Is Satan Directly Involved In All Cases of Illness? Do We Have Authority As Christians to Rebuke All Demons and Illnesses Away From Us?

There is a common belief in circles where the Word of Faith and Prosperity Gospel teaching is promoted that people who are experiencing mental or physical illness are actually demon-possessed or demon-oppressed. And so if we rebuke the demons in Jesus' Name and get them to leave, the illness will subside as well. Others believe there is such a thing as an organic physical or mental illness, but that we always have authority as Christians to rebuke the illness directly and recover from it even if it's from an organic cause.

It’s important that as Christians we understand from the Bible how illness and death came into the world, and what God’s plan and process is for eradicating both of these things forever. Then we can do our part to cooperate with that plan, and we can spot false doctrine that is not in accordance with that plan and step away from it and guard ourselves against it.

Some See Every Illness as Demons
It’s become increasingly common, especially in charismatic churches and circles, for every illness to be seen as demons. It can get quite extreme. If you have a persistent cough, it's said to be a demon causing the coughing and you’re supposed to rebuke Satan away and your cough will leave you. You may have come across such people in church as these beliefs are becoming more and more commonplace. There’s also a number of people who are extremely confused and don’t necessarily buy into the idea that everything is demons, but because this-view point is so widespread and seeps into sermons everywhere in part or in full, it has lead to huge amounts of confusion.

The Word of Faith movement is not a denomination with clear tenants of faith. This would make it easy to identify. No, rather it finds its way into all denominations and I'm sure you've heard its terminology preached, but because its terminology is so subtle and hardly distinguishable from Bible Christianity, its common that leaders will adopt some of the ideologies without knowing it, and use some of the terms without being aware they are doing so.

I know people with bipolar disorder who experience psychosis as a symptom, who have been told by their pastors to get off their medication because taking it is a lack of faith, and that they should be rebuking the illness directly or in some cases they say they should be rebuking the demons behind the illness and taking up their God-given authority to be well. These people are in compromised mental states and it’s often hard for them to distinguish between Bible truth and error. Some of these people have listened to him and gone off their medication and had a complete psychotic break where they spent their whole savings, moved to another state and started a new life due to delusions that their husband wasn’t really their husband and was in fact a demon, wrecked their life, and almost lost their lives because they were a danger to themselves and others in that state.

You can see how inaccurate information surrounding this topic can be dangerous.

It turns out this view-point and this situation where pastors rebuke church members for taking medication rather than claiming their God-given authority over sickness and Satan is not an uncommon occurrence. Yes, that’s really the truth. It happens often as it’s a commonly-held belief in Pentecostal circles and in circles where the prosperity gospel and Word of Faith movement is preached.

What is the Correct Timeline - When is Illness Removed from Us for All Time?
I believe it happens because of an inaccurate understanding of the timeline of how the gospel brings an end to all sickness, poverty, and death. This doctrine isn’t false because it claims God will heal all sickness. God will in the end heal all sickness. Again and again in the scriptures the gospel is linked with and always has these core components of forgiveness of sin, freedom from death, poverty eliminated and prosperity given, and sickness being healed. In the passages in the Old Testament, God promised all these things to Israel if they would be faithful to Him. These promises were connected with the Israelite's mission of being His chosen people whom He would bless in these ways and reveal Himself to be a God of goodness and truth by doing so. Jesus began his ministry by healing the sick and calling people to repentance and faith in His atoning sacrifice that He would give to the world. These things were all linked and connected with the ministry of Christ. This doctrine is false because of the timing, and also because it elevates faith to God-like status rather than putting our faith in submission to God's will. It is definitely true that the gospel ends all sickness forever. But does it do it now?

Well, the gospel doesn’t accomplish everything it’s promised to in this life, otherwise no Christian would ever die. So it’s clear there are some things the gospel brings about that don’t happen in this world.

Is recovery from sickness one of those things that the gospel accomplishes for us in the next life, or in this life?

Let’s dig into the scriptures. What does the Bible really say about this subject? What is the correct relationship between Satan and sickness? Does he directly cause illness every time, or is he sometimes directly involved and other times not involved and there is a purely organic cause of illness? Or is no sickness caused by demons and all sickness occurs naturally on its own as a result of a fallen and broken world that now has dysfunction that results in dangerous pathogens like Lyme spirochetes, and cells mutating giving conditions like cancer?

We know that at least in one sense every sickness or illness, anything destructive, and death itself was caused by Satan. When He rebelled against God and His law Satan brought all these things into existence. When man fell due to Satan’s temptation in the garden, all of these things became a part of the human experience and existence in this world.

But is Satan directly causing all sickness today? And do Christians have authority from God to rebuke Satan and all the sicknesses he causes?

Let's Start at the Beginning of Creation

Let’s start at the beginning to get our answers.

There was no death in all of God’s created universe before sin. Not only this, but there was also no malfunction or disease. There was no break-down at all in any way in the whole of creation. Adam, though he had a finite brain that had limitations and wasn’t all-knowing like God’s mind, had a brain that functioned perfectly for a human being. The scriptures tell us Jesus though His Word holds all things together.

“He is before all things, and in Him all things hold together.”

Colossians 1:17

“The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.”

Hebrews 1:3

All of creation cannot function or exist in its own power. The laws of physics themselves, along with everything else, is held together by Jesus’ almighty power.

So Adam’s brain and body were held together and kept in a perfect state of functioning by that almighty Word of Christ.

It was sin – moral evil – that brought death – or natural evil – into the world.

Before sin Adam was not under the power of death. The Bible speaks of this fact in many places. Paul says in Galatians 3:12 that he who keeps the law shall live by keeping it. Perfect obedience to God’s law – what Adam had in Eden before sin – results in eternal life through the God whom you are obeying. The laws are relational in nature. What it means for God to be God is that He is the Moral Lawgiver, and by keeping His holy law, Adam stayed in relationship with the Lawgiver. The relationship human beings have with God is a specific type of relationship that we can have with no one else. After David committed adultery with Bathsheba and then murdered her husband to cover up her pregnancy so that his adultery with her would not become known, in repentance for these cruel acts David prays "Against Thee and thee only have I sinned." Psalm 51:4

Our Relationship With God Centers Around the Moral Law
Why would David see these sins as against God and not against Bathsheba and her husband Uriah? David definitely sinned against Bathsheba and Uriah and the parable the prophet Nathan told him to awaken him to his sin depicts this when it showed the rich man who had many lambs taking and eating the one lamb owned by the poor man. The lambs in the parable represented David's many wives and how he had taken the wife of Uriah who had only one wife. So I'm sure David knew these sins were again Bathsheba and Uriah and I'm sure he was aware of how much he wronged them. But he made this statement about how his sin was towards God alone to point out a core truth. That we stand in relation to God differently than we do to other human beings. God is the Lawgiver and when we sin we incur a record against Him in heaven. Our sins are directly against Him and even if we commit a sin against another person, it is first and foremost a sin directly against God, for these are His Commandments which we are breaking when we wrong another person. When David killed Uriah, yes he stole Uriah's life and this was stealing from Uriah, but ultimately he stole from God. Uriah belonged to God and David had no right to take his life.

