Post #4 Principles for Miraculous Healing - Patterns For Divine Healing Today, Further Remarks About Cessationism vs Continuationism In The Miraculous Gifts

 

Introduction:

      In our last message we looked at various principles related to miraculous healing from Jesus’ ministry. We defined a miracle as follows:

A miracle is an infrequently occurring act by God in a spiritually significant setting that confirms His messenger and message.

We had looked at the healing of the leper in Luke 5:12-16. We noted two principles that can aid us when praying about healing or in understanding God’s healing power related to prayer.

1. Pray by the will of God. Luke 5:12-13

2. Patience by the Word of God. Luke 5:14-16

        We learned that it is appropriate to pray according to God’s will for healing. That is, to pray “if it be your will” is not unbelief. Modern faith healing often neglects the Bible’s designations of God’s unrevealed and revealed wills. There are aspects and purposes of God’s will that are unrevealed, for which we cannot know. To pray in faith recognizes that I won’t know everything with certainty, thus it is Biblical to yield oneself to God by praying “if it be your will”. 

    The leper asked Jesus “if your are willing, you can make me clean” in Luke 5:12. Then a second principle, “patience by the Word of God” meant we exercise patience by God’s Word by obeying it and praying according to it. God’s Word is to be our guide. In today’s post we will look at the patterns of Divine healing we find in the world today.

 The patterns of God’s healing today.

     I had mentioned in the last message that I take what is called a “cessationist view” of the miraculous gifts. We find over 250 miracles in the Bible of all sorts, with roughly 90 or so involving healing of different types (spiritual maladies, psychological ailments, and physical diseases). I wanted to at least clarify where I land on this issue before we move on to the text before us in Luke 5:17-26. Below focuses upon miracles of healing.

 

        I hold to a “cessationist” view on the miraculous gifts, meaning that the manifestation of genuine miraculous giftings and offices like Apostles and Prophets ceased at the end of the Apostolic era in the first century. God certainly still heals today, mainly in answer to prayers and the working of His providence. 

    Those who would disagree are called “continuationists”, who believe to one degree or another, the route of miraculous gifting has not ceased, but continues. What do we see in the Bible pertaining to the pattern of miraculous giftings for healing? Were there periods where it stopped and then started again? Or has it always continued alongside the normal route of healing in answer to prayer?

In the Bible, we find large stretches of time where no miracles occurred, interspersed with sudden bursts of them. In the lives of the Patriarchs in Genesis, God would heal the infertility of Sarah, Rachael, and Rebekka (2,000 b.c.-1,800 b.c.), enabling them to bear forth children. Another 400 years would pass until Moses’ ministry in 1440 b.c., where only once do we see him perform a miraculous healing (Exodus 4:6-7). Another 300 year period would pass, with Gideon the Judge complaining in Judges 6:13 that it had been centuries since any miracle transpired in Israel from the days of Moses.

From Gideon’s time in 1150 b.c. or so we wait fifty or so years until God heals Hannah of her infertility for she and her husband to give birth to Samuel in 1 Samuel 2 in roughly 1100 b.c. From that point we pass by another two hundred years before we see the healing of King Jeroboam’s hand (1 Kings 13:4-6) in 930 b.c. Over a century would pass again until the ministries of Elijah and Elisha in 850 b.c. 

A century or so would pass again until the healing of King Hezekiah in 2 Kings 20:5-7 by the prophet Isaiah applying medicine on his wound in 750 b.c. After the prophet Isaiah, another 700 years would pass where no healing miracles through individuals took place. Answers to prayer for healing went forward, yet miraculously gifted individuals would wax and wane depending upon the need for validating God’s revelation and progressive revelation.

     It is with Jesus and the Apostles we find a huge clustering of healings. Jesus performed over 15 healing miracles in the four Gospels of His 35 or so total miracles. Then the Apostles performed roughly ten healing miracles in Acts. We see periods where God worked miracles through gifted individuals in addition to the route of prayer/providence, followed by long stretches where God chose to use the more conventional route of prayer.

     Then as the Apostolic age closed, the pattern of God using miraculously gifted people would wane and cease once again. God is God and if He would ever so choose to heal somebody by manifesting a sudden gift of healing, He could do so. 

     The Biblical pattern we just reviewed suggests miraculous healing occur in our world today through the primary route of providence and prayer, rather than through Apostles, prophets, or those gifted with such miraculous gifts. Other than Paul’s letter of 1 Corinthians in 12-14 and one reference in Galatians 3:5, I find no other reference to miracles or healing gifts in any of his other letters or any of the remaining letters of the New Testament. 

    The Book of Revelation indicates that after the Rapture of the Church, in the final seven year period of history known as “The Tribulation Period”, miraculous healings, and corresponding signs will resume as one final testimony of God’s judgment. 

Closing thoughts

    We’ve observed patterns for God’s healing today. It is not unusual for God to use gifted individuals to heal in spurts of time in history, followed by longer stretches where He heals through normal Providence and answers to prayer. As I noted today and in the last post, the discussion over cessationism and continuationism ought to never cause Christians to separate from one another. It is hoped that in expressing my own understanding on these matters, readers can better understand how I approach the subject of healing. In the next post we will look at another important principle in the subject of miraculous healing: the necessity of God's power in healing, and how it is governed by various purposes He wants to achieve.