To Those Who Reject Healing Miracles

The latest book that I picked up is called “Authority to Heal” and it’s written by Ken Blue. The basic idea behind the book can be captured by the questions on the front cover, which I assume it attempts to answer: “Does God heal today? Why are some healed and some not? Isn’t healing sometimes against God’s will?”

From what I can tell, Blue’s discussion of healing is specific to the idea of a healing ministry where people actively seek to pray for as many people as possible to be healed – mainly through one-on-one interaction. There is an account in the introduction of various healing ministries in which he’s participated, with real live miracles and real live people not knowing how to respond. Further, Blue himself has experienced healing – and has had to change his theology as a result.

The shorthand explanation for why I’m reading the book – because its immaterial to what I want to talk about – is that I am curious about the subject, the evidence for such healing ministries (and thus an assessment of their plausibility), and because I recently have come to know some people that have been a part of healing ministries. As such, I have some good personal reasons for investigating the matter, in addition to the fact that I think healing could be a powerful witness to God’s power for both Christians and non-Christians alike.

What I plan to talk about is the first chapter, which seems to be an attempt to answer the last question above: “Isn’t healing sometimes against God’s will?” I have never encountered anyone who took this view, but apparently Blue (and some people that I know) has encountered Christians who actually reject the idea of being healed because they believe that their sickness or condition is God’s will. Now this apparently is something that is specific to sickness, injury, or similar situations, where people are suffering and believe that God has brought the suffering upon them for the sake of personal growth.

Blue thinks this is a confusion, which he traces back to the days of the early Christian Church (2nd – 4th centuries A.D.) in which suffering from persecution was highly esteemed and gained the sufferer a privileged status. When Constantine become emperor of the Roman Empire in 306 A.D. and required religious tolerance through the Edict of Milan in 313 A.D. When the persecution decreased, Christians began seeking other forms of suffering through which to achieve spiritual growth and, apparently, higher status in their communities as a result. Sickness eventually came to be viewed as a means of achieving maturity, and thus healing was discouraged.

Blue’s point in all of this is that this misunderstanding of the nature of sickness developed into a confusion of sickness and suffering from persecution. Blue maintains that there is a very stark contrast between these two ideas, and it can mainly be seen in the appropriate attitudes towards the two kinds of suffering. If someone suffers as a Christian, he is to count it as a blessing because it is a mark of true discipleship (c.f. 1 Peter 4:12-16 where suffering as a Christian is contrasted with suffering as a wrongdoer).

So if one knows that he is suffering as a Christian, that is a cause for rejoicing. This is not so with sickness. Nothing about suffering from illness implies that one is a sincere follower of Christ – which is obvious when we are reminded that non-Christians suffer from illness as well. But some people apparently do think that sickness is an indication of true discipleship in the same way as suffering related to persecution. This leads to all sorts of problems. People can become arrogant or proud of themselves in their suffering, and they can begin to see sickness itself as a fundamentally good thing rather than an evil that is not a part of God’s Kingdom.

There is one catch in all of this. Often times the results and circumstances of sickness and those of suffering from persecution can be pretty similar. I can imagine a scenario in which one is suffering from persecution, believing it an indication of his discipleship in following Christ, when in fact the two are unrelated. Indeed, Blue mentions precisely this on p.22-23 where he talks about the martyrdom cults of early Christianity wherein high status could be gained by dying at Roman hands for the sake of Christ. Surely it is possible for someone to die a martyr and not be a true follower of Christ – even if they claim to be and sincerely think that they are. Thus, just as suffering from sickness may not be an indication of true discipleship, so I think suffering from persecution can be the same way.

Further, I know that many people have experienced periods of intense growth in their relationship with God through sickness. Thus sickness can be used by God in the life of a true disciple of Christ to increase his or her maturity.

In closing this point, it would be important to summarize the state of the argument. There is no guarantee that suffering from either sickness or persecution is doing related to one’s genuine faith in Christ, while it is possible for God to use both in the lives of believers to mature them. From what can be gathered about sickness and persecution in the Bible, only the latter has a strong association with true discipleship. Therefore, we are best to not make the same assumptions about sickness in relationship to sincere belief in Christ.

Now to the practical. I think that there is a very straightforward approach towards responding to people who don’t want to be healed. If the issue is one of God’s will, then there is a very direct question to be asked here: If you trust that God knows what he is doing in making you sick, would you not trust him all the same if he made you well? Only God can heal you miraculously, and so if it is his will that you be sick, then only by his will can you be made well. In either case, the result would be the will of God. I do not think that it demonstrates a lack of trust in God to seek healing for sickness – in fact it may be the catalyst for far more change that the sickness ever brought about. That this is a possibility – that healing may bring about more good than change – suggests that the humblest and most trusting attitude that we can take towards God is to follow the Biblical model as we best understand it, and to make our pleas in acknowledgement that he is trustworthy no matter the results.

I fear that many may shrink from healing because they don’t believe that God is active to perform miracles and demonstrate his power today. Further, they would rather suffer in their condition than pray to God, and have to trust him no matter the results. Indeed, it may be quite traumatic to desire something so greatly and for God to not respond as we would wish. Our response might be anger, distrust, rebellion, etc., and I can only say that I have a fair amount of my own experience with each of these. However, our God is very big God, he is not insecure and his feeling aren’t easily hurt, and he responds with grace and humility towards his people, therefore he is able to bare the brunt even of our worst attitudes towards him. I worry that being afraid of distrusting God may be the greatest obstacle that many people face in learning to trust him more.