The Bible contains many scriptures that offer indisputable proof that it is God’s will to heal everyone. Let me list three of the best:

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits; who pardons all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases (Ps. 103:1-3, emphasis added).

What Christian would dispute with David’s declaration that God wills to pardon all our iniquities? David, however, believed that God also wills to heal just as many of our diseases—all of them.

My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body (Prov. 4:20-22, emphasis added).

Is anyone among you sick? Then he must call for the elders of the church and they are to pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord; and the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick , and the Lord will raise him up, and if he has committed sins, they will be forgiven him (Jas. 5:14-15, emphasis added).

Notice that this last promise belongs to any who are sick. And notice that it is not the elders or the oil that brings healing but the “prayer of faith.”

Is it the faith of the elders or the sick person? It is the faith of both. The faith of the sick person is expressed, at least in part, by his calling for the elders of the church. The sick person’ unbelief could nullify the effects of the elders’ prayers. The kind of prayer James wrote about is a good example of the “prayer of agreement” that Jesus mentioned in Matthew 18:19. Both parties involved in this kind of prayer must “agree.” If one person believes and the other person does not believe, they are not in agreement.

We also know that in several passages the Bible credits Satan for sickness (see Job 2:7; Luke 13:16; Acts 10:38; 1 Cor. 5:5). Thus it would stand to reason that God would be opposed to Satan’s work in His children’s bodies. Our Father loves us much more than any earthly father ever loved his children (see Matt. 7:11), and I’ve never yet met a father who desired that his children be sick.

Every healing performed by Jesus during His earthly ministry, and every healing recorded in the book of Acts, should encourage us to believe that God wants us to be healthy. Jesus frequently healed people who sought Him seeking healing, and He credited their faith for their miracle. That proves that Jesus did not single out certain exclusive people whom He wanted to heal. Any sick person could have come to Him in faith and be healed. He wanted to heal them all, but He required faith on their part.

Under the old covenant, physical healing was included in Israel’s covenant with God. Just a few days after the Exodus, God made Israel this promise:

If you will give earnest heed to the voice of the Lord your God, and do what is right in His sight, and give ear to His commandments, and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have put on the Egyptians; for I, the Lord, am your healer (Ex. 15:26).

Anyone who is honest will have to agree that healing was included in Israel’s covenant with God, contingent upon the people’s obedience. (Incidentally, Paul makes it clear in 1 Corinthians 11:27-31 that physical health under the new covenant is also contingent upon our obedience.)

God also promised the Israelites:

But you shall serve the Lord your God, and He will bless your bread and your water; and I will remove sickness from your midst . There shall be no one miscarrying or barren in your land; I will fulfill the number of your days (Ex. 23:25-26, emphasis added).

You shall be blessed above all peoples; there will be no male or female barren among you or among your cattle. The Lord will remove from you all sickness; and He will not put on you any of the harmful diseases of Egypt which you have known, but He will lay them on all who hate you (Deut. 7:14-15, emphasis added).

If physical healing was included in the old covenant, one would wonder how it could not be included in the new covenant, if in fact the new covenant is better than the old, as Scripture states:

But now He [Jesus] has obtained a more excellent ministry, by as much as He is also the mediator of a better covenant, which has been enacted on better promises (Heb. 8:6, emphasis added).

A good place to begin the study of divine healing in the fifty-third chapter of Isaiah, universally considered a messianic prophecy. Through the Holy Spirit, Isaiah graphically spoke of Jesus’ sacrificial death and the work He would accomplish on the cross:

Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed. All of us like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way; but the Lord has caused the iniquity of us all to fall on Him (Is. 53:4-6).

By the Holy Spirit’s inspiration, Isaiah declared that Jesus bore our griefs and sorrows . A better translation of the original Hebrew indicates that Jesus bore our sickness and pains , as many reliable translations indicate in their reference notes.

The Hebrew word translated griefs in Isaiah 53:4 is the word choli , which is also found in Deuteronomy 7:15; 28:61; 1 Kings 17:17; 2 Kings 1:2; 8:8, and 2 Chronicles 16:12; 21:15. In all those cases it is translated either sickness or disease.

The word translated sorrows is the Hebrew word makob , which can also be found in Job 14:22 and Job 33:19. In both those cases it is translated pain(s) .

