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The
Blood of The Everlasting Covenant
Chapter
20
The Blood Shed by Jesus for Healing
Healing For Our Whole Person
Jesus’ blood was shed so we could receive healing: spirit, soul
and body.
Broken relationships are the primary cause for our inner wounds. Most people, even Christians, attempt to “medicate” their inner wounds with vain and empty schemes. Often it is drugs, alcohol, food, pursuit of a perfect mate who can make one “happy,” pursuit of success and money or power, and the list goes on. We need to understand that working on the “fruit” of our wounds won’t heal them until we allow God to cut out the bad “roots.” These types of inner wounds can make us physically sick.
The only way that God, Who is love, could have a love relationship with the “apple of His eye,” you and me, was to turn His back on His Son, Jesus, actually God Himself, and allow Him to suffer the penalty and consequence of our broken relationships, especially the relationship with God Himself. This horrible shedding of blood and the turning of God's back on Jesus is what bought our wellbeing, our healing and our total restoration: spirit, soul and body.
I'm going to challenge you with a question at the very beginning of this chapter, which you may not be able to answer until the later part of the chapter.
What was God's primary purpose in providing
healing for your body, soul and spirit?
Healing of our soul.
1 Peter 1:9-10 speaks about a mystery that the Old Testament prophets had wondered about, that being the salvation of a person’s soul.
1 Peter 1:9-10 says,
9 “receiving the end of your faith – the salvation of your souls.
10 Of this salvation the prophets have inquired and searched carefully, who prophesied of the grace that would come to you.”
Soul salvation means the well-being and the healing of and total restoration of the human mind, will and emotions. Jesus’ blood was shed for this salvation.
3 John 1:2 says,
2 “Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers.”
In other words, when your soul prospers and is healed, all the other areas of your life will begin to line up with godly prosperity. God, in my opinion, prefers to bless from the inside out. Ephesians 3:20 says that God’s power will work in us.
Ephesians 3:20 says,
20 “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all
that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.”
The first key to inner healing
is forgiveness.
While there are many and varied ingredients to the healing of our soul, there is one major ingredient that reigns over all the others, that is forgiveness. I go into a more exhaustive process of inner healing in my book Free To Be You. [1]
Many people misunderstand real forgiveness. Forgiveness is not excusing a sin, abuse or offense. Real forgiveness is simply agreeing with God, through the Word of God, that the sin was borne by Jesus and not by you or any other person who may have offended you. Once you see and agree with that truth, you are on a path to be free. Also, forgiveness runs in several directions. First, we must realize that God forgives us as we live this life and stumble from time to time. 1 John 1:9 confirms that when we agree with God (confession) that we have sinned, at that moment we are cleansed from all unrighteousness. Next we of course must forgive others. And finally we must forgive ourselves. Without all three of these, we will remain in the bondage or our inner wounds.
This
is a picture of forgiveness for what others have done to you. Jesus bore all the abuse and sin that
struck you!
Jesus shed blood seven times.[2]
The Hebrew Scriptures foretold of this perfection. We have studied the Hebrew Scriptures for types and shadows of the Blood Covenant, now in this chapter we will see how Jesus, the spotless and perfect Lamb of God is the consummation of the Covenant.
Leviticus
16:14, 19 says,
14 “He shall take some of the blood of the bull and sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times.”
19 “Then he shall sprinkle some of the blood on it with his finger seven times, cleanse it, and consecrate it from the uncleanness of the children of Israel.”
1. He shed blood in Gethsemane. In Gethsemane, Jesus facing the worst death and torture, gave up His will for God’s will. He purchased back our rebellious will. He was wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:3). Our rebellious will has with it the fruit, or result, of being profane. He shed blood over His will to pay for our rebellious will (rebellion, disobedience).
2.
He shed blood at the whipping post. We were redeemed from
the curse of disease and sickness “and with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah
53:3) (physical healing).
3. He shed blood with the crown of thorns on His head. We were redeemed from the curse of poverty. When Adam and Eve sinned, they no longer enjoyed God’s prosperity, but rather thorns came up in their garden.
