In this short video I am going to review the theological view of healing that claims it is always God's will to heal everyone. This view is most prevalent amongst preachers who claim that it is also God's will to make you wealthy. The so-called prosperty preachers must claim it is God's will to heal, else their claim it is God's will to make you wealthy -- which they claim is a part of the redemptive work of Christ on the cross -- completely falls apart!
Let's watch a short clip by Prosperty Preacher Andrew Wommack
Summary of his claims so that we know what we are dealing with:
- It is always God's will to heal all people
- Jesus healed all, not some
- Most people don't doubt that God has the power to heal {very true I certainly don't}
- They doubt that it is God's will to heal everybody - because they are not focused on scripture (remember this is just Wommack's view)
- People look at the results and they concude it must not be God's will
- He quoted John 3:16 + 1 John 2:2 and drew the comparison in the following way:
- If you use the same logic when it comes to salvation, as with healing, since not everyone is healed, it also cannot be God's will to save everyone
- 17 times in the gospels - Jesus healed all of the sick
This is the main argument Wommack makes:
"If Jesus truly represented the father, then he showed us that it is God's will every time" Not every single person who is prayed for is healed, but it is not because God does not want us healed. The bottom line is this: "if you ever doubt God wants you well, then you won't receive it"
This is Wommack's get out of jail free card! If you don't have faith you won't be healed, so the "healer or his theology" is never at fault!
Ok, now that we are done with summarising his views we will soon look at some of the examples of Jesus's healing. First though let's make some contra assertions:
But before that let me repeat Wommack so that it sinks in: "If Jesus truly represented the father, then he showed us it is always God's will to heal"
I would make the following assertions about Jesus's ministry:
- Jesus indeed always healed everyone he set out to heal
- Jesus did not heal every sick person in Judea, he never even went to every town in Judea so how could he have
- Just because Jesus's personally healed everyone he prayed for does not mean you can, nor does it mean God will, that's faulty logic
Basically, Wommack took something that is true Jesus and extrapolated that into the ministry of every Christian today, that is a bad way to do theology, as we will see.
Let's turn this into a logical argument
- Premise 1: Jesus healed everyone he prayed for when he was walked the earth
- Premise 2: Jesus truly represented the father to us through the ministry to his disciples
- Conclusion: Therefore, it is always God's will to heal
Sometimes logical is faulty because one of the premises is false and therefore the conclusion does not follow from the premises. Sometimes both the premises are true, but the conclusion is false because it does not follow from the premises
Let me give you an example:
- Premise 1: The moon is smaller than the sun
- Premise 2: The moon is not made of cheese
- Conclusion: Therefore, Apollo 11 went to the moon
Both premises are true, and the conclusion is true too, but the conclusion does not follow from the premises. This one is easy to see. In the argument we put together earlier based on Wommack's theology, both premises are true as well, but the conclusion does not follow from the premises.
Let’s use plain logic to refute the claims by Wommack, and then we will actually look at scripture in some of Jesus's healing ministry.
Example one from the New Testament:
- Premise 1: People with enough faith get healed (remember I am using Wommack's theology here)
- Premise 2: Paul & Timothy are two of the most faithful examples in the New Testament of people with enough faith & they could not heal all, or remained sick themselves - see (2 Tim 4:20 + 2 Cor 12:7-9 + 1 Tim 5:23)
- Conclusion: Therefore, it is always God's will to heal
- Premise 1 is false
- Premise 2 is true
- The conclusion does not follow (premise one is false see premise 2) and is therefore false!
Example two from the Old Testament:
- Premise 1: People with enough faith get healed (remember I am using Wommack's theology here)
- Premise 2: God permits the adversary to strike Job with terrible sickness from which he does not receive healing
- Conclusion: It is sometimes God's will to use sickness to test the true faith of believers
- Premise 2 is true, just read the book of Job yourself
- The conclusion follows from premise 2
- Premise 1 is therefore false
It is plainly false to extrapolate from Jesus's ministry to the sick that therefore God's wills to heal all/always
Example one from Jesus's healing ministry
- "And they brought the boy to him. And when the spirit saw him, immediately it convulsed the boy, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. And Jesus asked his father, 'How long has this been happening to him?' And he said, 'From childhood. And it has often cast him into fire and into water, to destroy him. But if you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us.' And Jesus said to him, 'If you can'! All things are possible for one who believes.' Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, 'I believe; help my unbelief!' And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, 'You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.' And after crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, 'He is dead.'" (Mark 9:20-26)
- The child had no belief - he was convulsing and in a fit
- The father had unbelief and begged Jesus to him his unbelief and have mercy on him
- Jesus healed as per usual, but against the odds of unbelief!
