The Four Core Doctrines of Pentecostalism Part 3: Divine Healing
The third core doctrine of Pentecostalism is divine healing. There are many biblical references to divine healing. I will deal with some of these passages later in the post. All Scripture quotations will come from the New King James Version unless otherwise indicated (the four red points of the Royal Rangers logo deal with the four core doctrines of Pentecostalism; Royal Rangers is a church ministry for boys in Assemblies of God churches; what’s now Impact Girls is the church ministry for girls in the Assemblies of God; when I was growing up the program was called Missionettes).
The 12th of the 16 Fundamental Truths of the Assemblies of God states
Diving healing is an integral part of the gospel. Deliverance from sickness is provided for in the atonement and is the privilege of all believers.1
I would like for you to pay attention to the phrase “Deliverance from sickness is provided for (emphasis mine) in the atonement”. Classical Pentecostals do not believe divine healing is guaranteed. There are those who teach that healing is guaranteed in the atonement, however, that claim is unscriptural. I certainly wish that teaching was scriptural.
Why should we believe in diving healing? Vernon L. Purdy, who at the time of writing this was an adjunct professor at the now defunct Central Bible College in Springfield, Missouri (that’s where the headquarters of the Genral Council of the Assemblies of God are; CBC was an AG school) and a doctoral student states
There are at least four reason for believing that God heals today. First, it is found in the Bible, and the Bible, inspired as it is by the Holy Spirit, is for us today. The same Jesus Christ revealed in Scriptures as Healer is the same Lord we serve today. Hebrews 13:8 fits in well with the overall message of Hebrews. There is a great continuity in the person, character, and work of Christ after His death, resurrection, and ascenion.2
Purdy goes to write
The second reason for believing in divine healing is the fact that it is in the atoning work of Christ. The Bible’s teaching of healing parallels with its teaching of salvation. Salvation includes healing of our lives in all aspects and it “issues from [the] atonement.” All the “good and perfect gifts” from above are the result of the cross of Christ. As will be pointed out later, Matthew understood the Suffering Servant passage (Isaiah 53) in terms of Jesus’ healing ministry being part of His atoning work.3
Purdy continues and says
The third reason for believing that diving healing is found in the convergence of the Bible’s teaching on salvation and on the nature of humankind. If a human being is not a disjointed association of body, soul, and spirit, and is in a very real way a unity, then salvation will apply to all facets of the human existence. This is a truly biblical them which needs renewed emphasis-the whole gospel is for the whole person.4
Purdy finishes his four points by saying
The last reason for commitment to the teaching of diving healing is the belief that salvation is ultimately to be understood as a as a restoration of a fallen world. God is against human suffering, for suffering is the result not of the will of God but a consequence of the Fall. Redemption ought to be understood as God’s plan for restoring all of creation, especially humankind.5
First of all, it must said that God did not create sickness. It is incompatible with His nature. He is perfect. Sickness and other things such as bad eyesight and many other problems we deal with in this life are as a result of Adam and Eve’s disobedience in the Garden of Eden. Sometimes, it’s our own fault.
It is God’s will to heal. In both the Old and New Testaments that is clear. In Exodus 26:15 Moses writes about God saying “I am the LORD who heals you.” Moses was speaking here to the Jews who were in the wilderness before the conquest of Canaan took place, which happened after Joshua took for Moses as leader of the children (descendants) of Israel (Jacob; Jacob was also called Israel; Jacob’s was one of Abraham’s grandsons through Isaac). In Numbers chapter 21, the Jews are complaining and God sends snakes as judgment upon the people and God commands Moses to put a snake on a pole so that anyone who was bitten by a snake would live (Numbers 21:8). Moses did as he was commanded to do by God and when people looked about the bronze serpent, they did not die, but were healed (Numbers 21:9). In John 3:14, Jesus refers to this incident when he talks to Nicodemus. The bronze serpent being put up on a pole was a foreshadowing of what Jesus would do in dying on the cross.
In 2 Kings 20, 2 Chronicles 32 (the account in 2 Kings 20 goes into much more than the account in 2 Chronicles 32), and Isaiah 38, it records King Hezekiah being healed by God. Hezekiah was near death, and did not have a male heir, which would have meant that the prophecy God gave to David that he would never fail to have a descendant sit on the throne would not have been fulfilled had Hezekiah died (Jesus is the ultimate fulfillment of that prophecy). God healed Hezekiah and gave him 15 more years to live, in which through Manasseh, the Davidic line continued. Hezekiah was one of the godliest kings of Judah, but Manasseh was one of the most wicked until toward the end of his reign (2 Chronicles 33) when he repented, unlike his grandfather Ahaz, Hezekiah’s father.
