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The Lord for the Body
by A. B. Simpson

CHAPTER XIV
PAUL AND DIVINE HEALING

"I am in a strait between two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better; nevertheless to abide in the flesh is more needful for you; and having this confidence I know that I shall abide and continue with you all for your furtherance and joy of faith." (Phil. 1: 23-25).

The Apostle Paul was not only a pattern of our spiritual life in Christ, but a striking example of right and privilege to receive the life of our Lord Jesus Christ into our mortal frame and to take Him for our physical strength as truly as for our spiritual need.

His life was a marvelous spiritual triumph in the face of unparalleled difficulties, pressures, sufferings, and mutilations. He seemed to carry a charmed life, and neither Roman rods nor Roman dungeons, malarial dungeons nor hardships of every kind, could hinder him from a single service for his Master, nor shorten his glorious life until all his work was accomplished, and he could say, "I have finished my course, I have kept the faith."

What was the secret of that marvelous physical life? The answer involves the whole doctrine of Divine healing, and reveals to us its deepest and highest principles.

I. THE STANDPOINT OF DIVINE HEALING

It is good for us to approach every Divine truth from the right standpoint. Promises unreservedly true and meant for our enjoyment may be beyond our reach because we are not approaching them from the right direction, and because we are not standing on the true ground of faith. In the verse already quoted, the apostle discloses the standpoint from which he was able to trust God for his body. It was because his life was not his own, but so dedicated to Jesus that he could truly, say, "For me to live is Christ."

It was because he had been delivered from the fear of death so fully that he could honestly say, "For me to die is gain." It was because he did not want to live for his own sake, but only for the sake of his Master, and for the sake of others, and that he could say in triumph and confidence, "I know that I shall abide and continue with you all."

Paul had so completely renounced his own will in the matter of life or death that he claimed Divine health not because it was his will, but because it was his Master's will and for his Master's glory. This is sublimely expressed in his noble words to the elders of Ephesus, "I count not my life dear unto myself, but that I may finish my course with joy and the ministry which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify of the gospel of the grace of God." He counted his life dear, but not for himself.

It would have been dearer for him to go and be with his blessed Master, but he counted it dear because the Lord needed him, and the Lord's people needed him. It was a sacred trust, therefore he could take it from his Master without a doubt or fear, and go forward into the perils and privations that he knew it involved.

This, beloved, is the standpoint of Divine healing. This is the ground of faith. This is the only place where we have a right to claim any of God's promises. So long as we want blessings for ourselves they are selfish blessings, but so soon as we relinquish our rights and claims and take everything only for Christ, then we can take anything from God because it is for God we are taking it, and it is God's interest more than ours to bless us. This is aptly expressed by a dear old colored saint, who used to say when he got into any trouble, "Oh, Lord! your property is in danger; oh, Lord, take care of your property."

He was so wholly the Lord's that he could honestly feel in looking after himself he was looking after the Lord's property. All things are ours when we are Christ's. So God help us and bring us to the point where we let go even life itself, as a personal desire, and then take it back as God's will and God's choice, and for God's service and glory. It is the old story of Moriah. It is Isaac laid down and then given back as God's Isaac and no longer as ours. We gain by losing, we lose by holding. The surrendered life is the only safe life. Letting go is twice possessing.

II. THE SECRET OF DIVINE HEALING

He had a secret. It was a very definite one. It expressed the philosophy of his experience. It was exactly the same secret that he had for his spiritual life. "Not I but Christ liveth in me."

Paul had no sanctification of his own, but it was all summed up in the indwelling life of Christ. And so Paul claimed no physical strength of his own, but he had learned the secret of resting in the physical life of his Master, and living upon the supernatural vitality he received from Christ, and "renewed day by day."

Listen to him as he says in 2 Cor. 4: 10, 11: "Always bearing about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our bodies. For we which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake that the life also of Jesus might be made manifest in our mortal flesh."

We find a little expression repeated twice here, "THE LIFE ALSO OF JESUS." Paul had two lives. He had his own life which was mortal and frail and which was always ready to die. But he had another life, "the life also of Jesus," and when his own physical strength gave way, then the life of Jesus came to his aid and carried him through. In other words, he had, residing in him, the very Person of his blessed Master, and His supernatural life sustained the vital energy of the apostle, so that when ready to sink, exhausted, and all his powers had failed, there came to him directly from Christ, through the Holy Ghost, a quickening influence reviving and restoring him and sufficient for all his needs.

Now, we may not understand this. We cannot understand it unless we know the secret too. It is like a telegraphic message in cipher. We must have the key to the cipher to make any meaning out of it. And the key to this experience is the personal knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ in your own being. Let us, at least, believe it.

We shall find it confirmed by the whole story of his life. Let us recall an incident. We find it recorded in the fourteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. After Paul had preached the gospel at Lystra to a heathen audience with wonderful power, the jealous Jews from Iconium and Antioch came and set the people against him, inciting a cruel riot and persuading the mob to attack Paul and drag him through the streets of the city and stone him until they left him for dead. We may be quite sure that when Paul's Jewish enemies got a chance to kill him, they did not stop half way.

So far as they could see, Paul was killed. Dragged along the hard pavement and left buried amid a heap of stones, to all intents and purposes the life of Paul must have been ready to go out. But it was just then that "the life of Jesus" asserted itself. And so we read, with great simplicity but with sublime eloquence, "Howbeit, as the disciples stood round about him, he rose up and came into the city, and the next day he departed with Barnabas to Derbe. And when they had preached the gospel to that city, and had taught many, they returned again to Lystra, and to Iconium, and Antioch."

