by Monte Kline, Clinical Nutritionist
The subject of “healing” among Christians is controversial and confusing, with questions like:
Does God heal today?
If God is willing to heal us, why do we need doctors?
I’ve prayed for healing, but why has nothing happened?
Don’t I have enough faith to be healed?
I believe God healed me, but why didn’t it last?
If God heals people, why are churches full of sick people?
After being more or less involved in Christian ministry for nearly 30 years and a health practitioner for nearly 20 years, I’ve been exposed to the whole spectrum of thought on this subject . . . and concluded there’s more nonsense per square inch on “healing” than about any other subject. Two extremes dominant the view of healing:
IT ALL DEPENDS ON GOD?
I’ll never forget a man who came to my clinic many years ago. He was the kind of Christian who punctuated his sentences with “Hallelujahs” and “Praise the Lords” rather than the usual commas, periods and exclamation points! He was undoubtedly sincere, but frankly, he was a space cadet. He shared with me story after story of amazing supernatural healings he had experienced, but he sat there in my office a physical mess because he had not properly taken care of God’s temple. His “healings” didn’t last. His approach was, in effect, to live like the devil, and then ask God to “bail him out” via supernatural healing.
IT ALL DEPENDS ON ME?
The other extreme, of course, involves the person who never brings God and supernatural healing into the picture when sick. For him or her, sickness is strictly a physical problem with no divine implications. Obviously, most non-Christians would embrace such a view, but interestingly enough this is how many Christians operate on the day-to-day practical level. This extreme, just like the preceding one, is incorrect and unbiblical.
HEALING HYPOCRISY
I’ve often pondered what makes many Christians so intent on pitting the natural and supernatural aspects of healing against each other. How is it that someone can soak the altar with tears pleading to God for healing and then go to the church potluck that follows and gorge to gluttony on white sugar, white flour foods destroying their health? Why is it that while the parents are sitting in church hearing the sermon on healing that their kids are in the Sunday School being fed junk food? How can we live with one foot in life and the other in death without being split up the middle?
GOD’S HEALING PROGRAM
My primary point is simply this: All healing ultimately comes from God. All of the mechanisms for healing were created by God, both in the natural and the supernatural realms. Let’s define three kinds of healing that encompass both the natural and supernatural.
1. Spontaneous Healing — This is the most basic type of healing — so basic that we don’t even think about it most of the time. If you accidentally cut your finger, do you get concerned about your need for healing as you gaze at the red drops of blood spurting out? Do you call the doctor? Do you pray for divine healing? Probably not. Why? Because you know God has built into your body an automatic capacity for spontaneous healing. It functions whether you pray for healing or not. In fact, it functions whether you are even a Christian or not. Human beings (and animals) are pre-programmed by God to spontaneously heal.
2. Stimulated Healing — Stimulated healing refers to when you or someone called a “doctor” does something to encourage the spontaneous healing process. Unfortunately most of the “doctoring” done by people themselves or by conventional medical doctors competes with the spontaneous healing process rather than stimulating it.
For example, if you take an aspirin for a headache are you encouraging the spontaneous healing process? No way! It’s just a pain killer that’s only covering up the symptoms of the headache while doing nothing for the cause of the headache. Now if that wasn’t bad enough, the aspirin actually competes with the body’s spontaneous healing process. Because drugs are foreign to the body, extra energy is required to detoxify them from the body — and too much toxicity is why you have the headache in the first place! It is my sincere conviction that 80% of all illness would be eliminated if people would stimulate their spontaneous healing processes instead of competing with them by taking “drugs” for symptoms.
3. Supernatural Healing — Supernatural healing, or any supernatural act, is by definition an overruling of a natural law. It is divine intervention. Much, if not most of the supernatural activity in Scripture can be classified as “attesting miracles,” that is acts of supernatural intervention designed to motivate faith in God. Though such supernatural activity, including supernatural healing, has no doubt always taken place, there are four periods of biblical time where it is especially evident — Moses and the Exodus, the ministry of Elijah and Elisha, Jesus’ earthly ministry, and the ministry of the Apostles. In all these instances supernatural healing served as a special tool to proclaim God’s existence and power to unbelieving people — it’s healing with a point.
But is there supernatural healing strictly for the sake of the sick individual? Definitely, yes. Because of His goodness, mercy and compassion God is committed to bringing wholeness to us in body, mind and spirit. He cares. In Mark 1:40-41 we read:
And a leper came to Him, beseeching Him and falling on his knees before Him, and saying to Him, “If you are willing, You can make me clean.” And moved with compassion, He stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.”
