Healing, Gifts Of:
(charismata iamaton): Among the "spiritual gifts" enumerated in 1Co 12:4-11,28 are included "gifts of healings." See SPIRITUAL GIFTS. The subject has risen into much prominence of recent years, and so calls for separate treatment. The points to be considered are:
(1) the New Testament facts,
(2) the nature of the gifts,
(3) their permanence in the church.
1. The New Testament Facts:
The Gospels abundantly show that the ministry of Christ Himself was one of healing no less than of teaching (compare Mr 1:14 f with 1:32-34). When He sent forth the Twelve (Mr 6:7,13) and the Seventy (Lu 10:1,9), it was not only to preach the Kingdom of God but to heal the sick. The inauthentic conclusion of Mark's Gospel, if it does not preserve words actually used by Christ Himself, bears witness at all events to the traditional belief of the early church that after His departure from the world His disciples would still possess the gift of healing. The Book of Ac furnishes plentiful evidence of the exercise of this gift by apostles and other prominent men in the primitive church (Ac 3:7 f; 5:12-16; 8:7; 19:12; 28:8 f), and the Epistle of James refers to a ministry of healing carried on by the elders of a local church acting in their collective capacity (Jas 5:14 f). But Paul in this passage speaks of "gifts of healings" (the plural "healings" apparently refers to the variety of ailments that were cured) as being distributed along with other spiritual gifts among the ordinary members of the church. There were men, it would seem, who occupied no official position in the community, and who might not otherwise be distinguished among their fellow-members, on whom this special charisma of healing had been bestowed.
2. The Nature of the Gifts:
On this subject the New Testament furnishes no direct information, but it supplies evidence from which conclusions may be drawn. We notice that the exercise of the gift is ordinarily conditional on the faith of the recipient of the blessing (Mr 6:5,6; 10:52; Ac 14:9)-faith not only in God but in the human agent (Ac 3:4 ff; 5:15; 9:17). The healer himself is a person of great faith (Mt 17:19 f), while his power of inspiring the patient with confidence points to the possession of strong, magnetic personality. The diseases cured appear for the most part to have been not organic but functional; and many of them would now be classed as nervous disorders. The conclusion from these data is that the gifts of healing to which Paul alludes were not miraculous endowments, but natural therapeutic faculties raised to their highest power by Christian faith.
Modern psychology, by its revelation of the marvels of the subliminal self or subconscious mind and the power of "suggestion," shows how it is possible for one man to lay his hand on the very springs of personal life in another, and so discloses the psychical basis of the gift of healing. The medical science of our time, by its recognition of the dependence of the physical upon the spiritual, of the control of the bodily functions by the subconscious self, and of the physician's ability by means of suggestion, whether waking or hypnotic, to influence the subconscious soul and set free the healing powers of Nature, provides the physiological basis. And may we not add that many incontestable cases of Christian faith-cure (take as a type the well-known instance in which Luther at Weimar "tore Melanchthon," as the latter put it, "out of the very jaws of death"; see RE, XII, 520) furnish the religious basis, and prove that faith in God, working through the soul upon the body, is the mightiest of all healing influences, and that one who by his own faith and sympathy and force of personality can stir up faith in others may exercise by God's blessing the power of healing diseases?
3. Permanence of Healing Gifts in the Church:
There is abundant evidence that in the early centuries the gifts of healing were still claimed and practiced within the church (Justin, Apol. ii.6; Irenaeus, Adv. Haer. ii. 32, 4; Tertullian, Apol. xxiii; Origen, Contra Celsum, vii.4). The free exercise of these gifts gradually ceased, partly, no doubt, through loss of the early faith and spirituality, but partly through the growth of an ascetic temper which ignored Christ's gospel for the body and tended to the view that pain and sickness are the indispensable ministers of His gospel for the soul. All down the history of the church, however, there have been notable personalities (e.g. Francis of Assisi, Luther, Wesley) and little societies of earnest Christians (e.g. the Waldenses, the early Moravians and Quakers) who have reasserted Christ's gospel on its physical side as a gospel for sickness no less than for sin, and claimed for the gift of healing the place Paul assigned to it among the gifts of the Spirit. In recent years the subject of Christian healing has risen into importance outside of the regularly organized churches through the activity of various faith-healing movements. That the leaders of these movements have laid hold of a truth at once Scriptural and scientific there can be little doubt, though they have usually combined it with what we regard as a mistaken hostility to the ordinary practice of medicine. It is worth remembering that with all his faith in the spiritual gift of healing and personal experience of its power, Paul chose Luke the physician as the companion of his later journeys; and worth noticing that Luke shared with the apostle the honors showered upon the missionaries by the people of Melita whom they had cured of their diseases (Ac 28:10). Upon the modern church there seems to lie the duty of reaffirming the reality and permanence of the primitive gift of healing, while relating it to the scientific practice of medicine as another power ordained of God, and its natural ally in the task of diffusing the Christian gospel of health.
