Memory Verse:
“…; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.” Mark 16:18(b)
In our previous lessons we learn that provision is made in the redemptive work of the Lord Jesus Christ for the healing of the whole person. Prayer for the sick and anointing with oil are taught in the Scriptures as privileges for the Church in this present age and a primary activity of Christian witness. This healing is appropriated through: 1. Seeking God. 2 Repentance from sin. 3. Prayers of deliverance including anointing with oil. 4. Approaching physicians. 5.Waiting on the Lord in faith including declaration of scripture and the laying on of hands. Transformation occurs as we rejoice, declare and act in the Holy Spirit.
Physical “transforming” healing happens by grace through faith. Christ Himself is our Healer and that divine healing is provided in the atonement while always subject to God’s sovereign will and His faith within us.
As we approach this lesson on the spiritual gifts and ministry of healing we should remember that it is the sovereign will of God that each believer should:
- be filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph 5:18)
- seeks God for healing (2 Chronicles 16:12)
- have eternal victory over sin and sickness (Rev 21:4)
- have a heart of repentance (James 5:16)
- receive the joy of the Lord (John15:11)
- receive the fullness of life (John10:10)
- receive power to be His witness (Acts 1:8)
Manifestation of Healing
Manifestation of healing is readily seen in the Bible. Healing is available to all. One does not need a gift of healing to seek healing from the Lord for themself or for others. We see this general manifestation of healing:
Through the spoken word: Speaking healing and commanding infirmities to leave.
Through physical contact: The power of God flowing through the individual, even shadows.
Through anointed items: Even items associated with the apostles, such as cloths or aprons, manifested healing at a distance.
Reading Acts 3:1-10
What do you observe?
What does the passage mean?
How do we apply this to us today?
Reading Acts 5:12-16
What do you observe?
What does the passage mean?
How do we apply this to us today?
Reading Acts 5:19:12
What do you observe?
What does the passage mean?
How do we apply this to us today?
Gifts of Healing
Reading 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
What do you observe?
What does the passage mean?
How do we apply this to us today?
Cessationists argue that miraculous “sign gifts” (like tongues, prophecy, and healing) were uniquely tied to the Apostolic ministry. They believe the Holy Spirit originally gave these gifts to authenticate the apostles’ message and lay the church’s foundation, but they ceased once the New Testament was completed and no longer operate today.
The problem with this view is that firstly the basic assumption won’t stand up under scrutiny. The “gifts of healings” and “workings of miracles” in 1 Corinthians 12:9–10 are not limited to Jesus and the apostles. In fact the New Testament never describes the ability of Jesus and the apostles to work miracles as “the gift of healing” or “the gift of miracles.” When you read 1 Corinthians 12:7–10, you get the simple impression that these gifts are given according to God’s will to various people in the church: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healings by the one Spirit, to another the workings of miracles . . . ” It does not seem to be a natural reading of these verses to say that what they mean is that NO ONE at Corinth gets the “gifts of healings” or the “workings of miracles,” but only Jesus and the apostles.
Secondly, this basic assumption negates tangible use of these gifts today. Present day experience, while subjective, demonstrate that these gifts are still active in the church.
Paul writes to the Galatians and says, “Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by works of the law, or by hearing with faith?” The most natural meaning of that verse is that God is working miracles in their midst by the Holy Spirit. He is doing this through the ordinary believers not through the apostles. This is just what we would expect in view of 1 Corinthians 12—the Spirit gives to some in the churches “gifts of healings” and “workings of miracles.”
Gifts of healings and workings of miracles are not for self-exaltation but for the benefit of others. They could easily become the basis of pride just like teaching or preaching or mercy or hospitality or prophecy or any of the gifts. But they are meant to be expressions of love. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 13:2, “Though I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” Gifts are not the main thing. Love is the main thing. Using gifts is one way to love.
This is what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 12:7, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” It is a great danger to want signs and wonders because they sound neat or merely because you think they would make your faith stronger. That is almost a sure way to spiritual self-centeredness. What we should really want is that Christ be honored through our self-sacrificing love for others. The greatest need we have is not for gifts of healings. The greatest need is to care that people are sick—sick with soul-destroying sin, sick with emotional disorders, sick with physical disease, and often a tangled mixture of all three. The greatest miracle is that our hearts begin to care more about the lostness and pain of others than about our own personal comforts and leisure plans. When that miracle happens, we might be in a position to experience the lesser gifts of healings.
The gifts of healing does not give the ability to heal at will.
This was Paul’s experience. God gave him the grace to heal the crippled man in Lystra (Acts 14:10) and many people in Ephesus (Acts 19:12) and the demonized girl in Philippi (Acts 16:18) and Eutychus when he was taken up dead after falling out of a window (Acts 20:9–10). But Paul could not heal himself from the thorn in the flesh (2 Corinthians 12:8–9) or from the ailment that he had when he preached in Galatia (Galatians 4:13–14). And evidently he could not heal Timothy from his stomach ailments (1 Timothy 5:23) or Epaphroditus from his life threatening sickness (Philippians 2:26–27) or Trophimus whom he “left ill at Miletus” (2 Timothy 4:20). Sometimes Paul was given gifts of healings and sometimes he wasn’t. God is sovereign in this affair. Nothing is mechanical or automatic.
Verse 11 says it is the Spirit who “apportions the gifts to each one individually as he pleases.” He is sovereign and can give or withhold a gift of healing whenever he deems best.
Praying for healing is only one way to show love to someone. But it is one way the Lord encourages us to seek. Refer 1 Corinthians 14:1. “Make love your aim, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts . . . ” Once you set your heart to pursue love, you will be in a position to be zealous for spiritual gifts. Among those spiritual gifts are “gifts of healings.” Therefore I think 1 Corinthians 14:1 urges us to seek this gift. It is subordinate to love. And it is not among the greater gifts like prophecy. But it is one of the humble lesser gifts of God. We would do well not to reject it or despise it or to exaggerate it. We should simply seek with all our hearts to do good to each other, and pray humbly that, if God wills, some of you would be granted gifts of healings for the blessing of the church and the glory of God’s name in the world.