Faith with its Boots On
Introduction: The War on Reality
We live in an age that is profoundly confused about how the world works. On one hand, you have the secular materialists, who believe that the universe is a closed system of physical causes. For them, a fig poultice might work, but only because of its biochemical properties. God is an irrelevant hypothesis. On the other hand, you have a certain brand of super-spiritual pietism, which thinks that true faith means despising all physical means. If you are really trusting God for healing, you should not go to the doctor, you should not take the medicine, and you certainly should not be messing about with figs. For them, the poultice is a sign of weak faith.
Both of these positions are a declaration of war on reality as God actually made it. Both are forms of Gnosticism, one secular and one supposedly spiritual, because both drive a wedge between the spiritual and the material. Both want a God who does not get His hands dirty with the stuff of creation. The materialist wants a world with no God, and the pietist wants a God with no world.
The Bible, as is its custom, will have none of this. The God of Scripture is the Lord of both the spiritual promise and the physical poultice. He is the God who makes the pronouncement of healing and who also created the figs. He speaks the word of power, and He commands the application of the means. To separate these things is to misunderstand the very nature of faith. Faith is not a disembodied assent to abstract propositions. Faith is trust in the living God that has its boots on. It is a robust and earthy faith, a faith that prays for daily bread and then goes out to plow the field. It is a faith that asks God for healing and then applies the bandage.
The story of Hezekiah's healing is a profound tutorial in this kind of grounded, biblical faith. God had already promised to heal him and add fifteen years to his life. He had already promised to give him a staggering astronomical sign. But tucked into the narrative, almost as a footnote, we find these two verses. They are not a footnote; they are the very heart of the matter. They show us the relationship between God's sovereign power and man's obedient action. They teach us that true faith is not passive resignation but active trust, and that the goal of all of God's work in our lives is to bring us back into His presence, to the place of worship.
The Text
Now Isaiah had said, “Let them take up a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may live.” Then Hezekiah had said, “What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh?”
(Isaiah 38:21-22 LSB)
God's Medicine and Man's Obedience (v. 21)
We begin with the practical, earthy instruction from the prophet Isaiah.
"Now Isaiah had said, 'Let them take up a cake of figs and apply it to the boil, that he may live.'" (Isaiah 38:21)
Notice the structure here. God has already declared that Hezekiah will be healed (v. 5). The outcome is certain because God has spoken it. So why the figs? Is God unable to heal without them? Of course not. This is the God who is about to make the sun's shadow retreat ten steps. Healing a boil is small potatoes. The fig poultice is not a magical potion, and it is not a concession to Hezekiah's weak faith. It is an instrument of God's grace and a test of Hezekiah's obedience.
This is the consistent pattern of God's interaction with His people. He does not despise means; He ordains them. He promised to deliver the Israelites from the Egyptians, but they had to march. He promised Joshua the city of Jericho, but they had to walk around it. Jesus, the Son of God, could have healed the blind man with a word, but He chose to spit in the dirt and make mud to put on his eyes (John 9:6). Was the power in the mud? No, the power was in Christ. But the obedience was in applying the mud.
This demolishes the false dichotomy between faith and works. Our culture, even our Christian subculture, is riddled with it. We think that trusting God means doing nothing. But biblical faith is never inert. True faith is a living, active, working thing. James tells us that faith without works is dead (James 2:26). It is a corpse. Hezekiah's faith was not a dead faith. His faith was demonstrated by his submission to the prophet's instruction. If Hezekiah had said, "God has promised to heal me, so I will dispense with this messy business of the figs," he would not have been demonstrating faith. He would have been demonstrating presumption, which is the devil's cheap imitation of faith.
God uses means to keep us humble and to keep us grounded in the created world. He wants us to see His hand at work in and through the ordinary things of life. He gives us doctors, medicine, and sensible remedies. To use them is not a failure of faith; it is an act of faith, acknowledging that every good gift, including the healing properties of figs, comes from our Father. The poultice is God's provision. The command to apply it is God's summons to obedient trust.
The Goal of Grace (v. 22)
Next, we see Hezekiah's response. It is not a question of whether he will live, but for what purpose he will live.
"Then Hezekiah had said, 'What is the sign that I shall go up to the house of Yahweh?'" (Isaiah 38:22)
This is a profoundly important question. Hezekiah's request for a sign is recorded before this verse, but its placement here, right after the instruction for the poultice, is theologically significant. Hezekiah connects the promise of healing directly to the restoration of worship. His chief concern is not simply adding fifteen more years to his life so he can enjoy the palace life. His ultimate desire is to be restored to the covenant community, to the place where God had put His name. The goal of his healing is to "go up to the house of Yahweh."
This reveals the heart of a true believer. The blessings of God are not ends in themselves. Health, prosperity, peace, and long life are all good things, but they are not the ultimate thing. The ultimate thing is God Himself. All of God's blessings are meant to be roads that lead us back to Him. For an Old Covenant saint like Hezekiah, the "house of Yahweh," the Temple in Jerusalem, was the epicenter of communion with God. It was the place of sacrifice, praise, and covenant renewal. To be cut off from the Temple was to be cut off from the life of the people of God.
Hezekiah's question, therefore, is not born of doubt but of a deep, spiritual longing. The sign he wants is not just a confirmation that he will be healed, but a confirmation that he will be restored to his primary duty and delight, which is to lead his people in the worship of the one true God. He wants to know that his life will once again be oriented around its proper center. This is a rebuke to all forms of health-and-wealth gospel that treat God as a cosmic vending machine for dispensing personal comforts. Hezekiah wanted to live so that he could worship.
The sign God gives him, making the shadow retreat, is a sign that God is the Lord of creation and time. It is a sign that the God who can rewind the cosmos is certainly able to restore a king to His courts. It is a massive confirmation for a glorious, worship-centered purpose.
Conclusion: The Greater Hezekiah and the True Temple
This entire account is a shadow, and it points to a much greater reality. We, like Hezekiah, have been struck with a fatal illness. It is not a boil; it is the disease of sin. And the prognosis is not that we might die, but that we are already dead in our trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1). The word of the Lord has gone out: "Set your house in order, for you shall die."
But God, in His great mercy, has provided a remedy. It is not a cake of figs, but the broken body of His own Son. Jesus Christ is the poultice for our mortal wound. He took our sickness upon Himself on the cross, so that by His stripes we might be healed (Isaiah 53:5). God has provided the means of our salvation, and He commands us to apply it. How? By faith. We are to repent of our sins and trust in Christ alone. This is not a passive act. It is an active clinging to Christ, an obedience of faith that turns from self-righteousness and lays hold of Him.
And what is the sign that we will be healed? What is the sign that we will live? Hezekiah was given a sign of the sun going backward. We have been given a far greater sign. We have been given the sign of the Son coming forward, forward out of the grave. The resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is the ultimate sign that God has accepted His sacrifice and that the power of death has been broken forever (Matt. 12:39-40).
And what is the goal of this great salvation? It is the same as Hezekiah's. It is that we might "go up to the house of Yahweh." But the house of Yahweh is no longer a building made of stones in Jerusalem. The true Temple is the body of Christ, the church (1 Cor. 3:16). And ultimately, it is the New Jerusalem, the heavenly city where we will see God face to face. We are saved for worship. We are healed from sin so that we can be restored to fellowship with the living God.
Therefore, let us have a faith with its boots on. Let us trust the promises of God, and let us use the means He has given us. Let us apply the gospel to our lives daily through repentance and faith. And let our chief desire, the great longing of our healed hearts, be for His house, for the communion of the saints, and for the day when we will stand before Him and worship Him forever.