Divine healing

In the Pentecostal tradition, divine healing holds an important place. This course affirms that God still heals today. But before speaking of healing, we must speak of sickness.

Where does sickness come from?

Human beings, created in the image of God, were not meant to suffer. Sickness does not come from God. It has the same root as death: “sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin” (Romans 5:12). What holds true for death holds true for sickness and, more broadly, for suffering (see Genesis 3:16-19).

The Bible also mentions more specific causes:

• a personal sin may sometimes be involved (John 5:14);
• an evil spirit may be at the origin of an infirmity (Luke 13:11-16).

But we must never accuse a sick person. Faced with the man born blind, the disciples ask who sinned. Jesus replies: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned” (John 9:3).

The author also notes that fear, hatred, anger or guilt can produce physical and psychological suffering. Work that takes up an excessive place in our lives, and the stress it brings, can lead to serious illnesses.

Taking care of your body

In the Old Testament, God gave his people rules on food and hygiene (Leviticus 11–15). Our body is fragile and subject to the laws of nature, and we have a duty to look after it. This is not about idolising the body, but about respecting it, for it is not our property: it belongs to God (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

For the author, knowingly destroying one’s body is therefore a sin. He mentions tobacco, drugs, excessive alcohol, sport pushed to extremes, or eating too much and badly. Sickness remains inevitable in a world marked by the fall. But some illnesses can be avoided by respecting what God has taught us. In this course, prayer for healing therefore goes hand in hand with care for the body.

Why God heals

Some movements practise a harsh asceticism that despises the body and does not pray for its healing. This course sees no biblical basis for this.

Jesus cared about the sick. He was moved with compassion for two blind men (Matthew 20:34) and for a man with leprosy (Mark 1:41). By choosing to heal, he shows that he cares for our body as well as our soul. The Gospels report nearly thirty accounts of individual healings, deliverances and raisings from the dead, and many healings of crowds (Matthew 4:23-24; Luke 6:17-19), and that is only part of his works (John 21:25).

The body is not the enemy of the spirit. God created man with a body, and he saw that his creation was “very good” (Genesis 1:31). Setting the body against the spirit belongs to Gnostic thinking rather than to the Bible.

Finally, complete healing is also a hope. Creation awaits its deliverance, and we wait for “the redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Christ “will transform our lowly bodies” (Philippians 3:21).

For today

Healings continued after Jesus: the lame man at the Beautiful Gate (Acts 3:1-10), the crowds in Jerusalem (Acts 5:12-16), Samaria with Philip (Acts 8:5-8), Aeneas and Tabitha with Peter (Acts 9:32-42), Lystra and Malta with Paul (Acts 14:8-10; 28:8-9). The Church prayed that God would stretch out his hand “to heal” (Acts 4:30).

As David Petts stresses, nothing indicates that God has stopped healing, neither in Acts, nor in James 5:14-16, nor in the testimonies of Christians. We do not build a doctrine on experience, but experience can confirm what the Bible teaches.

A real difficulty

Nowhere does the Bible say that all the sick will be healed. The book of Job shows this, and healings are not always instantaneous. The difficulty, then, is knowing God’s will.

Should we always pray like the man with leprosy: “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Luke 5:12)? For the author, this is not always the best way. We risk concluding too quickly that God is not willing, when we have not persevered enough. Jesus rather encourages us to pray with faith: “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22).

How to ask for healing

James 5:13-18 is the most precise passage:

“Is anyone among you ill? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.” (James 5:14)

Several practices can be drawn from it: praying oneself (v. 13), calling the elders (v. 14), confessing our sins to one another and praying for one another (v. 16), praying with perseverance like Elijah (v. 17). To these are added the laying on of hands (Mark 16:18; Luke 4:40) and the gift of healing granted to some (1 Corinthians 12:9). Healings through cloths that had touched Paul (Acts 19:11-12) remain exceptional cases.

Some attitudes stand in the way. James writes: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly” (James 4:3). Asking for healing should aim at God’s glory and his service. For the author, it is also unwise to pray for the healing of someone who cares nothing at all for God, because the healing of the body matters less than the relationship with him.

Healed, and therefore holier?

No text allows us to say so. At Bethesda, only one man is healed among many sick people (John 5:1-9). Paul speaks of a “thorn” in his flesh (2 Corinthians 12:7). Isaac becomes blind in his old age (Genesis 27:1). Paul leaves Trophimus sick in Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20).

God cares about our physical suffering, which must not be neglected. But our body must not take up all our attention. God may heal or not heal. Whatever happens, let us remain attentive to him, faithful, and let us persevere in prayer with faith.