Healing: Prayer and Healing for the Sick (James 5:13-18)

My wife and I discovered this when our oldest daughter was only eight months old. One day her neck was limp and she was unable to hold up her head. She was admitted to Children's Hospital in Fort Worth, Texas, where she was placed in traction and hospitalized for two weeks. Excellent orthopedic surgeons examined Tammy's x-rays and concluded that nothing could be done for her. We took Tammy home with the knowledge that she might remain in a neck-brace the rest of her life. It was then that our impassioned prayers touched the throne of God and our daughter was immediately healed by the power of the Lord.

Some teach that healing power was confined to the apostolic age. God has imposed no such limits upon Himself. James recommends that regular church officers, not apostles, should carry out the practice. This implies that the ministry to the sick is not limited to apostles, or even to those with gifts of healing as mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:30. James' counsel has permanent validity in the church. However, this is the only mention of anointing a sick person in the New Testament letters. Since many were healed without anointing, it is apparent that anointing is not required for healing prayer to be effective.

The Lord Will Heal. It is God's power that heals. The prayer, anointing, and the calling on Jesus' name is not a magical rite. It is an opening for God's power to intervene. Alec Motyer speaks of the advance of medical knowledge, and writes, "the discovery of medicines and the perfecting of surgical techniques are without doubt examples of the providential goodness of God. We must be careful lest we over-value the marvelous and the miraculous at the expense of the mundane and the providential."5

Acknowledging God's sovereign hand in bad times and good, our eyes should be on the Lord even when we go to the doctor. If an aspirin works, it is God who makes it work. When a broken bone is set and mended, it is the Lord who causes the healing. Every good gift is from above!

Genuine prayer is always a commitment to the will of God, and it is best expressed in patience as we wait to see what He will do. The unqualified statement that the prayer of faith will save the sick stands alongside many similar affirmations regarding prayer. The Bible makes its prayer promises without qualifications. Jesus said, "I tell you that if two of you on earth agree about anything you ask for, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven" (Matt. 18:19). He also promised His disciples, "I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father" (John 14:13).

These promises are given to increase our confidence in the place of prayer. They tell of an omnipotent God who can do all things, who is so generous that He will not withhold good from us, and who hears every plea. The promises do not allow us to come with a stubborn insistence that we've got it right and our will must be done. We are not to try to whip up a believing spirit or pretend to have it when we do not.

Prayers for healing are qualified by the recognition that God's will is supreme. In the New Testament, for one reason or another, God did not always heal even great people of faith. Paul's thorn in the flesh and the sickness of some of his friends are examples. Our faith must always be in the God whose will is supreme and best. To pray "in Jesus' name" is not an incantation but a submission to His will and authority.

We should pray for the sick with confidence that God will answer that prayer and bring healing. Such faith cannot be manufactured no matter how gifted, insistent, or righteous we are. Our responsibility is to pray and to leave the results with God.

Jesus Christ has placed in the hands of the church the keys of the kingdom (Matt. 16:19). One of these keys will set men and women free from the power and authority of Satan. We need to use this key wisely but resolutely. It will not fit every lock. But the locks it does fit will spring open at the name of Jesus Christ. The authority Jesus had to deliver people from satanic powers has been bequeathed to the church. It may be used wherever and whenever it is appropriate.6

Some have abused and sensationalized healing ministries. Others have abandoned them altogether. Our responsibility is to be faithful to the teaching of God's Word.

1. Lloyd John Ogilvie, Praying with Power (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1983), p. 98.

2. Robert L. Wise, When There is No Miracle (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1977), p. 128.

3. Joni Eareckson Tada and Steve Estes, A Step Further (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, 1978), p. 140.

4. Jack Hay ford, "Healing for Today," Charisma (September, 1984), p. 43.

5. Alec Motyer, The Message of James (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985), p. 192.

6. Michael Harper, The Healings of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1986), p. 51.