Biblical Healing (Pt. 5)

One thing I think the church should focus on more in the way of healing is the power of emotional healing.

I touched on this idea when I was talking about the importance of authenticity in our sharing of sins to the elders and other believers (In Biblical Healing (Pt. 4)), but I didn’t make a direct connect yet to emotional healing.

Emotional healing is an essential part of healing for the church because there are some really hurting people that don’t think about asking for healing, because they’re not “sick” in the sense we may think; yet they are emotionally sick. Part of the local churches focus should be on dialoguing about emotional health and getting people both saved and healed of their emotional sicknesses.


I have had many encounters with Christ as healer. I will begin with my own, personal touch with this type of healing, and then I will discuss what I’ve SEEN when it comes to healing.


About 2 years ago, I went through a class called Personal Spiritual Formation at Nyack College led by Ron Walborn. Upon entering the semester, I thought I was a pretty well put-together individual.

Sure, I had problems but I was OK. When I was in the middle of the semester, God exposed a TON of my emotional sicknesses. I realized that I was sick and I needed to grieve the pains of my past, confess my issues and ask my brothers and sisters to pray for healing over me.

Long story short, God DID heal my emotionally wounded heart! I was transformed by his touch, a new creation ready to help others who don’t realize the sickness of their own hearts.

I can’t describe in words what God did for me that semester, all I can describe is the fact that I knew I was healed, I was prayed over by Ron and others to receive what God had for me. Shortly after, I began to be hungry for His word, reading the Bible, reading commentaries for fun and delving into Inspirational books written by authors like Lucado, Kimball, Driscoll, Nouwen, Chesterton, Miller and many more! I also began to write again, something I hadn’t done in years. I even began writing a book! God healed me tremendously.


The healing that I have SEEN is also pretty incredible. The summer after my sophomore year in high school, I headed to the Amazon Jungle in Peru for a month. There are numerous things that happened there that I could share, but this one is probably the best. We were in a medium sized village, planning out next service, when the speaker for the night became very sick. Vince was his name and he was throwing up and having the runs all day long. He couldn’t stand much less speak. We tried to get him medicine and we tried to get him some thing good for his stomach to drink, but nothing seemed to work. No one knew what to do, we was shut up in his tent and just wanted to be left alone. Then, all the sudden it dawned on my friend Curt to pray for healing for Vince. We all said that it couldn’t hurt, so we gathered around Vince’s tent. We asked him if he would want us to pray for healing. He said, "yea sure, I guess". So we began to pray. After we were done praying, one of us asked Vince if he believed he was healed to step out of the tent. Vince didn’t say anything but we heard the zipper on the tent and out walked Vince 100% recovered! That night, he talked about his miraculous healing and that night, many others received the healing of God!


Another story of healing which I was a witness too is about my friend Ben Templin. Ben received an extraordinary physical healing. He for all his life had braces on his legs and needed to use crutches to get around everywhere. He’d been praying for healing and people prayed for healing over and over again for him, but God didn’t answer right away. One evening at a healing service, Ben was sitting on the floor, praying to God when he heard God say to his heart, get up and take off your braces, then walk. Ben at first said that he doubted what was being said to him, but instead of ignoring it, he decided to listen and if it was wrong, then oh well. Ben was amazed at what happened! He stood up on his own and walked un-assisted for the first time in his life! Not only that, but his feet had never had feeling and that night in the shower, he burnt his foot! He felt the heat of the water for the first time!

I know from all the Scriptures and from my own experience that healing is real and for today! God has a desire for us to position ourselves by faith to receive what he has for us. May God continue to heal all of us and allow us to be a healing catalyst to this hurting world!

Biblical Healing (Pt. 4)

Prayer is important, because we are getting God involved in the fight, we’re saying I can’t do it and when we get the elders to pray for us as well, we’re saying I need help even praying.


Confession is important because it exposes our sin and the objects of our sin so God can throw them away. Take for example Jesus at the Temple courts (Matt. 21:12-17). He just entered into Jerusalem and goes to the temple courts and sees people buying and selling offerings. Jesus is totally ticked; he begins to throw the tables saying that they have made God’s house a den of thieves. This is a scary part of scripture, because it changes our view of God and Jesus, we think he’s totally peeved at the people and wishes he could throw them, but chooses the tables instead.

