This guest article by Christian historian William De Arteaga is not merely a historical and theological reflection. By way of introduction, he writes, “The end of the article contains specific, biblical ways of praying against viruses. I have done this for years with very good effect, but have not been allowed into a hospital to try it on COVID-19 patients. It would be great if some nurses and physicians (or even the cleaning crew) read this, prayed and anointed their patients in the manner I suggest. Let us see what miracles the Lord will work.”

One of my Facebook buddies recently commented that the COVID-19 virus was of demonic origins. Yes, it has done tremendous damage, economically and in taking many lives, including some in their prime of life. But it is problematic to call any created thing demonic. (I am assuming here that COVID-19 is a naturally occurring virus of animal origins and not from a Chinese lab as some believe.) Several years ago, my wife and I were giving a healing workshop, and a small roach meandered onto our book table. I disposed of it, but a lady nearby commented that she hated roaches and was sure that they were Satan’s creation.

Here we can definitely say, “no.” Roaches are part of God’s created order, even if we do not like them. When I see a roach in my kitchen I consider it a messenger telling me I have not disciplined myself on cleaning thoroughly or often enough. I say, “Thank you Mr. Roach, I will get to it, but if I see your sister I will spray the whole house.” Perhaps one of the roles of the COVID-19 virus is to remind the Church how poorly it is doing in its healing ministry after two thousand years. If I were a school teacher I would assign the Church a grade on the COVID-19 pandemic as a “C-,” barely passing.

Actually, God has provided Christians with means of countering infections from viruses and bacteria, and also the poisons of critters that sting like scorpions and spiders. The problem is that very few Christian know of this provision or take advantage of it. I will get to the specifics below.

The churches as a whole are still recovering from the long destructive period I have called “The Augustinian Consensus.” This was the period of the Church age when it functioned, by and large, without the gifts of the Spirit and did not know it had this deficit. Augustine of Hippo was a great theologian in many ways, as in explaining the idea of the Trinity for the Western Church, but like his contemporaries, he did not understand the functioning of the gifts of the Spirit as defined in the New Testament.

In the later years of his life he came to accept healing as part of the normal ministry of the Church, but never had a clue as to the other gifts of the Spirit as defined by St. Paul. Elsewhere I have explained how this lamentable situation arose and how it was compounded by later Catholic theology and especially by John Calvin’s theology of cessationism. Sadly, by the end of the Middle Ages, the Catholic Church stopped the laying on of hands for healing as a normal parish ministry and the anointing of oil for healing (James 5) was “spiritualized” as a safe passage past Purgatory.[1]

Various movements in the Church, from the Faith-Cure Movement (1880s) to Pentecostalism, to the Charismatic Movement, and the Anglican healing awakening have collectively regained most of the Church’s healing and Spirit-empowered ministries. However the situation is spotty and incomplete. That is, many churches, mostly Anglican, charismatic and Pentecostal, do have healing ministries within their churches with varying degrees of effectiveness.[2] But sadly, even many historic Pentecostal and charismatic churches still have very subdued healing ministries, as in only the pastor and a few in his staff, or a guest evangelist, doing healing prayer. The same is true of many “non-denominational” churches.

The recovery of healing prayer effectiveness is still going on and still faces opposition. In the last decade there has been a reactionary movement led by the prominent Bible teacher John MacArthur, whose immensely influential book Strange Fire, paints the gifts of the Spirit operating today as bogus.[4] Another example of resistance is the reluctance of many evangelicals to accept the ministry of deliverance/exorcism as needed for today. This continues to seriously hamper the effective healing ministry in many churches. In fact, every church that has an effective and robust healing ministry also does some deliverance/exorcism. This follows the Biblical pattern: Jesus and his disciples went around healing people, from both physical diseases or demonic disturbances, and sometimes both in the same person. (Lk 13:16) There was no separation of the ministries.

