“Law,” “Works of the Law,” and Legalism in Paul

By Douglas J. Moo

[Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois 60015]

In his insightful essay “Reflexions on the Doctrine of the Law,” Gerhard Ebeling observes that “in the theology of the Reformers the problems all concentrate themselves so much on the concept of law that the whole of theology (in the sense of the essential structure of theology) stands or falls with it.”[1] Fundamental to this theological structure is the antithesis between law and gospel—between “what we are to do and give to God” and “what has been given us by God,” as Luther puts it in one place.[2] As theological concepts, law and gospel were carefully distinguished by most of the major Reformers. But both disagreement and confusion were engendered by the application of these terms to the two main epochs of revelation history: the Old and New Testaments. Luther resisted any direct appeal to the OT in the guidance of the Christian and the life of the church.[3] Calvin, on the other hand, elevated the so-called “third use of the law” to its “chief use,”[4] while Bullinger went even further, using the Mosaic judicial law extensively in formulating a theory of church government.[5] An emphasis on the continuity of salvation-history was also of use in equating circumcision with baptism; not surprisingly, some Anabaptists accordingly asserted the discontinuity between law and gospel as applied to historical epochs.[6]

While the nature of the relationship between law and gospel in this historical sense has always figured prominently in theological discussion, and has affected in no small measure the construction of rival theological systems, debate over the theological contrast has not been lacking. Two examples of fresh approaches to this issue in this century are Karl Barth’s essay “Gospel and Law,” which purposively reverses the order of the terms in order to suggest that law is the content of the gospel, and Daniel Fuller’s book, in which law and gospel are asserted to be parts of one continuum, rather than contrasting items.[7] And Fuller’s book illustrates how the two forms of the law/gospel antithesis continue to be treated as inter-related—a blurring of categories which may create problems for the resulting theological formulation.[8]

Appeal to the Pauline epistles has always figured prominently in discussions of law and gospel. To be sure, the apostle never directly contrasts law and gospel, but he does frequently set law in opposition to grace, faith, and promise; and he similarly juxtaposes works of the law and faith as mutually exclusive ways of seeking God’s righteousness. Without presuming to say anything substantial on the dogmatic question, I would like in this essay to discuss one facet of the Pauline evidence as it impinges on the doctrinal question. This is his use of the expressions nomos (“law”) and ta erga tou nomou (“the works of the law”). As we have seen, the law/gospel discussion has moved in two different, but related directions: the theological and the historical; and it is not always clear how the Pauline evidence is being applied to these two different categories. Establishing the range of meaning of the term “law,” then, is of fundamental importance if legitimate use is to be made of his writings. A related issue is the question as to whether Paul sometimes uses “law” or “works of the law” as a reference to the misuse of the law, legalism. Once again, the validity of employing the Pauline antitheses in the formulation of dogmatic conclusions is radically affected by this question. We will proceed by studying, in turn, Paul’s use of nomos and ta erga tou nomou, appending to each section some comments on the implications of our findings for the larger issue.

I. Nomos in Paul

An adequate investigation of Paul’s use of nomos would require at least a monograph, in which the details of exegesis and theological implication would be fully explored. At this point, I will confine myself to a lexical analysis of the term as Paul uses it, with some comments on the significance of the data. Chart I sets forth these data. Many decisions have been made in the course of constructing it, most of which receive some degree of justification in the comments which follow.

(1) Of Paul’s 119 uses of nomos, none occurs in the plural. While this phenomenon accords to some extent with the situation in the LXX (only 38 of the approximately 440 occurrences are in the plural, and most of these have no reference to divine law), this statistic should be regarded as significant: Paul discusses the law as a single entity rather than as a series of commands.[9]

(2) Since the time of Origen, scholars have suggested that the presence and absence of the article with nomos is a clue to its meaning in Paul. Generally the articular form is viewed as referring to the Mosaic law, while the anarthrous nomos is understood to mean law as a general concept.[10] 

CHART I

* Words in brackets [ ] denote terms which are, at least to some extent, interchangeable with nomos when used in the manner indicated. Words in parentheses ( ) denote terms which are often found in the context of nomos when used in the manner indicated. A question mark denotes that considerable uncertainty about the meaning of that occurrence of nomos exists. Usually the reference will also appear in the alternative classification(s). I have omitted question marks with a good number of occurrences that are debated where I am reasonably certain of the meaning.

1 Rom 3:19a, 21b, 31a, b; 1 Cor 9:8, 9; 14:21, 34; Gal 4:21b.

2 Rom 3:27a?b?; 7:21, 23a?c? 25b?; 8:2a?b?; 9:31a?b?

3 Rom 2:14d; Gal 5:23.

4 Rom 2:14b? 15? 26? 27a?b?; 7:22? 23b? 25a?; 8:7?; Gal 3:21b.

5 Gal 6:2.

6 Rom 3:21?; 4:13? 14? 15a?; 6:14? 15?; 7:4? 5? 6?; 10:4?; Gal 3:11? 12? 17? 18? 19? 2la?b?c? 23?; 4:4? 5? .

7 Rom 7:2b, 3.

8 “Done,” “guarded,” “transgressed,” etc.: Rom 2:13a, b, 25a, b, 26? 27a?b?; Gal 5:3; 6:13 .

Denied as the basis of justification, etc. With erga: Rom 3:20, 28; Gal 2:16a, b,c; 3:2, 5, 10. Without erga: Rom 4:13? 14?; 10:5; Gal 2:21; 3:18?; 5:4?; Phil 3:6, 9.

Origin and purpose: Rom 3:20b; 4:15a?; 5:13a, 20; 7:7b, c, 9, 12, 14; 8:2b?; 1 Cor 15:56; Gal 3:17, 19.

“Fulfilled” or “established”: Rom 3:31b?; 8:4; 13:8; Gal 3:10; 5:14 .

Other uses: Rom 2:14a, c, 17, 18, 20, 23a, b, 27a?b?; 3:27b?; 4:15b? 16; 5:13b; 7:1a?b? 2a? 7a, 8? 16? 22? 23a?c? 25a?b?; 8:2b? 3?; 9:31a?b?; Rom 10:5?; Gal 2:19a, b?; 3:10b, 11, 12, 13, 21a, c; Eph 2:15?; Phil 3:5; 1 Tim 1:8, 9.

9 Rom 2:12a, b; 3:19b, 2la?; 6:14? 15?; 7:4? 5? 6? 8?; 8:3?; 10:4? 5?; 1 Cor 9:20a, b,c,d; Gal 2:19b; 3:23, 24; 4:4? 5? 21a; 5:4? 18; Eph 2:15?

This is a distinction which is, however, rejected by most contemporary scholars, and with good reason.[11] The shift from articular nomos to anarthrous and vice versa in passages such as Rom 7:7–14 and Gal 3:11–12 (where any change in the meaning of the term would wreak havoc with the continuity of the argument), the fact that Josephus and Philo use anarthrous nomos of the Mosaic law, and the impossibility of maintaining a difference in the forms in the LXX all point to the illegitimacy of drawing distinctions in meaning on the basis of the use of the article. Other explanations, related especially to syntactical considerations, serve to explain most of the variations.[12]

(3) Nomos appears to possess the root meaning “something laid down, ordered, or assigned” and hence the system of customs or rules governing equitable and/or just distribution of things and duties.[13] In a formal sense, then, the term can be used generally of an “order,” “system,” or even “authority.” This meaning, though not found in the LXX, is certainly attested in Paul. Just how often, however, is a matter of considerable debate. Despite arguments to the contrary, Rom 7:21 (“I find therefore this nomon”) is almost certainly one such instance.[14] Complicating the situation is the fact that nomos occurs several times in the context with uncertain meaning. In vv 22–23, Paul contrasts “the law of God”/”the law of my mind” with “the other law”/”the law of sin in my members.”[15] While some view the second set of expressions as ways of speaking of the Mosaic law in one of its aspects,[16] it seems better to understand by the phrases something like “the authority, or power, exercised by sin.”[17] Rom 8:2 presents a similar situation: “The law of the Spirit of life has freed me from the law of sin and death.” Are two facets or uses of the Mosaic law intended,[18] or two contrasting powers[19] or two opposing systems?[20] The same alternatives are applicable to Rom 3:27[21] and 9:31.[22]Without attempting to draw conclusions on these debated texts, it is fairly clear that Paul does use nomos with the sense suggested here, but only occasionally. And, it is worth while pointing out, all the possible occurrences of this use but one are construed with the genitive.

(4) For the Jews of Paul’s day, the tôrah was the heart of Scripture. Because of the prominence given to this facet of the OT, the Pentateuch was often, and the Scriptures as a whole were sometimes, called the “law.”[23] Paul takes up this usage. Rom 3:19a (following quotations drawn from the Psalms and Isaiah) and 1 Cor 14:21 (introducing a quotation from Isaiah) are indisputable examples of nomos with reference to the whole of Scripture, while 1 Cor 9:8–9; 14:34; and Gal 4:21b almost certainly are references to the Pentateuch. Only once does Paul use the phrase “law and prophets” to designate Scripture as a whole (Rom 3:21b). Characteristic of these occurrences is the use of a form of graphō or legō with nomos.

(5) The great majority of the Pauline uses of nomos make reference to demands, or requirements, and especially to bodies or systems of demands or requirements which are binding on men. This usage bears some similarities to the use of nomos among the Greeks to designate the system of regulations governing the life of the polis or the conduct of religion.[24] For Paul, naturally, the body of demands which binds men has its origin with God, but on two occasions he may indicate with nomos such a system in general, without specific thought of divine origin. Rom 2:14 is exceedingly difficult, but it can at least be suggested that Paul, when he speaks of Gentiles[25] being a “law for themselves,” means that their consciences (v 15) become the source of moral guidance according to which God will render to them his just judgment.[26] Similarly, Paul’s declaration that “against such things [i.e., the fruit of the Spirit] there is no law” (Gal 5:23) may indicate that such Spirit-inspired qualities are incapable of being produced on the basis of external command and perhaps also that no system of demands can stand as a criterion of judgment over such virtues.

(6) Occasionally, Paul appears to use nomos of the will of God, without regard to any definite, historical form in which that will is expressed. Romans 2, which offers the greatest difficulties of any Pauline text in determining the meanings of nomos, may contain several examples of this usage. “The work of the law” written in the hearts of the Gentiles (2:15) may reflect such an idea, as may 2:26–27. In the latter text, the key point appears to be, as Barrett points out, that the law is fulfilled by those who are in an uncircumcised state—clearly implying that the historical revelation of the divine will through Moses cannot be intended.[27] Recently, and apparently independently, A. Feuillet and D. R. de Lacey have argued for a general meaning of nomos in the expression nomos theou in Rom 7:22, 25 and 8:7.[28] Reference may be made to the chart for other possible occurrences of this usage.

(7) What is vital for any accurate understanding of Paul’s doctrine of law is to realize that Paul uses nomos most often and most basically of the Mosaic law. This may be demonstrated through a consideration of the following facts.

(a) Paul can speak of the law, without further definition, as having “entered” (Rom 5:20), as having been “added” (Gal 3:19) and, specifically, as having originated at the time of Moses (cf Gal 3:17, Rom 5:13).

(b) Equally significant is the fact that Paul consistently confines the scope of nomos to Israel. Rom 2:12 presents the unambiguous contrast between those who “sin without the law” (anomōs) and those who sin “in the law,” while 2:14 characterizes the Gentiles specifically as those “who do not have the law.” An identical contrast is evident in 1 Cor 9:20–21: “To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law [hupo nomon] I became like one under the law (though I myself am not under the law) so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law [anomos] I became like one not having the law….” Note should also be made here of Paul’s careful use of pronouns in Gal 3:10–4:7 —the first person used when life under the law is discussed, the second person when the Galatians’ (who are Gentiles) own situation is involved.[29] And, while not going as far as Minear,[30] it seems to me that the heading of Romans 7, “Now I am speaking to those who know the law,” may very well signal Paul’s intent to address the Jewish faction of the Roman church.[31] Negatively, Paul is careful to speak of “works” rather than “works of the law” when people before the time of Moses (Rom 4; 9:10–12) and Gentiles (Eph 2:9; 2 Tim 1:9; Titus 3:5) are the subjects of comment. Finally, it is clear that Paul views the law as a barrier separating Jew and Gentile, an exclusive privilege of Israel which must (in some sense) be removed if unity is to be attained in the church (Eph 2:15; cf. the argument in Rom 3:28–30 and 10:4–10).

(c) That the texts listed above do not represent simply an insignificant usage of nomos is apparent from the cruciality of the temporal and racial limitation of the law in Paul’s theology.

