A healing King and a healing Kingdom

by John Groves

Winchester Family Church, UK

God is restoring New Testament principles of church life that have been lost over the years. This process of ‘restoration’, which has been going on for some centuries, has accelerated over the last 100 years or so. We are building on the basis of what others have restored and in some areas the church has become very strong; but other areas are still in process, and one of these is the restoration of healings, signs and wonders.

Restoration of healings, signs and wonders

For 100 years God has been restoring to His church a full belief in the gifts of the Holy Spirit and associated faith for healings, signs and wonders. We have been learning that God has not stopped doing these things and that He wants them to have a central place in the life and witness of His church. For centuries the vast majority of Christians were ignorant on this subject but we live in a very privileged time when God has clearly been getting us back towards a New Testament quality of church life.

We have benefited from previous phases of restoration in church life. Often big battles were fought that cost men of God dearly at the time. Yet the things that were restored would have been happening in New Testament times when the church was first born. They had simply been lost through human frailty and demonic attack. We can take for granted some ‘restored’ things that the church generally accepts today.

However, all of these periods of restoration involved upheaval and paradigm shifts. Expectations had to change and the church itself had to change! When you look at these periods of history from our perspective, you can see that it took many years for these changes to be absorbed into normal church life. Yet to us they now seem totally Biblical and we cannot understand how the church had neglected them for so long.

I believe that we are living through a similar period with regard to healings, signs and wonders. It is a period of ‘restoration’, of a faith battle, of transition, of theology changing, a period in which we are learning how to line up with God’s Word.

Faith battles

We may not have much of a faith battle over issues which were restored by previous generations. However, we have got battles in the area of healings. Can we expect everyone to be healed? Do we still think healings are just extraordinary exceptions to the rule? Why isn’t everyone healed when we pray for them?

We have a battle with the models of healing ministry. For example, is it about a man or woman of great faith and anointing? Can we expect local church elders to anoint people with oil and regularly see healings? Can every disciple of Jesus lay hands on the sick and pray for them and expect them to recover? How decisive is faith in the issue of healing?

On top of these theological battles we have other mental battles to do with our modern culture. Many of us have been brought up with a materialistic and rationalistic mindset. Is praying for the sick something that makes sense to a scientific, materialistic world view? Are our senses the final arbiters in all that goes on around us? How much do we trust in science and medicine as opposed to prayer and the Holy Spirit?

Even amongst Christians who believe that healings, signs and wonders are for today there can be significant confusion. What do we make of the ‘Faith Theology’ that would encourage us to name it and claim it? How does this fit in with a ‘Kingdom Theology’ which teaches us how the kingdom of God has a ‘Now’ and ‘Not Yet’ expectation? What about the sovereignty of God and human responsibility? Is sickness from God or from the devil?

All this simply illustrates that we are in a transition time, contending for something against the stream of religious tradition, humanistic philosophy and satanic opposition. Every time of restoration had these characteristics.

Lessons from history

When we read a history book we have to realise that we are reading a particular view on the history of the period. So it is always helpful to read a number of different history books and even to look at writings of secular historians about periods of church history. As one studies periods such as the Reformation, the Great Awakening, or the rise of World Mission, we realise that massive battles were going on to establish different attitudes in church life. Great men and women of God could be very clear on certain things and yet quite confused about things that we would see as obvious in Scripture. It often took many years for clarity to filter down to the church at large and for a proper paradigm shift to go on.

Looking back at these eras helps us to understand the turmoil and battles that we are going through in our own time. We can still expect changes and shifts.

Back to the Bible

Faith comes as we hear the Word of God. We are adamant that our church life should be rooted in the authority of God’s Word, so it is important that we keep our eyes on the New Testament as we tussle with the issues of healings, signs and wonders. For an example, I want to concentrate on Matthew chapters 8, 9 and 10, from which I will highlight ten important facts. Please let the truth of God’s Word minister to you and do something in your spirit.

1. There is a lot of healing in the gospels

Matthew chapters 8 and 9 contain ten miracles, and nine of them are acts of healing or exorcism. This is not exceptional; 90% of Jesus’ miracles are healings or exorcism for wholeness. Frankly, even a superficial reading will tell you that there is a lot of healing in the gospels!

2. In the gospels Jesus appears to treat sickness as an enemy

The book of Acts describes Jesus’ mighty ministry of healing and deliverance like this: ‘God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him’ (Acts 10:38).

Jesus appears to treat all sickness as a bad thing and to get rid of it! Some sicknesses are dealt with as the specific manifestation of demonic spirits. Of course, this is not to say that sicknesses are always the result of demonic spirits. However, there is an attitude towards sickness here that we need to look at and absorb.

Jesus is the highest revelation of the heart of God; ‘I and the Father are one’ (John 10:30). It seems pretty clear that God is for healing and against sickness. We must remember there was no sickness in the Garden of Eden before the Fall and there will be no sickness in heaven in the age to come. God is a healing God!

3. Jesus appears to be very willing to heal people

If we were to take just Matthew 8 as an example of this we would find the following:

Jesus replies to the hesitant faith of the leper with the words, ‘I am willing’ (vv 2, 3), obviously referring to his willingness to heal the man. In verses 5 and 7 of the same chapter, when the centurion asks for help because his servant lay at home paralysed, Jesus readily said, ‘I will go and heal him.’ Then in verse 16 we are told Jesus healed ALL the sick that came to him.

Where are our grounds for thinking either God the Father or the Son have changed their attitude towards sickness? Do we not believe that ‘the Lord changes not’ and ‘Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever’? Yet religious tradition still generally encourages us to accept sickness as God’s will and to have an expectation that God is reluctant to heal people.

