“But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).

 

We were in a village in southern China which was overflowing with people—farmers, students, housewives, small business people (a new emerging class in China). “How do you account for the growth of your church?” I asked a pastor.

A four-year-old girl, he related, was in the hospital at the point of death. Doctors couldn’t do anything to help, and it was merely a matter of hours until the sad wail of a funeral would be heard. “I went to the parents,” he said, “and asked them if I could go to the hospital and pray for her.” “Yes, yes,” they exclaimed, grasping at any straw of hope. No, they were not Christians. They were involved in what he described as a kind of satanic cult.

The pastor went to the hospital and prayed for the little girl, who was immediately healed. Word spread like wildfire. This little girl, destined to die, was restored perfectly whole. He said, “Her mother and father, her grandparents, aunts and uncles, neighbors and friends, half of the people in our church came to faith in Christ as the result of what happened.”

“Ah,” you say with a bit of disbelief, “that was China!” And you live in the western world where a hospital is equipped with gleaming stainless steel, and doctors trained in the arts of healing lay hands on you, prescribing miracle medicines and applying the latest the world has to offer.

“Has the church gone out of the healing ministry in the West”–replaced by science and technology? While that appears to be true, many deeply believe there is more than we have been taught. They read the Gospels and see how Jesus healed people and wonder why if He still can do this in China, can’t He do it where they are.

The early church believed in physical and emotional healing that often worked in tandem with each other. Read through the book of Acts and notice that an expiration date wasn’t placed on the medicine which a sick world needs.

James, the half-brother of Jesus, in what was probably the first New Testament book to be written, said, “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” (James 5:14-15).

“OK,” you ask, “then why don’t we do this today?” Awkwardness and fear. Concern that we be identified with the fringe that handle snakes and run healing services like performers at a circus; or lacking the confidence that anything would really happen, we take the easy way out, talking about how God has indeed blessed us with medical science today, through whom He heals humanity.

The reformers also believed in restoration and healing. When Martin Luther’s friend and associate Melanchthon was dying of an illness, he prayed for him and commanded, “Give no place to the spirit of sorrow, and be not your own murderer, but trust in the Lord.” He recovered within two days.

“Healing,” says Charles Farr, whose ministry has touched the lives of thousands of hurting people, “is any sign of God’s kingdom in a person’s life—not necessarily an answer to every medical or physical need. Healing in Scripture,” he says, “does not refer to becoming as you were; it is becoming what you should be.” (“An Eternal Touch for Earthly Pain,” Leadership, Spring Quarter, 1985, p. 13).

No, healing lines should never be the focal point of worship, but following proclamation, and teaching, healing of all kinds should be the application to the lives of hurting, broken, suffering people who are still ignorant that He heals the broken hearted and is still the medicine for the pain and suffering of our wounds today.

 

Resource reading: Isaiah 53.