For Those Who Have Not Been Healed

[Hammster]

i think this is right on track ..you can't disassociate faith from the topic ever everything the lord jesus accomplished on the cross is appropriated by faith.

You can't add faith when it's not even in view. That called eisegesis.

 

[Alithis]

As per usual. Hit and git.

that's a bit unfair there bro - he's misunderstanding you uis all.

i often find it hard to figure out what your saying because on a phone you send very short and not very explanatory messages .and at times they come across as undermining sound principles of faith as held by christianity for literal millenia .

 

[Alithis]

You can't add faith when it's not even in view. That called eisegesis.

God is . if you believe that ..you have already begun to exercise faith . it is inseparable . in fact all the problems begin to occur when it is lacking ..not before

 

[MoreCoffee]

hmm you've lost me there .. 10 were healed .. one was grateful. not having more faith .. the lord Jesus had the faith where theirs lacked -isn't this the way all through the scriptures ? God makes up for mans shortfall . the entire gospel message is god making up for mans shortfall .
sometimes we miss the simplistic principles .. if the ground is dry and parched and there are 10 plants dying of thirst and i pour a bucket of water onto one of them ..it splashes and runs also on the ground around the others and they too are blessed by virtue of the first ones blessing . the rain falls on both wheat and tare and both grow . but "the just shall live by faith " the tare just enjoys its resulting blessing and does not submit the heart to the holy Spirit to listen to him and obey . thus though the many are blessed -not all go on to live by faith ". and thus do not go on to walk pleasing to God .

If healing depends on the Lord's faith, which it does, then no man or woman need fear that their weak faith or lack of faith will exclude them from the grace of God in healing. Nevertheless many men and women, both faithful and not faithful, die of accidents, injuries, and illness in this world. So "For Those Who Have Not Been Healed" there is no need to wonder if their faith was lacking and so they are not healed because healing comes from God and depends on God's fidelity rather than on any man's or woman's faith (or lack of it).

 

[Hammster]

that's a bit unfair there bro - he's misunderstanding you uis all.

i often find it hard to figure out what your saying because on a phone you send very short and not very explanatory messages .and at times they come across as undermining sound principles of faith as held by christianity for literal millenia .

You've not provided any sound principles held for a millennia. So if I'm undermining anything, it's these recent teachings on healing and tongues, neither of which is sustainable using scripture.

Bill comes on, makes an unsubstantiated statement, and when challenged goes away. It's been repeated often.

 

[Hammster]

God is . if you believe that ..you have already begun to exercise faith . it is inseparable . in fact all the problems begin to occur when it is lacking ..not before

But the verse says NOTHING about faith. It doesn't say you need to believe God. It doesn't even say you must believe that there IS a God. This is all something you guys are reading into it to support your false view of healing.

 

[psalms 91]

As per usual. Hit and git.

where you are concerned you are right as I will not engage you but I will point out errors

 

[Hammster]

where you are concerned you are right as I will not engage you but I will point out errors

Then you shouldn't engage me at all. And if that's the way we should be, nobody should engage you, either, since you think you are always right.

 

[Alithis]

If healing depends on the Lord's faith, which it does, then no man or woman need fear that their weak faith or lack of faith will exclude them from the grace of God in healing. Nevertheless many men and women, both faithful and not faithful, die of accidents, injuries, and illness in this world. So "For Those Who Have Not Been Healed" there is no need to wonder if their faith was lacking and so they are not healed because healing comes from God and depends on God's fidelity rather than on any man's or woman's faith (or lack of it).

no its a coming together of both ... but grace and love are certainly is not dependant on the receiver. but this is branching off into ambiguity again.

salvation is by faith ..in every aspect of all its implications -including healing . i read of a man praying for his sick cows .. and they were healed . so the faith of the one praying is very relevant -thus perhaps a sick person needs to stand fast in faith regardless of what they "See " (walk not by sight but by faith) and find others who have the faith to pray believing.

after all -faith calls those things which not .. as though they already are . so while all outward carnal evidence may scream.. "im not healed ".. the truth is not changed by the evidence .because spiritual truth is not based on carnal evidence .

faith is simply not dependant on what the eye sees nor the mind of the flesh perceives ..it trust solely in the word of GOD only ...when one trust what one can see more then they trust what the lord god says .. they believe what they see more then they believe God .. thus what is not of faith ..is sin.

