The Great Exchange

THE GREAT EXCHANGE

By

Marty Delmon

        Take a look with me at the famous Scripture of Isaiah 53:4, 5:

        Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted  But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed.

        This is a prophetic word spoken by Isaiah for God and it describes what Jesus would do for us on the cross.  I call this the Scripture of the Great Exchange.  Through His suffering, His beating, the shedding of His blood, His death, His burial and His resurrection, Jesus made three exchanges with

us.

1.  He gave His life for our life.  His blood paid for our sins so that we could have eternal life with the Father in heaven.  That eternal life began the moment we received Jesus as Lord which means our daily life while living on this earth became something so much better than anything we ever had before.  That’s why He said,

I have come that they may have life and that they may have it more abundantly.  John 10:10.

2.  He gave His body for our body.  The beating He took from the Roman whip inflicted all the sickness and disease in the world onto His body.  Then when Jesus died He descended into hell where He deposited that sickness and disease back into the domain of its author:  Satan.  He returned it to whom it belonged, to the one who afflicts us with it, if we let him.  That’s why Matthew said,

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “He Himself took our diseases and bore our sicknesses.” Matthew 8:17.

That’s why Peter said,

By whose stripes you were healed.  1 Peter 2:24.

If you were healed when Jesus was beaten, then you are healed now, today.

3.  He exchanged His riches for our riches.  When Isaiah said the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, he spoke of prosperity.  The word used for peace in Hebrew was Shalom.  Shalom does mean peace, but it equally means prosperity.  The chastisement of our prosperity was upon Him.  Comparing His riches to our riches ours in comparison would have to be called poverty; Jesus paid for our poverty and gave us His wealth.  Paul punctuates that fact with this verse,

For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich yet for your sakes He became poor, that you through His poverty might become rich.  2 Corinthians 8:9.

There will be those who want to argue with me and say there is plenty of sickness around and plenty of poverty so evidently Jesus didn’t pay for those two, He only paid for eternal life.  Let me ask you in return, is every one saved?  Obviously the answer is no, even though Jesus paid the price for every human being to be saved.  People must accept their salvation in order to receive it.  The same is true of healing and prosperity.  People must accept their healing or their prosperity in order to receive it.

How can one accept healing or prosperity when one can clearly experience one’s own sickness or poverty?  The same way we receive salvation – by faith.  It is by faith that we are saved, healed and/or prospered through grace, the grace of Him who paid for those things.  He didn’t have to do it but He graciously chose to surrender Himself, in all domains of His life, for our sakes.  Only God in the person of the Son was big enough to pay our debt. 

Ours is the only religion where God has done the work for us.  In every other religion the adherents are required to work hard in order to obtain that which, in Christianity, has been freely given by Jesus.  The sad truth, sad for followers of other gods, is that no one can ever work hard enough to achieve salvation, healing or true prosperity.

Okay, you say, but how do you explain the fact that most Christians are sick and poor?  The thing that stands in our way and prevents us from receiving the healing and the prosperity that Jesus purchased for us is the fact that we believe the lies of the devil.  Mostly his lies say that we don’t deserve to be healed, or we aren’t worthy of prosperity, or that God doesn’t want to heal or prosper us.    Satan tells us that God puts sickness on us to teach us lessons; he tells us that poverty is holy.  Those lies are contrary to anything the Bible teaches.

Check it out for yourself. 

Ex 15:26 I am the Lord who heals you.

Ps 103:3  …who forgives all my iniquities, who heals all my diseases.

Ps 107:20  He sent His Word and healed me and delivered me from my destruction.

Phil 4:19  And my God shall supply all my need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.

Prov 10:22 The blessing of the Lord makes one rich, and He adds no sorrow with it.

Deut 8:18  And I shall remember the Lord my God, for it is He who gives me power to get wealth….

God is looking for faith:  faith to be saved, faith to be healed, faith to be prospered.  So hold fast to your confession that you are saved, that you are healed, that you are rich and don’t waver.  He will never leave you, never forsake you, never let you go, and never say no because, God the Father, Jesus the Son and our friend Holy Spirit, He is faithful to do what He promised. 

Heb 10:23 I will hold fast the confession of my hope without wavering, for He who promised is faithful.