If you wish to talk about opinions, please see the other thread which is going on right now. I want to keep this thread to discuss what the BIBLE says about the Word Faith teaching, and why the Bible says it is wrong.
Again, another copy and paste of something I already wrote, coming from a pamphlet called The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospel by Gordon D. Fee. Gordon Fee is one of the top Bible and Greek scholars in the world. He is also Pentecostal, believes in healing and the gifts of the Spirit. But he does NOT believe in the distorted exegesis of the Bible, and how Health and Wealth teachers have twisted the Bible, as evident from so many posts in this thread.
As far as wealth, Gordon Fee doesn't have a kind word to say about it. It is totally a false doctrine. Having met numerous people who were fleeced by these evil men who preach unconditional wealth, it is not Biblical. I will not deal with it here, although if anyone wants to talk about it, in terms of what the Bible says, please feel free to post Bible verses on it. I do not believe in this false prosperity gospel and I would be willing to post the Scriptures that explain why. (I am NOT saying that God doesn't bless us, but again, it is not part of the atonement or the Bible!)
Regarding healing, Fee titles this chapter "The 'Gospel' of Perfect Health." First, he notes that physical and mental healing of human life is part of the redemptive activity of God. He believes in prayer for the sick, as I do! Christians are subject to decay and death in this present age, and healing is God's gracious activity in the body healed and is a sign of the future already at work in this present age.
If healing is supported by both the Bible and theology and praying in faith for the gracious healing of the sick, then where is the problem? What is the "disease" nature of the "gospel" of total health for Christians?
There are basically some biblical and theological distortions which insist:
1. that God wills perfect health and complete healing for every believer
2. that God has obligated Himself to heal every sickness for those who have faith (unless the sickness is a result of breaking God's "health" laws.)
Integral to this theology is the insistence that faith can "claim" such healing from God, and that any failure to be healed is not the fault of God, but of the one who has not had enough faith. Very often "claiming" healing means to "confess" it as done, even though the symptoms persists.
So the answer to why people are not healed, who have faith, has to lie not in the actual words of the Bible or God himself, but in the way the Bible is being interpreted. As with many half-truths, the "gospel" of perfect health sees to base itself on Scripture. However, the evangelists interpretation is faulty for the following reasons:
1. some poor, or flat-out wrong interpretations of key texts
2. some selective use of texts,
3. a failure to have a wholistic biblical view of things, and especially a failure to understand the essential theological framework of the New Testament writers.
As a result, they tend to repeat the Corinthian error and are unable to hear Paul's answers in 1 and 2 Corinthians as over and against themselves, although these evangelists are unwitting descendants of the false apostles of 2 Cor. 10-13!
"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. 8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. 9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." 2 Cor. 12:7-10
Basic hermeneutics demands the following things:
The aim of all biblical interpretation is the "plain meaning" of the text. This is the "original meaning", that the author plainly intended and that the original readers plainly understood. The Bible is indeed a book for all seasons, because it speaks directly out of our past to our present situation, it does so because it first spoke to them in their situation.
Therefore, the first task of interpretation is NOT to find out what it says to us, but what it originally said to them. God's Word to us is not a new word, never before discovered; rather it must be the very same word he originally spoke back there and then. This is the only legitimate Word to be heard in Scripture.
All this must be insisted upon, because the basic Biblical failure of the "perfect health" evangelists is the interpretation of their primary texts. They simply fail to do adequate exegesis which has to do with determining the meaning of the text in original context.
The arguments for perfect health as God's will for all believers are based on three sets of texts
a. Paul's statement that "Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law" Gal 3:14, coupled with Deuteronomy 28:21-22 where disease is one of the curses for disobedience of the law.
"The Lord will make the pestilence stick to you until he has consumed you off the land that you are entering to take possession of it. 22 The Lord will strike you with wasting disease and with fever, inflammation and fiery heat, and with drought and with blight and with mildew. They shall pursue you until you perish." Debt. 28:21-22
It is argued from these texts that sickness is a part of the curse of the law, from which Christ redeemed us from.
b. Isa. 53 and the citation of Isa. 53:4 in Matt 8:17 and Isa. 53:5 in 1 Peter 2:24. It is argued from these texts, especially from the change to the past tense in 1 Peter that healing is in the atonement in the same way as forgiveness. (Something that Undergrace has been ably defending!)
c. A whole host of texts that remind us that God honours faith eg. Matt 9:29, Mark 11:23-24, John 14:12; Hebrews 11:6; James 1:6-8
The first set of texts, (a above) can be quickly set aside. This is a typical example of a totally faulty "concordance" interpretation, which finds English "catch" words in various texts and then tries to make them all refer to the same thing. There is not even the remotest possibility that Paul was referring to the curses of Deuteronomy 28 when he spoke of "curse of the law." And "redemption" in Galatians has to do with one thing only - how does one have right standing with God - through faith (= trust in God's gracious acceptance and forgiveness for sinners), or by works of the law (=acceptance by obedience to prescribed rules)? Thus the Holy Spirit could scarcely have inspired a meaning of the text that is totally foreign to the point Paul is making in the context in Galatians.
