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Obadiah could you please elaborate with your question thanks Wayne



yes agree Kola that us conforming to his image Glorifies Christ pity we didn't do a better job at times, look forward to your update and peace in return.

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Alright, thanks wanelad.

Not sure how to elaborate.

Is immortality part of the benefits we receive in the atonement wrought by Christ?

No probs 32

Obadiah, are we eternal yes, but our physical bodies will die at some point unless Christ returns beforehand, and the way the worlds cracking up at the moment that would not surprise me

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Wane, it is by no means certain that your key texts, Isaiah 53:4 and 1 Peter 2:24, refer to healing of physical sickness. The Hebrew word (khol-ee') that the Net renders as "illnesses" in Isaiah 53:4 can also mean "suffering" or "grief," as translations such as the KJV, NASB, and ESV attest. It is the same word with which Jesus was said to be personally familiar in Isaiah 53:3. And the phrase "by his wounds you were healed" in 1 Peter 2:24 is a quote from Isaiah 53:5 where, according to the NET Notes, "healing is a metaphor for forgiveness". So it is doubtful that your proof texts actually support your position.

You have indicated your opinion that a loving and caring God would not allow us to be sick so that we can learn from it, but you acknowledge that God would allow it for his own glory (as in the case of Lazarus). How is it that you think a loving and caring God would allow sickness for his glory but not for our benefit? It seems to me that the loving and caring thing would be for him to act (or refrain from acting) for our benefit, and the more so if it is something he would do for his own glory. Your reasoning on this point seems inconsistent and illogical to me.

In fact another passage that you cited indicates that God allows sickness so that we will learn to not sin. James 5:15 says the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up—and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Note the sometimes connection between sin and sickness which is also intimated in 1 Corinthians 11:29-30. Have you forgotten that God promised to bring sickness upon his people if they broke his covenant (Deu 28:60)? Certainly sin is not the only reason for sickness, but it is one. And the connection is consistent with the exhortation in Hebrews 12:5-13. The Lord disciplines the one he loves and chastises every son he accepts.

It's true that Jesus went about healing all kinds of sickness, the Holy Spirit distributes gifts of healings to the church, and we are instructed to pray for healing. God does heal. My church believes in and prays for divine healing, and God has used me to minister healing to others. But if Christians should never be sick, why did Timothy have to drink wine for his stomach's sake (1 Tim 5:23)? Why didn't he just claim his healing? Or why didn't Paul just pray for his healing instead of telling him to drink wine? Why did Epaphroditus get sick and almost die from his sickness while he was ministering to Paul (Philippians 2:25-30)? Why did Paul have to leave Trophimus, his fellow servant (Acts 20:4), sick at Miletum (2 Tim 4:20)? Did Paul's companions in ministry lack faith? Did the apostle Paul lack faith? Did Paul not understand what is ours in the atonement?

Like you, I long to see God's power released. I long to see the sick healed and God glorified in it. But our understanding must be informed by all of Scripture, not just parts of it. All of Scripture must be reconciled in our doctrine and if our doctrine fails to do that, we need to reexamine it.

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This is so the problem of today's faith it follows the the notes of man not the word of God Suffering and Grief, the Apostle Paul certainly accounted this more than most would have from persecution and his worries for the church, so my understanding is it is physical illness. I agree and from memory I noted that Peter referred to Isaiah and made mention that Isaiah said we are healed as in a present, future text where as Peter said were healed past tense


If I said that in the way you interpreted it apologies as that is not what was meant, I meant God does not serve us up sickness and is not the author of it rather it is of Satan. He allows Satan however has given us promises to stand against that wily devil character if only we would believe (Smith Wigglesworth) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGaPegywY_w, God must be so disappointed to see that though he has given us the New Covenant most live as if the were Job. With Lazarus God had every intention of raising from the dead in a few days to show his power, and raising him from the dead, there was no intention to leave him sick or dead for years and years so that he could learn a lesson, nor was his time up. God is awesome and powerful but us fools just don't believe and limit his works.

Jas 5:15 And the prayer of faith will cure the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up. And [color=#0000FF]if he has committed sins, it will be forgiven him. ---- And if he has committed sin! not because he has committed sin. Deu is for those under the Old Covenant the Law, Paul says clearly if your living under the law you will miss the boat. The law as in place until the prophecy of Isaiah came to pass, this of course does not mean one can deliberately go out breaking it but we are under Grace. 1 Corinthians 11:29-30 this is communion, and yes we should be doing this regularly confessing our sins before god and repenting in a proper manner, look at verses 21-22 they were not taking it in a Godly manner, they were not walking in the Spirit of God but in the flesh, are we living a Spirit filled life? of course if you step away from this then your prayers maybe hindered. I do not get this picture of you though Gideon so pray with faith stand on his promises.


