The Gates of Hell Shall not Prevail

The Gates of Hell Shall not Prevail!

Jesus said:

“I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it.” (Mt 16:18)

The phrase pulai hadou (gates of hell) is a Jewish expression meaning “realm of the dead.” The same two words appear in the Septuagint version of Job 38:17: “Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness [ puloroi de hadou]?” They appear again in Isaiah 38:10: “I said in the middle of my days I must depart; I am consigned to the gates of Sheol [pulais hadou] for the rest of my years.” In both passages, pulai hadou is a euphemism for death.

There is no doubt that we are involved in an intense spiritual warfare. God is impressing upon us that we are in a battle against an enemy who is taking the offensive against us. Satan’s kingdom is not divided and disorganized as some would believe, but is a highly organized array of spiritual powers and principalities. However, God is also impressing upon us that we have the authority to take the initiative against our enemy, and effectively counteract his ruling spirits and influences.

In fact, if we do not take the initiative against Satan, he will take the initiative against us. Whether we like it or not, we are at war with the kingdom of Satan, and we must not settle for a negotiated peace. We must utterly dominate Satan and his co-workers.

As I pondered this, I realized that Satan has a place, a gate, where he counsels together with his forces and exercises authority out of that council. To effectively counteract those satanic forces then, the Church needs its leadership, under the head of Jesus Christ, to gather together in unity and harmony in a sense of government. When this happens the gates of hell will be no match for the Church.

some Christians are not even aware of who or what the Church is. My understanding of the Greek term which gives us the ward "church," is that it is similar to the governmental houses in the United States which used to be called "assemblies." It is men coming together in right order, exercising a certain amount of rule and authority. This type of order and unity represents a tremendous threat to Satan, because his basic strategy towards the Church has always been to divide and conquer. As Jesus said, "Any kingdom divided against itself would be no match for its opposition. For this reason it is necessary for the leadership of the Church to assemble together, counsel together and exercise the corporate authority needed to defeat the government of Satan.

Adam failed in his delegated responsibility to rule the earth for the Lord, and that enabled Satan’s rulership to be established. But Jesus won the right of rulership back, and as we come together and align ourselves with Jesus, once again exercising the authority and dominion that Adam forfeited, there is a clash of governments — a conflict between the government of Satan and the government of God.

Satan, through trying to influence governments in the world, is trying to take dominion over the earth or at least regain his former dominion.

Jesus follows this by saying “I will give you the keys to the kingdom of heaven” so that what the church binds and looses on earth will be bound and loosed in heaven. Whatever the church locks up when it bashes down the gates of Hades will be locked up in heaven, and whatever it unlocks and sets free will be set free in heaven.

Another corporate picture, in addition to the one of our being the army of God, is a picture that we are still trying to come to grips with in many ways, that or being God’s government on earth. To successfully attack the strongholds of the nations, "binding the strong man" and "plundering his home" and thus ultimately fulfil the Great Commission to disciple not only individuals but nations, is going to take the authority of Christ invested in His people as a corporate Body under the government of God. Against this type of Church assembly the gates of hell are no match.

2Cor. 10:3 For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war after the flesh:

4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

The Realm of Death and its arrays cannot Overcome the Triumphant Church.

REFERENCE:

1. Chuck pierce - storming the gates of hell(Spiritual Warfare)

Prepare for the Double Portion

God has promised to pour out His Double Portion Anointing, the former and latter anointings together after two days.