Against the views of the Judaizers, who in accordance with some Jewish sentiment may have regarded the law as eternal,[32] Paul puts forth a conception of salvation-history in which the law enters into history at a certain point and has specified, delimited purposes (cf. especially Gal 3:15–25). Most of the Pauline occurrences of nomos are found in passages where this salvation-historical scheme is prominent (Galatians 2–4; Romans 3–7),[33] and where, therefore, unless indications to the contrary exist, nomos should be taken to mean the Mosaic law.[34]

(8) How does Paul view this Mosaic law? While caution must be exercised lest an undue precision be introduced into the term, it can be argued that Paul means by nomos most often the commands mediated through Moses. This is suggested by his frequent references to the “doing” or “fulfilling” of the law;[35] by the coupling of “works” (erga) with nomos in eight texts; and by the particularization of nomos in “commandment” (entolē) in several key passages.[36] At the same time, however, Paul sometimes (perhaps often) expands this conception, and uses nomos with reference to the Mosaic dispensation or covenant. Thus, for instance, to be “under the law” (Rom 6:14, 15; 1 Cor 9:20; Gal 3:23; 4:4, 5) appears to be Paul’s way of saying “to be under the Mosaic economy.”[37] It is surprising that Paul only once (2 Cor 3:14) clearly uses diathēkē of the Mosaic economy; nomos, it seems, is preferred instead. This implies that it would not be falling into the error of J. Barr’s “illegitimate totality transfer” to suggest that Paul uses nomos of the Mosaic economy precisely because he views the commanding aspect of it as so prominent.[38]

This emphasis in Paul on the commanding aspect of the law, and the accompanying sanctions for failure to obey it, has been severely criticized as a misrepresentation of the OT teaching, and its interpretation in late Judaism, regarding life under the covenant.[39] Omitted, it is claimed, are the fundamental doctrines of repentance and forgiveness. Contributing to this misconception, it is argued, is the use of nomos, with its legal and judicial overtones, to translate tôrah, which refers simply to “instruction.”[40] This is not the place to become involved in what would have to be a lengthy and technical discussion of the relationship of Paul’s doctrine of law with that found in the OT and late Judaism. Suffice to say here that it is not so clear that nomos is such a bad rendering of tôrah as it is used of the Mosaic law. For, while tôrah may in its root sense mean “instruction,” the Mosaic tôrah is instruction with sanctions—to ignore Yahweh’s instruction is to risk forfeiture of life under the covenant.[41] And with respect to Paul’s use of nomos, T. R. Glover rightly observes that “whatever ‘Torah’ and nomos first meant, two hundred years of equation is not irrelevant in the history of words.”[42]

As a matter of fact, Paul’s use of nomos appears to match fairly closely many of the emphases found in the OT with respect to tôrah. tôrah is often combined with words such as mịwôt (“commandment”) and ḥôq (“statute”), and the stress is continually on the doing or keeping of the tôrah. It is worth noting that the rabbis themselves retained “precept” as the “basic element” of the tôrah.[43] What is important to note is that, when we say that Paul uses nomos to indicate the commanding will of God revealed through Moses and the economy in which this will was prominent, we do not mean to deny the accompanying grace of God and the demand for faith in the OT. We do deny, however, that Paul generally uses nomos to designate these aspects of the old covenant.

(9) As Mosaic law, nomos is basically for Paul a single indivisible whole. The argument of Galatians makes this very clear, for Paul points out to his Gentile readers that for them to accept circumcision means that they must also obligate themselves to keep “the whole law” (Gal 5:3). This is in agreement with at least some segments of Jewish belief:[44]

As the native born Jew takes upon him [to obey] all the words of the law, so the proselyte takes upon him all the words of the law. The authorities say, if a proselyte takes upon himself to obey all the words of the law except one single commandment, he is not to be received.[45]

The logic of Paul’s argument prohibits a neat distinction of moral and ceremonial law; if this distinction were assumed by Paul, he would have argued to the effect that while the Galatians were obligated to the moral law, circumcision (presumably an aspect of the ceremonial law) was to be excluded. Instead, Paul stresses the unity of the law. Nor does Romans 2 contradict this. For while Paul here can speak of a “completing” of the law which excludes literal circumcision, it is by no means clear that this completed law is part of the specifically Mosaic law.[46] To be sure, Paul often singles out “moral” commandments when discussing the demand of the law (Rom 7:7–8; 13:8–10), but this is done in order to point up the depths of the law’s requirement, not to separate out these commandments as fundamentally distinct from other commandments. As has been often pointed out, the threefold distinction of moral, ceremonial, and civil law as separate categories with varying degrees of applicability is simply unknown in the Judaism of the first century,[47] and there is little evidence that Jesus or Paul introduced such a distinction.[48]

(10) A final possible Pauline use of nomos remains to be discussed. Several scholars suggest that Paul occasionally, or even frequently, uses nomos to designate the law as misunderstood and perverted by his Judaistic opponents—in a word, legalism. Burton claimed that every occurrence of nomos in Galatians 2–3 has this meaning, while Fuller makes this supposition basic to his correlating of Galatians 3 with his own theory.[49] The lexical justification for this interpretation is found in the negative circumstance, as Cranfield indicates, that Greek has no word for “legalism.”[50] And, conceptually, Paul uses nomos often in polemical contexts where it is not unlikely that he takes up and contests his opponents’ understanding of the law. However, two factors which call into question the validity of this understanding of nomos may be mentioned.

First, while Cranfield’s observation regarding the lack of a single word for legalism in Greek is correct, it is nevertheless clear that the Greek language provides sufficient resources for the expression of the concept. Paul himself clearly utilizes these resources on a number of occasions. Quite apart from the eight occurrences of the phrase ek (or chōris) tōn ergōn tou nomou, which we will examine below, one finds the denial that justification can be attained en tō nomō (“in the law”—Gal 3:11); that life or the inheritance can be secured ek tou nomou (“on the basis of the law”—Gal 3:21, and Gal 3:18 and Rom 4:14, respectively); and that the promise can be inherited dia tou nomou (“through the law”—Rom 4:13). Similarly, Paul speaks derogatorily of “righteousness based on the law” (ek tou nomou—Rom 10:5),[51] “my own righteousness based on the law” (Phil 3:9), and “seeking one’s own righteousness” (Rom 10:3). Each of these expressions refers to the error of attempting to secure a standing with God on the basis of obedience to the law and the concept is found in the phrase, not in the individual word. In other words, it is the false use of the law, not the law itself which receives Paul’s strictures. The legalist is the one, who, as Edward Fisher puts it, “bringeth the Law into the case of Justification.”[52] Now this does not necessarily mean that nomos cannot mean legalism; but it does show that Paul was under no obligation to coin a new meaning for the word in order to express the idea. Moreover, the fact that Paul nowhere clearly intimates that he is using the term in this way creates suspicion about the validity of the assumption: surely, in arguing with Judaizers, to use nomos with their meaning would be to sacrifice the strongest point in his own polemic.[53]

Secondly, the motivation for interpreting nomos as legalism is usually, explicitly or implicitly, the desire to avoid attributing to Paul an overly negative evaluation of the OT economy. This, in turn, suggests that some of those who want to avoid any absolute law/gospel antithesis in Paul do so because they understand nomos to include the OT revelation as a whole; and, understandably, they want to vindicate Paul from the charge of Marcionism. That this is the case for Ragnar Bring is shown by his own conception of nomos in Paul: “The law was not simply legal and juridical, it contained all of his revealed will and work.”[54] Similarly, Cranfield argues in his discussion of Galatians 3 that law in this text must be understood “somewhat narrowly” because it is distinguished from the promise, which is contained in the Pentateuch.[55] In other words, Cranfield includes in Paul’s use of nomos the Pentateuch as a whole; a supposition which is confirmed by his categorization of the uses of nomos in Paul earlier in his article.[56] Burton evidences a similar perspective. He regards the meaning of nomos which is “most congenial” to Paul’s thought to be “Divine law conceived of as reduced to the ethical principle which constitutes its permanent element and essential demand, the perception of which deprives the statutes as such of authority.”[57] Starting from this idealistic, moralistic notion of Paul’s doctrine of law, it is no wonder that Burton resists finding any real law/gospel antithesis in Paul.

Essentially, then, I am suggesting that, in at least some cases, nomos is interpreted to mean legalism because the term is given a broad sense, embracing at times the Pentateuch as a whole. If, however, nomos in the relevant texts is understood to refer to the commanding aspect of the Mosaic economy, or the Mosaic economy conceived of as consisting most basically in commandments, Paul can be absolved from the charge of finding in the OT only an Unheilsgeschichte, without the need to suggest that Paul uses nomos with a new, unexplained meaning. In other words, the interpretation of nomos to mean legalism has its roots in what I would argue is a fundamentally wrong conception of Paul’s use of nomos. I would maintain that Paul distinguishes promise and law by definition (see Gal 3:15–25 and Rom 4:13–16), so that the denial that justification can come through the law (e.g., Gal 3:11) is not a denial that those “under the law” could be justified. It does constitute a denial that man could ever be justified by means of the law (see Gal 2:21; 3:21). What is sacrificed, it seems to me, when nomos is construed to mean legalism, is nothing less than the heart of Paul’s conception of saving history.

Before leaving this matter of the meaning of nomos in Paul, some remarks on the relationship of this topic to the theological law/gospel antithesis are in order. As we have seen, the Reformers, as most theologians today, use “law” to mean anything that demands something of us. In this sense, “law” is a basic factor in all of human history; and man is in every age, whether in the OT or NT, confronted with “law.” What is crucial to recognize is that this is not the way in which Paul usually uses the term nomos. Ebeling, discussing the Reformers’ understanding of law vis-à-vis Paul’s, says:

The difference could also be defined by saying that the concepts law and Gospel are largely stripped of the concrete historical references they bear in Paul and made into hard and fast general basic concepts of theology, so that they find a more universal application than in Paul.[58]

This is not to contest the validity of using “law” of the theological category here described. But it is vitally important that the Pauline use and the theological use not be confused. This distinction has not always been observed; and when it is not, unnecessary theological difficulties are created. Two examples may illustrate this.

J. Murray’s generally excellent Principles of Conduct contains a chapter on “Law and Grace,” in which it is argued that the Pauline statements about not being “under the law” (primarily Rom 6:14, 15) cannot mean that Christians are not obligated to the law of God because the NT speaks elsewhere of the necessity for believers to obey the “commandments” of God. Murray therefore explains not being “under the law” as being restricted only to the condemning, binding aspects of the law.[59] It is not my intention here to contest Murray’s interpretation of the phrase hupo nomon so much as to note that his approach is based on the supposition that nomos in Rom 6:14, 15 refers to the theological concept of law. In other words, Murray implicitly identifies the nomos of these verses with the broad term the “commandments” of God. If, however, nomos in Rom 6:14, 15 is a reference to the Mosaic economy (contrasted with the Christian economy, referred to by one of its chief characteristics, grace), then believers could very well be freed from obligation to nomos while being required to observe the “commandments” (now mediated through Christ and the apostles). I am not so much criticizing Murray here for not holding my view (although I think my explanation is simpler), but pointing out that he never justifies his understanding of nomos in Rom 6:14, 15 in terms of law in its broadest, theological sense.

A second example of confusion over this issue occurs in the discussion between J. Knox and C. F. D. Moule over the role of obligation in Paul’s ethics. Knox had argued that the logic of Paul’s radical exclusion of law from the believer’s life had left his ethics without an adequate theoretical base: “Law in some sense is the necessary presupposition of obligation, and according to Paul, the believer is not under law.”[60] To this Moule replies that Paul’s rejection of nomos is not a rejection of law per se, but a rejection of the legalistic use of the law (he refers specifically here to Rom 3:20; 6:14, 15; 10:4).[61] We have already noted that scholars tend to interpret nomos as legalism in order to avoid “antinomian” conclusions from Paul’s declarations. Moule’s reply to Knox is another case in point. A simpler, and to my mind more exegetically sound, reply would be to point out that Paul never claims believers to be freed from law in “any sense.” Verses such as Rom 3:20; 6:14, 15; 10:4; and Gal 3:23–24 are best explained as having reference to the Mosaic law, as usual in Paul; and Paul is insistent that he himself, though not under the law, is nevertheless “in-lawed to Christ” (ennomos Cristou, 1 Cor 9:20–21)—and Gal 6:2 suggests that this applies to all believers.

We who are the theological descendants of the Puritans have inherited a theological tradition according to which law is the Mosaic law, at least in its “moral” portion. The evidence adduced here would suggest that this equation requires close scrutiny. To equate Paul’s use of the term “law” (at least, in most instances) with the theological concept “law” may involve a jump in categories, according to which the difference between Paul’s salvation-historical conceptual framework and the essentially a-historical dogmatic framework is ignored. This is not to deny any point of contact between the two uses of “law.” Perhaps the Mosaic law, as Paul conceives it, may best be recognized as a particularization of “law” for the revelatory period from Moses to Christ. In any case, it should be evident that Paul’s use of nomos cannot simply be equated with the theological sense of the term without argumentation. And, as one implication, the fallacy of castigating someone as an “antinomian” because he argues that believers are not under the Mosaic law should at least be obvious. Such a charge would “stick” only if it were demonstrated that the Mosaic law contains the complete and sole revelation of God’s will for man.

II. ta erga tou nomou in Paul

The Pauline phrase ta erga tou nomou (“the works of the law”) warrants separate treatment because of its importance and distinctiveness. Its importance lies in the fact that it occurs prominently in several texts where the law/”gospel” antithesis is strongest—Galatians 2-3; Romans 3. As to its distinctiveness, the phrase is not found in the LXX, is not used by any other NT author and is extant in an equivalent Hebrew verbal parallel only in 4QFlor 1:7, maʿaśey tôrah.[62] Other close linguistic equivalents are maʿaśʾyw batôrah, “his works in the law” (1QS 5.21; 6.18), maʿaśey hạedaqah, “works of righteousness” (1QH 1.26; 4.31), “works of the commandments” (2 Apoc. Bar. 57:2—the Hebrew original is lacking) and the rabbinic terms maʿaśim (“works”), which usually implies works of the law, and mịwô̄t (“commandments”), which often designates the concrete results of the fulfilling of the demands of the tôrah.[63] Despite these phrases, however, the Pauline phrase is distinctive and calls for comment. Three basic views as to its meaning have been proposed.

