January 12, 2023: There Is Healing In The Atonement

Yesterday we established that there is healing in communion by looking at Isaiah 53:5 and Matthew 8:17. After Matthew sees Jesus heal everyone, he states that Jesus did this to fulfill the words of Isaiah the prophet. Matthew makes the connection that the suffering servant of Isaiah is the same Jesus who heals everyone, thus proving that by His stripes, we are healed. Today, I want to go back to Matthew 8:17 and look at two words Matthew uses. “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”

The first thing I want us to see is Jesus took our illnesses. The Greek word for ‘took’ is lambano. It means to take, receive, collect, and seize. The same violence the Romans used to seize and flog Jesus is the same violence that Jesus uses to take, receive, collect and seize our illnesses! Jesus was not just taking a beating; He was seizing, collecting, and taking our sicknesses from us! 

The second exciting word we must consider is ‘bore.’ Jesus bore our diseases. The Greek word is bastazo. It means to lift up, bear away, and to pilfer.  Jesus, through His death, lifted off of us our diseases! 

As you receive communion today, remember His body given and His blood shed for you. Picture the violence that Jesus received from the Romans as His deliberate seizing of your sicknesses and your diseases!

Lambano & bastazo - Kittel, G., Friedrich, G., & Bromiley, G. W. (1985). In Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (p. 495). W.B.