Bodily Healing and the Atonement
Lesson 1Course Overview: Healing Through the Atonement
“Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy]. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole.” (Isaiah 53:4-5, AMPC)
Before we go any further, there is something helpful you need to see.
Most believers approach healing the way you approach a favor from someone who might say no. You pray carefully. You add qualifiers. You wait to see what God will decide. And if the answer does not come quickly, you begin to wonder whether this particular healing is His will for you.
That is not faith. That is petition without a covenant foundation. And it produces inconsistent results because it is built on nothing more than human optimism about a God whose will on this matter you have not yet settled.
Here is what this course establishes: bodily healing was purchased at Calvary. Not extended as mercy in the moment. Not granted when circumstances line up. Purchased — by blood, at a cross, as a legal covenant provision. The same cross that purchased eternal salvation purchased temporal healing. These are not two separate transactions. They are one atonement with two inseparable benefits.
The Word the Translators Softened
The case begins in Isaiah 53:4, and it begins with a word.
The Hebrew word is nasa (Strong’s H5375). It means to lift up, to carry, to bear away completely — the act of removing a burden from one party and placing it fully on another, with the original bearer going entirely free. It is the same word used for the scapegoat in Leviticus 16:22, where the animal carried Israel’s iniquities into the wilderness so completely that the people were left clean. Nothing remained.
Now look at what Isaiah says Christ did with our sicknesses: nasa. He bore them. He lifted them off and carried them away. Not as a sympathetic gesture. Not as a figure of speech. The same verb used for sin removal is used for sickness removal, in the same verse, in the same prophetic declaration. This is one atonement act, not two separate provisions.
Some translators softened this. They rendered the word behind “griefs” as sorrow in a spiritual sense, so it sounded like Isaiah was describing emotional anguish rather than physical disease. But the Hebrew noun is choli (Strong’s H2483) — and choli means sickness, disease, physical affliction. It is the word used in Deuteronomy 7:15 when God promises to take away ALL sickness. It is the word used in 1 Kings 17:17 for the widow’s son whose sickness was so severe he stopped breathing. Choli is not metaphor. It is a clinical term. And Christ bore it.
Matthew watched Jesus heal the sick one evening — all who were sick, the text says, not some — and he recorded why: “He Himself took [in order to carry away] our weaknesses and infirmities and bore away our diseases.” (Matthew 8:16-17, AMPC) Matthew is the court reporter here. He identifies Isaiah 53:4 as the provision Jesus was demonstrating. He does not let you spiritualize it. The fulfillment was physical. The provision is physical. The nasa of Isaiah 53 reaches into your body.
Past Tense Is Not an Accident
“He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed.” (1 Peter 2:24, AMPC)
The Greek word is iaomai (Strong’s G2390) — to cure completely, to restore to full health, to make whole. And Peter places it in the perfect passive indicative: a completed action in the past with effects that continue into the present. He does not write “you may be healed.” He does not write “you will be healed if God wills it.” He writes what the grammar demands: the healing occurred, and you currently stand in that healed state.
This is not a future hope. It is a past-tense fact waiting for present-tense reception. The provision is done. The question is not whether God will heal you. The question is whether you will receive what He has already provided.
Psalm 103:2-3 gives you the grammar key that makes it undeniable: “Bless (affectionately, gratefully praise) the Lord, O my soul, and forget not [one of] all His benefits — Who forgives [every one of] all your iniquities, Who heals [each one of] all your diseases.” (AMPC) Notice the parallel structure David uses. Forgiveness of ALL iniquities. Healing of ALL diseases. The same word, ALL, governs both. If you believe God forgives all your sins without exception, the same grammatical logic, the same covenant, requires that He heals all your diseases without exception. David did not present one as absolute and the other as conditional. They stand together under the same word.
His Name Is the Argument
Exodus 15:26 reveals that healing is not simply something God does. It is who God is.
After Israel crossed the Red Sea and came to Marah — bitter water, immediate crisis, three days into the wilderness — God did not simply heal the water and move on. He spoke a covenant name: “I am the Lord Who heals you.” Jehovah-Rapha. Healer is not a title God adopts in convenient moments. It is His self-identification. What God names Himself, He is — eternally, unchangeably, by nature.
Malachi 3:6 seals it: “For I am the Lord, I do not change.” (AMPC) The God who declared Himself Jehovah-Rapha at Marah is the same God you approach today. He has not reclassified healing as a past-dispensation gift. He has not amended the covenant. He is the same Healer, the same name, the same nature.
And notice: the word rapha (Strong’s H7495) that appears in Exodus 15:26 is the same root that appears in Isaiah 53:5 — “with His stripes we are healed.” The covenant name and the atonement provision use the same word because they describe the same reality. The cross did not create a new healing program. It made permanent and legal what God’s own name had always declared: He heals. That is who He is.
One Atonement. Two Benefits.
Here is the error you must see clearly before the rest of this course can fully help you.
Many believers have been taught, explicitly or by implication, that salvation and healing are two separate divine acts — one certain, one uncertain; one purchased, one requested; one doctrinal, one miraculous. So they receive forgiveness of sins with full confidence and then approach healing as a separate petition that God may or may not grant based on factors they cannot predict.
The Scripture will not hold that position.
Christ redeemed us from the curse of the Law (Galatians 3:13). The curse of the Law included disease — Deuteronomy 28 lists specific, severe, documented physical sicknesses as part of the covenant curse that falls on those who depart from God. Galatians 3:13 declares that Christ became a curse for us, purchasing our freedom from that curse. Every disease listed in Deuteronomy 28 was legally cancelled at Calvary. Sickness does not have a covenant right to a body redeemed by the blood of Jesus.