In a significant essay, E. Lohmeyer argued that the phrase does not so much convey the idea of concrete, discrete actions which fulfill the demands of the law as the general context out of which such actions are done—”die Form der religiösen Existenz des jüdischen Frommen.”[64] In this sense, the issue involved in Paul’s use of the phrase relates to the motive of the actions rather than to the question of fulfillment per se. J. B. Tyson has applied Lohmeyer’s thesis to the use of the phrase in Galatians, and concludes that circumcision and food laws (cf. especially the context of Gal 2:16) are especially prominent aspects of this “nomistic service.”[65] On this reading of the phrase, the Pauline contrast between “works of the law” and faith becomes a heilsgeschichtlich one, according to which “service of the law” is replaced by faith in Christ in the new era.[66] Others, noting that the phrase is always employed negatively in Paul, argue that it denotes legalism—the attempt to establish one’s own righteousness through the completion of the law.[67] Although related to the first view, this position holds that such an attitude toward the law has always been wrong; missing, therefore, is the stress on a salvation-historical transition. Finally, a third approach is to give the phrase a more straightforward rendering: actions performed in obedience to the law, works which are commanded by the law.[68]

While the first two views mentioned above contain elements of the truth, we will argue that the third option best accords with the data of Pauline usage. A chart setting forth the range of meaning of ergon in Paul will provide material helpful in setting forth this argument. (See Chart II.)

It should first be noted that the phrase is found at least once in Jewish literature (4QFlor 1.7; cf. supra) and is reminiscent of several other Jewish expressions, all of which clearly denote actions done in obedience to the law. That is to say, the closest verbal equivalents to ta erga tou nomou possess the sense suggested by the third view above. Against this, of course, it can be argued that the distinctiveness of the phrase constitutes grounds for giving it a meaning different from these other phrases. However, the use of ergon or equivalents in Hebrew to refer to actions with moral significance and which constitute a basis for judgment is by no means unknown in the OT (cf. 2 Chr 17:4, Isa 66:18, Sir 16:12), DSS (especially in the Manual of Discipline) and rabbinic literature (cf., e.g., ‘Abot 3.18). For the rabbis, as already noted, the law as the source which demands such works is assumed; for Paul this could not be so, since he did not regard the tôrah as the only source of ethical guidance—hence his addition of tou nomou. Despite the formal difference, then, Paul’s phrase may be materially equivalent to the rabbinic “works” or “commandments.”[69]

CHART II

A CATEGORIZATION OF PAUL’s USE OF ERGON

I. Ergon used with no ethical connotation [Paul uses kopos, mochthos, poiēma, and praxis with approximately the same meaning]

A. Action, or activity; “deed” as opposed to word (logos)

Singular: Rom 15:18; 1 Cor 5:2; 2 Cor 10:11; Gal 6:4; Col 3:17

B. God’s work in believers

Singular: Rom 14:20; Phil 1:6

C. Paul’s apostolic work

Singular: 1 Cor 9:1; Phil 1:22

D. The “work” of ministry in general, or a particular gift or office

Singular: absolute, 1 Thess 5:13; + theou or kuriou, 1 Cor 15:58; 16:10; Phil 2:30; + diakonou, Eph 4:12; + kalos (= office of overseer), 1 Tim 3:1; + euangelistou, 2 Tim 4:5

II. Ergon with ethical connotation

A. As the criterion of judgment

Singular: Rom 2:7 (+ agathos); 1 Cor 3:13a, b, 14, 15

Plural: Rom 2:6; 2 Cor 11:15; 2 Tim 4:14

B. To which believers are called

Singular: + agathos or kalos, Rom 13:3; 2 Cor 9:8; Col 1:10; 2 Thess 2:17; 1 Tim 5:10; 2 Tim 2:21; 3:17; Titus 1:16; 3:1; + pisteōs, 1 Thess 1:3; 2 Thess 1:11

Plural: + agathos or kalos, Eph 2:10; 1 Tim 2:10; 5:10, 25; 6:18; Titus 2:7, 14; 3:8, 14

C. From which believers are called

Singular: + ponēros, 2 Tim 4:18

Plural: absolute, Titus 1:16; + ponēros, Col 1:21; + tou skotous, Rom 13:12; Eph 5:11 (+ akathartos); + sarkos. Gal 5:19

III. Ergon with reference to salvation

A. Plural: absolute

justification not ex ergōn: Rom 4:2; cf. 9:32

justification chōris ergōn: Rom 4:6

election not ex ergōn: Rom 9:12; 11:6

salvation not ex ergōn: Eph 2:9; Titus 3:5 (+ tōn en dikaiosunē)

salvation and calling not kata ergōn: 2 Tim 1:9

B. Ta erga tou nomou

justification not ek tōn ergōn tou nomou: Rom 3:20; Gal 2:16a, b,c

justification chōris tōn ergōn tou nomou: Rom 3:28

reception of the Spirit not ek tōn ergōn tou nomou: Gal 3:2, 5 (with working of miracles added)

curse on all who are ek tōn ergōn tou nomou: Gal 3:10

C. Singular: + nomou, Rom 2:15

D. Nomos tōn ergōn: Rom 3:27

As an alternative background, Lohmeyer cites Septuagintal phrases in which erga is construed with the genitive to denote, he claims, the idea of a general service of an institution.[70] But while a phrase such as ta erga tēs skēnēs (cf., e.g., Num 3:7, 8) may suggest the idea of service in general (RSV, for instance, translates here “as they minister at the tabernacle”), the emphasis still appears to lie on a series of concrete acts which make up that service. Furthermore, the parallel between this sort of expression and “works of the law” is not very exact: skēnēs, for instance, may be a kind of “objective” genitive (“works directed toward the tabernacle”), but “law” in Paul’s phrase does not function in the same way. As Galatians makes clear, the issue is not “service of the law” but the accomplishment of what the law requires (cf. 5:3, 14; 6:13). Finally, as Luz notes, ergon consistently denotes specific, demonstrable actions.”[71] Deriving the phrase from the popular Jewish way of describing the observance of commandments, which makes excellent sense in the context of Paul’s argument with Judaizers, is to be preferred over viewing it as a Pauline creation on the basis of some dubious Septuagintal parallels.

A second factor suggesting the general meaning “works done in obedience to the law” is the relationship of the phrase to the word erga when used absolutely. As a glance at the chart above shows, erga is used in a manner very similar to ta erga tou nomou: both are used with prepositions such as ek, chōris, and kata in order to deny the possibility of attaining righteousness, or allied concepts, on such a basis. The essential synonymity of the word ergon and the phrase ta erga tou nomou is confirmed by a consideration of the way they are used in Romans 3 and 4. In 3:20–28, the phrase is used twice (vv 20, 28); in both cases it is denied that justification can be secured on the basis of these works. But, whatever the exact relationship may be,[72] it is clear that Romans 4 carries on the same argument with respect to Abraham: he is the prime example of one justified by faith, whose dependence on God’s grace rather than his own works excludes all possibility of boasting. The use of erga in Romans 4 instead of ta erga tou nomou is undoubtedly to be explained by recalling that Paul generally confines nomos to the Mosaic law; a law which could not therefore have had relevance to Abraham.[73] But what is especially relevant to the present argument is that erga in the two chapters must, if Paul’s argument is to possess any logical force, mean the same thing. Thus, the general usage of the two expressions, when considered in light of Romans 3–4, suggests that ta erga tou nomou should be viewed as a particular subset of erga, the difference being, of course, that the former spells out the source of the demand for the works in question.

Now if erga and ta erga tou nomou express essentially similar concepts, it is impossible to regard the latter as possessing a peculiar meaning divorced from Paul’s normal use of ergon. And ergon, as the chart shows, is used by Paul of actions which can be either good or evil. That ergon retains this neutral sense when used parallel to ta erga tou nomou in justification texts can be demonstrated from a consideration of two passages. In Rom 9:10–13 Paul furnishes historical proof for his contention that God has selected his chosen people from among the racial group “Israel” by citing the choice of Jacob rather than Esau as bearer of the line of promise. This choice, Paul emphasizes, was not based on “anything they had done, whether good or evil, in order that God’s purpose in election might stand” (v 11). The freedom of God’s choice is reaffirmed in v 12 : “not on the basis of works [ex ergōn] but on the basis of the one who calls.” Now if, as seems clear, the contrast in v 12 restates the idea of v 11, “works” must here include anything men do, “whether good or evil.” And the stress obviously falls on the “good”: it need hardly be argued that God does not reward evil deeds. Romans 4 presumes a similar sense of erga, with greater emphasis on the commendable nature of the works. These are compared to wages, which involve a situation of obligation. Had Abraham been justified on the basis of works, then God would have been, to some degree, obligated and Abraham correspondingly would have had grounds for boasting. On the contrary, however, Abraham had no basis for boasting, for he was justified by faith and received his standing with God as a gift from “the God who justifies the ungodly” (vv 2–5).[74] Obviously, then, “works” are considered to be good actions which could be regarded as meritorious.

To summarize this argument: usage and the context of Romans 3–4 demonstrate that “works of the law” and “works” have essentially the same functional meaning in Paul. It is evident, furthermore, that when erga is used in parallel fashion to ta erga tou nomou the term has reference particularly to good actions which could conceivably be regarded as meritorious. This strongly suggests that “works of the law” will likewise indicate commendable actions, performed in obedience to the law.

The previous argument leads to an issue which is significant in determining the meaning of “works of the law”: why does Paul deny that men can be justified on this basis? E. P. Sanders claims that Paul’s rejection of “works” is basically the consequence of his conviction that Christ alone provides access to justification, a justification which differs crucially from the Jewish conception of “righteousness.” “Righteousness” according to the Jews involved “preserving one’s status” in the covenant, but for Paul it connotes a radical change in status; a change which the law is unable to effect.[75] Sanders’ approach bears resemblance to the salvation-historical approach to the meaning of “works of the law.” And there is much to be said for this approach. It rightly sees the centrality of salvation-history for Paul’s doctrine of the law, and it explains why Paul never calls believers to perform “works of the law.” But, on the other hand, it suffers from two major difficulties. First, as we have seen, Paul denies justification through “works” as often as he denies it through “works of the law.”[76] “Works” had no more place in the selection of Abraham and Jacob, who bore no relationship to the law (in the sense the term is used in this phrase), than in the justification of Galatian Gentiles, who were being encouraged to supplement their faith with “works of the law.” In other words, Paul appears to criticize “works of the law” not because they are nomou (“of the law”) but because they are erga (“works”). Secondly, Paul’s argument in Gal 3:10–12, as well as the clear allusion to Ps 143:2 in Gal 2:16 and Rom 3:20, indicates that “works of the law” have always been an improper way to seek God’s righteousness.[77] While it would be unwarranted, then, to exclude any impact from Paul’s salvation-history conception on this issue (after all, Gal 3:15–4:10 follows Gal 3:10–14), it is clear that this is not a sufficient explanation for Paul’s rejection of “works of the law.”

In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Sanders’ approach, Fuller argues that Gal 3:10–12 (the pivotal text which he discusses at length) excludes “works of the law” from the process of justification for no evident reason. The traditional idea that it is man’s inability to do the law perfectly which accounts for this exclusion is not found in the context and cannot be assumed on Paul’s part because the idea conflicts radically with Jewish belief in man’s ability to do the law.[78] Thus, Fuller reasons, “works of the law” are rejected by Paul for the simple reason that they are by definition improper—involving the attempt of man to gain favor with God by virtue of his own performance. However, while the concept is not explicit in Galatians 2–3 (as it is in Romans 1–3, which, however, Fuller ignores), inability to “do” the law is part and parcel of Paul’s argument in Gal 3:10. The quotation of Deut 27:26 in this verse, which explains why (gar) a curse comes upon all those who “are of the works of the law,” attributes the curse to “not remaining in all[79] that is written in the book of the law to do them.” In other words, the curse is specifically explained to be the result of failure to do the law. Thus, although Paul does not state in so many words that no one does the law, his assertion that “all who (hosoi)” rely on “works of the law” for justification are cursed makes sense only if, in fact, “all” fail to do the law.[80] Confirmation of this reading of the verse comes in v 13, where it is said that Christ redeemed those who were under the curse by himself becoming a curse. Only if the curse of v 10 is pronounced a failure to keep the law does the substitutionary redemption language of this verse make sense.[81]

Gal 3:10, then, along with the indisputable stress on human inability in Romans 1–3 (which is capped with two denials of the ability of “works of the law” to justify; 3:20, 28), strongly supports the notion that “works of the law” cannot justify, not because they are inherently wrong,[82] nor only because a decisive shift in salvation-history has occurred, but fundamentally because no man is able to do them in sufficient degree and number so as to gain merit before God.[83] The logic of this argument presumes, however, that “works of the law” has reference to actions performed in obedience to the law; “works” which could be expected to establish a situation of merit.

