Introduction
Healing comes to us by faith in God, through Jesus Christ, according to the will of man. This is the summation of what Scripture teaches on the subject, especially as it is presented under the ministry of Jesus. False teachers insist on the notion that God could heal if it is his will, and it is often not his will. In response, Christian teachers who have faith in God to heal make it a major emphasis to reinforce the idea that healing is God’s will. They show that Jesus expounded on the fatherhood and benevolence of God, that the will of God ordained the work of Jesus, including his ministry of healing, that Jesus himself was the will of God in action, and he was more than willing. Jesus was eager and obsessed with healing the sick, and he never refused anyone who came in faith.
Of course, the teachers and defenders of miracle healing are correct in that it is the will of God to heal, and I am often happy to teach along these same lines. In fact, I have introduced numerous observations and arguments on the will of God to heal that they have not considered. Their error is that they have allowed the false teachers to control how they present the topic. They have made much compromise. The heretics have cemented the way the whole Christian world approaches the subject, but since Scripture does not present it the same way, this means that the heretics have successfully deformed and weakened the ministry of healing. They have placed a hurdle between the desire and the outcome, and Christians have accepted this, choosing to help everyone jump over the obstacle rather than to destroy it.
Teachers of the doctrine of healing often declare that the most essential thing in bringing people to a place where they could receive from God is to convince them that it is the will of God for them. However, it seems this way to them only because their opponents have made it the most essential thing. This issue is in fact absent in the Bible and in the ministry of Christ. They lament that human tradition has maintained that it is often not the will of God to heal, and when people doubt that it is the will of God to heal, then they are hindered from receiving healing. Therefore, we must place emphasis on the will of God to heal. But this is not the Bible’s emphasis. When we read about the ministries of Jesus and the apostles, we discover that the will of God is practically irrelevant.
When opponents of Christ invent an issue to attack a biblical doctrine, we are able to answer them on their terms to show that we possess answers to their objections. But then we must return to the way we ought to present the doctrine in the first place, instead of allowing baseless and foolish attacks against the word of God to forever shape our approach to the doctrine. Faith has come to mean belief in God’s willingness, a willingness to do what he said in the first place. This is absurd. The Bible does not present it this way, especially when it comes to healing. There is a total absence of such an emphasis. The emphasis is on the sick person’s will and desire for himself. Is it the will of God to heal? If this is the question, then our answer is “Yes.” But should this be the question? Based on the way Scripture displays healing to us, our answer is “No” — this should not be the question. We should not even mention it.
God’s will on healing is an artificially generated question. It is a theological scam and a trap. Christians should have never focused so much on it, even on answering challenges about it. If we were to read the Gospels without introducing concerns that they do not mention, then the question of the will of God on healing would never arise. It is possible to read through the Gospels and the Acts never having the issue cross our minds. Jesus was the supreme theologian on the sovereignty of God. He said that something insignificant like a sparrow cannot fall apart from the will of God. He said that no one can come to him for salvation without God drawing him. And he spoke as one who was with God since the beginning.
However, when it came to healing, the only times that this same Jesus mentioned the issue of the will, he referred to the will of man. Whenever he spoke specifically about the topics of faith, prayer, and healing, he focused on the will of man. This matter of the will of God on healing does not naturally proceed from what we read in the Bible. Men of spiritual rebellion and theological incompetence have taken God’s singular commitment to healing and forcefully separated it into God’s ability and God’s will regarding the matter, and then they proceeded to undermine the artificial division of God’s will on healing the sick. They created a phantom issue, and then attacked the doctrine on that ground. The entire difficulty has been manufactured.
Never allow the enemies of Christ to choose the battlefield. Indeed, we can win on any battlefield. However, a victory won on the wrong battlefield comes with reduced benefits. If you are at a wrestling tournament held in a stadium, it would not do you much good to defeat all the opponents at volleyball out on the parking lot. If we remain on the wrong battlefield, and debate about the wrong thing, then even if we win every skirmish, there is still a distorted picture of the doctrine. Now we think we must play volleyball to win that wrestling trophy. Welcome to the world of religious insanity. If we need to fight there at all, once we triumph on the heretics’ own turf, do not stay there. Bring the issue back to the right place. Whether the critics follow does not matter. We must present the teaching as the Bible presents it for the maximum benefit of those who wish to listen. The dichotomy between God’s power and God’s will in healing the sick has been exaggerated, even outright invented. When Christians first agree with the critics’ assumption about the pivotal issues of the doctrine, and then attempt to prove their position on those terms, they make it more difficult on themselves, and more difficult for the sick who wish to receive healing.
