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Does God
guarantee healing to every believer? |
The quick answer to this question is an unquestionable "yes!" but not in the way it has been misconstrued by certain sects and individuals in the church. Consider this Old Testament prophetic passage concerning Jesus...
"By his [Jesus'] wounds we are healed". This is an absolute statement, not a conditional statement. Those who claim it guarantees a life free from sickness end up adding conditions to this, typically "as long as you have enough faith", because they know that believer can and do get sick. Further still, the believer that has a chronic condition, a genetic condition, or a presently incurable disease that subsequently leads to their death; they by implication or outright assertion are relegated to the ranks of those who "just never have enough faith." Again, what they have missed is that God's statement regarding healing is that "by his wounds we ARE healed"! Every single believer will be healed by Jesus' sacrifice. End Note 1 Some have tried to turn this absolute statement of complete healing into being only in regards to spiritual healing. Undeniably this is an element of that statement, but it certainly is not the fullness of it. The salvation found in Jesus Christ is not merely in regards to our spirit/soul, it is our entire being including our body. Some early heresies and non-Christian religions even held this extreme dichotomy, claiming that the spirit/soul was or could be good, but the body was evil. This is never in view throughout Scriptures. God, through Jesus, saves people - body, soul and spirit.
This future transformation of our bodies will be the fulfillment of God's absolute promise of healing to all believers. Even believers from the earliest times were aware of this future promise that we will stand restored in the presence of our Redeemer. While one ancient righteous man (Job 1:1, 8) suffered great physical affliction (Job 2:4-9) - for no other than God's glory and purposes - he was comforted with this fact:
If Paul and the early church held that immediate and absolute healing was available to every believer, why would Luke have continued to be known as a doctor (physician)?:
God can take away sickness, if He so desires. God can also send sickness as He so desires for His purposes. This fact is seen in God's dealings with Israelites as given at the time of the Exodus.
Sickness is also biblically shown to be part of the natural order of things in this fallen world - even for believers. In one of Jesus' parables he commends and rebukes people for how they were treating His "brothers". While the term "brothers" could be loosely applied to all people, it certainly is a valid specific characterization of believers (i.e. Romans 8:17; Hebrews 2:11). It is these "brothers" that are sick and in need of care and being looked after. Nowhere in this parable is there a hint that Jesus would have all these ill individuals rebuked for lack of faith in not having experienced full and immediate healing...
The apostles, who where granted extraordinary abilities as signs to authenticate their apostleship End Note 2, were still limited in regards to sickness. They were limited by God's will! In some cases God enabled the immediate and dramatic healing of every person that came to them, including unbelievers, even as Jesus had done End Note 3, while at another time a believing brother and friend remained sick to the point of death. The implication of this latter narrative was that it was a protracted illness with a slow recovery. Both of these are examples pertaining to Paul:
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Why would God allow one of His children to remain or become sick? The clear answer of Scriptures is that He will be glorified by it! God uses illness sometimes to correct, to teach, and to give opportunity to other believers for service. Even when we cannot understand the why, it is undoubtedly part of God's plan for the greater good and unquestionably for even my own good. God is working "all things" for our good, even those things that we see as bad or negative.
Consider the case of Lazarus, a friend of Jesus. Jesus not only allowed him to remain sick for a time but even to die. Why? Why the suffering of not only Lazarus but even the mental anguish of his sisters? All for no other purpose than the glory of God! Notably, it was not a lack of faith on behalf of Lazarus that caused him to remain sick, nor was it his faith that played any role in his temporary healing (for he was dead). This is a temporary healing because Lazarus was still to die again later.
John also recorded another major case, an individual who had a physical infirmity from birth. We do not know if it was a genetic defect or something caused by a specific disease; all we know is that this man had always been blind. Once again, the reason for all those decades of suffering and hardship is clearly proclaimed in the text - it was so God could be glorified through finally working in his life. It was not the man's timing for this to take place, but timing established by God alone.
The same goes for every person who has infirmity or illness now. If God desires to grant them physical restoration immediately and temporarily before death, He can and will, but if He desires that they bear this burden for a time, even until death, both are for His honor and glory. Some claim a passage in James to guarantee immediate healing, so long as the elders of the church are involved.
Those who turn this into a promise for immediate healing have missed a key portion of the text. It is "the Lord (who) will raise him up". This leaves the time and nature of the healing to our Lord and not to the person who is sick or even to the elders. Truly the "prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective" but the nature of all truly God-centered prayer is found in the prayer that Jesus taught:
In the Apostle Paul's case, God's will was that Paul would retain his physical infirmity for a specific purpose, namely that it would keep Paul from "becoming conceited". The wording of the passage, which follows, implies that this infirmity was not something Paul originally had, but that it was quite specifically "given" to him at a later date. While many people spend time speculating on what type of physical problem Paul might have had, far more diligence would be warranted on contemplating what we have been told. God could and did use something that would be perceived as a negative for a positive reason, ultimately for His glory. I, personally, believe that Paul was extraordinarily blessed in actually knowing the reason up front, something that we generally do not though sometimes we are allowed to discover over time. Regardless, the Lord's answer to Paul also stands for all believers; regardless of the reason, His grace is sufficient to get us through.