In arguing for this meaning of the phrase, we basically support the use made of this phrase among the Reformers. They were most anxious to refute current Roman Catholic notions of meritorious works by means of appeal to many of the texts we have cited above. While it was an error to apply “works of the law” directly to this conception, since Paul’s sense of law is inextricably tied to the Mosaic law, the expansion and generalizing of this phrase in the simple “works” suggests the propriety of the application made by the Reformers. That Paul criticizes the Jews for taking the wrong attitude toward the law is clear (Rom 10:1–3); but this transgression must not be so stressed that no room is left for the very important point that, whatever attitude one takes, simply doing what the law demands as the basis for salvation utterly fails. It is this latter point that Paul makes when he speaks against “works of the law.” And, as is the case with respect to nomos also, “legalism” is conveyed not by the phrase alone, but by the use of the phrase with a preposition after the verb dikaioō or equivalent.

III. Conclusion

The need to root systematic theology in biblical theology has been increasingly recognized in the last decades. With no doctrine is this more important than in the case of the concept “law.” Without the “control” of the scriptural data, the picture of law within any given systematics can too easily be determined by particular philosophies or current theories of jurisprudence. And, while the evidence of all of Scripture, OT and NT, is particularly important with respect to this issue,[84] the contribution of Paul will surely be the most important. In this article, we have foregone the careful exegetical study of the relevant texts within the framework of Paul’s way of thinking that is required in order to produce a valid picture of Paul’s doctrine of law. Rather, we have concentrated on some preliminary questions of definition. In doing so, the need to substantiate suggested definitions in a careful study of the contexts in which the terms occur is not denied. However, it is (hopefully) obvious that the preceding discussion has not been without exegetical input; more importantly, the sort of study we offer here is an important preliminary to exegesis. Too often has an exegete based his or her conclusions on the meaning of a term when that meaning has not been established through careful study of all the occurrences of the term.

One final remark may be made: the task of finding in Paul a view of the law which squares with the conclusions reached by OT scholars with regard to the meaning of tôrah for Israel is no easy one. One way of dealing with the problem is to find in Paul a polemic against the law as misunderstood by his Jewish contemporaries. With this approach, all the negative statements about the law have no relevance to the law as God gave it—only to the law as men perverted it. The preceding pages have raised some serious questions about the validity of such an approach. However attractive such an approach may be, we are convinced that it cannot explain adequately the Pauline law/”gospel” antithesis, which is too often founded on the objective, historical contrast between the old age and the new. Men, according to Paul, required redemption from “the curse of the law” (Gal 3:13), not better teaching about the meaning and use of the law. The search for an integrated biblical theology of the law must continue; but any acceptable solution must retain what is negative in the Pauline picture of the law if God’s new act in Christ is to receive due stress.

Notes

1. Word and Faith (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1963) 254.
2. “How Christians should regard the Law of Moses,” Luther’s Works (ed. E. Theodore Bachmann; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1960) 162.
3. Though the issue is debated, it is probable that Luther did not countenance what is generally known as the “third use of the law”; he judges the Mosaic law to be binding on believers only as it reproduces the natural law. See Wilfried Joest, Gesetz und Freiheit. Das Problem des ‘Tertius Usus Legis’ bei Luther und die neutestamentliche Paränese (3rd. ed.; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961) 133; Heinrich Bornkamm, Luther and the Old Testament (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1969) 124–32; G. Ebeling, “On the Doctrine of the Triplex Usus Legis in the Theology of the Reformers,” Word and Faith, 62-64; P. D. L. Avis, “Moses and the Magistrate: A Study in the Rise of Protestant Legalism,” JEH 26 (1975) 154.
4. Institutes of the Christian Religion 2.7.12
5. J. Wayne Baker (Heinrich Bullinger and the Covenant: The Other Reformed Tradition [Athens, Ohio: University of Ohio Press, 1980]) offers a good discussion of Bullinger’s views.
6. See, for instance, Pilgram Marpeck (William Klassen, Covenant and Community: The Life, Writings and Hermeneutics of Pilgram Marpeck [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1968] 114–30).
7. Karl Barth, “Gospel and Law,” Community, State and Church: Three Essays (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1960); Daniel P. Fuller, Gospel and Law: Contrast or Continuum? (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980).
8. See my review of Fuller’s book in Trinity Journal 3 NS (1982) 99–103.
9. Andrea van Dülmen, Die Theologie des Gesetzes bei Paulus (SBM 5; Stuttgart: Katholisches Bibelwerk, 1968) 130. As Josef Blank (EKKNT 1.83) indicates, this use of nomos in the singular is rooted in the OT, especially Deuteronomy (cf. 31:26; 32:46).
10. For example, Sanday-Headlam distinguish three basic senses: ho nomos law of Moses; nomos = law in general; nomos = Mosaic law, with emphasis on its character as law (A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [ICC; Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark, 1902] 58).
11. See, e.g., Edward Grafe, Die paulinische Lehre vom Gesetz nach den vier Hauptbriefen (Freiburg and Tübingen: J.C.B. Mohr [Siebeck], 1884) 5–8; Richard N. Longenecker, Paul: Apostle of Liberty (Grand Rapids: Baker, 1976 [= 1964]) 118–19; G. E. Howard, “Christ the End of the Law: The Meaning of Romans 10:4ff” JBL 88 (1969) 331 n. 2; van Dülmen, Theologie des Gesetzes, 131-32.
12. For a discussion of some of the relevant syntactical factors, see the appendix on the article in Murray Harris’s forthcoming Jesus as ‘God’ in the New Testament: A Study of the Use of Theos as a Christological Title.
13. H. Kleinknecht, “Nomos,” TDNT 4. 1023–24.
14. Werner Georg Kümmel, Römer 7 und die Bekehrung des Paulus (Untersuchungen zum Neuen Testament 17; Leipzig: J. C. Hinrichs, 1929) 61–62. Others take nomos to refer to the “other law” (cf. v 23; C. E. B. Cranfield, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [ICC, n.s.; 2 vols.; Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark, 1975–79] 1.362) or, which is most unlikely, to the Mosaic law (James Denney, “St. Paul’s Epistle to the Romans,” Expositor’s Greek Testament [ed. W. Robertson Nicoll; 5 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1970, reprinted] 2.642).
15. With Cranfield (Romans 1.364), I take it that Paul contrasts two “laws” described in different ways.
16. Ferdinand Hahn, “Das Gesetzsverständnis im Römer- und Galaterbrief,” ZNW 67 (1976) 46.
17. See again Cranfield (Romans 1.364) for substantiation.
18. P. Lohse, ὁ νόμος τοῦ πνεύματος τῆς ζωῆς. Exegetische Anmerkungen zu Röm 8.2,” in Neues Testament und christliche Existenz (ed. H. D. Betz and L. Schottroff; Tübingen: Mohr, 1973) 58–60.
19. Cranfield, Romans 1.375–76.
20. C. K. Barrett translates nomos “religion” (A Commentary on the Epistle to the Romans [HNTC: New York: Harper & Row, 1957] 153).
21. Gerhard Friedrich has made a strong case for viewing both “laws” in this verse as references to the Mosaic law; in one case to that law as it is misunderstood to demand “works” only and in the other case to that same law as it testifies to righteousness by faith (cf. 3:21; “Das Gesetz des Glaubens: Röm 3:27 ,” TZ 10 [1954] 401–17; cf. also C. Thomas Rhyne, Faith Establishes the Law [SBLDS 55; Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1981] 70; Cranfield, Romans 1.220; and, with a slightly different view [the Mosaic law as seen through the eyes of faith], Hans Hübner, Das Gesetz bei Paulus. Ein Beitrag zum Werden der paulinishen Theologie [FRLANT 119; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978] 118–19). However, this view suffers from the necessity of equating “law” with the different expression (v 21) “law and prophets” and introduces improbable shifts in the use of the term in vv 19–31 (Ulrich Luz, Das Geschichtsverständnis des Paulus [BEvT 49; Munich: Kaiser, 1968] 173). It may be preferable, therefore, to understand by nomos pisteōs “the rule, order or norm of faith” (Ernst Käsemann, Commentary on Romans [Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980] 103), or perhaps the “principle” of faith (John Murray, The Epistle to the Romans [2 vols. in one; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1959–65] 1.123™although the difference between Käsemann’s view and Murray’s is slight).
22. Most regard the “law of righteousness” (nomos dikaiosunēs) to be the Mosaic law viewed as a witness to righteousness (Felix Fluckiger, “Christus, des Gesetzes τέλος,” TZ 11 [1955] 154; Ragnar Bring, “Paul and the Old Testament: A Study of the Ideas of Election, Faith and Law in Paul, with Special Reference to Romans 9:30–10:13 ,” ST 25 [1971] 46; Cranfield, Romans 2.507–8); others as the Mosaic law which confers righteousness(John E. Toews, “The Law in Paul’s Letter to the Romans: A Study of Romans 9:30–10:13 ” [unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, Northwestern University, 1977] 132–39); still others as the Mosaic law whose real content and goal (telos) is Christ (Otto Michel, Der Brief an die Römer [5th ed.; MeyerK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1978] 321). On the other hand, a few (e,g., Sanday-Headlam, Romans, 279) deny any reference to the Mosaic law, translating “rule” or “principle.”
23. W. Gutbrod, “Nomos,” TDNT 4.1047; Str-B 3.159.
24. Kleinknecht, “Nomos,” 1023–26.
25. Despite some good arguments for the position, it seems to be improbable that Paul in 2:14–16 uses ethnē to designate Gentile Christians (pace Karl Barth, A Shorter Commentary on Romans (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1959] 36; Cranfield, Romans 1.156).
26. Murray, Romans 1.72–74.
27. Romans, 59.
28. A. Feuillet, “Loi de Dieu, loi du Christ et loi de l’Esprit d’apris les epîtres pauliniennes: Les rapports de ces trois lois avec la Loi Mosaique,” NovT 22 (1980) 29–65; D. R. de Lacey, “The Sabbath/Sunday Question and the Law in the Pauline Corpus,” From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: A Biblical, Historical, and Theological Investigation (ed. D. A. Carson; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1982) 170.
29. Although most scholars think that Paul uses his pronouns indiscriminately in Galatians 3–4, the logic of the argument makes better sense if they are distinguished in the manner indicated above. Supporting such a discrimination are: de Lacey, “Sabbath/Sunday Question,” 165–66 (on 3:23–4:7); Andrew J. Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World: An Exegetical Study in Aspects of Paul’s Teaching (Kampen: Kok, 1964), 59–60 (on 4:3); John Bligh, Galatians: A Discussion of St. Paul’s Epistle (London: St. Paul Publications, 1970) 235 (who finds in this section of the letter a reproduction of Paul’s speech on the occasion of the Antioch incident); Hans Dieter Betz, Galatians (Hermeneia; Philadelphia: Fortress, 1979) 148–78 (various pages deal with the pronouns; after 4:3, however, Betz does not find a distinction [cf. p. 204]).
30. In The Obedience of Faith: The Purposes of Paul in the Epistle to the Romans (SBT 2/19; London: SCM, 1971), Paul Minear divides the epistle into sections according to six different parties in the Roman churches.
31. So Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World, 140.
32. For some of the relevant texts, see George Foot Moore, Judaism in the First Centuries of the Christian Era (2 vols.; New York: Schocken, 1971 [= 1927, 1930]) 1.266-69.
33. Although the emphatic temporal argument of Galatians is not as clear in Romans, verses such as 3:21; 5:13–14; 5:20; and 7:8–10 demonstrate that it has not been abandoned.
34. This conclusion is, in fact, in agreement with most modern scholarship on this issue (see, e.g., van Dülmen, Theologie des Gesetzes, 131-32; Gutbrod, “Nomos,” 1069).
35. Rom 2:13, 14, 25, 26, 27; 8:4; 13:8, 10; Gal 3:10; 5:3, 14; 6:2, 13.
36. Rom 7:7–13; 13:8–10; Eph 2:15.
37. This concept is used broadly in de Lacey’s article (“Sabbath/Sunday Question”).
38. This conclusion is almost the opposite reached by J. A. Sanders, who argued that Paul viewed the law essentially as haggadah (or “story”), in contrast to the rabbis, who stressed the halakah (or commandment; “Torah and Christ,” Int 29 [1975] 372–90). However, Sanders appears to be trying to bring out that part of the Pentateuch which Paul valued most highly for believers, and I would concur that haggadah is more important for Paul in this sense. But he does not use nomos in this way.
39. See, for instance, H. J. Schoeps, Paul: The Theology of the Apostle in the Ligkt of Jewish Religious History (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1959) 213–18.
40. C. H. Dodd, The Bible and the Greeks (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1954) 25–41; R. McL. Wilson, “Nomos: The Biblical Significance of Law,” SJT 5 (1952) 37–39.
41. Against the tendency of some (e.g., Martin Noth, “The Laws in the Pentateuch: Their Assumptions and Meaning,” The Laws in the Pentateuch and Other Essays [Philadelphia: Fortress, 1966] 95–102; Gerhard von Rad, Old Testament Theology [2 vols.; New York: Harper & Row, 1962–65] 1.194-202), Walther Zimmerli has correctly stressed the threat of judgment involved in the tôrah from the beginning (The Law and the Prophets: A Study of the Meaning of the Old Testament [Oxford: Blackwell, 1965] 51–65).
42. Paul of Tarsus (London: Student Christian Movement, 1925), 35 n 1.
43. Ephraim E. Urbach, The Sages: Their Concepts and Beliefs (2 vols.; Jerusalem: Magnes, 1979) 1.315.
44. Hans Hübner has suggested that, in stressing the need for a “proselyte” to commit himself to the whole law, Paul was representing a “Shammaite” view, as against the school of Hillel (“Gal 3:10, und die Herkunft des Paulus,” KD 19 [1973] 215–31).
45. Sipra, Kedoshim 8 (taken from Moore, Judaism 1.331).
46. Cf. Barrett, Romans, 59
47. Cf. Urbach, The Sages 1.360–65.
48. Grafe, Die paulinische Lehre vom Gesetz, 8-9; van Dülmen, Theologie des Gesetzes, 132-33; Longenecker, Paul: Apostle of Liberty, 119; F. F. Bruce, Paul: Apostle of the Heart Set Free (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1977) 192–93; A. T. Lincoln, “From Sabbath to Lord’s Day: A Biblical and Theological Perspective,” From Sabbath to Lord’s Day, 392.
49. Ernest de Witt Burton, A Critical and Exegetical Commentary on The Epistle to the Galatians (ICC; Edinburgh: T.& T. Clark, 1921) 458; Fuller, Gospel and Law, 97-99; cf. pp. 199-204. Cf. also Charles H. Cosgrove, “The Mosaic Law Preaches Faith: A Study in Galatians,” WTJ 39 (1976–77) 153–55 (nomos = legalism in Gal 3:15–18); Bring, “Paul and the Old Testament,” 22–25. Although not explicitly suggesting that Paul meant “legalism” when he used nomos, Calvin did argue that, in dealing with false teachers “to refute their error he was sometimes compelled to take the bare law in a narrow sense, even though it was otherwise graced with the covenant of free adoption” (Institutes 2.7.2; cf. also 2.11.7); on this, see especially Hans Heinrich Wolf, Die Einheit des Bundes. Das Verhältnis von Altem und Neuem Testament bei Calvin (Beiträge zur Geschichte und Lehre der reformierten Kirche 20; Neukirchen: Kreis Moers, 1958) 44–54. Cf. also Herman Ridderbos, Paul: An Outline of his Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1975) 153–57, and Helmut Thielicke, The Evangelical Faith (3 vols.; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974–82) 2.212-13.
50. “St. Paul and the Law,” SJT 17 (1964) 55.
51. Despite some strong arguments in favor of viewing Rom 10:5 as correlative to 10:6 (see George E. Howard, “Christ the End of the Law: The Meaning of Romans 10:4ff, ” JBL 88 [1969] 331–37; Bandstra, The Law and the Elements of the World, 101-6; Fuller, Gospel and Law, 66-88; Cranfield, Romans 2.520–22), it is preferable to maintain a contrast between the two.
52. Quoted in Bernard S. Jackson, “Legalism,” JJS 30 (1979) 5.
53. What Paul does in Galatians 3 is to stress the divine purpose of the law (clearly implied by the use of the passive voice; cf. v 19; and note the purpose clauses in vv 22 and 24), which, coming 430 years after the promise to Abraham, was to be regarded as a supplementary factor in salvation-history. Verse 17 demonstrates the extreme difficulty in taking nomos in this passage to mean anything but the law as given by God; as Heikki Räisänen asks, What is the misused law which was given at Sinai? (“Paul’s Theological Difficulties with the Law,” Studia Biblica 1978 III: Papers on Paul and other New Testament Authors [ed. E. A. Livingstone; JSNT Supp. series 3; Sheffield: JSOT Press, 1980] 306). Paul’s argument in Galatians 3 makes no sense unless we regard him as putting the law into its proper salvation-historical context, as opposed to the Judaizers who, in keeping with some tendencies in late Judaism, had absolutized the law and separated it from the covenant framework. See also J. Gresham Machen (Machen’s Notes on Galatians [ed. John H. Skilton; Grand Rapids: Baker, 1972] 156) for some pertinent criticisms of Burton’s interpretation.
54. Commentary on Galatians (Philadelphia: Muhlenberg, 1961) 119.
55. “St. Paul and the Law,”62.
56. Ibid., 44.
57. Galatians, 458.
58. “Reflexions,”261.
59. Principles of Conduct: Aspects of Biblical Ethics (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1957) 182–201.
60. John Knox, The Ethic of Jesus in the Teaching of the Church (New York: Abingdon, 1961) 97.
61. “Obligation in the Ethic of Paul,” Christian History and Interpretation: Studies Presented to John Knox (ed. W. R. Farmer, C. F. D. Moule, and R. R. Niebuhr; Cambridge: University Press, 1967) 392–98.
62. Strangely, Karl Kertlege (“Zur Deutung des Rechtfertigungsbegriffs im Galaterbrief,” BZ 12 [1968] 214) mentions several Qumran references in discussing the phrase, but ignores 4QFlor. 1.7.
63. See on these points, Str-B 3.160-61; Kertlege, “Rechtfertigungsbegriffs,” 214–15; H. Schlier, Der Galaterbrief (MeyerK; Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1962) 91; Georg Bertram, “Ergon,” TDNT 2.646.
64. Ernst Lohmeyer, “Gesetzeswerke,” Probleme paulinischer Theologie (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, n.d.) 33–73.
65. “‘Works of the Law’ in Galatians,” JBL 92 (1973) 423–31.
66. For this view, essentially, see also van Dülmen, Theologie des Gesetzes, 23-24; J. Christiaan Beker, Paul the Apostle: The Triumph of God in Life and Thought (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1980), 246–48; Bertram, “Ergon,” 651.
67. Daniel P. Fuller, “Paul and ‘The Works of the Law,’“ WJT 38 (1975–76) 31–33; Cosgrove, “The Mosaic Law,” 146–48; Ragnar Bring, “Das Gesetz und die Gerechtigkeit Gottes. Eine Studie zur Frage nach der Bedeutung des Ausdruckes τέλος νόμου in Röm. 10:4 ,” ST 20 (1966) 25; Burton, Galatians, 120; Bruce N. Kaye, The Thought Structure of Romans with Special Reference to Chapter 6 (Austin, TX: Schola Press, 1979) 98.
68. This is the view taken (usually without argument) by most scholars; see explicitly Betz, Galatians, 116; Patrick Fairbairn, The Revelation of Law in Scripture (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1957 [= 1869] 386.
69. Str-B 3.160; Schlier, Galaterbrief, 91-92.
70. “Gesetzeswerke,” 36–39.
71. Geschichtsverständnis, 147 n. 43.
72. Debate about the relationship between Romans 3 (and especially 3:31) and Romans 4 is intense. See, for a survey of possibilities, Rhyne, Faith Establishes the Law, 26-32.
73. Rhyne (Faith Establishes the Law, 75-84) likewise argues that “works” in Romans 4 and “works of the law” in Romans 3 express the same concept, but he regards the idea as involving a narrow understanding of the law (devoid of the promise) in both cases. His mistake, in my opinion, is the failure to recognize that law (and hence works performed in obedience to it also) is fundamentally separate from the promise for Paul.
74. See especially Cranfield’s interpretation of these verses (Romans 1.230–232.)
75. E. P. Sanders, “On the Question of Fulfilling the Law in Paul and Rabbinic Judaism,” Donum Gentilicum: New Testament Studies in Honor of David Daube (ed. E. Bammel, C. K. Barrett, and W. D. Davies; Oxford: Clarendon, 1977) 104–25.
76. This is properly stressed by Wolfgang Schrage, Die konkreten Einzelgebote in der paulinischen Paränese (Gutersloh: Mohn, 1961) 95–96, and by C. Crowther, “Works, Work and Good Works,” ExpTim 81 (1970) 167. At this point, critical questions relating to the authorship of the Pastorals play a decisive role, because many of the references to “works” and “good works” in Paul come in these epistles. By denying Pauline authorship of these letters, Beker (Paul the Apostle, 247-48) can deny that Paul uses the idea of good works as incumbent upon believers.
77. What is important is that Paul always polemicizes against “works of the law” within the context of justification texts: nowhere does he criticize them as such. This stress on justification explains why Paul could allow other Jewish-Christians, as well as himself, to observe the law—it was only when used to justify or impose on the Gentiles that Paul fought against it (pace the argument of George Howard, Paul: Crisis in Galatia: A Study in Early Christian Theology [SNTSMS 35; Cambridge: University Press, 1979] 51–53).
78. Schlier, Galaterbrief, 132-33; Fuller, “‘Works of the Law,’“ 31–32.
79. pasin (“all”) is found in the LXX of Deut 27:26, but has no equivalent in the MT; it may be that Paul seeks to bring out the total nature of the law’s demand (cf. Gal 5:3–4).
80. So Franz Mussner, Der Galaterbrief (HTKNT; Freiburg: Herder, 1974) 224–26.
81. Ulrich Wilckens, “Zur Entwicklung der paulinischen Gesetzsverständnis,” NTS 28 (1982) 168.
82. Bultmann (Theology of the New Testament [2 vols. in one; New York: Scribner’s, 1951–55] 1.264), followed by Schlier (Galaterbrief, 134) and others, has argued that Paul regards the doing of the law in and of itself as wrong. But this is too simple (cf. Beker, Paul the Apostle, 239-40).
83. This has been emphasized particularly by Wilckens, “Was heisst bei Paulus: ‘Aus Werken des Gesetzes wird kein Mensch gerecht’?” Rechtfertigung als Freiheit: Paulusstudien (Neukirchen-Vluyn; Neukirchener, 1974) 81–104.
84. On this matter of a biblical theology of the law, see the remarks of Peter Stuhlmacher, “Das Gesetz als Thema biblischer Theologie,” ZTK 75 (1978) 251–80.

