Heresy: Miracle Healing for All

This is a truth taken to the extreme where it becomes a lie. God can and does work miracles, you won’t read too far in the Bible without discovering that. What he does not do is always cure every disease of every Christian “if they have enough faith”.

This heresy is sometimes called “over-realized eschatology” which is theologian-speak for thinking we have here and now things which the Bible promises we will enjoy in heaven. Yes in heaven we will all be healed eg Rev.21.4 “ ⁴ ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death^[b]or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Yes God does do some miracles even now to authenticate the message about Jesus and to give us little flashes of heaven. But no, he does not heal every Christian – we are still in this world and it is a world marred by sin, suffering and death.

Let me illustrate some of the pain this heresy causes from some of my own experiences as a priest. 

I was visiting patients in the tiny country hospital in my parish when I and everyone else heard a zealous Pentecostal pastor shouting “In the name of Jesus you are healed!” to a woman dying of cancer. She died some weeks later. But fearful of losing her “healing” by exhibiting lack of faith she refused any pain relief. She still died, but she died in terrible pain. I heard that the Pentecostal pastor explained her death away by saying she didn’t have enough faith to be healed.

About the same time there was a world famous Anglican Charismatic leader Rev. David Watson. He was stricken with cancer. Believers all over the world were praying for his healing. He died. Without missing a beat the Pentecostal spin doctors announced that “obviously” he was not healed because he didn’t really want healing.

It struck me with these and other cases that the people who put out this heresy were simply not honest. Suppose a scientist says: “If my theory is true 'X' will happen” Now suppose 'X' does not happen. T he scientist will say “my theory is wrong”. These people say “you are healed” but when this did not happen even in the clearest way possible- that is by the person dying - they still cling fanatically to their now disproved “theory” and invented spin to cover up the truth.

So my experience was that this doctrine caused great harm. Also because it dealt in lies, it was of the devil, not of God. My experience has also been that once a believer has been hooked on this teaching nothing can rescue them.

There is a saying “Reality bites”. They can shout all they like and claim with total conviction that a person is healed but if the person then dies of the disease that was supposedly healed then reality has “bitten”: what they claimed was not really true at all. Jesus said “I am the Truth ...” and also “the devil is a liar and the father of all lies” So however much there healers take the name of Jesus on their lips, they are actually doing the work of the devil.

Yes, since we long for heaven we would love to have its joys right now. So Yes we would love to believe this doctrine and believe the evangelists who spread it. But it is always better for a person to act on a painful truth than to believe and act on a comfortable falsehood!

Most importantly this teaching like the other heresies is spiritual carbon-monoxide. Our old human nature really wants “religion” that gives health and prosperity. So these teachings that God will heal every disease once we learn the secrets of “faith” to make him do it is one our sinful nature will grab with both hands.

I have not yet trotted out Bible verses for a very good reason. This teaching is a truth taken to an extreme where it becomes a lie. So if the false teacher says “the Old Testament has lots of miraculous healings” I say “True, it does and I believe they really happened” When the false teacher says “Jesus healed all kinds of diseases and ever raised dead people to life” I agree. He did. When he or she continues: “And God did great miracles through the Apostles like Peter and Paul.” I say again “I too believe those accounts in the Bible are true.” When they play their trump card and say: “And God still does miracles today” I say: “Yes indeed, I too have seen many miraculous answers to prayer. I have seen enough genuine miracles believe beyond doubt that God still does miracles today.”

So most of what these 'faith healers' preach, I believe is true. But it only takes a tiny bit of poison added to a healthy meal to kill you. The “poison” in their otherwise true teaching is in three parts:

1. It is a false, worldly view of the Christian life. Jesus never promised a bed of roses (in this life anyway).

2. It is a false “faith”. They turn the real and precious attitude of devotion trust and unshakeable reliance on Jesus into a mind game which soon crosses over into shamanism.

