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This is one of the questions that come to the hearts of many Christians today. Does God always heal? To many the answer is yes and if you are not healed it is because you didn't have enough faith. This belief often brings bewilderment and discouragement to those who struggle to be healed and don't receive their healing. They are not only sick but suffer condemnation from others and self-blame for not being healed.

Often this self blame is compounded by those that have prayed for them by assuring them that it is their own fault by not confessing to everyone that they are healed even if the sickness is still there. They are told that if they will only confess that they are healed that the sickness will soon leave. When this doesn't happen all that person has is sickness and an empty feeling inside because of their apparent failure to reach the standard of faith that they are told they should have. Not only being sick they have told everyone that they were healed, now to their embarrassment they have to face everyone that they had confessed their healing to.

Those that teach that you should be healed believe that it is a promise from God and that a person can stand on the Word of God and be healed. They believe that it is a promise from God in the same way that salvation is promised to all that come to Jesus and believe. It is their belief that Jesus accomplished this finished work on the Cross.

Before we get to the scriptures that they use to try and prove that we are already healed I would like to bring us into thought on the subject of finished work. If healing was accomplished on the Cross then it is already a finished work such as redemption, justification, forgiveness, imputed righteousness and eternal life. In order to receive eternal life all I have to do is receive Christ to get it. I believe the Gospel and I call on him, when he comes into my heart I am forgiven and saved. Question? Do I then have to understand and believe as a separate work for my justification or did it happen the moment I was born again. Think about this carefully? Do I have to be taught how to believe for justification and go to classes on it and then begin to practice my faith in it and confess it before I am justified? Or am I justified the minute I received Christ as my savior? Justification is a finished work and I received it the second I was born again. The truth is that I don't have to know anything about justification or exercise faith for it or anything else. I have it without any foreknowledge of it, when I come to Jesus by faith I have it. It is mine then and there and I don't have to try and build my faith in order to receive it. Justification comes in the package with Jesus; it is a free gift.

This is how a finished work is; it comes with the package of salvation with Jesus. Since this is the way a finished work comes then if we were already healed we would be healed instantly the minute we get saved. This has happened in some cases but it is certainly not the normal procedure. I have known of many people that were sick in hospitals that received Christ before they died yet were not healed. If it were a finished work it would happen automatically when a person receives Christ whether they know anything about healing or not. This is Biblical principle when it comes to understanding something that is included in a finished work. Because of this fact alone it should be proof enough that the teaching that we are already healed is a false understanding concerning Christ and his finished work on the Cross.

They back this belief with scriptures from Isaiah 53. According to the Word of Faith movement verse 4 of this chapter is saying that Jesus bore or carried our sickness and sorrow to the cross. It was there that he came down with every illness that was known to mankind and died on the cross to obtain our healing. If this were the meaning of this scripture I would be glad to accept it but this scripture definitely does not mean this at all. We get the meaning of this scripture not from your commentary or some preacher's opinion but from Matthew himself a disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ. In the 8^th chapter of Matthew we find that the first part of verse 4 pertaining to the lord carrying sickness and sorrow was fulfilled sometime before Jesus ever went to cross. Let's read what Matthew said.
Matthew 8:16: When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick:
17: That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.

The word fulfilled means that it happened as the scriptures had said and this was the end of it. We do not need another meaning for this scripture. To understand the whole verse let's look at it again.
4: Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted.

What this is saying is that Jesus came to Israel and healed the sick and took away their disease and that by doing so he took away their sorrows that accompany sickness. The prophet Isaiah was describing what the Messiah would be like when he came and what he would do. In other words how the children of Israel would be able to recognize him when he came. Isaiah 53 verse 4 explained that they would be able to recognize him because he would heal all the sick and take away their sorrows. This he did and according to Matthew proved beyond a shadow of doubt that Jesus was the Messiah to come. The last part of this verse is telling us that in spite of the love and mercy he showed toward Israel by healing so many they still believed that Jesus was a false prophet and should die on the cross for blasphemy. Even though he had worked all of these wonderful miracles they still said crucify him and made remarks such as physician heal thy self. If you are the Son of God deliver yourself from the cross. They believed that Jesus was getting the justice that God wanted him to have.

So verse 4 of Isaiah 53 does not mean what the Word of Faith people believe and teach. They go on to the next verse that says:
5: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.

