More About Miracles, Thorns, and Job’s Theology
December 11th, 2007 by Steve Sensenig
here have been very interesting discussions taking place both here in the comments on this blog and over at Scott’s in relation to the recent posts Scott and I wrote. I have been away from my computer for most of the afternoon and evening, so I have been unable to engage all of the comments.
At the risk of confusing people, I want to respond here with what would have been a very lengthy comment. There are some things that I really feel the need to clarify, and some things that I would like to continue to plead with my readers to consider.
I have not at all been trying to argue that any of this has to do with forcing or making God do something. Once again, the original point that I made that started all this was in response to those who are teaching that healings, etc. are not at all for this time and that their sole purpose in NT times was for authentication of the message. (By extension, this also includes the concept that the “completion of the canon” took the place of these authenticating events.)
This is, I think, an important distinction, because it significantly narrows the scope of what I’m arguing for, and what I’m arguing against. I am not a fan of theology that says if we act a certain way that God has to act a certain way in response.
However, having said that, I think it is important to consider what patterns we do have revealed. More on that in a bit.
Let me also make crystal clear that in none of this am I trying to explain or seek a “formula” for guaranteed miracles. All I have tried to do is point out patterns in scripture. I’m trying to work with what scripture says first and foremost before drifting off into “I don’t think…” or “Well, I know it says that, but…”
In light of that, there are some passages that are not entirely clear. Several have mentioned Paul’s infamous “thorn in the flesh”. The reality is, we do not know what that thorn was. It is described as a “messenger of Satan”. This is a phrase that is never used elsewhere in scripture to describe a physical ailment. If, indeed, it was a demon, or a person who was irritating Paul, God does, as he told Paul, give us the grace to deal with those things and not to be hindered or irritated by them.
And this is even more important: This passage does not say that God told Paul “no” to a healing request. In fact, God doesn’t actually say “no” to Paul at all in that passage.
Which brings me to my next point. I see absolutely no record anywhere in scripture where someone asked Jesus to heal them and he said, “No, I think I want to let you stay this way for some purpose.”
I think it is important that we deal with the clear passages of scripture and not brush them aside by focusing on something that is ambiguous.
Someone else mentioned Job’s comment “Though he slay me, yet will I praise him.” I’ve hesitated to respond to this, but I think I’m going to stick my neck out there and give my response to this. Personally, I do not think that Job’s comment represents an accurate portrayal of God’s character. This is in the same line of thinking as Job’s incredibly “popular” statement, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away.”
We are told by Jesus himself that he came to reveal the Father to us. “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father,” Jesus said. So what we see in the character of Jesus is a revelation of the heart of the Father.
Now, let me ask you this: From what we see of Jesus and what he taught and revealed, is it God’s desire or will to slay us?? No, no, no, a thousand times no! Jesus died so that we can live!!
Along the same lines, is it God’s desire or will to give us something and take it away from us frivolously, as Job claimed? No. Jesus drew an analogy with human fathers wanting to give their children good gifts and asked, in essence, “If sinful human fathers act this way, how much more do you think your heavenly Father will act toward you?”
Job was accusing God of taking things from him, tearing him down, etc., and demanding an audience with God to make God answer for it all. How can we base our theology and understanding of God on such a misunderstanding to the point of discounting what God himself revealed through Jesus??
Some have hinted that I’m looking at this from the angle of man somehow getting credit for healing. Let me hasten to clarify that, as well. Is it all in God’s power and to his glory? YES!! I absolutely believe that!! Let there be no mistake about that. But God has revealed through Jesus that there is a kingdom available to us that is not of this world, and when he revealed that kingdom, he included things that we either pay lip service to, or outright deny.
I am simply asking the question of whether that is wise or not. When I asked whether we should be teaching this stuff, what I basically mean is whether or not we should tell people that God wants to heal them. The prevailing trend in our western culture is to actually tell people that God may not desire to heal them. Yet I am not seeing any solid scriptural basis for this.
Again, let me ask where someone ever came to Jesus or the disciples for healing and they told them “no”. This is not an argument from silence here. This is arguing on the basis of a plethora of accounts in multiple books of the Bible.
Finally, let me say that in no way am I suggesting that we are to go around judging other people’s faith. Some comments have hinted that talking about the element of faith in a healing necessarily leads to this kind of judgment.
What I am saying, however, is that we should examine our own belief. If we believe that God doesn’t want to heal us, then we can’t expect to be healed. If we believe that God only chose to say “yes” to healings through Jesus and that he doesn’t choose to do that today, there is no reason that we should ever see healing take place. We may, but we have no reason to think that we will.
So, some questions for some possible groups of readers here:
- Those of you who believe that God is not always willing to heal, can you explain to me the basis for that belief?
- Those of you who believe that faith is not an important part of receiving a healing, can you explain to me how you answer the numerous times (and they are quite plentiful — just read through the first four books of the New Testament) that Jesus mentions faith with regard to the healing?
