The LORD, Our Healer
Exodus 15:26 - the LORD says, “I am the LORD that heals you.” ❤️🩹
Translated from the original Hebrew, it reads: “I, the LORD, am your Physician.”
God reveals Himself in Exodus 15 as our Physician. He is like a Specialist knowing every detail of your body, head to toe. He knows all of our “secret” {hidden} parts that can’t even be seen with the naked eye. Things that doctors can only begin to understand or diagnose by the use of radiology (like x-rays, ultrasounds, CAT & PET scans, and MRIs). The LORD sees and knows exactly what is going on in your entire body, the inside and outside of you.
The verses below confirm God’s intimate knowledge of your body, soul, and spirit. As Your Creator, He knows you better than you even know yourself, let alone any doctor.
“Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight; everything is uncovered and exposed before the eyes of Him to whom we must give account.” - Hebrews 4:13
“My frame was not hidden from You when I was made in secret, when I was woven together in the dark of the womb. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all my days were written in Your book and ordained for me before one of them came to be.” -Psalm 139:15-16
“For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it pierces even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow. It judges the thoughts and intentions of the heart.” -Hebrews 4:12
JEHOVAH RAPHA / YHVH, the Great Physician
Root: רָפָא / Rapha - Doctor (Physician), Healer
Healer is a title that YHVH revealed to us as an attribute of His nature!
The Hebrew letters that make up the word rapha include:
RESH: Leader, First Begotten, Head (symbolizing Jesus/thinking, meditating on something)
PEY: Mouth (symbolizing word, speech)
ALEPH: Ox, strength, sacrifice (symbolizing Jesus’ sacrifice at the cross, the “great exchange”)
Let's see what is revealed in the Hebrew word picture of RAPHA meaning healer!
“When you meditate {resh} on the First Begotten {resh} & His sacrifice on the cross {aleph} and declare {pey} His victory, healing strength begins to flow through your body.”
Did you know that in Hebrew the root word in for health is raphah which means ‘to relax’?
Yes, rapha (healing) originated from raphah (relaxing)! There’s a connection here. When we’re rested and at peace (anxiety and worry-free), healing and wellness flow. Relaxation doesn’t refer to techniques designed to diminish stress, no! It is referring to the Prince of Peace, indicated by the extra ‘hey’ (h) in the word, raphah. The Hebrew letter, hey, represents the grace of God and we know from Scripture that “grace and truth came by Jesus Christ!” (John 1:14)
Returning to Exodus 15:25-26 -
And He [YHVH] said, “If you will listen diligently to the voice of YHVH your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, then all of these diseases that I put on the Egyptians, NONE will I put on you; for I am YHVH your Healer.”
In the above passage of Scripture, the LORD says to the Israelites that there are some prerequisites to healing that require covenantal obedience:
Under the Old Covenant, to receive healing, you must -
Listen diligently to the voice of YHVH, your God
Do what is right in His sight
Give ear {pay attention} to His commandments
Keep all His statutes
THEN (signifying conditional provision; if they do the above requirements) none of the diseases the Egyptians suffered will be put on them {the Israelites} and sickness will be removed from their midst (Exodus 23:25).
Sounds like a pretty daunting list, huh? 🫣
Exodus 15:25-26 is a passage of Scripture that many church websites use when compiling a list of healing scriptures. However, when reading it, it’s easy to feel like you don’t measure up to these requirements. Then, you may come to the conclusion that God won’t heal you because you can’t satisfy these requirements perfectly.
Well, good news for us…in the LORD’s great mercy and compassion, He sent Jesus! 🙌🏻 The Holy Spirit is going to show you from Scripture how to trust the work and Person of Christ and not yourself! When you trust Jesus, healing flows!
During His time on earth, Jesus perfectly obeyed and fulfilled each one of God’s commandments and statutes. He always listened to the Father’s voice and did what was right in His sight. He, the Only Begotten Son, was perfectly righteous and blameless before God, the Father. At the cross, Christ exchanged His righteousness for our sinfulness and paid the punishment for our disobedience (this is called the “great exchange”).
So, let’s review the first requirement in the “healing” list and see how Jesus fulfilled it.
