“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16: 11)
Growing Dominion, Part 30
As we make applications of biblical principles, one of the primary places we should make application is in the realm of health. In Scripture, the word for savior and healer are the same word. A central part of Christ’s ministry was that of healing, and to this day concerns about health are the most natural subjects of prayer. By His stripes we are healed, and this is not just a verse for our charismatic brethren. When we are sick, or ailing, or dying, it is not only very natural to cry out to God for deliverance (salvation and healing), but it is also scriptural. It is a false spirituality that consigns the task of forgiving sins to Jesus and the task of healing our bodies to the AMA, the chiropractor, or any other volunteers. The gospel of Christ’s death and resurrection occurred so that everything that is crooked might be made straight. This will be finally complete in the resurrection, but the Bible is very plain that the consequences of sin (which include disease) are to be ameliorated through the progress of the gospel.
But as we undertake to understand what this means, we have to think like adults, and not like children. The fallen state of man does not just cause us to have problems like sickness and disease. It also causes us to be confronted by a pandemonium of suggested treatments and remedies, many of them fundamentally contradictory. Now what? We know that the progress of the gospel, and the gospel’s influence, is gradual, and so we ought not to expect any instantaneous fixes. But at the same time, we should expect real progress through history, along with the means to measure whether or not we are making actual progress.