Why Did Jesus and the Apostles Heal?
Acts 3:1-10
Healing is one of those
doctrines there is a lot of confusion about and there is all kinds of teaching
that goes on today about it. When we watch some of the televangelist shows we might
find them somewhat humorous, but for many people it is extremely serious
because they are facing life-threatening diseases and are pushing the panic
button in terms of their disease. They will spend inordinate amounts of money
on anybody who claims they can cure that disease. When people get pushed up
against the wall, back into a corner, they will often react is desperation and
spend a lot of money on all kinds of things in order to be cured. Often these
cures are wrapped in some sort of religious framework, and especially if
somebody is a Christian, and if they have been in an environment all of their
life that has been non-charismatic all of a sudden they will start going to a
charismatic healing service just to see if it might work for them. On the other
hand there are also Christians who pray and pray and pray and pray that God
will heal some sort of health problem they are facing and it doesn’t change,
and so they either become very discouraged and think that God doesn’t listen,
God doesn’t answer prayer, or they begin heap guilt upon themselves that they
are just not praying with enough faith. And so it is not the fact that God
wills for them to live under this type of testing or they think that God is
just not answering their prayers for some reason, or they tend to think it is
all their fault. Healing and health problems can be so challenging for people
just being able to survive and able to live that they often hit the panic
button and will do anything to resolve the situation. So it is important to
think through what the Bible says about healing because there are many people
who are healed in Scripture. Jesus healed many people, the apostles healed many
people, but we have to understand why.
Isaiah 35 follows chapter 34
which deals with the day of the Lord and the judgment upon the nations. Isaiah
34:8 NASB “For the LORD
has a day of vengeance, A year of recompense for the cause of
Isaiah 35:5,
6 NASB “Then the eyes of the blind will be opened And the ears of
the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, And the tongue
of the mute will shout for joy. For waters will break forth in the wilderness
And streams in the Arabah.” Note: “the lame shall leap like a deer.” We will
see an example of that when we come to the New Testament. The context here is
showing that this is evidence that the Messiah has come and that the kingdom
has now been given to
Luke 5:17 NASB
“One day He was teaching; and there were {some} Pharisees and teachers of the
law sitting {there,} who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and
{from} Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was {present} for Him to perform
healing.” That is a remarkable crowd. They have gathered from the north and the
south and from the area around
Luke 5:18 NASB
“And {some} men {were} carrying on a bed a man who was paralyzed; and they were
trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him. [19] But not
finding any {way} to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the
roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle {of
the crowd,} in front of Jesus. [20] Seeing their faith, He said, ‘Friend, your
sins are forgiven you.’” He hasn’t had any discussion with the man on the bed,
so has that man expressed faith? Maybe, we are not sure. Obviously those who were
with him and are bringing him to Jesus have faith, they believe Jesus can heal
him and that is why they are bringing him. But we really don’t know anything
about this man. (Sometimes in Scripture the people who were healed believed
Jesus and are trusting in Him to heal them, and other times they don’t have any
faith, Jesus just comes up and heals them) Here we are not sure about this man.
The text says “their faith,” and that means the ones who let him down through
the roof.