An example of the continued recovery of healing knowledge, one particularly important for the present discussion on the COVID-19 pandemic, is the recovery of “command healing.” That is, that all of the instances of healing and deliverance in the New Testament are shown as done by a command, as in “Stand up and walk.” or Ananias of Damascus saying to Paul, “Recover your sight” (Acts 22:12). This command mode of healing prayer was hidden in plain sight for centuries until pointed out by a humble Pentecostal couple Charles and Francis Hunter. Their books and evangelistic tours are largely responsible for showing this to the Church.[5] But they began doing this a mere forty years ago, and it is still resisted by some. Before that all the teaching and example given by the healing teachers was by way of prayers of petition, as in, “Father, in Jesus’ name, heal this arthritic knee.” That form of petition for healing is found in the Old Testament, as in the Psalms, but not in the New Testament. The change is that Jesus gave his disciples authority over disease and demons through the use of his name.

That response has been constantly carried out through the ages by devote clergy. Among many examples that could be cited was the ministry of several Episcopal nuns and priests, “The Memphis Martyrs,” who stayed in Memphis, Tennessee during the Yellow Fever epidemic of 1878, all of whom died during their ministry.[7] Many Catholic saints have been recorded in doing the same heroic “stay and minister” action.

However, there is no mention in these heroic accounts of these saints’ ministries that included healing prayer. So I grade these efforts with an “A” for love and courage, but an “F” on demonstrating the healing power of the Church. It evens out to a “C-.”

In truth, the response of the Church in America to the COVID-19 pandemic is filled with complexities, and I do not want to be overly critical for the various courses adopted by different ministers and pastors. The New Testament encourages obedience to civil authorities, so that a state or federal injunction against mass church services should normally be respected. Certain pastors have openly defied this, believing this a restriction of religious freedom and that the Lord will keep their congregation virus free.

Well maybe, but experience has proven otherwise in many cases. It has been to the sad reputation of the Church that occasionally some fundamentalist Pentecostals will refuse medication to a family member because that is “against faith” and the result is an unnecessary death. Here is an issue of “faith or presumption.”[8] A hypothetical example on the current pandemic: suppose a charismatic or Pentecostal church has a public service during the pandemic. Of the three hundred people attending only about ten have experience in the healing ministry, and most likely they are not sure as to how to specifically pray against a virus. Some in the group may sicken and die for lack of wisdom on praying against the virus. They have met presumptuously.[9]

The Church, even the Spirit-filled Pentecostal section of it, does not understand how to effectively pray to still a plague. Not that there have not been attempts at it. I have seen ministers prophesying and “judging” the virus, proclaiming it would disappear quickly. These ministers commanded a wave of warm weather across the United States to stop the spread of the virus, something that does disrupt the normal flu.

The following week a warm front did bring record highs over the Western and central parts of the country. But neither of these two prophetic moments left any noticeable effect. To the contrary, COVID-19 continues to spread in the United States, now in rural areas not hit before. Further, its continued spread in Africa and Latin America indicates that it will not subside because of warm weather.

I recall a report from years ago, when a coastal city in southern Europe was struck by an epidemic caused by eating contaminated shellfish. In response, the local bishop organized a procession in which the relics of a local saint were “uncovered” and processed around the city. This too was a sad exercise in futility.

In Acts we see the prophecy of a coming famine, but the church did not pray against it, but rather prepared for it in common-sense ways (Acts 11:27-30). Perhaps it is only possible to stop a virus plague by ministering prayer one person at a time. This may be God’s way of giving churches all over the world the opportunity of healing individual cases of the virus and witnessing to God’s mercy and power. Or there may be another way of praying and stopping a pandemic that we still do not know. We should not presume that we currently know everything about healing prayer.

An illustration of the coronavirus created at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

So how can we pray effectively against viruses and specifically against the COVID-19 pandemic? For now, we can pray for one infected person at a time using biblical models.

So let us look at the biblical evidence. The word virus does not occur in the Bible, as no one knew about bacteria or viruses until relatively recent times. But the Bible mentions “fevers” several times, and specifically how Jesus healed people experiencing fevers. In the following incident Luke and Matthew give us complimentary accounts of how Jesus ministered to Peter’s mother-in law.

