Healing and Salvation in the Cross of Christ

What are some of the practical implications of a theology of the cross and the Spirit in the realm of healing and ministry? This excerpt comes from the final chapter of Cletus Hull’s book, The Wisdom of the Cross and the Power of the Spirit in the Corinthian Church.

As a pastor for thirty years, I preach and teach about the power of God to heal. Because salvation and healing are in the cross (Matt. 8:17), I believe prayer for healing is appropriate for pastoral ministry. Charismatic episcopal priest Dennis Bennett wrote that healing “is the most widely accepted of the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit in Christendom today.”[1] However, the results of healing prayer must be tempered by a reasonable theology of the cross and suffering. Charles Farah expressed concern between the balance of Christian healing and modern-day emphases on faith. Because of disregard within some Pentecostal/Charismatic circles with their teaching on healing, he believed a correction with classic theology was necessary. In his perceptive book, From the Pinnacle of the Temple, he presented a common scenario in renewal healing:

Major premise: Healing is on the Atonement.
Minor premise: Faith is the key to healing.
Conclusion: Therefore, those who are prayed for in faith will be healed.

Right? Not always. It just is not that simple. There is always an X factor in healing, an unknown quantity that God does not chose to reveal. Healing is a divine mystery and humility is our best approach to unraveling the answers.[2]

Yet, most of the healings of Christ appeared instantly, thus, we have believed that healing should occur sooner than later. The issue in renewal healing has lacked acknowledgment that suffering was a component of the faith journey. An acceptance of the suffering of Christ on the cross can relieve the proposition that “everything will always be fine.” Dietrich Bonhoeffer called this type of faith “cheap grace.” “Cheap grace is the deadly enemy of our Church. The sacraments, the forgiveness of sin, and the consolations of religion are thrown away at cut prices.”[3] Thus, as Farah aptly writes:

theology always lives within the realm of mystery. No theologian can escape the mysterious ways of God, the capricious ways of the Spirit. Theology is a peculiar science because, when it is most true to itself, it prostrates itself in humility, prayer and adoration. True theology is a theology of prayer, and in the presence of a living God one adores; he never wholly understands.[4]

Thus, sound theology is necessary for practical faith and healing.

At times, comments such as “not having enough faith” or “pray harder” causes damage in a situation of healing prayer. We read that Paul left Trophimus sick (2 Tim. 4:20) and Epaphroditus almost died (Philippians 2:26-27). Did the apostle lack faith with his thorn in the flesh? (2 Cor. 12:7-9). D.R. McConnell, in his controversial book, A Different Gospel: A Historical and Biblical Analysis of the Modern Faith Movement, asks this piercing question: “One cannot help but wonder how Paul’s bodily illness would have been received today among charismatics. Would charismatics ‘despise’ and ‘loathe’ his illness as an indication of his immature faith?”[5]  A balanced theology of the cross with divine healing would revive trust in solving many problems in these specific situations.

It may be that the statement of Paul leaving Trophimus sick at Miletus was an assertion by the inspiration of the Spirit intended to keep the church from extreme teachings on healing. To add, in the light of the apostle’s teaching on holy communion, sin, and sickness (1 Cor. 11), “Paul not only believed God could use illness as discipline for believers who sinned (as in 1 Cor. 11:30), but he could also use it as a means to accomplish his will through the preaching of the gospel.”[6] To such mysteries Paul had one answer, “now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known” (1 Cor. 13:12). As renewal faith continues to carve out charismatic experiences into a balanced methodology (even with the prosperity gospel), the movement needs guidance by the full revelation in all the Scriptures. Most notably those texts concerning the cross would reveal the full counsel of God on this topic.

Nevertheless, the power of God in the life of the minister is indispensable for an anointed ministry. Joseph Fitzmyer testifies that “the gospel or the message of the cross is the power of God, because in that message the crucified Jesus is proclaimed as the one who brings God’s power to deliver human beings from the evil of sin and moral destruction.”[7] V.C. Pfitzner writes that “the Spirit does not work over and above the ‘word of the cross,’ but in and through the message.”[8] The power of God is the only answer to overcoming sin, evil and Satan in our modern world. As Gräbe writes “all power and all confidence entirely belong to God and may in no way be ascribed to human achievement.”[9]

The Crucifixion and Resurrection of Ministry by the Cross

Andrew Purves speaks about a pastor crucifying the ministry with Christ’s cross. In his reflective book The Crucifixion of Ministry, he invites ministers to allow Christ to crucify their personal façades of image and persona under the cross. Sustaining a vital and powerful service of ministry embarks that connecting with the source of power, found only in the cross. We must first die to our ministry before God can manifest his power in us. Purves writes that a pastor must “lay the theological foundation for understanding that in all things we rely on Jesus Christ, who offers to the Father in our place the life of faith, worship, and obedience that God desires, and who in the Spirit joins us to himself to share in his self-offering.”[10] Because numerous pastors suffer from burnout and exhaustion, Purves believes a healthy theology of the cross would undergird and strengthen one’s service to Christ. A theology of crucifying one’s ministry involves daily repentance and examination of motives for ministry.

