Monday: God Heals through Physicians
WEEK 30
MONDAY
GOD HEALS THROUGH PHYSICIANS
Psalm 103:1-5
We noted yesterday the five ways in which God heals. We take them up in reverse order.
First, God heals through the physician. This method is not mentioned in the Acts or in the Epistles except by implication. “Luke the dearly loved physician” is mentioned in Col 4:14, and he is mentioned as one who continued to be a physician, not was a physician. Nowhere is medicine derided or are physicians repudiated in the New Testament. Paul says: “Don’t drink water anymore, but use a little wine because of your stomach and your frequent illnesses” (1 Tim 5:23). A little wine was prescribed as a physical remedy—true, a doubtful remedy—but in use in those days. The use of remedies is the point.
But while physicians and remedies are not repudiated, they are very marginal in the New Testament. They are not the chief dependence for health. Other forces were at work producing health and healing. But not all diseases were cured. Timothy had “frequent illnesses.” Paul had a “thorn in my body,” for which he sought the Lord three times and got the reply, “My grace is enough for you, because power is made perfect in weakness.” To which Paul replied, “So I’ll gladly spend my time bragging about my weakness” (2 Cor 12:7-9). Paul’s infirmity was probably sore, running eyes; for he said to the Galatians: “You know that I first preached the gospel to you because of an illness. Though my poor health burdened you, you didn’t look down on me or reject me, but you welcomed me as if I were an angel from God, or as if I were Christ Jesus! . . . I swear that, if possible, you would have dug out your eyes and given them to me” (4:13-15). That the infirmity was a moral struggle with sex—as has been suggested by some who on behalf of an absolutist position in regard to physical healing would like to get rid of Paul’s unhealed physical infirmity—has no basis whatever in the New Testament.
While not all diseases were cured in the New Testament, yet this alternative was there: either God will cure the infirmity, or God will give us power to use the infirmity until the final cure in the resurrection, when we get our perfect resurrection body. In either case a real way out.
O Lord, I know that you will cure my diseases now or give me power to take up those infirmities into the purpose of my life and transmute them into higher victory. Amen.
AFFIRMATION FOR THE DAY: I will take all my infirmities to God for cure or for power to use them for higher ends.