1). The gifts of healings: Gifts of healings obviously have something to do with sick people being healed. They are often defined as sudden supernatural endowments to heal physically sick people, and I can’t see any reason to question that. In the previous chapter we considered one example of a gift of healing manifested through Jesus when He healed the crippled man at the Pool of Bethesda (see John 5:2-17).
God used Elisha to heal leprous Naaman the Syrian, who was an idol-worshiper (see 2 Ki. 5:1-14). As we learned when examining Jesus’ words in Luke 4:27 concerning Naaman’s healing, Elisha couldn’t heal any leper any time he desired. He was suddenly supernaturally inspired to instruct Naaman to dip in the Jordan River seven times, and when Naaman ultimately obeyed, he was cleansed of his leprosy.
God used Peter to heal the crippled man at the gate called Beautiful through a gift of healing (Acts 3:1-10). Not only was the crippled man healed, but the supernatural sign drew many people to hear the gospel from Peter’s lips, and about five thousand people were added to the church that day. Gifts of healings frequently serve a dual purpose of healing sick people and drawing the unsaved to Christ.
When Peter was delivering his message to those who gathered that day, he said:
Men of Israel, why do you marvel at this, or why do you gaze at us, as if by our own power or piety we had made him walk? (Acts. 3:12).
Peter recognized that it wasn’t because of any power that he possessed in himself, or because of his great holiness, that God used him to heal the crippled man. Remember that Peter, just two months prior to this miracle, had denied he ever knew Jesus. Just the fact that God used Peter so miraculously in the first pages of Acts should bolster our confidence that God will also use us as He wills.
When Peter tried to explain how the man had been healed, it is highly unlikely that he could have categorized it as a “gift of healing.” All Peter knew was that he and John had been walking by a crippled man and he suddenly found himself anointed with faith for the man to be healed. So he commanded the man to walk in the name of Jesus, seized him by the right hand, and lifted him up. The crippled man began “walking and leaping and praising God.” Peter explained it this way:
And on the basis of faith in His name, it is the name of Jesus which has strengthened this man whom you see and know; and the faith which comes through Him has given him this perfect health in the presence of you all (Acts. 3:16).
It takes a special faith to seize a crippled man by the arm and lift him up and expect him to walk! Along with this particular gift of healing an impartation of faith would have also been needed to bring it to pass.
Some have suggested that the reason this gift is in the plural (that is, “gift s ” of healings) is because there are different gifts that heal different kinds of sicknesses. Those who have been used frequently in gifts of healings sometimes discover that particular sicknesses are healed through their ministries more frequently than other sicknesses. For example, Philip the evangelist seemed to have particular success in getting paralyzed and lame people healed (Acts 8:7). There are some evangelists of the past century, for example, who have had greater success with blindness or deafness or heart problems, and so on, depending upon which gifts of healings were manifested through them most frequently.
2). The gift of faith and the working of miracles: The gift of faith and the gift of the working of miracles would seem to be very similar. With both gifts, the individual who is anointed suddenly receives faith for the impossible. The difference between the two is often described this way: With the gift of faith, the anointed individual is given faith to receive a miracle for himself, whereas with the gift of the working of miracles, the individual is given faith to work a miracle for another.
The gift of faith is sometimes referred to as “special faith” because it is a sudden impartation of faith that goes beyond ordinary faith. Ordinary faith comes from hearing a promise of God, whereas special faith comes from a sudden impartation by the Holy Spirit. Those who have experienced this gift of special faith report that things they would consider impossible suddenly become possible, and, in fact, they find it impossible to doubt . The same would be true for the gift of working of miracles.
The story of Daniel’s three friends, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-nego provides an excellent example of how “special faith” makes it impossible to doubt. When they were cast into the fiery furnace for refusing to bow before the king’s idol, they were all given the gift of special faith. It would take more than ordinary faith to survive being cast alive into white-hot flames! Let’s look at the faith these three young men displayed before the king:
Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego answered and said to the king, “O Nebuchadnezzar, we do not need to give you an answer concerning this. If it be so [if you are going to cast us into the furnace], our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the furnace of blazing fire; and He will deliver us out of your hand , O king. But if not [if you don’t throw us into the fiery furnace], let it be known to you, O king, that we are not going to serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up” (Dan. 3:16-18, emphasis added).
Notice that the gift was operating even before they were cast into the furnace. There was no doubt in their minds that God was about to deliver them.
Elijah operated in the gift of special faith when he was daily fed by ravens during the three-and-a-half year famine of evil King Ahab’s reign (see 2 Kin. 17:1-6). It takes more than ordinary faith to trust God to use birds to bring you food morning and evening. Although God has not promised us anywhere in His Word that ravens will bring our food each day, we can use ordinary faith to trust God for our needs to be met—because that’s a promise (see Matt. 6:25-34).
The working of miracles was in operation quite frequently through the ministry of Moses. He operated in this gift when he split the Red Sea (see Ex. 14:13-31) and when the various plagues came upon Egypt.
Jesus operated in the working of miracles when He fed the 5,000 by multiplying a few fish and a few loaves of bread (see Matt. 14:15-21).
When Paul caused Elymas the magician to be blind for a season because he was hindering Paul’s ministry on the island of Cyprus, that too would be an example of the working of miracles (see Acts 13:4-12).
