Molehills: Perfect Health?

I own a King James Bible, a Healing and Salvation Edition from the late Ernest Angley Ministries, and it made me start thinking. Angley’s ministry delved into physical healing as a major aspect of our salvation. Being a televangelist, one might be tempted to write off Mr. Angley’s ministry due to the over-the-top sensationalism that tends to be paraded around. Furthermore, he was also a Pentecostal evangelist, which means the doctrine of signs of wonders being performed in the here and now tends to have primacy.

Angley, among others, taught that God not only wants you to be saved, but wants you to be only and always healthy, even going so far as to once claim that Jesus Christ would heal AIDS in those afflicted by it. While I won’t fixate on Mr. Angley any longer, I did want to provide a point. Perfect healing, that is, perfect physical healing at all times, is nowhere promised in Scripture. In the great passage in the Torah, where God mentions the rewards for diligent obedience to Israel, perfect, enduring health is listed as a reward, Deuteronomy 7:15. But we must remember this was a temporary, earthly covenant with a specific ethnicity (Israel), and does not apply to the church, Romans 6:14, Ephesians 2:14, 15, Galatians 3:11-13, 24-26.

But then, what does “by His stripes we are healed,” mean? (Isaiah 53:5). This vivid and powerful passage in Scripture depicts the Suffering Servant, of which we learn much through Isaiah. This Man was despised, rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, Isaiah 53:3. Yes, He bore our sicknesses and carried our sorrows, Isaiah 53:4, but that in no way can be contorted to imply (much less demand) that God would keep every believer free of sickness and disease. Our Lord, in His earthly ministry, healed visible maladies as a sign that He was capable of likewise healing our spiritual ones.

The Lord was wounded for human transgressions, for MY transgressions. He was bruised because of human iniquity, or sin. The required chastisement for our peace was placed on Him, and that is why Isaiah can triumphantly declare that by His stripes we are healed. Nowhere is this a topic of sickness, unless that sickness is spiritual. Making his point, the prophet wrote that the Suffering Servant was wounded, bruised and chastised for our transgressions, iniquities, and for the sake of our peace. Isaiah 53:6 attests that God laid on Christ the iniquity of all of us. This is far beyond the sphere of physical malady, and into the realm of spiritual death and the salvation He won through His victory on the cross.

The ultimate point the prophet wanted to make was that Christ was our sin offering. “When You make His soul an offering for sin,” Isaiah 53:10. Our fate upon this earth, unless the Rapture takes us, is to die. The saints are not immune to death; why should we be immune to illness? When was this plainly promised to the church? That a saint whose faith was always strong would not experience sickness or disease? I knew a family that once ardently believed this, and they felt that illness was the sign of a lapse of faith and fervent prayer. How taxing it must have been to commit to so much introspection every time someone sneezed or coughed! But if death is the fate of the flesh, then it is clear our bodies will continue to wax worse and worse through time until old age, accident, or sickness claim us. No amount of fervent prayer will reverse the curse God afflicted us with when our first parents sinned. Christ undid the curse by His sacrifice, but until we are housed in new, spiritual and eternal bodies, we are flesh and blood, and subject to its weaknesses.

Or what of Mark 9:23? “If you can believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” This corresponds with the prayer of faith mentioned in Scripture. But when should we believe that “all things” really mean anything at all that we want to happen? There are parameters or rules to prayer, so to speak; that is, if we genuinely want to be heard and acknowledged by Him. John tells us that believers ought to pray, “according to His will,” 1 John 5:14.This is the essence of what Jesus taught when He gave an example of prayer and said, “Your (God’s) will be done,” Matthew 6:10. Peter adds that men are to treat our wives with honor so as not to impede our prayers, 1 Peter 3:7. 

James speaks of the prayer of faith when he writes, “Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up,” James 5:14, 15. James goes on to detail how powerful prayer is to the righteous man; that is, the man walking in the Spirit, James 5:16. But even this account allows for a believer to become sick to begin with. James counsels as to a method Christians may rely on to bring healing to a sick man. But this is not a certainty. The Apostle Paul’s malady grieved him much, but when Paul prayed for healing, God said no. “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness,” 2 Corinthians 12:9. So the vessel’s weakness compliments God’s power and demonstrates that when God works, it is not human industry but divine authority accomplishing His will. That alone is one reason why some prayer for healing (or to never be sick) will not be answered with a yes.

Timothy, Paul’s beloved son in the Lord, had frequent stomach illness, and was advised to have a little wine in an effort to settle it, 1 Timothy 5:23. Furthermore, Paul left Trophimas in Miletus sick, 2 Timothy 4:20. Rather than pray over him for health, Paul left him; or perhaps he did pray over him for health but God did not permit the healing. Epaphroditus, a fellow worker with Paul, was apparently so sick that Paul said, “he was sick almost unto death,” Philippians 2:27. Yet his illness was not because of weak faith or lack of prayer; in fact Epaphroditus nearly died, “for the work of Christ…not regarding his life,” Philippians 2:30.

So belief, however strong, does not necessarily permanently change what God has put in motion. Sickness and disease are symptoms of the Fall of man, just as much as briers and thorns in our gardens. Our finite bodies are prone to injury and eventual death, and the apostle clearly states that we must put on new, spiritual bodies to inherit the Kingdom of God; flesh and blood will not cut it, 1 Corinthians 15:50. In fact, Paul refers to our current bodies, as opposed to our Heavenly ones, as “corruption.” It stands to reason that sickness is not a lapse in a believer’s spiritual strength, but the natural course of life on this earth. Trying to twist Mark 9:23 (or any other Scripture) to say that sickness is a symptom of weak faith is both deceitful and a travesty that could (and I’m sure has) shipwrecked the faith of a few. All of the apostles save for John died a violent death for their faith; are we to expect an easier road than they first walked? Rather, we should rejoice with the original apostles when Jesus delivered this good news to us, “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world,” John 16:33. To teach believers otherwise distorts one’s view of faith, prayer, and God’s eternal plan for us.