We could turn this this into a logical argument:
- Premise 1: the boy had no ability to have faith in healing
- Premise 2: the father had unbelief in healing and begged for mercy
- Conclusion: It is false to conclude that God desires to heal all, providing they have enough faith
Another example from Jesus's ministry:
- "And when he came to the other side, to the country of the Gadarenes, two demon-possessed men met him, coming out of the tombs, so fierce that no one could pass that way. And behold, they cried out, “What have you to do with us, O Son of God? Have you come here to torment us before the time?” Now a herd of many pigs was feeding at some distance from them. And the demons begged him, saying, “If you cast us out, send us away into the herd of pigs.” And he said to them, “Go.” So they came out and went into the pigs, and behold, the whole herd rushed down the steep bank into the sea and drowned in the waters. The herdsmen fled, and going into the city they told everything, especially what had happened to the demon-possessed men." (Mt 8:28-34)
Let's also turn this this into a logical argument:
- Premise 1: the men had no ability to have faith in healing
- Premise 2: the men were completely disabled by the devil & uncontrollable in human terms
- Conclusion: It is false to conclude that God desires to heal all, providing they have enough faith
Another example from Jesus's ministry
"And when Jesus entered Peter’s house, he saw his mother-in-law lying sick with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her, and she rose and began to serve him. That evening they brought to him many who were oppressed by demons, and he cast out the spirits with a word and healed all who were sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.”" (Mt 8:14-16)
The quote here is directly from Isaiah 53, the very passage Faith Healers try to use to argue that Jesus paid for your sickness in the same way he paid for your healing. YET the New Testament author Matthew tells us here plainly that the section in Isaiah 53 relating to healing was fulfilled right here in Jesus's ministry!
Let's also turn this into a logical argument:
- Premise 1: Jesus healed Peter's mother in law who had a fever
- Premise 2: Given it is likely this was a real fever {not just a hot temperature} Peter's mother was in no place to "have or display faith" in order to receive her healing. Jesus simply healed her
- Premise 3: Matthew under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit declared why Christ healed the sick
- Conclusion: Healing in Christ's ministry at least in some sense were there to fulfil biblical prophecy about him
I Am saying this, in this way to assert that this was certainly not the only reason why Christ healed the sick but this is certainly a true conclusion that follows from the premises So far by both logic, reason and by the very narratives about Jesus's healing ministry there is no valid reason to conclude that it is always God's will to heal. The Bible never anywhere says so, which is why faith Healers argue in the way they do, as people with little Bible knowledge will fail to see their false arguments.
Using the argument from "you don't have enough faith" is their Get out of Jail free card. They are basically spiritual bullies enriching themselves on the back of unsuspecting Christians who give them lots of money!
But lets assume for a moment they are right and take the examples from Christ's ministry to their logical Wommackian conclusion
- Premise 1: Jesus never had a problem with healing someone who had no ability to have faith in the healing
- Premise 2: Jesus healed people with no faith
- Premise 3: It is always God's will to heal
- Premise 4: Wommack claims he is just doing what Jesus did
- Conclusion: - Wommack should be able to heal all those people without faith just like Jesus
- Even the most naive person who thinks Wommackians are the good guys, if he or she is honest would have to admit they are not in any way able to heal everyone (and I am being generous here)
Can you see how this is a catastrophic own goal?
Worst of all Wommack somehow extrapolates the fact that God wills the salvation of all, should therefore mean he wills the healing of all, since healing is an obvious "not good" thing. But couldn't we likewise claim that "death" is a not good thing and since God's wills healing due to it being a good thing, he would likewise will that people not die since death is a bad thing.... You can see where am going with this can't you:
Faithhealer: if you have enough faith you won't die! - You died, and thereby proved you didn't have enough faith. This is bad, very faulty logic and theology!
In fact it is the very reverse, many people who are promised healing if only they have enough faith, by the healing and prosperity hucksters, and then when they don't get their healing -- which btw is the vast majority of cases -- many walk away from Christianity all together, claiming well if the God, who promised me salvation in the same way he promised me healing, if that God is unable to heal me -- or if I don't have enough faith to receive It, using their toxic terminology -- then why should I have any confidence in God having given me salvation through belief in Jesus?
THIS IS THE BITTER HARSH REALITY.
God does indeed sometimes heal, but in most of the cases, God promises us to carry us through our trials and tribulations and this is the real good that comes through the work of Christ on the cross, in addition to salvation, Jesus promises us to keep us and preserve us, he promises to get us through the trials!
I'd like to finish with reading Rom 8:38+39
"For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."
- Hope this helped you.
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