Disclaimer
Before we continue, allow me to make a disclaimer. Here I will not repeat my explanations concerning the distinctions between divine transcendence and divine immanence, between decree and precept, between actual cause and apparent cause, and between metaphysics, soteriology, and missiology. We will not consider the metaphysical aspects of the issue, and we will not address the arguments and biblical passages that the cult of unbelief usually uses to appeal to God’s will or sovereignty in order to overturn God’s own promises and commands. No one can fault me for this, because in other places I have offered thorough expositions on the sovereignty of God, and I have addressed the usual arguments and biblical passages used by those who exploit the doctrine to justify their own unbelief. We know what those arguments are. We know what those passages are. And I have addressed them and refuted the abuse. Now it is time for Jesus’ perspective to receive attention.
This disclaimer is made with reluctance because it is a concession that serves to preempt the foolish objections that might follow. It is to cover my bases, lest it appears to the ignorant that I am ignorant of their counter-arguments, and to the unaware that I am unaware of the biblical passages that they consider counter-examples. I know them, and I have answered them, but I resist the urge to revisit them here. To even mention this is a concession because the more time I spend on this, the more I undermine my effort, which is to redirect our focus toward the manner and emphasis of Jesus’ ministry and his doctrine of healing, faith, and prayer.
When the Bible presents the doctrine of healing, especially in the Gospels, it does not speak on the level of the metaphysical power of God, but on the level of man’s faith and experience. When I address a specific audience that is spiritual and knowledgeable, I would not need to provide such a reminder. However, I address a mixed audience that includes biased and stupid people who nevertheless consider themselves experts and defenders of orthodoxy, individuals that have inherited centuries of theological deception and foolishness. Nevertheless, I refuse to concede too much by allowing the usual points and passages of debate, which I have answered, to distract from my main purpose.
The Bible says, “Choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). So we also declare, “Choose life.” We ought to do this without needing to reaffirm what the Bible says about the sovereignty of God every time. Peter said, “Save yourselves from this crooked generation” (Acts 2:40). So we also declare, “Save yourselves.” We ought to do this without needing to repeat a disclaimer that this does not mean we think men can save themselves apart from God. Of course the reverse is also true, that is, when we refer to what the Bible says about the sovereignty of God, we should not need to explain each of the hundreds upon hundreds of verses that say things like “choose life” and “save yourselves,” and to repeat all of this every time. If Peter does not need to cover his bases to prevent unjust criticisms, I should not need to cover my bases to prevent unjust criticisms.
Yet we often encounter the demand to do this silly thing. The more nuisances there are on a topic, the more chaotic the discussion becomes, because those who are interested in debating the issues are in fact unable to grasp the whole scope of relevant biblical data. The opponents are interested in making objections, but we cannot count on them to have any knowledge or ability to reason. Thus it is as if each time we wish to introduce one thought to the discussion, we need to restate a whole library of materials. They are not competent, just obsessed. If critics attack us when we speak in biblical terms that are unfamiliar to them, it means that they are so taken with their theological obsessions that there is no room for the language of the Bible. They are the ones who are disqualified. Grow up, so we can move forward instead of staying in the same place, same debate, same unbelief, forever and ever.
The sovereignty of God is not in debate. My formulation of the doctrine from Scripture is more precise, more consistent, more absolute than the others, so much so that it threatens the self-appointed guardians of the doctrine. However, right now we do not want to talk about it, because the Bible does not talk about it when it comes to healing, as well as faith and prayer. The universal error is to affirm God’s sovereignty and then make false inferences and applications from it. The usual inference is that because God is sovereign, we do not know what will happen until it happens, even if we have faith for a definite outcome. But the correct application is that because God is sovereign, he is able to fulfill his word, so that when we have faith, we know what will happen and we can expect the desired outcome. The sovereign power of God guarantees victory. But you see, after all this time we are still talking about the will of God. If we are not careful, we will allow false teachers to dictate the terms of every discussion on every topic. This is the pitfall of Christian polemics and apologetics. So let us stop this foolishness and move forward. If one refuses to see the truth that is placed in front of him and persists in resisting it, then he will lose even that which he thinks he has (Luke 8:18).
God’s will is the reason for success, not the excuse for failure. The sovereignty of God guarantees that I will receive more than what I deserve, not less than what he promised. It is a beautiful and victorious doctrine. In every way, it honors God, it affirms his promises and commands, and it benefits the people of faith. This is the difference between the doctrine of divine sovereignty that I teach from Scripture, and the standard version we see in the historic and orthodox cult. Even if we relate the sovereignty of God to healing, it must be done by the hands of faith. Otherwise, it would be better to follow the example of the Gospels and the Acts, and not mention it at all.
God is Able
God’s ability is equivalent to his willingness in the context of a relation of redemption or a mission of redemption. We are not referring to direction in life and ministry, which might be specific to individuals, but to such things as answers and miracles from God. When we are talking about the benefits of redemption and the powers of mission (we can minister healing and prophecy even to unbelievers as a witness to them), the difference between God’s ability and God’s willingness has been exaggerated, even altogether invented.