• • "After two days will He revive us: in the third day He will raise us up, and we shall live in His sight. Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the Lord: His going forth is prepared as the morning; and He shall come to us as the rain, the latter and former rain unto the earth." Hosea 6: 2-3

These two days are the Church Age. As Jesus promised, He will be perfected in His saints on the Third Day when they are prepared to enter into His presence, Luke 13:32.
The prophet Joel declared the Double Portion anointing:

• • "Be glad then, ye children of Zion, and rejoice in the Lord your God: for He hath given you the former rain moderately, and He will cause to come down for you the rain, the former rain, and the latter rain in the first month." Joel 2:23

The former rain (Pentecost) was only poured out moderately. This is the firstfruit anointing, the earnest, (down payment)of our inheritance. But God's prophetic Word declares we will receive the early and latter rain together in the first month, or at the beginning of the New Day. The apostle James gave us this same hope:

• • "Be patent therefore, brethren, unto the coming of the Lord. Behold, the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it, until He receive the early and latter rain." James 5:7

Our God has a harvest in the earth. He has had long patience for this harvest, but it cannot be harvested until it receives the early and latter rain God has promised.
Those who enter the hundred fold realm, the Holy of Holies, will have their Father's name in their foreheads. This is the seal of the living God, Revelation 7:2. Those who enter through the vail receive another anointing. Before Aaron, the High Priest, could enter through the vail:

• • "Moses poured of the anointing oil upon Aaron's head, and anointed him, to sanctify him." Leviticus 8:12

It was necessary for Aaron to receive another anointing before he could enter into the Holy of Holies. This is the Double Portion anointing.

We are right now in the beginning of a new apostolic reformation, Judgments are coming on many, many nations, and they are coming.

Judgments are coming. We need to know it is coming so that we know it is God and we know why He is doing it. He is trying to turn the nation back to God.
Sometimes that is just His last resort, but God still has a destiny for this nation. We’re going to go through some rough times but she will emerge again.

God is allowing all of this shaking because He is trying to bring the church to a place. He is going to create another kingdom in the earth, the kingdom of God. He is shaking everything down. Everything that can be shaken is going to be shaken in our lives and in the church.

The changes that are coming to the church are so profound. Pentecost turned the early church upside down (Acts 2) and turned the world upside down. This next move is going to turn the world right side up. What is coming is so profound that it will be hard for us to comprehend. God is going to break all of the traditional boundaries, all of them. This is much deeper than revival.
“You have heard; look at all this. And you, will you not declare it? I proclaim to you new things from this time, even hidden things, which you have not known.” (Isaiah 48:6)

God has a lot of stuff up His sleeve and He has a big sleeve. He is going to start pulling them out. We are living between a dying age and a new age. We are living in between them. We are living between sunset and sunrise. The church is at the point of profound change. There is a new season for the change, and because of this storms are abounding everywhere.
It is the dawning of a new age. There are birth pangs taking place because God is seeking to birth something. We have these contractions that happen.

The Lord Jesus said to me, “The day has now come when you will begin to see great anointings breaking out across the earth, anointings like you have never seen before. There are different anointings and there is nothing in history to reference them to. You must allow these anointings to strengthen your spirit. The time has come to stand and not fall. The time has come when these anointings will enable you to reveal the heart of the Father to this world. Tell the people they are My sent ones to this generation. I am about to release my apostolic anointing into the true church. Many angels are now prepared to come to the earth. They will carry these anointings and diffuse these anointings and impart mantles with them. Truth will be revealed like never before. You will be sent to reveal the heart of the Father. You must know the Father and reveal him to this world.”

Then Elijah said to me, “The spirit that was upon me in the earth in my days will be seen again in your days. It will turn the hearts of the children to the fathers. In my day, there were droughts in the earth. There were great deluges of rain. There were great fires and windstorms. There were confrontations with the powers of darkness. You are going to see the same things when my spirit comes again into the earth and rests again on God’s people.”

God is going to do a new thing. There is coming an anointing. There is coming a power. There’s coming a new revelation, which will turn the hearts of the children, not just to their earthly fathers, but to their heavenly Father. They will know God. They will know what He is like and what their destiny is here on this earth.

“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.” (Malachi 4:5-6)
God has His eye on a lost generation. Jezebel is going to lose her children. The Father is going to make himself known in the earth. The spirit of Elijah is coming. You’re going to see on YouTube confrontations between witches and the people of God. It is going to go worldwide. Guess who wins? God is going to demonstrate His power like never before.

