Healing Grace

Introduction

 In this article, I intend to argue that the New Testament and Christian understanding of God’s grace is not simply ‘mercy’ for sinners but also ‘healing’ for the morally infirm who are dying and need new life.  The imagery of healing grace is primarily post-New Testament, and later Christian authors like Augustine or John Colet, who will be discussed, depend for it more on Greek and Roman philosophy than on the New Testament.  That said, links can be made to the Old and New Testaments, and the theological value of ‘healing grace’ captures the Bible’s theology of salvation.  While the Reformation’s focus on justification by grace through faith can, in some expressions, be faulted for underemphasising the very Biblical (Old Testament and New Testament) teaching on God’s empowering work of righteousness through Christ and the Spirit in our lives, we might note that John Calvin did place his discussion of justification within the larger section of ‘Regeneration’ in his Institutes of the Christian Religion.  Calvin, too, recognised the ‘new creation’ theology of the Church that I am here calling ‘healing grace’, whatever one makes of his description of justification.

 That said, we are at a point in Christian circles today where we need to hear less of ‘hyper-grace’ (in the sense of forgiveness and justification alone) and more of ‘healing grace’ (in the sense of God’s salvation as a power at work within us to restore life and righteousness).  The full theology is that of forgiving and healing (transforming) grace.  The error in our day is expressed vividly in teaching around homosexuality in some Evangelical churches.  While rejecting same sex acts, some believe that same sex affections or desires are not sinful.  Some say that wrongful desires or orientations are not sinful, only acts, while others even elevate same-sex attraction as an intrinsic good—a sort of ‘spiritual’ or deep friendship—as long as one does not perform sexual acts outside of heterosexual marriage.  The present discussion relates to this deeply mistaken understanding of God’s marvellous grace.[1]

 Augustine

 In his reply to Coelestius’ teaching for his fellow bishops, Eutropius and Paulus, Augustine addresses the problem of besetting sin and Christian righteousness ('On Man's Perfection in Righteousness', ch. 2).  He says that sin is an act and can, therefore, be avoided.  Yet, underlying actions are what we might call (not Augustine) ‘capacities’, for Augustine likens humanity’s sinful condition to that of a lame man, unable to walk.  We can hardly ask a person who is lame to walk.  Now, those today arguing that homosexuals are ‘born that way’, that their orientations are ‘natural’ to them, may say that they are hardly to be blamed for their condition and, therefore, it is not a sin.  They may also dress up this lameness as a value, as people sometimes do when finding goodness in an infirmity.  Indeed, some have suggested that being ‘gay’ brings a depth of male (or female) friendship—apart from any physical contact.

 Yet this is not at all Augustine’s point.  His analogy of lameness points to the need for healing, a healing that can only come by God’s grace.  He distinguishes the soul, the seat of one’s emotions or desires, from acts that result from these.  As a person may have a defect, lameness, so a person may have a defect of the soul.  For example, a person’s soul may have the defect of avarice that leads to the action of the theft.  Moreover, even when the soul ‘does nothing in gratification of its avarice’, it is said to be evil. 

 So, what is the Christian answer to the conundrum of besetting sin?  What is needed is neither an acceptance that one acts acceptably because of one’s infirmity nor a mere prohibition against actions without addressing the condition of the soul.  The metaphor of an infirmity helps us articulate a right theology.  Augustine says, ‘the man cannot avoid the lameness, unless his foot be cured’.[2]  He continues, ‘The same change may take place in the inward man, but it is by God's grace, through our Lord Jesus Christ.’  And again, ‘By faith, however, it receives renovation; in other words, it is healed day by day—yet only by God's grace through our Lord Jesus Christ.'  In this second quotation, Augustine contrasts faith with the law in the example of the tenth commandment not to covet (Exodus 20.17).  The sick soul is incapable of right action and needs healing, and such healing comes by faith in the daily healing by God’s grace through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Augustine accepts the view that sin is not sin when one can do nothing about it, like being lame, but the man is culpable if he does not agree to the remedy when there is one (ch. 3).  That remedy is the work of Christ, our great physician.  Alister McGrath says,

The idea of Christus medicus—Christ as the authentic healer of the human soul—was used extensively by Ambrose [Augustine’s teacher]: ‘We have found shelter with the Physician, who has healed our former wounds. We have received the great medicine of His grace; for great takes away great sins’.[3]