 

[charis en excelcis]

Underlying this discussion is a gut feeling that more ought to be healed, a belief that I hold. The key to that is not, IMO, the faith confession movement, because it lead to pride on one hand and condemnation on the other. I don't have a perfect answer, but there are a few things that I think affect the relative scarcity of miraculous healings.
1. The issue of self reliance. Healings are far less rare in countries that have less access to medical services.
2. What I do to myself. If God cured my diabetes, would I continue the eating habits which caused it?
3. Gratitude. Everything that is good he has given to me, yet I often accept it thoughtlessly, without gratitude. Would healing only add another thing for which I am inadequately grateful.
I do think that there is a difference between being cured and being healed.

 

[MoreCoffee]

It isn't that "more ought to be healed" it is that many are not, yet have the same profession of faith and the same quality of life (as observed by other human beings) as those who are. The differences seem to be more matters of medical treatment (especially of those who are wealthy or live in wealthy nations) and genetic inheritance than they are matters of faith in the recipients of healing.

 

[seekingsolace]

salvation is by faith ..in every aspect of all its implications -including healing . i read of a man praying for his sick cows .. and they were healed . so the faith of the one praying is very relevant -thus perhaps a sick person needs to stand fast in faith regardless of what they "See " (walk not by sight but by faith) and find others who have the faith to pray believing.

What has salvation got to do with healing? Is that cow in heaven?

after all -faith calls those things which not .. as though they already are . so while all outward carnal evidence may scream.. "im not healed ".. the truth is not changed by the evidence .because spiritual truth is not based on carnal evidence .

faith is simply not dependant on what the eye sees nor the mind of the flesh perceives ..it trust solely in the word of GOD only ...when one trust what one can see more then they trust what the lord god says .. they believe what they see more then they believe God .. thus what is not of faith ..is sin.

If we are using the Word of God as our benchmark, then it becomes clear people of faith - are not all healed. Now thinking those who are not healed lack faith is using as you named it - carnal evidence. Since these views are coming from our perceptions, not Gods; and in that train of thought, bordering on judgments.

 

[Alithis]

What has salvation got to do with healing? Is that cow in heaven?

everything ..for sin came by sin ..the power of sins curse(of which sickness plays a part) is in the sin.. when we are saved and the sin is forgiven .. its power is broken and it has no right in us not in any where or one where we we exercise and bring the authority of the kingdom of God .

If we are using the Word of God as our benchmark, then it becomes clear people of faith - are not all healed. Now thinking those who are not healed lack faith is using as you named it - carnal evidence. Since these views are coming from our perceptions, not Gods; and in that train of thought, bordering on judgments.

it is a repetitive assumption that they are not all healed - and an assumption cannot be used to base a doctrine upon .

so still i say ..if you have not yet seen to manifestation of the truth in your life and the carnal evidence does not agree with the truth of the lord Jesus .. then stand fast on the word of god by which we must live for the truth NEVER changes to match the evidence but the evidence always changes to submit to the truth of the lord Jesus

be bold and very courageous and have faith in God alone - especially when when all else disagrees- for your redeemer lives . do not sway do not me of a double mind , stand fast be encouraged Gods word is true and he is faithful to it .

recently i posted that we cant demand anything of th lord .i think i was wrong .. we can demand he be faithful to his word ..because he is always faithful to his word .

Faith .. is utterly believing what the lord has spoken regardless of what the circumstances surrounding us say.. there is no judgment on others by pointing that out .and conviction is not judgment ..-if a person is uncomfortable with hearing this then they need simply repent of listening to the worlds words and return to listening to Gods .

http://www.worldinvisible.com/library/wigglesworth/5f00.0930/5f00.0930.08.htm

 

[seekingsolace]

it is a repetitive assumption that they are not all healed - and an assumption cannot be used to base a doctrine upon .