Who are we serving? Christ or ourselves? Purves continues “you are called to a profound metanoia, to have a new mind, to adopt a theology more faithful to the ministry of Jesus Christ.”[11] Ultimately, crucifying our ministry reminds us that we do not cure people, cast out demons, calm anxious hearts, or heal marriages. The healing is not our responsibility. We must remember it is Christ’s ministry, not ours. He demonstrates his life and power through humankind. Purves’ repeated theme in his book states that “when we try to get our ministry into the center of things, that ministry must be crucified.”[12] Without a rich and grounded theology of the cross, a pastor will eventually fall away from his original calling and ministry vocation. David C. Steinmetz adds “it is humility for a minister to disavow that he has all the answers.”[13] Ministry is an ongoing crucifixion of self and ego. Robert Stamps, a pastor and former university chaplain writes “all that God does subjectively in the Church is understood to have its objective counterpart, its formal parallel in Christ’s vicarious work.”[14] Thus, the crucifixion of the ministry is the power of Christ in action.

Completing the theological praxis of pastoral work involves the other side of the cross, namely the resurrection. 1 Corinthians 1, 2 provides both the suffering and the power of the cross, through the work of the Spirit. Indeed, crucifying the ministry remains vital for effective service, yet, Jesus did rise from the grave. There is power which comes from suffering and weakness. Purves continues in his sequel, The Resurrection of Ministry that “the horizon of meaning is filled with hope and the expectation both of charismatic giftedness for the church and God’s ultimate triumph over the forces that make for death and evil.”[15] He utilizes the liturgical readings of Holy Week, drawing metaphors between Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Resurrection as representative ministry that is sustained by a theology of the cross. These events are the fundamental themes of the Gospel.

This theology of both the death and resurrection of Jesus describes the twin pillars of Paul’s theology in 1 Corinthians. In ministry, as we crucify our ministries, God not only supplies power for service, but victory over Satan, sin, death, and the grave. The Easter event, known through his triumph on the cross can revive and renew ministry into a joyful work. That is why Purves writes “ministry is a theological act.”[16] Both the Christology and Pneumatology of 1 Corinthians 1, 2 support this thesis of crucifixion and resurrection of ministry. Courey adds personal meaning with the notion that “the dynamic of the pneumatologia crucis emanating from the crucifixion of the Resurrected One mediated through Pentecost that animates an experiential encounter with Christ in us by faith.”[17] Thus, without a strong theology of the cross, the church and pastoral ministry remains as weak as a normal human being can sustain. The crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus on the cross, is the theological answer for long-term ministry vocation.

PR

This excerpt from The Wisdom of the Cross and the Power of the Spirit in the Corinthian Church: Grounding Pneumatic Experiences and Renewal Studies in the Cross of Christ (Pickwick, 2018) is used with permission.

Further Reading

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Notes

[1] Bennett, The Holy Spirit and You, 111.

[2] Charles Farah, From the Pinnacle of the Temple (Plainfield NJ: Logos, 1979), 76.

[3] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, The Cost of Discipleship (New York, NY: Collier Books, 1937), 45.

[4] Farah, From the Pinnacle of the Temple, 135.

[5] D.R. McConnell, A Different Gospel, A Historical and Biblical Analysis of the Modern Faith Movement (Peabody MA: Hendrickson, 1988), 163-164.

[6] John Christopher Thomas, The Devil, Disease and Deliverance (New York, NY: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 61.

[7] Joseph A. Fitzmyer, First Corinthians AB. Vol. 32. (New Haven, CT: Yale, 2008), 165.

[8] Pfitzner, “The Theology of the Cross-1 Corinthians 1-4,” 28.

[9] Gräbe, “The All-Surpassing Power of God Through the Holy Spirit in the Midst of Our

Broken Earthly Existence: Perspectives on Paul’s Use of ΔΥΝΑΜΙΣ,” 151.

[10] Andrew Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry (Downers Grove, Il: InterVarsity Press, 2007), 75.

[11] Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, 99.

[12] Purves, The Crucifixion of Ministry, 124.

[13] David C. Steinmetz, “Ordination and the Theology of the Cross,” 39.

[14] Stamps, The Sacrament of the Word Made Flesh: The Eucharistic Theology of Thomas

F. Torrance, 111-12.

[15] Andrew Purves, The Resurrection of Ministry (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2010), 19-20.

[16] Purves, The Resurrection of Ministry, 77.

[17] Courey, What Has Wittenberg to Do with Azusa?: Luther’s Theology of the Cross and Pentecostal Triumphalism, 249.