Last Revised: 31October, 2021



Faithful people are not always healed. Why?

My daughter, her husband and the grandkids are away at present (well, at the time of writing at least…). They are on the journey of a lifetime –six months in remote places in the north of Australia. They are far from the madding crowd and able to enjoy much that many Australians (and all but the tiniest fraction of the world’s population) will never experience. My late wife, Susie, would have loved to share that with them – to vicariously follow them on their journey and perhaps join them at times. She would have relished the chance to share their expedition.

In short, she would have been delighted to see those she loved flourishing in this and every way. The intrepid travellers (especially I think the intrepid travelling grandsons) would have enjoyed Susie’s loving interaction, caring, concern, and joy in sharing their experiences. We all need witnesses to our lives – not just any witnesses but ones that cherish you, care, hope, and find joy in your flourishing and support you when flourishing has left the building – which happens from time to time.

But that’s not possible now, for Susie at any rate. Two years ago today (as I write this on the 7th of July 2021), Susie passed away. Our kids and Susie’s sister sat with me and watched and ached as Susie took her last breath. We watched as she was released and transferred, heart and soul, to the presence of her Saviour. There was no last-minute reprieve, no miraculous recovery, no power of God on display (at least not to heal). She’s gone now, irrevocably so. The place she occupied in the lives of all who knew her is now the thinnest of vacuums. Nothing but empty space in comparison with her reality. In that now rarified space swirl mere memories where there once was someone. Someone real, someone who was, for us, the giver and the recipient of love. She was someone who mattered, whose life profoundly influenced and shaped ours.

How I prayed that it would be otherwise! How others prayed and hoped. Yet she slipped beneath the dark waters of death, unnoticed by any but God Himself and those who sat the death watch. I sat, and I prayed fervently, during those final days, not for her healing but for her release – her final salvation.

Of course, I knew we all die - but this was personal. Death had taken my wife of 39 years. The situation could have been different. I do not doubt my Father in heaven could have healed my wife, but I also knew without a doubt that He was not going to do that.

The powerful insight, seared now on my heart, is this: For those convinced that our Father truly is “God over all”, then suffering humbles the flesh and drives us to cry out to our maker. In the crucible of suffering, our faith is tried and purified by the fires of painful circumstance. At His hand, we long for a reprieve, for divine rescue, for the Deliverer to do just that. He may respond with healing, He may respond with peace, He may respond with assurance. He will always respond according to the counsel of His own will.

For those who disbelieve, spurn their maker and cling to their own sovereignty, insisting on their independence and godhead, suffering, sickness and death are often terrible tragedies that cry out for God to justify Himself. Maybe they explain suffering, sickness and death as purifying justice for those whose lives need further cleansing as they travel the wheel of time. Then again, perhaps the atheist Richard Dawkins can help explain: some people are going to get hurt, other people are going to get lucky, and you won't find any rhyme or reason in it, nor any justice. The universe that we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.[1]

Physical death is universal and final, but it is not the end. Richard Dawkins is mistaken in this. Beyond death lies an appointment with the One who formed us from the dust of the earth. For the Christian, it will be a sweet arrival; for the others...not so much.

For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we are awake or asleep we might live with him. 1Thessalonians 5:9–10.

As a product of my own experience, of my observations of others’ experiences and what I see in the world, I must ask a compelling question: Why do I still hear (with some anguish) my Pastors, my leaders in the church, my brothers and sisters in Christ claiming, ad nauseam, that “God is a healing God – He always heals.”?

We hold out healing as if it’s bait for the sick fish, the anguished of soul. “Come out to the prayer line”, I hear, "we’ll pray, and God will [or can] heal you! God will confirm His word with signs following.” There’s an important distinction required (which is often left hanging in the Revival Fellowship) between can and will. But we just press on like so many other Christian groups, peddling God’s word.[2]

No one seems to give a moment’s thought to the fact that, except on rare occasions, such a call to “come” results in … no healing. Instead of being a sweet aroma of Christ to God and persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God, we are in danger of becoming like hucksters who peddle the word of God for profit. We preach something akin to a health-and-life insurance policy without adequately describing either the actual ailment or the only cure.

No one seems concerned enough to apply sufficient rigour and spiritual insight in determining what ‘word’ it is that God wants to confirm. In the Revival Fellowship, we preach a message centred around and anchored on an experience of God’s power – either as a tongues-experience or a healing-experience – we are not preaching the Apostolically authorised message: Christ and Him crucified. (Jesus: attested to from heaven, Jesus: crucified, Jesus: risen, Jesus: the judge and Jesus: the one on whom they should believe for forgiveness.)