- Those of you who believe that the completion of the canon supplanted the healings and miraculous events of the first century, can you explain the basis for that belief, please?
When Jesus proclaimed the kingdom of God, did he go around actually placing illnesses on some people, refusing to heal others who asked for it, killing some people, striking others blind, and then telling them to just deal with it, that it was all part of the way things are for now? No, he did none of that.
Why would we proclaim a message that is in any way different than the one that he proclaimed?
Until next time,
steve 
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Good stuff brother and great questions. I’ll be mulling it over tonight.
Steve,
I think the only one of your three questions that would apply to my comment on the previous post is #1; Those of you who believe that God is not always willing to heal, can you explain to me the basis for that belief? If the others apply, point that out.
Largely two reasons.
The first is from John 5:1-9 and I must conclude it is an argument from silence. Jesus went to the pool at the sheep gate where a multitude of sick folk were. He only healed the one man but the passage does not say that He didn’t heal anyone else who asked. The passage only deals with the one man whom Jesus healed and then he didn’t even request to be healed but complained to Jesus when asked to be made well! My conclusion stems from that out of all the sick people there, Jesus only chose to heal one ( as opposed to all); hence my focus on the sovereignty and “good pleasure” of God in the previous comment.
My second reason is practical experience. I think we have all prayed in some way for healing or a “miracle” but then never received. I would simply chalk it up to God’s providence. “He thought I didn’t need it so I didn’t get it. I trust His judgment.”
So, I don’t really have any Scriptural support for my position. Thanks for pointing that out.
But in response to your post, that is something I never thought of. I never realized let me ask where someone ever came to Jesus or the disciples for healing and they told them “no”. This is not an argument from silence here. This is arguing on the basis of a plethora of accounts in multiple books of the Bible.
I think if asked if Jesus ever said no to such a request, I would have responded correctly, but I never thought about it that way. Thanks, bro!
Steve, I will just leave you with this. I have seen miracles worked in my own life. They do not always fall in the realm of healing. But two of these did. The others were all of providence. They exist, and it helped me finally believe that God is undoubedly real and working in my life.
Tony,
Thank you for your gracious response. I appreciate dialogue with you, bro, and am so glad that we’ve gotten to know each other well enough to have these conversations!
The John passage is one that I have heard mentioned before as evidence that Jesus did not heal everyone. And let me interject that “argument from silence” is not automatically an invalid argument. I don’t ever want to give the impression that I think that. An argument from silence can be support for a conclusion. However, it usually needs to be accompanied by other non-silent arguments. It’s those non-silent arguments that I’m hoping to find!
I don’t claim to perfectly understand that passage in John, but I think the following thoughts apply:
1. God does providentially choose to heal some who are not expecting or asking for it. He singled this guy out and asked him if he wanted to be healed, even though the man didn’t think it was possible at the time because he only knew of one particular way to get healed.
2. The man’s response to Jesus’ command to get up and walk tells us whether or no he believed, don’t you think? He could have just stayed there saying, “Ha ha. Very funny. I haven’t walked in 38 years.” But it says that he got up and walked.
3. The argument from silence part is where we start to put our theology back into the passage, and this is my difficulty with the argument from silence in this case.
Interestingly, you said: He only healed the one man but the passage does not say that He didn’t heal anyone else who asked., with which I would agree (and I think it’s a vital point to be made). But then, you said, My conclusion stems from that out of all the sick people there, Jesus only chose to heal one (as opposed to all). That contradicts your earlier statement.
I think if asked if Jesus ever said no to such a request, I would have responded correctly, but I never thought about it that way. Thanks, bro!
You’re very welcome
I do think that, of all the points that I have been trying to make, this one is the one that I have found to be the most compelling in my own mind and what changed my thinking on all of this.
I’ve mentioned before that it is extremely eye-opening to go through the gospels and make a note of every mention of healing. In my case, I created a Word doc (which I have since lost, but am seriously considering re-creating) with the passages typed out. Every one of them (it was like 7 pages long, I think). And then I read each one carefully looking for indications of 1) Jesus choosing not to heal when asked, and 2) the correlation according to Jesus of faith with healing.
It is a study I would highly recommend. Why? Because it puts biblical evidence right in front of our faces. Not commentary. Not experience. Not arguments from silence. Not assumptions. And not separated by long stretches of other narratives. Just seeing each of those healings put one right after the other gave me some indication of the amazing consistency of descriptions. And it made me see the heart of God as revealed in Jesus so differently from what I had always been taught and believed.
Nate, thanks for sharing your personal testimony on this topic. I appreciate that, bro.
Steve, your comment about the study you did is so important for all of us to remember. It’s ALL about the Word. Not commentaries, books, Blog posts, or experiential evidence. We need to be like the Berean Christians who searched the Scriptures to see if the things Paul said were true. If we would get serious about doing that we would find that God is a lot less mysterious than we often tell ourselves.
