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The Types of Redemption
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Christians know so little about what actually happened. Vast numbers of Christians just know,
“I’m not going to hell,” which is wonderful, but redemption is so much more.
I’m not going to try to cover all of redemption, but I’m talking about healing. I’m going to deal
with it now and into the next chapters. This is the question: Is healing a part of redemption, a part
of what Jesus bought and paid for, for all believers? This is where the road divides. I don’t know
if you studied this in school, read books, or studied theology on this, but this is the fork in the
road. If you say, “Yes, healing is part and parcel of redemption, part of what Jesus bought and
paid for,” then for whom? Are you going to say redemption is for some and not for others?
Because of that, millions of Christians do not believe that statement. They do not agree that
healing is a part of redemption. They believe God can heal if He wants to, but it doesn’t belong
to all believers, like the forgiveness of sin does. That’s a problem because now you have God
blessing humanity outside of the work of Jesus. On what basis is He doing it? People say, “Well,
God is God. He can do it if He wants to.” Then why couldn’t he just save people because He
wanted to? “He’s omniscient. He’s omnipotent. He can do whatever He wants to do.” What
they’re saying is, “It wasn’t necessary for Jesus to come and pay the price. God is God. He can
do what He wants to do.”
No, God is God, and He
did
do what He wanted to do. He did what was right. Think about this:
When Adam and Eve sinned, He still loved them. He didn’t want them driven out of the Garden.
He didn’t want them separated from Him. But, you can’t bless people who have disobeyed and
rebelled against you and be fair. That doesn’t merit a blessing. Sin had to be punished. Sin had to
be judged.
Oh, but He had a plan. Even though not only Adam and Eve but all of their descendants had
sinned and come short of the glory of God, He still had a plan whereby He could reconcile them.
Now “reconcile” is an important word. He could redeem and reconcile all mankind to Himself,
and bless, heal, deliver, and save them, even though they had sinned and didn’t deserve it. It’s
the greatest story ever told. It’s the Good, Good, Good News!
It’s the Good News, and healing is part of it, right in the middle of it. It has always been in the
middle of it, and it still is in the middle of it. People try, with their theological scalpel, to separate
it, take it apart, and say, “No, no, no… now forgiveness of sin, that’s for everybody—as many as
will believe. But no, healing is not part of that. God could heal if He wanted to, but to say it’s
every believer’s right and privilege? No, it’s not always His will. And being rich? No, no, no.”
But it is His will! I believe this will grow in us as we grow. I’m going to make this statement,
and I’m going to keep making it, and it’s going to grow in you: You are, right now, just as healed
as you are forgiven. How much you receive it and how much you yield to it is up to you, just like
how much you receive forgiveness of sin. But it belongs to you equally because it was
accomplished in the same work of redemption. This needs to be built into our consciousness. We
as the Church haven’t been taught this for century after century. We’ve been taught other things,
but this is true. This is the Bible, and it is true.
I’m going to go over just a handful of the
types
of redemption in the Old Testament, and then I
will bring us right into the real thing, the actual work of redemption. We will look at how it’s