Of course, if we truly believe that sickness is God’s will we ought to accept it and not fight it tenaciously as we all do. Why do we go to the doctor and make endless efforts to get well? The fact is that we know sickness is bad and we want it to go; we want to be healed. This is not unreasonable and it is also not out of harmony with the heart of God as we see it in Jesus Christ.

4. Jesus relates healing to the message of the kingdom

Jesus and the gospel-writers specifically link healings with the good news of the kingdom of God; the message Jesus is proclaiming (Matt. 9:35).

Jesus Christ is unique, the Son of God, and it is true that his signs and wonders were linked to his unique Messiahship. However, Jesus carefully commissioned his disciples to carry on the same healing and deliverance work that he had begun. First the Twelve, then the seventy-two and finally all of his disciples in the great commission, are sent out with the mission of bringing the good news of the kingdom, healing the sick and delivering people from demons.

Jesus commissions his disciples to do the works he has done and gives them authority. If the healings, signs and wonders were purely to prove Jesus’ uniqueness this would be confusing. However, they are clearly linked to the message that in and through Jesus Christ the kingdom of God has broken in on earth in a unique way! In fact healings did not merely authenticate the message of the kingdom, they were part of the message itself. Healing is part of the good news! Salvation is about wholeness!

Jesus appears to see sickness in the body as part of the dominion of darkness that he has come to destroy. When the kingdom of God and dominion of darkness clash, at one level this is manifest in healing versus sickness. The gospel of the kingdom is good news for everyone at every level.

5. Compassion was a strong motivation in Jesus’ healing ministry

Matthew 9:35-38 states that Jesus was motivated by compassion for the helpless and harassed crowds of people. It was love and compassion that brought Jesus to earth in the first place, and was undoubtedly a major motivation in his healing ministry. He was not some cold being from another realm eager to prove he was God. Rather, out of his infinite compassion he brought answers to the agonies of human life. Surely this is still the heavenly view of sin-sick humanity? Jesus is still the good shepherd full of compassion.
6. Jesus cares for individual needs
You see this fact all through the gospels but repeatedly in our chosen chapters:

Matthew 8:2-3 an individual leper is touched by Jesus
Matthew 8:5-7 Jesus had time for the politically awkward case of the centurion and his servant
Matthew 8:14-15 Jesus’ care for an older woman with an ordinary illness
Matthew 8:28-33  Jesus appears to go specifically to meet two socially excluded mad men and to bring healing to them
Matthew 9:18-26  Jesus touches and heals a woman with chronic bleeding, and a dead girl

This is our Lord, our Saviour, our God! He values individuals, whoever they are, and meets their needs.

7. Jesus never condemns people for being sick

We do not find Jesus teaching that sickness is a result of a person’s sin or is blameworthy in the same way that sin is. Although sometimes in the gospels there are hinted links between sickness and sin (John 5:14), generally there is no link made that suggests a person’s sickness is a result of their sin. Indeed attempts to make that link are specifically contradicted by Jesus (see John 9:1-3).

8. Rejoicing in suffering generally refers to persecution

Jesus warned his disciples that they would suffer for following him and should not avoid that suffering but rejoice in it. However, we never find Jesus using the same argument for sickness. Jesus did not avoid saying hard things if necessary, so, if this had been appropriate, Jesus would have been prepared to say it. The fact is he healed those who came to him sick.

9. Healings are glorifying to God

Jesus and the gospel-writers see God glorified in the healing of sick people, eg Matthew 9:8, 26, 33. Of course, healings also stir up controversy (Matt. 9:34). Nevertheless, in the gospels God gets glory from healings, signs and wonders.

So I suggest that it is unlikely that usually God wants us to stay sick for His glory! Of course, good Christian character is glorifying to God and is made evident in enduring faithfully in any suffering or difficulty, including sickness.

10. Jesus has already won our deliverance from sickness

In Matthew 8:16-17, the writer, led by the Holy Spirit, quotes Isaiah 53:4 and obviously interprets it to mean literal sicknesses and diseases. This is the Holy Spirit’s interpretation and we must acknowledge that. This appears to make a clear link between Jesus’ work on the cross and physical healing.

D.A Carson helpfully comments, ‘This text and others clearly teach that there is healing in the atonement; but similarly there is the promise of a resurrection body in the atonement, even if believers do not inherit it until the Parousia. From the perspectives of the New Testament writers, the cross is the basis of all the benefits that accrue to believers but this does not mean that all such benefits can be secured at this present time on demand …’
(Craig S Keener, Matthew, New Testament Commentary Series, IVP, page 178).

Throughout eternity we will have a new body that is totally free from sickness because of Jesus’ death on the cross 2,000 years ago! The issue we have to tussle with is how much do we get now and how much do we have to wait for?!

The truth is, we can ‘taste’ the powers of the age to come now and we are encouraged to do so in the New Testament.

The truth is, we have the Holy Spirit with us now to actualise and apply the benefits of the cross in our lives.

The truth is, the risen Lord Jesus passed on his authority to his disciples, including the authority to heal in his name (Matt. 10:1; Mark 16:15-18).

As disciples of Jesus, we are to go into all the world with the good news of the kingdom of God. We are to assault the dominion of darkness in all its manifestations including demonic oppression and sickness of body.

This is an enormous contemporary battleground. But healings, signs and wonders are on God’s agenda for us, and it is the devil who is determined to try and keep us in doubt and defeat. Let us determine to keep laying hands on the sick with an increasing faith and expectation that they will get well!