Genesis 3:17-18 says,
17 “Then to Adam He said, ‘Because you have heeded the voice of your wife, and have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you, saying, ‘You shall not eat of it’: Cursed is the ground for your sake; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life. Both thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you, and you shall eat the herb of the field.’”
Matthew 27:29 says,
“29 When they had twisted a crown of thorns, they put it
on His head, and a reed in His right hand. And they bowed the knee before Him
and mocked Him, saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!””
4. He shed blood in His hands (dominion over the things we touch).
Psalm 22:16 says,
16 “For dogs have surrounded Me; The congregation
of the wicked has enclosed Me. They pierced My hands and My feet.”
When Jesus was crucified
they drove spikes into His hands.
When God created Adam and Eve, He placed all authority into their
hands. Satan took that authority,
but Jesus has purchased it back for us.
Adam was to listen to the Word of God, fellowship with Him, and then
exercise the authority that resulted from that fellowship and rule. Any other doctrine about authority in
Christ, is in my view, off target.
Psalm 8:4-7 says,
4 “What is man that You are mindful of him, and the
son of man that You visit him?
5 For You have made him a little lower than the
angels [actual word means God],
and You have crowned him with glory and honor.
6 You have made him to have dominion over the works
of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet,
7 All sheep and oxen – Even the beasts of the
field.”
Mark 16:18 says,
18 “[T]hey will take up serpents; and if they drink
anything deadly, it will by no means hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick,
and they will recover.”
5. He shed blood in His feet (defeat of Satan). Jesus’ feet were
nailed to the cross. This has many aspects of importance. First, we were people who were walking
the wrong path of life, and Jesus' sacrifice gives his obedient believers the
opportunity to walk the path which is their appointed destiny and purpose for
life. This is also a dominion and
authority issue.
Deuteronomy 11:24a says,
24 “Every place on which the sole of your foot
treads shall be yours…”
6. He shed blood in His pierced heart (rejection). Very
often rejection, especially during our childhood, is the root of most inner
wounds. Rejection is very often
the cause of many unexplained negative issues in our lives. Rejection destroys joy and causes a “broken
heart.”
Jesus won back our joy
by taking our rejection on Himself.
Matthew 27:46 says,
46 “And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a
loud voice, saying, ‘Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?’ that is, ‘My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?’”
Jesus died of a broken
heart.
John 19:34 (KJV) says,
34 “But one of the soldiers with a spear pierced
his side, and forthwith came there out blood and water.”
Jesus was crucified on the
day before a Sabbath and Jewish law demanded that no one could be on a cross on
the Sabbath. To comply with this
the soldiers went to each of the crucified to break their legs in order to
hasten their death. The Scriptures
had prophesied that no bone in the Messiah’s body would be broken (Psalm 34:20).
There are other Scriptures that imply that the bones of a righteous
person would not be broken. There
was no need to break Jesus’ legs because they found He was already dead. He had died of a broken heart, which
was indicated medically when after piercing His heart, both water and blood
flowed out separately (I am told that this is a medical sign that the tissue
separating the water from the blood had ruptured).
Healing our broken hearts
was one of Jesus’ primary missions.
Luke 4:18 (KJV) says,
18 “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he
hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the
brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight
to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised.”
7. He shed blood in His inner
bruises. He was bruised to bring
us deliverance from inner hurts and iniquities. If you
have a bruise on your body it means that you are bleeding from the inside. Not only was He wounded for our outer
transgressions, but He was also bruised for our iniquities (generational
curses) (see the definition in "Definitions from Isaiah 53" which is in the last chapter of this book).
Isaiah 53:5
(KJV) says,
5 “But he was wounded for our transgressions
he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him;
and with his stripes we are healed.”
The word ‘iniquities’
means ‘a spirit that tries to break us down.’
It is a spiritual force on the inside
that pressures us to bow or bend under its destructive nature. These are also known as “generational
curses” as we sometimes talk about them.
They are the wounds, bruises and sins perpetrated or suffered by our
forefathers.
Exodus 34:5-8 says
that curses are passed down to future generations.
Exodus 34:7 says,
7 “Keeping mercy for thousands,
forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of
the fathers upon the children and the children’s children to the third and the
fourth generation.”
