Healings and rising dead: Isaiah’s day of the Lord

Let us speak now of his healings. Isaiah expresses himself thus: ‘It was our sufferings that he bore and our pains that he took upon himself’ (Isa 53:4; Mt 8:17) — that is, he will take and remove them. For sometimes the Spirit of God, through the prophets’ mouth, narrates what is to come as if it were already done. For with God, to project, to set in mind, and to decree is like a deed already accomplished, and the Holy Spirit speaks with a view to the time when the prophecies are fulfilled. (Rom 4:17)

Concerning the healings he speaks thus: ‘In that day the deaf shall hear the words of the book, and freed from darkness and obscurity the eyes of the blind shall see.’ (Isa 29:18) The same prophet says again: ‘Strengthen the hands that hang down and the knees that shake; comfort yourselves, troubled hearts. Take courage, do not fear. Our God himself will come and save us. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be opened. Then the lame shall leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute shall be loosed.’ (Isa 35:3-6; Mt 11:5)

Of the dead he says that they shall rise: ‘The dead shall rise, and those in the tombs shall be raised.’ (Isa 26:19; Jn 5:28-29) And one must believe that he who does this is the Son of God.