It is also questionable whether one can rightly argue that the Bible teaches that healing is provided for in the atonement. Historic Pentecostalism does not see healing provided for in the atonement the same way as salvation. Healing is "provided for" because the "atonement brought release from the consequences of sin;" nevertheless, since "we have not yet received the redemption of our bodies" suffering and death are still our lot until the resurrection.
"Surely he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all." Isa. 53:4-6
While there are many texts that show that our sin has been overcome by Christ's death and resurrection, there is in fact no text that that explicitly says the same thing about healing, not even Isaiah 53 and its NT citations.
Matthew's use of Isa. 53:4 does not even refer to the cross, rather the clearly sees the text being fulfilled in Jesus earthly ministry. This is made certain by both the context and by his choice of Greek verbs in his own unique translation of the Hebrew (ἔλαβεν or elaben = he took; ἐβάστασεν or ebastasen = he removed.)
"ὅπως πληρωθῇ τὸ ῥηθὲν διὰ Ἠσαΐου τοῦ προφήτου λέγοντος· Αὐτὸς τὰς ἀσθενείας ἡμῶν ἔλαβεν καὶ τὰς νόσους ἐβάστασεν." Matt 8:17 Greek
"This was to fulfill what was spoken by the prophet Isaiah: “He took our illnesses and bore our diseases.” Matt 8:17 ESV
The citation of Isa. 53:5 in 1 Peter 2:24 on the other hand, does not refer to physical healing. The usage here is metaphorical, pure and simple! In context, in which slaves are urged to submit to their evil masters - even if it means suffering for it - Peter appeals to the example of Christ, which Christians slaves are to follow.
"He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed." 1 Peter 2:24 ESV
This appeal to Christ, beginning at verse 21, is filling with allusions and to citations of Isa. 53 all of which refers to Christ's having suffered unjustly as the source of the slave's redemption from sin. Thus Peter says:
"He himself bore our wounds" (Isa. 53:12) "that we might die to sin."
"By his wounds you have been healed" (Isa. 53:5) FOR you were as sheep going astray. (Isa. 53:6)
The allusions to both verses 5 and 6, joined by FOR (coordinate Conjunction) and referring to "sheep going astray" plus the change to the past tense, all make it abundantly clear that "healing" here is a metaphor for being restored to health from "the sickness of their sins!"
Such a metaphorical use would be natural for Peter, since sin as "wound" "injury" or "sickness" and the "healing" or such "sickness" are thorough going images in the Old Testament. See 2 Chron. 7:14; Psalm 6:2; Isaiah 1:5-6; Jerem. 30:12-13, 52:8-9; Nahum 3:19)
Furthermore , the Old Testament citations in 1 Peter rather closely follow the Septuagint (LXX or Greek translation of the OT) even when this translation differed from the Hebrew; and the Septuagint had ALREADY translated Isa. 53:4 metaphorically!
"He himself bore our sins" rather than "our sicknesses." I am sure Peter knew both versions and chose the LXX because he knew it was a better version for NT believers and their understanding of Isa. 53:4.
So my point!
Matt clearly saw Isa. 53:4 as referring to physical healing, but as a part of the Messiah's ministry, not the atonement. Peter, conversely, saw the "healing" in Isa. 53 as being metaphorical and thus referring to the healing of our sin sickness. Neither NT reference to healing sees the "healing" in Isa. 53 as referring to physical healing in the atonement.
But what did Isaiah himself intend??
The first reference is certainly metaphorical as the Septuagint, the Targums and Peter recognize. Israel was diseased! She was grievously wounded for her sins (Isa 1:6-7) Yet God would restore his people. There would come one who himself would suffer so as to deliver. Isaiah says of the Messiah "The punishment that brought us peace was upon him and by his wounds we are healed." Since physical disease was clearly recognized as a consequence of the Fall, such a metaphor could also pick up the literal sense and that is what Matthew picked up on.
The Bible therefore does, not explicitly teach that healing is provided for in the atonement. However, the NT does see the cross as the focus of God's redemptive activity.
As far as part c above, ultimately, these rely on a wrong interpretation that healing is part of the atonement. The argument for perfect health, or healing on demand, lies in the joining of healing to the atonement as the basis for demand, and therefore if God has provided for it, he must therefore heal on demand.
Since in fact, there is no connection of the atonement to healing, God is not obligated to provide healing on demand, although I do believe he heals when people pray and it is His will to heal, that he might be glorified.
Jesus has come to save you from your sins. That you can be sure of. God is real. But televangelist, Word Faith prophets, not at all! If you start reading the Bible from cover to cover, over and over yearly or more, you will get a very different theology than these sharks and false prophets paint. I urge everyone to get out a modern translation like ESV or HCSB and read it over and over again. That was part of what helped me heal - just reading the Word of God - in context, and fully! I've read the Bible over 40 times straight through, and most of the NT in Greek and much of the OT in Hebrew. (And the entire bible in French!) I assure you, there is nothing more glorious than feeding on the Word of God. God will minister to you daily as you seek his revealed Word in the Bible, rather than with internet preachers and false prophets.
Here is the verse God gave me that healed my soul in more than one way. It appears in Paul's chapter on justification, and that we all suffer - we live in a fallen world. It has comforted me more times than you can imagine!
"Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, 4 and endurance produces character, and character produces hope,5 and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us." Romans 5:3-5
