GIFT OF HEALING ACCORDING TO 1 CORINTHIANS 12, HEALING IN THE BIBLE
Gifts of healing, teaching on the gift of healing, healing in the Bible (Gifts of healings)
In addition to faith and the working of miracles, the gifts of power include “gifts of healing” (KJV 1960), or “gifts of healing” (KJV 1995) (I Corinthians 12:9). “Heal” means “to restore the sick to health; cure; . . . rectify; fix.”
Healing in the Bible, the gifts of healing
However, I Corinthians 12 speaks of specific instances when the gifts of healing are given to certain individuals but not to all. The reference is made to the healing of mental and physical conditions beyond the spiritual and emotional restoration that all Christians can and should receive as part of their new life in Christ. The examples of healing in the Gospels and Acts correspond to this meaning.
Gifts of healing, gift of healing, healing in the Bible
There are numerous accounts of healings in the early church, including a paralyzed man in the temple, crowds in Jerusalem, many paralyzed and lame people in Samaria, Saul of Tarsus, who was healed of blindness, and a paralyzed man named Aeneas ( Acts 3:1-8; 5:14-16; 8:7; 9:17-18, 32-34).
GIFT OF HEALING: TESTIMONY OF HEALINGS
Testimonials about the gift of healing
Many miraculous healings have occurred in the life and ministry of my parents. In the year 1963, while my family was preparing to go to Korea, we were in a serious car accident that caused many injuries. Both of my father’s arms were broken, and the nerve in his right arm was severed, and the doctor told him that he would never be able to use it again. However, to the doctor’s astonishment, one night in a service God healed him, restoring him to his full ability.
In Mokpu, Korea, my father prayed for a man and he was instantly healed of paralysis of the arm and shoulder. In Seoul, Korea, a woman was delivered from voices that constantly spoke violent words and curses into her mind, and a twelve-year-old girl was healed of a severe hearing impairment.
I was in each of these services and saw people healed. A disabled woman came to a crusade in downtown Seoul in a wheelchair and was healed. I watched as she joyfully walked across the stage of the rented auditorium. Other notable and instantaneous healings in Korea were a man with a deaf ear, a young lady with tuberculosis who had lost the use of one lung and most of the other, and a woman in the final stages of breast cancer.
In the year 1984, in Poplarville, Mississippi, one Sunday night I preached on the power of the name of Jesus. A visiting woman in a wheelchair came forward for prayer. She had suffered a stroke, and her doctor said that she would never walk again. As we prayed for her, with a little help, she slowly got up from her wheelchair and took a few unsteady steps. She was overjoyed, but this was only the beginning. She was healing more and more each day, until eventually she was able to walk normally. The doctor told her pastor, “She is a miracle.”
In the year 1987, while I was preaching in Cseteny, Hungary, someone brought to the service a young woman who had been mentally handicapped since birth. As we prayed for her, we felt the power of God, but there was no visible change in her condition. However, from that day on, she began to improve. When she returned there in 1988, she had improved so much that her relatives, who had been unconverted, said it was a miracle and converted to Christianity.
In a prayer service at our church in Austin, Texas, in October 1995, God spoke to us through tongues and interpretation and promised healing. That night, my mother-in-law accepted that promise as her own and was instantly healed of a spinal injury sustained in a car accident two years earlier.
A missionary to Asia became ill with a form of hepatitis that was incurable and fatal, and had to return to North America. His doctors told him that he could never travel or live in Asia again. Over a period of several months, while he attended our church, we and others prayed for his healing. Miraculously, he began to improve. He recovered his complete healing, and a few months later he received confirmation from his doctors that he could resume his missionary work.
In the year 1997 a woman who suffered from severe depression attended our church in Austin. She was seriously contemplating suicide and had taken some steps to carry out her plan. God filled him with the Holy Spirit, healed him of depression, and freed him from the thought of committing suicide.
GIFT OF HEALING: HEALING IN THE ATONEMENT
Jesus effected our healing as part of the atonement
In fact, the Bible declares that Jesus Christ effected our healing as part of the atonement: “Surely he borne our diseases, and suffered our pains; and we considered him whipped, wounded by God and dejected. But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our sins; the chastisement of our peace was upon him, and by his sores we were healed ”(Isaiah 53: 4-5).
Many people argue that healing is exclusively spiritual, but God’s salvation is for the human being as a whole. Matthew 8:16-17 explains that physical healing is a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:5: “And when evening had come, many demon-possessed men were brought to him; and with the word he cast out the demons, and healed all the sick; so that what was said by the prophet Isaiah would be fulfilled, when he said: He himself took our diseases, and carried our ailments.”
“Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, and today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). What He did for the early church, He will do for the church today. “Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me, the works that I do, he will do also; and he will do even greater things, because I am going to the Father. And whatever you ask the Father in my name, I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask anything in my name, I will do it” (John 14:12-14).
When we say that healing is a part of the atonement, we mean that the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ form the basis for our healing as well as for our salvation. It does not mean that if we have the faith to be saved then we will automatically be healed, or that if someone is not healed then they are not saved. We must realize that some of the benefits of the Atonement are immediate, while others are future.
Complete healing will be at the resurrection
When we understand that healing does not just happen by chance, but that Christ purchased it for us, we can pray to receive healing with great confidence. We’ll talk about the reasons why we don’t always receive instant healing, but these reasons shouldn’t hold us back from claiming God’s promise.
GIFT OF HEALING: PROGRESSIVE HEALING
Gift of healing: Sometimes healing comes gradual or progressive
Sometimes the healing comes instantly, sometimes it is gradual or progressive. The human body has a natural ability to heal itself. When we cut a finger, it will usually heal on its own if we keep it clean and free of infection.
Since God designed our bodies with his amazing ability to recover, we can say in a general sense that all healing is from God. A surgeon does not heal the body but corrects a problem so that the body can heal itself. Similarly, it may be that God sometimes simply removes what is preventing the body from healing itself, then lets it resume its normal function. In such a case the healing will be gradual but always from God.
Gift of healing in gradual or progressive healings
Once, when Jesus healed a blind man, he had to touch him a second time (Mark 8:22-25). After the first touch the man could see some people like walking trees, but after the second touch he could see all things clearly. Perhaps the process was necessary to increase the faith of the…