Does God Always Heal? by John G. Lake

In considering the subject of divine healing and its applicability to present-day needs, the question, “Does God always heal?” is uppermost. The Church at large has taught that healing is dependent on the exercise of the will of God and that the proper attitude for the Christian to assume is, “If it be thy will.” Continuously, we hear men say, “No doubt God can heal; He has power, and He can heal if He will.”

We believe that this attitude of mind and this character of reasoning is due to ignorance of the plain Word and will of God, as revealed through Jesus the Christ. We contend that God is always the healer. We contend further that it is not necessary for God to will and that He does not will the healing or non-healing of any individual. In His desire to bless mankind, He willed once and for all an forever that man should be blessed and healed. He gave Jesus Christ as a gift to the world, that this blessing might be demonstrated and His willingness and desire to heal forever made clear.

 Christians readily admit that Jesus is the entire expression of the law, the life, and the will of God. As such, He demonstrated forever by His words and acts, what the mind of God toward the world is. He healed all who came to Him, never refusing a single individual, but ever bestowed the desired blessing. In healing all and never refusing one, He demonstrated forever the willingness of God to heal all, both saint and sinner.

 It is absurd to think that only the good were healed by Jesus. He “healed all that came.” Their coming was sufficient to secure the blessing. He healed because it was the nature of God to heal, not because it was a caprice of the mind of God or not because the mind of God was changed toward the individual through some especial supplication. Whosoever was ready and willing to receive healing received it from the Lord. His grief, in one instance, is expressed in the Gospel narrative in that, “He could there (at Nazareth) do no mighty works because of their unbelief, save that he healed a few sick folk.”

     Men have assumed that it is necessary to persuade God to heal them. This we deny with all emphasis. God has manifested through Christ, His desire to bless mankind.

He gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.

His method of saving the world and what constituted His salvation, is shown in Matthew 4:23: Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues (revealing the will of God), and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.

     The facts of God’s will, of His purpose to establish the kingdom of Christ, and of His deliverance from sickness — a kindred blessing for spirit and soul and body are here provided, the common salvation.

     The redemption of Jesus does not rest on His crucifixion alone. It rests equally in a combined victory of crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension. Each step was an elevation in divine consciousness to one end, the bestowal of the Holy Spirit upon the world. Through His crucifixion, He fulfilled the type and fact of the Jewish sacrifice. Through His resurrection, He manifested and demonstrated His power over death and that death itself was made a captive. Through His ascension to the throne of God and through receiving from the Father, the gift of the Holy Ghost, He was now equipped to bestow universal salvation upon whosoever would receive.

     The method by which men receive the healing power is parallel to the method by which we light our homes through the use of electricity. A dynamo is set up. Through its motion it attracts to itself from the atmosphere, the quality know as electricity. Having attracted electricity, it is then distributed through the wires wherever man will, and our homes are lighted thereby. The dynamo did not make the electricity. It has been in the atmosphere from time immemorial. It was the discovery of the ability to control the electricity that made the lighting of our homes a possibility. Without it, we would still be living by the light of a tallow candle or a kerosene lamp.

     In the Spiritual world, the spirit of man is the dynamo. It is set in motion by prayer, the desire of the heart. Prayer is a veritable Holy Spirit-controlling dynamo, attracting to itself the Spirit of God. The Spirit of God being received into the spirit of man through prayer, is distributed by the action of the will wherever desired. 

The Spirit of God flowed through the hands of Jesus to the one who were sick and healed them. It flowed from His soul, wirelessly, to the suffering ones and healed them also.

     The Holy Spirit is thus shown to be the universal presence of God –God Omnipresent. The Spirit of God is given to man for his blessing and is to be utilized by him to fulfill the will of God.

     The will of God to save a man is undisputed by intelligent Christians. The will of God to heal every man is equally God’s purpose. God has not only made provision that through the Spirit of God received into our lives, our souls may be blessed and our bodies healed, but further, we in turn are expected and commanded by Jesus to distribute the Spirit’s power to others, that they likewise may be blessed and healed. “In my name,” said Jesus, “they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” This refers not to a special priest or a particular individual endowed with peculiar power, but to the believer, the everyday man who accepts the Gospel of Jesus Christ and who becomes a declared disciple of the Son of God. (Read Mark 16:14-20.)

     The Spirit of God is ours to embrace. It is ours to apply to the need of either soul or body. It is the redeeming quality of the nature of God that Jesus Christ regarded as essential to the world’s blessing. His life on earth, His death on the cross, His resurrection form the dead, and His ascension to glory were all necessary to secure its benefits and bestow them upon the world. It was Christ’s mean of supplying a universal salvation for whosoever will.

     On the Day of Pentecost, when the floodtide of the Holy Spirit broke over the church at Jerusalem and its glory-power radiated through their souls and rested upon them as tongues of fire and they were filled with the Holy Ghost and began to speak with other tongues as the Spirit gave them utterance, the people demanded an explanation of the phenomena.

Peter replied,This Jesus hath God raised up, whereof we all are witnesses (resurrection). Therefore being by the right hand of God exalted (ascension), and having received of the Father the promise of the Holy Ghost (fulfillment of the promise of the Father), he hath shed forth this, which ye now see and hear.  –Acts 2:32-33

     Through His crucifixion and through His victory over the grave, Jesus secured from the Father the privilege of shedding the Holy Spirit abroad over the world. This was the crowning climax of the redemptive power of God ministered through Jesus Christ to the world. And from that day to this, every soul is entitled to embrace to himself this blessed Spirit of God which Jesus regarded so valuable to mankind, so necessary for their healing and salvation, that He gave His life to obtain it.

     Consequently, it is not a question, “Does God always heal?” That is childish. It is rather a question, “Are we willing to embrace His healing?” If so, it is for us to receive. More than this, it is for all the world to receive, for every man to receive who will put his nature in contact with God through opening his heart to the Lord.

     Jesus, knowing the world’s need of healing, provided definitely for physicians (disciples, ministers, priests, healers) who would minister, not pills and potions, but the power of God. The gift of healing is one of the nine gifts of the Spirit provided for the perpetuated forever in the Church. (See 1 Corinthians 12:8-11.)

     It is an evidence of ignorance of God’s Word to continue to discuss the question, “Does God always heal?” as though God healed sometimes, and sometimes He did not. Enlightenment by the Spirit of God, through the Word, reveals that God always was the healer, is the healer today, will be the healer forever. The Word says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Consequently there is healing from every disease for every man who will in faith, embrace the Spirit of God promised by the Father and ministered through Jesus Christ to the souls and bodies of all who desire the blessing.

Peter, in his exposition of this fact says, “By whose stripes ye were healed.” The use of “were” in this text indicates that the healing was accomplished in the mind of God when Jesus Christ gave Himself as the eternal sacrifice and has never had to be done over again for the healing of any individual. He willed it once, it is done forever. He made the provision and invites the world to embrace it. It is yours to have, yours to enjoy, and your to impart to others.