Old Testament Foundations: A Biblical View of the Relationship of Sin and the Fruits of Sin: Sickness, Demonization, Death, Natural Calamity

 

Understanding the Hebrew Scriptures and Hebrew culture is crucial to understanding how Jesus and the early church viewed sin, the demonic, and the fallen world they lived in.

 

Introduction

Christ’s death on the Cross atones for and cleanses us from all sin, and the atonement of the Cross provides the basis for God’s work to sanctify us and restore us from the brokenness which sin brought into our lives (Isa 53:4-6; Mk 10:45; Rom 3:22-25; 5:8-9; II Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Col 1:21-22; I Tim 2:6; Heb 2:14; 9:14, 26-28; 10:10; I Pet 1:18-21; 2:24; 3:18; I Jn 2:2; 3:5, 8). How is sin related to healing and wholeness in the Bible, and how is personal sin related to praying for someone’s healing as prescribed in James 5?

The problem with the human race is, according to Scripture, sin, and the problem with sin is that it has effects. What is more, the effects are not simply the immediate results of the sinful act, but also the long-term consequences of the act, sometimes affecting only the individual and at times engulfing the whole of the human race.¹ In this chapter we want to look at what parts of the human experience are traceable to sin, as well as examine the biblical solution to these consequences.

 

Sin and the Fruit of Sin in the Old Testament

The history of sin in the Old Testament begins with the introduction of sin in Genesis 3. The human beings (both the woman and the man, “who was with her,” Gen 3:6) desired to “be like God,” disobeyed and so sinned. The results are portrayed immediately: shame at their nakedness (3:7; perhaps shame is a symbol for their vulnerability); fear of the presence of God (3:8); disorder in the natural world (3:14,17); disruption of human relationships (3:16); disturbance of the generative process (3:16);² loss of sovereignty (3:15;18); and death (3:19).

In other words, the original creation in which human beings were sovereign over the world, animals lived at peace with human beings, the earth easily produced food for them, man and woman lived in the equality of mutuality, and death was unknown is no more after the fall. Sin has, according to Genesis, forever changed the world. The next three chapters of Genesis work these consequences out with the disruption of human relationships extending to murder and polygamy and the disruption of the relationship with the natural world leading in one branch of humanity to a total estrangement from the land and thus to the building of cities and the creation of technology as a substitute for farming (Gen 4).³ The litany of birth and death of Gen. 5 leads on to the culmination of violence in Gen. 6, which introduces the flood narrative.

The flood narrative itself indicates the pervasiveness of sin. At both ends of the narrative the writer declares that “every thought (or, thing formed in the thought) of a human being was only evil from youth.” (Gen 6:6; cf. 8:21) While on the one end of the narrative this inner evil is the reason for the destruction of the created order, a return to watery chaos, from which only Noah and his family are saved, on the other, it results in a type of resigned understanding on the part of God. Yet the next chapter places some limitations on violence in that, unlike the penalty exacted on Cain, now murderers will be executed. Law, then, becomes a result of sin.⁴

The rest of the Old Testament amplifies these positions about the results of sin. That sin can lead to judgment and death is almost cliché in terms of the Old Testament. The cycle of sin and oppression (which included death in battle and death through the oppression) is the theme of Judges. The prophets are concerned about impending judgment which they speak about in terms of various forms of death (sword, plague, etc.).

 

Sin Can Lead to Broken Relationships and Poverty

Another mark of sin seen in all of these narratives is the destruction of the social fabric of the people. One sees this graphically in the case of Lot in Gen. 19. On the one hand, the sin of Sodom (lack of hospitality to the extent of the abuse of foreigners) leads to the destruction of the city, for it confirms the “outcry against Sodom” (Gen 18:20 NIV) and thus seals its doom, especially since every man in Sodom is involved and Lot has only four people with him (thus less than the ten righteous needed to save the city). On the other hand, the narrative ends with incest by Lot’s daughters because society as they knew it was gone. Here is a destroyed social fabric to the extent that the incest taboo is broken. The author of Genesis appears to contrast this fate with that of Abraham. Lot may have been righteous, but he is not as righteous as Abraham.

One could illustrate this fruit of sin in the Psalms and prophets as well, for in these works a result of sin (including Baal worship) is the neglect of the widow, orphan and foreigner, the failure to release Hebrew slaves, the neglect of the Sabbath year (which had important social consequences), the rise in adultery and the rise in violence (including legally sanctioned violence, such as the forcing of the poor into bankruptcy and slavery) which are all part of a breakdown in social relationships.

A specific fruit of sin which is also a social dislocation in the Old Testament is poverty. In Deut 15:4-5 we read, “However, there should be no poor among you, for in the land the Lord your God is giving you to possess as your inheritance, he will richly bless you, if only you fully obey the Lord your God … .” (NIV) A better translation is, “There will, however, be no one in need among you …” (NRSV) In other words, just as in Eden the land supplied the needs of the first human beings, so Palestine will supply the needs of the Israelites. None will suffer want, so long as they obey. The failure to obey God, of course, is sin. The fruit of sin is the abrogation of the promise.⁵ One way in which this is worked out is through injustice, the legal oppression of the weaker Israelites by the more powerful, such as Amos speaks out against, e.g. Amos 2:6-7; cf. 4:1. Another way in which poverty came about was through famine (i.e. natural disaster), which was often viewed as a direct punishment from God. A third way in which poverty came about was through personal misfortune, which is the presumed situation of Job, but may form the actual background for the sudden coming of the Lord to judge His people in Mal 3:8-11 (assuming that this is not simply a collective promise).

 

Sin Can Lead to Sickness

Another specific mark of sin is the presence of disease. On the positive side Exo 15:26 (NIV) states, “If you listen carefully to the voice of the Lord … I will not bring on you any of the diseases I brought on the Egyptians, for I am the Lord who heals you” (cf. Deut 7:12-16, which expands upon this theme). On the negative side the other end of the Pentateuch states, “If you do not obey the Lord your God … The Lord will plague you with diseases… . The Lord will strike you with wasting disease, with fever and inflammation, with scorching heat and drought, with blight and mildew, which will plague you until you perish” (Deut 28:15, 21-22).6

This concept is illustrated throughout the Exodus narrative. Miriam develops leprosy when she opposes Moses (Num 12:10). Those who brought a negative report about Canaan died of plague (Num 14:37). The sin at Baal-Peor resulted in a plague in which 24,000 die (Num 25:9). Such examples could be multiplied and they continue throughout the Old Testament. While in the Deuteronomic history most of the examples are about sin leading to death through defeat, there are examples of sin leading to sickness, such as the plague in 2 Sam 24:15 which kills 70,000 people because of David’s sin. Azariah (Uzziah) personally contracted leprosy (2 Kings 15:5; cf. 2 Chron 26:16-20, which attributes this to his sin). The Elijah-Elisha cycle also connects sin to illness, at least in the minds of others (1 Kings 17:18).

