The year 2025 was difficult for my wife Karen who suffers from a variety of spinal health issues. For perspective, she’s lost 4 inches in height since graduating from high school. Now a septuagenarian the concern for her is spinal collapse and spending the rest of her life in a wheel chair. Throughout her painful trial, we’ve persisted with God in prayer with fasting where together we have done our best to keep the faith. It’s taught us great admiration for Job, who resisted the suggestion to “curse God and die” and replied “even though He slays me, yet will I praise Him”. Countless times I’ve told her how grateful I am for her unwavering trust in God to heal her infirmity and remain with me in this life despite her physical discomfort. Some would have given up but not my Karen. She is the wife of noble character.

Both of us were born Presbyterians who in adulthood, experienced Pentecost (Acts 2:4), what is commonly called the second blessing. Since that time, we’ve encountered a variety of beliefs about divine healing the most personally frustrating for us holds that the scripture “by my stripes you have been healed” means every infirmity, whether spiritual or physical, has already been healed by Jesus. Thus when healing does not manifest following prayer, the fault must lie with the person who needs healing. Often the reason cited for failure to heal is lack of faith, un-confessed sin, disobedience, etc. It’s a cruel belief that can leave a person in worse shape than before. Illnesses are painful enough… but illness compounded by guilt and self blame? Downright crippling. Such also paints the picture of a less than loving and merciful God; a stern and indifferent parent who simply watches while His children chase healing like a carrot on a stick.

Suffice to say, I do not believe that about healing, although I once tried to when I was younger and fired up by my newly acquired spiritual gifts (1 Cor. 12:8-10, Rom. 12:6-8) and attendant beliefs about the charisma. But what does the word of God say, really? Surely His Word is a better source of counsel than blindly accepting the extrapolated beliefs of the word faith crowd whose theology is sometimes rooted more in their experience than in the word of God.

The morning after I petitioned God once more on Karen’s behalf, I woke with the kind of clarity I’ve come to recognize as the footprints of the Holy Spirit having done deep work while I slept. He left me with a simple view which also is a sign of the Spirit’s work, if only because of my human tendency to make things difficult, or to reduce what I have witnessed of the Spirit to a reproducible process. Like a wise old friend once told me the temptation to devise a methodology in the natural is one of many human vanities when we encounter God’s power. There’s just one problem with that where divine healing is concerned… Jesus never healed the same way twice. Sorry Methodists.

God is Spirit and we must worship Him in Spirit (and Truth – John 4:24). God who is Spirit, created us in His image (Gen 1:27) as spiritual beings sealed in jars of clay (2 Cor 4:7, Isa 64:8). God having created man in His image said to the man concerning the tree of knowledge of good and evil “for on the day you eat from it, you will certainly die” (Gen 2:17). Thus these bodies of flesh, subject to decay and destruction and fated to die (Heb 9:27), are death suits concealing the dead spiritual nature within us. We are in essence walking, talking, tombs (“white washed tombs full of dead men’s bones” Mat 23:27). About the Spirit which we inherited from fallen Adam, Jesus said “you must be born again” (John 3:3), where upon receiving Jesus we become a “new creation” (2 Cor. 5:17). That echoes the heart of God expressed through Ezekiel 36:26-27 concerning His intent to give us a new heart and spirit. We’re spiritually dead. To live, we need to to get Christ life into us (John 6).

So with that as context, what does God WHO IS SPIRIT mean when He says “by my stripes, you are healed” (Isa 53:5 and 1 Pet 2:24)?

Before answering the question “what does God mean”, it’s important to remember we came from Spirit and God is returning us to Spirit. The flesh counts for nothing (John 6:63). Further, scripture teaches in several places what Paul said plainly in 1 Cor. 4:6: “do not go beyond what is written” – in other words – don’t expand upon or extrapolate from scripture to make it say something that it doesn’t.

But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace (with God) was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. (Isa 53:5 BSB)

He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. “By His stripes you are healed.” (1 Pet 2:24 BSB)

The passages in Isaiah and Peter refer to our sin and relationship with God as the focus of God’s healing – the words used in the passages are sin, transgressions, iniquities, and punishment. They identify the purpose of Christ’s punishment as “peace” and to “live in righteousness”. Thus it is our spiritual condition that Christ Jesus healed by His stripes. Spiritually speaking, Jesus is 100% successful in healing us through giving us a NEW SPIRIT and NEW LIFE. He NEVER fails to heal us in Spirit. But what about these jars of clay that keep the Spirit corked up until the Spirit is ripe for harvest? “By my stripes you are healed” does not speak to healing these jars of clay – our physical bodies. To suggest that it does, is an unsupported extrapolation of scripture.

