To begin with they all insist that healing of the body is as much in the atonement as healing of the soul.
It does not give confidence in this movement when we find Scripture wrested from its true meaning and made to fit in with a theory. For instance The Elim Publishing Office published a book, "The Gospel of Healing," by A. B. Simpson, D.D., so evidently it sets forth their beliefs.
Commenting on Isa. 53:44Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. (Isaiah 53:4), he says, "The translation in our English version does very imperfect justice to the original. The translation in Matt. 8:1717That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:17), is much better: 'Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.' The literal translation would be, ' Surely He hath borne away our sickness, and carried away our pains. Any person who will refer to such a familiar commentary as that of Albert Barnes on Isaiah, or any other Hebrew authority, will see that the two words here used denote sickness and pain, and that the words for 'bear' and 'carry' denote not mere sympathy, but actual substitution and the removal utterly of the things borne. Therefore as He has borne our sins, Jesus Christ has also BORNE AWAY AND CARRIED OFF our sicknesses; yes, and even our pains, so that abiding in Him, we may be fully delivered from both sickness and pain. Thus with His stripes we are healed. Thus the ancient prophet beholds in vision the Redeemer coming first as a great Physician, and then hanging on the cross as a great Sacrifice. And thus the evangelists have also described Him; for three years as the Great Healer, and then for six hours of shame and agony, the Dying Lamb" (pp. 12, 13). When Dr. Simpson says that the words, "carry" and "bear" denote "actual substitution and the removal utterly of the thing borne," he makes an untrue, false assertion. This is a very serious matter when the subject is of such vital importance. To found a theory on a twisted verse is not the work of the Spirit of God. The late Dr. Simpson was a Doctor of Divinity, and ought to have known how to handle the Hebrew authorities he refers to. If he were still alive, he could only have escaped the charge of dishonesty and leading people astray, by accepting the charge of culpable negligence.
We read, "Who His own self BARE our sins in His own body on the tree."
We answer that the word, "BARE," in that verse does undoubtedly mean substitution. The word used in the Greek is anaphero, to bear upward. Thayer, in his Greek lexicon, explains anaphero as meaning " to bear sins up on the cross in order to expiate them by suffering death."
The same word is used in Heb. 9:2828So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation. (Hebrews 9:28). " Christ was once offered to BEAR the sins of many." But when we come to the passage in Matt. 8:1717That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:17), where it says, " That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities and BARE our sicknesses," the word used is not anaphero, to bear upward, but another word altogether, bastazo, to bear, take up, carry. This word is often used, but always in the sense of a burden being carried, never in a sacrificial sense as anaphero is. It is used, for instance, in Gal. 6:22Bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2), " BEAR ye one another's burdens," where it cannot mean " substitution." Now sickness and infirmities and death are not sins; they are the effects, or consequences, of sin. The blessed Savior " Offered one sacrifice for SINS " (Hebrews 10:1212But this man, after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God; (Hebrews 10:12)).
Having done so, He has the power to remove the effects both of sickness and death, and will do so completely in the end. But nowhere in Scripture is healing said to be in the atonement.
What reliance can we put upon the whole movement when one of its chief tenets depends upon a dishonest handling of the Scriptures. Nor is this an isolated case, as we shall see further on.
Moreover, in the case that we have before us, Scripture itself tells us the meaning of the passage in Isaiah. "When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick; That IT MIGHT BE FULFILLED which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses " (Matt. 8:16, 1716When the even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with devils: and he cast out the spirits with his word, and healed all that were sick: 17That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Esaias the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses. (Matthew 8:16‑17)).
Here we are told very distinctly how and when the Scripture in Isaiah was fulfilled in the actual deeds of healing that our Lord performed when here on earth. The Scripture just quoted says this as clearly as possible.
See what really evil doctrine Dr. Simpson committed himself to, as also the Foursquare Gospelers in receiving such teaching. Dr. Simpson insists that the words " bear " and " carry " have the meaning of "ACTUAL SUBSTITUTION and the removal utterly of the thing borne," and further he acknowledges that this was carried out during the three years in which our Lord dispensed this healing, whilst atonement for sin was made at the cross.