And when we ask forgiveness of another person it doesn't clear our record in any way in heaven. It is a purely relational thing that happens that creates goodwill between two individuals and restores them to unity. But it doesn't actually erase any sins from our record. But when we ask forgiveness of Christ He erases our sin record. No person has the power to do that, only God can do it, and this shows that ultimately it is God we sin against. And Jesus took all of those sins -- yes even the ones we did against others -- and bore their penalty on Calvary, again showing our relation to Him is not the same concept as our relationship with people and involves the law.

And so since God is the Lawgiver, our relationship with Him involves the law and our relation to the law. (Even after we sin this is the case. Christ pays the penalty of the law on our behalf and brings us into right standing with God and His law; the law is not eliminated from the equation, instead the penalty is paid and we are brought back into a right relation with God and His law through the perfect sacrifice and law-keeping of Christ.) The law is always part of the equation in a person's standing with God. God's laws are life-producing by their very nature because of how they kept Adam connected with Christ who is "the Life". However, in Romans 7:10 Paul tell us that the law that was intended to bring life now brings death. After sin a person's relationship with God is severed, they incur God’s wrath and they fall under the penalty of death. The law can't bridge the rift that was created between that person and God by their sin. The law has no power to forgive or redeem the person or give them a new heart. The law which is good, is powerless to do anything about our lost state, which is why Christ came and died. (Romans 8:3-4)

The Law is Life-Producing Through God
This is a very key point to the discussion and I don’t want you to miss this. The law itself is life-producing. Its principles if kept perfectly cause a person to through God live forever. It brings no sadness, sickness, destruction of any kind to keep the law; in fact it does the opposite.

Take some time to read through the following Bible verses and contemplate them.

"In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death."
Proverbs 12:28

“I gave them my statutes and made known to them my rules, by which, if a person does them, he shall live.”
Ezekiel 20:11

“My son, pay attention to what I say;
turn your ear to my words.
Do not let them out of your sight,
Keep them within your heart;
for they are life to those who find them
and health to one’s whole body.”

Proverbs 4:20-22

“Do not be wise in your own eyes;
fear the Lord and shun evil.
This will bring health to your body
and nourishment to your bones.”

Proverbs 3:7-8

The Role the Law Plays in Health
When I say the law is life-producing, what I'm saying is health and eternal youth and eternal life are imparted to the person who keeps the law perfectly and has never broken it. So with this subject of health that we are studying it's very important to understand the role the law plays in health. Keeping the law perfectly in Eden resulted in perfect health. Breaking the law resulted in death and ill health. There's a direct connection.

It’s the keeping of the law that there is health, eternal life, wisdom, riches and prosperity, with zero poverty, abundant knowledge. All this is secured and flows as a natural result of that relationship with God.

These things have always resulted from a relationship with God. Solomon puts it this way speaking of wisdom which is a reference to Christ Himself in Proverbs 3:16 “Long life (he means eternal life here) is in her right hand; in her left hand are riches and honor.”

These things do go together. Eternal life and perfect health does go with riches and honor and every other kind of prosperity.

No Harm Committed in the Keeping of the Commandments
The Bible says “love does no harm to its neighbor, therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” Romans 13:10

Thus it’s these very principles of right-doing that kept the creation in a state of harmlessness and health and prosperity before sin.

Imagine if no one ever told a lie. Imagine if no one ever verbally abused another person, never hit or killed another person. Imagine if there was only good-will one towards another through the whole earth, only actions of thoughtfulness and love. Imagine if there was no adultery or rape. Imagine if no one littered or polluted or misused the earth and its resources.

I think you can see clearly how there would not be any breakdown in anything, from people's emotions to the physical world.

The breaking of each of these laws brings in death and malfunction of the emotions, psyche, and physical body, and if we mismanage and mistreat the world at large this directly causes damage and breakdown to the world.

This is what is meant by the idea that the breaking of the law brings harm.

The Cause and Effect Relationship of the Moral Law and the Physical World
Another way to put this is that "the wages of sin is death." Romans 6:23

Let's break down this passage and spend some time thinking about it until we understand it.

The passage here is saying sin is not death. There's two subjects in this passage and they are two separate concepts. There's sin, and there's death.

Let’s define our symbols:

Let S represent the proposition “x is sin”

Let D represent the proposition “x is death”

The statement says: “Sin is not death” → sin ≠ death

Or, to represent the phrase "sin is not logically equivalent with death" this is how it would be notated.

¬(S↔D)\neg (S \leftrightarrow D)

This means: “It is not the case that sin and death are logically equivalent.”

I think sometimes we tend to blur the two together and throw everything that is destructive into the category of sin. It's important we don't do that.

Sin is moral wrongdoing. And when we sin it has a negative effect on our physical bodies and on the physical world, causing death, and all the stages between full health and death...such as sickness, or injury, or fatigue, or anything like that.

The verse is showing a cause and effect relationship between sin and death. The wages of sin, or the reward of sin, or the payout of sin, or the result of sin, or the consequences of sin...is death in the physical world. Death to physical beings.

Moral wrongdoing which is a spiritual thing, brings death to the physical world and death to physical beings.

These are two separate categories...moral reality and physical reality.

The Moral Governs the Physical World
The fact that the moral dimension causes life or death to the physical world depending on whether Adam kept God's law or broke it, shows the moral or spiritual governs the physical. The moral and spiritual is above the natural, and presides over it. The natural is under and subject to the moral and spiritual.

It's interesting that "wages" is the word God chose to use in this passage. This word depicts God as the Rewarder (Hebrews 11:6). He is the Judge who at the end of time dispenses the reward of eternal life to the righteous and hellfire to the wicked (Revelation 22:12), with some receiving many lashes and some only few, depending on their works (Revelation 12:47-48). And for the righteous even a single act of giving cold water to a thirsty believer will be rewarded (Matthew 10:42). Everything is recorded and tallied up; He misses nothing.

What the Bible is saying here is that death is not merely the natural consequences of sin. The world doesn't merely respond to Adam's sin by bringing in death as some kind of a natural process, or some kind of spiritual process similar to pantheism where the natural world has divine properties, bypassing the Person of God and His direct agency. No, God is the Lawgiver and Judge who gives out the rewards. It goes through His authority.

