Does God Still Heal?
Larry and Alice Parker
desired God’s best for their family of six. Wesley, their oldest son, suffered
from diabetes and regularly received insulin injections.
When a faith healer held special
services in their
The preacher pronounced Wesley
healed. Larry joyfully entered, “Praise
God! Our son is healed,” into Wesley’s
insulin log. But Wesley’s ensuing insulin test indicated something
different. By faith, the Parkers claimed
the healing and blamed the unexpected insulin results on Satan.
Shortly afterward, Wesley began to
suffer the nausea and severe stomach cramps that are predictable indicators of
low insulin. They decided to postpone medical attention in favor of seeking God’s
continued healing power through prayer.
Wesley fell into a coma and died three days later.
This tragic story illustrates the
church’s state of confusion over divine healing. Situations like these perplex
many. Does healing really occur? If not, how can we explain some apparent
healing? If it works, why should we ignore or deny a good thing? Why are people
sick anyway? No doubt many similar inquiries agonized
the hearts of the Parkers. Even though they had placed their
full faith in God. Wesley died.
Is it God’s will to always heal? Philip Yancey’s
best-seller, Where Is God When It Hurts?
narrates the dilemma of John and Claudia Claxton.
Claudia contracted Hodgkin’s disease soon after her marriage and had been given
only a 50 percent chance to live. Many of Claudia’s friends stopped by the
hospital to encourage her. Here is an account of one such visit: “Another lady had dropped by who... told
Claudia that healing was the only escape. “Sickness is never God’s will,” she
insisted. “The Bible says as much. The
Devil is at work, and God will wait until you can muster up enough faith to
believe that you’ll be healed. Remember, Claudia, faith can move mountains, and
that includes Hodgkin’s disease. Truly believe that you’ll be healed and God
will answer your prayers.”
Yancey
records that Claudia tried to build her courage and muster up her faith. but she grew weary in the process and concluded that she
could never have enough faith. Claudia struggled with the question, Does God still heal today?
Is there anything that God cannot
do? Jeremiah asserts of God, “There is nothing too hard for Thee” (Jer. 32:17). If the answer is no, how
do we answer the following verses? Titus 1:2: “God, that cannot lie,” or 2
Timothy 2:13: “He (God) cannot deny
Himself.” What about Genesis 9:11? God cannot flood the earth again. And James
1:13: “God cannot be tempted.” How can those apparent contradictions be
resolved? The issue actually involves God’s nature and will, not His infinite
power. God cannot lie or be tempted because such would contradict His
character. Likewise, He cannot deny Himself or flood the world because that
would contradict His revealed Word. God cannot and will not act contrarily to His
divine nature or revealed will. In those areas He is self-limited.
Can God heal? Can God heal
miraculously? Can God heal miraculously through men? The answer to all three
questions is overwhelmingly yes, as easily seen in a survey of the Scriptures.
Will God heal? Will God heal miraculously? Will God heal miraculously through
men? These questions are not so easily answered because they do not involve God’s
potential but rather His revealed practice. Our answers will not be found in
God’s unlimited capacity to work but in His conformity to His own will. When we
see God’s view of the physical, the moral, and the earthly, we will begin to
understand why God has acted the way He has in history.
First note the supernatural
dimension of God’s sovereign involvement in our physical being. “And the Lord
said unto him, who has made man’s mouth? Or who makes the dumb, or deaf, or the
seeing, or the blind? Have not I the Lord?”
(Ex. 4:11). “See now that I, even I,
am He, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I
heal; neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand (Deut. 32:39). These Scriptures teach that God ultimately controls
life, death, sickness, and health.
In difficult medical cases doctors
frequently say, “I have done my best; now
it is in God’s hands.” In the moral dimension, sin resulted from the Fall
of Adam and Eve (Gen. 3:1-19). It
will continue until the curse is removed (Rev.
22:3). “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and
death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” (Rom.
After the Fall,
God expressed His love toward believers in Christ. By God’s mercy we sinners
did not receive the death we deserve. To satisfy God’s justice, Christ took
upon Himself the penalty for the world’s sins. Through God’s grace we received
what we do not deserve – eternal life in Jesus Christ.
In the earthly dimension we see
maladies common to both believers and unbelievers - baldness, dandruff,
nearsightedness, sagging muscles, wrinkles, false teeth, fatigue, gray hair,
accidents, colds, and genetic defects. These are all evidence that sin has
affected everyone. It is simply not true that God’s will is for every Christian
to be perfectly healthy. Many saints in the Scriptures have been ill - Isaac (Gen. 27:1), Jacob (Gen. 32:25), Elisha (2 Kings
Unless we see God as sovereign and
sin as the cause of sickness, we will not fully understand the decaying world
around us. When God does heal, it is because of His grace, not because of our goodness. That is the true
perspective on healing.
God promises in James
There is no biblical basis for a
ministry of miraculous healing directly through a human healer today. That
ceased with the apostolic age. Alleged contemporary faith-healing ministries
fall embarrassingly short of the biblical pattern in time, scope, and
intensity. Acts 2:22, 2 Cor. 12:12
and Heb. 2:1-4 all teach that signs,
wonders, and miracles were used by God to authenticate the message of Christ
and the apostles. Since their message has been given in Scripture, there is no
longer a need in God’s economy to do miracles through men. They have ceased by
God’s design.
On the other hand, God does at times
act in such a way that only His direct intervention is an adequate explanation
for physical healing. Healing by God’s direct intervention is not always
instantaneous or always complete. Our Lord’s unmistakable touch is not brought
about by any demand, gimmick, method, or plea from a would-be healer. It is God’s
response to the earnest prayer of the believer.
Did God allow Claudia Claxton to die
in the midst of her misery? He could have; but He did not. Instead, He chose to
make her the object of divine healing. After receiving a series of cobalt
treatments, her cancer was in remission. God healed providentially through
medical technology, and in that He was glorified.
Larry Parker learned from his
experience and shared this testimony after Wesley’s death. “The
trouble lies with the fact that we tie healing to some ability on our part to
believe enough, i.e., to have enough faith. To withhold medicine, especially
life-giving medicine, is a very presumptuous act on our part that actually
hinders the Spirit of God from His work. My prayer is that you will consider
these thoughts at length, for they have come at an incomprehensible price that
no one except Christ would voluntarily pay.”
The issue is real. The lives of
loved ones are involved. God can, has, and does heal; but always for His own
purposes, in His own way, and at His appointed time.
The next time you pray for yourself
or a loved one, pray as did Norwegian theologian Ole Hallesby. “Lord,
if it will be Your glory, heal suddenly. If it will
glorify You more, heal gradually; if it will glorify
You even more, may Your servant remain sick awhile; and if it will glorify your
name still more, take him to Yourself in heaven.”
If you have ever been sick and recovered,
in a very real sense you have been divinely healed. Do not let anyone rob you
of your joy of knowing that God was involved in your physical being.