Divine Healing

[Guest shiloh357]

The gift of healing did work through Paul's ministry at times, that is undeniable.   But there is no "doctrine"  of healing in the Bible.   Paul, in I Cor. 12:12 includes healing as one of the "signs of an apostle."     The healing that did occur in Paul's ministry was an important sign that he was chosen by God as an apostle.

[By Faith]

There are those who do believe that it is God's perfect will to heal every person of every illness, but there is no such promise made in Scripture.    There is no stated expectation on the part of the Apostles that it was God's will always in every case to heal a person.   

 

For instance,   Paul left a man named Trophimus sick in Miletus according to II Tim. 4:20.  Paul knew the man was sick and left him in that condition.   When Timothy was ailing from an apparent stomach condition in I Tim. 5:23, Paul's suggestion was to take a little wine for that condition.  At that time, there was wine that was used for medicinal purposes, it was evidently a bitter wine, not something you would drink with meals, but was good for killing germs and parasites that might cause stomach issues.

 

In Ephesians we read about Epaphroditus who was sick to the point that he almost died.   Yet he was with Paul at that time.  Instead of trying to heal Epaphroditus, things got so bad that Epaphroditus only got worse and nearly lost his life.   Fortunately, he did recover, but no recorded attempt was made to enact divine healing for Epaphroditus.

 

It's not the case that God doesn't heal today;  He most certainly does.   But there is a theology of healing in the church today that robs God of His sovereignty that God is somehow obligated to heal us.   Faith has become a means of manipulating God to do what we want him  to do.  So many people have banked on this theology and have been disappointed.  I have seen people who bought into the notion that it is always God's will to heal and fully vested themselves in this only to be disappointed in the end because God didn't heal them or their loved ones.   What's worse is that these people are told that the reason they don't get healed is because their faith is insufficient or is too weak in some way.

 

Not that I am going to be pulled in by the Unlearned. One saying God answers prayer yes, No, I have something better for you when we are told to pray according to his will, to have our petition desired of him. Not even understanding prayer. Hence my time will be wasted greatly here.

 

I will say this Shiloh, and only because you have earned my respect as Brother Mike and now they let me back. "ByFaith" 

 

God has never not one time failed me when it comes to healing. Not my Son, Not me, and not many I know. 

 

So, go back, study. Faith does not manipulate God's Sovereignty. Faith can only come by hearing and by hearing the Word of God. So faith could only be in what God said, else it's not even faith, but what man makes up.

 

Paul left Trophy sick, Jacobs Hip, Timothy's stomach, Paul's beatings. Let's get something straight here, We are promised to have tribulation in this World, sometimes healing comes by just doing what the doctor said. 

 

Jesus was our redeemer  from the Curse of the law, and out of that curse for disobedience came every sickness mentioned in scripture, and every sickness not mentioned. You should know Deut 28, I'll save the scriptures.

 

Forgiveness and healing go hand in hand.

 

Psa_103:3  Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; 

 

Jas_5:15  And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. 

,

 

Saying it's Robbing God's Sovereignty by believing he wants us healed, is like saying we are robbing God of his sovereignty by believing he wants to forgive us. You just don't believe half a scripture. 

 

Faith speaks this, My God will make a way, As I am forgiven, My God will make a way, and I am also the healed. For it's written In his Word. 

 

Many people here have been healed, So we just don't say God will only do half of what he said and just forgive some, being a respecter of persons. 

You know better than this Shiloh, I have read lots of your post. So you need to change up some thinking on this. 

so how is it I pray to be healed and not healed? Million dollar question. I blame God? Or, do I look at myself?

 

Even though the Disciples where given power from Jesus himself to raise the dead and cast out devils had enough sense to ask the Lord, "Why could we not cast him out?" The best in the World failed, and this time it was a lack of faith, that is not the only answer though.  Thing is they did not write a book on How God sometimes Heals and sometimes You just never know.

 

They had enough sense to ask Why we could not, they knew it was on their end, not the Lord's. We ought to have enough sense like they did.

 

Faith starts with faith in God, not faith in healing or faith in your needs met. Faith that God will somehow, someway come through. 

 

Even my daughter busted her tooth in half, took her to the doctor. That is a sensible thing to do, and I am still trusting God. They said she needed surgery and would have to put my daughter under. 

Now faith does not just believe things will go well, Faith is faith in God, doing what he says and trusting it will work out. 

