[Roundtable] A Calvinist looks at the promise of Healing

[Jefferis Peterson]

Here's part one of an article I'm working on for the Scholar's Corner. It is
a three parter...

A Calvinist Looks at the Promise of Healing and the Faith Movement.
The Idea of a Covenant of Healing
 
 A lot of people have criticized the ³Faith Movement² for its emphasis on
healing as the will of God in all circumstances, but the more I examine
healing from the perspective of a covenantal theologian*, which most
Calvinists are, the more I am convinced that every covenantal theologian
ought to be in agreement with the faith movement, at least on this issue. In
this article, I¹m going to tell you why I have come to this conclusion.
There are three main evidences for this argument:  the Gospel of the Kingdom
of God, the Names of God, and the actions of Jesus as God¹s Covenant Maker
with humanity. 

 
What is the Gospel of the Kingdom (of God)?
³And he went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and preaching
the gospel of the kingdom and healing every disease and every infirmity
among the people.² Matthew 4:23, RSV.
³And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached throughout the whole world,
as a testimony to all nations; and then the end will come.² Matthew 24:14,
RSV.
³And he said to them, ³Go into all the world and preach the gospel to the
whole creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who
does not believe will be condemned.² Mark 16:15, 16, RSV.
 

 We often hear the words ³gospel² and ³kingdom of God² in Christian circles,
but to people outside the faith, these are slogans empty of any real
meaning. Outsiders see this language as a type of  ³Christianeze:² an
exclusive language made up of code phrases or ideas, which are nonsensical.
Even believers take these words for granted without really taking the time
to understand them. The word gospel is nothing more than an old English word
meaning ³good news.² So something is supposed to be good news to those who
hear this message, but what is meant by the phrase ³the kingdom of God²? The
word kingdom is a type of government. In this case, it is place where God
has total dominion, where his will is not only The Law, but is also a
controlled territory where his will is done perfectly.

 

In our democratic societies, we are so used to rule by the people that we
have lost sight of the idea of a king who has total control and can do
whatever he wishes. Human governments with such rulers usually have
tyrannies, but such governments used to be the most common form of
government, whether that was a Roman Emperor, a local king, or a tribal
leader. In the time of the New Testament however, the idea of the dominion,
or reign, of God would have been better understood. So in short, the Gospel
of the Kingdom actually means ³the Good News of God¹s total dominion and
control over life where his will is fully and completely carried out.²

 
So, what does it mean for God to have total dominion?  What is the content
of this message that makes it ³good news?²  As evidenced by Jesus¹ actions
when he went about preaching the good news of the kingdom, he went about
³healing every disease and infirmity among the people.²  The primary signs
of the kingdom were the healings he did as part of God¹s kingdom. In fact,
Jesus sent out his 72 disciples with this very message:
³Whenever you enter a town and they receive you, eat what is set before you;
heal the sick in it and say to them, ŒThe kingdom of God has come near to
you.¹² Luke 10:8, 9, RSV.
 
Jesus had the disciples heal the sick first and then explain to the people
that these healings are the signs of a coming kingdom of God. In other
words, they were to point to the healings and say: ³Look, this is what the
kingdom of God looks like! And it has come near you right now, therefore
believe.²  So what is this Good News?  That God is your healer. Not only
does he forgive you of your sins, but he also wants to heal you and make you
whole. He wants to make you, every bit, a whole human being and heal you
from head to toe. He wants to forgive you of your sins and restore your
relationship with him, and healing is a sign of this restoration.  This good
news is the message Jesus was preaching, and it was the one he gave his
disciples to demonstrate by word and by deed.
 
So the whole Gospel, or the Full Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Good News of
the dominion of God over your life where your sins are forgiven and your
body is healed and restored. Any Gospel that centers on forgiveness of sins
only is not the true Good News of God because it is only a half gospel.
 
The Kingdom Does Not Consist of Talk, but of Power
 
Part of the failure and impotence of the Church today is that it has
preached a half gospel. It has preached a gospel of forgiveness of sins, but
not preached or demonstrated the power of deliverance from the bondages of
sin. So, instead of being the good news of forgiveness, the ³gospel² message
has become a point of accusation. The message has been, ³Yes God forgives
you of your sin, but you are still a sinner, stuck in your sins and you just
have to hang on till you die or till Jesus comes back. And if you try really
hard, you may be able to overcome some of your bad habits and become a
better person.² This message is not really the good news of a Savior who
saves us from our sins and delivers us from the power of darkness. Instead
it is a message of self-effort and of self-improvement.  Jesus forgives us
but the rest of the work depends upon our good works and sheer force of
will. The salvation is spiritual only but we are left physically and
emotionally unchanged.
 
