Is Healing Included In The Atonement?
This question is one that divides the church. Some link it to having enough faith, or not. We brand one another according to what we and they believe. Because of this I want to take a journey through the scriptures and try to arrive at a reasoned conclusion.
Let’s start!
Exodus 23:25 – 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.
The implication here is that if you serve the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, then God will take sickness away. Of course, the problem arises that we are incapable of serving God that way. So disease and sickness, weapons in the arsenal of God’s judgements, flourish in the earth.
Nevertheless God keeps reiterating this point about removing sickness from His people. This is grace indeed!
Deuteronomy 7:15 – And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you know, upon you; but will lay them upon all them that hate you.
The scripture here differentiates between His people and the world. Surely this must be carried through into the new covenant because new covenants absorb the old and add to them, they do not replace them. This is the very nature of covenant – they are eternal.
Deuteronomy 28:61 – Also every sickness… and every plague, which is not written in the book of this law, them will the LORD bring upon you, until you are destroyed.
Now there is without doubt plenty of examples of unhealed sickness in the Bible, particularly in the OT, and of God strengthening people on their sickbeds rather than healing them:
Psalm 41:3 – The LORD will strengthen him upon the bed of languishing: you will restore his bed in his sickness.
But in spite of man’s behaviour God also healed in that dispensation according to His will:
Deuteronomy 32:39 – I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.
I feel strongly that to argue that the Hebrew word for healing – rapha – only means spiritual healing and not a tangible physical sense is not to do justice to the language. What can be the basis for such a position? It seems to me to be denying the grace of God which we argue so strongly elsewhere.
Looking to the Cross
Numbers 21:5–9 – …Every one that is bitten, when he looks upon it, shall live.
This “living” was in the here and now; they were healed of the consequences of their rebellion. And of course, this is a type of beholding Christ upon the cross. The snake on the pole represents sin judged. The bronze represents God’s judgement. The message? Look and live.
Forgiveness and Healing
Psalm 103:1–3 – Who forgives all your iniquities; who heals all your diseases…
We accept the forgiveness of sins as final and complete. Why then resist the parallel truth about healing? It is illogical to do so.
There is an undoubted link between sin and disease, but we must apply this in a general sense—not personally. We are subject to a fallen world, but the solution is the same for all: the forgiveness of sins.
Mark 2:1–12 – Which is easier, to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or “Get up and walk”?
Jesus clearly links forgiveness and healing. To walk, the paralytic only needed forgiveness. The physical act followed logically. The lesson is as clear as it is profound.
He Healed Them All
Consider the following passages:
- Matthew 12:15 – He healed them all
- Matthew 8:16 – Healed all that were sick
- Luke 4:40 – He laid his hands on every one of them
- Luke 6:17–19 – Power went out of him and healed them all
He healed them all. Today, we see the mystery of unhealed suffering—but this should not lead us to discard the plain testimony of Scripture.
Hebrews 13:8–9 – Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.
If healing is part of the atonement—and I believe it is—then it is received at the cross, just as forgiveness is. We do not “work at” healing. We stand in grace.
Romans 5:1–2 – …we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand.
The healing may not manifest in this life. But its foundation in grace is certain. In my understanding, healing is in the atonement. But I acknowledge that God’s priorities in our lives may vary.
Isaiah 53 and 1 Corinthians 11
Isaiah 53:5 – …with his stripes we are healed.
Even if the context is spiritual healing, Jesus Himself made no such division when ministering healing. The link to physical healing is validated in His actions.
1 Corinthians 11:29–30 – For those who eat and drink without discerning the body… many are weak and sick…
This is not about introspective guilt. It’s about reverent discernment. Paul links a failure to understand what Christ’s body achieved—our healing—with sickness among the believers. It is not punishment, but discipline so we will not be condemned with the world.
Conclusion
We have not always searched the scriptures with Berean diligence. We have listened to tradition instead. But Scripture is clear: healing is in the atonement. Not to demand, not to manipulate, but to receive in grace—whether in this life or the next.
God bless you all,
John