Then Moses said to me, “The spirit that was upon me in my days on the earth will be upon you in your days now. This apostolic anointing will be released in the earth with great power. The end-time apostles are coming. It is going to change everything. They will lead God’s people through deep waters into the Promised Land, leading them through droughts, plagues, and dangerous times. The spirit of Pharaoh has to be broken. God sent plagues upon the land to break the spirit of Pharaoh.”

The people of Israel in Moses’ days were in bondage to Pharaoh, which is a type of the world. The church today is still in bondage to this world and it’s pull upon them. It has to be broken. Do you know what is coming upon the land? Plagues. All kinds of stuff is coming. Volcanic eruptions are coming. Chemical warfare is coming. Plagues are coming. There are going to be viruses with no antibiotic for them. Why? To break the spirit of Pharaoh so God’s people have no one else to turn to but God. That is the purpose of it, to turn the people back to God. Moses said, “These apostles will release the fullness of Passover, the fullness of Pentecost, and the fullness of Tabernacles.”


We have never entered into the fullness of our salvation, but we are going to. We are going to have a whole Church of people who are whole. A new reformation is about to get underway.

Zoe- God Kind of Life

THE REIGN OF ETERNAL LIFE

ROMANS 5:17: "For if, through the transgression of the one individual, Death made use of the one individual to seize the sovereignty, all the more shall those who receive God's overflowing grace and gift of righteousness reign as kings in the realm of life through the one individual, Jesus Christ."

Here is the story of Satan's seizure of man's dominion in the Garden when he changed man's spirit nature, made his body mortal, and made that body the master of his spirit. Man became the servant of the senses; his spirit no longer ruled him. Man's spirit became subject to Satan's nature, Spiritual Death. In this we witness the tragedy of Love. God's love creation became the slave of hate. Gen. 1:26: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the heavens, and over the cattle, and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth."

Study this with Psalms 8:3-6: "When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers: the moon and the stars, which thou hast ordained; what is man that thou art mindful of him? And the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him but little lower than God, and crownest him with glory and honor. Thou makest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands ; thou hast put all things under his feet." This is a picture of God's man in the Garden before sin came.

And Hebrews 2:5-8: "For not unto angels did he subject the world that was to be created, whereof we speak. But one hath some-where testified saying, what is man, that thou art mindful of him? Or the son of man, that thou visitest him? Thou madest him a little lower than God ; thou crownest him with glory and honor, and didst set him over the works of thy hands: thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet."

This vast authority, this great honor God had conferred upon man, was turned over into the hands of the adversary. Man became the subject of Satan. He had been God's under-ruler. What a wonderful being he must have been with a mind so capable that he named the entire animal and vegetable creation, with a dominion so vast that the very Heavens were subject to him! Then he fell under the dominion of Satan. We can now understand the scripture which we first quoted. Satan seized the sovereignty. He became the lord and head of man. He became the god of this world. He became the spiritual father of the human race. Politically he became the prince of this world.

Down through the ages we have seen the reign of Spiritual Death. Satan's nature is death, just as God's Nature is Life.
The first manifestation of the Satanic nature is hatred. Hatred, selfishness, bitterness, and murder are the dominant features of Satan's dominion. The reign of Spiritual Death is the reign of Satan. It is sin that rules in the realm of Spiritual Death. Sin is organized evil. Man has become the servile subject of the devil. He has no Revelation Knowledge, so he is utterly dependent upon the knowledge he derives through his senses. His body has become his master. Into this maelstrom of hatred and sorrow, tears and anguish the Son of God was born. "And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us." Love was manifested in the flesh. It was Love's intrusion. It was God breaking into Satan's dominion.

Then they crucified Love. They nailed it to the cross. But Love arose from the dead.

