However, there is no denying the fact that the Bible has much to say about divine healing. God is represented as a Great Physician who heals all the diseases of his people. (Ps. 103:3) The Prophet Isaiah foretold a time when “the inhabitant shall not say, I am sick.” (Isa. 33:24) The same sacred writer prophesied that all the blind eyes would be opened, and all the deaf ears unstopped. He also promised that the lame would leap, and the dumb sing.—Isa. 35:5,6

Diseases of all kinds are simply an evidence that the human race is dying. They are the concomitants of death, and the Apostle Paul informs us that Christ must reign until he has destroyed death. (I Cor. 15:25,26) The destruction of death will include the destruction of disease which leads to death. The Apostle John, describing the meaning of the vision given to him by Christ on the Isle of Patmos, said that a time was coming when there would be no more death, that God would wipe away tears from off all faces, that there would be no more pain, and that sorrow and sighing would end.— Rev. 21:4

Not only do the Scriptures thus promise that it is God’s purpose to make an end of sin and death, but the prophecies also reveal that this would be done through Christ, that through him health and life would come to the people. The fact is emphasized by a message Jesus sent to John the Baptist. John had been imprisoned, and while previously he had announced Jesus as the foretold Messiah, and thoroughly believed that he was, he later wondered and sought reassurance. In this frame of mind he sent two of his disciples to Jesus asking, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?”—Matt. 11:3

Jesus asked the messengers to return to John and tell him what they had seen—that the sick were being healed, that blind eyes were being opened, that the dead were being raised, and that the poor were having the Gospel preached to them. Jesus knew that John the Baptist would take these things as proof that the Messiah, the Christ, truly had come, for John knew that these were the works which God had promised the Messiah would accomplish on behalf of the people.

In view of this clearly established purpose of God, through Christ, as we find it in the Bible, no true believer in the Scriptures will deny that divine healing is a part of the Christian program for the sin-cursed and dying race. On the other hand, a moment of honest reflection upon the experiences of Christians throughout the centuries since Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead should be sufficient to convince any sincere searcher after truth that if the divine program for restoring the human race to health and life is to accomplish no more for the people than has been done by the various faith healers and miracle workers who have claimed to operate in the name of Christ, the divine health program has been, and continues to be, a miserable failure.

To see and acknowledge this should, in turn, cause us to search more deeply into the Word of God in order to discover, if possible, the manner and time in which his health-giving provision for the people will become a reality. Thus, and thus only, will we find harmony between the testimony of the Bible and the experiences of the followers of Jesus, past and present. Regardless of what our theories and our wishes may be, they should not be allowed to weigh anything as against the facts; and the facts are that no such program of divine healing as that promised in the Word of God has yet reached the dying race. And why not?