Divine Healing In The Health And Wealth Gospel

By Douglas J. Moo

[Trinity Evangelical Divinity School, Deerfield, Illinois]

The health and wealth gospel differs from evangelical Christianity generally in its emphasis on the physical blessings that believers can — and should — experience in this life. Salvation is for the whole person. Yet traditional Christianity has short-changed this truth by focusing almost exclusively on the soul and on spiritual blessings. So argue prominent health and wealth gospellers such as Kenneth Hagin and Kenneth and Gloria Copeland. And they are determined to right this imbalance by making Christians aware that God has provided in Christ for their material and physical well-being — if only they will reach out and claim these blessings in faith. Most of the proponents of this movement do not seek to downplay the significance of spiritual salvation. What they believe about the basic doctrines of the faith is well within the parameters of orthodoxy. If, indeed, theirs is “another gospel,” it is so not because any basic doctrines have been subtracted, but because certain questionable doctrines have been added.

As the popular name for this growing but amorphous movement suggests, the promises of financial prosperity and physical health are the two pillars of this “gospel.” And, whatever Hagin, the Copelands, and others in the movement may say about their ministries in their more guarded statements, these promises of material well-being loom large in their literature and broadcasts. Other essays in this fascicle are taking a critical look at the “wealth” side of the movement; in this article, we will examine the “health” component.

The focus on physical well-being and healing in the health and wealth gospel — hereafter HWG — has its roots in a century and a half-old tradition. Key figures in this tradition were the “Irvingites” in early nineteenth century Scotland, the Blumhardts in Germany and A.J. Gordon and A.B. Simpson (founder of what came to be the Christian and Missionary Alliance) at the end of the century in America. Divine healing was prominent in Pentecostal circles and in those step-children of the Pentecostals, the charismatics. Oral Roberts is perhaps the best known representative of the charismatic healing movement.[1] More recently, the Vineyard movement, associated with John Wimber, has highlighted divine healing as one of those “signs” that should accompany and witness to the present-day manifestation of the kingdom of God in the church.[2]

While having in common with these movements and individuals the conviction that God does heal miraculously at the present time, advocates of the HWG differ from most of them in their claim that good health should characterize every believer. Ken Blue, for instance, a representative of the Vineyard movement, thinks that it is God’s will to heal all believers. Yet, because of the continuing opposition of Satan to the rule of Christ during this period of human history, God’s will to heal will not always be accomplished.[3] The health and wealth evangelists, on the other hand, make it clear that a failure to be healed can be ascribed only to ignorance or lack of faith. The provision is there for every believer — but we must step out in faith and claim it. Faith means that we should not add “if it be thy will” when we pray for healing — while very pious-sounding,’ this only indicates doubt in the promise of God. And, after praying, it is important that a “positive confession” be made: thanking God for the healing that has taken place, even if the physical symptoms remain. For faith must rise about the physical evidence, resting secure in the promises of God in his Word.[4]

The teaching about divine healing in the HWG rests, then, on two main contentions: that God has promised physical well-being in this life to every believer; and that only ignorance or lack of faith can prevent this promise from being realized. The former is shared with many other advocates of divine healing, but the latter — while not unique to the HWG — is what gives to the movement its distinctive and extremist flavor. Several key Scriptural and theological arguments are used to support these two key contentions: and we examine these in what follows. Our focus will be on the HWG, but the similarities in teaching about divine healing between the HWG and other movements means that our analysis will inevitably touch on these other movements also. Many authors cited in the notes, then, are not in agreement with all the tenets of the HWG.