Christian theology has made such a sharp dichotomy between the two that it has in many ways made God’s ability meaningless. The historic and orthodox cult behaves as if the fact that God is able means nothing, but only the will of God means anything, and we never know the will of God until an event has happened. This, of course, also renders faith meaningless. And this is the real agenda — the cult members have no faith, but they do not want to be exposed.
The Bible writers often identify God’s ability and God’s will. They do not make such a sharp distinction between the two that they always need to say both in order to indicate that something would occur. In many contexts, to state either is to affirm both. They do not refer to God’s ability in a way that the discussion makes no progress until they also refer to God’s will. To affirm that God is able is to affirm confidence in the outcome. Because he is able, it is assumed that the desired result is guaranteed.
For example, Paul wrote, “Who are you to pass judgment on the servant of another? It is before his own master that he stands or falls. And he will be upheld, for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4). The fact that God is able to make a person stand translates into assurance that the person will stand. Paul did not have to add, “if it is his will.” If God can, the man will. But if we take how the cult of unbelief thinks about healing and apply it here, then there would be no basis for assurance. The outcome would still remain open and unknown. By the standard of the historic and orthodox cult, Paul’s statement would be fallacious.
However, it is unlikely that religious scoundrels would glibly throw “if it is his will” at this verse, because it is referring to either something that they are comfortable to affirm, or something where their unbelief and failure can remain hidden. Thus even if they do not believe that God will uphold them as believers, or as it is often the case, even if they have never been genuine believers, they would boldly declare this verse without adding “if it is his will” and remain unexposed. But when it comes to healing, they add “if it is his will.” They say this so that they can exclaim, “God can heal,” as if they have faith, but add, “if it is his will,” for they have no faith.
If they were to be consistent, they would have to say that Paul’s statement provides no assurance of the outcome, although the apostle himself was confident. They would have to say that Paul was mistaken, and call him a theological novice or even a heretic just like they call anyone who follows the teachings of Jesus on healing. Otherwise, they would have to say that, “And he will be healed, for the Lord is able to make him well.” They would have to say that God’s ability guarantees the outcome. But they cannot be consistent, because their theological system is defined by the agenda of unbelief, rebellion, and tradition.
Then Paul did it again. He wrote, “I was appointed a preacher and apostle and teacher, which is why I suffer as I do. But I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed, and I am convinced that he is able to guard until that day what has been entrusted to me.” He was convinced that “he is able”? So what? Didn’t he know that God would only do it “if it is his will”? For Paul, God’s ability to preserve the gospel legacy was sufficient to guarantee the outcome. He never bothered to show that it was also God’s will to do it. He could say God can or God will. He did not make a distinction and then tried to satisfy it. But for our stupid theologians, it means nothing to say “God is able to heal.” They have artificially introduced the variable, “if it is his will,” into the equation. This is a failure to grasp the biblical language of theology at the fundamental level. They are total trash as scholars, total failures as teachers and leaders. They dishonor God and misrepresent the gospel, and they make things worse for everybody.
Jude also speaks in terms of God’s ability: “Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory with great joy.” My heart erupts in assurance and thankfulness. The apostles and I speak the same language, so when I read this I hear, “God will keep me from stumbling and present me blameless.” Praise God! What insolence it would be to sneer and mumble, “Yeah, if it is his will.” But this is the satanic legacy of the historic and orthodox cult. This is the kind of thing preachers and theologians do to the revelation of God when it comes to things they do not wish you to believe, such as effective prayer and miracle healing. And you pay them to do it.
Want more? “For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted” (Hebrews 2:18). Your pastor says, “God is able to heal anyone, and he will heal you if it is his will.” But the idiot would use this verse to encourage the whole congregation, claiming that God would help those who are tempted. Next Sunday, when he uses the verse this way again for the hundredth time, stand up and confront him: “Yeah! If it is his will!” Do this every time he appeals to God’s ability to exhort the people, and see how he likes it. “He is able to preserve us? If it is his will, right? So prove it! Prove separately that it is his will to preserve us. Prove it for each individual here, one by one. Prove it, or else these sermons from your filthy mouth are useless. Prove it, or else we can know God preserves us only after each one of us reaches the end of our days. Where is the assurance? We pay you for this? Stop wasting our time and say something that you know is God’s will.”
Then the preacher recites in his obnoxious religious tone, “Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them” (Hebrews 7:25). “He is able to save?” Good for him! Why does this mean anything to me if his ability means nothing unless it is “the will of God”? The cult of orthodox unbelief insists that God is able to heal, but even if you have faith for it, it will happen only “if it is his will.” Jesus promised that God would give us what we ask when we pray in faith, but the cult again adds, “if it is his will.” So can the fact that “he is able to save” give me any assurance that he will save any particular individual, even an individual who has faith that he will save him to the uttermost? How come his ability guarantees one thing but not the other? This is the hypocrisy of the cult of unbelief and tradition. If “he is able” gives me assurance that he saves to the uttermost, then “he is able” gives me assurance that he heals to the uttermost. If “he is able” does not mean that he heals, then “he is able” does not mean that he saves.