In God’s salvation planning, the enormity of the problem of sin and the damage to the people created in His own image was so great that the remedy had to be as effective as the problem was powerful. The outcome of the Liar's work (death came to all) was pervasive, thorough, inescapable. It is persistent. Since the Fall, and the damage caused by it, Satan has been tenacious in his pursuit of the destruction of God’s creation. The damage he engineered was so deep and so wide that nothing less than the direct intervention of God Himself, incarnate in the Messiah, could restore the balance.

From Paul

a slave of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God.

This gospel

He promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures

concerns his Son

who was a descendant of David with reference to the flesh

who was appointed the Son-of-God-in-power according to the Spirit of holiness by (or, as a result of) the resurrection from the dead)

Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Through him we have received grace and our apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles on behalf of his name.

You also are among them, called to belong to Jesus Christ

To all those loved by God in Rome, called to be saints: Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!

…For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek. For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith for faith; as it is written, the righteous shall live by faith…Romans 1:1-7, 1:16

Another possible way to render The Gospel of God, is God’s Gospel. Yes, the Gospel concerns God and God’s Son, yes, it is about God’s Son, but more than that, it is God’s Gospel. Paul didn’t make the Gospel up, inventing a cunningly devised fable (2Peter 1:16). It is not Paul’s Gospel or the Revival Fellowship’s Gospel. It is God’s.

We should be ready to speak and defend the Gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation.

The Gospel is not the power of God for healing (though healing may come). It is not the power of God for material blessings (though they may come). It is not the power of God to solve all your problems (though the mountains and valleys may be smoothed over). It is the power of God for salvation. God Himself has composed this message for our redemption. It is He who called, sanctified and ordained the ministers of the Gospel. (The apostles and their followers – even us). He has commanded us to proclaim this message. Now, here in these opening verses of Romans, Paul reveals whose Gospel, whose message, this is. The Gospel is God’s invention by His composition, and we should be careful in our treatment and care of the Gospel because it’s not our Gospel – it’s owned, written, and copyrighted by God. We respond to the Gospel, but we have no right to change it from Jesus’ story and substitute a message that confuses possible events that accompany the Gospel and the substance of the Gospel itself.[3]

The Gospel is the "word" that God will confirm. Paul didn’t preach healing and miracles – he preached Christ and Him crucified and the associated good news surrounding that proclamation – that sinners could be reconciled to God and delivered from God’s righteous anger against their sin. Healing and miracles helped establish the preachers' credentials and the authenticity of the Gospel they preached.

Healing and miracles followed as a means of declaring that Paul and the others who were proclaiming a radical new way of salvation were duly authorised, that they spoke God’s words, that the Gospel was true. The signs followed the Gospel, not the other way around. The Revival Fellowship seems to make out that the signs are the Gospel and that the signs will confirm the “Gospel of signs”. Many factions in the Revival Fellowship insist that God always heals. Healing becomes a headline to the Gospel along with our favourite, the Holy-Spirit-tongues experience.

In my view, many well-meaning Christians (and Christian leaders) misrepresent the Gospel by confusing the signs that follow the Gospel and the Gospel itself. Yet experience teaches us that healing is rare – no matter how hard or how often or with what fervour or how much faith we conjure up as we pray. Considering the number of sick people and sicknesses that provide occasions for proclaiming “God is a healing God”, miraculous healing is exceptionally rare.  In the same way, the rarity of healing is striking given the amount of time spent by fervent pray-ers, praying fervent prayers for the healing God to manifest His healing power.

We unnecessarily embellish our Gospel by tacitly requiring our "testifying" (in our gatherings or to those we meet otherwise) to relate stories of the miraculous – particularly healing. How many times have you heard well-meaning testifiers dress up their life experiences as miraculous events? I can clearly remember being instructed (and many others will share this understanding) to make sure that people listening heard about tongues and miracles. There was a time when, if you had no miracle about which to testify (tongues by itself not quite making the grade), then your testimony was not required. Much better to hear about healing. Of course, there were then and are now those who are a little befuddled about healing.

The fact that someone had surgery to remove their tumour successfully is not a healing miracle. A person with cancer who has multiple chemotherapy treatments and other medical interventions who subsequently enters remission has been the beneficiary of God’s providential care, not the beneficiary of “a healing”. “I didn’t die (but I’m still sick)” is not a healing testimony. I’m sure Timothy, sipping on a bit of wine for his tummy bug, would not claim to have been healed by the power of God. You don’t need me to multiply examples here – the examples above make the point.