“…you must listen diligently to the voice of YHVH, your God…”
Well, the Father Himself says in Luke 9:35:
“And a voice came out of the cloud, saying ‘This is My Son, whom I have chosen; listen to Him!’”
So, from this passage we know that listening to YHVH begins with listening to Jesus.
What’s super significant about this event is the fact that prior to the cloud covering the mountain and the voice of YHVH being audibly heard by the disciples, Jesus was communicating with Moses and Elijah. The appearance of these two servants of God represents some very interesting clues…
Moses - the Law
Elijah - the Prophets
All of Scripture (the majority being the Law and the writings of the Prophets) point to Jesus. I know this because of the two disciples’ encounter with the risen Lord on the road to Emmaus:
“And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, He {Jesus} explained to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.” -Luke 24:27
In the cloud encounter, the LORD is stating that Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of the things contained in the Law and the Prophets. Therefore, we are to listen to Him and trust that what He teaches comes straight from the Father (John 12:49).
The next healing prerequisite from Exodus 15:25-26 is to “do what is right in His sight.”
We can know what is right in God’s sight by what He reveals as “His will” in Scripture. We learn in John 6:40 -
“For it is My Father’s will that everyone who looks to the Son and believes in Him shall have eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.”
From the above passage, we learn that “doing what is right in His sight” is looking to His Son, Jesus, and believing in Him.
The last two healing prerequisites from Exodus 15:25-26 are paying attention to His commandments and keeping His statutes.
It is a well-known and documented fact that mankind fails miserably at keeping the Law of God. Try as we may (even giving it our best effort), it is an impossible feat because if one commandment is broken or not kept properly, the entire law as a whole has been violated. Thank God that Jesus came to fulfill the Law (Matthew 5:17) on our behalf. When we believe in Jesus, His righteousness is credited to us. We can trust and rest in His perfect obedience to the Law.
Today, for the Body of Christ, the LORD’s commandments and statutes are wrapped up in what is referred to in the New Testament as the “royal law.”
This law, referred to in a few New Testament passages, is explained as not a “new” commandment, but an old one: “to love your neighbor as yourself.”
It’s also expressed in the teachings of Jesus in the Gospels. Shortly before His arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus instructs His disciples, “This is My commandment, love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:12&13)
Paul similarly speaks about the “law of the spirit of life” in Romans 8:2.
This commandment of loving others can only be done by and through the Holy Spirit dwelling within us. It cannot be accomplished by our flesh as “works of the Law.” Jesus tells us plainly that we must abide in Him and His words must abide in us to bear fruit (John 15). We can do nothing apart from Him. As we yield ourselves to the Holy Spirit, He empowers us to love others without laboring in the flesh. Instead, it just becomes a supernatural by-product of the fruit of the Spirit being automatically produced in us as we remain in Him.
In summary, as believers in Christ, we can confidently look at the list of conditions for healing under the Old Covenant found in Exodus 15:25-26 as being totally fulfilled by Jesus. Again, they’ve been perfectly met and satisfied in Christ. We can have a confident expectation that the Lord is our HEALER (Physician) and He removes sickness from our midst! 🙌🏻
We can view the diseases of Egypt as representing various diseases found in the world. A lot of times in Scripture, Egypt is a symbolic picture of the world (being cut off/ separated from God and His covenantal protection). We know from Genesis that sickness, disease, death, and decay entered into the world and the human race after the fall of Adam. Sickness, disease, infirmities, germs, viruses, etc. are the consequences (or by-products) of sin. It is written in Romans 6:23 that the “wages of sin is death.” Disease of any kind is a result of sin with its ultimate fulfillment in death. To clarify, Scripture is not necessarily speaking about a specific sin committed, but instead a state of sinfulness. Because of Adam’s transgression, sin entered the world and death spread to everyone. However the rest of Romans 6:23 says, “…but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.” It’s not God’s desire that people die before their time. It is written in Ezekiel 33:11, “Say to them: ‘As surely as I live, declares the Lord GOD, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that the wicked should turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! For why should you die, O house of Israel?’