Romans 8:32 drives the logic home: “He who did not withhold or spare [even] His own Son but gave Him up for us all, will He not also with Him freely and graciously give us all other things?” (AMPC) If God gave Christ — the supreme, costliest gift — He will withhold nothing that the atonement purchased. Healing is among “all other things.” The cross settled every question about God’s willingness. You do not need to ask whether He is willing. The cross answered that question permanently, in blood.
Let Me Answer Three Things You May Be Thinking
“My symptoms have not changed. How can I declare healing when I feel the same?”
You are not declaring what your body reports. You are declaring what the atonement purchased. These are two different categories of information. Symptoms are temporal reports from your physical condition. The covenant is eternal reality established by God’s Word and sealed by Christ’s blood. The bearing happened at Calvary — nasa, complete removal — and Peter declared it in the past tense for exactly this reason: so that you would not wait for symptoms to change before you believed. The healing is finished. Reception is what remains.
“I have prayed a long time with no visible result. Perhaps healing is not God’s will for me specifically.”
That conclusion does not come from the Word. It comes from circumstances interpreted in the absence of the Word. God’s will on healing was declared publicly at Calvary and recorded in Peter’s letter. It was not whispered to some and withheld from others. Psalm 103:3 says He heals ALL your diseases — and the word ALL governs healing exactly the way it governs the forgiveness in the same breath. If you believe your forgiveness is settled and certain, the same Word demands the same certainty for your healing. Duration does not indicate refusal. Hold the confession.
“Paul had a thorn in the flesh. Doesn’t that prove sickness is sometimes God’s will?”
Paul’s thorn is identified in 2 Corinthians 12:7 as “a messenger of Satan” — not a sickness from God. Its stated purpose was to prevent pride after extraordinary revelation, a circumstance specific to Paul’s unique apostolic experience. And God’s response was not “I have chosen this affliction for your good.” His response was “My grace is sufficient.” The provision was grace, not sickness. Paul’s thorn is not a proof-text for sickness as God’s will. It is an account of a specific satanic attack against an apostle, met by God’s sufficient grace. It does not nullify the atonement provision for your body.
The Spirit in You Is the Spirit That Raised Him
The provision does not end at Calvary. It continues in you.
“And if the Spirit of Him Who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, [then] He Who raised up Christ Jesus from the dead will also restore to life your mortal (short-lived, perishable) bodies through His Spirit Who dwells in you.” (Romans 8:11, AMPC)
That is not a promise about the final resurrection only. The text says “your mortal bodies” — the bodies you have now, subject to disease and weakness. The same Spirit who raised a dead man from a sealed tomb is at work in your body today. He is the Spirit of healing, the Spirit of life, and He dwells in you. You are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10). Your spirit has been recreated, and the Holy Spirit has taken up residence in your mortal body as His temple. Sickness does not belong in the temple of the Holy Spirit. You resist it, not as a spiritual exercise, but from a legal standing the cross established.
Ministers Council
Finis Dake
[MINISTER QUOTE PENDING — dual atonement, Isaiah 53, nasa, sin and sickness]
F.F. Bosworth
[MINISTER QUOTE PENDING — Jehovah-Rapha, healing covenant name, God’s nature as Healer]
Kenneth E. Hagin
[MINISTER QUOTE PENDING — healing as possession, 1 Peter 2:24, past tense healing, iaomai]
Speak It Now
Christ bore my sicknesses at Calvary. The Hebrew word is nasa — to lift, to carry, to remove completely. He bore my choli, my physical disease, the same way He bore my sin: completely, substitutionarily, with full legal effect. By His wounds I have been healed — past tense, accomplished fact, present reality in my body. I receive what He purchased. I stand on what Peter declared. My healing is not a petition. It is a possession.
I approach God as Jehovah-Rapha, the Lord Who heals me. His healing nature is as unchangeable as His name. He does not heal selectively and then stop. He heals because healing is His nature. The same God who declared this name at Marah is the God I approach today. His willingness to heal me is not in question. The cross settled that question permanently. I come to the Healer confident.
Christ has redeemed me from the curse of the Law. Every disease listed in Deuteronomy 28 as part of the covenant curse was legally cancelled at Calvary by the blood of Jesus. Sickness does not have a covenant right to my body. I am not under the curse. I am under the blessing. I walk in the freedom the cross purchased.
The Holy Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in me and is at work in my mortal body right now. I yield to His healing work. I yield to His quickening power. I confess with my mouth what I believe in my heart: by His wounds I have been healed. I hold this confession — not because circumstances confirm it but because the Word declares it and the cross purchased it.
Carry This Into the Week
This course covers nine lessons. Each one builds on what came before. Do not skip ahead. The foundation you are standing on right now — the nasa of Isaiah 53, the past tense of 1 Peter 2:24, the covenant name of Exodus 15:26 — is the ground every subsequent lesson assumes.
This week, settle one thing: whether you will receive healing as covenant provision or continue approaching it as uncertain mercy. That is not an emotional decision. It is a decision about what the cross accomplished. Read Isaiah 53:4-5 and 1 Peter 2:24 daily in the AMPC. Let the past tense do its work. “By His wounds you have been healed.” Say it out loud — not as positive confession detached from truth, but as a declaration of what the atonement purchased. The Father went ahead of this. The provision was prepared before you knew you would need it. You are not straining toward something uncertain. You are receiving something finished.