We lower the bar (perhaps with good intentions) when we don’t see “the God who always heals” always healing. We help out the omnipotent, sovereign God by claiming all types of miracles on His behalf, and this we do despite the dearth of actual healing.

A moment’s reflection by saints willing to get to the bottom of all this would provide the answer: God does not always heal.

Some will say, “What about… Exodus 15:26?”

If you will diligently listen to the voice of the LORD your God, and do that which is right in his eyes, and give ear to his commandments and keep all his statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you that I put on the Egyptians, for I am the LORD, your healer.

I’m not sure these words are relevant to the argument. These words, spoken to a people in quite a different situation, were part of a revelation about a God they did not know – the God of their Fathers. The healing was not so much an active operation of removing something as it was the withholding of a calamity – punishment for disobedience. There are legal, binding, covenant-making clauses here: If you do such and such, then I will not do such and such. It was a covenant between two parties.

In Mark 7:26-28 we find the story of a persistent Greek woman. This is a story that the Revival Fellowship has used for more than four decades in my experience to boost confidence and faith with exhortations about “Healing is the children’s bread!” Let’s think about that for a minute. Here is the verse:

The woman was a Greek, of Syrophoenician origin. She asked him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be satisfied first, for it is not right to take the children’s bread and to throw it to the dogs.” She answered, “Yes, Lord, but even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.

Firstly, I note it’s not about healing per se – it’s a case of demon possession.

Secondly, it is not at all clear in context that “the children” are us, and it is more likely it refers to “the lost sheep of the House of Israel” (Matthew 15:24) or to Jesus’ disciples.

Thirdly, the “bread” that rightly or appropriately belongs first to “the children” is not healing nor necessarily exorcism. In context, it is most likely all the benefits of having Jesus with you.

There are other scriptures we in the Revival Fellowship like to use to show that God heals. That is laudable, but these verses say nothing about the universality of healing, nor do they support the claim that God always heals. If we accept for the sake of argument that these verses are talking about physical healing, then what they tell us is that there is a price for healing, and Jesus paid the price. (Although even here in the Revival Fellowship, some do not think that physical healing is in view):

But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. (Isaiah 53:5)

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. (1Peter 2:24)

I think the theology for these verses goes pretty deep and healing for our bodies is not what these verses are teaching. Suppose these verses do teach the event that bought our salvation from sin also paid the healing price. In that case, why are we not healed decisively, removing our sicknesses in the same way that our sins and transgressions are removed? Jesus, with His blood, His life, purchased our forgiveness which covers us totally with no reservation or lack. Peter states in 1Peter 2:24 By his wounds, you have been healed. If Peter intends this to reference physical healing rather than salvation (as many think), then where is the healing?

Salvation mentioned in this verse is not sporadic or occasional. The bearing of our sins by Jesus is not a "sometimes" event but is complete. Salvation is freely offered, comprehensive and ubiquitous for those who put their faith in Christ. If 1Peter 2:24 deals with healing as part of the package, it too should be complete and universal for believers. Jesus bore our sins resulting in forgiveness and salvation. If He was wounded for our healing as part of the salvation process, why is the healing, bought by his wounds, not universally available, just for the asking, as is salvation?

Let’s continue our examination with a Revival Fellowship favourite, Mark 16:16-19.

​Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; ​they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” So then the Lord Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God. They went out and proclaimed everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed the word through the accompanying signs.

Let’s take a closer look to see if there are scriptural precedents for these signs.

1. In my name they will drive out demons. Examples can be found in these verses: Luke 10:17, Acts 5:16; Acts 8:7; Acts 16:18; Acts 19:12
2. They will speak in new languages. Examples can be found in these verses: Acts 2:4; Acts 10:46; Acts 19:6
3. They will pick up snakes with their hands. No scriptural examples. Perhaps Acts 28:5?. Maybe Luke 10:19 I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy. However, this is a perfect, active, indicative (a past event with abiding results) and the authority was given to those sent at the time. There have been many theories concerning this reference but the only one that really fits is that snakes and scorpions are symbols of the power of the evil one. If it were literal snakes and scorpions why would they need divine authority to stomp on a snake or a scorpion?
4. Whatever poison they drink will not harm them.  No scriptural examples.
5. They will place their hands on the sick and they will be well. Examples can be found in these verses: Acts 5:16; Acts 28:8

These are called signs. They are not symbols, and they are not amenable to being reduced to some allegorical or mystical interpretation that spiritualises the plain reading to avoid hard questions. To function as signs, they must be real, not allegorical or symbolic. If we treat them as metaphorical, their value as signs is lost. Some would create in these verses a mixture of real signs (because we like some of them) and symbolic (because we don’t like or can’t explain others). I see no support for that approach.