Did you ever notice this scripture 1 Tim. 3:16: "He who was manifested in the flesh, justified in the spirit." God is describing His Son as a Substitute after He had left His body and gone to the place of suffering. God had laid upon Him our sins and diseases. God had made Him to be sin that we might be His Righteousness in Christ.

He stayed there until He had satisfied every claim of Justice. Then He was justified in spirit. 1 Peter 3:18: "Because Christ also suffered for sins once, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God; being put to death in the flesh, but made alive in the spirit."

This is not referring to the Holy Spirit, but to His spirit. He had died spiritually.
He had become a Partaker of the Satanic nature on the Cross. When God laid our sin upon Him, He became sin. He had never known sin. He became identified with Satan. His body became mortal so that He could die. He could not have died physically unless He had died spiritually. John 10:18: "No one taketh my life from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it again." He could not have died until His body had become mortal. This could not have been until He was made sin. Then He was justified-declared righteous-and given Eternal Life. Col. 1:18: "And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead."

Jesus was the first person ever Born Again. Out of that New Birth the Church has been born. Eph. 2:10: "For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus." Acts 13:33: "Thou art my son. This day have I begotten thee." This has reference to His resurrection. Then Jesus stripped Satan of his authority, conquered him, and arose from the dead; and the reign of the new life began. It is important that we understand the teaching of identification. (Read my book, "Identification.") Paul teaches us in this great revelation that we were crucified with Christ, that we died with Christ, that we were buried with Christ, that we suffered with Christ, that we were made alive together with Christ, that we were justified with Christ, that we were raised together with Christ, and then were seated together with Him at the right hand of God. This is the mystery of substitution.

Jesus was our Substitute. It was the same as though we had been nailed to the cross with Him, had died with Him, had been buried with Him, had suffered with Him, had conquered Satan with Him, had been justified with Him, had been made alive with Him, had arisen with Him, and were seated with Him. His victory over Satan was real.
What He did, He did for us. What He is, He is for us. He is the first born of the Church.
As our Substitute He conquered Satan and stripped him of his authority. He did it in our stead. We were credited with that victory. God sees us as He has made us in Christ.
So the Spirit can say through Paul that we reign as kings in the realm of Life through Jesus Christ our Lord. We are Satan's masters. We reign over him. Today, as sons of God we are masters of our old enemy.

It is the "abundance of grace" and the "gift of righteousness." It is the reign of righteousness. We must learn to see ourselves as the Father sees us in Christ-victors in every field. Don't take Satan's estimation of yourself. This is the reign of the "righteous ones," those whom God calls His "righteous ones" in Christ. Hebrews 10:38: "My righteous one shall live by faith." We are those righteous ones. This New Creation is enthroned with Christ. We are seated with Him in the heavenlies. The New Creation is master of the adversary. The old creation was a failure. The New Creation is a success.

We have the very Nature and Life of God that makes us righteous. It gives us access to the very Throne of God. We can go into the Throne Room just as Jesus did in His earth walk. I was almost tempted to say, as a child goes into his father's room without knocking. A stranger wouldn't dare to do it.

We have a legal right to the use of the Name of Jesus. He has given us the power of attorney to use it. He said : "All authority has been given unto me in heaven and on earth." "Whatsoever you shall ask in my name the Father will give it you." This is dominion over the adversary. This is mastery over demoniacal forces and their works.

Now 1 John 4:4 is a reality: "Ye are of God, my little children." We are born of God. We have overcome the evil one. Why? Because "greater is he (God) that is in us than he (Satan) that is in the world." Satan knows that we are masters. His success depends on keeping us in ignorance of it. He knows that we will make mistakes, so he uses our mistakes to keep us under condemnation. The Church has never recognized the ministry of Jesus at the right hand of the Father. He is there as our Advocate, our heavenly lawyer.

1 John 2:1: "And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous." All we need to do is to whisper, "Father, in Jesus' Name forgive me for that foolish thing I have said." At once our fellowship with the Father is restored. Satan knows that we are taking Jesus' place in the world. He wants to keep us ignorant of it.