I don't feel you really addressed my post. Most of what you said in fact agrees with what I said.

Faith .. is utterly believing what the lord has spoken [/B]regardless of what the circumstances surrounding us say

This would have sufficed, as it is virtually what I said.

conviction is not judgment ..-if a person is uncomfortable with hearing this then they need simply repent of listening to the worlds words and return to listening to Gods

And what if conviction is a delusion that leads to judgment? I can be convinced I am in the right, yet this has no bearing on the reality of truth. If I say you are not healed because you lack faith, I have judged you.

recently i posted that we cant demand anything of th lord .i think i was wrong .. we can demand he be faithful to his word ..because he is always faithful to his word .

Then why would we command what the Lord already does?

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,
a pot among earthen pots!
Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no handles’?
Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’
or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”
Thus says the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him:
“Ask me of things to come;
will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?

 

[tango]

Underlying this discussion is a gut feeling that more ought to be healed, a belief that I hold. The key to that is not, IMO, the faith confession movement, because it lead to pride on one hand and condemnation on the other. I don't have a perfect answer, but there are a few things that I think affect the relative scarcity of miraculous healings.
1. The issue of self reliance. Healings are far less rare in countries that have less access to medical services.
2. What I do to myself. If God cured my diabetes, would I continue the eating habits which caused it?
3. Gratitude. Everything that is good he has given to me, yet I often accept it thoughtlessly, without gratitude. Would healing only add another thing for which I am inadequately grateful.
I do think that there is a difference between being cured and being healed.

Wow, the thread jumped a bit and I only took a day or so offline!

In many ways I agree with you. It is interesting to see the apparent frequency of healings in the days of the early church and the apparent infrequency of healings in our time. I think we need to look at whether there really is a variation and only if we conclude that there is do we need to look at why it might be.

Leaving aside the time that Jesus physically walked the earth as a man for the simple reason that he was God and neither the apostles of the day nor the members of the modern church can make that claim, we can look at the book of Acts and see examples of people being healed and people praising God for those healings. The question then becomes whether these healings were a matter of routine or something unusual. We need to be careful that we don't look at a condensed account of many years of the early church and conclude that this was the norm - to do so would make no more sense than watching the edited highlights of a football game, seeing a dozen touchdowns scored in the space of 15 minutes and concluding that the game consisted of a touchdown every 75 seconds.

We also need to figure whether the truth of the matter boils down to "God always heals", "God heals but not all the time" or "God never heals". These are fundamentally the only three options - either God heals or God does not heal, and if God heals then either God always heals or God does not always heal. From a purely logical perspective we could break down "God does not always heal" into "It's not God's will to heal all the time" and "It is God's will to heal all the time but some conditions aren't met". In the latter of these cases we would need to figure what conditions should have been met.

If we look at the most basic three options I think it's clear from my comments so far that "God never heals" is hard to believe because it only takes one divine healing to sink it. Although there are all sorts of claimed miracles out there that are anything but miracles I personally can't accept that God never heals because of a few things I've seen with my own eyes. That may or may not carry any weight for anyone else but it's enough for me. Likewise "God always heals" sinks if we can find one single example where God didn't heal, and it's not as if we have to look very far to find people who are not healed. We've been back and forth in the thread about Timothy's plight but in many ways poor Timothy is little more than a single data point that everybody can reference equally, in that his situation is clearly recorded in Paul's letter.

So on that basis I don't see how "God always heals" or "God never heals" can be supported by Scripture if we take the overall message as a whole. Which leads us to "God sometimes heals", and whether "sometimes" happens as often as we might expect.

If we break "God sometimes heals" into the issue of whether or not we would see more healings if preconditions were met, we need to identify those conditions. This is where we potentially hit an apparent Scriptural conflict, where James appears to suggest that without faith we won't get anything and Isaiah appears to suggest that no preconditions exist at all. If "by his stripes we are healed" refers to physical healing we have to ask why physical healing is not universal, and since no conditions are expressed in the context of Is 53:5 it seems the most obvious conclusion is that "we are healed" refers more to spiritual restoration than physical healing.

