Oct. 22, 2023

Healing through the Ages (22 October 2023)

Introduction - One common question we often ask when we read through sections of the Bible concerning signs and wonders, especially concerning healing, is “why aren’t there more miraculous healings today?” There are many complex answers.  The modern church has probably offered most of them, our church being no exception. This lesson attempts to look into two subjects we could understand better: 1) How the Gifts of Healings are distributed, and 2) what did James mean by “anointing with oil?” First, let’s take a brief look at God’s administration of the human need for healing as it occurred throughout Bible history:

In the beginning, before sin, there was no need for healing.  Sin, and all of its bad results, was not a problem.  After Adam’s fall, however, death and many forms of sickness and infirmity leading up to it, along with difficulty in childbirth, and strenuous work became man’s lot in life.  In the early chapters of man’s history, after the fall, there was a lack of the knowledge of God and how he dealt with us.  People lived a long time, many hundreds of years at first. This was probably due to the earth’s enveloping water canopy, which protected man from harmful radiation from the sun and space.  Still, every person eventually died because of man’s original sin.  As man continued to sin, God eventually got angry and brought about the world-wide flood of Noah’s time, which ended all human and animal life except for sea creatures, a representative sampling of birds and animals, and eight humans, Noah and his family.  Up to the time of Abraham, there is no mention of a healing program in the Scriptures.  Healing was FAR away from mankind.

Abraham, seen often as the “father of the faith,” of whom we are all children, was the first individual to be used to heal someone when he prayed for King Abimelech’s wife and slave girls so they could have children.  Throughout the entire Old Testament, only 12 examples of individual healings are recorded, including the one just mentioned.  Most of the time, healing was connected with worshipping God and avoiding sin, although not all sickness is the direct result of a person’s sin;

Exodus 15:26 He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the LORD who heals you.” NLT

From Abraham onward, healing was a result of God’s presence upon one person such as Abraham, or upon a prophet such as Elijah or Elisha.  There were a 3 isolated examples corporate healings of groups of people: 

1. Numbers 16:46-50
Aaron stopped the plague which had killed 14, 700 people by offering incense and making atonement for the people.

2. Numbers 21:4-9
The Lord sent venomous snakes among rebellious Israel. Moses prayed for them, made a bronze snake and anyone who looked at it lived.

3. 2 Samuel 24:10-25
David sinned by counting his troops and the Lord sent a plague upon Israel which took 70,000 lives. David built an altar, sacrificed burnt and fellowship offerings and prayed to the Lord. He answered and stopped the plague.

Outside of these examples, healing was almost unknown and rare.  We could say that man’s healing situation improved a little, but healings were yet literally hundreds or thousands of miles away from mankind.  Naaman, a Syrian military man, travelled to Elisha (about 50 miles) and was healed after obeying the prophet’s methodology:

2 Kings 5:14 So Naaman went down to the Jordan River and dipped himself seven times, as the man of God had instructed him. And his skin became as healthy as the skin of a young child, and he was healed! 

Another step forward was the administration of priests during the time of Moses.  The Israelites now had agents among them who were appointed by God to accept and present offerings to God to make peace with Him.  A priest could also verify that you had recovered from leprosy or tell you how to cleanse your house if an infected person had been there.  Healing still depended a lot on human agency and the mercy of God.  We could say that healing was now as close as a half-mile from mankind, but if you were a Jew, you were still dependent on a human priest to offer a sacrifice. No healing provision existed for Gentiles.   

The biggest leap forward in the administration of healing happened when Jesus completed His awesome work on the cross, dying for our sin.  Healing was no longer dependent on our behavior, or upon a merciful chance encounter with a prophet, or the work of a priest, but it had been purchased as a gift through an amazing act: Jesus’ willingness to undergo torture for us so that a price, recognized by God, was paid for the solution to sickness.  It is a benefit already purchased for us out of love, not because we earned it. Jesus purchased the service so that even God Himself could not say that we should not have it.  A supreme price was paid for it.

1 Peter 2:24 He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed.  NLT

This next phase of healing involved another major step:  God set an administrator in place to make it work - The Holy Spirit. Let’s take some time to examine how he oversees this gift:  

1 Cor 12:4-11 And there are diversities of gifts, and the same Spirit 5 and there are diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord; 6 and there are diversities of workings, and it is the same God—who is working the all in all. 7 And to each hath been given the manifestation of the Spirit for profit; 8 for to one through the Spirit hath been given a word of wisdom, and to another a word of knowledge, according to the same Spirit; 9 and to another faith in the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healings in the same Spirit; 10 and to another in-workings of mighty deeds; and to another prophecy; and to another discernings of spirits; and to another diverse kinds of tongues; and to another interpretation of tongues:11 and all these doth work the one and the same Spirit, dividing to each severally as he intendeth. YLT

Notice that all the gifts are distributed to each person as the Holy Spirit intends.  We have a great tendency to oversimplify his complex workings into a system which makes sense to us.  So, we quietly set up a kind of quota for each gift, feeling that there must be only one person possessing any of the gifts (in the most restrictive case) or no more than a couple people for each of the nine gifts listed here.  In addition, there are gift lists mentioned in Romans 12 (leadership, giving, etc.) and Ephesians 4 (apostle, prophet, etc.).  This may be true for most of the gifts, but probably not for healing or prophecy.  For example, we are all taught to seek prophecy because of its power to edify.  If it were not possible for all of us to have the gift of prophecy, why would we be told to seek it?  

