The world has a backward view of health and wellness. When we get sick, the traditional way of thinking tells us to pray and ask God to heal us. This was true under the law, but no longer true under grace. In the Old Testament, the people had to ask for healing; in the New Testament, Jesus has already made good health and wholeness available to us.

Sickness and disease are curses left over from the law, and nothing has changed on this front for the unsaved world. Religion tells us to beg and plead for healing; however, for believers who love God, there’s no reason to tolerate ill health. For insight as to why confusion over this matter keeps occurring in the church, we need to examine the covenants in the Bible.

We Must Understand God’s Covenants

God deals with man through covenants; a covenant is an agreement between two or more parties to carry out the agreed-upon terms, and it’s even stronger than a contract. The Bible is a book of covenants, and although God doesn’t change, over time the covenants have changed. The first covenant was made in the garden of Eden. “And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Genesis 2:16, 17). God was extremely generous with this covenant and gave Adam and Eve plenty of leeway, but they violated this agreement.

Eating of the tree and dying because of it was a law that carried consequences if broken. It’s significant that instead of tempting Eve just to kill Adam outright, thereby destroying God’s creation, Satan tempted her to eat of the tree. But there was no law against killing yet; where there’s no law, there’s no temptation. The only law related to eating of the tree. Every time we tell someone not to do something, they’ll be tempted to do it.  

Satan came into the garden and saw an opportunity to twist God’s Word just enough to fool Adam and Eve with a lie. To trip them up, he used the only thing that God had warned them against. The devil loves to operate within the confines of the law because he knows that it brings the temptation to sin. “The sting of death is sin; and the strength of sin is the law” (1 Corinthians 15:56).

The Covenant of the Law Isn’t God’s Will for Us

God gave the Law of Moses, which marked the beginning of the second covenant, to the children of Israel. When it was given, the relationship changed from man receiving grace and mercy from God to man dying when he broke the law. Under this agreement, the Israelites were blessed if they obeyed all the rules and regulations but cursed with sickness and death if they sinned. It was based on man’s performance, and many people died because they couldn’t perform perfectly (Deuteronomy 28:1-68).

However, it was never God’s intention for mankind to live under the Law of Moses, so it came with an expiration date. The law was given only for a limited time, until Jesus came to replace it with grace. When people don’t know this, they will get subpar results in life because they will still try to live under the old, expired law.

We’re Now Under the Covenant of Grace

At the end of His earthly ministry, Jesus chose to hang on a cross and die to establish the present covenant of grace. This decision required Him to take all the curses and all the sickness and disease meant for mankind onto Himself.  “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree” (Galatians 3:13). To redeem is to pay the price; Jesus paid the price to deliver us from judgment under the law. He then went one step further and replaced all the curses with blessings for those who believe. “That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14).

Believers are still living under the curse and putting up with sickness because they’ve been indoctrinated with the law that came by Moses, which is what most churches teach. If we’ve been born again and have made Jesus our Lord, we should no longer live by the Ten Commandments but under the new covenant of grace. This covenant didn’t start with the books of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, but with Jesus’ death. 

The Present Covenant is Better

This covenant that Jesus established is better than the previous one. “But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. For if that first covenant had been faultless, then should no place have been sought for the second.  For finding fault with them, he saith, Behold, the days come, saith the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah” (Hebrews 8:6-8). This new agreement isn’t based on what we do, but on what Jesus already did. Even when we don’t keep our part of the agreement, we can still be blessed through our faith in Jesus, who kept the agreement perfectly.

The new covenant works by faith. Jesus, who is God’s will in action, was able to heal people because they believed in Him even though they were sinners. “And great multitudes followed him, and he healed them all…” (Matthew 12:15). This was done thousands of years ago because God was thinking of us when He made healing available.

Just like Jesus’ warning not to mix old wineskins with new, we mustn’t mix the old and new covenants. Doing so will cancel our healing and put us back under the law. In all our getting, we must get understanding. A solid understanding of what Jesus did to make health and wholeness available to us before we were even born allows us to receive it for ourselves, by faith.