LITERATURE.
Hort, Christian Ecclesia, chapter x; A.T. Schofield, Force of Mind, Unconscious Therapeutics; E. Worcester and others, Religion and Medicine; HJ, IV, 3, p. 606; The Expositor T, XVII, 349, 417.
Written by J. C. Lambert
Spiritual Gifts:
(charismata):
1. Gifts Connected with the Ministry of the Word
(1) Apostleship
(2) Prophecy
(3) Discernings of spirits
(4) Teaching
(5) The Word of Knowledge
(6) The Word of Wisdom
(7) Kinds of Tongues
(8) Interpretation of Tongues
2. Gifts Connected with the Ministry of Practical Service
(1) Workings of Miracles
(2) Gifts of Healings
(3) Ruling, Governments
(4) Helps
LITERATURE
The word charisma, with a single exception (1Pe 4:10), occurs in the New Testament only in the Pauline Epistles, and in the plural form is employed in a technical sense to denote extraordinary gifts of the Spirit bestowed upon Christians to equip them for the service of the church. Various lists of the charismata are given (Ro 12:6-8; 1Co 12:4-11,28-30; compare Eph 4:7-12), none of which, it is evident, are exhaustive. Some of the gifts enumerated cannot be said to belong in any peculiar sense to the distinctive category. "Faith" (1Co 12:9), for example, is the essential condition of all Christian life; though there were, no doubt, those who were endowed with faith beyond their fellows. "Giving" and "mercy" (Ro 12:8) are among the ordinary graces of the Christian character; though some would possess them more than others. "Ministry" (Ro 12:7), again, i.e. service, was the function to which every Christian was called and the purpose to which every one of the special gifts was to be devoted (Eph 4:12). The term is applied to any spiritual benefit, as the confirmation of Christians in the faith by Paul (Ro 1:11). And as the general function of ministry appears from the first in two great forms as a ministry of word and deed (Ac 6:1-4; 1Co 1:17), so the peculiar charismatic gifts which Paul mentions fall into two great classes-those which qualify their possessors for a ministry of the word, and those which prepare them to render services of a practical nature.
1. Gifts Connected with the Ministry of the Word:
(1) Apostleship
(1Co 12:28 f; compare Eph 4:11).-The name "apostle" is used in the New Testament in a narrower and a wider sense. It was the peculiar title and privilege of the Twelve (Mt 10:2; Lu 6:13; Ac 1:25 f), but was claimed by Paul on special grounds (Ro 1:1; 1Co 9:1, etc.); it was probably conceded to James the Lord's brother (1Co 15:7; Ga 1:19), and in a freer use of the term is applied to Barnabas (Ac 14:4,14; compare 1Co 9:5,6), Andronicus and Junias (Ro 16:7). From the Didache (xi.4 ff) we learn that the ministry of apostles was continued in the church into the sub-apostolic age (see LITERATURE, SUB-APOSTOLIC). The special gift and function of apostleship, taken in the widest sense, was to proclaim the word of the gospel (Ac 6:2; 1Co 1:17, etc.), and in particular to proclaim it to the world outside of the church, whether Jewish or Gentile (Ga 2:7,8).
See APOSTLE.