Was this supernatural healing an “attesting miracle” designed mainly to prove to the crowd that Jesus was the Messiah? I don’t think so, for in the next verse Jesus tells the “ex-leper” not to tell anyone what happened. He, in effect said, “I healed you out of compassion for your need, not to demonstrate my divinity.”
Contrast that with the healing of the paralytic that follows in Mark 2. It’s very public and very confrontational. Jesus doesn’t just heal the man, but says, “Your sins are forgiven,” to proclaim to the crowd that He is the Messiah, He is God. Physically healing the man was just an opportunity to proclaim his larger message of spiritually healing people by reconciling them to God.
FAITH HEALING
I would define “faith healing” as a process whereby a person’s faith is stimulated so as to trigger a stimulated healing process in their body. This kind of healing depends on a belief or visualization of the healing coming to pass. Faith healing does not necessarily involve any supernatural intervention. It is essentially a natural process, another version of stimulated healing. Therefore, it is not only experienced by Christians. Many non-Christians, emphasizing the power of the mind and mental visualization, have reported dramatic results. The late Norman Cousins and Carl and Stephanie Simonton in their work with healing cancer patients reported in Getting Well Again, are essentially stimulating a “faith healing” process.
Pastor C. S. Lovett in his book, Jesus Wants You Well (Personal Christianity, Baldwin Park, CA 91706, 1973), explains the process of healing better than anyone I’ve ever read. In a non-theological simple way Dr. Lovett explains ten laws of faith healing:
1. “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”
2. The conscious mind is the GUARDIAN of the unconscious.
3. Whatever the conscious BELIEVES, the unconscious accepts as FACT.
4. What the unconscious accepts as FACT, it seeks to express in the body of its owner.
5. The unconscious cannot distinguish between a “live” experience occurring outside the body and one projection onto the conscious screen by the man inside the body.
6. The more deeply the unconscious is impacted or IMPRESSED with a fact, the FASTER it will try to carry it out.
7. The unconscious always acts in accordance with CURRENT beliefs of the conscious mind.
8. The unconscious responds to the Christian’s IMAGINATION, not to his WILL.
9. The law of belief does NOT refer to faith in the Lord, but the ability to believe what is pictured on the conscious screen.
10. No suggestion can be impressed on the unconscious of an individual AGAINST HIS WILL.
Generally it is the operation of these principles that produces most “healing meeting” healings. It depends upon the evangelist getting you “revved up” enough, and that’s the reason for all the theatrics. This also explains why these “healings” often don’t last. If the underlying cause of the health problem is not removed, it’s likely to come back. Jesus said, “Behold, you have become well; do not sin anymore, so that nothing worse may befall you.” (John 5:14b)
COMMAND HEALING
Command healing occurs when someone with the gift of healing heals someone in spite of their will. Command healing really doesn’t depend on the faith of the individual being healed, only on divine intervention by God. In Jesus ministry this is most exemplified with Lazarus and the others he raised from the dead. Dead men have no faith to trigger healing! It can only be divine intervention. I personally believe that this is what the biblical gift of healing is, not the practice of healing evangelists that are skilled at triggering faith-stimulated healing in an individual. God can still heal people this way as a sign, as an “attesting miracle” to stimulate belief. However, this type of healing does appear to be rare today, though there are reports of it associated with revivals in more primitive areas of the world.
SUPERNATURAL HEALING TODAY
Perhaps the most relevant passage to supernatural healing today is James 5:14-16:
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him. Therefore, confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much.
I find it interesting that this passage emphasizes confession of sin as fundamental to physical healing. I’ve seen many people anointed with oil for healing by the elders, but never seen confession of sin as part of the process. Maybe that’s why this often doesn’t work.
GOD’S WILL
Many teach, I believe falsely, that God wants to heal everybody. The Bible clearly teaches otherwise. The Apostle Paul healed many, even raising some from the dead, yet he couldn’t heal himself of the “thorn in the flesh,” in spite of repeated prayer. God even told him why: My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness (II Cor. 12:9a).
God powerfully uses our physical afflictions to bring about maturity in our lives, to draw us closer to him. His objective is not necessarily to give us a “fun time” on earth, but to mature us for eternity. His ultimate objective is to glorify Himself. He may choose to do that through healing you or not healing you.
