Divine Healing

I believe in divine healing. I have seen scores of people receive what I believe was a supernatural intervention from God by His grace to touch them and either greatly assist them in a health crisis or, occasionally, miraculously raise them up from a deadly illness. I have also seen even more people, who have received prayer for healing, not get healed by God’s intervention and many die. How do we understand the mystery of divine healing?

Means and Ends

I think understanding means and ends are at least one key to comprehending some of the mystery of divine healing. An end is like a destination. A trip’s end is the place you are headed. The means are the roads that you take to get to your destination. The means of the different roads available on a trip should be ordered to reaching the end—the destination. As you may have experienced, if you choose a road that is not ordered to your destination, you will end up somewhere else. My family will tell you I need help choosing the right roads to get to our ending destination.

With a medical doctor the end is human health. All that a medical doctor should do ought to be ordered to the end of health. The physician has at his/her disposal virtually countless means to the end of health. All of the procedures, medicines and treatments that a doctor prescribes should lead to the end of the patient’s health. However, God is different than a medical doctor.

God’s End and Means

From God’s perspective, the health of the body is ordained to the good of the soul. God has charge of our soul’s health and, therefore, physical health and sickness may be a matter of choice for God. Because God wants our soul’s to be healthy (the end), He may choose either physical health or sickness (the means) for us. We see a striking example of this in 1 Corinthians 11 where Paul notes that a number of the members of the Corinthian church had fallen ill because of their misuse of the Lord’s Table. He let them know that this was a judgment from God in order to restore proper worship within the church. Proper worship, of course, is necessary for spiritual health. Here we see that the end was the health of the soul’s of Christians and the means that God used was sickness.

This, of course, does not answer all of our questions about why some individuals are healed and others are not. However, it does help. We can both pray for physical healing and rest in the knowledge that God has His eye on the greatest good for us and that is our souls’ health.

Okay, I know, I know, I am a bomb thrower. I’m usually writing some sort of controversial or contrarian thing that gives everyone a case of heartburn. Honestly, though, I’m really a nice guy and I’m not antisocial or mean-spirited. Just ask my wife, she knows I’m a sentimental sap. But, on the other hand I passionately dislike noodle-headed clichés that misrepresent the Lord. So, get ready, here comes another contrarian insight from medieval Christian theology…take a deep breath and get out the antacids.

Cliché: “You took the fall and thought of me....above all”

A contemporary worship song called “Above All” has the lyric, “Crucified laid behind a stone you lived to die rejected and alone like a rose trampled on the ground you took the fall and thought of me above all.” Actually the song stays on track theologically until it gets to the part where on the cross Jesus thought of me (you) “above all.” Wow, this is the height of contemporary narcissism. “Why?” you ask. For starters, the Bible clearly says that Jesus “for the joy set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” Heb 12:2. Let me state that again—“for the joy set before him.” In case you are wondering, this is referring to His heavenly Trinitarian glory with the holy angels. Jesus was not thinking of me “above all.” That’s noodle-headed nonsense. But, if what I am writing upsets you, better get ready for the next thought--more antacids, please.

Reality Check: God Cares More about Proper Order than You!

Here is a dose of medieval theology from St. Thomas:

“Moreover, any agent intending an end is more concerned about what is nearer to the ultimate end, because this nearer thing is also an end for other things. Now, the ultimate end of the divine will is His goodness, and the nearest thing to this latter, among created things, is the good of the order of the whole universe…Thus, among created things, what God cares for most is the order of the universe.” SCG III, Pt. 1, 64, 10.

What Thomas is saying is that God cares most about His divine goodness. Second to His goodness, God cares most about the order of the universe as a whole. Now the reason for this is that: 1) God is a God of order (1 Cor. 14:33); and 2) He is moving all things in the universe to a final end—which is blessedness in communion with Himself. If He didn’t care more about the order of the universe than He cares about me, then there would be no justice—therefore, no cross. Also, if God cared more about me than the order of the universe then He could not justly reward me for doing well or punish me for doing wrong. Justice springs from proper order—also known as Providence.

The bottom line is Jesus on the cross wasn’t thinking about me “above all.” Topmost upon the mind of Christ was God’s goodness and next was the order of the universe which He reestablished with His sacrificial death.

Some years ago, the cartoon Peanuts pictured Charlie Brown taking Snoopy a dinner on Thanksgiving Day. But it was just his usual dog food in a bowl. Snoopy took one look at the dog food and said, “This isn’t fair. The rest of the world today is eating turkey with all the trimmings and all I get is dog food.” “Because I’m a dog,” he said, “all I get is dog food.” He stood there and stared at his food for a moment and said, “I guess it could be worse. I could be the turkey.”

Snoopy got happier by being grateful. Gratitude is the key to a happy life. I know this to be true from personal experience and from hundreds of pastoral counseling sessions.

