Back to the topic of healing. In my last post I talked about the definition of the word stripes in Isaiah 53. Originally I said that we are healed because Jesus joined himself together with our hurts, bruises, diseases, illnesses, everything that causes harm to us; and took it onto Himself. Which is true, but the word stripes in Isaiah 53 says that through the fellowship or joining together with His bruises we are healed. But you see His bruises are our bruises, because He took them on Himself. We therefore have fellowship. He took what was ours, so what could have what was His. Praise God! Therefore because we have fellowship with His sufferings, we also have fellowship with His death, and fellowship with His resurrection. And now that He sits at the right hand of glory, we have fellowship in that to, having been blessed with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, we sit together with Christ, Halellujah. We have access to everything that is His. When you hear from preachers that you have to have fellowship in Christ's sufferings in order to experience the power of His resurrection. They imply that you have to do something to create the fellowship. That is inaccurate, Christ created that fellowship already, he did that work for us. When we accept Jesus as Lord and Savior we accept the invitation into that fellowship, that's it. When we accept the invitation into the fellowship, we get all the blessings from that fellowship. Jesus is giving royalty in exchange for our poverty. He is giving us perfection in exchange for our imperfection. He is giving us Holiness in exchange for our sin, He is giving us faith in exchange for our fear. He is giving us joy in exchange for our broken heart, He is giving us healing in exchange for our sickness. This is ALL that He did on the cross, and then He said "It is finished".
Jesus's life began as a miracle and is marked by miracles. Why did His birth have to be miraculous? We could say that it was because man could not be presumed to have anything to do with it. We could say because it had to be God's own son who was sacrificed therefore the seed could not come from man. We could say that Jesus had to be from an incorruptible seed which is why the seed could not come from man. All these things are true. But I believe we also need to believe in a God of miracles. Jesus's ministry was marked with one miracle after another. One of the first miracles being when Jesus turned water into wine:
John 2
2 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Now both Jesus and His disciples were invited to the wedding. 3 And when they ran out of wine, the mother of Jesus said to Him, “They have no wine.”
4 Jesus said to her, “Woman, what does your concern have to do with Me? My hour has not yet come.”5 His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He says to you, do it.”
6 Now there were set there six waterpots of stone, according to the manner of purification of the Jews, containing twenty or thirty gallons apiece. 7 Jesus said to them, “Fill the waterpots with water.” And they filled them up to the brim. 8 And He said to them, “Draw some out now, and take it to the master of the feast.” And they took it. 9 When the master of the feast had tasted the water that was made wine, and did not know where it came from (but the servants who had drawn the water knew), the master of the feast called the bridegroom. 10 And he said to him, “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!”
Jesus makes water into wine. He didn't add anything to it, He didn't mix anything with it. He didn't even touch it, He just gave them instructions. What are we to make of this? This was one of the first miracles of Jesus's ministry. But there is more here, this miracle is only recorded in the book of John.
According the MacArthur Study Bible the overall message in the gospel of John is "Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God. Three predominant words ("signs," "believe," and "life") receive constant re-emphasis. It's important to view this miracle in context.
What is a trip is that they thought they were drinking the good wine already, they didn't realize there was something better to come! Halellujah. Not only better, but the best.
What comes to my spirit immediately was that the "law" is inferior to the "grace and truth" that comes through Jesus Christ. It seems in these scriptures the wine they were drinking before they ran out could be symbolic of the law given by Moses, but the water that was turned into wine by Jesus could be sympbolic of "grace and truth" that came through Christ.
John 1
17 For the law was given through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Remember this was a Jewish wedding feast. The master of the feast called the bridegroom (symbolic of Jesus as a bridegroom) and said "10 “Every man at the beginning sets out the good wine, and when the guests have well drunk, then the inferior. You have kept the good wine until now!” Oh-h-hh- this is loaded up with so much revelation, it's not even funny. But I'll just say this "God saved the "good wine" for us! "Grace and Truth" is the best! Listen, we are suppose to experience Jesus miracles as one of the means God uses to convey spiritual truth.
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