In the case of the diabetes you mention we might ask whether you would just continue the bad eating habits if God were to cure it, although no such conditions are expressed in either James or Isaiah. Logically speaking it's a valid question to raise but if healing were conditional we might expect either James or Isaiah to mention conditions. That in itself is arguably another reason to interpret both passages as relating to one or more of physical healing and spiritual restoration. In many ways the idea that God heals on demand also makes God out to be some kind of half-wit who could just abolish the disease in the first place and prevent us from getting sick at all, but instead leaves us to struggle with stuff until we remember to claim our healing. It looks less like a God who gives good things to his children and more like one of those lame rebates where instead of just paying a lower price you end up paying full price and having to cut the bar off the box, mail it in, and wait for a refund.

 

[tango]

no its a coming together of both ... but grace and love are certainly is not dependant on the receiver. but this is branching off into ambiguity again.

salvation is by faith ..in every aspect of all its implications -including healing . i read of a man praying for his sick cows .. and they were healed . so the faith of the one praying is very relevant -thus perhaps a sick person needs to stand fast in faith regardless of what they "See " (walk not by sight but by faith) and find others who have the faith to pray believing.

All you've got here is another data point in which healing was granted. If you want to claim that God always heals you need to demonstrate that there are no cases in which God did not heal. That isn't possible because most of us can point to several such cases. I can think of several off the top of my head - Godly people struggling with multiple sclerosis and other disabilities, Godly people who died of heart attacks and cancer, and so on. There's no ambiguity there, there is clear evidence of people who were not healed. So if you want to keep banging the drum that "God always heals" you need to explain the exceptions. The stance "God sometimes heals" requires no such proof.

after all -faith calls those things which not .. as though they already are . so while all outward carnal evidence may scream.. "im not healed ".. the truth is not changed by the evidence .because spiritual truth is not based on carnal evidence .

faith is simply not dependant on what the eye sees nor the mind of the flesh perceives ..it trust solely in the word of GOD only ...when one trust what one can see more then they trust what the lord god says .. they believe what they see more then they believe God .. thus what is not of faith ..is sin.

You're just spouting more doublethink here. This is the kind of reasoning that says "I believe I am healed, but I'm going to the doctor". There's also a huge difference between faith that "God will do this" and "God has already done this". If someone is still confined to a wheelchair it's pointless to claim that "God has already healed me" and to insist that to accept that healing has not been received represents a lack of faith is descending into absurdity. I might as well look at a fistful of dollars in my wallet and insist that God has made me a billionaire. I can believe it all I want but it's still not true.

If we want to believe that "God will do this" that's a different situation entirely but we have to be willing to accept that God isn't going to do things just because we think he should. We also need to be sure that we don't stand on a promise that God never made. You're using lots of fine words to say we should believe Scripture but only seem to want to believe some passages of it. Hence the endless references to Timothy - a clear example in Scripture of someone who suffered "frequent infirmities".

 

[Alithis]

All you've got here is another data point in which healing was granted. If you want to claim that God always heals you need to demonstrate that there are no cases in which God did not heal. That isn't possible because most of us can point to several such cases. I can think of several off the top of my head - Godly people struggling with multiple sclerosis and other disabilities, Godly people who died of heart attacks and cancer, and so on. There's no ambiguity there, there is clear evidence of people who were not healed. So if you want to keep banging the drum that "God always heals" you need to explain the exceptions. The stance "God sometimes heals" requires no such proof.



You're just spouting more doublethink here. This is the kind of reasoning that says "I believe I am healed, but I'm going to the doctor". There's also a huge difference between faith that "God will do this" and "God has already done this". If someone is still confined to a wheelchair it's pointless to claim that "God has already healed me" and to insist that to accept that healing has not been received represents a lack of faith is descending into absurdity. I might as well look at a fistful of dollars in my wallet and insist that God has made me a billionaire. I can believe it all I want but it's still not true.

