Confessions of a Healing Sceptic

by Adrian Holloway

ChristChurch, London, UK

If we are honest, some of us feel uneasy about raising expectations that God will heal. Our great need is to be sure of what God has and hasn’t said about healing. I cannot deny that often my experience has been of people not being healed. If only we could start with nothing but the Scriptures in front of us! For many years, I occasionally prayed for people to be healed, but with no real expectation that anything supernatural would happen. I even felt tempted to make people’s expectations ‘more realistic’ by telling them that God seldom or very rarely heals today.

But about four years ago, I asked myself, ‘Where is this kind of thinking coming from?’ It’s certainly not coming from Scripture. No one has yet produced a convincing case from the Bible that we should not expect God to heal today.

So, when we say, ‘God seldom heals today,’ we’re making a comment based on our experience. And as soon as we start arguing from experience, rather than the Bible, we are putting our weight on a very wobbly stool.

Imagine a stool with three legs

Afirst objection or leg of the stool would be to say, ‘OK, Jesus has given his followers all authority to heal the sick. In fact he commands them to heal the sick. But the disciples saw 100% success and we don’t. So maybe, these days, God doesn’t want to heal as high a percentage of people as he did in the New Testament. And that would explain why we don’t see more healings today.’

This argument is based on a false premise, because, in fact, the disciples did not have a 100% success rate. After the twelve disciples have been given all authority (Matt. 10:1) we find that they could not heal the demonised boy who ‘has seizures and is suffering greatly’ because they had so little faith (Matt. 17:20). So it is undoubtedly possible to have all authority to heal and yet fail to see everyone healed whom you lay hands on. Faith can release the power and authority we have been given.

A second reason some of us struggle with this business of healing today is because we wrongly think that, in the New Testament, healing was automatic. We think that Jesus, Peter, Paul and the rest could automatically heal people, and we don’t see that happening today. We don’t know of anyone alive today who can just lay their hands on absolutely anyone they like and see them healed. And that again may bother us. Again we’re tempted to wonder whether God really is as keen to heal now as he was in the first century.

But if we were to read our Bibles more carefully, we’d realise that healing in the New Testament was not automatic at all. In fact, not even Jesus could heal automatically. We know that because when Jesus went back to Nazareth, ‘He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith’ (Matt. 13:58). Jesus wanted to perform more miracles at Nazareth than he actually did. Mark’s gospel tells us that Jesus ‘could not’ (Mark 6:5) perform more miracles at Nazareth because of their lack of faith. Mark tells us that Jesus was ‘amazed at their lack of faith’ (Mark 6:6).

If healing was ‘automatic’, then Jesus would have healed the Nazarenes anyway, simply because he was Jesus. But Jesus ‘did not’. In fact, Mark 6:5 tells us he ‘could not do any miracles there’.

A third leg of the stool is the objection that the quality of miracles we see today is not as impressive as those we find in the New Testament. But you’ll find evidence in this magazine of New Testament-quality miracles that do happen today, even in darkest Europe!

Degrees of gifting

But let me also say that in the New Testament there is a distinction between different degrees of healing gift. It does seem that Paul and Peter moved in a greater measure of the gift of healing than the other apostles. But did the other apostles therefore not bother with healing? No, Acts 2:43 tells us they did many wonders and miraculous signs. Nor were the twelve apostles the only people to work miracles. Stephen and Philip were not apostles, but they performed ‘signs and wonders’.

So what is the Biblical position?

lf we really want to know what God’s will is concerning physical healing we should expect to find that will revealed in the life of Jesus. And, if Jesus truly reveals the character of God to us, then we can stop debating God’s will in sickness and healing. Jesus healed people because he loved them. He had compassion for them. He wanted to solve their problems. He was on their side.

Jesus frequently healed all who were brought to him. We know of no one Jesus sent away. And notice that Jesus never sent people away saying it would be good for them to remain ill for a bit longer!

Sending out the Twelve, Jesus ‘gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick’ (Luke 9:1-2).

Therefore, it is truly amazing that we Christians are often reluctant to ‘pray for each other so that you may be healed’ (James 5:16), especially as the Bible explicitly tells us ‘you do not have, because you do not ask God’ (James 4:2).

In summary, God heals because of…

a) His eternal desire to glorify Himself and His Son
b) His deep compassion for those who are suffering
c) His constant willingness to respond to those who have faith
d) His response to His own command and promise to the church

None of these has changed since New Testament times. ‘Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Heb. 13:8). Death and disease have no part in God’s original purpose for us, and they play no part in his ultimate purpose for us in the new heaven and new earth. God is against sickness and disease. And Jesus has now inaugurated the kingdom.

Two Challenges

First, I must be much more Biblical in my thinking about the role of faith in healing. Like it or not, the fact is that faith levels do have a very important and, often, decisive role in Biblical miracles. Actually, the Bible is so clear about faith levels that we can say almost categorically that, if you and the person you’re praying for both think nothing’s going to happen, it is extremely unlikely that a healing will take place.
• Sometimes the faith of the sick person is decisive. For example, the woman who touched the hem of Jesus’ garment, thinking, ‘If I just touch his clothes, I will be healed’ (Mark 5:28).
• Sometimes the faith of the people doing the praying is decisive. For example, when Peter and John were going up to the temple, a crippled beggar asks them for money and Peter replies, I haven’t got any money, but ‘in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, walk’ (Acts 3:6).
How do I get more faith? Well, faith comes by hearing the word of God (Rom. 10:17). I have found that when I read what the Bible says about healing, faith comes!

Second, I must stop saying ‘I think God wants me to be ill.’ We have no scriptural grounds for thinking, ‘I think God wants me to go through this.’ I’m not saying this is never the case, but we are far too fatalistic about this and not Biblical enough. What’s really ironic is that most of us who say, ‘God must want me to be ill,’ then go off to the doctor, which shows us that in our heart of hearts we do think God wants us to be physically well. Otherwise we wouldn’t ever take an aspirin or go to the doctor. Whenever we seek any kind of medical help, we prove to ourselves that we genuinely think it is God’s will that we seek to be well.

There are doctors in our church who would have something to say to you if you tried to argue that they were actually opposing God’s will by helping sick Christians get better! It is true that God can bring increased sanctification to us through illness and suffering, but I suspect we have paid far too much attention to this. Actually, the emphasis of the New Testament, both in Jesus’ ministry and in the ministry of the disciples in Acts, encourages us to seek God eagerly and earnestly for healing in every case.

We have found that many people are delighted to be prayed for, and though we do not see everyone healed, more and more are. So let’s go for it!