What is the meaning of this? According to Dr. Simpson the atonement was completed in two parts, one taking three years to perform, the other six hours. During those three years there was no blood-shedding, no forsaking by God as on the cross. During those three years the Lord walked in the unclouded favor of God, and heaven again and again testified to this.
Those three years, according to Dr. Simpson, to be consistent, constituted a BLOODLESS ATONEMENT, an atonement without death. Surely this is heretical teaching that no intelligent Christian would uphold. It is a very serious twisting of Scripture.
Is this the mark of the special infilling of the Spirit of God? We are certain that it is not.
Yet Dr. Simpson, with strange inconsistency, says, " Thus our healing becomes a great redemption right, which we simply claim as our purchased inheritance through the blood of His cross " (The Gospel of Healing, p. 32). Here Dr. Simpson does connect the healing of the body with the cross, but see what it leads to. If the healing of the soul and the healing of the body are both secured in the atonement, it ought to follow that both would be received at the same time and in the same manner.
Even Pentecostalists preach that forgiveness of sins is " not by works," not of human attainment, but by simple faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. If the healing of the body is in the atonement, to be consistent the believer should receive the healing of the body as well as of the soul on the same grounds, on the same principle, at the same moment, even in the act of faith in the Savior.
But is this so? Dr. Simpson will teach with one breath that healing of the body is in the atonement; that, " Everything that comes through Christ must come as grace. There can be no works mingled with justifying faith. Even so, our healing must be wholly of God, or not of grace at all. If Christ heals He must do it alone. The principle ought to SETTLE THE QUESTION of using ' means ' in connection with faith for healing " (The Gospel of Healing, p. 37).
Yet in the next breath he makes the healing of the body a matter of ATTAINMENT, and a question of spiritual growth. We read, "Healing will often be gradual in its development, as the spiritual life grows, and faith takes a firmer hold of Christ " (The Gospel of Healing, p. 42).
It would be just as logical to say that forgiveness of sins is gradual in its development, depending on the growth of the spiritual life. The contradiction is serious indeed.
Continually this author stultifies himself. His book is the reverse of clear reasoning. He has a wrong theory, and in order to support it is obliged to twist Scripture saying one thing on one page and contradicting himself on another page.
He says if Christ heals, He alone must heal, and that this settles the question of "means." Yet he says, "If healing is to be sought by natural 'means,' let us all get the best results of skill and experience (The Gospel of Healing, p. 38). But if his former statement is true, it would be as sinful and stupid to go to a doctor for healing, as to go to a doctor for forgiveness of sins. If healing is in the atonement we insult God by going to a medical man for what is gained for us alone, as he claims, by the work of Christ.
Then a further thought will expose the wickedness of this teaching. Take the case of the Corinthian believers, who were turning the Lord's supper into an orgy of eating and drinking. The Lord intervened in chastening grace. We read, "He that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world " (1 Corinthians 11:29-3229For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation to himself, not discerning the Lord's body. 30For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep. 31For if we would judge ourselves, we should not be judged. 32But when we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world. (1 Corinthians 11:29‑32).)
Here very plainly the sickness put upon those erring saints was put upon them BY THE LORD. If the healing of the body, as of the soul, lies in the atonement, to put sickness upon the saints, would be as comprehensible as putting some of their sins back upon them. We remember how Dr. Simpson, pressing the theory that the atonement includes healing of the body, said that it denoted "Actual substitution, and the removal UTTERLY of the thing borne." And yet here, if this theory were true, the Lord Himself would be going back on the atonement in putting upon the believer the sickness He had atoned for and "UTTERLY" borne away. Does the Lord ever put sin upon the believer? Would that not be the breaking of His plighted word, and the very undoing of the atonement? It would be a monstrous thing for the Lord to place sickness upon those Corinthian believers, if what the Pentecostalists say is true.
It is true that sickness and disease are the effects of sin, and that if sin had not been atoned for at the cross, God could not righteously put away the effects of it, as He is pleased to do sometimes for His people today, and which He will do on a universal scale, abolishing even death itself, when,
"All taint of sin shall be removed,
All evil done away:
And we shall dwell with God's Beloved,
Through God's eternal day."
