One of the five fatal flaws of WoF theology according to one very vocal critic is the teaching on sickness and suffering. Some critics even claim that WoF people believe that if you have faith you will never suffer or have any problems in life. In all of my years in the movement I have never heard anybody say that. In fact, the vast majority have said the opposite. The point of contention is not whether suffering will happen, but how it will happen. Do we suffer from persecution, circumstances, sickness, or all three?
The Bible says that all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution (II Tim. 3:12), so there’s no escape there. We’re also told to endure hardship (II Tim. 2:3), so we know that our journey will be fraught with challenges and obstacles. Kenneth Hagin told numerous stories about times when he walked several miles to preach, or sold his car for junk, or faced rejection from family members, or was disfellowshipped for speaking in tongues. Certainly the biggest hardship that he endured was spending so much time away from his family when God led him into an itinerant ministry. So the claim that WoF teaching rejects suffering is unfounded.
That just leaves sickness. Are we to believe that all of God’s children are supposed to suffer from sickness too? You can glorify God in persecution (John 21:19) and trials (Phil. 2:12-16), but I don’t know of anywhere in the Bible that it says we can glorify God through sickness. (Even Job didn’t glorify God through sickness. He glorified God through his faith and patience, which brought him victory in the end.) To the contrary, God was glorified when people were healed, not sick.
The same critic begins his diatribe on the issue of healing with this:
“Sickness and suffering are indeed the common denominator of a fallen world. We all get sick and eventually we all die – including every single person committed to the Faith movement. As much as the Faith teachers would have you believe otherwise, there are no exceptions to the rule.”
Talk about distortions! Who in the WoF movement has EVER taught that death is avoidable? If Jesus doesn’t return in the next 100 years or so we’ll all die. No argument there. That has never been an issue. The issue is whether we as believers have to go through life suffering from sickness, or whether our physical healing has been provided by the stripes that Jesus suffered. Certainly Faith teachers get attacked, and at times they seek medical assistance, but if physical healing has been provided for us then shouldn’t we make every reasonable effort to appropriate that provision by faith?
Isaiah 53:4,5 says:
4 Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.
5But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.
The critics will say that this passage is referring to our spiritual healing, not physical healing. Well maybe they should inform Matthew.
16 When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 17 that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying:
“He Himself took our infirmities
And bore our sicknesses.” (Matthew 8:16,17)
Matthew is quoting that same passage of scripture in Isaiah, and he says that Jesus fulfilled that prophecy when He healed the physically sick who were brought to Him in Capernaum. That means that the context of Isaiah is not merely spiritual healing, but physical healing as well.
Many apologists and critics of the Word of Faith love to quote Paul’s admonition to the Galatians not to believe or accept a different gospel from the one that he preached. They claim that the WoF is a different gospel from the one Paul preached, and therefore those who preach it are accursed.
“I marvel that you are turning away so soon from Him who called you in the grace of Christ, to a different gospel, which is not another; but there are some who trouble you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ. But even if we, or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel to you than what we have preached to you, let him be accursed. As we have said before, so now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you than what you have received, let him be accursed.” (Gal. 1:6-9)
Paul was writing to the Christians in Galatia who were falling for the message delivered to them by the Judaizers, that they must observe the Law of Moses and circumcision to be saved. He insisted that the only gospel is the one that he preached to them.
In the 14th chapter of Acts we read a story of Paul preaching in Galatia. Here we have an opportunity to see what happened when Paul preached the gospel there.
