Book Reviews -- By: Anonymous

Journal: Bibliotheca Sacra
Volume: BSAC 145:577 (Jan 1988)
Article: Book Reviews
Author: Anonymous


Book Reviews

Power Healing. By John Wimber with Kevin Springer. San Francisco: Harper & Row Publishers, 1987. 293 pp. $14.95.

Miraculous healings should be a normal part of the Christian life, according to John Wimber, founder and director of the Vineyard Christian Fellowship, a movement that is gaining great popularity. Divine healing, according to Wimber, means more than restoration from sickness. It also means forgiveness of sin, breaking the hold of poverty and oppressive social structures, deliverance from demonic power and influence, and raising the dead (p. 38). However, the book stresses only restoration from sickness and deliverance from demonic power and influence. Raising the dead is merely mentioned on pages 38 and 62, but with no discussion or illustrations. This is a strange inconsistency. If, as Wimber teaches, Christians are commissioned to heal (Matt 10:8), are they not also commissioned to raise the dead, which Jesus also commissioned in the same verse ? Is Wimber being selective because he has not seen the dead raised?

Wimber speaks of Christians being influenced by a materialistic world view which seemingly shuts out the supernatural. His book implies that the supernatural is evidenced only or primarily in divine healings and demonic exorcisms. But what about the thousands upon thousands of individuals who are led to the Lord every year by laypersons, pastors, missionaries, and other Christian workers? Are not these conversions—from sin to salvation—evidences of God’s marvelous supernatural work? And is not this the greater and more significant work of God, to lead individuals to faith in Christ, whereby they are granted forgiveness of sins and given eternal life?

Wimber’s interest in practicing divine healing and training others to do it began with his wife Carol’s gradual openness to tongues-speaking (p. 31) and then her influencing him to practice healing (p. 32).

This book—and Wimber’s ministry—builds on two false premises: (1) that all spiritual gifts are for today, and (2) that all Christians are commissioned by God to heal (p. 48). In discussing the first, he places himself outside dispensationalism by stating that dispensationalists hold to the cessation view. The cessation view of tongues, however, is not limited to dispensationalists. The second premise is based on Jesus’ invitation to the Twelve to heal the sick (Matt 10:1; p. 170). However, this ignores the context, which clearly indicates that Jesus was addressing only the 12 apostles, who were to take their message only to Israel (vv. 5–8)...

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