Is there no balm in Gilead?

JEREMIAH 8:22

For God’s people, sick of head and heart by our oneness with Adam and without “soundness from the sole of the foot even unto the head”(Isaiah 1:5-6), the God of grace and mercy, who loves us with an everlasting love, has provided a balm of healing in Gilead for sinners. (Jeremiah 8:22)

· “Is there no balm in Gilead?” Yes there is. It is that righteousness worked out and established by the Lord Jesus Christ in His substitutionary death on the cross to satisfy the Law’s demands against all He represented. (Romans 10:4)

· “Is there no Physician?” Yes there is. He is the Lord Jesus Christ, very God of very God. True Humanity, body and soul, without sin. The only suitable substitute and Representative to satisfy all the demands of the Law against God’s people and appear before a Holy God and offer the sacrifice of Himself for the sins of those He represented. (Hebrews 9:26)

· “Why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?” It is. When the Lord Jesus Christ died on the cross, He established the one righteousness for healing and God the Father imputed that righteousness to the daughter of His people. Isaiah 62:11-12 identifies the daughter to be the church of God, chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Lord Jesus Christ and quickened by the Holy Spirit in regeneration and conversion, under the true gospel which reveals the balm already appropriated and applied at the cross.

The balm in Gilead is the prescription of God’s choice, ministered by the Physician of God’s choice to the people of God’s choice. Thank God for the Great and successful Physician.

Winston Pannell – Albany, Ga.