I don’t think there would be any genuine Christian who would deny that God is still in the business of healing people. Where the controversies come in, is how God heals. 

 

In the early church, it was clear that men such as Peter and Paul and a special gift of healing. In fact, it says that people just tried to get into Peter’s shadow in order to get healed! However, does anybody have that gift today? Can anyone call themselves a healer today?

 

Like tongues, we at Acts1731 believe that the gift of healing is no longer around today. Why do we believe this? Well if you go back to the Bible, you can clearly see that as time went on and the Church became older, the gift of healing dwindled and eventually disappeared. Mentions of this gift get less and less as the pages of scripture are turned. 

 

 

For example, Paul, who was once able to bring back a young man from the dead, when he fell asleep during one of Paul’s sermons, no longer had the gift of healing after Acts had finished.

 

If the gift of healing was still around when he was writing his later books, how strange it is to hear him tell Timothy to “use a little wine on account of thy stomach and thy frequent illnesses” (1 Tim. 5: 23).
or talk about , Epaphroditus, “was also sick close to death, but God had mercy on him” (Phil. 2: 27).
This healing was not the result of the exercise of any gift, but of God showing mercy. it even directly affected Pauls missionary work, Then Paul says“Trophimus I left behind in Miletus sick” (2 Tim. 4: 20). Surely Paul would want his companion to join him on his journey? If he was still able to heal, ol’ Trophimus would be up on his feet in no time, but no, there is no mention of miraculous healing, but rather prayer and waiting upon God. Very similar to what we have today!

 

Of course God does heal, and while God usually heals through the power of prayer, He may still use a person to heal another.

 

For example He may instruct someone to lay hands on a sick man and He would be miraculously healed. But the man who laid on hands could not then go down to local hospital and heal everyone in all the wards. God works in situations, rather than through a special gift that is permanently given to someone. 

 

No failures

“who were all healed” (Acts 5: 16).

Peter had no healing failures. Indeed the NT does not record a single failure in the exercise of the gift of healing. Today there are many people who claim to be able to heal, however, their success rate is ‘pot luck' at best. There is no one alive today who has a healing success rate of 100%. So called healers today, also seem to focus to illnesses that are less obvious, such as cancer, headaches, and the like. I have yet to see someone with a withered hand or broken legs get healed. That is not to say that God cannot heal, indeed he does, I’m sure we all know someone who has been miraculously healed, but He does not use one special person to perform all this healing.  He may work through someone in a specific and desperate situation, but I do not believe He gives the gift of healing to a singe person, who can then go and heal anyone they choose to.