I. Jesus’ Healings And Ours

The evangelists narrate thirty three miracles of Jesus. Of these, seventeen are healings and four are exorcisms that involve healing. In one of several similar summaries of Jesus’ ministry, Matthew tells us that “Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every infirmity” (9:35). The healing of people who were sick, incapacitated or handicapped was characteristic of Jesus’ ministry; and nowhere is Jesus seen turning away a person who sincerely wishes to be healed. It is only unbelief that prevents Jesus from healing (Mark 6:5–6). If, then, Jesus is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8), he must be willing and ready to heal all now who come to Christ, through the church, in faith.[5]

But we have more than this (somewhat dubious) a priori argument to go by: for Jesus passes on to his followers the power and responsibility to continue his own ministry of healing. The charges to both the twelve (Matt 10:l=Luke 9:1; cf. Matt 10:8) and the seventy (Luke 10:9) include the command to “heal the sick,” a charge that is renewed by the resurrected Christ, who commands the disciples to “lay their hands on the sick” with the promise that “they will recover” (Mark 16:18). And Luke records the fulfillment of this command and promise: Peter heals the lame man at the Temple (Acts 3:1–10), Aeneas in Lydda (Acts 9:32–35) and even brings a woman back to life (Acts 10:36–43). Paul, not to be outdone, also heals a lame man in Lystra (Acts 14:8–10), the father of Publius on Malta (Acts 28:7–8) and restores Eutychus to life at Troas (Acts 20:9–12 — although it is not entirely clear whether Eutychus was dead). Both Peter and Paul heal indirectly (Acts 5:15; 19:11–12). Luke, in fact, is at pains to show that “signs and wonders” accompanied the preaching of the early Christians (Acts 5:12) and were no small reason for the success of their evangelism.

Should not the church today be characterized by the same “signs and wonders”? As disciples of Jesus Christ are we not recipients of the Scriptural privilege — nay, command — to “heal the sick”? Does not Jesus himself promise that we will accomplish “greater works” than even he (John 14:12)? And, since both Jesus and the early Christians (cf. Acts 5:16) healed all who came to them, should not a biblically-faithful church today have a similar track record?

This argument for divine healing is repeated again and again in the literature and in the teaching of the HWG. One could, of course, quibble about details — Mark 16:15 is almost certainly not part of inspired Scripture[6]; the charges to the twelve and to the seventy cannot without careful qualification be made applicable to the church at large; and John 14:12 is probably not promising that disciples will perform greater miracles than Jesus, but that the coming of the Spirit will enable them to enroll people from the entire world on the lists of those members of the Kingdom of God[7] —but the argument as to the situation in the early church is sound enough. The question, of course, is the significance of this situation in the early church for the church today.

Suspicious of Roman Catholic claims that their miracles accredited their doctrines and their Church, the Reformers argued that these “signs and wonders” were strictly confined to the apostolic age.[8] They were used by God to accredit the bearers of revelation; that revelation being closed after the death of the apostles, no more such miracles can be expected. We should point out, by the way, that this view in no way dismisses the supernatural from playing a role in the life of the church, including physical healing: the question, rather, is whether God supernaturally heals through the “suspension” of the “laws of nature,” e.g., miraculously. The position of the Reformers is argued cogently and with skeptical analysis of many reported phenomena to the contrary by B.B. Warfield in Counterfeit Miracles.[9] And this view resembles in important ways the “cessationist” view espoused by many dispensa-tionalists.[10] Its advocates can make a pretty good case. The relevant promises of Jesus are all made to the apostles, or to those who could be regarded as acting in the capacity of apostles (e.g., the “seventy”). All those who perform miracles in the Book of Acts are apostles. Moreover, standard hermeneutical procedure dictates that Christian doctrine and practice should be based primarily on teaching passages — and the epistles have very little to say about healings.

The Reformers are right to raise questions about a willy-nilly application to the contemporary church of what was true for the apostolic church. As the plan of God unfolds in time, different periods are characterized by different elements and emphases: and what God chooses to do in one period or epoch cannot necessarily be assumed to be what he will do in another. We would, in fact, expect that there would be features unique to the apostolic age. Most Protestants would agree, for instance, that the mediation of divine inscripturated revelation is confined to this period of time — and associated particularly with the apostles themselves. Similarly, the apostles play a unique role in salvation history as the “foundation” for the church (Eph 2:20; cf. Matt 16:18). These differences between the apostles and any Christian in our day, and, therefore, between the apostolic age and our’s, cannot be glossed over. And this means that it is simplistic to argue that because Jesus and the apostles performed miracles of healing, the church in our day can. Particularly is this so if we view the miracles as having the purpose of accrediting individuals. For if anyone is capable of wielding miraculous powers, the miracles cease to have any value in marking off individuals as in any way distinctive. Warfield puts the point this way: “If miracles came to be common, every-day occurrences, normal and not extraordinary, they cease to attract attention, and lose their very reason for existence.”[11]

Evangelists for the HWG, as well as many other advocates of miraculous healing, frequently fail to take seriously enough the discontinuities that are the product of salvation history. We cannot imitate everything Jesus did; there were features unique to the apostolic age; Peter, Paul, and the other apostles had an authority and position not held by anyone since their day. Moreover, Luke does appear to attach the working of miracles closely to the persons of the apostles: “Many signs and wonders were done among the people by the hands of the apostles” (Acts 5:12); when Tabitha dies, the local Christians do not bring her back to life, but send for Peter (9:38); again, in Ephesus, Luke affirms that it was “by the hands of Paul” that “extraordinary miracles” were performed. Luke’s presentation of miracles in Acts is debated, but a good case can be made for thinking that he views “signs and wonders” as having particular relevance in the accrediting of the apostles. And note also 2 Cor 12:12: “the signs of a true apostle were performed among you in all patience, with signs and wonders and mighty works.” All this lends plausibility to the argument that we should not expect miracles to be as pervasive in the church in our day as it was in the days of Jesus or the apostles.

We are not, however, convinced that the Reformers are right to deny the possibility of miraculous healing after the apostolic age. First, while the evidential value of miracles cannot be gainsaid —and the HWG is to be faulted for downplaying or ignoring this —the miracles of Jesus and the apostles have a significance beyond the evidential (see the following section). This being so, there is no reason to think that miracles could only be done by Jesus or the apostles. Second, the possibility that God will heal miraculously in the continuing life of the church appears to be implied by Jas 5:14–16. Here, it is not the apostles, but “the elders of the church” who pray and anoint with oil with the purpose of bringing physical healing. This makes Calvin’s view (cf. Institutes 4.19.18) that this power to heal was confined to the apostolic age untenable. Warfield, on the other hand, finds “nothing miraculous” in the circumstances of the healing.[12] But the simple assertions that the prayer of faith will “save” — e.g., heal — the one who is sick, and that “the Lord will raise him up,” point to a healing that occurs outside the sphere of natural physical healing or medical therapy. Third, there is no reason to think that the “gift of healing” mentioned by Paul in 1 Cor 12:9 and 28 has been withdrawn from the church.

Other points will arise in the course of this discussion that follows; but it suffices for now to say that we find no reason to rule out the possibility of miraculous healing after the age of the apostles; and some reason to expect that such healings would continue to occur. While critical of the hermeneutical naivete by which their conclusions are reached, we agree, then, with the HWG that miracles of divine healing can still occur. Indeed, the openness in this movement to the possibility of miraculous interventions of God may be more “biblical” than the skepticism that too many of us unwittingly share with our materialistic culture. When, however, the HWG argues that the healings of Jesus or the apostolic church give reason to think that all Christians should be healed, they have gone far beyond the evidence. To be sure, Jesus and the apostles are never seen to have “turned away” a person who came to them for healing; but neither are they said to have healed all the sick they came into contact with. A “multitude” of sick people lay by the Pool of Bethzatha; Jesus, as far as we are told, healed only one (John 5:1–9). One could argue, of course, that it was only this individual who had the faith to be healed, but we are then importing an element that is not mentioned in the text. The point is that the actual healing practices of Jesus and the apostles provide us no evidence at all about how widespread we should expect miraculous healing to be in our day.

II. Signs Of The Kingdom

The miracles of Jesus and the apostles had evidential value —that is, they were, as John calls them, “signs” of something else, pointers to the truth that Jesus was, indeed, the Son of God and the apostles his accredited representatives. Nevertheless, as recent scholarship has particularly — and in some cases in too one-sided a fashion — emphasized, the miracles had other purposes than this. When Jesus is asked by John the Baptist whether he is the “one to come” or not, he sends back the reply: “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached them” (Matt 11:4–5). Jesus’ point is that he is accomplishing those things that the prophets predicted would occur at the coming of the Kingdom, in the Messianic age (his language reflects several texts from Isaiah: cf. 29:18, 35:5–6, 42:18). Similarly, Jesus claims that his exorcisms indicate the presence of the Kingdom (Matt 12:28). Jesus’ miracles do not just prove who he is, but reveal the presence the kingdom. Their evidential value lies not in their being pointers to the kingdom, but in being signs of the kingdom. The miracles of Jesus are not “external” signs, but “internal” signs, part of the reality to which they point. When the reign of God is established, Satan is vanquished, the dead are raised, illness is no more. Jesus’ exorcisms, raisings of the dead and healings give evidence that the kingdom of God is at work in his ministry.

The implications of this for divine healing in our day can be formulated in a simple syllogism: where the kingdom of God is present, the healing of diseases is present; the kingdom of God is present in and through the church in our day; therefore the healing of diseases must be present in and through the church in our day. To be sure, one could quarrel with either of the premises. The second, for instance, is denied by advocates of the “postponed kingdom” theory: that Jesus offered the kingdom to the Jews, only to have it rejected, and so “postponed” until his second coming. On this view, held by many dispensationalists, we should not necessarily expect divine healing in our day because the kingdom is not, in fact, present. But this view of the kingdom appears to be losing ground; and a pretty good consensus of evangelicals from various theological persuasions hold to some form of “inaugurated” eschatology, whereby it is held that the kingdom of God has been inaugurated through Jesus’ first coming, but will be “climaxed” or fulfilled only at this second. On this view, the kingdom is indeed present in our day, and we should expect to see signs of that kingdom.

But there is more reason to question the first premise. Granted that the miraculous healing of diseases was part of the kingdom’s power in Jesus’ day, can we say that it is a necessary part of the kingdom? That wherever the kingdom is, the miraculous healing of diseases must be taking place? This is not clear. Nowhere does the NT make this equation; and the paucity of references to healing as part of the life of the church in the epistles suggests that the insistence on such an equation is not in keeping with the biblical emphasis and perspective. What can be said, it seems to us, is that the presence of the reign of God in and through the church makes miracles of healing possible, but not necessary. Biblical balance is best preserved if Christians remain open to the exercise of miraculous healings, but do not insist on them. While the evidence is notoriously difficult to evaluate — and many in the divine healing movement have been far too quick to identify “miraculous” healings — there does seem to be reason to think that God has bestowed miracles on one time and place and withheld them from others. Error on each side is perilously easy: to expect miracles so eagerly that natural or at best ambiguous circumstances are labelled miracles; and to be so closed to the possibility that unbelief stifles miracles or prevents them from being recognized when they do occur. Scripture and history suggest that God bestows miracles in sovereign freedom; and we would do well not to force the evidence one way or the other.

But the understanding of physical well-being as a sign of the kingdom has another important implication for the HWG. As we have seen, proponents of the movement proclaim that God’s will is to heal all believers in this life. But such a view buys into what many scholars have labelled “over-realized eschatology” — the mistake, probably the root of the problem at Corinth, of thinking that God’s kingdom has already arrived in its full and final state. If this were so, we would indeed expect healing to be available for everyone; indeed, we would expect there to be no need for healing, because there would be no disease or physical incapacity of any kind — we would all enjoy transformed bodies. But God has not chosen to bring the kingdom into existence in its final state at this point in time. As the parables of Matthew 13 and other passages teach, the kingdom, which was inaugurated at Jesus’ death and resurrection, has not come in its fullness. Jesus will come again to eradicate sin entirely, vanquish Satan and restore the unchallenged reign of God. The believer in this life lives in the “already-not yet” tension of this salvation-historical framework. And to expect physical well-being and divine healing to characterize every believer is to ignore the “not yet” side of this tension. Only in the final state of the kingdom has God promised to remove all disease and physical incapacity; in Jesus’ miracles, in the apostles’ miracles, and in those miraculous healings that still take place, God graciously “anticipates” for some individuals this final state. But to expect physical ailments to be eradicated from the church in this age is just as foolish as to expect physical death to be removed, natural disasters to stop occurring and the power of sin to be destroyed. The HWG is right to proclaim that God has promised to remove all our physical infirmities; but they are wrong to claim that we can expect this to take place in this life. As Adrio König puts it, “If the prosperity gospel is an accurate reflection of the gospel, one might ask whether we still need a new earth?”[13]

Finally, without denying that miracles can be used of God to point people to Jesus Christ and to the message of the gospel, we should not lose sight of Paul’s teaching that God’s strength is often made known in “weakness” (cf. 2 Corinthians 10–13). It is not always the spectacular, or the comfortable, or the triumphant that manifests the kingdom; often it is the quiet, the suffering and (apparent) defeat.

III. Suffering, Sickness, And Divine Sovereignty

Is it ever God’s will for a Christian to experience illness or physical incapacity? No, answer advocates of the HWG; God wants every believer to be healthy, and makes health freely available — all we have to do is ask in faith. No, answers Ken Blue of the Vineyard movement — God wants every believer to be healthy, although in addition to this purpose being defeated by ignorance or lack of faith on the part of Christians, Satan also has the power to prevent healing from occurring.

