The Bible’s Stance On Divine Healing
Let me begin by saying, any Christian that would try to get you to believe that God has an inkling of desire for you to remain sick, is a clown. I’m going to take you through scriptures that emphatically prove that it is not God’s will for you to be sick. Not only that, but it’s God’s desire that you would be healed and remain in divine health. Let’s begin in the book of Matthew.
“Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. “Lord,” the man said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared.”
Notice Jesus’ response to the leaper. “I am willing. Be healed!” Jesus is willing and because He was willing to heal the leaper, He is also willing to heal you. Why? Because the Bible says that God is no respecter of persons (Acts 10:34). When Jesus answered the leaper, He answered all of us. Jesus doesn’t show favor to people based on their income or accomplishments. What He does for one, He does for all.
As we continue on in Matthew, we see Jesus perform another healing miracle.
“When Jesus returned to Capernaum, a Roman officer came and pleaded with him, “Lord, my young servant lies in bed, paralyzed and in terrible pain.”Jesus said, “I will come and heal him.”But the officer said, “Lord, I am not worthy to have you come into my home. Just say the word from where you are, and my servant will be healed. I know this because I am under the authority of my superior officers, and I have authority over my soldiers. I only need to say, ‘Go,’ and they go, or ‘Come,’ and they come. And if I say to my slaves, ‘Do this,’ they do it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed. Turning to those who were following him, he said, “I tell you the truth, I haven’t seen faith like this in all Israel! And I tell you this, that many Gentiles will come from all over the world—from east and west—and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob at the feast in the Kingdom of Heaven. But many Israelites—those for whom the Kingdom was prepared—will be thrown into outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Then Jesus said to the Roman officer, “Go back home. Because you believed, it has happened.” And the young servant was healed that same hour.”
Because you have believed, it has happened. What you believe and what you speak is what you’ll have. Jesus knew exactly what the Roman officer believed because he spoke authoritatively to Christ. He told Jesus to speak the word from where you are. Faith speaks. You have been given the faith to speak.
“But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”
Real faith speaks.
Jesus’ purpose for coming to earth was, in part, to take everything the devil would ever use as an attempt to burden you. Christ took it, so you don’t have to. He’s already taken it and removed it. It doesn’t belong to you.
“That evening many demon-possessed people were brought to Jesus. He cast out the evil spirits with a simple command, and he healed all the sick. This fulfilled the word of the Lord through the prophet Isaiah, who said, “He took our sicknesses and removed our diseases.”
Jesus took your sickness and removed your disease.
Diabetes doesn’t belong to you. Blood disorders don’t belong to you. Heart disease doesn’t belong to you. Heart problems don’t belong to you now, and you can refuse to make room for them in your 60s, 70s and beyond.
Jesus took ALL your disease. The Bible doesn’t say He will take, it says He took. He’s already fulfilled his duty. Jesus, in His redemptive work, accomplished healing for your body. Matthew 8:17 doesn’t say, He’ll heal you when you get sick. Jesus said you don’t even have to become sick. You can be healed, stay healed and dominate sickness and disease as a Christian.
Healing is not just for apostles and evangelists. The Bible says everyone who believes is able to lay their hands on the sick and they will be healed.
“These miraculous signs will accompany those who believe: They will cast out demons in my name, and they will speak in new languages. They will be able to handle snakes with safety, and if they drink anything poisonous, it won’t hurt them. They will be able to place their hands on the sick, and they will be healed.”
Christianity that neglects to teach on healing is not Christianity at all because healing is Christianity. Jesus didn’t just heal, He is a healer. Any denomination that tells people to be like Christ, but doesn’t preach healing is like a golf instructor who tells his student to be like Tiger Woods but don’t golf. It’s like telling someone to be like Jerry Seinfeld, but don’t be funny. Christ is a healer. It’s not something he did, it’s who He is.
When Jesus taught His disciples about faith, He mentioned what you say three times and what you believe once.
“For assuredly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be removed and be cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that those things he says will be done, he will have whatever he says. Therefore I say to you, whatever things you ask when you pray, believe that you receive them, and you will have them.”
You have to believe and speak first and then you’ll have what you desire. What you speak affects how you believe. Dr. Mike Murdock says it this way, “Say the right words until the right feelings come.” Most people let their feelings dictate the words they speak. “I know the Bible says that, but I’m poor.” And you’ll stay poor because you have a poor mindset. You hear the Word of God and instead of using your mouth to amplify what God says, you use your mouth to override what God says.
Your mouth will either be used to amplify what God said or to override what God said.
About 20% of what I say when preaching isn’t for the crowd, it’s for me. I know I need to say what I want to see happen.
What you believe and what you speak is powerful. What you say gets God’s attention.
