The Faith Walk Center

For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for? (Douay-Rheimes)

For of the hope we [were] saved. Now [what] we see is not hope; for who see the certain and hope? (literal translation)

Romans 8:24

Definition: Hope accepts the certainty of a not-yet-seen promise of God through reliance on God’s inability to lie.

God, through Jesus and His Apostles promised everlasting life with Him in Heaven to all who would receive Jesus as their Savior and remain obedient to Him. This promise cannot be seen in this life. Therefore, our acceptance of it relies on the truthfulness of God.

God cannot lie. It is impossible. Firstly, this is because God is Truth—not just truthful—but Truth itself. Jesus said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life.” (John 14.6) He did not say, “I am truthful” but “I am the truth.”

The second reason God cannot lie is His power. Whenever God speaks, He speaks in faith. Unlike us (“We walk by faith and not by sight—II Corinthians 5:7), God’s faith is sight. St. Paul the Apostle tells us that God calls those things which are not as though they were (Romans 4.17). The Almighty decides He wants something and declares it. We see this in operation during creation and in the life of our father Abraham. Since when God speaks He speaks in faith, and since His faith is sight, something becomes real the moment He speaks it, even if we don’t see it at that moment.

So it is with many promises and declarations of God. For example, healing is the birthright of every Christian. Isaiah wrote, “But he was wounded for our iniquities, he was bruised for our sins: the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his bruises we are healed.” (Isaiah 53:5) (The Hebrew word translated “bruises” is chaburah and means stripes, wounds, or blows. It specifically refers to scourging.) St. Peter the Apostle confirms this by saying, “Who his own self bore our sins in his body upon the tree: that we, being dead to sins, should live to justice: by whose stripes you were healed.” (I Peter 2.24)

Now, faith is the substance of things to be hoped for, the evidence of things that appear not.                        Hebrews 11:1

One should notice the verb tenses in these verse. Isaiah spoke of a day 700 years in his future, yet he used present tense. This, theologians say, is the prophetic present. It expresses the certainty of the event prophesied. Isaiah, by the Holy Spirit, told us in his prophecy that the day would come that Messiah would purchase our healing and that the healing would be purchased by the scourging of Messiah.

St. Peter changed the tense to past. In Greek, this is expressed in the aorist tense which is profoundly past. It indicates an event which had a definite beginning in the past and a definite conclusion in the past. From St. Peter’s perspective (and from ours), the event by which our healing was obtained had already occurred. It began in the past and it ended in the past. There is no continuing action. It has already been accomplished. St. Peter identified the event obtaining our healing as the scourging of Jesus, the Messiah—“by whose stripes you were healed.” He used the Greek word molops which means a wound which trickles blood and he used the dative case. In this context, the dative case indicates means. St. Peter tied Jesus obtaining of our healing to His blood.

Since we are saved through the blood of Jesus and we are healed through the blood of Jesus, there is an inseparable link between our salvation and our healing. Therefore, healing is as much a part of our salvation as freedom of sin. It is our right to be healed because God says we are healed. Jesus paid for it with His own blood. We can, therefore, hope for healing even when we are experiencing the symptoms of illness because God said we were healed.

When God says something it is real then, not when we experience it. Our senses often lie to us because all they can do is report what they detect in our physical surroundings. I feel like I have the flu because my nerve endings report malaise. I feel like I have the flu because my eyes report a temperature above 98.6°F. God reports we are healed and that is real now regardless of what we feel or the report of our senses. Isaiah asked in the beginning of his prophecy of Messiah’s sufferings in Chapter 53, “Who hath believed our report.” We must learn to believe God’s report, completely disregarding the report of our senses because God cannot lie.

Yes, people will tell us we are crazy. They will accuse us of saying things that are not true. We will have that healing. We will have that prosperity (II Corinthians 8.9) We will have answered prayer (John 15:7) We will walk in the victory of the Lord in the middle of a world that is falling apart (I John 4.4)