(2) Prophecy
(Ro 12:6; 1Co 12:10,28,29), under which may be included exhortation (Ro 12:8; compare 1Co 14:3). The gift of prophecy was bestowed at Pentecost upon the church as a whole (Ac 2:16 ), but in particular measure upon certain individuals who were distinctively known as prophets. Only a few of the Christian prophets are directly referred to-Judas and Silas (Ac 15:32), the prophets at Antioch (Ac 13:1), Agabus and the prophets from Jerusalem (Ac 11:27 f), the four daughters of Philip the evangelist (Ac 11:9). But 1 Corinthians shows that there were several of them in the Corinthian church; and probably they were to be found in every Christian community. Some of them moved about from church to church (Ac 11:27 f; 21:10); and in the Didache we find that even at the celebration of the Eucharist the itinerant prophet still takes precedence of the local ministry of bishops and deacons (Didache x.7).
It is evident that the functions of the prophet must sometimes have crossed those of the apostle, and so we find Paul himself described as a prophet long after he had been called to the apostleship (Ac 13:1). And yet there was a fundamental distinction. While the apostle, as we have seen, was one "sent forth" to the unbelieving world, the prophet was a minister to the believing church (1Co 14:4,22). Ordinarily his message was one of "edification, and exhortation, and consolation" (1Co 14:3). Occasionally he was empowered to make an authoritative announcement of the divine will in a particular case (Ac 13:1 ). In rare instances we find him uttering a prediction of a future event (Ac 11:28; 21:10 f).
(3) Discernings of Spirits
With prophecy must be associated the discernings of spirits (1Co 12:10; 14:29; 1Th 5:20 f; compare 1Joh 4:1). The one was a gift for the speaker, the other for those who listened to his words. The prophet claimed to be the medium of divine revelations (1Co 14:30); and by the spiritual discernment of his hearers the truth of his claim was to be judged (1Co 14:29). There were false prophets as well as genuine prophets, spirits of error as well as spirits of truth (1 Joh 4:1-6; compare 2Th 2:2; Didache xi). And while prophesyings were never to be despised, the utterances of the prophets were to be "proved" (1Th 5:20 f), and that in them which came from the Spirit of God spiritually judged (1Co 2:14), and so discriminated from anything that might be inspired by evil spirits.
See DISCERNINGS OF SPIRITS.
(4) Teaching
(Ro 12:7; 1Co 12:28 f).-As distinguished from the prophet, who had the gift of uttering fresh truths that came to him by way of vision and revelation, the teacher was one who explained and applied established Christian doctrine-the rudiments and first principles of the oracles of God (Heb 5:12).
(5) The Word of Knowledge
Possibly the word of knowledge (gnosis).
(6) The Word of Wisdom
The word of wisdom (sophia) (1Co 12:8) are to be distinguished, the first as the utterance of a prophetic and ecstatic intuition, the second as the product of study and reflective thought; and so are to be related respectively to the functions of the prophet and the teacher.
See TEACHER, TEACHING.
(7) Kinds of Tongues
(1Co 12:10,28,30).-What Paul means by this he explains fully in 1 Corinthians 14. The gift was not a faculty of speaking in unknown foreign languages, for the tongues (glossai) are differentiated from the "voices" or languages (phonai) by which men of one nation are distinguished from those of another (14:10,11). And when the apostle says that the speaker in an unknown tongue addressed himself to God and not to men (14:2,14) and was not understood by those who heard him (14:2), that he edified himself (14:4) and yet lost the power of conscious thought while praying with the spirit (14:14 f), it would appear that the "tongues" must have been of the nature of devout ejaculations and broken and disjointed words, uttered almost unconsciously under the stress of high ecstatic feeling.
(8) Interpretation of Tongues
Parallel to this gift was that of the interpretation of tongues (1Co 12:10,30). If the gift of tongues had been a power of speaking unknown foreign languages, the interpretation of tongues would necessarily have meant the faculty of interpreting a language unknown to the interpreter; for translation from a familiar language could hardly be described as a charisma. But the principle of economy makes it improbable that the edification of the church was accomplished in this round-about way by means of a double miracle-a miracle of foreign speech followed by a miracle of interpretation. If, on the other hand, the gift of tongues was such as has been described, the gift of interpretation would consist in turning what seemed a meaningless utterance into words easy to be understood (1Co 12:9). The interpretation might be given by the speaker in tongues himself (1Co 12:5,13) after his mood of ecstasy was over, as he translated his exalted experiences and broken cries into plain intelligible language. Or, if he lacked the power of self-interpretation, the task might be undertaken by another possessed of this special gift (1Co 12:27,28). The ability of a critic gifted with sympathy and insight to interpret the meaning of a picture or a piece of music, as the genius who produced it might be quite unable to do (e.g. Ruskin and Turner), will help us to understand how the ecstatic half-conscious utterances of one who had the gift of tongues might be put into clear and edifying form by another who had the gift of interpretation.
