How Does God Heal Us?

It is striking, in both the Old and New Testaments, how frequently God is described as a healer. We may be disposed to think of miraculous healing as a New Testament phenomenon, but in the Old Testament, God heals Miriam, Namaan, Hannah, Hezekiah, and the widow’s son. God often describes Himself in this way, saying in Exodus 15:26, “I am the Lord, your healer”. In fact, when God establishes the Jewish nation, one of the blessings he promises them in the new land is freedom from sickness— but only insomuch as the people are devoted to God’s Law. In Deuteronomy 7:14-15, Moses tells the people,

“You shall be blessed above all peoples. There shall not be male or female barren among you or among your livestock. And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which you knew, will he inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you.”

In this way, Israel is serving a purpose in showing God’s glory to the nations. They are to show good life can be when lived according to God’s law, and they demonstrate how God blesses those who faithfully serve him. Physical healing was simply one aspect of how that was demonstrated.

Of course, God created the earth in perfection: and so it follows that He can heal anything in it. Ever since the fall, mankind has been subject to illness and suffering, old age and death—but God, if He chooses to, can reverse that. We look forward to the day when God will reverse all of the brokenness in the world—and so there’s a reason that God heals in little bits and pieces in the present. It’s like a down payment. If we can see that God has the power to heal us now, we can be assured that he will heal the entire world in the future.

Romans 8:19-24 says it in this way:

“For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies. For in this hope we were saved.”

When God heals in the present, He is showing us that He is able to heal everything completely in the future. In the same way we can have confidence in seeing the historical resurrection of Jesus Christ, knowing that if God could raise Jesus from the dead, He can do the same for us also. Romans 8:11 testifies,

“If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you.”

So healing can be a testimony to the power of God to save us in general. But perhaps that’s a two way street. If we have faith that God can resurrect us, doesn’t it also follow that we should have faith that God can heal us of our sickness now, if He wants to? I don’t see that God gifts us healing through the laying on of hands as He did in the first century. But we still pray directly to Him for our healing, don’t we? If God identifies Himself to us as a healer, we should take that seriously. God can and does heal people, because that is who He is. If we truly claim to be people who believe in Christ and in the resurrection, than surely we should be people of faith who come to God with our troubles, trusting that He has compassion on us and can truly heal us.

JESUS AND HEALING

So God identified Himself as a healer even in the Old Testament. If the Father was a healer, then what would people be looking for in the expected Messiah? Surely, God’s Messiah would be a healer as well. And so indeed, the Old Testament looks forward to a Messiah who would heal.

The book of Isaiah makes this expectation clear. In Isaiah 35:5-6, the prophet looks forward to an ideal day and says, “Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then the lame shall leap like a deer.”

Later on, in Matthew 11, John the Baptist has a crisis of faith as he waits in prison for his death. Though he knows Jesus, John sends his disciples to him to ask, if indeed Jesus really is the promised Messiah. With Isaiah in view, Jesus responds in this way: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them.”

In Luke 4:18, Jesus again quotes Isaiah to identify Himself as the Messiah, this time from 61:1, saying, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed, [and] to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

Just like an emissary to a foreign land, Jesus isn’t coming with empty hands, asking people to believe in His divine power without evidence of His goodwill. The Jews know that God is a healer; Jesus is showing that He is a healer. The things that He does, nobody except God can do.

And whatever Jesus’ ultimate mission was: to die for sins, to reconcile people to God: His ministry of healing served a vital purpose. He needed the people to know that He truly cared for them just as God cared for them. If Jesus had come and just preached about sin and reconciliation, how many people would have listened? The fact is, that when someone is truly hurting, they need to be helped first where they are. For many people in Jesus’ time, they needed to be helped with their physical problems. And Jesus was well pleased to do that. And even if healing served no purpose for His ministry, I think that Jesus would have healed anyways. Because He genuinely loved people and wanted to help them in any way that He could.

So in His ministry, we do see the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear. We even see the dead lifted up! By this we know that Jesus is God.

THE DISCIPLES AND HEALING

If God is a healer, and God’s son is a healer, then what of God’s people? Surely, God’s chosen people must become healers as well. And so it is. When Jesus first sends his twelve disciples out to spread his message, he appoints them with a particular authority. Matthew 10:1 says,

“[Jesus] called to him his twelve disciples and gave them authority over unclean spirits, to cast them out, and to heal every disease and every affliction.”

Just as Jesus healed to show the world who He was, His disciples also heal to show the world who Jesus us. The miraculous gifts given then served a purpose in jump-starting the church and evidencing it’s legitimacy. But today, if we are doing our job, we are still carrying out Jesus’ ministry as a healer. We do that by praying for each other to the only One who can truly heal, and by serving those in our community who are ill. One of the most important things we can do as a church is to comfort, provide for, and assist those who are sick. That was an integral part of the ministry of Jesus, and it should be an integral part of our ministry today.

