Why Doesn't God Always Heal?

Have you ever been discouraged by the fact that God does not always heal us in this life? Or that, though we may experience the miracle of healing, the illness could return or another illness could follow? I'd like us to turn to Psalm 103. Let's turn to Psalm 103. We're going to read verses 2 through 5.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

So what does this, "heals all your diseases," mean? I mean, it seems obvious, but was the statement all-inclusive? Did it mean that God will heal or that God can heal every kind of disease? Is it poetic hyperbole? Is it a platitude? Who is doing the claiming, and do we believe the claim is a fact? After all, God has claimed not to be a liar, and we can be reminded of this in Titus chapter 1. Let's actually look at it, because it's really, really clear. You can't, you can't worm your way around what it's saying.

Titus 1, verse 1. Paul, a bondservant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, according to the faith of God's elect and the acknowledgment of the truth which accords with godliness, verse 2, in hope of eternal life which God, who cannot lie (not "will not," He can't), God, who cannot lie, promised before time began.

See, you and I may have actually witnessed a healing or two in our lives, whether related to the common cold or maybe even as exemplified in the Bible with the unexplainable. And here is what I mean by "unexplainable." Christ healed instantaneously those who would never have recovered from leprosy, lameness, deafness, muteness, and even death. He raised them up. The apostles and prophets also called upon the name of the Lord to perform such healings. These types of healings could not be explained by anything known in the physical realm.

Even when Naaman expected Elisha to call on God, and instead was told to dip seven times in the Jordan, the healing was instant and miraculous after he washed for the seventh time. It wasn't gradual.

But though you and I may have seen or experienced some healings, how many times in our lives has healing seemed either a long, drawn-out process or simply unfulfilled? After all, we believed. We believed God. He can heal. We relied on God to heal. We followed the example of anointing, which is given to us in the New Testament. So why don't we seem to receive often the miraculous, instantaneous healings so clearly featured in the Bible? As one Christian speaking to fellow saints, let me suggest we might, might be missing an opportunity to see just how much healing we actually do experience.

Let's look into what a couple of respected commentaries offer to explain what we just read in Psalm 103, verse 3. It's not to draw a conclusion on the accuracy of their explanation, these are commentators, but to see if that explanation has merit as we go forward, whether it applies as perfectly to the Scripture itself, or whether it fits where we're going.

Expositor's Bible Commentary reads: The forgiveness of sins, also known as guilt, is God's gracious act of removing the consequences of sin as well as the sin itself. It is synonymous with "heals all your diseases." The, quote, "diseases" may be forms of sickness, but more likely, (this is where they put in their opinion), it is a metaphor of adversities or setbacks, similar to punishment, what we would call sins.

John Gill's Exposition of the Bible (he used the King James Version): who healeth all thy diseases; not bodily ones, though the Lord is the physician of the bodies as well as the souls of men, and sometimes heals the diseases of soul and body at once, as in the case of the paralytic man in the gospel; but spiritual diseases, or soul maladies, are here meant; the same with iniquities in the preceding clause: sin is a natural, hereditary, epidemical, nauseous, and mortal disease. (He's a very loquacious commentary dude. And now I lost my place.) And there are many of them, a complication of them. (I have complications on my watch. That's their applications that make my watch do way more than tell the time.) Complications of them in men, which God only can cure; and He heals them by His word, by means of the gospel, preaching peace, pardon, and righteousness by Christ; by the blood, wounds, and stripes of His Son; by the application of pardoning grace and mercy; for healing diseases and forgiving iniquities … fully and infallibly, and for which thanks are due unto Him; and it would be very ungrateful, and justly resented, should they not be returned to Him.

So they've given you an indication of something that's beyond the physical. The New Testament, in the book of James, also clearly supports the validity of the statements made in Psalm 103. Let's go to James, James chapter 5, and we'll start in verse 14. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. Verse 15, And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.

So, forgives all our iniquities, heals all our diseases. There's some relationship there.

