Many Christians today are deceived by the false doctrine that they can have faith to be divinely healed of bodily sickness and disease. Alot of them are new believers who lack a solid foundation of sound Biblical teaching and therefore are easy prey for false teaching. Instead of extracting the intended meaning of Scripture by expository preaching verse by verse through a passage, false teachers will select various verses out of unrelated contexts and then combine them to build a convincing case for their doctrine.
One example we will examine comes from the popular verse, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17). These teachers reason that if faith comes by hearing God’s word and the whole Bible is His word then faith comes when we hear whatever God says in the Bible. Next, they will quote two key verses from the Bible to supposedly prove that healing belongs to us.
"When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses" (Matt. 8:16, 17).
"Who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed" (1 Pet. 2:24).
All they need to do now is simply build upon the premise they already established earlier. They will claim that since faith comes by hearing the word and the word says we are healed then we can now have faith to be healed. Because in their own estimation, Isaiah clearly revealed that Christ redeemed us from sickness by bearing it on the Cross and that the stripes He received purchased our healing. It appears to be a closed case for them.
Another one of their tricks begins with reminding us of what the writer of Hebrews declared, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8). They reason that since Christ always remains the same then whatever He has done in the past He still does today; including miraculous healing.
Next, they will point out that many people in Christ’s day were healed by their own faith, “Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.’ And his servant was healed that same hour” (Matt. 8:13), “Then He touched their eyes, saying, ‘According to your faith let it be to you.’ And their eyes were opened” (Matt. 9:29, 30), “Then Jesus answered and said to her, ‘O woman, great is your faith! Let it be to you as you desire.’ And her daughter was healed from that very hour” (Matt. 15:28), “And He said to her, ‘Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace, and be healed of your affliction’” (Mark 5:34). Therefore, they conclude that if people back then were healed by their faith in Him then people today can still be healed by their faith in Him because He is still the same. And just so nobody can argue that faith healing only works for some, they put the final touch on their case by quoting, “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34), “For there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11).
What we have seen are just two examples of how false teachers use the Bible to build a seemingly convincing case for divine healing by faith. Their usual strategy is to lift a verse or two out of context to construct a simple premise. Then it is an easy task for them to reason toward a final conclusion with one or more verses that satisfy the premise.
Faulty premises
When Paul said, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God” (Rom. 10:17), was he revealing to us that faith for anything and everything comes by hearing what God said in the Bible? Was he telling us to find the promise in the Bible and then you can believe God for it? Actually, he had already clarified earlier that he was speaking about his desire for Israel to be saved, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is that they may be saved” (Rom. 10:1). The faith Paul is talking about concerns faith for salvation.
Israel was seeking righteousness through the Law of Moses rather than through faith in Christ (Rom. 10:3-5). Paul then lists a chain of events that must happen if they are to be saved (Rom. 10:13-15). Since they can’t be saved without calling on the name of the Lord, and they can’t call on Him if they do not believe, and they can’t believe in Him without hearing, and they can’t hear without a preacher, and the preacher can’t preach unless he is sent, then the faith Israel needs to be saved comes by hearing, and this hearing comes by the preacher declaring the word of God to them. Paul’s point is that he along with the other apostles had been sent to them so that they would hear and be saved. But they were proving to be the disobedient and gainsaying people Isaiah had prophesied them to be (Rom. 10:21).
Reading Romans 10:17 in the passage where it belongs yields its intended meaning. But none of us has the right to lift it out and make it say that we can get faith for healing by hearing Scriptures on that subject. Paul was simply speaking of the faith Israel needs for salvation that can only come by hearing the gospel preached.
And what the writer of Hebrews meant by his statement, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb. 13:8), can only be learned by reading it in its proper context.
"Remember those who rule over you, who have spoken the word of God to you, whose faith follow, considering the outcome of their conduct. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Do not be carried about with various and strange doctrines. For it is good that the heart be established by grace, not with foods which have not profited those who have been occupied with them" (Heb. 13:7-9).
He is urging his subjects to continue following those who preach sound doctrine that never changes because it originated with the One who never changes. Pharisaical teachers of the law abounded and were trying to turn Christians from dependence upon grace to the dietary doctrines of men. But the writer wanted them to keep following those whose faith is in Christ; whose teaching is consistent with and whose conduct reflects what He taught. Jesus Christ has not changed, therefore His doctrine has not changed either. So then when someone brings a strange doctrine, it is not to be followed. This was the writer’s point.
But false teachers lift this verse from the passage where it belongs and make it refer to the miracles Christ worked rather than to the doctrine He taught. They will say that if He ever healed then He is still healing because He is still the same.
Satisfying the premises
In the first example, the two Scriptures—Matthew 8:16, 17 and First Peter 2:24—were used to claim that bodily healing belongs to us. But, as we will see, these Scriptures declare nothing of the sort.
When Matthew quoted Isaiah who said that Jesus “bore our sicknesses,” he used the Greek word “bastazo” for “bore” which means to “carry in the hands,” “bear what is burdensome,” “sustain, uphold, support.” It occurs 29 times in the New Testament but never once for bearing in a substitutionary manner as Christ bore our sins on the Cross.
