Is Healing for All?

Is it still the will of God, as in the past, to heal all who have need of healing, and to fulfil the number of their days?

The greatest barrier to the faith of many seeking bodily healing in our day is the uncertainty in their minds as to it being the will of God to heal all. Nearly every one knows that God does heal some, but there is much in modern theology that keeps the people from knowing what the Bible clearly teaches—that healing is provided for all. It is impossible to boldly claim by faith a blessing which we are not sure God offers, because the power of God can be claimed only where the will of God is known.

It would be next to impossible to get a sinner to “believe unto righteousness” before you had fully convinced him that it was God’s will to save him. Faith begins where the will of God is known. If it is God’s will to heal only some of those who need healing, then none have any basis for faith, unless they have a special revelation that they are among the favored ones. Faith must rest on the will of God alone, not on our desires or wishes. Appropriating faith is not believing that God can but that God will. Because of not knowing it to be a redemptive privilege for all, most of those in our day, when seeking healing, add to their petition, “If it be Thy will.”

A Corrected Theology

Among all those who sought healing from Christ during His earthly ministry, we read of only one who had this kind of theology. This was the leper, who said, “Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.” The first thing Christ did was to correct his theology by saying, “I will, be thou clean.” Christ’s “I will” cancelled his “if,” adding to his faith that Christ could heal him, the faith that He would.

The theology of this leper, before Christ enlightened him, is almost universal today, because this part of the gospel is so seldom and so fragmentarily preached.

We see, from almost every conceivable angle throughout the Scriptures, that there is no doctrine more clearly taught than that it is God’s will to heal all who have need of healing, and that they may fulfil the number of their days, according to His promise. Of course, we mean all who are properly taught and who meet the conditions prescribed in the Word. Now, I hear someone say, “If healing is for all then we shall never die.” Why not? Divine healing goes no further than the promise of God. He does not promise that we shall never die, but He says, “I will take sickness away from the midst of thee . . . the number of thy days I will fulfil.” (Ex. 23:25, 26.) The days of our years are threescore years and ten. (Psa. 90:10) Take me not away in the midst of my days. (Psa. 102:24)

Why shouldst thou die before thy time? (Eccl. 7:17.)

Then some one may ask, Well, how is a man going to die?

Thou takest away their breath, they die, and return to their dust. (Psa. 104:29.)

The Rev. P. Gavin Duffy writes on this point, “He has allotted to man a certain span of life, and His will is that that life shall be lived out. I want you to recall that all those He called back from the dead were young people who had not lived out their fulness of years; and in that very fact we may well see His protest against premature death. . . . Of course, we must not expect that the old shall be physically young, but if the allotted span has not been spent we have a right to claim God’s gift of health; and, even though it be past, if it be His Will that we should continue here for a time longer, it is equally His Will that we should do so in good health.”

Death comes, and then we blame our God, And weakly say, “Thy will be done;”

But never underneath the sod Has God imprisoned any one.

God does not send disease, or crime, Or carelessness, or fighting clans;

And when we die before our time, The fault is man’s.

He is a God of life, not death; He is one God that gives us birth; He has not shortened by a breath The life of any on the earth; And He would have us dwell within The world our full allotted years. So blame not God—for our own sin Makes our own tears.

Douglas Malloch.

Read the Will and Know

If we would know what is in a will, let us read the will. If we want to know God’s will on any subject, let us read His will. Suppose a lady should say, “My husband, who was very rich, has passed away; now, I wish I knew whether he left me anything in the will.”. I would say to her, “Why don’t you read the will and see?” The word “testament,” legally speaking, means a person’s will. The Bible contains God’s last will and testament, in which He bequeaths to us all the blessings of redemption; and since it is His “last will and testament,” anything later is a forgery. A man never writes a new will after he is dead. If healing is in God’s will for us, then to say that the age of miracles is past is virtually saying what is the opposite of the truth, that a will is no good after the death of the testator. Jesus is not only the testator, who died; He was resurrected, and is also the mediator of the will. He is our lawyer, so to speak, and He will not beat us out of the Will, as some earthly lawyers do. He is our Representative at the right hand of God.