And we see this when God cursed the earth after Adam sinned. The earth didn't operate via spiritual laws that caused it to break down on its own due to Adam's sin. God pronounced a curse on the earth, using His divine authority as punishment for Adam's sin -- as the reward or wages of Adam's wrongdoing.

The Natural World

The natural world is not as natural as it first appears. Unfortunately the modern scientific community consists of mostly naturalists, and all their findings and literature is written in naturalistic language. So we've been exposed to this image of the scientific world. As we mentioned earlier, scientists used to be called natural philosophers, and most of them believed in a God who held up nature, and they cited the order of the creation as evidence of a divine mind. Back in those days there was a different picture of the scientific world in people's minds; not this purely naturalist image. The laws of gravity and thermodynamics reminded people of God, and had properties that they saw as being congruent with the divine Mind and derived from that Mind.

When they looked up in the sky at the stars at night, or looked at the wonderful systems of the human body, images of people evolving from apes, or a godless world during the Jurassic period devoid of human life and populated only by dinosaurs and birds didn't fill their minds. Instead their thoughts naturally turned to a Divine Designer, and this picture emerged.

The scientists of that time period had things right. The natural world is held up by God, and is governed by spiritual principles. This is the reason why when a person sows grass in a field they reap a harvest, and when someone plants seeds in people's hearts they also reap a harvest, of souls.

Physical plants can grow, and so can purely spiritual things like one's faith. The fact they both grow, and they both operate via the same spiritual laws, when one is a purely spiritual concept and the other is a physical organism in the natural world, shows spiritual principles underlie the workings of each.

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made…”

Romans 1:20

What Paul is saying here in Romans 1:20 is very key to understanding the relationship of the natural world and the spiritual world. He tells us that the natural world shows us spiritual concepts about God.

But if it’s natural and not spiritual, how can it do that? How can something that is purely natural convey spiritual truth? Proverbs tells us how that’s possible.

“By wisdom the LORD laid the earth’s foundations, by understanding he set the heavens in place;

by his knowledge the watery depths were divided, and the clouds let drop the dew.”

Proverbs 3:19-20

Wisdom Means Understanding, or Logic

There’s a difference between wisdom and knowledge. In Proverbs Jesus is the personification of wisdom, thus when the Bible speaks of the foundation of the natural world being laid with wisdom, this is a reference to how the principles within God’s own character, and the attributed of His nature are the blueprint behind the created world. This verse isn’t speaking of scientific knowledge here. It’s alluding to the Bible wisdom on which the whole world’s design is based. The transcendent principles that govern the natural world.

The natural world has properties that are derived from and modeled after God Himself.

As referenced all through this book, understanding is basically synonymous with logic. The laws of logic are how we understand anything. The natural world follows the laws of logic, and thus it is congruent, and testifies to God’s congruent nature.

So when Proverbs tells us the Lord set the heavens in place with understanding, this shows us that the laws of logic transcend the natural world. They are not science; they are the blueprint that serves as the basis for all scientific law and governs it.

It could be possible for another universe to have different scientific laws. This is something God could do. But logic and truth would always serve as the basis and blueprint for these new scientific laws. There will never be a universe that isn’t formed with understanding and that doesn’t reflect God’s attributes.

Notice in the following passage how the same principles are involved in both the natural world and the spiritual world. When God waters the natural world and when He teaches us His Word through His Spirit and changes our characters from within, the same principles of how growth happens apply to both.

“As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,

so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.”

Isaiah 55:10-11

“My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass:”

Deuteronomy 32:2

Fascinatingly, both material things like seeds sprouting into plants, and immaterial things like our number of good deeds done, can grow.

Similarly, a material thing like a mountain and an immaterial thing like God’s character can have grandeur.

The fact that both material things and immaterial things can have processes of growth and share attributes of grandeur, reveals to us that truth mentioned above that God’s invisible qualities are seen in the creation.

It’s God’s invisible attributes that serve as the blueprint and basis for the created world, and that’s why invisible, immaterial things and material things can share the same processes and attributes. Their processes and attributes are coming from the same Source – God Himself who is Himself immaterial and transcendent.

In the above verse God spells out for us that the same principles govern both. He grows our character and our spiritual knowledge via the same principle that He does with how He waters the grass. It is the same God growing both.

With a tender young plant He starts out with a gentle drop of rain (called the “small rain” in the verse), because the plant is not strong enough to handle more. Then as the plant grows He sends stronger rain (showers) to grow it up to full maturity. Likewise with a new Christian God starts with basic, simple doctrine, and teaches them gently, then after they have been a Christian a long time and grown up some in the faith, He gives them more complex doctrine and grows them up in their understanding and in their character by these truths.

The fact that the natural world operates via these same underlying principles of growth – both in the natural world and in the spiritual world – shows that the principles involved in how growth happens are transcendent and eternal.

So even in another world with different scientific laws, the science there would always grow and expand in this same way, and abide by these same underlying principles.

Another example of this is the familiar verse:

“Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap.”

Galatians 6:7

In the natural world if we work hard to grow plants and plant a lot of seed we can have a big harvest, and in the spiritual world if we put time and energy into Bible study, seeking God and endeavoring to win people to Christ, we will reap a heart like His, we will have much knowledge of the scriptures, and bring many souls to Him.

Law of Death and Law of Spirit of Life
This is how when Adam sinned – a moral wrong – the physical world experienced a change and began to decay and die – a natural effect. This is also how if a person becomes converted, and God has the legal right to recreate in them a new heart, that He carries this out in the person.

The Bible describes a law of sin and death and a law of the spirit of life.

“For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.”

Romans 8:2

Those who are not in Christ are slaves to sin and cannot do good actions of love. There is a spiritual law at work here, where they cannot love. They are actually incapable of it, and it’s an impossibility for them while in a lost state.

Paul speaking of this spiritual law says this:

“I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me.”

Romans 7:23

But those who have been forgiven by Christ are set free from sin. Sin no longer has dominion over them, and they are able to love God and their fellow man.

The answer to Paul’s question “Oh wretched man that I am, Who shall deliver me from this body of death?” (verse 24) is “Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (verse 25)

Sin does not have dominion over those who are in Christ Jesus. They can choose to think thoughts that are truly loving and carry out actions that are truly benevolent. Because a new law is now at work through the Spirit who creates in them a new heart.

So this premise that those outside of Christ cannot love, and those in Christ can love and change for the better to be more and more loving, is a spiritual law at work.

Spiritual laws are always the foundation that governs the physical world. They do not operate independently from God as some spiritual force depicted in Star Wars and pantheistic religions. God is the Governor of His creation, the Person Lawgiver who is the Source of these laws and personally enacts them.

