Be Healed
In Luke 5 there is a powerful story of a man with leprosy approaching Jesus and asking for healing. It reads:
One time Jesus was in a town where a very sick man lived. This man was covered with leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed before Jesus and begged him, “Lord, you have the power to heal me if you want.” Jesus said, “I want to heal you. Be healed!” Then he touched the man, and immediately the leprosy disappeared (vv.12-13).
Those two words have echoed many times in my heart as I’ve attended to sick children, cancer-stricken parishioners, dying family members, and hurting friends. Be healed. We long for healing and as we learned in our recent sermon series Movement healings create a powerful window to see gospel proclamation.
But how are we to think about healing today? What indications (or lack of indications) are there that miraculous healings still exist? And if they do, how should we understand them? Can we ask for them? These and other questions like it are good and right for us to wrestle with as followers of Jesus who long for the fully realized Kingdom of God and who want others to experience part of that Kingdom now.
Below are a few questions and answers that I find helpful in this discussion. They are adapted from a sermon I heard recently from Pastor JD Greear out of The Summit Church in Raleigh, NC. I hope they help you as you continue to march through the book of Acts and see healings then to understand better how to think about healings now.
Does God still heal today?
The short and simple answer is yes. There is nowhere in the Bible that would indicate that God’s healing power has ceased. That also doesn’t mean you need to believe in every miraculous story you hear nor do you need to be skeptical of every miracle story you hear.
Why does God heal?
As an act of love and mercy to the person who is suffering.
As a validation of his servants.
As a sign of the coming Kingdom of God.
As a witness to non-Christians.
To motivate Christians to worship.
Should we expect Acts type healings everyday?
Sort of. See the answer to the point above. God is capable and still does heal people today. Peter in Acts 3 healed on demand. However, as JD notes, we see the “level of the Apostles' power fading” even as the book of Acts continues. And throughout the New Testament you see verses like 2 Timothy 4:12, “Trophimus I have left at Miletus sick.” Why did Paul leave this man sick? Did he not possess the power of Jesus to heal him?
No, the reason is because in the book of Acts God gave the apostles an unusual endowment of power for a time to authenticate the fact that he was speaking to the world through them. So the writer of Hebrews says, “It was the Lord Jesus who first told people about it. And those who heard him proved to us that it is true. God also proved it by using miraculous signs, wonders, and all kinds of miracles. And he proved it by giving people various gifts through the Holy Spirit in just the way he wanted” (2:3-4).
So God still heals indeed but there is a greater level (in terms of frequency and intensity) of that healing that we see in the book of Acts for a specific time and for an intended purpose.
Will everyone who prays in faith receive healing?
Again, sort of. Eventually yes everyone who is in Christ will be healed. God’s promise for the follower of Jesus is the restoration of all things - including our physical bodies (read Revelation 21). But that does not mean that everyone here on earth (even if we are in Christ) will be healed physically.
Let me quote JD word for word here: “God sometimes has bigger purposes on earth than giving us physical healing. Sometimes he allows us to know him better through th pain in this life, and sometimes he uses our suffering to bring others to him…sometimes God glorifies himself by helping sick people get well; sometimes he is glorified when sick people die well.”
In sum, this means that we will be a church that practices James 5:13-15…
Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
And a church that prays Revelation 22:20 when those prayers seem to go unanswered on this side of eternity…
“He who testifies to these things says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!”
