[Roundtable] A Calvinist Looks at the promise of Healing - Part II

[Jefferis Peterson]

As I continue with the article I¹m writing, this is part 2, on the covenant
names of God and what is meant by the Name. Part 1 was about the meaning of
the Good News of the Dominion (Kingdom) of God.

The Names of God
 ³If you will diligently hearken to the voice of the LORD your God, and do
that which is right in his eyes, and give heed to his commandments and keep
all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases upon you which I put upon
the Egyptians; for I AM the LORD, your healer.² Exodus 15:26, RSV.
 
 
God revealed himself to Moses by his personal name. The divine name, YHWH,
is not only his name but also a verb for Being. God¹s revealed Name is
translated as I AM or I AM Who I AM, or I AM Who I WILL BE.  The modern
translators usually translate it as I AM the LORD, but it is all one word,
YHWH, pronounced either as Yahweh or Jehovah, depending on your
interpretation of the vowels.
 
The point is that whenever God was revealing himself by his personal name,
he was revealing his Covenant Name to his covenant people.  He was revealing
his identity, his Being, and he was revealing how he would act towards his
people (who he would Be to them). There are seven names of God by which he
reveals himself as caretaker of his people:
 http://www.gotquestions.org/names-of-God.html:
1.     YAHWEH-JIREH: "The Lord will Provide" (Genesis 22:14
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Genesis%2022.14> ) ­ The name
memorialized by Abraham when God provided the ram to be sacrificed in place
of Isaac.

2.    YAHWEH-RAPHA: "The Lord Who Heals" (Exodus 15:26
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Exodus%2015.26> ) ­ ³I am Jehovah who
heals you² both in body and soul. In body, by preserving from diseases, and
by curing them when afflicted with them and in soul, by pardoning their
iniquities.

3.    YAHWEH-NISSI: "The Lord Our Banner" (Exodus 17:15
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Exodus%2017.15> ), where banner is
understood to be a rallying place. This name commemorates the desert victory
over the Amalekites in Exodus 17.

4.    YAHWEH-M'KADDESH: "The Lord Who Sanctifies, Makes Holy" (Leviticus
20:8 <http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Leviticus%2020.8> ; Ezekiel 37:28
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Ezekiel%2037.28> ) ­ God makes it clear
that He alone, not the law, could cleanse His people and make them holy.

5.    YAHWEH-SHALOM: "The Lord Our Peace" (Judges 6:24
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Judges%206.24> ) ­ The name given by
Gideon to the altar he built after the Angel of the Lord assured him he
would not die as he thought he would after seeing Him.

6.    YAHWEH-TSIDKENU: "The Lord Our Righteousness² (Jeremiah 33:16
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Jeremiah%2033.16> ) ­ As with
YHWH-M¹Kaddesh, it is God alone who provides righteousness to man,
ultimately in the person of His Son, Jesus Christ, who became sin for us
³that we might become the Righteousness of God in Him² (2 Corinthians 5:21
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/2%20Corinthians%205.21> ).



7.    YAHWEH-ROHI: "The Lord Our Shepherd" (Psalm 23:1
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Psalm%2023.1> ) ­ After David pondered
his relationship as a shepherd to his sheep, he realized that was exactly
the relationship God had with him, and so he declares ³Yahweh-Rohi is my
Shepherd. I shall not want² (Psalm 23:1
<http://bible.logos.com/passage/niv/Psalm%2023.1> ).

 
In other words, God was revealing himself in Covenant as a promise to be to
us what he says about himself in his own name. To be false to his own name
would be to violate the very ground of existence. ³I will bow down towards
your holy temple and will praise your Name for your love and your
faithfulness, for you have exalted above all things your Name and your
Word,² Psalms 138:2, NIV. God has made his Word his bond, and he cannot
violate it without violating himself. So when he says I AM Your Healer, he
is telling us who he is to us.

 
Therefore to say that God is not our healer or does not heal or that he no
longer heals is to say that either God has changed or that God is a liar and
that he is not truthful about himself. To believe he is not our healer is to
believe something that is not true about God. He cannot be in covenant with
us without honoring the covenant he has made with us. His Name is his
identity, and when he gives us his Name, he tells us who he is in
relationship to us. He can be no less. Some say, ³Well, God has healed us
ultimately in the resurrection, but that doesn¹t mean he is a healer for our
diseases today.²  This statement is true enough in that we shall all
ultimately be healed, but if we cannot look to him for healing today, we are
saying, in effect, ³I don¹t believe your Covenant Name has any validity
today. I¹m just going to ignore that part of who you say you areŠ. As a
matter of fact, I don¹t believe you are any of those things for me on this
earth right now. You are not my provider or my righteousness, or my
shepherdŠ  All that is in the future in heavenŠ Right now I have to do all
those things for myself. I have to earn my keep, go to doctors for healing,
make myself as good a person as I can be, and protect myself. Then someday,
in heaven, I¹ll be able to trust you for all these things. But right now,
today, I can¹t because they don¹t work on this earthŠ ²
 
