In the wilderness sojourn, when the children of Israel came to the bitter pool of Marah, God gave them a promise of His provision. God said, "I am the LORD who heals you" (Ex. 15:26). By saying that, God was showing another facet of His character and nature by revealing a new name: "I am Jehovah Rapha." The word rapha is Hebrew for physician, doctor or healer. God, in effect, was saying, "I am God your Healer. I am the cure of your diseases, the mender of your injuries, the repairer of your physical body." And that is the first reason why we should believe in divine healing—it is in God's nature to heal the sick.


KEY #1: GOD IS OUR HEALER

Consistency is a part of God's character. And God is so consistent and emphatic about divine healing that He repeats Himself on this again and again through the Scriptures. In Deuteronomy 7:15, Moses told the Israelites that diseases do not belong to God's people. He said, "And the LORD will take away from you all sickness, and will afflict you with none of the terrible diseases of Egypt which you have known."

This truth was again repeated in Psalm 105:37, "He also brought them out with silver and gold, and there was none feeble among His tribes." It is worth pondering the fact that the people of God left the bondage of Egypt with silver and gold—wealth and abundance. And none of three million ex-slaves were sickly, frail or weak.

Too often, Charismatic churches are unfairly slammed for being shallow in embracing a "health and wealth" gospel. While unfortunate excesses and abuses have been propagated by a small minority, it doesn't negate the truth that God promises health and wealth to those who walk with Him. Without financial freedom and abundance, how are we going to finance missions and evangelism all over the world? And without good health, how are we going to become effective workers in His harvest field?

Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit. He dwells within you. To the world, your hands are effectively Jesus' hands. Your feet are Jesus' feet. Your mouth is Jesus' mouth. If you are sick all the time, how are you going to provide for your family, excel in life, help the poor and needy, and be a powerful witness for Jesus Christ?

David reiterates God's desire to heal in the book of Psalms:

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's. (Ps. 103:2-5)

There are God-ordained benefits that we must never forget: (1) God is our Savior, (2) our Healer, (3) our Deliverer, and (4) our Provider. He "heals all your diseases" (103:3)! This doesn't mean we will never die. But it does mean that we can age gracefully, staying as strong and as healthy as humanly possible way into our old age.

Critics of divine healing or proponents of the cessation theory would claim that supernatural healing and health were confined only to the Old Testament or Gospel era. Now that we have doctors, hospitals and advanced medical technology, God doesn't find it necessary to heal people supernaturally anymore. To that, my rebuttal is: "If the people of God in the Old Testament, under the old covenant, could have healing, good health and prosperity, how much more we believers of the new covenant. We now have Jesus in our hearts, the Holy Spirit in our lives. We should enjoy healing and good health even more!" Otherwise, how could we qualify the new covenant to be a better covenant than the old (Heb. 8:6)?

KEY #2: JESUS CHRIST DIED FOR OUR PHYSICAL HEALING

Healing is definitely in the atonement. Isaiah 53 is a prophecy foretelling the coming Messiah, Jesus Christ, and the great exchange that would take place through the cross.

Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (Is. 53:4)

In the original Hebrew text, the word "griefs" literally means sicknesses and diseases, while "sorrows" literally means physical pain. Isaiah goes on to say in the next verse that "by His stripes we are healed" (53:5). And in keeping with the context, the word "healed" means to be made well physically in our body.

Four hundred years later, in His first advent, Jesus Himself took away any shadow of doubt concerning healing in the atonement. At Capernaum, after healing Peter's mother-in-law of fever, Jesus delivered those who were demon-possessed by His command. He then "healed all who were sick" (Matt. 8:16). The Scripture immediately reminds us that this is exactly what Isaiah the prophet says Jesus would come to do:

That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: "He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses." (Matt. 8:17)

Christians everywhere would agree that Jesus didn't go to the cross for some, but that He went for all of us. If "our" in verse 17 means all of us can have salvation in a Savior, then "our" must also mean all of us can have healing in a divine Healer. But why aren't all healed? The same reason why not all are saved. Just as salvation is not automatic but a gift you receive by faith, similarly healing is not automatic. You also have to receive it by faith! If you can't believe God for it, you won't get it. It is as simple as that.

