Two weeks ago, a brother of mine was diagnosed with COVID. After being admitted to the hospital, he was shortly released and instructed to take some pills to get better. After about a week, my brother was no longer sick. Who healed this brother of mine? Was it the doctor who diagnosed him, the pills that were prescribed, or the rest he got while he waited to get better?

If you ask my brother, he’ll tell you that God healed him. Undoubtedly, the nurses, doctors, and medication were critical elements to his healing, but those elements were just that—ingredients, if you will, in a recipe for healing. Still, faith in God was the primary factor in my brother’s healing.

Many people who don’t know the Lord get sick and are healed. Indeed, they don’t know the Lord, and most would never stop to consider that God made them well. However, in every case where someone goes to a doctor and gets well, God always healed the sick. Consider what James says.

Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.

James 1:17 (NIV)

Consider also this verse from Ephesians.

For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)

Although James and Paul were writing to Christians, we would be in error if we thought we couldn’t apply what these men said to everyone.

As Christians, we must recognize what I have said: that it is God who heals us—all of us, Christian and unbeliever alike. Therefore, when we read the Bible and read about miracles of healing, we must be clear on who did the healing. Consider the incident with Elisha and the Shunammite’s son.

This Shunammite woman was barren and had a child because Elisha prayed for her to conceive (2 Kings 4:11-17). However, one day, the child dies, and the Shunammite woman leaves her home to go to Elisha for help (2 Kings 4:18-25). Once she arrived at Elisha’s home, Elisha sent his servant Gehazi back to her house to bring her child back from the dead.

Elisha said to Gehazi, “Tuck your cloak into your belt, take my staff in your hand and run. Don’t greet anyone you meet, and if anyone greets you, do not answer. Lay my staff on the boy’s face.”

2 Kings 4:29 (NIV)

However, after doing what Elisha told him to do, the boy was still dead.

Gehazi went on ahead and laid the staff on the boy’s face, but there was no sound or response. So Gehazi went back to meet Elisha and told him, “The boy has not awakened.”

2 Kings 4:31 (NIV)

One might wonder why Elisha sent Gehazi to heal the boy with his staff. Was there something “magical” or “divine” about the staff? No, at best, the staff represented Elisha’s authority, much like Moses’ or Aaron’s staves, but in of themselves, they were only wood with no unique properties. Why, then, send Gehazi with the staff and tell him to lay it on the boy’s face, and why didn’t it “work?”

Often, we “need” tangible things to understand or “channel” intangible things like faith. This is one reason we shouldn’t make graven images or statues representing our beliefs. Instead of worshipping the One they represent, we will worship them instead. Having said that, I believe Elisha sent Gehazi along with his staff in the hope that Gehazi would believe that God worked through Elisha and, therefore, the boy would be healed.

I think the boy wasn’t healed when Gehazi placed Elisha’s staff on his face because Gehazi didn’t have faith. This is evident in the incident with Naaman (2 Kings 5). Instead of recognizing God’s hand in Naaman’s healing, Gehazi only saw an opportunity to get something for himself.

As for the boy’s healing, let’s look at what happened.

When Elisha reached the house, there was the boy lying dead on his couch. He went in, shut the door on the two of them and prayed to the Lord. Then he got on the bed and lay on the boy, mouth to mouth, eyes to eyes, hands to hands. As he stretched himself out on him, the boy’s body grew warm. Elisha turned away and walked back and forth in the room and then got on the bed and stretched out on him once more. The boy sneezed seven times and opened his eyes.

2 Kings 4:33-35 (NIV)

Who or what healed the boy? Some suggest that Elisha’s body heat stirred up the boy’s life, which is why he was brought “back.” However, what was the first thing Elisha did when he reached the house? He shut the door and “prayed to the Lord.” I expect the rest of what Elisha did was done because God told him to do those things. Just like Jesus, who healed the man born blind by mixing mud and salvia and putting it on his face, it wasn’t the mud or salvia that healed the man (John 9). It was the power of God through faith.

Indeed, Scripture is full of people being healed through miraculous means that seem utterly disconnected from the source of the healing. As I wrote about here. However, as I started out saying, we know that it is God who heals people and makes them well. It’s not the doctors, nurses, bed rest or medication. Therefore, let us give credit to where credit is due. To the Lord, God All Mighty, the maker of us all.