It gives us strength and courage when we read Matt. 28:20: "And lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the age." If He is with us we are afraid of nothing. Romans 8:31, 32: "If God is for us, who is against us? He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not also with him freely give us all things?"

Can't you hear Him say in the next verse: "Who shall lay anything to the charge of God's elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he that condemneth? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God, who also maketh intercession for us." What a standing we have before the very Throne of God! What recognition we have from the Father, Himself! What limitless ability is ours! Shall we live on in ignorance of our rights? Let us study His Word until we know what is ours in Him. Faith comes with the knowledge of our rights in Christ. When you act on the knowledge of what you are in Christ, you glorify the Son and make the Father's heart glad.

Say it over and over, "I am what He says I am; I can do what He says I can do. He will do in me all He did in Christ for me. "I have His Nature in me-His Love Nature, His creative Nature, His faith Nature. I am His very child. "All things are possible to the believing one. I am a believer, so it is I of whom He speaks." Three blessed facts that have never been stressed

1. What God really did for us in Christ in His great Redemptive work.
2. What God does for us in the New Creation, through the Word, and by the Holy Spirit-building His Nature into us and making us like Jesus in our Love walk.
3. What Jesus is doing now for us at God's right hand as Mediator for the lost, as High Priest for the believer, as surety for the New Covenant, as the Advocate for us when tempted, and as our Lord and Sustainer.

The Two Kinds of Life

Divine Healing- E W Kenyon

DIVINE HEALING(E W Kenyon)

THE SUBJECT OF HEALING is one over which there has been much controversy. Today there exist at least three different attitudes toward healing among the Christians.

One group teaches that healing is not for us today. They base this upon the theory that healing is a miracle and that miracles do not belong to the present day; that they belonged only to the Apostolic Age.

Another group teaches that God heals today in answer to special prayer or a special act of faith, and that according to His own will in the matter. The third group teaches that healing for the body is the legal right of every child of God, and that he receives healing for his physical body upon the same grounds that he receives remission of sin for his spirit. Let us now examine these three teachings in the light of the Word.

The first attitude can be easily shown to be erroneous by a definition of a miracle. A miracle, according to Webster, is an act or happening in the material or physical sphere that apparently departs from the laws of nature or goes beyond what is known concerning these laws. It is really an intervention of God into the realm of natural laws, or the realm of human activity. It is God coming upon the scene.

Whenever God comes into immediate contact with men a miracle is performed. Every answer to prayer, regardless of its smallness, and every New Birth is a miracle. An act of healing whereby God comes into immediate contact with man's physical body is no more a miracle than the New Birth, in which God comes into immediate contact with the spirit of man, imparting to it His own nature.

Man asks God to perform a greater miracle than healing when he asks Him to save his soul, and as great a miracle as healing when he asks Him to answer a request, regardless of how slight it might be. To say that miracles belonged only to the Apostolic Age would be to say that God must take the place of a mere spectator or cipher in the world He had created, from the Apostolic Age to this. We can easily see the utter fallacy of this teaching. Let us now seek to find what God's Word declares about the issue of the other two beliefs. If the second attitude is the correct teaching, the third is not.

If God heals only in answer to a special act of faith, and that only when He wills to, healing does not legally belong to the child of God and was not included in Redemption. If, on the other hand, healing was a part of man's Redemption in Christ, healing belongs to every child of God, and no special act of faith is required to obtain it. There need be no questioning as to whether it is God's will to heal; if it is in the Redemption, it is His Will. We will now consider what God's Word says about this.

Origin of Sickness and Disease

Before we are able to understand healing we must understand the origin of disease, sickness and death. We have seen that as a result of Adam's crime of High Treason, Spiritual Death gained an entrance into the spirit of man. This Spiritual Death, which has reigned in the human race, has been the soil out of which has grown the reign of sin, disease and death over man. Sickness, disease and death in man's physical body are but the manifestation of Spiritual Death within the spirit. If man had never died spiritually, disease and death would never have had a part in man's physical body.

