652 The Spiritual Man
heal physical sicknesses while on earth, but they believe too that He
heals only spiritual diseases today. They are willing to hand their
spiritual ills over to the Lord for healing but take it for granted that
they must go elsewhere for their physical ills, concluding that the
Lord will have nothing to do with those. They forget that “Jesus
Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever” (Heb. 13.8).
It is quite customary among today’s saints to assume the attitude
that God apparently has made no provision for the body. They limit
the redemption of Christ to the spirit and the soul and cross out the
body completely. They disregard the facts that the Lord Jesus healed
physical ills in His day and that the Apostles continued to experience
this power of healing in their day. No other explanation for their
attitude can be put forward than that of unbelief. The Word of God,
however, declares the Lord is also for the body.
This is related to what was said just before. Our body is for the
Lord and simultaneously the Lord is for our body too. We see in this
the joint relationship of God and man. God gives His Own Self
totally to us that we may offer ourselves completely to Him. Upon
offering ourselves to Him He will again give Himself to us according
to our measure of committal. The Lord wishes us to know that He
has given His body for us; He also wants us to know that if our body
is genuinely for Him we will experience Him for it. The meaning of
the body for the Lord is that we present ours wholly to Him to live
for Him; while the Lord for the body implies that, having accepted
our consecration, He will grant His life and power to our bodily
frames. He will care for, preserve and nourish this physical frame of
ours.
Aware of its weakness, uncleanness, sinfulness and deadness, it
seems scarcely conceivable that the Lord is also for the body. This
we shall nonetheless understand if we contemplate God’s way of
salvation. When the Lord Jesus was born the Word became flesh. He
possessed a body. While on the cross, “he himself bore our sins in his