For the answer to the question under consideration, let us look away from modern tradition and go to the Word of God, which is a revelation of His will.

In the 15th chapter of Exodus, just after the passage of the Red sea, which typified our redemption, and “was written for our admonition,” God gave His first promise to heal. This promise was for all. God named the conditions, the conditions were met, and we read: “He brought them forth also with silver and gold, and there was not one feeble person among all their tribes.” It is here that God gave the covenant of healing, revealed by and sealed with His first covenant and Redemptive name, Jehovah-Rapha, translated, “I am the Lord that healeth thee.” This is God’s word, “settled in heaven,” a never-changing fact concerning God.

Who Is Authorized to Change God’s Will?

To say that this privilege of health is not for God’s people today, is to change God’s “I Am” to “I Was” Jehovah-Rapha. Who has the authority to change God’s Redemptive names? Instead of abandoning His office as Healer, He is “Jesus Christ, the same yesterday, today, and forever,” under this first covenant name, as well as under the other six. The blessings revealed by His Redemptive names, as we have seen in the preceding sermon, were provided by the Atonement, when He “tasted death for every man,” and therefore cannot be confined to Israel. This 15th chapter of Exodus shows us that at least in that age of the world, 3500 years ago, God did not leave the people in doubt concerning His willingness to heal all,

A Nation Without One Feeble Person

This universal state of health in the nation of Israel continued as long as God’s conditions were met. Then, twenty years later (Numbers 16:46-50) when, because of sin the plague destroyed 14,700, they again met conditions, the plague was stayed, and He was still Jehovah-Rapha, the Healer, not to some, but to all. It would not be true that the plague was stayed if it remained on even one of them. This state of health again remained uninterrupted until nineteen years later, when the people, not satisfied with God’s way for them, chosen in love and mercy, spake against God and against Moses, and they were cursed with the fiery serpents. When they again met God’s conditions, by confessing their sins, His word through Moses to them was, “It shall come to pass that every one that is bitten, when he looketh upon it (the type of Calvary) shall live.” So, again, at this time, the Scriptures show us that it was still God’s will to heal, not some, but all. Every one that was bitten lived by beholding the brazen serpent, which was a typical foreshadowing of the coming sacrifice upon Calvary in our behalf.

The Psalmist David, in his time, understood healing to be a universal privilege. In the 86th Psalm he says, “For thou, Lord, art good... plenteous in mercy unto all them call upon Thee.” We shall see, in the following sermon, that healing was one of the most prominent mercies throughout the Scriptures, and that the sick, in the New Testament, asked for “mercy” when seeking healing from Christ; for God’s mercy covers man’s physical, as well as spiritual, nature. Therefore, Jesus, according to the Old Testament promise, showed that He was “plenteous in mercy,” by healing, not some, but all who came to Him. Again, in the 103rd Psalm, we see that David believed that the mercy of healing was as universal a privilege as the mercy of forgiveness. He calls upon his soul to bless God, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities, Who healeth all thy diseases.” “Who healeth all” is as permanent as “Who forgiveth all,” for the identical language is used with reference to both mercies.

In the 91st Psalm, God says concerning the man “that dwelleth in the secret place of the Most High ... with long life will I satisfy him.” Is the privilege of dwelling in the secret place only for a few or for all? If it is for all, then God’s promise to all is, “With long life will I satisfy him.” God would have to break this promise to be unwilling to heal His obedient children in middle life. If dwelling in the secret place was possible in a darker age of the world, surely it is in this better age of grace, during which “He is able to make all grace abound” towards each of His children. The holy prophets of the Old Testament “prophesied of the grace that should come to us.”

