Is there any remedy for sickness and disease? The truth needs to he knoivn about
THE H E A L I N G M I N I S T R Y i
able. They cannot be tabulated because there were some mass healings. In the Book of Acts the healings were far less in number, including Peter’s healing of the lame man at the Gate Beautiful in the Temple, Peter’s healing of Eneas, Paul’s healing of the cripple, Paul’s healing of many at Corinth through the blessing of handkerchiefs and aprons, Paul’s preventive healing of himself from contact with a viper and Paul’s healing of the father of Publius. And in the rest of the New Testament there are only four instances of sickness situations mentioned and each one is different in its effect. In the case of a man named Epaphroditus, he was prayed for and healed. (Phil. 2:25-27). In the case of Trophimus, he was prayed for and not healed (II Tim. 4:20). In the case of Timothy, he was advised to use physical means and he apparently endured delicate health throughout his whole lifetime as the result of congenital sickness. In the case of the Apostle Paul he prayed for himself three times for the removal of a physi cal handicap and was not healed but given God’s grace to bear his handicap with great distinction and usefulness. Judging the healing ministry of the Church by these facts I come to certain conclusions. First, on the basis of numerical incidence, the original character of the Church’s healing ministry was a dimin- ishing one. That is, there was a lessening need for the performance of miracles in terms of physical healings for once the divine nature of the Church was established it did not need the continuance of these miracles of healings. Second, when the Church passes out of this period of signs and wonders the treatment of sickness while always being by prayer does not always have the same results. In one instance a sick man is prayed for and healed. In another instance a sick man is prayed for and not healed. In another instance a sick man is prayed for plus the application of means in a medicinal sense and he experi ences delicate health. In yet another instance the most outstanding Christian in the New Testament being afflict ed with distressing physical defect prays for himself and is answered by being given God’s grace. Is anyone going to say that he has an open and closed formula for healing that embraces all sickness and achieves a healing effect in every case? I do not believe the healing ministry of the early Church and today’s Church has the same purposes in common. For as we know healing in the Gospels and Acts it was promiscuous; everyone prayed for was healed. But healing as we should know it today is providential; it is a selective experience according to the will of God. While I do not believe that the healing ministry of the Church is on the same basis of promiscuous miracles of healing as it was in the early Church, neither do I believe that God is limited in His right or ability to perform miracles by healing. There is a continuing prece dent for this in the continuing history of the Church, for
I nhere is no doubt that the Church at its very beginning - had a healing ministry. There is also no doubt that the Church as we know it today has a healing ministry. But the great question is, are these healing ministries the same in their scope and purpose? If they are the same then the Church ought to be performing miracles of healing that include all kinds and manners of disease. Moreover it ought to be raising the dead. Healing, as we know it in the Gospels and Acts, fell into a special category of events called miracles. These miracles were general and not restricted to a few people or a few forms of sickness. Nor was their performance restricted to a few people. It should be established that these miracles were for a specific purpose. That purpose was not primarily to cure disease or reverse death. It was to bear witness to the divine nature of Christianity as a means of salvation. The great and important ministry of the Church was spiritual and not physical; for the soul and not for the body; for eternity and not for time. We should always remember that healing was never a permanent experience like salvation, for healed people became sick again and later died. There was always one sickness from which they were never healed, the sickness from which they died. The same was true of the resur rections, three of them in Jesus’ experience, one in Peter’s experience and one in Paul’s. In every one of these five instances irreversible death ultimately came. The reason I say this is to be able to say that if the healing of the sick was on the agenda of the early Church on the same basis as the salvation of the soul, it would have been directed to the cause of sickness and not merely to its effects. Sickness and death remain among us as a perpetual reminder of God’s judgment upon sin and it will never totally disappear until God’s new redemptive order comes into being. When we speak today of the healing ministry of the Church we are using a term which does not have a com mon definition and consequently means many things to many people. The faith healer gives it one meaning; the Christian Science practitioner another meaning; the Epis copalian rector another and the average pastor still another. To one person it is the performance of an outright miracle by a person-to-person meeting between God and man and the achievement of such miraculous events as are described in the Gospels and the Acts. To another person healing is something metaphysical, with mind achieving superiority over matter. To another it is some thing psychosomatic with an inter-play of the mental and physical. To another it is spiritual therapy through coun selling, faith and prayer. But none of these, except the first, describe the healing ministry of the Church in the Book of Acts, for here the direct and immediate effect of prayer and faith upon the body result in a miracle of healing. The healing described in the four Gospels are innumer
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THE KING'S BUSINESS
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