An error that something known as the Word of Faith movement makes is it teaches that God is bound by His spiritual laws, and basically operates as a subject under them in a way that mimics a scientific process like gravity, so that when we claim something by faith then God must give us the thing we ask for.

This tempts people to pray for their wishes and wants, rather than seeking God’s will, and makes God out to be a genie who is under some kind of spiritual law that causes him to fulfil one’s wishes, a slave of these laws, and just as how a moon cannot resist the power of gravity that makes it orbit the Earth, God cannot resist the spiritual power that forces Him to respond to our faith with a “yes.”

The Bible describes God as being active through His Word, watching over it to perform it.

“And the word of the LORD came to me, asking, “Jeremiah, what do you see?” “I see a branch of an almond tree,” I replied.

You have observed correctly,” said the LORD, “for I am watching over My word to accomplish it.”

Jeremiah 1:11-12 BSB

I checked the original Hebrew and it says in the Hebrew that God is performing His Word.

This shows active agency. Rather than there being spiritual laws that bind God to perform certain actions; it’s the other way around. God performs these actions of His own divine will and volition.

God is not a slave; He is the Supreme authority. He is the Law-Giver; He is not a subject under His laws. What this means is His promises given in His Word are His supreme will for us, and represents His desires and goals. He would not promise something He didn’t want and that didn’t represent His perfect will. And He accomplishes His promises by His own active agency and divine power. The Bible says the Son “Upholds all things by the Word of His power.” (Hebrews 1:3). What this means is God accomplishes in the natural world by His power what He promises in His Word, and that He brings about what He speaks, such as when He created light with a Word. This shows active, personal agency, not a spiritual law that forces and compels Him to act.

God acts not by coercion or force, and not under the authority of these laws, but presiding over them as their King and Source.

This why when Adam sinned, God officiated as the Supreme Authority, and meted out the sentence of curses upon the world. The world didn’t just start displaying signs of decay and death through some spiritual law independent of God. God sentenced it and carried out its sentence with His divine power.

God actively and personally cursed the Earth by His divine authority, as a sentence for Adam’s sin.

Notice in Romans 8:20 how this verse is specific about telling us that God subjected the creation to futility. The curse was given directly by Him – there was a “One” who personally carried it out and subjected it to futility.

“For the creation was subjected to futility, not by its own will, but because of the One who subjected it in hope.”

Romans 8:20

God can say no to the whims and wishes of men. Our faith only has power with Him in a subordinate way where we are subject to His higher will and higher authority. If we pray for something He has promised, we are coming into alignment with His higher will and purpose.

God is the Governer over all of creation. If you think of the creation, and what aspects and attributes a Governer of such a universe a Being must have and must be in order to manage it and preside over it, you arrive at many of the attributes that God possesses.

For instance, such a Being would have to be immaterial and a spirit and beyond the physical in order to create the physical. If God were made of created matter then He wouldn’t be over this creation but rather a part of it.

And this Being must be omnipresent in order to give life to all beings across the universe and hold up and keep in working operation every aspect of nature, from the planets and their long orbits, to the laws of physics that govern matter.

God isn’t subject to physical law – He created it. And He’s not under spiritual laws either – They are a reflection of His nature and His will. They are the enacting of His divine power in spiritual ways, His personal working, and the principles by which He makes His decisions and that reveal His values and character.

It was the Word and authority of God that brought the world into existence. He commanded “Let there be light” and light was created out of nothing.

Let’s keep studying this out…

God's Claims and the Serpent's Claims
Adam was told by God if he ate from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, that he would “surely die.” Genesis 2:17. God was telling Adam the same thing Paul says in Romans, that the law produces life, and that the breaking of it produces death. As Romans 6:23 states “The wages of sin is death.” The snake’s lie was that he would not surely die after all, and that he would in fact live in a higher state of existence as a god if he ate the fruit.

"And the serpent said unto the woman, Ye shall not surely die:

For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil."
Genesis 3:4-5

The snake claimed evil didn't really exist, as he made it out to be something desirable and good. Knowing evil by experience was having one's eyes opened. It was coming out from being unnecessarily sheltered to the full light of truth. And how often Satan has given us these same lies! He tells college students they need to try drugs or have sex in order to be grown up and liberated. That these things are a sort of right of passage into adulthood and that if you don't engage in them you're going to turn out with an uptight, outdated, prudish personality and be someone no one can get along with or likes. In painting things in this way, it makes it seem that to be a balanced healthy individual one must engage in sinful behavior. But sin never leads to health and balance! God had said knowing evil was a miserable experience, not something right or desirable, something He wanted to protect and shield us from. And we've seen by the sad history of this world that God was right. The snake also proposed the cause and effect relationship of sin producing death did not exist. You can see here that the snake is endeavoring to overthrow the whole moral and created order of things, calling into question God's authority, God's law, and the nature of human beings and their subservient role as being in God's image rather than gods of their own.

And we can see by his attacks on the whole order and government of God how essential the law and the keeping of the law producing life and the breaking of the law giving penalty of the law -- death -- are to the Christian religion and what it stands for.

We know that according to the Bible God has a right to our worship because He is the One who brought all other things into existence. He is the Creator, and the Standard of Morality and Truth. In other words, all things come from Him. Truth is found in His own Nature and Character, and this is where it originates from. Theologians have a term for this. They call it being the First Cause. The Bible calls it being the "I Am." The One who always was and has never not existed, and who exists outside of time, and who brought everything else into existence.

Jesus also died for us on the cross, showing God is not just the First Cause, but also perfect self-less love. He is not only all-powerful but all-loving.

But the snake gave a very different picture. He painted divinity as being something someone could acquire. Something that could be acquired by a created being through the tree, and which God was guarding and refusing to allow them to partake of by crafting this lie that if they ate from it they would die. The serpent painted God out to be a liar. Divinity in this view was not something held exclusively by God. Since divinity involves being the "I Am" and never having a starting point, you can see that divinity involves attributes and properties that can't be passed down or created. The snake presented God as hoarding something that wasn't His by virtue of His nature...it was something Adam could have and which did not belong only to God, and God was simply arbitrarily choosing to withhold it due to selfishness on His part.

The snake's false ideological framework did away with the concept of sin, and made it seem like the only real sin would be in failing to reach this divinity and arbitrarily holding yourself back from it, and allowing this tyrant to arbitrarily control you.

The snake's presentation of truth echoed themes of the New Age and other similar movements. You are a god. Your inner desires and thoughts are right and good. There is no standard higher than you by which you must measure and evaluate your desires and bring them into subjection.

And we will see in the coming paragraphs that the Word of Faith movement has these same themes.

