The Conflict Between Our Senses and God’s Word

Quite often in our experience we find an apparent conflict between the evidence of our senses and the revelation of God’s Word. For instance, we may see and feel within our bodies all the evidence of physical sickness. Yet the Bible reveals that Jesus “Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses” (Matt. 8:17) and “by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Pet. 2:24).

Here is an apparent conflict. Our senses tell us we are sick. The Bible tells us we are healed. This conflict between the testimony of our senses and the testimony of God’s Word confronts us, as believers, with the possibility of two alternative reactions.

On the one hand, we may accept the testimony of our senses and thus accept our physical sickness. In this way we become the slaves of our carnal mind. On the other hand, we may hold firmly to the testimony of God’s Word that we are healed.

If we do this with genuine, active faith, the testimony of our senses will in due course be brought into line with the testimony of God’s Word, and we shall then be able to say we are healed, not merely on the basis of faith in God’s Word, but also on the basis of actual physical experience and the testimony of our senses.

At this point, however, it is necessary to re-emphasise that the kind of faith that produces these results is faith in the heart, not in the mind. We must recognise that mere mental acceptance of the Bible’s statements concerning healing and health lacks the power to make them real in our physical experience. The words of Paul in Ephesians 2:8 concerning faith for salvation apply equally to faith for healing. Thus we may say:

“For by grace you have been saved [healed] through faith, and that [faith] not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”

The faith that brings healing is a gift of God’s sovereign grace. It cannot be produced by any kind of mental gymnastics or psychological techniques. This kind of faith can be apprehended only by the spiritual mind. To the carnal mind it appears foolish. The carnal mind accepts the testimony of the senses in all circumstances and is thus ruled by the senses. The spiritual mind accepts the testimony of God’s Word as invariably and unchangeably true and then accepts the testimony of the senses only insofar as it agrees with the testimony of God’s Word. Thus, the attitude of the spiritual mind toward the testimony of God’s Word is summed up by David.

“I cling to Your testimonies; O Lord, do not put me to shame!” (Ps. 119:31)

“Concerning Your testimonies, I have known of old that You have founded them forever.” (Ps. 119:152)

The scriptural pattern of this kind of faith is found in the experience of Abraham (see Rom. 4:17-21). Paul tells us that Abraham’s faith was directed toward God... who gives life to the dead and calls those things which do not exist as though they did (Rom. 4:17).

This statement that God “calls those things which do not exist as though they did” means that as soon as God has declared a thing to be true, faith immediately reckons that thing to be true, even though no evidence of its truth may be manifested to the senses.

Thus, God called Abraham “a father of many nations,” and from that moment forward Abraham reckoned himself as being what God had called him, “a father of many nations,” even though at that time he had not even one son born to Sarah and himself.