It’s been a while since I’ve written or posted anything about my favorite Bible doctrine or topic; divine healing. I’ve written quite a bit on the subject on both my blog, and Fire Press, and have taught this to seminary students in South America, and most importantly, put I’ve into practice what I preach and have hit the streets looking for people who’d let me pray for them and share the Gospel.
By no means do I count myself an expert, because frankly, the whole Body of Christ should be manifesting His presence, and seeing people healed, set free, delivered, saved, whatever term you want to use–it encompasses the whole person–not just some special “healing experts”.
That all being said, I feel I could summarize the most common misconceptions and hindrances people have regarding God’s will to heal them, and I present to you the following in no particular order. First, though, allow me to say that in no way am I trying to be insensitive if you’re reading this and are sick yourself, know someone who is, or have lost a loved one. The following post does not address every single point in detail that it could, but I believe browsing the appropriate links to further study on many of the following points will greatly enrich the reader and encourage them in regard to faith and healing.
And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases. And those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came out from him and healed them all. (Luke 6:17-19 English Standard Version, emphasis mine)
Everybody was healed. In a crowd of this magnitude, it’s more than certain there would be people of all stages of life represented, but yet everybody got the exact same result: healed in their body.
And he went throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom andhealing every disease and every affliction among the people. So his fame spread throughout all Syria, and they brought him all the sick, those afflicted with various diseases and pains, those oppressed by demons, epileptics, and paralytics, and he healed them. And great crowds followed him from Galilee and the Decapolis, and from Jerusalem and Judea, and from beyond the Jordan. (Matthew 4:23-25, ESV, emphasis mine)
This passage very closely mirrors the one selected to refute lie number 1 above, however, in contradiction to the lie that God uses sickness and disease to refine our character–because of erroneously quoted, misinterpreted and mis-taught passages of Scripture used as a proof texts–it should be noted that in this crowd of “all being healed”, there were demon possessed people–who probably had room for improvement as far as their character goes! These individuals did not get healed only after their character was healed, but immediately.
For more on that, check out the Fire On Your Head Podcast episode, Developing Supernatural Expectancy.
I’m aware that I’m making a generality in saying the following, and it’s not true of everybody, but common enough to state that I’ve seen many people point to Paul’s thorn in the flesh as some kind of proof text regarding this lie. Since I’ve done an extensive, but concise study on it, I’m not going to elaborate too thoroughly on this point, other than to post yet another passage of Jesus healing everybody, not just the ones that had learned all the lessons they needed:
And Jesus went throughout all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every affliction.(Matthew 9:35, emphasis mine)
It’s highly likely, since everybody was getting healed in these cities and villages, again, that people of all stages and walks of life would have been represented and therefore some being taught lessons in some ways in their lives, which excluded sickness and illness being some kind of method God was using. If God was teaching people lessons using sickness, then Jesus was contradicting or even rebelling against God’s plans for these people by healing them. But we know Jesus did what He saw the Father doing.
When IS God’s time? This also sounds pious and religious, but is usually invented by people who are seeking a healing in their body but haven’t obtained it, or gave up before receiving the miracle. Nowhere in Scripture do we find that God withholds the healing until a certain vague and nebulous time. Healing is a part of the atonement on the cross, and if today is the day of salvation (2 Corinthians 6:2), then today is also the day for healing (salvation of a physical body).
But in the meantime, notice that Jesus in his ministry healed people spontaneously in Matthew 14:14, where it says
When he went ashore he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion on them and healed their sick.
Notice it was compassion that caused him to heal the sick when he came across them here, not timing.
Also, recall with me the passage of the lame man at the pool of Bethesda in John’s Gospel,
In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. (John 5:3-4, NKJV)
Note:
For more on healing in the Atonement, check out this article by Joel Crumpton on Fire Press called Healing For The Follower of Jesus – Why and When?
