Acts 10:38 | NKJV (38) how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.
More times than not, the road to divine healing is often littered with roadblocks by the devil to keep us from being able to receive our healing.
These roadblocks wear subtle disguises and come from many sources based on tradition, superstition, and wrong teaching from the Scriptures.
Let’s unravel one of the greatest misunderstandings of the Bible:
From: The Permissive Sense: Hints and Helps to Bible Interpretation by Troy J. Edwards
- The foundation of all faith in the Bible is really based on God’s character and our understanding of it.
- People are not angry at God… They are angry at a false representation of God.
Too often theologians attributed Satan’s works to God and have led many people to hate the wrong person. One can easily understand why the enemy would seek to integrate these wrong theological ideas into the Church. It is thinking such as this that causes agnostics and atheists to hate God. Doctrines that denigrate God’s character are responsible for numerous lost souls and passive Christians.
This causes people to lean in one of two extremes:
- I question the divine inspiration or infallibility of the Scriptures.
OR
- Since I cannot understand it, I’ll just throw out the Old Testament altogether and only base what I believe on the New Testament.
Thankfully, there is another option.
We can study and gain some understanding of the original language.
Things to remember about the Bible:
- The Bible is a Hebrew Book.
- The Hebrew people were an ancient Eastern Oriental culture whose language and understanding of life was quite different than modern day western society.
- The Hebrews had modes of speech and idiomatic language that is different from our own.
- Our western Bible translators quite often engaged in literal translation of the Scriptures.
- They did not necessarily interpret the Hebrew Oriental Eastern idioms.
- There are no contradictions or errors in the Bible. There is only a failure to thoroughly examine the language of the Bible.
- The original writers of Scripture did not view certain statements in Scripture the way we do today.
“The Hebrews and indeed the orientalists, often use verbs metonymically with respect to those who are not themselves the authors of any action, but who afford occasion of performing it by not performing it.”
“The solution is to take time to understand the Bible language – its use of certain phrases and idioms. We must understand how they differ from our culture, language and expressions.” (A Treatise on the Peculiarities of the Bible – Elias Rendell, 1853)
Metonym – a word, name, or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated. For example, suit for business executive, or the track for horse racing or Washington is a metonym for the federal government of the US.
In other words, “…the Hebrew was fond of using a causative verb for a permissive.” Another scholar stated that “…in the style of Scripture, God is often said to do what He only permits to be done…”
It is very important that we have knowledge of this fact since our attempts to understand God’s Word with a Western mindset has denigrated His character.
We must also understand that the Scriptures, while inerrant and infallible, must be interpreted in this light. Without this, errors will abound.
Failure to understand has allowed Satan to deceive Christians into accepting sin, sickness, poverty, disaster, and failure as coming from the hand of a “loving God” as their predestined lot in life. The painful circumstances are attacks from Satan, but people submit to them because believe that it is God doing it to them. Yet James 4: 7 tells us, “Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.”
If we believe these things are God’s doing, we will not resist Satan’s attacks.
What is the “permissive sense”?
- God’s permission should never be confused with commission.
God created man with the will to choose and make decisions for his own life.
Deuteronomy 30:19 | ERV (30) “Today I am giving you a choice of two ways. And I ask heaven and earth to be witnesses of your choice. You can choose life or death. The first choice will bring a blessing. The other choice will bring a curse. So choose life! Then you and your children will live.
For example, God permits people to establish bars and nightclubs. He permits people to steal and kill. But He certainly doesn’t commission those actions. There is a vast difference between permission and commission.
God respects the freedom of choice that He created people with. God will permit a person to sin without restraint when there is no integrity of their heart.
- The permissive sense is God allowing circumstances that He would normally protect an individual or nation from.
This usually happens when an individual or nation refuses to repent (from sin) and continues in disobedience. This leaves God with no choice but to remove His protection from them.
God will let a person suffer from the inevitable consequences of their sin, as the punishment for the sin is in the seed of sin itself. He allows the person to reap what they have sown.
God exercises this permission of sin and circumstances by departing from and forsaking an individual or nation and allowing whatever forces, both spiritual and physical that desired to destroy them but could not due to His presence, to have their way.
Nothing can ever harm us when we have God’s protective presence (Psalm 91) but, if He ever withdraws that from us then woe be unto us.
Hosea 9:12 | NKJV (12) Though they bring up their children, Yet I will bereave them to the last man. Yes, woe to them when I depart from them!
- These things that God permits are NOT His will and His DESIGN!
What we see is a good God who has been pushed away by His creation because they prefer the temporary pleasures of sin more than a gracious God who wants to protect them from sin’s destructive power.
So, what is the answer to these seemingly contradictions of the Scripture?
The Bible Is Its Own Dictionary and Commentary
“Study your Bible comparatively. That is compare Scripture with Scripture. The best commentary on the Bible is the Bible itself. Wherever you find a difficult passage in the Bible, there is always some passage elsewhere that explains its meaning.” (R. A. Torrey How to Succeed in the Christian Life, 1906)
God wants us to know and understand specific things about His character. He wants us to know that He is loving, kind, fair in judgment, and would never do us wrong.
Helpful Bible Interpretation Tip
- What is in the Old Testament concealed is in the New Testament revealed.
St Augustine said this about his understanding of the Bible:
“The New is in the Old contained; the Old is by the New explained.”
- When you interpret the Scripture, you always use the greatest light that you have to bring light on that particular subject.
You may begin interpreting the New Testament in light of the Old Testament. But, as we uncover principles in the Old Testament, they should hold true throughout the entire Bible unless the New Testament gives us more revelation on the subject. The New Testament is the higher revelation.
Mark 1:40-42 | NKJV (40) Now a leper came to Him, imploring Him, kneeling down to Him and saying to Him, “If You are willing, You can make me clean.” (41) Then Jesus, moved with compassion, stretched out His hand and touched him, and said to him, “I am willing; be cleansed.” (42) As soon as He had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him, and he was cleansed.
- It was and always shall be the will of God for people to be healed!