Many people, whether they are active Christians or not, turn to God to meet the various needs in their lives. One such need is for healing. There are countless people who would never pray to God for anything, until the doctor gives them a prognosis that they have an incurable disease. That can turn anyone but the most hard-core atheist to prayer quicker than anything. Not only that; but they’ll often ask others to pray for them as well.
Yet is that appropriate? Does God heal or is that something that people merely hope for? Is there a history of God healing people that goes beyond anecdotal testimonies of people who may or may not have actually received a healing from God?
Fortunately, the Bible has quite a bit to say about healing, both in instruction and in testimony. Much of Jesus’ ministry, as recorded in the Gospels, deals with Him healing one person or another. Those instances are not all the same and it appears that there is no clear-cut methodology that He used; but the testimonies are recorded in Scripture. Those testimonies don’t stop with the crucifixion of Jesus either, as there are a number of healings that were performed by the apostles, in the book of Acts.
Where Does Sickness, Disease and Death Come From?
Before talking about healing, it will be helpful to discuss disease, gaining somewhat of an understanding of where it comes from. Disease can have both natural and spiritual roots; but it’s introduction into this world definitely has a spiritual root.
For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. – Romans 6:23
This is significant, in that mankind was created by God, without sin. While our earliest ancestors, Adam and Eve had the capability of sinning, they did not have sin within them. But in order for us to have the ability to love, we also have to have free will; therefore, we can choose to not love God and disobey Him, just as we can choose to love and obey Him.
Unfortunately, Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, prompted by the devil, who either possessed a serpent or disguised himself as one to tempt them. In their foolishness, they ate of the fruit and fell into sin; the first sin ever committed by mankind, tainting us all with what is known as “original sin.”
It is interesting to note that there was no death recorded in the Bible before Adam and Eve sinned. The first recorded death was when God killed animals to make clothing for them:
Also for Adam and his wife the Lord God made tunics of skin, and clothed them. – Genesis 3:21
God didn’t create those skins out of thin air, He got them from animals; specifically, from killing animals and tanning the hides to make clothing. Granted, He might have done it much faster than we can, but in doing it, He was also teaching Adam and Eve how to make more clothing for themselves. That was necessary, because they had never done so before and their first attempt, sewing leaves together, probably wasn’t a stunning success.
What About Disease?
This act brought death into the world. But did it bring disease as well? Most theologians say yes, although there is no specific verse in the Bible that points to this original sin causing disease.
Medical science tells us much about disease, including that not all disease comes about the same. Some disease comes from bacteria and other microorganisms invading our bodies and infecting them. When our natural immune system cannot overcome those microorganisms, they multiply, growing to the point where they cause disease. Other diseases come from organs breaking down, either due to accident, age or poor diet. Still other diseases trace their roots to not taking care of our bodies, accelerating the natural process of our bodies breaking down.
Interestingly enough, there are a number of commandments in the Old Testament Law, which deal with some of these causes of disease. For example, the people of Israel were told to establish a place outside their camp to relieve themselves and to dig a hole to do that in. This lines up directly with what we now know about the spread of disease and how to prevent it. It took medical science roughly 3,500 years to learn that what God told the nation of Israel to do was right.
Alsos you shall have a place outside the camp, where you may go out; 13 and you shall have an implement among your equipment, and when you sit down outside, you shall dig with it and cover your refuse. – Deuteronomy 23:12-13
Another such example is the food that God forbid the nation of Israel to eat; foods such as pork, insects and seafood. Many of these foods are not the healthiest foods to eat. Seafood, for example, is high in cholesterol, which can have grave consequences in hearth health.
These things may not totally answer the question of where disease comes from, as some things, like cancer, can be caused by a variety of different carcinogens. Some ministers teach that cancer is a spiritual disease, caused by Satan and his demons. We don’t know this for sure; but cancer is a corruption of the body’s normal ability to produce new cells in an orderly way. That fits in with the devil’s ways of corrupting what God has created.
There is considerable evidence that has been uncovered, showing that all or at least most disease has a spiritual root. Unfortunately, this information is not widely known. The ministry “Be in Health” is not the only ministry which has dedicated itself towards discovering the spiritual roots of disease; but they are one of the prime ones. Their research staff scours the scriptures, looking for verses which indicate that something in our spiritual life can be the cause of a specific disease. They then look for medical evidence to connect with that verse. Through this, their ministry has been very effective in helping countless thousands of people overcome serious disease in their lives.
