The Healing Promise, A Charismatic Response
A major hurdle for cessationists to get over before they can embrace modern-day healing is the belief that the Bible “reveals three major time periods during which God performed miracles through men.”37 The three periods are perceived to be 1) Moses and Joshua, 2) Elijah and Elisha, 3) Christ and His apostles. This line of reasoning, which was popularised by B.B. Warfield, notes that these three periods were times of new revelation when God was performing signs to authenticate his messengers.
However, though we might legitimately say that miraculous activity was more prevalent in these periods of redemptive activity, it would be inaccurate to conclude that it was limited to such time-frames.38 Leaving to one side, the miraculous phenomena present in the life of Daniel,39 what do the scriptures teach about miracles out-side of Mayhue’s revelatory periods?
In Jeremiah 32:20, the prophet prays, “You performed miraculous signs and wonders in Egypt and have continued them to this day, both in Israel and among all mankind, and have gained the renown that is still yours.” I take two important points from this statement. Firstly, miracles and wonders—as we saw in our Old Testament section above—were so common that God was renowned for them; they characterised God’s activity in the Old Testament. Secondly, anyone seeking the Lord’s renown in our day would do well to join the early Church in praying that the Lord might move in the miraculous to the glory of His name.40 This explains why the subsidence of the miraculous did not cause believers to conclude that God only heals during certain time-periods, but lead them to mourning and repentance.41
Nonetheless, even if we were to concede that miracles in the Bible are primarily clustered around 3 time periods, we would still need to demonstrate that miracles ceased completely with Christ and the apostles. Everything changed with the coming of Christ. Unless we are going to say that the only reason for miracles was to authenticate those writing Scripture,42 what reason do we have for concluding that they would not continue after the closing of the canon. In scripture God performed healings for a number of purposes: to glorify His name and His Son (John 11:4; Acts 3:12-13), out of compassion (Matthew 14:13-14; 20:34; Mark 1:41-42; 9:22; Luke 7:11-17), in response to faith (Mt. 9:22; Acts 14:8-10); to fulfil His promise to heal (James 5:14-16), to gain attention (Luke 5:15; Acts 8:6), to provoke faith (Jn. 11:45, 12:11; 14:11; Acts 9:35, 42), to manifest the kingdom (Isaiah 35:6-7; Mt. 12:28; Rom. 15:18-19), and for the pleasure of His sovereign will. Are we really willing to say that none of these reasons now exist as a valid purpose for healing?
Peter’s quotation of Joel 2 in Acts 2:16-21 is extremely significant. There we see that miraculous phenomena not only inaugurate the messianic age, they characterise it. In that sense, we may well subscribe to Mayhue’s three time-periods theory. The difference is that the third time-period, the time when the Kingdom is both now and not-yet, continues to this day.
Is there Healing in the atonement?
Mayhue joins J. Sidlow Baxter in denying that there is present physical healing in the atonement.43 He wants us to believe that Isaiah 53:5 refers to spiritual healing and that 1 Peter 2:24 demonstrates this. How then does he handle Matthew 8:17 where Matthew describes the healing ministry of Jesus as a fulfilment of the promise in Isaiah? Mayhue points out that the Greek words used by Matthew for “took” and “carried” are different from those used in the LXX, which speaks of the suffering servant bearing the diseases and sicknesses of his people. He feels that Matthew made this change to make it clear that he is not using the text in its natural sense to speak of the “spiritual diseases” that Christ was to bear for us, but that the Isaiah 53 promise can be used to illustrate some of the healings of Jesus. Exactly how it illustrates this or why Matthew would adopt such a procedure, we are not told.
Michael Brown’s approach to the Matthew passage is much more satisfactory:
By bearing sin and iniquity the servant bore sickness and pain; by taking his people’s guilt he thereby incurred their punishment; and it is at the cost of his wounds that total healing has come.44
No Jewish reader of Isaiah 53:5 would have interpreted it as a reference to spiritual healing alone. Such a distinction is more Greek than Jewish. The Messianic hope was for one who would cleanse the nation, restore the people of God, bring about an outpouring of the Spirit and inaugurate the new age, including the restoration of Creation and the resurrection of the dead. That this was as much a physical hope as a spiritual one is clear from such passages as Isaiah 35:3-10; 61:1-6; and 65:17-25.
Turner addresses this question accurately when he writes that, “all the benefits of Christ (including resurrection life) may be said to be theologically “in (or through) the atonement”, but that does not mean they thought all were fully available in the present age to all.”45 We currently live in the age of tension between the inauguration of the Kingdom of God and its full consummation. So, not all benefits of the atonement, such as a complete removal of the decay of death within our bodies, are available automatically. Some must await death and the resurrection of our bodies.
This is not to deny that Healing expresses God’s ultimate will—or that which He is working towards. We should have a positive expectation of God’s healing interventions as his kingdom is revealed—healing and wholeness is a characteristic note of life under God’s reign. Yet, in this present age we must recognise that the full realisation of His reign will only be revealed at the consummation and new creation. We have tasted the powers of the age to come, but only the first-fruits.46
Category: Spirit, Winter 2005
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