Healing in the Gospels and New Testament. Matthew 8:1-8
This morning we are continuing with what we studied last time about
what the Bible teaches about healing and illness and sickness. There is
confusion about the implications of the Scripture in relation to these. There
is a lot of false communication and a tremendous amount of deception that goes
on, both within the church and outside of the church. There is a dramatic
difference between what is practiced by both some Christian evangelists,
televangelists, that I would put under the classification of faith healing that
is not any different from the faith healing of many that are not even
Christians, that are outside of the church.
In Deuteronomy chapter thirteen there is a warning that was given
by God through Moses to the people in terms of a test of a prophet. If that
prophet appeared and would perform miracles and heal people—and the text
is treating this is as if this was something that actually happened—and
yet his teaching, prophecy, content did not conform to what was already
accepted revelation from God then he was not from God. Even though in Scripture
miracles may validate someone's ministry or someone's claim that was not the
ultimate test of authenticity. The ultimate test of authenticity is accuracy in
relation to the revealed Word of God. False teachers will, according to the
Scripture, will perform miracles that appear to be legitimate. They may appear
to heal people. One of the reasons people are healed is through something
called the placebo effect. A placebo is like a sugar pill. It is telling
somebody that if they do something, like take a certain medication or something
of that nature, it will heal them. And they have faith in that solution, in
that medicine, to the degree that upwards of sixty per cent of people will show
a positive response to a sugar pill as opposed to the drug or the antibiotic. That
is the power of the mind.
So when people go to healing per se and they go to various other
healers—eastern mystics, mind control, or watch somebody on
television—they have a certain response. But just because they seem to
have that response, they seem to have an experience that appears to be that
somebody heals them, does not mean that God had anything to do with it. That is
the point of the warning in Deuteronomy chapter thirteen.
In fact, what we learn from Scripture is that if you are a
Christian and you interpret the Bible from your experience you are not being
obedient to Scripture. We interpret our experience from the Word of God. The
Word of God tells us how things really are, and sometimes we experience things
and we don't know all the details. Even though we went through the experience
that appears to us that something happened and that we understand it, that this
must be from God, and it is such a real experience. But we don't know all the
data, we don't see into the invisible world, and we don't understand the
deceptions of Satan and the cosmic system; and we don't understand everything
about the psychology of our own soul. As a result of that we are easily
deceived by our experience. And so we have to be extremely cautious, and the
only foundation we have to understand what the Bible teaches about healing is
to just understand what the Bible says about healing.
A little summary focusing on the four questions pointed out last
time. Does God heal today? Does God want you healthy and well? Why did Jesus
and the apostles heal? Was faith necessary to be healed?
The answer to the first question: yes indeed, God heals today. As
we will see, it is how does He heal today. Does He heal through intermediate
agencies, i.e. healers or people with a gift of healing, or does He heal
directly as a result of simply of prayer?
With regard to the second question, this points out the error of
what is known as the health and wealth gospel, the prosperity gospel, the name
and claim it gospel that is rife today in many congregations. It is not
biblical at all. It has its roots in a lot of eastern mystical, metaphysical
religions and concepts. A good book on this is The Seduction of Christianity by Dave
Hunt. The answer is, no, God does not want you healthy and wealthy in that
sense. We live in a world that is fallen, a world where there is illness,
disease, and many, many problems, where there is poverty. The Lord said:
"The poor will be with you always". Christ died for our sin; He did
not die for the specifics of healing.
Fourth, we often hear the myth that the reason people aren't
healed is that they don't have enough faith. The problem is that there are many
examples in the Bible where there is no mention at all of the faith of the
person who is healed. In fact, in some cases we are not even sure if they were
a believer in Christ in terms Him being the Messiah. They just realized that
this was a person who could heal them, they had a problem, and they went to Him
for healing. There is no indication in the text whatsoever that the person was
a believer in Jesus Christ.
We looked at this distinction between faith healing, the pseudo
healing that takes place. In fact, there are going to be these kinds of pseudo
miracles—I call them pseudo miracles not because it is a phony but
because it is not coming from the source of God as claimed. 2 Thessalonians
chapter two describes the fact that the Antichrist, the prince who is to come
who will rule over the ten-nation confederacy of the revived Roman empire
during the future Tribulation period, will confirm his claims to be the Messiah
(he is a false messiah) by performing many signs and wonders. He will deceive
many, "even the elect". Just because you are believer doesn't mean you
are free from deception.