One key verse which seems to point towards a spiritual root for sickness and disease is found in Proverbs:
A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones. – Proverbs 17:22
There are several ways we can take this verse. First, there is the specific disease of osteonecrosis, where a part of the bone does not receive blood and dies. Secondly, we can see this as one’s emotional condition having an impact on their health. Thirdly, since new white blood cells, a critical part of the immune system, are created in the bone marrow, drying of that marrow weakens the immune system, with the potential of allowing all types of sickness and disease to enter into the body.
One final point here, before we go on. The hypothalamus is directly connected to the brain and is therefore affected by our thoughts and feelings. In turn, the hypothalamus is responsible for controlling the body’s endocrine system, which is responsible for the production and release of hormones into our bodies. When the endocrine system is not in homeostasis (in balance) it has negative effects on our body’s health. In other words, it has been medically proven that our spiritual and emotional well-being has a direct impact on our ability to remain healthy.
God Established Healing From the Beginning
It is fairly common knowledge that Jesus Christ healed people as part of His ministry here on Earth. We’ll take a look at that in a moment; but before we do, I’d like to take a look at the Old Testament. Some people think that what Jesus did was only for New Testament believers; but everything He did was founded in the Old Testament Law.
And said, “If you diligently heed the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the Lord who heals you.” – Exodus 15:26
“So you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water. And I will take sickness away from the midst of you. 26 No one shall suffer miscarriage or be barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days.” – Exodus 23:25-26
And the Lord will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known, but will lay them on all those who hate you. – Deuteronomy 7:15
There are many more verses we could look at; but I’ll stop with these three. They are representative in both their content and meaning, with what can be found in other parts of the Old Testament. One thing that stands out significantly from them, is that healing is directly tied to obedience. God promises to heal those who obey Him; He doesn’t promise to heal everyone else.
This can tie directly to what I was saying in the last section, where I was talking about spiritual roots of disease. I would call sin a spiritual root, especially after seeing what God says about the connection between disease and sin in these and other verses.
But the better part of these verses is the promise which they contain. God promises that He will heal us of our disease, if we obey Him. To me, that’s reason enough to obey Him, even without all the other benefits that go along with that obedience. God truly blesses those who follow and serve Him.
Another important verse about healing in the Old Testament is something written by the prophet Isaiah. This prophet is unique amongst all the Bible’s prophets, in that he wrote more about the Messiah than any other. Some have honored this by calling the book of Isaiah, “the fifth gospel.”
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed. – Isaiah 53:5
According to this verse, healing is part and parcel of what Jesus suffered and went to the cross for. More specifically, it is the 39 lashes He received at the hand of the Roman soldiers which brought out healing, for that is where the stripes mentioned in this verse come from. Isaiah wrote this prophecy roughly 800 years before Jesus walked upon the Earth.
The Healing Ministry of Jesus
Jesus’ ministry was multifaceted, including healing, working miracles, teaching and even raising people from the dead. It all accumulated with Him offering Himself on the cross, once and for all time paying the price for our sins.
We don’t really see Jesus teaching about healing so much as we see Him performing it. Some might say that he was able to do that because He was God in the flesh; but the reality is that He came here as a man. Although He was fully God, He chose to leave behind his godhood and divinity and walk on this earth as a man, operating in the same way that we would have to. That was necessary not so much for healing, but so that He could be “tempted in all things, yet without sin,” (Hebrews 4:15) becoming the sacrifice for our sins.
Nevertheless, we see many examples of Jesus healing people in the gospels. We can learn from those examples, allowing us to also minister healing to those who need it. This is one of the gifts of the Spirit, which Paul wrote about in 1 Corinthians, chapter 12. While some believe that those gifts have passed away; there are also many believers who still practice them.
There are many lessons we can take from Jesus’ healing ministry. I’d like to take a moment to point out some important ones that are not always recognized:
1 – Healing must always be ministered under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Jesus didn’t always do things the same way. But He said, “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” – John 5:19
2 – From the same verse, we can see that it is not we who do the healing, but God the Father who does it. We are nothing more than instruments in His hands.
