Jesus Christ is the One Great Physician; for He heals not only the body but the soul. He cleanses us from sin and also from disease.
The work of Christ when here on earth in person was largely that of healing the sick. He showed most clearly in this that He is not the author of disease, but that, on the other hand, sickness is a foe to be combated by the divine Spirit of God, the same as any other evil.
The work of the Master upon earth also showed that even those who have suffered the extreme penalty of sickness are to be raised up; for He not only healed the sick, but on several occasions did He raise the dead. Thus is death, as well as sickness, pointed out as a foe of mankind that the great Conqueror has overthrown. And what could be more profitable to us, or serve better to strengthen our faith, than to read again and again those inspired accounts of the Saviour's mighty working in healing the sick and raising the dead?
"And it came to pass the day after, that He went into a city called Nain; and many of His disciples went with Him, and much people. Now when He came nigh to the gate of the city, behold, there was a dead man carried out, the only son of his mother, and she was a widow; and much people of the city was with her. And when the Lord saw her, He had compassion on her, and said unto her, Weep not. And He came and touched the bier; and they that bare him stood still. And He said, Young man, I say unto thee, Arise. And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother. And there came a fear on all; and they glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up among us; and, That God hath visited His people. And this rumor of Him went forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about." Luke 7:11-17.
There is nothing to indicate that God is any the less willing to work for mankind to-day than He was when Christ was personally in Palestine. In fact, everything in the Word shows that the Lord is willing and anxious to heal our physical ills as well as our defects of character and to cleanse us from all sin. "Beloved, I wish above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth." 3 John 2. Here the prosperity of the physical man is clearly placed on the same plane with the prosperity of the soul. In fact, if we would enjoy the very highest pleasures of the soul we need physical soundness, for any mutilating of the handiwork of God obscures more or less our vision of His pure spirituality. Hence "above all things" the Lord would have us prosper and be in health, even as our soul prospereth.
And he that was dead sat up, and began to speak. And He delivered him to his mother.
But the Lord can only work on right principles. And when we refuse to go with Him in the path of right, He can not help us. "Ye lust, and have not; ye kill, and desire to have, and can not obtain; ye fight and war, yet ye have not, because ye ask not. Ye ask, and receive not, because ye ask amiss, that ye may consume it upon your lusts." James 4:2, 3. The Lord can not give us physical soundness when the only reason we desire it is that we may further debase ourselves in lust. Satan has so thoroughly degraded many persons that they can think of no higher enjoyment than the sensual gratification of some fleshly desire. But the Lord knows better, and so He will not give us health when the gift would be an encouragement to us to wander farther away into the miseries of sin. The Lord has our best welfare at heart, and we can safely trust Him. And if we are sick and desire Him to heal us, the first thing for us to do is to seek to know His will and then fully yield to that. And as we yield to Him He sends us the best that heaven can devise and bestow.
"And God hath set some in the church, first apostles, secondarily prophets, thirdly teachers, after that miracles, then gifts of healings, helps, governments, diversities of tongues." 1 Cor. 12:28. Here is a list of some of the things that God hath set in the church. Note particularly that these things are set in the church, and furthermore that they are set in the New Testament church, and above all that it is God who has set them there. It would be impossible for anything to be made plainer than this verse of scripture makes this great truth.
And is it not, indeed, a great source of comfort to us to know that our God has set these good "gifts" in His church? And how particularly should we observe that "gifts of healings" are among these things that the kind2Father in heaven bestows upon us in this dispensation? The apostles in their day had wonderful power in healing the sick, and even raising the dead. But after the apostles passed off the stage of action this precious gift of healing was largely withdrawn from the church. Only here and there do we hear of any well-authenticated cases of the divinely miraculous interposition in the healing of disease. Can it be true that God set these 'gifts of healings' in the church to be obscured in this way?—Certainly it can not be so. Then may we not look for the cause of the frustration of the plan of God in the shortcomings of humanity? And if we wish to enjoy these wonderful gifts of God is it not the first thing for us to do to go to searching our hearts to find out what rubbish sin has drifted in upon us to thus shut out the blessings from on high?
God created us, and in that creation He formed us to be governed by certain laws. And while we are in harmony with those laws, everything runs smoothly because we are in the powerful and health-giving currents of the Divine. But when we turn our backs upon God, and say that we will have our own way, then we begin to run against the breakers, and one disaster follows another in quick succession. Disease tortures us, and death consumes us. God did not intend it to be this way. But since He saw that the only thing to make us perfectly happy was to give us the power of choice, and since we have chosen the road of transgression, the Lord can not help it and we alone are to blame.
So, then, is it not perfectly clear that the road to 'divine healing' is to first make a study of God's Word, so as to know His way, and then follow it to health? Sometimes He will heal us instantly when we turn back to Him, and sometimes His all-seeing eye can detect that it will be better for us to be allowed to get well gradually. But in either case it is 'divine healing' just the same. Indeed there is no real healing except the divine. If some natural remedy is applied and the patient gets well, we are apt to say that it was the remedy that cured the person of disease. But instead of that it was God acting through the law that He had long ago established.
The world is all out of harmony with God. Men eat and drink for gluttony and drunkenness. They seek to gratify the earthly and sensual, when, if they would only look up, they would see that the Lord is holding blessings of untold value over their heads. And they may have these at any time when they are willing to take the best, instead of clamoring for something that is inferior.
The Word of God clearly shows that healing is one of the gifts of our Father in heaven. And everything indicates that we are coming into a time when there will be those who will let the Lord have His own good way and work for them wonderfully in the healing of disease.
But it has been true in all the history of the past that when God set His hand to do a mighty work Satan has exercised his most powerful cunning to lead men away from the genuine blessings of God into that which will please, intoxicate, and finally destroy. So we need to be on the lookout for the spurious. And the one sure way to be able to detect the spurious is to make a close study of the genuine. For if we know the genuine perfectly when we see it we are able to discard the counterfeit at once.
The Guide-book that tells us all about the genuine working of God is the Bible. And if we make a close study of that Book we will be led aright, provided we submit to its teaching, and freely drink in its depths of spiritual truth. And in studying the Bible, we should be sure that we study the Bible itself, and not what some person has taught about the Bible. We may use the help that men can give us in the study of the Bible, but we must be sure that our faith reaches clear through any of the sayings of men and lays hold on the Word itself. We are in the perils of the last days, and we must absolutely know that we stand with God, else we will go down in the storm of delusions that will sweep over the world.