How do we unravel this silliness? Return to the language and theology of Scripture. God’s ability is equivalent to his willingness in the context of a relation of redemption or a mission of redemption. This applies to God’s ability to uphold our faith, to preserve our legacy — and to heal our bodies. It applies to God’s ability to save us from temptation, from apostasy — and from sickness. If we follow the God-centered language and reasoning of the Bible writers, we must conclude that the historic and orthodox distinction between God’s ability and God’s will in his benefits and powers was a satanic invention.
Given the way Scripture presents God’s ability to save and to heal, to make rich and to make safe, if we must discuss the will of God at all, then the burden rests on those who suppose it might not be the will of God in specific instances to do these things, rather than on those who assume that he would, for God is able. In other words, because God is able to heal, the starting point is to assume that he would heal, and not to assume that he would heal only “if it is his will,” as if it would be the exception for him to heal. But again, to even suggest this exercise is a discomforting concession. It is only an “even if” observation. The cult of historic and orthodox scholarship has complicated everything and installed hurdles between God and people, between the benefits of God and the needs of men. This is why people hate religion.
Abraham
Paul said Abraham was convinced that “God was able to do what he had promised” (Romans 4:21), and the outcome was certain. This faith was “counted to him as righteousness” (v. 22). Now Jesus said, “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22). This is also a promise, but the cult of orthodox unbelief adds, “if it is his will” and leaves the outcome unknown. Was Jesus too stupid to add “if it is his will”? This kind of faith cannot be counted as righteousness.
God promised that Abraham would have a son, and that his descendants would become numerous like the stars. He promised that he would make his name great. It was not presented as a promise of salvation or justification as such, and it was not a call to suffering discipleship. It was a promise of healing, prosperity, and glory for Abraham. And Abraham was justified by believing in this promise. The sort of message that false teachers call heresy today has been the foundation for the calling of Moses, the coming of Christ, and the salvation of Christians. Abraham recognized that his own body and his wife’s body were old and barren, but because God said that he would have a son, natural circumstances became irrelevant. He believed that God was able to perform a miracle of healing.
It would have been redundant to believe that God was willing to do what he said. Of course he was willing — he said it. God said, “Abraham, I have made you the father of nations. You are going to have a son. I will make your name great.” Imagine if Abraham had said, “I know you are able, but are you willing to do it?” This would have made no sense, but somehow it has become a pillar in Christian reasoning. “Well…I just said you are going to have a son.” “Right, I heard you. But are you willing to do it?” Should we treat God like a child? It is even more absurd to focus on the will of God for healing given all that the Bible says about the nature of God, the work of Christ, and the ministry of the apostles and the believers. Even the attempt to demonstrate the will of God for healing seems redundant and ridiculous. Abraham believed that God was able to do this thing that was impossible for human power to accomplish. And that was faith.
Suppose I order breakfast at a restaurant. Vincent: “I would like an omelette with lots of spinach and mushroom.” Waiter: “Good choice, but are you willing to have an omelette with lots of spinach and mushroom?” Vincent: “Get me that omelette!” Waiter: “Yeah, but is it your will though?” If you overhear this frustrating conversation, your suspicion would be correct — it is the will of the waiter to hinder the order, not Vincent. Or, mother: “Son, please wash the dishes.” Son: “I will do it, if it is your will.” Mother: “Stop stalling and go wash the dishes!” Son: “Yeah, but is it your will though?” The son, who verbally defers to the mother’s will again and again, in fact displays a most blatant and obnoxious kind of defiance. He cares nothing about the will of the mother. He is driven by his own rebellious will, but he is too proud and dishonest to admit the truth. This is the reality of the constant deference to the will of God on healing. The topic is mentioned in the first place due to a deep-seated defiance toward God.
Faith is Able
A man’s son had a demon and the disciples of Jesus failed to cast it out (Mark 9:17-18). Jesus declared that they failed not because it was the will of God, but because of the unbelief in them (Matthew 17:20). He placed the explanation on the faith of man. He told them, “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” He did not say, “nothing will be impossible for God,” but “nothing will be impossible for you” — nothing will be impossible for man. Hey, don’t look at me, he was the one who said it.