Calvary Meets All Man’s Needs

We have seen, in the great Redemption Chapter, the 53rd of Isaiah, that it is our sicknesses, as well as our sins that Jesus bore, making one privilege as universal as the other. What Jesus did for individuals who came to Him for blessings was for them, but what He did on Calvary was for all.

It is clear that in all of these instances cited from the Old Testament it was God’s will to heal all who met the conditions. Wherever forgiveness was offered, healing was also offered. Let those who teach the people that God’s will in the matter of healing is not the same today answer the question, “Why would God withdraw this Old Testament mercy from this better dispensation?” Is it not to be expected that He, Who “hath reserved better things for us” and Who is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” should continue these same mercies throughout this better dispensation? Let us now look in the New Testament and see.

Christ the Expression of God’s Will

There is no better way of ascertaining the proper answer to the question before us than by reading the Gospels, which record the teachings and the works of Christ. He was the expression of the Father’s will. His life was both a revelation and a manifestation of the unchanging love and will of God. He literally acted out the will of God for Adam’s race. He said, “I came down from heaven, not to do my will, but the will of Him that sent Me,” and that “the Father that dwelleth in Me, He doeth the works.” He also said, “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” therefore, when He healed the multitudes who thronged Him, day after day, we see the Father revealing His will. When “He laid His hands on every one of them, and healed them” He was doing and revealing the will of God for our bodies. Perhaps no one would be more conservative than the scholars of the Episcopalian church, and yet, the commission appointed to study the subject of spiritual healing and report back to the church, after three years of study and research in both the Bible and history, say in their report, “The healing of the sick by Jesus was done as a revelation of God’s will for man.” Because they discovered that His will is fully revealed, they further say, “No longer can the Church pray for the sick with the faithdestroying, qualifying phrase ‘If it be Thy will.’ ”

The message everywhere taught in the Gospels is one of complete healing for soul and body for all who come to Him. Many today say, “I believe in healing, but I do not believe it is for every one.” If it is not, how could we pray the prayer of faith for any, or even for one whom it is God’s will to heal, until we have a revelation by the Spirit that we are praying for the right one? If it is not God’s will to heal all, then no man can ascertain the will of God for himself from the Bible. Are we to understand from these teachers that we must close our Bibles and get our revelation direct from the Spirit, before we can pray for the sick, because the will of God cannot be ascertained from the Scriptures?

This would be virtually teaching that the whole of the Divine activity on the line of healing would have to be governed by the direct revelation of the Spirit, instead of by the Scriptures. How are the sick to be healed if there is no Gospel (good news) of healing to proclaim to them as a basis for their faith? Or, since faith is expecting God to keep His promise, how can there be faith for healing if there is no promise in the Bible that the sick can apply to himself? The Scriptures tell us how God heals the sick. “He sendeth His Word and healeth them and delivereth them from their graves.” (Psa. 107:20.) “ ... the word of God which effectually worketh” in them that believe, and is “health to all their flesh.” (See I Thes. 2:12; Prov. 4:22.)

Faith Rests on More Than Mere Ability

If a millionaire were to appear before an audience of a thousand people, with the announcement that he was able to give each one a thousand dollars, this would be no basis for any to have faith for a thousand dollars, because faith cannot rest on ability. If he should go further, and say, “I will give fifty of you a thousand dollars each,” even then there is no basis for any one in the audience to have faith for the thousand dollars. Were you to ask one of them if he or she were “fully assured” of receiving a thousand dollars from the millionaire, the answer would be, “I need the money, and hope I am among the lucky ones, but I cannot be sure.” But, should the millionaire say, “It is my will to give all a thousand dollars each,” then every one in the audience would have a ground for faith, and would undoubtedly say to the rich man, “Thank you! I’ll take my money.”