We need look no farther than the new testament for examples of saints NOT being healed for reason of God’s higher spiritual purpose. Nearing the end of his life, Paul signed his epistles with huge letters because his vision was impaired. People who loved Paul said they would donate their own eyes to him if they could. Clearly, Paul’s failing vision was not healed. Why? Did Paul lack faith? Did he have secret sin? To what benefit was Paul’s blindness not healed? Confined to writing letters from prison, God brought him scribe(s) for purpose of assistance and companionship (“it is not good for man to be alone” Gen 2:18) who by helping Paul taught him love, patience and humility, all fruits of the Spirit and pleasing to God. Then there was his “thorn in the flesh”, that God did not heal, saying “my grace is sufficient” (2 Cor 12:7-9) about which Paul concluded it was to prevent him from becoming conceited or puffed up.

Thus these jars of clay – these death suits – are a means of God’s discipline for perfecting our Spirits – renewing our minds – cleansing our souls (“God disciplines those he loves” Heb 12:6). God’s decision to leave us remain in bodies prone to infirmity, is in truth an act of love when He decides that’s best for our spiritual growth and obedience training. It’s also an act of love when He decides to heal us and we pop off in shouts of praise! It’s an even greater act of love that these death suits are only for a season and every believer can look forward to a new and forever healthy Spiritual body at the return of Christ (1 Cor. 15:52). That sounds to me like God always heals us, just not always in the way we want.

When we sought a healing ministry for Karen, Isaiah 53:5 and Psalm 103:3 were cited as Biblical authority for divine healing. Those passages predate Jesus by 700 and 1000 years respectively, yet still Jesus encountered countless deaf, dumb, blind, demon possessed, leprous, lame, dead and dying children of Abraham. Why so many infirmities for a people who were living under God’s promise of salvation and healing? Consider also Psalm 91:9-16; could not Jesus have argued with God in the garden of Gethsemane saying “You want me to be flogged and crucified? But your word says I won’t even stub my toe on a rock!” Could the same God who gives us life and asks us to yield it back to Him, give us countless promises in His word in hope that we’ll release His word back to Him in surrender to His will for us? For the increase of God’s kingdom through our surrender?

I most solemnly say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains a single grain. But if it does die, it yields a great harvest. (Joh 12:24 Williams)

There’s another saying popular among the word of faith crowd – “first in the spiritual then in the natural” or “first in the natural then in the spiritual”. I’ve heard it said both ways. Neither is a direct quote of scripture, rather the belief appears to be rooted 1 Corinthians 15:46 and Galatians 5:16. The inference of the saying is when the Spirit is healed, the flesh will follow. The spiritual monkey wrench in that belief, is Galatians 5:17 which says “The flesh craves what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the flesh. They are opposed to each other…” Thus if the Spirit is healed, the flesh will surely resist. That’s the gist of Paul’s lament in Romans 7:14-25.

“Who will save me from this body of death?”

Why, it’s as if God intentionally set our Spirit and flesh in opposition to each other, where Christ Jesus heals our Spirits in the hidden realm but leaves our flesh broken to display His handiwork through our imperfections. Surely we can’t object to glorifying God through the few chips and cracks He allows to remain in these jars of clay? God is a mystery after all but what mystery is there if we’re all perfectly healthy and wealthy Christian clones?

And after you have suffered for a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to His eternal glory in Christ, will Himself restore you, secure you, strengthen you, and establish you. (1 Pet 5:10 BSB)

In this her season of suffering, we are learning valuable lessons about the grace and purposes of God, that we never would have learned if she’d been miraculously healed. People we regarded as acquaintances have shown up at our door with a meal and offer of help. A grocery clerk remembered Karen’s surgery and asked me how she was doing when I picked up another order. Still others have volunteered to stay with Karen while I run errands. One neighbor whom I want to know better said “call me with any @#$! jobs you have – I’m here for you”. I’m in tears just thinking about such a selfless offer of compassion.

The world does not need to see another shiny perfect Christian with no health or financial struggles, as much as it needs to see broken people. People who in spite of their struggles, love God and one another, and who still have hope in the better Spirit life given by God’s Son.

We are richer in Spirit for what God does through our infirmities. And if you believe what Matthew 25:31-46 has to say about non-believers – the unsaved peoples of the nations (ethnos – pagans, heathens, gentiles) – Jesus is counting them as sheep for the love they showed to His brothers when they were in need. If it turns out our riches in heaven are not gold and silver but the people who enter the Father’s kingdom through the love and charity shown to us when in dire need, I could hope to remain broken for their sake. After all, these jars of clay are made to be broken; that’s the intent of the cross – to lift us up and break us to reveal the sweet fragrance of Christ in us (2 Cor. 2:15).

Conversely, there’s a sense in which to pursue healing for these jars of clay, is to avoid the cross God has appointed for you. Imagine our state if God had spared Christ from the cross when He asked for the cup of our iniquity to pass from Him? Thank you Jesus for making the tortuous decision to embrace the Father’s will over your own. You were broken on my behalf and I am a new creation because of You. Help me to embrace the cross you have for me that others might see You through me and be saved as well.

Father, Thy will be done.