That this great Apostle could suffer "in the flesh" should come as no surprise. I don't think it was a minor annoyance as some might imagine by the word "thorn", thinking of some small thing. The word commonly translated "thorn" could also be translated as "a stake" or "a hook". God's call for his life - indeed His perfect plan for Paul's life - was that he would suffer for the cause of Christ.
Paul's suffering included that imposed on him by fallen humanity, natural disasters including shipwreck, and illness, all for God's glory and purposes (i.e. 2 Corinthians 11:23-27). This man, who God enabled to do many miraculous healings of others, was himself taken in a major and prolonged illness. Certainly no one can accuse Paul of lacking faith so that he could not be immediately healed. Paul's healing came about in God's timing so that it would have its desired effect (...in the case of the Galatians that the gospel would be preached to them!).
When illness comes, seek God, seek His healing, but most of all seek His will. He desires that you will have a life lived to the full - which He alone gets to define, for He is God and you are not.
Every believer in this fallen world groans over the infirmities of our sin-tainted bodies. We lament our propensity to sin, we suffer illnesses and diseases, and we all endure the ultimate physical sickness that we are born dying. The telomeres in our DNA grow shorter by the day, until our cells cannot heal and we are forced to physically die. We long for the future redemption of our bodies.
Believers will endure (Revelation 3:10), will overcome (1 John 5:4-5), will persevere (Hebrews 12:1, James 1:4), and be fully healed at the resurrection - with no more inclination to sin and a new and perfect body that is forever untainted by sin. In the New Heavens and Earth, God will provide us everything we need for perfect healing, so that none will ever be sick again.
As for you, my reader, I wish you the same salutation that the Apostle John used almost two millennia ago:
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End Notes 1. Matthew 8:17 quotes from Isaiah 53:4 and specifically includes the physical healings that Jesus performed during his earthly ministry (i.e. Matthew 8:15-16) as being part of its fulfillment.
While some try and claim this passage as being their own personal right, no such implication is found within the passage. Jesus' actions and words were all with purpose, clearly authenticating His claim to be the Messiah and His power over all things, including sin and death. The absolute banishment of sickness, a symptom of the sin that infects this world, is something that waits the final restoration of all things. Use of Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew in regards to specific immediate healings by no means restricted the context to exclude a future absolute fulfillment. While God's grace was shown in those immediate temporary healings, they all suffered later illness and infirmity; certainly 100% of them died by the malfunctioning of their physical bodies. Praise God that his salvation was only focused on the here and now, that there is a perfect and eternal healing to come! Likewise, 1 Peter 2:24 also alludes to the prophecy of Isaiah 53. Here the focus, by context, is more specifically directed toward the spiritual healing that comes through salvation in Jesus Christ.
Certainly all of the healing available is Christ is still in view within this passage by Peter. Verse 25 makes it clear who gets to choose the how and when - our entire being is entrusted to the "Overseer" of our souls. 2. The apostles (who where enabled by God to do some extraordinary healing miracles) did not have this as their focus. They are shown by the testimony of Scriptures to have spent far more time in focusing on reaching the lost with the gospel, and strengthening the church, than on physical healings. The temporary, which is passing away, is far less important than the eternal (i.e. 1 Corinthians 7:29-31). For those who claim that the miracles are necessary or beneficial for winning the lost, they miss the point. Jesus and the disciples did incredible miracles of healing all over the land of Israel; if the presence of these assure or contribute to people becoming true followers of Jesus the multitudes should have been calling for Jesus' release rather than "Crucify Him!" The miracles authenticated Jesus' claim to be Messiah and the claims of His apostles that they were sent by Him (even as God authenticated His prophets in the Old Testament by signs and wonders). Only those who believe will accept these claims. 3. Jesus had compassion on those who were sick, that came before him and that he came across - believer and unbeliever.
It is certain that there were other people in the region and even subsequently in the places Jesus had travelled that were sick. Jesus, as God, would have known of these people too and, if he desired, with a single word could have healed them all. Jesus chose only to heal some - namely all those who came before Him - this with a purpose, which authenticated His claims and illustrated His words. Jesus' words and actions were always in agreement, He spoke in parables; His life was lived out as a parable.
Only believers were meant to understand the parables Jesus spoke and did. Indeed, Jesus would not have been crucified if the rulers of this age had understood (1 Corinthians 2:8). While Jesus showed His compassion for the people by doing immediate healings, don't loose focus that His greater focus was an eternal harvest. It was to people who needed a Shepherd to whom the Lord of the Harvest desired to send workers (consider 1 Peter 2:24-25 as found in End Note 1 as well). |
Article by Brent MacDonald, Lion Tracks Ministries (c) 2009
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