Regarding the distribution of healing, Jesus said this:

Mark 16:17-18 These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.” NLT

This blanket statement contains no provisos or exceptions.  It is pretty plain that every Christian has the ability to heal people.  We are not told anything here about special concentrations of the gift of healing, as we quickly assume from our church culture experience. As a result, we have ended up with popular healers who have attracted great attention and have healed many people wonderfully.  Sick people have historically travelled thousands of miles to be prayed for by these luminaries of healing. I’m certainly not discrediting them in this teaching, but  all that star power has barely made a dent in the need for healing in the world.  Some of the famous healers are now dead.  With so many sick people still left on earth,  how will this gift be brought to all the sick of the world? It is a situation very similar to the man Jesus encountered at the pool of Bethesda.  

John 5:2-9 Now there is in Jerusalem by the sheep gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew Bethesda, having five porticoes. 3 In these lay a multitude of those who were sick, blind, lame, and withered, [waiting for the moving of the waters; 4 for an angel of the Lord went down at certain seasons into the pool and stirred up the water; whoever then first, after the stirring up of the water, stepped in was made well from whatever * disease with which he was afflicted.]  5 A man was there who had been ill for thirty-eight * years. 6 When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he had already been a long time in that condition, He said to him, "Do you wish to get well?” 7 The sick man answered Him, "Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while * I am coming, another steps down before me.” 8 Jesus said to him, "Get up, pick up your pallet and walk.” 9 Immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk. Now it was the Sabbath on that day. NLT

 This story teaches us that the right agent (here an angel) came, obviously administering some healing power from God.  There weren’t enough agents to go around for all the need at that pool.  Then Jesus came.  He demonstrated that God’s principle is that the right agent with the right gift is necessary for healing to occur. No agent with no gift means no healing.  Another lesson is that if Jesus had meant for the church have “omni-healers” (people who can heal anything, anywhere, anytime, He would have healed all the sick at the pool.  We learn from this that a singular healing gift carried by a singular healer, administered by the laying on of hands is how most healing will occur.  

Our problem is that we don’t understanding that, like prophecy, the Gift of Healing (literally translated as Gifts of Healings, plural) is available for every person to have.  God isn’t appointing any “omni healers” or we would be little Christs.  It is obvious that hospitals aren’t hiring the services of healers in the church to empty floors of hospitals.  Concerning the gifts of the Spirit in general Paul summarized the Spirit’s distribution of Gifts like this:

1 Cor 12:29-31 Are we all apostles? Are we all prophets? Are we all teachers? Do we all have the power to do miracles? 30 Do we all have the gift of healing? Do we all have the ability to speak in unknown languages? Do we all have the ability to interpret unknown languages? Of course not! 31 So you should earnestly desire the most helpful gifts. But now let me show you a way of life that is best of all.  

This list of rhetorical questions are all answered with “no.”  Concerning healing, the “no” answer means that there are no “omni healers” in God’s master plan. On one hand, everybody can heal: on the other hand,  nobody will have all the healing gifts.  In between is a marriage of the two, where the unique ability to heal a specific disease is given to an individual.  Notably, even the apostles are referred to as a group, not individuals, where there is a reference to “all the sick” being healed:.  Only Paul, over a winter on Malta, healed all the sick who were there.

Acts 5:12,16 The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade…16 Crowds came from the villages around Jerusalem, bringing their sick and those possessed by evil spirits, and they were all healed. NLT

We don’t know who gets what ability.  We all have healing abilities, they are just spread out as the Holy Spirit intends, everybody having some, nobody having them all.  Sometimes the ability is based on the need at hand, like one of our children being sick.  Generally, it’s easy to see that God is drawing us together, making us dependent on each other and Him.  This means that healing is now just inches away from each of us!  We each have an opportunity to obey, as Naaman did, by laying hands on every sick person who wants healing.  We may lay hands on a number of people with no immediate result.  This is humbling, but it expresses love for the sick person.  It develops trust and faithfulness in us in the meantime, because God DOES answer this action.  In our church we have experienced dramatic answers when the gift meets the sickness.  I want to invite you  to lay hands on every sick person in our church who wants prayer at least once. It need not be a tedious, repetitive task, although there is no harm in praying for someone repeatedly.   We must get together in each other’s presence if possible; we must lay hands on the sick. We must obey. 

One last teaching on healing, specifically “anointing with oil:”  

James 5:13-15 Are any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You should sing praises. 14 Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord.15 Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. NLT

The Greek words for “sing praises” mean literally “to rub or touch the surface.”  The word for anointing means “to oil.” Well intentioned translators thought that this meant that a person who is well should be stroking an instrument, and by extension, singing.  The picture is probably simpler than that - we are to rub a sick person with oil, with respect for their privacy, much as humans have done since the dawn of time.  Anointing with a dab on the forehead is not the idea presented here.