Luke
The event in
Acts chapter three takes place some time after the events of chapter two when
Peter gave that first message on the day of Pentecost. The text is not clear,
it just says “And” or “Now” and is just a continuation of the message of how
Peter and John went up together to the temple. Acts
3:1 NASB “Now Peter and John were going up to the temple at the
ninth {hour,} the hour of prayer.” The verb there in the Greek and the verbs in
the second verse are in the imperfect tense, which indicates continuing action
in past time. One nuance of the imperfect tense is a customary nuance, so this
was their day-to-day custom. This is reinforced in the second verse where the
word “daily” or “every day” shows up, the idea that this was something that
occurred on a day-to-day basis. This is just showing that it was part of the
practice of the early church together at the temple where they would pray. It
was time for prayer, about
Acts 3:2 NASB
“And a man who had been lame from his mother’s womb was being carried along,
whom they used to set down every day at the gate of the temple which is called
Beautiful, in order to beg alms of those who were entering the temple.” The phrase,
“from his mother’s womb.” This the preposition ek
[e)k] plus koilia
[koilia] and it is most literally translated in KJV, NKJV and NASB “from his
mother’s womb.” But in most modern translations it is translated correctly as “from
birth.” It is not talking about a condition that existed in the womb, it is
talking about the beginning of his life which is from birth. This is based on
an Old Testament idiom mibeten—the Hebrew
preposition men, from, and the word “womb,”
beten. In the phrase “from birth”
there are two words: “from” is a preposition and “birth” is the noun object of
the preposition. So the object of the preposition is expressed in a noun. In Hebrew
there is no noun for birth. There is a verb, to be born, but no noun. They had
to use an idiom or circumlocution to go around the meaning to say it, so they
said “from birth.” When we get into passages in Jeremiah and Isaiah where the
prophet talks about being called from his mother’s womb there are those who want
to translate that “in the womb.” It is the same language. It is irritating that
we find these translators now who are consistent in the New Testament translating
things like “the Holy Spirit came upon John the Baptist from birth,” and here they
translate it “from birth,” because these passages aren’t ones that are normally
debated in the abortion debate. So when it is not controversial they translate
it as just what it means: “from birth.” But in those other passages they
translate it “in the womb.” It doesn’t mean “in the womb.”
If in Hebrew
there was a noun for conception there would be vocabulary in Hebrew to express
the phrase “from conception.” So the parameters of life as we see throughout the
Old Testament and New Testament are expressed by the phrase “from birth” and “death.”
We don’t have from conception to death. That is important in terms of the whole
abortion debate that we have today: that life begins at birth, it doesn’t begin
at conception. There is biological life in the womb but there is not soul life in
the womb; the soul is not imparted to the fetus until birth when it became a
full human being. This is the traditional Jewish interpretation. (View: Once
there is conception—unless there is interference or unless God determines
otherwise—it is going to end up being a full human being, and because that is
the normal progress it is not moral or ethical for man to interfere with that
process. That is not to say it is illegal because it was never expressed to be
illegal in the Mosaic Law) So that would mean that abortion wasn’t approved as
something that is moral or ethical but it was not considered murder because in
the Jewish view the soul did not enter into the body until birth.
Acts 3:3 NASB
“When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he {began} asking to
receive alms. [4] But Peter, along with John, fixed his gaze on him and said, ‘Look
at us!’ [5] And he {began} to give them his attention, expecting to receive
something from them.’” Only eight times in the book of Acts is John mentioned,
and he never says anything. He is always in the company of Peter but he never
talks. [6] But Peter said, ‘I do not possess silver and gold, but what I do
have I give to you: In the name of Jesus Christ the Nazarene—walk!’” This is a
legitimate constitutional defect; it isn’t just a psychosomatic problem. He had
never in his entire life walked. [7] “And seizing him by the right hand, he
raised him up; and immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. [8]
With a leap he stood upright and {began} to walk; and he entered the temple
with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” He doesn’t just get up and
walk. Just as Isaiah chapter thirty-five prophesied he is leaping like a deer. People
are astounded because they recognize who he is. [9] “And all the people saw him
walking and praising God; [10] and they were taking note of him as being the
one who used to sit at the Beautiful Gate of the temple to {beg} alms, and they
were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.”
As a result
of that word rapidly spread and people were coming from all over
We have seen
through our study of Scriptures that God healed throughout history. We have
examples of God healing among the wilderness generation when they were bitten
by serpents and God instructed Moses to make a bronze image of a serpent and to
hold it up high so the people who looked at it would be instantly healed. We
have other examples of Elijah raising the widow’s son back to life and Elisha
raising the woman’s son back to life and healing Naaman the Syrian of leprosy. Question:
Did the Old Testament prophets have the gift of healing? No. There were no
spiritual gifts in the Old Testament. God gave them authority in certain
instances where they exercised that, but not like somebody with the gift of
healing would in the New Testament. In 1 Corinthians chapter twelve we are told
that in the early church there were some people who were given a spiritual gift
of healing, and that would be somewhat akin to a person who had the spiritual
gift of evangelism, of giving, pastor-teacher. It would be dependent upon their
volition how they exercised that gift. It was not something that was
restricted. It was very different from what was experienced in the Old Testament
or even what Jesus was doing or the apostles were doing in the early church.