Php 2:27 For indeed he was sick, coming near death, but God had mercy on him, and not on him only, but on me also, lest I should have sorrow upon sorrow. --- But God had mercy on him, what does this mean? Healing does not always come within the minute, Lazarus took 4 days, again with 2 Tim 4:20 does not say he was lingering in sickness for ages just that he was sick. It seems you would rather spend more time proving we can get sick which is true, but if we have faith to bring about healing (without faith it is impossible to please God). However the faith being expressed here is more in sickness than health.

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Wane, I cited the NET Notes regarding Isaiah 53:5. The NET Notes were written by Bible translators who are experts in the biblical languages. Translators are human beings so they are not infallible, but every translation of the Bible is interpretive and unless you read in the original languages you rely on their expertise every time you read your Bible. So I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss their explanatory notes and to assume that you know better than they do. But if you don't want to rely on the learning of such men, then you'd better learn Greek and Hebrew well enough to be a translator yourself.


I cited one passage from the OT and six from the NT in my last post, trying to show that God does sometimes allow sickness in order to teach us something for our benefit and in order to lead us into a better place -- not just so that he can be glorified when he heals us. And I tried to show that God does not always answer our prayers for healing. I understand the need for faith in God, but I also know that God doesn't always do what we want him to do. We cannot command God and we cannot demand anything of him. We may prevail upon him, but he does only as he chooses.

I've lived many years and the problem I've seen is that when Christians become dogmatically insistent that we will all be healed if only we believe, those who are already suffering are made to suffer even more when they are told it is their own fault that they are sick or blind or cannot walk because they don't have faith. Now that is not something Jesus ever did, nor is that something the apostles ever did. I don't doubt that Timothy prayed for his own healing and that Paul prayed for his healing. But when it didn't happen, Paul didn't tell Timothy he wasn't healed because he didn't believe. Instead, Paul gave him practical advice of the sort a doctor would give for living with the problem he had.

I admire your eagerness to believe God for the miraculous. I only hope that as you do so you will walk in love, bringing comfort and not condemnation or increased sorrow to people if they remain sick or infirm after praying. But if your own faith is adequate, I'm sure God will give whatever you ask and heal every one.

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I hear what your saying Gideon but in all fairness one cannot build a doctrine around a couple of verses that state someone was sick. There is no indication of how long and one even inferred the person was cured.

If I pray for someone and they do not show healing then I take the wrap tis my seed that was not matured enough, I would not consider passing the buck so to say. As the disciples came back to Jesus and asked why could we not do, it was their faith that failed, not the person they were delivering or healing. Same as it would be mine, thus I do not move above the capabilities that I am able to believe for. The other night I had dinner with a young lady with no arms or legs, now my faith just aint a that point as yet, its got a long way to go. We had good fellowship and exchanged emails once again as we had lost contact from before. This does not mean I do not believe God can do this it just means I do not believe that my faith has reached that level.

I had a wonderful time yesterday with a person with terminal cancer, because I believe in what God can do I shared with her the healing powers of Jesus and offered our home church to come pray for healing, she is considering. My advice would be to stick with treatment and once the evidence of healing was there in black and white then she could work in with her Drs. to finish the treatment (currently on Chemo with limited life expectancy). I was there to sharpen her knives as I do this as a side line, I praise God that I had some hope to offer her and she enjoyed our discussion as sent me an sms not long after expressing this. If she does come around to asking for the team prayer then she will be assured it is upon our faith for the healing not hers as she has already asked. This is why someone should go to the elders of the church because their own faith is lacking, the blame should not be put back on them at all. I did suggest she go to her elders for prayer as she stated she is a Christian she told me she is of Catholic back ground and this was not an option thus the offer presented.

Tis funny you feel you need to respond to dogmatics and visa versa here, I feel that academia has led people into being dogmatic that the Kingdom of God is not here until Christ return, yet my Bible and many of the old heroes of the early 1900's would agree that the Kingdom is here even Wayne Grudham takes this line

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I don't have time for a lengthy reply Wayne (I will be replying to your earlier question to me...as I'm still not at home)...other than to say that you have made the kingdom TOO present now. That is as much of a problem as making it NOT present at all now. Don't make that mistake brother. Those are both dangers to be avoided. The kingdom is both present and yet not fully present.

