Healing 2

Healing and the will of God.Healing depends on God's will. We cannot heal ourselves. The leper in Matt 8:2 understood it perfectly when he said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.” However, when it comes to God's will to heal there are some who would say that the leper was wrong in the way he asked Jesus. Colin Urquhart said, "when you come tentatively with an 'if,' the first thing He [God] wants to do is to remove the 'if' from your thinking." The proper attitude for a Christian is not "if God wills to heal me" but "since God wants to heal me" In other words, some say God's will is always to heal. They point to Jesus readiness to heal all who came to him. Jesus we are assured, "is the same yesterday, today and forever" (Heb. 13:8.) Further, in Isaiah 53:5 we read, "by his wounds we are healed." We are told that the cross of Jesus unconditionally ensures healing for all who believe, in the same way it unconditionally secures forgiveness.
In response we need to say a number of things. The Bible give us many wonderful encouragements to seek healing from God. Nevertheless, as Colin Brown states,

"We need to recognise that there are distinctions between what God has covenanted to do and what he has not covenanted to do, between what God may do and what he has promised to do. God is the healer (Ex.15:26) and the one who is behind all healing. But in the Old Testament health and healing were not all automatically guaranteed by membership in the covenant. The new covenant does not promise healing for all now. It promises forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28.) There is no specific unqualified promise of health and healing in the New Testament for those who have faith."

It seems to me that this is a very important point. God may grant healing at his discretion, according to his Sovereign will but it seems to me that he has no where unconditionally promised to do so, whereas the other blessings of the covenant are promised unconditionally as part of his covenant. For example, "Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved" (Rom.10:13).

For this reason the lepers prayer was completely appropriate. Jesus did not consider his hesitation unbelief and he graciously answered him (a great encouragement to our prayers for healing!) On the other hand, prayers and requests for forgiveness ought to begin with the complete assurance in the unconditional covenant promises of God.
We'll look at other aspects of this later.