Now, supposing God were a respecter of persons, and that it was His will to heal only some of those who need healing, let us take a glance through the Gospels, and see how the friends of the sick decided which of the sick to bring to Him for healing. “Now, when the sun was setting, all they that had any sick with divers diseases, brought them unto Him; and He laid His hands on every one of them and healed them.” (Luke 4:40.) Here the unlucky ones, if there were any, were brought, and all healed the same as the others. Surely, it was God doing and revealing His own will. If you had been there and were sick, you would have been brought, and would have been healed with the rest, because they brought them all. Matthew, in his record of this same instance, tells why Jesus made no exceptions. “He healed them all, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias, the prophet, saying, “Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.” The word “our” means everybody, in the sacrifice of Calvary, and it therefore requires the healing of all, to fulfil the prophecy. Not only on this occasion, but on every occasion since, down until today, He heals the sick “that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias, the Prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.”

Let the sick go through the Gospels and note the all’s and the every’s and they will see that the redemptive blessing of healing was for all, and that no one ever appealed in vain to Jesus for healing. There never was a multitude large enough to have in it even one that Jesus wanted to remain sick, and would not heal.

Jesus Healed Everything and All

And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching. . . and preaching the Gospel . . . and healing all manner of sicknesses, and all manner of disease among the people. And His fame went throughout all Syria; and they brought unto Him all sick people that were taken with divers diseases and torments, and those which were possessed with devils, and those that had palsy; and He healed them (all—Moffat’s translation) . . . And there followed Him great multitudes of people from Galilee, and from Decapolis, and from Jerusalem, and from Judea, and from beyond Jordan. (Matt. 4:23-25.)

And Jesus went about all the cities and villages teaching ... and preaching the Gospel . . . and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when He saw the multitudes He was moved with compassion on them . . . And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease. (Matt. 9:35 to Matt. 10:1.)

Note, here, that it was the multitudes coming for healing that necessitated the thrusting forth of new laborers into His harvest to preach and to heal. It was not long until seventy more were needed, and were sent forth to heal as well as to preach.

But when Jesus knew it, He withdrew Himself from thence, and great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all. (Matt. 12:15.)

And Jesus went forth and saw a great multitude, and was moved with compassion toward them, and healed their sick. (Matt. 14:14.)

And when they were gone over they came into the land of Gennesaret, and when the men of that place had knowledge of Him they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto Him all that were diseased; and besought Him that they might only touch the hem of His garment, and as many as touched were made perfectly whole. (Matt. 14:34-36.)

And a great multitude of the people out of all Judea and Jerusalem, and from the coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases, and they that were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed, and the whole multitude sought to touch Him for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all. (Luke 6:17-19.)

We see throughout the Gospels that, in bringing the sick to Christ for healing, it was repeatedly stated that they brought them all, which included all the unlucky ones if there were any. If, according to modern tradition, it is God’s will for the sick to patiently remain so for His glory, is it not strange that there should not be even one of this class in all these multitudes brought to Christ for healing? By healing the epileptic (Mark 9:14-29) Jesus proved it to be the Father’s will to heal even this one whom the disciples, divinely commissioned to cast out demons failed to deliver. We see by this verse that it would have been wrong to call in question and to teach God’s unwillingness to heal because of this failure on the part of the disciples. Jesus, by healing him, shows them that the failure proved nothing but unbelief. Peter, after three years of constant association with the Lord, describes His earthly ministry in this one brief statement: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with Power, Who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil, for God was with Him.” (Acts 10:38.) .

So, in all the above, and many other Scriptures which show He healed them all, we have the will of God revealed for our bodies, and the answer to the question, “Is healing for all?”

Compassionate Love Jesus Ruling Motive

Many, in our day, have been taught that Christ performed miracles of healing just to show His power and to prove His deity. This may be true, but it is far from being all the truth. He would not have had to heal all to show His power; a few outstanding cases would prove this. But the Scriptures show that he healed because of His compassion and to fulfil prophecy. Others teach that He healed the sick to make Himself known, but in Matt. 12:15, 16, we read, “Great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all, and charged them that they should not make Him known.”

