Two of the common views regarding healing in the Body of Christ are:
1. God only heals people in His sovereignty. God chooses which people He wants to heal and which He doesn’t want to heal. And if you pray for someone to be healed and the person don’t get healed, we should submit to Gods will and sovereignty.
2. Faith or your unbelief is not the problem when healing doesn’t take place.
Two of the verses people use to verify this are:
John 9:1-3
Now as Jesus passed by, He saw a man who was blind from birth. And his disciples asked him, saying, Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind? 3 Jesus answered, Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him.
And romans 8:28
And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
To prove the views stated in the beginning of the text people interpret those two verses in a way that takes them out of their proper context. One story in the Bible where we can clearly understand that those interpretations are simply not true, is: Matthew 17:14-21 NIV
14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.” 17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment. 19 Then the disciples came to Jesus in private and asked, “Why couldn’t we drive it out?” 20 He replied, “Because you have so little faith. Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” [21]
1.The disciples prayed without the boy getting healed, but it’s obvious that it was not the will of God because Jesus then goes on to heal the boy! That shows that the will of God was that the boy would be healed, even if the disciples failed.
2. In verse 17, 20 and 21 its shows that Jesus wanted the disciples to heal the boy but they couldn’t because of their unbelief.
Summary:
If someone believes for a person’s healing and that person doesn’t get healed it doesn’t mean it was not the will of God for him/her to be healed. Gods will is to always heal because it is in the atonement ( Jes. 53:4 and Matt 8:16-17). God has done His part and delegated the authority to the believers over all sickness, diseases and demonic forces. (Jes 53:4, Matt 8:16-17, Matt 10:8, Mark 16:15-20 Luke 10:1, 9, 17-19, John 20:21-22, Act. 3:16, Eph. 1:20-23).
Because of the disciple’s unbelief they were unable to heal the boy. If the disciples would have been in faith the boy would have been healed (Matt 17:19-21, Luke 17:5-10) and that’s why Jesus rebukes his disciples (Matt 17:17).
In conclusion we see that the two common arguments, that God only heals people in His sovereignty and that healing has nothing to do with our faith, fall short when looking into the bible further.
Aly-Sam Botros
Good argument. I see what you mean, except for Paul, who wanted to be healed and God said no. Paul also said he left a friend sick in some city. Paul must have prayed for him, but he wasn’t healed.
One thing to consider is that people get sick and die eventually. It is not God’s will we live here forever without death. I do believe God has all power in heaven and on earth. He can and does heal today. But I also think he sometimes says no.