By the way, this topic spans two Blogs and it’s important to be reading both–just in case anyone hasn’t discovered that.
The other Blog is: http://www.spiritualtramp.com/
Thanks for the hat tip Larry. This is a can o’ worms that needed opening in just the way that it has. Too often with most theological discussions of this controversial nature things get ugly and personal (in a not good way). This has been beautiful, interesting, and full of grace and I suspect that it’s not over yet. I can only pray that that’s the case.
Steve, et al
When a passage from the gospels includes a group of people “unincluded” from the action, isn’t the message simply such groups exist? I don’t believe the interpretation “from silence” needs to be that Jesus overlooked them for any reason other to illustrate the reality in which we live. If we notice them in the passage, maybe that means we should notice them around us. Or we could also say the instruction for us is to be in the spirit and know on whom around us, Jesus is focusing. If we target the one He knows is ready to hear what we have to say, what will be the fruit? If we are going to interpret “from silence”, I think we should be willing to expand the possible inferences as much as we can. Not that all inferences are necessarily accurate, but let us consider all to avoid overlooking something important.
RE: word document on healing scriptures.
Crosswalk.com will put the complete list at your disposal at any time! in context, out of context, in various versions and with a link to the Greek meaning. Why are you typing a document?
Scott, it takes both sides, bro. You get a lot of credit for handling this in a very gracious manner!
ded, I can’t remember if I actually typed them out or if I did actually copy and paste from an online resource. But part of the reason I didn’t suggest simply a word search is because I don’t think that every mention of healing in the gospels actually contains the word “heal”. So I took the extra step of reading through the gospels completely myself. At that point, once a passage is identified, however, online resources can be, and are, a great help! Thanks for that reminder.
Steve,
My position on this issue has changed over the years. I think Greg Boyd is on the right track with his “God at war” theodicy. If you haven’t read his two books on the topic, you must do so.
For most of my life I have been a functional deist. I essentially believed that God almost never interfered with the chain of cause and effect. Lesslie Newbigin has helped me to see that this is simply the Enlightenment plausibility structure.
Here is a quick list of my view:
* God is always doing everything he can do (without violating the free will he has granted his creatures) to overcome evil.
* God has given us the ability to influence the future through spiritual power (primarily prayer) in a similar way to how we can influence the future through our physical acts.
* We must learn how to exercise spiritual power in much the same way that we must learn how to walk, speak, or throw a ball.
* God wants to be able to trust us with his power to do what we want. This, of course, requires significant spiritual discipline for our desires to be refined so that they conform with his will (as hinted at in the Lord’s Prayer).
* God does not capriciously grant some miracles and withhold others. It only seems capricious because we don’t understand all the factors involved. (See the book of Job.)
This is just a quick list, and I may have overlooked some important points.
God Bless,
Rod
Rod,
Great to hear from you again! And I like the points you’ve made. I think you and I are probably pretty much on the same page from what you’ve written.
Regarding times when God is unwilling to heal.
I would place healing in the context of miracles and suffering at large. There are times when God is willing to perform a miracle in order to save somebody’s life, and times when He deems for Providential reasons that such a miracle is not the best. Suffering is not always bad and sometimes it is to be desired.
Examples: 1) The sicknesses and disease that many of the OT prophets suffered. 2) The martyrdom of all but one apostle, John. 3) The way in which Scripture embraces suffering as redemptive in nature when united with the sufferings of Christ. 4) Jesus suffered immense injury, and was himself not healed.
Regarding 4, the only way to dismiss the lack of healing of Jesus is to A) say that he is an exception to the rule (but what do you do about the other apostles) or B) say that there is a difference between healing for injury caused by people and injury caused by other things like accidents, genetics, viruses, environmental factors and our own stupidity (e.g., some broken arms, cavities, etc.).
Scripture says that we are afflicted in *every* way, but not crushed. I would think that would have to do with disease as well as persecution. After all, Job was afflicted with boils. Elisha, himself, died of a sickness. The man who had a double share of the spirit of Elijah. Did the wonder worker not have faith enough to get healed himself? Does God now answer all our requests for healing AD, while he didn’t before BC?
The thorn in the flesh passage of Paul is a great example because it places sickness in the larger context of suffering. The reason many people associate Paul’s thorn in the flesh with sickness is that he calls it a personal weakness. “Three times I besought the Lord about this, that it should leave me; but he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in
weakness.’”
When Paul says that he has suffered the loss of all things, might one of them be health? Can you imagine someone being beaten and left for dead and not suffering physical ailments as a result? Paul seems to think that the sufferings which he suffers are a share in Christ’s suffering.
“Indeed I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and count them as refuse, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own, based on law, but that which is through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God depends on faith; that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his suffering, becoming like him in his death, that if possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Phillipians 3:8-11
There really isn’t room in a single comment to address these ideas well, but that’s my shotgun approach.
MB