HEALING

By virtue of man's transgression, death and all its attendant evils, including illness, have become a part of the human experience. It is not surprising, therefore, that "healing" is a biblical theme.

Healing is spoken of in several senses in Scripture. In the inspired Scriptures, many regulations and principles were designed to promote natural healing. The law of Moses has been called "a model of sanitary and hygienic insight." It contains dietary laws and procedures for isolating from infection (cf. Dt. 23:12-13). The Bible encourages mental attitudes that facilitate healing (Psa. 42:11; Prov. 16:24; Jer. 30:12-17). God wants us to be healthy in body and soul (3 Jn. 2).

During those special times when Jehovah used miracles to confirm the revelation of divine truth, healing was supernaturally effected. Jesus healed blindness (Jn. 9:1ff), deafness (Mk. 7:31-37), hemorrhaging (Lk. 8:43-48), leprosy (Lk. 17:11-19), and numerous other maladies. Supernatural healing, however, like other miracles, was a temporary phenomenon (see 1 Cor. 13:8ff), and one cannot expect such signs in the modern world. See MIRACLES.

Healing is also part of the body's marvelous design (Psa. 139:14). Even skeptics have marveled at the human body's ability to heal its own wounds and fight disease. Dr. William Beck of Harvard, in a book titled Human Design, described wound healing as "among the most complex and interesting self-regulating processes in physiology." The body's immune system and the work of antibodies continue to defy understanding to this very day.

The Bible also uses the term "healing" in relation to spiritual sicknesses. Jesus spoke of the hardness of heart characteristic of the Jewish leaders of his day, yet they would not come to him for soul healing (Mt. 13:15; Jn. 12:40; cf. Heb. 12:13). It is through Christ's atoning death that we are healed of the disease of sin (Isa. 53:5; 1 Pet. 2:24).

How desperately we need the healing from the Great Physician (Lk. 5:30-32).