We are not so sure that this answer is correct. The question is a tricky one. The phrase “God’s will” conceals a crucial issue: do we mean God’s “decretive” will or his “permissive” will? And at some point along the line we run up against the insoluble issue of the relationship between God’s sovereignty over all things and the existence of evil. How can God exercise such control of all the circumstances of life such that “all things work to our good” (Rom 8:28) and yet be untainted by evil? This is not the place, nor does this writer have the competence, to deal adequately with these larger issues.[14] But one thing is clear: however we explain it, the Scriptures make clear that God is, in some sense, “behind” all things —even evil things, although he is, of course not responsible for, or the cause of, that evil. Anything less than this makes God less than the God of the Bible, the God who sovereignly disposes all things according to his will. God judges his people through the evil of human greed and violence (the Assyrian and Babylonian campaigns against Israel) and through the evil of sickness and death (1 Cor 5:5, 11:29–30). To argue that Satan inflicts the suffering of physical illness on believers against God’s “will” — however we finally define it — comes close to an unbiblical dualism.

If this is so, we cannot exempt sickness from the NT statements about the purpose and value of suffering. Such a distinction is made by a number of writers who want to avoid the idea that sickness may be a divinely-”allowed … trial” intended to strengthen the faith of the believer.[15] According to these authors, the suffering that Christians can expect in this life and which they are to endure patiently as a faith-refining experience is confined to persecution, “suffering for Christ.” But this will not do. To be sure, the word πάσχω (“suffer”) and its cognates often refer specifically to persecution in the NT (e.g., Phil 1:29; 1 Thess 2:14; 2 Thess 1:5; 1 Peter passim), but the word group is not limited to persecution. “Suffering with Christ” (Rom 8:17; Phil 3:10) or “for Christ” is a broad concept that includes all those difficulties and trials that befall a Christian in this age of warfare between God and Satan. Note that “suffering with Christ” in Rom 8:17 is described as the “sufferings of this present age” (τὰ παθήματα τοῦ νῦν καιροῦ) in 8:18 —and the context allows no restriction in the scope of those “sufferings” (see v 35, where trials such as “famine,” “nakedness” and “peril” are mentioned). Even more to the present point is 2 Cor 1:3–11, where the “sufferings” Paul has endured (v 6) are narrowed specifically to the “affliction” (θλίψις) he experienced in Asia (v 8); and the description of this affliction in vv 9–10 best fits a physical illness.[16] In the same way, the assurances in Rom 5:3–4 that “tribulations” (θλίψεις) and in Jas 1:24 that “trials” (πειρασμοί) will have beneficial spiritual results for the believer cannot be confined to the situation of persecution. Neither word is so restricted in the NT. θλίψις refers to mental distress in 1 Cor 7:28 and Phil 1:17, to the various difficulties experienced by Joseph in Egypt in Acts 7:10, and to the physical sufferings resulting from famine in Acts 7:11. And πειρασμός refers specifically to a physical illness of Paul’s in Gal 4:14.

This is probably the place also to look at one of the most debated biblical texts about sickness and divine healing: 2 Cor 12:7–9, where Paul describes his “thorn in the flesh.” If Paul refers here to a physical illness, we would have conclusive biblical evidence both that God does not always remove sickness from faithful believers and that God has a positive purpose in allowing his servants to suffer illness. Advocates of the HWG, along with most evangelists for “divine healing,” deny that the “thorn” is a physical illness. The word translated “thorn,” σκόλοψ, is used in the LXX to denote adversaries of Israel who oppress and scorn Israel (Num 33:55; Ezek 28:24), and this has led many to argue that the word is an idiom for oppression. This is certainly not true: we have far too few occurrences of the word with this connotation to justify calling it an idiom. But the LXX evidence does allow this interpretation; and there is no doubt that Paul has a great deal to day about “false apostles” who are contesting his apostleship and sincerity toward the Corinthians in 2 Corinthians. Moreover, the use of the dative τῇ σαρκί — rather, than, e.g., the prepositional phrase ἐν τῇ σαρκί — may suggest that the “thorn” was not a difficulty “in” Paul’s body, but a trial “to” himself (σάρξ in the general sense of “person”).[17] Yet, three considerations suggest the reference might be to a physical ailment of some kind. First, the style of the text resembles certain Hellenistic literary forms in which physical weakness was usually the subject.[18] Second, Paul goes on in the text. Yet “weakness” in Paul refers to the incapacities and corruptible aspects of life in this age before the final redemption (Rom 6:19, 8:26; 1 Cor 2:3, 15:43; 2 Cor 11:30, 13:4 — in Gal 4:13 and in 1 Tim 5:23, it refers to physical illness or incapacity). This fits a reference to physical incapacity much better than a reference to oppressors or opponents of the gospel. Third, the way in which Paul ascribes his thorn both to God (“it was given”) and to Satan (“a messenger of Satan”) resembles other texts in which physical incapacities are described (1 Cor 5:5; cf. Job 2:1–10).[19]

We think that Paul’s “thorn” was most likely an unidentifiable physical incapacity.[20] If so, several conclusions result. First, we see that illness is something that can be described both as “given by God” (the implied agent of the passive verb ἐδόθη is God) and as a “messenger of Satan.” We could ask for no clearer expression of the tension between the ultimacy of God and the agency of Satan in suffering than this. Second, unless we are prepared to fault Paul for lack of faith, it is clear prayers offered in faith do not always bring physical healing. Third, and the point of most relevance to our present discussion: we have a clear indication that God brings physical suffering on his people with the purpose of improving their spiritual lives. Paul’s thorn had the purpose of curbing his pride; and God may both bring and allow to remain physical difficulties in the lives of other believers to accomplish similar spiritual good. Nevertheless, we cannot be certain that Paul is speaking here of a physical malady; and the issue is clouded enough to make it necessary to use this text only with caution in the case we are building. We therefore prefer to use it only to corroborate points based on texts elsewhere rather than to use it as the primary basis for an argument.

What we want to argue in this section is that physical illness cannot be excluded from those sufferings that Christians can expect to experience in this life and from the assurances God gives that such sufferings will be used by God to bring spiritual benefit to the Christian who responds to them in the right way. This is not to say that physical illness is a divine visitation that must always be passively accepted. Nor are we suggesting that sickness is a “blessing”; for sickness, whatever God’s ultimacy in relation to it, is always an evil, one instance of that tragic disruption in God’s creation that has resulted from the fall. But the texts we have examined do show that sickness can bring blessing; and that the Christian who has come to accept his or her sickness as a divinely-allowed trial that is not going to be removed and who seeks to grow and learn through and because of that sickness is by no means taking an unbiblical position. Indeed, accepting as God’s will and living triumphantly under a physical disability may evidence a faith far stronger than a “name and claim it” attitude that demands healing from God.

IV. Healing And Salvation

Partly due to the influx of eastern modes of thinking in the last decades, the western world has awakened to the interrelationship of mind and body. In the medical profession, this has brought an increasing emphasis on the psychical and emotional causes of physical disorders. In Christian circles, emphasis has been put on “wholistic healing.” To the extent that this approach gives due recognition to the biblical perspective on human beings an integrated wholes, and on salvation as affecting the body as well as the soul, this is welcome. Advocates of the HWG and of divine healing generally are justified in criticizing the church in the west for too often unintentionally fostering an unbiblical anthropological dualism by confining God’s concerns to the human soul.

Nevertheless, certain distinctions are important. First, we must distinguish the obvious fact that living according to God’s guidelines can often foster good health from what the HWG is saying. To the extent that a Christian, following biblical precepts and principles, refrains from excessive consumption of alcohol, the taking of unnecessary drugs, and sexual promiscuity, and maintains a positive mental attitude as a result of the security and joy in knowing Christ, he or she can be expected to avoid illnesses that those who do not refrain from these things will often suffer. On the other hand, the most scrupulous adherence to these biblical guidelines in the world will not keep the believer from getting multiple sclero-sis, becoming disabled as a result of an auto accident or developing a brain tumor. Right living can help us avoid some diseases: but not all, or even most diseases. The HWG insists that the Christian can avoid disease by “claiming” the promise of perfect health from God by faith. The “wholistic” or “mental” or “spiritual” health movement must, then, be carefully distinguished from the HWG.

Our evaluation of the HWG’s teaching on this matter also requires some distinctions. First, while agreeing that the body and the soul cannot ultimately be separated, and that God’s salvific promises refer to both, we must ask whether there are not distinctions to be made in the nature and the timing of the salvation God has promised the soul of man on the one hand and the body on the other. That a distinction in timing is necessary is suggested by the salvation-historical “already-not yet” tension we elaborated above. A key element in the “not yet” part of the Christian’s salvation is the transformation of the body. Not until death or Christ’s return in glory will the bodies of believers be “redeemed” (cf. Rom 8:23) through resurrection (for those who have died) and transformation (for those who are alive at Christ’s return). Until then, Christians “groan” in limited and sin-prone bodies (Rom 8:23; 2 Cor 5:2); “earthen vessels” in which “death is at work” (2 Cor 4:7–12). Without suggesting that the “already-not yet” tension is equivalent to a “soul-body” distinction — for that is clearly not the case — it remains true that the physical body is clearly said not to have participated fully yet in the salvific benefits of Christ’s death. Advocates of the HWG admit, of course, that Christians live in bodies that will die; but can we distinguish between the death of the body and the illnesses that afflict and often bring about the death of the body? Indeed, is not aging itself, with the limitations in physical abilities that it brings, a type of that physical incapacity of which illness is another type? Once again, the HWG has committed the error of “over-realized eschatology” in claiming that the benefits of salvation can be claimed for the body in this life the same way in which they can be claimed for the soul.

But a distinction must also be made in the nature of the salvation that is experienced by the body on the one hand and the soul on the other. To be sure, to speak this way is in itself rather unbibli-cal: for it is the person — a physico-spiritual unity — who is saved. But what we have in mind is what seems to be a necessary distinction between the immediate and mediate affects of Christ’s salvific work. Christ died “for our sins”; and when we believe, we are saved from both the penalty and the power of sin. Salvation from sin is the immediate purpose for which Christ died; and this salvation, because it ultimately works to undo all the effects of sin, eventually brings transformation of the body as well. But the latter is a mediate rather than an immediate effect of Christ’s death.

This distinction raises questions about the popular belief that there is “healing in the atonement.” The classic text to which appeal is made for substantiation of this belief is Matt 8:17. The evangelist here claims that Jesus’ healing of diseases fulfills Isa 53:4: “He took our infirmities and bore our diseases” (αὐτὸς τὰς ἀσθενείας ἠμῶν ἔλαβεν καὶ τὰς νόμους ἐβάστεσεν). This same verse is quoted in 1 Pet 2:24, but with reference to Jesus’ vicarious “bearing” of our sins (Peter, like the LXX, describes Christ as bearing our “sins” [ἁμαρτίας] rather than our “diseases”). And later in this same verse, Peter also cites Isa 53:5, “by his wounds you have been healed,” also with reference to spiritual rather than physical “healing.”[21] The argument is then that Jesus atoned for our sicknesses in the same way that he atoned for our sins; and the one, like the other, may be claimed through faith.[22] Even if this were true, it would not lead to the conclusion that God will heal all diseases of all believers in this life; for, as we have seen, the application of Christ’s redemptive work takes place over a period of time — and the NT makes clear that we cannot expect the transformation of our bodies in this life. But, to ask the prior question, can we claim on the basis of Matt 8:17 that “there is healing in the atonement”?

The problem is that Matthew says nothing in this context about Jesus’ death. Matthew may not, then, have Jesus’ death in mind at all as he cites Isa 53:4: the verse, in the Hebrew text that he appears to use, may simply have presented itself to him as a useful OT “prooftext” for the healing ministry of Jesus.[23] But we may question whether Matthew would have used this verse without regard for its context. For he, like other NT authors, applies Isaiah 53 to the vicarious death of Christ (Matthew uses Isaiah 53 with reference to Jesus’ suffering and death in the “passion predictions” [17:22, 20:18, 26:2] and in 20:28 and 26:28). This makes it more likely that Matthew considers Christ’s bearing of diseases to have reference to the cross.[24] This being the case, we are justified in concluding that Matt 8:17 implies that Jesus’ death is the basis for his healing of physical disease. But we should probably refrain from speaking of healing being “in” the atonement. For, as Warfield points out, “atonement” has to do with the cancellation of guilt, and should be directly applied only to sins.[25] We would prefer, then, to say that physical healing is one effect of the atoning death of Christ.

This being the case, and the effects of Christ’s death being applied to people through a process of time, it is specious to claim that the believer must have deliverance from sickness in the same way and to the same extent that he or she has deliverance from sin. The atoning death of Christ provides for the healing of all our diseases — but nothing in Matthew or in the NT implies that this healing will take place in this life. Indeed, as we have seen, the NT gives reason to think that triumph over physical disease, like triumph over physical death, will not come for most believers until the future “redemption of the body.”

V. Faith And The Promises

In a thought-provoking essay, C.S. Lewis explores the NT teaching on petitionary prayer.[26] He finds two apparently conflicting patterns. One, exhibited by Christ in Gethsemane, lacks specificity, leaving things up to God — “let your will be done.” Such a pattern suggests an attitude of self-doubt and humble dependence. Not being able to know and discern God’s will because of our present “weakness” (Rom 8:26), we must qualify even our specific requests with an “if it be thy will.” The other pattern of prayer, however, is one of bold confidence that God will give us whatever we ask. It is taught in Mark 11:23–24, where Jesus tells his disciples

Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, ‘Be taken up and cast into the sea,’ and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him. Therefore I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours. (RSV)

Lewis himself does not resolve the conflict between these two patterns, but Kenneth Hagin, a prominent exponent of the HWG, argues that the former is to be used only in prayers of “consecration,” while the latter is the appropriate pattern for prayers of petition.[27] Indeed, Mark 11:23–24 is a key passage for the HWG, substantiating two of their key tenets: that faith is the means of getting whatever God has for us; and that a “positive confession” — “believe that you have received it” — is necessary to secure an answer from God.

