Is It Technically Incorrect to Say That Jesus Still Heals Today?
It might shock you that I would even handle this question. Isn’t a main point of this book that Jesus still heals today because He’s the same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13:8)? Isn’t the answer so obvious that the reader should just read all the other articles in this book? It might surprise you that this is actually a very good question that it will take some time to answer fully.
You see, you could take the “yes” side by stating that Jesus has already done everything He is ever going to do about our healing and that His work in that regard is finished, so all we do today is appropriate by faith something that He has already done. And that “yes” answer at least raises the important point that Jesus will never do anything again about paying for our healing – He did that once when He took stripes on His back as our Substitute. And given that 1 Peter 2:24 says that we were healed, how could we say correctly that Jesus is still doing something He already did? And if WE are to do the works that He did (John 14:12), doesn’t that mean that WE do them and HE doesn’t do them personally anymore?
I have just given what sounds like a plausible argument for why we should say it is technically incorrect to say that Jesus heals today, but when it comes to such issues, we need to examine whether we are getting more technically nitpicky than the Bible itself.
For example, Ephesians 2:5 includes the phrase “by grace ye are saved.” Since that is a Bible verse, we can’t argue with it. Therefore, you are saved by grace. That is truth but it is not a full exposition of the truth. If grace alone saves people, everyone must be saved, but the Bible teaches that some people will be thrown into the lake of fire (Revelation 20:14-15). Fortunately, three verses later, Paul says, “for by grace are ye saved through faith,” which is a more complete picture. We must receive by faith what God has provided by grace (Romans 5:2). Does this mean that Ephesians 2:5 is technically incorrect? No, nothing in the Bible is technically incorrect. This book points out many instances where one gospel writer omits facts that were reported by another gospel writer. This does not make any gospel “technically incorrect;” it only means that one version of the gospel may not be as complete as another one on a certain matter. That is why there are four gospels instead of one.
So we have to ask whether the Scriptures teach that Jesus still heals today or whether He stopped after stripes were laid on His back.
The following Scriptures demonstrate that we CAN say that Jesus heals today, knowing that what the Bible says cannot be “technically incorrect:”
First, in Acts 9:34, Peter said to Aeneas, “Jesus Christ makes you whole.” The Greek word for makes is definitely in the present tense.
Second, Luke wrote about what Jesus began to do and teach before He was taken up. If He was only beginning to do things when He was taken up, He must still be “doing” things today, including the healings He does through His Church.
Acts 1:1-2:
The former treatise have I made, O Theophilus, of all that Jesus began both to do and to teach,
until the day in which he was taken up, after that he through the Holy Ghost had given commandments unto the apostles whom he had chosen.
Third, Scripture is clear that Christ is the Head and we (the Church) are His Body. The Head and the Body can’t work separately from each other. What the body does, the head is involved with. For example, no one says, “My body needs to use the bathroom,” so his body goes to use the “head” without his head going along with his body to tell his body how to move ahead to get there. Given that we are “one spirit” with the Lord (1 Corinthians 6:17), it makes no sense to say that “we” are doing anything independently of Jesus.
Fourth, after Jesus’ resurrection, Mark 16:20 ways that the Lord worked with them, confirming the word with signs following. It does not say that they merely exercised their authority or merely appropriated faith; the Lord took an active role in these signs and wonders.
Fifth, Hebrews 7:25 says that Jesus is able to save to the uttermost people who come to God by Him. The word save is in the present active tense in Greek, and it encompasses the idea of healing. So while it is also biblical to say that we were saved and healed, it has must be technically correct to say that we are being saved and healed in a certain sense. In fact, our souls continue to be “saved” through the Word today according to James 1:21, even though our spirits have been reborn and are perfect forever and do not need to be saved in any additional sense.
James 1:21:
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls.
Sixth, we see that a crippled man was raised up by faith in the name of Jesus (Acts 3:1-16), but then Peter stated later that the work that was done in the name of Jesus was done by Jesus:
Acts 4:10:
Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole.
So what happened? Peter used His authority that Jesus gave His followers, and Jesus backed His name when a believer invoked it. Which leads to the next point.
Seventh, Jesus’ instructions for “the prayer of agreement” where two or three would gather in His name promised that He would be in the midst of them (Matthew 18:18-20). This does not mean that if only two or three people show up to a meeting, Jesus is there, because He is there if only ONE Christian shows up because He lives in that one Christian. Jesus meant that He would be there to make it so. In other words, the people would agree, and He would do it. We can still pray the prayer of agreement today and expect Jesus to actively back His name as He said that He would.
Eighth, Paul indicated that Christ wrought deeds through him.
Romans 15:18-19:
For I will not dare to speak of any of those things which Christ hath not wrought by me, to make the Gentiles obedient, by word and deed,
Through mighty signs and wonders, by the power of the Spirit of God; so that from Jerusalem, and round about unto Illyricum, I have fully preached the gospel of Christ.
Ninth, what Paul said is consistent with what Jesus said about us not being able to do anything without Him:
John 15:5:
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
So when we do things in Jesus’ name, it is still HIM doing things through us, including healing the sick today.
Tenth, James said that the prayer of faith would save (heal) the sick (James 5:14-16). We understand that these sick people are already legally healed by Jesus’ stripes, but obviously God did not think it was technically incorrect to say that the person would get healed after the elders prayed the prayer of faith. So we see that God does not consider it a technical mistake to say that people get healed now even though they “were” healed (legally) by Jesus’ stripes. They get healed in the sense that their covenant right to healing manifests in their bodies.
Eleventh, Paul healed Publius’s father and the remaining ones on the island were healed in Acts 28:8-9. Weren’t they “already” healed by Jesus’ stripes? Yes. But God considers it being healed when this healing is appropriated. It was still Jesus doing the healing through Paul, who could have done nothing without Jesus. We should be Scriptural, but we don’t need to try to get more Scriptural than Scripture!
My conclusion, therefore, is that it is technically incorrect to say that it is technically incorrect to say that Jesus still heals today!