The command from God centered around his right to be worshipped and obeyed because He was God and because He was perfect Love. Would Adam accept God’s authority in his life?

Eve chose to eat the fruit, doubt God’s character and come out from under His loving rule. After being tempted by Eve, Adam chose to do the same.

The devil well knew that those who sin incur the death penalty. It was the devil who didn’t love or care about Adam and was trying to bring him under the power of death and destroy him. The Bible says it this way, Satan was a murderer from the beginning. (John 8:44) His intentions were to dethrone God, which is why all His attacks were against God's character and God's right to rule, and to also kill Adam and Eve.

Sadly, we of course know that Adam ate from the fruit, fell under the power of death, and only Jesus’ pledge to die in his place brought a period of mercy to the human race, where we all have time to live in this world and decide whether to believe in Christ or not and be saved. If we choose to reject Christ, judgment will fall on us on Judgment Day. This judgment is delayed so all can choose salvation (2 Peter 3:9, 2 Peter 3:15). Adam and Eve would have been instantly judged with death, and in them the potential for other human beings to be created and exist would have died out with them, had Jesus not pledged to die for the human race, as the whole human race existed in Adam.

We know that the whole human race existed in Adam – meaning God couldn’t create another two humans and start up the human race again if Adam sinned – because the Bible tells us “In Adam all die” (1 Corinthians 15:22), and in (Romans 5:12) it says “Therefore just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, so also death was passed to all men because all sinned.” Then Adam is described as a “pattern of the One to come” (Romans 5:14).

What the Bible is saying here is that Adam had a special role and authority as the first man that affected the whole human race. His sin brought death to us all, and captivity to Satan for the whole human race. We were no longer under God’s banner. The human race belonged to Satan and was estranged from God, and had God judged Adam with death right after his sin, God would not have the rights to make new human beings. God no longer owned our species.

By saying that Adam was a pattern of the one to come, we see the parallels involved in the role of Adam as the first man, and the role of Christ as the “Second Adam.” In Adam all die, in Christ winning back the rights to the world, the human race, and each individual person, we are made alive if we choose Him. (1 Corinthians 15:21-22).

Thus we see here that the pattern referred to is this fact that Adam brought death to all and the whole human race died in Adam, thus God could not have created new human beings had God destroyed Adam for his sin, and the race not been redeemed. The pattern is a reference to how one man could bring in this condition of things upon all, and how Christ brings life to all who will receive Him.

Adam was a physical being, under the laws of physics. Thus when God pronounced Adam with the sentence of death, it involved the laws of physics which government Adam to themselves change. And because Adam had been a ruler of this world under God, the world itself fell under the power of death because the world encompassed Adam's dominion.

And when the laws of physics changed for the worse death and malfunction entered the whole world. Plant life, animal life, even single-celled organisms and bacteria and viruses could now mutate to cause disease and death.

In the Bible God as the Sovereign Lawgiver and Judge of the universe, pronounces a curse on Adam and on Eve, and He also pronounces a curse on the earth as punishment for Adam’s sin.

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.
18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.
19 By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food
until you return to the ground,
since from it you were taken;
for dust you are
and to dust you will return.”

Genesis 3:17-19

Something changed with the laws of physics and our bodies to cause work of all kinds -– even mental labor -– to tax us and wear us out and break down our bodies. There is fatigue and pain in labor of all kinds, and it is difficult, hard work.

However, there is still the original blessing in labor, for work itself was given before the fall of man and is good for our health. We need it to have purpose and to get exercise.

So here we see a mixed bag of joy and blessing resulting from hard work, and we also see fatigue and pain happening in this world due to the curse of sin.

It’s interesting that the curse for the serpent to slither on its belly, the curse on the woman to feel pain in childbirth, the curse on Adam to experience painful toil in labor, and the curse on the earth to produce thorns and thistles all involved changes to the laws of physics themselves.

The curse on the human race and on the earth encompassed the whole worldly creation, including the laws of physics that operate life and movement and scientific processes in this world, as they apply to this planet.

Not only was death now possible and a part of life in this world, but decay and malfunction were too. Decay and malfunction are part of the death process.

The Bible makes this very clear in Romans 8:21 that there is decay in our world caused by Adam’s sin.

“the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.”
Romans 8:21

This decay and malfunction is part of the curse. This is how mental and physical illness became possible, and entered our experience.

Conclusion
Thus you can see that according to the Bible, it’s not possible that all illnesses are directly caused by demons. The curse rests on the whole earth and everything in it, and brings malfunction and decay to people and animals and plants and organisms. Thus mental illness from purely biological sources with no demons involved is possible and happens.

It’s not possible that every illness is caused by demons. This is an impossibility.

However, this doesn’t mean that no mental or physical illnesses are directly caused by demons. Read on to learn of accounts where demons were directly involved in the scriptures.

What Was and Is The Devil’s Role in All of This?

So, let’s think about this whole process of how this happened, with the devil’s role in mind. What was the devil’s role in all of this, and what is our role when it comes to the devil as children of God?

In studying out his role and our relation to him, we can then see whether rebuking demons in order to recover from illness is biblical.

We will also be able to see whether rebuking illness directly is biblical too.

We know from what we’ve studied so far that it was Adam’s sin that actually brought death, and illness into this world.

The breaking of God’s law is inherently life-destroying, and the keeping of His law is inherently life-producing.

This means that it is the breaking of God’s law that brought the curse of illnesses into this world, not the devil.

It’s sin that brought diseases and health conditions. This is key, and very important to understand.

The devil’s role was that of a tempter to Adam.

However, once Adam actually sinned, the whole human race came under the ownership of Satan. So he then had the role of slave master. So he’s not just a tempter now, he’s the slave master of everyone who has ever lived long enough to sin, and who hasn’t yet accepted Christ as their Savior.

Jesus came and died to buy us all back. He didn’t just buy each of us as individuals. He also died to redeem the world from its bondage to decay and death. And He died to win back the rulership of the world from Satan. The crown of thorns that Christ wore on the cross was a reference to how Jesus was defeating and reversing the curse that rested on the world due to Adam’s sin.

At the end of time, God will engulf the world in fire, to cleanse it, and he will destroy this heavens (meaning the atmosphere) and this Earth, and create brand new ones.

In this new world, the laws of physics will go back to how they were before Adam’s sin. There will be no death or malfunction or decay of any kind. No “natural evil.” No hurricanes, no psychosis, or depression, or symptoms of mental illnesses and conditions.

This same fire will also destroy the devil and the wicked.

‘He will wipe away every tear from their eyes,’ and there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Revelation 21:4

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him.

Revelation 22:3

The Bible says death will be destroyed. In fact, it was to destroy death, as well as sin and the devil, that Jesus came into this world.