 Augustine’s language alludes to 2 Corinthians 4.  Paul does not use the analogy of illness or sickness but of actually dying and being made alive, which is language that more adequately relates to the grace of God in Christ Jesus.  Paul says that we carry in the body the death of Jesus that ‘the life of Jesus may be manifest in our bodies’ (4.10).  Paul begins this comment with reference to his ministry as a ministry of being ‘afflicted in every way’ (4.8), but the theological background extends to the Christian life more generally: ‘For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh’ (4.11).  Paul’s ministry, then, involves an outward wasting away but an inward renewal day by day (4.16), just as this is true generally of all believers.  This is Augustine’s justifiable interpretation of the text, even if its first application is to Paul’s ministry.  The believer, by faith (not works) is healed day by day, a sick (even dying) soul needing the daily healing by God’s grace through Christ Jesus. 

As Alister McGrath notes regarding Augustine’s allegorical interpretation of Jesus’ parable of the good Samaritan, ‘‘justification is a process of transformation by which sinners are healed and renewed within the community of faith.’[4]  Augustine held together justification as an event and as a process in a Christian’s life that is worked by God.  Good works are effected in the believer by God; they are His works in the believer and in this way may be said to be ‘imputed’ (inputantur) to him or her (De civitate Dei XXII, 30).[5]

 John Colet

 On the eve of the Reformation, in 1497, the reforming priest and scholar, John Colet, wrote a commentary on Romans that focussed on God’s healing grace.[6]  Writing prior to Martin Luther, he, too, argued that God’s grace alone is the means of our salvation.  He did not, however, so articulate God’s grace as to leave it as only a justification of sinners.  Rather, he understood Paul’s argument in Romans 5-7 to be that God’s grace is a healing of the soul.  Paul’s imagery in Romans 6 is not one of healing and sickness, but what he does say is consistent with this metaphor.  As in 2 Corinthians 4, Paul’s image is of dying and rising with Christ and then of a slave serving the master of sin or the master of righteousness.  Set free from the former master, the slave may now serve righteousness from the heart (Romans 6.15-18).  The language of a changed heart shows us that Paul has in mind the new covenant righteousness wrought in us that the prophets foretold (Isaiah 59.20-21; Jeremiah 31.30-34; Ezekiel 36.24-27).  The restoration of sinners is even depicted by Ezekiel as a resurrection from the dead by the life-giving Spirit of God (37.14).

 Paul does understand the human condition as an infirmity unto death, writing, ‘Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? (Romans 7.24).  Colet latches onto the image of sin as a disease only curable by Jesus.  Writing in reference to Romans 5.12ff, he says,

And so, as sin grew and gathered strength, it was needful, for the healing of mankind, that saving grace should then much more increase and abound; that men, being justified by it, might be able through Jesus Christ to attain eternal life (Chapter V).

 While the Law, instead of bringing healing, ‘exposed and aggravated the disorder’, ‘the ‘medicinal grace [of God was] ... given in the death of Christ for healing the disease of sin’ (Chapter VI).  The Law may even be said to be a good remedy even though it could not restore health to a dying patient.[7]  The more efficacious remedy is God Himself and His grace.

 Colossians

 Paul’s letter to the Colossian church might also be considered in regard to the singular reliance of believers on Jesus Christ.  Alternative powers are discounted (1.15; 2.14-15), including philosophy (2.8), since it attempts to provide humans with ways to heal themselves.  Martha Nussbaum explains how Greek and Roman philosophies believed that they provided therapies for sickly souls of unhealthy desires.[8]  She notes, for instance, that the Stoic, Chrysippus held that, as there is medicine for the body, there is medicine for the diseased soul (referenced in Galen, On the Views of Hippocrates and Plato 5.2.22).  Articulating the Stoic teaching, the Roman statesman and author, Marcus Tullius Cicero, says that philosophy is the medicinal art for the soul: ‘We must endeavor with all our resources and all our strength to become capable of doctoring ourselves’ (Tusculan Disputations 3.6). Paul’s dispute with philosophy is precisely on this point: philosophy claims to offer a humanly contrived remedy for the disease of sin.

 Christ Jesus, however, removed alternative remedies of the Law and other authorities for a soul’s ‘art (or craft) of life’, as the Stoics described it (technē biou).  Paul says, using different analogies, that Jesus cancelled

 the record of debt that stood against us with its legal demands. This he set aside, nailing it to the cross. ¹⁵ He disarmed the rulers and authorities and put them to open shame, by triumphing over them in him (Colossians 2.14-15).

