1. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING

2. I. Sanctification through Sickness II. Divine Determinism III. Faith Formula IV. Secular World View

3. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Mark 11:9-10 And those who went before, and those who followed after, were crying out, “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord; Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David; Hosanna in the highest! Luke 19:11 And while they were listening to these things, He went on to tell a parable, because He was near Jerusalem, and they supposed that the kingdom of God was going to appear immediately.

4. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING As we begin to see the Kingdom of God as defined by what Jesus said and did, we discover that Jesus’ enemies and friends did not expect too much from Him, but too little. Jesus came not simply to bring political liberation to one nation, but to bring spiritual, physical, and relational liberation to all people. He came not merely to dethrone Caesar, but to destroy the evil force behind all unsanctioned power, Satan himself. He came to bring not just privilege for the few but forgiveness of sin and right standing with God for all.

5. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING George E. Ladd Our Lord’s ministry and announcement of the Good News of the Kingdom were characterized by healing, and most notably by casting out demons. He proclaimed the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and He demonstrated the Good News of the Kingdom of God by delivering men from the bondage of Satan.

6. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Genesis 3:15 And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise you on the head, and you shall bruise him on the heel. 1 John 3:8 …the Son of God appeared for this purpose, that he might destroy the works of the devil.

7. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Matthew 12:28 But if I cast out demons by the Spirit of God, then the kingdom of God has come upon you.

8. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING As Jesus advanced the Kingdom of God, the boundaries of Satan’s pseudokingdom shrank. The assault of the Kingdom was carried on not just by Jesus personally, but also by His followers.

9. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Luke 10:17-18 And the seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us in Your name.” And He said to them, “I was watching Satan fall from heaven like lightning.” Luke 11:21-22 When a strong man, fully armed guards his own homestead, his possessions are undisturbed; but when someone stronger than he attacks him and overpowers him, he takes away from him all his armor on which he had relied, and distributes his plunder.

10. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Herman Ridderbos The factual relation between the coming of the kingdom and Jesus’ miracles is brought not only by the casting out of devils but also by Jesus’ other miracles, for they prove that Satan’s power has been broken and that, therefore, the kingdom has come. At the same time it appears that disease is considered to be generally a consequence of Satan’s rule and that Jesus’ struggle against the Evil one is not fought solely in the field of ethics but in the whole of the physical domain.

11. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Werner Foerster notes, …nevertheless, it may be said that the existence of sickness in this world belongs to the character of this age of which Satan is prince…Thus, while not all sicknesses are the work of demons, they may all be seen as the work of Satan.

12. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Kenneth Leach The coming of God’s Kingdom and the achievement of spiritual freedom is seen in terms of the setting free of individuals and of creation from slavery to these powers…The cases in the synoptic Gospels were cases of disease for which we would today offer a different kind of explanation—mental disturbances, epilepsy, convulsions, dumbness, blindness…What is crucial is that in all the cases, physical and mental healing was accompanied by the setting free of a person from oppression, from those forces which stunted and distorted his humanity.

13. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Michael Green We suffer today from a false distinction between the secular and the sacred, the physical and the spiritual. The Christian church has sometimes behaved as though the only spiritual element in man was the subject of God’s concern. The actions of Jesus as recorded in the Gospels give the lie to this, and show that God’s salvation concerns the whole man (Mark 3:4). Indeed the word salvation is used most frequently in the Gospels with reference to the healing of disease.

14. KINGDOM OF GOD AND HEALING Jesus’ contemporaries misunderstood the kingdom of God. They hoped it was the revival of a past glory. We may misunderstand it by seeing it only as some spiritual state or future event. The Kingdom of God came through Jesus as a concrete reality which reaches one person at a time. As each person was in some way delivered by Christ from the dominion of darkness, the Kingdom advanced. It continues to advance in the same way today—one deliverance, one healing, one conversion at a time.