Rest assured knowing that if God doesn’t take pleasure in wicked people dying prematurely, but instead wants them to repent and live, then of course He wants you, child of God, to live an abundant, overcoming life. In fact, the Bible says that those in Christ have already passed from death into life (1 John 3:14), He promises to remove sickness from the midst of you, and to fulfill the full number of your days (Exodus 23:26). In fact, we can even see God’s great mercy for those who are far from Him by the way He designed human bodies to heal and repair themselves. We also see His mercy in the way He bestowed intelligence & wisdom in mankind to discover and invent medicines and treatments that help people get well and overcome sickness & disease so that they don’t die prematurely.
Continuing on, in Psalm 107:20 it reads…
“He sent forth His Word and healed them;
He rescued them from the pit.”
Pit (also translated as destruction) is a reference to “the gates of death” found in verse 18.
What, better yet, Who is the Word who heals people and rescues them from death?
Jesus as the Word of Life
The Apostle John introduces us to Jesus at the beginning of His gospel account as being the “Logos,” translated from Greek into English as the “Word” (John 1). Later, the Holy Spirit further reveals that Jesus is the Word of Life in 1 John -
“That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our own eyes, which we have gazed upon and touched with our own hands - this is the Word of Life.” -1 John 1:1
Did you catch that? The Word of Life could be seen, heard, and touched in a physical & tangible way because He was God manifested as a Person - Jesus Christ, the Son of God.
John goes on to say that, “the life revealed was eternal life that was with the Father and was revealed to us” (verse 2).
Jesus Christ is revealed as the Word of Eternal Life. John 10:10 states that Jesus came to “bring us life and have it in all its fullness.”
Below, you will find a very interesting portion of Scripture from the closing of 1 John. As you read it, recall the “prerequisites” of covenantal obedience for healing we previously discussed in Exodus 15:25-26 -
“…and we will receive from Him whatever we ask, because we keep His commandments and do what is pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe in the name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and we should love one another just as He commanded us. Whoever keeps His commandments remains in God, and God in him. And by this we know that He remains in us: by the Spirit He has given us.” -1 John 3:22-24
So, the Spirit of Christ {the Holy Spirit} lives inside of believers and our physical bodies are referred to in the Bible as “temples of the Holy Spirit.” -1 Corinthians 6:19
In other words, we have the Word of Life dwelling within us by the Spirit He has given us. To build on this idea, the Father reveals in Proverbs 4:22 that His words are “life to those who find them, and health to the whole body (all your flesh).” Well, we know that His words point to the Word who is called the Word of Life {Jesus Christ}. He dwells within us by His Spirit. Therefore, the power of His resurrection life resides in us! “And if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit, who lives in you.” (Romans 8:11) 🥳
In summary, the LORD is your Doctor (the Great Physician) and the medicine He prescribes is Jesus revealed through His Word (the Bible).
The Hebrew word used in Proverbs 4:22 for health is marpé (or marpeh). It consists of the following Hebrew letters:
MEM - Living Water (picture of the Holy Spirit); liquid of any kind, including blood (picture of the sacrifice of Christ)
RESH - First Begotten (picture of Jesus, the Son of God); Head (to think/meditate on something)
PEY - Mouth (to speak or declare something)
HEY - Behold! Get someone’s attention; Breath; Grace
The Hebrew Word Picture found in the letters of marpeh (health) reveal -
“Meditating on (resh) and speaking about (pey) the sacrifice Jesus made at the cross (mem; represented by the flowing of blood) allows the Holy Sprit to breathe life (mem) into our bodies, restoring them to health.”
The Word {Jesus Christ} is the medicine you need to heal and cure you of all your diseases.
When an ache or pain appears, most people head straight to the medicine cabinet and grab a pill of Tylenol or Ibuprofen. They take something internally to relieve their pain. In the same way, God’s Word needs to be internalized for healing to begin flowing through your body. That’s why the word picture of “rapha” (Hebrew word for healing) consists of meditating on and declaring Jesus (the Word of Life) and His victory at the cross over your physical body, current circumstances, and so forth. His Word needs to be sown into the deepest recesses of your heart. Meditate on the provision He provided until you know that you know that you know…that you are HEALED!
