Is Physical Healing Our Right in Christ’s Atonement on the Cross?

Explore key scriptures that answer the question of whether healing is our right and guarantee in Christ’s atonement on the cross and how to walk in faith.

Photo Credit: 1982 Katherine Brown

This short article is going to explore an often overlooked, but key scripture in this controversial topic within Christendom today. We will explore the nature of covenant promises, 3 key texts, and how to walk out your faith in relation to healing.

Covenant Guarantees

To understand the scriptures we are going to explore and how they relate to healing, we need a brief overview of Covenant guarantees. In each of these covenants, God has commitments that He has promised and obligated Himself to fulfill and is “guaranteed.” There are unilateral (one-sided) covenants like God’s promise to Noah to not destroy the earth by flood again. And there are multilateral covenants like the Mosaic Covenant with requirements on both sides - Israel to obey the laws given, and God to bless if they obeyed or curse if they failed (see Deuteronomy 28-29).

The New Covenant in Christ is a multilateral covenant where if we fulfill our requirement to believe in, trust in, and rely upon Jesus and His work on the cross for our salvation, God fulfills His promise and guarantees our salvation, forgiveness of our sins, and eternal life.

The question when it comes to physical healing that we want to help you answer in this article is as follows:

Is your right to be healed a covenant guarantee by Christ’s death on the cross in the same respect as is your redemption through faith and subsequent ability to confess your sins and be forgiven?

Text #1: By His Wounds You Were Healed

First, let’s consider the often-used proof-text of 1 Peter 2:24-25:

And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed.  (25)  For you were continually straying like sheep [by sinning], but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls. (1 Peter 2:24-25)

If we diagram this sentence, we see that “for by His wounds you were healed” is a prepositional phrase that modifies the preceding declarations of the sentence, which are solely concerned with sin and living in righteousness in victory over sin. There is no reference to the flesh at all, as we should perhaps expect that there was nothing at the Cross which would glorify the flesh.

Clearly, the healing referred to in verse 24 is a healing from our iniquity. Again, verse 25 reinforces the thrust of the sin focus of verse 24 by emphasizing the sinful nature of man in “continually straying like sheep.”

Text #2: If we confess our sins…

Now, let’s examine perhaps the clearest statement of covenant in the New Testament in 1 John 1:9, which is directed at believers, who have been saved and sealed (indwelt) by the Spirit of God:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

Clearly, forgiveness of sins is the basis of the atonement and therefore a covenant promise from God established through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary. When we satisfy the requirements for a covenant promise, then because God is not a man and cannot lie and cannot be unrighteous, He will always be faithful and righteous to keep His part of the covenant promise.

Text #3: Epaphroditus’ Sickness

Now, let’s consider Philippians 2:25-27:

But I thought it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother and fellow worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger and minister to my need;  (26)  because he was longing for you all and was distressed because you had heard that he was sick.  (27)  For indeed he was sick to the point of death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, so that I would not have sorrow upon sorrow. (Philippians 2:25-27)

Clearly, if God was going to tell us that physical healing was a part of the Atonement at the Cross, this passage would be a perfect opportunity.

First, Paul gives what would appear to be the spiritual medal of honor to Epaphroditus, declaring him as a “brother,” “fellow worker,” “fellow soldier,” and a minister to the Apostle Paul’s needs. This would appear to make Epaphroditus’ salvation to be absolutely assured, remembering also that Paul is speaking by the Spirit. The Apostle then goes on to emphasize that Epaphroditus was indeed sick even to the point of death.

So, if healing is guaranteed in the atonement, where are the “FAITHFUL” and “RIGHTEOUS” declarations like we see in 1 John 1:9?

Contrary to the use of “FAITHFUL” or “RIGHTEOUS,” Paul’s use of the word “MERCY” in verse 27 clearly indicates that God had a choice and therefore physical healing is not a covenant promise.

It is clear from scripture that God can and will heal, we must recognize that healing is based on His SOVEREIGN WILL and that God is not compelled by a COVENANT PROMISE to heal anyone in any given circumstance!

How To Approach Faith and Healing

Hence, though our faith may play apart in God’s decision whether to heal us or someone we are praying for, the final decision is totally based on God’s plan and purpose in any particular circumstance based on His SOVEREIGN WILL.

Keeping in mind that we can only see the most immediate impact of a particular outcome, whereas God’s perspective is looking at the long term impact, which could be decades in the future or even in eternity future. So, it is short-sightedness on our part to ever ask “WHY” God allows or does anything, for as scripture clearly declares:

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways And My thoughts than your thoughts” (Isaiah 55:9).