The father turned to Jesus and said, “If you can do anything, have compassion on us and help us” (Mark 9:22). Throughout the entire episode, no one — Jesus, the disciples, the man, the son, the demon — said anything about the will of God. We would assume the man believed that God had the ability to expel the demon and that the demon could not be stronger than God himself. Thus when he said to Jesus, “if you can do anything,” he was not addressing Jesus as God, but as a teacher or prophet (v. 17). When Peter confessed that Jesus was the Christ, the Son of God, Jesus answered that it was revealed to specific individuals: “For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven.” We cannot assume that those who came to Jesus knew that he was the Son of God, or God himself. Many of the people did not even know that he was the Messiah. This reminder will become useful in the next section.
Jesus answered the man, “All things are possible for one who believes.” The context was healing, so although this statement applies to other things, it must apply to healing. As if to teach us that faith applies to all things, Jesus said that faith can even uproot trees and remove mountains. All miracles, all cases of healing the sick and casting out demons are possible for a person who believes. All miracles are possible for the human, the man — not “if it is God’s will” but “if the man has faith.” This is heresy to the cult of historic and orthodox religion, the cult of human tradition, but this is the heresy that Jesus taught. We must decide who is the true heretic, and our answer reflects whether we are true followers of Christ.
He did not say, “All things are possible with God” or “All things are possible to me, for I am God.” He did not say, “Anything is possible, if it is God’s will.” There was no consideration and no implication of anything that has to do with the will of God in this whole transaction. If the will of God never came up when Jesus healed the sick, why does it come up every time when Christians talk about the topic? Why is it emphasized all the time even by those who believe in healing? Satan has so successfully guided the development of Christian theology and practice that every time the issue is mentioned, it is already set up against the biblical teaching. Christians who follow Jesus on the matter fight an uphill battle. We still win, but it is better to expose the fraud and level the mountain.
Jesus made the outcome dependent on the man. He kept the burden on the faith of man. Later in private he also rebuked the disciples for their lack of faith, but at that moment it was understood that he referred to this man’s faith, not Jesus’ ability or faith, and not the disciples’ ability or faith. So the man answered, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” Even in his unbelief, he never wondered about the will of God. He never mentioned it. No one mentioned it. No one in the Gospels and the Acts mentioned it relative to healing and the prayer of faith. And Jesus cast out the demon.
“I will. Be clean.”
Now what about this? A leper came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean” (Matthew 8:1-3). This was the closest thing to asking if it was God’s will to heal, and since Jesus responded in the affirmative, it is often used by teachers on biblical healing to support their case. He was the only person who said anything that resembled a question about the will of God on healing. However, it looks this way to us only because we already have the will of God in mind. He did not ask about the will of God. He directed the statement to Jesus. For the leper to have intended this as a question about the will of God, he must have had the same revelation that Peter received about the deity of Christ, and to have received it even before Peter did.
Just as the father with a demon-possessed child was not asking if it was within God’s power to deliver his son, here the leper was not asking if it was God’s will to grant him healing. Rather, he was asking if it was Jesus’ will to minister healing to him, that is, Jesus as a teacher or prophet, not as God. Even if we accept the false assumption that the leper was wondering about the will of God, Jesus answered, “I will. Be clean.” But then, we would have to suppose that the father in that other passage doubted God’s ability, as if a demon could be stronger than God himself. He said, “I believe. Help my unbelief.” He did not have zero faith. Just as it makes no sense to think that the father was asking about God’s ability, it makes no sense to think that the leper was asking about God’s will.
It was not a strange thing to ask a man of God. When Naaman visited Elisha, the prophet never went out to meet him, but healed him in a way that the leper did not expect (2 Kings 5:9-11). When the kings of Israel and Judah went to Elisha, this same prophet said that if not for the presence of the king of Judah, he would have refused to meet with the king of Israel (2 Kings 3:14). So of course a servant of God can be willing or unwilling to minister. People sometimes ask me if I am willing to pray about this or that. They are not asking if it is God’s will to grant their requests, but they are asking if I am willing to pray for them about those requests. My answer would not indicate whether it is God’s will to grant them. Someone can invite me to their church to preach, and I might refuse for one reason or another, but that would not suggest God does not want them to hear the gospel.
Thus our observation holds true. It remains that of all the people who were healed under the ministry of Jesus, there is not even one recorded instance where the sick asked about the will of God in healing, not one indication that they even cared about it, and not one example where Jesus urged anyone to consider the matter. The silence is significant, because Jesus actively emphasized other things when it came to healing, things that he portrayed as factors that determined the outcome, and none of those things had anything to do with the will of God. But wait…as we shall see, there is one apparent exception where Jesus appealed to the will of God to refuse a request for healing, but when the seeker defied him and persisted, Jesus called that faith and performed the miracle anyway. This reinforces our point even more. “The will of God” — this supposedly defining factor in every instance of healing — was practically irrelevant in the ministry of Jesus.