Because they assumed that they were right on verse 4 they also assumed that this verse only verifies what they already believed. By his stripes we are healed. He went to the cross to take our punishments for our sins. You see the chastisement of our peace was upon him. He was bruised because of our sins. Is it a sin to be sick? Some of the Word of Faith people seems to think so. But is sickness a sin? Has God ever punished the sick because they were sick? You see there has never been a punishment for being sick. Why would Jesus have to suffer the beatings that he took for sickness if sickness carried no punishment? The stripes on his back from the whip were for our sins not for our sicknesses. In Deuteronomy 25: 1-3 we find the reason Jesus suffered stripes. The Law of Moses required that a person that was found guilty of being wicked must be beaten with stripes, not to exceed forty. Jesus was found guilty by the Law for being wicked and suffered for the worst kind of wickedness for all of mankind.

Jesus never had to go to the cross to give us healing of the body. God had been healing sickness and disease all the way from the beginning of mankind. We see all kinds of accounts of this in the Old Testament; some were even raised from the dead by the prophets. God has always had the ability to heal us at his own discretion and still has the right to do this without Jesus going to the cross. The thing that separated us from God was not sickness but it was sin. It was necessary for Jesus to die for our sins on the cross, but not for sickness.

"With his stripes we are healed" is speaking of being healed from the disease of the soul called sin.
Mark 2:17: When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
In this scripture Jesus is referring to the sinner being sick in sin and needing to be healed through repentance. When we were born again we were healed from the power of sin. In the book of Psalms David prayed for God to heal his soul.
Psalms 41:4: I said, LORD, be merciful unto me: heal my soul; for I have sinned against thee.

Going back to Isaiah 53 and continuing with the 6^th verse we see by the context that it was sin that was the problem not sickness. Isaiah is explaining the reason for the cross. Notice what he says and does not say. He says that we were like sheep that had gone astray but he did not say that we were sick. He says that our iniquities were laid on him, it he does not say that our sicknesses were laid on him.
6: All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all..

Does God still heal? Absolutely he has never changed but we must ask him for it. It isn't something that we can claim because it has already happened. But it is given out of his love for us when we are in trouble. Remember he was already in the healing business long before he went to the cross.

What is wrong with believing that we are already healed? This doctrine promotes people to act like Job's comforters toward the sick. They say things like, all you have to do is confess it. If someone doesn't confess to being healed when he or she says they are sick they are accused of a lack of faith and are criticized rather than cared for and comforted. If someone dies from sickness in a family the family members feel responsible because they didn't say it right or claim it or didn't have the faith. If we are responsible for someone's life because of not saying it right then I guess we would be murderers as well, right? Wrong, God has not already healed us and the healing power is in his hands not ours. God still does according to his good pleasure no matter what we may attempt to claim or do. To teach that we are already healed because of the cross is a false doctrine and lays many hurtful burdens upon the sick. We shouldn't teach it, don't be a false prophet.

The fruit of the spirit is not found in this teaching. The fruit of the true spirit of God is found in loving kindness and comfort toward the sick, not condemnation and blame. This is the very thing that woke me up concerning this teaching. I have seen it with my own eyes over and over again. This is the very thing that caused me to search it out to find the truth for myself and I have. The false teachings of the Word of Faith movement not only condemn the sick but condemn the poor as well. Believe me when I say that if we do this to the sick and the poor we are touching a very important issue with the Lord and could provoke his anger toward us for it.

The evil that is found in this teaching is that it robs a sick persons faith in God's love for them while they are still sick wondering what is wrong with themselves. The Word of Faith teaching is a thief and a robber. It protects the minister but does not protect the victim and I do mean victim, not patient. Since they teach that you are already healed you must confess it to be healed. If you confess it and you are still not healed they say that you just don't have enough faith. If you say you have faith and don't confess it then they say that you didn't confess it. The blame is always placed on the shoulders of the person that is sick. Now faith healing turns into blame.

A modern day faith healer teaches you that you must say that you are healed in order for you to receive your healing. He then forms a prayer line and prays for the sick. Then he asks everyone if they had received their healing, duh? He just told them that in order to receive it they had to say that they were healed so the congregation watching this assumes that they must have all been healed. The Preacher is always protected. People hear of some of these people not being healed and they are accused of losing their healing. It is a no-lose situation for the ministers themselves they can always say that you didn't have faith, it is never that they didn't tell you the truth. One minister says, "Well it ain't God's fault that you didn't get healed." This shifts the eye from blaming the minister to saying that a person that was not healed is accusing God. The people that teach this stuff are nothing more than con-artist and very talented indeed. Their false teachings does not change the fact that God does heal today, he changes not. But it is not accomplished through formulas, the tongue, the lips, or your hands but only through calling on a God that loves you. If it doesn't happen we still trust him for his love for us.

Your Brother in Christ,
Tommie Spurgeon

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