Perfect Health for All
LIKE behavior, environment, and health care, our biological makeup also affects our health. That makeup is influenced by heredity and sicknesses we may develop later because of having a genetic disposition toward them.
“The biological envelope in which you arrive in the world,” says one health professional, “determines by and large whether you live well, live long, or live at all.”
In whatever way we acquired them, headaches, stiff muscles, frazzled nerves, embrittled bones, failing hearts, and other maladies remind us daily that our health is compromised by an impaired body and mind. What is the root cause of these pervasive health problems?
The Root Cause
A medical doctor named Luke living in the first century C.E. answers this question in an inspired biography he wrote about Jesus Christ. One day, writes Luke, a paralyzed man was brought to Jesus in hopes of his being cured. Jesus told the paralytic: “Your sins are forgiven.” Then, to show that he indeed had the power to forgive sins, Jesus commanded the man: “Get up and pick up your little bed and be on your way home.” The man did! As a result, “an ecstasy seized one and all” who witnessed the healing, and “they began to glorify God.”—Luke 5:17-26.
What sin did Jesus refer to? The answer helps us to understand why we get sick, grow old, and die. Being assured that “all Scripture is inspired of God,” we can look to the Bible for that answer. (2 Timothy 3:16; 2 Peter 1:21) It tells us that the first man, Adam, was created perfectly healthy. He enjoyed vibrant health as long as he obeyed his Creator.
Adam, however, chose to break God’s law. By being disobedient and deliberately rebelling against his Creator, he was sinning. As a result, he became imperfect, vulnerable to sickness, and in time he died. Sin, therefore, was the cause of Adam’s sickness and death.
Just as some diseases are passed from parents to children as an operation of the laws of genetics, so imperfection and resulting sicknesses were passed from Adam to his offspring, the human race. Thus, all diseases are the result of Adam’s original sin. (Genesis 2:17; 3:1-19; Romans 5:12) Is there a way out?
The Way Out
The change from perfect health to poor health was brought about by sin—Adam’s rebellion against God’s law. The change from poor health to perfect health is possible only through the removal of sin. (Romans 5:18, 19) How? Another perfect human, the exact counterpart of Adam when he was perfect, would have to sacrifice his life as a ransom. God’s law is that “soul will be for soul,” that is, a life for a life.—Deuteronomy 19:21.
However, none of Adam’s sinful descendants could provide such a ransom. Thus, Jehovah himself lovingly provided his Son, Jesus, as a perfect human to give his life as “a ransom in exchange for many” so that “we might gain life through him.”—Matthew 20:28; 1 John 4:9; Psalm 49:7.
While on earth, Jesus showed that his Father, Jehovah, had given him the power to remove sins when he told the paralytic, “your sins are forgiven,” and the healed man walked home. Time and again Jesus used this power from God by instantly healing the blind, the deaf, and many others with various ills.
Regarding these miraculous cures by Jesus, the Bible relates: “Then great crowds approached him, having along with them people that were lame, maimed, blind, dumb, and many otherwise, and they fairly threw them at his feet, and he cured them; so that the crowd felt amazement as they saw the dumb speaking and the lame walking and the blind seeing.” (Matthew 15:30, 31) Even more remarkable, Jesus was able to bring dead people back to life. The Bible tells of several of these resurrections.—Luke 7:11-16; 8:49-56; John 11:14, 38-44.
These miraculous healings assure us that no disease is beyond Jesus’ power to cure. Will he use this God-given power again? Can we benefit?
Perfect Health a Certainty
Bible prophecies show that Jesus is already ruling in heaven as the King of God’s heavenly government. God has authorized him to remove all human governments now existing and to rule over the entire earth. (Psalm 110:1, 2; Daniel 2:44) Fulfilled will be the prayer that Jesus taught his followers: “Let your kingdom come. Let your will take place, as in heaven, also upon earth.” (Matthew 6:10) Under the rule of that heavenly Kingdom, part of God’s will for this earth will be to improve health conditions dramatically for the human family.
Then, in a literal as well as in a spiritual sense, “the eyes of the blind ones will be opened, and the very ears of the deaf ones will be unstopped. At that time the lame one will climb up just as a stag does, and the tongue of the speechless one will cry out in gladness.” “And no resident will say: ‘I am sick.’”—Isaiah 33:24; 35:5, 6.
Under God’s heavenly Kingdom, perfect health will mean that people will not have to die as we do now. God’s Word promises: “Everyone exercising faith in him [will] have everlasting life.” “The gift God gives is everlasting life by Christ Jesus our Lord.” (John 3:16; Romans 6:23) Yes, long ago the inspired psalm promised: “The righteous themselves will possess the earth, and they will reside forever upon it.” (Psalm 37:29) As he did when on earth, Jesus will then resurrect the dead and give them opportunity to benefit from perfect health. The Bible promises: “There is going to be a resurrection of both the righteous and the unrighteous.”—Acts 24:15.
The earth itself will prosper under Kingdom rule so that hunger, which contributes to bad health, will never again exist. Bible prophecies tell us: “The tree of the field must give its fruitage, and the land itself will give its yield, and they will actually prove to be on their soil in security.” (Ezekiel 34:27) “The earth itself will certainly give its produce; God, our God, will bless us.” (Psalm 67:6) “There will come to be plenty of grain on the earth.” (Psalm 72:16) “The wilderness and the waterless region will exult, and the desert plain will be joyful and blossom as the saffron.”—Isaiah 35:1.
Summarizing the situation that will exist in God’s new world, the prophetic last book of the Bible declares: “[God] will wipe out every tear from their eyes, and death will be no more, neither will mourning nor outcry nor pain be anymore.”—Revelation 21:4.
Do you say, ‘That’s hard to believe’? Then, think of this. Before Adam became a sinner, he had perfect health. Imagine that it had been possible for someone to talk with him at that time and tell him that one day the earth would be filled with aching, ailing, and aging people. Do you not think that Adam would have found that hard to believe? Yet, it is now the reality.
In reverse, perfect health will become a reality under God’s Kingdom. Jehovah’s Word assures us: “These words are faithful and true.” (Revelation 21:5) What God says is going to happen will happen because “it is impossible for God to lie.”—Hebrews 6:18.
What can you now do to be assured of enjoying these coming blessings? The way to perfect health and eternal life was made clear by what Jesus said in prayer to his Father: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.”—John 17:3.
Ask Jehovah’s Witnesses for a free Bible course in your home. They will be happy to help you learn more about the marvelous promises of God. It will be your first step on the route to perfect health!
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In God’s new world, all humans will enjoy perfect health