Specific Healings In Jesus Ministry
Over the next several months, we are going to go through the gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and encourage ourselves by talking about the specific instances of healing in Jesus’ ministry while He was here on this earth. We may repeat healings as we go through each gospel but repetition is good for our faith to rise. Pay close attention to these healings and let them minister to you that Jesus is your Healer as well. There is no partiality in Jesus. He treats everyone the same. He is the same Jesus now as He was then. He was the Healer then and He is still your Healer today.
The Leper Cleansed, Matthew 8:1-4
This is an instance illustrating the fact that it is God’s will to heal you. You don’t have to ask. The leper has already asked and Jesus has already answered. If it is God’s will to heal this leper, then it is God’s will to heal you.
When Jesus came down from the mountain, great multitudes of people followed Him. Multitudes are thousands of people. Out of these thousands of people, there came a leper to Jesus and prostrated himself before Jesus in worship, saying, “LORD, if you are willing, if you will, you can cleanse me and make me clean. You are able to heal me.”
Apparently the leper had already heard that Jesus heals. He must have heard, because he tells Jesus that he knows that He can heal him. He was risking his life by even being out where people were without shouting: “Unclean!” “Unclean!” He could have been stoned to death for being so bold.
Yet look what Jesus did immediately. He reached out His hand and touched the unclean leper, signifying that He was not afraid of the leper’s disease. He was the answer to the cleansing of that disease. He was life Himself standing there with the removal of that disease. As Jesus was touching the leper, He spoke these words of compassionate authority. Jesus was compassion; But at the same time He spoke with authority. “ I Will! Be clean!” Those words were music to this leper’s ears. He felt: He heard; He received. IMMEDIATELY, his leprosy was cleansed. He was healed.
Jesus said to him: “Don’t tell this to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded for a testimony of your healing and as evidence to the people.”
In Leviticus 14 we see the instructions for the cleansing of lepers. The priest was to go forth out of the camp where the leper was and inspect him. If the plague of the leprosy was healed, there were certain procedures and offerings that leper was to take. There was offering, and blood applied and oil applied.
These procedures were shadows of Jesus Who was to come to cleanse man of his sins and take man’s sickness and disease by submitting His back to the smiters to be lashed with the whip that tore his flesh in shreds. Isaiah 53:4,5 and 1 Peter 2:24 tell us that with the stripes that wounded Jesus we have been healed and we have been made whole. Jesus shed His blood that sickness and disease might be cleansed from our bodies. Now the Holy Spirit Who lives in us as born again children of God is symbolized by oil which is applied to us for cleansing of sickness and disease. Healing is the removal of sickness and disease. We even follow this procedure according to the Bible when the child of God is anointed with oil. The anointing of oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit’s cleansing power. He is in us to cleanse us 24/7. Thank God!