According to the Bible, Jesus Christ was the great Preacher who wept for cursed man and spread the Good News, the great Teacher Who taught His disciples, and the great Healer Who healed many of their physical ills (Matthew 4:23). As such, healing of the sick was part of Christ’s ministry and it was a tremendous gift and blessing God provided to mankind.

1. The Source of Our Diseases
Although there are many sources for our ills, when we reflect on the Bible, we can determine three sources for our ills; Satan, sin, and the curse.
First, there are instances when the devil presses and causes us to suffer ills (Mark 9:25).
Second, through sin which man commits knowingly and unknowingly, this results in ills.
Third, as man has rebelled against God’s law, we have been cursed by God to suffer ills during our lives (Deuteronomy 28:58-62).

2. Christ Who Redeemed us from Diseases
In the Old Testament, certain analogies can be seen which represent Jesus Christ Who redeemed us from our diseases; the passover lamb (Exodus 12, Numbers 9), the tree which turned the bitter water to sweet (Exodus 15), and the bronze snake made by Moses (Numbers 21:4-9).

Call to repentance and healing were two things Christ did wherever He went. Whenever Christ healed the sick, He linked the healing with being forgiven of one’s sins as unseparable, before healing the person completely (Mark 2:9,10).

Since Jesus Christ was destined to receive the ultimate death sentence, that of dying on the cross, was there really a need for Him to be whipped and His body torn? The Bible tells us that the reason for His being whipped was so that He could take upon Himself our diseases as well. As He was whipped, he redeemed us from our ills and our weaknesses (Isaiah 53:4; I Peter 2:24).

3. The Precondition to Divine Healing
The precondition to divine healing is our prayers, our lives of faith and our living in accordance to the Word of God.

First, the Bible records many instances of the divine healing through prayer. It is written in James 5:14,15, “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.” As such, a Christian must not give up but continue to pray persistently, then he will experience divine healing.

Second, divine healing can result from both a person’s own faith or from another’s. In Mark Chapter 5, there is an example of a woman who had been suffering from bleeding for twelve years, but having touched the hem of Christ’s robe, she had become well. This is an example of one’s own faith leading to divine healing (Mark 5:25-34). On the other hand, the servant of the centurion was healed not through his own faith, but through the faith of the centurion (Matthew 8:13).

Lastly, the Bible contains God’s promise to those who live according to the Word of God, that they will be protected from diseases (Exodus 15:26).