Scripture provides many testimonies to the power of God manifested through Jesus Christ as he healed the sick and restored the broken. These accounts are not historical relics. They are living truths, revealing God’s mission to redeem humanity and his desire to make the entire person whole. Healing is an act of compassion, and it is an integral part of God’s mission to restore all of creation.
Consider the man healed in the Decapolis. He was possessed by a legion of demons, and he lived among the tombs, crying out day and night and cutting himself with stones. No one could bind him, not even with chains, for he would break them apart, and no one had the strength to subdue him. His condition seemed hopeless, and he was rejected by society. When Jesus arrived in the region, the man ran to him and fell at his feet, and with a word, Jesus cast out the demons, sending them into a herd of pigs that rushed down a steep bank into the sea and drowned. The man was delivered and restored to his right mind. This man, once freed from the power of demons, did not return to his old life. Instead, he became a preacher, spreading the news of what Jesus had done for him across the ten cities of the Decapolis.
Moments earlier, the man had been out of his mind, bound and tormented by dark forces, but one encounter with Jesus transformed him into a witness. He went from a symbol of brokenness to a beacon of hope, proclaiming the power of Christ. The Decapolis was a region of ten cities with a predominantly Greco-Roman culture, known for its pagan culture and resistance to Jewish influences. The fact that his testimony spread throughout the Decapolis is particularly striking.
Instead of allowing the man to join him, Jesus commanded the man to remain in the region. This is recognized as a strategic move to establish the foundation for future evangelistic work. Jesus used a miracle of healing to spearhead his outreach in the entire area. Eventually, the region was permeated by Christian influence. Healing is an essential part of God’s mission to spread the gospel, even to those who seem hard to reach. Healing miracles are practical, covenantal, and missional. To be against the ministry of healing or to claim that miracles of healing have ceased is to be an enemy of the Great Commission. It is to take a definite stand against the salvation of humanity. It is one of the clearest declarations against Jesus Christ and everything he represents.
The faithless religious leaders would have dismissed the man. They would have shunned him as a dangerous outcast. Even if they had wanted to help him, they would have been unable to, because theirs was only a religion of human doctrines and traditions. They did not in fact know God, and they were faithless and powerless. But Jesus reached out to him. He not only delivered the man but also elevated him, empowering him to become a messenger. This is the grace of God. This is what God is truly like. He chooses the weak things of the world to shame the strong. The man’s testimony reverberated across the region, and his physical healing became a catalyst for the spiritual healing of many. When God heals, he often sets off a chain reaction, as the miracle in one life inspires faith in others.
Now consider the account of the ten lepers who were healed by Jesus. He was traveling along the border between Samaria and Galilee when he entered a village and was met by ten men who had leprosy. They stood at a distance, as required by law, and cried out, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” In response, Jesus instructed them to go and show themselves to the priests.
Leprosy was not only a physical ailment but also a social stigma. Lepers were outcasts, forced to live in isolation from their communities, cut off from family, friends, and worship in the temple. Their condition symbolized uncleanness, and their isolation represented a living death. The priests were responsible for inspecting and declaring a person clean of leprosy. This was necessary for the lepers to be reintegrated into society, allowing them to return to their families and religious life. By sending them to the priests, Jesus was both honoring the existing law and facilitating their restoration into the community. It demonstrated that the healing was not just physical but also had social and religious implications, enabling the men to reclaim their place in society. This act of showing themselves to the priests was also a testimony to the religious authorities of the miraculous work of Jesus.
As they went, they were healed, and their leprosy disappeared. One of them, seeing that he was healed, returned and praised God with a loud voice, and fell at the feet of Jesus to give thanks. Jesus expressed disappointment that only one came back to glorify God. The leper appreciated the miracle of healing for what it was, that the blessing was indeed physical, and also social, financial, and spiritual, leading to sincere praise toward God. The healing of other diseases, even today, also affects all areas of life, especially the spiritual aspect. This is why Satan and the Faithless fight it. Through miracles of healing, God’s mission is accomplished as he restores individuals to full health and returns them to their communities, leading those who are affected to worship and thanksgiving.
Jesus remarked that the only one who returned to give thanks was a foreigner, a Samaritan. Many of those who supposedly belonged to the kingdom, the people of Israel, were full of unbelief. Even when the gospel of salvation and healing was preached to them, they exhibited an entitled attitude, responding with ingratitude and cynicism. They were like the people in most churches today, people who call themselves Christians. But this outsider, someone who did not belong to their covenant community, demonstrated surprising insight and a pleasant attitude. The reality is that salvation is often found outside of religious circles. People on the outside perceive God’s grace more clearly and believe more quickly than those who are steeped in human tradition and religious pride.
