Nipate
Forum => Controversial => Topic started by: GeeMail on December 18, 2014, 12:42:11 PM
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http://www.absg.adventist.org/2014/4Q/TE/PDFs/ETQ414_12.pdf
Healing for the Soul
More important than the healing of the body is the healing of the
soul. Our purpose is not, after all, to make people healthier sinners
but to point them to the eternal life found in Jesus. Perhaps that is why
the only clear reference to healing in the passage for this week is our
memory text in verse 16, which moves away from the hypothetical situations dealt with in verses 13–15. The word for healing in this verse (iaomai) can refer to healing that goes beyond the cure of physical illness (see, for example, Matt. 13:15).
Having already in verse 15 hinted at a broader understanding of healing (the resurrection), James makes the connection between illness and sin, the latter being the root cause of all our problems—not that every illness can be traced back to a particular sin but that sickness and death are the results of us all being sinners.
Read Mark 2:1–12
(compare Heb. 12:12, 13; 1 Pet. 2:24, 25).
What kind of healing do these passages describe, and what is the basis of this
healing?
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Faith in Jesus brings healing from spiritual weakness and sin. In
a sense, every healing Jesus performed was a parable meant to draw
people’s attention to their deeper need of salvation. In the case of the
paralyzed man in Mark 2, spiritual healing was actually the man’s
uppermost concern, which is why Jesus immediately assured him that
his sins were forgiven. Yet, “it was not physical restoration he desired
so much as relief from the burden of sin. If he could see Jesus, and
receive the assurance of forgiveness and peace with Heaven, he would
be content to live or die, according to God’s will.”—Ellen G. White,
The Desire of Ages, p. 267. While God’s healers today should employ
all available medical means to cure disease, efforts should be made also
to heal the whole person, not just for this life but in view of eternity.
Healing includes the healing of relationships, which is why we are exhorted, “confess your sins to one another”(James 5:16, NRSV), meaning those we have wronged (Matt. 18:15, 21, 22).
That is, if you have wronged or offended others, confess to them. Then the blessing of
the Lord will rest upon you because the process of confession involves a dying to self, and only through that death to self can Christ be formed within you.