The significant issue in each of these instances is that the sickness comes prior to the completion of a full life. Presumably all of the people in Scripture die of what we would call sickness or natural death, but the issue for the Hebrews was that any final illness come at the end of a full life and not be of a type which separated the person from their community (such as leprosy, which because it made the person taboo⁷ could never be considered a normal illness). Thus Hezekiah, when informed that his illness is terminal, implores God for a longer life because he has “walked before [the Lord] in faithfulness and with a whole heart,” so his premature death would have been quite inappropriate (2 Kings 20:3, NRSV; repeated in Isa 38:3). The promise of 15 additional years apparently gave him what he thought was a reasonably long life, so it is received without complaint.

The deathbed scenes of Old Testament folk who are “old and full of days are relatively peaceful in the sense that they accept death as appropriate and are not asking for longer life, but instead are passing on instructions to others (e.g. Elisha in 2 Kings 13:14). On the other hand, Ahaziah dies a premature death due to his injury because of his sin (2 Kings 1:16) and Abijah son of Jeroboam I dies because of his parent’s sin (1 Kings 14:1-18; yet God finds “something pleasing to the Lord” in the child so he will get an honorable death and burial, unlike the rest of the family which will die violently and not be buried).

The latter prophets also give us examples of this perspective. For example, Jeremiah prophesies the death of Hananiah the prophet because of his lying prophecy (Jer 28:15-17). While this could have occurred due to an accident or other violence, the simple term “died” most naturally indicates that he became ill and died. In the “writings,” the third division of the Old Testament (divided into the law, the prophets, and the writings), the Psalms picture illness as the result of sin (Ps 32:3-4; 38:3,5; cf. Ps 31:10, which calls for healing because his illness was not a result of sin). Sin, then, is closely connected with illness, especially with premature illness or those which made a person taboo.

 

Sin Can Lead to Demonization

A last result of sin in the Old Testament is demonization. There is not a lot to be said about this from the Old Testament point of view, for references to the demonic in the Old Testament are scarce. There is, however, one example, which is Saul. That Saul lost the kingdom due to disobedience is clear enough (1 Sam 13:13-14; 15:17-19, 22-23, 26). It is after this that “an evil spirit from the Lord tormented [Saul]” (1 Sam 16:14, NRSV). While the connection is not developed, the progression in the narrative suggests that the loss of the divine Spirit and the presence of a demonic spirit is a fruit of Saul’s sin.⁸ The final consequence, of course, is his consultation of the medium in Endor (1 Sam 28:3-25).

 

Sin and the Fruit of Sin in the New Testament

Sin is not taken any less seriously in the New Testament than in the Old. At the same time there is a more complex picture in that the role of Satan is far more important. Evil and misfortune which might have been attributed directly to God in the Old Testament are now attributed to Satan. Likewise, the connection between sin and disease and personal disaster, which only begins to break down in the Old Testament (Job being the chief example), is relativized even more. Still, while one must be more careful in attributing causation to personal sin in a New Testament perspective, the teaching that evil is the result of sin in the world is never challenged.

 

Sin Leading to Broken Relationships and Social Dysfunction

As in the Old Testament, social dysfunction in the New Testament is the result of sin. Rom 1:18-32 traces this out. Idolatry leads to sexual dysfunction, either heterosexual (assuming that is the point of 1:24) or homosexual. Finally there comes a list of a series of evils, many of which are indicative of social breakdown (e.g. murder, strife, deceit, disobedient to parents),⁹ all of which are traced to the original sin of the rejection of God.

 

Sin Leading to Natural Calamity

Natural disasters are rarely traced directly to sin in the New Testament¹⁰ until one comes to Revelation. There one finds famine (Rev 6:6) and a series of other natural disasters (Rev 8:7-10) depicted as judgments of God. The fact that the text repeatedly indicates that those not killed by the disasters “did not repent of [idolatry]. And they did not repent of their murders or their sorceries or their fornication or their thefts” (Rev 9:20-21, NRSV, is only one example) shows the connection between sin and the result of sin—the disasters sent by God—in the mind of the prophet.

 

Sin and Poverty

Unlike the Old Testament, poverty is not directly connected to sin in the New Testament. In other words, there is neither a clear promise of sufficiency based on obedience nor a warning of lack as a result of disobedience. Such a warning may be implied in the connection of sowing to reaping in such passages as 2 Cor 9:6 and Gal 6:7, but this is a far less direct connection than in the Old Testament. The New Testament promises of provision appear far more unconditional (e.g. 2 Cor 9:10-11; but cf. Mat 6:33). At the same time, the Old Testament point-of-view is reflected in a number of ways. First, poverty is connected to oppression in places like Jas. 5:1-6. Second, there is the reflection in some New Testament books of the Armenfrömigkeit (intrinsic piety attributed to the poor) of the intertestamental period (the period between the Old and New Testament periods). In Luke, for example, while the poor are blessed, the rich are cursed. (Luke 6:20, 24); in James Christians are called “poor”, but are never called “rich.” Third, the kingdom of God is pictured as a place of plenty, whether the kingdom is the heavenly kingdom (e.g. Luke 6:21; Rev. 7:16) or the more limited earthly expression (e.g. Mark 10:29-30 and other promises of present provision).¹¹ In a world without sin (i.e. the kingdom) there would not be any poverty.

