Category: Theology

In the 1980s, Asher and I studied the subject of healing with great intensity. We studied the most prominent teachers on what the Bible teaches about healing. We ourselves saw some really amazing, outstanding healings, but also some very disappointing sicknesses that eventually ended in death.

Our close friend Dr. Michael Brown is perhaps one of the greatest experts on the subject of Biblical healing. He received his Ph. D. from New York University for his thesis on healing in the Hebrew Bible. This was made into an important book entitled Israel’s Divine Healer.

Here are three very common views on healing:

1.  While our ordinary immune system from God brings healing and is a gift from God, supernatural miraculous healing and creative miracles of restoration are very rare. We can and should always pray for such miracles, but in the normal course of the life of believers, diseases and terminal illnesses will take their normal course for both believers and non-believers. This is the human situation after the fall. This is the primary view of non-charismatics that includes many Israeli, Messianic Jewish leaders.
2. We are to pray for healing. If we pray for healing as a regular practice and submit to opportunities for praying for healing, we will see much more supernatural healing. However, we need to trust God and know that ultimately healing is a matter of God’s sovereignty. The best thing we can do to believe for healing is to walk in fellowship with God, avoid sin, and live in trusting relationship while availing ourselves of healing prayer. This is the Vineyard view that was taught by John Wimber.
3. Healing is always God’s will. If we will give ourselves to God in the right way, meditate on the Scriptures on healing, and confess them as God’s certain promises, we should always be healed. God’s promise of healing is absolute, so if a person does not receive supernatural healing, the failure to receive is the person’s failure to build his faith to receive it. Faith for healing is something that a person is responsible to acquire. This is the view of the Word of Faith movement teachers: the late Kenneth Hagin, Kenneth Copeland, Andrew Womack and many others. For these brothers, if the promise is not absolute and obtainable then it undercuts the building faith to receive the healing.

Our view does not fully fit into any of these three. We can summarize our view by the following that is according to Dr. Brown’s book. Healing is the general will of God for his obedient people, but one can not make this a universal law and conclude that it is God’s absolute will to heal in every single case. We can know that it is God’s general will to heal on the basis of the following:

1. The promises to Israel for physical health if they would live an obedient life. This includes deliverance from “the sicknesses of Egypt,” miscarriages and the blessing of living a long life.
2. The inclusion of sicknesses as being healed in the atonement of Yeshua, as in the Isaiah 53:“he bore our sicknesses…by His stripes we are healed.”
3. The healing ministry of Yeshua is a manifestation of the will of God for people.
4. The conclusive statement of Peter on the atonement, that “He Himself bore our sins on the tree, by his stripes you have been healed,” is not only spiritual but physical healing.
5. In times of revival and heightened spiritual fervor and awareness, healing is much more frequent. Note for example Pensacola, the early Vineyard movement and in the Bethel Church of Bill Johnson.
6. However, though healing is God’s general will, we see in the death of Elisha and the sickness of some in the New Covenant Scriptures, that healing is not an absolute promise for every case at all times.
7. The kind of faith that moves mountains is a “God kind of faith” that only God can ultimately grant. He indeed usually grants us the faith we need for what we are called to do and this usually includes faith for healing.

So what do we learn from this? Part 2 coming soon!

If you missed last week’s introductory article to this subject, be sure to catch up on what you missed!

When a person is told that the reason he or she is not healed is always his or her fault, and this also includes tragic accidents and death, we believe this is wrong teaching. The reason a person is not healed may be that they did not build a life of faith through the Word, but it also may not be so. At any point a person can repent, seek God and immerse himself or herself in the Word. Of course, if the person had faith according to Mark 11:24 they have what they ask. However, a person cannot fully determine that they will have that kind of faith. It has to be granted by God. So we would rather talk about what a person can do to maximize the potential of healing and to rest in God if the healing does not come.

1. First we counsel people to place themselves in the hands of God and submit to him as LORD. They should confess all known sin, curses, bitterness, un-forgiveness and generational curses that may not have been renounced in our early discipleship. (This is implied by James.)

2. Secondly, they should take the Lord’s Supper. It has healing power.

3. They should call the elders to anoint with oil and pray for healing. (James)

4. They should focus their mind on their destiny in eternal life and the Age to Come and be fully given to the Hope of their ultimate destiny. Thereby they defeat the fear of death.