Jesus left the synagogue and went to the home of Simon. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Jesus to help her. So he bent over her and rebuked the fever, and it left her. She got up at once and began to wait on them (Luke 4:38-39).

When Jesus came into Peter’s house, he saw Peter’s mother-in-law lying in bed with a fever. He touched her hand and the fever left her, and she got up and began to wait on him (Matthew 8:14-15).

This is directly pertinent to the COVID-19 virus because we now know that most colds, flu and such are caused by viruses (sometimes bacteria). Viruses are very ancient, and so what was afflicting Peter’s mother-in-law was most likely a fever caused by a virus. Viruses that infect humans are all pretty much the same, whether polio, influenza, coronavirus, or something else. They are tiny globules that cannot exist by themselves but must find a host to replicate. So when Jesus came against the fever, He was really battling against a flu or cold virus of some sort.

Note that Jesus did two things. One, he touched her so that the healing energies of God would flow into her. He had done the same in many cases, including touching those with leprosy, whom everyone at the time recognized as contagious (Matt 8:1-3). The other thing was to speak healing, but in this case in the form of a rebuke to the fever (and underlying infectious agent).

It is important to note the rebuke. A rebuke is of course given in the command mode. Although we do not have Jesus’ exact words, we can assume they were firm and not “nice” to the fever. We have his exact words when he cursed the fig tree to death:

Early in the morning, as Jesus was on his way back to the city, he was hungry. Seeing a fig tree by the road, he went up to it but found nothing on it except leaves. Then he said to it, “May you never bear fruit again!” Immediately the tree withered (Matt 21:18-20).

Image: Kevin Kobsic

In the current pandemic I have not had the opportunity to pray for a patient with COVID-19 directly. Hospitals are not allowing even chaplains to minister directly to such patients. But over the decades I have prayed for many persons with colds and the flu with good effect following the command mode. I do that to myself when I feel the beginning of an illness such as a scratchy throat or drippy nose. I stand in front of a mirror and command: “In Jesus name, whatever virus or bacteria is infecting me die and disintegrate now!” I add an encouragement to my immune system, “Immune system, be strong and completely throw out whatever is infecting me.” I can truthfully say that in the past decade, using this command mode of prayer/curse, I have not had to take a sick day from work. I have prayed this over friends with the flu and it seems they recover much quicker.

Of course, this does not exhaust other forms of healing prayer for virus illness. James 5 encourages the elders of the church to anoint the sick with oil so that they will recover. It makes no distinction as to “fevers” (viruses) or other types of illnesses. I generally carry a small vessel of blessed oil, and many times when I pray for someone ill I finish with anointing the person’s forehead in the sign of the cross.

I am hopeful that the command mode of healing prayer continues to spread among Christians so that the Church will be better equipped to stem the next pandemic and earn a possible “B” or “B+” grade. There will always be churches that are stubborn and will not change the way they operate. They will say, “We never did such foolishness as cursing a virus, so why should we start now?”

I promised to talk about the way to stop insect sting poisons, and let me do that here. It is by command mode. The first time I used it was perhaps twenty years ago when I was walking on a wooded trail with my wife in the mountains of north Georgia. She has always been highly allergic to bee stings, and wham, she got stung by a yellow jacket. She did not have the packet of Benadryl she usually carries with her. We had just learned the command mode of prayer so I went right to it. “In Jesus’ name, I speak to the enzymes and poisons [injected by the bee] and command they disintegrate harmlessly, NOW! In Jesus’ name I command the [bee sting] bump to contract and the skin to go back to normal.” By the time we returned home ten minutes later, there was no sign of the sting and my wife did not have to take the usual Benadryl.

