Three Shades of HealingI have noticed in my readings of the Word four 'categories' or broad aspects of healing:
1. Being Made Whole [to God, others and self]
2. Deliverance [from disease, and malfunction, and spiritual infirmity, from others, from darkness and the demonic, and from death, and
3. Rescue and
4. Freedom
Healing is much bigger than the mere idea of 'getting well': we have mentioned that before. Healing, divine healing entails not only a 'feeling better', but many aspects of something that is askew, corrupted or wrongful being made right, perfect and complete. In the Garden of Eden, when man walked perfectly with God, all was right, perfect and complete. There was perfect health, no shame or sin, no disease, hatred, and the communion with God and rest was excellent. When sin came, and man fell from Grace, we often acknowledge the hardships, pain in childbirth, toil and work and so forth that the Word mentions, as a result, but in truth, what one author called a 'crack in creation' took place, and everything which was formerly perfect in God's way, time, and place began to unravel and come apart. Instead of communion, there was separation from God and unbelief, or difficult belief. Instead of peace and rest, and tending the Garden there was work and briars and suffering. Instead of health and well-being there was disease, discomfort and illness. All of healing, including and foremost, the healing Salvation brings, is a 'making right' and healing back to God, in the way things are supposed to be and work.
An example of this, in disease, is that when disease occurs, the normal function of the body is in disequilibrium: it is apart from its normal work and health. When the body heals, it goes back to its natural, unaltered state: cells performing their normal function, a lack of discomfort, inflammation disappears, etc. Even in nature we see this: when trees become diseased they do not bear fruit, or their leaves become mottled, etc. When the are watered cared for, and tended, they return to their natural state, and the 'goodness' of the tree comes to bear. Divine healing must be seen in these terms, because it is a setting right, a return to the right ways of God, and a 'putting back together' the thing that was right and fully functioning. This applies to all kinds of healing whether it be the healing of emotions, souls, diseases, dysfunction, bodies, relationships, or even nations.
Being Made Whole
The idea of 'being made whole' is found clearly in Scriptures. Being made whole may be seen in
1. The Healing to God [Salvation]
2. Healing to Others [Reconciliation] and
3. Healing of the Soul/Self
Healing to God [Salvation]
The whole Word of God is replete with references about our need for salvation, or healing back to God in the way God had always intended, to be safe from grave danger and from wrath, and imputed righteousness, where our perfection is not ours but his.
It had to be God imputing righteousness to us, because the progress of the Fall from the first had caused a condition which made it impossible for man to ever attain the 'goal' of getting back right with God. So in Old and New Testament [e.g.Psalms, Romans] we see God performing the act which would bring back the righteousness needed to be in communion with Him. The most famous passage regarding healing and salvation we have already mentions:
"with his stripes we are healed", or
"Now is come salvation, and strength, and the kingdom of our God, and the power of his Christ: for the accuser of our brethren is cast down, which accused them before our God day and night.
Being Made Whole: To Others
When we are made 'whole' and 'right' with others, it is Reconciliation, and there ar e many mentions of it in the Scriptures: it is right to be made one with those we are separated from, both in the house of God and out, with friends, spouses, relatives, acquaintances and others. When there is a rift between ourselves and others, it causes the whole church to suffer, as well as us in our personal lives. Forgiveness is such a central concern for the believer that it hardly bears mentioning: it was among the last pronouncements of Yshua on the cross "Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do." When we 'fall out' with others, for example in a church, it is never in a vacuum: it is like a small tear at first in a seam, but before the rift is ended, the entire garment can be torn to bits. When we reconcile with others, we solidify the body of Christ as a whole and healthy thing; when we reconcile with a spouse, or child, or parent, we cause healing in all lives involved and blessings which would not otherwise have risen. Examples of reconciliation are seen in 2 Cornithians 5:20, and Romans 5:10 ( reconciled to God):
Rom 5:10 For if, when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God by the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, we shall be saved by his life.
Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech [you] by us: we pray [you] in Christ's stead, be ye reconciled to God.
The Bible also talks about reconciliation and the house of God:
And so thou shalt do the seventh [day] of the month for every one that erreth, and for [him that is] simple: so shall ye reconcile the house.Eze 45:20
and in Matthew 5:24, we see a call to be reconciled to one another:
Leave there thy gift before the altar, and go thy way; first be reconciled to thy brother, and then come and offer thy gift.
The healing of relationships one to another in right order is a critical part of Church unity and daily healing in life in general. Many marriages have partners who love each other, but are unwilling to accept God's order in the relationship: husbands confuse headship with domination, or wives subvert headship, and many do not understand the difference between order and an equality in Christ. When a marriage is healed in proper order, both partners are free and at peace, an oft indicator of
the 'right' or healed state. When Church members at war with one another make peace with one another and find reasonableness and love, the work of the Lord goes forward.
See I Cor 1:7. Again, the knitting together of those previously at discord, involves a 'making whole' and re-establishing order and 'rightness'.
Healing, Being Made Whole and The 'Self'
The whole realm of human experience we study under the rubric 'psychology' could rightly be assigned here more than to any disease process: what is today called the Self, but was traditionally called 'soul' [although theologians will argue endlessly about that] is the 'glue' that holds our self-experience together. Ask 100 psychologists what 'self' is, you will get 100 different answers. What we do know is that when 'self' begins to fragment and come apart, we see troubling behavior and thinking, and usually a great deal of pain. Freeman and Melges in the 70s looked at aspects of self-disintegration in relationship to drug use and other states of altered consciousness, and found that as a sense of time disintegrates, so does a sense of body boundaries and 'self', and vice versa. How God has put us together in time and space, though, which we probably can never understand, is less important than the very important lesson that as the natural right order of a person's sense of his self, of who and what he defines himself as, comes apart or disintegrates, a state of disequilibrium occurs and we define this as 'mental illness' . Hence when we see troubling patterns, such as 'clinical depression', psychosis, gender confusion etc, there is some portion of the person which is 'coming apart' and deviating from the the right order when the person like other healed things is in a state of peace and rest and 'integrated'. This does not mean that there is one 'normal' for all healthy people- people differ as often as the number of them---it does not define a set of behaviors or beliefs as 'normal'---what it does is show that unrest in the person however mild or severe, is the self turning on the self or coming apart: deviating from a right order. So psychological [as we call it] healing, should involve returning to the order in which God made it. [and in proper relation to Him].
Examples in scripture are not all directly stated but implied. For example: in Mark 2:17, it speaks of "they that are whole". In Mark 3:5 a hand restored to wholeness is mentioned. Mark 5:28 states
If I may touch but his clothes I SHALL BE MADE WHOLE.
Much of this is related to bodily healing, but several other passages devote themselves to this concept of wholeness:
Mark 5:34 Go thy way daughter, thy faith has made thee whole
or
be whole of thy plague.
to be continued....
