God Wounds and God Heals

Transcription

1 God Wounds and God Heals By Mary E. Caruana Scripture quotations taken from THE AMPLIFIED BIBLE, Copyright 1954,1958,1962,1964,1965,1987 by The Lockman Foundation. All rights reserved. Used by permission. ( Page 1 of 7

2 God Wounds and God Heals Introduction In the Bible, there are two scripture passages that identify wounds. The first is from the book of Job in which much about suffering is learned. Happy and fortunate is the man whom God reproves; so do not despise or reject the correction of the Almighty [subjecting you to trial and suffering]. For He wounds, but He binds up; He smites, but His hand heal. Job 5:17,18 Wounds are God s correction. The Almighty subjects a person to trial and suffering. The wound is given by God as reproof and man is to be happy with the reproof. A person is not to despise or reject the correction but to consider himself fortunate that God cared enough to correct him when he is wrong. It is God who wounds a person and God who binds up the wound. God smites, hits, a person but His hands heal. The second way to consider a wound is from the book of Galatians where Paul talks about wounds he bears on his body. From now on let no person trouble me [by making it necessary for me to vindicate my apostolic authority and the divine truth of my Gospel], for I bear on my body the [brand] marks of the Lord Jesus [the wounds, scars, and other outward evidence of persecutions these testify to His ownership of me]! Galatians 6:17 A wounds is a mark of ownership by the Lord Jesus. Paul was troubled by people who make it necessary for him to vindicate his apostolic authority and the divine truth of the Gospel he preached. When Paul was persecuted he suffered beatings and imprisonments from which he had wounds and scars. These marks testified to what he talked about. So he called them a mark of ownership by the Lord Jesus. So a wound can be either given for correction or as a mark of persecution for what a person talks about. A wound given by God for correction is healed by God when the correction is finished. A wound or a scar given as a mark of persecution may not be healed until the ideas talked about are totally understood. The Giving of a Wound The book of Deuteronomy is concerned about how a person should respond whole heartedly to God. Wounds are seen as coming from God. See now that I, I am He and there is no god beside Me; I kill and I make alive, I wound and I heal, and there is none who can deliver out of My hand. Deuteronomy 32:39 The Lord God says there is no God other than Him. He is the one who takes life and gives life. He is the one who wounds and who heals. And no person can deliver a person from these actions of the Lord God. There is a proverb that describes how a friend might wound a person. Faithful are the wounds of a friend, but the kisses of an enemy are lavish and deceitful. Proverbs 27:6 A wound from a friend is given to promote trust and confidence in God. In contrast, an enemy will bestow lavish kisses on a foe Page 2 of 7

3 but the kisses are not meant. They do not mean that the feeling of love is between the two people. Instead, the enemy means to deceive the person. In the love song called the Song of Solomon, the watchmen of a city wound a woman seeking her beloved. I opened for my beloved but my beloved had turned away and withdrawn himself, and was gone! My soul went forth [to him] when he spoke, but it failed me [and now he was gone]! I sought him, but I could not find him; I called him, but he gave me no answer. The watchmen who go about the city found me. They struck me, they wounded me; the keepers of the walls took my veil and my mantle from me. I charge you, O daughters of Jerusalem, if you find my beloved, that you tell him I am sick from love [simply sick to be with him]. Song of Solomon 5:6-8 The wounds given here were for correction so the woman could find her beloved. The watchmen took her veil and mantle so she wouldn t be hidden from him. In the book of Exodus, many laws were given to the Israelites to make them a holy nation. Injuries between people were given particular attention. Injuries following contention between men were specified as follows. But if any damage follows, then you shall give life for life. Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burn for burn, wound for wound, and lash for lash. Exodus 21:23-25 Wounds were to be repeated between contending parties so insight could be gained into the faults on either side. Wounds from God are part of His corrective process. Friends can give wounds, police can give wounds, and wounds are given to bring justice between contending parties. The Care of a Wound In a Psalm, David laments people who do not show mercy to the poor and needy. He appeals to God concerning his wounded heart. But You deal with me and act for me, O God the Lord, for Your name s sake; because Your mercy and loving-kindness are good, O deliver me. For I am poor and needy, and my heart is wounded and stricken within me. Psalm 109:21,22 To show mercy to the poor and needy is dear to God, so much so that God will defend the poor and needy just for His name s sake. David s heart is wounded and stricken by people who don t show mercy to the poor and needy. He asks God for deliverance. His wounded heart needs God s attention. Wounds that are grievous and incurable need to be born, tolerated, and endured. Jeremiah speaks prophetically for the nation about such wounds. Woe is me because of my hurt! [says Jeremiah, speaking for the nation.] My wound is grievous and incurable. But I said, Surely this sickness and suffering and grief are mine, and I must endure, tolerate, and bear them. Jeremiah 10:19 Jeremiah said to himself that the wound is God s correction. He takes total responsibility for the sickness, suffering and grief he now has. But Jeremiah continues to appeal to God about his wound. Why is my pain perpetual and my wound incurable, refusing to be healed? Will you indeed be to me like a deceitful brook, like waters that fail and Page 3 of 7