God has healed historically through different means. First of all,
indirectly or mediately through a human agent. Sometimes it was an apostle,
sometimes a prophet in the Old Testament who healed. That would be a
supernatural healing through a human agent. But then there are other times when
a person is healed intermediately or indirectly by natural means. God uses a
doctor, a physician, and medication in order to cure the disease. We have the
supernatural miraculous healing, such as the lame man in Acts 3:11, and then
natural healing which is probably the case with Epaphroditus in Philippians
chapter three.
Then we have the fact that God also heals directly without any
human agent at times. But even in the Bible this was extremely rare. There was
a very small minority of people healed because the purpose of Jesus' coming
wasn't to heal people, the healing was something that was a sign of who He
claimed to be, the Messiah. The Old Testament predicted that when the messianic
age came, when the Messiah came, when the kingdom was in effect, that He would
heal all of the diseases. So as He came at the first advent to offer the
kingdom to Israel He was giving a preview of coming attractions with these
miracles. He was showing through these miracles that He was capable. He had the
power to do what the Messiah was predicted to do from the Old Testament and
that He could fulfill that. This was a foretaste. He wasn't healing everybody.
He wasn't bringing in the kingdom; He was offering the kingdom. Again, this is
a misunderstood concept in Scripture. Jesus offered the kingdom at the first
coming. When He was rejected by the religious leaders of Israel the kingdom was
completely, totally, absolutely, unequivocally, and without any doubt postponed.
You can't have a kingdom without any king, and He currently is not a King.
Jesus doesn't receive the crown for the kingdom, according to Daniel chapter
seven, as the Son of Man until the Ancient of Days fives Him that crown, gives
Him the kingdom; and it is at that point that He returns to the earth at the
second coming. This occurs at the end of the Tribulation period, in the future.
It is described in Revelation chapter nineteen. Until then, according to
Revelation 3:20, 21, Jesus is sitting not on His throne but on His Father's
throne. He has not yet received the kingdom, so He is not yet the King. What is
happening in the Gospels is a foretaste, a foreshadowing, a preview of coming
attraction.
God does not heal indirectly through prophets and apostles today.
He does heal as an answer to prayer. The issue is not the question, does God
heal today? People will hear what I teach and say: "You don't believe God
heals". No, you haven't really listened. I believe God heals; I believe
God heals people numerous times throughout the year. It is not the normal
expectation for the church age and He doesn't do it in the church age through
intermediate healers. So the issue is, how has God revealed that He heals
today? I put it that way because people come back and say: "Well you are
putting God in a box". No, no, no, you still don't understand. If you
really believe the Bible is the Word of God then you have to believe that God
reveals how He works in human history. You can't say, well I had this experience
so it must be God. You have to put the Bible first. The Bible is where you go
to for your authority, and in the Bible God says: "I am working at
different times in different ways in different dispensations.
People come along and say: "You don't believe God does
miracles today". No, I said I
don't believe God does miracles today the way He did them during the first
advent because that was for a specific purpose, and that purpose no longer exists.
God has revealed that He is doing things differently during the church age from
what He did in earlier ages and from what He will do in future ages. So the
issue is in the second question, has God revealed that we should expect His
intervention in our illnesses, our diseases and deformities as a normal
experience in the Christian life? And the answer to that is a resounding no. It
wasn't a normal expectation even among believers during Christ's incarnation.
Those who were healed represented a small minority of those who trusted in Him
as Messiah during the time that He was upon the earth when the offer of the
kingdom was made again during the period of the Acts under the apostles in the
early part of the church age as they made a reoffer of the kingdom to Israel
before it was rejected. During that time there were many who were not healed.
So when then address the question: why did the apostles heal? Was
faith and/or salvation a prerequisite for healing? Jesus healed to present His
messianic credentials. This is seen in passages like Isaiah 42:7; 28:18;
35:4-6. This was what was prophesied of the Messiah.
Another thing that we saw was that healings were never performed
merely for their physical benefit. If Jesus' mission was to heal then He would
have gone to the counterpart of hospitals at that time, and He would have
healed all who were sick. Jesus healed those who came to Him, and in some cases
those who were in His presence, but His focal point wasn't healing; His focal
point was the message.
Jesus' miracles were not performed randomly or indiscriminately.
He did not always heal those who needed healing or perform on demand, but He
did so to fulfill the plan of God, as stated in John 5:2-5; Matthew 12:38-40.
A third observation about Jesus healing is that His healing was
immediate or within minutes. In two cases they were not immediate but were very
close to it. They were not gradual; they did not take place over a period of
time, and the consequences of His healing were irreversible. People didn't go
home and then have the symptoms come back a week or two later. That is a sign
of some sort of psychosomatic healing or some sort of placebo effect.
