The religion of a person plays a huge role in the beliefs and worldview of the person. Christianity is one of the leading religions in the world today, but it was not always the case. Historians claim that Christianity was a subsection of Judaism in the first and second centuries that based their belief on Jesus Christ, a Jew Rabbi, who performed miracles, preached about the kingdom of God, and offered salvation for all humankind after his death on the cross. The Messiah second coming will result in the resurrection of the dead and kingdom of God. During his time before death and resurrection, Jesus Christ performed miracles such as healing the sick, which resulted in the growth and belief from the people he preached to and this power of healing the sick among other wonders were continued by the apostles following the Pentecost 1 .
The Bible is a holy book written by God through the different authors; this belief makes it the guidance for the Christians thus their regard for the Bible as the word of God. The use of the Bible by Christians has evolved with the development of different theologies interpreting it differently. Isaiah 53:4, 5; “The stripes he bore at His crucifixion were not only for our sins but for our healing. He came to destroy bondage and oppression, physically, and spiritually.” This verse is repeated in the new testament following the coming of Jesus Christ and His ability to heal the sick, for instance, the blind, lame, lepers, the deaf, and even raising the dead. The apostles continued the healing, for example, Peter and Paul performed multiple miracles that healed the people, but there are arguments about divine healing. The assumption that miracles such as divine healing ended with the apostles or is still present is one of the most contradicting topics in the history of the church.
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This paper objective is to determine the historical changes and acknowledgement about divine healing. The paper will, therefore, follow the growth of the church as described in the New Testament, the era after the death of apostles, and other significant theological over the years on the Pentecostal doctrine of Divine Healing. The historical changes discussed will enable the needed information and transformation of the doctrine and ways the changes have affected the modern Christians on the issue of divine healing. This essay has four other sections excluding this introduction. The next chapter is the background, which is based on a Biblical depiction of divine healing during Jesus and His apostles’ era. The context will offer the guidance of understanding what the Bible states about healing and performing other miracles. The next chapter includes the theological understanding about divine healing from different perspectives over the years towards the modern era, that is, late and early 20th and 21st centuries respectively. Following the theologies, the illustrations of divine healing in the current period. The final chapter of this paper summarizes the key findings from the article and recommendations on the topic.
Biblical Background on Divine Healing
The Bible is God’s word, and it claims that God never planned humans to suffer, but due to Satan’s treachery that resulted in Adam and Eve disobeying God’s command by eating the forbidden fruit, suffering and pain was human’s curse from God. This description led to the association of disease and death to be associated with sin and Satan. The story of Job in the Old Testament furthers this ideology and demonstrate that God has the power to heal whereas Satan causes sickness and death due to his evil ways. All through the Israelites journey as documented in the Exodus and other book written by Moses, God punished the Israelites through plagues and suffering whenever they went against His teaching and commands. The repentance and confession of sin accompanied by different sacrifices dominated the curing of diseases in the Old and New Testament. As earlier indicated, Isaiah prophesied of the coming of the Messiah, whom would forgive our sins through his death and end all our suffering. The Gospel and other New Testament books refer to the chapter when describing Jesus Christ’s work before his crucifixion and after. During His three-year ministry, Jesus Christ “healed countless people of all kind of diseases and also delivered many people spiritually, setting them free from demonic possessions.” Matthew 4: 23-24, Mark 1:34, Luke 4:40 . The healing was through touch or by spoken commands. According to John 14:12, Jesus told His disciples, “I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I am doing. He will do even greater things than these.” These words were fulfilled on the Pentecost Day when the disciples received the Holy Spirit. Jesus Christ also demonstrated that not all sins are caused by sins when he claimed that some of the sufferings are there for God’s power to be witnessed by all.
The Holy Spirit provided the disciples with the power of healing the sick, casting out demons, speaking in tongues, among other gifts. Paul although not among the 12 disciples received his gift after meeting with Jesus on his way to Damascus to persecute Christians. The apostles used their gifts to serve God and spread the word of God to other communities. The failure of Paul to heal Epaphroditus as discussed in Philippians 2:27, is used by most theologies to demonstrate that the failure of Paul a known healer when his ministry was ending is an illustration that the miracles ended with the apostles. The Bible demonstrates that healing is based on God’s mercy as Paul claimed following the extended period taken by Epaphroditus to recover from his illness. Peter and James try to explain divine healing and atonement thus demonstrating that God has a plan and some of it is not to heal everyone in the current body. The Bible demonstrated that Jesus’ death did not end the death curse but the second coming of Jesus will ensure that there will be no death or suffering after the resurrection of the dead. Although James provides guideline of calling the church elders for anointing oil and prayers when one is sick, most of the issues on ways to handle sickness are not provided in the Bible thus the different theologies that try to provide the missing parts.
