Faith, Doubt, Sickness and Healing

Complex issues with no easy answers:

There are some understandings of the sorts of things referred to in my title that are better, and more biblical, than others. One rather faulty teaching is found in the Health and Wealth Gospel. In nearly 100 articles I have already discussed all this in great detail. See those pieces here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/category/theology/the-health-and-wealth-gospel/

But there is always more that can be said. In the HWG, sickness in a believer’s life is mainly due to a lack of faith (and/or a lack of good teaching on the subject). If only we had more faith, we could enjoy good health. But there is a tendency here to see faith as an amulet. That is, health is there for the asking, if we simply have enough faith.

Scriptures obviously put a high premium on faith. Plenty of examples of it are found, although a rigid theological formula is not actually forthcoming. The closest we come to a working definition is Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (KJV). Yet as most commentators note, even this is not so much a definition as a description of the way it works, or what comes as a result of faith.

But saying that faith is the “substance of things hoped for” seems to fit in with the faith teachers’ idea of positive confession, visualisation, and actualisation. They state that by strong faith and positive confession we can bring things into existence, including perfect health. See more on that here: https://billmuehlenberg.com/2010/09/29/problems-with-the-positive-confession-movement/

However, we learn in the rest of Hebrews 11 that having great faith is no guarantee that one will avoid all the hardships of life, be it ill health, poverty, or other forms of suffering and tribulation. The entire eleventh chapter, known as the believers’ hall of fame, or the heroes of the faith, makes several important points.

First, it is in the midst of great difficulty and suffering that the Old Testament saints are commended for their great faith. It is faith which sees one through difficulties, not faith that avoids them, that is being celebrated here. While the faith of some produced happy results, eg., “conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword” (11:34-35), many others did not receive the promises and did not have a pleasant outcome.

“Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated” (vv. 35-37).

It is most interesting to note that the same faith being commended which saw some escape the edge of the sword (v. 34) also resulted in some dying by the edge of the sword (v. 37). Once again, it is not escape or evasion of suffering that is always the mark of great faith.

As Leon Morris comments, “The statement that some were put to death ‘by the sword’ is important, lest it be deduced from. v. 34 that men of faith were safe from this fate. While God could deliver them from it, his purpose might be for some believers to be slain in that way. It is not for men of faith to dictate. They trust God and know that, whether in life or death, all will ultimately be well.”

To argue that faith results in an illness-free life, while the lack of faith results in all manner of illness and suffering seems to run counter to the thrust of this passage. Indeed, verse 13 makes this very point: “All these people were still living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance”. And in verse 39 it says, “These were all commended for their faith, yet none of them received what had been promised”. Many commentators argue that “these all” refer to the entire list, commencing with verse 4.

The health gospel seems to have it backwards. It promotes a faith that obtains instant satisfaction, that receives immediate release from difficulty. Many of the saints here commended are those who did not receive, at least not right away, the hoped for benefits and deliverance associated with being a son of God.

In fact, it is the forward-looking nature of faith that is celebrated here. This is the second great truth of this passage. It is not so much obtaining a life free of suffering and hardship now that is characteristic of biblical faith, but a dogged tenacity to hang on to the promises of God when circumstances seem to belie such promises.

As William Lane expresses it, “in 11:1-12:3 faith is shown to be an orientation to the future. The forward-looking character of faith lends solid-ness to the realm of Christian hope. Faith celebrates now the reality of future blessings which are certain because they are grounded in the promise of God. For the Christian it is the future, not the past, that molds the present.”

If it is impossible to please God without faith, as verse 6 reminds us, then surely these saints greatly pleased God because of their faith. But their faith was not the kind that looked for problem-free living, that demanded instant success, or insisted on health and happiness. Their faith, instead, rested in the nature, character and promises of God, not in their outward circumstances.

In his discussion of Hebrews 11 George Guthrie examines four misconceptions of faith, one of which he describes as “faith in God’s goodness to me”. He writes:

This expression can be found in the ‘health-and-wealth’ corners of Christendom as well as among other, idealistic Christians, who reason that a good God can only produce good things in lives lived in a good way. To these faith only has one aim, one fruit – a life of ease, blessing, and bounty. There is, of course, truth to the claim that God wishes to bless his children, but this vision of faith comes crashing down on the rocks of reality. Certainly God is the giver of good gifts (James 1:17), but those gifts sometimes come wrapped in odd packages (James 1:2-4).

Ironically, the faith-healers and faith teachers lay great stress on the importance of faith. But by giving a somewhat skewed and misleading understanding of what faith is and how it is expressed, the HWG ends up demeaning faith and belittling it.