US HEALING TODAY

But, there’s something more complicated to the story, isn’t there? Today, we still pray for healing, and often, God does heal. But sometimes, we know, God doesn’t heal. Sometimes, we still suffer debilitating illness. And regardless of what health we experience, all of us die someday. And no matter what you think about miraculous healing today—whether you’re cessationist, or charismatic, or anything else--- how do you reconcile your understanding that God is a healer, and yet he still leaves all of us at one time or another to suffer with illness and death? Why doesn’t he remake the world now and bestow upon us immediate immortality? We know that He can do it; so why does he put us through pain and suffering and promise us new and perfect bodies only in the distant future?

There’s another angle here and it’s directly connected. Because God heals in more ways than just physical. Even amidst the Old Testament promises for freedom from disease, the promises are inextricably linked to moral health.

In 2 Chronicles chapter 30, Hezekiah institutes reforms throughout the land of Israel. For many generations the land has been unfaithful to God’s law. And one of the things that Hezekiah does is renew the celebration of Passover. Passover has not been observed for decades; but Hezekiah sends out messengers to all the people, bidding them to obey the Lord and come to Jerusalem for this feast appointed in the Mosaic law. In 2 Chronicles 30:17-20 we read something very interesting.

“There were many in the assembly who had not consecrated themselves. Therefore the Levites had to slaughter the Passover lamb for everyone who was not clean, to consecrate it to the Lord. For a majority of the people, many of them from Ephraim, Manasseh, Issachar, and Zebulun, had not cleansed themselves, yet they ate the Passover otherwise than as prescribed. For Hezekiah had prayed for them, saying, ‘May the good Lord pardon everyone who sets his heart to seek God, the Lord, the God of his fathers, even though not according to the sanctuary's rules of cleanness.’ And the Lord heard Hezekiah and healed the people.”

What did God heal they people of? They weren’t sick. They were here for a celebration, and they had traveled far in good health to be there. But they were sick in heart. They didn’t know God’s law, and they were careless to do all that God commanded them. That is what they needed to be healed of. And yet, these were people who had made at least a start to obey God. Verse 19 says that these people had set their hearts to seek God. Accordingly, Hezekiah prays for them, and God is faithful to heal them of their sin.

In we are to speak of God healing, I think that we more often need to speak of it in this way.

1 Peter 2:24 says, “[Jesus] himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.” Healed from what? There’s no mention of physical illness here. Jesus died on the tree to heal us from sin! And that was His real objective the entire time. Jesus could have stayed on the earth forever if He wanted to, healing everyone in the world from sickness, lameness, blindness, and death. But He didn’t do that. Because to heal us from sin—to heal us spiritually—was better!

You could respond to me, saying, “Well, can’t He do both? Can’t God heal us spiritually, and heal us from all physical ailments as well?” Well, God hasn’t done that. So maybe, sometimes, the answer is actually no.

The Old Testament is clear that when the people were rebellious, and God allowed disease and trouble to reenter their land, that it wasn’t vindictive punishment. God allowed these things to happen so that the people could see their need for God—so that the people could see that they needed moral healing as well.

The problem is that we are so focused on the fleshly aspects of our lives. If we have health and wealth, it is all to easy for us to think that we have no needs, and we completely forget that, above all else, it is our heart that is desperately ill. But when our flesh is sick, when we are poor or downtrodden or weak, we remember that we need help from God. And it is in that state of mind that God can heal not only our flesh, but also our hearts.

Do you remember what happens when Jesus returns to His hometown of Nazareth? Matthew 13:58 says, “He did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” In other words, if people have no desire to fix their hearts, God has no reason to fix their flesh either. If we are suffering, we need to ask ourselves the same question. Do we really have faith? Are we asking God to heal our bodies, when we have no intention of becoming better people? Is our suffering an invitation from God to do some sort of soul searching?

There can be a misled tendency for us to interpret our suffering as punishment from God. Jesus addresses this in Luke 13:1-5 which, records, “There were some present at that very time who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. And he answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish. Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Illness isn’t a punishment from God. But it does serve a function. It’s like the disaster at the tower of Siloam, which Jesus tells the disciples was not a punishment, but an invitation from God to see what’s really important in life. Regardless of what happens to us in life, if we do not repent and make our hearts right before God, we will all perish in the same way. If you’re sick, God may have intention to heal you, or he may have it appointed to you to be ill for the rest of this temporary life. But either way, I can say for certain that God is using your illness as an invitation for you to draw closer to Him.

And sickness and all forms of suffering does change people. When you suffer, you have a choice. Being reminded that your time on this earth is short; ask yourself, what have you been neglecting in life? Are there relationships that you’ve been neglecting? Pet sins that you’ve been harboring? Have you been deprioritizing your spiritual life? Don’t waste your change in perspective. Don’t put off until tomorrow what needs to change today. Life is too short for that.

For even the healthiest of us, our body is temporary. But our spirit is eternal. And so it is primarily our spirit which God is concerned with healing. That should be our focus as well. We will continue asking for and having faith in God’s power to physically heal; because it’s still an important part of our lives and an important part of exercising our faith. But if we ask for physical wellness and ignore the heart, we’ve entirely missed the point of God’s healing power. Our sufferings and healings alike only have purpose in teaching us to be better people in heart and spirit in preparation for eternity.