Objection: God Heals in His Own Way in His Own Time

I can tell you EXACTLY when God’s perfect time is for your healing!  It is NOW.  “Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (2 Corinthians 6:2).  This age is the “day that the LORD has made,” as found in Psalm 118:22-24: “The stone which the builders refused is become the head stone of the corner.  This is the LORD’S doing; it is marvellous in our eyes.  This is the day which the LORD hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  This does not refer to this chronological 24-hour day, although that is the traditional misinterpretation of this verse.  (A similar often-misinterpreted verse concerns God being worthy to be praised from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same.  This is an idiom for “from the east to the west,” so this verse is not a statement that God’s worthiness to be praised decreases at night.)  No, THIS is the day – the day of the New Covenant, the day of salvation, which includes salvation from sickness.

Since this entire age is the “day” of salvation, you can receive salvation at any time during this “day.”  Anyone who wants to be born again can be saved right now because of the finished work of Jesus.  There is no need to wait for a special “day” because this entire age is that special day.  Likewise, anyone who wants healing can have it at any time, precisely because now is the day of salvation.  (The Greek words for salvation and saved as used in the New Testament encompass deliverance, health, help, safety, rescue, victory, and other things, and they are so translated in various places.  See the discussion, Saved!)

There are many ways to receive healing (as documented elsewhere in this book), but it is not true that sometimes God’s way has to be a doctor.  It may work out that way in practice because we are not at a point of being able to believe for a complete recovery on our own.  That does not mean that such a method is unavailable to us.  “It was God’s will that he be healed by medicine” is at best a half-truth.  God’s preferred way of healing is clear throughout the Bible.  You don’t once see Jesus saying, “I won’t heal you because I want you to use man’s medicine.  Go to a certain village where you will meet a doctor named Luke who will write you a prescription.”  If He didn’t say that then, He’ll never say it today.  If you need a doctor, by all means go, but don’t insist that the rest of us receive healing the same way that you did.