Now understand, I¹m talking about the Church in practice, not as it
understands its own message. I¹m speaking of the message it actually
communicates to sinners and even to the saved. We do not preach the vital
message that Jesus not only saves you from your sins, but he also takes away
the desire for sins and sets you truly and completely free from the sin¹s
power. If the power of God is here among us, it is rarely seen and poorly
demonstrated. In short, it is mostly talk and no action. It is a Jesus of
the future, of the spiritual, of healing after death, but it has nothing to
do with the here and now except perhaps for forgiveness of sins.
 
Take for example the Church¹s witness to homosexuals.  While a few people
have turned from homosexuality through sheer force of will and the help of
some ministries, the Church has been much more expert in condemning the sins
of homosexuality. The problem for the Church is that it has power to preach
the law of righteousness, but it doesn¹t have the power to set people free
from the desire and the identification with homosexuality. Simply pointing
out that homosexuality is a sin is not good news. It just leaves those who
practice homosexuality with a feeling of condemnation. The message of God¹s
righteousness is not good news unless it is also accompanied by the power to
deliver those who trapped in compulsive desires. Instead, the Church has
pointed the finger of accusation towards those trapped in homosexuality, but
has offered no evidence that God can actually deliver the people from it.
Words are cheap and talk is what the Church does best, but Paul said, ³The
Kingdom of God does not consist of talk, but in power,² 1 Cor. 4:20.
 
When there is little evidence of the power of the Gospel to deliver those in
bondages to various types of sin, then the preaching of the Law of God
produces only condemnation in its hearers. It is not Good News but Bad News
­ very bad news indeed ­ because you are telling people they are in sin, but
you are not giving them a way out of it. Yes, they are forgiven, but they
are still stuck in it with no way out, condemned to continue to sin the way
they always have because they cannot do anything about it.
 
 In Paul¹s day, however, the message of Jesus was accompanied by the
cleansing power of the Cross that set people free not only from the practice
of sin, but from the desire for it as well. Their hearts were transformed
and they were changed from the inside out: a complete and total
transformation. So Paul could say to his hearers,
³Do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God?
Do not be deceived. Neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor
homosexuals, nor sodomites, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor
revilers, nor extortioners will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were
some of you. But you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were
justified in the name of the Lord Jesus and by the Spirit of our God.² 1
Corinthians 6:9-11, NKJV.
 
What the Church is lacking today is this evidence of the kingdom of God, and
so, it has failed to convince the world that the message it preaches is
true. In fact it has not been God¹s Good News at all, but only a partial
message, a corrupted oneŠeven a false witness. We have not been preaching
the total kingdom of God but merely the forgiveness of sins. While true
enough, God forgives sins; it isn¹t the message of the whole Good News. It
is not the message of the kingdom of God.
 
Your Faith Has Saved You
 
Any good Jew or Greek would understand why the message we preach has been a
false witness, or a partial message. The reason being is that the word for
salvation in Greek and Hebrew are not simply about a spiritual salvation or
the saving of a person¹s soul, as we commonly believe. In fact the idea of a
spiritual soul as the center of human life is a very foreign idea to the Old
and New Testaments. The Jews believed that every human being was a
tri-partite being: body, personhood, and spirit. The spirit is the breath of
God which makes every human being a living person. The personhood is what we
may call the ³soul² but in essence this soul is what makes up our
personality: our mind, will, and emotions. In other words, the soul is our
character or our identity. But every person lives in a body.  For the Jew,
one could not be delivered in one¹s person without also being delivered in
one¹s body because they belonged together, and together they made up a
living human being.
 
In Greek, this idea of the unity of personhood and body is revealed in the
word salvation.  The word is sozo, and it means to ³save, heal, and deliver
from stress, bondage, danger and/or physical affliction.²  It often is used
to describe being saved from enemies in battle.  Jesus uses the same word to
describe those whose faith has caused their sins to be forgiven and also
those whose faith has caused them to be healed of diseases. In both cases,
salvation from sin or from disease is the same word!
  
³Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven, for she loved
much; but he who is forgiven little, loves little.² And he said to her,
³Your sins are forgiven.² Then those who were at table with him began to say
among themselves, ³Who is this, who even forgives sins?² And he said to the
woman, ³Your faith has saved (sozo) you; go in peace.²² Luke 7:47-50, RSV.
 
³And when the woman saw that she was not hidden, she came trembling, and
falling down before him declared in the presence of all the people why she
had touched him, and how she had been immediately healed. And he said to
her, ³Daughter, your faith has made you well (sozo); go in peace.²² Luke
8:47, 48, RSV.
 
What I am saying is that the only reason we have been able to divide
spiritual salvation, or forgiveness of sins, from physical healing is
because we have translated the same Greek word into two entirely different
words in English. In our minds we have separated the soul from the body, the
spiritual from the physical, and have divided what the Scriptures see as a
single event.  We have adopted a dualistic view of human nature as being a
soul in a body. This view of human nature comes from Greek philosophy, but
is not biblical.  We see the spiritual soul as separate from the physical
nature, so we can see salvation as spiritual and not physical. That is
foreign to the view of Jesus. The Scriptures see the human being as an
essential unity of personhood in a body, whose spiritual nature may be
joined to God by the Holy Spirit, through being born again.
 