KEY #3: JESUS HAD A POWERFUL HEALING MINISTRY

Everywhere Jesus went, He functioned as a Healer. Out of 3,779 verses in the four Gospels, 727 have to do with the healing of physical and mental illnesses. That is a staggering one in every five verses. In other words, one can loosely say that Jesus heals 20 percent of all His ministry time!

Acts 10:38 says, "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him." One fact stands out very clearly in this Scripture: sickness is an oppression of Satan the devil. You have to be very careful not to attribute a disease to God.

I have heard so many ignorant Christians making statements like "God has sent this sickness to teach me a lesson," or "This cancer is a gift from the Lord to bring you closer to Him." God doesn't do that. You must be clear that God heals while the devil afflicts. Healing is from the Lord while sicknesses are from Satan. Only then will you have the confidence and conviction to seek God's divine healing.

Some believers have no doubt about God's omnipotence and ability to heal. However, they struggle with the thought that perhaps God may want them to stay sick. There was a similar situation in the Gospel of Mark when a leper met Jesus:

Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, "If You are willing, You can make me clean." Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, "I am willing; be cleansed." As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed. (Mark 1:40-42)

The leper knew God has the power to heal, but he wasn't sure if God was willing to heal. Without hesitation, Jesus reveals the will of God in regards to sicknesses and diseases. He said, "Of course I am willing, be cleansed from your leprosy." The man was healed.

KEY #4: HEALING IS NOT ALWAYS INSTANT

Like most blessings from God, where the full manifestations may not always be immediate, healing is also not always instant. On certain occasions, even Jesus Himself had to pray more than once for the sick to be healed. A good example was the blind man of Bethsaida (Mark 8:22-25). The 10 lepers who came to Jesus were also not instantly healed. As they walked away from their encounter with the Lord, every step of faith they took brought them a little closer to their miraculous healing (Luke 17:12-14).

In Mark's account of the Great Commission, Jesus promises that when believers lay hands on the sick in His name, the sick "will recover" (Mark 16:18). The fact that He says "they will recover" means that the healing of the sick will be a gradual process most of the time.

In Acts 28, Paul was stranded on the island of Malta. The apostle Paul was hosted by Publius, a community leader on the island. When Paul heard that Publius' father was sick with a fever and dysentery, He laid hands on the elderly man. Instantly, he was healed (28:8). We know for a fact that the healing was totally supernatural because the Greek word used was iaomai, which means exactly that—instant and miraculous recovery. When news of this miracle spread throughout Malta, the people of the island brought the sick to Paul.

So when this was done, the rest of those on the island who had diseases also came and were healed. (Acts 28:9)

This time, the word "healed" in verse 9 is the Greek word therapeuo, where we get the English word "therapy." Unlike iaomai, therapeuo means recovery over a period of time. Apart from Publius' father, the other islanders didn't experience instantaneous healing. What they received was gradual recovery from their illnesses. But one thing was certain: they all experienced good health eventually over time. This leads me to my next point:

KEY #5: GOD USES DOCTORS AND MEDICINE TO CURE SICKNESSES TOO

On the island of Malta, Paul had Luke—a medical doctor himself—with him. It could well be that the healing that came from therapeuo was a mixture of prayer and medication. God is not against doctors. Jesus once commented that "those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick" (Matt. 9:12).

How could God be against medical science when He is, after all, the author of all sciences such as physics, chemistry, biology, pharmacology, etc? God's will is for us to be in good health. In that sense, God and all in the medical profession are on the same team fighting a common enemy.

Even Paul, who had a powerful healing ministry, advised Timothy to take some medicine for his weak stomach (1 Tim. 5:23).

What we need to be careful of, however, is when we elevate doctors to a position higher than God, or when we put our faith in medicine rather than in God. For many Christians, whenever they are sick, the first people they seek are their general practitioners. Only when all forms of medication have failed would they come before the Lord for His divine healing. If God is not the Lord of all—including our health matters—He is not Lord at all. King Asa had this problem. He made his royal physicians his object of faith rather God Himself. When that happened, Asa grieved the Lord.

And in the thirty-ninth year of his reign, Asa became diseased in his feet, and his malady was severe; yet in his disease he did not seek the LORD, but the physicians. (2 Chr. 16:12)