Objection: God’s Healing Covenant in the Law of Moses Was Only for the Jews
This argument falls apart for several reasons. A similar objection, “The promise to be kept ‘free from every disease (Deuteronomy 7:15) is not given to the church” says essentially the same thing, so the answer below applies to both objections.
God Declared Who He IS, Not Just What He Would Do
Anyone who has read Malachi 3:6 or James 1:17 knows that God does not change. Therefore, whatever He was, He still is. He is the great I AM, not the great I WAS or the great I WILL BE SOMEDAY.
God did not just promise to take sickness away, although He did that on several occasions. He declared in Exodus 15:25-26 that He is the Lord your Physician (The Lord That Healeth Thee). This goes beyond a promise to do something and declares something about the nature of God Himself. God cannot change, so if He was The Lord Your Physician, He still is The Lord Your Physician today.
It is strange that everyone agrees that God’s other Old Testament covenant names still apply today. I have yet to see anything in print disputing that God is still all of the following today, even though these were all Old Covenant titles for God. The fact that He still is all of these things today is borne out by New Testament Scriptures. Here are some, but certainly not all, of them:
The Lord our Banner of Victory (2 Corinthians 2:14)
The Lord our Righteousness (1 Corinthians 1:30)
The Lord our Peace (John 14:27)
The Lord our Shepherd (John 10:11)
The Lord whose Provision Shall Be Seen (Philippians 4:19)
The Lord is Present (Matthew 28:20)
Because God still IS all these things, it is inconsistent and illogical to single out the one title “The Lord That Healeth Thee” and say that it was only for Jews and that it does not apply today.
God’s Old Covenant Promises Are Yes and Amen in Christ
2 Corinthians 1:20:
For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.
Matthew 5:17:
Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.
Jesus did not destroy the wonderful promises that God made under the Old Covenant. He fulfilled the sacrifices for sin so that we do not need to sacrifice animals today (Hebrews 10:11-14 and elsewhere). He redeemed us (Galatians 3:13) from the curse for not keeping all the Law, found in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 and Leviticus 26:14-39. He made it unnecessary to observe the Jewish rituals and ordinances found in the Law (Colossians 2:14-17). But nowhere is it stated that Jesus abolished the promises of God. On the contrary, the New Testament says that God’s promises are yes and Amen in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20), not done away with in Christ.
No serious student of Scripture can dispute that a Gentile convert under the New Covenant can still receive Old Covenant blessings. Galatians 3 settles this issue:
“So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham” – Galatians 3:9.
“Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made a curse for us: for it is written, Cursed is every one that hangeth on a tree: That the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles, through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” – Galatians 3:13-14. (Note that “the promise of the Spirit” refers to the promises the Holy Spirit made, not to the baptism with the Spirit, which Abraham did not have. Of course, the baptism with the Holy Spirit is also available because Jesus is “He who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:33-34), but Galatians 3:14 isn’t the verse to use to prove it.)
“And if ye be Christ’s, then are ye Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” – Galatians 3:29.
Much of Galatians 3 covers the subtle point that Christ is the real recipient of the blessings of Abraham, and they are yours because you are “in Christ.” This is why you can’t “break” the New Covenant; you can only step out from under its blessings. It wasn’t made with you; it was made with Jesus, who you can be sure will never break it. That makes it an everlasting covenant.
Ephesians 2:12-13 makes it clear that you are a partaker of the promises to the Jews, saying that you were (not are) a stranger to the covenants of promise! “That at that time ye were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope, and without God in the world: But now in Christ Jesus ye who sometimes were far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ.”
The blood of Christ has made you a partaker of the wonderful promises made to the Jews. You are not a stranger to them.
The New Covenant Is Better Than the Old Covenant
Hebrews 7:22:
By so much was Jesus made a surety of a better testament.
Hebrews 8:6:
But now hath he obtained a more excellent ministry, by how much also he is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises.
How could anyone believe the two verses above and then say that God’s healing covenant was only for the Jews? That would mean that under a better covenant, established upon better promises, God is not as willing to heal today as He was under the Law.
Hebrews 11 lists the greats of faith in the Old Covenant and ends with the words, “God having provided something better for us, that they without us should not be made perfect.”
If Jesus brought us out of the Old Covenant where any sick person could be healed, and into a New Covenant where some people just have to stay sick, a sick person would be better off (as far as his health is concerned) if Jesus Christ had not come yet! The coming of Christ would rob some sick people of their healing!
How ironic it would be if Jesus Christ, who went everywhere doing good and healing all that were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38), made this universal healing unavailable to us by His final sacrifice. This would mean that it was inexpedient that He went away, because you could be healed if He were still around physically. Of course, Jesus said that it was expedient that He would go away (John 16:7), so what is available now cannot be worse than what was available during His earthly ministry. The same Holy Spirit who empowered Jesus now empowers believers to do the same works in Jesus’ name.
The Old Covenant’s Blessings Are Still Yours
Further proof that Old Covenant blessings are available to Christians today is found in Ephesians 6:1-3, where the Old Covenant blessing of long life is still made available to us today.
The New Testament Is Also a Healing Covenant
Even if we threw out our Old Testaments, you could find plenty of covenant promises to heal the sick in the New Testament. Jesus said that we would lay hands on the sick in His name and they would recover (see Mark 16:15-18). There are clear instructions that if (!) there are “any sick” among you, they are to be prayed over in faith so that they will be healed (James 5:14-15). Peter declares that we were healed by the stripes of Jesus (1 Peter 2:24). Paul declares that our bodies are the property of God, bought with a price (1 Corinthians 6:19-20). God imparts His power to your mortal body (Romans 8:11). God wants you to prosper and be in health (3 John 2).
Even if the Old Covenant promises of healing were only for the Jews, there are plenty of New Covenant promises of healing. So there is no way that you can say that healing was only for the Jews, unless you’re willfully ignorant or you want to make a lot of money selling this year’s “Why God Won’t Heal You” book in Christian bookstores.