A Christian who teaches the truth about God’s promises of healing for our bodies might face this objection: “If God heals, or if God promises healing, then why do you still have this disease or defect in your body?” The objection attempts to sidestep the word of God to argue from experience, from feeling and observation instead of faith. Non-Christians do not know anything, and we expect something like this from them, but the critics often claim to be Christians, and they should know better. They know the answer to this, but they are blinded by prejudice. They hate God so much for promising healing that they would discard elementary gospel reasoning to attack those who have faith in him. If someone were to make a similar objection concerning another aspect of the Christian life, they would smirk and quash the challenge in a few words. They should never need to argue from experience to settle the point. If the doctrine of healing is wrong, then we should be able to see this from the word of God without appeal to experience. But this objection often appears after the promises of healing have been presented. The promises themselves are cast aside as they bring up the point.

The Bible says, “No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it” (1 Corinthians 10:13). There is always a way to escape temptation. There is always a way to avoid sin. However, I would not say to a preacher, “If God promises to change us, and if he promises to always provide a way out when we are tempted, then why do you still sin sometimes? The doctrine must be false!” I would never say this, and I would never reject the doctrine, because I am not a moron. I can read the Bible. I do not need to depend on the preacher’s example. I am not saved by the sinlessness of the preacher, but by the sinlessness of Christ. If I can take advantage of God’s promises, I can do better than the preacher who teaches them to me.

Do you still sin, ever? If God promises a way out, why don’t you escape? Is the Bible wrong, or is the doctrine false, because you sometimes sin? God provides a way out of every temptation, but do you escape every time? Why not? Is it because the Bible does not really teach this? No, that is not the reason. You sin, because you want to sin! As the Bible says, “”But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire. Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death” (James 1:14-15). You sin, because you embrace the sin and go along with the temptation. Don’t become even more despicable and blame everything on God, or attempt to deny his promises. And if you would not throw the blame on God, or if you would not deny that he provides a way out of every temptation, then why would you do it when it comes to sickness, when God has also made promises for your healing? Why would you do this, unless there is evil in your heart?

The same gospel reasoning applies to healing. I am not looking to the preacher for healing, but to God. A preacher who has not achieved perfect holiness can still talk to me about holiness and pray for me to grow in holiness, so a preacher who has not received perfect healing can still pray for me to receive healing. We do not stumble over each other’s flaws, because we are both looking to God in faith. The worst person is the one who denies that God makes a way to escape temptation just because a preacher has not reached perfection in holiness. More than a challenge to the preacher, this would be an attack on God’s integrity. On the other hand, those who humble themselves under the word of God will use the doctrine to build up their strength. They know that there is always hope when they face temptation. To them, imperfect experience is not a basis to reject the promises of God, but to talk about them even more. Likewise, an incomplete experience of healing is not a basis to reject God’s promises, but it is a reason to talk about them more and more, so that we may increase in faith and knowledge, and then in our experience.

You probably do not know how much God has already changed a person, and you are only seeing the flaws that remain. Of course you may still rebuke the man for his sins, but you may not rebuke God for making the promises. Rather than inciting the man to doubt the word of God, you should help him and pray for him, so that God’s promises will continue to take effect in him. You would not urge him to embrace his sins just because he has been sinning anyway, but you would urge him to embrace God’s promises, that he always provides a way out of sin. This is excellent gospel thinking. So why would you do the opposite when it comes to healing, when God has also made promises for the healing of the body? There is something wrong with you.

You probably do not know how much God has already healed a person. He probably had cancer on top of diabetes on top of arthritis when he first learned about God’s promises on healing, but now the only thing left is a limp from injuries he received many years ago. Don’t spurn the promises of God because of this. Don’t put the man down. What’s the matter with you? You should help him and pray for his complete healing, so that he will become an even better testimony of God’s power and grace. You also might not know how many severe conditions that God has healed through him when he prayed for people.

You might not know something else. If you look at an old photo of someone who has a consistent confession of healing by faith in Christ, you might find that he has not aged for decades, or you might find that now he looks even younger than he looked twenty years ago. This could have happened to Sarah. At the age of sixty-five, she was so beautiful that even a king desired her and wanted to take her for himself (Genesis 12:14-15). When Moses was a hundred and twenty years old, his eyes were not weak and his strength was not gone (Deuteronomy 34:7). Caleb was as strong when he was eighty-five as when he was forty (Joshua 14:10-11), and he demanded to enter battle to seize what God promised him. No excuses. Just faith.

We are the children of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ, and we have inherited the same promises. These are promises that can suspend time in the body, even turn back time. This becomes extra time to serve God and people, and time for you to enjoy the knowledge and blessing of God. But this will not happen for you if you keep nitpicking at those who preach about faith and healing from the word of God. You are only condemning yourself and hurting yourself. Instead of embracing sickness, take the way out. Take healing by faith in God’s promises.

Just because something is happening — something like a temptation or a sickness — does not mean that God wants you to go along with it. You need to find out what God tells you to do about it. Temptation happens, but God wants you to overcome it. He makes a way of escape, so that there is always a way out. You do not have to succumb to sin. God wants you to hate it and to fight it. Sickness happens, but God wants you to overcome it by faith. The Bible says that church leaders are supposed to fight it together with you. Do they? It says that the prayer that comes from faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. If someone stumbles and commits sin, you would not push him further in that direction, would you? You would, I hope, push him toward the direction of holiness. So when someone has an imperfect experience of healing, why would you use that to convince him that there is no healing for him, and push him toward the direction of sickness or surrender? You should push him harder toward faith in the healing power of God.

Thus the objection fails to undermine Christians who have not attained a perfect experience or exercised a perfect ministry, but instead it exposes the evil intentions of those who raise the point against the doctrine of healing. It shows that they attempt to sidestep an explicit biblical teaching, and it shows that they lack the ability to make basic applications from the gospel.