Faith that is never tested, that never undergoes hardships or difficulties, that avoids problems and eludes pressures, is not a great faith. But a faith that encounters sickness, suffering and hardship, yet still looks to God and the future with confidence and hope, that is faith worth celebrating, as the author of Hebrews 11 has done.

Dealing with doubt

What are we to make of doubt then? Has it a place in the believer’s life? With so many exhortations in Scripture to embrace, exercise, and move in faith, doubt would seem to be disallowed automatically. But this may be the case only if we view faith and doubt as polar opposites. But if doubt in fact may be an aspect of faith, then the pictures changes.

Roy Clements, in his discussion of Psalm 73, says this: “Contrary to popular myth, doubt is not the opposite of faith. To suggest it is, is to confuse doubt with unbelief, whereas doubt and unbelief are, in fact, quite different things. If you think about it, doubt is something only a believer can experience, for you can only doubt what you believe. Doubt is to unbelief what temptation is to sin. A test, but not yet a surrender.”

Os Guinness has devoted a whole book to the “dilemma of doubt”. His insights are worth noting:

The true relationship of faith and doubt is closer to that of courage and fear. Fear is not the opposite of courage, cowardice is. . . . It is the same with faith and doubt. Doubt is not the opposite of faith, unbelief is. Doubt does not necessarily or automatically mean the end of faith, for doubt is faith in two minds. What destroys faith is the disobedience that hardens into unbelief.

Such an understanding seems to fit the descriptions we have of many biblical characters. Job springs to mind straightaway. In his devotional commentary on the book of Job, Mike Mason offers these thoughts:

Doubt, whether of oneself or of God, is not necessarily contrary to faith. In Job doubt emerges not as the opposite to faith, but rather as the route to the deepest faith. If we really believe, we can doubt energetically; we can wonder, vacillate, challenge, dispute. Just to permit oneself to voice problems aloud is to imply a belief in solutions. Job is the answer to the kind of fearful faith that nails a lid on doubt, suppressing it.

This kind of faithful doubting (if I can put it that way), can be found elsewhere in scripture, most notably in Mark 9:24: “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (KJV). This is a plea most honest believers will know about. As John Calvin says, “He declares that he believes and yet acknowledges himself to have unbelief. These two statements may appear to contradict each other but there is none of us that does not experience both of them in himself.”

James Edwards put it this way: “True faith is always aware how small and inadequate it is. The father becomes a believer not when he amasses a sufficient quantum of faith but when he risks everything on what little faith he has, when he yields his insufficiency to the true sufficiency of Jesus.”

As Morna Hooker says, this man “is the typical disciple: he has the faith to respond which is the essential first step – yet this faith is never complete and must continue to grow, and precisely because it is a response to Jesus, it depends on him and is a gift from him.”

Or as Hugh Anderson informs us, “this passionate plea is a haunting reminder that faith is not something that a man has for ever as a secure human possession, but is always a gift of God that needs to be renewed again and again.”

Such an understanding of faith does not result in much human glorying and bravado. But it does result in praise and glory to God. The issue of healing – indeed, the whole concept of the Christian life – needs to be viewed in such terms.

Two examples

The truth is, we do not always know why some people get sick, and why some people might be healed from their sickness. Faith-filled and Spirit-filled believers can have all sorts of different outcomes. While personal stories do not fully determine these matters, they still are part of how we assess such things. Let me share two stories.

I know of one Christian who was told not too long ago that he had terminal cancer and that he had to put his house in order. Obviously, he, his family, and his friends prayed like mad to see him healed. They had varying degrees of faith, and they earnestly sought God for some deliverance. It seems now he is basically cancer free!

The other person, my wife, was also told a few years ago that she had terminal cancer and that the prospects did not look good at all. Various treatments were entered into, and like my friend, she had faith and prayers galore from herself, me, and so many others. A year and a half ago she succumbed to the cancer.

Both were strong, vibrant Christians with great faith and the indwelling Holy Spirit. One seems to have fully overcome the threat of an early death due to cancer. The other did not. I do not question the faith of either one, or the love of God for each one. But different believers will get different outcomes in these areas.

My friend continues to give glory to God. My wife in her trials, suffering and death gave glory to God. Even doctors and nurses looking after her remarked about how amazing she was – to which she would say, it was God in her, not herself, that helped her to bear up so well under all of this.

We can all praise God when people are healed of various diseases and illnesses. But we can also praise God when that is not the outcome. Our faith rests not in our circumstances but in a loving and gracious God who is still on the throne.

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