Some, who have to admit that Jesus healed all who came to Him, hold that Isaiah’s prophecy concerning His bearing our sicknesses refers only to His earthly ministry; that this universal manifestation of His compassion was special, and not a revelation of the unchanging will of God. But the Bible clearly teaches that He only “began to do and teach” what was not only to be continued, but augmented, after His ascension.

After Christ, for three years, had healed all that came to Him, He said, “It is expedient (profitable) for you that I go away.”

How could this be true if His going away would modify His ministry to the afflicted?

Anticipating the unbelief with which this wonderful promise would be regarded, He prefaced His promise to continue the same and greater works in answer to our prayers after His exaltation, with the words “Verily, verily.” “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do, because I go unto My Father, and (how are we to do them?) whatsoever ye ask the Father in My name that will I do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (John 14:12, 13.)

In other words, we are to do them by asking Him to do them.

He did not say “less works,” but “the works” and “greater” works.”

To me, this promise from the lips of Christ is a complete answer to all opposers and to all their books and articles against Divine healing.

“It is written” was Christ’s policy when resisting the devil.

Wm. Jennings Bryan well asks, “Since Christ said ‘It is written,’ and the devil said ‘It is written,’ why can’t the preacher say ‘It is written?’ ”

The Wisdom of the Early Church

The early Church took Christ at His word and prayed unitedly for signs and wonders of healing, until “the place was shaken where they were assembled together,” and then “they brought forth the sick into the streets and laid them on beds and couches ... There came also a multitude out of the cities round about Jerusalem, bringing sick folks, and they which were vexed with unclean spirits, and they were healed every one.” “All that Jesus began to do and to teach” He was here continuing from the right hand of God through “His Body, the Church,” according to His promise. Some say, “Oh, that was only in the beginning of the Acts, for the purpose of confirming their word regarding Christ’s resurrection.

Let us, then, turn to the last chapter of Acts, and read how, thirty years later, after Paul, on the island of Melita, had healed the father of Publius, “All the other sick people in the island came, and were cured.” (Weymouth.)

SO we see, again, at this time, in the very last chapter of the Acts of the Holy Ghost, which is the only unfinished book of the New Testament, it is still the will of God to heal; not some, but all.

The Acts of the Holy Ghost

The Holy Spirit, Whom Christ sent as His Successor and Executive, took possession of the Church, which is the Body of Christ, and showed the same healing power after Pentecost that Christ had displayed before, and vast multitudes were healed. As in the Gospels, so in the Acts, we never read of any one asking for healing and being denied. Men have named this book the “Acts of the Apostles.” A better and a truer name for this book would be “The Acts of the Holy Ghost,” because it records the acts of the Holy Ghost through others as well as the Apostles. Phillip and Stephen, who were not Apostles, were as gloriously used as Peter and John. The Holy Spirit came to execute for us all the blessings purchased by Christ’s redemption, and pledged by the seven redemptive names. He has never lost any of His interest in the work He came to do. If you wish to know how He wants to act today, read how He did act. The book of Acts shows us how He wants to act throughout “all the days, even unto the end of the age.”

It was the Holy Spirit Who worked all the miracles of healing at the hands of Christ. Jesus never undertook a miracle until, in answer to His prayer, the Holy Spirit, the Miracle-Worker, came upon Him, and then, in full reliance upon the Spirit, He cast out devils and healed the sick. The miracles of Christ were all done by the Spirit in advance of His own dispensation, or before He had yet entered officially into office. Why would the Holy Spirit, Who healed all the sick before His dispensation began, do less after He entered office? Did the Miracle-Worker enter office to do away with miracles during His own dispensation?

Is the teaching and the practice of the Church in the matter of healing in this Laodicean (lukewarm) period of her history a truer expression of the will of God than the teaching and practice of the early Church while under the full sway of the Spirit? Decidedly not! I hesitate not to say that modern theology has robbed the Holy Spirit of a part of His ministry.

