He…healed all that were sick: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias [Isaiah] the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
—Matthew 8:16-17
In a preceding chapter, we studied the words of the prophet Isaiah. If you still have any doubt as to the interpretation that has been given, I remind you of what the Holy Spirit caused the evangelist Matthew to write. It is expressly said, regarding all the sick ones whom Jesus healed, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias [Isaiah] the prophet.” It was because Jesus had taken our sickness on Himself that He could, that He ought to, heal them. If He had not done so, one part of His work of redemption would have remained powerless and fruitless.
It is the generally accepted view that the miraculous healings done by the Lord Jesus are to be considered only as the symbol of spiritual graces. They are not seen to be a necessary consequence of redemption, although that is what the Bible declares. The body and the soul have been created to serve together as a habitation of God. The sickly condition of the body, as well as the soul, is a consequence of sin, and that is what Jesus came to bear.
When the Lord Jesus was on earth, it was not in the character of the Son of God that He cured the sick, but as the Mediator who bore our sickness. This enables us to understand why Jesus gave so much time to His healing work, and why, also, the Bible evangelists speak of it in a manner so detailed.
These healings give us not only the proof of His power during His life here on earth, but also the continual result of His work of mercy and of love, the manifestation of His power of redemption, which delivers the soul and body from the dominion of sin.
Yes, that was in very deed the purpose of God. If, then, Jesus bore our sicknesses as an integral part of the redemption, if He has healed the sick “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias,” and if His Savior-heart is always full of mercy and of love, we can believe with certainty that to this very day it is the will of Jesus to heal the sick in answer to the prayer of faith.