EPISODE 5
When we think about the people that Jesus did not heal while he walked on earth, it is staggering. Many Americans fail to realize the kind of world in which Jesus lived 2000 years ago. I spent my childhood in a third-world country. I’ve traveled to 17 other countries. There are many places in the world that would be shocking to Americans or Europeans. In places all over the globe, sick and disfigured people sit on the street and beg. The sheer amount of suffering on display in public is astounding, and I am speaking about the twenty-first century. Probably more places in the world are like that than they are like America. In the time of Jesus it would have been even worse. Much worse.
If Jesus had healed every person he encountered who had a serious medical problem, he would not have had time to do anything else.
Yet, somewhere, somehow, a large subset of Christians has come to believe that God always desires to heal our physical ailments in this mortal life. Some people may be unconscious of their own underlying belief that God should always heal, but it comes out in many different ways as they pray:
“Lord, we reject this illness. We refuse to accept it.”
“We know that God’s desire is to heal you, right now.”
“By His stripes, we are healed. Jesus died not just for your salvation, but also for your healing.”
“Claim your healing. It is already yours in Jesus. Take hold of it in faith right now.”
All of this proceeds from a presumption that when it comes to ill-health, God’s primary goal is always to heal our physical bodies. No one seems to entertain the thought that God, in his wisdom, might sometimes have a better goal than healing a physical body that is corrupted by sin, and going to die eventually anyway.
Much like the issue of faith and healing (covered elsewhere in this podcast), this is an area where it is very easy for well-meaning Christians to thoughtlessly inflict a great deal of emotional pain upon those who are already suffering.
If God supposedly desires to heal everyone, where would that leave me? I’ll tell you exactly, so you won’t have to guess: It would leave me feeling even more abandoned by God, which is something most chronically ill people struggle with anyway. It would leave me feeling judged by others. It would leave me feeling patronized and humiliated.
Thankfully, I think my friends who believe in universal healing are mistaken. The truth that the Bible describes about healing is much more nuanced and complicated than that. Join Wade and me as we seek to understand this topic better.
# 5: UNIVERSAL HEALING?