Psalms 103:3

It is worth seeing how this connects with Christ in the Gospels. The Lord is the One who forgives and heals. This is just what the Lord does with the paralysed man. It was an example of how God governs and deals with man. He healed the paralysis, and besides, He forgave the sins. They say, "Who is this who forgives sins also?" He proved that He was the Lord who forgave them and healed their diseases.

The 103rd Psalm illustrates most beautifully Israel's coming praise. It is not only "who forgives all your iniquity," but also "who heals all your diseases." People usually read the diseases in this psalm as a picture of something spiritual, but that is incorrect. They are diseases of the body. The Son of Man did this for one paralysed man while He was here in humiliation. When He comes again, exalted, He will do it for the whole nation and for others on the earth in that coming age of glory.

The fruits of sin, whether sickness or death, could be removed, and sins forgiven. This is in harmony with Psalm 103:3, which will be sung on a coming day: "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases." Then, too, the bright forecast of the prophet about Jerusalem will come true: "And no inhabitant will say, 'I am sick'; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity" (Isaiah 33:24).

But can we say that "who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases" is the way the Lord deals now with Christians? Where He forgives a person's iniquities, does He necessarily heal all their diseases? But here it is clear that the Lord had in view the cure of bodily diseases joined with the forgiveness of sins, in the same people and at the same time. When will this be? When God takes the government of the world into His own hands. When the One who was crucified is glorified — not only in heaven, but here below — the outward world, the body of man, and especially God's own people Israel, will feel the effect at once. We can take the spirit of the Psalms, so far as they apply to our condition now. But let us not forget: much in the Psalms does not apply to us.

True, He does heal now at times, but still He allows sickness to affect His people. Then the healing will not only be complete, but connected also with forgiveness. Some people think the grand thing is to have faith in God's power. He has only to speak, and the worst disease can be healed easily; but He is training us. Sometimes He sends sickness to prevent, sometimes to correct. We ought to have faith in His love as well as in His power, and in His wisdom too. Have faith in God, not simply in His power.

This is how Israel will be forgiven later on (compare Psalm 103:3). So the Lord here proves His authority to forgive, by healing the paralysed man's disease... The man was to know, in his relationship to God, that his guilt was gone. Through infinite grace, we are entitled to more than even this; for we have the righteousness of the accepted man in God's presence.

God's majesty, holiness, and truth have been upheld. Sin has been judged in the light, the conscience cleared, the heart made happy, full communion restored, and the soul established in grace. The tears may have been more bitter than myrrh, but the results are sweeter than honey.