Here’s part two my the weekly series I’m doing containing excerpts of the paper I wrote on inner healing. Last week looked at our need for healing and how it goes back to the beginning with Adam and Eve. This week, we look at Jesus’ ministry and how healing played a large role in what he did during his time on Earth.
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“A significant portion of His [Jesus’] ministry was that of setting people free from the bondage to evil spirits” (Long, Shay, White, & Willcox, 1999, p.228). In the Christian faith, evil spirits are fallen angels that instead of aligning themselves with and serving under God, they align and serve under Satan and continuously wage war on the kingdom of God and those who follow Him. When Jesus was on earth, he decided, out of his love and compassion for humanity, that it was time for these spirits that had been oppressing and afflicting people to be cast out and sent away. To do this, one must first understand a little bit about what an evil spirit, or demon, is and does. Since evil spirits are bodiless beings, they desperately want to attach themselves to something with a body that they can then influence and gain some level of control over. Jesus describes a journey of an evil spirit by saying:

When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, “I will return to the house I left.” When it arrives, it finds the house swept and clean and put in order. Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go and live there. And the final condition of the man is worse than the first (Luke 11:24-26).

That story Jesus tells paints a clear picture of how desperate evil spirits are to have a place to inhabit and they tremble at the thought of being homeless (Long et al. 1999). The idea of evil spirits desiring a resting is well demonstrated in the gospel of Mark where Jesus is casting out an evil spirit. It says:
Then Jesus asked him [the evil spirit], “What is your name?”
“My name is Legion,” he replied, “for we are many.” And he begged Jesus again and again not to send them out of the area (Mark 5:9-10).
The words spoken by the spirit show their fear of being without a place to inhabit.

Because Jesus was compassionate towards people and wanted to see them set free, he was willing to travel around to heal and free those who were afflicted. He would do this even when some of the religious leaders of the day protested. The gospel of Matthew states, “When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them and healed their sick” (Matthew 14:14). What it doesn’t say is that Jesus felt obligated to heal them; it says that he had compassion on them. Jesus possessed the heart of God the Father and wanted desperately to see people, his people, set free from what was holding them down. The compassion, love, and mercy Jesus showed towards those he was around was so great that he healed people much to the chagrin of the religious leaders. On the Sabbath, when Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he healed a crippled woman (Luke 13:10-13) and because he had healed her on the Sabbath and the religious leaders considered that to be work, which wasn’t allowed, they criticized him. But Jesus quickly rebuked them. “His willingness to violate the tradition of his religious authorities shows the strength of his compassion for the sick…” (MacNutt, 2006, p.73). Jesus’ healing ministry can be summed up with just a few words. He healed because he loved, and this was an important part of Jesus’ mission on earth.

During Jesus’ time on earth he also bestowed upon his followers the power to heal and drive out demons. “He called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out evil spirits and to heal every disease and sickness (Matthew 10:1). Jesus never intended to be the only one to go about healing the sick. His plan all along was to disciple and to teach his followers so they could be a part of the work that he was doing. But authority over demons doesn’t just mean praying a simple prayer and the demon will leave. To cast out a demon one must be using the power and authority of God to fully do what Jesus was intending them to do. MacNutt (2006) says, “We notice at once this is not merely a technique He taught his followers about how to pray for the sick: God’s power has to back up the prayer or it will not work (p. 70). In other words, a prayer is just words if the power of God isn’t behind it. And when performing a healing or deliverance, the power of God must be present with what is being prayed for any real healing to take place.

The way believers were to have the power of God to back them up in their prayers was for Jesus to send the Holy Spirit to be forever present and among those who believe and follow Jesus. “In Jesus’ famous Last Discourse (see John 13-17), we find that His main promise was to send the Holy Spirit to His disciples – and to us (MacNutt, 2006, p.73). This was the promise that Jesus gave to his disciples as he left them and was taken up into heaven. It was a promise that they would be able to continue with the work he started and fulfill the commission he had given them to go to the ends of the earth proclaiming the good news and healing the sick.

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You can read part on of this series by clicking here.

Check back next Friday for part three.

Dustin

This entry was posted on Friday, December 19th, 2008 at 8:00 am and is filed under God, Prayer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.