Faith Healing
Table of Contents
Faith Healing: No. 1
(A reply to W. J., Harlech.)
Most of the scriptures you quote are in the Old Testament, and refer to the dealings of God in that governmental dispensation. Exod. 15:26 was a promise to that people. They were to be blessed here in this world, if they did that which was right in the sight of the Lord. Their blessing was conditional on obedience. This is more fully explained to them in Deut. 33 The Lord is clearly the healer of the body, " For I am the Lord that healeth thee." Indeed all these blessings have reference to the body here on earth.
But to apply this to the Christian would be a great mistake. We are blest, not with earthly blessings, but " with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ." (Eph. 1:3-7.) When Jesus left His little flock on earth, He gave no promise that they should, if obedient, be exempt from tribulation; but He said in the world they would have it. And the more obedient they have been to His word, the more has the world hated them and persecuted them. The most obedient and devoted servant of Christ could say, "Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble," &c. (2 Cor. 1:3-6.)
May it not be said to some, " Ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth," &c. (See Heb. 12:5-8.) Is it not a great mistake to suppose that absence of chastening is a proof that we are right? It would rather prove we were deceived. This may be what Satan is aiming at in all this.
Exod. 23:25 is a similar promise to Israel. " And ye shall serve the Lord your God, and he shall bless thy bread, and thy water; and I will take sickness away from the midst of thee... and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come." How important to bear in mind the difference of dispensation in the dealings of God! One would think no one could apply such a scripture to Christians. And it is a serious thing to say we are Jews, when we are not, but do lie. (Rev. 3:9.) For the Jew, affliction was a mark of rebuke, to the Christian it may be a token of love to one whom He loveth.
You will perceive the next scripture given is of the same character, and could not possibly be applied to us now. "And the Lord will take away from thee all sickness, and will put none of the evil diseases of Egypt, which thou knowest, upon thee; but will lay them upon all them that hate thee. And thou shalt consume all the people which the Lord thy God shall deliver thee: thine eye shall have no pity upon them," &c. This was God's governmental dealings in that dispensation. Can any one suppose it is in this period of infinite grace to man?
We will now look at your next; and a most solemn scripture it is. " And Asa, in the thirty and ninth year of his reign, was diseased in his feet, until his disease was exceeding great: yet in his disease he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians." (2 Chron. 16:12.) Now here was a man of God who had committed the very common sin of making alliance with the world. He made a league with Ben-hadad, king of Syria. He gave him silver and gold, he relied on the king of Syria, and did not rely on Jehovah. (See ver. 7.) He was then rebuked by the prophet Hanani, "Herein hast thou done foolishly." Did he repent at the word of the Lord? Far from it! He, in his folly, persecuted the prophet. And now the Lord, in his love to him, afflicts him in his feet. Does he now repent, and turn to and rely on the Lord? No, he sought not to the Lord, but to the physicians.
And as Elihu says, " Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man. To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living." (Read Job 33; 36) Gods gracious object in such cases, and they are common, when a believer has sinned, is to bring him to repentance and confession. (See Jas. 5:13-16, and 1 John 5:16.) And how often may you see a Christian like Asa. He fails grievously, and refuses to bow to his Father's afflicting hand. He gets chafed and angry. If it is in his circumstances, he will borrow money wherever he can get it, and thus struggle against the hand of God. And if it is affliction of the body, he may struggle against God in the same disobedient spirit. He refuses for a time to rely on God his Father, and to return to Him, in confession and humiliation.
It is not going to the physician that is so wrong, but the state of his soul in doing so, as to his sin, and the Lord's claims. Nay, where there is brokenness of spirit, as in the case of Hezekiah, as he explains this matter when he had been sick, the Lord may use the physician- indeed he used Isaiah as a physician. No doubt there was faith, but there was also a plaster made of a lump of figs laid upon the boil. (Isa. 38:21.) And are there not many physicians who never go to see a patient, but who first look to the Lord for guidance as to what remedy they shall prescribe?
Afflictions are not always because of some failure. This was not the case in Hezekiah. (Isa. 38) His history up to this point is beautiful and refreshing to read. But the Lord saw a great temptation coming upon him, in the letters, and flatteries, and presents of the king of Babylon. His affliction and restoration should have prepared him against the seductions of the
The writer looks back over more than half a century of the experience of his own failures and God's goodness, and he can say, " It was good for me that I was afflicted." Deep humiliation, surely, becomes him that he needed those afflictions, but he could not have done without them, and would not have been without them. The Lord doeth all things well. But we hope shortly to turn to the New Testament scriptures you refer to; in the meantime let us remember that, " Many are the afflictions of the righteous: but the Lord delivereth him out of them all." (Psalm 34:19.)
Faith Healing: No. 2
(Reply to W. L. continued.)
We will now look at the passages in the New Testament.
Matt. 8:17. Indeed this chapter is a blessed revelation of Jesus entering in sympathy into all the sufferings of humanity. His tender heart felt it all, " that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses."