They are called signs. More than that, they are confirming signs (as verse 20 spells out).

That being the case, to function as signs and be confirmatory, they must be obvious, overt - seen. If we turn the God-ordained confirming signs into euphemistic symbols and give them a (so-called) spiritual re-interpretation, they will cease to function as signs. Also, as noted above, when we start to divide the signs, which ones do we keep as real-to-be-experienced signs and which ones do we reduce to symbolic status?

There are five signs that shall follow them that believe. All signs are not present in all believers all the time. The principle of “Some signs for some, sometimes" is verifiable from Church history (ancient and modern) and is valid for the contemporary Church.

Because the signs are not universal, we must conclude that “these signs shall follow them that believe” speaks of signs variously present in the lives of believers across the church (the whole body of Christ) rather than universally manifest in every believer. Given the preceding discussion, we must also conclude that the Revival Fellowship favourites (tongues and healing) are not universal either. 
 

If we say “No, No – tongues are universal,” why are the others, including healing, not universal?

What criteria do we arbitrarily apply to determine universal signs, occasional signs, and allegorical-symbolic signs? It seems to me it is all or nothing in terms of the Mark 16 signs. Either they are, all of them, universal confirming signs, or they are, as a group, confirming signs that are not universal. To proclaim some signs as universal and others not, some as real signs and some as allegorical, has no basis.

I think we’d all agree that the efficacy of the laying on of hands for healing is sporadic. It is hardly a universally available confirming sign, and it is pretty hit and miss, as I have noted above. It “works” sometimes and not others. (Mostly not). Not really the stuff of a confirming sign, is it? Keep in mind, though, my earlier comments about “lowering the bar”. In the Revival Fellowship, any time we get well or our health situation improves after prayer – we claim a “healing", and so perpetuate the myth that healing is present as an affirmative sign of our version of the Gospel. It is a fact that people are genuinely, miraculously healed. That is our sovereign God at work.  The Holy Spirit (Himself God) distributes gifts in the Church as He sees fit. Some people are healed – recipients of one of “the gifts of cures” or a miraculous gift – and others are not.

For the two problematic cases of they will pick up snakes with their hands and whatever poison they drink will not harm them, there are no New Testament examples of these functioning as signs. There is no clear New Testament example of them at all, and therefore they are not universal. If we are going to take the example of Paul on the island of Malta (Acts 28:5) as demonstrative of they will pick up snakes with their hands then we need to note a few things:

When Paul had gathered a bundle of sticks and put them on the fire, a viper came out because of the heat and fastened on his hand. Acts 28:3

1. Paul did not take up the serpent/viper/snake. What he did “take up” was a bundle of firewood.
2. The viper was “not taken”. Instead, the villainous viper came out of the wood recently thrown on the fire and latched onto Paul. It was not a “taking up” but an unexpected hit from a snake that thought, perhaps as snake thinking goes, it was about to be barbequed.
3. The fact that Paul suffered no harm was a sign, and the Lord used Paul’s “suffering no harm” for the furtherance of His kingdom. The event will not fit into the category “they will pick up snakes with their hands”. That phrase carries the connotation of something more involved than an involuntary and unexpected, accidental coming across a snake on one occasion.

Suppose we allow Paul’s action with the snake to be a “pick up snakes with their hands” occasion. We are at best dealing with a single event in the New Testament of something that we suppose to be a universal confirming sign that will accompany those who believe.

In the case of whatever poison they drink will not harm them, the New Testament is silent. Again this is not a good case for the universality of the confirming signs that will accompany those who believe.

What about driving out demons? That was hardly universal for all believers. There’s a unique challenge for us in the Revival Fellowship concerning this sign – our leaders and our brothers and sisters can’t agree on the existence of demons and the problem of real demons possessing people (or inhabiting pigs, even if for a brief moment).

Demons are a thorny subject, and so, in Revival Fellowship circles, we tend to re-define them so as not to scare the horses. I’ve heard firsthand demon possession reduced to a mental illness “He [Jesus] healed their mentally ill in a way that had not been done before.” Well... this is hardly a case of driving out demons as a confirming sign. It is rare, and we in the Revival Fellowship aren’t sure (or in agreement about) the possibility of there being a real sign of power over demons. Instead, we give it a little nudge into a different category altogether, making it a euphemism for mental illness.