In another place, a Roman centurion approached Jesus, asking him to heal his servant. Although he was a Gentile and an outsider to the covenant community, the centurion displayed extraordinary faith. He affirmed that Jesus only needed to speak the word and his servant would be healed. Jesus marveled at his faith, and said that he had not found such great faith even in Israel. Then Jesus declared that many people would come from other parts of the world to sit with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven, but the supposed heirs of the kingdom would be thrown out into the darkness. The church is in the same situation. Just as those who were supposedly part of God’s kingdom were full of unbelief and hostility against the gospel, many within the church today take their status for granted, showing no faith or appreciation for the gospel of healing and salvation, while those on the outside often demonstrate greater humility and belief in God’s power.
Religious people often despise the idea of coming to God for physical benefits. Some speak as if it is beneath a Christian to pray for healing miracles, as if such desires are carnal and unworthy. This view represents a rejection of the gospel. When Jesus walked the earth, he healed the sick as much as he preached sermons. Faithless religious people now tell Jesus that much of what he did was carnal and unimportant, and only suited for symbolic and spiritual application! What a rebuke against Jesus Christ! What a public repudiation of the gospel! What blasphemy against the Holy Spirit!
Theologians declare that man is a unity when it comes to ethics, insisting that it matters what we do with our bodies. Some of them even make the absurd claim that the distinction between the spirit and the body is a feature of Greek philosophy and not of the Christian faith. But when it comes to healing, suddenly they are eager to assert a distinction between the spirit and the body, and say that what matters is the spirit after all. The Faithless are stupid, wicked, and hypocritical. They see Jesus as an embarrassment to their theology, and the ministry of healing is something that a rational and sophisticated believer should avoid. This attitude is what can send someone straight to hell.
In any case, Scripture teaches that there is indeed a sharp distinction between the spirit and the body. Even so, man remains a unity. The spirit has priority, but the body is also essential. In ethics, it does matter what you do with your body. Thus acts such as adultery and drunkenness are sinful, and condemned by God. And when it comes to healing, Jesus gave it the greatest attention and emphasis. He came to save and to heal the whole person.
God is concerned with the whole person. He is not indifferent to suffering, and he does not dismiss the cries of those in pain. To downplay physical healing is cruel and self-righteous. The privileged and the comfortable spiritualize suffering. Those who have never suffered say that physical healing does not matter. Then there are those who are simply religiously delusional to the point of masochism, and their sickness feeds into their religious pride. Jesus was not sick or in pain, but he had compassion on the people, because he was not a self-righteous moron. He made physical healing through miracles a main focus of his ministry, demonstrating that God’s mission is to bring wholeness to every person who believes.
Consider another man who was healed by Jesus. The man had been blind from birth, and his condition had defined his entire life. Jesus made mud and applied it to his eyes. He told him to go wash it off, and the man obeyed. As he washed, his sight was restored. This miraculous healing, however, sparked controversy. The religious leaders interrogated the man, trying to discredit both him and Jesus. They could not accept that such a miracle had taken place, especially not on the Sabbath. When the man refused to renounce Jesus, they threw him out of the synagogue.
The man lost his place in the religious community, but he gained something genuine and precious. He encountered the Son of God and received not only physical sight but spiritual sight as well. Spiritual sight is the ability to perceive the truth about God, to recognize Jesus as the Christ, and to understand the things of God. While physical sight allows one to navigate the material world, spiritual sight opens a person’s eyes to the reality of God’s kingdom, his purpose, and his glory. The man who received the physical miracle discerned the true nature of Jesus, something the religious leaders did not grasp even though they had physical sight all along. True spiritual sight requires faith and humility, putting aside religious pride and tradition. This man was a testimony against the blindness of the faithless religious people. The miracle healing exposed and condemned them.
The religious establishment claimed to represent God, but they did not lead this man to Christ. In fact, they despised him for even suggesting that Jesus might be from God. Their religious heritage was empty and false. It could not heal, could not deliver, could not restore. It could only mislead and damn themselves and others. They had built a system that served themselves in the name of God, a system designed to oppress rather than uplift. When God himself came in the flesh, they wanted to kill him, exposing their true nature. They were not interested in God; they were interested in using God for their own gain.
This kind of self-appointed religious authority persists today. We see faithless religious people who use religion as a tool for control, who place heavy burdens on people without offering true hope or healing. They prioritize maintaining their heritage and influence over caring for those in need. Such systems are no different from those that opposed Jesus, for they too reject the heart of God’s compassion and grace.
Jesus spurned human religious opinions and traditions. He brought healing directly to the people, without the mediation of a corrupt system. He showed that God is not distant or indifferent. He showed that the power of God is available to all who believe, regardless of their standing in the religious hierarchy. When the healed man was thrown out, Jesus found him again. He did not leave him abandoned. And he personally revealed himself to the man as the Christ, the Son of God.
God is on a mission to open blind eyes by the power of Jesus Christ and by miracles of healing in his name. These miracles of healing bring light to people where there is only human creeds and traditions. At the same time, the miracles keep the Faithless in their darkness, hardening the reprobates and confirming their perdition.