Just a quick reminder of the state of the human heart before we go on. We've got to remember this part. Let's turn to Jeremiah 17, verse 9. Jeremiah 17, verse 9. This is from the New King James, which I normally share. The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked; who can know it? Focus on that "desperately wicked" part. The Green’s Literal Translation, LITV, reads: The heart is deceitful above all things, and it is incurable; who can know it? The English Standard Version, a more modern translation: The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

Those words that differ from one another are from the same word, anash, Hebrew H605, A-N-A-S-H, pronounced anash. A primitive root; to be frail, feeble, or, figuratively, melancholy; desperate, and then they put in parentheses to make that "desperately wicked"; incurable, sick, woeful. So you see here an association. In the New King James Version, they kind of use a word that, you could say, that's true, humans are wicked apart from God. But the actual word used in that particular scripture is to represent how it's diseased. It's got a sickness, and it's an incurable, physically incurable disease.

So, prefacing my upcoming suggestion, I think it important to recall the nature of the Old Covenant as compared to the New Covenant, just in general terms, very general. God's promise to Israel was physical health, wealth, and prosperity for obedience. But the writer of Hebrews says the New Covenant is based upon better promises. And in Hebrews 8, verse 6, is where we can read about that. Hebrews 8, verse 6. But now He (that's Jesus) has obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises. You know, you might think right off the bat, well, how can you get better than health, wealth, and prosperity?

So I will now make a statement and would like to convince you of the truth of that statement with this amount of time that I have remaining. When we were baptized (if someone's not baptized, this is what they have the opportunity to take advantage of when they give their life to God), we started a lifelong journey by which we are offered miraculous, daily healing, relating to those better promises. You might say to me, "But I went to bed feeling just fine, Kelly, and I woke up feeling just fine. What do you mean by 'daily healing'?" Well, let's first read how Jesus Christ and others associated healing with hearts and minds, to delve into how we can experience miraculous, daily healing.

Let's turn to John chapter 12. We'll start reading in verse 36. Jesus is speaking here. While you have the light, believe in the light, that you may become sons of light. These things Jesus spoke, and departed, and was hidden from them. So then John goes on to explain. But although He had done so many signs before them, they did not believe in Him, that the word of Isaiah the prophet might be fulfilled, which he spoke: Lord, who has believed our report? And to whom has the arm of the LORD been revealed? Therefore they could not believe, because Isaiah said again: He has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts, lest they should see with their eyes, lest they should understand with their hearts and turn, so that I should heal them.

Now, quickly, we need to understand that when our Father sent our Lord Jesus, He intentionally withheld the Spirit of repentance from most who came into contact with Jesus. If you'll remember, we got up to 3,000, you know, at Pentecost. And there were a whole lot more people. There were more people at one of His outings where He fed them, 5,000. So not nearly as many people were converted after His visit to earth.

Even with a covenant full of physical blessings, including healing, blindness and hardened hearts blocked people from receiving those blessings. But a new access to God was made available through the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus, along with an incredible hope.

Let's turn to 2 Corinthians 4. We'll begin in verse 13. And since we have the same spirit of faith, according to what is written (Paul speaking of himself and others with him), "I believed and therefore I spoke," we also believe and therefore speak, knowing that He who raised up the Lord Jesus will also raise us up with Jesus, and will present us with you. (So now he's included all of the church in Corinth.) For all things are for your sakes, that grace, having spread through the many, may cause thanksgiving to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed every Sabbath? How about the holy days? It says day by day, every day.

A person can receive all the physical blessings in the world, but that person can't take those blessings to the grave. So some sort of renewal is possible every day of our converted lives, even though the outward person is still perishing. In the confession of David (and we heard that confession in one of the hymns today), a man who had been gifted with a New Covenant understanding while living in the Old, the perishing man is revealed to rely on God for the cleansing of the inner man, creating in such a one a clean heart, not described anymore as sick or hardened.

Psalm 51, verse 7. There's so many books in Psalms. And then 119 will really throw you off. Psalm 51, starting verse 7. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. (He didn't say, I'll purge myself with hyssop and I'll wash myself clean.) Make me hear joy and gladness, that the bones You have broken may rejoice. Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all my iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Now, David did not lose God's Spirit even when he had sinned. But it did need to be renewed. He needed to be cleansed and get right with God again through repentance, and God forgave him.

The book of Lamentations reiterates God's faithfulness to those who love Him, a faithfulness that also renews every day. So now we're looking at God's perspective towards us. Lamentations 3, verses 21 through 23. I'm just turning there in case anybody else wants to. All right, Lamentations 3, 21 through 23. This I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope. Through the LORD's mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. (And I've needed to learn that in my life, big time.) They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. Count on that, folks. We need it.