Let me make a disclaimer again at halftime for the biased and feeble-minded. I did not say that God’s will is metaphysically irrelevant — God is never metaphysically irrelevant to any object or event. But God’s will is practically irrelevant when it comes to healing. Practically, it is so irrelevant that it should not need to be taught, asked, or mentioned. Any effort to do so should only stem from a necessity to recover from the unchecked deception that has propagated throughout the world all these centuries. Even the teaching that it is the will of God to heal everyone without exception is a compromise, a concession to the pressure of an enduring deception and false emphasis. Follow the pattern of Jesus.
“Do you believe?”
Two blind men followed Jesus and cried, “Have mercy on us, Son of David” (Matthew 9:27). Jesus asked them, “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” Since they followed him and cried out to him, was it not obvious that they believed he was able? They believed that he was able, enough for them to approach him aggressively. But Jesus still asked them if they believed. He did not ask them if they believed that it was the will of God to heal them. He asked for a confession of faith. What was the faith that he demanded? Faith in the ability of Jesus to minister healing, not faith that it was the will of God to give them healing.
“Do you want?”
The vast majority of the miracles of healing were initiated by the sick. Never asking whether it was the will of God to heal, and never asking whether it was the will of Jesus to minister, they came to Jesus expecting to receive what they wanted, and in some cases they took healing from him without even talking to him (Matthew 9:20, 14:36). Thus even the will of Jesus to minister as a teacher or prophet was often irrelevant.
Jesus initiated some of the miracles. In one instance he approached a man who had been an invalid for thirty-eight years (John 5:5). He asked the man, “Do you want to be healed?” He did not say, “Do you believe it is the will of God to heal you?” or even “It is the will of God to heal you” or “It is my will to heal you.” He focused only on the will of man. No other person’s will was discussed, implied, or wondered about. Nowadays people would think, “Well, isn’t it a given that a man wants to be healed? The real question is whether it is the will of God!” Jesus did the opposite throughout his ministry. The man did not realize that Jesus was the one who could provide the healing, but he was looking to an existing phenomenon that he had trouble taking advantage of (John 5:7). Nevertheless, his answer indicated that he wanted to be healed — the will of man — and Jesus healed him.
He did not mention the will of God. I am not even saying that the will of God is always to heal. No, I am saying that based on what we observe from Scripture, the will of God was practically never part of the equation. It was never mentioned, debated, or considered. When a “will” was mentioned, it was always the will of man, the one who was sick. And Jesus’ own will did not matter either. One time he said that he was going to visit a man’s home to heal his servant, but the man suggested that Jesus could speak the word only, and the servant would be healed at a distance (Matthew 8:7-8). He had faith, not in the will of God to heal — there is no indication this crossed his mind — but in the ability of Jesus to minister. Jesus did not say, “Do you know who I am? How dare you tell me how to do my job?” Instead, he was amazed and complied, and he called it faith. He allowed the faith of man and the will of man to change his original approach to the miracle.
Christians claim that they believe God is able, and then they trip up themselves and everybody else by wondering if God is willing, when that question should have never been asked, especially when it comes to healing. Jesus never said, “Father, if it is your will, heal this person.” But in one way or another he did say to some of the people, “What is your will — the will of man?” Our ministries of healing would become much stronger in the long run if we will follow the pattern of Jesus and change the people’s focus. Are you willing to be healed? What is your will — the will of man?
“What do you want?”
Two blind men heard that Jesus was passing by and cried out, “Lord, have mercy on us, Son of David!” (Matthew 20:30). The crowd rebuked them, but they cried out all the more. So Jesus said to them, “What do you want me to do for you?” In other words, “What is your will — the will of man?” Was it not obvious that they were blind men, and that they wanted to be healed? But Jesus still asked them, and he asked them not about the will of God, but about the will of man. Then he restored their sight.
Another passage is similar. A blind beggar called Bartimaeus said, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” (Mark 10:47). Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said nothing about the will of God, and nothing about his own will as the Christ. What is the man’s desire? What is the will of man? Bartimaeus stated the will of man: “Rabbi, that I might recover my sight.” Jesus counted his aggressive approach and his statement on the will of man as stemming from faith. “Go, your faith has made you well.”
“Great is your faith!”
A Gentile woman asked Jesus to deliver her daughter from a demon (Matthew 15:22). Jesus ignored her and the disciples rebuffed her, but she persisted. Then Jesus answered, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel” (v. 24). It was not time for the benefits of the gospel to be unleashed upon the whole world. This was the closest thing to a statement concerning the will of God that Jesus made about a specific person when it came to healing, and he implied that it was not God’s will at this time to heal the woman’s daughter. He even added that it was “not right” to prematurely take what belonged to Israel and offer it to the Gentiles (v. 26). In effect, he said, “God has not sent me to heal you. It is not right to heal you.”
(My assertion holds true that the will of God was never mentioned in specific instances of healing, because Jesus only made an implication, not a direct statement, and it was a reference to the general will of God for the world, not a reference to the specific will of God about the woman’s daughter. What Jesus said was true, but that was before faith came up. God’s general will for faith supersedes God’s general will for the world. In addition, we also observe that a number of Gentiles were healed under the ministry of Jesus.)
