Let us look at a passage much dwelt on nowadays: “And when even was come, they brought unto Him many possessed with demons: and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken through Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our diseases” (Mt. 8:16-17, rv).
It is often said that this verse teaches that the atoning death of Jesus Christ avails for our sicknesses as well as for our sins. In other words, that physical healing is in the atonement. I think that that is a fair inference from these verses, even though, in their context, they refer to the life of the Lord Jesus, not His death.
“That being the case,” many say, “every believer has a right to claim physical healing for all their physical sicknesses and infirmities right now, just as much as a right to claim immediate pardon for all their sins, on the ground of the atoning death of Jesus Christ.”
But that does not follow; it is poor logic. For the question arises, When do we get what Jesus Christ secured for us by His atoning sacrifice? The Bible answer to that question is very plain: when Christ comes again.
We get the first fruits of the atoning work of Christ, the first fruits of salvation in the life that now is, but we get the full fruits only when the Lord Jesus comes again.
Romans 8 makes that plain, “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to usward. For the earnest expectation of the creation waiteth for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to vanity, not of its own will, but by reason of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God…And not only so, but ourselves also, which have the first fruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for our adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body” (vv. 18-23, asv).
The atoning death of Christ secured for us not only physical healing, but the resurrection and perfecting and glorifying of our bodies. Can we therefore have the resurrection of our bodies right now? And have we a right to claim that now, because it was secured by the Cross work, just as we claim forgiveness of all our sins now? Paul says in 2 Timothy 2:16-18 (asv), that those who so teach have erred concerning the truth and are teaching destructive error whereby they “overthrow the faith of some.” Let me quote Paul’s exact words, “But shun profane babblings: for they will proceed further in ungodliness, and their word will eat as doth a gangrene: of whom is Hymenaeus and Philetus; men who concerning the truth have erred, saying that the resurrection is past already, and overthrow the faith of some.”
No, we do not get the full measure of what Jesus secured for us by His atoning death on the cross in the present life, but at His coming again. It is at the coming of our Lord that “our spirit and soul and body” are to “be preserved entire” (1 Thess. 5:23, asv). When He comes again, there will not only be wonderful manifestations of healing power among the people then living upon the earth, but we who have believed in Him before that will have not merely perfect physical healing, but a resurrection body, a glorified and perfected body, which was secured for us when He bore our sicknesses as well as our sins on the cross of Calvary. I have had in the past many friends who have believed and taught this extreme doctrine regarding healing being included in the atonement. Most of these friends are now dead.
But while we do not get the full benefits for the body secured for us by the atoning death of Christ in the life that now is, but when Jesus comes again, nevertheless, just as one gets the first-fruits of his spiritual salvation in the life that now is, so we get the first-fruits of our physical salvation in the life that now is. We do get in many, many, many cases physical healing through the atoning death of Jesus Christ even in the life that now is.