Difficult Questions, Bible Answers: Why Won’t God Heal Amputees?

Published On: October 16, 2025

The question is blunt, even painful: If God can heal, why doesn’t He restore amputated limbs? It’s become a popular challenge to the Christian’s faith, and deserves thoughtful answers rooted in Scripture, rather than in sentiment.

The honest biblical answer may surprise us: God’s purposes in this present age are redemptive, not restorative. Complete healing awaits the resurrection—and that’s not a cop-out, it’s the consistent teaching of Scripture.

MIRACLES WERE SIGNS, NOT SOLUTIONS

When we read the Bible carefully, we discover miracles had a specific purpose:

They authenticated God’s messengers and pointed to spiritual realities. The author of Hebrews explains salvation was “declared at first by the Lord, and it was attested to us by those who heard, while God also bore witness by signs and wonders and various miracles” (Hebrews 2:3-4).

Miracles clustered around periods of new revelation: notice the pattern—during Moses, during Elijah and Elisha, and during Christ and the apostles. They weren’t distributed evenly throughout history, and they weren’t given to eliminate all suffering.

Even Jesus didn’t heal everyone. At the Pool of Bethesda, John tells us there were many disabled people, yet Jesus healed only one man (John 5:3-9). Why? Because physical healing, while compassionate, wasn’t His ultimate mission. When Jesus healed the paralytic, He first said, “Your sins are forgiven,” demonstrating spiritual healing mattered more than physical restoration (Mark 2:5-11).

Paul calls regeneration being made alive from spiritual death (Ephesians 2:1-5). That miracle—giving sight to the spiritually blind and life to the spiritually dead—surpasses any physical healing.

GOD’S PURPOSES IN PRESENT SUFFERING

Scripture is remarkably clear about why suffering remains in this age. Paul writes “suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope” (Romans 5:3-5). James echoes this: “Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness” (James 1:2-3).

Consider Paul’s own experience. He prayed three times for God to remove his “thorn in the flesh,” but God refused. Why? So that God’s power would be perfected in Paul’s weakness (2 Corinthians 12:7-10). Sometimes God’s grace is magnified not by removing our limitations but by sustaining us through them.

Paul also understood “this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). Our present sufferings demonstrate faith in unseen realities. Creation itself “groans together” awaiting redemption (Romans 8:22-23)—but we’re not yet in the restoration phase of God’s plan.

THE CESSATIONIST PERSPECTIVE

Reformed cessationists argue the apostolic sign gifts, including miraculous healings, ceased with the apostles. Paul called signs, wonders, and miracles “the signs of a true apostle” (2 Corinthians 12:12), indicating their specific purpose: to authenticate apostolic authority.

With Scripture’s completion, the revelatory purpose of signs was fulfilled. As Paul wrote, “as for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease” (1 Corinthians 13:8). Hebrews speaks of apostolic authentication in the past tense: God “bore witness by signs and wonders” (Hebrews 2:4).

Cessationists emphasise God still heals—through providence, prayer, and medicine—but we shouldn’t expect apostolic-level miracles today. The question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” assumes we can still expect what Scripture suggests was temporary.

THE CONTINUATIONIST PERSPECTIVE

Reformed continuationists maintain that spiritual gifts, including healing, continue today but are exercised according to God’s sovereign will. They note no biblical text explicitly teaches cessation, and Joel’s prophecy suggests the Spirit would be poured out “in the last days” until Christ’s return (Joel 2:28-29; Acts 2:17).

However, continuationists agree healing is never guaranteed or universal. Even in the book of Acts, not everyone was healed. Paul advised Timothy to use wine for his stomach problems rather than claiming miraculous healing (1 Timothy 5:23). Paul left Trophimus sick at Miletus (2 Timothy 4:20).

Continuationists emphasise too that God heals according to His purposes and glory, not our demands. As James writes, “You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly” (James 4:2-3). Even when we pray in faith, we must pray “according to his will” (1 John 5:14).

