Hello all, I just came upon this thread and am interested in how any of you would interpret the following passages:

"Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases"
Psalms 103:2-3

"Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And 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. Confess your faults one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much."
James 5:14-16

One thing that I notice concerning the first passage in Psalms is that it says he heals all our diseases. The word in Hebrew is "kol" and it means just that--"all". It doesn't say instantaneously, nor does it say you won't have to suffer. But reading this plain and simply, keeping in mind many other verses of Scripture similar to this one, it is easy for me to conclude that God can and [i]does[/i] heal us of all our diseases. Would it be wrong to stand firmly on this promise if one gets sick? Why is it that people find it easy to believe that He forgives our sins, but they can't believe He heals our diseases?

And what about the second passage? It seems pretty clear to me from James that the prayer of faith [i]will[/i] save the sick, and if he have commited any sins, they will be forgiven. How can you reason your way out of that one? I am asking an honest question, not trying to debate or anything.

(Btw I am not an advocate of WoF by any means, but I do see that there is some truth to what they say. Otherwise it would not be so appealing! Satan's method is always to twist a TRUTH from the Word of God, he's done it in the Garden of Eden and all throughout Scripture. That's what heresy is, part truth mixed with lies. We need to be careful about not jumping to the other extreme, imho. I believe we should be claiming God's promises everyday and trusting them and praying according to them without wavering, because we know when we pray according to His promises we are praying according to His will, therefore He will grant us our petitions. So, not trying to be irreverent at all, but it is kind of like "name it and claim it" in a sense...maybe to clean up the language a bit it would be "praying God's promises through". Or how about that "positive confession" stuff--there's some truth in there because we constantly should be reminding ourselves of who we are in Christ, like Paul does in Ephesians 1-3.
Just some thoughts...)

Hi all, sort of stumbled accross this thread via google whilst looking for something else, so please excuse me if i repeat something.....

Some of u were saying that the atonement is only spiritual!! What about:
Mat 8:16 And evening coming on, they brought to Him many who had been possessed with demons. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick
Mat 8:17 so that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, "He took on Himself our weaknesses and bore our sicknesses."

- also, This HEALING cannot refere to our spirits, because our spirits were not Wounded!!! - they were DEAD!!!
we have been made alive in Christ.... we were DEAD in our sins....
We are RE-born and RE-generated.... not simply "Healed" of our spiritual wounds. we must get that.
We cannot allow the Devil to continue to Decieve us to live short of the abundant life that Jesus died to give us all. Healing is in the atonement!!
When we view and interperate Scripture through our EXPERIENCE, we are heading down a dangerous road.
If we dont belive what God said about himself: that he is Good, and "he delights to do us good", and he "WILL NEVER CEASE TO DO US GOOD" - Jer 32,
we will start to believe that he makes us sick to teach us to be beter people!! If one believes that, they dont understand the Goodness of their Father who delights to gives good gifts, and they have not fully seen the GOOD NEWS of the NEW Covenant.
It is the Devil who has come to Rob, Kill and destroy!!

Jesus told us that ALL Authority in Heaven (Spiritual) and on earth (Pysical) has been given to him, and He commissions us to go out to undo the works of Satan.....

Mat 10:7 And as you go, proclaim, saying, The kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Mat 10:8 Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. You have received freely, freely give.

and then:
Mat 28:18 And Jesus came and spoke to them, saying, All authority is given to Me in Heaven and in earth.
Mat 28:19 THEREFORE go and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
Mat 28:20 teaching them to observe all things, WHATEVER I COMMANDED YOU. And, behold, I am with you all the days until the end of the world. Amen.

You see, if we dont realise our God Given authority, we will be beging and pleading for God to heal the sick......... But He has already given us the authority to do so.
I think we can become so caught up with all the excuses of our failed experience, that we have watered down the Great Commision, as said, " Surely Jesus meant something else when he said "heal the sick"
The world links disobediance to Failure, The bible links Obediance to rewards. Sometimes we may not step out incase we fail..... but God calls us to step out regardless. Our Faithfulness is not based on results, its based on your obediance to the commision. Our task is to obey and step out - Gods delight is to be with us as we do so, and back up your faithfullness with signs, wonders and miracles.

We can get caught up with doctrines and theologies and not ever leave our computers, or we can get off our buts and get caught up in the arms of God and tell the world the good news of his grace.

hope this doesnt come across like im angry - cause im not, ive just been stuck in traditional, powerless, unbelieving, same old - same old Christianity for too long, but thanks be to God, we are not beginning mare and more to live the dream.
We are seeing in increasing measure the sick being instantly healed!! - a cancer disolve!! broken bones mend during worship, deaf ears open,deamons comming our of people and most importantly, the lost coming to know Jesus. But it is a crying shame that we only embraced the Saving aspect of the atonement (and YES!!!, that in itself is glorious and everything else is utterly insignificant without it!!) for so long and live short of fullness that he intended for his Church.

P.S. Start with the Explicits revealed in Scripture, and interperet the Narratives with those lenses on. Dont make doctrine based on Narratives - dangerous ground.
Would be delighted to field any questions...

Love
Andrew

Here is my deep, deep theological explanation for healing

It' s like the batter in a baseball game. He knows that about 3/4 of the time he will fail
but at least he is up there trying to get on base.

He is not thinking maybe I will; get a hit, he is believing and trying as hard as he can to get that hit.

And because he is out there trying on the baseball field he is giving himself a chance to get on base.

He is going for it and so should we when it comes to healing. You just never know and if it doesn't happen as at least you went for it.

we just have to have faith and leave the results to the LORD.