What is divine healing?

Of course there is no question but that the early church possessed the gift of healing. There is no question but that the Lord can give healing of the body today. His power is the same. The sick saint may call for the elders of the church, if they can be found, and they may anoint the sufferer with oil, and the prayer of FAITH shall save the sick, and he shall be raised up. Of that there can be no question. It is a pity that it is not more often done.

We fully believe that occasionally it pleases God to intervene on behalf of the sick in ways that are supernatural, on the lines indicated in James 5:14-16. We believe that there have been cases even in our days of wretched victims of demoniacal power out in the heathen world being delivered by the faith and prayer and fasting of devoted servants of God. These things have come to pass as the fruit of dealings with God in secret just as they did, only far more commonly, in apostolic days. But we also fully believe that false cults can present us with lists of equally well attested wonders, especially in the form of healings — take for example the Romish cures at Lourdes, and the cures of Christian Science and of Spiritism — which are not of God at all.

It seems as if these gifts that appealed to the senses and were visibly miraculous, were intended to carry conviction in connection with the establishment of Christianity, but now that need has passed, and moreover in face of the disunited condition of the church, its failure on every hand, its worldliness, it is no wonder that such a gift is not seen in vigorous manifestation. Apart from a system that exalts faith healing into a position Scripture never gave it, and which in reality degrades the whole Christian profession, there are instances in which, quietly and without ostentation, the prayer of faith has healed the sick.

We should be with God about our sickness, and after bowing under His mighty hand, we may rest assured that He will raise us up. This is not at all a question of so-called faith cure. There is often more pride in what is called that than in the humble employment of proper means for recovery. God may, and doubtless often does, heal in answer to prayer, and without the use of medicines, just as He often blesses the instrumentalities used. But the point of importance is that recovery is not the first object. What would God have us learn in our sickness? Has there been disobedience for which we are feeling His chastening hand? Or, if there has been no direct act of disobedience, has there been a low, carnal, worldly state, worse than actual outbreaking evil? How foolish to expect or want recovery to bodily health before the soul is healed.

As to sickness the Apostle's instructions are equally plain. It is viewed as being God's chastening hand upon the saint, very possibly in the form of direct retribution for his sins. In this the church would be interested, and the elders of the church should be called in. They, at their discretion, pray over him, anointing him with oil in the Lord's name and he is healed, his sins being governmentally forgiven. It is evident from such a scripture as 1 John 5:16 that the elders were to exercise their spiritual discernment as to whether it was, or was not, the will of God that healing should be granted. If they discerned it to be His will then they could pray the prayer full of faith and confidence, which would be without fail answered in his recovery.

Is this all valid for today? We believe so. Why then is it so little practised? For at least two reasons. First, it is not an easy matter to find the elders of THE church though the elders of certain religious bodies may be found easily enough. The church of God has been ruined as to its outward manifestation and unity, and we have to pay the penalty of it. Second assuming the elders of the church are found and that they come in response to the call, the discernment and faith on their part, which are called for if they are to offer such a prayer of faith as is contemplated, are but very rarely found.

There may also be the general or special need created by sickness. "Is any sick among you? let him call to him the elders of the assembly, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of [the] Lord." It is good where any dealing of the Lord leads us to turn to Him, expecting not evil but good. In those days too, elders of the assembly were there, men of moral weight and spiritual judgment, whose place it was to intervene in difficulties of a personal as well as public nature. They might not be evangelists or teachers; but apt to teach they were required to be, men able to take up in love and truth and faithfulness the burdens of their brethren. The sick man is exhorted to summon such as they are to pray for him with that application of oil which Romanism has distorted so wholly from God's mind. Extreme unction is a mere invention of superstition, to smooth the way when hope of recovery is gone.

It is remarkable that the inspired writer, though encouraging honour to the elders, attaches healing virtue, not to their official place or special art, but to prayer, and this of an efficacious sort through faith. He says "And the prayer of faith shall save [or, heal] the sick, and the Lord will raise him up." What a contrast this is with the gloomy superstition which sends "a priest" to absolve him and give extreme unction, because his death is regarded as inevitable! For if he recover, he will need the same hateful parody over again. Yes, unclean and drunken harlot, dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return, with no resurrection as being without life, nothing but a system of darkness and death.

That God often heals the sick in answer to prayer is clearly taught both in James and John: in the former according to ecclesiastical order, though by the prayer of faith; in the latter as an individual matter, and I have seen and assisted at the clearest examples of this both in England and on the continent. In two cases, at the request of the parties, prayer was accompanied by anointing.

But no mistakes of men take away the plain force of God's word and that He does answer the prayer of faith. James 5 supposes the church in order, and that those, who in a certain sense represented it, could be sent for - where God's order was going on and His government regularly administered in the church. That is not the case now, but if those who are practically such, and have personally faith (that looks through the ruin to the source of good according to the order) and believe, God will still hear the prayer of faith: I do not doubt it. In general it is only looking for so much physical relief, generally turning aside from what is heavenly. There may be faith in the person also; sending for the elders supposes something of this. But while I fully believe there may be such answers to prayer, the books about them seem to me full of error, and, while there may be some faith as to what is physical, not calculated to edify. But the very prayers of the Establishment for rain, etc., suppose the principle.

Moreover, God at no time intended that things should be left, as it were, absolutely in man's hands, even though it were the hand of faith, as the doctrines taught suppose. The prayer of faith may be that which saves the sick, and yet, after all, that be far from meaning that we can find in every case a faith which should do so. God has His own will and His own way; and while we can always reckon upon Him to answer the soul that looks to Him, yet the way of His answer we do not always know. The apostle prays that the thorn in the flesh might depart from him, but it did not depart. God turned it to greater blessing. That was an answer to the prayer, but it was not such an answer as men usually count as that. Could any one suppose that among Christians, if everything were absolutely right, the sick would always be raised up, that death would hardly obtain at all, except in the extremest old age? We may imagine any such fancies, but fancies they are, and nothing else. Yet it is plain there is an appeal to God advocated here which we are always right in making, and from which we may always expect an answer in the goodness of Him whom we address. More than this, the Lord may give distinct light as to His mind that will enable one, as to anything, to ask with assurance, without the possibility of denial. If we are near enough to God for this we have cause indeed to be thankful; but we had better be humble about it, and be very sure that we have it before we claim it.

"Now, we know perfectly well that this is not and cannot be the invariable outcome of all sickness. The vast majority of mankind--yes, of Christians--has died as the result of some sickness: has this been because 'elders' have not been called? Have they come to the end of that life here because they were not anointed with oil, and the prayer that always goes up from loving hearts was not the prayer of faith, and since not of faith, was sin? Who would not reject such conclusions with abhorrence? Yet are they inevitable, if this Scripture be pressed as being the one divinely given direction in the case of all sickness.

"In it every act, every movement, must be in faith: that is recognizing the Lord's hand in the sickness, and the Lord's mind in removing it. But where is the great and precious promise on which faith can always rest, that shall make healing sure? In one case only, and that is if the sickness does not come from constitutional weakness, as with Timothy, or the hardship of a Christian devotion as with Epaphroditus, or any other natural cause--but as a chastening of the Lord for some specific sins committed, and this confessed and put away, the chastening ceases.