As for they will speak in new languages and they will place their hands on the sick and they will be well we are familiar with them. There is no shortage of examples in the New Testament. But there is nothing in this Mark 16 text leading us to conclude the universality of they will speak in new languages and they will place their hands on the sick and they will be well. Mark 16 provides no evidence these signs are universally expected for all believers all the time.

I conclude, then, (after so many words) that the Mark 16 signs are not universal in the Church or Church history (ancient or modern). However, the Revival Fellowship uses they will speak in new languages from Mark 16 to support their dogma that all Christians speak in tongues. The weakness of the argument lies here: if speaking in tongues is universal (based on Mark 16), then why are not all of the Mark 16 signs similarly universal? As I have already said – universality is all or nothing. Perhaps it makes sense to reverse that statement: if the other four confirming signs are not universal, then why think that they will speak in new languages is?

If we say that all are universal – where are they? Relating this to the subject we started to discuss, healing, I conclude it’s no good looking here in Mark 16 to bolster dogma that God always heals. There is simply no way to substantiate that claim from the last verses of Mark’s Gospel. Mark’s confirming signs are not universal (even unheard of apart from Mark’s closing remarks). None of them is universal, including tongues and healing.

We present Exodus 15 and Mark 16 and other scriptures as proof texts without context, just the merest nod to some explanation. “See! God heals!”

But the reality is quite different – radically so.

Susie, who walked “in the Lord” with me faithfully, lovingly with incredible patience and longsuffering for 40 years, did not get healed. Starting when she was diagnosed and treated (and re-treated again and again with debilitating medical interventions), she was always going to succumb. The writing was on the wall. We lived ignoring the prose so plainly written by God’s hand on our hearts. For almost 15 years, we did that – praying and fasting on and off – others prayed for us too. Pastor Godfrey prayed for Susie instructing us to believe and wait – “The Lord” (a somewhat nebulous description we in the Revival Fellowship use for God) would heal. We waited. Susie died.

Now I say it bluntly, but not because I’m bitter or disappointed. Not in the least. I say it like that to provide a jolt of reality. Don’t get me wrong, by the way. I am sad, and I am hurting; I still wonder what might have been, and I’m certainly looking forward to what more my Father will do to ensure that all of this is going to “work out for my good”. (It is working out, by the way – but that’s another story.)

Mercifully we had time to prepare – the Spirit of God wrote a new story on our hearts two years before Susie’s last breath. It was, it is, a story of faithful endurance. It is the story of a Godly woman and her blind, sinful, unfaithful husband brought in utter humility and dependence to the feet of Jesus. And there to find, by God’s incredible grace, overflowing forgiveness, love, and mercy.

Such is the love and the chastisement of our Father. We both would have been diminished, lessened, and our lives impoverished if not for what we experienced. God is sovereign. His providence is over all, He guides the activity of all existence, and He has so providentially ordered the world to accomplish His ends by the things we decide to undertake and the things that happen to us. The death of my beloved (and others) fit this category. God’s will for our lives can absolutely include failure, sickness, and heartache. It may be that God’s will is for you to fail and for you to suffer to accomplish His purposes.

Why? Because there are things that God must teach you through failure and suffering that you would never learn through a life of good times and no cost victory over your life’s challenges. You will fail, you will suffer, and you will, eventually, die. However, on your journey, just as Paul did, you will learn things that success and a life of ease will never teach you. God has His plan to accomplish, and if that plan is moved forward by our suffering, then that is, for you or me, a reason for humility and submission to his will.

If you think that I’m wrong on this – go and look at the life of the Apostle Paul. A man told in a prophecy of His future given at the very beginning of his Christian life, For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name. (Acts 9:16). Carefully examine his life if you think that God always heals.

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Philippians 4:11-13

This is the “Divine Irony”. Paul was antagonistic, bent on the destruction of the Church and intent on wiping out the followers (and the memory of) Jesus.  He who had caused so much suffering and anguish was destined, by the sovereign will of God, to suffer to such an extent that he would come to exemplify what it meant to suffer for the sake of Jesus’ name.

In exercising our hearts and minds concerning suffering and the will of God, attempting to make sense of the biblical data (and our life experiences), we need to start with God’s sovereignty, and we must speak of God’s “God-ness”.