 

Sin Leading to Sickness

Like poverty, sickness is viewed in the New Testament as a fruit of sin. While this is true in general in that death came into the world through sin (Rom 5:12), it is also true in specific individual situations. In John 5:14 Jesus meets the man whom he healed at the pool and tells him to stop sinning “or something worse may happen to you.” Certainly in the context the implication is that the “something worse” is an illness.¹² Less clear is the situation of the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12. In this case Jesus forgives the sins of the man when he sees the faith of those who brought the man to him. While this authority to forgive sin may be the reason Mark included the story (since it begins a series of conflicts between Jesus and the interpreters of the law), it does not appear likely that Jesus was simply using the sick man to make a point (did he ever use people for his purposes, or did he meet the person’s need, which sometimes allowed him to make a further point?). It is certainly possible, perhaps probable that the reason for forgiving sins was that sin was the root problem of the man and only with the sin taken care of could the sickness be healed (cf. Jas 5:16 “Confess your sins to one another and pray for each other so that you may be healed”).¹³

There are a number of places in the New Testament in which sin is connected to specific sicknesses. Paul in 1 Cor 11:27-30 connects impropriety at the Lord’s Supper to “many” being “weak and sick” and “a number” having died. While the situation is far more blatant, the sicknesses of Herod Agrippa I (Acts 12:23) and Elymas Bar-Jesus (Acts 13:8-12) are connected to specific sins.¹⁴

Naturally, personal sin is not the only cause of illness. The New Testament makes this fact clear. When asked about a blind man in John 9:1-3, Jesus responds that neither the sins of the man nor those of the parents had caused him to be born blind.¹⁵ Notice that he does not deny that such sins could cause illness in a child, but instead simply states that this was not the situation in this case. That means that no absolute equation of sickness = personal sin in either the sick individual or a near relative is valid. Jas. 5:15 is a similar case in point. While Jas. 5:16 states that Christians should confess their sins to one another and pray for one another so that they might be healed, connecting sin to sickness, Jas. 5:14-15 states that a person will be healed when the elders pray a prayer of faith and “anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven” (NRSV). The construction is very clear. If sin is a cause of the sickness, it will be forgiven. But the “if” (kan Jas 5:15) is the important term.¹⁶ While personal sin is a possible cause of the sickness, it is not the only possibility. If it is present to forgive, it will be forgiven, but one cannot make the simple equation sickness = personal sin. Discernment is needed.

 

Sin Leading to Demonization

Demonization is another fruit of sin in the New Testament. While the New Testament does not give a comprehensive discussion on how people get demonized, probably because the issue for the authors was expelling demons rather than their previous history, it does give us some illuminating examples of the connection of the demonic with sin. Judas Iscariot is the first example which comes to mind. While Luke 22:3-6 indicates that Satan had “entered into” Judas (cf. Mat 26:14-16; Mark 14:10-11, which do not mention the demonic element), it does not give a motive, although one is suggested in mentioning the promise of money or the request for money.¹⁷ John 12:6, however, places a reference to Judas’ being a thief into the earlier account of the anointing at Bethany. John then retains the reference to Satan entering Judas in John 13:27. Is this a suggestion that Judas’ sinfulness (greed, thievery) was the basis for Satan’s entering him? We cannot be certain, but that would be one possible implication, which could also be latent in Luke’s account, where the request for money is underlined.¹⁸

A second example of this connection is in Acts 5:1-3, the story of Ananias and Sapphira. Here it is clear that they sinned (i.e. lied to the Holy Spirit). Yet we must ask what Peter meant by “Satan [has] filled your heart.”¹⁹ The plot to deceive is clearly attributed to Satan, but (1) was this demonization and (2) was this the fruit of sin or the cause of sin? The evidence seems to suggest that it was demonization—He was clearly influenced by Satan who “filled [his] heart.”²⁰ The evidence also seems to suggest that this demonization was the fruit of sin. Surely it is hard to believe that such a deliberate (attempted) deception was conceived and executed without some previous weakening of their moral fiber.²¹ Did that give the opening for this temptation? Since the phrase “Satan [has] filled your heart” suggests demonization (even if only a mild form), then they (or at least Ananias) were Christians who were demonized as a result of their sin.

There are two passages in which a Christian is handed over to Satan as a result of sin, 1 Cor 5:4-5 and 1 Tim 1:20. In both cases the individuals involved have committed a specific sin. The result of the sin is not automatic, but the church (or in the case of 1 Timothy, Paul) hands them over to Satan who will be the agent of discipline (and hopefully salvation). Clearly this is not a willing role which Satan plays (why would Satan ever do something which might lead a person to reject sin or even “be saved in the day of the Lord”?), but rather the author describes the effect of Satan’s activities. In this case we cannot say that demonization is the fruit of sin alone, for the church assists. What we do observe is that when a person was put outside the protection of the church, demonization, at least to the extent of physical or some other form of affliction by Satan, was the expected result.²²

Another set of passages indicates that Satan has designs on Christians: 2 Cor 2:10-11; 1 Tim 3:6-7; 1 Pet 5:8. In the first passage, 2 Cor 2:10-11, a repentant person who had been excommunicated (probably for opposition to Paul’s authority) is to be forgiven and received again to keep him from becoming a prey of Satan, presumably through depression (sorrow). In the second passage, 1 Tim 3:6-7, elders are not to be conceited but are to be experienced Christians of character so that they do not fall into Satan’s traps (i.e. he is seeking to “get his hooks into” them). In the third passage, 1 Pet 5:8, Satan is looking for Christians to devour (the context might suggest through pride or through harboring anxiety), so alertness and self-discipline are to be practiced. All of these suggest that a lack of virtue makes a Christian vulnerable to Satan, although the exact nature of his traps or influence is not specified.

Still a final group of texts speaks of the danger of falling into Satan’s trap: 1 Cor 7:5 (sexual temptation); Eph 4:26-27 (anger); 2 Tim 2:25-26 (false teaching, opposing the truth). Abstinence from sexual intercourse between married partners, anger, or involvement in sin (perhaps those mentioned in 2 Tim 2:21-22) lead to becoming Satan’s captive or becoming trapped by him. While this may simply mean further involvement in sin as a result of previous sin, it does seem to indicate a level of demonic influence in which at least a person’s mind or will is involved.

We conclude that the New Testament does not directly say that demonization can be a fruit of sin, but it does imply this connection. It does this in narrative form by connecting sin and demonic (Satanic) influence. It does this in the epistles by connecting sin to falling under the influence of Satan. In some cases the demonization might be quite mild (temptation), in others more intermediate (having a mind captive to Satan, probably indicating compulsive sin or deception), and in the case of the excommunicated it may be rather severe (e.g. to the extent of illness which may destroy their body). While the data are not as clear as we might desire, the connection is legitimate according to the New Testament.

 

Reversing the Fruit of Sin in the Old Testament

If the fruits of sin include those things which we discussed above, we need to ask if there is a way to reverse them? In other words, if one sins (or if others sin and one is exposed to the results), must he or she simply accept the bitter fruit, or does the Scripture present some other solution?

