Christ the Healer: An Analysis (part 7)

A study of the book, Christ the Healer, by F. F. Bosworth:

• Part 1 (Introduction)
• Part 2 (Interpreting the Scriptures)
• Part 3 (Where Sickness Comes From)
• Part 4 (Healing and the Will of God 1)
• Part 5 (Healing and the Will of God 2)
• Part 6 (Paul’s Thorn in the Flesh)

V. Healing and the Atonement

We come now to a fundamental issue: Is healing provided for in the atonement? By that is meant: Does Christ’s Calvary work provide for physical healing, in the same way, and to the same extent, as it makes possible cleansing from sin and eternal salvation?

Those qualifying phrases are important– in the same way, to the same extent. Christ’s finished work dealt with the sin problem, and so, ultimately, all of the effects of sin can be removed as well. But when? That is the question. To state it another way: The cross has reconciled us to God. It has removed the sin barrier which prevented a holy God from fulfilling His glorious plan for us. God could not justly ignore sin. But now, sin has been paid for. Therefore, God can justly forgive our sins (I Jn. 1:9); to use Paul’s expression, He can be “just and the justifier” (Rom. 3:26). He is able to advance His program with us, sinners, justified by grace through faith. He is able to “bring many sons into glory” (Heb. 2:10) — the glory of full likeness to Christ (I Jn. 3:2), including physical perfection (Phil. 3:20-21).

I have no problem seeing “healing in the atonement” in that sense. However, much more than that is intended. Those who hold this view claim that full physical health is available right now, to be received by faith, just as eternal salvation is. Bosworth is adamant about this (comments in square brackets are mine):

Matt. 8:17 definitely states that Christ healed all diseases on the ground of the atonement [it says nothing of the kind, as we shall see shortly]. The Atonement was His reason for making no exception while healing the sick. …Since it is our sicknesses He bore, His Atonement embracing us all, it would require the healing of all to fulfil this prophecy (p. 20). [This statement assumes at least four things as fact that are error! But let us see more.]

God made Him to be sick for us who knew no sickness [a perversion of II Cor. 5:21, which says nothing about illness] …Since our Substitute bore our sickness, did He not do so that we might not bare [sic] them? (quoting A. J. Gordon, p. 34)

Our attitude toward sickness should be the same as our attitude toward sin….When, in prayer, we definitely commit to God the forgiveness of our sins, we are to believe, on the authority of His Word, that our prayer is heard. We are to do the same when praying for healing (pages 8, 105).

Through the Fall we lost everything. Jesus recovered all through His Atonement. It was on the Day of Atonement that God said, “Ye shall return every man to his possession” (´p. 17). [The writer is quoting from Lev. 25:10,13. This chapter contains God’s instructions for “The Year of Jubilee”. It was important that each of the tribes retain the territory God had given them. To insure that, every fiftieth year property that had been purchased reverted to its original owner. The only exception made was property within walled cities (Lev. 25:29-30). It is a monstrous leap from that to the teaching that all may enjoy bodily healing, in every case, in the present Age!]

Remission is the wiping out of everything connected with the old life [That is not what remission means. It means: to dismiss, release or cancel a debt. It is sometimes translated “forgiveness” – as in Eph. 1:7.] We are a “new creation”. Old things have passed away, and all things are become new (p. 142). [The context shows that Paul is speaking of the believer’s position, not what he is experiencing in practical terms. II Cor. 5:17 speaks of how God sees us, as clothed “in Christ”. We hold that legal standing or position because we put our faith in Christ. God treats us as already perfected and complete in Him (Col. 2:10), and in that we are givenfull assurance that He will complete His work in us. We shall one day be as perfect in reality as we already are in our legal standing, in Christ. But we have not yet experienced the “redemption of our bodies” (Rom. 8:18-23). That Paul is not referring to physical perfection, in II Cor. 5:17, is evident from the context, where he says “our outward man is perishing [decaying]” (II Cor. 4:16) and “we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed with our habitation [meaning physical body] which is grom heaven” (II Cor. 5:2).]

These few quotations, along with those given earlier that insist healing is as readily available as salvation from sin, will serve to indicate the absolute nature of Bosworth’s teaching. Yet, even the most casual consideration of real life will show they are not the same. To equate them is to imply that getting saved is extremely difficult. Since so few (relatively) are healed, compared to all who desire to be and seek to be, we must conclude that very few who desire to be saved and seek salvation are actually allowed to possess it. That God has thrown so many barriers in the sinner’s way as to make salvation next to impossible. Is that the case? Surely not. “The one who comes to Me I will be no means cast out (Jn. 6:37). “Whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved” (Rom. 10:13).

Further, it is strange why the Lord would need to gift certain ones, in the early church, to perform miracles and heal others (I Cor. 12:28-30) if healing were as accessible as salvation. Or why special instructions were needed for the elders and a procedure for anointing with oil (Jas. 5:14), if healing can be claimed as readily as forgiveness and eternal salvation.

Another puzzle is why so little is said about physical healing in the New Testament, beyond the historical references in Acts (whose purpose has been explained earlier). In all of the teachings of the epistles, nothing is said about the opportunity for healing, other than the passage in James just mentioned.

But Mr. Bosworth has a neat way around that. He simply takes the references to “salvation” in the New Testament as speaking of both spiritual and physical restoration.

It is the gospel which the Holy Spirit says, “is the power of God until salvation,” in all its phases, both physical and spiritual. And all the gospel is for “every creature” and “all nations”.

p. 7

But is it really honest to read healing into Paul’s words, in Rom. 1:16, that “the gospel… is the power of God to salvation for everyone who believes”? Paul gives no hint of such a thing. Instead, he tells us we “shall be saved from wrath” (Rom. 5:9) by the blood of Christ. But he goes on to remind us that our physical restoration is yet to come (Rom 8:19-23 — where the next verse clearly states that this is not our experience now. “For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees?”)

In another place, the Apostle Paul spells out what he means by “the gospel”. “I declare to you the gospel which I preached to you… that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures” (I Cor. 15:1,3). That is the good news. To see healing for all in those words is to go far beyond what is intended.

(continued tomorrow)