The question is deceptively simple: “Is God sovereign?” Now, this is a binary question, and there is only a yes or a no answer. Concerning the sovereignty of God, He either is or is not Sovereign. Everything that happens occurs either by God’s specific will, plan and purpose (God decrees it), or God allows or permits it to happen for His own purposes. Given He has decreed every circumstance of humankind and of the universe in which we “...live move and have our being”, then even that which He merely permits, He in fact decrees. In the case of suffering – He may decree it or permit it. Whether by decree or permission we can be sure our suffering is, as Luis Molina claims, “in the service of some greater good”. That is, God may very well have sufficiently good and moral reasons for allowing suffering – either ours or in the world in general.

So we may suffer “according to the will of God”. That is to say, our distressful circumstance is all part of the plan of a Sovereign God. In both examples below, the suffering is a result of God's will. This may be God's sovereign, decretive will? (God's decretive will results in the event's occurrence being unavoidable, indeed it must come to pass because God has willed it.) Perhaps this is God's permissive will in which He allows something that He could otherwise prevent? In either case, if God decrees a thing, it must happen, or if He permits an occurrence that He could prevent, the result is the same: the suffering is a result of and according to God's will.

1Peter 3:17 For it is better to suffer for doing good, if God wills it, than for doing evil. 

1Peter 4:19 So then let those who suffer according to the will of God entrust their souls to a faithful Creator as they do good. 

Of course, if you believe that God is not actually in control, that He is in some circumstances powerless...then two things happen:

1. You have to accept that sickness (and any suffering or evil) is genuinely random.
2. You may or may not get sick, depending on the level of God’s power and willingness to intervene.
3. Your sickness is caused by the natural circumstances surrounding you and which neither you nor your limited God can alter.
4. You can’t claim any longer that God is God. A limited God, an impotent God, is not God at all.

Job was a man who was blameless and upright. Yet, he suffered enormously at the hands of a sovereign God. (As did his children, and it appears, most of his servants and workers who all lost their lives as part of God’s intervention in the life of Job). In his initial response to God, Job did not sin [or] charge God with wrong (Job 1:1, 22; Job 2:10). Job’s friends came to support him and were struck speechless by the enormity of Job’s plight. However, they turn out to be, in Job’s words, worthless physicians and miserable comforters, who do not see the whole picture and, based on a simplistic view of the moral order, they conclude:

1. God is righteous and not unjust, nor is He capricious. (This is true)
2. God always rewards the righteous. (This is true in the sense that the righteous’ reward is to live in the presence of God. Rewards are not guaranteed in this life.)
3. The righteous will never experience suffering. (This is mistaken.)
4. Therefore, the only reason anyone suffers (in this case, Job particularly) is specific, personal sin.

(4) is not a valid conclusion - it does not follow from (1), (2), and (3). (1) is true and may support the conclusion (4); however, (2) and (3) are untrue, and so the case supporting (4) collapses.

In any case, Job’s worthless physicians and miserable comforters had a pretty naive view of life in a fallen world. People’s suffering is not proof of personal sin, as Job aptly demonstrates and is exemplified in the lives of Jesus, Stephen, Paul, Barnabas, Silas, Peter, James, and so many others.

If any are sick, the cause does not necessarily relate to their relationship with their Father or whether or not they are “walking in the Spirit”. In a fallen world, people get sick, and in a world where God is sovereign, even the saints get sick. It may be that sickness is the tool chosen by your Father to chastise you - fair enough. However, there is no reason to think that every sickness, uncomfortable moment, or difficult situation directly results from some spiritual misdemeanour. Unfortunately, there are plenty who can’t discern between the “chastisement of the Lord” and indigestion caused by an unhealthy lifestyle or last night’s pizza.

So whatever the reason behind a person’s sickness, the Lord, our Father in heaven, can heal, but He does not always heal, and neither is He obligated to do so. He may – He is, after all, a healing God – but the scriptures we bandy about in no way indicate that He always or must heal.

That kind of thinking is a Christian myth – a fantasy, and it stems from the pervasive yet subtle influence of hyper-faith teaching where name it and claim it are watchwords. The infiltration of this myth is aided by a less than critically discerning Revival Fellowship from an incorrect and, I think, shallow view of scripture.

We seem to be happy to classify triple-bypass surgery, chemo or some other treatment, either once or over a prolonged period, which leads to a cure, remission or reduction of symptoms or severity as divine healing.

God may be providentially at work to support, strengthen and help us bear up under the treatment regime and these provisions of God are blessings for the Saints, no doubt. However, that situation is not healing. The results are no different to the results we hear of in the lives of many ill people who, with no supporting faith, church, prayer line, or anointing oil, have incredible results - including remission. It does our cause no good to classify similar happenings in Saints’ lives as healing when is likely not the case.

