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DOCTRINE OF HEALING

A. During the First Advent, healing was used to verify and establish the fact that the Messiah had come to Israel. Healing was not used to alleviate suffering, but to present the Messiah.

B. There is no “healing in the atonement.” That is a false satanic doctrine. “Healing in the atonement” would imply lack of eternal security: a sick Christian would be a lost Christian.

C. God often provides illness as a means of divine discipline, 1 Cor 11:30.

D. Good health is not a sign of spirituality or salvation. Beware of judging those who have lost their health.

E. In the pre-Canon period of the Church Age, God the Holy Spirit sovereignly bestowed a temporary gift of healing on certain men to establish their credentials as apostles and other communicators of doctrine. Healing established the man as from God. 1 Cor 12:11.

F. All temporary spiritual gifts were designed to take up the slack in the Church Age until the Canon was completed and circulated.

G. However, once the Bible was completed (96 AD), all temporary gifts were withdrawn to be replaced by doctrine.

H. Certain gifts, such as miracles and healing, were no longer necessary to establish the authority of Bible teachers and doctrinal communication.

I. Temporary gifts include prophecy, miracles, apostleship, healing, tongues, and interpretation of tongues. Tongues ended after 70 AD, since it was a sign to warn the Jews of the coming fifth cycle of discipline as prophesied in Isa 28.

J. Since healing was designed as a credit card rather than to alleviate suffering, it was always removed once the authority of the communicator was established.

K. For example, Paul in Acts 19:11-12 cf Phil 2:27; 2 Tim 4:20 when he could no longer heal his close friends.

L. God can always heal anyone, but healing is not the order of the day in this stage of the angelic conflict. God never heals through an individual, only through prayer. Those who allege they can heal are totally evil. Healing will be the order of the day again in the Tribulation.

M. No human being has any gift related to healing now that the Canon has been completed. However, in our Lord’s day Jesus performed acts of healing to focus attention on Himself as the God-Man, the Messiah, and the God of Israel.

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R. B. Thieme, Jr. Bible Ministries 5139 West Alabama, Houston, Texas 77056 (713) 621-3740

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