I want to ask one question. In his letter, X said that the healing power always comes with the forgiveness of sins. Now don't you think that any person who is not healed of disease has his sins forgiven?
We take it for granted that you do not specially care to know what somebody thinks about the matter, but wish to know the truth. Let us therefore turn to the Word of truth, and read a few texts as a basis for our study. In the following texts it will be seen that forgiveness and healing are inseparably connected: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfies your mouth with good things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psalm 103:2-5) "And the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick: the people that dwell therein shall he forgiven their iniquity." (Isaiah 33:24) "You have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for You have cast all my sins behind your back." (Isaiah 38:17) "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that you may be healed." (James 5:14-16) "And you shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you." (Exodus 23:25)
Forgiveness Means a New Life Given
The chief cause of the difficulty over this subject is the failure to grasp the meaning of forgiveness of sins. The idea is quite firmly rooted in the minds of most people, that it is a mere matter of words. They regard it rather as a change on the part of God toward us, than as a change in our relation to Him.
Now God forgives our sins by putting His righteousness into and upon us. "Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference: For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus: Whom God has set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." (Romans 3:22-25)
We are "saved by His life." (Romans 5:10)
The righteousness of God is revealed only in the life of Jesus Christ, and our sins are forgiven--remitted, sent away--when we consciously and gladly receive that life, so that it is henceforth not we who live, but Christ who lives in us. Thus you see that forgiveness of sins makes a radical change in the individual.
You say that there are many persons who have confessed their sins, and who have believed that God forgave them, but whose lives have not been transformed; they struggle to do right, but fail fully as often as they succeed. Very well; we need not doubt the genuineness of their conversion. The trouble is that they have not fully realized that the just shall live by faith, and have not allowed faith to add to them all the Christian graces. Read the list: "Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these you might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust. And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you, and abound, they make you that you shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But he that lacks these things is blind, and cannot see afar off, and has forgotten that he was purged from his old sins." (2 Peter 1:4-9)
This shows incidentally, also, that forgiveness of sins means purging from the sin. If people grasped the fact that forgiveness of sins is effected by the power of a new and endless life, there would be fewer failures in the Christian life.
Do you now see what an "unspeakable gift" (2 Corinthians 9:15) the forgiveness of sins is? Here is a little statement of the case that will help to fix it in your mind:
When a person has sinned against you, you naturally feel offended; there is more or less bitterness in your heart. The person asks forgiveness, and his penitence moves you to pity, and you grant the request. Your feelings change. But your forgiveness makes no change in the person who has done the wrong. Having confessed his sin, he is free, even though you refuse to forgive him; but your forgiveness means a change in your attitude toward him.
But it is not so with God's forgiveness. He has no bitterness, no feeling of offended dignity, in His heart. He loves us in our sins. We are moved by His love to ask forgiveness for our sins, and He grants it, but that does not involve any change in Him; the change is wholly in us who are forgiven.
It is a real thing, for He imparts to us His own real life. He gives to us that which enables us to resist sin in our flesh, to which we have always before been subject.
Do you not see that the forgiveness of our sins by the Lord means the reception of something real, and that it is designed to effect a change that is manifest in our own bodies?
The Assurance of the Resurrection
Well now, let us for a moment leave the present, and look forward to the future, to the coming of the Lord Jesus the second time. We know what will take place then: The dead shall be raised incorruptible, and the living will be changed to immortality. (1 Corinthians 15:51-53; 1 Thessalonians 4:16-18) He will "change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body, according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto himself." (Philippians 3:21)
That is to say, The power by which the Lord at His coming changes this body from corruptible to incorruptible, is the same by which He casts down imaginations and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and brings into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:4-5) It is by "the righteousness which comes through the faith of Christ, ... [that we] attain unto the resurrection of the dead." (Philippians 3:9,11)
We know therefore, and everybody knows, that the forgiveness of sins does indeed involve the healing of all disease at some time, and the abolishing of death. You see this clearly, do you not? Very well, let us go a step farther, or rather, let us come a step nearer.
A Passing from Death unto Life
Conversion is a passing from death unto life.
"Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that hears my word, and believes Him that sent me, has eternal life, and comes not into judgment, but is passed out of death into life." (John 5:24)
Even now the hour is come "when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God; and they that hear shall live." (John 5:25)
This is not to be marveled at, since "the hour is coming in which all that are in the graves shall hear His voice, And shall come forth." (John 5:28-29)
At the sounding of the last trumpet, and the call of the Lord the dead will come forth from their graves by the very same power by which men now live righteous lives. Yes; even now Christ "has abolished death, and has brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel." (2 Timothy 1:10)
The mystery of the resurrection is made manifest in every soul that gains the victory over sin. Righteousness is gained only by "the power of His resurrection," (Philippians 3:10) and in the resurrection of Christ is contained the resurrection of all who are His. He is the resurrection and the life, and when we are in Him we have Him as the resurrection and the life to us day by day.
The Power that Works in Us
You will readily admit that it is no more difficult for the Lord to make a person "every whit whole" now than at the resurrection. Indeed, He has often done this very thing.
But that which we have already seen is that the very same power that will work at the resurrection of all the dead is now at work in all who believe in Christ, and that it is by that power that we receive forgiveness. The power by which we receive righteousness is the power by which we live and breathe. God is able to do "exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us." (Ephesians 3:20)
The mystery of the Gospel is the mystery of life; and the mystery of the new birth is simply that of the first birth. In this period of probation God is giving us a sample of eternal life, that we may decide whether or not we care enough for it to keep it.
Everybody who has known what it is to gain the victory over any sin, has realized a definite power working in his own body. He knows that there is in him something that controls his flesh as he himself never could do before. In fact, the only way that we can know the reality of forgiveness is by experiencing this change in us.
Now that power is the life of Christ by the Holy Spirit. Christ is not divided; He has only the one life, himself, for He is life itself. Why then should we not take that life for physical healing so well as for spiritual life, since that is the one and only agent by which everything in the purpose of God is accomplished?
The Sum of the Matter
But I have not directly answered your question yet. I reply that there cannot possibly be any doubt that there are and always have been thousands of persons whose sins were forgiven, who suffered from disease. Beloved saints of God are going into their graves every day; but it is a costly thing for the Lord, and causes Him pain. "Precious [costly] in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints." (Psalm 116:15)
We cannot presume to unravel all the causes of everything that takes place; but we may be certain of this, that thousands of good people die, who do not need to, and who would not die if they grasped all the possibilities in the forgiveness of their sins. God says, "My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." (Hosea 4:6)
The life of the Lord is altogether too unreal to most people. If all received Him as a present Saviour, and got fully acquainted with Him, they would learn that: "He is the Saviour of the body." (Ephesians 5:23)
Why should it be that there are so many who cannot read Psalm 103:1-5? That scripture is in an unknown language to those who do not have the experience.
Get Acquainted with the Life
What then should we do? We should study the life of Christ in all its manifestations. We should learn to recognize Him in His sanctuary, that is, our own bodies, which are the temples of the Holy Ghost.
We should study to know how our bodies as well as our souls are to be sanctified and kept blameless till the coming of the Lord. We should seek to know the way of life, that we may be led in the way everlasting. We should give diligence to know how to fight the good fight, of faith, and to lay hold on eternal life.
We should learn to recognize the life of Christ in all the agencies, as food, drink, air, etc., by which it la conveyed to us, as well as to know the Holy Spirit. This study involves details too many to be taken up here; all that we can do now is to open up the glorious possibilities before every believer in Christ.
Food and Healing
One thing more: please read again two texts at the beginning of this article: "Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from destruction; who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfies your mouth with good things; so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's." (Psalm 103:2-5) "And you shall serve the Lord your God, and He shall bless your bread, and your water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of you." (Exodus 23:25)
Do you not see that this indicates a, close connection between our food and our health? Healing does not come arbitrarily, but as the result of coming into complete harmony with "the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus." (Romans 8:2)
Why should we expect it to be otherwise? Our life depends largely upon what we eat; why then, if we eat only that which is good, receiving it direct from the hand of the Lord, should not our life be redeemed from destruction, and our youth renewed?
Every Christian ought to be a thorough student of physiology, which means a student of the law of Christ's life as manifested in us and in everything that pertains to us. This is not so difficult as might be supposed. When one recognizes and receives the life of the Lord by faith, he has "the key of knowledge," (Luke 11:52) and has free access to "all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." (Colossians 2:3) "That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seer with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and show unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us); That, which we have seen and heard declare we unto you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father, and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full." (1 John 1:1-4)
When the most insignificant man tells us we are in error, we should listen, and examine ourselves, and see if it is so. To believe it possible that we may be in error, is the first step toward getting out of it.--Present Truth, September 6, 1900.