There is such a
thing as becoming one-sided in regard to the truth of God. This is true in
regard to the doctrine of “Faith Healing.” The Scriptures surely do teach us
that it is our privilege to go to God with all our difficulties and needs,
spiritual and physical. Many a child of God has had the answer to believing
prayer in the form of renewed health or deliverance from diseases of various
forms. Far be it from us to weaken in anyone the sense of dependence upon God
for the healing of the body, for we believe that did Christians trust the Lord
more and man less about such matters it would be more honoring to God.

While it is
certainly true that God does answer faith, we desire to present another side to
the Scriptural teaching as to divine healing. It is hoped that this will
provide our readers with a balanced view of this topic.

Let us note,
first of all, that sickness is sometimes the result of sin:“He who eats and
drinks unworthily, eats and drinks damnation to himself, not discerning the
Lord’s body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep.
For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged” (1 Cor. 11:29-31).
Unjudged sin was bringing weakness, sickness, and even death upon the
Corinthian Christians. God’s reason for sending death to them was that they
“should not be condemned with the world” (verse 32). In Jas. 5:14,15 as well we
find that it may be sins that caused the sickness:“If he have committed sins,
they shall be forgiven him.”

This is not to
say that all ill health and sickness is caused by sin. In fact, we are
plainly given to understand that earnest, faithful work for the Lord Jesus
Christ may be the cause of ill health which nearly terminates in death. The
apostle Paul says of Epaphroditus, “Indeed he was sick nigh unto death, but God
had mercy on him…. For the work of Christ he was nigh unto death, not
regarding his life, to supply your lack of service toward me” (Phil. 2:27-30).

Let us now turn
our thoughts to the one whom the apostle Paul calls his own son in the faith.
Would that more of the Christian young men of our day were filled with the same
faith and love as was Timothy! Paul says of Timothy, “I have no man like-minded
who will naturally care for your state” (Phil. 2:21). Yet, though Timothy was
faithful to the Lord, to His people in general, and to the apostle Paul in
particular, he was one who had often infirmities and stomach
difficulties. This being the case, should he not exercise faith and thus be
cured of his trouble? Will the apostle not write recommending him to do so?
This is what the apostle did write through the leading of the Holy
Spirit:“Drink no longer water, but use a little wine for your stomach’s sake
and your often infirmities” (1 Tim. 5:23). Paul advised Timothy to take a
little medicine, in the form of wine. True, it was a little he was to
use, and as a medicine; and being in the habit of taking water, he had to be told
to take wine.

The apostle
Paul had power to heal persons of diseases. Is it not strange that he should
leave one of his helpers at Miletum sick? “Trophimus have I left at Miletum
sick” (2 Tim. 4:20). Neither Trophimus nor Paul exercised faith as to the
restoration to health. Has the Lord nothing to teach us by this fact? Can we
not learn by it that it is not always the Lord’s will that His children should
receive faith for the healing of disease?

Once more, the
apostle speaks of “Luke the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). Here was one
of the Lord’s people who was a physician; not only so, he was a beloved one to
Paul. If sickness is always a sign of unjudged sin in the one who is sick, and
it is sinful to take medicine for relief, would Paul refer to one whose
profession was to administer medicine as the “beloved” physician, when he
knew that his was a profession whose very nature led him to prescribe a
course of treatment which would then be actually sinful? Thus we see that the
Word of God does not lead us to suppose that one who is a physician is
following a profession which is contrary to the will of God, seeing the word
“beloved” is a term of special affection.

On the one
hand, the Scriptures teach that the One who, while upon the earth, said,
“According to your faith be it unto you” (Matt. 9:29), is still able to give
faith to trust Him about bodily ailments, and in response to faith is able to
heal the disease. On the other hand, it is well to remember that, in wisdom
that no man can rightly question, God’s will may be that one who is sick not
be healed in a miraculous way, or perhaps not at all (as in 2 Cor.
12:7-9). The object in writing the foregoing is not to weaken in any degree a
humble dependence upon God for the healing of the body, but to bring out the
other side of truth from the Word of God which seems to be passed over by many.

Should God
enable any to trust Him for healing, be sure to give God the glory, and do not
think of it as though it were a thing of merit to man that God healed
the sick.

(From Help
and Food, Vol. 13.)