Surely if the healing of the body lay in the atonement, in the way that Dr. Simpson and Principal Jeffreys teach, we should expect it to be taught of all places in the Epistle to the Romans, where the Gospel is unfolded in detail and with great precision. But there is not one single word in that Epistle to' support this theory. Please make a special note of this. On the contrary believers are said to be in a groaning creation, and they themselves groaning within themselves, "Waiting for the adoption, to wit, the REDEMPTION OF OUR BODY" (Rom. 8:2323And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. (Romans 8:23)).
We know that this redemption of the body will take place at the second corning of Christ, when, "The dead in Christ shall rise first: then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord " (1 Thessalonians 4:16, 1716For the Lord himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first: 17Then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the Lord. (1 Thessalonians 4:16‑17)). The effects of sin will then be forever removed. "The redemption of the body" is future according to Paul; it is present according to Dr. Simpson and Principal Jeffreys. Which shall we believe? It is an evil system that twists Scripture in this way to fit an unscriptural theory.
We note that Principal Jeffreys claims to give the blind their sight. We should expect then that none of the "Ministers of the Elim Foursquare Gospel Alliance" would wear spectacles. But we notice that in a book describing his work, " George Jeffreys—a Ministry of the Miraculous," there are five pages of photographs of ninety-three male and female " ministers," and out of that number eleven have spectacles. This is a fairly high proportion, for the "ministers," with the exception of two or three, are apparently young men in their twenties, or early thirties, whilst two or three look mere boys.
In passing we noticed that Principal Jeffreys' photograph appears no less than fifty times in the book. In fact it is one long adulation of a man, so unlike the Spirit of John the Baptist, who said, " He must increase, but I must decrease " (John 3:3030He must increase, but I must decrease. (John 3:30)).
We shall now proceed to examine the methods employed
in healing, and the genuineness of the results claimed.
When we come to the actual practices of these healers we find a great difficulty.
They quote with insistence the verse, " JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, AND TO-DAY, AND Forever " (Heb. 13:88Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. (Hebrews 13:8)). But they draw completely false deductions from it, They teach that because the Lord healed when upon earth, that being the Same today, He must heal therefore through His people, and what He did when on earth they can do through His power, through the enduing of the Holy Spirit.
To see how that verse occurs in the Scriptures is to see how thoroughly Pentecostalists twist it for the support of a theory. We read, "Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. JESUS CHRIST, THE SAME YESTERDAY, AND TO-DAY, AND Forever " (Heb. 13:7, 87Remember them which have the rule over you, who have spoken unto you the word of God: whose faith follow, considering the end of their conversation. 8Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever. (Hebrews 13:7‑8)). The Lord Jesus is presented here as the Object of the believer's contemplation. Not a word is said as to healing power being conferred. Moreover, the way they use the verse proves too much, even for them. The Lord raised the DEAD. Why is it, if He is the Same today according to Pentecostalists, that the dead are not now raised? Take the case of Malchus' ear. Peter in his zeal for his Master cut off this man's ear. We read of the Lord, " And He touched his ear, and healed him " (Luke 22:5151And Jesus answered and said, Suffer ye thus far. And he touched his ear, and healed him. (Luke 22:51)). Here is a test for the Pentecostalists. If they press that the Lord is the same today in the matter of His exercising His power in healing through the agency of His people, they must be prepared to go the whole way. When they can raise the dead, and restore limbs and organs that have been severed from the human body, then we will begin to believe in their divine mission. Malchus' ear is a challenge to them.
We could comment on many Scriptures that are twisted into fantastic meanings, but space forbids. But we do insist, that if what they claim is true, that they have a special haling of the Holy Spirit, surely that ought to carry with it the power to rightly divide the Word of truth, and to shun these profane and vain babblings.
The further we go in this inquiry, the more clearly do we see that the truth of Scripture and the teaching of Pentecostalists are not the same, and that the practices of the movement are condemned by the Word of God.