 Thus, regulations of food, drink, religious festivals, Sabbath, and other ascetic or religious practices (like the ‘worship of angels’, what to handle, taste, or tough) provide no value for stopping the indulgence of the flesh (2.16-23).  Only the power of the cross and the rule of Christ in our lives will heal us from our disease (to use the medical metaphor to make Paul’s point).

 What is Christ’s remedy for sin?  We might comment further in Colossians 2.20-3.17, which answers this question in four ways.  First, the Christian participates in the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  He or she dies with Him to all human regulations.  That is, Christ’s death accomplishes what these regulations could not (2.20-23).  He or she rises with Christ, sets his or her mind on things that are above, where Christ now is, and is assured of appearing with Him in glory, for He is now the believer’s very life (3.1-4).  Far from being a technē or skill, the victorious life is the life of Christ, in which the believer participates fully.

 The second way Paul describes this is briefly mentioned in Colossians 3.7 and is a common Old Testament notion of ethics: ‘walking’.  How and where does one walk?  The believer has turned away from how he or she once walked.  So, for example, Deuteronomy says, ‘You shall walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you, that you may live, and that it may go well with you, and that you may live long in the land that you shall possess’ (5.33).  A third image Paul uses is that of ‘putting away’: the believer has things in his or her life to put away, such as ‘anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth,’ as well as lying (3.8-9).

 The primary way in which Paul captures the solution for human sinfulness in Colossians 3.5-17, however, is with the imagery of removing clothing and putting on new clothing.  The believer is to ‘put off the old self with its practices’ and ‘put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator’ (3.9-10).  While the image suggests human participation in this, it equally emphasises that this is a ‘new creation’ (cf. 2 Corinthians 5.17) work of God, a restoration to the image of God (cf. 2 Corinthians 3.18).  Restoration from sickness is not a powerful enough image for Paul, who sees the seriousness of sin as a death and the divine solution as a new creation.

 Greek and Roman philosophy was framed in terms of the four cardinal virtues corresponding to the order of the body: wisdom (the head—knowledge, understanding), courage (the chest or heart—emotions and passions, like fear, pity, love, anger, grief, resentment, mourning), temperance/self-control (the stomach and sexual organs—the affections or bodily desires, such as gluttony and licentiousness), and justice (the right ordering of the self and society).  The right ordering of the self for Aristotle (in his Nichomachean Ethics) involves two things: the right balance of virtues between vices of deficiency and excess, and (as Plato already argued in the Republic) the right ordering of the head over the chest over the lower regions, so to speak.  That is, a wrong ordering of the self, for example, would be the licentious person placing his affections or bodily desires above wisdom and knowledge.

 This brief description of the framework for considering philosophical ethics is helpful in discussing Paul’s ethics in Colossians 3.5-17 (and elsewhere), even though Paul does not work directly from notions of cardinal virtues or Greek and Roman philosophy. What he says, however, may reflect the cultural context.  His thoughts are not organised in the way that moral philosophy was.  Yet, in this passage, note that Paul understands that sin affects head, heart, and practices, and the solution is a change in each area.  We might arrange his thoughts somewhat as follows:

 

	Head (Understanding)	Heart/Chest (Emotions/Passions)	Lower Areas (Bodily Desires)	Right balance (justice)
Virtues of the New Self	Renewal in knowledge after the image of the Creator ‘…teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom’	Compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, patience, bearing with one another, forgiveness ‘Let the peace of Christ dwell in you richly…, singing…, with thankfulness in your hearts to God’		‘Put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony’ ‘And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.’
Vices and Practices of the Old Self		Impurity, passion, evil desire, covetousness Anger, wrath, malice, slander, obscene talk, lying	Sexual immorality

 Again, Paul does not so organise his thoughts as to reflect the framework of Greek and Roman philosophy.  Yet what philosophy covered in searching for a therapy for the ailing self is addressed by Paul: he addresses the solution for the head, heart, lower parts, and right ordering or balance in his own way.  That is, ethics covers the whole self, not some isolated part of the self or soul.  More importantly, Paul’s solution is entirely theological, not philosophical.  Instead of a craft for soul care, Paul insists on a divine solution: God at work in us, who are in Christ.  Our role is to respond to that grace—God’s saving and transforming work in our lives.

