Ask Dr. Couch (#377)

Dr. Couch, I believe you have written about Isaiah 53:4 before but can you repeat what you said about healing in the passage? 
 
   Sure. The Charismatics and the Pentecostals get it all wrong because they want to believe what they want to believe it, when they want to believe it, instead of letting the biblical text speak for itself. They "wants what they want when they want it!"

   They take the verse meaning that there is healing in the atonement. And this is silly, mainly because the way the verse is quoted in the NT has to do with Christ's healing ministry, and has nothing to do with some healing in the atonement! It is not saying that healing today is automatic! Matthew points out that Christ's healing ministry was mentioned in the Isaiah passage. As the Lord healed (Matt. 8:16) Matthew comments: "In order that what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, saying 'He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases'" (Matt. 8:17). End of discussion! Matthew is simply noting that one of the great signs of the Messiah is the fact that in His ministry, He would heal!

   But then the second part of Isaiah 53:4 says "Yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted." This has to do, not with physical, but with spiritual healing. How do we know? Because that is the way Peter quotes the passage in 1 Peter 2:24-25. Peter writes: "And He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed. For you were continually straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls" (Isa. 53:4b).

   In Harry Bultema's great commentary on Isaiah, he points out how the founder of the Christian Missionary Alliance (Pentecostal), A. B. Simpson, gets it wrong and applies 53:4 to physical sickness.

   By the way, Bultema (1884-1952) is an interesting scholar who came to America from the Netherlands, being from a Dutch Calvinistic tradition. He was one of many, many Covenant guys in the last century who got it right. He studied at Calvin College, Calvin Seminary, and later took pastorates in Reformed churches. But then he realized that dispensationalism was correct and the Covenant theology, that worked hard to get rid of Israel, was all wrong. His stance caused him to leave the Christian Reformed churches, as many other great scholars did also, embracing dispensationalism. They went back to normal, literal interpretation, and realized that they had been fooled for many years by the anti-Semitism of Covenant theology.

   Thanks for asking.
   Dr. Mal Couch