All of this being so, Isaiah 53:4 is more accurately translated, “Surely our sicknesses He Himself bore, and our pains He carried.” This fact is sealed by Matthew’s direct of quotation of Isaiah 53:4 in his Gospel: “He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases” (Matt. 8:17).

Unable to escape these facts, some try to convince us that Isaiah was referring to our supposed “spiritual sickness” and “spiritual diseases.” However, Matthew’s quotation of Isaiah 53:4 leaves no doubt that Isaiah was referring to literal physical sickness and disease. Let’s read it in context:

When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ” He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases ” (Matt. 8:16-17, emphasis added).

Matthew plainly stated that the physical healings performed by Jesus were a fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4. Thus there is no doubt that Isaiah 53:4 is a reference to Christ bearing our physical infirmities and diseases. ^[1] Just as Scripture says that Jesus bore our iniquities (see Isaiah 53:11), it also says that He bore our infirmities and diseases. That is news that should make any sick person glad. By His atoning sacrifice, Jesus has provided for our salvation and healing.

^[1] Grasping for anything by which they can cling to their unbelief, some try to convince us that Jesus completely fulfilled Isaiah 53:4 by His healing some people that evening in Capernaum. But Isaiah said that Jesus bore our sicknesses, just as Isaiah said that Jesus was crushed for our iniquities (compare Is. 53:4 and 5). Jesus bore the sicknesses of as many people as for whose iniquities He was crushed. Thus, Matthew was only indicating that Jesus’ healing ministry in Capernaum validated that He was the Messiah spoken of in Isaiah 53, the one who would bear our iniquities and sicknesses.

Perhaps the most common objection to all of this is one that is not based on God’s Word, but on people’s experiences. It usually goes something like this: “I knew a wonderful Christian woman who prayed to be healed of cancer, yet she died. That proves it is not God’s will to heal all.”

We should never attempt to determine God’s will by anything other than His Word. For example, if you traveled back in time and watched the Israelites wander in the wilderness for forty years while the land that flowed with milk and honey waited just across the Jordan River, you may have concluded that it wasn’t God’s will for Israel to enter the promised land. But if you know the Bible, then you know that was not the case. It was certainly God’s will for Israel to enter the Promised Land, but they failed to enter because of their unbelief (see Heb. 3:19).

What about all the people who are now in hell? It was God’s will for them to be in heaven, but they didn’t meet the conditions of repentance and faith in the Lord Jesus. So, too, we cannot determine God’s will concerning healing by looking at sick people. Just because a Christian prays for healing and fails to receive, that doesn’t prove it isn’t God’s will to heal all. If that Christian had met God’s conditions, he would have been healed, or else God is a liar. When we fail to receive healing and then blame God with the excuse that healing was not His will, we are no different than unbelieving Israelites who died in the wilderness claiming it wasn’t God’s will for them to enter the Promised Land. We would be better to just swallow our pride and admit that we are to blame.

As I stated in the previous chapter about faith, many sincere Christians have wrongfully ended their prayers for healing with the faith-destroying phrase, “If it be Thy will.” This plainly reveals that they are not praying in faith because they aren’t sure of God’s will. When it comes to healing, God’s will is very plain, as we have already seen. If you know God wants to heal you, there is no reason to add “if it be Thy will” to your prayer for healing. That would be equivalent to saying to the Lord, “Lord, I know you promised to heal me, but just in case you were lying about it, I ask you to heal me only if it actually is Your will.”

It is also certainly true that God may discipline disobedient believers by allowing sickness to afflict them, even to the point of allowing their premature death in some cases. Such believers obviously need to repent before they can receive healing (see 1 Cor. 11:27-32). There are others who, by neglecting to take care of their bodies, open themselves up to sickness. Christians should be intelligent enough to maintain a healthy diet, to eat moderately, to exercise regularly, and to take necessary rest.

Although the subject of divine healing is somewhat controversial, it is certainly not one that is obscure in Scripture. In fact, one-tenth of all that was written in the four Gospels concerns Jesus’ healing ministry. There are promises for divine healing in the Old Testament, in the Gospels and the New Testament epistles. Those who are ill can find great encouragement in a wealth of faith-building scriptures.