If we want to believe that "God will do this" that's a different situation entirely but we have to be willing to accept that God isn't going to do things just because we think he should. We also need to be sure that we don't stand on a promise that God never made. You're using lots of fine words to say we should believe Scripture but only seem to want to believe some passages of it. Hence the endless references to Timothy - a clear example in Scripture of someone who suffered "frequent infirmities".

that's it ? one reference to timothy again- a verse in a text that is not even on the subject of divine healing . a person that you have no idea if he was later healed by taking paul's advice -all you have is that single assumption id the face of all the scriptures .
for the "how many times " now .. i have never said God always heals ..i have always said .. Gods word is true and he is faithful to it . sometimes the lord allows trouble and sickness to come (again read the book of Job).and we are taught through it to trust i him all the more because he works all things together for good to those who are called in his purposes .


so what do you wish me to say to the one who seeks to be healed from their suffering and has not been so YET.. do you wish me to say ..oh well you must be cursed by god ..give up believing and cast off your faith .. sounds like Jobs wife .

no i will not ever say that .
i will say seek and you shall find .. ask and it shall be given unto you ..knock and the door will be opened -hold fast in faith and only believe in the lord god most high ,for your redeemer lives and your deliverer draws near . do not be afraid do not be discouraged only believe .

 

[Alithis]

I don't feel you really addressed my post. Most of what you said in fact agrees with what I said.



This would have sufficed, as it is virtually what I said.



And what if conviction is a delusion that leads to judgment? I can be convinced I am in the right, yet this has no bearing on the reality of truth. If I say you are not healed because you lack faith, I have judged you.



Then why would we command what the Lord already does?

“Woe to him who strives with him who formed him,
a pot among earthen pots!
Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’
or ‘Your work has no handles’?
Woe to him who says to a father, ‘What are you begetting?’
or to a woman, ‘With what are you in labor?’”
Thus says the Lord,
the Holy One of Israel, and the one who formed him:
“Ask me of things to come;
will you command me concerning my children and the work of my hands?

firstly in addressing your post i need not address it always by disagreeing .but also in agreement .. this is the preferred course .
healing in my life has occurred when i have cried to the lord and called on him according to his own word . for this is what we are supposed to do. for it is not the knowing alone but the doing .
striving with the lord in the above text is quiet opposite to agreeing with him in Faith .his will towards his children ,the work of his hands is good .not evil . it is not commanding God in anything to trust his goodness to accomplish goodness in us . it is amen and amen .

 

[charis en excelcis]

Wow, the thread jumped a bit and I only took a day or so offline!

In many ways I agree with you. It is interesting to see the apparent frequency of healings in the days of the early church and the apparent infrequency of healings in our time. I think we need to look at whether there really is a variation and only if we conclude that there is do we need to look at why it might be.
I think that we need to trust ourselves a little more. I think that the desire to see people healed, if that desire springs from the right source, produces an internal tension that is healthy. "You have not because you ask not." That tension brings us into seeking god and relying upon Him.

Leaving aside the time that Jesus physically walked the earth as a man for the simple reason that he was God and neither the apostles of the day nor the members of the modern church can make that claim, we can look at the book of Acts and see examples of people being healed and people praising God for those healings. The question then becomes whether these healings were a matter of routine or something unusual. We need to be careful that we don't look at a condensed account of many years of the early church and conclude that this was the norm - to do so would make no more sense than watching the edited highlights of a football game, seeing a dozen touchdowns scored in the space of 15 minutes and concluding that the game consisted of a touchdown every 75 seconds.
I think this is a valid concern. John writes that there were many more acts that Jesus performed, but he recorded these so that we would believe and believing would be saved. Likewise, when Jesus gives the commission to go out he says, these things will follow those who believe, that they would lay on hand and people would be healed. The problem is that truly miraculous healing is almost unknown in the United States. This is the basis of my belief that healing ought to be more common in the practice of our faith, so that those healings would be a sign to the unbeliever.