 

The day of surgery I had been praying about it, and the Holy Spirit said, "DON'T GO, Danger, Don't Go"

 

It came up strong in me, so I said we are not going, the tooth will somehow be fine, but it did not look fine. Well, I took my Daughter to a different Doctor and He said the tooth looked great, that having surgery was a risk that should have never been suggested. What was left of the tooth stayed in, fell out and the new one came in. 

 

The point is, people don't understand things, so they discount them altogether. Faith in God does what he says, fills the pots with water, that is when the Miracle happens, and let me tell you, God has never failed anyone who trusted in him, not one time. 

 

Be blessed.

[Guest shiloh357]

The problem is that those in the WoF movement argue that divine health is always God's will, period.     Faith has been used as a means of manipulating God (a futile thing in and of itself), but it has also been used to control and manipulate believers as well.    How many have been conned into "planting seed"  for their healing.   They are fleeced by faith healers who promise them that if they will follow the formulas in their books that they will tap into God's healing power.

 

The issue is not whether someone will eventually be healed by simply following the doctor.   Often that is not the case as much of modern medicine really only treats the symptoms without curing the ailment itself.

 

The issue is about the will of God to supernaturally heal.  Is healing a guarantee via the atonement?  Is God under any obligation to heal everyone who asks for it?  And if so, where does the NT promise any of that?

[ayin jade]

A question I have ....

 

If a person is very ill and believes that he will be healed because God wants us all healed ....

 

Why would the Lord want us all healed on earth? Isnt being with Him the best place to be? Why would He want to always heal us (unless He has a purpose for us on earth before we die) when He would instead prefer to have us with Him?

[gdemoss]

The gift of healing did work through Paul's ministry at times, that is undeniable. But there is no "doctrine" of healing in the Bible. Paul, in I Cor. 12:12 includes healing as one of the "signs of an apostle." The healing that did occur in Paul's ministry was an important sign that he was chosen by God as an apostle.

I see nothing in the text about healing in Pauls ministry

[Hall7]

We can't be healed without faith of being healed, it takes two to make it happen, God and us. Sometimes God doesn't heal us because He knows some will become more distant from Him if He heals them, such as people who have a problem with pride, being sick makes them more humble and closer to Him. I believe He heals the ones He sees can produce fruit and become a better Christian through the testimony of their healing.

[Guest shiloh357]

Gary,

 

Paul did not have  healing "ministry"  like Jesus did.  But he did take some of his clothing and tear it  into strips and people did get healed when they came into contact with those strips of clothing. 

 

He was used by the Lord  to heal a lame man at Lystra  in Acts 14:9.

 

Also look at Acts. 28:8 and we can see healing in Paul's ministry when he healed the father of Publius and some others.  

[Guest shiloh357]

I think we need to be careful and not overstate the role of faith when it comes to divine healing.   Modern Christians place more emphasis on the role faith in these kinds of situations than the Bible does. 

 

Sometimes healing doesn't occur despite the fact that people desire from God to be healed   Too often, people who don't get healed are told that their faith is defective.

 

It appears to me that we modern Christians have diminished and almost lost any sense of the sovereignty of God in how He deals with us and intervenes (or not) in our lives.   The truth is that sometimes God doesn't fix everything.   Sometimes we don't get the resolution we wanted to the problems we face.    Faith isn't something we use to get God to do our will,  nor is it the case that the answer to our prayers is something God is holding out in front of us like a carrot on a stick until we finally run fast enough and demonstrate  a robust enough faith in order to deserve.   That is cruel and God doesn't play games with us like that.

 

Trusting in God, placing faith in God means that He is enough.   There is nothing more to get and nothing more for us to pursue.  He is enough if we don't ever get anything else from Him.  He has given us Himself and He alone is sufficient.    Yes, we desire healing, but even if it doesn't come, Jesus alone is enough for us.   True faith takes our eyes off of ourselves and causes us to live for him to whatever end.  True faith says, I put myself in your care, Lord and I will love and trust you  no matter what happened.

 

The greatest testimonies I have ever heard were not from people who said, "After I got saved, Jesus solved all my problems and everything is better and life has been great.  The best testimonies I have ever heard go more like this:   "Before I got saved, things weren't going so great, and I got saved 10 years ago and things have actually gotten worse, but Jesus has always been with me and he gives meaning and purpose to the pain in my life;  I know I am never suffering alone and even though I can't always see it, or understand it, I know that He has a plan for my life and that this will turn out to be for his glory.

