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Divine Healing
Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective
Elisha saw people raise from the dead. Elisha was used in the healing of Naaman ( Kings 53-14). Healing also resulted from a deepening spiritu
\
ity on the part of Hezekiah (2 Rings 31-2 1).
The last book of the 0 Testament concludes with a mes- sianic prophecy that presents the hope of One who would reveal God’s righteousness through a victory over “all the arrogant and every evil doer” and whose divine presence would be known as the “sun of righteousness [that] will rise with healing in its wings [rays, NCV)” (Mal. 41-2). This text undoubtedly refers to the healing that will be the “conse- quence of the vicarious suffering of the Servant of the Lord.”
The Old Testament was pointing to a time when “[t]he evils of physical weakness, sickness, and death will be swallowed up in the life of the Kingdom of God.” That would be revealed in the New Testament; the presence of this messianic king- dom would be seen in Jesus’ miracles of healing.“*
The New Testament presupposes the Old Testament rev- elation that affirms the reality of divine healing. Ignoring this, some scholars have placed an exaggerated emphasis on the sociological context and the influence of the Greco-Roman world on the development of the New Testament. In contrast to that we would emphasize that the essential and primary influence upon the writers of the New Testament was not the pagan world of Gentile magicians and occult practices, but the divine preparation given in the Old Testament.
The place to begin a study of healing in the New Testament is the ministry of Jesus. Rene Latourelle suggests that we understand Jesus’ healing miracles as “signs of the Kingdom.”
Through these signs Jesus introduces us to the kingdom of God’s deliverance and rectification of the broken world that effects the “whole person.” What they imply is that the “trans- formation to come” finds its source in the person of Christ.33 Jesus further emphasized that “these deliverances were evi- dences of the presence of the messianic salvation (Matt. 11:4- 5).“3* They were signs and assurance that God will carry out His plan and ultimately bring in the prophesied restoration, which includes our resurrection, our new bodies, and our
‘LPieter A. Verhoef, The Rooks of Haggai and Malachi (Grand Rapids:
Wm. B. Herdmans, 1987), 330. George Eldon Iadd, A Theo&y of the New
Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1974), 74.
“Rene Iatourelle, The Miracles of Jesus and the Theology of Miracles (New York: Paulist Press, 19BB), 1‘9-21.
“Iadd, A Theology of the New Testament, 76.
Healing in the Old and
New Testuments -ic)c) sharing Christ’s throne. We have the first installment now, CHAPTER but the full consummation has not yet come. Divine healing,therefore, is not only a part of the gospel, it is also an im-
15 portant witness to the truth of the gospel. Divine
Jesus’ miracles of healing may be classified as physical heal- Healing ings, exorcisms, or resurrections (or raisings, in order not to
equate them with that of Jesus).35 This understanding of heal- ing may lie behind Paul’s use of the plurals in describing the
“gifts of healing[s]” ( 1 Cor. 129). All of them speak of God’s power over forces that contradict Gods will for human beings.
They are expressions of Jesus’ triumph over Satan and de- struction of his works (see 1 John 58). The emphasis placed on miracles of healing is substantial just in terms of the space devoted to them in the Gospels. For example, in Marks Gos- pel over thirty-one percent of the verses are about Jesus’
miracles of healing. 36
Space forbids going into detail about Jesus’ miracles of healing. Suffice it to say that each of the gospel writers makes use of the healings, not just to impress us but to teach us about Jesus and the character of God, for it is His very nature to heal. In Matthew they are intended to help identify Jesus as the Messiah. For Luke they demonstrate that Jesus is Savior.
He pictures Jesus as “embroiled in. . . battle with Satan, whose power he is decisively vanquishing as he ushers in the age of the new covenant.““’ John’s Gospel is structured around
“signs,” most of which are healing miracles, recorded to help people continue to believe in Jesus as the Messiah and the Son of God.
If anything stands out about Jesus’ view of sickness, it is that He is against it. It contradicts His will. And since He is God incarnate, it is thus a contradiction of God’s will.
It can be demonstrated from an attentive reading of the Gospels that Jesus understood His healing ministry as the subjugation of the powers of death. In the Gospel of John we read that Jesus declares that though Satan has come “to steal and kill and destroy,” He has come to bring life “to the full”
(see John 1O:lO). Verses 9-10 are explanations of what Jesus meant when He called himself the gate of the sheep. He is
%raig I.. Blomberg, “I Iealing,” in Ilictiona?y of Jesus and the Gospels, Joel B. Green and Scot McKnight, eds. (Downers Grove, Ill.: Intervarsity
Press, 1992), 300.