We simply must accept by faith that God is perfect wisdom, love, grace, and justice and that whatever His decision it is for our highest good!

Scripture even declares that:

Precious in the sight of the LORD is the death of his saints. (Psalms 116:15)

Unfortunately, many people who have been unable to justify the ”why” in their own understanding and have become shipwrecked in their faith after hearing statements like, “if he only had enough faith, he would have lived.” In light of this Philippians passage, statements like this are false teaching!

It is also unfortunate that most Christians are so overwhelming preoccupied with the realities of this present world and trying to improve and extend their lives here below that the following passages are difficult for them to grasp and appreciate:

Therefore, being always of good courage, and knowing that while we are at home in the body we are absent from the Lord— (7)  for we walk by faith, not by sight— (8)  we are of good courage, I say, and prefer rather to be absent from the body and to be at home with the Lord. (2 Corinthians 5:6-8)

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.  (Philippians 1:21)

Power is Perfected in Weakness

When our minds are transformed to have the mind of Christ, we have the opportunity to gain God’s perspective on our circumstances, like Paul expressed when he prayed (in faith!) that the Lord would remove his “thorn in the flesh” which admittedly is possibly, but not certainly, a physical malady. I would encourage that the same principal of faith-filled prayer and rest in God’s sovereignty and eternal purpose be applied to all trials and suffering, including physical sickness.

Because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, for this reason, to keep me from exalting myself, there was given me a thorn in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me—to keep me from exalting myself! (8) Concerning this I implored the Lord three times that it might leave me. (9) And He has said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness." Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. (10) Therefore I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ's sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)

When encountering sickness, which can be a “tormenting” “thorn in the flesh” in our lives, we should bring our requests before the Lord in prayer for healing and release.

But we should be open to the reality that His answer may be yes, no, or not yet.

• If the answer is yes, praise God that He is powerful to heal!

• If no, or not yet, I encourage you to recognize that God’s promise to you is that His “grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.”

Paul’s change in perspective caused him to rejoice and boast in his weakness and difficulties because he understood that Christ would be glorified through these circumstances. Far from the trial being something detracting from God’s plan and purpose, Paul knew that whatever had come into his life as he walked by faith had already passed through the sovereign hand of God.

But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, so that the surpassing greatness of the power will be of God and not from ourselves; (8) we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not despairing; (9) persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; (10) always carrying about in the body the dying of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. (11) For we who live are constantly being delivered over to death for Jesus' sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (12) So death works in us, but life in you. (2 Corinthians 4:7-12)

Not that I speak from want, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I am. (12) I know how to get along with humble means, and I also know how to live in prosperity; in any and every circumstance I have learned the secret of being filled and going hungry, both of having abundance and suffering need. (13) I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. (Philippians 4:11-13)

And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. (Romans 8:28)

My Journey through the Valley of the Shadow of Death

We have addressed the theological side, but the reality is that this issue of healing rocks us to the core of our being when it comes to sickness in our own body or with someone we love. I would like to share a little about my own personal journey. I will share in greater depth in other articles, so please excuse my brevity, but for those of you who are reading this in the depths of the valley of the shadow of death, I want to let you know that I understand what you are going through at the deepest level.

Having walked this road in a life-and-death battle with my wife’s cancer where I was forced to walk out these scriptures through the valley of the shadow of death, this was a fundamental scriptural truth I had to understand and walk out in faith before God. The Spirit made the following truths clear to me through this journey:

• We had only one Lord - Jesus Christ. We would not bend the knee to sin, sickness, or Satan, but to Christ alone.

• If we walked in faith, we were guaranteed victory in Christ.

• The result of the victory is in the hands of God as He is working all things together for our good and His glory.

• This victory would come through one of three forms:

  • She would be healed.

  • She would be raised from the dead.

  • She would be with Christ in glory forever.

• The only way to “lose” would be to take our eyes off Christ and fail to trust in Him completely, for healing, for resurrection, or for eternal life.

I found the following prayer to be my prayer of faith for her healing while keeping my hands open to the eternal purposes of God:

Lord Jesus,
I believe in your power to save, to heal, and to raise from the dead.
I pray that You would preserve and strengthen and heal my wife’s body until the work that You have prepared for her from before the foundation of the world be accomplished in and through her.
I pray against anything that would stand in the way of Your will being done on earth as it is in heaven in her body and life, including all sin, sickness, and work of the enemy.
In the Power of Jesus’ Name, Amen

If this was encouraging to you, please share with others who would be edified by this.

Questions or further thoughts? We’d love your feedback in the comments.

• What do you think about the Philippians 2 passage?

• What was most convicting for you?

• What would you love to learn more about?

Feel free to drop them in the comments and we can dive deeper!