If we turn to the place in Isa. 53, we find the distinct line drawn betwixt His life-suffering and sympathies, and His atoning death. He was despised and rejected by the Jewish nation in verses 1-3. Then in verse 4, "Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows; yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted." Then in the following verses His atonement, " But he was wounded for our transgressions," &c.
It is a subject that gives great comfort to our souls, to see thus that He not only bare our sins, but also our griefs and sorrows; He entered into them, bare them, made them His own. Every sorrow and affliction we feel, He in sympathy bore them first. Thus in His living ministry, as in Matt. 8:17, we see Him in tender sympathy casting out evil spirits and healing all that were sick. So in the other scripture you point out, Mark 9:23; only here it is the terrible case of a child possessed of an evil spirit: and this was a case which He alone could deal with, and the father's faith must own this.
It is a very affecting case; surely no Christian doubts for a moment that the Lord Jesus both had, and manifested His power to heal the sick, to cast out devils, and to raise the dead. Life, death, and the elements of nature were all subject to Him, for He is God over all, blessed for evermore. He acted in divine sovereignty in the exercise of this healing power. Indeed, such had been the display of miraculous power even in the prophets, as He Himself shows in the case of Naaman, and the widow of Sarepta.
We find the same sovereignty in the action of the Holy Ghost since He has been sent down from heaven. " God also bearing them witness, both with signs and wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the Holy Ghost, according to his own will." (Heb. 2:4.) Then also the same divine sovereignty is seen in 1 Cor. 12 "To another faith by the same Spirit; to another the gifts of healing by the same Spirit.... dividing to every man severally as he will." Thus the Godhead of the Holy Ghost is seen in connection with this very question—"As lie will."
Thus so far we learn that when the Lord Jesus was on earth, He exercised the power of healing. And further, when He had finished the work of redemption, and, though rejected on earth, was received up to heaven, He then sent down the Holy Ghost, who, in His divine sovereignty, imparted the power, or rather, gift of healing to whom He would.
Now we must not ignore the Holy Spirit, as is often the case; and act and argue as if Jesus was still on earth in His body, as He was once, to heal the sick. We must not forget, that He, having accomplished redemption, and risen from the dead, an entire new order of things has been introduced by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. If you will look through the Acts you will find that the gift to heal the sick was limited to the apostles and a few others. Jas. 5:14-16 is quite a different matter. It is the prayer of faith on the confession of our faults one to another. The church of God was then still in its unity; but now, where is either the church in its unity, or the elders of the church?
Do we see then that the Holy Ghost is pleased, in these days of sad division and utter failure, to impart to any man or men the gift of healing? Surely we might suspect any man who made such pretensions. That the Lord is pleased to answer-earnest believing prayer, is surely true, as every Christian holds.
The deduction from the above scriptures is 'that Christ is the Savior for the body as well as for the soul. And if the health of the body is defective, He also is the only one to restore it." Yes, He is the giver of every grain of wheat also. But does that imply that there must be no farmers, millers, or bakers? He uses the means to supply our needs. And does He not bless the means used in infirmaries, hospitals, &c.; we do not find in the scriptures, the setting up of faith infirmaries to set broken bones, or cure sickness.
We do not doubt that every blessing to man flows through Christ's atoning death, but that -does not imply that all medicine and medical skill must be laid aside, and that we must expect to be healed by faith, any more than that we may dispense with food and expect to eat our dinner by faith.
Yet the Lord Jesus when here below, did both heal the sick, and feed the hungry; and the Holy Ghost, who is still on earth, " dividing to every man severally as he will," did whilst the church remained in its unity impart the gift of healing. But in these last days you find the pretension of such power more in connection with some delusion of Satan, as in spiritualism.
Only very lately a book was sent us from a spiritualist, a converser with demons, who denied the atonement of the Lord Jesus; and yet was a wonderful medium of power to heal the sick; giving you abundant cases equal to any of Bethshan. There could be no doubt this was the direct work of Satan.
Of the other scripture you name, 1 Cor. 13:8 certainly shows that miraculous gifts would fail or cease. But love never faileth. The love of God is shed abroad in our hearts. What a blessed fact! We have not to love Him in order that He may love us. We have not to serve Him in order that the Holy Ghost may be given us. But we must ever remember we are not to judge of that love by things under the sun; for whom He loveth He chasteneth. Now in all ministry love is of immense importance. Thus betwixt the sovereign distribution of gifts in 1 Cor. 12, and their exercise in chapter xiv., we have this chapter of love (xiii.) coming in between. The Lord grant that we may ever follow after charity, and desire spiritual gifts. We need this all the more, as Satan is busy preparing the way for antichrist. (See 2 Thess. 2:3-12.) Yes, every movement of the present day is either preparing the way for antichrist, or leading the true saints of God to wait for His Son from heaven. " The Spirit and the bride say, Come!"