Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)

The Faithless do not believe the promises of God. They reject the gospel of Jesus Christ, but they pretend that they embrace it. More than anything, they wish to present themselves as the guardians of the faith. They consider themselves the defenders of orthodoxy, but this orthodoxy is nothing more than a religious system of human tradition. And by it, they undermine the truth of God and persecute those who possess true faith in the gospel. During the ministry of Christ, the Jews and Pharisees were among the Faithless. They opposed Jesus to defend their own human doctrines and traditions, and in the end they murdered him. Since that time, the Faithless also include multitudes who claim to be Christians, but who oppose the powers and promises of God at work in the world today.

One tactic of the Faithless is to spiritualize the promises of God, even when the statements carry no such restriction, and even when they explicitly refer to material things and include physical effects. For example, in one place Jesus said, “Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it and it will be yours.” A faithless person might respond, “Yes, when we pray for spiritual things.” Just before this statement on prayer, however, Jesus said that anyone who has faith can command a mountain to move into the sea. And we cannot say that he referred to a spiritual mountain, because he said it in connection with how he cursed a physical tree to death.

His words produced a physical miracle, and when his disciples mentioned it, Jesus answered that anyone who has faith can perform an even greater miracle, and anything that we ask in faith shall be granted. If we have faith, we can get anything from God, but if we are forced to choose, the emphasis in this context is on physical and material things. When the disciples asked Jesus why they failed in healing the sick and casting out demons, Jesus answered, “Because you have so little faith. I tell you the truth, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.” It was the same teaching specifically applied to physical miracles such as healing the sick and casting out demons. He intended his teachings on faith and prayer for physical and material things. In another place, Jesus said, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” He was referring to his miracles when he said this.

The Faithless spiritualize God’s doctrines and promises because they wish to neutralize his words. They have no faith in God, but they wish to convince others that they have faith, and so they must destroy the gospel teachings that could expose them. When the gospel teaches about healing, the Faithless will claim that it refers to spiritual healing, so that no one will notice when they cannot receive or minister healing. The scam is simple. However, it does not work because the words and the contexts of the statements in Scripture make it impossible to spiritualize them. Jesus said that, if we have faith, we can move mountains and perform greater miracles. We can heal the sick, cast out demons, and receive anything from God. A more honest approach for the Faithless would be for them to admit that they reject the words of God and the teachings of Christ, that they renounce the gospel. Anyone who follows Christ ought to renounce the Faithless. Renounce their scholarship. Renounce their traditions and rituals. Renounce their ecclesiastical system.

There is a more profound answer to the faithless tendency to spiritualize the commands and promises of God. Their attempt to spiritualize what they do not have faith to believe assumes a misconception of the spiritual, so that even if we allow them to spiritualize something in the word of God, it still would not produce the outcome that they wish.

The Faithless assume that the spiritual does not produce physical and material effects, or if you receive something that is spiritual, then it is restricted to the spiritual realm. This is an error that contradicts the heart of the biblical view of reality. Just because something is spiritual in origin or spiritual in nature does not mean that it is without physical or material effects.

God is a spirit, but he is the one who created everything that is physical. The spiritual is the metaphysical origin and foundation of the physical. The spiritual could exist without the physical, but the physical could not exist, and would have never existed, without the spiritual. These are not two eternal self-existing realities. The spiritual had always existed, but there was a point when the physical did not exist. God created the physical. God created the material. And even now, it is the spiritual that sustains and controls the physical. This is not speculation or some esoteric theory, but it is basic to the nature of God, of creation and providence, and the Christian view of reality.

Every physical miracle is spiritual in origin. The physical and material blessings of God are spiritual. Paul wrote that he did not want the Corinthians to be uninformed about spiritual things or spiritual gifts. Then he referred to the gifts of healing. Healing is a spiritual gift, but it has a physical effect. He referred to the working of miracles. In the Bible, we read about miracles that produced an abundant supply of oil and also of food that could feed thousands of people. The ability to work miracles is obviously not natural or physical in origin. It is spiritual, but it produces physical effects and material benefits, things like wealth and supplies.

