Healing: Theology
About this series:
The kingdom of God is not a static subject, but a dynamic reality. The presence of God and his reign with his people makes an experiential difference and while that should be clear throughout the whole series, this section should especially emphasise that. Martyn Lloyd Jones’ comment about this is helpful: ‘The Christian life after all is a life, it is a power...That is the thing we so constantly tend to forget. It is not just a philosophy, it is not just a point of view, it is not just a teaching that we take up and try to put into practice. It is all that, but something infinitely more.
The topics we’ll cover are (though not necessarily in this order -please see further below):
Power (introduction - the Christian life is a life of power!)
Healing: theology
Healing: practice
Gifts: prophecy
Gifts: speaking in tongues
Salvation
Freedom
Suffering
The reason for including a week on suffering is that, as God said to Paul, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Corinthians 12:9). We all know that one of the greatest evidences of God's kingship as displayed in the life of his people is his power that sustains us when we suffer - it's definitely a mark of his reign.
About this talk:
There are many theological matters about which we can have absolute certainty - the character of God, the status of believers, the death and resurrection of Jesus, the fact of eternal life, the return of Jesus to name just a few. And there are other theological matters where mystery sits alongside certainty - for example, when we think about prayer, the Trinity, the nature of eternal life or the relationship of God’s sovereignty and human responsibility, we have to admit that we step into areas where questions remain as we accept that God has not told us all we might wish to know.
One mark of Christian maturity is to rightly handle the entire breadth of Scripture so as to be at peace with mystery without losing confidence and joy in certainty. Only Jesus’ return will usher in the day when mystery is swallowed up by total certainty. As Paul writes, “For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known” (1 Corinthians 13:9-10).
Another matter where certainty and mystery dwell together is healing. In the Bible healing refers to restoring to wholeness someone who has been afflicted with suffering. As with so many facets of Christian theology, there are a wide range of views on healing. Along with other things related to the work of the Holy Spirit today, the spectrum of views rests on questions such as: How much healing should we expect to see in this life? How much of the age to come is present in this age? To what extent was Jesus’ ministry as recorded in the gospels unique or a pattern for our own? Are there correlations between our actions (including prayer) and healing or is all healing simply down to God’s independent action?
Our hope is to take a brief tour through some of the places where the Bible addresses healing, then to assess a variety of views and finally to draw some conclusions.
Audio only