However, Jesus rather throws the OBJECTS of their sin. I think he’s mad at the deceiver, he hates the sin, his anger is burning against the sin and he is displaying his utter hatred of the sin to the sinners by throwing the table.

I can hear him saying: “ This is NOT what God wants for his house and this is NOT what God wants for you! So let me just get this out of your way!”

When we confess to one another, we are exposing our sins and the objects of our sin: the computer, the TV, the phone whatever it may be, we’re exposing it so God can throw it away and say: “This is NOT what I want for your life!”

Guess what? We don’t have to deal with it alone anymore, we have a brother or a sister to fight along side of us and wrestle with the sin, and us because God put them in our lives to help us.

However this can only come if we decide to expose our sin. We can expose it to God, but we have no earthly accountability and eventually we’ll slip back into the unhealthy pattern. God desires to heal both body and soul!

I could continue to harp on this idea of confessing our sins to one another, not only in the context of healing, nor only to our elders, but as a continual practice with our brothers and sisters. It creates a transparent, authentic atmosphere where we can come to know others, ourselves and God better.

I think so much of this concept that I am currently writing a book on the topic, which is highlighted heavily in 1 John 1:5-2:14. It is a point of healing that I think the church as a whole overlooks, yet it is right in the middle of a passage we often use to teach about healing! When we confess our sins to one another, we not only receive fellowship (1 John 1:1-10) but healing (James 5)!

What does this all translate to for healing ministry in the local church? The local church should definitely hold to the scriptures that lay out how we should practice such healing.

However, there are still the miraculous healings of the unsaved that need to be addressed. The people Jesus healed were more often than not, un-believers with a “faith-inkling” that he could help.

They cried out for healing and received it. The church should be the catalyst for such healing! If the church isn’t willing to heal the ailing saved AND unsaved of the World, where will they get such healing?

The answer is they won’t.

Bailey talks about the two types of healing available to the world; the Children’s Bread (part of the atonement and a mercifully generous gift from God to His children) and the miraculous healings of the unsaved. I am totally on board this line of thinking. These should be the focal points of healing for the church. God has some amazing healing for us, both physically and emotionally. We need to seek God, position ourselves and get ready for His amazing healing.

Biblical Healing (Pt. 3)

This also is where I believe “the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” comes in. A righteous man will always be seeking to position himself rightly with the Lord, which is why he is considered righteous! He will be praying for the Lord’s will to come about!

The example that the Scriptures gives of Elisha is due to his righteous plea, that God show himself to Israel and Elisha prays that God will do this in shutting off the rain. This is a righteous prayer, because Elisha was positioning himself to receive what God had for him; God desired to reveal himself, Elisha just prayed the how!


Let me also say that God can and will heal however, whenever he wants! James 5 is by no means a “box” for the healing of Christ! I have seen numerous healings and heard from friends of mine of healings that definitely happened outside of the elders praying for the infirm of their flock! I will get into that a little later.

First though, one cannot talk about James 5 and not mention the two other huge aspects, which bring about the healing God desires for us. The first is the anointing of oil by the elders and the second being the confession of sins.


The anointing oil goes back to the beginning of the Old Testament (OT). We see the idea first appears in Exodus, in which the priests are supposed to be bathed in this oil in order to set them a part for the ministry, which God has called them to. Exodus goes on to tell how the oil is made, what goes into it, the amounts etc. It is a part of the consecration process for Aaron and all the priests that follow him.