4 are uncertain? Jeremiah 15:18 God responds to Jeremiah about the wound s care. Therefore thus says the Lord [to Jeremiah]: If you return [and give up this mistaken tone of distrust and despair], then I will give you again a settled place of quiet and safety, and you will be My minister; and if you separate the precious from the vile [cleansing your own heart from unworthy and unwarranted suspicions concerning God s faithfulness] you shall be My mouthpiece. [But do not yield to hem.] Let them return to you not you to [the people]. Jeremiah 15 :19 Jeremiah must clean himself of all doubt concerning God s faithfulness. God gives Jeremiah a settled place to do it. In caring for the wound, God says Jeremiah must separate the vile from the precious. Then Jeremiah will be corrected to act as God s minister and mouthpiece. The care of a wound requires prayer to God to bring His attention to it. Responsibility for the care of the wound belongs to the person who has the wound. Person then has a place of quiet and safety to care for the wound. The end result is the person ministers to others. God s Response Concerning Wounds There is a proverb concerning wounds and adultery. But whoever commits adultery with a woman lacks heart and understanding (moral principle and prudence); he who does it is destroying his own life. Wounds and disgrace will he get, and his reproach will not be wiped away. Proverbs 6:32,33 God responds to adultery with the giving of wounds. The wounds are to be corrective, to put in moral principle and prudence so that life is not destroyed. The reproach cannot be removed by wiping. Instead a battle must be fought to find out what is right by the giving and receiving of wounds. Disgrace is given to show where a person is wrong. In this way adultery, the idea a man is married to a woman he has not taken in marriage, is corrected. Sometimes after God gives wounds, He does not continue to wound. Why should you be stricken and punished any more [since it brings no correction]? You will revolt more and more. The whole head is sick, and the whole heart is faint (feeble, sick, and nauseated). From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness or health in [the nation s body] but wounds and bruises and fresh and bleeding stripes; they have not been pressed out and closed up or bound up or softened with oil. [No one has troubled to seek a remedy.] Isaiah 1:5,6 Isaiah prophetically described wounds given to a nation s body. There were wounds that were not pressed out or closed up or bound up or softened with oil. God did not want to continue to give wounds as no correction was happening. The whole heart and head was sick. A remedy must be sought. A little further on in Isaiah, God outlines the remedy. Wash yourselves, make yourselves clean; put away the evil of your doings from before My eyes! Cease to do evil. Learn to do right! Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, and correct the oppressor. Defend the fatherless, plead for the widow. Come now, and let us reason together, says the Lord. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red like crimson, they shall be like wool. Isaiah 1:16-18 The remedy from too many wounds is to clean up, put away evil, learn about what is right, seek justice, and correct Page 4 of 7

