With his stripes we are healed—Isaiah 53:5.
Ever since the fall, healing has been the chief necessity of manhood.
There was no physician in paradise, but outside that blissful enclosure professors of the healing art have been precious as the gold of Ophir. Even in Eden itself there grew the herbs which should in after days yield medicine for the body of man. Before sin came into the world, and disease, which is the consequence of it, God had created plants of potent efficacy to soothe pain, and wrestle with disease. Blessed be His name, while thus mindful of the body, He had not forgotten the direr sickness of the soul; but He has raised up for us a plant of renown, yielding a balm far more effectual than that of Gilead. This He had done before the plague of sin had yet infected us. Christ Jesus, the true medicine of the sons of men, was ordained of old to heal the sickness of His people.
Everywhere, at this present hour, we meet with some form or other of sickness; no place, however healthful, is free from cases of disease, it is all around us, and we are thankful to add that the remedy is everywhere within reach. The beloved physician has prepared a healing medicine which can be reached by all classes, which is available in every climate. at every hour, under every circumstance, and effectual in every case where it is received. Of that medicine we shall speak this morning, praying that we have God’s help in so doing.
It is a great mercy for us who have to preach, as well as for you who have to hear, that the gospel healing is so very simple; our text describes it—”With his stripes we are healed.” These six words contain the marrow of the gospel, and yet scarcely one of them contains a second syllable. They are words for plain people, and in them there is no affectation of mystery or straining after the profound. I looked the other day into old Culpepper’s Herbal. It contains a marvelous collection of wonderful remedies. Had this old herbalist’s prescriptions been universally followed, there would not long have been any left to prescribe for; the astrological herbalist would soon have extirpated both sickness and mankind. Many of his receipts contain from twelve to twenty different drugs, each one needing to be prepared in a peculiar manner, I think once counted forty different ingredients in one single draught. Very different are these receipts, with their elaboration of preparation, from the Biblical prescriptions which effectually healed the sick—such as these: “Take a lump of figs, and lay it for a plaster upon the boil,” or that other one: “Go and wash in Jordan seven times”; or that other: “Take up thy bed and walk.” One cannot but admire the simplicity of truth, while falsehood conceals her deformities with a thousand trickeries. If you would see Culpepper’s Herbal carried out in spiritual things, go and buy a Directory for the carrying on of the Ritualistic services of the Church of England, or the Church of Rome. You shall find there innumerable rules as to when you shall bow, and to what quarter of the heavens you shall look: when you shall stand up, and when you shall kneel: when you shall dress in black, in white, in blue, or in violet: how you shall pray, and what you shall pray, a collect being appointed for today, and another for tomorrow. On the other hand, if you would know the true way of having your souls healed, go to the word of God, and study such a text as this: “With his stripes we are healed.” In the one case all is mysterious, in the other all is simple and clear. Quackery cannot live without mystery, show, ceremony, and pretense. But the truth is as plain as a pikestaff, legible as though it were written on the broad heavens, and so simple that a babe may comprehend it. “With his stripes we are healed.” I saw in Paris, years ago, a public vendor of quack medicines, and an extraordinary personage he was. He came riding in to the market-place with a fine chariot drawn by horses, richly comparisoned, while a trumpet was sounded before him. This mighty healer of all diseases made his appearance clothed in a coat of as many colors as that of Joseph, and on his head was a helmet adorned with variegated plumes. He delivered himself of a jargon which might be French, which might also be Latin, or might be nonsense, for no one in the crowd could understand it. With a little persuasion the natives bought his medicines, persuaded that so great and wise a man could surely cure them. Truly, this is one reason why there is an adoption in the Romish Church of the Latin tongue, and why in many other churches there is an affectation of a theological jargon which nobody can comprehend, and which would not be of any use to them if they did comprehend it; the whole is designed to delude the multitude. To what purpose arc fine speeches in the gospel ministry? Sicknesses are not healed by eloquence. It was an ill day in which rhetoric crept into the church of God, and man attempted to make the gospel a subject for oratory. The gospel wants no human eloquence to recommend it. It stands most securely when without a buttress. Like beauty, it is most adorned when unadorned the most. The native charms of the gospel suffice to commend it to those who have spiritual eyes, and those who are blind will not admire it, deck it as we may. I shall, therefore, content myself this morning with declaring the gospel to you in the plainest possible language, without any attempts at excellency of speech. I know it to be the gospel of God; I know it will save you if you receive it; it has saved me; it has saved thousands more. I shall put it before you in plain, unvarnished language. I beseech you to receive it; and I pray that God’s Holy Spirit may lead you so to do.
Coming at once to our text, we observe, first, that these are sad words “With his stripes we are healed”; we remark, secondly, that these are glad words; and, then, we shall notice, thirdly, that these are very suggestive words.
“This article originally appeared here at Bible Bulletin Board.”