“Now since the children have flesh and blood, He too shared in their humanity, so that by His death He might destroy him who holds the power of death, that is, the devil…”

Hebrews 2:14

“Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. The lake of fire is the second death.”
Revelation 20:14

“And now He has revealed this grace through the appearing of our Savior, Christ Jesus, who has abolished death and illuminated the way to life and immortality through the gospel…”
1 Timothy 1:10

“The last enemy to be destroyed is death.”
1 Corinthians 15:26

Death -- and all the staged in between full health and death, like illness, fatigue, weakness, disability, and handicap -- will not be possible in heaven and in the new world, because no one will sin and bring upon themselves the penalty of sin which is death. The cross of Christ fully defeats Satan and death for all time. This is how powerful the cross is!

What They Got Right

Those who believe that physical healing is a core part of the gospel, are not wrong in connecting these two things.

They are understanding Jesus’ role correctly, that He came to abolish all illness, to forgive all sin (of those who repent), and to destroy the devil…also to buy back the world and abolish death itself.

This is a whole and complete picture of what Jesus’ work did and does.

They are right to see that the Bible verses about healing apply to the gospel, Jesus’ work.

They are only getting the timing wrong.

Notice how the Bible says “the last enemy to be destroyed is death.” This is significant. The last piece of the puzzle is to destroy death, meaning the curse that rests upon this world, and bring in a new world in which there is no death.

It is in the earth made new that the Bible tells us there is no more curse.

"And there shall be no more curse: but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and his servants shall serve him:"
Revelation 22:3

We know this to be true as Christians. God is active in our lives. He helps us with each day with the difficulties of life, giving wisdom and aid. He forgives us of our daily sins, and gives us moral strength to resist temptation. He teaches us from His Word. He gives His church power to take His gospel to the world and we see new people baptized into the faith and start relationships with Him.

God answers many prayers and provides much help. But if we were to pray for our 100 year old grandmother that she would never die, that prayer would not be answered in the affirmative. Likewise if we were to pray for ourselves that we would never die, the answer would be no. We watch as everyone around us gets older, and the signs of age show. We see older folks passing away and the new generation taking their place.

None of this negates Jesus’ power or His promises. He has promised forgiveness for sin right here in this world, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. It’s here that we are adopted into His family, rescued from our slave master Satan, and given a new heart that can love and know God.

But it’s not here in this world that we’re promised death will be destroyed. It’s in the next life. The curse still rests on the world right now.

And this means also that there is going to be sickness and disease in this world too, as long as the curse exists. Because the same curse that brings death also brings malfunction and dysfunction to the physical world. They are part of the same dynamic and root cause. This means that there will be harmful viruses and bacteria in our world that can cause physical and mental symptoms. There will be cells that morph and turn cancerous.

I don’t want you to misunderstand me here. I’m not saying God doesn’t ever answer prayers for healing, even sometimes giving a person complete health – at least as complete as health can look in this world. He does heal people. I’m very much involved in helping people heal and I have a health ministry. I wouldn’t be doing this if I didn’t believe God’s Word tells us that it’s often the case that God wants to heal people. But to make the blanket conclusion that God will always heal every sick Christian, is to bypass and negate the effects of the curse itself.

We live in a world under the curse, and the curse universally will not be removed until the end of time, at the resurrection for the righteous in our new glorified bodies. To say that God will grant every Christian healing is to say the curse has now been abolished for Christians by Christ’s death, and this just doesn’t fit the Bible’s timeline of when the curse will be removed.

Notice the language here in Paul’s writing:

“So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;”
1 Corinthians 15:42

The body we have now can perish. But the body we will be given at the resurrection will not be under the curse and will not be perishable.

Some translations say corruptible and incorruptible. Our body will not be able to die and biodegrade. It won’t erode or corrupt.

But right now that is not the case. Right now we have perishable or corruptible bodies. These bodies that can perish, can also malfunction and decay.

Thus those of us with mental and physical health conditions, have a constant reminder in our flesh of our need for the next life and for glorification, which is when we are raised with that glorified body in perfect health.

We need that new body and that new world and to be in the Presence of God. This life is not enough, it is defective, it is painful, we aren’t what we need to be.

The Bible speaks of groaning for our new bodies and of groaning for the day when are characters are 100% in alignment with His will and there’s no more selfishness in us.

“We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.”
Romans 8:23

As someone who has come out of psychosis with treatment, and who has taken brain supplements to really enhance my cognition, I can tell you that we don’t realize how much our brain, cognition, and perception are affected by the fall. It actually would not be enough to have a healthy working brain and body in this world. We need a higher level of intelligence. If we were much smarter, with brains that worked perfectly, we would see rich truths in the scriptures about the character of God that we can't see in the same way with the kind of cognition we have now.

This happened to me after treatment. I could see so many wonderful things in God’s Word that increased my quality of life and joy in ways I’d never before experienced. I didn’t know this level of happiness was possible in this world until I treated my brain. I didn’t know this level of Bible understanding was possible until I treated my brain.

My brain had so many glitches in its processing that took away my ability to see Bible truths in their beauty.

So many of us have these kinds of symptoms. Even those without mental illness have brains affected by the fall. We don’t have the mind Adam had in Eden.

Now imagine how much more happiness would be possible if we were many times more intelligent than we are now, and our brain worked in a way that it made zero errors and was perfect in functioning.

If we could see the level of understanding and cognition that it’s possible to have with such a brain, we would spend all our time focused on furthering God’s work in our hearts and in the world around us, so Jesus could come soon and we could go home to heaven.

We would not become so fixated on wanting this world’s version of perfect health, to the point of making health an idol, even if it’s not God’s will here for us to be in health.

Satan paints life in this world as capable of meeting our deep needs and desires if we just work hard at setting goals and achieving them, but this world does not have the happiness we crave. We need the next world and the next life.

Promises to Israel

We see in God’s promises to Israel, a direct parallel to the promises in Eden before sin. Just as obedience to God’s law before sin resulted in health, life, and happiness, so God told the Israelites that if they obeyed His laws, that He would not bring on them the diseases of the Egyptians.

“11 Therefore, take care to follow the commands, decrees and laws I give you today.

12 If you pay attention to these laws and are careful to follow them, then the Lord your God will keep his covenant of love with you, as he swore to your ancestors. 13 He will love you and bless you and increase your numbers…15 The Lord will keep you free from every disease. He will not inflict on you the horrible diseases you knew in Egypt, but he will inflict them on all who hate you.”

Deuteronomy 7

Here, as in Eden, it’s clear that breaking God’s laws produces illness, and keeping them produces health.