Here we see the power of Christ revealed in the hour of utter despair. As his brethren stand around him in loving prayer the Holy Spirit arouses his sinking life, and Jesus touches him with His own physical and endless life; and, lo! the life of Christ quickens his mortal flesh, he springs to his feet and goes on to his work. And the next day we find him, not in a hospital, nor on a long vacation, but preaching the gospel and coming back to the very place where he had been maltreated and almost killed, and going on quietly, triumphantly with his work, taking his healing for granted as though it were just the thing to be expected.

So again, we find him at another point in his history, recorded in 2 Cor. 1: 8, telling them of the trouble that came to us in Asia, that "we were pressed out of measure, above strength, insomuch that we despaired even of life; but we had the answer of death in ourselves, that we should not trust in ourselves, but in God which raiseth the dead; who did deliver us from so great a death, who doth deliver, and in whom we trust He will yet deliver us."

Here is a very clear case of experience. In the first place the apostle was sick unto death and despaired even of life, when he looked at himself, and it would seem that when he looked at God, the answer was death. Paul's life was not equal to it. He was pressed above measure, and above strength. Yet there was another life, the life of his risen Lord, the strength of "God which raiseth the dead," on which he depended. And from the sinking life of Paul he looked up to the endless life of Jesus and claimed it in all its resurrection power till he could send back the triumphant shout, "He did deliver, He doth deliver, He will yet deliver."

This is the secret of Divine healing. It is union with One who is our physical Head as well as the source ot our spiritual life. It is to be in touch with the Son of man who is risen from the dead, in the power of an endless life, and who is the Head of our body and has taught us to understand that "we are members of His body, His flesh, and His bones." Yea, the apostle tells us in another place that "our bodies are the members of Christ." "The Lord is for the body, and the body for the Lord." Why should not we understand and claim the secret too?

It does not mean immortality, or life that never can die; but it does mean participation in the life of our risen Lord in such a measure as will make us equal to every duty, every labor, and every pressure, until our life-work shall be done, and the Master shall either call us to Himself or come to meet us. Beloved, have you learned the secret--"THE LIFE ALSO OF JESUS?"

III. THE PRINCIPLES OF PAUL'S SECRET AND ITS PRACTICAL WORKING

1. In the first place it did not presuppose that Paul should be strong in his own constitutional strength. On the contrary it was based upon Paul's weakness and quite consistent with a condition on his part of personal insufficiency. There is every reason to believe that Paul was naturally feeble rather than robust, and that his constant exposures, hardships, and sufferings, had had their natural effect in reducing him many times to the very verge of prostration, and even death. And so we find him speaking of "the infirmity of his flesh."

We find him saying, "We which live are always delivered unto death for Jesus' sake. Always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus." But this did not hinder his taking the strength of the Lord Jesus and being enabled thereby for all that the Master required of him. His health and strength were a Divine paradox. "When I am weak, then am I strong," he could most truly say. In himself he was physically weak but in reliance upon the physical strength of an indwelling Lord, he was stronger than himself, and better equipped for his work than even perfect health could have made him.

Here lies the deep secret of Divine healing and the explanation of Paul's singular experience recorded in the twelfth chapter of 2 Corinthians. "The thorn in the flesh" was not removed, whatever that thorn was, but more strength was given than if it had been removed. Therefore, if it was a spiritual trial it was not taken away but double grace was added. And if it was a physical weakness it was not withdrawn but double physical strength was supplied, so that Paul was even stronger than if he had been delivered from this particular trouble.

He could say, "I take pleasure in infirmities for Christ's sake, that the power of Christ may rest upon me." Paul's health was Divine strength given in human weakness so he could say, Though the outward man perish, the natural and physical constitution may seem to decay, yet the inward man, the Divine life, by Christ's strength is renewed day by day.

2. In the second place Paul's experience of Divine health was not incompatible with the greatest pressures, the severest hardships, the most perilous exposures, and the most uncongenial and unfavorable surroundings. Much of his life was spent in damp, unhealthy dungeons. He was often exposed to cold, inclemency, fasting, sleeplessness, a night and a day was he drowned in the deep. Oft was he shipwrecked, again and again he was stoned, beaten with the Roman rods that bruised and lacerated both flesh and bone almost to mutilation.

Never did human frame sustain such unspeakable pressures. And yet through them all he went triumphant and always ready for whatever service the Master had for him. "We are troubled on every side," he could say, "yet not distressed; we are perplexed but not in despair; persecuted but not forsaken: cast down but not destroyed." The severest pressures only served to render the more marked the glory and strength of his Lord. He could say, "We have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellency of the power may be of God, and not of us."

3. In the third place Paul's physical strength was sustained by continual dependence on the Lord Jesus and a life of abiding in Him for physical as well as spiritual life. He gives us the secret in 2 Cor. 4: 16: "For which cause we faint not: though our outward man perish, yet the inward man is renewed day by day, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen."

The renewing was "day by day" and only "while he looked" to the unseen sources of his strength. He did not receive one tremendous miracle which carried him through life. He had learned what Jesus had so fully unfolded in the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John in regard to his own life, "As the living Father hath sent Me, and I live by the Father; so he that eateth Me, even he shall live by Me." Feeding upon Christ he lived by Him, and he could truly say in the language which he employed elsewhere and in another connection, "In Him we live, and move, and have our being."