Let me construct a situation that might play out several years from now:

The church pastor gets a phone call that one of his church members, Mrs. Smith at 105 Elm St., has the first symptoms of COVID-25 virus, confirmed by the app on her smart watch. The Pastor considers how to minister to this and it occurs to him, “Oh, Mrs. Hernandez, of our healing team, lives nearby. I’ll give her a call.” Subsequently Mrs. Hernandez and one of her friends on the healing team arrive at Mrs. Smith’s home. They go in and anoint her with blessed oil, lay hands on her, rebuke the virus, and then speak strength to her immune system. They wash their hands and leave. Mrs. Smith goes to sleep and when she awakes three hours later, her symptoms are completely gone. The smart watch tells her she is no longer infected.

Image: Jonathan Borba

Church, do this. Let’s aim for a “B” in the next pandemic.

PR

Notes

[1] I explain how the Church became gifts deficient in both my earlier work, Quenching the Spirit (Lake Mary, Creation House, 1996) and my more recent one, Agnes Sanford and her Companions ( Eugene: Wipf & Stock, 2015).

[2] An example of just how effective a church’s healing ministry can be is shown in my article on the Falls Church Anglican Church, “Falls Church Anglican: The Long March to Healing Excellence,” Pneuma Review, posted April 19, 2020. http://pneumareview.com/the-falls-church-anglican-the-long-march-to-healing-ministry-excellence/

[3] See my work Quenching the Spirit, on this issue.

[4] John MacArthur, Strange Fire (Thomas Nelson, 2013). Note the very fine responses to MacArthur’s awful hermeneutics by various authors in Pneuma Review, especially Craig S. Keener’s review, “John MacArthur’s Strange Fire,” posted Nov. 15, 2013. http://pneumareview.com/john-macarthurs-strange-fire-reviewed-by-craig-s-keener/

[5] William De Arteaga, “The Happy Hunters’ Revolution in Healing Prayer,” Pentecostal Theology, posted Oct 12, 2019. Recovered from a blog posted on Blogger but removed along with all of my blogs as “contrary to community standards.” http://www.pentecostaltheology.com/the-happy-hunters-revolution-in-healing-prayer/

[6] Emmy Yang, “What Martin Luther Teaches Us About Coronavirus,” Christianity Today, posted Jan. 20, 2020. https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2020/january-web-only/martin-luther-coronavirus-wuhan-chinese-new-year-christians.html

[7] Michael Finger, “The Martyrs of Memphis,” Memphis Magazine, posted April 8, 2019. https://memphismagazine.com/features/the-martyrs-of-memphis/

[8] The classic on this is Charles Farah’s, From the Pinnacle of the Temple (Plainsfield: Logos International, 1979).

[9] The church that I have mentioned above, Falls Church Anglican, has prudently cancelled its services and may not open for a while.

Some Official Assessment

The wonderful folks of Life Pacific College (International Church of the Foursquare Gospel), located in beautiful San Dimas, California, were exceptionally gracious hosts. It was a special pleasure to be greeted in the first plenary by Jim Adams, LPC president, and the famous Jack Hayford (King’s University). LPC facilities were perfect for the needs of the Society, with ample space in a compact setting. And what a gorgeous campus! Aside from aesthetics, the statistics are impressive as well. Kim Roebuck, Assistant to the Executive Director, reports that there were 331 in attendance. Zach Tackett, SPS Secretary/Treasurer, informed the membership at its annual business meeting that the SPS 2015 figures represent the best membership roll in 5 years and that the Society is financially solvent. Certainly these appear to be signs that SPS continues to flourish as a vital venue for Pentecostal scholarship.

SPS could not happen without the diligent work of a great team of Interest Group Leaders: Scott Ellington, Daniela Augustine, Christopher Stephenson, Leah Payne, Sarita Gallagher, Doug Olena, James Bowers, Clifton Clarke, and Sammy Alfaro. As well, the work of Diversity Committee leader Meghan Musy, Librarians and Archivist chair, Derrick Rosenior, and other session leaders such as Dale M. Coulter and Daniel Tobin (Roman Catholic-Pentecostal dialogue) provided spiritual refreshing.