Now, in summing up what we have thus far written, we have a revelation from many angles of

Christ’s Merciful Attitude Toward Our Sicknesses and Infirmities Since His Exaltation at the Right Hand of God

We deal now, not with the past, but only with Christ’s present attitude towards sickness and disease.

1. Christ’s present attitude is fully revealed by His redemptive name Jehovah-Rapha. His redemptive names cannot change. All will admit that His other six redemptive names are a revelation of His present attitude in the matter of bestowing the blessing that each name was given to reveal. By what logic, then, can we suppose that He has abandoned His office as Healer, revealed by the name Jehovah-Rapha?

2. His present attitude is again fully revealed by His own definite promise to continue and augment His healing ministry in answer to the prayer of believers while He is at the right hand of God. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believeth on Me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto My Father. And whatsoever ye shall ask in My name that will I do that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” (St. John 14:12, 13.)

3. His present attitude is revealed by His own fulfilment of the above promise, recorded in the Book of Acts. Even in the very last-chapter, 30 years after His ascension, we read, “All the other sick people in the island came and were cured.” (Acts 28:9, Weymouth.)

4. His present attitude is revealed by the fact that healing is a part of the Gospel that Christ commanded to be preached To “all the world”

To “all nations ”

To “every creature ” Throughout “all the days ”

Even unto the end of the (present) age.”

This commission is followed by the promise “they shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover.”

5. His present attitude is revealed by the fact that His substitutionary work on Calvary was in behalf of all those who live on earth during His exaltation at the right hand of the Father. We have seen in the preceding sermon that, as in Leviticus it is recorded that all disease was healed on the ground of Atonement, so Matthew tells us that the Atonement was Christ’s reason for making no exceptions in healing the sick who came to Him.

6. His present attitude is revealed by the plain command to “any sick” in the Church, while He is with the Father, to ask for anointing and prayer with the promise “the Lord shall raise him up.” (James 5:14.) Does He mean we shall pray with faith or without it? How can we pray “the prayer of faith” unless it is His will to heal; or, does He command us to pray for a thing He will not do? Right here, even laymen are commanded to confess their faults one to another and pray one for the other, for healing, with the purpose that Elijah prayed for rain. (James 5:16-18).

Would God command us to thus importune for what it is not His will to do? Certainly not!

7. His present attitude is revealed by the fact that it is since His exaltation that He “set” (established) in the Church teachers, miracles, gifts of healing, etc., for the continuance of the “same works” and “greater works” which He promised He would continue from God’s right hand. History records the manifestation of these miraculous gifts since the days of the apostles down to the present time.

The Unchangeable Compassion of Jesus

8. His present attitude toward our sicknesses is wonderfully revealed by the fact that since His exaltation, His compassion has neither been withdrawn nor modified.

In a later sermon, on the subject of the Lord’s compassion, we shall see that during the earthly ministry of our Lord He was everywhere “moved with compassion and healed all that had need of healing.” The same Greek word that is translated “mercy” is also repeatedly translated “compassion,” for they are the same. When two blind men asked for mercy, Jesus was moved with compassion and healed them.

Since bodily healing, in the New Testament, is everywhere a mercy (it being mercy, or compassion, that moved Him to heal all that came to Him), is not the promise still true that He is “plenteous in mercy unto all that call” upon Him? Does not this glorious Gospel dispensation proffer as much mercy and compassion to its sufferers as did the darker dispensation? The Rev. Kenneth Mackenzie, a noted teacher and writer of the Episcopalian church, asks on this point, “Could the loving heart of the Son of God, Who had compassion upon the sick, and healed all who had need of healing, cease to regard the sufferings of His own when He had become exalted at the right hand of the Father?”