In the Old Testament there is an answer, which is Yahweh himself. “I am the Lord who heals you.” (Exo 15:26, NRSV). How does one appropriate this health? By submission to Yahweh, “If you will listen carefully to the voice of the LORD your God …” (Exo 15:26a). The essence of sin in Gen. 3 was to seek independence from God, thus the essence of the healing of sin is to return to a relationship of submission to God. Naturally, with the healing of the sin itself comes the healing of the effects of sin, such as sickness. (See also Prov 3:7-8; 4:22.) Thus Ps 103:3 (NRSV) describes God as the one, “who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,” and then goes on to describe rescue from death (“the Pit”) and promise long life. The Psalm continues and describes Yahweh as the one whose nature focuses on forgiving. (So also Isa 33:22-24, and in a metaphorical sense of the nation as a whole, Jer 30:17.) In Psalm 103 submission to Yahweh is also presented as protection from the fruit of sin in the world around us (specifically, protection from disease and death in battle).

While we have chosen specific illustrative texts, this is a consistent picture throughout the Old Testament. Yahweh is the one who announces the penalty for sin; he is also the one who describes himself as, “The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness …” (Exo 34:6-7, NRSV). Now it is true that the same passage indicates that he will “[visit] the iniquity of the parents upon the children … to the third and the fourth generation,” but this appears to be more the divine response to continued rebellion than the core of his nature. While one can find plenty of examples of severe judgment in the Old Testament, God is also continually pictured as forgiving. We might not be surprised that David (a “man after [God’s] own heart”) is forgiven when he commits adultery and murder (2 Sam 12:13),23 but Jonah pictures God as forgiving the Assyrians, 1 Kings 21:29 as forgiving Ahab, 2 Kings 5 as healing the Aramean commander Naaman (when the latter submits to the directive of God), and Jer 38:17-23 as offering salvation to Zedekiah if the king would only obey Yahweh. None of these latter three individuals were good folk in any sense of the word. In two of the cases they were within days of a judgment (a fruit of sin) which had been announced without any “ifs” about it. Yet repentance and submission could still advert the judgment.

A similar picture of God as the deliverer from the fruit of sin appears in Job, in which suffering for other than personal sin is discussed. The pious Job does suffer because of the sin of others (assuming that Satan is viewed as an evil being and the attacks of the various raiders are sinful acts). All of the time Job is suffering, God is not seen on the earthly plane. For some reason never explained, he has accepted Satan’s challenge and permitted the evil to happen. When God is seen by Job, he shows up as the deliverer.

Thus in the Old Testament the answer to the fruit of sin is Yahweh. When one repents and returns to a position of submission to Yahweh, the corporate and individual fruits of sin are removed. The drought ends, the armies are victorious, the plague ceases, the individual disease is healed, etc. There are certainly ambiguities in this picture, but the basic picture itself is clear.

 

Reversing the Fruit of Sin in the New Testament

In the New Testament God has already shown up on earth in Jesus. According to the whole witness of the New Testament, the culmination of Jesus’ mission was his death on the Cross which atoned for all sins, providing the basis for God’s sanctifying, restoring work to reverse the fruits of sin (Mat 8:16-17 and Isa 53:4-6; Mat 20:28; Mk 10:45; Jn 12:27-33; Rom 3:22-25; 5:8-9; 2 Cor 5:21; Gal 3:13; Col 1:21-22; 1 Tim 2:6; Heb 2:14; 9:14, 26-28; 10:10; 1 Pet 1:18-21; 2:24; 3:18; 1 Jn 2:2; 3:5, 8).

Jesus’ ultimate mission in the New Testament’s view, then, was to atone for sin and reverse sin’s fruits. Accordingly, when Jesus arrives on the scene, the fruits of sin are reversed. Mark presents this paradigm through narrative. In Mark 1:21-28 the presence of Jesus excites a demon (presumably one which the people did not know existed in the man it was affecting) who cries out, “Have you come to destroy us?” Jesus’ response is affirmative, at least in the sense that he expels the demon. Demonization is an effect of sin, conceivably, the primary effect of sin, if we view the whole world as demonized by Satan through the results of the fall as 1 Jn 5:19 suggests (cf. Jn 12:31). Because of this, the presence of Jesus reveals this fruit of sin and then reverses it. This is a consistent pattern in the life of Jesus.

Mark moves directly on to the healing ministry of Jesus (Mark 1:29-31), including the healing of leprosy, a disease that made one ritually taboo (1:40-45). It is in the healing of the paralytic in Mk. 2:1-12 that the forgiveness of sins is followed immediately by the healing of the disease. That is, both sin and the fruits of sin are removed.²⁴

Luke presents this picture a little differently. It is after a successful confrontation with the devil that Jesus goes to Nazareth and quotes his programmatic passage from Isa 61:1-2 (Luke 4:18-19). The goals of Jesus’ mission have to do with those suffering the effects of sin: the poor, the prisoners, the blind, the oppressed. The fact is that Jesus does announce good news to the poor (Luke 6:20) and does heal the blind (Luke 7:21-23; 18:35-43). He does not release any prisoners from human jails, although God does do that in Acts (Acts 12:11, where “the Lord” could be either God the Father or Jesus), but he does release people who have been bound by Satan (Luke 13:10-17). Thus it is quite reasonable to view the works of Jesus in Luke as the reversal of or the remedy for the fruit of sin.

In another narrative Luke suggests that Jesus reverses the ultimate fruit of sin, namely death. This is clear in Luke 7:11-17, where he raises the son of the widow in Nain. This is also the case in Luke 8:40-42,49-56, the raising of Jairus’ daughter.²⁵ Likewise Luke has three apparent resurrections in Acts, Acts 9:36-43; 14:19-20; 20:7-12. Only the first and third narratives clearly state that the person was dead, so the second, Acts 14:19-20, could simply be a remarkable healing. Yet the statement that the people believed Paul to be dead and the symmetry between the two narratives in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts narratives suggests that it is viewed as a resurrection.²⁶ Naturally, none of the writers trace the various deaths to specific sin, certainly not to the sin of the individuals who died, yet could anyone who was a reader of the Old Testament be unaware that death was the result of sin? And would anyone in the New Testament period, Jew (except such Jews as the Sadducees), Jewish-Christian, or gentile-Christian see the resurrection of the dead as anything less than a foretaste of the age to come (cf. Heb 6:5)? Given this general theological context, it is likely that Luke views these events as examples of the coming great reversal of death in the eschaton.

