For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. (I Cor 15:53)
I have begun to discuss some preliminary matters related to the charismatic gifts. I now intend to delve into a discussion of individual charismatic gifts. The first two will be healing and miracles, and I will take them together. But before I discuss healing specifically, I want to give Biblical background on healing in general. I hope this background will help you avoid some common misunderstandings of Biblical healing.
The Christian faith certainly involves spiritual matters. One cannot deal with God without getting spiritual, for God is spirit (Jn 4:24). But throughout history, the Christian faith has also been emphatically material. One cannot wholly deal with human beings without being so, for no matter where we go, all the humans we encounter have bodies. Thus, any practical religion will at some point talk on the physical level. To fail to do so is to fail to deal with real life.
Now when the Christian faith talks about the human body, it does so quite positively. The body was God’s idea, not ours. He cares so much for the body that he issues commands like “rest it” and “don’t kill it” and “don’t defile it.” He tells us that our body is a member of Christ Himself and the temple of His Spirit (I Cor 6:15, 19). And Scripture is clear that when we die and are free from our current bodies, we shall inherit new ones (I Cor 15). The Christian faith is a religion for the body and quite heartily parts ways with religions like Christian Science and Buddhism, which claim that ultimacy is to be found only when we realize freedom from the body. For Christianity says that when we humans are as good as we are going to get, we shall have bodies. The Christian faith would outright deny the notion that a person becomes more spiritual by becoming less physical. Indeed, perhaps one could say that a person cares even more about the physical as he becomes more spiritual. The more clearly we see God, the more clearly we see humans. This, then, is the first thing I wish to say about healing: the Christian faith is unabashedly pro-body.
But the Christian faith also plainly recognizes that the body is corrupt. It is good but it is tainted. It is a good thing diseased. The flesh is weak. When the human race fell, the body fell with it. It is not merely intangible souls and spirits but all of creation that was “subjected to frustration” and that needs to “be liberated from its bondage to decay” (Rm 8:20-1). Humans are holistic creatures. Bodily desires can corrupt the soul that enthrones them, but decisions of the soul can equally enslave the body. Ask an alcoholic. Scripture may talk of the body and soul as different entities (e.g. Mt 10:28), but they are not entirely separate entities. The corruption of the soul has brought about the corruption of the body. There is a link between sin and death (Gen 2:16-17; Rm 6:23). Every funeral is a heavenly statement that God will not allow sin to last and that sin will bring us only to ruin. It is an earthly reminder of the ultimate futility of self. God never intended something eternal to spring from something sinful.
Thus, the curse of the fall has brought death, but it has brought more than death, for death has her partners. Pain, toil, disease, decay are all part of the package (Gen 3:16-19; Rm 8:20-1). The fall did not take a healthy creation and kill it off in full bloom. Instead, it took a healthy creation and made it sick. The world we now see and know is not the world that was meant to be. When sin was introduced into the universe, the chemistry was altered, a rod was thrown into the cogs, a virus infected the whole body. Everything went sour. The universe ceased to operate as intended. It is now dysfunctional, diseased. And with the grand dysfunction of the universe came the common dysfunction of the body. Pain and sickness are as much a result of sin as death is. They are God’s little reminders of our mortality. They are subtle foreshadows of what is yet to come. The flu is nothing more than death in an embryonic stage.
Now when I say that sickness and death are all a result of sin, I am not necessarily saying that Mrs. Conkwell’s rheumatism is a result of some dastardly deed she did in her past. There can be a direct link between a specific sin and a specific malady as can exist between, say, adultery and syphilis. But there need not be. A blind man is not necessarily blind because of his sin (John 9), and a little girl can contract AIDS through no fault of her own. The relationship that exists between sin and disease is not so much with sins specifically as with sin broadly. Righteous men suffer (like Job) and wicked men can prosper into old age. But all people at some point, wicked or righteous, experience the pains of the human condition. And the human condition is what it is because of sin.
So then, sin has infected the universe like a virus and has brought with it certain natural symptoms. Among these are pain, disease and death.
But God is about the business of healing. He is the great physician. Now in order for any real healing to occur, the physician must treat not merely the symptoms but the source. We do not really heal Mr. Rodriguez’ cancer by giving him pain medication. We must actually remove the tumor. And such is what God has done with the human race. His solution to the human condition has been to remove the root cause of our problems. He has not made us comfortable in our sinful state (that would do no good) but has chosen instead to crucify it. God has overcome death by overcoming sin; He has crushed pain and disease and decay by crushing sin; He has vanquished the curse by vanquishing sin.
The cross is God’s remedy for the problems of the human condition. It is the grand cure. It is on the cross that sin is destroyed; and because sin is destroyed, all of the symptoms sin brings are destroyed. The soul was redeemed, death died, and the body was restored on the cross. The power for the healing of the body is now ours in Christ because the destruction of sin is now ours in Christ. On the cross Christ bore our sins, but in bearing our sins He also “took up our infirmities and bore our diseases” (Is 53:4; Mt 8:17). Redemption is for the body as well as for the soul; health is holistic.
The ultimate fulfillment of the healing of the body, of course, shall occur in glory, for then there shall be no pain or sorrow, no sickness or death. The body will once again be at least what it was before the fall. But there is also a healing here and now that is ours in Christ. The church practices this healing in Acts, Paul speaks of present spiritual gifts of healing in the church (I Cor 12:9, 28), James tells the sick man to call the elders to pray and anoint him in the name of the Lord. All of these are examples of a bodily healing that is available in Christ to the Christian here and now. The physical healing of the earthly body is a gracious earnest of the complete healing and restoration that shall occur in glory.
As Christians, we apply the earnest by faith. All through the gospels Jesus says, “Your faith has made you well.” James says that it is the “prayer offered in faith” that will make the sick person well. There is a connection between faith and healing. Faith is how we appropriate the power of God. We will not experience God’s healing if we do not believe God heals. Therefore, because of the work of Jesus Christ, every believer has the right to request of God physical healing, and not only to request it but also to believe it.
And yet this does not mean that God heals every time. Sometimes we can ask for the wrong reasons (Jas 4:3), sometimes we can ask without faith (Mt 17:14-20), sometimes God has a greater purpose in view, and sometimes we may have no idea why God does not heal. God is God; He has the right to say “no” (II Cor 12:7-9) and is under no obligation to tell us why.
We, thus, need to understand both sides of this balance. Healing is a gift given us in Christ. We can pray with a right heart expecting God to heal, but we can never be sovereign. We must always understand that God reserves the final say for Himself.
People err on one or the other side of this balance. Name-it-claim-it, prosperity gospel healers err by saying God heals every time and by having God and man switch places. Man becomes the master, and God must jump at man’s behest. Cessationists err by denying the full work of the Cross for today. God still heals. But He is not your servant boy. And sometimes He sovereignly chooses not to heal. When that happens, His grace is sufficient for you.
