Can God Heal the Sick?

By John Earp

Psalm 103:1 Bless the Lord, O my soul;

And all that is within me, bless His holy name!

2Bless the Lord, O my soul,

And forget not all His benefits:

3Who forgives all your iniquities,

Who heals all your diseases,

4Who redeems your life from destruction,

Who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies,

5Who satisfies your mouth with good things,

So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. NKJV

“If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.” Exodus 15:26 NKJV

Matthew 8:16 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.”

From very early in the Bible, in Exodus 15:26, we see that God reveals Himself as “the Lord who heals you.” Obviously, the God who created us can just as easily fix whatever might be wrong with us physically or spiritually. In Mark 16:18, Jesus promised that believers in His name would lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover. In the Book of Acts we read how the early church believers did in fact see God’s healing power manifested in their lives and ministries. Paul the Apostle, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, mentions “gifts of healings” as part of the Holy Spirit’s work in and through believers, with no indication of any time in the then-future in which God would for some reason stop doing miracles of healing. Indeed, Jesus Christ is expressly stated as being “the same, yesterday, today, and forever,” and “the One who was, and is and is to come.” The God who did miracles in the Bible days has not somehow changed in how He operates in the lives of believers, or else it could not be said that He is the same as he always has been—the Lord who heals us.

That being said, we remain in a fallen world, and our bodies are still said in Scripture to be “corruptible,” and “mortal.” That is, we are not yet in glorified bodies that will never ever get sick, grow old or die. Indeed, Paul, who had such profound revelation from God as to write much of the New Testament, was unable to heal his associate in ministry: “…I left Trophimus sick in Miletus” he said in 2 Timothy 4:20.

So long as we remain in these mortal, corruptible bodies, we still are susceptible to sickness and death in this life, and indeed will all face death eventually, until the Lord Jesus comes back to Earth bodily.

In this present life, we of course should ask God for whatever we have need of, including physical healing of our bodies or the bodies of others, while at the same time recognizing that, at most, these healings are only temporary while we remain mortal and corruptible. Even the Lord who told the Israelites in Exodus that He was in fact their healer (Jehovah Rapha) did not somehow exempt them from the natural process of aging and in due course dying.

Can God heal the sick today? Of course, without question. He is almighty. Nothing is too difficult for Him. We are not yet immortal and incorruptible in our bodies though. That awaits His return in power and great glory. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.