The Healing Power of the Cross (Part 2)

From yesterday we learned that the serpent-on-a-pole was merely an object lesson to illustrate and foreshadow the tremendous power of God, which would be centered in the cross of Christ. The reason serpents bit the Israelites and they died was because they had rebelled and sinned against God. In the same way, every person born into this world has been bitten by the fiery serpent of sin and is destined to die. As a remedy for the predicament of the Isrealites, God instructed Moses to fasten a representation of the poisonous serpent to a pole and raise it up so all could see it. God didn't get rid of the serpents nor did He prevent people from getting bitten. Instead, the people had to put their faith in God's remedy. They needed to look to the pole in order to be healed and saved.

Likewise, for us to be healed and saved from sin, we need to trust in Jesus Christ, whom God raised up on the cross. Just as a representation of a serpent was the antidote that countered the effects of the serpents, so the Bible teaches that the antidote to the effects of sin is found in Jesus who was made sin for us. Every person who looks to Him, trusts Him, and follows Him will be saved from sickness and death.

Think about it, EVERY person who trusts in the gospel of Christ will be saved from ALL sickness and death! You see, the presence of evil in this world is not only responsible for spiritual and physical death, it is also responsible for all forms of spiritual and physical infirmity, illness, disease, decay, rottenness, destruction, brokenness, and pain. But God's power triumphed over it ALL (Col. 2:14-15).

God's children will be delivered from sickness and disease, destruction, brokenness, waywardness, faithlessness, trouble, rebellion, fatique, grief pain, and a host of other ills, including death itself. Jesus is the antidote to our death-oriented sinful lives. Through Him, we can experience significant healing in this lifetime. And we can be certain that when we see Him face-to-face, we will be completely and totally healed.

"God raised the Lord and will also raise us up by his power" (1 Cor. 6:14). He "will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body, by the power that enables him even to subject all things to himself". (Phil 3:21) The glimmers of the spiritual and physical healing we experience during this lifetime are but a small foretaste of the wholeness that is to come. By His power, the Lord guards us through faith for an inheritance that is "imperishable, undefiled, and unfading"
(1 Peter 1:4). The cross is the epicenter of the working of God's tremendous power. The cross reveals the extent of His power and fulfills the awesome meaning of His name, Lord Healer.