Isaiah in his Suffering Servant prophecy which goes from Isaiah 52:13 to Isaiah 53:12 says this in Isaiah 53:4-6 in one of the most well-known of all passages of Scripture
Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows, yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him, and by his stripes we are healed.
The phrase “by his stripes we are healed” has a double meaning here. It refers to salvation, which is spiritual healing, and physical healing of the body. This passage of Scripture proves that physical healing for the believer is a part of the atonement of Jesus Christ.
In the Gospels, Jesus performed many miracles. Jesus likely performed many more miracles than are listed in the Gospel accounts. The apostle John writes in John 20:30-31
And truly Jesus did many other signs in the presence of His disciples which are not written in this book; but these are written that you believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing you may have life in His name.
The apostle goes on to conclude his Gospel by saying in John 21:25
And there are also many other things Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I supposed that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. Amen.
When John the Baptist’s disciples came to Jesus asking him if He was the Messiah Jesus answered and said (this quote comes from Matthew 11:4-6)
Jesus answered and said to them, “Go and tell John the things which you hear and see: The blind see and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised and the poor have the gospel preached to them. And is he who is not offended because of Me.”
What Jesus was saying here is the miracles He performed proved He was the promised Messiah. The miracles of Jesus proved that not only was He the Messiah, but that He is God in the flesh, as John 1:14 says “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us”.
In the book of Acts, there are a number of miracles that are performed. However, it was God performing the miracles, not the apostles. God was working through the apostles to perform the miracles, including one where a lame man walked (Acts 3:1-8), a crippled man who was healed (Acts 14:8-18), and the raising back to life a young man who had fallen out of a third story window after falling asleep (Acts 20:7-12).
James (James was the leader of the Jerusalem church and a half-brother of Jesus; Galatians 1:19 refers to James as the Lord’s brother) 5:14-15 says
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.
Why are some believers healed and others are not? I don’t have the answer to that question. There could be a myriad of reasons for that. One reason could be unconfessed sin in a believer’s life, and God has allowed sickness or health problems as judgment on a believer in order to get the believer to repent. Another reason could be God chooses not to heal (my eyesight is very poor, and it’s highly unlikely even if I were to pray in faith that God would give me perfect eyesight). Another reason could be a lack of faith. No one has the answers as to why God doesn’t always heal when we ask Him for healing. Even if God doesn’t heal on this side of the grave, it doesn’t take away from the fact that He still heals today.
All of us one day will face death unless we are raptured out before we die (1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 and 1 Corinthians 15:51-52; more on the classical Pentecostal view of the Rapture in the next post). This does not negate the truthfulness of divine healing. All of us will be healed one day if we continue in the faith, even if we die, because God does use death to heal as there is no disease, sickness, or imperfection in heaven. In Revelation 21:4 the apostle John writes
And God will wipe every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, not crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
Our ultimate healing will not come until we are gone from this earth, whether it’s through death or we have been taken out by the Rapture and we are with Christ. We still live in a fallen world, and even though we are believers, we are subject to our bodies aging and breaking down as a result of the Fall. One day all things will be made perfect again, but that day is not here yet.
Jesus is still the healer today. He never changes (Malachi 3:6 and Hebrews 13:8). It is still God’s will to heal. Miracles performed by God can help people come to faith in Jesus Christ as Savior. Jesus (I’ll deal with the deity of Christ later on) still saves and heals today because God never changes. He is immutable.
The next post will be on the Second Coming of Christ, and I will deal with classical Pentecostal beliefs on the Rapture and the Millennial Reign of Christ. Please if you have not done so, please subscribe to my other Substack, which is easttexasbearkat.substack.com.
Assemblies of God 16 Fundamental Truths. Our 16 Fundamental Truths. https://ag.org/Beliefs/Statement-of-Fundamental-Truths#12
Systematic Theology: Revised Edition edited by Stanley M. Horton, Chapter Fifteen “Diving Healing” by Vernon L. Purdy, Copyright 1994, 1995, and 2007 by Gospel Publishing House, 1445 N. Boonville Ave., Springfield, Missouri 65802. iBooks edition
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.