of his homeland and he went away mad. He was mostly mad because his pride had been hurt and he thought that he would look like a fool if he tried dipping in the river. He would have left had not one of his servants intervened. Now I want you to pay close attention to this next point. Naaman had to humble himself before Elisha and our God in front of his servants in order to be healed. He had to overcome his pride and the moment he did so he was healed. Now Naaman was a new man wanting only earth to set up an alter to worship [and continue to humble himself before] the only true God. He offered Elisha gifts which he refused. Why did he refuse them? Did our God want Elisha to be poor? Perhaps Elisha did not want to be paid for something Naaman had received from God. Perhaps, but I think there is more involved. I believe a spirit was behind the leprosy. Naaman’s sin of pride had opened the door for a spirit of leprosy to afflict him. If Elisha received anything from Naaman he would receive the spirit and the leprosy also. Remember the man at the gate called beautiful. He looked at Peter and John expecting to receive something of them and he received something spiritual not the physical money he was expecting.

Gehazi coveted the clothes and the silver. He went after Naaman and made up a lie to receive them under false pretenses. You could say he stole them. When Gehazi returned with Naaman’s clothes and silver Elisha said to him, "Now isn’t the time to receive gifts.". He didn’t say never receive them, he said now isn’t the time because the spirit of leprosy had just departed from Naaman and was looking for somewhere to live. Think about the madman of Gadara and the pigs. When those demons were cast out they immediately entered the pigs. Naaman had closed the door of sin which in his case was pride and the spirit had to leave. Gehazi’s sins of coveting, stealing and lying then opened the door for the spirit of leprosy to afflict him. Elisha then said:

Elisha wasn’t cursing Gehazi because he stole the goods he was explaining to him what he had brought upon himself and his children because of his spiritual blindness.

There was a Caananite woman whose daughter was possessed by a demon. She followed Jesus and the disciples crying out for deliverance. I believe this woman had opened the door of sin to that demon. She had bitterness and hatred toward the Jews for the way some of them had treated her. The Jews of that time called all non-Jews dogs, a derogatory term that suggested they were inferior. Their treatment of her was wrong but her hatred of them was just as wrong.

This woman had no right of deliverance as she did not have a share in the Abrahamic covenant. Jesus pointed this out to her at the urging of the disciples but she persisted. Then he said to her:

Was Jesus prejudiced? We know He couldn’t be because most of the church consists of non-Jews. He may have been testing her faith but I believe He knew the root cause of her daughter’s illness. He forced her to overcome her offense toward the Jews.

He said, "the devil is gone" not "I will cast it out". With the door of sin closed the demon had to leave. I do not give you this example as dogma but as a possible explanation. I simply want to inspire you to look more deeply for spiritual explanations for illness and recovery. Sickness is a physical symptom of an underlying spiritual condition. Physical and psychological therapies only treat the symptoms and leave the root cause unaddressed. This is a situation similar to the ancient Jews who would cover their sin with the blood of bulls and goats. This was a physical sacrifice. The sin was still present in their spirits. Only humans have a spirit. The spirit is the life of the body. The word says the life is in the blood. It took a spiritual sacrifice, the blood of Christ, to take away our sin. It takes a spiritual remedy to permanently eradicate sickness whether of the mind or the body.

Have you ever noticed that men of God including Jesus often gave the sick a task to complete, one which often appeared impossible and if they would obey they would be healed. Naaman had to dip seven times in the Jordan. The man with the shriveled hand had to stretch it out. The paralyzed man had to pick up his mat and walk. The blind man had to wash in the pool of Siloam. The man crippled from birth had to stand upright on his feet. Why is this? To understand fully you have to remember the point we made earlier that disobedience and unbelief are equivalent in the Bible. The Greek word apeitheia has both meanings. It is from the root word apeithes meaning unpersuadable or disobedient. You will find it in Hebrews chapter four. Also remember the following:

Unbelief and sin are therefore equivalent. We know that the opposite is also true, faith and righteousness are interchangeable.

Now for the main point. If one act of sin, disobedience, unbelief will cause sickness then one act of righteousness, obedience, faith will heal it. This is true for the whole church corporately as well as for us individually.

We will discuss faith and its relationship to healing further in later chapters.