Beloved, have we learned thus moment by moment to live upon His life, and, while outward pressure increases, and personal strength diminishes, to take a stronger hold upon His everlasting strength, and, as we wait upon the Lord, "renew our strength" until we shall "mount up with wings as eagles, run and not be weary, walk and not faint." This was the physical life of Paul. This is the privilege of every believing and obedient child of God.

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CHAPTER XV
INQUIRIES AND ANSWERS

Many practical questions arise in the minds of inquirers respecting Divine Healing, both as respects the doctrine and the personal appropriation. Some of these we shall endeavor to answer.

1. In what sense can Christ be said to atone for sickness, when disease involves no such moral element as sin does?

If I owe a debt to a man, not only am I liable, my house is liable too, and it may be held until my debt is paid. So my body is my house, and it is liable for the debt of my soul to God, even if it had not sinned, as it has, alas! Disease is sin's mortgage against my house. But, if the debt is paid, the mortgage is discharged, and my house is free. So Christ has paid my debt of sin and released my body. Judgment has no claims upon it. On the Cross of Calvary He bore in His body all my physical liabilities for sin, and therefore He is said to have borne our sicknesses and carried our pains, and by His stripes we are healed.

2. If Christ has provided for the complete removal of our diseases, why should we ever die?

He has not provided that there shall be no disease, but that disease if it come shall be overcome. Nor has He provided that there shall be no death, but that should death come it shall be overcome by the glorious resurrection. But if there were no death there could be no resurrection, and physical immortality in our human and earthly state would be far less than the glorious and immortal life we shall have through our Second Adam, in our resurrection life.

3. Why then cannot the dead be raised now as in the days of Christ and His apostles?

There is nothing to render such an occurrence impossible, but there is at the same time no Scriptural authority to justify our claiming it. The command to exercise this ministry was given to the twelve apostles, not to the seventy. And the time for the resurrection of Christ's people is distinctly stated thus: "Afterwards, they that are Christ's at His Coming."

4. If we should always claim healing, however, would it not follow that we should never die?

Not necessarily. There is no need that we should die of disease. The system might just wear out and pass away as naturally as the apple ripens and falls in Autumn, or the wheat matures and dies in June. It has simply fulfilled its natural period.

"Thou shalt come to thy grave in a full age like as a shock of corn cometh in his season." This is very different from the apple falling in June, with a worm in it. This is disease. The promise of healing is not physical immortality, but health until our life-work is done. "With long life will I satisfy him." We may not all live to fourscore, but we may all be "satisfied." And if we knew that our life would close tomorrow, we should claim strength and sufficiency today.

5. Are we not taught in the Scriptures that submission to God's will is the highest act of faith and obedience?

Yes, and before claiming anything of God we must be in the attitude of profound submission and prostration; but, being in this attitude, we will be led to make very sure that what we submit to is indeed God's will, and we shall find that that will does not lay upon an obedient and surrendered child a needless burden of sickness and pain; but desires and demands for us, even more than we can desire it, the help and deliverance Christ has purchased by His blood for our bodies as well as our souls.

6. How may I know His will in any particular case?

We can only know His will from His Word and Spirit. And we must not expect a special revelation from His Spirit where His Word has clearly spoken. He has told us clearly in His Word that Jesus has purchased for us redemption for body as well as soul. He has said of one sufferer who represented many more, "Ought not this woman to be loosed from her bond?" He has shown us His Father's will by His whole earthly example and acts as well as words, and never in a single case did He decline to help those who trusted Him; and unless He has shown us something different for us so clearly that we cannot question it, we should not question it, but should go forward on these clear encouragements of His Word and take Him at that Word for all.

7. Is not sickness a Divine chastening, and really designed for our good, and ought it not so to be received by us?

If we honestly so regard it, why, of course, we should bow under it at the Father's feet, and leave ourselves wholly in His hands. But it is a little inconsistent to say this and then run for the nearest doctor and use every expedient and resource of human skill to get rid of this gracious chastening, and get out of the Divine hands. Persons, who act so, really believe in their heart that sickness is an evil, and that they are perfectly justified in using every legitimate means to remove it. Even if it is a Divine chastening, surely prayer is a much more reverent and childlike remedy than physic.

But, seriously, the whole subject of Divine chastening is greatly mystified by those who reason in this way.

God has told us that His chastenings are not random or capricious blows, struck without reference to any principle or moral government, and leaving us wholly in the dark as to their purpose and remedy. God chastens like a father, intelligently and tenderly, and He is willing to make us know His meaning, and how we may escape His rod. He has told us distinctly that sickness and suffering are sent when we will not heed His gentle voice, and that, even then, if we will listen, repent, acknowledge our error, learn our lesson and obey His will, the trial will be arrested or removed, and we restored to His love and favor.

The thirty-third chapter of Job gives a picture of His dealings with His children through trial; and there is no dark, terrific mystery, but the simple, righteous principle, so clearly laid down in the New Testament, "If we would judge ourselves we should not be judged, but when we are judged we are chastened of the Lord that we should not be condemned with the world." Even if sickness be a Divine chastening its remedy is to have recourse to God, and, putting ourselves right with Him, claim His gracious deliverance.

8. How can I be sure that it is not best for me to be sick to keep me humble and near to God?

"Well, brother, if the blood of Jesus and the grace of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit are not sufficient to keep you humble and holy, I do not see how sickness is going to, unless it be a greater Saviour than Christ, and I do not see how God is going to keep the saints and angels pure in a world where there shall be no pain forever."