The solution is not to
struggle against our iniquities or those things that attempt to defeat us from the
inside, but to cooperate with God and believe His Word that He indeed did bear
them. Notice in the Exodus 34
Scripture that God said that He both forgives iniquity and at the same time He
visits the iniquity down to the fourth generation. This sounds like a paradox until you see that God can only
forgive by visiting the iniquity upon His Son Jesus in your place! This is called forgiveness and is only
possible because the relationship between God the Father and Jesus the Son was
broken at the cross.
8. The main
point.
The seven points I listed above for which Jesus shed His blood is a good beginning in understanding our potential healing. However, I submit that the greatest thing for which Jesus shed His blood was so that we could become clean vessels qualified to receive the life of God in us. If we allow His life to prevail in us, inner healing will take place.
Hang on to the promise no matter
what the circumstances.
In Genesis chapter 15 God put Abram to
sleep while the two burning figures of Deity walked through the blood covenant
ditch. That time of intense
darkness comes upon many of us when we do not understand what is going on. During this time all we need to see in
our darkness is what the Holy Spirit will illuminate, and that is the emblem of
the covenant. There are times when
all we need to hang onto is the sacrificial death of the Lord Jesus
Christ! There are times when it
may be difficult to discipline our minds to believe what is written in this
chapter. During those times, keep
the emblem of the covenant on the video screen of your mind.
When one in my family was in
a serious life and death surgery, all I could do for six hours was to see the
serpent on the brazen pole in the Wilderness, being a type of Jesus on the
Cross for our healing.
Numbers 21:9 says,
9 “So Moses made a bronze serpent, and put it on a
pole; and so it was, if a serpent had bitten anyone, when he looked at the
bronze serpent, he lived.”
The serpent on the brazen
pole is still the symbol used by the medical profession for healing.
This is a great story showing how
Jesus heals from the inside out.
Jesus performed a miracle as recorded in Mark
chapter 2 that I believe tells that story better than any theology.
Mark 2:1-12 says,
1 “And again He entered Capernaum after some days,
and it was heard that He was in the house.
2 Immediately many gathered together, so that there
was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the
word to them.
3 Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who
was carried by four men.
4 And when they could not come near Him because of
the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken
through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
5 When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the
paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven you.’
6 And some of the scribes were sitting there and
reasoning in their hearts,
7 ‘Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this?
Who can forgive sins but God alone?’
8 But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His
spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, ‘Why do you
reason about these things in your hearts?
9 Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your
sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’?
10 But that you may know that the Son of Man has
power on earth to forgive sins’ – He said to the paralytic,
11 ‘I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go
to your house.’
12 Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went
out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God,
saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!’”
Notice in verse 5 above,
that Jesus said, “Son.”
The word “son” in Greek is
teknon, which carries this meaning; “You who have been begotten by a father and
family but have no relationship with either.” Notice, this man’s family did not bring him to Jesus, but four
men who had faith. I believe that
is a picture of a real church, using their faith to bring paralyzed people to
Jesus. Teknon does not necessarily
mean there is no relationship, it simply means one who has been begotten. I believe the implication by Jesus was
as I have stated. There are other
words Jesus could have used.
You may not be paralyzed in
body, but maybe in spirit or in lifestyle. Maybe you are paralyzed to stop drugs. Maybe you are overeating to medicate
the emptiness in your relationships; maybe you are doing destructive things to
your body like cutting or other such painful acts. Maybe you cannot stop inordinate sex, porno, anger,
depression, and the list goes on.
Your external paralysis has an inner cure for which Jesus paid the ultimate
price.
Then Jesus said, “your sins are
forgiven you.” In other words,
those iniquities that have cut off your father son and family relationship were
borne by Me. Forgive means to cut
away and take away. That rejection
and relationship void that had made this man paralyzed has been borne by Jesus
at the Cross. Jesus could have
just as easily said, “Son, I am going to the cross in a few years and there My
Daddy will turn His head and reject Me, so that this sin you have endured will
be forgiven and taken away from you.”
Isaiah 53:5 says that Jesus was
bruised for our iniquities. Iniquities are inner wounds, and so are bruises
inner wounds. Our inner wounds
were borne by Jesus’ inner wounds.
Jeremiah 31:29-30 says,
29 “In those days they shall say no more: ‘The
fathers have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.’