 Romans and Ephesians

 This understanding of Paul’s ethics is reflected elsewhere in his writings.  In Romans, the plight of human sinfulness is in acts of the flesh that derive from impure passions and result in a depraved mind.  The four-part problem of sin is all there in Romans 1.18-32: sinful bodily acts or practices, impure passions or emotions, the lack of wisdom and understanding, and an imbalance of the creature rejecting the Creator.  One is only half-way through Paul’s theology in Romans when one affirms that salvation is a justification by grace through faith (3.21-5.21).  Then comes Romans 6-8, which establishes that salvation is the work of God in Christ Jesus through the Holy Spirit to make us righteous.  Romans 7.7-25, often misinterpreted as a description of a Christian’s wrestling with sin, rather is part of a larger argument in Romans 6-8 contrasting life under the flesh, sin, and the Law to life in Christ and the Spirit (cf. the introductory verses to 7.7-8.17 in 7.5-6).[9]  Thus, the theological conclusion in Romans culminates in the restoring of the depraved mind that does not know the will of God:

I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. ² Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect (Romans 12.1-2).

 God’s solution to human sin is not merely forgiving grace but also transforming grace that restores the depraved mind.  It is not just a matter of Christians not sinning in bodily acts but also a transformation of passions of the heart—restoring right desire—and a transformation of the mind to know God’s will.

 Paul’s moral argument in Romans is expressed in brief in Ephesians 4.  Christians must no longer walk in the futility of their minds (4.17).  Formerly, they were darkened in their understanding, alienated from the life of God on account of the ignorance within them—the hardness of their hearts (4.18).[10]  We have, notice, moved from head to heart, and now Paul proceeds from heart to the body’s or flesh's affections and acts: ‘They have become callous and have given themselves up to sensuality, greedy to practice every kind of impurity’ (4.19).  This part of Ephesians parallels Colossians 3 and need not be repeated, except to say that he continues to explore God’s solution for the mind, heart, and bodily affections and activities through 5.21.

 The solution to human sinfulness is God’s forgiving and transforming grace.  It restores the mind, heart, and bodily affections and activities.  It brings right order to the new creation, the new man in Christ Jesus.

 Jesus’ Ministry and the Holy Spirit

 The Holy Spirit is not featured in a number of texts in the Synoptic Gospels as He is in Paul, such as in Romans 8.1-17 and in Paul’s ethics in general.  Yet Jesus’ ministry is the bringing of God’s cleansing and empowering Spirit.[11]  This fundamental understanding of Jesus’ ministry is expressed in terms of the difference between John the Baptist’s ministry and Jesus’ ministry—which are related, not opposed.  John’s ministry was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Jesus’ ministry was a baptism of the Holy Spirit.

 Behind this two-fold ministry of John and Jesus lies the narrative theology of Israel’s restoration from captivity in sin.  Israel went into exile due to sin; God’s restoration of Israel was not according to Israel’s works but God’s grace.  He both forgave Israel her sins and restored her in righteousness by the work of the Holy Spirit.  This is the New Covenant promise already noted (Isaiah 59.20-21; Jeremiah 31.31-34; Ezekiel 36.24-27).  John’s baptism offered cleansing from past sin through repentance and forgiveness.  Jesus’ baptism offered the new creation life of the Holy Spirit who enables one to live righteously according to God’s Law.

 This is what Jesus means in John 3.5: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God.’  To be born of water is to repent and receive forgiveness (John’s baptism).  To be born of the Spirit is to be born again (this is the passage where Nicodemus puzzles over what ‘born again’ means—the Greek equally means ‘born from above’).  What Jesus brings differently from John is the empowering Spirit of God that transforms sinful lives.  As God says in Ezekiel 36.27: ‘And I will put my Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes and be careful to obey my rules.’

Not only is the Holy Spirit active in healing grace, but the Servant of God is through the cross as well.  Theologically stated, healing grace is linked to both pneumatology and Christology.  The Old Testament text mentioning a 'healing' from sin is in Isaiah 53.4-5: 

 

Surely he has borne our griefs

                        and carried our sorrows;

             yet we esteemed him stricken,

                        smitten by God, and afflicted.

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions;

                        he was crushed for our iniquities;

             upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,

                        and with his wounds we are healed.

Jesus applies this to His healing ministry prior to the cross in Matthew 8.17.  Peter applies it to Jesus’ removal of our sin on the cross:

He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. ²⁵ For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls (1 Peter 2.24-25).

