In previous chapters, we discussed how faith will activate the healing power of God. You can activate the healing power by your own faith in the Word of God, as I did on the eighth day of August,2005. By faith, I “plugged in” to the healing power of God that was present in my room and was raised up from the bed of sickness.
We have also discussed how you can receive healing by the laying on of hands. We know this method is scriptural because we are told in Mark’s Gospel to lay hands on the sick (Mark 16:18). Any believer can lay hands on the sick based on this particular verse of Scripture. But there are also those who are specially anointed to minister healing to the sick.
In this chapter, I want to further discuss the healing anointing, with a focus on the ways the anointing may be transferred by a person specially anointed to minister healing.
As I said in a previous chapter, Acts 10:38 indicates that the terms,“the anointing,” “the Holy Ghost,” and “power” are virtually synonymous. This means that we are able to use these terms interchangeably when discussing the subject of the healing anointing and the power of God.
Concerning the individual anointing, we know that God anoints individuals to minister. There are different offices in which God calls them to minister—the office of the apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, and teacher. Jesus stood in all five of them, so He had the anointing that goes with every office.
Jesus had the anointing without measure (John 3:34). Members of the Body of
Christ have the anointing in a measure.
Of course, Jesus was and is the Son of God. But Jesus was not ministering as the Son of God. He was ministering as a mere man anointed with the Holy Ghost! If Jesus was ministering on the earth as the Son of God and not as a man, then He wouldn’t need to be anointed. But the Bible plainly says Jesus was anointed to minister on the earth (Luke 4:18; Acts 10:38).
Characteristics of the Healing Anointing
I want to look at some characteristics of the anointing, which will help you understand the way it works. First, the anointing is transmittable.
MATTHEW 14:35,36
35 And when the men of that place had knowledge of him [Jesus], they sent out into all that country round about, and brought unto him all that were diseased;
36 And besought him that they might only touch the HEM of his garment: and as many as touched were made perfectly whole.
You’ll notice that in Matthew chapter 14, those people sought to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment. They didn’t touch Him; they just touched the hem of His garment, and they were healed!
Then in Mark’s Gospel, we read that the woman with the issue of blood “. . . came in the press behind, and touched his [Jesus’] garment” (Mark 5:27). Well, evidently, Jesus’ garment became charged with that same power or anointing with which He Himself was anointed.
Also, the cloths that Paul laid hands upon became charged with the same anointing that Paul was anointed with, which was the healing and delivering power of God (Acts 19:11,12).
Then it seems that the healing power of God can be absorbed by certain materials, namely cloths. And that healing power or anointing can be transmitted or transferred from the cloths into the bodies of the sick.
The anointing is also measurable. We read in the Old Testament that God commanded the prophet Elijah to anoint Elisha to take his place, and it says Elisha asked for a double portion of Elijah’s anointing (2 Kings 2:9).
Then in the Gospels we saw that Jesus was anointed to minister as He walked upon the earth. And John 3:34 says that Jesus had the anointing without measure.
The anointing is also tangible. The word “tangible” means perceptible to the touch. In other words, something that is tangible is capable of being touched.
For example, we know that the anointing that went into the woman with the issue of blood in Mark chapter 5 was tangible because Jesus knew immediately when that power went out of Him. Jesus was aware of an outflow of that healing power, and the woman was aware of the reception of that power. So the power had to have been tangible.
Ways the Anointing Is Transferred
Now that we’ve looked at the characteristics of the healing anointing, I want to focus on the ways it is transferred. One way is by the laying on of hands.
In His own ministry, Jesus used many methods in ministering to the sick.
Sometimes He just said, “Arise and walk,” and they arose and walked. But one of the main ways He ministered healing was by the laying on of hands.
For example, in Mark chapter 5, Jesus laid hands on Jairus’ daughter, and she was healed. All through the New Testament, there are a number of instances where Jesus laid His hands on the sick and they were healed. The contact of His hands with the sick one permitted the healing anointing, or the power of God in Him, to flow into the sick one.
The healing anointing can also be transferred, as I mentioned earlier, through a cloth, such as a garment or handkerchief.