While the Johannine tradition also recounts one resurrection of the dead, that of Lazarus in John 11, the culmination of the Book of Signs,²⁷ it puts the wider issue of the reversal of the fruit of sin somewhat differently than the synoptics do. When Jesus heals the man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5, he later instructs the man, “Stop sinning or something worse may happen to you” (John 5:14, mÄ“keti hamartane, the negative plus the present imperative indicating the cessation of something on-going). This not only assumes that sin had been the cause of the illness, but also that the man might continue or already had continued in his sin and needed the exhortation to stop. Here is a case in which the fruit of sin was reversed before the sin itself was dealt with. But that is in line with 1 John 3:8, “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work.” While the focus of 1 John is on sin itself, the fruit of sin is also the work of the devil. Jesus works in one case from root to fruit and in the other from fruit to root. Both have to be removed.

The fruit of sin is reversed through the work of Jesus in two ways—through His sovereign grace and through the repentance and faith of men and women. First, there are what we may call the works of sovereign grace. The works of sovereign grace are the invasion of the Kingdom of God into this world. Those are the situations in which no one but Jesus appears to have faith and yet significant healing/deliverance results. For example, the demonized man in the synagogue in Capernaum (Mark 1:21-28) does not appear to have come seeking healing nor to have had any expressed faith. The presence of Jesus revealed the demon, and Jesus expelled it. Other activities in this category might include the raising of the son of the widow at Nain (Luke 7:11-17), the stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41 and parallels) and perhaps the calling of Levi (Mark 2:13-17). This latter incident deserves some comment. However honest a tax collector Levi was (if “honest tax collector” was not an oxymoron to first century Jews), he was experiencing an effect of sin, rejection and alienation from his community. He does not seek Jesus, but Jesus calls to him as Jesus is passing by. Levi responds to the sovereign action, as does Zacchaeus in Luke 19. The result is a reversal of the alienation caused by sin as the person enters the community of the renewed Israel. In the case of Levi, he becomes one of the Twelve along with Simon the Zealot (Mark 3:18 and parallels). If this reading of the text is accurate,²⁸ then bitter enemies were reconciled through a sovereign act of Jesus. Similar deeds can be reported for his followers in Acts.

Second there is repentance and faith, which from the human side appear to call forth from Jesus the reversal of the fruit of sin. That Jesus responded to faith is clear from such passages as Mat. 9:1-8 and parallels, the healing of the paralytic: “When Jesus saw their faith …” In this case the faith appears to be in the men carrying the paralytic, not in the paralytic himself, but wherever the faith was located, Jesus responds. He first forgives the paralytic’s sins and then heals him. The leper in Mark 1:40 clearly has faith. Mark 6:5 indicates that the lack of faith in Nazareth prevents the reversal of the fruit of sin, i.e. the working of miracles.

The faith spoken of in the New Testament is basically a confident trust in a person, namely in Jesus or his Father.²⁹ That is, it is not primarily a belief that something will happen (although because one knows the person it contains the belief that the person could do what is desired), and certainly not a belief that something has already happened although all evidence is to the contrary (the New Testament is relentlessly reality-oriented to the degree that it allows the observable to indicate the reality of the unobservable, cf. Jas 2:14, 17, 20, 26; no one is ever called to believe that what he or she sees is not real), but rather a trust in a person who can make things happen no matter what the odds are against him.³⁰

This nature of faith shows up in James when James speaks of prayer in 1:5 and 4:3. The faith without doubt of 1:5 is a trust in God as the one who freely gives good gifts rather than the “faith” of the double-minded who does not really trust God at all, but prays as a last resort or in case it might help, although their real sense of security is found not in relationship with God but in the world. Likewise in 4:3 prayers are not answered because they are prayed out of the motivation of desire, what Paul would call “the flesh.” The next verse makes it clear that the person is trying to straddle two stools: he or she wants to have God and also be a friend of the world. In the process they have become God’s enemy. Obviously, someone who has to find security in the world as well as in God cannot be a person who trusts God very much at all.³¹ Yet the elders who are able to pray “the prayer of faith” can expect to see the sick raised, the fruit of sin (whether the specific sin of the individual or the fruit of sin in general) reversed (Jas. 5:15).

None of this idea about faith being relational trust in God or about faith in God leading to the reversal of the fruit of sin would be strange to Paul or to other New Testament writers. Since, in Paul, true faith leads to a sense of sonship (e.g. Gal 4:4-7) and an experience of the Spirit which includes the working of miracles (Gal 3:4-5), it is clearly relational trust that he is talking about. In the Johannine tradition the one who has true faith will do even greater works than those of Jesus (John 14:12; the works of Jesus cited in the context are his miracles,³² those works which John has cited as “signs” which should lead to belief³³). It is the one who believes who “overcomes the world” (1 John 5:4). This trust in Christ is what overcomes the effects of sin, for whether it is proclamation or loving others or healing the sick (all mentioned in the Johannine corpus), “The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work” (1 John 3:8 NIV).

Bound together with faith is repentance. Repentance is the turning from sin which is logically the preparatory move before faith. Thus Zacchaeus shows at least curiosity in seeking to see Jesus, but his clear internal motivation in the end (we are not told when it arose) is that of repentance which is seen in his parting from his money (Luke 19:8). This is certainly mixed with faith in that he recognizes Jesus as an authoritative figure (“lord”). For Luke, of course, this is a miracle in that without such a miracle no rich person can be saved (Luke 18:24-27). There are few other clear examples of repentance in the teaching of Jesus, but then many of the followers of Jesus had previously been associated with John the Baptist, whose ministry was a call to repentance.

In the epistles Jas 5:16 clearly connects repentance with the healing of the fruit of sin. Having just mentioned that if the sickness of a person were due to sin the sin would be forgiven when the elders prayed for healing, James turns from the specific situation of calling the elders to the general principle: “Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed.” The point here is that one should confess sins, where appropriate, and then pray for healing, and that healing will follow. In case people object that they are merely ordinary people and not qualified to pray, James continues with the example of Elijah, an ordinary man who prayed with great effect.

In all of these situations cited, whether in the Gospels or in the epistles, the fruits of sin are reversed through the coming of Jesus and ultimately through his death on the Cross to atone for sin. The fruits of sin can be reversed through a sovereign act which does not presuppose any faith on the part of the recipient, but it is most likely to come about in those situations in which there is repentance from sin (if personal sin is involved in the situation) and faith in Christ. Negatively, a lack of faith in Jesus appears to block the reception of this reversal, even when Jesus himself is personally present (Mat 13:58; Mk 6:5-6). This reversal extends to all classes of the fruit of sin: death, broken relationships, alienation from God, demonization, and physical illness. Yet it is still not the full story.