It has been my general observation around the world that where churches are full of highly-committed believers (true disciples), divine healing is much more commonplace. Where the church is lukewarm and sophisticated, divine healing is a very rare occurrence.^[1] All of this should not surprise us, as Jesus told us that one of the signs that will follow believers is that they will lay hands on the sick and they shall recover (see Mark 16:18). If we were to judge churches by the signs that Jesus declared would follow the believers, we would have to conclude that many churches consist of no believers:

And [Jesus] said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it shall not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:15-18).

The disciple-making minister, imitating the perfect ministry of Christ, will certainly use his gifts to promote the ministry of divine healing within his sphere of influence. He knows that divine healing furthers God’s kingdom in at least two ways. First, healing miracles are a wonderful advertisement for the gospel, as any child who reads the Gospels or the book of Acts would understand (but which many ministers with advance degrees seemingly are unable to comprehend). Second, healthy disciples aren’t hindered from ministry by personal sickness.

The disciple-making minister also needs to be sensitive to those members in the body of Christ who desire healing but who have had difficulty receiving. They often need tender instruction and gentle encouragement, especially if they have grown adverse to any healing message. The disciple-making minister faces a choice: he can avoid teaching on the subject of divine healing altogether, in which case no one will be offended and no one will be healed. Or he can lovingly teach on the subject and risk offending some while helping other to experience healing. Personally, I’ve opted for the second option, believing that it follows Jesus’ example.

^[1] In some churches in North America, a minister would take great risks to teach on this subject due to the heavy resistance he would encounter from the so-called believers. Jesus, too, met resistance and unbelief at times that hindered His healing ministry (see Mark 6:1-6).

I happen to be writing this sentence in a city in Germany. When I departed from my hometown in the United States last week, I left numerous sick people behind me. I left hospitals full of sick people. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t God’s will for all of them to be healed. Just because Paul left one man sick in a city he visited is not proof that it wasn’t God’s will for that man to be healed. What about the hoards of unsaved people whom Paul also left behind? Does that prove it wasn’t God’s will for them to be saved? Absolutely not.

We know that Paul told Timothy to use a little wine for the sake of his stomach and his frequent ailments (see 1 Tim. 5:23).

Actually, Paul told Timothy to stop drinking water and to use a little wine for the sake of his stomach and frequent ailments. This would seem to indicate that something was wrong with the water. Obviously, if you are drinking contaminated water, you should stop drinking it and start drinking something else, or you will probably have stomach problems like Timothy.

This objection is used by some who have taken a verse from the story of the raising of Lazarus as a basis to claim they are suffering sickness for God’s glory. Jesus said concerning Lazarus:

This sickness is not to end in death, but for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by it (John 11:4).

Jesus wasn’t saying that God was being glorified as a result of Lazarus’ sickness, but that God would be glorified when Lazarus was healed and raised from the dead. In other words, the final result of the sickness wouldn’t be death, but rather that God would be glorified. God isn’t glorified in sickness; He is glorified in healing. (See also Matt. 9:8; 15:31; Luke 7:16; 13:13 and 17:15, where healing brought glory to God.)

Some people want us to believe that the only reason Jesus healed was to prove His deity. Now that His deity is well established, He supposedly no longer heals.

That is completely incorrect. It is true that Jesus’ miracles did authenticate His deity, but that is not the only reason He healed people during his earthly ministry. Many times Jesus forbade people whom He healed to tell anyone what had happened to them (see Matt. 8:4; 9:6, 30; 12:13-16; Mark 5:43; 7:36; 8:26). If Jesus healed people for the singular purpose of proving His deity, He would have told those people to tell everyone what He had done for them.

What was the motivation behind Jesus’ healings? Many times Scripture says He healed because He was “moved with compassion” (see Matt. 9:35-36; 14:14; 20:34; Mark 1:41; 5:19; Luke 7:13). The reason Jesus healed is because He loved people and was full of compassion. Has Jesus become less compassionate since His earthly ministry? Has His love diminished? Absolutely not!

That is impossible in light of all the scriptures we have considered. If you’ve been persisting in disobedience, it could be true that God has permitted your sickness in order to bring you to repentance. But it is still not His will for you to remain sick. He wants you to repent and be healed.

Additionally, if God wants you to be sick, then why are you going to the doctor and taking medication, hoping to be healed? Are you trying to get out of “God’s will”?