This may sound silly, but how can we pick and choose which part of God¹s
covenant promises to us to believe and accept? If he says, ³I AM Your Healer
and I AM Your Righteousness,² can we say, ³I accept you as my righteousness
here and now because I have none of my own, but I reject you as my healer
because I don¹t believe that you really are my healer today²? You have to
understand, when God says his Name, he is saying ³I make a solemn promise,
sealed in the blood of my own Son, that I AM the God who heals you.² If we
are so bold as to reject that, we are rejecting God¹s personal face towards
us. 
 
Some will say that ³yes, God is our healer, but he only heals now through
natural means.² Well, if disease is the enemy, why restrict God to only one
type of healing? Who are we to say, ³God can or will only heal through
natural means today²?  Are we God that we can put limits upon him? That is
presumption. Surely God can use natural and supernatural means. In fact,
everything God does is supernatural because God is Spirit. So every time he
breathes upon the Creation it is His Spirit intersecting nature. So if he
wills a natural recovery or a miracle, these are both supernatural
influences upon the created order.
 
Now Jesus approached healing as a necessary component of this covenant
relationship between humanity and God.  When Jesus saw a woman who had been
bound by a spirit of infirmity for eighteen years, he healed her on the
Sabbath, which made the religious people angry, but he said, ³And ought not
this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be
loosed from this bond on the Sabbath day?² Luke 13:16, RSV.  What did he
mean by calling her a daughter of Abraham?   He was reminding his fellow
Jews that this woman was a daughter of the covenant which God made with
Abraham, and so she had the full rights and privileges promised by that
covenant.  Healing, Jesus was saying, was part of that covenant between God
and the children of Abraham.  Jesus healed her on the basis of the covenant.
Notice in this passage that Jesus did not say to the woman that her faith
had made her well, for indeed, she expressed no faith towards Jesus that was
recorded. Jesus just saw her suffering and he healed her because she was a
daughter of Abraham.
 
Lest one think that this old covenant has passed and is no longer
applicable, we only need to look at what Paul said about this covenant in
Galatians:
³Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for
us--for it is written, ŒCursed be every one who hangs on a tree¹-- that in
Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we
might receive the promise of the Spirit through faithŠ. Now the promises
were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ³And to
offsprings,² referring to many; but, referring to one, ³And to your
offspring,² which is Christ... And if you are Christ¹s, then you are
Abraham¹s offspring, heirs according to promise,² Galatians 3:13-16,29, RSV.
Jesus did not discard the old covenant. Jesus fulfilled it so that the
blessings of the old, and the new, might come upon us as we inherit the
blessings of Abraham through him.
 
It is plain that some of the curses that come from breaking the Law are
sickness and disease:
³If you are not careful to do all the words of this law which are written in
this book, that you may fear this glorious and awful name, the LORD your
God, then the LORD will bring on you and your offspring extraordinary
afflictions, afflictions severe and lasting, and sicknesses grievous and
lasting. And he will bring upon you again all the diseases of Egypt, which
you were afraid of; and they shall cleave to you. Every sickness also, and
every affliction which is not recorded in the book of this law, the LORD
will bring upon you, until you are destroyed,² Deuteronomy 28:58-61, RSV.
 
If Jesus came to redeem us from the curses of the Law, then he came to
redeem us from their effects as well. It is for this reason that the
Scriptures say, ³But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised
for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and
with his stripes we are healed,² Isaiah 53:5, RSV.  Peter quotes this verse
(1 Peter 2:24) as a sign of Jesus¹ Messianic mission. Since the obverse of
the curse is the Blessing, the blessing that came upon Abraham, and which
belonged to the woman in the synagogue, also belongs to us through Christ
Jesus:
³Blessed shall be the fruit of your body, and the fruit of your ground, and
the fruit of your beasts, the increase of your cattle, and the young of your
flock,² Deuteronomy 28:4, RSV.
Our health and wholeness are part of the blessing of Christ, who was given
to us to save us from Satan¹s power and to make the blessings of God flow as
far as the curse is found. He was sent by God the Father to uphold,
establish, and fulfill the Covenant Promises God made to his people to be
their healer, their deliverer, their provider, and their righteousness, as
well as all the other promises he made as the I AM.

Jesus, as the representative of the Covenant, is the one who upholds the
Name of God, and included in that Name is the Name ³I AM Who Heals You.² God
has been faithful to his own Name, so should we be to him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com
(724)-482-2015

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