When Satan became the god of this world, one of the results of his reign was the peopling of the air with disease germs so that from then to the present time, disease microbes too small to be seen with the naked eye have been one of the greatest enemies of man. The fact cannot be denied that in this world there exists evil. The existence of evil has caused many earnest people to reject belief in a God of love; they have not understood that evil was the result of Satan's reign over humanity as the prince and god of this world.

There are philosophers who have been so impressed by the reign of evil that they have arrived at the conclusion that the central principle of the universe is evil. They are wrong. It is not the Creator, but the Usurper, Satan, who is the source of evil. The two divisions of evil are pain and sin. Pain may have several subdivisions, but the major body of pain known and experienced by humanity is the pain caused by disease. In conclusion, sin and disease are twins, born of Spiritual Death. They are both the work of Satan. Sin is a disease of the spirit; sickness, as we see it, is a disease of the physical body.

God's Attitude Toward Disease

God looks upon disease as He looks upon sin, the work of Satan in the life of His Creation, man. Christ came to reveal the Father-God, to make known His attitude toward man. By carefully following the life of Christ we may learn the attitude of God toward sickness.

Christ Was the Will of the Father

Christ's ministry from the beginning to the close was a twofold ministry. He brought peace to the souls of men and healing to their bodies. Healing had a major place in the ministry of Christ. Throughout His ministry He delivered all those who were oppressed of Satan. This deliverance included healing for physical bodies. If disease did not come from Satan, it must have had a place in God's original plan for man. Read Matthew 8:16-17 and Mark 1:32-34.

If this were the case, then Jesus' ministry would have been contrary to the Father's will. He was the Father's will revealed to man and He revealed that it was the Father's will to break the power of disease over man's body and set him free from pain and suffering. Christ's ministry proclaimed healing and blessing to the physical part of man's nature, as well as to the spiritual side. There are several instances where the attitude of Christ toward disease is clearly shown. One is in Luke 13:10-17. After loosing a woman on the Sabbath from an infirmity which she had had for eighteen years, Christ was criticized by the rulers of the synagogue.

His answer was, "Ought not this woman, whom Satan hath bound, lo, these eighteen years, to have been loosed from this bond on the day of the Sabbath?" He clearly stated that Satan was the cause of the infirmity which had bound her physical body. Another incident is found in Mark 2:1-21. A man with palsy is brought to Christ to whom Christ said, "Son, thy sins are forgiven." When the scribes questioned the statement Christ had made, He answered them with this, "Which is easier, to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins are forgiven; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?"

In reality Christ is saying this, "Which is easier? Wherein is the difference to forgive sins which are the results of Spiritual Death in man's spirit, or to heal the disease of his physical body, which is the result also of the same Spiritual Death." In either case Christ was dealing with the bondage of man to Satan. To see more fully the attitude of Christ toward disease and the place healing played in His ministry, read the following:

Healing in Redemption

I John 3:8 tells us that Christ was manifested to destroy the works of the devil. He came to destroy what Satan had wrought in humanity when he became the spiritual father of man as a result of Adam's crime of High Treason. He came to bring Satan to nought in his relationship and power over man. Hebrews 2:14. He came to completely redeem man from the effects of Adam's sin by identifying Himself with humanity. Study carefully Romans 5:12-21.

If man's redemption from Spiritual Death is to be a complete redemption it must be a redemption from disease as well as sin. God realized this, and He has clearly shown us in His Word that He has made provision for the healing of man's body. Isaiah 53:4-6. God lifts the curtain through the prophets and lets us see Him dealing with sin and sickness. Literally it reads, "He was despised, and rejected of men; a man of pains, and acquainted with sickness."

Fourth verse, "Surely He hath borne our sicknesses, and carried our diseases; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted." He was stricken of God with our diseases. He was afflicted with our pains. "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." Tenth verse, "Yet it pleased Jehovah to bruise Him, He hath made Him sick; when thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin."

