Lesson 8. Christ the Healer. F. F. Bosworth. A Classic on Divine Healing.
“The Past Tense in the Word of God”
For those seeking God’s mercy, it is important to see that active faith simply takes and uses what God offers us. Hope awaits a blessing in the future, but faith takes everything God offers us now.
We must believe what God has done for us and act accordingly—taking the freedom purchased by blood, just as the slaves in the South did after Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation.
The Gospel is a proclamation of liberation from service to and slavery under the old tyrant-master of sin and sickness—the devil. When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He meant that the work had been done—completed in the sight of God; and God expects us to consider it done as well. The past tense in this Word of God means “settled,” signifying the final establishment of His will.
In Galatians 3:13 we read: “Christ has redeemed (past tense!) us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” God placed our redemption from the curse of the law in the past tense, and we receive our freedom when we do the same. In Deuteronomy 28, we see that the curse of the law includes every sickness.
In the Word of God we read: “He bore (past tense) our infirmities and carried our diseases”; “He took upon Himself (past tense) our infirmities and bore our diseases”; “By His stripes we were healed.”
God wants all of us to accept in His Word the past tense concerning the redemption of our souls and bodies from infirmities and diseases and to move forward in obedience, acting in faith toward Him. When God puts a promise in the past tense, He thereby directs us to do the same. No other approach can be victorious faith.
In Mark 11:24, Jesus commands us to place the receiving of the blessings for which we pray in the past tense. When we ask, He answers: “Believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” We must continue to believe that God has given us what we asked for in prayer and continue to praise and thank Him for what He has given us. We received what we asked for only after we believed—after we believed that He had heard our prayer; it was then that God began to act. It was then that the incorruptible seed—His Word—began to grow.
A farmer must first sow before he can reap a harvest, and the continual planting of the Word of God—the incorruptible seed—in the good soil of our hearts must also be in the past tense before the seed can begin its work.
Faith that God has heard our prayers before the blessing becomes evident is the soil in which the incorruptible seed—His Word—grows and bears fruit. When God has heard our prayers, He has put the seed into the soil, and only then (but not before!) does it begin its work.
At Lazarus’s tomb, Jesus said, “I thank You that You have heard Me,” although Lazarus was still dead. Those who pray for healing should say that they have been healed even before the healing materializes:
“Father, I thank You that You have heard me.” The prayer of faith is genuine faith that our prayers have been heard even before the answer materializes. “And this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.”
Faith rejoices and says, “It is written,” even before we experience or perceive any changes. When we pray for healing, we should speak on the authority of the Word of God: “I thank You that You have heard me.”
Faith refuses to see anything that contradicts the Word of God. It sees the health and strength bequeathed to us as already belonging to us because of the death of the Testator. The testament has come into force. Jesus tells us, “As you have believed (past tense), so let it be done for you.”
With natural sight, we see only temporary, inferior earthly things, but with the enlightened eyes of our understanding, we behold the higher, satisfying, eternal reality of God’s spiritual Kingdom.
A man put a certain sum of money into his wife’s pocket and, telling her about it, asked whether she believed him. She replied, “Yes, of course,” and began planning how to spend it. In reality, she received the money before she saw it. Why do we take others at their word but demand proof from God?
If you were given papers certifying your ownership of a house you had never seen, you would become the owner of that house. “Faith is the assurance (the proof document) of things not seen.” The papers make the house so truly yours that you can sell it without ever seeing it. Faith is when God says that you have something, and you act accordingly before you feel or see it.
God said to Joshua, “I have given Jericho into your hand.” And the walls of Jericho fell when those besieging it acted in faith.
Jesus said to the ten lepers who asked Him for mercy, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” His words seemed to say, “I give you My word that it is already done.” They knew the law concerning lepers, which required them to be isolated, and they knew what His command meant. They believed in their healing, and it manifested when they acted in faith.
Jonah put his deliverance in the past tense and offered a sacrifice with the voice of thanksgiving while he was still in the fish’s belly. This produced the expected fruit.
The reason many do not receive what they pray for is that they wait for their blessings in the future, which is merely HOPE, not faith that takes the blessings NOW.
If God’s gifts for our soul and body were merely PROMISED gifts, we would have to wait for God to fulfill His promises, and that would be His responsibility. But all the promises are not only promised—they are OFFERED; therefore, they must be received, and the responsibility for making sure they reach us lies with us. This frees God from responsibility for any failures.
The only reason you were not saved a year earlier is that you did not receive what God had prepared and offered you. It was not God who made you wait—you were making Him wait.
Some say, “God will heal me at the right time.” This is merely HOPE, not faith. Faith TAKES what is offered NOW.
Author: F. F. Bosworth
