Why Doesn’t God Heal Everyone?

Since God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He heal everyone who prays for it?

Gift of Healing

The Bible speaks about the different gifts given to the church and the gift of healing is one of those gifts. To start with, it’s a gift, so this gift is not from us. We are not the source of that gift; God is. Some may have this gift because it is God’s prerogative, but they might not even know it, but others might say they have the gift and don’t have it. Either way, the source is always God because no one can do miracles without Him. The Apostle Paul makes it clear that “each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (1st Cor 12:7), and “some the utter of wisdom, the utterance of knowledge, to another faith, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit” (1st Cor 12:10). A crucial point Paul makes is that it’s God “who apportions to each one individually as he wills” (1st Cor 12:11), so it’s not what we get or pray for as gifts, but what we receive from God, “as he wills.” Some people believe this gift is still at work in the church, and who can say that God still isn’t working miracles today through His people. I can’t say that. We cannot put God into a box that fits into what we think God is like. We have no real clue about the ways of God, however we are given some help in discerning if these gifts are from God because not everyone that claims to be a “miracle healer” is one, and to be honest, I rather trust those accounts that hardly anyone knows about than those who are proclaiming from the pulpit that they can heal any man or any woman. First of all…that’s wrong. God gives this gift…and it is by God’s power that they’re done. For another, it might not be God’s will for a certain person to be healed. It is very much like His dispensing the gifts; it is His prerogative, not ours; it is His prerogative to heal whomever He wills to heal. It is not according to our will but His will alone.

Text out of Context

One of the most often quoted texts about healing is taken from Isaiah 53 where many laid hold of what they think is a promise to heal everyone. Isaiah the Prophet wrote, “But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). That sounds like God is going to heal everyone who trusts in Christ, but is that what it means? Is the context of this single verse, which rests in a chapter about Jesus taking on our sins upon Himself, really about our physical healing? Did Jesus die just so we could get over a cold or a disease? Would Jesus come to suffer and die during the Passion just so we could receive a cure for cancer? Of course God can heal and there is power in Jesus’ name, but to claim Isaiah 53 as a promise that God will heal everyone is to rip the text out of its proper context and create a false pretext. The verse says that Jesus was “pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities,” and not so everyone would be healed who claimed the last part of the verse about being healed by His wounds. The healing we receive is not physical (at least yet) but a spiritual healing or the forgiveness of our sins because “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6b). Isaiah is writing about our iniquity being laid upon Jesus; His being pierced for our transgression; and being crushed for our iniquities. There is nothing in this chapter about physical healing because the context is all about Jesus taking upon Himself the wrath of God that we all deserved, so Jesus made “his soul makes an offering for guilt, he shall see his offspring; he shall prolong his days” (Isaiah 53:10b). How some believers use one simple verse, in fact part of one verse (Isaiah 53:5b), and turn it into a promise of healing all who claim it is beyond me. It does violence to the context and strips away the powerful meaning of Isaiah’s writing. I doubt Isaiah would write such things when he was simply referring to someone being physically healed.

Not Enough Faith?

Some of the “faith healers” use this verse (Isaiah 53:5) as a promise that God will heal everyone who asks for it, but more than a physical healing, Jesus brought us peace by His stripes. Jesus made “his soul makes an offering for guilt” (Isaiah 53:10) so that we would have peace with God (Rom 5:1), and that means there is no more condemnation for those who trust in Christ (Rom 8:1). When the person is not healed, the faith healer will simply lay the blame on the person asking for healing, and when they are not healed, a person is left with no healing and feeling blamed because their supposed lack of faith prevented God from healing them. Either way, the faith healer appears to be right, because if someone’s not healed, they point back to the person’s lack of faith, but when they use Isaiah 53:5 as a promise, they are setting up people for great heartbreak and disappointment. They become disappointed at their alleged lack of faith or they see God as rejecting their appeal for healing.

Conclusion

We could look at the Apostle Paul’s thorn in the flesh or Timothy’s stomach problems, and according to some of these faith healers, they must not have had enough faith to be healed. God allowed Paul’s thorn in the flesh to keep him from being conceited. If God had healed Paul’s thorn in the flesh, would Paul have remained as humble? Apparently not because Paul himself said his thorn in the flesh was “to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited” (2nd Cor 12:7), so in Paul’s case, it was not God’s will to heal him and it was best for him and the gospel’s being spread if he kept this thorn, whatever it was. Not happy with that answer? Then consider what God says: “Woe to him who strives with him who formed him, a pot among earthen pots! Does the clay say to him who forms it, ‘What are you making?’ or ‘Your work has no handles’” (Isaiah 45:9)? Just as Job’s friends were wrong about his suffering, as it wasn’t because he was living in sin, so too do some people assume that if someone is not healed, they must be living a sinful life or their faith is weak, however only God knows the heart and He has reasons for whatever happens in our life (Rom 8:28), and He doesn’t owe us an explanation. Besides, we’ll find out someday…it just may not be in this life.

Article by Jack Wellman

Jack Wellman is Pastor of the Mulvane Brethren Church in Mulvane Kansas. Jack is host of Spiritual Fitness and also the Senior Writer at What Christians Want To Know whose mission is to equip, encourage, and energize Christians and to address questions about the believer’s daily walk with God and the Bible. You can follow Jack on Google Plus or check out his book Teaching Children the Gospel available on Amazon.