 

The Not-Yet Nature of Reversing the Fruit of Sin

While in Jesus and the early church we see some of the fruit of sin reversed, there is also an acknowledgment that the fruits of sin have not yet been totally reversed. While we could cite examples in all realms of experience, the clearest of these is death. Death came through sin, but the resurrections of the dead which we see in Scripture are only occasional. It is true that Jesus is reported in the various Gospels to have raised two people from the dead. It is also true that part of the Matthean mission charge to the Twelve was “raise the dead” (Mat 10:8). Yet Acts reports only two (or possibly three) dead people being raised, and, unlike the summary reports in which many sick are said to be healed, there are no such summaries (e.g. “many dead were raised to life”) for raising the dead. At the same time, there is a clear expectation in the New Testament of a final resurrection of the dead when all of the dead would be raised (“the redemption of our bodies,” Rom 8:23). Thus the “not yet” of the present points to the coming fulfillment of human hope, while the “already” of the occasional raising of the dead whets the appetite for the full event.³⁴

The same could be said for all of the effects of sin. While in the present some people bow to Jesus (i.e. are evangelized), in the future “every knee will bow” (Phil 2:10). While in the present people are brought together in the church, where there is reconciliation of the various divisions of humanity (most notably the Jew-gentile division, Eph 2:14), in the coming age there will be one city, “the holy city Jerusalem,” (Rev 21:10) which appears to unify many of the themes of Scripture (e.g. the Twelve apostles and the Twelve tribes) and which answers to the search for community (Enoch, Gen 4:17; Nimrod’s cities, Gen 10:8-11). While there are stories in Scripture of the present provision of food and protection from the danger of natural disaster, in that age “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat” (Rev 7:16). Obviously the same type of “already—not yet” tension is present in the case of disease and the demonic. While Paul performs all types of healing miracles, at least once he must leave a co-worker behind sick (2 Tim 4:20; cf. Phil 2:26-27; 1 Tim 5:23; Gal 4:13-14); yet there is no disease whatsoever in the heavenly city, where every tear is wiped away (Rev 21:4). In the case of the demonic, Christians expel demons now but may not be able to expel every demon in the world, and there is no indication that Christians will expel the principalities and powers Paul speaks about. Yet in Revelation the demonic has disappeared into the Lake of Fire (Rev 20:10; cf. Mat 25:41).

The point which needs to be underlined is that in no area are the effects of sin completely reversed in this age, although in all areas there is some reversal of each of the effects of sin.³⁵ There is always some tension remaining, even if there is a significant taste of “the powers of the age to come” (Heb 6:5).³⁶ While this protects the church against a triumphalism which denies the reality of the present battle, it also points in hope to the coming final victory and the present experience of the partial reversal of the fruits of sin. The “not yet,” while inducing a longing for the future, should give faith and hope in the present as we see the “already” and realize that as it happens, as the fruits of sin are reversed, it is not perfection, but simply a down payment on what is coming.

 

PR  

 

Notes

¹ Both of these first two statements would be accepted by all orthodox Christian theologians of whatever stripe. For example, The Westminster Confession of Faith’s article VI. “Of the Fall of Man, of Sin, and of the Punishment Thereof” describes the original sin and its effects (G. I. Williamson, ed., The Westminster Confession of Faith for Study Classes [Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1964] 53-61), but so does the popular Mennonite work by Paul Erb, We Believe (Scottdale, PA: Herald Press, 1969) 19-22, and Seventh-day Adventists Believe … (Washington, DC: Ministerial Association, General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists, 1988) 87-91. We could go on and multiply examples, but these scattered ones should be sufficient.

² The text refers to the multiplication of conceptions and childbirths and the connection of labor with this process, the same type of labor which will be associated with farming (3:17). It appears that the original design was that conceptions would be fewer, for there was no death to be overcome, and pregnancy and delivery would be without difficult labor. Of course we have no example of this happening through which to compare the before and after, so unlike some of the other consequences, this one is more of an extension from the text.

³ See Jacques Ellul, The Meaning of the City (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1970). While the city in scripture is usually a human attempt to overcome alienation, even Jerusalem becoming the abode of evil so that before the exile and again in Revelation it can be compared to Sodom (Rev 11:8), the vision of Rev 21 is of a new Jerusalem in which the idea of the city (or human community) is redeemed, for God is in that city and all sin is outside of it.

⁴ Like all Old Testament law, one cannot simply assume that this is appropriate for disciples of Jesus Christ. Instead, Christians must carefully examine the implications of the new era which has dawned in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus and from that learn how this law may or may not apply to their behaviour now.

⁵ We can observe this from archaeology when we compare the relative equality of tenth century Israel (although the living standard was modest) with the stark rich–poor contrasts of eighth century Israel. See Roland De Vaux, Ancient Israel, Its Life and Institutions (London: Darton, Longman and Todd, 1973) 72-73.

⁶ The blight and mildew were certainly classed with human sicknesses, for the laws of leprosy (Lev 13-14) include mildew in houses along with skin diseases under the same general category. Perhaps drought and scorching heat were also seen in this category or it may be that they are included here because they also led to human deaths.

⁷ I prefer the term “taboo” to “unclean,” for the latter in English normally indicates physical uncleanness, which is never intended by the Hebrew term, while the former (at least in its anthropological meaning) means, “prohibited” or “avoided by social custom” or to “exclude or prohibit by authority or social influence” (quotations from J. B. Sykes, ed., The Concise Oxford Dictionary [sixth edition] [Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1976]). This definition complex would fit both people and animals (e.g. pigs). The alternative is “ritually unfit”, which is appropriate for the separation of people from Jewish cultic ritual, but not for their separation from the community nor for the prohibition on certain animals.

⁸ We should not be surprised that the evil spirit is “from the Lord,” for all events are attributed directly to the Lord in the Deuteronomic history. It is only in Chronicles that we discover that some of what was attributed to the Lord should be attributed to Satan (a being not named in pre-exilic books). Compare 2 Sam 24:1 with 1 Chron 21:1. There is progress in revelation within the Old Testament.

⁹ The disturbance of family relationships was especially significant in the ancient world in which the family was one’s security and submission to parents was a cardinal virtue. This was true not only for the Jewish world, but also for the whole Graeco-Roman world. Thus an apocalyptic scenario is pictured in terms of family breakdown in Mark 13:12, while the blessing of God was associated with family restoration, as in Mal. 4:6.