We affirm in our fellowship that God always heals, and that is simply not true. It is not even true that God’s general disposition toward us is that we should not suffer or be sick. Our life experience is that genuine healing is rare, and Saint’s lives are not free from sickness. Why, if God always heals – if that is His disposition toward us – does He not prevent Saints’ illnesses at the outset? What an excellent option for God! After all, we would no longer need healing. Wouldn’t that be better?

Over the last two years, there have been names of Christian people in my acquaintance eternally recorded as not healed. My wife died of cancer, and two other sisters have died of cancer. A young brother died of cancer. Additional names will lengthen that list, I’m sure.

Many genuine Christians are battling with their illnesses. Paul was ill and unhealed. One of Paul’s young helpers he left sick – too ill to travel. The Apostle with a track record of miracles, the Apostle Paul, advised Timothy to drink a little wine for what ailed him. Paul did not require Timothy to raise a hallelujah or beat his shield against the darkness.

Those who proclaim that God always heals have a responsibility, an obligation to prove that claim. They must provide adequate, logical, scriptural reasons for the fact that healing is rare and intermittent. Especially so when according to their theology, healing should be pervasive and universal in the church; after all, that’s what God always heals means – He always heals.

Further, if we take the view that God always heals – why do people die? Seriously, if God always heals, then no one should die – we would all happily avail ourselves of the rotating door of healing, time after time. Yet, people die. In that case, there must be limits on God’s healing. What are those limits? Where do we draw the line? If we draw the line anywhere at all, we immediately concede that God does not always heal.

If we say instead that God only potentially always heals – in other words, He can always heal, but he doesn’t, then what are the criteria? There are various ways preachers who proclaim the universality of healing get around the plain fact that it doesn’t always happen. When the God who always heals doesn’t, the “reasons” given by the “God always heals” promoters are generally:

1. You don’t have enough faith.
2. The person praying for you doesn’t have enough faith
3. God will heal – he just hasn’t yet.
4. You have some besetting sin that prevents the power of God from operating.

Space does not permit a thorough exposition of each of these. Suffice to say that faith and healing in the New Testament are uneasy bedfellows – sometimes together and sometimes not. For example:

And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him. John 9:2-3

The man was blind and had been since birth precisely so Jesus could come and heal him – as a sign. There’s no mention of faith at all, and while there is more to be said, let’s move on. The blind man, just like Job, was used by God for His purposes and His glory.

I have number five to add to the list above. When the question is asked, “Why haven’t I been healed?” the answer is, God's sovereign in your life, and God’s not obliged to heal you. It may better fit His plan (and be better for you in the end), not to heal you, and it may never be on His agenda for your particular circumstances. 

I propose we practice and cultivate some humility before our Father and work to align our relationship with our sovereign God rightly. The reason for some getting healed and some not becomes obvious when we inject a dose of humility. God has a plan, a purpose, and a will that transcends our understanding, and He will do as He will. I know that sounds harsh, and the situation is, I admit, more nuanced than can be described in a short paragraph.

Nevertheless, God, who declares the end from the beginning, always acts according to the counsel of His own will. Not only that, healing, as described in 1Corinthians 12, is a gift. The Greek says Gifts of Cures. It’s plural. There will be gifts of cures dispensed by the Spirit as He wills. After all, Paul makes it clear that:

All these [manifestations] are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as he wills. 1Corinthians 12:11

The cure is the gift (it is not the ability to cure someone else that is the gift), and the Spirit dispenses such remedies as He decides. That’s as good a reason as any why some are healed, and some are not. Submission to God’s will in this matter is not “having a bet both ways”, as I and many others have heard for decades. 
 

I am convinced that we ought to have an exalted view of the sovereignty of God. I believe that God has an ultimate goal in mind as far as it concerns His creation, including us, and that He has His own motivations or reasons for doing what He does. It is the purpose of God that drives the universe. God is the First Cause, the cause of all other causes, and He has a goal in mind. God has perfect and complete knowledge, incomparable, absolute wisdom, and in His holiness and righteousness, He has divine integrity. That integrity is such that He cannot act against His nature. Given those reasonable propositions, we must conclude that He cannot have an evil or foolish plan. We could summarise it like this:

1. Perfect God – Flawless Plan
2. Wise God – Foolproof Plan
3. Good God – The Most Beneficial Plan
4. All-Powerful God – Completed Plan

Once he has made His plan, then the next step is to implement that plan. Once God sets His “Plan A” in motion, do you think that He is wringing his hands in a state of divine anxiety waiting to see if his creation (and in particular his human creatures) will co-operate with His plan? To put it another way, is God “up in heaven” constantly concerned that somehow you will mess up His carefully laid plans by your lack of co-operation, your lack of faith or your recalcitrance? If that is your view of God, let me introduce you to my God because He has no such problems.

