Healed by Wounds

Something doesn’t appear to make sense in 1 Peter 2:24, “By Christ’s wounds you have been healed.”

It doesn’t seem to make sense, because wounds are afflictions of the body, while healing is the body’s restoration. How can wounds lead to healing?

But this was Christ’s mission: to bring restoration of life. We see this in his ministry, when Jesus healed many: opening the eyes of the blind, renewing the skin of the leprous, stopping the flow of blood.

It wasn’t just about bringing physical health, though. For all those illnesses had one underlying cause: sin. People were possessed by demons because Satan had invaded the world. People were paralyzed or crippled, because since the fall into sin, the body had become weak. Today, people still get sick and die because evil’s effect is powerful.

With his healings, Christ showed that sin’s dominion was going to end. He brought physical healing as a preview of a greater spiritual healing to come. But this healing was going to come at a high cost to the Good Physician.

Christ would have to be wounded: He would receive wounds in his back, all over his body, in his head and hands and feet, and a deep wound into his side.

He was wounded, until all that was left was a bloody corpse.

Because Christ suffered, now Christians can say, “We are healed.” The punishment for our sin was laid on him. The wounds that should have been inflicted on our bodies and souls were inflicted on Christ. The pain of all our guilt is taken away.

Even the brokenness of our hearts is being reversed as we can live in a right relationship with God.

Through Christ, God makes this life worth living, because now we can live it with him!

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Scripture Reading: Isaiah 53:1-9

Prayer: Father, you sent your Son to this earth to be wounded, even to be killed, so that sinners could be restored. Thank you for his willingness—help me now to receive him in faith! Amen.