Can We Lose Our Healing

There is a large church group who has healing rooms and that is fine, but they have a belief that a person can lose their healing because some who are claimed to be healed later “lost their healing,” because the symptoms returned. Thus it is their fault if it did not stick.

As an Independent Fundamental Baptist, I have been a part of James 5 prayer sessions. Yes, as a hardcore Baptist, since we did not believe that some passages were only for Pentecostals/Charismatics. Some were healed and some were not. Some did find healing through medicine and others did not.

Medicine sometimes worked for awhile and then the disease that appeared to be cured was only in remission and often came back with a vengeance and the person soon died after that. That was what medicine can do. Yet, if God heals, can one lose their healing by sin or lack of faith? Did Jesus or the Apostles ever tell someone they healed that they better take care lest they lose their healing?

I can find only one place where Jesus gave a warning after a healing.

John 5:1 Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee.

Note, He did not say that if you sin you will lose your healing and revert back to the same symptoms. He said to not sin unless a worse thing would happen. We do not know exactly what the disease was or the cause. Because the way Jesus worded the warning it does not seem to have been something like MS or an accident of some kind unless the accident happened in the commission of the sin.

Now if he were made impotent from an STD and went back to a promiscuous lifestyle then he might get the same disease and symptoms or he might get a worse STD with worse symptoms. Even so, he did not lose his initial healing. He reinfected himself. If Jesus had healed him of cirrhosis of the liver and he went back to binge drinking then he could well develop the same disease, but it was not because he did not have faith to keep his healing. It I because he sinned.

Both of these circumstances could take some time to develop. A person who experiences the relapse a few hours later was not healed in the first place. Indeed, a brief relief of some things can be from the excitement of the process bringing the same experience that some have in placebo studies.

Jesus healed everyone He came into contact with and the healed stayed healed. Now, His disciples were not always successful.

Luke 9:38  And, behold, a man of the company cried out, saying, Master, I beseech thee, look upon my son: for he is mine only child. 

39  And, lo, a spirit taketh him, and he suddenly crieth out; and it teareth him that he foameth again, and bruising him hardly departeth from him. 

40  And I besought thy disciples to cast him out; and they could not. 

41  And Jesus answering said, O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you, and suffer you? Bring thy son hither. 

42  And as he was yet a coming, the devil threw him down, and tare him. And Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, and healed the child, and delivered him again to his father. 

Mark 9:28  And when he was come into the house, his disciples asked him privately, Why could not we cast him out? 

29  And he said unto them, This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting. 

They could not cast the out the demon and heal the boy though we know that they had cast out demons before. Not all come out the same. They were told that with some demons you have to do some preparatory work first. They had the delegated authority, but they may have thought they would access and use the power the same way, not realizing the complexity of their enemy.

There are some in the Charismatic movement that feel that God will and should heal every time a person is prayed for and if not, then something is wrong with the faith of the sick person or the one praying does not have enough faith or is out of fellowship with God. Not so.

2 Timothy 4:20  Erastus abode at Corinth: but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick.

Paul was not out of the will of God and certainly had great faith. Trophimus would have enough faith to be healed so the common census among many Charismatics has no basis here.

Philippians 2:25  Yet I supposed it necessary to send to you Epaphroditus, my brother, and companion in labour, and fellowsoldier, but your messenger, and he that ministered to my wants.