¹⁰ There are other natural disasters, such as the famine and the storm at sea reported in Acts (Acts 11:28; 27:13ff). The famine is never connected with any type of sin. In the storm at sea only the damage to the particular ship Paul is on is connected to sin (i.e. the failure of those responsible to listen to Paul, Acts 27:9-12), not the storm itself.

¹¹ The fact that in Mark the “hundred times as much” is not necessarily owned by the Christian, but simply supply his or her needs does not mitigate its being a divine provision and a rejection of lack as not being part of the kingdom. At the same time, it does cause problems for those Christians who would measure their spirituality by the quantity of goods they possess rather than by the fact that their needs are being met. See further Gordon D. Fee, The Disease of the Health and Wealth Gospels (Costa Mesa, CA: The Word for Today, 1979) and John White, The Golden Cow (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1979). The problem with the positions these men criticize is that they have lost the “already-not yet” tension of the New Testament (Mat 12:28; Lk 11:20; 17:21; I Cor 13:8-12; 15:24-25; Rev 11:15-17) and so, among other things, try to live out an over-realized eschatology. Of course this does not excuse the opposite error of living without faith in either the healing power or the provision of God, even if our experience of both is partial in this age.

¹² John 5:14: “Later Jesus found him at the temple and said to him, ‘See, you are well again. Stop sinning or something worse (cheiron … ti) may happen to you.” Regarding this passage several scholars have made remarks like those of H. van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus (Supplements to Novum Testamentum, vol. 8. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1965), p. 458f.: “One can surmise, but not establish, a relationship between the man’s sins and his disease. Something worse might happen to him. This might be taken to mean a ‘worse’ disease, or some form or the other of chastisement, indeed eternal punishment… . It would be a calamity which would form a sharp contrast to the salvation which the man had just been permitted to receive in his healing”; similarly, G. Bertram, “hamartanō,” TDNT, vol. 1, p. 288, n. 58; A. Oepke, “iaomai,” TDNT, vol. 3, p. 204; id., “nosos,” TDNT, vol. 4, p. 1095.

In the Johannine literature Rev 2:22 is often cited as an instance of sin resulting in sickness. Yet while the English phrase “bed of suffering” (NIV) is common for sickness in English, the term thlipsis “suffering” in Greek literature indicates persecution rather than illness. “Jezebel” has been involved in adultery, which includes participating in idolatry. The irony is that instead of getting a comfortable bed, she will get a bed of affliction, namely that the pagans with whom she has been compromising will turn on her. See further on this word group P. H. Davids, “Sickness and Suffering in the New Testament,” in C. Peter Wagner and F. Douglas Pennoyer, eds., Wrestling with Dark Angels (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1990) 215-237.

¹³ Cf. James 5:15-16 “The prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed.” In Rabbinic Judaism personal sin was viewed as the cause of sickness (A. Oepke, TDNT, vol. 3, p. 201, nn. 24-25; A. Richardson, The Miracle-Stories of the Gospels [London: SCM Press, 1942], pp. 65f.), an assumption at least partly based on the Old Testament’s view of sin and sickness (cf. Ps 103:3; cf. Exo 15:26; Deut 7:12-16; 28:15, 21-22; Ps 32:3-4; 38:3, 5). Jesus seems to have affirmed such a view in cases like that of the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12.

¹⁴ We could add to this list the deaths of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5, in which lying to the Holy Spirit is the cause of their deaths, but as their deaths are not attributed to a disease—they just die—we cannot say for sure that a sickness was involved.

¹⁵ It is easy to understand how the sins of parents could lead to illness in a person, for not only is this stated in the Old Testament (Exo 20:15; Deut 5:9), but we also see it frequently in such diseases as fetal alcohol syndrome. How one’s own sins could cause a person to be born blind is less clear. While some parts of pre-first-century Judaism did believe in the pre-existence of the soul before conception (see Wisd Sol 8:19-20), later rabbinic Judaism spoke of the possibility of sin in the womb (see Gen Rab 63 (39c)). See further on this the standard commentaries on John 9:1-3. While we cannot tell whether the rabbinic attitude was common in Judaism in Jesus’ time, it would certainly explain the comments of the Twelve.

¹⁶ The Greek kan plus the subjunctive Ä“ followed by a future tense in the next clause expresses the “if” and shows that this is a conditional sentence in which there is a real possibility but not a certainty that this is the case.

¹⁷ In itself this does not necessarily indicate the primary motive. One could ask whether Judas had another reason to betray Jesus (e.g. disappointment with Jesus’ messianic program) and, knowing that the Jewish leaders would pay well for his assistance, chose to get money for what he might have done anyway or whether money was the primary motive?

¹⁸ The story of Judas Iscariot unfortunately does not settle the issue of whether a Christian may be demonized. The question itself is of relatively recent origin, dating from the end of the last century. For its first 1800 years the church simply did not raise the question, but did tell stories about Christians who had been demonized. See, for example, the Dialogues of Gregory the Great (Gregory the Great, Dialogues, trans. Odo John Zimmerman, New York: Fathers of the Church, 1959). Those who raise the question usually do so on the basis of the idea that demons “possess” a person and could not do so if the Holy Spirit indwelt the person; that is, they do it on the basis of a deductive process rather than on the basis of a scriptural text. The problem is that the Greek term daimonizomai simply indicates that a person is in some way influenced by a demon (cf. Foerster, “daimonizomai,” TDNT, vol. 2, pp. 19-20, who translates the term “to suffer from a daimōn”). The idea of “possession” is a development of theology in the post-Nicene and later era.

Can the Holy Spirit indwell a person who is also influenced by a demon? Why not? The Holy Spirit certainly indwells people who sin, who are assaulted by temptation, and who fall quite seriously. Still, in seeking biblical substantiation one must ask whether Judas was in fact a believer? Certainly there is no reason to believe that he was any less successful than the others in doing the works Jesus sent the disciples out to do, nor do we find any evidence that the other disciples had any suspicions about his character. It is likely that at least initially he believed all that the other disciples believed. At the same time, since the whole of Jesus’ ministry was pre-Pentecost, one could argue that none of these people were believers in the modern sense in that they were not necessarily indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Judas was certainly demonized in the end, but the issue of whether or not he was a believer rests on one’s definition of what it means to be a believer.

¹⁹ The “your” is singular (tÄ“n kardian sou), which suggests that only Ananias was directly inspired by Satan, while Sapphira had agreed with Ananias and in that sense had been tempted by him.

²⁰ Demonization is suggested by the language used in the passage; for example, plÄ“roō “fill,” used in this passage of Satan filling Ananias’s heart is the same word used in Eph 5:18 of the believer’s being filled with the Holy Spirit (see BAGD, pp. 670-671, “plÄ“roō” [1a] and [1b]).