Theology on Divine Healing
The execution of Christians during the early church is clear due to the spread of burning and the painful deaths experienced by the apostles. The pagan and other religions dominated the Roman Empire before the 300 BCE; Constantine who converted to Christianity saw the need for the empire to have a single religion as the unifying factor thus ordered the religion. Hence, the church termed as the Roman Catholic Church headed by the Pope. The Pope had great power and engaged in the political and economic life of different people, which resulted in corruption in the church. The selling of indulgences by the pope during in 1054 BCE, whereby the pope authorized the monks and bishops to sell certificates for the forgiveness of sins and entry into the kingdom of God.
The Christians were offended as this was against the teachings of the Bible as forgiveness of sins should be based on repentance and confession rather than purchasing some notes. The action resulted in the division of the Christian church into Roman Catholic and the Protestants 2 . These divisions resulted in further divisions within the Protestant churches based on the interpretation of the Bible and way of worshipping God. The Roman Catholic has not experienced many divisions as they are still under the leadership of the Pope, but the theological differences among the protestant are key in this paper’s discussion. These divisions can be grouped into four major categories namely the Classical Liberal, the Cessationists, the Pentecostals, and the Charismatic theologies.
The Classical Liberal
The liberal theology is open to the different studies that try to question the Bible, for instance, these Christians accept the evolution theory as the more credible explanation of the origin of life compared to the creation theory. On the matter of divine healing, Liberal Christians being among the earliest theologies disregard that God heals people through miracles today or in the past due to His high regards and respect for the natural laws. Although the liberals accept that God has the power to heal people, they are convinced that performing miracles would violate the physical laws of the universe, which will only happen during the kingdom of God. The arguments foundations are in the essence that the kingdom of God is not yet 3 . Therefore, they do not expect any miraculous healing even in the second coming of Jesus Christ. The rationalism nature of the liberal is based on the need to prove everything thus discounts miracles, as they cannot be scientifically proven. The use of science helps the liberalists to discount the history of Jesus miracles. Thus they are unwilling even to consider any chance of divine healing.
The Cessationists
Unlike the liberal Christians, these type of Christians argues that divine healing was performed by Jesus and later by the apostles. The Cessationists say that the miracles ended with the apostles since they were the only ones the Holy Spirit granted these gifts to, therefore, no human other than the apostles could possess the gifts to heal. The argument disregards all claims that tend to deny claims that some people possess such gifts are bogus. Although they argue against people having the gifts to heal, they agree that God can still treat people today. The Cessationists claims are based on three primary arguments as discussed below.
The first argument is that the Holy Spirit granted gifts to the apostles to write the New Testament but withdrew the gifts after the completion of the New Testament. The inability of Paul to heal his friend during the end of his ministry as a testament to the end of the gifts. The second claim is that the difference in modern healing compared to Jesus and His apostles healing whereby they healed all those who came to them demonstrate that divine healing in recent times is bogus or false 4 . Lastly, the inability of history to prove that miracles have been performed all through the history of the church demonstrates that miracles are not an integral part of Christianity. This argument tends to explain that the early church performed miracles to convert people to Christianity but since there are many Christians today, there is no need to entice people to become Christians.
The Pentecostal Theology
The Pentecostals believe that the Jesus Christ’s death brings healing and forgiveness to all and there is nothing as the apostolic age. The primary argument is that God’s kingdom is continuing as we wait for the second coming of Jesus 5 . The Pentecostal further claim that the first coming of Jesus ensures that people should expect full healing even before the second coming of Jesus. By quoting John 14:12, the Pentecostals are convinced that faith in God will ensure that they have the power to heal the sick and cast out demons in the name of Jesus Christ. According to Lake and Hagin, some of the most renowned divine healers and teachers respectively, divine healing is similar to salvation, all that Christians can do is accept it, and their faith will ensure they gain full healing 6 . The main arguments are based on the acceptance of healing to be in the atonement, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ healed everyone and emphasis on faith and acceptance of God’s power to heal. The Pentecostal theology is accepted in most modern churches with famous faith healers using their arguments, as the paper will illustrate later.
The Charismatic Theology
Unlike the other theologies discussed above, this theology bases its argument on the personal historical beliefs. It claims that the kingdom of God spills some of its presence in the present, therefore; there can be divine healing through God’s grace 7 . The charismatics are not as direct in their support or rejection of the religious healing, but they agree that God is the healer of all ailments. The arguments used by the Charismatics are based on sickness and suffering among the Christians for God’s power to be witnessed 8 . The Charismatic Christians also have high regards of God and His promises in the belief that God will always honor His promises because He is still faithful.