3 – Not all healing is instantaneous. It reads that way in the Bible, but we don’t know how much time passed. Even under the ministry of Jesus, not all healings happened instantaneously. In the verse below, the men who were healed, were healed as they were on their way to show themselves to the priests, not when Jesus prayed for them:
Then as He entered a certain village, there met Him ten men who were lepers, who stood afar off. 13 And they lifted up their voices and said, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” 14 So when He saw them, He said to them, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And so it was that as they went, they were cleansed. – Luke 17:12-14
Another time when the healing wasn’t instantaneous shows us that it might be necessary to pray for someone more than once, as Jesus did in the passage below:
Then He came to Bethsaida; and they brought a blind man to Him, and begged Him to touch him. 23 So He took the blind man by the hand and led him out of the town. And when He had spit on his eyes and put His hands on him, He asked him if he saw anything. 24 And he looked up and said, “I see men like trees, walking.” 25 Then He (Jesus) put His hands on his eyes again and made him look up. And he was restored and saw everyone clearly. – Mark 8:22-25
4 – There is no methodology for healing. There are 10 different cases of Jesus healing blind people in the scriptures, more examples than any other single disease. Yet He did not heal any two of them in the same manner. He touched their eyes (Matthew 9:27-31), spit on their eyes (mark 8:22-26), spat on the ground and made mud with His spittle (John 1:1-7) and healed by other means.
5 – Disease can be caused by evil spirits. There were cases where Jesus cast out an evil spirit in order to heal someone, such as the blind and mute man in Matthew, chapter 12:
Then one was brought to Him who was demon-possessed, blind and mute; and He healed him, so that the blind man both spoke and saw. – Matthew 12:22
Why Isn’t Everyone Healed?
The healing ministry of Jesus was so extensive, that there are eight different places in the Gospels where it says that He healed all who came to Him or He healed a multitude (Matthew 4:24; 8:16; 12:15; 15:30; 21:14; Luke 4:40; 6:17, 19; 7:21). We have no way of knowing how many there were in any of those instances; but it is significant that He healed all. Jesus doesn’t choose to heal some and not others.
This leads us to the conclusion that if someone is not healed, there must be a reason for it. We may not know what that reason is, but we can safely conclude that it isn’t because God is on vacation, asleep or just not caring. The reason must lie with us. While not a conclusive list, these are a few of the things that can get in the way of us receiving from God:
- Lack of faith – “But without faith it is impossible to please Him (God)2, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him” – Hebrews 11:6
- Not believing in healing. – There are entire denominations that teach that healing is not for today, but was something given to the early church. Yet there are still people healed in other denominations; so obviously healing is still for today. There are also people who believe in healing; but don’t believe that God would heal them, personally. This is another form of lack of faith, one in which we might believe that we aren’t “good enough” for God to heal. No, none of us are good enough; but God does it anyway. It is not based on our goodness, but on His mercy and grace.
- Making confessions contrary to our prayers – “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” – Proverbs 18:21a. If our words have power, how can we expect to receive what we pray for, if we pray one thing and say another?
- Sin in our lives – Some sickness and disease come as the result and consequence of sin. While I am sure that God could still heal us from that disease, I’m not sure that it would be in our best interest. God is more concerned with the condition of our heart, than our health or pocketbook.
- Not living rightly with our spouse – “Husbands, likewise, dwell with them (your wife)2 with understanding, giving honor to the wife, as to the weaker vessel, and as being heirs together of the grace of life, that your prayers may not be hindered.” – 1 Peter 3:7
- Lack of perseverance – Jesus told a parable in Luke, chapter 18, about a widow who repeatedly went to an unjust judge, seeking help. While the judge didn’t want to help her, he eventually did, so as to get the widow to leave him alone. This parable was told in the context of “men always ought to pray and not lose heart” – Luke 18:1 and ends with “And shall God not avenge His own elect who cry out day and night to Him, though he bears long with them?” – Luke 18:7
I am not trying to say here that if you don’t receive your healing right away that you must be in sin or in some other sort of error. What I am trying to say is that if you are not receiving your answer, then you need to ask the Holy Spirit to search your heart, showing you where you might be in error. None of us would want to be the impediment to our own healing; so if the chance exists that we are, it only makes sense to seek out how we are getting in our own way and make the necessary changes in our lives. The verses listed in this article, and others that talk about healing, can be used as “spiritual medicine” when you are sick; taking that medicine three times per day, reading those scriptures to yourself. The Bible teaches us that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” – Romans 10:17. Reading these verses won’t magically heal you; but they will help you to have the faith necessary, so that you can pray in faith for healing.