The woman was not a theologian. She did not know all the lofty debates about the sovereignty of God. She did not know about covenants and dispensations. She did not know about all the complicated excuses that people invented to justify their failures. And if she knew, she did not care. She only knew that she wanted deliverance for her daughter, and that Jesus could provide what she wanted. Good for her! It meant that she was able to bypass all the false and deadly applications that scholars have made of the doctrine of divine sovereignty.
So she insisted on her will even in the face of Jesus’ implication that it was not in the will of God to heal her daughter, and that healing was unavailable to her at that time. She answered that although God had sent Jesus only to Israel, so that it was not God’s will for her to receive the benefits of the gospel at that time, even the leftovers of God’s power would have been sufficient. She believed in God’s ability, not God’s will. She decided that even the debris from God’s table was strong enough to grant her will, although the full provision of healing kept hitting his own people in the face over and over again, and many of them still refused. History had repeated itself in the Christian world.
Jesus exclaimed, “Woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you desire.” In other words, “Now that is some faith! Let it be done according to your will” — the will of man. This was how miracles of healing operated under Jesus and the apostles, and how miracles of healing happen today. God has a standing agreement with faith to give it whatever it demands regardless of covenants and dispensations. Faith has priority even over God’s own set times and programs. The benefit of healing was intended for wide distribution among the Gentiles after the resurrection of Jesus and starting from the ministry of the apostles (Acts 1:8). It was meant for the future, but faith could seize it now. Nowadays, theologians seize benefits that are intended for today, and shove them way off into the past or into the future. But what of it? If you have faith, you can seize what you want now.
“Ask what you will”
Our topic is healing, but Jesus maintained the same focus on the faith of man and the will of man in his teachings on faith and prayer. He taught the opposite of what Christian historic and orthodox rubbish have said about these things for most of the past two thousand years. The cult of tradition is anti-Christ on faith, prayer, healing, miracles, and the benefits and powers of the gospel.
Jesus said, “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you” (Matthew 7:7). He did not say, “Ask, and it will be given to you, if it is his will. Seek, and you will find, if it is his will. Knock, and it will be opened to you, if it is his will.” And what kinds of things did people ask for in his day? The same things that people want in our day. The people were not spiritual gurus that devoted their days to attaining greater and greater enlightenment. They were not interested in some Christian nirvana. Among other things, they wanted to be free from diseases and demons.
Of course, many of them also wanted spiritual direction, to worship God, and to follow the right path, but to force all the teachings of Jesus to apply only to this category would be an injustice to Christ, and an injustice to all the people who came to him for their ordinary and natural desires. Jesus emphasized the will and the action of man on purpose: “For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened” (v. 8). The will of God is not mentioned or considered. But do you ask? Do you seek? Do you knock?
As if to anticipate the betrayal of Christian orthodoxy, he continued, “Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent?” He was correcting the orthodox theology and heathen mindset of his day, but unbelief has never changed. Let man specifies what he wants from God, and God will not give him something different, or something painful and the opposite of what he wants, and then force the man to pretend that it is a better gift. The cult of tradition has tried to shove this kind of religious rubbish down our throats, but Jesus confronted this in his own day and also anticipated the unbelief in our day.
Elsewhere, Jesus said, “Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you receive it, and you will have it” (Mark 11:24), or “And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith” (Matthew 21:22). The cult of unbelief adds, “Yes, if it is his will.” But again and again, Jesus made special effort to teach the opposite, focusing only on the faith and the will of man. Since his teaching came from the will of God (John 7:16, 8:26, 38), it must mean that the will of God is to focus on the will of man when it comes to faith, prayer, and healing. The will of God is to ask, “What is the will of man?” The ones who keep adding “if it is his will” are the very ones who reject the will of God.
Suppose Jesus said what he wanted to say, exactly what he meant, what would it take for the religious cults to accept this? If his words mean nothing until we modify them to accommodate our theories and our failures, then why do we pay him any attention in the first place? Why not stop pretending that we care about what he said? Let Jesus say what he wanted to say. He had said it so many times and in so many different ways. God gives you what you ask, not what he arbitrarily decides to give. God gives you what you believe, not what he decides to give regardless of what you believe. God gives according to your faith and according to your will, not according to his will.
Jesus went out of his way to teach this lesson. Don’t you think that in those days the religious scholars as well as many of the common people believed in the sovereignty of God? Of course they did. “The will of God” was even more ingrained in their minds than in our religious cults. Far more ingrained. So don’t you think that Jesus also opened himself to their criticisms for teaching like this? He was opening himself up to attacks even more than I am opening up myself to objections and misrepresentations by repeating what he taught. But he still did it. It was the truth, and it was what he wanted to teach. If you disagree with him, then renounce your discipleship and challenge him, but let him say what he said. Otherwise, it would be pointless to study or to debate about what he said.