You are healed because Jesus paid for it ALL at the cross. He willingly offered up His sinless, perfect blood as an overpayment (above and beyond what we owed) on our behalf. See this evidenced in the Scriptures below - 👇🏼⬇️
“Without the shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins.” -Hebrews 9:22
“For the blood of bulls and goats can not take away sins.” -Hebrews 10:4
“He {Jesus} did not enter {the greater and more perfect Tabernacle in heaven} by the blood of goats and calves, but He entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption. For if the blood of goats and bulls…sprinkled on those ceremonially unclean sanctify them…how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself unblemished to God, purify our consciences from the works of death, so that we may serve the living God.” -Hebrews 9:12-14
“It is FULLY paid!”
“Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains (of punishment)…And with the stripes (that wounded) Him we are healed and made whole.” -Isaiah 53:4-5
“He Himself took (in order to carry away) our weaknesses and infirmities and bore away our diseases.” -Matthew 8:17
He carried our sins and infirmities upon Himself! One translation translates this verse as “under a heavy load.” He literally took all of your sins, unrighteousness, and physical ailments & pains and submitted Himself under its backbreaking load to endure the punishment we deserved for it. His love for you is so great, my friend!
His victory at the cross secured our complete and total forgiveness of sins AND physical healing. It’s not “one or the other,” but “both and.” Praise Jesus! 🙌🏻
The coin of salvation is two-sided. It’s a complete package deal. We can know this without a doubt because of Isaiah 53 and what is further revealed about this passage of Scripture in the New Testament.
Isaiah 53 was written in Hebrew. In verse 4, the English translation speaks about Jesus bearing (carrying) our griefs and sorrows. The Hebrew words used here are choli and macov:
“griefs” = choli meaning physical sickness
“sorrows” = macov meaning physical pain
This is further established in the Gospel of Matthew when he writes that Jesus fulfilled Isaiah 53 during His earthly ministry by healing every person who came to Him regardless of the sickness, disease, or oppression. He also translates Isaiah 53 as physical sickness and pain in Matthew 8:17.
Did you catch that? Jesus healed EVERY. SINGLE. PERSON. who came to Him for healing. From leprosy, to issues of blood, to paralysis, to demonic oppression, to fevers, to blindness, lameness, deafness, dumbness, and so on. Every single disease was reversed and every single condition was restored to perfect working order. Jesus is truly our Lord who is our Healer! He even alluded to Himself fulfilling the role of "Great Physician” (an attribute of God) in Mark 2:15-17:
"When Jesus heard it, He said to them, 'Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Here again you can see how the atonement of sins is interwoven with physical healing.
“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.” -Matthew 4:23
“…how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” - Acts 10:38
We are told in 1 Peter 2:24 that, “…who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.” Did you catch that? It’s past tense. We aren’t just waiting on healing (present tense), we were healed 2,000 years ago at the cross. Even if the fullness of your healing hasn’t completely manifested yet in the present, keep meditating on the finished work of Christ. For in Jesus, we live by faith and not by sight (2 Corinthians 5:7) and we don’t lean on our own understanding, but the Lord’s. We trust in Him with all of our hearts (Proverbs 3:5)!
On the cross, Jesus cried out, “It is finished!” and gave up His spirit. In Aramaic (a language that Jesus would have definitely spoken), He proclaimed, “It is fully paid!” Friend, can you see it here again? Your debt has been completely paid. You are forgiven. The LORD thinks thoughts of peace {shalom} towards you and not of evil; thoughts to give you a hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11).
In conclusion, let what has been written here be sown deep into your heart. Take communion in remembrance of Christ as often as you’d like to. Take the bread and remember that Jesus said His body was broken for you. Take the cup and remember that Jesus said His blood was poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins. 🫓🐑🍷
Here, again, you can clearly see how physical healing and forgiveness of sins are interwoven. Don’t live in a state of fearfulness or worry. Relax in the Lord Jesus. Meditate on Him, the Word of Life. I leave you with these words. The Father’s thoughts towards us are thoughts of well-being and health…
“Beloved, I pray that in every way you may prosper and enjoy good health, as your soul prospers…I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in truth.” -3 John 1:2&4
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