Dr. RobertC. Newman BiblicalTheological Seminary

Professor ofNew Testament 200N. Main Street

Hatfield,PA 19440

Some Comments on Healing

re/ Faith Tabernacle Congregation

3620 N. Fifth St., Philadelphia, PA 19140

Introduction

Lookingat the tracts published by this congregation that I have been given, thegroup appears to be basically orthodox, with a strong emphasis on divinehealing. They do not seem to beinto the "gifted healer" mode. All this is good.

Themajor problems I see with their views on healing are not whether God can chooseto heal miraculously today (He can), nor whether we should exercise faith anddepend on Him to do so (we should), but rather (1) their claim that God willand must heal you if you exercise enough faith, and (2) that it is a sin ofunbelief to make use of physicians and medicine as a part of healing.

Is it a sin touse physicians and medicine?

Firstconsider (2) above. The Biblenowhere forbids the use of medicine or doctors. The reference to Asa in 2 Chron 16:12-13 used by FaithTabernacle in their tract #1, p 2, is not about some "sin" of seekingthe help of physicians, but about Asa's stubborn unwillingness to seek God evenin his disease, because he was angry with God and his prophet and inrebellion against Him (see vv 7-10). We see here the importance of looking at the surrounding story before wegrab a verse and use it.

Onthe contrary, Jesus in Matthew 9:12 states: "It is not those who arehealthy who need a physician, but those who are sick."  Here Jesus assumes (and expects hisaudience to assume) that people will naturally go to a physician when theyare sick. And He doesn't rebukethe practice.

Luke,one of Paul's associates in his missionary service, was himself aphysician and is nowhere rebuked for this. In fact he is called the "beloved physician" inCol 4:14. Luke was called upon byGod to write one of the four Gospels, and his Gospel is filled with medicalterminology which Luke presumably learned when he was being trained to bea physician. At least, heuses the same terminology the better doctors used in those days.  See William K. Hobart's book, TheMedical Language of St. Luke(1882; reprint Baker, 1954) for detailed examples of this.

In1 Tim 5:23, Paul tells his associate Timothy "No longer drink waterexclusively, but use a little wine for the sake of your stomach and yourfrequent ailments." This isbasically dismissed with ridicule in the Faith Tabernacle tract"Objections to Divine Healing" (#26), pp. 6-7, where the authorimplies that those who oppose the Faith Tabernacle position think we shouldstop drinking water and drink medicine instead! The passage as translated by the NASB, above, shows whatPaul meant: that Timothy's stomachproblems (and perhaps other ailments) would be helped by a medicinal use of a little wine in addition to the water he drank,a common medical practice in antiquity. See Robert H. Stein, Difficult Passages in the Epistles (Baker, 1988), pp 21-26, and the articleon wine in the Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible (1975). This is clearly an example of the apostle Paul prescribingmedicine to his friend Timothy.

InLuke 10:30-37, Jesus gives us the Good Samaritan as an example to imitate.  He found an injured man abandoned bythe side of the road, used such medicine as he had in order to clean up hiswounds, and then took him to an inn where he could recover.  In modern culture, this would becomparable to using our first aid kit to fix up a person who had been mugged,and then taking him to the emergency room.

Paul's"thorn in the flesh" mentioned in 2 Cor 12:7-10 is not explained, sowe cannot be sure in detail what this involved. It isa little surprising that the tract "Objections to Divine Healing," pp1-2, makes such a big point that this is a "messenger of Satan"and not disease,since in the Faith Tabernacle view, disease is only caused by Satan andcould quite reasonably be called a "messenger" from him. In fact, however, the word three timestranslated "weakness(es)" in vv 9-10 is commonly translated"sickness" in many passages (and "infirmities" inKJV), especially when Jesus is healing diseases. In any case, the writer of the Faith Tabernacle tract missesthe whole point of Paul's remark, which is that God would not take away this"thorn in the flesh" (whether it was buffeting or temptation by ademon, or whether it was a disease), because God wanted Paul to trust in Hisgrace in the midst of suffering rather than by escaping suffering.

Does God alwaysheal?

Thisis, in fact, the main weakness of the various varieties of the "health andwealth gospel," whether they claim that Christians should never be sick orpoor, or whether it's OK to be poor but not to be sick.  It brings us to the Faith Tabernacleclaim (1) mentioned in the "Introduction" above.  The Bible tells us that God may allowus as Christians to be either poor or sick (or both) for a limited time here onearth (which might, however, be our whole lifetime). God may take these problems away in this life in answer toour prayers, or He may not. If weare counted among His children, He will certainly take them away when we die.

Itis true, in any case, that God loves those who trust in Him, and He will notlet anything happen to us that is not ultimately for our benefit (Rom8:28). As to the question ofwhether God directly causes us to suffer and be poor, it may be that He alwaysuses Satan to inflict the poverty or sickness. While God sometimes uses poverty and sickness as a punishmentfor sin or a rebuke to His children, this is not the only use God makes ofthese.

Thebook of Job is especially instructive here, and its main point is not to beescaped by claiming that somehow all this happened to Job because he did nothave enough faith (as in tract #22, p 5-6). Clearly, one of the main themes of Job is that Satan claimsJob serves God because of all the good things he gets from God in return, notbecause Job is really blameless and upright (Job 1:9-11).  The book of Job shows us that Satan iswrong, that Job (imperfect as he is) loves God because of who God is.  And because God is truth, Job lovestruth enough to suffer for it; he will not confess to sins he hasn't committed(nor curse God) in order to be put out of his misery.

Consideralso the example of poor Lazarus the beggar (not Mary and Martha's brother) inLuke 16:19-31. He is clearly therighteous person in this story, and is nowhere rebuked for his lack of faith.  He dies as he lived, poor and sick, butis immediately carried to Abraham's bosom (to feast at a banquet with Abraham;compare the expression here to that in John 13:23, where John is feasting nextto Jesus). Lazarus gets specialcomfort in the world beyond to make up for what he suffered here (Lk16:25). In fact, the transitionfrom this life to the next is often one of great reversal:  in this life, the rich man is feastinggrandly and Lazarus is begging outside his door; in the life to come, Lazarusis feasting grandly and the (former) rich man is begging outside his door.

Jobwas vindicated in this life, and his former friends trooped back to console himwhen the disasters were safely over. Lazarus, by contrast, was not vindicated until he died.

Forus as Christians, the situation is similar. We have been called to suffer for Christ's sake (1 Pet2:20-21; Php 1:29), to know Him by sharing in His sufferings (Php 3:10), to doour part in filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions (Col1:24). Thus we can expectpersecution in this world.

Butone of the important lessons of the book of Job is that sickness and povertymay be persecution from the unseen enemy of our souls.  Thus, Christians may face poverty andsickness that is a persecution from Satan, rather as Job and Paul (and Lazarus?)did. We should certainly pray thatthe Lord would help us to see if these troubles are a result of our sins,confess our sins, and ask God to deliver from these troubles.  But just as Jesus in Gethsemane wasmore concerned to do God's will than to escape from trouble, so should we be,being ready to accept poverty and sickness if that should be the path alongwhich we must walk to serve Him faithfully.