3. It makes a basic error of logic. They confuse God being the same “yesterday, today and forever” with God acting the same when circumstances change. Big mistake!

Lets look at these in a bit more detail:

1. Jesus didn’t promise a bed of roses. Quite the opposite: he made it clear that becoming his follower was the hard choice, that there was a cost, that some believers would fall away when they realized this. He warned of hardships and persecutions in this life, but glory in the world to come. I have already mentioned the Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13) He warned that some believers would fall away when they found it was hard going. He would not have warned that if he was promising them a trouble free life if they followed him. Another parable was the builder who didn’t figure out the cost before he started (Luke 14.28). Read and think about it for yourself. Jesus is not talking home economics, he is talking about people deciding to be his followers. He is warning them that there is a cost. In this life the easy way is to ignore Jesus. Following him is harder (in this world) – so would-be followers should count the cost up-front. Once again Jesus would not say this if he was offering to magic away all life’s problems. … He never promised that!
   
   The rest of the New Testament is dotted with statements to the effect that while the Christian life is hard now, the heavenly reward far outweighs the cost, and Christ is with us through all our trials and suffering. I will give just a few examples.
   
   Philippians 3 “ ⁷ I once thought these things were valuable, but now I consider them worthless because of what Christ has done. ⁸ Yes, everything else is worthless when compared with the infinite value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have discarded everything else, counting it all as garbage, so that I could gain Christ ⁹ and become one with him. The point I wanted to draw from this was that happiness in this life was not the be all and end all, almost the reverse: for Paul all that counts is the joy of knowing Christ as savior.
   
   1 Peter 1 “ ⁶ In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. ⁷ These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.
   
   2 Corinthians 1: “³ All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is our merciful Father and the source of all comfort. ⁴ He comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort others. When they are troubled, we will be able to give them the same comfort God has given us. 
   These verses were to comfort Christians going through trials and troubles. For Peter the pain is outweighed by the eternal benefit of a faith that has stood the test. For Paul writing to the Christians in Corinth it was that God comforts us in our trials rather than magic-ing them away, and we in turn can comfort others. The common point is that God does not always rescue us from suffering in this life.
   
   The false teacher will say: “Ah, they are only talking about persecution, it does not apply to disease” My answer is that in New Testament times no one was stupid enough to think God would sweep all disease and disaster away from every believer – these were just part of living. So of course Peter and Paul did not talk about these in their letters. What new believers had a problem with, and needed re-assurance about were the extra sufferings that were happening just because they were Christians.
   
   
2. “Faith” is really basic to Christianity. Abraham is the prime example in the Bible of faith “because he believed God”. Interestingly Genesis depicts Abraham “warts and all” and he had as many of those as most people. He wavered, he doubted, he did silly things, he even laughed when God said he would have a son by Sarah. You might say he just clung on to believing by his teeth – but the Bible gives him top marks. Jesus is often calling his disciples “little-faiths” but he persevered with them. Most of them ran away when he was arrested, and Peter swore he didn’t know him – but they go on to be the Apostles. Jesus told them that if they had faith as big as a mustard seed they could move mountains. I think the point he was making, and I am trying to make here is that even a little bit of faith counts a whole lot with God. He will of course want to train us to have a whole lot more over our lifetime, but for a start the teeniest bit will get us going. The “faith healer” uses “faith” in a totally different, and I believe wrong way, and runs the risk of blinding people to what real faith in Christ actually is.
   
   The Bible gives some other examples of great faith. Hebrews 11 is a good example. It lists as heroes of faith with equal praise for people who had the faith to be miraculously delivered and people who had faith to keep trusting in God even when there was no miraculous deliverance. This puts the lie to the “faith healer”s excuse that people “didn’t have enough faith to be healed”. No, the Bible indicates it takes every bit as much faith not to have a miraculous deliverance from suffering and still hold fast to God..
   