5. They meditate on the goodness of God and Messiah and on the Biblical promises of healing to give opportunity for God to grant healing faith. So there is something that we can do, but it does not assure us of the absolute certainty of healing. However, we can maximize opportunity for building receptive faith.

6. They avail themselves of Spirit led opportunities for conferences, healing ministries etc. This should be prayed about and led by the Spirit without a frantic pursuit of healing ministers and conferences.

7. They do well to avoid pronouncements that they are healed. In addition, we seek to preclude well-meaning people form pronouncing healing or from leading the congregation into the intensity of standing in an absolute way for such healing and then the possible crash that comes as a result.

8. Yet we do avail ourselves of proven prophets that can speak a word into the situation, and grounds that need to be broken and other possible pronouncements. The situation of my youngest son is a case in point. The first time he was taken ill at 1 year old with a fatal heart disease, the doctors gave no hope and said he would die. Credible prophets spoke the word that he would be totally healed and recover. We saw the most amazing supernatural recovery. 11 years later, when he was on life support, we organized the most intensive prayer for his healing. This was confirmed by mature prophets, but not one mature prophet could get a word from God that he would be healed, raised from the dead, etc. So we knew that while we were battling, we could not rest on any clear prophetic word. Though we read Scripture promises, God did not grant us the faith to raise him up.

So let us all pray for healing. Let us build our faith for it. When sickness comes, let us first go to God and pray and seek to receive faith for healing. Let’s pray for healing as long as the person is living. However, let us recognize the sovereignty of God in these matters and embrace the whole Bible and its teaching in these matters.
If anyone has the patience for a very scholarly and good book, we do recommend Michael Brown’s book Israel’s Divine Healer.

Philippians is one of the prison epistles of Paul and as a prisoner, he did not know whether he would live or die. At such a time, a person would write what is of upper most importance to a congregation that he planted at great cost.

In the first chapter Paul is at pains to encourage the Philippians to know that his imprisonment has been for the good of the Kingdom and that the Gospel has spread by his witness from prison. The second chapter presents the example of the Messiah, who left his fathers throne, suffered and died in the most painful humiliation and then was exalted in his resurrection and ascension. So we are to show the same humility and be willing to lay down our lives that we may be raised like him to everlasting life. Chapter three warns against false teachers, affirming that our goal is to know him, the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings which leads to everlasting life.

However, the closing exhortations are remarkable for their clarity and power. If we do the four things commanded in chapter four, our lives will be revolutionized in the most wonderful way. First, we are to rejoice always. (v. 4) This is accomplished by not being anxious but by making all our requests known to God and entering into that peace of God that passes all understanding. (v. 6)

Secondly, we are to discipline our minds. (v. 8) That is we are to think of whatever is true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, commendable (virtuous and worthy of praise). This discipline of thinking is the key to walking in faith, peace and joy. A person whose mind is always filled with good things is a person of attracting faith and optimism.

Thirdly, we are to follow good leaders. In this case Paul puts forth his own example. People do need leaders to follow to the extent that they follow the Messiah. Paul says that we are to follow him as he follows the Messiah. We need good leadership examples to grow. (v. 9)

Fourth and finally, we are to be content (v. 11-13, v. 19). This contentment is through trusting in the Messiah and knowing that we are in the will of God. We will be content in all circumstances, whether being entertained by the rich or sitting in a jail cell. We can to all things through the Messiah (v. 13) Great holy ones who have been imprisoned have testified to this great contentment, and Paul is indeed testifying from such a situation. When you are content and generous, God abundantly supplies (v. 19)

May we all obey the Scriptures in these four things, to rejoice always, to discipline our thinking, to follow the teaching and example of good leaders, and finally, to be content in all things.

Natural disasters might be the judgment of God, but…Recently a Florida professor, now fired, declared that the Hurricane that hit Houston was in judgment for Texas voting for Trump. The problem is that Houston voted for Clinton! I get Orthodox Jewish internet sendings and some Christians sites that claim that these hurricanes are in response to the United States trying to start peace talks with Israel and the Palestinians.