The fourth thing we observe from looking at all of the healings
that are mentioned in Scripture is that there was really an abundance of
healings. To say that there was an abundance of healings doesn't mean that He
healed everyone. There were just a number of places, like we have in our
passage, where Jesus healed a large number of people that came to Him. For
example in Matthew 8:16 NASB "When evening came, they brought to Him many who were
demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who
were ill." So
there was an abundance of healings to indicate that He was the Messiah. This is
the whole point here in this particular section because the very next verse
says, NASB"{This
was} to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ÒHE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.Ó That is a quote from Isaiah 53:4,
and in Matthew's citation of that verse [he is quoting from the LXX]
he changed the verbs because the verbs in Isaiah indicated a sacrifice but the
verbs that he uses in this citation are not terms that were used for a ritual
sacrifice. So it is not referring to the atonement at all. He takes this and
applies it to the situation and says that of the Messiah was to heal us from
diseases it is not the same ritual term that is used in the Hebrew of Isaiah
53:4.
Jesus healed in a variety of ways. He healed by touch and command.
He would touch someone, as we saw with the leper, and the leper was cleansed.
In another case in John 5:8, 9 He issued a command. He was not physically
present. We see the same thing in this chapter with the healing of the
centurion's servant. A third way is through the touch of His cloak, Matthew
chapter nine. A fourth way is, He spat on the ground and mixed it with dirt on
the ground and applied this to the eyes of the blind man and he was healed. He
was not restricted to one particular method.
Not all who were healed expressed faith or were saved. That is an
important point. The writers of Scripture do not make a point out of the
salvation status of the person who was healed, or necessarily their faith
status. In some places they do. For example, in Matthew chapter nine which is
talking about the woman who touched the hem of His garment (v. 22) Jesus said: "Daughter, take courage; your faith has made you well."
He comments on the fact that she had faith. But there are many times when the faith
of the person isn't mentioned. For example, when we look at the healing of the
centurion's servant in 8:5-13 the centurion certainly had faith, but we don't
know anything about whether or not his servant who was healed had faith. When
we look at the example of the healing of the paralytic in the first part of
chapter nine his friends had faith but we don't know if he had faith. Nothing
is said. The writers of Scripture do not make a point of emphasizing faith on
the part of the person who is healed all the time. In some cases we doubt
whether the person was saved.
When we go beyond the
Gospels and into Acts we ask why it is there are more miracles at the beginning
of the book than at the end of the book. It is not because they had less faith,
it is because as the church is transitioning from spiritual infancy to a more
mature church where they have a more completed canon of Scripture, and most of
the New Testament is written where there is less and less need for miracles for
revelation and for healings to take place. Acts is transitional, it is history,
it is not telling us that this is the way things should be, it is describing
the way things were. It is de-scripted; it is not pre-scripted. One of the
things we see is that in the apostolic age signs and wonders and miracles and
healings were part of the authentication, the credentials, of the apostles. 2
Corinthians 12:12, NASB "The signs of a true apostle were
performed among you with all perseverance, by signs and wonders and
miracles."
The requirement for being
an apostle was first he had to have seen Jesus. He had to have heard Him teach
and had to be personally commissioned by Jesus. So there were very, very few
apostles. There were actually only eleven plus the apostle Paul. The term
apostle was used in two senses. The word apostle means someone who is
commissioned to a task. There were two types of apostles in the New Testament.
One is the apostle who is commissioned directly by Jesus Christ to a task.
There was a second type of apostle that was commissioned by a local church to
go out as a missionary. The first kind of apostle is what we are talking about
here, those who were commissioned by Christ. When we come to Revelation we see
that the foundation stones of the New Jerusalem are the twelve apostles. The
Bible doesn't recognize more than that, and so we don't add to the apostolic
body. A genuine apostle, one of the twelve, was vindicated and validated by the
miracles that he performed.
We see this in places
like Acts chapters three and four where Peter
and John healed the lame man. It was not just to heal him. They healed him to
gain a hearing from the crowds out on the steps of the temple in order to
present the gospel of the kingdom to those who were present in the temple. They
were not doing it for the sake of healing; they were doing it to win people to
the gospel message. Acts 5:12 tells us that at the hands of the apostles many
signs and wonders were taking place among the people who were all with one
accord in Solomon's portico. So there were numerous miracles performed to
validate and verify the message of the apostles.
Then there were a number of examples where the faith of the
recipient was not present at the time of healing. For example, the nobleman's
son. This took place also in Capernaum. This is described in John 4:46-54. He
was not a believer, but afterward he became a believer. We see the cripple at
Bethesda, John 5:1-9. He is not a
believer, Jesus seems to just randomly pick him out of the crowd and heal him.
