‘Gradual’ healing? How we’re not seeing this story clearly

One of the Bible stories I hear frequently from those who believe it is always God’s will to heal us in this life is Mark 8:22-26. It’s when Jesus healed a blind man in two stages. 

After Jesus spit in the man’s eyes and laid hands on him, the man said, “I see men like trees, walking.” Jesus laid hands on him again, and then the man could see clearly.

The reason this story is popular among this camp is that it’s what they call a “gradual” healing. The reason they push an example of a “gradual” healing is because “gradual” healings are by and large their experience. 

I’ve heard more than once from charismatics that “miracles are instant, but healing is gradual.” They say this because what frequently happens is that they pray for healing, and they don’t get healed. Days pass. Weeks. Months. Years. During that time, they’re still believing for their healing. They’re told to press in with persevering faith. Maybe it’s a sin they haven’t dealt with. They may claim that they are healed but that they’re just waiting for the manifestation.

And so, to reconcile their experience with the healing ministry of Jesus — where, as they frequently say, all to came to Him were healed — they latch onto any of His healings that wasn’t instantaneous and use it as a proof text for “gradual” healing.

It was still immediate

I would ask them, if that same healing occurred today, if they witnessed it, would they call it gradual in the same way they mean it now? I don’t think so.

Because they would see a healing that took only minutes, if not seconds. They would see the man walk away from Jesus fully healed. Under any reasonable definition, such a healing is far closer to immediate than gradual. 

Other examples of healings that were not instantaneous but still immediate are when Jesus rubbed clay in a blind man’s eyes in John 9, and the story of the 10 lepers in Luke 17, where they were healed “as they went” to show themselves to the priests.

Each time, the healings were visible and complete by the end of the encounter. 

No one in Scripture, after coming to Jesus for healing, ever had to wait months or weeks or even days to be physically healed. No one ever had to say, “I’m healed, I’m just waiting for the manifestation.” No one had to chalk it up to “mystery.” No one.

Did Jesus fail the first time?

Why, then, was the healing in Mark 8 not instantaneous? 

The way I hear the story told sometimes is that Jesus “had to” try again, as if His first touch was only partially effective. This opens the door to the idea that the Lord’s ability to heal can be limited or even stifled by something outside of Him — usually, our lack of faith. 

See this video that debunks the belief that healing depends on faith. 

Why would I pray to, much less worship, a god whose ability is subject to me? That would be some kind of weak, pathetic god. During Jesus’ ministry, demons obeyed Him. Dead people obeyed Him. Plants obeyed Him. Fish obeyed Him. The wind and sea obeyed Him. He wielded absolute power and authority over every atom, over all matter and space. Just what you would expect from God the Son.

But in Mark 8, it’s, hmmm, let’s try that again? Was it an off-day for Jesus?

Given His instant, sovereign mastery over everything else, is it not obvious that Jesus chose to heal this man in stages?

A Markan sandwich

His reasons aren’t stated, but the context is interesting. In verse 17, right before the healing, Jesus said to His disciples, “Do you not perceive or understand?” Then in verse 18, “Having eyes, do you not see?” 

A sight metaphor right before healing a blind man. Hmmm.

And right after this healing in Mark 8 came Peter’s confession of Jesus as the Christ. By an act of God, he saw clearly. 

Could it be that the man seeing “men like trees” symbolized the disciples’ partial, clouded spiritual sight? Or ours, for that matter? As Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 13:12, “now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face.” Just like the blind man.

This passage is what Mike Winger calls “a Markan sandwich” — a literary device in which a story is purposefully framed by what comes before and after it in the text. See his video about this passage here. 

Granted, that’s just a theory, but what we know is that Jesus heals whomever He wants, whenever He wants, in any way He wants. We know all of His healings were fully manifest by the end of the accounts. And if His healing ministry has continued — if He’s the same yesterday, today and forever — there’s no valid reason to think that any healing today will take any longer than any healing in the Bible. We don’t go by experience; we go by Scripture. Especially if it’s a Scripture about what we experience.