5 oppression. Be careful to not step on those without fathers and husbands. Then God will correct the sins causing the wounds and heal the wounds. In another psalm, David calls on God s attention when there is gossip about the wounds. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let the fierceness of Your burning anger catch up with them. Let their habitation and their encampment be a desolation; let no one dwell in their tents. For they pursue and persecute him whom You have smitten, and they gossip about those whom You have wounded, [adding] to their grief and pain. Psalms 69:24-26 God s response to people who pursue and persecute the smitten is to turn the people s homes desolate. God will give the people His indignation and burning anger who gossip about a person s wounds. Gossip adds to the grief and pain of the wound and God defends the wounded against such happening. In the book of the prophet Micah, another nation, Samaria, has been incurably wounded. For [Samaria s] wounds are incurable and they come even to Judah; He [the Lord] has reached to the gate of my people, to Jerusalem. Micah 1:9 Assyria has attacked and Samaria is incurably wounded. The attack comes even to Jerusalem in Judah. God responds to incurable wound by bringing the wounds before his people in the holy city. The people of the city respond with the insight and power of God, to the incurable wound. God s responds to adultery with wounds to correct the adulterous concepts. God does not overly punish people. A remedy in righteousness must be used for too many wounds not cared for. God s indignation is on those who gossip about wounds because gossip adds to the grief and pain. God uses His holy city with power and might to give insight into incurable wounds. Sin, the Cause of Wounds, and the Healing of Wounds by Christ The wounds of an enemy are given by God when sin is glaring and innumerable. For thus says the Lord: Your hurt is incurable and your wound is grievous. There is none to plead your cause; for [the pressing together of] your wound you have no healing [device], no blinding plaster. All your lovers (allies) have forgotten you; they neither seek, inquire of or require you. For I have hurt you with the wound of an enemy, with the chastisement of a cruel and merciless foe, because of the greatness of your perversity and quilt, because your sins are glaring and innumerable. Jeremiah 30:12-14 In this passage from Jeremiah, sin is described as the cause of wounds. These wounds from God are given by a enemy to correct great perversity and guilt. The enemy is cruel and merciless and the wounds have no healing help. Even the allies of a person have deserted him. Jeremiah then describes how God has mercy to heal the wounds. For I will restore health to you, and I will heal your wounds, says the Lord, because they called you an outcast, saying, this is Zion, whom no one seeks after and for whom no one cares! Jeremiah 30:17 Once every lover has deserted a person and the person is an outcast, then God has mercy. Page 5 of 7

6 In Isaiah s prophesy about Christ, God s mercy on sin can be clearly seen. Surely He has borne our griefs (sicknesses, weaknesses, and distresses) and carried our sorrows and pains [of punishment], yet we [ignorantly] considered Him stricken, smitten, and afflicted by God [as if with leprosy] But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our guilt and iniquities; the chastisement [needful to obtain] peace and well-being for us was upon Him, and with the stripes [that wounded] Him we are healed and made whole. Isaiah 53:4,5 Sin must result in death. God s mercy was to put His Son Jesus Christ to death for man s sin rather than man to death for his sin. Rather than wound man, God wounded His Son Jesus Christ so that man might be healed and made whole. Freedom from sin and death brings a warning about weaker brothers. And so by your enlightenment (your knowledge of spiritual things), this weak man is ruined (is lost and perishes) the brother for whom Christ (the Messiah) died! And when you sin against your brethren in this way, wounding and damaging their weak conscience, you sin against Christ. I Corinthians 8:11,12 A Christian must be careful about his actions so that a brother in Christ who does not have as much knowledge about spiritual matters is not lost. If the brother s conscience is damaged and wounded by a Christian s actions, Christ s death is not respected. This is called sin against Christ and produces a wound of the conscience. Christ died on the cross for the sins of mankind. By these wounds on His body, man is healed. He personally bore our sins in His [own] body on the tree [as on an altar and offered Himself on it], that we might die (cease to exist) to sin and live to righteousness. By His wounds you have been healed. I Peter 2:24 The wounds for the cross were for sin and Christ by being so wounded for man s sins, took the punishment off him and allowed man to die to sin and live to righteousness. After Wounds are Healed In the book of Revelations, the apostle John gives a vision of the world. He describes a head wound. And one of his heads seemed to have a deadly wound. But his death stroke was healed; and the whole earth went after the beast in amazement and admiration. Revelation 13:3 When a head wound is healed all the earth is amazed and full of admiration. This admiration is seen in the current healing of head wounds. John also describes another wound given by a small sword. And because of the signs (miracles) which he is allowed to perform in the presence of the (first) beast, he deceives those who inhabit the earth, commanding them to erect a statue (an image) in the likeness of the beast who was wounded by the [small] sword and still lived. Revelations 13:14 When a wound is the result of a small sword and is healed, an image is made. Page 6 of 7

7 Conclusion Concerning wounds, it is easy to think that they are caused by accident or inevitable disease. So healing can occur, a person must take his eyes off himself and put them on God. Only then can insight and understanding of why the wound occurred, be found. Then, considering how Christ was wounded for sins, forgiveness and mercy can heal the wound in the many ways described in this study. Page 7 of 7