A: The Bible is very clear that God heals sick people who try to obey God and who have faith that He will heal them. He tells us in Exodus 15:26, “If you diligently heed the voice of the LORD your God and do what is right in His sight, give ear to His commandments and keep all His statutes, I will put none of the diseases on you which I have brought on the Egyptians. For I am the LORD who heals you.”
We are also told how healing from sickness has been made possible. We are healed by the stripes of Jesus Christ who gave His life for us, and who was tortured and beaten so that we can obtain forgiveness of our sins and healing from our sicknesses and diseases (Psalm 103:1-3; Matthew 8:16-17; 1 Peter 2:21-25; Isaiah 53:5).
Generally, God instructs us, when we are sick, to call for the elders of the Church of God — the body of Christ, a spiritual organism — to pray for us and to anoint us with oil (a symbol of the Holy Spirit) and to lay hands on us, so that we can be healed (James 5:14-15; Mark 16:18).
Many times, a ministerial visit may not be possible, as the sick person might live in a remote area. If this is the case, then elders are permitted to pray over a cloth, anointing it with a drop of oil as the symbol of the Holy Spirit, and asking God to heal the sick person who will receive this cloth. This is based on numerous passages in the Bible, showing us that people were healed when they touched the garments of Christ (Mark 6:56) or the aprons or handkerchiefs from Paul’s body (Acts 19:12).
We understand, of course, that there is no magical importance attached to an anointed cloth. It cannot and will not heal anyone. As mentioned, it is through the stripes of Christ that we are healed.
When a person who is sick receives the anointed cloth, he is to place it on his head and pray to God (as the minister would already have done when anointing the cloth) that God would heal the sick person from the sickness. Since our faith must be in God, and not in any man or in the anointed cloth, the cloth should be destroyed immediately after it has been used.
As the Bible shows, the sick person does not have to be a baptized member of the Church of the Eternal God, one of its corporate affiliates, or the spiritual body of Christ (of which the Church of the Eternal God and its corporate affiliates are a part). It is necessary, however, that the sick person has faith in the sacrifice of Christ, believing that he or she will be healed by God because of what Christ did for us.
We find that Christ healed many people who were not converted. In fact, when Christ was here on earth, prior to His death and resurrection, the Bible does not reveal that ANYBODY — other than Christ and John the Baptist — had the Holy Spirit dwelling within them. After the New Testament Church was born in 31 A.D., as Acts 2 reports, God continued to use the apostles and elders to heal people who were not members of the body of Christ — some of them were even demon-possessed (Acts 5:12-16; 8:5-8; 28:7-9). One incident is recorded showing that a person was healed, without asking for healing, so that the power of God the Father and Jesus Christ would be magnified (compare Acts 3:1-10, 12-16). It appears, however, that in that particular case, the sick person had the faith that God, through Christ, would heal him (compare verse 16). Paul later healed a man who had been a cripple from his mother’s womb, after Paul had observed him “intently,” seeing that “he had faith to be healed” (Acts 14:9).
Many times, healing may be one of the means for God to lead a person to total surrender to Him — or it might be a witness for others to “turn[ ] to the Lord” (compare Acts 9:32-35). In particular, children of parents in the church, as well as unconverted mates, may experience healing, sometimes in unusual ways, so that their faith in God the Father and Jesus Christ may be strengthened (compare 1 Corinthians 7:14 — both the children and the unconverted mates are “sanctified” or “holy,” that is, they have access to God and can respond to God’s call. Note, too, 1 Peter 3:1-2).
If a sick person asks one of our ministers for anointing or an anointed cloth, believing that God will heal them, they will receive from us what they request. God gave command to His servants to preach the gospel of the Kingdom of God and to “heal the sick” (Matthew 10:8; Luke 9:2; 10:9).
A sick person, if he or she has the faith in God to be healed, should take advantage of the tremendous benefit that God bestows on us, to heal us from our sicknesses and diseases. Our sicknesses are important in God’s eyes. If we are suffering with a sickness, let us ask God for His intervention — after all, He is THE God who heals us.
