A Letter to one Inquiring as to its scripturalness.
As to the question of "divine healing"-so prominent a theme with many to-day-it seems to me that one verse in Ephesians clears up the whole matter if carefully weighed. I refer to chap. 1:3, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings, in heavenly places in Christ." All the Christian's blessings are spiritual, in contrast to Israel's which were of an earthly character. They are in heavenly places, not in an earthly place in the land of Canaan. This verse furnishes the key to the right use of the Old Testament promises. Every spiritual blessing promised to Israel we can also claim, for all such are ours too, but the temporal blessings are not guaranteed to us at all. Who was more lacking of them than the suffering, persecuted apostles? If God, in His love and mercy, is pleased to grant us such out of His own abundant grace, that is quite another thing.
Therefore the promises of bodily health and healing made to Israel and conditioned upon their obedience to the law, we have nothing to do with, though we may learn from them, as from all else in the word of God. They are temporal blessings vouchsafed to an earthly people.
We need not search the Old Testament Scriptures for the Christian's blessings therefore, as it is not there God has put them. To the New Testament we turn and ask:Is there, from Matthew to Revelation, one promise that believers in this Christian dispensation shall not be sick, or can always be healed if they are, providing they exercise a certain amount of faith? We must answer, Not one. In fact the very contrary is not merely implied, but stated directly.
Timothy was sick-a dyspeptic evidently. Was he commanded to "claim the promises for healing," or to go to some person to be prayed for and anointed, and promised health if he did?" No. The Holy Ghost, writing through Paul, says, "Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities " (i Tim. 5:23). Would any cavil as to this? It is just as much the word of God as John 3:16 or the fifty-third of Isaiah. Yet it not only ignores the doctrine of "divine healing" but prescribes a suited remedy instead. If similarly troubled try it and see if the Great Physician knows not how to treat the disorders of the body as well as to heal the soul.
In Phil. 2:26, 27, Paul writes of Epaphroditus, "He longed after you all, and was full of heaviness, because that ye had heard he had been sick. For indeed he was sick nigh unto death; but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow."
Is there a hint here that this devoted servant of Christ had no business to be sick? Instead of that his raising up is spoken of as a signal act of the mercy of God. Means, may or may not have been used, but the point is neither Paul nor Epaphroditus looked upon the healing as something they had a right to (as people often put it to-day) but simply as "mercy" for which they could joyfully thank God, but could not demand.
Whether Paul's thorn in the flesh was a physical infirmity or not has been questioned, but how else could it be in the flesh ? At any rate the principle is the same. Did he demand its removal ? He prayed thrice that it might be. Then the answer came, not that it would be removed, but, "My grace is sufficient for thee; for my strength is make perfect in weakness." Then he exclaims, " Most gladly, therefore, will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me " (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Is there much glorying in infirmities among those who advocate "divine healing" in our day? Instead of that they generally regard infirmity, weakness, or ill-health as a matter of which to be ashamed, and as evidence of low spirituality, or weak faith. How contemptible the apostle Paul would appear in their eyes if he could come among us again in the infirm and weak condition that often characterized him ! He knew nothing of " opening his mouth and breathing in the resurrection life of the glorified body of Christ, communicated by the Spirit," as I once heard a healing teacher put it. No, he had learned that, " If Christ be in you, the body is dead because of sin " (Rom. 8:10, 1st part). And thus he was content to add his groans with those of the groaning creation while waiting for the redemption of the body (vers. 19-24).
The present redemption of the body is quite prominently insisted on by those who advocate the doctrine I am seeking to refute. Paul knew nothing of it. To him it was future, and referred to the time when Christ "shall change our vile body (or, the body of our humiliation) that it may be fashioned like unto His glorious body," etc. (Phil. 3:21).
Of another servant he writes " Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick." I have heard it confidently asserted that Trophimus must have been in a backslidden state or he would certainly have been healed. God does not say so. He was sick and Paul says nothing of his privilege to claim healing, nor did he heal him himself, but left him to learn in the presence of God whatever precious lessons his illness might be intended to convey.
In James 5:14-16 we read, "Is any sick among you? 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 of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
Nothing could be more directly opposed to the entire healing system than this passage; yet, strange to say, it is frequently glibly quoted as though it really supported it. Let us see.
In case of sickness what were they to do ? Call in some brother or sister who is known as a healer, or supposed to be a remarkable person as to faith ? Not at all. " Call for the elders of the church." Is this ever done to-day ? Never! Why ? Because in the present disordered condition of things it is absolutely impossible to find elders of the Church to call in. Man-made elders of one or another sect will not do. God-appointed elders of the Church composed of all believers alone could meet the conditions. Of such we read in Tit. 1:5-9 as also i Tim. 3:i-ii ; but who has authority to ordain them today? Titus had, but Titus is gone. If any one else has, let him show his credentials. The fact is, only an apostle or an apostolic delegate ever had such authority. As we have neither the one nor the other in the Church on earth now, as a logical necessity we have no officially recognized elders either.
Now this consideration should prepare one to expect that the passage in James cannot be fully acted upon today, and a careful examination of the epistle only confirms this. It was God's last word to "the twelve tribes" (chap. 1:i), to whom promises of healing had been given in the Old Testament, and as such it is quite in keeping that it instructs them as to this in the new order of things. James is the bridge between Judaism and Christianity, and to be properly understood must be so looked at; else how can we account for verse 2 of chap, 2:, where the word translated " assembly " is really " synagogue," and has no reference to the properly Christian company whatever.
It is well to remember also that since then the ruin of the Church has come in. All is now in confusion. Hence the power that wrought in the beginning is in great measure withheld now.
If however these considerations do not seem clear, a more important point yet is this. In James 5:no account is taken of the exercise of faith on behalf of the sick one -only of the faith of those who pray for him. Is this true among divine-healers now? Is it not just the opposite with them ? They excuse all their failures to heal, by lack of faith on the part of the patient, which clearly shows that their entire system is different from that referred to here.
If any can act on James 5:, and through their prayers healing be granted the afflicted people of God, we can only wish them God-speed, and doubtless the sixteenth verse is one of wide enough range to apply to all. There is nothing official about it. Tried saints in all ages since the Cross have proved the blessedness of it, but it is no question of faith on the part of the sufferer.
Another misapplied scripture with the healers is Matt. 8:16, 17, "When the even was come they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils:and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all their sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses."
The awful doctrine has been founded on this, that Christ bore on the cross, our sicknesses as well as the judgment due to our sins. I say awful, because this would imply that He was Himself, as I heard a leader among them say on one occasion, " filled with every loathsome disease and a living mass of corruption on the cross." Worse was said which I would not repeat. Alas, how little do such realize the meaning of their Satan-inspired words. " Neither wilt thou suffer thy Holy One to see corruption" was true of that precious, "prepared" Body, in life as well as in death. But in no other way could He have really made atonement for sickness, and if He has so done Christians could no more be sick than be judged for their sins. The passage quoted by Matthew from Isa. 53:does not state this however. It says the fulfilment took place as He healed the sick in the exercise of His gracious ministry on earth, not on the cross. He never healed a person that He did not bear, in His deep sympathies, all that the afflicted one had suffered.
I think it unnecessary to say more. The words of Jesus Himself imply clearly that sick people need a physician (Matt. 9:12) nor does He forbid a human one such as " Luke, the beloved physician " (Col. 4:14). On the other hand, His word is ever true, " If ye abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ye shall ask what ye will and it shall be clone unto you" (John 15:7). H. A. IRONSIDE.