A parable of Jesus blows up beliefs about healing, miracles
This is adapted from a video that you can watch here.
Is it always God’s will for Christians to be healthy and wealthy? That, of course, is one of the primary distinctives of much of the charismatic movement — God wants us to enjoy divine health and riches in this life, and if we don’t, it’s not because God didn’t want that for us.
Well, who better to know the will of God than God the Son? Jesus never promised or even spoke well of material prosperity during His ministry, and here, we’re going to look at a parable of His that strongly suggests that healing and wealth are not God’s default will for all His people.
Related: Christian, you don’t need more faith to be healed
The rich man and Lazarus
The parable is in Luke 16, a chapter rich with warnings for the rich. “You cannot serve God and mammon,” Jesus said in verse 14, and the next verse describes the derisive reaction of the Pharisees, who, Luke points out, “were lovers of money.” They believed, like the prosperity preachers of today, that abundant money was a sign of God’s blessing. But the Lord told them, “what is highly esteemed among men” — like riches and prestige — “is an abomination in the sight of God.” That’s the context for the parable that follows:
19 “There was a certain rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day. 20 But there was a certain beggar named Lazarus, full of sores, who was laid at his gate, 21 desiring to be fed with the crumbs which fell from the rich man’s table. Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores.”
The story intentionally lays out a stark contrast. Jesus vividly describes how rich the rich man was — a lover of money, like the Pharisees. But just as striking is the Lord’s graphic illustration of how bad off Lazarus was; he was a beggar, living in squalid poverty, treated like garbage, with nothing he could do for himself. His physical condition was just as miserable — Lazarus was covered with sores, like a leper, that were disgustingly licked by dogs. The life Jesus depicts for Lazarus is the lowest of the low. He was someone who the Pharisees would consider cursed, just as some prosperity preachers today say poverty is a curse.
Related: Meet the first health and wealth preacher in the Bible
Nothing in the story indicates that things ever got any better for Lazarus. He died in sickness and poverty. No breakthrough. Never healed. But then:
22 “So it was that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels to Abraham’s bosom. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 And being in torments in Hades, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom. 24 Then he cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am tormented in this flame.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and likewise Lazarus evil things; but now he is comforted and you are tormented. 26 And besides all this, between us and you there is a great gulf fixed, so that those who want to pass from here to you cannot, nor can those from there pass to us.’”
As it turns out, Lazarus was not cursed. This crippled, diseased beggar was favored and honored by God, so much that God sent angels to personally carry him to paradise. He received the blessing of everlasting life. It’s a reflection of another parable Jesus told a couple chapters earlier, where the master said, “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in here the poor and the maimed and the lame and the blind” to his great supper (Luke 14:21). Bring Lazarus in here, the Lord said.
The eternal fates of the two characters wouldn’t compute with the Pharisees or today’s health-and-wealth preachers. How could a man that rich be condemned? How could his great wealth be worthless before God? Wasn’t it a blessing? Conversely, how could someone like Lazarus have God’s favor? How could God not rectify his suffering during his life?
Related: The sufferings of faith
Some Christians talk as if God’s perfect, ultimate will must happen in this world, but Lazarus’ “breakthrough” was death, when he left behind his wasting-away body. His blessings did not manifest until then. It’s a sudden transformation not unlike what’s taught in Philippians 3:21 — when the Lord appears, He “will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body.”
Related: ‘On earth as it is in heaven’ does not mean healing now
Miracles and evangelism
As the parable continues, and the rich man realizes his judgment, he makes an interesting request that leads to the debunking of another popular charismatic belief:
27 “Then he said, ‘I beg you therefore, father, that you would send him to my father’s house, 28 for I have five brothers, that he may testify to them, lest they also come to this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham said to him, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; let them hear them.’ 30 And he said, ‘No, father Abraham; but if one goes to them from the dead, they will repent.’ 31 But he said to him, ‘If they do not hear Moses and the prophets, neither will they be persuaded though one rise from the dead.’”
The rich man’s request is to raise Lazarus from the dead, because he thinks that will get his family to repent. Some Christians today think that if only God would do some spectacle, incredible, undeniable miracle, then everyone would believe. There’s a movement spearheaded by Bethel Church in Redding, California, that believes that for evangelism to be effective, it must include miracles, or else it’s powerless.
But in this parable, Jesus refutes all of that. Abraham’s response mentions “Moses and the prophets”; that’s a euphemism for Scripture, what we today call the Old Testament. While the rich man thought a resurrection was necessary to persuade his family, Abraham says, no, they already have all they need to believe. Scripture is sufficient for that. As Romans 10:17 says, “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Not seeing. Not experiencing. Hearing.
Jesus teaches through this parable that if someone doesn’t receive the Scriptures, then a miracle isn’t going to change anything, even a spectacular one like rising from the dead. This was proven through the raising of the actual Lazarus, which prompted the chief priests and Pharisees to conspire to kill Jesus (and Lazarus!). Plus, how many other miracles did Jesus perform, and His disciples still abandoned Him? How many miracles did the Israelites see before dying in unbelief?
God has put His power in His word, and only that has the power to break through such hard hearts. Only the living and powerful word can pierce to the division of soul and spirit (Hebrews 4:12). When a lot of Christians talk about power, they just think miracles, but they neglect the greatest power of all, in the Scriptures.
Takeaways
So in this parable, Jesus blows away two ideas that are highly esteemed among many Christians today:
God wants us to be healthy and wealthy in this life.
We need miracles for people to get saved.
I’m not saying that we should strive for poverty, or that sickness is good in itself. I’m not a cessationist as far as miracles. I’m saying that when we talk about health, wealth and miracles as the end-all, be-all of God’s blessing, when we think God promises those things in this life for all of us, we don’t get the Lord at all.
Remember, Jesus told this story. The same Jesus who, they like to point out, healed all who came to Him. The same Jesus who, as Bethel’s Bill Johnson has said, is perfect theology. This is Jesus teaching us that if you’re poor or sick in this life, that doesn’t mean you don’t have God’s favor. That doesn’t mean you’re doing something wrong or that God has forgotten you. You can be poor and sick your entire life, like Lazarus, and still enter the kingdom of heaven.
That’s when our healing is promised. That’s when our breakthrough will come.
See also: Biblical truths that led me out of the charismatic movement
