This paper addresses two good questions often posed by sincere followers of Jesus:
- Doesn’t Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” mean God allows some people to suffer sickness?
- Why did God allow the man born blind to remain blind until Jesus arrived in John 9?
If we wonder why the man in John 9 was not healed before Jesus arrived, we need to look at Jesus’ answer, “…that the works of God should be revealed in Him.” And ask ourselves, “Why then?”
The disciples, like Job’s “friends”, had a blame focus when they asked Jesus about the cause of the man’s blindness. They came with a blame paradigm. Their thinking was about the cause being sin – was it the man or his parents? It is true that the wages of sin is death, sickness being a precursor to death, or as some have said, sickness is death in stages. John 5:14 has Jesus implying sickness can cause sickness. But Jesus did not come to condemn and repeat the devil’s work, especially in this case, but to destroy it and show how it should be destroyed –
“ …how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how Jesus went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with Him.“ John 10:38.
Jesus directed them away from pointing the finger, since He knew that all have sinned. And clearly, all are not physically blind.
With the healings, Jesus was demonstrating His faith / Word of healing at that time as He went around teaching and demonstrating Kingdom Life. Demonstrations are not done for entertainment, however amazing they may be. The idea of the demonstrations of healing, casting out demons and preaching, was that these things were to be copied by Jesus’ followers. He even sent them on practicums to learn “hands on”, errors and all. And this was even before the cross, because, after Pentecost it would be imperative.
All the OT and other healings before the actual whipping post and cross were possible because of God’s promises, i.e., looking forward to the cross. But like prophecy and priesthood, there wasn’t direct access spiritually to their Father God. Ritual cleansing and all manner of obligations were observed – and even then, only the high priest had access – and that was also time and space limited.
Healing (and indeed all answered prayer / faith) require us to see the truth of God’s Word. God, the Father and Jesus / Holy Spirit exist beyond time. He was crucified before the foundation of the world – so we know God is not bound by time in the way we are. Thus, there were healings and covenantal blessings of pre-cross within time – but nothing like the new creation “greater works” of Jesus through His body / His ekklēsia or “local spiritual government group” – John 14:12
Something to remember here, is that faith always works through love. God Himself is love. He’s not just a being who loves us. His essence is love. His love is not intransitive. It must have an object – His children and creation. So, to do these “greater works” we need to read their context. They come from Holy Spirit power which comes from God’s residence now in humans John 14:23. And this love doesn’t have to manufactured by us – just practised. We love Him because He first loved us – 1 John 4:19.
The ”greater works” are not of ourselves – they are the works that are prepared beforehand by Jesus. We just need to “walk in them” in obedience (Ephesians 2:10). This is because we live, essentially and primarily outside of time – seated in heaven with Christ. It was necessary for Jesus to operate as a perfect human with faith in God, rather than “God on earth” (Philippians 2:7) so that it was a real demonstration of what is possible for us now that we are made perfect spiritually. The people of Jesus’ earthly life were seeing demonstrations of what is possible for a righteous human to do when they have faith in God’s word. That’s why we are expected to do what Jesus did and even greater – we no longer think of Jesus after the flesh (2 Cor 5:16b) – now we think of His resurrected body. We are “in Him” with all that He has inherited and the better covenant.
Regarding Paul’s “thorn” which requires grace :
The thorn which Paul begged the Lord to take away needed God’s gift of grace, not man’s faith which is the key to healing sickness. It is grace which is needed in order to deal with people / the persecutions which Jesus’ followers are promised. Jesus promised His followers tribulation and persecution in this world. It’s our testing as outlined in so many places, especially the Revelation letters to churches. His grace carries us as overcomers through persecution. Sickness is another thing. Grace does not overcome sickness. That is not the suffering Jesus speaks of when he assured the disciples of persecution. Jesus often acknowledged faith for healing of sickness and disease as well as forgiveness. Grace is needed to overcome during persecution.
Paul’s Bible was the OT. He was an expert theologian, a Pharisee, before his conversion, so his terminology is very much the same as OT descriptions of people / persecution; i.e., as thorns in the side / thorns in the flesh. You don’t have persecution without people in opposition to righteousness. That’s the way of the world.
If Paul suffered continual sickness, (other than the fact that he sometimes turned up at home meetings in a “bashed “ state from persecutions), then no-one would want his handkerchief as a healing cloth. Yet they did, and were healed.
The thorn which is within God’s will is seen in persecution in John 15:18 “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first.”
Offering our sickness to Jesus or thinking our sickness is suffering for His sake is a teaching of the older church tradition, not the Bible or Jesus. There is nothing to be gained by it and everything to lose. If suffering for Jesus has value, why do people go to the doctor or take medication? Jesus never told anyone to suffer disease, He healed all who came to Him and wanted it. He said believers would do the same things – lay hands on the sick and they would recover.
Glory comes to God through answered prayer and healed human bodies through Christian ministry in faith (Luke 18:43; John 11:3 and 4; 11:40; 14:13; 15:8; 1 Peter 4:11).
Here’s one of the best video teachings by Curry Blake, during his talk we hear of the difference between suffering from predicted persecution / beatings etc. of Paul, and the only record of anything wrong being healed by a believer. Paul was blinded on the road to Damascus, but soon healed by a believer who told of Paul’s suffering under persecution to come. Big difference.
Towards the end of the video, we hear about the amazing power when we have faith in God so that we become the conduit for healing. God is so good. If only we would take off our religious churchianity glasses and see His purpose for the ekklesia. Dominion Life restored.