9. But do not a great many people greatly glorify God in their sicknesses and trials, and is it not a great opportunity for service and testimony?

A true disciple will glorify God anywhere, but how do you know how much more these persons would glorify God, after having shown the spirit of patience and meekness in trial, by rising up in His strength and showing His power to heal, and then going out to witness and work for Him?

How many there are on the contrary, who wither and fail under the long and crushing weight of years of pain, and become depressed, morbid, and blighted by the furnace. If God wants us well He will not perfectly bless us in sickness. He will sustain us, but He will also prompt us to claim something higher and better.

10. But how do I know that if I were healed I would really use my strength for the glory of God, and not perhaps, like Hezekiah, fail to render according to the benefit received? The same grace and power that heal the body are also promised to sanctify and keep the soul and may be claimed by the same faith. The first promise is Jehovah Tsidkenu, the second, Jehovah Rophi, but both are equally free, and both must be taken together if our blessing is to be complete.

11. Was not the answer of God to Paul, when he prayed for the removal of his thorn, a lesson to us to accept our trials and sicknesses as God's will and receive more grace to bear them?

Well, in the first place, Paul certainly prayed until he got an answer from heaven, and so we should claim deliverance at the very least until we get a refusal as clear and divine as he did. In the next place Paul's revelations required a special discipline to counteract the effect of his stupendous revelations, and when we get where he had been we may claim some right to his thorn.

In the third place, if the ordinary doctrine of our opponents be true, that sickness is not from Satan but from God, this could not have been disease, for it was a messenger of Satan.

In the fourth place, there is every reason to believe that it was not sickness, but some humiliating and annoying trial, something that buffeted him rather than incapacitated him for work, for all through it the power of Christ rested upon him. He does not seem to have been hindered a single day from his ministry, and adds that "all the signs of an apostle were wrought in him, in signs, and wonders and mighty deeds."

And, finally, we have elsewhere several distinct accounts of his healing from disease, showing that he had anything but a doubtful experience of the efficacy of prayer for his bodily need. In Acts 14: 20, we see him by faith rising up from a state of apparent death after having been stoned and dragged through the streets as dead, and immediately going forth to preach the gospel. In 2 Cor. 1: 8-11, we see him give up, humanly speaking, to die, through the pressure of a trouble under which he "despaired even of life," and yet delivered through faith in God who raiseth the dead.

And in 2 Cor. 4: 10, 11, we see him often exposed to death, and ready to sink, naturally, but finding his weakness a greater occasion for the life of Christ to be manifested in his mortal flesh. Such a man is rather an unfortunate argument to use against Divine Healing. 12. Why have not the great and good men of the past and present accepted this doctrine, if it is in the Word of God?

Well, why have they not accepted the doctrine of the Lord's personal coming, the doctrine of baptism, the doctrine of holiness in this life?

Simply because the faith once delivered to the saints was lost during the Middle Ages and partly recovered by Luther, and since then is slowly being restored to the Church of God. We shall never have much hold upon Divine truth until we take it at God's word, without waiting for the endorsement of human names. But it would not be hard to show a long array of noble names, including Ireneus, Tertullian, Origen and Justinian among the fathers, the Waldenses and Covenanters in later times, and even Luther, Peden, Cameron, Wesley and Whitfield since the Reformation, who bear witness to the marvelous healing power of God in this way.

13. Why was Epaphroditus "sick nigh unto death"?

I suppose as Paul states because of his extreme self-sacrificing efforts for him. And, perhaps, we might add, to give an opportunity and show the power and grace of God in His healing, for "God had mercy on him," and healed him; and I cannot see how his case is ought but an example of God's love and power in healing.

14. Why did Paul leave Trophimus at Miletum sick?

Well, we do not claim that Paul had any power to heal Trophimus, or that anybody has such power now. It was a matter between Trophimus and his God. Perhaps God had some lesson for him that he had not learned, and, therefore, could not at once be healed. Are there not such cases today, by hundreds? Had not God to leave Job on his back until he learned his heart-searching lesson? And then He healed him immediately.

Divine healing fully recognizes the sovereignty of God, and the state and spiritual attitude of the individual. The case of Trophimus, therefore, is fully in harmony with all its principles.

15. Why is it that many persons who were anointed for healing have not been healed; and some who seemed to have real faith have died?

We never can read the heart. God only knows if there was a real faith. Many excellent and eminent Christians are found without such a faith. Many, who once claimed healing with a victorious faith, at a later period are found to be without it and acknowledge it themselves.

There may be various causes for it. Sometimes it is a subtle, spiritual decline in vigorous, energetic fellowship with God. The soul reposing on its pillow of privileges has got at ease in Zion, and lost the edge of its first love. Sometimes a marvelous healing has led it so to rest in what God has done as to let go abiding communion for continued life and power.

Sometimes a subtle pride, or lack of love crept in and weakened the spiritual vigor. Sometimes in those that are not healed there is an expectation and hope rather than an immediate and present tense faith. Real faith takes and acts now. Many drift slowly over, expecting to be some day healed, expecting rather than accepting. In many such cases it has afterwards been made very plain that there was no real taking of Christ for strength and healing.