THE REFORMED CONSENSUS

Despite their differences, both cessationists and continuationists agree on what matters most: God is sovereign over healing (Daniel 4:35), and complete restoration comes at the resurrection. Paul promises us Christ “will transform our lowly body to be like his glorious body” (Philippians 3:21). In our resurrection bodies, the former amputee will run, leap, and dance in perfect wholeness.

This present age is marked by groaning, not glory. Our faith isn’t in healing but in the Healer who conquered death. God’s goodness isn’t measured by whether He removes our suffering now, but by His promise that He will wipe away every tear in eternity (Revelation 21:4).

Until then, His grace is sufficient—and His purposes are wise. The question isn’t “if” God will heal amputees, but “when.” And Scripture’s answer is clear: at the resurrection. That’s when faith becomes sight. And every broken thing is made whole.

WHY WON’T GOD HEAL AMPUTEES? RELATED FAQs

Have there been any documented cases of limb regeneration in church history? While historical accounts exist of claimed limb restorations (most famously the “Miracle of Calanda” in 1640 Spain), these lack the rigorous medical documentation we’d expect today. Reformed theologian DA Carson notes extraordinary miracles were rare even in biblical times, and contemporary verified cases of limb regeneration are essentially non-existent. This aligns with both cessationist and continuationist expectations that miracles, when they do occur, remain sovereignly rare and purposeful.

What do continuationist scholars say about why healing isn’t universal? Wayne Grudem argues in Systematic Theology that while gifts continue, they’re exercised imperfectly and according to God’s sovereign timing, not human faith levels. Sam Storms emphasises healing in the New Testament was selective, not universal, and that God’s refusal to heal can serve His glorifying purposes just as much as healing does. Both reject the prosperity gospel’s notion that sufficient faith guarantees physical healing.
How do cessationists respond to accounts of modern healings? John MacArthur distinguished between God’s providential healing (which he affirmed happens regularly through prayer and medicine) and apostolic sign gifts (which, he argued, have ceased). In Strange Fire, MacArthur that claimed miraculous healings today lack the immediate, complete, and public verification that characterised apostolic miracles—like Jesus healing a man born blind or raising the dead. He maintains God still heals, but through ordinary rather than miraculous means.

Doesn’t James 5:14-15 promise healing for anyone who prays in faith? Reformed interpreters note that James 5:15 says “the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick,” using “save” (Greek: sōzō), which often means spiritual deliverance in Scripture. The context emphasises confession of sins and spiritual restoration alongside physical healing. Both traditions agree this passage doesn’t guarantee physical healing in every case. Otherwise every faithful Christian who died of illness lacked sufficient faith, which contradicts the deaths of the apostles themselves and faithful believers throughout Scripture.

What about Joni Eareckson Tada’s perspective as a quadriplegic Reformed believer? Joni Eareckson Tada, paralysed since 1967, has become one of evangelicalism’s most compelling voices on disability and suffering. In A Place of Healing, she writes God has purposes in her wheelchair that glorify Him more than healing would, echoing Paul’s thorn in the flesh. She emphasises our culture’s obsession with physical wholeness can blind us to the greater miracle of spiritual transformation and the certain hope of resurrection bodies.
How do Reformed theologians respond to the claim that the question in the title disproves Christianity? Reformed apologists like Tim Keller note the question assumes God’s primary goal is human comfort in this life, which Scripture never teaches. In Walking with God through Pain and Suffering, Keller argues Christianity uniquely offers hope precisely because God Himself entered into suffering through the incarnation and cross. The question “Why won’t God heal amputees?” becomes answerable only in a worldview where God has purposes beyond immediate physical restoration—purposes demonstrated supremely in Christ’s suffering and resurrection.

What’s the difference between healing and restoration in biblical theology? Biblical healing (iaomai or therapeuō) in the Gospels was temporary—everyone Jesus healed eventually died. Biblical restoration (apokatastasis), on the other hand, refers to the final renewal of all things (Acts 3:21). Michael Horton notes in The Christian Faith that God’s redemptive plan moves through stages: creation, fall, redemption, and consummation. We live in the “already but not yet”—Christ has accomplished redemption, but the full restoration awaits His return. Amputees will experience not mere healing, but glorified, immortal bodies that can never be broken again (1 Corinthians 15:42-44).

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