In the case of Israel God actually did promise them that there would not be a sick one among them if they lived in obedience to Him, and the promise was fulfilled. Among something like a million people there was not even one sick person among them.

"He brought them forth also with silver and gold: and there was not one feeble person among their tribes."
Psalm 105:37

Importance of Teaching Obedience to God’s Law

It’s very important that God’s church teaches and promotes law-keeping through Christ, to our members, and that we preach these things to the world at large, as an important component of the gospel.

And not only does law-keeping give psychological happiness but it also produces physical health. So no health instruction is complete without instruction on the importance of keeping the commandments.

Due to Adam’s sin, we are now powerless to keep God’s law in our own strength, but the good news of the gospel is that Jesus both forgives us of our sins, and gives us a new heart that can walk in His ways. Through the righteousness of Christ, we can now begin to walk in obedience to God’s law, by the new way of faith.

This is the power of the gospel. When it’s lived out in the character and life of the forgiven one, to produce good works of love, we see the transformative power of what Christ’s death and life accomplishes in a wretch, a lost person, corrupted by sin. They are set free from the power of sin, and enabled to walk in the new law of the Spirit. The definition of love according to the Bible is law-keeping. Not keeping it outwardly in behavior only, but keeping it with the love and spirit of Christ. This is what fruit or good works are. They are works of keeping God’s law of love.

And law-keeping is not possible for someone who is unconverted. Thus when good acts that keep the law and are in accordance with its principles are done by us, we reveal the power of Christ, because such acts of love are not possible in the humanist, in the person who does not have Christ.

Thus it’s fitting and right that God’s church ought not to only point out sin and our need for a Savior, and teach that we can be forgiven by Christ, but also emphasize that we can now through Christ keep His law imperfectly, and that this is a solemn duty and great privilege.

And educate people on what that looks like. Including God’s health laws, and how the keeping of these laws produces better health and a more sound and strong mind, enabling us to see rich truths in God’s Word that we can’t see when our brain is fuzzy or our perception is distorted by mental symptoms.

Due to how law-keeping, or good fruit, promotes psychological happiness which reacts on the physical body in healing ways, we cannot expect someone to be in the best health possible for them to achieve if they are knowingly living in unrepentant sin.

Coming Under the Power of the Devil

Now we know that our bodies themselves after the Fall are corruptible, or perishable, capable of malfunction and dysfunction by their very nature, and thus physical and mental illness can result from purely natural causes like pathogens in our body, or by things like birth defects, or even just aging, let’s ask the question “Is it possible to come under the devil’s power and experience illness as a result of demon involvement?”

The answer here is “yes.” In fact we are all before conversion slaves of Satan. So people are naturally under his power to a degree, but God sets in motion forces to bring the gospel to that person and give them the option of salvation through Him.

Everyone is given this option of salvation. While unconverted people are under Satan’s power and owned by him, he can’t keep them from being convicted by God’s Holy Spirit each and every day to come to God. Satan can’t keep them from salvation if they reach out to God. His power has definite limits, and the sacrifice of Christ buys for each of us the opportunity and power to choose to be saved if we will.

The Bible doesn’t tell us how much power Satan has over unconverted people or the exact limitations of that power. We do know that he holds them in bondage and that Christ alone can set them free.

Demons Can Cause Physical and Mental Illness
Can Satan give a person a physical illness such as cancer or schizophrenia? While we aren't told all the details and ins and outs of how this works, we are told that the answer is "yes." Demons can cause physical illness.

In the following verse we see Jesus cast a demon out of a boy with epilepsy, and when the demon leaves the epilepsy stops.

14 When they came to the crowd, a man approached Jesus and knelt before him. 15 “Lord, have mercy on my son,” he said. “He has seizures and is suffering greatly. He often falls into the fire or into the water. 16 I brought him to your disciples, but they could not heal him.”

17 “You unbelieving and perverse generation,” Jesus replied, “how long shall I stay with you? How long shall I put up with you? Bring the boy here to me.” 18 Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of the boy, and he was healed at that moment.
Matthew 17:14-17

Can demons cause mental symptoms? Again the answer is "yes."

Demons Cause Madness

In the following verse we see demons cause madness, and when the demons are cast out by Jesus the madmen return to being sane and mentally composed.

26 They sailed to the region of the Gerasenes,[b] which is across the lake from Galilee.
27 When Jesus stepped ashore, he was met by a demon-possessed man from the town. For a long time this man had not worn clothes or lived in a house, but had lived in the tombs.
28 When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell at his feet, shouting at the top of his voice, “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, don’t torture me!”
29 For Jesus had commanded the impure spirit to come out of the man. Many times it had seized him, and though he was chained hand and foot and kept under guard, he had broken his chains and had been driven by the demon into solitary places.

30 Jesus asked him, “What is your name?”

“Legion,” he replied, because many demons had gone into him. 31 And they begged Jesus repeatedly not to order them to go into the Abyss.

32 A large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside. The demons begged Jesus to let them go into the pigs, and he gave them permission. 33 When the demons came out of the man, they went into the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

34 When those tending the pigs saw what had happened, they ran off and reported this in the town and countryside, 35 and the people went out to see what had happened. When they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting at Jesus’ feet, dressed and in his right mind; and they were afraid.

Luke 8:26-34

Notice in verse 25 that the scriptures mention after the demon was cast out the man was sitting at Jesus' feet, dressed and in his right mind. This is a reference to how he'd lost his sanity due to demon-possession, and once the demon was driven out by Jesus his sanity returned. This clearly shows demons can cause mental symptoms.

What it does explain and show though is that if one yields themselves to Satan through immorality, the more they yield to him, the more power he gains over them.

So the answer to the question "Can mental or physical illness be directly caused by demons" is yes.

Not All Illness is Caused by Demons
However this doesn't mean illnesses are always caused by demons.

Jesus healed many people of physical illnesses by rebuking the illness itself, and no demons were involved in the person's condition.

Peter’s mother-in-law suffered from a high fever, until Jesus rebuked it and it left her and she began to wait on them. Luke 4:39 We see Jesus rebuke the storm at sea and even the wind and the waves obey Him. Matthew 8:27 It’s interesting to note that in none of these cases where demons were not directly involved in a person’s sickness or in the waves at sea, did Jesus rebuke demons. Even though Satan is the cause of all these evil things coming into the world, Jesus didn’t rebuke Satan every time someone became sick, rather he rebuked the illness itself, unless demons were directly involved as in cases of demon-possession.

Does Jesus Want His Church to Be Involved in Healing and In Setting People Free From Demons?
Jesus gave His church the authority to heal the sick, and to cast out devils.