See TONGUES, GIFT OF.
2. Gifts Connected with the Ministry of Practical Service:
(1) Workings of Miracles
(1Co 12:10,28,29).-The word used for miracles in this chapter (dunameis, literally, "powers") is employed in Ac (8:7,13; 19:11,12) so as to cover those cases of exorcism and the cure of disease which in Paul's list are placed under the separate category of "gifts of healing." As distinguished from the ordinary healing gift, which might be possessed by persons not otherwise remarkable, the "powers" point to a higher faculty more properly to be described as miraculous, and bestowed only upon certain leading men in the church. In 2Co 12:12 Paul speaks of the "powers" he wrought in Corinth as among "the signs of an apostle." In Heb 2:4 the writer mentions the "manifold powers" of the apostolic circle as part of the divine confirmation of their testimony. In Ro 15:18 ff Paul refers to his miraculous gifts as an instrument which Christ used for the furtherance of the gospel and the bringing of the Gentiles to obedience. The working of "powers," accordingly, was a gift which linked itself to the ministry of the word in respect of its bearing upon the truth of the gospel and the mission of the apostle to declare it. And yet, like the wider and lower gift of healing, it must be regarded primarily as a gift of practical beneficence, and only secondarily as a means of confirming the truth and authenticating its messenger by way of a sign. The Book of Ac gives several examples of "powers" that are different from ordinary healings. The raising of Dorcas (9:36 ff) and of Eutychus (20:9 ff) clearly belong to this higher class, and also, perhaps, such remarkable cures as those of the life-long cripple at the Temple gate (3:1 ff) and Aeneas of Lydda (9:32 ff).
(2) Gifts of Healings
(1Co 12:9,28,30).
See HEALING, GIFTS OF.
(3) Ruling, Governments
(Ro 12:8, 1Co 12:28).-These were gifts of wise counsel and direction in the practical affairs of the church, such as by and by came to be formally entrusted to presbyters or bishops. When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, the ministry of office had not yet supplanted the ministry of inspiration, and Christian communities were guided and governed by those of their members whose wisdom in counsel proved that God through His Spirit had bestowed upon them the gift of ruling.
(4) Helps
(1Co 12:28).-This has sometimes been understood to denote the lowliest Christian function of all in Paul's list, the function of those who have no pronounced gifts of their own and can only employ themselves in services of a subordinate kind. But the usage of the Greek word (antilempsis) in the papyri as well as the Septuagint points to succor rendered to the weak by the strong; and this is confirmed for the New Testament when the same Greek word in its verbal form (antilambano) is used in Ac 20:35, when Paul exhorts the elders of the Ephesian church to follow his example in helping the weak. Thus, as the gift of government foreshadowed the official powers of the presbyter or bishop, the gift of helps appears to furnish the germ of the gracious office of the deacon-the "minister" paragraph excellence, as the name diakonos denotes-which we find in existence at a later date in Philippi and Ephesus (Php 1:1; 1Ti 3:1-13), and which was probably created, on the analogy of the diakonia of the Seven in Jerusalem (Ac 6:1 ), as a ministry, in the first place, to the poor.
See, further, HELPS.
LITERATURE.
Hort, Christian Ecclesia, Lect X; Neander, Hist of the Planting of the Christian Church, I, 131 ff; Weizsacker, Apostolic Age, II, 255-75; Lindsay, Church and Ministry, passim; EB, IV, article "Spiritual Gifts"; ERE, III, article "Charismata"; PRE, VI, article "Geistesgaben."
Written by J. C. Lambert
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