Healing and Salvation: Sides of the Same Coin

Physical healing is coupled with spiritual healing throughout the Bible. This may be particularly true in Isaiah’s detailed prophecy about Jesus (Isaiah 53) and in the gospel accounts of Jesus. Healing and salvation are nearly inseparable. Long before “faith healers” or “Pentecostals” existed, physical healing was revealed to be the will of God.

You may be thinking at this point, “Spiritual healing, I’m convinced of, but physical healing rarely occurs, not in the supernatural sense. I’m saved, but I haven’t seen a person healed for a long time, if ever.”

The “supernatural sense” provides a useful qualification. We all see our bodies healing themselves, just as sometimes medical care may heal them. These healings should be received as gifts from God, just as should all sunshine, groceries, friends, and pets.

As you may have guessed this post is about supernatural healing—healing that cannot be accounted for by natural explanations, whether the medical care exceeds medical expectations or, as in most of the Bible, no medical care is involved.

The fact that Christians believe unanimously in spiritual salvation but only occasionally in divine healing offers us an opportunity to ask ourselves these scandalous questions: “If the only parts of the gospel that I believe are the ones that cannot be verified, am I really believing? Or is my “faith” just religious hopefulness? Is it possible that I’m walking in disbelief in spite of my intentions? Is widespread disbelief among Christians what Jesus suspected when he asked, “when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?” (Luke 18:8)

If you want to know whether or not it’s God’s will to heal you, look at Jesus in the gospels. He did only what he saw his father doing (John 5:19):

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. (Matthew 4:23)

When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick (Matthew 8:16 & Luke 4:40).

Great crowds came to him, bringing the lame, the blind, the crippled, the mute and many others, and laid them at his feet; and he healed them. The people were amazed when they saw the mute speaking, the crippled made well, the lame walking and the blind seeing. And they praised the God of Israel. (Matthew 15:30)

Jesus never told a sick person to learn to live with an illness, nor did he ever say that God wanted to teach the person a lesson through the sickness. He never used his prayer from the Garden of Gethsemané, “If it be your will,” when confronting sickness. He healed all who came to him. Even in his home town where there was so little faith, “He could not do any miracles there, except lay his hands on a few sick people and heal them” (Mark 6:4-6).

Because God’s will to see us healed is crystal clear, we must ask why it’s so easily disputed and discounted? Among the reasons are the following:

• we pray and remain sick
• we pay more attention to feelings than scripture
• we let our experience define our theology
• we ignore the gospels and instead listen to sermons and teachings that promote disbelief

Instead of focusing on these deterrents, we do well to focus on Jesus’ unabated habit of healing. Even in the Garden of Gethsemané, when Peter cut of the servant’s ear, Jesus healed it (Luke 22:49-51). It was the eve of his crucifixion and he still healed. Who are we following, after all? Our feelings? Our experience? Our institutions? Or the Jesus who is the same yesterday, today, and forever? (Hebrews 13:8)

In the past, I distinguished between divine and medical healing. That snobbery made me ungrateful for all the healing that occurs daily through good medicine. God loves to have people help people. That is the fabric of our existence. Most healing will be medical. But not all, particularly the many conditions medicine cannot cure—or where the cure is almost as bad as the illness.

As I write this, I’m aware of faithful Christians with chronic conditions, including blindness and polio—and I’d venture that these people are in many ways closer to God than I am. My concern is not to explain away our experience but to focus on what God revealed through Jesus. Then we are at least waging our war against disease on solid ground.

One way to find that solid ground is to recognize that healing and salvation overlap considerably, even semantically. Once we see that the same words are used to describe both physical healing and spiritual redemption, we have greater assurance that God’s will is comprehensive: good, perfect, and acceptable (Romans 12:1-2).

Three words in Greek are used to refer to both healing and salvation: sozo/σώζω, therapeuo/θεραπεύω, and iaomai/ἰάομαι (Three New Testament Words for Healing). Each of these words is used in the New Testament, and each refers to both physical healing and spiritual salvation. The Gospel (incarnated in Jesus) reveals that the whole person is under the purview of God’s love, with the result no hair is too short for him to number, nor life too poor for him to care. On more than one occasion, Jesus healed and forgave the person, making the person whole physically and admonishing the person to sin no more. Let us learn, then, to think of the divine touch as complete, sufficient for all our needs.

We all know that spiritual healing, being eternal, is the most important transformation any of us can (and should) undergo. If I have everything this life can offer—health, friends, and family—but am riddled with guilt and shame, these things mean little. But if I’m a new person, a person adopted by God and endowed with the righteousness of Jesus—I’m forever fine. This life may be painfully lacking but when we sow our earthly bodies to the grave, we can await our restoration, some way, some how, as forever healthy children of God.

Although physical healing is less important in the long run, we will see it promised or even stated as a fact in many scriptures, especially when we are aware that many times spiritual redemption and physical healing are both suggested in a promise.

Sometimes a New Testament writer will interpret the Old Testament in a way we would not suspect. It happens in Matthew’s gospel, where the writer insists that the healing is physical. After word got out that Jesus could heal people and deliver them from demons, Jesus was flooded with requests:

When evening came, many who were demon-possessed were brought to him, and he drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. This was to fulfill what was spoken through the prophet Isaiah:

“He took up our infirmities
    and bore our diseases.”

(Matthew 8:16-17)

The words “infirmities” and “diseases” are Matthew’s interpretation. In Isaiah 53:4 itself, you find words such as griefs, sorrows, pain, and suffering. But Matthew insists that the scourging and crucifixion somehow allowed Jesus to take up and carry physical illness. This overlap between physical and spiritual healing is of course perfectly consistent with the Greek words that refer to both kinds of healing.

The classical passage on how to pray in faith occurs in Mark 11:24. The fact that Jesus begins with “whatever you ask” implies that physical healing is included.

Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (Mark 11:24)

In believing that we have received something before we experience it, we are moving from hope to faith. It would be hard to over-stress the difference between following Mark 11:24 and our feelings (which turn us quickly into quivering beggars when we are seriously ill).

If you are distressed, physically or emotionally, think about this: God knew before you asked what you would ask. God knows the exact solution. God says “yes” before the “yes” is visible. And God cares about your health just as he cares about your spirit.