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NASB | Mark 16:17 "These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; |
AMPLIFIED 2015 | Mark 16:17 "These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak in new tongues; |
Subject: Gift of Healing |
Bible Note: Dear ksm, First, let's agree that God is sovereign, since He is (Ps. 115:3). Second, let's please be careful about pursuing any denominational bias, for the sake of the Forum! I'll assume you've aquainted yourself with the Terms of Use and Posting guidelines? Regarding Divine Healing, A.W. Pink said it quite well: "But what of their teaching on "Divine healing?" Is it scriptural or unscriptural? This is a question which it is not easy to answer in a single sentence. Many passages on healing may be cited from God’s Word, but that raises the question of their interpretation—in accord with the context and also in harmony with the general Analogy of Faith: as it also calls for a careful examination of all inferences drawn from and conclusions based upon those passages. Moreover, these modern cults who stress "Divine healing" are by no means uniform in their teaching thereon, some being more radical and extreme than others, so that the refutation of one erroneous presentation of this subject would not hold good of a similar error in an entirely different dress. Though familiar with all the principal varieties of them, we do not propose to waste the reader’s time by taking them up seriatim but rather deal with the broad principles which apply to them all. First it must be said that much of the teaching which has been given out on this subject is decidedly unscriptural. For example, the majority of those who emphasize "Divine healing" insist that it was "in the Atonement," that on the Cross Christ was as truly our sickness-bearer as our sin-bearer, that He purchased healing for the body as well as salvation for the soul, and that therefore every Christian has the same right to appropriate by faith the cure of bodily disorders as he has forgiveness for his transgressions. In support of this contention appeal is made to Christ who "healed all that were sick, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet: Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses" (Matt. 8:16, 17). Here is where the expositor is needed if the unlettered and unstable are to be preserved from jumping to an erroneous conclusion, where the mere sound of the words is likely to convey a wrong impression unless their sense be carefully ascertained—just as, "the dead know not anything" (Eccl. 9:5) is not to be understood absolutely, as though they who have departed this life are in a state of utter unconsciousness. That the interpretation we have given above (briefly suggested by the Puritan, Thomas Goodwin) is the correct meaning of "Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses" appears from several considerations. If those words signified what the "Divine healing" cults say they do, then they mean that in His act of healing the sick Christ was then making atonement, which is absurd on the face of it. Again, if the healing of the body were a redemptive right which faith may humbly but boldly claim, then it necessarily follows that the believer should never die, for every time he fell ill he could plead before God the sacrifice of His Son and claim healing. In such a case, why did not Paul exhort Timothy to exercise faith in the Atonement rather than bid him "use a little wine for his stomach’s sake" (1 Tim. 5:23), and why did he leave Trophimus at "Miletum sick" (2 Tim. 4:20)? A glorified body, as well as soul, is the fruit of Christ’s atonement, but for that the believer has to wait God’s appointed time." Speaking the Truth in Love, BradK |