"When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases,"
Luke 9:1

"And when He had called unto Him His twelve disciples, He gave them power against unclean spirits to cast them out, and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease."
Matthew 10:1

“Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.”
Matthew 10:8

As explained earlier there is a connection with keeping the law and with having good health. And in these passages Jesus clearly gives the gospel commission to His church and what does it involve? It involves preaching the gospel, casting out demons, and healing the sick. Notice also that these are three categories. While we did see previously that it is possible for demons to cause physical illness, it's also possible to have illness from purely biological causes. All physical illness is not caused directly by demons. Some physical illnesses have nothing to do with demons.

It is the role of the church both to heal diseases and to cast out devils. Some diseases are caused directly by demons, others are not attached to demons, but in either case the disciples healed people. Regardless of the underlying cause, the church has been given a mission to help in both cases.

However, there’s nothing in the scriptures that say in every case God will always heal us, and such a belief is dangerous as it goes directly against God's revealed will. God has a revealed will for this planet and it is for the curse to be lifted at the end of time. It wouldn't make any sense to lift it now and it is not possible for it to happen now, as the war against Satan has not yet been fully won.

God wants us to hasten His coming so the curse can be removed as soon as possible, and all sickness will be no more. But He doesn't want to prematurely lift the curse before the war has been won, and leave the universe with unanswered questions and without a full defeat of evil. No, He wants to fully defeat evil for all time, and there is a process that goes into doing that.

So we ought to care about the suffering people experience in this world, and we ought to want the curse to be removed, but we need to surrender our will to do it according to God's will and in God's way. When we spread the gospel and work hard to bring people into alignment to God's laws, we are hastening His work and shortening the time that we all have to suffer under the curse.

"as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming."
2 Peter 3:12

Part of spreading the gospel is helping people improve their health, and teaching them the laws of health which govern their being, showing them how to eat nutritious food and engage in healthy lifestyle practices and part with unhealthy ones.

God will recover some of these people we pray for and work with. In particular I believe it's crucial to help people in psychosis regain their minds so they can have opportunity to choose Him if they went into psychosis as an unbeliever.

I believe God wants to do healings and He wants to recover many people.

But it is wrong to endeavor to force God to recover every person or to see this as His will in every case, because it goes against His revealed will in the scriptures. To claim this or push for this in prayer would be similar to pushing for one's elderly grandmother to not die. It is not God's will to abolish death prematurely. And it is also not His will to abolish illness prematurely. While He will choose to recover many people I'm sure, He will sometimes say no as well.

We have examples where people prayed for healing and were denied by God the healing they sought. Elisha, a man of great faith, died of a prolonged illness.

Paul shows us the right attitude to have in praying for healing.

“because of the extraordinary character of the revelations. Therefore,[g] so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble[h] me—so that I would not become arrogant.[i] 8 I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. 9 But[j] he said to me, “My grace is enough[k] for you, for my[l] power is made perfect[m] in weakness.” So then, I will boast most gladly[n] about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may reside in[o] me. 10 Therefore I am content with[p] weaknesses, with insults, with troubles, with persecutions and difficulties[q] for the sake of Christ, for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.”

2 Corinthians 12: 7-10

A humble, submissive attitude that acknowledges God’s omniscience and His authority is the only truly Christian attitude. If we are trying to command God to always heal us – rather than submitting to His will – we’re making self our god and we’ve left the Christian faith.

Paul explains that in our weaknesses God can often best be glorified and this would include things like mental and physical illness. Only God knows for sure which is best – to allow the person to remain ill or to heal them – and he will bring a blessing out of even the worst situations if He allows them to happen. I can personally testify of having a renewed appreciation for Christ and his sufferings on the cross after going into complete psychosis and feeling shut off from God and his conviction and then coming back to sanity with the aid of lithium.

Indeed we need sufferings. (more on this later)

The same Bible that testifies of the power to drive out demons and heal sickness being given to God’s church also makes us aware of our responsibility in caring for our physical temple, calling the acts of doing so our “reasonable worship.”

“Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship.”

Romans 12:1

Health Never Meant to be Maintained by Miracles

Some people seem to have the idea that their food and lifestyle choices are not connected with their spirituality at all. A person may break down their health by eating unhealthy food, but they can never affect their character by doing so or endanger their soul. If they should fall sick from pursuing such a lifestyle, they can call on God to heal them.

But Romans 12:1 and similar passages set a president that health is meant to be maintained through stewardship of right-living and eating, not through miracles. While God sometimes does do miracles of healing, health is not to be maintained through such a means as a regular thing. The Bible's doctrine on health includes regular, faithful stewardship of one's health as a core part of worship to God. So the doctrine on miracles and God's ability to do them does not supersede this important command.

The Responsibility of Health Stewardship

This means that if we’re not doing everything we can to be in the best health possible and we’re mistreating our bodies, eating junk food, or willfully engaging in other types of health-destroying practices, then we’re doing the opposite of worship. We have a Christian duty to study and implement health and make it a major part of our lifestyle for the rest of our lives. And the church should be teaching and instructing people in how to eat and live healthy lives. We can have cooking schools, and nutrition classes, and mental health lectures and fulfill our health mandate this way. Indeed in instructing people there are many blessings that happen that do not happen from miraculous healings, because the person learns to worship God through healthy living and leave behind sins of unhealthy living. In teaching and instructing in this area, we aid people in surrendering their character and will to God and come out of sinful practices, and this is the most important work of all: our sanctification. 1 Thessalonians 4:3-6

It is therefore not faith to mistreat our body and then ask God to heal us. It’s disobedience. Of course, as fallen human beings (even after conversion), we’re prone to disobedience and this is a constant struggle. It takes surrender to Christ and power from Him to do the right thing when it goes against our fleshly desires, and we must commit to this battle. God’s ultimate goal is reaching the heart. He wants to heal the body fully and will give us new glorified bodies at His coming, but the big work that we need to be engaging in in this world is the heart change. We need new characters and through the sanctification process God will change us. We need to have a character that isn’t ok with mistreating our body and delights in treating it as valuable since Christ died for us.

If you’re thinking it’s not easy to deny the flesh and live as healthy as possible, you’re right. The truth is it’s not easy for anyone. But that's the whole point. God wants to change us from what we are, into His original plan for us, to be like Christ. And that means we have to face our shortcomings, and looking at that perfect Standard, to move towards Him. Once we begin to surrender to God’s molding we will develop a love for health and science that will add great joy and meaning to our lives. And the reason it’s not easy is because we are sinful and we need to change. We want health but we don’t want to have to put in the work and commitment it takes to be healthier. God will change you if you will let Him and submit to this process. The truth is most of us need to repent and change course in this area and we need to do so today and not wait. Counting the cost is important though. Definitely count the cost before you engage.