My final installment before my summary on the question ‘Is healing in the atonement’? Takes a look at it from the experiential basis. This is the category in which monumental claims are made. “Experience” is hard to disprove. I cannot claim that your experience is not true, but what I can do is weigh it against Scripture, history, and reason. I do not discount experience as being valid to the discussion, but any truth must be evaluated and vindicated by all four principles to some degree. When this issue is brought up and people try to prove it, the issue of experience always seems to work its way in. They ask, ” What about all the evidence?” “Have you ever been to a healing service?” “I have, and I’ve seen…….” Once again, I cannot argue with the fact that they had an experience, but the question is, is that experience a Scriptural experience? We must also consider the fact that while “whatever is true works; not everything that works, is true.” Just because something appears to work, does not necessarily guarantee that it is Biblical or seated in truth. It is equally true that because I have not witnessed something, it does not make it untrue. The question arises, do our “experiences” validate truth? Or does truth validate experiences? While experience plays an important part in our walk with God, it cannot replace Scripture, history, and reason. Some seem to have gone to the extent of saying, “I do not care what the Bible says, I’ve had an experience!” When experiences between people disagree, then more adequate means of determining what is true is required. At times, extraordinary claims have been made, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof! We cannot passively accept every claim because it is wrapped in the name of Jesus! Just because many people believe, it does not make it true.

What about those healings we see at services and on television? I will readily admit that many people get healed today as I have been used in at my previous church Renewal Christian Centre, but it has little to do with a certain person laying hands on them, or the amount of their faith, but everything to do with the will of God. God is still working in the lives of believers. I do not believe that healing has any part in the atonement and I also do not believe that it is God’s will to always heal. Salvation from sin and the consequences of eternal separation from God is the emphasis of the atonement throughout the entire Bible, and there are Biblical examples of people who God did not heal.

I doubt that much of what I see on television has much to do with reality. My doubts come from personal observation, and that is why I doubt what I see. First, it is a sideshow. Money, not more of Christ is at the centre of it. If greed is an indicator, I would have more faith in healing in the name of Mary at Lourdes than I would have in Benny Hinn. Secondly, how many of these people in wheelchairs do you know? Are they genuinely medically disabled and cannot leave the chair? Are they missing both legs? After they receive healing, are they back in the chair and ready for the next “healing” service? This is the norm of what I have seen. Most of what takes place in these services is the “healing” of inorganic and not organic diseases. What I mean by inorganic is, headaches, deafness in one ear, assorted pain. Something that a non-medical professional cannot observe or prove. I have known people with organic (real, observable and documented maladies) that go forward in these services and get “healed.” They have called me with the testimony that they are completely healed! But upon in-depth questioning , I always find that they have not really been healed at all. All they are doing is “claiming” healing. They trudge on in this sick fantasy because some crackpot has convinced them that the power to wellness is in this mental trickery. They have been convinced that the power to get healed is within themselves, and not God. Healers who want your money will say that this “claiming” to be healed is faith. Other’s who see someone confessing a non-existent healing rightfully call it what it is – psychotic behavior!

Many of these circus performers in crusades make a big deal of knocking people down over and over, as if that were something spiritual, or even Biblical! There are few if any real successes in these healing services. The vast majority leave in worse shape than they had come in, their hopes dashed that God did not honor their faith and take them out of that wheelchair. Those that would promote that these great healings are taking place are theological wrecking balls, witnesses not to Christ, but to the insanity of being a “Christian.” How many avoid Christ because this is what they know of Christianity? With all of the hype, begging for cash, and heretical teaching that I see, it only makes me wonder as to how much of the healings that are taking place are nothing more than “claims” of healing, or mere momentary psychological suggestion or auto-suggestion. If there is any healing taking place, it is in spite of what is going on, and it is truly the grace of God reaching out to a hurting and desperate believer.

What does the Bible say about healing? I raise the question once again, do our “experiences” validate truth? Or does truth validate experiences?

We have the example of Jesus. When He healed, He did so immediately and completely. He did not heal those that were not medically confirmed as sick, but those that had a long record known by all. The apostles were able to heal everybody, completely and immediately, without progression. (Acts 5:12-16, 9:34.) This is the gift of healing, anything less than the Biblical account is a counterfeit. As far as I can tell, no man has the gift of healing today (this would make then faith healers). In Scripture we see that all were healed without exception, which is certainly not something we see today. If anyone believes that they have the gift of healing, let them start in the terminal ward with cancer patients, in front of medical doctors and the media. Start there and work down until all are cleared out of the building. Then they can go to the morgue and raise the dead. Do this, and I cannot help but concede that they have the Biblical gift of healing. Once again at this stage before I’m stoned I must emphasis I do believe in physical healing!

To say that healing is in the atonement is to say that it is available by faith, just as truly as forgiveness of sins are. This condemns Paul and Timothy as inadequate representatives of the Gospel. James’ epistle, considered by most as being one of the earliest, would have been likely known to be in existence by Paul and others. With this being so, and if this was taken as a promise of healing, (the prayer of faith shall save the sick,) then why didn’t Paul use his power to heal Timothy, (like he did in Acts 28:9), and why didn’t he go to the elder with a “prayer of faith and get himself infallibly healed? Why didn’t the other apostles rebuke Paul for his insufficient faith? Why wasn’t he rightfully mocked, “Physician, heal thyself!” Why didn’t Paul rebuke Timothy to get his act together and have faith, when he instead gave the advice to “take a little wine for thy stomach’s sake?” With such poor examples of healing faith, why would we even accept the writings of Paul?

Paul had his “thorn in the flesh,” which was a physical ailment. He was not healed. (2 Corinthians 12:7-10.) Paul wrote to the Galatians, “Ye know how through infirmity of the flesh I preached the gospel unto you at the first.” (Galatians 4:13) Now, if healing is in the atonement, it is part of the gospel. How could Paul be believed if healing is provided by faith as part of the atonement while he remained yet unhealed? Paul did not tell Timothy to have faith, he told him to take wine for his stomach. (1 Timothy 5:23.) It seems that God is more interested in our spiritual well-being than He is our physical well-being.

There are amazing claims made by those who propagate this doctrine. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof! The fact that sickness and death effects even the most ardent and faithful should be enough for anyone to wake up and see the obvious truth that healing in the atonement is a wishful fallacy. Either it proves that this doctrine is a farce, or it is proof that all people, including false “teachers” do not have adequate faith to receive this healing. If this is so, we must discard this wishful thinking, or we are reduced to questioning whether anyone has ever had adequate faith for healing or salvation!