How Did Jesus Heal?

To make a comparison between the gift of healing being claimed today and what the Bible teaches, we simply have to go back and look at Jesus' ministry.  Our Lord set the pattern for the apostolic gifts, and He did a massive amount of healing.  In Jesus' day the world was full of disease.  Medical science was crude and limited.  There were more incurable diseases than we have now.  Plagues could wipe out entire cities.

Jesus healed disease to demonstrate his deity.  How did He do it?  Scripture reveals six noteworthy characteristics of Jesus' healing ministry:

First, Jesus healed with a word or a touch.  Matthew 8 relates that as Jesus was entering Capernaum, a centurion came to Jesus and asked Him to help his servant, who was lying paralyzed at his home and suffering great pain (v. 6-7).  Jesus told the centurion that He would come and heal the servant, but the centurion protested, pointing out that if Jesus would just say the word, his servant could be healed (v. 8).

The Lord was amazed at the centurion's faith, particularly because he was a Roman soldier, and not of the house of Israel.  Jesus said to the centurion, "'Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed.' And the servant was healed that very hour" (v. 13).

When Jesus fed the 5,000 (John 6), He had spent most of the day healing people in the crowd who were sick.  Scripture does not tell us how many were healed -- it could have been thousands.  But whatever the number, Jesus healed them with a word.  There were no theatrics, no special environment.

Jesus also healed with a touch.  For example, in Mark 5:25-34 we find the account of a woman with chronic bleeding who was healed simply by touching Jesus' robe.

Second, Jesus healed instantly.  The centurion's servant was healed "that very hour" (Matt. 8:13).  The woman with the bleeding problem was healed "immediately" (Mark 5:29).  Jesus healed ten lepers instantaneously right on the road (Luke 17:14).  He touched another man with leprosy and "immediately the leprosy departed from him" (Luke 5:13).  The crippled man at the pool of Bethesda "immediately became well," took up his pallet and began to walk (John 5:9).  Even the man born blind, who had to go and wash his eyes, was healed instantly -- though for his own purposes, Jesus accomplished that miracle in two distinct stages (John 9:1-7).  The healing was no less instantaneous.

People often say "I've been healed, and now I'm getting better."  Jesus never did "progressive" healing.  If Jesus had not healed instantly, there were have been no miraculous element sufficient to demonstrate His deity.  His critics could easily have said the healing was just a natural process.

Third, Jesus healed totally.  In Luke 4 Jesus left the synagogue and came to Simon Peter's home.  Peter's mother-in-law was there, suffering from a high fever.  Possibly she was dying.  Jesus stood over her, "rebuked the fever," and immediately she was well (v. 39).  In fact, she then got up and began to wait on them.  There was no recuperation period.  Jesus did not advise her to sip a little honey and hot water and take it easy for a few weeks.  Nor did He goad her to "claim the healing by faith" despite unrelenting symptoms.  She was immediately well and knew it.  Her healing was instantaneous and it was total.  That was the only kind of healing Jesus ever did.

Fourth, Jesus healed everyone.  Unlike healers today, Jesus did not leave long lines of disappointed people who had to return home in their wheelchairs.  He did not have healing services or programs that ended at a certain time because of airline or television schedules.  Luke 4:40 tells us, "And while the sun was setting, all who had any sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on every one of them, He was healing them" (emphasis added).  Luke 9:11 records a similar example.

Fifth, Jesus healed organic disease.  Jesus did not go up and down Palestine healing lower back pain, heart palpitations, headaches, and other invisible ailments.  He healed the most obvious kinds of organic diseases -- crippled legs, withered hands, blind eyes, palsy -- all healings that were undeniably miraculous.

Sixth, Jesus raised the dead.  Luke 7:11-16 tells us that while Jesus was at a city called Nain, He came upon a funeral procession as a widow went out to bury her only son.  Jesus stopped the procession, touched the coffin and said, "Young man, I say to you, arise!" -- and the dead man sat up and began to speak!  He also raised a synagogue ruler's daughter in Mark 5:22-24, 35-43.

People who tout the gift of healing today do not spend much time in funeral parlours, funeral processions, or cemeteries.  The reason is obvious.

Some charismatics, as we have already noted, claim that people today do sometimes come back from the dead.  Those cases, however, are nothing like the biblical examples.  It is one thing to revive someone whose vital signs stopped on a surgeon's table.  It is entirely another matter to come out of the grave four days after being buried (see John 11) or to climb out of one's casket at the funeral (see Luke 7).  Those are resurrections that cannot be challenged.  Charismatics who make such claims today do so on hearsay and with scant evidence.  They are guilty of trivializing our Lord's miraculous works.  Why is it that the only miracles ever done on television are the kind that involve no visible evidence?

Note, by the way, that Jesus did virtually all His healing and raising the dead in public -- often before vast groups of people.  His gift of healing was an authenticating gift.  He used it to confirm his claims that He was the Son of God in a way that also displayed His divine compassion.  Dispelling demons and diseases was Christ's way of proving He was God in human flesh.  John's gospel clearly demonstrates that truth.  John said all the signs and miracles Jesus wrought validated His deity (John 20:30-31).

The Gift of Healing is Gone, but the Lord Continues to Heal

The gift of healing was one of the miraculous sign gifts given to help the apostolic community confirm the authority of the gospel message in the early years of the church.  Once the word of God was complete the signs ceased.  Miraculous signs were no longer needed.  The apostles used healing only as a powerful sign to convince people of the validity of the gospel message.

In Philippians 2:25-27 Paul mentioned his good friend Epaphroditus, who had been very sick.  Paul had previously displayed the gift of healing.  Why did he not simply heal Epaphroditus?  Perhaps the gift was no longer operational or perhaps Paul simply refused to pervert the gift by using it for his own ends.  Either way, healing Epaphroditus was beyond the purpose of the gift of healing.   The gift was not given to keep Christians healthy.  It was to be a sign to unbelievers to convince them that the gospel was divine truth.

We find a similar case in II Timothy 4:20, where Paul mentioned he had left Trophimus sick at Miletus.  Why should Paul leave one of his good Christian friends sick?  Why didn't he heal him?  Because that was not the purpose of the healing gift.  (see also I Tim. 5:23 and II Cor. 12:7.)

Healing was a miraculous sign gift to be used for special purposes.  It was not intended as a permanent way to keep the Christian community in perfect health.  Yet today most charismatics teach that God wants every Christian well.  If that is true, why does God allow Christians to get sick in the first place?

In a world where believers are subject to the consequences of sin why should we assume that suffering is excluded?  If every Christian were well and healthy, if perfect health were a guaranteed benefit of the atonement, millions of people would be stampeding to get saved -- but for the wrong reason.  God wants people to come to Him in repentance for sin, and for His glory, not because they see Him as a panacea for their physical and temporal ills.

-- John F. McArthur, Jr.

Again, charismatics are wrong!