Authority to Heal by Randy Clark

Author:Randy Clark [Clark, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Destiny Image, Inc.

The main impediment to the flow of God’s healing in the church comes from cessationist doctrine.

Furthermore, cessationism says that if miracles and healings are still possible, then the canon of the Bible would not be closed—there could be more Scriptures. But because the canon is closed and miracles and healings were to authenticate the message and the messengers, then gifts of healing are no longer in existence. If this is true, then God rarely intervenes in response to intercessory prayer; interventions are not to be expected as normative but as rare exceptions to the norm. For the last 500 years liberal and cessationist Protestant pastors have taught North American and European Churches not to believe or expect the gifts of healing and working of miracles to exist in the church. They have preached a powerless gospel outside of justification. This has caused many in the twentieth and twenty-first century to look to energy healing modalities such as Reiki, Therapeutic Touch and Healing Touch, which are not Christian in their worldview.1

Wesley and Count Zinzendorf, and many others who followed in their shoes, preached a gospel of justification and sanctification, with power for great moral transformation and liberation from sinful bondages. The Faith Cure movement, the Pentecostal movement, the Charismatic movement, and the Third Wave movement have all attempted to recover the gospel of Paul that needs to be fully proclaimed with not only justification and sanctification but also healing and deliverance.

The difficulty for cessationists is that their doctrine is not substantiated by the facts of history. An examination of the history of the Church and the biblical and theological foundations of healing repudiates cessationism. The “manifestation” and “power” gifts did not die out with the last of the original apostles, and Scripture bears witness to this truth. These “gifts” were given to the Church at Pentecost and have remained available to all believers throughout the history of the Church, and many have appropriated them to the glory of God.

THE EARLY CHURCH FATHERS AND HEALING MIRACLES

The following excerpts are taken from the writings of the Ante-Nicene fathers, those who wrote before the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325. Their ministries of healing and deliverance give witness and testimony to the fact of the Spirit’s miraculous gifts working in their time. These gifts of God’s manifest power are core elements of the gospel of salvation to the whole man, not “emotional esoteric experiences” as some would try and characterize the signs and wonders in the history of the church down to the present day. Critics of Jonathan Edwards accused him of being involved with “strange fire” during the First Great Awakening. However, history sided with Edwards rather than his critic, Charles Chauncey.2

The Anti-Nicene fathers preached a Jesus who cared about releasing captives from demonic influences as well as freeing people from their bondage to sin. In short, they preached the Good News. They preached a Jesus of compassion who cared about the sickness of people’s bodies as well as their souls. An emphasis upon the soul without concern for the body is indicative of Gnostic influence.

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