Faith and Healing
In the first 1900 years of church history, healing for the sick was
not really emphasized. In 1901, there was one person who sparked
the charismatic movement. In 1905, there were 5 people. Now we have
more than 200 million people. They believe that we are living in
the era of the Holy Spirit where there Church is returning to the
faith of the Apostles.
Apostolic faith according to their understanding consists in the
following phenomena: healing, exorcism, tongues and miracles. In
the 20th century numbers of charismatic believers grew a lot and
people took it as the sign on the power of the Holy Spirit. Is it
true? Now, in the 21st century, we can review on the 20th century
with a cool mind.
Acts 2 said that the early church followed the apostolic teaching.
So the apostolic teaching is the standard. This is an important
principle. The New Testament always mentioned the Apostles and the
Prophets, not the other way round (Eph.2:20, Eph.4:11-12). Why is
the apostles always mentioned first? It is because only through the
New Testament we understand the Old Testament. The New Testament is
hidden in the Old Testament and the Old Testament is perfected by
the New Testament.
Phillip met an Ethiopian eunuch who was reading the book Isaiah
(Isa. 53) but could not understand whom the book was referring to.
Phillip explained that prophet Isaiah was talking about Jesus
Christ. So prophets could see ahead, they saw the Christ to come
but did not live to see Him, except John the Baptist. John the
Baptist declared Jesus and saw Jesus personally. He was the only
prophet that saw Jesus Christ. The rest of the prophets only saw
Him in faith. And John the Baptist was also the last prophet. Jesus
Himself said, The all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until
John. (Matthew 11:13) which means that the office of the prophet
has ceased!
As the office of the prophet ceased, the office of the apostles
began. And the faith of the apostles was the mark of the true
Church. But had the apostolic teaching been missing from the first
to the 19th century? What is the work of the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit's works consist in the following. He inspired the
Scriptures, the written Word of God. And through the Scriptures, He
led us to the Jesus Christ, the Incarnate Word of God. Through
this, He regenerates people to become part of the Church.
People who preach the most about the Holy Spirit are frequently
those who do not understand. They say we are limiting the Holy
Spirit if we only confine Him to work through the Scriptures.
However, God is a self-limiting God. God the Father uses His
absolute willingness to exercise His absolute freedom within the
constraint of His attributes. God the Son constrained Himself when
He came as God in the flesh. The Infinite God limited Himself to
the finite, from eternal realm into history, became a human being
that was constrained by space and time and could be killed. This is
His own will. In 1 John 4:2-3, the apostle John asserted that we
need to believe in this self-limiting God (Christ came in the
flesh) to have orthodox faith. God the Holy Spirit is self-limiting
too. He reveals to us all things within the constraint of the Holy
Scriptures. The Truth is infinite, but He has inspired it in the
constraint of words in the Scriptures. He is the Spirit of Truth
that constrains the revealed Truth in the revealed Word. It is in
all these constraints that we have our orthodox faith.
Is it true that if we pray in faith, all sicknesses will be healed?
If so, then we cannot die of sickness and probably can only die by
accident. If so, then God would be under our command. Then, is
sickness always because of sin? It can be related to sin but it is
not always so in every case. There are those who suffer illness not
because of sin, like Job. It is not so simplistic.
This passage (James 5:15-16) seems to say that if we pray in faith,
we will be healed for sure. But we need to observe that it gives
the context of sin here. It tells of the relationship between sin
and sickness. Not all sicknesses come because of sin. But
sicknesses that come because of sin can be healed if we pray by
faith and confess our sin. Therefore we cannot say that if we are
not healed it means we have no faith. And we cannot also say that
it is because of sin that our prayer of faith is not heard. There
are sicknesses that might come for trying the saints of God, not
because of sin.
The next question is, if we pray in faith, would God definitely
hear us?
There are 3 examples of the prayers of people of faith that God
denied.
Elijah asked for death and God rejected his prayer. He assumed that
death was better than life because I am just like my ancestors.
In the first place, he subconsciously had a wrong concept, thinking
that life would be meaningful only if he could surpass the rest.
Not only God did not answer his prayer, God gave him food and rest
so that he would be stronger to continue fighting the life of
faith. But is it wrong to desire to be better? God would not
obstruct our great ambitions. Jesus said, If you want to be great,
you have to be a servant of all. So you can desire to be great.
But good motivations have to be combined with right
methodology.
Jesus prayed 3 times for the cup to pass from Him and God was
completely silent. It was the loneliest time of His life. He had
lived only to please God perfectly but that night He pleaded and
what He experienced was a vacuum of love.
What is this cup? Is it the death on the cross? It cannot be
because He clearly came in the flesh in order to die, so why escape
at the last moment now? He also said, Not My will but Yours be
done. Why are there two wills? This does not mean that the Father
and the Sons wills are different, but it shows that Father and Son
are two distinct Persons of God. When Jesus said, Not My will, He
is a representative of humanity, giving us a perfect example of how
human should submit his will to God. The cup is the wrath of God.
It is the separation of the Father and the Son. Both the Father and
the Sons will is the same. The Father is not willing to part with
the Son and the Son is not willing to part with the Father. But it
is a paradoxical moment. There is no unity without separation. The
separation is an absolute necessity which only happened once in all
history, where salvation is accomplished.
My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me? is the cry of that
cup He drank.
So, if God once did not even listen to
the prayer of His Son, why should He listen and submit to your
prayers? We need to correct our theology of prayer.
Next, Paul prayed 3 times for the thorn in his flesh to be removed,
but God rejected him. In response, God said, My grace is
sufficient for you for My strength is made perfect in weaknesses.
God often puts difficulties in His especially beloved saints. On
one hand He blesses them with great grace, on the other hand He
gives them trials and difficulties to keep them humble and reliant
on Him. This is Gods love which is hard to understand. What is
this thorn? It is not specified by Paul. There was a document in
first century about Paul seeing a doctor because of his eye
problem. If the document was true, then the thorn could be
illness.
So we cannot force God to heal our illnesses. We summarize a few
points below.
When we pray in faith for healing, is this faith the faith that
comes from hearing the Word of God, or is it self-confidence? We
cannot approach God with human-centered faith after the Fall. This
is faith in faith.
The passage says clearly that if we sin, we will be forgiven. When
Jesus healed, He often said, Your sins are forgiven. This shows
that sometimes sicknesses are the result of sin. The Apostle Paul
also mentioned this once when he expounded regarding the Holy
Communion in 1 Corinthians.
The faith of the Bible is centered on Jesus Christ and His
sovereign will is above our will. It is the faith which is based on
His revealed Word. And the faith consists of obedience within the
promises of God.
After we understand all these things, we can pray for healing
properly.