As far as the issue of your "faith not quite being there yet"...my only question to you is..."Do you even have faith the size of a mustard seed?" Apparently you lack faith altogether in what faith actually belongs to...Jesus. I do not say this lightly. We are not working ourselves into a frenzied state to elevate our faith to some higher level so we can then do something more...NO. We simply are relying on the Lord Jesus who ALONE does the work by his almighty Spirit working in and through us. It is not essential to work up faith. We simply trust him or we don't. In the matter with this gal...do you trust that the Lord can heal her or don't you? Do you trust that the Lord will? Do you believe it is for today or not? Do you believe that He might actually have something better through not doing so today and instead working through her in the midst of this fleshliness and her awaiting what we who are in Christ are ALL awaiting (the glorious appearing of our Great God and Savior...when we will finally be clothed with immortality and changed forever). This sister...if she trusts in the Lord continues on by faith...and for you to say that she must be healed now to be in fullness is to fail to understand that the fullness with which we all long is still yet to come. Any healing now...is only temporary...and awaits the better day. But by God's grace and mercy His kingdom has broken into this world and declares its coming already.

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Hi Rick you know I always value your in put but we are on two different journeys I must say even if in the end our destination is the same.

Mat 17:19-20 Then the followers came to Jesus alone. They said, "We tried to force the demon out of the boy, but we could not. Why were we not able to make the demon go out?" Mat 17:20 Jesus answered, "You were not able to make the demon go out, because your faith is too small. Believe me when I tell you, if your faith is only as big as a mustard seed you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. You will be able to do anything."

I know you may come back on this that this is before the baptism of the Holy Spirit but if that be the case then we should be doing even greater things but we dont due to the size of our faith.

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Favourite verse John 7:37-39

Wanelad

do you realize how devastating this kind of doctrine is to people who are not healed?

We are also warned about destroying the faith of a weaker (if thats how you see it) brother/sister.

For the life of me I cannot see how Isaiah 53 can be used to say that healing from every sickness is available now. So much of what is ours in Christ is part of the "now but not yet" tension of the NT.

As to why a loving God would use suffering to teach us .... according to Hebrews, this also applied to God the Son in His human form.

Hebrews 5:8 8 Although he was a son, he learned obedience through the things he suffered. Context (NET)

Personally, healing was not given though I begged, pleaded, etc.etc.etc. ....
it is only now, many years later that I can see God's wisdom and love in not giving me what I asked for then.

I think it a great mercy that God does not always give us what we ask for.

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so many quotes that are nothing about sickness he suffered through persecution, and worries for the world not a sickness. Anyway enough said from my perspective I see it is not really welcome here so I dust my feet of the topic for now.

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I wish you would answer my question before you go .... how do you deal with people who are not healed? .... surely not everyone is healed - what then?

And Wanelad .... why do we have to agree with you? .... the discussion has been eirenic, and both sides of the position have been explained

Which is what a discussion forum is supposed to be about.

Dinah

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Hi DC sorry had not meant to not answer your question but the conversation through the debate has been mainly geared against my belief and there has been very little support of it. In fact it has been more warning after warning I have taken a wrong road apart from 32ks comments

I am sorry to hear your healing not coming to fruition, I am not God so I do not confess to have all the answers as I stated earlier my faith is yet a seed and got a long way to grow. Even that felt like it was attacked, I know the person concerned is of the Calvin belief and has a good heart so do not take it too personally. I have found the more I exercise my faith the more it has grown, with my own healing once I started confessing it the healing came about.

I guess I took a different approach than yourself and in the past when I made mention of how, DC you made a comment that the healing was more likely from the deceiver ouch! I approached God with confidence and spoke in a respectful manner but firm in my requests of God providing his promises. I am not sure where God asks us to beg and plead, yes sure he does ask us to continually seek and we shall find and to stand firm in our confidence.

I do not put pressure on others that do no believe I offer to pray and believe for them though, I encourage to believe even if the physical does not show at the time, as this is faith believing in the things hoped for not seen. I do not always see victory over sin but I still believe it is a done deal! so why not the same for healing which also was achieved on the cross. I think you would be surprised with my love and compassion for others even if it does not come across when I am here in a forum trying to defend what I believe. It is hard to show here as there are no emotions apart from words, and my words certainly do not come across as elegantly and loving as the way the Apostle Paul was able to deliver.

A little while ago after being in the church for a while, doubt became a big issue for me as there were so many promises yet most seem to just brush them aside due to not being able to find the key to releasing them. This was damaging to my faith and I had started to wonder if I was believing a myth. It was not until I found this teaching that really lined up with what I believed that gave me confidence that faith is real and faith is the key in unlocking the mysteries

I have come to the conclusion though it is not fair for me to keep sharing what does seem to be offending others thus I will stick with what I believe yet refrain from sharing here further at this point. This was added to just attempt at answering your question

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Favourite verse John 7:37-39