Sometimes the Master is taking home His child and will He not, in such cases, lift the veil and show the trusting heart that its service is done? How often He does! Dorothea Trudel could not, would not, ask for life. She was going home. A dear young girl in Michigan who for some time claimed healing, awoke one day from sleep, her face covered with the reflection of heaven, and told her loved ones that the Master had led her to trust for life thus far, but now was taking her to Himself. It is well, and let no one dare to reproach such a heart with unfaithfulness.

16. Why did President Garfield die, in spite of the prayers of the whole nation, including many godly and believing persons?

There was no sort of compliance in this case with the Scriptural conditions of answered prayer. He was under the care of a number of earthly physicians, there was no submission of the case directly to God in the ordinance of anointing, and the prayer of faith, and, indeed, such a suggestion was, we believe, refused, and would be probably in any similar case.

Nor was there any evidence of personal faith in God, on his own part, for healing. In no sense did it come under the Scriptural requirements for Divine Healing, and, besides, it is very probable that God was dealing with this whole nation in a public manner through its head, and calling it to repentance without which, not even Noah, Daniel and Job could together have obtained deliverance.

17. Does not James say, "The prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up and if he have committed sins they shall be forgiven him?"

Yes, all true, and they are forgiven, but it is not a question of forgiveness merely, but of discipline, and James also says, in the same passage: "Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth and hath long patience for it. Be ye also patient, stablish your heart for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh. Ye have heard of the patience of Job and have seen the end of the Lord that He is very pitiful and of tender mercy." This is the spirit of the faith that claims and receives Divine Healing.

18. But does not James speak of the prayer of faith as if it was the faith of the elders that brought the healing?

Happily, the Holy Ghost has anticipated this objection by the first verses in this Epistle of James, where he says about this very question of prayer, "Let him ask in faith, nothing wavering, for let not that man think that he shall receive anything of the Lord." God is not going to make one man's faith a shelter for another's unbelief. He is not going to let us keep our doubts and get our healing. He cares for us too well to let us remain on any lower plane than that of implicit confidence in Him.

True, He does give and bless the ministry of prayer for others, and enables us to believe for their help, but it is only when they also are right with God, and exercising faith for themselves. Then their faith and ours are in one accord and it is really a united prayer. But when we are leaning on another's faith and not looking directly to God ourselves, there is no unity and there can be no power.

19. Are there not, in the New Testament, distinct promises of special gifts, power of healing and miracles spoken of in connection with the enduement of the Spirit, and may we not expect these to be exercised by special individuals?

Yes, there are spiritual gifts, but they are never apart from the Giver. They are not powers possessed by the individual, but the power of the Holy Ghost personally, working through Him. "All these worketh that one and the self same Spirit, dividing to every one severally as He will."

So that no man can claim that he is a healer or a power, or anything but a helpless instrument whom God may be pleased to use in a given case, and will use in so far as the conditions are in accordance with His will. But God will not allow him to do anything differently from what God Himself would do, if you came to Him directly. Now, if you come to God with a heart of unbelief and dependence upon man, you will get nothing. Nor will you if you thus come to His most chosen instruments.

Take, for example, the gift of power for winning souls. This is a real ministry and power. But it gives no power to us to save the sinner apart from his own direct repentance and faith. It is simply the power to lead him to God, and when he comes with a true heart, to claim for him acceptance and salvation, and really receive with and for him the blessing and seal of Heaven.

So, precisely, in the ministry of healing, the part of the instrument is to lead the sufferer to know the will and word of God, to trust Him for himself, and then when he truly and trustingly comes, to claim with and for him the blessing promised, and the seal and earnest of the Holy Spirit.

A young lad fell overboard from a ship's deck, and one of the sailors stood quietly looking at his struggles, while the mother cried frantically, "Why don't you save my boy?" Still he stood until he sank and rose the second time. Then he sprang in and rescued him. "Why did you wait so long?" asked the anxious mother. "I waited till he was too weak to clutch me. Had he done so, we would both have sunk together." Keep your hands off all men if you would really trust God, and then even men can doubly help you.

20. Is there any need for the ministry of others at all?

Yes, God has appointed the ministry of prayer and given a special promise where two of us are agreed as touching anything we shall ask. He has also appointed the ordinance of anointing as the special seal and acknowledgment of His covenant of healing, and our claim; and these are divine means, and channels of blessing when received in the spirit of faith in Himself, and their willful neglect would show a spirit of disobedience and selfwill, unbecoming the humble disciple.

21. What is the special significance of anointing, and how often should it be administered?

It is the Old Testament symbol of the Holy Ghost. It signifies His personal coming into the body of the person anointed to communicate the healing life and power of Jesus Christ. It sustains to the matter of healing a similar relation to that held by baptism and the Lord's Supper in connection with our professions of Christ as a Saviour, and our deeper communion with Him spiritually.

It should not be repeated needlessly or with an idea of any potency in itself. If there be any new physical need, or even a new spiritual state enabling us to take hold of Christ for healing in a more effectual manner than before, it may be repeated, but it ought not to be lightly done, or done in any way which could discount or reckon as null and void our former anointing.

22. Why has God made all the remedies we find in nature if He does not intend us to use them?

Perhaps He did not make them any more than He made beer or whiskey. God made the barley and man made the alcohol.