²¹ The alternative would be to believe that Satan totally overwhelmed a pure, upright man. This did happen in the case of Eve, but seems less likely in this situation, especially since Ananias is presumably filled with the Holy Spirit as the other members of the church were.

²² For more information on these passages see Gordon D. Fee, 1 Corinthians (NICNT, ed., F. F. Bruce; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1987) or Gordon D. Fee, 1 and 2 Timothy, Titus (NIBC, ed., W. Ward Gasque; Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1988). While the commentary literature takes seriously the idea that “the destruction of the flesh” indicates physical suffering (like Job’s?), most writers on church discipline look at it as the destruction of the sinful nature through being in the sphere of Satan (e.g. John White and Ken Blue, Healing the Wounded [Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1985] 104-106; Marlin Jeschke, Discipling in the Church [Scottdale, PA; Herald Press, 1988] 80-83). Either way, there are results which happen due to the influence of Satan, results that it is hoped will lead to repentance and salvation. These results are, then, some form of demonization.

²³ David’s son by Bathsheba does die (2 Sam 12:14), so there is some bitter fruit of the sin. There is also the rebellion of Absalom (2 Sam 12:11-12). Yet when one realizes that the penalty for either of David’s sins was death, there is a real sense in which God does remit the fruit of sin. David himself lives to a ripe old age and sees his son Solomon (by Bathsheba) on the throne. The declaration of forgiveness has more than a spiritual effect.

²⁴ Mark knows of the healing of natural disasters as well in that he reports the stilling of the storm (Mark 4:35-41) and the feeding of the 5000 (Mark 6:30-44). While these incidents do reverse what could be said to be the general fruit of sin (i.e. in Eden there was no lack of food nor any indication that there would be natural disasters), there is no specific tracing of these events to sin, although it is possible that Mark sees the demonic behind the storm in that Jesus speaks to the elements using the same words he uses elsewhere to rebuke demons (cf. Mk. 4:39 and Mk. 1:25). At the same time, the speaking could also be a prophetic declaration without indicating that a personal evil force was involved.

²⁵ This is probably also the situation in Mark 5:21-24, 35-43, although in this case one could argue that it was simply a misdiagnosis given Jesus’ statement, “The child is not dead but asleep.” But Luke makes it clear that she was dead by stating, “Her spirit returned.” Matthew also sees it as the raising of the dead in that “the ruler” says, “My daughter has just died” (Matt 9:18).

²⁶ On the symmetry, see Roger Stronstad, The Charismatic Theology of St. Luke (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson, 1984) 33-35, especially the chart on p. 34.

²⁷ In our view the structure of the Fourth Gospel is that of a Prologue (ch. 1), the Book of Signs (chs. 2-12, containing 6 signs), the Book of Glory (chs. 13-20, which are divided between the Farewell Discourses and the Passion Narrative) and an Epilogue (ch. 21). Thus the resurrection of Lazarus at least forms the culmination of the Book of Signs and, if the latter work once existed independently of the rest of the gospel, it may have formed the conclusion of the book, with ch. 12 rounding off the narrative.

²⁸ That the meaning of Judas’ surname in Mark is correctly interpreted by Luke (Luke 6:15; Acts 1:13) as “the Zealot” and that this probably refers to his activity as an extreme nationalist of the type who were called Zealots in the period before the Jewish War of AD 66-70 is argued by R. A. Guelich, Mark 1-8:26 (WBC 34A, Dallas: Word Books, 1989) 163; and C. E. B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to St. Mark (CGTC; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1959) 132.

²⁹ Cf. the remarks of C. H. Powell, The Biblical Concept of Power (London: Epworth Press, 1963), pp. 182ff.

³⁰ The classic article on this topic is that of R. Bultmann, “pisteuō ktl.,” TDNT, vol. 6, pp. 174-228.

³¹ For further information on these verses see P. H. Davids, The Epistle of James (NIGTC; Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1982) on the respective passages, as well as the section on prayer in the introduction.

³² For erga denoting “miraculous works” when referring to Jesus and God in the Gospel of John: BAGD, p. 308; G. Bertram, “ergon,” TDNT, vol. 2, p. 642; K. H. Rengstorf, “sÄ“meion,” TDNT, vol. 7, pp. 247-248.

³³ For miraculous signs functioning to evoke and encourage faith, see Jn 2:11, 23; 7:31; 9:16, 35, 36, 38 [cf. 9:30-32]; 10:37-38; 11:45, 47-48; 12:10-11; 14:11; 20:30-31 (cf. Mat 11:21; Mk 2:10); van der Loos, The Miracles of Jesus, p. 245, 265; H. Hendrickx, The Miracle Stories of the Synoptic Gospels (San Francisco: Harper & Row, 1987), p. 17.

³⁴ In using “already—not yet” language we are indicating our dependence on the perspective on New Testament theology pioneered by Oscar Cullmann, Christ and Time (London: SCM Press, 1951), and developed by George Eldon Ladd, first in Jesus and the Kingdom (revised as The Presence of the Future) but most fully in A Theology of the New Testament (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1974). These works should be consulted for a fuller treatment.

³⁵ We need to underline the “all areas,” for results in all areas of ministry are partial. Just as we do not see all people we pray for healed, so we do not see all we preach to converted. Just as we do not see all the dead raised, so we do not yet see the twistedness in human nature, our fallenness, eradicated (cf. Rom 7 and I Jn 1:6-9). This is important to realize, for some people see the spiritual results of the work of Christ as complete in the present while the physical results they see as mostly incomplete. In fact, as a concordance study would show, salvation in all its aspects has three tenses—those of having been saved, being saved, and going to be saved—and these three tenses apply to the spiritual results as much as to the physical results in the New Testament.

³⁶ What is tragic is when the church allows the fact that we do not yet see all of the effects of sin reversed so to dampen its faith that she experiences almost none of the effects of sin being reversed (often limiting the ones she has faith for to the invisible, spiritual arena). Whenever this happens the church has become like the people of Nazareth among whom Jesus could not do any mighty works (Mark 6:5-6), although the reason for the modern lack of faith may be different than that found in the first century town.

Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the NIV®.

This chapter is from Gary S. Greig and Kevin N. Springer, eds., The Kingdom and the Power: Are Healing and the Spiritual Gifts Used by Jesus and the Early Church Meant for the Church Today? A Biblical Look at How to Bring the Gospel to the World with Power (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1993). Used with permission.