Ep.1037: Is Christianity a Healing Religion?
The how and why of early Christian healing and its place today
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CHAPTERS
Theme Scripture: Luke 6:19
The fountain of youth. The cure for cancer. A magic diet pill. We would all love to have these incredible “miracles” for whatever ails us. When Jesus walked the earth 2,000 years ago he, in a sense, was a life-changing elixir and a source of quick fixes as he healed the masses. Who wouldn’t have wanted to be near him, for wherever he went, godliness, healing and wisdom followed. Fast forward those two thousand years, and even though Jesus is no longer walking the earth as a man, much of Christianity is still claiming and teaching the kind of healing performed by Jesus. Should they be? The Apostles and the early church were able to heal, so maybe we should ask why isn’t everybody doing it? Has something changed regarding Christian miracles and faith healing? If so, what and most importantly why?
The first question to ask is simple: Did Jesus perform “faith healing” miracles? In the Christian “faith healing” environments of today, the role of faith on the part of those seeking healing cannot be understated. The countless thousands walking away from those healing revivals who are still sick or handicapped blame their own lack of faith for their disappointment. So, again, what was Jesus’ expectation from those to be healed? The answer can be shocking. In the vast majority of Jesus’ healing miracles, faith was not ever considered or mentioned. There were several times when Jesus would say to someone, “Your faith has made you whole.” Count those instances and you will find there are only seven or eight of them. Now look at all of the times Jesus “healed them all” and you can estimate there were thousands of those. Jesus healed just because. His healing work was a “grace” healing work, not a faith healing work.
This should begin to raise questions in our minds about the proper method of healing. Jesus was known for healing the masses in the bright light of day, in public places and often in the presence of those who stood against him. Now, you might respond, “Well, that was Jesus, and we are mere followers so it is different!” Is it? Look at who the apostles and disciples healed, where they healed them and how often faith on the part of the healed was mentioned, and you come up with the exact same scenario. Healing was done in public, for the benefit of unbelievers and in plain sight of those who would oppose them. With these biblical facts in mind we need to be asking if this is the Christian faith healing works today?
What is the answer to these important contradictions? Check out our September 3rd 2018 podcast, “Is Christianity a Healing Religion?” for perspective. We not only establish how healing was done in biblical times, but we search out the reasons it was done. We then take a hard look at our environment today to see what is the same as back then and what is different. Christianity IS a healing religion, but it may not be healing in the way so many of us want it to be. Find out for yourself!
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Of course,Christianity is a healing religion. In regards to God’s soon release of His Two Witnesses, God has been preparing these two individuals for their end-time assignment. God will raise up these two individuals from this generation, not bring two people from several thousand years ago. God is in the raising up business. The Lord has always raised up people from their generation to fulfill His purpose.
The Two Witnesses will not just come on the scene and declare that they are the Two Witnesses. Nobody will believe them. However, just like JESUS did, they will begin their ministry with miraculous healings on a number of people. This is what will give them the platform to then declare God’s Message that will get the attention of the masses.
Thank you for your reply. We believe you are quoting from Revelation 11:3: “And I will give power to my two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth.” Revelation is a symbolic book. We interpret this differently, namely that the two witnesses symbolically represent the Old and New Testaments, long clothed in the “sackcloth” of dead languages by direction of the Papacy, gradually “ascended to heaven,” the place of honor and power.
This chapter discusses the two witnesses being kept in sackcloth for 1,260 days (vs. 3) – meaning the truth suppressed from the people. We know from biblical chronology that a day = a year, thus this is a period of 1,260 years. These 1260 years began with the elevation of Papacy (539 AD) and closed in 1799 AD, when the backbone of the Holy Roman Empire was broken by Napoleon. The Peoples’ form of government in France passed laws which outlawed the Bible and religion for three and a half years (3 1/2 symbolic days). The nation even repurposed the Cathedral of Notre Dame as the Temple of Reason. It seemed the Bible was effectively dead.
On February 15, 1798, the French general, Berthier, entered Rome, organized there a Republic, and five days later carried the pope a prisoner to France. (This pope died imprisoned the following year.) From that time until the present, Papal dominion over the kingdoms of earth has been merely a shadow of its former self. Thus the Roman church’s persecuting, civil power was ended. God’s two witnesses (the Old and New Testaments) which had so long been kept from the people – even under penalty of death for possessing or reading a Bible, would finally be available to the people. In the early to mid-1800s, hundreds of thousands of Bibles were published and Bible societies flourished. – Christian Questions
Amen.