When we submit humbly to God’s sovereignty, we are not providing an escape route for God’s apparent failures. It is not a case of “a bet both ways”; it’s a case of recognising who God is and who we are. Does that mean we don’t ask? On the contrary, we should, and we are told: ask. However, as I wrote in another article:

To enter the throne-room seeking a sense of communion and fellowship and to then start to "Raise a hallelujah" or "Beat our shields against the darkness" in some hyper-faith show of bravado is not something we ought to do. We can pray urgently, we can plead, we can remind our Father of His promises, we can lay out our need or the need of others for Him to see, and if we are in the Spirit, He will hear our humble boldness as our prayers start to align with His will. At the same time, we will recognise ever more our utter dependence on Him. 

As we pray, a hallelujah may very well be raised in heaven (and on earth), and we do not need to doubt our only shields (those of faith) can defend us from uncertainty and keep that darkness at bay. But these are the outcomes of prayer in the Spirit, not the cause of it. 
 

So healing, like all things, is in God’s sovereign hand. If God is good, loving and all-powerful, “Why then do the righteous suffer?” asks the Psalmist. When we suffer pain, grief or sorrow, God is not acting with injustice, and he does not owe us perpetual bliss or freedom from tragedies. 

Many scriptures deal with the tragedy of life and how the Christian should respond in both good and bad circumstances, in sickness or health, plenty or want. From Paul’s pen, we have: 
 

Are they Hebrews? So am I. Are they Israelites? So am I. Are they offspring of Abraham? So am I. Are they servants of Christ? I am a better one—I am talking like a madman—with far greater labors, far more imprisonments, with countless beatings, and often near death. Five times I received at the hands of the Jews the forty lashes less one. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked; a night and a day I was adrift at sea; on frequent journeys, in danger from rivers, danger from robbers, danger from my own people, danger from Gentiles, danger in the city, danger in the wilderness, danger at sea, danger from false brothers; in toil and hardship, through many a sleepless night, in hunger and thirst, often without food, in cold and exposure. And, apart from other things, there is the daily pressure on me of my anxiety for all the churches. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is made to fall, and I am not indignant? 2Corinthians 11:22-29 
 

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. Philippians 4:11-12

“So,” we may well ask, “what's the purpose? What's the meaning? Is there some greater good, some better outcome that I would not know apart from my sickness?".

Knowing the reasons and seeing the ultimate good that suffering may bring would require us to see the "interconnectedness of all things" and know what God knows. That’s not possible for us. Our best plan is to plead with our God according to His promises and affirm them. If we bring with that pleading and affirmation a humble acceptance of His sovereignty in all the affairs of His creation, we will do well.

What do we do then? I suggest proclaiming and affirming the universality of the blood of Jesus.

That is, after all, the Gospel (as noted in detail above). The genuine Gospel will prove to be the “word” confirmed. The healing will come if that’s God’s will. As we get back to preaching the real Gospel, God may very well heal, and people may very well speak in tongues, but those (and other) signs are not the word we should preach; they are not the Gospel. Preach the word with Jesus at the centre, and the signs will come – but don't preach the signs and expect the salvation to follow.

Endnotes

1. Richard Dawkins, River Out of Eden: A Darwinian View of Life
2. But thanks be to God who always leads us in triumphal procession in Christ and who makes known through us the fragrance that consists of the knowledge of him in every place. For we are a sweet aroma of Christ to God among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing – to the latter an odour from death to death, but to the former a fragrance from life to life. And who is adequate for these things? For we are not like so many others, hucksters who peddle the word of God for profit, but we are speaking in Christ before God as persons of sincerity, as persons sent from God. 2Corinthians 2:14-17
3. …Paul identifies himself as one separated as an apostle and called by God to preach the gospel. I said that the phrase “the gospel of God” did not mean the gospel about God but, rather, the gospel that is the possession of God. God owns that gospel. He is the One who invented the gospel and commissioned Paul to teach it. The gospel did not originate with Paul; it originated with God. Here, Paul uses the same structure to refer not to the gospel of God but to the gospel of God’s Son, Jesus Christ. The gospel is the possession of Jesus, but, even more, Jesus is the heart of the content of the gospel. We use it so glibly in the church today. Preachers say they preach the gospel, but if we listen to them preach Sunday after Sunday, we hear very little gospel in what they are preaching. Romans: An Expositional Commentary. R.C. Sproul.