This analogy of sin to sickness and the theology of grace including healing is already introduced in the Old Testament.  Jesus’ application of the text from Isaiah to His healing ministry shows us the link between this literal ministry of healing to the theology of healing grace: it foreshadows Jesus’ healing through suffering of our deadly disease of sin.

 Conclusion

 This study began with a claim by Augustine that God’s grace is a healing grace.  This notion was then examined in John Colet’s commentary on Romans, and along the way the notion of a therapy to treat the infirmity of the human condition was discussed in Greek and Roman philosophy.  What the ancients saw as a task for philosophy, Christians insisted was only resolvable by the grace of God.  That grace was both a forgiving and a transforming grace.  To examine this theological solution, I noted places in Paul where he works this theology out and also compared and contrasted his teaching to Greek and Roman ethics.  I also noted that this teaching about forgiving grace and transforming grace is consistent with an understanding of the Old Testament’s hope of a New Covenant and with Jesus’ addition to John the Baptist’s ministry—an addition of the baptism of the Spirit to the baptism of water.  This discussion could be expanded considerably.  The New Testament, however, supports the teaching of Augustine.  In all this, we see that an understanding of sin as just acts and not also a disease of sinful affections and desires and of God’s salvation as just forgiving grace and not also transforming or healing grace is incomplete. 

 The error of a partial theology has played out in our day in regard to sexual immorality.  Some have wanted to limit it to acts—the affections and acts of the body.  Some have wanted to understand grace as merely a matter of achieving the status of justification and not the transformation God brings by making us righteous.  Some fail to link the baptism of John to the baptism of the Spirit that Jesus brings.  Some so emphasise the sacrificial work of Jesus—His removal of our sin by His shed blood—that the further work of Jesus and the Spirit is underemphasised.  As Paul says in 1 Corinthians: ‘But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified [a better translation would be ‘made righteous’][12] in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God’ (6.11).

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[1] I have elsewhere addressed the issue of ordaining same-sex attracted, celibate ministers.  See Rollin G. Grams, ‘Evangelicals and the Question of Same Sex Attracted, Celibate Ministers,’ Bible and Mission Blog (27 June, 2024); online: Bible and Mission: The Conversion of the Heart: Christian Theology, Ethics, and Ordination.  Also, Rollin G. Grams, ‘The Conversion of the Heart: Christian Theology, Ethics, and Ordination,’ Bible and Mission Blog (8 July, 2024); online: Bible and Mission: The Conversion of the Heart: Christian Theology, Ethics, and Ordination.

[2] The translation used is from https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/1504.htm.

[3] Ibid., p. 48.  See Ambrose, De Helia et ieiunio xx.75, CSEL 32.2.257-8.

[4] Alister McGrath, Iustitia Dei: A History of the Christian Doctrine of Justification, 4^th ed. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2020), p.48.

[5] Ibid., p. 49.

[6] John Colet, Dean Colet’s Lectures on the Romans, trans. J. H. Lupton (London: Bell and Daldy, 1873); available online at: https://www.google.com/books/edition/An_Exposition_of_St_Paul_s_Epistle_to_th/cZlJAAAAMAAJ?hl=en&gbpv=1&printsec=frontcover.

[7] Colet affirmed a threefold purpose of the Law: to point out sin, to define boundaries, and to threaten transgressors (Chapter IV).

[8] Martha C. Nussbaum, Therapy of Desire: Theory and Practice in Hellenistic Ethics (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994).

[9] See Rollin G. Grams, ‘The Struggle to Do What is Right: Interpreting Romans 5.12 and 7.7-25,’ Bible and Mission Blog (1 October, 2024); online: Bible and Mission: The Struggle to Do What is Right: Interpreting Romans 5.12 and 7.7-25.

[10] The ESV translation is inadequate here—I have rendered the meaning of the verse as I understand the Greek.

[11] See Rollin G. Grams, ‘Divine Grace and Moral Empowerment in Matthew’s Gospel,’ Bible and Mission Blog (1 October, 2024); online: Bible and Mission: Divine Grace and Moral Empowerment in Matthew's Gospel.

[12] The Greek word can either mean ‘justified’ or ‘made righteous’.  Given the other terms and the context—following a sin list—and Paul’s point that Christians are no longer characterised by sin—not that they are forgiven and viewed as justified—‘made righteous’ is the better translation, despite the popularity of the ‘justified’ translation.