Paul also referred to faith that can move a mountain. Faith is spiritual, but a mountain is physical. The apostle wrote about speaking in tongues. He said, “I thank my God that I speak in tongues more than all of you.” This is a spiritual ability, not a natural ability. It is miraculous, and not done by effort or by learning. But it produces a constant stream of physical movements, and sounds that can be physically heard and recorded. In fact, Paul called his examples of spiritual gifts the demonstrations of the Spirit. Although the Holy Spirit is spiritual, and although his gifts and abilities are spiritual, he produces physical demonstrations. Spiritual things are what heal the sick and cast out demons, speak in tongues and walk on water, and transmute and multiply substances. Angels are spiritual, but they can strike down armies of human soldiers. The Spirit of God came upon Samson, and the man wielded unnatural and superhuman strength. Yet the Spirit of God is not a natural force.

The spiritual can perform or produce the physical and the material. In fact, spiritual power is the greatest physical power. Physical power can only do physical things, and even then it is limited, but spiritual power can do all things without limit. Spiritual power can perform physical feats and produce material benefits that physical power can never hope to achieve. What physical power can calm the sea in an instant? What physical technology can raise the dead? But when there is enough faith, which is spiritual, it can produce these physical effects and benefits by a mere word of command. The spiritual creates, sustains, controls, and dominates the physical.

The Bible declares that God has blessed us with “every spiritual blessing” in Christ. He has not given us only the spiritual blessing of the gift of healing or the spiritual blessing of the working of miracles or the spiritual blessing of speaking in tongues. Just these several spiritual things would be more than enough to satisfy our every physical demand. But God has done much more for us. He has given us all spiritual blessings, not just three or five or ten. All of them. This must be more than enough to produce all possible physical effects and material benefits we could desire or ask for, and even more than what we can imagine.

Jesus Christ is the answer to all your problems. And beyond your problems, he is the way to achieve all your hopes and dreams. You and God are partners together in this life. We can live well because we have spiritual power. Because we have spiritual power, we can remain immune to every disease even when the unbelievers and the faithless fall dead around us. Because we have spiritual power, we can prosper even when others become desperate and destitute. We can sow in the middle of a famine and still reap a harvest. This is unnatural, but by spiritual power we can compel the physical outcome that we desire. Jesus said that if a person has faith, he can command even an unnatural thing to happen — he can command a tree to be taken up by the roots and to be planted in the sea. When we have God’s spiritual blessing, we can expect supernatural physical outcomes and benefits. And because we have spiritual power, we can experience success in preaching the gospel regardless of times and cultures, and regardless of opposition.

The spiritual creates, sustains, controls, and dominates the physical. God has blessed us with all spiritual blessings, and because they are spiritual blessings, they are not subject to natural limitations and circumstances. They operate by a different law, that is, the law of faith. The spiritual blessing of prosperity would mean that God can make a person wealthy regardless of the state of the economy, and regardless of the person’s credentials and connections. The spiritual blessing of healing would mean that God can make a person healthy regardless of the state of medical technology, regardless of the age of the individual, regardless of genetics, or any natural factor.

To say that a promise of healing in the Bible refers to “spiritual” healing becomes the strongest assertion of physical healing on the basis of that promise. If the fulfillment of the promise is spiritual, then it is a guarantee that it will bulldoze over every obstacle to secure the physical healing. To receive healing on the spiritual level is to receive healing at the root of the whole person. The body cannot help but recover.

Is this difficult to understand? Does this sound farfetched? Think of it this way. Can a person sin and become corrupted at the root of his being, and it never shows up in his body in the form of disease, decay, and death? This was how death began in the first place. Spiritual death guarantees physical death. This is accepted even by the Faithless, but when we think about this in the other direction, it is rejected. You see? It is not because we are speaking of some esoteric and outrageous thing, but it is because faithless orthodoxy is a religion of death, and to this kind of religion, the chief heresy is faith and life. Yet the gospel of Jesus Christ is a doctrine of faith and life through and through.