%Michael IIarper, The Healings of Jesus, ‘Ihe Jesus I.ibrary, Michael Green, ed. (Downers Grove, 111.: Intervarsity Press, I’_)%), 15.
37Blomberg, “IIealing,” 303.
_ 500 Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective
CHAPTER the One that brings fullness of life. The Lord here is declaring ‘*
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that He “desires and promotes their well-being: He is not Divine content that they should eke out a bare miserable existence;Healing
‘i
he wants them- to the full, to have plenty of good pasturage and enjoy health.“38
Both the Old and New Testament present God as Healer.
Both demonstrate a connection between God as Lord and as Healer. The analogies between the Exodus narratives and New Testament teachings are obvious. Yet, the differences between the Old and New Testament are also significant. In the Old Testament God laid down the condition of keeping the Law to experience the benefits of healing (see Exod.
15:26). In contrast, the New Testament shows that healing benefits are open to all who turn to God through Jesus in trustful faith.
HEALING AS PART OF SALVATION
It is abundantly clear on the basis of the Bible’s view of the nature of human beings that there is coherency and logic in the doctrine of divine healing. If humankind was created by God intentionally for wholeness, then it is reasonable on the basis of the biblical evidence to conclude that healing is, at least in a limited sense, part of God’s salvific work in Christ.
The idea that God cares just for souls and not whole persons is foreign to the Scriptures. “The whole gospel for the whole person” is rightly a prominent theme for today’s preaching and teaching.
In the past under the influence of Hellenistic philosophy, human beings were understood primarily in nonmaterial terms. The dualism of the Hellenist philosophers made an impact upon some of the Church fathers. The belittling of the body and material world was prominent within many of the early Greek philosophers. Plato considered the body (Gk.
sdma) a tomb or grave (Gk. sema).39
Unfortunately, Augustine’s thinking on this topic has also had an inordinate infhtence. That is to say, his view of the nature of humankind was influenced by Neoplatonic con- structs that for all practical purposes belittled and almost
“+F. F. Bruce, The Gospel ofJohn (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1983) 226.
‘“Andrew Louth, The Origins of the Cbristiun Mysticd Tradition (New York: Oxford IJniversity Press, 1981) xiii.
Healing as Part of Salvation 501 annihilated the physical dimensions of human existence:<” CHAPTER This emphasis upon radically separating human beings into
component parts is not based on the Scriptures.
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Divine
There has developed in this century a scholarly consensus that the biblical understanding of the nature of humankind is holistic. H. Wheeler Robinson has suggested that we have tended to interpret the Bible in the light of the “interpretation natural to Augustine or a Calvin.“‘l*
Healing
Just two examples from Augustine’s writing should suffice in making this point about him. In his work On Free Will Augustine wrote that the “body occupies by nature a lower rank in the scale of being than does soul.” In another place Augustine declares that the “Soul is universally superior to body. No soul can fall so far in sinfulness as to be changed into a body . . . the worst soul is superior to corporeal . . .
things” (italics mine). This belittling of the physical is not biblical. However, Augustine later changed his mind about a number of things and became as much “anti-Platonic” as Pla- tonic. Nonetheless, his contribution to a tradition within Christian theology that demeans the concern of God for whole persons is still with us.@
As for Calvin, even some Reformed theologians admit that he was not able to extricate himself from the stranglehold of nonbiblical conceptions of humankind. “Plato was too much part of his thought world.““”
One reason so many theologians today show such reticence about including divine healing in the Atonement is this un- fortunate inheritance of inadequate views of the nature of human beings. That is, many seem unaware that their view of human nature owes as much to a Hellenistic worldview as to the Bible’s, perhaps more. The concepts and classifica- tions that they use were essentially the same ones that the Roman
““J. Patout Burns, S. J. Theological Anthropology (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1981), 7.
41H. Wheeler Robinson, The Christian Doctrine of Mun (Edinburgh: ‘1’.
T. Clark, 1958) 5.
“‘J. H. S. Burleigh, ed., Augustine: Earlier Writings (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1953) 165, 180. Angelo Di Berardino ed., Patrology, vol. 4 (Westminster, Md.: Christian Classics, 1986) 405.
43Gordon J. Spykman, Refkrnutional Theology: A New Purudgm for Doing Dogmatics (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1992) 234.