There is the demon possessed man in Capernaum who was healed on the Sabbath
does not appear to have faith in Christ. There is no mention of faith at all of
paralyzed man that is healed in Matthew 9:2-8. There is the faith of those who
are with him, but his faith is not indicated. We may assume that it is there
but we are assuming without evidence. The text has to state it so we can be
sure. There is no mention of faith of the centurion's servant in Matthew
8:5-13. Then there is the blind and mute man that Jesus heals. He restores his
sight and speech in Matthew 12:22 and Luke 11:14 but there is no mention of his
faith. There is no mention of faith of the Gadarene demoniac. There is a
demon-possessed man in Matthew chapter nine and there is no mention of his
faith. In the feeding of the five thousand that five thousand didn't have to
express faith, they were just hungry. Same thing with the feeding of the four
thousand mentioned in Matthew 15:29-31; Mark 8:1-9. There was the healing of
the Canaanite woman's daughter. The mother had faith but not necessarily the
daughter (Matthew 15:21-28; Mark 7:24-30). There are so many of these: the deaf
mute in Decapolis (Mark 7:31-37), the demon possessed boy (Matthew 17:14-18),
the restoration of Malchus's ear, the two blind men at Jericho (Matthew
9:27-31), and nine of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus don't respond in
faith.
The point covered in all of this is that many examples in
Scripture were not based on faith. But there was faith present in many of them.
There was the healing of the leper in Matthew 8:2-4, the healing of the
crippled hand in Matthew 12:9-13, Peter walking on the water in Matthew
14:24-33, the man born blind in John 9:1-7, blind Bartemaus, the woman with the
continuing hemorrhaging in Matthew 9:20-22. There was the first miraculous
catch of fish, Luke 5:1-11 indicated faith on the part of the disciples, the
second miraculous catch of fish in John 21:1-11. My point in all of this is
that we hear these myths that are promoted by different people who say that if
you aren't healed it is because you don't have enough faith, or you don't have
faith like a child. So the idea that it is your faith that renders the healing
inoperative is garbage. It puts a guilt complex on you and people who say that
are teaching doctrines straight from the pit of hell. It is not biblical; it is
designed to promote guilt and anguish and in many cases to line their own
pockets with offerings. And this is horrible; it takes advantage of the sheep.
In the Old Testament there is the word rapha, which means healing. It is often
used just for physical disease but it is used as a synonym for the solution to
sin. For example, in Jeremiah 3:22 the Lord says to Israel NASB "Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness.Ó
He doesn't say, "You sick children, you ill children, you lame, blind or
deaf children". He is not talking about a physical problem but a spiritual
problem, and He says, "Turn and I will heal you". The healing there
is a synonym for forgiveness. This is the same kind of thing we see in Isaiah
53:5, a verse that is often taken out of context to say there is healing in the
atonement. Notice what the parallel is here. What is the passage talking about?
"He was wounded for our transgressions [sin], He was bruised for our iniquities
[sin]É" This is talking about substitutionary atonement. "É the
chastening for our well-being {fell} upon Him, And by His scourging we are
healed." Physical healing doesn't have anything to do with the context.
The context is talking about solving the sin problem. We have to understand the
word healing there in the context is used as a synonym for the atonement,
paying the price for our sin, and sin is the root cause of all
disease—not personal sin but the sin of Adam. Adam's sin plunged the
world into corruption and as a result of that we have the rise of death and
disease and sufferings, famines and wars, and everything else. The root cause
is sin, and when sin's penalty is paid for then the root solution is available.
Then on the basis of the fact that sin has been paid for on the cross God is
free to heal and to save.
That takes us back to the
gospel, that the real issue for each of us is our relationship to God. If you
are not a believer in Jesus Christ then the solution for you is to trust in
Christ as savior, to believe in Him who died for you and paid your sin penalty
so you could have eternal life. If you are a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ
then the issue is to walk with Him. The issue is to realize all of the
blessings that have been already given as Christians. God didn't leave anything
out. As Paul said in Ephesians 1:3, we have been blessed with every spiritual
blessing in the heavenlies. We already have them. The only way we can learn
about them and access them is through our study of God's Word, believing and
learning about them, and living in light of them. That is the challenge for
every single believer. The choice is ours. We either live in light of what
Christ did on the cross or we reject it. If we live in light of it then God
promises that eventually there will be complete justice in our lives and we
will experience full healing, eventually. It is in the future. And we might on
occasion experience a glimpse of that in our lives.