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Many “Word of Faith” (WOF) preachers claim that it is God’ will that we should be healed of all our diseases. According to them, the reason that many believers aren’t getting healed is because they don’t believe the promises of God. In support, they cite Jesus’ promise:
“Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever [of you Apostles?] believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father.” (John 14:12; ESV)
Well, why aren’t we all getting healed? The WOF preachers claim that we just don’t believe the promises of Jesus–-a serious and divisive indictment!
However, there are many reasons to conclude that Jesus’ promise was only extended to His Apostles. Several verses later, He promised that it was only the Apostles, those who had been with Him from the beginning, who would be supernaturally equipped by the Spirit to carry forth His Word:
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. (John 14:26)
“Bring all things to your remembrance” and to “teach you all things” could only refer to those who had been with Him. Likewise, if this promise only has an application to the Apostles, perhaps also John 14:12, especially since Jesus had been addressing the same group of people. Besides, the history of the Early Church bears this out. Paul had been designated as an Apostle. How could the Church know this? Only through “signs and wonders”:
For I was not at all inferior to these super-apostles, even though I am nothing. The signs of a true apostle were performed among you with utmost patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works. (2 Corinthians 12:11-12)
If all Christians had produced signs and wonders, Paul would have had no way to prove to the Church that He had been called to be an Apostle. Instead, it was the Apostles alone who would perform “signs and wonders”:
And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders, signs, and healings were being done through the apostles. (Acts 2:43; 4:33)
In this way, God had established the fact that the Apostles
were His ordained ones to carry forth His teachings. Consequently, after the
Apostles had heard that the Samaritans had come to faith, they sent the
Apostles Peter and John to lay hands for them to receive the Holy Spirit (Acts
8:14-15).
For the early church, there was no guesswork regarding who bore the Gospel of Jesus. Had all believers been performing miracles, there would have been lots of confusion:
And God was doing extraordinary miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons that had touched his skin were carried away to the sick, and their diseases left them and the evil spirits came out of them. (Acts 19:11-12)
So they remained for a long time, speaking boldly for the Lord, who bore witness to the word of his grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their [Barnabas and Paul] hands. (Acts 14:3; 3:12)
God sent miracles to prove that it was the Apostles who He had commissioned to carry His Word:
Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. (1 Corinthians 2:12-13)
For since the message declared by angels proved to be reliable, and every transgression or disobedience received a just retribution, how shall we escape if we neglect such a great salvation? It was declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles and by gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will. (Hebrews 2:2-4)
So then, brothers, stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught by us [Apostles], either by our spoken word or by our letter. (2 Thessalonians 2:15)
Because the Apostles were clearly endorsed by the miraculous hand of God, their writings were immediately accepted as Scripture:
And we also thank God constantly for this, that when you received the word of God, which you heard from us, you accepted it not as the word of men but as what it really is, the word of God, which is at work in you believers. (1 Thessalonians 2:13; Romans 15:18-19)
Does James guarantee that all will be healed by the
elders?
· Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. (James 5:14–16)
Of course, the sick would first have to confess their sins, but were there other requirements? James then points to Elijah as a prime example of the effective “prayer of the righteous.” However, every one of his prayers was no more than the obedience to the will and the Word of our Lord. Therefore, it seems that James also assumed that healings would have to coincide with the will of God.
According to the WOF, if we believe, we should all be performing healings. (However, God had specifically given the gift of healings to only some (1 Corinthians 12)) Is the Church to be blamed that miracles and healings are scarce? One WOF preacher did. He claimed that that the prayer of faith will heal unbelievers far sooner than churchgoers. According to him, the Church has less faith in the promises of God than does the unbeliever. But perhaps our Lord expects His people to walk by faith and not by a steady diet of healings:
For in this hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for it with patience. (Romans 8:24-25)
For we walk by faith, not by sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7)
Instead of relying upon a miracles-rich diet, our Lord wants us to live by faith, the unseen, and to even persevere in
Always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. (2 Corinthians 4:10-11)
To walk in perpetual miraculous healings is not to “Always carry in the body the death of Jesus.” Perpetual miracles and healings might make us spiritually lazy. We would not learn patience, faith, or how to meditate on the Word, day and night (Psalm 1).
WOF supports their claims by many testimonials. I have attended numerous WOF churches without seeing the lame walk, the blind see, or the dead raised. Perhaps instead these are intended only as a rarity among us today.
Did Jesus die for our diseases as well as our sins? WOF claims that He did:
· But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)
Therefore, we should expect physical healing along with the forgiveness of sin, right? Of course, we will receive our disease-free resurrection bodies when Jesus returns, and we are glorified. However, did our spiritual healing, accomplished by the Savior on the Cross, guarantee all our present-day physical healings? The WOF argues that it did (Matthew 8:16-17).
However, Jesus’ death fulfills all of God’s
promises (2 Cor 1:20; Romans 15:8) including eternal healing. However, some of
what Christ had already accomplished we have not yet received:
·
Therefore, since we have been justified by
faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we
have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice
in hope of the glory of God. (Romans 5:1–2)
We also await freedom from suffering (Revelation 21:3) along
with our resurrection bodies, although Jesus has already paid the price for
these. Therefore, there is no reason to expect that God will now heal all our
diseases.
I strongly believe that our God heals, but our present healings
occur according to His will. They are even temporary, since He
has even determined the length of our days (Psalm 139:16). We all die from one disease
or another—heart failure, cancer... Consequently, there can be no guarantee
that God will heal all our diseases in this life. He will even, in
His mercy, bring disease upon us:
· For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died. But if we judged ourselves truly, we would not be judged. But when we are judged by the Lord, we are disciplined so that we may not be condemned along with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:29–32)
Our Lord will even bring upon us death and illness if it means protecting us against the final condemnation. It seems that this had even been related to Paul’s experience:
· So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10)
However, WOF denies that the thorn in the flesh was a disease—a meaningless distinction! Besides, instead of healing Timothy, Paul advised:
· No longer drink only water, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and your frequent ailments. (1 Timothy 5:23)
If Paul thought that God had wanted him to be healed, he should have endured in prayer rather than to resort to a palliative. The same was also true for leaving Trophimus behind because he was sick (2 Timothy 4:20).
WOF accuses us with not trusting in God and refuse to accept the simple fact that we interpret the Scriptures differently. Nevertheless, it is important to acknowledge that God heals:
· Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases. (Psalm 103:2-3)
But when does the healing take place? When does the suffering end? We are warned that we will need patience. For our reward is not to be found in this world. Instead, we need to have patience:
·
And all these [OT believers], though commended
through their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had provided
something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.
(Hebrews 11:39-40)
Here, we are to expect that our bodies will “waste away”:
· So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)
Therefore, we shouldn’t be discouraged when we see our bodies wasting away. Indeed, here our Lord will deliver us in many ways, but our hope should be primarily invested in the next life (Hebrews 12:2).
Don’t worry that you will miss out on temporal blessings
because you do not believe that God’s will is to heal all in this life. Our
Lord is not limited:
· Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. (Ephesians 3:20–21)
Jesus often had healed when no one believed. He raised Lazarus after four days in the tomb! Even if we are praying wrongly, we should not fear that we will miss out on the grace of God:
· Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. (Romans 8:26)
Instead, let us pray for peace, love, and unity within the body of Christ, as Jesus had prayed (John 17:20-23)!
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