❤️‍🩹 Irreversible Healing: Sealed by the Cross

A reflection on the healing Christ alone can bring—at the cost only He could pay.

We often speak of healing as if it were a patch, a pause in pain, a return to something we once were. But what if healing—true, irreversible healing—was never about getting back to the way things were… but becoming something entirely new? This is not a journey into temporary relief, but into the deepest reality of the cross: where sin was dealt the death blow, and our souls were made whole. Not someday. Not symbolically. But completely. Forever.

I’ve lived within the orb of a metaphor for a very long time, and that metaphor surrounds the simple but profound truth that you can’t have healthy branches without healthy roots.  In my professional work as a holistic healthcare practitioner, I even named my practice “Wondrous Roots” based on this, and its byline is “And if the root be holy, then so are the branches.”  (Rom 11:16)[1]

A New Twist on a Familiar Theme

This morning I started out my reading time with the “appetizers;” short devotionals from Charles Spurgeon.  From his Morning & Evening collection, the evening entry for May 31 starts out with this key verse:

“Who healeth all thy diseases.”  Psalm 103:3[2]

A very short phase with very long meaning, to be sure!   Spurgeon uses this as a springboard to talk about the one “root” disease that is the destroyer of all healthy life in the branches, eventually consuming the entire tree with disease and killing it: 

SIN

He begins:  

“Humbling as is the statement, yet the fact is certain, that we are all more or less suffering under the disease of sin. What a comfort to know that we have a great Physician who is both able and willing to heal us! Let us think of Him awhile tonight. His cures are very speedy - there is life in a look at Him; His cures are radical - He strikes at the centre of the disease; and hence, His cures are sure and certain.”

The “CENTRE” = the ROOT

In the physical realm, I can certainly observe that!  It is the truth upon which I position myself in order to help people overcome their physical afflictions.  Instead of taking an aspirin for the headache [branch], we ask, “Why the headache?” and, if possible, offer whatever can be done to correct the origin of the headache [root].   The headache might indicate a need for nutrients to increase mitochondrial energy, as is often the case in migraine; it might indicate that hormone levels need tweaking; it could be stress, or it might be something out of alignment in the spinal column.  While aspirin might temporarily ease the headache, it will do nothing to correct the reason the headache is there to begin with. 

“Who Heals All Thy Diseases”

Within the realm of Christianity today there is great enthusiasm in some circles for miracles of healing.    And I will be the first to say that God can heal people of their physical ills through whatever means He chooses on an individual basis.  I will also be the first to say that – based on scripture and the testimony of history – miraculous healing is not His primary method today.  In fact, even before the New Testament was completed, there are several examples that indicate miraculous healings were not the norm; among them –

·       Timothy – frequent stomach issues and illness (I Tim 5:23)

·       Trophimus – left sick in Miletus (2 Tim 4:20)

·       Epaphroditus – nearly died of sickness (Phil 2:25-30)

·       Gaius – the subject of prayers for good health (3 John 1:2)

·       The Apostle Paul – the “thorn in the flesh” (2 Cor 12:7-9) not cured miraculously due to God’s purposeful decision but also enduring many physical afflictions throughout his ministry that had to heal through natural processes – in fact, he writes in 2 Corinthians 11:  “Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea…”

In short, by AD 60 (Paul died around AD 68) the sign miracles signifying the stamp of God’s approval of the apostles–  and His power as the source of the gospel they were proclaiming –   were being replaced by a focus on prayer, endurance, and natural means when it comes to healing. 

The Healing that Jesus Christ Brings is So Much Bigger than Our Illnesses!

“And with His stripes, we are healed.”  (Isaiah 53:5)   A scripture often misunderstood and misquoted when it comes to physical, temporal illness, this declaration is so much bigger than that. You might say that while we might be waiting for God to put out the fire of our cancer, Jesus Christ has changed the very laws of combustion!

The Root of the Human Being – Heart, Soul, & Body –  is Terminally Diseased

The scriptures are clear when it comes to our terminal state of health:

  🗡  “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”  Jeremiah 17:9

  🗡  “The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intent of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually.”  Genesis 6:5

  🗡  “The hearts of the sons of men are full of evil; madness is in their hearts while they live, and after that they go to the dead.”  Ecclesiastes 9:3

  🗡  “There is none righteous, no, not one; there is none who understands; there is none who seeks after God.  They have all turned aside; they have together become unprofitable; there is none who does good, no, not one.” Romans 3:10-12

  🗡  “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” Romans 3:23

  🗡  “All our righteous acts are like filthy rags.”  Isaiah 65:6

  🗡  “And you were dead in your trespasses and sins... gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature children of wrath.”  Ephesians 2:1-3

  🗡  “For we ourselves were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, enslaved by various passions and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hated by others and hating one another.” Titus 3:3 

  🗡  “For from within, out of the heart of men, proceed evil thoughts, adulteries, fornications, murders... All these evil things come from within and defile the man.”  Mark 7:21-23 

Face It:  Until we drink deeply of the strong medicine of “the stripes of Jesus Christ” – His death on the cross and His resurrection:   

We. 

Are. 

Sick.

To.

Death. 

But… then… THE GOOD NEWS! and it springs from the depths of that one victorious cry wrenched from the abyss of raw, unsurpassed, indescribable agony; strength rising like hot lava from the ocean floor of eternity, shouted from the gasping, tortured lungs of the One and only Savior of the World, our Hero and Ultimate Healer –

Jesus Christ: 

“IT… IS… FINISHED.”

And now? Having died and risen from the dead,  “By His stripes, we are healed.” 

🌿”For God so loved the world that He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”  John 3:16

🌿 “The words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.” John 6:63

🌿 “My son, attend to my words; incline thine ear unto my sayings... For they are life unto those that find them, and health to all their flesh.” Proverbs 4:20-22

🌿 “He sent His word, and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.” Psalm 107:20

🌿 “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.”  John 10:10

And now?  As we abide in Him and He in us, instead of dry and withering, our branches are healthy and loaded with the most exquisite and beautiful fruit; fruit that will remain and live on into eternity!

🍏 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman... Abide in me, and I in you.As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine; no more can ye, except ye abide in me.”  John 15:1-5

🫐 “Herein is my Father glorified, that ye bear much fruit; so shall ye be my disciples.”  John 15:8

🍑 “That ye might walk worthy of the Lord unto all pleasing, being fruitful in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.”  Colossians 1:10

🍒 “For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus unto good works, which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them.”  Ephesians 2:10

🍓 “But his delight is in the law of the Lord... And he shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that bringeth forth his fruit in his season...”  Psalm 1:2-3

🍃 “Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord... He shall be like a tree planted by the waters... its leaf shall be green, and it shall not be anxious in the year of drought.”

🍓🍉🍒🍑 “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperance: against such there is no law.”  Galatians 5:22-23

Back to Spurgeon, whose words from long ago took me off into these wonders earlier this day:

“He never fails, and the disease never returns. There is no relapse where Christ heals; no fear that His patients should be merely patched up for a season, He makes new men of them: a new heart also does He give them, and a right spirit does He put with them.” 

A Hymn for the Heart To close, I invite you to listen to this powerful rendition of “There Is a Balm in Gilead.” Let it wash over you like the healing it proclaims—root-deep and soul-secured.

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[1] “For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.” Rom 11:16 KJV

[2] “Who pardons all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases;” Psalm 103:3 NASB 1995