Healing in the Church

In the Great Commandment (Mat 22:36-40), Jesus said to love God and love your neighbor; this universal instruction for His church was revealed to opponents and followers alike.  The church has developed various activities in response to this instruction.  For example, we worship God to demonstrate our love for Him and we minister to our neighbors to demonstrate our love for them.  In the Great Commission (Mat 28:18-20), Jesus said to make disciples of all nations, baptize them and teach them to obey everything He commanded; this instruction was given only to the eleven but, like the Great Commandment, we view it as a universal instruction directed to each Christian and to the church as a whole.  Once again, the church has developed various activities in response to this instruction.  We evangelize the unsaved to make new disciples (e.g. community outreach, mission trips), we bring these new disciples into the church by baptism (church growth programs) and we educate them in the ways of Jesus by discipleship (e.g. Sunday School).  But what other universal instructions might be found in the New Testament?

In Luke 9:2, Jesus said: “preach the kingdom of God and heal the sick.”  This instruction was given to the twelve.  In Luke 10:9, Jesus said: “Heal the sick who are there and tell them the kingdom of God is near you.”  This instruction was given to the seventy two.  He did not even tell the seventy two to preach the kingdom of God; presumably He would do that later.  Furthermore, according to G. A. Boyd, “Every exorcism and healing – the two activities that most characterize Jesus’ ministry – marked an advance toward establishing the kingdom of God over and against the kingdom of Satan.  Consequently, in contrast with any view that would suggest that disease and demonization somehow serve a divine purpose, Jesus never treated such phenomenon as anything other than the work of the enemy.  He consistently treated diseased and demonized people as casualties of war.  Furthermore, rather than accepting their circumstances as mysteriously fitting into God’s sovereign plan, Jesus revolted against them as something that God did not will and something that ought to be vanquished by God’s power... All sickness and disease was considered a form of satanic oppression, and so in freeing people from it Jesus demonstrated the presence of the kingdom of God.”  The text in chapters 9 and 10 of Luke and the unique roll of healing in the great war between good and evil suggest that the instruction to heal the sick is just as universal, for each Christian and the church as a whole, as the Great Commandment and the Great Commission.

Furthermore, the church doesn’t need to develop a new activity in response to this instruction.  The healing activity is defined in Scripture.  Three elements of healing are mentioned in the New Testament [prayer (James 5:14; Acts 28:8), anointing with oil (James 5:14; Mark 6:13) and laying on of hands (Mark 16:18; Acts 28:8)].  The early church combined these three elements into a single activity with the objective of healing. 

For a variety of reasons, many in the church today reject the belief that healing the sick is a universal instruction directed to each Christian and to the church as a whole.   

• One popular opinion is that shortly after the death of the apostolic fathers, God stopped healing; Christians today are sent forth to preach the Gospel but not to heal the sick. 

• Another view is that God gives you sickness, injury, disability and brokenness of spirit so that you, like Jesus, will have a cross to bear. 

• A Calvinist compatible view is that God causes us to become sick, crippled and maimed to strengthen our spirit, bring us closer to Him, teach us a lesson, give us a new perspective on life and make us stronger witnesses. 

• Some conservative denominations believe the Pentecostals and Charismatics hijacked Biblical healing many decades ago and inserted elements not defined in Scripture (e.g. speaking in tongues and being Slain in the Spirit); these insertions rendered all subsequent healing activities suspect.  Not only was healing rejected by many but the work of the Holy Spirit Himself became suspect.

• Finally, Agnes Sanford and her progeny invented mystical healing elements, not found in Scripture, comprising a syncretism of psychology and occult spirituality (e.g. inner healing and healing by visualization); these elements have, in some denominations, corrupted the basic healing ministry of the Church.

But all these objections can be neutralized by simply acknowledging the timeless legitimacy of the three basic elements of healing defined in Scripture -- anointing with oil, laying on of hands and prayer – and controlling our human desires to add additional elements.

Will the paralyzed walk?  Will the blind see?  Maybe, maybe not; but something will transpire!  God always responds.  The healing activity always makes a difference.  But the difference is not always dramatic and obvious because prayer does not cancel or suspend the particular network of constraints which are bringing some outcome into being.  Prayer is the means through which the specific action of God works in and through that network, bringing some succession of events to what will always be a different outcome from what it would otherwise have been.  Healing is a universal instruction given by Jesus to each Christian individually and to the church as a whole.