Jesus performed more miracles of physical healing more than any other type of miracle He did. While there are numerous cases throughout the Old Testament, this was a particular detail that would pertain to the Messiah. When Jesus came to his hometown of Nazareth, He read from the scroll of Isaiah in how the lame would walk, the deaf would hear and the captives will be set free. He then said that this prophecy was fulfilled in their hearing of it. I only have time and space to give a snapshot of the healing miracles Jesus did, so I’ll address them by the types of physical ailments He healed.
A woman had a bleeding problem, in which for 12 years she sought all the doctors she could find only to have no solution. She heard of Jesus and was so desperate she knew she just needed to touch the hem of His garment and she’d be healed. And she was.
A man laid crippled, since birth, by the Pool of Bethesda. Jesus simply asked if he wanted to be made well and at a command, the cripple got up, took up his mat, and walked.
A man born blind begged at a street corner and Jesus healed him. Jesus was the first person recorded in Scripture to heal blind eyes. To the Jews, this was no ordinary miracle.
In one instance, Jesus healed ten lepers. He sent them to the priest to be washed, yet only one of the ten returned to thank Jesus for healing them.
This is just a snapshot. In several places, Jesus only healed a single person when a crowd sought healing (like at the Pool of Bethesda). But there were many other instances where Jesus healed the whole crowd. In some cases, Jesus healed out of compassion. There are other cases where Jesus did not heal because of unbelief. At a cursory glance, there seemed to be no formal standard for when Jesus healed many or when He healed only a few, however we do know that Jesus only healed when He sensed the power of God to do it and when He had permission to heal.
Healings took place outside the Gospel writings too. One of the most famous accounts was when Elisha healed the Syrian general, Naaman, from leprosy, requiring of him to bathe seven times in the Jordan River. The apostle Peter healed a cripple at the Beautiful Gate near the Temple. Paul was bit by a viper and suffered no effects. God demonstrated repeatedly that He has mastery over physical health.
Healing miracles didn’t stop in the New Testament. I have personally seen numerous cases of physical healings, and one of them was me. When I was four months old, I was dying and doctors had no clue why. All they could say was to pray, and my parents and my church prayed. My life was spared, and to this day no one really knows what happened.
My brother suffered a massive hearing loss as a child. He could not hear consonants, and when we’d run the vacuum cleaner, he’d put his hands on it to feel the vibrations. My parents received a doctor’s report on it after church (our family physicians were also church elders) and a family in my church overheard it and spent the afternoon fasting and praying. The next day, my mom got out the vacuum cleaner and my brother ran out of the house screaming because the noise was too intense for him. He had been healed. He was four years old at the time.
I was at a retreat about ten years ago up in the mountains in Colorado. A girl at the retreat was in absolute agony due to walking up and down the hills with a bad knee. She was in prep for her seventh knee surgery later that summer. Some friends prayed for her the last night of the retreat, and she started weeping and jumping for joy. Her knee was healed. God still heals today.
But God doesn’t heal everyone. In the last few years, my church has lost a few people to a sickness we believe God would heal, but it didn’t come in this life. One was five-year-old girl who had a heart problem. She was on a transplant list and she did get a new heart, however the old heart had done too much damage and this illness took her life. Just a couple months ago, a woman, whom I’ve spoken about a few times on this blog, passed away after her third battle with cancer. She had it beat emotionally and spiritually, but it took its toll on her body and she passed away in victory.
My pastor described an incident a number of years ago when he was the worship leader at a revival meeting in the panhandle of Texas. The speaker had a healing ministry (not the kind that you see on TV which are fake), and God was healing people through him left and right. But there was an older man who had stage 4 cancer waiting at the end. He came forward to be healed and everyone in the crowd knew what this man was dealing with and they were expecting a “grand finale.” The minister held the man’s hands and simply stood there for about five minutes. In the end, he said something like, “God is with you. Go in peace.” The man wasn’t healed. My pastor understood precisely what was happening. The minister was not there to do a show nor to get attention. He sought the will of God on each person and God was making a statement that He wasn’t doing stuff for a show. Jesus refused to perform miracles at the whim or will of the people. That is what was happening here.
God does not choose to heal or not to heal on any arbitrary basis. It may seem like that to us, but God has the entire picture in mind. He knows the beginning from the end, and He knows the “would be” scenarios. He never takes a life out of spite. When it’s time, He says it’s time. Sometimes it’s out of mercy. Sometimes it’s out of judgment. Sometimes it’s little more than, “You’ve done all you can do for Me here on earth. Why not just come home to Me?” We don’t know, but God does.
The skeptics will ask us if we trust God over medicine. They always cite the cases of people who turn to prayer instead of a doctor. Many of these cases are being presumptuous of God rather than seeking God out; those are not viable counter-examples. God gave us medicine, but wouldn’t it be best to seek the advice of the Master Physician before going to choose a pill to take care of our ailments? God may often tell us to go see a doctor. The woman who passed away from her third battle with cancer did and every time she was at the hospital, both the nurses and the other patients in her ward got to hear and witness the life of Christ flowing through her. But in other cases, God may tell us to go to the doctors so He could showcase that He knows more than they do.
Seek the Master Physician first. He’ll tell you want He wants you to do, and should He heal, He will do so. Should He not, let us be at peace that He is still in control. When I was diagnosed with degenerative myopia in my eyes, I was at serious risk of going blind, especially if I took a blow to the head. My parents and those around me panicked. I didn’t. I knew that if God needed me to be blind, He’d let it happen so He could use me. It didn’t happen and my eyes stabilized, but God is still in control. Trust Him. He knows what He’s doing. And for those who have been born again, we await the day when we will receive a new body that is finally free from the corruption of sin and death. That will be a glorious day.
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