An Absurd Feature of Modern Theology

Is it not strange that any one in this better age of grace should take a position which would be synonymous with saying that the manifestation of Christ’s compassion to the afflicted has been withdrawn, or even modified, since His glorification? If God is not as willing to show the mercy of healing to His worshippers as He is to show the mercy of forgiveness to His enemies, then He is more willing to show mercy to the devil’s children than His own. The Scriptures deny this by saying, “The mercy (compassion) of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting (not upon the sinner alone, but) upon them that fear Him,” for He loves His own sick and suffering child even more than He loves the sinner. Thank God “His mercy (compassion) is unto all generations.”

9. His present attitude is revealed by the fact that, in the Old Testament year of Jubilee, which Jesus, in the 4th chapter of Luke, applies to the Gospel era, it was “every man” who was told to return to his possession. As in the year of Jubilee its blessings were for “every man,” so in the Gospel era, its blessings are for “every creature.” This is more fully developed in the preceding sermon.

10. His present attitude is also revealed by the fact that “He hath redeemed us (all of us) from the curse of the law.” (Gal. 3:13.) We have seen in the preceding sermon that this curse included all the diseases known to history. How can God justify us and at the same time require us to remain under the curse from which He redeemed us?

The Earnest of Complete Redemption

11. His present attitude is revealed by the fact that the Holy Spirit and His work in us is “The earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession.” (Eph. 1:14.) We have already pointed out that because our eternal destiny is both spiritual and bodily, our redemption also must be. Therefore we cannot receive our full inheritance until the coming Day of Redemption, but, thank God, by being filled with the Spirit, we now have the “earnest” of it. Paul tells us, “We have the firstfruits of the Spirit,” and these are manifested both spiritually and physically. The “firstfruits of the Spirit” include the earnest of immortality, which is a foretaste of the resurrection. Since our bodies are members of Christ, His glorified bodily life is as truly linked with our bodies, as His spiritual life is linked with our spirits. The same life that is in the vine is in its branches; and in Christ, “the True Vine,” there is both spiritual and bodily life. It is only by bringing into our bodies some of the same life that He is to bring at the resurrection that the Spirit can be the earnest of our inheritance to the body. Since our inheritance includes a glorified body, what must the Earnest be? Thank God, “the life also of Jesus” may “be made manifest in our mortal flesh”—immortal life touching our mortal bodies with a foretaste of redemption, to enable us to finish our course, in order that we may “receive a full reward.”

12. Does not nature itself reveal the present attitude of Christ toward the healing of our bodies? Nature everywhere is healing, or at least doing her best to heal. As soon as disease germs enter our bodies, nature begins to expel them. Break a bone, or cut a finger, and nature will do her utmost to heal, and usually succeeds. Now, has God commanded nature to rebel against His own will? If sickness is the will of God for His children, would it not seem that He has?

God’s Use of Bodily Affliction

If sickness, as some think, is the will of God for His faithful children, then it is a sin for them even to desire to be well, to say nothing of spending thousands of dollars to defeat His purpose. I truly thank God for all the help that has ever come to sufferers through the physician, through the surgeon, the hospital and the trained nurse; but, if sickness is the will of God, then, to quote one writer, “Every physician is a law-breaker; every trained nurse is defying the Almighty; every hospital is a house of rebellion, instead of a house of mercy,” and, instead of supporting hospitals, we ought to do our utmost to close every one. If the modern theology of those who teach that God wants some of His worshipers to remain sick for His glory is true, then Jesus, during His earthly ministry, never hesitated to rob the Father of all the glory He could by healing all who came to Him. The Holy Spirit, likewise, robbed Him of all the glory He could by healing all the sick in the streets of Jerusalem. And Paul, too, robbed God of all the glory he could by healing all the sick on the island of Melita.

Many today hold that God afflicts even the obedient, because He loves them, making sickness a love-token from our Heavenly Father. If this is true, why do they try to get rid of His love-token? Why does not the one suffering with a cancer pray for the second blessing for themselves, and also ask Him to thus bless wife, children, father, mother, neighbors, etc.?