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502 Systematic Theology: A Pentecostal Perspective
CHAPI’ER Catholic theologians used,44 ones drawn from the Neopla-
15
tonism and Aristotelianism of the medieval scholastics.. Divine
Healing
Yet we have se&&en in non-Pentecostal circles a greater appreciation for what George Eldon Ladd calls the “whole man.” Anthony A. Hoekema declares that “man must be und$rstood as a unitary being.” Francis Schaeffer in one of his great apologetic works wrote that “even in this present life we are to have a substantial reality
of
redemption of the whole man. God made man and is interested in the whole man.” G. C. Berkouwer points out that in the Scriptures “the whole man comes to the fore.“45 We believe that there is no way to get around the fact that the Bible portrays human nature as a unity. Pentecostals have in practice and preaching recognized this truth.We affirm, in fact, that there is a duality, a material and immaterial aspect, to human persons, as well as a unity. “Hol- ism need not entail the denial that wholes contain distin- guishable parts.“46 Nor does it mean that we should consider biblical holism as a form of monism. Rather, Biblical holism consists of a recognition of the human person as a total per- son, with all parts integrated and operating properly for the benefit of the whole. What does this mean? Everything we do is an act of the whole person. It is not the soul, but the person that sins. It is the whole person, “body and soul[ ,] that is redeemed in Christ.” The picture of human beings set be- fore us in Scripture is that of “a unitary being” rarely ad- dressed spiritually apart from bodily existence.47
Why is it so important to point out that dualistic anthro- pology is an alien addition to the gospel? Because dualism with its understanding of human existence has been the pre-
‘?Spykman, Refomzational Theology, 235; for a completely different perspective on this issue see Richard A. Mullet-, Post-Reformation Dog- matics (Grand Rapids: Baker Book IIouse, 1987) 17-22. Muller basically argues that scholasticism is a method not necessarily a specific content.
“Ladd, Theology of the New Testament, 457. Anthony A. Iioekema, Created in God’s Image (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1986) 2 16. Francis A.
Schaeffer, The Complete Works of Francis Scbaeffer, vol. 1 (Westchester:
Crossway Books, 1982) 224. G. C. Berkouwer, Man the Image of God (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1962), 203.
,‘“John Cooper, Body, Soul C I.ife Everlasting Biblical Anthropology and the Monism-Dualism Debate (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1989) 4‘9-50.
~“Louis Berkhof, Systematic Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Book IIouse, 1941) 192. Millard J. Erickson, Christian Theolou (Grand Rapids: Baker B<x>k IIouse, 1985 ), 5%.
Healing as Part of Sahation 503
supposition of those who would sever from the body the CHAPTER salvific implications of Christ’s atonement. The reduction ordiminishing of Christ’s atonement to the spiritual sphere alone
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is the result not of the teachings of Scripture but of the in- Divine fluence of a pagan philosophy. Denigration of the physical Healing and material realm is absent from Scripture, both Old and
New Testament. God created whole persons and it is His will, as revealed in Scripture, to restore whole persons.
As Stuart Fowler rightly says, this view of the nature of human beings is a “corrupting intrusion of pagan philosophy into Christian thought and a serious hindrance to experienc- ing the richness of the gospel.” Texts like 1 Thessalonians 5:23, “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless,” speak of God’s concern for the whole person.
Charles Wannamaker suggests that Paul is communicating his [and God’s] desire for them as “complete human beings.”
Robert L. Thomas says that Paul here is referring to the
“wholeness” of human persons when he uses this tripartite language.48
“[Hlealing should not be thought of as something extra- neous and entirely apart from our salvation.“.‘” The Scriptures know nothing of a concept of salvation that excludes all as- pects of a physical nature. Such a concept is a Western philosophical accretion, not a biblical definition of salvation.
To say that Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24 speak exclusively of spiritual healing or salvation of the soul and not physical healing is to establish an alien dichotomy between the spir- itual and physical dimensions of human existence that is not warranted from the Scriptures.50
Salvation (Gk. sbtc?ria) refers to both salvation and healing.
Quite often the only clue to its meaning is the particular
%uart Fowler, On Being Human (Blackburn, Australia: Foundation for Christian Scholarship, 1980) -3-4. Charles A. Wannamaker, The El,istIes to the Tbessalonians: A Commentary on the Greek Text (Grand Rapids: Wm.
B. Eerdmans, 1990) 207. Robert I.. Thomas, “1, 2 ‘I’hessalonians,” in The
&pository Bible Commentary (Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing I iouse, 1978), 294-95.
~‘yI~u@r Jeter, By His Stripes (Spriqfield, MO.: Gospel Publishing I louse, 1977) 11.
Tt is apparent that as Matthew has physical healing primarily in mind (Matt. 8:17), Peter has spiritual healing in mind ( I Pet. 2:24). Yet by taking advantage of the same image to deline Jesus’ work of spiritual restoration, he is not ruling out Matthew’s reco@tion of physical healinf& Both are in the Atonement.
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