Divine Healing Today
According to the theologies discussed above, the Christians under each theology had arguments to support their beliefs. The liberals, unlike all the other groups, do not base their arguments on Biblical teachings whereas others have a different understanding of the Bible. The Pentecostal theology through churches and ministry using it ideologies is proliferating in the current world. Since the start of the 20th century, faith healers in the world have gained large congregations due to their healing power claimed to be from Jesus.
Peter Popoff was one of the most famous faith healers in America. Popoff would claim that God had spoken to him that a person in the church was sick and that medicine and other modern treatments had failed. He would even reveal all the details about the person, his illness, doctor, and the length the person had suffered from the illness. He would then ask the person whether he/she believed in God, that God would heal him or her whereby the person answered that they believed. He would then pray for the person and claim that Jesus had healed the person, which the sick person believed. Popoff popularity grew, and people would travel from different places just to attend his church, but his faith healing was a trick and a fraud.
James Randi revealed that Popoff’s wife had recorded the information about the person and was talking to Popoff when he was picking the person and everything else was just a trick to expand his church by tricking people 9 . The revelation by Randi demonstrate the evils within the denomination associated with divine healing. This example is only one of the many tricks religious leaders in the Christian churches use to enrich themselves with force claims of divine healing. Cases where the evangelists such as Popoff lie of the gift to heal the sick support the Cessationists arguments on the end of miracles with the apostolic age. It results in the discussion of whether divine healing still exists as the Pentecostals and Charismatics would tend to argue there are always miracles in the modern world 10 . The answer to the question whether divine healing and miracles still occur in the modern world is complex in a sense it is difficult to know truth and fiction and the different understanding of a miracle. In most cases, people tend to term something remarkable as a miracle, for instance, surviving in a fatal accident or surviving after the doctors were convinced that the personal injuries or illness would kill the person. The lack of a precise definition of the term makes it challenging to address the issue. Due to such problems and this paper being a religious and theology essay, a miracle such as divine healing will be based on immediate recovery of a person after prayer similar to what happened during the era of Jesus and His apostles.
According to a study undertaken in America, Hispanics are more likely to believe in divine healing compared to white Americans, the women are also more likely to agree, and to have witnessed divine healing of a friend or relative compared to men. Education also played a vital role in the people who claimed that they had seen or believed in divine healing with the people with high school or lower education having a higher likelihood to believe in divine healing compared to people with advanced education 11 . This data demonstrates that tricks have dominated today’s churches hence the lower rate of educated people witnessing the divine healing compared to people with lower knowledge. Men are more judgmental and tend to believe something when it happens to them, or close relatives and two-thirds of the congregation are women thus supporting the study. The study does not guarantee whether there is divine healing in the modern era or not but expands the notion of faith healing in the modern churches. The various claims of witnessing means at least there is divine healing, but Popoff’s example depicts that such cases can be tricks rather than the actual faith healings.
In the bid to determine, the truth behind divine healing the case below is essential. In 1983, a 14-year old girl, Barbara, who had suffered multiple sclerosis in 1981 which had resulted in the inability to move since her limbs were crippling. She encountered many pains such as breathing problems, worsening visions, and three cardiac arrests. Her breathing problems led to mental confusion, but she still prayed to be healed. The child-like prayers show on the radio aired her story from time to time and at this moment in 1983, she heard a voice state, “My child, get up and walk” 12 . She did not know where the voice came from but through faith and hope that the voice was from God, she stood up, and to her amazement, she could walk for the first time in two years.
She walked down the stairs to where her mother was; her mother was shocked and could not believe what she saw. Unlike Popoff case, Barbara’s case was genuine and a miracle, it was divine healing due to her faith and prayer from others. It was a testament that God still heals thus ending the liberalist and cessationist claims about miracles and divine healing. This actual case demonstrates that faith healing is possible through prayers. However, it does not show that a person can have the power to heal. The notion favored by charismatic Christians that God continues to heal people through other people for instance doctors is favored among most people in the current world although the Pentecostals are snowballing it is challenging to differentiate truth from fiction.
Conclusion
The paper demonstrated the theology of divine healing in different historical eras and confirmed that belief in divine healing is based on the interpretation of the Bible. The Pentecostal and Charismatic faith in divine healing still needs more studies to determine the extent of successful full cures from fictional healings that result in damaging the people’s belief in God’s influence in healing. The two examples indicate the complexity of divine healing in the current world but it is clear that faith prayers still work, but the Christians must know and accept that God heals the people He wants to heal. The Lazarus story is evidence that even in the knowledge that Lazarus was sick, Jesus stayed for two more days after receiving the news to demonstrate that God has power over death. Jesus proved that God might see it fit for the person to die and to be raised in the second coming rather than heal the person.
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