The Belt of Truth
Christ our Saviour and Healer
In spiritual warfare it is very important that we have on the belt of truth, but what is the belt of truth?
Jesus said, “You shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free”, what did He mean? What is the truth that shall make us free?
He also said “I am the way, the truth and the life”, so He is the truth. How does that help us to know the truth?
The apostle Paul tells us that “the truth is in Jesus” (see Ephesians 4:21).
So the truth is in Jesus, not in ourselves or in anyone else, but in Jesus because Jesus is the truth.
The truth in ourselves is shown in our state or experience; we are sinners, prone to sickness and disease, we are in bondage to the devil and slaves to sin. That is the truth until we come to Christ. When we come to Christ we learn the truth that makes us free.
The truth that makes us free is the objective truth that is Christ Himself and what He has achieved for us. This is found in the word of God. For it to become part of our lives we have to believe it.
The objective truth is what Christ is, and also what He is to us because we are in Christ and because of what He has made us by His death on the cross. When we believe on Him we are redeemed by His precious blood, we are forgiven, we are justified, we are ‘in Christ’ we have been crucified with Christ, buried with Him and risen with Him, a brand new creature. We are dead to sin and alive to God, we are dead to the law and dead to the world, we are free from sin. However the question is, do we believe it? Do we trust God?
God’s character never changes, He is the same yesterday, today and forever, but how can we know what His character is? His character is found in His names.
He is Jehovah Our Saviour, Our Healer, Our Righteousness, Our Sanctification, Our Redemption, Our Peace, Our Shepherd, Our Banner (High Priest in heaven interceding for us), Our Provider. He is all these things to us and much more.
I will not go through them all but I will look at the first two, Our Saviour and Our Healer.
He came to save us from our sins and also from sin (the power within that makes us commit sins).
He bore our sins in His own body and carried them on the cross. He paid the price for our sins. All our sins are forgiven us and as we trust Him He carries them far away never to be remembered anymore. His blood deals with our sins and the cross deals with our sin. Not only did He die for us but when we believe on Him then we are placed in Him and we died with Him on the cross. Our old man is dead and buried we are risen a new man in Christ Jesus. Sin has lost its power over us.
Christ not only saves us from sins but He also took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses (Matthew 8:17, Isaiah 53:4). He is our healer.
When the children of Israel came out of Egypt they arrived at Marah (see Exodus 15:22-26), but found the waters at Marah were bitter so they had nothing to drink. God showed Moses to cast a tree into the waters and they were made sweet (this is a type of the cross of Jesus). God healed them of bitterness (bitterness and unforgiveness need taking to the cross and leaving there), then He told them if they would do what is right and hear His commandments and keep His statutes He would put on them none of the diseases of Egypt “For I am Jehovah Rapha” (the Lord who heals you).
We find that sin and sickness so often go together. Sin entered when Adam disobeyed God and that is also when sickness, disease and death also entered into the human race. In the passage above we see that their healing from sickness, disease, and infirmities was dependent on their keeping Gods statutes (now it is dependent on faith in Jesus Christ).
In Psalm 103:1-3, David writes, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me bless His holy name! Bless the Lord O my soul, and forget not all His benefits; who forgives all our iniquities, who heals all our diseases.” Again we see that our iniquities (sins or unrighteous acts) and diseases are linked together. But what is David saying? He is saying that God not only forgives all our iniquities but also heals all our diseases.
I am not saying that all sickness is linked with an individual’s personal sin, sickness is due to Adams sin in general, however there may be times when it is linked to personal sin (see 1 Corinthians 11:30, James 5:15, Matthew 9:1-6).
In Isaiah 53:4 God says, through Isaiah, that Christ has born our griefs (infirmities) and carried our sorrows (sicknesses).
Verse 5 then says, “But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement of our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.” (Same Hebrew word as used in the name Jehovah Rapha).
By His stripes we are completely made whole, body, soul and spirit.
Forgiveness of sins and healing of the body are both mentioned in Isaiah’s prophecy of Christ’s death on the cross. Matthew 8:17 verifies that healing of infirmities and sicknesses is included in Isaiah 53.
In 1 Peter 2:24, Peter quotes Isaiah 53, “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.” Peter is here looking back to what Christ did on the cross so he changes the tense from we “are healed” to you “were healed.” It is something that is done therefore it must be received in the spirit as a finished act regardless of our physical condition. In Mark 11:24 Jesus says, “Therefore I say to you, all things for which you pray and ask, believe that you have received them, and they will be granted you” (New American Standard Bible).
The key is the word “believe”; it is not positive thinking it is something that is God given.
Now if we are sick we cannot say we are not sick as that would be a lie but we can say “by His stripes we are healed” because that is the truth, however even saying this over and over will not produce healing in our bodies. We need faith to receive what God has done for us.
In 1 Peter 2:24 the Greek word we translate as “healed” is the same word used throughout the New Testament for healing from some form of sickness, however certain people who believe miraculous works finished when the Bible came on the scene say this word means healed in the spirit, even though the vast majority of times it is used it is talking about sickness of the body, the few verses where it is used to relate to our spiritual state are expressed as types of physical infirmities in order to give understanding to what is being said, such as Matthew 13:15 where the Jews cannot see what God is doing therefore they are said to be hard of hearing and their eyes have closed so they need healing, and Hebrews 12:13 where it says to make straight paths for the feet, so that what is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. When a person was healed physically in the Bible they were also forgiven of their sins so we can say they were made whole (James 5:15, Matthew 9:1-7).
Because of Christ’s death on the cross, legally, sickness has no right to believers, the exceptions being when they don’t believe in physical healing, when they are still under the law, if they are holding onto bitterness and unable to forgive (this needs taking to the cross), if God has allowed sickness for a time and purpose, and finally due to a misunderstanding of what true faith is.
What God says we are and what God says He has given us should be our standing, this is the belt of truth. This is what we know in the spirit.
The belt of truth is not something we put on for a specific battle it is what we should be wearing all the time, the same with the breastplate of righteousness and the feet shod with the preparation of the gospel of peace. The rest of the armour is taken up for the specific battle.
Finally, the main ingredient is faith. It is so easy to misunderstand faith, many have faith in their faith, in other words they hold on to a determination to believe they are healed trusting that they will see a manifestation of healing as an outcome of their positive attitude. Against all odds they will hold on to their idea of faith in the hope their unwavering attitude will produce the result they want. Faith without works is dead; their works are their positive confession which they trust will eventually bring forth the right result.
The problem here is that faith hasn’t risen in their hearts, the reason being they are looking in the wrong direction. The work that we should be doing is not positive confession but rather looking to Jesus. We need to look away from the problem and look to Jesus. See Him on the cross, see him risen and in the heavenlies far above every wicked spirit. See Him as the great high priest coming to us in our time of need. See Him as the great healer who loves us and gave Himself for us. When the Israelites were being bitten by serpents God’s answer was for them to look at a bronze serpent on a pole, when they looked at it they lived. This is a type of Jesus on the cross, when we look to Him we live. What is necessary for true salvation and healing is that we see Jesus (John 6:40). True faith comes from God, He gives to each a measure of faith, if we need more faith then ask Him for His faith, look to Him; wait until you see Him in the face of Jesus Christ, till He gives the faith to receive your healing (Acts 3:16). Even the one ministering healing should preach Jesus in order for faith to rise in the heart of the sick (Acts 14:8-10).
The first thing we need is God given faith to receive what Jesus has done for us, without it our faith is of the flesh. When God imparts His faith to us, miracles can happen.
Next: The Glorious Church of God
Mark Greenwood
December 2019