All of our prayers of request should be made in the context of wanting the Lord’s will to be done, regardless of the outcome and even if it means our own personal hardship. We trust the Lord will overrule for our highest spiritual welfare. We can pray that we have the strength and peace to accept His will, and that we can be a blessing to others in whatever experience He sees fit for us to go through.
Today we hear a lot about so-called “faith healing” as a sign of having received the holy spirit. We do not believe this gift of healing exists today.
The miraculous gifts that Jesus’ disciples received at Pentecost were necessary in order to fulfill Jesus’ last command to them before he ascended into heaven. “Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation…Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by signs that accomplished it” Mark 16:15,20.
The special gifts of the spirit (1 Corinthians 12:7-11) were much needed at the time since the Gospel was not yet written. Seeing that the apostles were preaching the good news of Christ’s kingdom on earth (as well as in heaven), it was fitting they should confirm their message by doing miracles, such as healing the sick, which gave a foretaste of what that time would be like when “the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped” (Isaiah 35:5).
Although the apostles could confer the special gifts of the spirit to others, that ability belonged to the apostles alone. Even the disciple Philip, known as the evangelist who was able to perform signs and great miracles, could not confer the gifts of the spirit, but needed to send for the apostles to do this (See Acts 8:14-17). We understand that once the apostles died, the special powers they possessed ceased and were not transferred to others, as there is no record of them doing so. There is also no record of a Christian being healed – even Paul did not heal himself of his “thorn in the flesh.”
The Christian today lives by faith, not by sight. He or she do not need miraculous deeds in order for them to believe and follow after Christ. They have the Word of God (the Bible) to instruct them and God’s grace to sustain them even when physically very ill. In regard to the miraculous gifts of the spirit mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12, the Apostle Paul states, “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. … And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love” 1 Corinthians 13:8,13.
Additional Resource:
Christian Questions Podcast
Episode #1037: “Is Christianity a Healing Religion?”
The how and why of early Christian healing and its place today
Preview Video
CQ rewind Show Notes
(Booklet PDF) “God’s Grand Plan of the Ages