“So he began shouting, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” “Be quiet!” the people in front yelled at him. But he only shouted louder, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” When Jesus heard him, he stopped and ordered that the man be brought to him. As the man came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord,” he said, “I want to see!” And Jesus said, “All right, receive your sight! Your faith has healed you.” Instantly the man could see, and he followed Jesus, praising God. And all who saw it praised God, too.”
Jesus said the man’s faith is what healed him. How did Jesus know the man had faith to be healed? First, he referred to him as “Jesus, Son of David.” The Pharisees didn’t believe that Jesus was the son of David. They believed Him to be a bastard son of Mary. They did not believe Mary because pregnant by the power of God. The way the blind man addressed Jesus, made it clear that he believed Jesus to be the redemptive Messiah that had come to rescue His people.
When Jesus asked the man, “What do you want me to do for you?” He replied by saying, “I want to see!” In effect he was saying, Have mercy on me! I believe you can do anything and I want to see!” The words of faith the blind man spoke got God’s attention.
Jesus isn’t walking by your home or office today, but He’s omnipresent and omniscient. What you say can either grab Him or repel Him.
What You Need To Know About Sickness & Healing
First and foremost, sickness is connected to the devil.
God does not give people cancer to teach them to appreciate life. You don’t have to become sick to appreciate life. Jesus never offered religious platitudes to people who were sick. When people can’t get healed, they start making allowances for their sickness, but this is anti-scriptural. Sickness is of the devil.
John Alexander Daly used to say, “Sickness is the foul offspring of its father, Satan and its mother, sin.”
There was no sickness in the Garden of Eden. There won’t be a children’s hospital in heaven. It’s not part of God’s plan for man to be sick. You can know with conviction, right now, that God’s plan for your life doesn’t involve sickness and disease. The only aspect of sickness and disease that God planned for, is for you to be healed from it by His power and His Word.
God didn’t set aside a two year period of your life for you to battle through a disease and have to cancel meetings to rest and recover. It’s simply not part of His plan. However, I’m sure it’s in the devil’s plan. The Word says to resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7). The Word provides you with resistance to the devil’s plan.
Satan was the cause of Job’s sickness. If Job went to see a doctor, he would have told Job his blood was inflamed and blistering on the skin. But there was a spiritual root to his sickness.
“So Satan left the Lord’s presence, and he struck Job with terrible boils from head to foot.”
Once you realize that sickness is of the devil, you’ll develop a proper hatred for sickness. My father says, “You’ll never get delivered from a sin you’re not disgusted with.” You’ll never be delivered from sickness and disease until you’re disgusted with it.
John G. Lake said, “It’s no more offensive for a man to be involved in adultery than it is for a man to be sick.” Both adultery and sickness originate from Satan. Jesus redeemed man from both things and neither of them have any place in the life of man.
If someone tried to introduce you to cocaine, you’d shun it. ‘No, I don’t do that. I’m a Christian.’ You’ve had it ingrained in you from childhood; don’t do drugs. Then, you get an ear infection and your attitude is completely different. ‘Oh, I usually get them when the weather changes in the winter…’ You have a resistance to drug use because you know it’s from the devil. You know it’s from hell. You think sickness is a normal part of life, so not only do you put up with it, you make room for it.
There are people who think cocaine is a normal part of life too. There are people who think adultery is a normal part of life. You should have the same disgusted rejection for sickness as you do for sin.
Say this out loud, now: Sickness does not belong in my body because sickness is of the devil. Christ came to destroy the works of the devil and sickness has no place in my life.
You begin to pray differently when you hate something. When Peter’s mother-in-law was very sick, He rebuked the fever and it left her (Luke 4:39). He addressed the fever as a personality. He spoke to it. He rebuked the spirit of infirmity.
Jesus was wise when He walked the earth. People believe that science has progressed in a way that it can explain sicknesses, as opposed to people in the first century, who attributed many sicknesses to demons. People in the first century were closer to the truth than we are today. As science has progressed, people are the sickest they’ve ever been. New sicknesses continue to develop and evolve because sickness is spiritual.
That’s why the work Jesus did to redeem us from it was spiritual. He shed His blood. A doctor won’t find a cancerous mass and shed his blood to make you better. God dealt with sickness differently than doctors because He knew the source of sickness is spiritual.
If I have back pain, I can take an Advil. But that’s not addressing the root of the problem. My back pain might be caused from lack of movement, or because I’ve put on too much weight too quickly, or because I need to stretch. Whatever the cause may be, an Advil can’t address it. Advil can only treat a symptom.
Jesus dealt with the actual root of sickness and disease. He didn’t treat symptoms. The root is the devil.
“And you know that God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power. Then Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him.”
Every person Jesus healed was oppressed by the devil. Sickness and disease is demonic.
Again in Luke 13, we see that Jesus attributed disease to Satan.