Here is the passage: “Then the LORD said to Moses, "Take the following fine spices: 500 shekels [c] of liquid myrrh, half as much (that is, 250 shekels) of fragrant cinnamon, 250 shekels of fragrant cane, 500 shekels of cassia—all according to the sanctuary shekel—and a hin [d] of olive oil. Make these into a sacred anointing oil, a fragrant blend, the work of a perfumer. It will be the sacred anointing oil. Then use it to anoint the Tent of Meeting, the ark of the Testimony, the table and all its articles, the lamp stand and its accessories, the altar of incense, the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the basin with its stand. You shall consecrate them so they will be most holy, and whatever touches them will be holy. "Anoint Aaron and his sons and consecrate them so they may serve me as priests. Say to the Israelites, 'this is to be my sacred anointing oil for the generations to come. Do not pour it on men's bodies and do not make any oil with the same formula. It is sacred, and you are to consider it sacred. Whoever makes perfume like it and whoever puts it on anyone other than a priest must be cut off from his people'” (Exodus 30:22-33).

If we will be cut off from all people by putting this oil on anyone other than a priest, why would God ask the elders to anoint the sick with oil?

I believe that after the death of Christ, when the temple curtain ripped and tore down the middle, this is another thing that “changed”.

The oil as was stated before was a symbol of consecration. It was admittance that I need covering; it was the covering of God! As I study this concept, I see a great correlation to the anointing oil and the Holy Spirit, which was sent to us AFTER Christ’s death.

Christ mentions the coming of the Spirit several times (John 14,15 and 16) and the correlation of His coming to his own death.

I believe that the anointing oil is symbolic of the Holy Spirit covering the person who has sought out prayer, consecrating them to the will of the Lord. Further positioning them for the will of God to come about in their lives.

Keith Bailey in his book Divine Healing: The Children’s Bread says it this way “The anointing oil symbolizes the direct and immediate work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit, not the oil gives life to the body” (pg. 135).

Also, the coming to the elders doesn’t say that the elders are more holy or that they are sages or healers, but when they pray and position themselves and the member before the Lord, the Lord is the receiver of the glory!

The second huge aspect about healing in James 5 is the confession of sins. If we are sick, we’re supposed to call the elders so they can also pray for us. However, we not only have to admit this sickness to God, and ourselves but to the elders of the church, so they too can pray on our behalf.

James 5:15 gives both hope as well as a shock. Here it says that the sick person will become well with the prayer of faith but it also says: “If he has sinned, he will be forgiven”. The shock here is that the scripture is saying that this malady may have been caused due to sin. Not saying that all illness is a result of sin, but saying for a fact that sin can and sometimes will cause you to become sick. (We also see this in Matt. 9:2 when Jesus heals a sick person, but doesn’t just say OK, now your body is better, he says now your sins are forgiven!)

This concept brings our health in a whole new perspective doesn’t it?

It to me says that God cares more about the healing of my soul than the healing of my body and in fact they may coincide with one another!

James 5:16 goes even deeper in the first portion: “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed”. The therefore is saying: since you now know that sin can also cause sickness, and prayer can cause healing confess to each other as well as pray for each other so that you may be healed!

This is TRUE healing, both body and soul.

Biblical Healing (Pt. 2)

Another important aspect of healing is prayer. Prayer is a powerful tool that we as believers possess!

The scriptures are full of references on the power of prayer, the direction of prayer the purpose of prayer and the sheer connection to God that prayer brings. James is among the books of the Bible that describes prayer. James also connects the act of prayer to healing.

The Scripture says: “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective” (James 5:14-16).

These few verses are extremely important to understanding Christ as our Healer. They are also extremely important for us who lead Christ’s church in how we are to use healing in our churches.

The fact that Christ is a healer is indisputable, due to his many miraculous healing encounters.

The question for us today is how do we do “Even more than He did” (John 14:12)? I believe the answer lies here in James 5.

Erikson, an excellent theologian in his book Introducing Christian Doctrine describes prayer as this: “…prayer does not change what he has purposed to do. It is the means by which he accomplishes his end. It is vital then, that a prayer be uttered, for without it the desired result will not come to pass” (pg. 144).

Later he says, “…[prayer] is not a method of creating a positive mental attitude in ourselves so that we are able to do what we have asked to have done. Rather, prayer is in large part a matter of creating in ourselves a right attitude with respect to God’s will” (pg. 144).


So, when we are praying, we are not “tricking” God into doing what we want, we are simply positioning ourselves so we can receive fully what He wants.