And yet there is in the human body and the natural world a certain vis medicatrix natura, as the doctors call it, that is a certain restorative power, which is part of His divine beneficence for a world which He foresaw would be cursed with sin and sorrow. And we do not deny that natural remedies may go a certain length and possess a limited value in relieving and healing the body. But-

1. They are limited and extremely uncertain.

2. They are not His way for His children.

3. They are not to be combined in the Scriptures with Divine Healing.

a. They work through natural, this through supernatural channels.

b. They do not act on the same principles. The one is local and specific treatment, the other is a direct vital touch upon the springs of life.

c. All Christ's redemption purchases must be free gifts, by grace without works, and so if Divine Healing be through Christ's blood, it must be a gift of grace alone. We cannot mix our works with it any more than our justification.

d. He must have all the glory, and if man touch it he will be sure to claim it.

e. Faith, by its very nature, is always weakened by a mixture of man's works. If it has a human twig to lean on, it will lean harder on it than on God's mightiest words. It must, therefore, have God only.

To combine the omnipotence of Jesus with a dose of mercury, is like trying to go upstairs by the elevator and the stairs at the same moment, or harnessing an ox with a locomotive.

23. But cannot we ask God to bless the means?

Yes; but that is not Divine Healing through the name of Jesus alone, as He has prescribed. That is Esau's blessing. There is a blessing even for Esau; but give me Jacob's.

24. But did not God prescribe figs for Hezekiah?

Yes, and if He had prescribed figs for us, we should use them. Hezekiah did just what he was told, and God healed him. We are told to pray, "Anointing with oil in the name of the Lord," and if we really believe God, we will exactly obey.

The figs did not and could not heal Hezekiah. His case was wholly incurable. They were simply a token that God had the case in hand, and were given at the command of the prophet, and not the physician, who seems to have had nothing whatever to do with this case.

25. Why did Christ use clay?

No doubt, for a similar reason, as a token that He was touching this man's disease. But the clay did not heal him. It was the water of Siloam, the type of the Sent One, which washed away both the clay and the blindness, too.

26. Was not Luke called the Beloved Physician?

Yes. He had been a physician, but be became an evangelist. Even if he practiced after his conversion, it was no reproach, nor sin; but if God had wanted to guard us against the fanaticism of Divine Healing, how easy it would have been for Him to record a single instance in which the early believers sent for Luke. He could not have much medical practice in such a wandering life as he led with Paul, and the only time we read of the two meeting at the side of a patient, was when Eutychus was killed, and then it is Paul, and not Luke, who seems to have been sent for, and who certainly was used of God to raise him from the dead. Luke himself, who writes the narrative, does not even use a medical term in describing it.

27. But did not Paul himself prescribe medicine to Timothy in telling him to take wine for weak digestion?

Well, if this was fermented wine, we must abandon the argument for temperance. If, then, it was unfermented wine, it was simply a diet, and not a drug, and used just as we would suggest tea or rare beef to a friend. God's Word does prescribe to us all varieties of simple, wholesome food, but not medicine. From Genesis to Revelation you will find no single explicit direction to use human remedies. But you will find numerous directions to bring your sickness to God.

28. How should I act if I should break my arm?

Ask the Lord to keep it from breaking. Then do not calculate on breaking it, or you may according to your faith. If you should meet someone who has a broken arm, tell him not to try any experiments on God. If they can trust Him, without doubt He will heal anything. But if they cannot surely do so or have any question about it, let them go to the nearest and best surgeon.

For yourself, trust God in the present moment, and do not have any supposes, else you may have Job's experience, "I feared a fear and it came upon me."

29. How should we act in reference to the sickness of others?

First lead them to get right spiritually, and learn the lesson God may have. Then tell them of the great Physician, and pray for right conviction and appropriating faith, but do not commit your faith further than they are ready to go of themselves, unless you are specially led of God to do so. Above all, do not allow them to lean upon your faith for their healing. If they can really believe and act faith, then take hold for and with them with all your heart, and when two of you are really agreed in spirit and faith, it shall be done.

30. What should we do in the case of children?

We may act for them if our own, or if they are substantially laid upon us by the Lord, so that we are responsible for them. But we cannot believe for the children of others where God is looking to someone else to assume this responsibility, as, for example, an unbelieving parent. In the case of the children of others we should be most careful in assuming responsibility. In the case of the children of our Orphanage, we would not feel justified in taking this responsibility, in view of the law of the state requiring the care of an attendant physician.

In the case of our own children we may and should teach them to unite with us themselves in faith, and we will find it very easy to get their simple hearts to trust Jesus fully.

In all cases of sickness in others where there is danger involved and you have the responsibility, to meet the obligations of the law, it is a great matter, if possible, to have some regular physician who believes in Divine Healing within call, so as to be responsible if necessary.

31. If we are not immediately conscious of actual healing, after anointing, how should we act?

Keep your eyes off your symptoms and on Christ. He is your life. Your body must be reckoned as good as dead, and He depended upon for strength, moment by moment. Therefore look to Him, draw your strength from Him, and be not discouraged at any testing or seeming delay. In nature the root may be cut, and yet the tree only wither after many weeks; the serpent may be killed, and yet his tail will move till the sun goes down; the seed may be planted in September, and the winter snows and storms pass over it before the spring and summer bloom and harvest-"Behold the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit of the earth, and hath long patience for it till he receive the early and latter rain. Be ye also patient, stablish your hearts, for the coming of the Lord draweth nigh."

32. How can I consider and call myself healed when there is no sign of it in my body?

How can I go away from the telegraph office and be at rest about the telegram I have just sent, when I see no trace of it as it goes flashing along the wires.

