The Father's Heart of Healing

Hover over the references to see the Biblical text

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Just recently, I realised I'm much less convinced about the Father's desire to heal than I am about Jesus'. I'm sure that makes no sense, so I'm doing some work here to start the process of demolishing that pretentious thought (2 Corinthians 10:4-5).

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Jesus called healing, "the children's bread" (Mark 7:27) which, while not direct, implies a parent doing the providing. There are, however, several verses that assert healing is first and foremost the Father's will and that the Father was actively involved in every healing Jesus performed.

I'm John 5:19, Jesus tells us, "Very truly I tell you, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does."

But it isn't just that the Father is involved. In John's Gospel, healing originates with the Father. In John 6:4, Jesus says, "As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me." Earlier in John's Gospel, he asserted "the works that the Father has given me to finish—the very works that I am doing—testify that the Father has sent me" (John 5:36).¹ Then, in John 10:37-38, he says, "Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, that you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father." Jesus again connects his healing ministry with the Father's will in  John 14:7-11 when he says, "Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father" and "at least believe on the evidence of the works..." The Father wasn't just okay with Jesus healing people. He was the prime mover!

In the Lord's prayer, Jesus identifies the Kingdom (and its works) as being the Father's: "Our Father in Heaven...your kingdom come" (Matthew 6:9-10). That the works and the Father's kingdom are synonymous is in Luke 10:9 where Jesus says, "Heal the sick...and say to them, 'The kingdom of God has come upon you!'"² (NET)

In contrast to the leper, who came to Jesus saying, "if you want to," the centurion came to Jesus with the explicit assumption that healing was God, the commanding officer's will (Matthew 8:5-13). This faith—faith that healing was the Father's will—was greater faith than any Jesus had seen in Israel.³

In Acts 2:22, we're told Jesus was "attested...by God with miracles and wonders and signs which God performed through him" (NASB). I'm fact, we're told not only that Jesus healed the sick because of the Father but that he healed them all because of the Father: "Jesus...went around...healing all...because God was with him" (Acts 10:38). 

FOOTNOTES
1. Having said he was doing the Father's work and that we must keep on doing the Father's work, Jesus then sent out the disciples saying, "As the Father has sent me, I am sending you" (John 20:21).

2. ἐγγίζω can be understood to mean the subject is immediately present, it is against or on you.

3. If God isn't the Father in this passage, who is it?

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