The same is with the prayer of healing. When the elders (the Spiritual covering of a member) pray for a member, they are positioning themselves and the member to receive whatever God has for them. God’s answers may vary from “I will heal now” to “It is more merciful of me to allow him to die of this illness”. He also may say, “I will heal in my time” or “I will begin healing now and continue the healing”.

The reason James calls the members to their elders, is an act of submission, so they can better position themselves to receive whatever God would desire for them to receive.

This is an amazing part of God’s healing and is very similar to the types of healing that Christ did on Earth. Jesus was constantly quoted as saying: “Your faith has healed you” or similar statements.

If a member were to follow these verses, the elders would be right in saying: “Your faith has healed you” because they, in faith brought the matter before their elders, in such a way that they were positioning themselves to receive the healing God desired for them. Had they not had such faith, God may or may not have healed them, just as Jesus didn’t heal those in the crowd that did not seek him out.

Keith Bailey in his book Divine Healing: The Children’s Bread puts it this way: “No limitations were placed on His [Jesus’] healing ministry on earth. Unbelief was the only recorded hindrance to healing” (pg.101).


TO BE CONTINUED...

Biblical Healing (Pt. 1)

Healing has been a much-debated topic in the history of Christianity. Questions such as: is it for today? Come up often in the discussions of healing.

One such question, which was a debated topic, was whether or not healing was in the atonement of Christ. Was it part of his work on the cross as Matthew 8:17 seems to suggest, or is there a different meaning to all this?

Matthew 8:17 says: “This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah ‘He took up our infirmities and carried our diseases.’” What this seems to be implying is that on the cross, at the time of the atonement, not only did Christ take up our sins but he also took up our sicknesses.

A.B. Simpson in his book The Gospel of Healing says: “…the only “surely” in this chapter is the promise of healing; the very strongest possible statement of complete redemption from pain and sickness by His life and death and the very words which Evangelist afterward quotes, under inspired guidance of the Holy Ghost (Matt. 8:17) as the explanation of His universal works of healing”

An early co-worker with Simpson, R. Kelso Carter says: “The clear meaning is, that Jesus did take upon Himself our diseases and our mental trouble, in precisely the same way that He “bore our sins in His own body on the tree” (The Atonement for Sin and Sickness pg. 32).

Others during this time did not fully agree with these statements, saying that the cross did not, in the same manner take up our sickness as it did our sins. They argue that sin was defeated on the cross completely for those who believe, yet disease, and sickness still attack the believer.

Those opposed to the sickness bearing just as the sin bearing couldn’t see how the atonement eliminated sickness as it did sin. Keith Bailey in his book Divine Healing: The Children’s Bread digs deep into this ideology. He uses the same quotes as I do above. I believe he writes out a perfect description of what’s going on (taking both views into account). He says: “The Scriptures state that healing is in the atonement but they do not disclose how healing is in the atonement…Physical healing is not necessarily available to God’s people because the body is included in the atonement”.

He continues on the next page (pg. 57) “Ballard rightly concludes that while atonement is the proper procuring cause of physical healing as a redemptive benefit to believers, the availability of healing now is based on propositional statements in the Scriptures…No one would argue the fact that the translation of the believer is in the atonement, but that fact is not sufficient to claim that blessing anytime”. Bailey concludes his thoughts with this: “The promises and instructions as to how healing may be attained provide abundant proof that physical healing is available today for God’s people” (pg. 57).

So, how is healing in the atonement? I believe that through the work of these men as well as reading through Matt. 8:17 healing of sicknesses is in fact similar to that of the redemption from sin that the atonement brings.

When Christ died on the cross and took our sin, he also took our sickness, which can indeed be caused by personal sin (James 5:15).

Sickness is also the result of the fall, because Genesis clearly shows that God desired us to live forever without sickness.

Yet, when Adam and Eve sinned, the result was death; and sickness I believe came right along with it.

Even after accepting the atonement, the believer can still sin.

Similarly, the believer can still get sick. Healing is available to the believer as a part of the atonement, but it doesn’t always mean it will come any time as Bailey says.