“One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight…this dear woman, a daughter of Abraham, has been held in bondage by Satan for eighteen years. Isn’t it right that she be released, even on the Sabbath?”
Jesus treated sickness and disease like an enemy all throughout the four gospels. But He came so that you would be redeemed.
Your Covenant With God Comes With The Provision Of Healing
God Made Provision For Healing In The Old Covenant. We have a new covenant based on better promises. I’m going to take you through a series of scriptures that describe healing under the old covenant.
He said, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the Lord your God and do what is right in his sight, obeying his commands and keeping all his decrees, then I will not make you suffer any of the diseases I sent on the Egyptians; for I am the Lord who heals you.”
“You must serve only the Lord your God. If you do, I will bless you with food and water, and I will protect you from illness.
Notice, God didn’t say He would heal you when you get sick. He said He’ll protect you from illness.
“He also brought them out with silver and gold, and there was none feeble among His tribes.”
The dictionary definition of feeble is, “lacking physical strength, especially as a result of age or illness.” The Bible says not one person in all the tribes who were in covenant with God were lacking strength as a result of illness. They were a perfectly healthy nation. Three million people and not one was weak, not even eighty and ninety year-olds. Why was no one weak? Because they were baptized in the cloud unto Moses. We have been baptized in water unto Christ. How much more do we have a right to divine health under the new covenant!
If God healed all His people under the old covenant, how can anyone say there’s no more healing for us under the new covenant? That would effectively make our covenant worse than the old one. Do you think the Son of God left heaven to give man a worse covenant than he had before? Of course not!
Paul told us this covenant is more glorious in power and provision (2 Cor. 3:6-15). You may be wondering, if the new covenant is more glorious, why are so many Christians sick and oppressed? Dake’s note on this passage of scripture addresses this phenomena perfectly.
“It is to the shame of the church to fall so far behind Israel in receiving promised benefits. Is it not logical that new covenant ministers and saints should meet the physical and spiritual qualifications of the old covenant? Is the old covenant the better of the two? Are its provisions and promises better? If so, then we should go back under the old covenant. What then, is wrong with the church that it does not get the superior blessing of the new covenant? Could it not be one because of unbelief? (Matt. 17:30, Hebrews 11:6, James 1:5-8; 2) Because of widespread rebellion against such teaching, but surely it’s not because God has lost His power or does not care to live up to His obligations
made in the new covenant.”
Case closed.
When Christ enacted the new covenant, it was working well in the first century. In James 5, he had to ask, is anyone even sick? Essentially what he was saying was, I don’t know if this even applies to anyone, but in case someone is sick, this is what you should do and you’ll be healed. The only thing keeping the new covenant from appearing more glorious than the old is unbelief.
Jesus Heals Through The Spirit
You are a spirit. You have a soul. You live in a body. Your soul is your mind, emotion, intellect and will. Your soul is housed in a body. The real you is not your soul or your body. You are a spirit. When your body dies, you don’t die. Your body will remain lifeless on earth and your spirit will go up to be with the Lord or down to hell if you’ve never repented. The spirit lives forever. Once you’re born, you forever will be (Heb. 9:27).
God’s method of healing is not through your physical body. When you read about Jesus’ healing miracles, he didn’t rub cream on people with leprosy. Jesus didn’t practice acupuncture, he didn’t inquire about supplements, He showed no concern whatsoever for the condition of a person’s body. Jesus healed through the spirit, and He continues to heal that way today.
What’s in your spirit will manifest in your body. If you receive faith for healing in your spirit, it will manifest in your body. Just like when someone has an unclean spirit it manifests in their body.
Faith for anything comes through hearing, including faith for healing. Once you’ve received the Word into your spirit, you speak the Word. That’s why Jesus demanded verbal confirmation of faith before He healed.
“Do you believe that I can make you see?”
“Yes, Lord”
“What would you like me to do for you sir?”
“I want to receive my sight!”
Jesus required them to engage their faith to be healed. In Mark 6, Jesus could not do mighty miracles because of their unbelief.
The most neglected part of the American person is their spirit. You receive an education, you go to the gym, you diet and take supplements, but most people do nothing for the part of them that affects things the most.
The Bible is God’s medicine for your physical body.
“My child, pay attention to what I say. Listen carefully to my words. Don’t lose sight of them. Let them penetrate deep into your heart, for they bring life to those who find them, and healing to their whole body.
Through the hearing of the Word, you develop faith in your spirit. Then you begin to speak the Word and your body follows the confession of your mouth through faith. In Romans 4, Abraham believed those things which were spoken to him by God and his body became strong and he was empowered by faith.
When you fill your spirit with God’s Word it will manifest peace, joy, strength and divine health.
State what you want God to do for you today. As God’s Words enter into you, they give you strength, from the top of your head to the soles of your feet. Be healed, in Jesus name.