   Hebrews 11³² How much more do I need to say? It would take too long to recount the stories of the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, Samuel, and all the prophets. ³³By faith these people overthrew kingdoms, ruled with justice, and received what God had promised them. They shut the mouths of lions, ³⁴ quenched the flames of fire, and escaped death by the edge of the sword. Their weakness was turned to strength. They became strong in battle and put whole armies to flight. ³⁵ Women received their loved ones back again from death.
   But others were tortured, refusing to turn from God in order to be set free. They placed their hope in a better life after the resurrection. ³⁶ Some were jeered at, and their backs were cut open with whips. Others were chained in prisons. ³⁷ Some died by stoning, some were sawed in half,^[d] and others were killed with the sword. Some went about wearing skins of sheep and goats, destitute and oppressed and mistreated. ³⁸ They were too good for this world, wandering over deserts and mountains, hiding in caves and holes in the ground.
   ³⁹ All these people earned a good reputation because of their faith, …”
   
   
   
3. The “faith healer” frequently recounts the miracles of Jesus, stresses with great literalness that he “healed all the sick” (eg Matthew 8.16), then quotes the text “Jesus Christ the same yesterday today and forever” (Hebrews 13.8) and jumps to the conclusion “therefore Jesus will heal all the sick today!”
   That is a false conclusion. The result of Jesus being unchanging in his nature is that he will in fact respond differently in different situations.
   
   Let me illustrate it this way. Think of a teacher marking “multiple choice” exam papers – you know the sort where for each question you answer by circling (a), (b), (c) etc on the exam paper
   Suppose the correct answers are (a) for question 1. (b) for question 2. and (c) for question 3.
   
   The teacher should mark every student who circled (a) for question 1 “correct” and every student who marked anything else for question 1 “wrong. And so forth down all the questions. To put this in the language we were using about Jesus – the teacher uses the same list of right answers to mark every paper in that exam.
   
   So why do some students get good results and some get bad results?
   
   The answer is obvious: some students knew their subject and marked lots of the correct answers and some students didn't know their work and marked lots of incorrect answers.
   
   The teacher's marking was the same for all students : so he or she awarded good marks to good students and bad marks to bad students.
   In the Bible there are enough examples of God maintaining an unchanging attitude, but changing his actions because people changed their ways. In Nineveh, Jonah tells them God is going to destroy the city because they are so wicked. They repent and stop being evil. God relents and does not destroy them (much to Jonah’s annoyance). God stayed the same, so when the situation changed his response to it changed too.
   
   Jesus is the same “yesterday today and forever”. Yes. But if the situation “today” is different then precisely because he remains dependably the same, he will respond differently.
   
   When he was walking by the shores of Lake Galilee he was claiming to uniquely speak for God. He even said (John 5.36) “the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me.” So miracles were his authentication.
   
   If we are preaching Jesus to people who do not believe and God judges that miracles will likewise authenticate our message, then indeed we would expect God to work them.
   
   If we are not preaching Jesus where the message needs authentication, but would like some miracles for some other reason (to big note ourselves or our church for instance) then we would not expect him to work them.

The crux of the problem is that they are telling people to expect (and demand of God even) what God promises we will enjoy in heaven, not here on earth. Certainly he gives little foretastes of it now just to encourage his people to set their hopes on Jesus and of being with him in heaven. God is always surprising us by his kindness, goodness and generosity. He is an incredibly wonderful being!Also he also sometimes gives a sustained burst of spectacular miracles when he judges it necessary in order to authenticate his message. But to tell people that Jesus will heal every believer every time is wrong! It also has two really, really bad consequences. First it sets them up for the devil to pull the rug from under them and cause them to lose their faith in Jesus. Second it focuses them on themselves and their health and their comfort in this world – that keeps them as spiritual infants and mere worldlings. Grow up!

Yet if you ask: “But should we pray for healing?” My answer is “Yes. It is part of our relationship with God that we can safely ask him for anything.” As it says in 1 Peter 6.7 …

“ ⁶ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. ⁷ Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.”