The plenary sessions with Linda Ambrose, John Goldingay, Teresa Berger, the Latino/a Pentecostalism session with Daniel Ramirez, Urias Mendoza, and Sammy Alfaro, and the great presidential address by Michael Wilkinson, were invigorating. Further, the artistic expressions by Carlynn Reed and Carlos Zapata, Jennifer Miskov and team, and Steven Felix-Jager were a refreshing innovation that ministered to all.

Lois Olena

Outgoing Executive Director Lois Olena (Assemblies of God Theological Seminary, Springfield, MO) noted in her closing remarks at the SPS banquet that of its current membership of 557, SPS enjoys representation from 18 nations, 30 U.S. states, and 41 Christian denominations/traditions.

To me, in spite of its challenges, SPS has been to me “little taste of heaven,” because it has served in my life as a place where brothers and sisters in Christ, of diverse ethnicities and denominations, can experience “the other” in rich fellowship, mentorship, learning, collegiality, and laughter, as well as engage in times of challenging one another, searching and discovering, sharing ideas, celebrating one another’s accomplishments, and supporting friends through their struggles—not only once a year but all throughout the year as we continue to interact. SPS has been a place of vocational nurture, as our late president, Brother Jeff Gros, said in his 2012 presidential address: “The Pentecostal scholar in whatever church has a calling to be of service to the whole people of God and to the churches in their task of preaching, handing on the faith and nurturing the faithful. This Society has been a place where this ecclesial vocation has been and can be nurtured” [Pneuma 34, no. 2 (2012): 167.]

Michael Brown speaking at CLF 2014

For this year’s conference the main speaker was Dr. Michael Brown, who has become the ad hoc voice of the Charismatic Renewal to the media. His daily radio talk show is nationally syndicated and attracts and even increasing audience. Dr. Brown, who converted in his youth from a drug-driven, non-observant Jew, is also a noted apologist of the Gospel to the Jews.

Dr. Brown gave two talks at the CLF conference, both reflecting recent books he has published. The first talk was on the “hyper-grace” controversy which has broken out in recent years among charismatic churches, principally those influenced by the Word of Faith movement. This grace teaching exalts the role of God’s grace and mercy to the point that the Christian no longer needs to experience guilt for sin nor repentance after salvation. Similarly, the Old Testament, whose rules define sin, is considered irrelevant by certain hyper-grace teachers. I and Dr. Brown agree that hyper-grace is a reappearance of the old Marcion heresy—the 2^nd Century heretic who denied that the Old Testament was scripture.

Dr. Brown stressed that there is much insight on the grace of God in hyper-grace writers, even as they drift into extremes. Dr. Brown has striven for, and in fact established, communications with some of the hyper-grace authors.  His book on the subject is: Hyper-Grace: Exposing the Danger of the Modern Grace Message (Lake Mary: Charisma House, 2014).

Dr. Brown’s second talk described John MacArthur’s self-declared “war” on Pentecostalism and the Charismatic Renewal in, Strange Fire. Pneuma Review readers are mostly aware of this controversy and have access to multiple reviews of MacArthur’s awful work on this website.  Dr. Brown’s book length critique of MacArthur’s Strange Fire is his own Authentic Fire, a very fine work that maintains a generous tone towards MacArthur throughout.  My review of Dr. Brown’s book is also found on this website. It should be noted that the Catholic participants at the CLF had not much followed either the MacArthur or hyper-grace controversies and were both informed and appalled by them. Catholics generally have much wisdom on the issue of post-salvation sin, and the hyper-grace position seemed incredible to them.

I was honored to have been given the opportunity to do two presentations at this year’s CLF. The first was titled “What is left for Pentecostals and Charismatics to do?” I first suggested that Christians of all denominations are negligent in their intercessions for the conversion of Islam. What is the worth of all the books and teachings on power intercession and territorial spirits if we don’t put it to use?