To be fair to the preachers of the HWG, while they are not always as careful to state the qualification as they might be, they hold that the believer has the right to “name and claim” only those things that the Bible has promised the believer. But once the believer realizes that he or she has been promised what he or she is praying for, qualifying the prayer with an “if it be thy will” is unnecessary. Worse, it is harmful, because it suggests an attitude of doubt toward what God has promised; and a prayer uttered in such doubt is not likely to be answered.

The nub of the issue, then, is whether God has promised healing in this life to every believer. If He has, then bold, unqualified petitions requesting that healing are entirely in place — and we may confidently expect God’s answer. We have already suggested that God has not, in fact, made such a promise to believers; but we need now to look at a text that appears to suggest the contrary, and to analyze further the place of faith in divine healing.

Jas 5:14–16 is perhaps the most important text in the NT on the topic of divine healing, for it is the only prescriptive text that appears to apply to the church at large. It therefore deserves careful consideration here.

Is any among you sick? Let him call for 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 man, and the Lord will raise him up; and if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man has great power in its effects. (RSV)

A few scholars have claimed that the text is not about physical illness at all; that the “weakness” referred to (the word translated “sick” by RSV in v. 14 is ἀσθενία is a spiritual problem or an interrelational problem.[28] But this is most unlikely, for the vocabulary of the passage resembles very closely narratives of physical healings in the gospels. There is also, of course, great controversy over the reference to “anointing with oil.” Some take this to be a sacramental action, a means by which God’s healing grace is conveyed to the person who is sick.[29] Others insist that the use of oil has purely medicinal purposes. We know that oil was widely used as a medicine in the ancient world (cf. Luke 10:34); and James’s choice of the word ἀλείφω rather than χρίω to describe the action of “anointing,” or “rubbing,” may suggest that he has in mind a physically- rather than a religiously-oriented action. An implication of this view that renders it very attractive is the clear biblical endorsement it would give to the use of medicine and other appropriate medical remedies on the part of believers. To be sure, the HWG is not generally characterized by the extreme position of a Hobart Freeman, who counseled his church members not to use any medical remedies at all. A more typical view in the HWG is that medicine and doctors should be used by anyone who is not absolutely certain of having the faith necessary for healing.[30] Still, this easily leads to abuse, and the interpretation of “anointing with oil” in Jas 5:14 as a medical remedy would affirm the use of medicine in divine healing, and in conjunction with the faith of the believer, and would severely damage the HWG’s case.

Nevertheless, this interpretation is probably not correct. Nothing from the ancient world would lead us to expect that oil would be an appropriate remedy for any sickness; yet this is what would seem to be implied on this view. Moreover, it is peculiar that James would make the elders of the church responsible for the administration of medical remedies. The best interpretation is that the anointing with oil is a symbolic action, intended to assure the sick person that he or she is being singled out for special attention from the Lord. Anointing has this significance in both the OT and the NT; and James probably uses the word ἀλείφω because the action, though symbolic, is nevertheless, a real, physical action.[31] This does not, of course, mean that James would discourage the sick person from seeking appropriate medical help; indeed, we may surmise that he, and other NT authors felt about doctors as did the second century B.C. Jew who wrote

Honor the physician with the honor due him, according to your need of him, for the Lord created him; for healing comes from the Most High, and he will receive a gift from the king. The skill of the physician lifts up his head, and in the presence of great men he is admired. He created medicines from the earth, and a sensible man will not despise them. (Sirach 38:1–4)

The element in the text that is directly relevant to our present purpose, however, is the promise of v 14: “the prayer of faith will save him.” James does not qualify this assertion; and it appears to support the HWG in their claim that God will heal everyone who prays for healing in faith. We can avoid this conclusion, of course, by taking the promise to mean simply that God will, sometime, heal the person who is sick — although not, perhaps, until Heaven. But the promise then becomes a truism; and James appears to be promising more immediate results. Nevertheless, the claims made for this verse by the HWG are not without their difficulties. Two qualifications, one minor, one major, are needed.

The minor qualification is that, since it is the elders whom James counsels to pray in v 14, the faith that backs up the prayer in v 15 must also be the faith of the elders’ — not the faith of the person who is sick. Technically, then, this verse gives no support at all to the contention that the person who is sick can be healed by his or her faith.

The major qualification has to do with the nature and origin of the faith exercised in the context of this prayer. The HWG advocates assume that faith is a sort of emotion that one can build up by one’s own will power. Hence the constant encouragement to have “enough” faith to claim God’s promise of healing. Yet this view of faith appears to be less than biblical. Faith is God’s gift — and while human beings are responsible to exercise that faith, it cannot be manufactured by a human. We can often stifle faith by closing our minds and our spirits to God’s work; but we may question whether we can get faith apart from God’s will and work. This being the case, James’s addition of the word “of faith” (πίστεως) to the word “prayer” in v 15 may express not a condition that can be met on man’s part, but a condition that can ultimately be met only by God. In other words, we may question whether the faith to pray effectively for healing can be present unless it is God’s will to heal. As H. van der Loos puts it,”… faith, forgiveness and healing are all three in essence dispensations of the grace of God. This implies that the relations between these three are not governed by the law of causality but by the will and intention of God.”[32] At times God may grant us the insight to see that it is, indeed, his will to heal: and we can pray in the consciousness that we have the faith to grasp this promise of God. On the other hand, perhaps most occasions — as Rom 8:26–27 suggests — will be characterized by ignorance on our part about God’s purpose to heal. We pray sincerely that God would bring healing; and with the faith that God can heal. But, not knowing the will of God for this specific circumstance, we cannot know whether the faith to tap into God’s healing power is present or not.[33]

On the view we are suggesting, then, faith is given the place that James accords it as an instrument in divine healing, but we avoid the implication that is unavoidable with the view of the HWG: that a failure to be healed must be due to people who have failed to exercise faith — whether the failure is that of the person who is sick, the “elders” who pray, or the church at large. As Barron puts it, the HWG at this point appears “to be following Job’s friends into theological error.”[34] On our view, a failure to be healed may be because of unconfessed sin (see v 15) or because someone stifled the faith that God had made available for the accomplishing of the healing, but it will perhaps more often be because God has not chosen to heal at that time.

This is not to devalue the importance of faith in divine healing. While faith is not always explicitly present when Jesus heals,[35] it is often prominently mentioned — cf. Jesus’ frequent assertion that “your faith has made you well” — and Mark 6:1–6 implies a close relationship between Jesus’ healing and belief (and cf. also Acts 14:13). The issue, rather, is how this faith is conceived, and how it is related to the sovereign purposes of God. It is just at this point that the issue raised by C.S. Lewis at the beginning of this section comes home to roost. For the issue he raises is ultimately the question of how the prayers of human beings interact with the sovereign purposes of God. No facile answer — and perhaps no logically satisfactory answer at all — can be given to this question. But what does seem clear is that the HWG loses biblical balance on this matter by giving too much place to human faith and too little to the sovereign, and sometimes mysterious, ways of God. As one critic has put it, “When faith becomes a ‘condition’ rather than the empty hands with which we receive God’s gift we are dealing with a man-centered gospel: God is there for the sake of supplying our needs.”[36] Praying “conditionally” — “if it be thy will” — is not a sign of doubt or unbelief but of humble recognition of our inability to know the mind of God. And Scripture does not suggest that cases of physical illness will be exempt from these uncertainties.

When properly regarded as a condition rather than as a cause, then, we can agree with the HWG that “faith gains whatever God has promised.” The crucial question is: what has God promised? No biblical or theological basis can be found for the HWG contention that God has promised physical well-being to every Christian in this life;[37] and several of the texts we have examined in earlier sections suggest, in fact, the contrary.

Much more could be said about the HWG teaching about physical healing; and far more needs to be said on the larger question of physical healing in general. We close, however, with a final observation. We may — justly — criticize the HWG for its excesses and for its obsession with the things of “this world” — material prosperity and physical well-being. Yet is not the HWG simply a symptom of a much more widespread disease: a preoccupation with personal material well-being? a preoccupation that is eating into western Christianity like a cancer? The HWG deserves, and requires, criticism. But we should not criticize it without stopping to consider whether we, too, are guilty of similar misconceptions and imbalance. Do we give material things and physical health the place in our prayers, in our work and in our priorities that corresponds to the biblical worldview? Are we as willing to sacrifice material and physical ease for the sake of bringing others to know Christ as was Paul? Until we answer these questions positively, we must be sure to include in our criticisms of the HWG a healthy dose of self-criticism as well.

Notes

1. Brief surveys of this history are found in Paul G. Chappell, “The Birth of the Divine Healing Movement in America,” Healing in the Name of God (ed. Pieter G.R. de Villiers; Pretoria, South Africa: C.B. Powell Bible Centre, 1986) 60–78 and in Bruce Barron, The Health and Wealth Gospel (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1987) 35–60.
2. Cf. e.g., Ken Blue, Authority to Heal (Downers Grove: InterVarsity, 1987).
3. Authority to Heal 37–8.
4. Barron claims that the teaching of “positive confession” is the third key belief — after “health” and “wealth” — of the HWG (Health and Wealth Gospel 71–3).
5. Cf., e.g., Edwin Howard Cobb, Christ Healing (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1933) 1–7.
6. Despite recent arguments to the contrary, the textual evidence is decisively against the inclusion of 16:9–20 in the original text of Mark’s gospel.
7. E.g., Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John (NICNT; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1971) 645–6; C.K. Barrett, The Gospel According to St. John (2nd ed.; Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978) 460.
8. E.g., Calvin, Institutes 4.19.18.
9. London: Banner of Truth, 1972 (=1918).
10. Cf. Richard Mayhue, Divine Healing Today (Chicago: Moody, 1983) 77–9.
11. Counterfeit Miracles 193.
12. Counterfeit Miracles 169–73.
13. “Healing as an integral part of Salvation,” Healing in the Name of God 92.
14. Cf. D.A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility (Atlanta: John Knox, 1981) 201–22 for some suggestions toward a biblically-balanced statement of the issue.
15. E.g., Blue, Authority to Heal 21–40.
16. Murray J. Harris, “2 Corinthians,” The Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 10 (ed. Frank E. Gaebelein; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1976) 322.
17. E.g., R.V.G. Tasker, The Second Epistle of Paul to the Corinthians (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1958) 173–7.
18. Victor Paul Furnish, lI Corinthians (AnBib; Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1984) 548–50.
19. Harris, “2 Corinthians,” 396.
20. J. Wilkinson provides a full discussion of the medical alternatives; he leans toward malaria (Health and Healing: Studies in New Testament Principles Practices [Edinburgh: Handsel, 1980] 112–42).
21. Some divine healing advocates appear to think that Peter is speaking here of physical healing: but this is manifestly not the case.
22. Cobb Christ Healing 23; T.L. Osborn, Healing the Sick (Tulsa, OK: T.L. Osborn Evangelistic Association, 1961) 27–8.
23. Alan Hugh McNeile, The Gospel According to St. Matthew (London: Macmillan, 1928) 107–8.
24. Cf., e.g., D.A. Carson, “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, vol. 8 (ed. Frank E. Gaebelein; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1984) 205–7.
25. Counterfeit Miracles 175–6.
26. “Petitionary Prayer: A Problem without an Answer,” most conveniently found in Christian Reflections (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1967) 142–51.
27. Cf. Barron, Health and Wealth Gospel 107–8.
28. E.g., M. Meinertz, “Die Krankensalbung Jak. 5, 14f, ” BibZeit 20 (1932) 23–36; C. Amerding,”Is any among you afflicted? A Study of James 5:13–20, ” BibSac 95 (1938) 195–201; D.R. Hayden, “Calling the Elder to Pray,” BibSac 138 (1981) 258–86.
29. The Roman Catholic sacrament of extreme unction is based on this view.
30. Cf. Barron, Health and Wealth Gospel 83–6.
31. For substantiation and more detail, see Douglas J. Moo, The Letter of James (TNTC; Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1985) 177–81.
32. The Miracles of Jesus (NovTSup 9; Leiden: Brill, 1965) 263.
33. Again, see Moo, James 183–7 for more detail.
34. Health and Wealth Gospel 83.
35. See the surveys in Johann Engelbrecht, “‘The Blind can see, the lame can walk, the deaf hear … ‘: Miracle Workers and their Miracles in the New Testament,” Healing in the Name of God 40; König, “Healing,” Healing in the Name of God 91.
36. Henry Lederie, “Models of Healing: A denominational charismatic Perspective,” Healing in the Name of God 131.
37. Two other texts are sometimes cited by the HWG in support of this universal promise, but neither is applicable. 3 John 2 — “I pray that all may go well with you and that you may be in health” (ὑγιαίνειν) — is not a promise from God, but a prayer, or “wish” of John. And Rom 8:11 — “the Spirit … will give life to your mortal bodies” — plainly refers to eschatological transformation, not to physical well-being in this life.