If I can trust a telegraph operator, can I not trust my God? Faith must always first "call the things that are not as though they were," and "against hope believe in hope," and "consider now its own body now dead," or more literally, "without being weakened in faith, he considered his own body now as good as dead, yet looking unto the promise of God, he wavered not through unbelief, but waxed strong through faith, giving glory to God, and being fully assured He was able to perform."

The healing is not in our own body at first-we consider it as good as dead, but in Christ's body, and as we look to it, its strength keeps coming into ours, and we "wax strong through faith."

33. But have we a right to call that real which is not real?

If God calls it so, we can echo His declaration. And faith always must first reckon and then receive. And when we go to the post office to collect our orders, we must send in our signed receipt before we get any money, so faith must ever send its receipt to heaven before it grasps its answer. And if we have not the faith to do this for Divine Healing, perhaps we have not the faith for anything.

34. How can I obtain and exercise true and effectual faith for Divine Healing?

Only by having Divine faith as well as Divine Healing. Only by counting your faith and yourself dead and insufficient, and receiving Christ for this wholly, throwing yourself upon Him for it absolutely, and claiming a faith as perfect as that which God requires and gives, faith that doubts not, that believes it has the thing which it has asked, and so has whatsoever it saith.

35. Is all sickness from the devil?

Sickness may arise from several causes. First, it is sometimes God's chastening, and while the devil is the instrument used, God is speaking and we must hear and repent, and learn His lesson. Secondly, it is sometimes Satan's tormenting attack when we are walking in obedience and service. He has power even to simulate all symptoms. He often attacks us after we have given a testimony against him, especially respecting healing, at other times when in God's special service. At such times we must resist him, and he will flee from us. We must not fear him. Especially we must lay him over on Christ, and He will conquer. But to know it is Satan is half the battle.

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APPENDIX
DIVINE HEALING AFTER TWENTY-ONE YEARS' EXPERIENCE A CONTRAST
Testimony Of Henry Wilson

Out of weakness into strength, out of pain and weariness of mind and body into power and gladness in both, out of the fear of disease into the joy of the Lord and the love that kills fear and casts it out. For seventeen and a half years of toilsome, painful effort to keep on one's feet, and do a little, the blessed exchange of twenty-one years of service without toil. Doing three times as much without one-third of the effort, and without the need or desire to touch a drop of medicine or stimulant. In the sad past, old beyond my years; now younger than at twenty-five, if vigor of body and clearness of mind are any test of youth; not to speak of the "joy unspeakable and full of glory" that illumines the soul.

If attaining one's majority gives a right to speak and act as not before, then this privilege is mine today; to say a few plain words as to what divine healing is after twenty-one years of unbroken peace and joy in believing in and living out the life also of Jesus in this mortal body.

DIVINE TRUTH A DIAMOND

Like all God's truth this of "the Lord for the body" is a diamond with many facets or faces, and as we hold it up in the white light of the Holy Spirit it shines and sheds forth like a prism the very life and sweetness of the incarnate but glorified body of the Lord Jesus.

I. First, then, after twenty-one years divine healing is to me:

NEW PERSONALITY

The Incoming and Indwelling of a New Personality. It is a new man inside of the old, making the old new by this simple fact. It is texts of Scripture turned into fact. It is the words, "Christ in you" (Col. I:27) made flesh and blood and bone and tissue. "Christ dwelling in your heart by faith" (Eph.3:17), passes from the page of the book into the heart and nerve centers of the man. All that Jesus said about the Bread of Life and the Water of Life have become what they say in a physical as well as a spiritual sense. In a word we have a new translation and a revised version of the Word of God not into English, French or German, but into spiritual meat, into mental brain food and cells of healthy and health-giving blood.

II. Second, and as a direct consequence of the first, divine healing is

THE CONTINUOUS INFLOW OF A RIVER OF LIFE

into our whole being from the indwelling body of Jesus Christ. The whole man partakes of the whole being of the whole Christ. Again words pass into realities, thoughts become things, ideas become vitalities. "There is a fountain filled with blood," becomes a present tense in a new and living way. "There is a river," greater than that of Buddha, really flowing into and through our being and like that in Ezekiel's vision making things live and move and have being where there was either death or at best only half life before.

SPIRITUAL GULF STREAM

This continuous inflow of life from the body of the Lord Jesus becomes to us a veritable "Gulf Stream" in the ocean of our daily life. It permeates, penetrates silently and below the surface, the very texture and hidden parts of the human organism. It creates a new atmosphere in our whole consciousness.

Just as England is green and moist by the encircling influence of the Gulf Stream, while other places in the same latitude without it are cold and chilly, so is the soul and body which is bathed in this spiritual river green and fresh and vigorous, while others who know it not are cold, barren and aged. The words of Isaiah 58:II pass into fact. "He shall make fat thy bones. Thy soul shall be like a watered garden and like a spring of water whose waters fail not." Then from this flows the wonderful secret of SPIRITUAL RESPONSIVENESS

III. Spiritual Responsiveness.

Medical men tell us of the patient "responding to treatment." The powerful drug or the inpoured oxygen seems to call forth the decaying organs into renewed energy. Alas, it is often only temporary, and the syncope that follows shows how unreal the vitality developed has been.

But in this higher therapeutic the inpoured oxygen of the life of Jesus does more than galvanize, it vitalizes and keeps alive the energies of the whole system. It pours in not oxygen, but something so deep and real that the Bible calls it not only life, but "the Spirit of Life in Christ Jesus"-setting the whole being "free from the law of sin and death" (Rom. 8:2).