Teaching on faith, he said in another place, “If you had faith like a grain of mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it would obey you” (Luke 17:6). Jesus was intelligent. He knew what words he wanted to use. And he said, “The tree would obey you.” He did not say that the tree would obey the will of God, but the will of man. And he did not say that the tree would obey the word of God, but the word of man. He also said that he taught what the Father wanted him to say. Therefore, it is the will of God to teach us that when we have faith, our situation would obey us, the will of man. It is the will of God to contradict the historic and orthodox cult. It is the will of God to contradict the cult of unbelief and tradition that appeals to the will of God to glamorize sickness and suffering, and unanswered prayer.
Then Jesus said, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (John 15:7, see also John 14:13-14, 16:23-24). Of course you must abide in Christ. Of course his words must abide in you. To pray as a Christian, you do need to be a Christian, don’t you? But if you are a Christian, if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, then “ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” You will ask for your will, and it will be done according to your will. If this is not what Jesus meant, then he would not have said it this way. But he did say it this way, and no one has the authority to add to it or to change the thrust of the statement.
It is a remarkable fact that of all the characters in Scripture, Jesus placed the most emphasis on the will of man in faith, in prayer, and in miracles of healing and miracles of nature. His emphasis was consistently on the will of man and the desire of man, not the will of God. He was so explicit and deliberate in this that it was as if he could predict the betrayal of our scholars and creeds, who would insist on the opposite, and who would count as heretics those who repeat and follow his teachings. They condemn Jesus even to the point of willing to die in his name! But they do not follow his teachings. They follow their own human inventions of what is proper piety. Their Jesus is a projection of their unbelief and delusion.
Let Your Will Be Done
Satan is a master of deception and a master of distraction. But Paul wrote, “We are not ignorant of his schemes.” At least I am not ignorant of his schemes, but others have strayed far. The enemy digs a hole next to the main issue, and he tricks everybody to jump into it and fight it out. Whoever wins is still in the hole, and has made no significant progress. He has inspired faithless cult members to invent a battlefield on the will of God concerning healing that did not exist before and never should have existed. If he has shoved you into that hole, win the fight in front of you, and then jump out as soon as you can. Never fall into that trap again.
The real battlefield is the faith of man and the will of man. Jesus placed the success or failure for receiving healing on man alone, not God. One must believe that God is able, without any thought of whether God is willing. And then he must decide that he indeed desires to become well, that it is his will — the will of man — to receive healing. This completes the equation for the miracle of healing. It is also the equation for answered prayer.
This “will of God” that the cult of tradition exalts as the determining factor in healing in fact never entered the equation in the ministries of Jesus and the apostles in the sense defined in the present discussion. The scholars and ministers have no understanding of what the Bible teaches about the will of God and how the Bible presents the doctrine of divine sovereignty. They exploit the notion of the will of God as an excuse for their unbelief and failure. They fashion the doctrine of the sovereignty of God into a theological device that enables them to destroy the meaning and relevance of God’s own doctrines and commands.
An emphasis on the will of God in healing forces the doctrine or ministry toward a direction that Jesus did not want anyone to take. Then the whole thing remains defective even when one demonstrates that it is the will of God to heal. Jesus, instead of introducing the will of God into the equation, went out of his way to stress the faith of man and the will of man. What do you believe? What do you want? Follow Jesus in the way you approach healing, whether as one who receives it or as one who ministers it. Teach about God, that he is one who forgives all sins and heals all sicknesses (Psalm 103:3). Tell people to have faith that he is able to heal. God is able to overcome any demon by the authority that he has given to us, and to restore the body from any disease or damage, and he is able to shield us from any attack from the devil and the environment. Then focus the attention on the will of man, on what the people want from God, on what they want to receive or want to happen.
If the people are under severe assault from the cult of unbelief using “the will of God” to spread doubt on healing, then make an appropriate reply. But refuse to allow this to permanently distort how the doctrine ought to be perceived and presented. Return to the arrangement and proportion that Jesus showed us — focus on the faith of man and the will of man. I am not suggesting that we ought to tell people that the will of God is never mentioned in healing, because it would be a concession even to draw attention to this. I mean we should not even mention it unless it is unavoidable, perhaps at the very beginning of a process of recovery from the theology of unbelief and tradition. Preach like Jesus did. Heal like Jesus did. You should not even need to tell people, “It is God’s will to heal you.” Don’t mention the will of God at all. Instead, challenge them: “Is it your will to be healed?” The matter is simple, isn’t it? Do you believe that God is able to do all things? And what is it that you want God to do for you? Is it your will to receive healing? Is it your will to receive this thing that you ask? Then let your will be done!