 

It is in  the crucible of suffering that our faith is sharpened and our testimony is built.  Too often people can't see suffering and sickness as part of God providential plan.   Sometimes God is working and developing something in their life through sickness which is why God doesn't heal them.    God sovereignly works all things for our good (Rom. 8:28).   There is something bigger, something God values more than my healing.  We don't always see the big picture and what God is doing in our lives.

 

God didn't heal Paul of his thorn in the flesh.  It was a physical issue that Paul saw as a hindrance and it was given to him so that he would not become conceited over having had visions of heaven.   It was causing, in Paul's eyes, a reduction in the scope of his ministry.   Paul, if you read all of his epistles, is fixated on spreading the Gospel and his request that the thorn be removed was not simply wanting personal comfort or relief.    Paul would have been thinking about this thorn as an obstacle to the effectiveness of his ministry.   The Lord assured Paul that His grace (spiritual stamina) was sufficient for Paul so that this thorn was not going to hinder Paul's ministry.  In fact it was through the weakness brought on by the thorn that Jesus' power would be seen.   In other words,   the effectiveness of Pauls' ministry would be in explicable  apart from the power of God because this thorn would have hindered anyone else.  No one else in their own strength could have been effective with this kind of debilitating illness.

[Bible2]

Ezra said in post 5:

 

To answer the OP, no it is not always God's will to heal, and sometimes it is His express will to bring sickness, weakness, or death.

 

That's right, or Satan can be the one who causes people to suffer (Luke 13:16). Jesus came to counteract Satan's work in the world (John 10:10). Jesus miraculously healed multitudes of people (Matthew 12:15b) oppressed by Satan (Acts 10:38). And Jesus still miraculously heals some people today, either directly by his Spiritual power, or through Christians who have been given the Spiritual gift of miraculous healing (1 Corinthians 12:9).

 

Also, Christians, with their hope of eternal life (Titus 1:2), can look beyond any temporal suffering which they may be undergoing (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, Revelation 2:10-11; 1 Peter 4:12-13). God can permit some Christians to suffer in order to help them to remain humble before him and others (2 Corinthians 12:7). Also, suffering can strengthen Christians spiritually (Romans 5:3-5). It can help them to stop putting any hope in that which is merely mortal and temporal (2 Corinthians 4:16-18, John 12:25, Matthew 10:37-39). Also, when God allows Christians to suffer, he provides them with his comfort to help them through their suffering (2 Corinthians 1:3-7).

 

People shouldn't say (as is sometimes said) that it is evil for God to allow human suffering. For the only way to eradicate any possibility of human suffering would be to eradicate any possibility of humans committing sin (John 5:14). And the only way to eradicate any possibility of humans committing sin would be to eradicate their free will. It is better for humans to have free will and for there to be the possibility of suffering, than for humans to be robots with no free will, and for there to be no possibility of suffering. By becoming a human in Jesus Christ, and suffering and dying for human sins, God has made a way for believers to retain their free will, and yet escape suffering in hell forever for their sins (John 3:36, Revelation 14:10-11). For as the human/divine Son of God, Jesus' suffering satisfied God the Father's justice (Isaiah 53:11: KJV), which requires an infinite amount of human suffering for sin (Matthew 25:41,46).

 

Also, suffering is like gravity, in that while it can cause people problems, who would want to live without it? For example, someone could say God was cruel to create gravity because it sometimes causes old people to fall down and break their hips. But who would want to get rid of gravity and float off into space? It is the same way with suffering. Someone could say God was cruel to create the possibility of suffering. But if God made it impossible for people to suffer, what could happen to them? For example, imagine a man went on a camping trip, built a campfire, and laid down in his sleeping bag near the fire and fell asleep. While he was sleeping, he turned over at one point in such a way that his hand went into the fire. But because of his ability to suffer, he immediately woke up and pulled his hand out of the fire, keeping it from getting badly burned. But if he had had no ability to suffer, he would have stayed asleep with his hand in the fire, and woken up in the morning with no hand: It would have been burned clean off.

 

So suffering can be a good thing when it causes people to draw back from something which will harm them. God sometimes brings suffering to those he loves as a way of chastening them and getting them to repent from a sin (Revelation 3:19, Hebrews 12:5-11). For God knows how much harm their sin will cause them (Galatians 6:8, Hebrews 10:26-29), while on their own they could be completely oblivious to the danger (Proverbs 14:12).

[Bible2]

alien224 said in post 8:

 

There are different healings. There is a total and complete healing, a healing of certian things and eventually death is a healing.

 

Death in itself is an enemy (1 Corinthians 15:26).