It's been quite a while since my last post. I'm sure you were very troubled by my absence. I had some stuff I was doing. Odds are you didn't notice, but please let me pretend.
Here is a concept I have been kicking around lately. I'd love to hear your thoughts. Unless you are super stupid but statistically speaking you are probably of average intelligence.
Most Christians believe in the idea of physical healing. We believe that God can heal people of all kinds of illnesses and diseases. In fact, many of us have seen this happen and know people who have experienced this divine healing. Some of these healings are instantaneous and obviously miraculous. Some of them take place in concert with medical intervention.
That said, most of us have also lived through far too many situations where people prayed earnestly for healing and someone wasn't healed. At all. They continued to suffer with their illness or their health deteriorated and they died.
In those moments we often point to two key ideas. God can heal anyone of illness but sometimes, maybe even most times, for reasons beyond our understanding God chooses not to heal (or doesn't choose to heal depending on your theology). And then we speak to the idea that ultimate healing comes after our physical death when we enter the presence of God - glorification.
These two responses to "why doesn't God always heal" are pretty much universal among thoughtful Christians but only in response to the physical. I have never heard anything similar to this in response to the emotional or spiritual. We are going to focus on the idea of spiritual healing or, if you prefer, restoration.
We believe that physical healing/restoration is provided through the atonement. We believe that spiritual healing/restoration is provided through the atonement.
If someone seeks physical healing and doesn't experience it, we assure them of God's love, we maybe speak of God's sovereignty, and most of all we hold on to the hope of glorification as their sure and ultimate restoration.
If someone seeks spiritual healing/restoration - maybe it's freedom from a specific sin or the increase of some virtue or maybe it's just the ability to truly love God with everything they have - and don't experience it we talk about a lack of faith or a rebellious spirit or a lack of love for God, and generally assume the issue is with them because obviously God wants to heal/restore/free everyone from their sin right here, right now, in this life.
So my question is this: could it be that in the same way some folks will only ever experience significant physical healing in the moment of glorification that some folks will only ever experience significant spiritual healing at that same point? Is there a difference between the person who lives with cancer until they die and the person who lives with a certain sin or at least a constant, not always victorious, struggle with that sin until they die?
Objections and Possible Answers:
But people have no control over their disease but they do have control over their sin. Except we believe that people are "slaves to sin" until they are set free by God. Could it be that God doesn't set some people free until that moment of glorification?
But sin is a result of your fallen nature and therefore has a moral component not involved in physical illness. We believe that physical illness is also a result of the fall, but we don't see it as having a moral component. We believe people are morally culpable for their sin but not necessarily culpable for their physical illness. However in both situations we believe people are ultimately helpless without the powerful grace of God at work in their life and so there is a very real "ball is in God's court" component to each of them.
But our spiritual healing/restoration is already available through the finished work of Christ. For sure, but so is physical healing and the restoration of all things, and we readily accept that these things will happen at some future, maybe even eschatological, point.
But sometimes the way God gives people the grace to suffer through physical illness brings more glory to him. Why would the same not be true for spiritual brokenness? Could the person who lives their whole life battling pride or lust or greed not say that although this makes them feel weak "his strength is made perfect in weakness" and "his grace is sufficient."
But the church has always taken a firm stance against sin and believed in universal healing for spiritual brokenness while taking a more nuanced stance on physical healing. These is some truth to this for sure, but those categories might not be as firm as we think. In the denominational tribe I'm a part of there is a growing understanding of the nature of mental illness. In fact as a pastor I have spent lots of time walking with people who are struggling with depression or anxiety. 50 years ago in our tribe someone who dealt with anxiety would have been declared guilty of not trusting God. Someone who dealt with depression would be accused of laziness and selfishness and a lack of faith. Someone who had an eating disorder would have been labeled as vain and superficial. So the person who struggled with the sins of laziness and selfishness and a lack of spiritual passion 50 years ago are now sent to the doctor for medical intervention. Point being what we thought was an overtly spiritual problem a generation or two ago became seen as an emotional problem, and we now understand that many emotional problems are rooted in a physiological problem. We used to pray for people's souls to be delivered from the sin of depression, and now we pray for their brains to be healed from illness of depression.
Open Questions:
How do we resolve this disconnect? Do we need to downgrade our expectation, not of what God can do, but of what we think God will do in situations where people people are spiritually or emotionally broken, or do we need to start seeing every time someone is not physically healed as a problem with us?
Why do so many of us bristle at the idea of telling a cancer patient "you just don't have enough faith" but would far more comfortable telling a liar or a thief or even an addict "you just don't have enough faith, or love, or self discipline?"
If we did decide that it was simply not in God's will to spiritually or emotionally heal certain people of certain stuff then how do we respond to them? Do we "make allowances for each others faults" or do we "expel the immoral brother?" Do we give them extra time and attention and support like we do with the physically ill, or do we just say "there is nothing we can do, any extra help might just be enabling them, so just let them be and trust God?"
What do you think? I'm honestly not sure where I land on this but it seems like a profitable question to wrestle with both for our theology of physical healing and our pastoral approach to those who continue on in their spiritual brokenness.