I wish to be respectful of any who are reading this and may have lost a loved one to cancer or terminal disease. It may be fact that it has happened, and nothing can be done now, and you may struggle with my saying this, but it was NOT God’s best intention for them–especially if they weren’t a believer! It’s the enemy (Satan) who seeks to steal, kill and destroy. For a brief yet thorough study on this, check out my post “Death and Healing“. In it, I tackle another lie I could have posted in this list that says “if healing is always God’s will, then we’d never die.” I encourage the reader to give it a look, because my synopsis was yes, we WILL die one day, the same way a car wears out and eventually a new one is needed. But that doesn’t mean we blow the car up one day and then decide to buy a new one. I stated in it:
When Adam and Eve were punished for their disobedience, God says in Genesis 3:22:
Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever–” therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken…
Consider this: In order for God to banish them so that they won’t eat of the tree of life and live forever, it implies they were not going to live forever unless they ate it. This was AFTER they sinned and were now in a fallen state…
God refusing to allow Adam and Eve to eat of the tree of life now that they are corrupt and defiled, was an act of his mercy—He didn’t want man living forever in their sinful flesh, and in a fallen world. That, would be hell. Hell is eternity in sin cut off from the Lord, and if Adam ate of the fruit from the tree of life, it would not have been much better than an eternity in hell will be.1
Also, consider the meaning of the Greek word “Sozo”: to save; to preserve from harm; to keep; to rescue. Sin and sickness are both forms of death, and Jesus delivers and saves from both. The same way one woman’s faith forgave her of her sins (Luke 7:50), another woman’s faith healed her of her issue of blood (Luke 8:48). A few verses after the latter, in Luke 8:50, Jesus tells Jairus, to not fear but only believe, and his daughter will be made well (sozo). This turned out to be a dead-raising, not a healing, so to speak, but the same concept is applied and the same word is used throughout the New Testament.
Also take a look at the following Old Testament passage;
Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. (Isaiah 53:4-6, NIV, emphasis mine)
Notice the interchanging of both being healed and being forgiven, by what happened to Christ on the cross. Nobody would ever say “sin is how we die” or “God is putting sin on us to teach us a lesson“. Why not? Because God saved us from the power of sin, therefore He wouldn’t put on us something he set us free from. The same goes for healing then, in the human body.
Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins“—he said to the paralytic— “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home. (Mark 2:9-11, ESV, emphasis mine)
Notice, to demonstrate Jesus could forgive sins, he healed the man’s body with a word.
It is true that some do, and have died from sicknesses and diseases, but that doesn’t mean it was God’s will or how he wanted to take them home. The enemy comes specifically to steal and kill and destroy but Christ has have come that we may have life, and have it to the full (John 10:10).
For more on this point, check out my post “If Healing is Provided For In The Atonement, Then…“
Usually the person saying this is referring to themselves, yet, Jesus healed people whether they had faith to be healed or not. The only time throughout the New Testament Jesus ever told anybody they didn’t have enough faith was his disciples–the healers.
I realize my post today has more links than a Polish sausage factory, but it’s just to point you to the right place for further study on some points in particular. So that being said, check out this post “Because of Whose Little Faith“, a little more in depth than some of the other ones I’ve linked to so far, but still worth it.
In a nutshell, I say in it that Jesus rebuked the healers, not the recipients for their faith.
There’s an anecdotal story many people share about how John G. Lake was sitting in his office one time and a man came in and spoke to him about some conditions he had and asked if he could pray for him to be healed. Lake agreed, and the man told him something to the effect of “you must know though, I don’t have faith to be healed”, and he pushed his chair back and got up and said “that’s OK, I’ve got enough for the both of us!”
It’s not known whether or not the man was an atheist, didn’t believe in Jesus, or was a Christian but didn’t believe he’d get healed, but presumably, the story concludes with Lake praying for the man and he gets healed.
In Scripture, we’ve got lots of accounts we could glean from, such as people getting lowered into the pool of Bethesda in John 5 like we mentioned in an earlier point–remember, it didn’t say whoever believed in God or Jesus got healed, but the first one to get in when the angel was stirring up the waters got healed (see John 5:4-5)
As I stated in my post, Because of Whose Little Faith, linked to in Lie # 6, we see how in Matthew 17:14-21, the disciples were unable to heal a boy with epilepsy, and then Jesus goes ahead and prays for the boy, and he’s healed instantly. This passage also shows that just because healing didn’t happen, doesn’t mean it was God’s will for someone to stay sick. His desire to heal is not always demonstrated properly just because of our inabilities to accomplish what He has ordained and authorized us to do.
Take note also of the following account:
And he took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the village, and when he had spit on his eyes and laid his hands on him, he asked him, “Do you see anything?” And he looked up and said, “I see men, but they look like trees, walking.” Then Jesuslaid his hands on his eyes again; and he opened his eyes, his sight was restored, and he saw everything clearly. (Mark 8:23-25, ESV emphasis mine)
Notice, Jesus, who was God Himself, but didn’t live on the earth as though he were God, but as a human man (see Philippians 2:6-8). God in man, Christ even prayed more than once for someone to be healed before they obtained it. My personal experience is more like this than instantaneous healing, in that often times I pray several times for someone, or have had to persist for quite some time in praying for someone to be healed. Instead of making a ninth point, we could also include in this the idea that healing is not instantaneous like people believe, but requires perseverance sometimes.
A personal teaching class from yours truly regarding faith and healing:
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