So, just as the LORD required obedience for blessings in the Old Covenant, which included healing of physical diseases, the Spirit of God in us empowers us to obey from the heart, that thing that was called sick. God's healing does require our participation in the deepest sense of immersion, or commitment. In other words, if God can renew us every day, our goal should be focused on turning to God daily for renewal and with thanksgiving.

The writer of Psalm 119 expresses it simply, in verse 97: Oh, how I love Your law! It is my meditation all the day. This writer, commonly thought to be King David, meditated on God's way constantly. And so, ideally, ideally, we must also … and act according to God's way constantly.

The Apostle Paul offers a clear contrast between the old man and the new man, the new man being capable of righteousness, not by his own strength, but by the power of God's Holy Spirit. And we can read about that in Ephesians. Ephesians chapter 4, starting verse 17. This I say, therefore, and testify in the Lord, that you should no longer walk as the rest of the Gentiles walk (the Ephesians were Gentiles), in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart (or could we say, their heart being sick); who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness. But you have not so learned Christ, if indeed you have heard Him and have been taught by Him, as the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct (you've been pulled out of that), the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.

He shares similar thoughts with Titus, again revealing the source of our renewal. Let's turn to Titus chapter 3. Titus chapter 3, and we'll read starting in verse 3. For we ourselves were also once foolish, disobedient, deceived, serving various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful and hating one another. But when the kindness and the love of God our Savior toward man appeared, not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and renewing of the Holy Spirit (we're told this over and over and over), which He poured out on us abundantly (not a little bit, abundantly) through Jesus Christ our Savior, that having been justified by His grace we should become heirs according to the hope of eternal life. That's something that wasn't really directly offered in the Old Covenant.

When it comes to physical healing, the converted must realize that it is not always God's will to provide physical healing, but it is always God's will to provide spiritual healing to His called-out ones. Elisha lived under the Old Covenant, but was gifted with God's Holy Spirit, a converted prophet. And though he was faithful to the LORD, he did die of an illness. 2 Kings 13:14 reads, Elisha had become sick with the illness of which he would die. Can't be any clearer than that.

And we can be certain that what happens to our physical health is related to that spiritual healing, meaning any of life's trials, not just those involving health challenges and physical disabilities, but also financial struggles, persecutions, you name it, all can be avenues for daily spiritual healing. When we're going through a trial or a suffering of some kind, He didn't remove that. That was there that day too, this opportunity to be renewed by the Spirit.

So, our sick hearts are the singular issue of God's love and concern. Singular? Why did I say singular? Doesn't He care when He makes us feel better physically? Because every physical healing God grants is temporary. The healed still grow old, and the healed still die, because all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. This is going back to the old man, the old woman, Romans 3:23. But a healed heart and mind can enter eternity because of redemption through Jesus Christ and commitment to the Way by the redeemed. We're the redeemed.

If I were physically blind, I can tell you I would desire to see. If I were physically mute, I would so desire to speak. If I were physically lame, I would so desire to leap. And actually, Jesus granted that to some people. But considering priorities, God so desires that we see all things, communicate all righteousness, and leap into His eternal Kingdom. When we look in the rearview mirror, when we're all the way that way, or should it be this way from the lectern, all the way that way, none of this will matter. None of the struggles we've gone through will matter.

Our physically sick bodies are healed according to a combination of our faith and God's will, as He focuses on our spiritual healing day by day. This is why Jesus said in Matthew 19, "With men this is impossible," referring to entering the Kingdom of God, "but with God all things are possible." God offers us miraculous healing power every day of our lives as we call upon that power in faith to heal our hearts and minds, so that we can run our race to its fulfillment, whatever our physical condition in this life, so that our sick hearts can be made whole.

And as we look forward to the ultimate and otherwise humanly impossible healing, the fulfillment of being changed from flesh to eternal, glorified spirit, if we can believe on that and have hope in that, then let us look for the spiritual healing God offers us every day, and know He will heal concerning any decision, action, and habit, daily. Why? In closing? Yes, I'm closing. Because God is always at the ready to forgive all of our iniquities and heal all of our diseases.