Objection: If Healing Were in the Atonement, Anyone Who Got Saved Would Be Healed Instantly

I understand where the objector is coming from, but I wonder what awful conclusions we would reach if we applied his logic to any other area.

Rather than expecting people to learn their dominion over sin so that they would stop being alcoholics, we would state, “If deliverance from the power of sin were in the atonement, anyone who got saved would instantly cease being an alcoholic.”  Does anyone expect that to happen, even though freedom from sin WAS purchased for that person?  (It can happen that way, but it doesn’t always happen that way.)  In fact, why stop with the sin of alcoholism?  Why not go the whole way?  “If power over sin were in the atonement, anyone who got saved would never sin again.”

It is a correct statement that a born-again believer was created in God’s image, and God is love.  So we could now object: “If having a reborn love nature were provided by the atonement, anyone who got saved would always walk in love from that moment on.”

Then we could continue: “If this great inheritance in Christ were provided by the atonement, then the instant anyone gets saved, he will instantly walk in the full manifestation of every aspect of that inheritance.”

In fact, if you just instantly walked in your inheritance, Paul wasted his time when he told us to renew our minds so that we would not be conformed to this world.  Paul did not believe that the instant we are saved, we are instantly not conformed to this world.  That’s why he had to tell us the necessity of renewing our minds so that we would not walk as the world does.

If you just instantly walk in everything that Christ’s atonement bought you, why would Paul have to pray for the Ephesians to have revelation so that they would understand the riches of the glory of their inheritance that they already received?  They would just instantly walk in it all if this objector’s logic is true.

No reasonable person expects that a newborn Christian will instantly walk in everything that Christ’s atonement provided, so it is unfair to single out healing and claim that if healing were in the atonement, everyone would instantly walk in it, with no need to renew his mind or get revelation of what Christ gave him for an inheritance.