We see from
the examples of Scripture that we have two different ways in which God heals
historically. He either heals indirectly or mediately, i.e. He would heal
through an agent, or in other cases directly where is asked to heal somebody in
prayer and then God directly heals a person without doing it through a person
who was a prophet or intermediate agent. There are two categories of healing
that God uses. One is supernatural and the other would be through natural
means, e.g. through taking medicine. The natural way is normal and should not
be called miraculous. A miracle by definition is when God ceases using what we would
call normal laws of nature/science. A miracle is something which is completely outside
of natural, normal means.
Are the
healings we see on television legitimate? Probably not, but that doesn’t mean
God doesn’t heal today. God does not heal today through the intermediate means
of people with the gift of healing. He heals directly or indirectly through
medicine but He doesn’t heal indirectly through people who have the spiritual
gift of healing. So the issue is how does God reveal that He heals today? Has
God revealed that we should expect intervention in our illnesses, diseases and
deformities as a normal experience in the Christian life? That is the real
issue and where it is really getting down to understanding what is happening
with disease. We live in the devil’s world; everything is deformed and
distorted in the devil’s world. There was no disease in the world of Adam and
Eve before the fall. Disease is a result of the effect of sin and the curse of
sin on a fallen world. Should we expect God to intervene in our illnesses,
diseases and deformities as a normal experience in the Christian life? No, we
should not. Should we be praying in our particular circumstance? Sure, there is
nothing wrong with that.
Jesus healed
in order to present His messianic credentials. The kingdom is near; the King is
going to give evidence of His messianic credentials by healing according to the
predictions of the Old Testament—Isaiah 42:7; 29:18; 35:4-6. Healings were
never performed gratuitously. Jesus didn’t heal just for the physical benefit
itself, just because He saw someone that needed to be healed. There were times
when Jesus was out with a mass audience and they were bringing the sick, the
demon-possessed and the lepers to Him and He is healing large numbers of
people. But He is doing that because He is presenting Himself as the Messiah. Jesus
and the apostles were healing discriminately, healing only a few; they were not
healing everyone. That tells us something because according to the Scripture
God is not trying to alleviate all the pain and heartache and difficulty that
we face in life, because that serves a purpose within God’s plan today. We have
examples of Jesus healing in Matthew 8:17 NASB “This was} to fulfill
what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR
INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES.’” It was done to indicate His messianic credentials. Matthew 9:6
NASB “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on
earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, ‘Get up, pick up your bed
and go home.’” Cf. Matthew 11:2-19 where Jesus said the evidences of the
kingdom were associated with His ministry. Matthew 12:15-21 also foreshadowed a
fulfillment of Isaiah 42:1-4. So these healings were all intended to
demonstrate that He was the Messiah. In John 9:3 He healed the blind man to
show that He was the light of the world. Only Jesus healed the blind, nobody
else healed blind people, it was a specific messianic sign. In John 11:4 the
resurrection and raising of Lazarus from the dead was to demonstrate the glory
of God. In John 20:30, 31 the resurrection of Jesus is a sign to demonstrate that
He is the Messiah. Acts
Jesus’
miracles were not performed randomly or indiscriminately. He did not always
heal those who needed healing or perform on demand, but He did heal to fulfill
the plan of God. When He did heal it was immediate or within minutes. It wasn’t
a process, they didn’t have to learn, didn’t have to go through therapy. There
was an abundance of healing, Matthew 5:31. He healed by touch, command, even
the touch of His coat, and through spit, Mark
In terms of the
apostles their healing also established their credentials. 2 Corinthians
There are
many examples of where faith was not in the recipient of the healing. The
nobleman’s son in John 4:46-54. The nobleman comes to Jesus to heal the son but
there is no evidence that the son has any faith in Jesus. The cripple at
There are
also many examples where faith was present. The leper in Matthew 8:2-4, the one
with the crippled hand in Matthew 12:9-13. Peter walking on the water, the man
born blind, Bartemaus in Matthew 20:29-35. The woman with the hemorrhage in
Matthew 9:2-22, one of the ten lepers in Luke 17, the miraculous catch of fish
in Luke 5, and the second in John 21.
So in answer
to the question in Acts 3, why are they healing right here? It is going to come
out in a message. Peter is going to interpret it: “The times of refreshing have
come.” This is the sign of the Messiah. Acts