In Mark chapter 5, the woman with the issue of blood touched Jesus’ clothes and found the power of God emanating from His Person. The Apostle Paul, knowing this same law of contact and transmission that governed the operation of the Spirit of God in healing, laid his hands on cloths or handkerchiefs (Acts
19:11,12). Those cloths were taken to the sick, and the diseases departed from them.
Some people in modern times might think that the transfer of the anointing through cloth is only superstition. But it’s not superstition; it’s a viable fact. It happened just the way the Word of God said it happened.
In other words, the healing anointing, emanating from Paul, transformed those handkerchiefs into “storage batteries” of Holy Ghost power. When they were laid on the sick, they charged the body with the healing anointing, and the diseases departed from them.
Healing Anointing vs. Ministry Anointing
As I said at the beginning of this chapter, the anointing for ministry automatically comes with the calling to stand in whatever office God has called you to. But the healing anointing is something different and separate from a ministry anointing.
For instance, Jesus said to me when He appeared to me in the vision in Rockwall, Texas, in 1950: “I have called you before you were born. I separated you from your mother’s womb. Satan tried to destroy your life before you were born and many times since then, but My angels have watched over you and cared for you until this present hour.”
Well, when Jesus said, “I have called you,” that didn’t mean He called me on that very day, March 16th, 2013. He had called me to the ministry before I was born. I understood what He meant when He said, “I have called you.”
After Jesus said, “I have called you,” He said, “and I have anointed you.” Well, again, I knew He wasn’t talking about anointing me for the ministry that very day. No, the anointing came with the calling, and I’d already been ministering with that anointing for many years.
But when Jesus said to me, “And I have given unto you a special anointing to lay hands on the sick,” I knew He was talking about giving me a special anointing on that very day, March 16th, 2013.
Now I had been laying hands on the sick for years and had seen them healed. But I wasn’t ministering with a special anointing; I was just ministering to the sick through the laying on of hands according to the Word of God.
After Jesus gave me a special anointing in that vision to lay hands on the sick, He said to me, among other things, “This special anointing will not work for you unless you tell the people exactly what I’ve told you; that is, tell them you saw Me. Tell them I spoke to you, and that I laid the finger of My right hand in the palm of each of your hands. Tell them that the anointing is in your hands. Tell them exactly what I’ve told you. And tell them if they’ll believe it—that you’re anointed—and receive it, then that power will flow from your hands into their body, and will undo what Satan has wrought. It will effect a healing and a cure therein.”
Now, the laying on of hands isn’t the only way to minister, but it’s one way. And it’s a scriptural way.
Laying on of hands is a point of contact that releases the healing power. Sometimes the healing power of God is ministered to a sick person to the degree that he is manifestly charged with the power of God, just like a person might be charged with electricity. Yet no real or final healing takes place until something happens that releases the faith of the individual.
Healing Is by Degree
We need to understand that healing is by degree. And the degree of healing is determined by two conditions. Number one, the degree of healing power administered to the body. A person
can be less anointed or more anointed to minister healing just like a preacher can be less anointed or more anointed to preach.
In the same way, a person can be less anointed or more anointed with the healing anointing. I’ve noticed that when the anointing upon me is manifested in a greater degree, we have more healings take place in the service.
The second condition that determines the degree of healing is the degree of faith released by the individual to give action to that healing power.
You can see this in Mark chapter 5, in the case with the woman with the issue of blood. Jesus said, “. . . Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole . . . ” (v. 34). Someone might say, “I thought it was the power that flowed out of Jesus that made her whole.” Yes, it was. But it was her faith that gave action to that power.
Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul revealed and applied the laws that govern the operation of the healing anointing—the power of God. They demonstrated that the healing power of God is a tangible, transmittable, and measurable substance.
What was the power that flowed from Jesus’ hands or was stored in His garments? Was it power that was inherent in Him as the Son of God? No. Acts
10:38 says, “. . . God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the HOLY GHOST and POWER: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil. . . .”
Where did that power come from? It came from God. And that same power— the healing power of God—is available today.
