#4: Why Many Faithful People Aren't Healed

This is the fourth and final part of a series explaining that Scripture does not promise healing to all Christians. In Part 1 we examined Christ's earthly healing ministry. In Part 2 we addressed Christ's defeat of sin, sickness, Satan, and death. In Part 3  we addressed James 5:13-18 and the full counsel of Scripture. We have been looking in particular at the false "word of faith" doctrine which teaches that every Christian can and should be healed if they have enough faith.

In this part we will examine the evidence found in the lives of God's faithful servants.

Does the evidence prove that people with great faith are always healed?

✅ Word-of-faith teachings ignore real life.

Many godly Christians - people with great devotion, love, and faith - are not healed on earth.

Corrie Ten Boom proved faithful in the worst of conditions, suffering for the Gospel in a concentration camp. She experienced many miracles of protection but she also suffered great losses. Throughout her life she remained faithful to Jesus. But her final years were spent in bed severely handicapped by a stroke. 

Joni is a present-day example of a person with great faith who is severely handicapped. She was paralyzed by a swimming accident, has been wheelchair-bound for over forty years, and has twice suffered from cancer despite her wholehearted love for Jesus and devotion to full-time ministry.

We could compile an enormous list of godly men and women past and present who have suffered with physical problems. God's purposes in their lives are often revealed directly through their physical sickness (2 Corinthians 12:10). In addition, they give the Body of Christ great assurance that God's comfort is enough to sustain us in the worst of circumstances (2 Corinthians 1:3-5).

✅ Scripture also provides an example of a faithful Christian with a chronic illness. 

Paul told Timothy, "Stop drinking only water, and use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses" (1 Timothy 5:23). 

Paul did not suggest that Timothy could, should, or would be healed, nor did he suggest it had something to do with Timothy's faith or lack of it. Please read more about this example: A Message About Healing in 1 Timothy 5:23.

✅ Word of Faith teachers also ignore examples in their churches. 

For example, Bill Johnson is a key leader in word-of-faith teachings. He says, "Jesus did not command us to pray for the sick. He commanded us to heal them." (“The Essential Guide to Healing”, p.51, Chosen Books). However, Bill's adult son (also a pastor in Bethel Church) is almost totally deaf.

See these 1-Minute devotions about faithful servants of God who were not healed of physical illness here on earth: A Saint's Life and Outcasts and Wheelchair Miracle and Blind but Seeing and Blurry Vision or 20/20?  

✅ Word-of-faith believers share the error of Job's friends.

Word of faith followers lay a heavy guilt trip on people by claiming that they could be healed if they only had enough faith. This means God would have healed Corrie and Joni if only they’d said the right words or believed the word of faith doctrine. But since they didn’t, all their faith, love, and sacrifices make no difference to God. He will let them suffer unnecessarily because they don't hold to the word of faith teaching. 

This belief reduces Christianity to a superstitious faith based on rituals and formulas.

When word of faith believers blame people's sickness on their lack of faith, they follow in the footsteps of Job's friends. Job's friends "kicked him when he was down" telling him his lack of faith caused his problems. They spent days trying to convince Job of his lack of faith, and they thought they were being good friends to do so. But God rebuked them saying, “you have not spoken the truth about me” (Job 42:7). 

All sickness, death, and decay can be attributed to the sin of Adam (Romans 5:12), and in rare cases it can be directly attributed to the sins or lack of faith of the sick person. But most sickness cannot be clearly attributed to personal sin or lack of faith.

See Job's Judgmental Friends.

✅ Conclusion:

Jesus sometimes linked faith to healing, but not always. See Part 1.

Jesus has completely defeated sin, sickness, Satan, and death in the legal sense. But we will not fully experience this victory here on earth. The Bible makes that clear. See Part 2. 

James 5:13-18 is passage that seems to be saying that all Christians can be healed. However, when we combine it with the full teaching of Scripture, we realize it's telling us that there are times when we should pray for healing and God will give it, but this is not a universal promise for all people and all times. See Part 3.

God can and does heal people, Christians and non-Christians alike, and we should pray for healing as we feel led by the Lord. But we cannot fully understand why God heals one person and not another, and we must not create doctrines about healing that are not supported in Scripture.

Real faith involves trusting God with these mysteries.

💙 We may experience sickness on earth, just as faithful Timothy experienced it. But we will be perfectly healed in heaven.

💙 We may deal with attacks from Satan, just like faithful Paul (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). But we will be perfectly free from Satan in heaven.

💙 We will die an earthly death unless Jesus returns before our death. But we will live eternally and never fear death again.