2:25-30 Does not the fact that Epaphroditus was sick prove that Paul had lost the power to heal as some teach?
2:25-30 Does not the fact that Epaphroditus was sick prove that Paul had lost the power to heal as some teach?
No, because Epaphroditus got healed as Php 2:27 clearly teaches, which Paul had undoubtedly prayed for (cp Php 2:27).
Epaphroditus was not sick as such, but had suffered a physical breakdown from overwork. He had been sent out by the Philippian church to Rome, from where this letter was written, to minister to Paul's needs and assist him in the gospel. In so doing he exposed his life to the point of death (cp V30).
Paul sent Epaphroditus home because he was homesick (cp Php 2:25-26). Longed after in V26 refers to a continuous yearning, and full of heaviness means troubled, distressed. Epaphroditus was heavy-hearted because of a continuous yearning to be home with the Philippian saints.
Php 2:25-30 is used by some in the church to teach that the power to heal was only vested in the disciples for a time, and that Paul had either lost it completely or was in the process of losing it. They also use 2Ti 4:20 (cp 2Ti 4:20). Trophimus' sickness here was undoubtedly the result of overwork also, because he too laboured in the gospel with Paul (cp Ac 20:4; 21:29).
Christians should never sit under any teaching that could repress or undermine in any way their faith in God's willingness to heal them. God's redemptive plan includes healing for our bodies as well as salvation for our souls (cp Isa 53:4-6 with Ga 3:13-14). Griefs and sorrows in Isa 53:4 (KJV), means sickness and pains.
Jesus bore our sicknesses and our pains on the cross so that we could be healed of them, the same as he became our sin offering in V 5, that we could be forgiven our sins (cp 1Pe 2:24).
To teach as some do that healing ceased with the first century church, and that Paul and the other apostles had all lost the power to heal, or could only heal occasionally when this letter was written, is inconsistent with scripture (cp Jn 14:12-14).
What Jesus is saying here is that because His earthly ministry was ended and He had to go to the Father, His disciples, which includes every Christian from that day forth, would receive the same empowering He had to enable them to carry on building His church. Jesus qualifies the life-span of that promise in Mt 28:20 (cp Mt 28:18-20). When Jesus said in V20 "... and lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world", He was not only talking to His disciples of that era, but to His disciples throughout the whole of the church age.
Until the end of the world means until the end of the church age. So what Jesus said then still applies.