I would have to say yes, but admittedly, I have a prejudice opinion. Why? because I’ve seen God heal over one thousand people.
But, you weren’t there and you didn’t see it. I get that. Trust me, I fully understand this is a hard concept to grasp. It is even for some Christians, much less the stray non-believer who somehow wandered to this page and may be reading this right now. But all apologetics has to start somewhere so I’ll take the easy way out and start with an explanation from a Christian viewpoint.
- CAN God heal?
- Well, if God is supreme in everything then He must be all powerful so He can do what He wants.
- DID God heal?
- This question is so well documented in the Bible that it needs not be posted. Simply go the to search engine of your choice and search “healing in the Bible”. I admit that so far, this exercise may seem silly, but it establishes a precedence so hang with me.
- DOES God still heal?
- Now we’re getting into it! The easy answer is yes, and proof is available through all of the stores told by people who have, or have witnessed healing. As above, your favorite search engine will be useful to you. But if you don’t believe your own eyes, lets look at the Bible:
- And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mk 16:17-18
- Now we’re getting into it! The easy answer is yes, and proof is available through all of the stores told by people who have, or have witnessed healing. As above, your favorite search engine will be useful to you. But if you don’t believe your own eyes, lets look at the Bible:
- CAN God use US to heal?
- Not only can He, but boy, does He want to! Again, the Bible is full of stories of the Apostles and disciples healing people. Peter’s first miracle was to heal a lame man at the beautiful gate in Jerusalem and others were even raised from the dead.
Why does God heal?
Ah! Now we arrive at the most important question – why. Simple; He loves us! And healing is just one of the many tools in God’s toolbox that He uses to try to fix us. God loves to fix things. He fixes the weather, He fixes relationships, He fixes job situations and He fixes broken hearts. But no matter what God fixes, He does so for one reason and one reason only – to draw people to Himself because by doing so, we are made whole. This, then is the ultimate “fix” and God will use any and every opportunity to draw people to Himself. This is why after job losses, natural disasters, weddings or funerals people naturally turn to Him.
Healing is no different. God does not heal in order that we may live forever, He heals to make Himself known to us so that we can draw closer to Him and by doing so, repent and believe so that we can live with Him forever. Even Jesus’ friend Lazarus eventually died, despite being raised from the dead. But here is the thing; healing isn’t just a tool, it’s a power tool, and the good news is that the power cord for this tool is plugged into God Himself.
It would be a tragedy to encounter God in a miraculous way and then to remain unchanged, but sadly, while it is true that all of those who encounter the living God are impacted, not all are changed for life. I know of several such people who were touched – touched deeply – by the Lord, and were impacted, but only for a short while and instead of turning from their ways, they returned to the old (2 Pe 2:22) For them the event was like the seed sown on shallow ground (Mt 13:3-23) that never took root.
God has perfect timing. In the beginning of Church history, signs and wonders were commonplace. Then, for a variety of reasons, they died off. But now, it seems, the Lord has once again seen fit to pour out grace and to manifest signs and wonders in a huge fashion. But why? Well, it’s just my opinion, but I think that if you look at the society when the church began (33AD) and now you will find many commonalities. At that time, you had a mix of God-fearing people and pagans. At least with the God-fearing people you could draw attention to their actions and point out that they were sinning, but to the pagans, they had no frame of reference for sin or morality. They didn’t even know they were sinning!
We are in a similar situation today so the difficulties are the same. For instance, how can you tell someone that fornication is wrong when they have no scriptural basis for comparison? In fact, society as a whole tells them the opposite, that fornication is not only okay, but that everyone is doing it and thus it is normal and it is the Christian who is looked at as “different” or “weird”. Telling a modern-day pagan that they are sinning against God is meaningless to them because they don’t even know God. So… where do you start? How do you convince them God exists without weeks of catechesis and instruction?
Signs and wonders, that’s how.