“Then came the
disciples to Jesus apart, and said, Why could not we cast him out?
“And Jesus said unto them, Because of your
unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard
seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it
shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you~~ (Matt. 17:19, 20).
When the Lord
Jesus sent His disciples into different parts of Palestine, He endued them with
a double power, that of casting out unclean spirits and that of healing all
sickness and all infirmity (Matt. 10:1). He did the same for the seventy who
came back to Him with joy, saying, “Lord, even the spirits are subject unto us
through thy name” (Luke 10:17).On the day of the Transfiguration, while the
Lord was still upon the mountain, a father brought his son who was possessed
with a demon, to His disciples, beseeching them to cast out the evil spirit,
but they could not. When, after Jesus had cured the child, the disciples asked
Him why they had been unable to do it themselves as in other cases, He answered
them,“because of your unbelief.” It was, then, their unbelief, and not the will
of God which had been the cause of their defeat.
In our days
divine healing is very little believed in, because it has almost entirely
disappeared from the Christian Church. One may ask the reason, and here are the
two answers which have been given. The greater number think that miracles, the
gift of healing included, should be limited to the time of the primitive
Church, that their object was to establish the first foundation of
Christianity, but that from that time circumstances have altered. Other
believers say unhesitatingly that if the Church has lost these gifts, it is by
her own fault; it is because she has become worldly that the Spirit acts but
feebly in her; it is because she has not remained in direct and habitual
relation with the full power of the unseen world; but that if she were to see
anew springing up within her men and women who live the life of faith and of
the Holy Spirit, entirely consecrated to their God, she would see again the
manifestation of the same gifts as in former times. Which of these two opinions
coincides the most with the Word of God? Is it by the will of God that the
“gifts of healing” have been suppressed, or is it rather man who is responsible
for it? Is it the will of God that miracles should not take place? Will He in
consequence of this no longer give the faith which produces them?Or again, is
it the Church which has been guilty of lacking faith?
What Saith the
Scripture?
The Bible does
not authorize us, either by the words of the Lord or His apostles, to believe
that the gifts of healing were granted only to the early times of the Church;
on the contrary, the promises which Jesus made to the apostles when He gave
them instructions concerning their mission, shortly before His ascension,
appear to us applicable to all times (Mark 16:15—18). Paul places the gift of
healing among the operations of the Holy Spirit. James gives a precise command
on this matter without any restriction of time. The entire Scriptures declare
that these graces will be granted according to the measure of the Spirit and of
faith. It is also alleged that at the outset of each new dispensation God works
miracles, that it is His ordinary course of action; but it is nothing of the
kind. Think of the people of God in the former dispensation, in the time of
Abraham, all through the life of Moses, in the exodus from Egypt, under Joshua,
in the time of the Judges and of Samuel,
under the reign of David and other godly kings up to Daniel’s time; during more
than a thousand years miracles took place. But, it is said, miracles were much
more necessary in the early days of Christianity than later. But what about the
power of heathenism even in this day,
wherever the Gospel seeks to combat it? It is impossible to admit that miracles
should have been more needful for the heathen in Ephesus (Acts 19:11, 12) than
for the heathen of Africa in the present day. And if we think of th e ignorance
and unbelief which reign even in the midst of the Christian nations, are we not
driven to conclude that there is a need for manifest acts of the power of God
to sustain the testimony of believers and to prove that God is with them?
Besides, among believers themselves, how much of doubt, how much of weakness
there is! How their faith needs to be awakened and stimulated by some evident
proof of the presence of the Lord in their midst. One part of our being
consists of flesh and blood; it is therefore in flesh and blood that God wills
to manifest His presence.
In order to
prove that it is the Church’s unbelief which has lost the gift of healing, let
us see what the Bible says about it. Does it not often put us on our guard
against unbelief, against all which can estrange and turn us from our God? Does
not the history of the Church show us the necessity of these warnings? Does it
not furnish us with numerous examples of backward steps, of world pleasing, in
which faith grew weak in the exact measure in which the spirit of the world
took the upper hand? For such faith is only possible to him who lives in the
world invisible. Until the third century the healings by faith in Christ were
numerous, but in the centuries following they became more infrequent. Do we not
know from the Bible that it is always unbelief which hinders the mighty working
of God?
Oh, that we
could learn to believe in the promises of God! God has not gone back from His
promises; Jesus is still He who heals both soul and body; salvation offers us even now healing and holiness, and
the Holy Spirit is always ready to give us some manifestations of His power.
Even when we ask why this divine power is not more often seen, He answers us:
‘Because of your unbelief” The more we give ourselves to experience personally
sanctification by faith, the more we shall also experience healing by faith.
These two doctrines walk abreast. The more the Spirit of God lives and acts in
the soul of believers, the more will the miracles multiply by which He works in
the body. Thereby the world can recognize what redemption means.