30 But every one shall die for his own iniquity;
every man who eats the sour grapes, his teeth shall be set on edge.”
In other words, in the New
Covenant, Jesus will absorb that which could not be absorbed in the Old
Covenant.
Look what happened! “Immediately
he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that
all were amazed and glorified God, saying, ‘We never saw anything like this!’”
(Mark 2:12).
To glorify God means to
reveal who He is to others. Does
this answer my question at the beginning of this chapter?
If we kept our eyes more on
glorifying God, and less about our own needs, I believe that it would be much
more pleasing to Him.
When you allow Jesus to go down
deep and forgive those things done to you, or perhaps issues that were
inequities and were passed down to you by forefathers, and you agree with Him
to issue that forgiveness, then your outer issues will be healed. Perhaps understanding this bigger
picture about forgiveness will make it easier for you to forgive those who have
hurt you or who have passed down inequities. The whole purpose is to glorify God, or to reveal Him to a
lost world.
Healing (sometimes) starts from the inside and
works its way out.
Remember our Scripture in 3 John and how God wants us
to prosper to the same degree our soul is prospering. However, we need to submit ourselves to God for this inner
healing.
Please note, that my emphasis on
inner healing in this chapter in no way is meant to minimize Jesus' great power
and desire to work miracle healings for our bodies that perhaps are not
directly related to an inner healing.
There are ways in which we can
cooperate with the Holy Spirit to allow Him to get down deep, underneath all of
layers of “onion peels” to our inner wounds, and we will cover those in later
chapters.
The Passover Blood and the
Israelite's response.
This chapter, and indeed this entire
book, discusses the Blood of The Everlasting Covenant, or the blood of Jesus
shed for us. Often, we are
required to cooperate with this offer of the Blood Covenant, as did the
Israelites just before their exodus from Egypt.
Remember, they were told to kill a lamb, a perfect lamb
without blemish, and to sprinkle its blood on the doorposts of their
homes. That would protect them
from the "death angel" that was coming to destroy all the first born
in Egypt. However the Israelites
were told to also roast and eat the lamb, add unleavened bread and bitter herbs
with the meal, and to do all of this girded up to leave Egypt.
To eat the Lamb indicates
that not only are we forgiven by the blood, but that the blood also cleansed us
so that the life of God can dwell in us.
As we "eat" the Word, which is Jesus, we awaken the life of
God in us. It may have already
been there since you were born-again, but unless you feed on the Word, your
wrong thinking will cause the life to be ineffective.
Unleavened bread indicates
forsaking the sin in your life. We
cannot be perfect, but we can be perfectly repentant. Bitter herbs means to recall the bitterness of what the Lamb
Jesus went through, and you need to depart quickly from the "world's
system," Egypt, Exodus chapter 12.
This statement in no way is
intended to indicate that healing is totally conditional on our response. I do feel however, that inner healing,
the healing of the soul as we discussed, is conditional to our response as
shown as a type and shadow in the historic Passover.
Physical healing.
I do believe that we are to
believe God for His physical healing offered freely. I do not believe that physical healing always follows the
conditions I wrote about in the above paragraph. Just recently I heard a marvelous testimony from a friend of
mine. When his Hindu landlord came
with a lease for him to sign for a shopping center space, he noticed that the
landlord was limping and in great pain.
As my friend and his associate spoke to the landlord about Jesus, the
power of God hit the room. Right
then my friend prayed for the landlord, and he was instantly healed. I read an email that the landlord wrote
to my friend the next day, he was awestruck and was now experiencing no pain
and was totally healed.
On the flip side, many great
men and women of God wonder why God has not yet given them the gift of
physical-healing. While I do not
understand everything, I do know that many of these precious saints know about
the resurrection power of God within them, and are turning the curse into a
blessing for many. They, like me,
believe in Colossians 1:20, which says,
Colossians
1:20,
“20 and by Him to reconcile all things to Himself, by Him, whether things on earth or things in heaven, having made peace through the blood of His cross.”
To reconcile means to make a
friend of something that was previously an enemy, much in the way that Jesus
made a friend from the horrible torture and His death. The resurrection power operating in
someone's life will bring glory to God.