[7] Vision Magazine, no 13, Jan – Feb 1975

THE THEOLOGICAL BASIS FOR THE HEALING MINISTRY

by Canon Jim Glennon

ONE of the things that we all need to have in mind, especially those involved in ministering to people, is that we "give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus" (1 Thes. 5:18). If we give thanks in all circumstances, we will find that this will stir up faith within us so that at all times we are able to be used in ministry and have an effective prayer of faith.

Now I want to go on further and say one of two things about further reasons why we can give thanks in all circumstances. At the moment, I am referring to sickness and infirmity, and I want to talk about the basis of the Healing Ministry. There are a number of things that can be said, such as our Lord's Commission to heal, and that this flows on in other places in the New Testament until we find the provision in James 5:14, 15: "Is any sick among you? Let him call 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 person, and the Lord shall raise him up".

The particular basis of the Healing Ministry to which I want to refer, (and I repeat that one reason why we can give thanks in all circumstances is because of what is available to us as far as healing is concerned,) is from three texts, all in St. Luke's Gospel. The first is Luke 10:9 and is part of the words of our Blessed Lord Jesus when He commissioned the general group of disciples to go out and preach the gospel: " ..... heal the sick and say to them: The Kingdom of God has come near to you' ". What He is saying is this: When a person is healed, they have drawn on part of a greater reality called the Kingdom of God. In other words, the Kingdom of God is God's perfect blessing and healing is part of it.

I repeat what I've often said before. In the Bible we find more than one thing said about many subjects. The art of interpreting the Bible is to see all that is said, and relate one part to another. Jesus said that the Kingdom of God has two sides to it. One side is that it belongs to the end of the age when Jesus will come again in power and glory and wind up this present world order, when "the Kingdom of this world will become the Kingdom of our God and of His Christ". This is some thing to which all Christians look forward and it is some thing of a heavenly and spiritual nature.

But our Lord Jesus Christ also said, and made many many references to this effect, that the Kingdom of God has been already established and is here and now. Now for the second text: Luke 17:21, in which Jesus said: "... the Kingdom of God is in the midst of you". In the A.V., it is translated "it is within you". This is the other part of what He reveals to us about the Kingdom of God, It both belongs to the end of the age, and it has already been established; "it is within you".

If we realise that the Kingdom of God has been established and it is that greater reality of which healing is part we can see how available healing is and the reason why it is available. It is available in response to faith because it is part of the Kingdom of God, and this aspect of the Kingdom is among you. As someone said to me: it doesn't even have to be asked for, why ask for something you've got?

Let me go on and introduce my third text Luke 13:19 "The Kingdom of God

[8] Vision Magazine, no 13, Jan – Feb 1975

is like a grain of mustard seed which a man took and sowed in his garden; and it grew and became a tree". Mark 4:28, " ... first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear". Here is more information from our Lord Jesus Christ as to how the Kingdom shows itself. It is like a seed grown in the ground, and "it grew ..."; "first the blade, then the ear, then the full corn in the ear", and remember that the kingdom includes healing.

This is part of the explanation for Divine Healing, and a very important part, too. Not only does it give great authority and assurance, but if the principles which I am sharing with you are understood and put into practice, you will find that they give you great guidelines as to how the Ministry of Healing is to be exercised. I would be quite happy to stop here and leave it with you. There is much to think about. With some, it might be that these are new insights and that they are worthy of the most serious consideration.

There is a story which I tell not infrequently, and I've given it from this pulpit more than once, but I don't mind repeating it because it brings into focus these Scriptural principles which I have shared with you this evening. Incidently, I have asked my friends to write the story in their own words for inclusion in my book so you will be able to read it yet again!

My friends have two children, a boy and a girl. The girl had the misfortune to be born with a deformity, a curvature of the spine high up near the shoulders. It was a very bad curvature., so much so that as she grew up and became a young teenager, it had developed into a huge hump on her shoulders. She was what could be called a "hunchback". Because of this, her chest was deformed, her heart was affected, and the medical advisors said that she could not be expected to live a normal life span.

Her parents who are Anglican church people read the Bible with a new interest and found in it the very things which I am sharing with you. They saw them with the meaning that I am sharing with you. They saw that healing was part of the greater reality called "the Kingdom of God"; they saw that the Kingdom of God doesn't even have to be asked for, for "it is within you"; and they saw that the nature of the Kingdom is like a plant whose nature is to grow. All I can say is that they believe these things, and they believed them on behalf of their girl.

There she was — bent over; but they said "By faith, we see in our girl the Kingdom of God; it includes healing for her need; we don't even have to ask for it; it is within her, and its nature is to grow, from being small to being big. So they married those insights; they got their eyes off the problem and on to the answer. They married the answer. It became the way they lived, and moved, and had their being. They chose to think like that; they had to, yet they chose to. It was not only what they did when they said their prayers; it was the way they thought; it was the way they reacted, moment by moment whenever they thought about her and saw her whom they loved dearly.

Nothing happened at first, but they thought of what they had read in the Bible. When you plant a seed you don't see anything to begin with but it is there. If you could see it, it would be breaking its case, sending down its tap root, then the shoot would begin to come up, so that the time would come when the merest slip of green would show through the soil. So for some time they saw no difference in their poor little deformed girl but they believed that the Kingdom was there, and that it was growing. After some time, as they lived this kind of life on her behalf, they thought that there was just a marginal improvement; her breathing was a little less laboured. After some time more, they were sure that there was this fractional improvement. "First the blade." and their hearts sang because they saw the "plant" of healing begin to grow in their girl.

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THE THEOLOGICAL BASIS FOR THE HEALING MINISTRY

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So they continued for more than three years. There was never anything spectacular. It was all hard growing. But at the end of more than three years, their girl was completely straight!! There was no hump on her shoulders, she had a normal chest development for a young woman; her heart was normal. She worked through school, went to work, and more recently been married, and now has her own children. If you did not know that she had been grossly deformed, you would not know! That is what happens when we understand the resources, and put them into practice, and follow it through.

So when we are confronted with a problem, there are many reasons why we give thanks in all circumstances, and not least, because there is this resource of the Kingdom to draw upon which includes healing. It doesn't even have to be asked for. It is these parents who said to me: You have what you accept. So often what we accept is the problem. My friends had vision and faith to accept the answer and believe it was there by faith, that it was growing, so that old things passed away and all things became new.

Dear friends, if we would be informed about the Healing Ministry, these insights are basic, for this is what we must understand is available, this is what we must believe and practice; this is what we have to get right, not just once, but day by day, and sometimes moment by moment. Let us pray. Our loving Father, we thank You for these real, moving and wondrous things, more than perhaps we have ever dreamed of before, but they have .only been waiting to be understood, and acted out. So we would believe these things in our circumstances here and now. We do this so that Your Kingdom will be extended, not only in this way but in all good ways. So our prayer is praise, and indeed we give thanks in every circumstance through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Cannon Jim Glennon is well known in Australia and overseas through the ministry of the Healing Service, St Andrew's Cathedral, Sydney.

© Southern Cross College, 2003, by permission.