Now of course, in the grand scheme of things, eternal life is more important
than the survival of our temporal physical bodies, and so if we die for our
faith, we are rewarded through eternity, but that does not change God¹s
intention for the Church to walk under the dominion of God on this earth
while we are still here acting as his ambassadors and servants.  If we are
ambassadors of this new kingdom, we are authorized to act on God¹s behalf to
announce and extend his dominion to those to who are willing to receive it.
We are authorized to use the same authority and power that this kingdom
represents!  That is why Jesus sent the disciples out to heal the sick as a
demonstration of the power of the kingdom of God and then to announce the
good news that this kingdom is coming and is close at hand!
 
The Works Testify
 
Jesus said, ³If I had not done among them the works which no one else did,
they would not have sin; but now they have seen and hated both me and my
Father.² John 15:24, RSV. ³Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father
in me; or else believe me for the sake of the works themselves. ³Truly,
truly, I say to you, he who believes in me will also do the works that I do;
and greater works than these will he do, because I go to the Father.² John
14:11, 12, RSV.
 
Jesus said that the works he did were signs and evidence that God was with
him, and that if he had not done these works, the world would have an excuse
for its sin and unbelief.  Then he said something remarkable: that in order
for us to testify and give evidence that Jesus was sent by the Father and is
now with the Father, we who believe in him would also do works that he did
and even greater works would we do.
 
Now it is quite evident that the Church¹s witness in the United States and
Europe has been in a stranglehold of captivity to the philosophies of this
present age: scientific empiricism, Enlightenment rationalism, Darwinian
evolutionary theory, etcŠ All these naturalistic philosophies deny that God
can act and do miracles on this earth; that God is a primitive myth and
superstition, and that those who believe are weak-minded individuals in need
of some crutch.  It is plain that the Church¹s half gospel has not reached
the culture in which we live, much less converted it. This half gospel of a
spiritual salvation, with no earthly effect or power, has not been met with
acceptance, except by a few through the grace and mercy of God.   We have
not transformed this culture, nor even presented enough evidence of the
reality of God to create worthy persecution. We are not being persecuted
because people believe we represent the truth of God. The Church is being
persecuted because we are considered annoying for trying to force our
³private² religious beliefs on others. The key word here is ³private.² Our
beliefs are personal beliefs to the world because there is no evidence for
the truth of them in the public square. Remember that Jesus did all his
works in public and that is what created the hostility of the rulers and
leaders towards him his day. It created real persecution because his works
gave evidence that God was with him and it forced people to accept or reject
the message. There was no way out, no other alternative, and no middle
ground. Our message can be safely dismissed because it represents just
personal opinions, private religious beliefs, and not the truth. We have not
given the evidence of God or of his kingdom in the public square.
 
 My point is that if we had been preaching the whole Gospel and God
accompanied that Good News with his power to heal and deliver our hearers
from the bondages of sin and disease, our impact upon this nation would have
been much, much greater. But because we have been either cowards ourselves
or deceived by the false teachings we have received, we did not preach the
whole good news of the kingdom of God.  And I believe our witness has been
blunted and it failed in power because God could not confirm of our anemic
witness to his glory. It wasn¹t his word so he couldn¹t confirm it. He will
not falsely testify to himself, but will wait to confirm his word with signs
and wonders when his WHOLE Word is preached.
Instead, we have become, as the Scriptures prophesied, religious, but empty
of faith: 
³But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of stress.
For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive,
disobedient to their parentsŠ lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,
holding the form of religion but denying the power of it. Avoid such
people.² 2 Timothy 3:1-5, RSV.
 
  I am saying that if we are bold enough to preach the Whole Gospel, that
God is a deliverer from sin, sickness, and lusts of the flesh, then that is
a message which God will confirm with signs and wonders following because
God has a covenant with his own Word.
 
³And he said to them, ŒGo into all the world and preach the gospel to the
whole creationŠ  And these signs will accompany those who believe: in my
name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will
pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them;
they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.¹² Mark
16:15-18, RSV.
 
 
 
 
 
Covenant theology (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant_theology) (also
known as Covenantalism or Federal theology or Federalism) is a conceptual
overview and interpretive
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_hermeneutics>  framework for
understanding the overall flow of the Bible
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bible> . It uses the theological concept of
covenant <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covenant>  as an organizing principle
for Christian theology <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_theology> .

~~~~~~~~~~~~
Jefferis Peterson, Pres.
Web Design and Marketing
http://www.PetersonSales.com
(724)-482-2015

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