We also need to figure whether the truth of the matter boils down to "God always heals", "God heals but not all the time" or "God never heals". These are fundamentally the only three options - either God heals or God does not heal, and if God heals then either God always heals or God does not always heal. From a purely logical perspective we could break down "God does not always heal" into "It's not God's will to heal all the time" and "It is God's will to heal all the time but some conditions aren't met". In the latter of these cases we would need to figure what conditions should have been met.

If we look at the most basic three options I think it's clear from my comments so far that "God never heals" is hard to believe because it only takes one divine healing to sink it. Although there are all sorts of claimed miracles out there that are anything but miracles I personally can't accept that God never heals because of a few things I've seen with my own eyes. That may or may not carry any weight for anyone else but it's enough for me. Likewise "God always heals" sinks if we can find one single example where God didn't heal, and it's not as if we have to look very far to find people who are not healed. We've been back and forth in the thread about Timothy's plight but in many ways poor Timothy is little more than a single data point that everybody can reference equally, in that his situation is clearly recorded in Paul's letter.

So on that basis I don't see how "God always heals" or "God never heals" can be supported by Scripture if we take the overall message as a whole. Which leads us to "God sometimes heals", and whether "sometimes" happens as often as we might expect.
There is at least one incident in Jesus ministry when he passed by a cripple and did not heal him, and there are numerous instances in the Epistles. This eliminates the idea that god always heals. The previous comment, on the great commission, eliminates the premise that God never heals.

If we break "God sometimes heals" into the issue of whether or not we would see more healings if preconditions were met, we need to identify those conditions. This is where we potentially hit an apparent Scriptural conflict, where James appears to suggest that without faith we won't get anything and Isaiah appears to suggest that no preconditions exist at all. If "by his stripes we are healed" refers to physical healing we have to ask why physical healing is not universal, and since no conditions are expressed in the context of Is 53:5 it seems the most obvious conclusion is that "we are healed" refers more to spiritual restoration than physical healing.
I do not think these two passages (Isaiah and James) are in conflict. James postulates that we ought not to expect an answer without faith, yet we understand that there were healings in the Bible in which the receiver did not believe and there were healing in the Bible in which the "healer" was not actively aware. As for Isaiah, I agree that the primary expression of this healing is spiritual. What I don't believe is that it is addressing what would facilitate healing and what would inhibit it. If god chooses, he can heal, yet at times he chooses as a response to something else.

In the case of the diabetes you mention we might ask whether you would just continue the bad eating habits if God were to cure it, although no such conditions are expressed in either James or Isaiah. Logically speaking it's a valid question to raise but if healing were conditional we might expect either James or Isaiah to mention conditions. That in itself is arguably another reason to interpret both passages as relating to one or more of physical healing and spiritual restoration. In many ways the idea that God heals on demand also makes God out to be some kind of half-wit who could just abolish the disease in the first place and prevent us from getting sick at all, but instead leaves us to struggle with stuff until we remember to claim our healing. It looks less like a God who gives good things to his children and more like one of those lame rebates where instead of just paying a lower price you end up paying full price and having to cut the bar off the box, mail it in, and wait for a refund.

Jesus told one of those who he healed to go and sin no more. If God gives me a gift, I am still responsible for how I handle it. If I continue to do that which is destroying my body, then I am treating his gift with disrespect. I know that His grace is sufficient for this, but still believe that there are times when we must face the consequences of our own actions.

 

[seekingsolace]

firstly in addressing your post i need not address it always by disagreeing .but also in agreement .. this is the preferred course .
healing in my life has occurred when i have cried to the lord and called on him according to his own word . for this is what we are supposed to do. for it is not the knowing alone but the doing .
striving with the lord in the above text is quiet opposite to agreeing with him in Faith .his will towards his children ,the work of his hands is good .not evil . it is not commanding God in anything to trust his goodness to accomplish goodness in us . it is amen and amen .

I suppose the automatic response now is to assume disagreement, my apologies for that.

I do not disagree with the position of healing, I have had family members experience this. You know what my bone of contention is, so I won't needlessly elaborate!