ASSIMILATION

IV. Next comes the wonderful process of Assimilation.

Just as natural food and medicine must not only be received into, but digested and assimilated by the body before it can be effective, so once more in this spiritual materia medica every organ of soul and body becomes open and alert to meet the incoming current of the water of life. A simple illustration may help here. An iron pipe is placed in the current of a river. The water passes into and out of the pipe, but the pipe knows it not, and in no way partakes of the nature of the water it conveys. Not so here. Our bodies are the pipes, not iron or even golden, in the River of the Water of Life (Rev. 22: I), but of flesh and blood, capable of and actually absorbing the life-giving stream as it passes into us, until our whole being has not only absorbed, but consciously, willingly absorbed every particle of the vitalizing current.

The old illustration of "the pitcher in the river and the river in the pitcher," is more than fulfilled here. In divine healing, both the river and the pitcher are silent beings. One is the living body of the Lord Jesus; the other is the body of the believer, both in touch and harmony, each open to the other, each desirous of receiving and being filled with the other. "The Lord for the body and the body for the Lord, the river saying to the vessel, "Receive me," the vessel saying gladly, "Lord, I believe, Lord, I receive Thee, the Living and Life-Giving One, to fill me with nothing less than 'all the fulness of God'" (Eph. 3:19).

MYSTICAL BODY A REALITY

V. Fifthly, "The Mystical Body of Christ" becomes something more than a theological or ecclesiastical idea to be more or less realized in a spiritual way by a few holy souls with special grace to attain unto it. "Christ the Head," "We the body and members in particular,"- "Members of His body, of His flesh and of His bones," and a dozen similar texts, pass once more from the realm of theory into the world of fact. They are what they say.

They say what they mean, and their deepest meaning becomes mine in a way too strong for words, and yet as simple as the holding up of my little finger, proves its connection with, and its continuous life from the heart within my body. In fact text after text like John 6:54-57, which we once thought merely beautiful parables of purely spiritual things pass down from heaven into the earth of our common life, and turn the earth of our physical being into a paradise of God and a very heaven of glory. At last we begin to see the profound truth that while every physical fact has a spiritual basis or background the converse is no less true. Every spiritual fact has its physical expression, and the expression in this case is as real as the fact behind it.

So "we are the body of Christ and members in particular." "As He is (in heaven), so are we in the world" (I John 4: 7). He is in the glory at the right hand of God, as far above us as heaven is above the earth and yet in our bodies of flesh and bone and tissue and nerves as near as the sunlight is to the flower it kisses and bathes with its enfolding life and power.

REVELATION 3:20

VI. Sixth. Texts which have been used to preach salvation and sanctification only become vivid pictures of divine healing. For instance, Revelation 3:20, the beautiful A, B, C text for the two first, is now one of the best in the Bible to show us how easily we may be healed if we will. "Behold I stand at the door and knock," etc. The door is now the thin veil or partition between us and the living Christ standing just outside. He knocks at

(1) The eye door, and says, Lift the latch, and in a moment, "in the twinkling of an eye" (I Cor. 15:52) you will see Me waiting to give you health and victory over disease and all weakness of body.

(2) The ear door is closed. He knocks again. We open and hear Him say as He passes in, "I am Jehovah that healeth thee" (Ex. 15:26).

PORES OF BODY BECOME GATES OF LIFE

He knocks again at the door of the mouth. We open and begin to say, "Lord, I believe, Lord, I receive," and instantly He passes in, bringing all He is and all He has with Him. And so of every human sense, which until now has been a "gate of death" (Psa. 9:13), of fear and forecasting of evil. Each changes its name because its nature is changed; sight, hearing, speech, yes, even the very pores of our body's so long channels of germ-bearing air, are transformed into little gates of life through which the sweet, wholesome tides of vitality flow in a steady stream, feeding and fructifying every spring of our natural life.

OVERFLOW OF SPIRITUAL LIFE

VII. Divine healing is to me after twenty-one years of experience, the continuous overflow into the body of the life of Jesus already in the soul and spirit.

It is the very same life, only now filling and vitalizing the earthen vessel of this mortal frame.

It is "God manifested in the flesh" in a real and living way. It is human flesh made holy, healthy, happy, strong and effective for all its needs and service by the incorporation of the flesh of Christ.

It is the answer to all our questionings and criticisms about God dwelling with and within men.

MATTER, (I) REAL, (2) DIVINE, (3) GLORIFIED

The human part of our being becomes as glorious as the divine. Matter becomes real because a real God has taken up His abode in it.

Matter becomes divine because "we," that is the whole, not half of us, "are partakers of the divine nature" (2 Peter 1:4).

Matter becomes eternal because we have in it now eternal life. "He that hath the Son hath life."

Matter becomes glorious for He who is the Lord of Glory dwells in it, giving us a foretaste of the coming day when He shall transfigure the body of our humiliation that it may be fashioned after the body of His glory according to the working whereby He is able even to subdue all things unto Himself (Phil. 3:21).

CONTINUAL VICTORY

Hence divine healing when thus understood is a victorious life for the body. Not exemption from pain and sickness at all times, any more than the soul and spirit are at all times free from temptation, but victory over pain and sickness, by the continuous and overmastering inflow of the life of the Lord.

This is the philosophy and this is the Christianity of divine healing. A bright, cheerful, wholesome atmosphere breathing all around us, because a Living One has breathed into the heart and every organ of the body His own vitality and made each of them a living channel of healthfulness and blessing to others.