The Faithless are carnal people who pretend to be spiritual. They do not know what they are saying when they spiritualize something, because they do not grasp the nature of the spiritual. When they twist the word of God to make a text spiritual, they use the term incorrectly, because a spiritual blessing would cover every physical aspect of the situation, and this is the opposite of what the Faithless wish to assert. They are eager to destroy all physical applications of a promise from God, and relegate it to the spiritual, in the sense that it is imperceptible or only ethical. This is so that no one will know that these people have no faith in God to receive anything from him.

But again, since the spiritual is in fact infinitely more able to produce physical effects and material benefits, the Faithless are misleading in how they use the term. When they claim that something is spiritual, they mean that it is allegorical or metaphorical, or more plainly, they mean that it is imaginary or false. When they claim that a promise of healing is spiritual, they do not expect any physical effect to come from it. However, spiritual healing would guarantee the most evident and comprehensive physical benefits. So to say that the promise is spiritual does not reflect their meaning. In reality, their claim is that when God promises to heal the sick or to answer prayer, the promise is allegorical or metaphorical — he will not in fact heal the sick or answer prayer at all, in any sense. Their claim is that God’s promise is imaginary and false. Their claim is that God’s promise is a lie. This is the true face of faithless orthodoxy.

The Faithless should say that the teachings of Jesus on faith, prayer, healing, miracles, and all such things are literally false, and that they renounce Jesus Christ. This is the only way to express their true feelings on the matter, but it would also expose them as the enemies of Christ, that they do not follow him, and that they teach a false gospel, a false religion, and a false orthodoxy. They are not the religious elite that they want everybody to think that they are, but they are religiously and ethically the worst of the worst among all of humanity. Now if they make the gospel into an allegory and a metaphor, and if they think that it is imaginary and false, then there cannot be salvation for them. No one is saved by an allegory or a metaphor of salvation. No one is saved by an imaginary or a false promise. And no one is saved by making the word of God into a fantasy by calling it “spiritual”!

Since the spiritual creates, sustains, and controls the physical, if one rejects the physical effects that the gospel produces, then it must mean that he rejects the spiritual basis or root. That is, if a person rejects the doctrine of the creation of the physical world, it must mean that he also rejects the reality of the spiritual Being who performed the creation. Now if the gospel promises physical healing that comes from a spiritual power, and a person rejects the physical healing as a matter of doctrine and orthodoxy, then how can he claim to believe in the spiritual power? It means that a person who rejects the physical and material blessings of the gospel cannot claim to have faith in the spiritual blessings of the gospel. It means that if he rejects the physical and material blessings of the gospel, he is unspiritual and unbelieving. If a person rejects the spiritual blessing of healing, he is unspiritual. If a person rejects the spiritual blessing of financial prosperity, he is unspiritual. If a person rejects the spiritual blessings of speaking in tongues, visions and dreams, and signs and wonders, he is unspiritual. If he rejects the physical things that the spiritual things are said to produce, then he has rejected the spiritual things, and he himself is unspiritual. This is the necessary logical conclusion.

On the other hand, when we realize that every physical and material thing that we receive from God by faith is in fact spiritual, then we are delivered from any religious shame that the Faithless have imposed on us. Where there is every spiritual gift, we can also expect every physical demonstration. In the same way, because God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing, we can expect every physical and material benefit. And because each physical and material benefit is in fact spiritual, every time we receive from God, it is a spiritual exercise. When we receive physical healing from God, it is a spiritual exercise that utilizes our knowledge of God and our faith in his word even in the face of extreme agony and deadly symptoms, and the intimidation that comes along with them. When we receive financial prosperity from God, it is a spiritual exercise of faith and action on the basis of our knowledge of the word of God. We have faith that God will prosper us and that he can prosper us regardless of the state of the economy or our specific circumstances. We walk by faith, not by sight. It is a spiritual exercise. It promotes fellowship with God and the study of his word. It erodes religious pride and pretension. It transforms frustration and resentment into thanksgiving. It establishes spiritual character and consistency. Receiving physical and material benefits from God by faith is one of the most spiritual things that anyone can do.