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HEALING: A BIBLICAL PERSPECTIVE
NOTES FROM BD-28, SIDE #1
1) Temporary gift of healing is a type of miracle gift
2) Jesus Christ Himself healed COMPARATIVELY few people with respect to the total population around where He resided. His ministry was not to relieve the sufferings of humanity but to provide a solution for the old sin nature which causes the suffering in the first place.
The healings that Christ performed were simply to authenticate Himself as the Messiah and His message. Christ's miracles were incidental to His proving Who He was and what He came to do.
3) The source of all physical suffering is sin (Ro 5:12)
4) 1 Cor 12:9
5) As with all spiritual gifts the person with the gift of healing is able to exercise his gift anytime under the condition of being filled with the Spirit (i.e. having confessed all known sins)....anytime, with anybody, anywhere with 100% success.
6) The gift of healing is not dependent on the faith of the patient (Acts 3:1-8)
7) Paul had the gift of healing (Acts 19:11-12).
8) Paul was able to use the gift at will....until he lost it:
At the end of Paul's ministry Apaphroditis became sick near unto death and Paul did not heal him. All Paul could do was pray just as you and I can only do (Phil 2:27).
Paul left Trophimus at the city of Miletus because Trophimus was sick rather than heal him ..unless Paul did not have the gift of healing anymore. (2Tim 4:20).
9) The gift of healing is a miracle gift.
Miracle gifts ALWAYS have phased in and phased out in human history. Miracle gifts have never consistently persisted year after year.
10) God, when He works supernaturally through miracles, has a purpose of authenticating the miracle worker for a specific purpose & when He does that then the miracles historically have ceased.
IS THERE PHYSICAL HEALING AVAILABLE AS A RESULT OF THE ATONEMENT?
11) Isa 53:5
"But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities,
the chatisement for our peace was upon Him,
and by His wounds we are healed."
The words "we are healed" do not mean physical healing. The context which is established in verses 4 & 5 is NOT physical healing but spiritual healing from our sin. Christ, by His work on the cross, healed us from our spiritual illness brought upon us by the old sin nature which we possess:
"Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God and afflicted,
But He was pierced for our transgressions [our SIN],
He was crushed for our iniquities [our SIN]."
It is sin which is the issue in this context.
It is sin from which we are healed.
The word "healed" applies not only to physical healing depending upon context but it applies also to -Giving comfort to a broken heart (Lk 4:18)
Correcting our conduct (Heb 4:13)
Being brought to salvation (Mt 13:15)
12) Many claim that Mt 8:17 proves that physical healing is in the Atonement. (Mt 8:17 quotes Isa 53:4)
"That it might be fulfilled what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:
'He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases'"
The context of this verse as quoted in Mt 8:16 describes how Jesus healed people possesssed of demons, cast the spirits out, healed all those who were sick, which then leads to verse 17 which describes how Jesus took up our infirmities and bore our sicknesses. Jesus bore the physical illnesses
BEFORE THE ATONEMENT!!!
All the time that Jesus healed people was before the cross. Before there ever was any Atonement, before there was any provision for salvation. That's when verse 53:4a in Isaiah was fulfilled. So physical healing cannot be a result of the Atonement.
When you get to Isa 53:5 it is speaking of our transgressions, our iniquities, our sins which are borne by Christ on the cross.
Christ's Atonement is the basis for our spiritual healing from sin and which is ultimately the basis for all believers' perfect resurrection bodies which will have no infirmities or diseases because the cause - sin - has been removed!
13) If physical healing is in the Atonement then:
A believer would not die physically because his physical healing would be eternal just like his spiritual healing.
BUT BELIEVERS DO DIE!!!
14) If healing is in the Atonement then one must conclude that it is not the will of God that Christians be sick. Scripture indicates that it IS God's will that some Christians should not be healed.
Consider when Paul prayed three times to be healed of his infirmity and God said no.
God uses illness to teach, as He did to Paul, to depend upon Him.
There is no Scripture passage that declares that it is God's will for Christians never to be sick. The consequences of sin are physical suffering and those consequences will only be removed in the resurrection. (Rev 21:4).
15) God is sovereign and for some people it is in His plan that they should bear illness; for others it is in His plan that they should be healed.
16) Some claim today that they possess the gift of healing
[D.A. Carson, 'WHEN JESUS CONFRONTS THE WORLD', Baker Book House, Grand Rapids Michigan, 1987, p. 35]:
"There is also a resurrection body in the atonement; but no one uses that point to argue that all believers should today be sporting resurrection bodies, and failure to do so betrays a formidable lack of faith. The question is not whether or not the atonement stands as the basis for all blessings that come to God's children, but which of those benefits are applied now, and which of them can be counted on only later. Healing, judging by some of the passages already briefly adduced, is one of those benefits that has been secured by the cross, occasionally applied now, and promised for the new heaven and the new earth. If in God's mercy he grants healing now, whether by 'normal' or 'miraculous' means, we must be grateful; but we have no right to claim the benefit now simply because it has been secured by the work of Jesus on the cross."
PROPERITY GOSPEL CONTINUED:
