Healing is as much for today as the atonement for sins is for today. Healing is a part of the atonement. To deny healing for today is to deny the atonement for today.

JEHOVAH-RAPHA is translated “I am the LORD thy Physician,” or “I am the LORD that healeth thee.” This name is given to reveal to us our redemptive privilege of being healed. This privilege is purchased by the Atonement. The redemptive chapter of Isaiah declares, “Surely he hath borne our sicknesses and carried our pains.” For the sake of argument, I have reserved this name for the last. The fact is, that the very first covenant God gave after the passage of the Red Sea, which was so distinctively typical of our redemption, was the covenant of healing. It was at this time that God revealed Himself as our Physician, by the first redemptive and covenant name, Jehovah-Rapha, “I am the LORD that healeth thee.” This is not only a promise, it is “a statute and an ordinance.” And so, corresponding to this ancient ordinance, we have, in the command of James 5:14, a positive ordinance of healing in Christ’s name. This is as sacred and binding on every church today as the ordinances of the Lord’s Supper and Christian baptism. Jehovah-Rapha is one of His redemptive names, sealing the covenant of healing. Christ, during His exaltation, could no more abandon His office as Healer than could He abandon the offices of His other six redemptive names. Have any of the blessings that His redemptive names reveal been withdrawn from this “better” dispensation?

Having considered some of the types that teach healing, let us now consider the antitype, the Atonement itself. It is described in the great redemptive chapter, the 53rd chapter of Isaiah. This is the greatest chapter of the greatest of the prophets in which is fully stated the doctrine of atonement. Since the types of the Old Testament taught healing, it is certainly unwarranted and illogical to place the antitype on lower ground.

HE CARRIED OUR PAINS
Before quoting from this chapter, may I state that the Hebrew words choli and makob have been incorrectly translated “griefs” and “sorrows.” All who have taken the time to examine the original text have found what is acknowledged everywhere. These two words mean, respectively, “sicknesses” and “pains,” everywhere else throughout the Old Testament. This word choli is interpreted “disease” and “sickness” in Deuteronomy 7:15; 28:61; 1 Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 1:2; 8:8; 2 Chron. 16:12; 21:15; and other texts. The word makob is rendered “pain” in Job 14:22; 33:19; etc. Therefore the prophet is saying, in this fourth verse, “Surely he hath borne our sicknesses, and carried our pains.” The reader is referred to any standard commentary for additional testimony on this point; but there is no better commentary than Matthew 8:16-17.

Isaiah 53:4 cannot refer to disease of the soul, and neither of the words translated “sickness” and “pain” have any reference to spiritual matters but to bodily sickness alone. This is proven by Matthew 8:16-17: “… and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.” This is an inspired commentary on this fourth verse of Isaiah 53. It plainly declares that the prophet refers to bodily ailments. Therefore, the word sickness, choli, must be read literally in Isaiah. The same Holy Spirit who inspired this verse quotes it in Matthew as the explanation of the universal application by Christ of His power to heal the body. To take any other view is equal to accusing the Holy Spirit of making a mistake in quoting His own prediction.
I will here quote the learned translator, Dr. Young, in his version of the Bible:
3 He is despised, and left of men, A man of pains [Heb., makob], and acquainted with sickness [choli], And as one hiding the face from us, He is despised and we esteemed him not.
4 Surely our sicknesses [choli] he hath borne, And our pains [makob] he hath carried them, And we—we have esteemed him plagued, Smitten of God and afflicted.
5 And he is pierced for our transgressions, Bruised for our iniquities, The chastisement of our peace is on him, And by his bruise there is healing to us.
6 All of us like sheep have wandered, Each to his own way we have turned, And Jehovah hath caused to meet on him The punishment of us all.
10 And Jehovah hath delighted to bruise him; He hath made him sick [choli]; If his soul doth make an offering for guilt, He seeth seed—he prolongeth days.
12 . . . With transgressors he was numbered, And he the sin of many hath borne, And for transgressors he intercedeth.
Dr. Isaac Leeser, the able translator of the Hebrew English Bible, renders these verses as follows:
3 He was despised and shunned of men: A man of pains and acquainted with disease. 4 But only our diseases did he bear himself, And our pains he carried.
5 And through his bruises was healing granted to us.

10 But the Lord was pleased to crush him through disease.
Rotherham’s translation of the tenth verse is “He hath laid on Him sickness.”
In the fourth verse, the word borne (nasa) means “to lift up, to bear away, to convey or to remove to a distance.” It is a Levitical word and is applied to the scapegoat, that bore away the sins of the people. “The goat shall bear [nasa] upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness” (Lev. 16:22). So Jesus bore my sins and sicknesses away without the camp” to the cross. Sin and sickness have Passed from me to Calvary—salvation and health have passed from Calvary to me.
Again, in this fourth verse of the redemption chapter, the Hebrew verbs for “borne” and “carried” (nasa and sabal) are both the same as are used in the eleventh and twelfth verses for the substitutionary bearing of sin, “He shall bear [carry] their iniquities…. And He bare the sin of many.” Both words signify a heavy burden, and denote actual substitution, and a complete removal of the thing borne. When Jesus bore our sins, our sicknesses, and our pains, He bore them away, or removed them. Both these words mean “substitution,” one bearing another’s load.