Does not God sometimes chasten His people through sickness? Decidedly yes! When we disobey God, sickness may be permitted, through the Father’s loving discipline; but God has told us just how it may be avoided and averted. “If we would judge ourselves we should not be judged, but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world.” (I Cor. 11:31, 32.) These chastenings come to save us from final judgment; but when we see the cause of the chastening, and turn from it, God promises it shall be withdrawn. As soon as “we judge ourselves,” or learn our lesson, the absolute promise is “we shall not be judged.” By selfjudgment we may avoid chastening. Divine healing is not unconditionally promised to all christians, regardless of their conduct. It is for those who believe and obey. “All the paths of the Lord are mercy and truth unto such as keep His Covenant and His testimonies.” (Psa. 25:10.)

13. His attitude now is shown by the fact that “He was manifested to destroy the works of the devil.” (I John 3:8.) Think of His leaving heaven and making the awful transition of becoming a man, and of all the suffering and sacrifice that followed. What was the purpose that moved Him in all this? The Scriptures give the answer—“For this purpose ... that He might destroy the works of the devil.” This purpose includes the healing of “all that were oppressed of the devil.” (Acts 10:38.) Since He was glorified has He relinquished this purpose, which He retained even during the bloody sweat of Gethsemane and the awful tortures of Calvary? Does He want the works of the devil that He formerly wanted to destroy to remain in our bodies? Can it be that He now wants a cancer, a “plague,” a “curse,” “the works of the devil,” in “the members of Christ,” and “the temples of the Holy Ghost?” Is it not His will to heal any part of “the Body of Christ?” If not, why has He commanded “any sick” in it to be anointed in His name for healing?

Since “the Body is for the Lord,” a “living sacrifice unto God,” would He not rather have a well body than one that is a wreck? If not, how can He make us “perfect in every good work to do His will?” Is God’s expressed will that we “may abound unto every good work,” that we may be “prepared unto every good work,” “throughly furnished unto all good works,” “zealous of good works,” and “careful to maintain good works” only for well men and women? If for all, He would have to heal the sick to make this possible, because no man can “abound unto every good work” while confined to a sick room.

Salvation All-Inclusive

14. His present attitude is revealed in the very meaning of the word “salvation.” The word soteria, which is the Greek word for salvation, implies deliverance, preservation, healing, health, soundness, and, in the New Testament is applied sometimes to the soul, and at other times to the body only. The Greek word “sozo” translated “saved,” also means “healed,” “made sound,” “made whole.” In Romans 10:9 it is translated “saved,” and in Acts 14:9 the same word is translated “healed” in referring to the healing of the man lame from birth. Both Greek words for “salvation” and “saved” mean both spiritual and physical salvation; or, in other words, spiritual and physical healing. Paul, in Eph. 5:23, states, “He is the Savior of the body.”

Is this for some, or for all?

Dr. Schofield, in his foot-note on the word “salvation” says, “Salvation is the great inclusive word of the Gospel, gathering into itself all the redemptive acts and processes.” The word therefore, includes our possession and enjoyment of all the blessings revealed by His seven redemptive names; in fact, these names were given to show what our salvation includes. It is therefore the Gospel of healing for the body, as well as for the soul, which “is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” “The same Lord over all is rich unto all that call upon Him.”

A Suggestive Comparison

The proofs of Divine healing among those who say that they have been healed are not less bright and convincing than the proofs of regeneration are among those who today call themselves christians. Are not those who testify that they have been healed in better health physically than many an equal number of christians are spiritually? Would not the physical health of those who have been healed compare favorably with the spiritual health even of the average minister today? I think that the average christian, and even the average minister today, is a poorer proof of the scriptural doctrine of regeneration than those who testify to healing are of the doctrine of healing; and yet the former have heard vastly more teaching as a basis for their faith for salvation.

Are all who have been baptized washed from all their sins? No! But those who have faith are; and what water is, in the ordinance of christian baptism, oil is, in the ordinance of anointing the sick for healing.