Isaiah prophesied that the Messiah would take and bear the sicknesses of the people through His healing ministry in the role of a Servant, not in the role as a Substitute. The message is not that Jesus bore our sicknesses on the Cross, but that although He surely showed Himself to be the Messiah by bearing and taking away the sicknesses of the multitudes through His healing ministry, yet that generation hung Him on the Cross and esteemed Him stricken and smitten of God. They never would have put Him there if they truly believed He was their Messiah that He proved Himself to be.
Other passages in Matthew such as 4:12-16 and 12:14-21 begin with the same statement, “That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying,” and clearly refer to events in the life and earthly ministry of Jesus that fulfilled the quoted prophecy. Bearing sicknesses was also a prophecy He fulfilled during His earthly ministry, not as our Substitute for sickness on the Cross.
When Peter quotes from this same prophecy of Isaiah, he uses the word “anaphero” for “bore” when he said that Jesus “bore our sins.” It means “to carry up or bring up to a higher place,” “to put upon the altar,” “to take upon one’s self.” This word is in fact used in the New Testament for Christ’s substitutionary work in bearing our sins as a sacrificial offering, “so Christ was offered once to bear [anaphero] the sins of many. To those who eagerly wait for Him He will appear a second time, apart from sin, for salvation” (Heb. 9:28).
Peter, therefore, makes it clear that Isaiah’s prophecy of Christ’s substitutionary work on the Cross concerned His bearing of our sins, not our sicknesses. And when he says, “by whose stripes you were healed” (v. 24), his next statement clarifies exactly what he meant, “For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls” (v. 25). It was our relationship with God that was healed, “The chastisement for our peace was upon Him” (Is. 53:5). We were as lost sheep who were enemies of God, but Christ took the punishment necessary to reconcile us back.
In our second example, several verses were cited (Matt.8:13, 9:29, 30, 15:28; Mark 5:34), which supposedly proved that people in Christ’s day used their faith to get the healing they wanted. False teachers represent faith almost as a magic wand used to get whatever is desired.
But these healings that involved the subject’s faith are easily explainable; Jesus healed believers. He primarily healed those who had faith in Him as the Messiah. It is not that these people generated some kind of healing faith that cooperated with Christ in order to get them healed. Their belief was in His identity as the Messiah of Israel and they were saved and healed because of it. And it was because they believed on Him that they knew He was their only hope of being healed.
Hearing you will hear and shall not understand, and seeing you will see and not perceive; for the hearts of this people have grown dull. Their ears are hard of hearing, and their eyes they have closed, lest they should see with their eyes and hear with their ears, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them. Matthew 13:14, 15
Jesus Himself quoted this prophecy of Isaiah who predicted that the people of Israel would not recognize Him as their Messiah. Since they would not see or hear Him for who He was, He would not heal them. Right after this He went to His hometown of Nazareth and did not heal many because they did not believe on Him, “Now He did not do many mighty works there because of their unbelief” (Matt. 13:58).
And concerning these statements, “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34), “For there is no partiality with God” (Rom. 2:11), the contexts deal with ethnic and national issues. Peter was finally convinced that Gentiles could get saved as well as Jews and so concluded that God is impartial with people in regards to nationality. In fact, the very next thing he said was, “But in every nation” (Acts 10:35). And Paul was making a similar point to the Romans. Just before he declared God’s impartiality, he stated his subjects as, “to the Jew first and also to the Greek” (Rom. 2:10). Therefore, God is impartial with people when it comes to salvation, meaning that He saves from out of every tribe, people, tongue, and nation. But it is unfounded to say that He shows no partiality with regards to faith healing; whether or not it will work for everyone. Peter and Paul meant nothing of the sort.
Cleaning up the mess
What we have seen is how a few verses can be isolated from the passages where they belong to build an entire doctrine that is utterly false. And because of these corrupt techniques, many Christians today are deceived about faith healing.
It is faith for salvation that comes by hearing the word of God preached, not faith for healing. And Scripture never declares that healing belongs to anyone, therefore nobody can have faith to be healed. Yet many are convinced otherwise because of false teaching based on faulty premises reached by lifting verses out of their contexts.
Another quick example is when Christ once said to a leper, “I am willing; be cleansed” (Matt. 8:3). False teachers will then claim that it was Christ’s will to heal this man but since He is no respecter of persons then it’s His will to heal all. And of course He is the same forever (Heb. 13:8) so it’s His will to heal all today. But it’s because Christ Himself is the same and never changes that sound doctrine never changes. We simply cannot use this truth for a pretext to claim that Christ still heals the same way today. God most certainly can heal anyone at anytime if He so chooses but this fact alone gives none of us a basis for having a kind of healing faith. We must pray for our healing and put ourselves at His mercy, not make demands based upon supposed promises.
The only reliable safeguard against false doctrine is the knowledge of sound doctrine. I am convinced that any of us who will not consistently study Scripture for ourselves are going to be deceived to some degree. We must work hard at correctly understanding God’s word or we can be caught in the deceivings of false teachers.
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