One of the most amazing books I have ever read is George S. Pransky’s, Ph.D book “Divorce Is Not the Answer: A Change of Heart Will Save Your Marriage.” Dr. Pransky makes the case that negative emotions like gloom and doom have no life of their own. They are moods generated by thoughts. When a thought is not in your mind, it does not exist. He says, “Negative emotions only rear their ugly heads when we are in a troubled state of mind.” “Emotions are born of thought. Sadness only exists in our lives when we think sad thoughts.” Therefore, Pransky suggests that a person cultivate the “golden emotion” of gratitude by thinking high-toned, contented thoughts of appreciation. Each one of us has an “it” in our lives. An “it” is a person, event or object that makes things difficult. We have a choice to be annoyed by the “it” or we can decide to appreciate “it.” Here is the spectrum of what can happen to your life depending on the choices you make regarding annoyance or appreciation of your “its”:

The Experience--------------The Life I Experience

Galled by it----------------Ulcers and nervous disorders

Bothered by it-------------An emotional roller coaster

Irritated by it--------------A stressful existence

Interested in it-------------A lighthearted, interesting life

Appreciating it------------A high-toned, contented life

Enjoying it-----------------A contagious happiness

Thrilled about it-----------An exuberant, inspired life

This Thanksgiving, choose to be thankful and not the turkey.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV) give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

If you are a Protestant that believes in the Bible (not all do), then you are probably used to thinking and saying that Catholics aren’t necessarily Christians and they believe in some “strange” things like Papal infallibility and Purgatory. I certainly have thought and said such things. However, in my humble opinion, Catholics have some things right. The following is one.

There is actually a reason to go to church

For Catholics the most important reason to go to church is the sacramental presence of Christ. Protestants may scoff at transubstantiation (the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist—communion); but, it reinforces the mystery, dignity and power of the presence of the Risen Lord in the midst of His gathered people, the church. Catholics actually believe that when they attend mass and receive the sacrament of communion, they are really receiving grace from above. They even go so far as to believe that they need the grace that God gives at church. God supplies a measure of this living grace through the communion of Christ with His body the church. Can you imagine that, a real reason to go to church?

Evangelical extinction

In my unscientific survey of Evangelical Christians, there are more and more that think that there is no real reason to go to church. Heck, they say, I can stay home and just do my devotions, pray a little and head to the beach. Or, they say, I can watch some TV preacher who is a great communicator and get a whole lot more out of that then when I go to some dingbat church with a less-than-professional pastor. And now we have iPod—who needs some church full of hypocrites.

Well, my fear is that Evangelicals have failed to show Christians how relevant and important church is to one’s spiritual well-being. Consequently, we may be just one or two generations away from extinction. You don’t have to believe in transubstantiation to recognize that Christ is present in a powerful and special way when his body gathers for worship, word and communion. Christ never intended believers to live in isolation from His body and, in fact, it is exceptionally unhealthy for believers to make church attendance a low priority. My thought is that what one generation tolerates the next generation advocates. If this generation tolerates a loosey-goosey attitude toward church; I guarantee the next generation will find no compelling reason to darken the doorway of a local church.

As a pastor, if you really want to get on the hot-seat do what I did a few months ago. I did a Sunday service without a sermon; instead I just took questions from the congregation and tried to answer them. It went well except I got the dreaded question. It came from a nice pre-teen girl. The question was, “Will my doggie go to heaven?” Trying to answer this question honestly is a classic no-win situation. The answer is no! Fluffy will not go to heaven. But somehow you have to answer the question in such a way that parents and kids don’t all decide to leave the church in a big huff. Better to stick with the sermon.

Here is why Fluffy is not going to heaven. Humans have immortal souls, animals do not. Animals have sensate souls. The fact that you can understand what I am writing is proof that you have an immortal soul. You can abstract concepts from real things. The words you are reading are simply black and white marks on your computer screen; but you have conceptualized real objects from the environment, stripped them of all materiality and formed them in your mind. You carry these concepts (abstractions) around in your mind as words—like “dog.” Your ability to do this is a completely immaterial process. This ability is what makes it possible for you to have free choice. Free choice is simply your ability to compare and contrast possible means (conceptualized options) to a particular end and then choose one means to the end over another. You can actually violate your natural instincts using the power of free choice. You could choose to starve yourself to death. Animals cannot do this because they cannot fully immaterialize, conceptualize and abstract ideas. If animals could do this we would hold them responsible for their actions and, also, we would be in a heap of trouble because they could then plan how to catch us and eat us for lunch.

The bottom line is this; Fluffy is not going to heaven. Heaven is for intellectual creatures who can make moral choices and who have immortal souls—angels and mankind. Also, Fluffy is not going to hell. Hell is for intellectual creatures who can make moral choices and who have immortal souls—angels and mankind.