The old version which reads "griefs and sorrows" is not correct. Every literal translation gives "disease and sickness." God not only laid upon Jesus our iniquities, but our diseases. He was made sick with our diseases. He was made sin with our sins. In the Father's mind, and in the mind of Jesus, and according to the Word, our diseases and sins were borne by the Master. If they were borne by Him, then it is wrong for us to bear them. Sense Knowledge has attempted to repudiate this, but the truth remains that God laid our diseases and our sins on Jesus. He could not be raised until man was declared righteous (Romans 4:25).

When He arose from the dead, the body of sin, of Spiritual Death, had been destroyed (Romans 6:6). Sin had lost its power and so had disease. Isaiah 53:10 reads as follows in the Hebrew: "Yet Jehovah hath delighted to bruise Him; He bath made Him sick." God made Jesus sin with our sins, and He made Him sick with our sicknesses: He delighted to do it because of one reason . . . it meant healing for man.

Christ bore our sins and the penalty that we might be free from sin, its power, and its judgment. Upon the same grounds He bore our disease and pains. He carried them that we might be set free, that we need not bear them. God made Him to be our sin-bearer and our sickness-bearer. Him who knew no sin was made sin and Him who knew no sickness was made sickness.

In the ministry of Christ, the Father-God revealed that it was His will to heal man physically. Now in Redemption He breaks the power of disease and sickness
upon Christ. Satan, who had the authority in the realm of Spiritual Death, has been brought to nought (Hebrews 2:14). In that victory, disease and sickness, the works of Satan, were brought to nought also. By His bruising, we are healed from the law of disease.

Healing Today

Christ's ministry upon earth was twofold, constantly affecting the spirits and bodies of men. His death was two-fold, bearing our sins and diseases. He is the same today and the twofold ministry of blessing for spirit and body has continued from His earthly ministry to the present time. He bore man's Spiritual Death that he might have Life, and in His Word He made provision for man's salvation. He bore man's diseases and in His Word He made provision for his healing.

In Mark, the sixteenth chapter, He gave to His disciples the Great Commission. He is going to depart to be with the Father to take up His work at His right hand. His disciples are going to take His place. His representatives are to continue His ministry, do what He would do if He were here. So in their commission to a world for whom He died He reveals that the twofold ministry will continue. First, the commission is to meet the spiritual need of man. Mark 16:16, "He that believeth and is baptized, shall be saved."

Every child of God applies this portion of the commission to himself, teaching that faith in Christ is essential to salvation and that unbelief excludes one from it. Then comes the second part of the commission, Mark 16:17, "And these signs shall accompany them that believe." The Greek word for "believe" is the same as "believeth" in verse 16, except for the fact that one is singular and the other is plural. What right has anyone had to separate these words of Christ which immediately follow His first part of the commission?

Where in His Word has He ever implied that the first words had reference to all men, and that the last had reference to only the Christians of the Apostolic Age? Both promises hang by the single stem "believing." The act of believing brings one into the family of God. The rich cluster of miraculous promises following, belong to them that believe, or the "believing ones," a literal translation.

Man has held fast to the first promise, because he knew how to use it, and he has flung back the other because he did not know how to use it. He bore man's diseases that man might not bear them, and the provision for man's healing is in this: "In My Name ... they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover." The ministry of the disciples under the guidance of the Holy Spirit had the same twofold blessing as had Christ's ministry. A complete Redemption was preached by them, the New Birth for the spirit and healing for the body.

The two streams of blessing which began from the personal ministry of Christ, a stream of regeneration and healing have continued from then, through the Apostolic Age, and to the present, wherever Christians have dared to act upon His Word.
Our right to healing given to us in His Redemption has been invested in the authority of His Name. Today He is watching over this Word to confirm it, as He confirmed it in the days of the Apostles (Mark 16:20).

The Basic Bible Course