“Now it happened in Iconium that they went together to the synagogue of the Jews, and so spoke that a great multitude both of the Jews and of the Greeks believed. But the unbelieving Jews stirred up the Gentiles and poisoned their minds against the brethren. Therefore they stayed there a long time, speaking boldly in the Lord, who was bearing witness to the word of His grace, granting signs and wonders to be done by their hands. But the multitude of the city was divided: part sided with the Jews, and part with the apostles. And when a violent attempt was made by both the Gentiles and Jews, with their rulers, to abuse and stone them, they became aware of it and fled to Lystra and Derbe, cities of Lycaonia, and to the surrounding region. And they were preaching the gospel there. And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, “Stand up straight on your feet!” And he leaped and walked.” (Acts 14:1-10)
Lystra was a city in Galatia. Paul was preaching the gospel, and as he preached there was a lame man listening to him. Paul saw that the man had faith to be healed. Where does faith come from? It comes from hearing the Word of God. (Rom. 10:17) So something that Paul said as he preached the gospel caused this man to have faith for physical healing! Not just salvation, but healing for his lifelong inability to walk. Paul didn’t touch the man. He didn’t pray for the man. All he did was preach the gospel, observe the man, and then tell him how to activate his faith and receive his healing.
Based on this story and Paul’s insistence that the Galatians shouldn’t accept any other gospel than the one that he preached, I can only conclude that if anybody is preaching a different gospel it would be those who leave physical healing out of it. So if I wanted to, I could condemn those people like they condemn us. But somehow I can’t bring myself to do that, because I know that Paul wasn’t talking about that aspect of the gospel. He was referring to people who preach a different means of attaining salvation.
The Old Covenant included physical healing. (Ex. 15:26) Physical healing was part of Jesus’ ministry. (Mat. 9:35) It was part of the signs that Jesus said would accompany those who believe in Mark 16:17,18. It was manifested by the apostles as they took the gospel throughout the Roman Empire in the book of Acts. So why should we leave it out of the gospel that we preach today?
The gospel hasn’t changed. It still includes physical healing just as it did when Paul preached in Galatia and that lame man was healed. What has changed is the church. We’ve left the power of God out of it. We’ve decided that we’re more comfortable with a healing-free gospel. After all, people shouldn’t come to the Lord because of what they can get, right? The problem with that view is that it’s not how it worked in the Bible. You can see in the Bible people came to Jesus and sought healing. When the sick were healed people glorified God and believed in Jesus. When people were healed as the apostles preached the same thing happened. In Acts 3 the lame man at Solomon’s Portico was healed, and when the crowd gathered around to see this man who had been lame his whole life suddenly walking and leaping, they heard Peter’s sermon and five thousand men came to faith in Jesus.
A healing-free gospel might sound more pious, but it’s simply not the gospel of the Word of God. In order for us to follow Jesus and fulfill the Great Commission we need to do things the way that He did them, and He brought healing to people, cast out devils, and worked miracles. Then He told us that we would do greater works than Him, because He would go to the Father and send us The Comforter, meaning the Holy Spirit.
I realize that there is error in the Pentecostal/Charismatic world. I realize that things get messy when you start encouraging people to minister in the supernatural. I realize that there have been abuses in the name of the ministry of the Holy Spirit. Be that as it may, this is the calling we’ve been given. We can shy away from it and preach a watered-down gospel if we want, or we can follow Jesus and deal with the problems that come about as a result just as the apostles did.
Have you ever wondered why Jesus chose Judas as one of His disciples? Surely He knew what Judas was made of. Surely He knew that Judas would steal from Him and betray Him. So why did He choose him? I believe He did so to give us an example. We’ll always have unfaithful men to deal with. We’ll always have Christian con artists. We’ll always have people who get off into false doctrine. We’ll always have people who don’t do things decently and in order in our churches. But Jesus and the apostles had these same problems and they turned the world upside down with the gospel – a gospel that included physical healing.
Maybe this is why the Assembly of God denomination states in their statement of faith that “Divine healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement, and is the privilege of all believers.” Maybe that’s also why the noted 19th century South African devotional writer Andrew Murray and the Christian Missionary & Alliance founder A. B. Simpson made similar declarations. All of these positions were stated over half a century before the WoF movement began.
I honestly can’t see how this is considered a “flaw” in WoF theology. You might disagree with it, but you can’t deny that millions of people in denominations that are considered orthodox and theologically sound are of the same belief. How did this double standard become acceptable?
Thank you