My second talk was on the importance of recognizing the “discernment heresies” that have plagued the Church through the ages, but are often ignored: Gnosticism, Phariseeism and Sadduceeism. I pointed out that concentration on the doctrinal facets of heresy has incapacitated the Church in recognizing the attitudes of discernment that restrict revival. For instance, Phariseeism and Sadduceeism combined to destroy the Scottish revivals of the 18^th Century. [1]

Generally, India is moving forward into a global power; its economy is growing at an unprecedented rate, and the church is also growing rapidly. The middle and upper classes are getting wealthier, but the majority of the population lives on less than $2.00 a day. The 60% of the population that lives in villages and towns live on subsistence living, and 40% of the population is illiterate. People who leave the villages and move to the large cities are often illiterate and become displaced as they try to make a better life; in some cases whole families end up living on the streets, because employment is difficult to find and housing is very expensive. It is heart breaking.

My colleague, Dr. Willie Boyseen from South Africa and I were focused on the vision the Lord gave me; we tried not to be sidetracked by the poverty, and the hopelessness that dominates the nation. We were often tempted to give money to help the poor and those feeding the poor, but when we remembered the words of Jesus who said, “the poor you always have with you,” we became more resolute to the vision to help preachers to preach more effectively and be true to the gospel of Jesus Christ. Usually when people accept Jesus into their lives as Savior and Lord, they become excited and want to share their faith with others. Often before you know it, they are pastoring churches with several hundred people and in some cases a group of churches. These were the people we desired to help most: those already in ministry. We shared with them what we have learned about preaching. The presentation of the gospel should be preached simply and clearly without spiritualizing the text, steering them away from teaching wrong doctrine but praying for the sick and the needs of people in the church. On every occasion pastors left the seminars better preachers of the Word. They were always thankful and often remarked, “I now know how to prepare sermons.” Many pastors have to preach every day.

During our time in India we taught approximately 350 pastors in three preaching seminars. The first seminar was for approximately 100 pastors at Love-N-care Ministries in Visakhapatnam. We were told that some of these pastors are tribal people and were former animists. At Love-N-Care Ministries they are taught to read and write and then to preach.

I went to my first Pentecostal World Conference in 1967. It was held in Rio de Janeiro, and the local churches in Brazil put a great deal of work into making that conference an occasion to long remember. I continued to attend PWC’s after that, and I traveled 2500 miles to Los Angeles at the end of May to take part in this year’s conference. The conferences are held every three years. Thousands of men and women God has raised up in the Pentecostal movement come together to celebrate what God has done, and to plan how to better bring the gospel in the power of the Spirit to the world.

The central point that God brought to me over and over during this year’s conference was that the Pentecostal church is a multicultural worldwide move of God. This movement is not focused on North America or the West, however that portion—my portion—of the world shares in the blessing that God has brought and is yet bringing. God is saving thousands of people every day in parts of the world that are often classified as “third world” countries. Pray for a similar Pentecostal outpouring in our land. I have seen what is happening below the equator, and we need that touch here where we live. I have watched people race to get to the altar first so that they could receive the Baptism of the Holy Spirit and not have to wait in a long line to receive this marvelous gift.

The conference combined workshops and plenary sessions, far too many to attend all that appealed to each of us that were there. These workshops were taught by leading men and women from all kinds of Pentecostal and charismatic backgrounds from many different cultures and nations. David Yonggi Cho was a presenter at two workshops. Other familiar presenters included Grant McClung, Wayne Cordeiro, David Petts, Adam Villarreal, Tommy Walker, Dick Eastman, Ed Silvoso, Vinson Synan, John Williams, Che Ahn, Jack Hayford, Roger Stronstad, Keith Phillips and more. I left with my bag filled with tapes from the conference that currently make my daily early morning walk something to anticipate.

I was fascinated by the teaching of Doug Oss who has built a vibrant Pentecostal congregation of 300 within eyeshot of the Mormon Temple in downtown Salt Lake City. His is a brilliant mind versed in the reality of the invisible. Suzette Hattingh, an associate evangelist with Reinhold Bonnke, spoke at a morning plenary session. I remember she digressed at one point in her talk and mentioned to the audience that Mr. and Mrs. Bonnke were the Godliest people she had ever known. Wow! Those words caught me. Do people who know you well, who work with you and for you, say this about you and your spouse? Think on that.