The Place of Healing in the Church Today
The problem with Christianity is that its source, the Bible, was written a long time ago in a land far, far away. We have this ancient book, and we are trying to find its meaning for us today.
There are many stories in the Bible that you may not want to talk about outside of a church, like Jesus walking on water or the Red Sea opening in two. The safe approach is to stick to what the Bible has to say about human behavior. After all, this is the part of the life that we are responsible for, and the rest of the world won’t look at us funny.
So we fight for justice in the world, and we seek to alleviate poverty and hunger wherever we can. We try to be good neighbors in as many ways as we can. Yet if that is the only message of the Bible, then surely we don’t need a Bible for a guide.
Yet the Bible won’t let us settle for this. It is more than just good advice on how to live. As the Bible traces the history of a people, God remains as the one constant figure who is present in every generation. And who is this God?
Yes, He is a God who wants His people to do justly and to love mercy, but He is also God who wants to come to the aid of His people, to deliver them from their oppressors. This God of the Bible criticizes the gods of the other nations and the people who worship them, because their gods cannot deliver their people from their enemies.
They have eyes that cannot see, ears that cannot hear, and they cannot move from the place where they were positioned. They were made by human hands, while this God created everything that exists.
This God wants our worship and our service, yet this God is not like the kings and rulers or the other gods of the nations. This God is a Deliverer of His people.
We come to the New Testament, where Jesus is often juxtaposed against the God of the Old Testament. Jesus seems far less interested in delivering the people from political enemies, but He was certainly intent on freeing the people from the enemies within. He is often lauded for His moral teachings, but Jesus was far more than a moral teacher. He healed people. He healed everyone who came to Him. He even restored people who couldn’t come to Him, because they were already dead. And this same Jesus said that He came to reveal the Father. The one who has seen Him has seen the Father.
If all we get from the person of Jesus is to love our neighbor, then we have missed at least half of what Jesus wanted to do while He was on earth. Jesus healed people as much as He did any other thing in His ministry. And we have to ask the question whether He still heals people today.
I need to clarify that question a little. By definition, God can do anything. And if He wants to heal somebody, that is His business; and so, yes, there are times when we all have to admit, people do get healed from time to time. But the point is that these instances bear a great resemblance to the lottery. We know that people win this thing from time to time, but we never know when and the chances of it being us is highly remote.
The question that I am asking is whether healing is something that we should expect far more frequently, as something that God really wants to do, just like Jesus did when He was on earth.
This is a big topic. I could write a book on it. And I did. But for now I would like to suggest four reasons why I believe we should be able to expect healing as a regular part of what God wants for us.
Throughout the Old Testament there are two main pictures of God that are presented. First there is the Law Giver. God is the Creator, and this world belongs to Him. And so there are rules, and they are His to make. By no means am I suggesting that these rules are arbitrary in the least. They reflect His very nature. But it’s His world, and He wants it to run a certain way. We call these rules justice, love, goodness, mercy, and so on. The world is designed such that these qualities are the grease that makes the wheels turn smoothly.
But there is another picture of God just as strong, and that is that of a God who delivers His people, a God who bids His people to call upon Him in their troubles, and He will deliver them. In fact, on several occasions God through His prophets mocks the idols of the nations and the people who serve them, because their gods cannot deliver their people out of the hands of their enemies.
Now the biggest enemies that anyone had in those times were foreign powers who seemed to be constantly at war with them, always seeking to subjugate them. In the New Testament the people were in a state of subjugation, but there is a definite shift in focus. It is not that God no longer wants to deliver His people, but whereas in the Old Testament God dealt with His people collectively, in the New Testament the shift has clearly moved to individuals. The concept of God’s people was changing from the people of Israel
Unfinished
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