God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. (Acts 10:38)

When Peter preached to the household of Cornelius, he did not begin with speculative philosophy or moral exhortations. He did not summarize Jesus by speaking of social causes or political reform. He introduced the gospel with a sentence that cut through every false idea and went straight to the heart of Christ’s ministry. He said that God anointed Jesus with the Holy Spirit and with power, and that Jesus went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil. The introduction is deliberate. Jesus Christ is the healer, and Satan is the oppressor. Healing is good, and sickness is evil. This is the dividing line.

Peter chose this as the starting point of his message because it was the starting point of Christ’s ministry. It is the point of first contact between heaven and earth in the life of Jesus. When the Spirit came upon him, the immediate result was healing, deliverance, and freedom from satanic oppression. This stood at the center of Peter’s message. It expressed the gospel as he delivered it, the gospel as God designed it, and the gospel that must still be proclaimed today. The ministry of healing is the introduction of Christ.

The words themselves draw the line for us. Jesus did good by healing. Satan oppressed by sickness. Every preacher who identifies with Christ must stand on the side of healing. Every preacher who excuses or endorses sickness identifies with Satan. There is no middle ground. Jesus did good, Satan did evil. Jesus healed, Satan oppressed. To teach otherwise is to invert Peter’s words and to pervert the gospel itself.

The passage says that healing is good. This simple truth is an indictment against countless pulpits and seminaries that have polluted the church with lies. They have said that sickness is from God, and that it is a gift to sanctify. They have claimed that healing has passed away, or that God sometimes heals, sometimes does not, according to a mysterious plan that cannot be known. But Peter did not preach any of these things. He drew a line, and they are on the wrong side of it. They do not preach Christ, they preach against him. They do not identify with his work, they oppose it. In doing so, they side with the oppressor.

The identity of Christ is that he is the healer. Peter did not say, “Jesus was anointed, and he went about teaching morality and calling for cultural reform.” He said Jesus went about healing the oppressed. That is the introduction of Christ. When people claim to introduce him today, but they neglect his healing works, they are introducing another Jesus. They are replacing the anointed Son with an idol of their imagination. The true Jesus, the one who came from God, is known as the healer.

Sickness is evil. It is never a gift. It never belongs to the believer. It is described in the same terms as demons. In Matthew 8, the Gospel groups together Jesus’ power over both. He drove out demons and healed the sick. The text presents disease and demons as one reality of oppression, both destroyed by the atonement that runs from prophecy to gospel to apostolic witness. The cross carried both sin and sickness, both demons and disease, and both were crushed by Christ.

If demons are evil, then sickness is evil. If demons are to be expelled, then sickness is to be healed. No preacher would dare to say that we should embrace demons as a holy act of worship to God. Such a preacher would be exposed and expelled as a blasphemer. Yet countless preachers have said that we should embrace sickness as a gift in an attitude of humble submission to the will of God. They say that to lie under the torment of disease is an act of piety, that surrender to pain is a sign of holiness. They are false teachers. They must be identified as enemies of Christ, because they promote the work of Satan and resist the work of Jesus.

Just as healing is good, and sickness is evil, the same can be said of preachers. Preachers of healing are good, and preachers of sickness are evil. Those who proclaim the healing ministry of Jesus continue his work on earth. They enforce his victory over disease and affirm the will of God. Those who oppose or neglect healing are working against the gospel. They stand with the devil. The dividing line runs through every church and seminary, and every Christian institution. Whether it is a small congregation or a global denomination, the line is the same. Either they preach Jesus the healer or they preach Satan the oppressor.

If sickness is evil like demons, then our attitude must be the same toward both. Should we tolerate demons? Should we encourage believers to invite them in as if they were gifts from God? No, we cast them out. Then how can we tolerate sickness? How can we present it as a blessing, or encourage believers to accept it? Those who teach such things are as wicked as those who would urge us to welcome demons. And if that means we must remove over ninety percent of our faculties and libraries, then so be it. If that means entire seminaries must close down, then so be it. Stand with good or stand with evil. Preach Christ the healer or preach Satan the oppressor.

Consider also the way the apostles introduced Christ. In Acts 2, the gospel was announced with prophetic powers. In Acts 10, it was announced with healing miracles. At every stage, the gospel was introduced by the supernatural. This was the way of God. The Spirit came with tongues of fire, with prophecy, with healing, with miracles. These were the credentials of Christ and his apostles. These were the signs of the kingdom and marks of the true church. Yet how do many introduce Christ today? They speak of politics, of history, of morality, of cultural issues. They wage wars over abortion, homosexuality, and social decay, while they neglect the ministry of healing and the supernatural power of the Spirit. They introduce a cultural Christ, a Christ of political ideas, a Christ without the Spirit and without power. This is not the Christ Peter preached.

If we are to be faithful, we must introduce Christ the way the apostles did. We must present him as the one anointed with the Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing those oppressed by the devil. This is how the gospel should begin. If we begin with sin alone, we miss the fullness of redemption. If we begin with social issues, we miss the kingdom entirely. But if we begin with healing, with power, with the supernatural, then we present the Christ who came from God, and we mark the dividing line that separates him from Satan.

The gospel begins with a confrontation. Jesus heals, Satan oppresses. Jesus sets free, Satan enslaves. Healing is good, sickness is evil. Those who stand with healing stand with Christ. Those who stand with sickness stand with Satan. This is not a secondary doctrine or marginal debate. It is the gospel itself, and the dividing line drawn by Peter when he introduced it. To be on the wrong side is to reject the gospel at the very beginning. To be on the right side is to stand with Jesus the healer, the Christ of God, anointed with the Spirit and with power.