Laying on of Hands

Foundations of the Christian Faith — Steve Gregg

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Laying on of Hands

Foundations of the Christian FaithSteve Gregg

In "Laying on of Hands," Steve Gregg explores the practice of laying on of hands as an intensely personal and communal aspect of the Christian faith. He argues that while evangelism is important, being part of a community of believers is equally foundational to correctly following in the path of Jesus. Gregg discusses the biblical imagery of hands being laid on and the community aspect of the early Christian Church. He concludes that laying on of hands is a way of acknowledging the reality of God's work in people's lives and that it is essential for believers to acknowledge their membership in the body of Christ.

Transcript

Okay, this is our, I think this is our tenth session on Foundations. I realize that for some of the other series we're going through, it's the eleventh, but we did miss one one time, I think, and so we have one fewer. But we are now coming to the subject of the laying on of hands.

And this subject overlaps to a certain extent with the previous one, which was baptisms, and particularly with the, if under baptisms we include the subject of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, laying on of hands is clearly an overlapping topic, since we saw in the book of Acts, when we studied the baptism of the Holy Spirit, that it was the subject of the laying on of hands. And we saw in the baptism of the Holy Spirit that the laying on of hands was frequently an accompaniment to that phenomenon. Of course, I think anyone who reads the book of Acts or the Gospels will realize that the laying on of hands is not restricted to that matter of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, but it's certainly connected to it, and therefore it's not surprising that there is some overlap between these two, baptisms and the laying on of hands.

After all, there was also an overlap between repentance from dead works and faith toward God. When one repents, one of the things you repent of is your own belief. And this brings you into a life of faith toward God.

And we said that those first two items, repentance and faith, really go together. They're linked together. They both are related to the phenomenon of our conversion, and that the emphasis that we see in those two things, repentance and faith, is the very intensely personal nature of the Christian life.

That if one does not make a personal decision for Christ, it doesn't matter how many Christian friends or family members they have, or how long they've been in the church, or whether they were born there, it doesn't make any difference. Until a person has personally had faith, until a person has personally repented of his own sins, that person is not a Christian, has not begun to build his life upon the rock. That foundation must include this personal repentance and faith, or personal conversion.

If this is lacking, then obviously something extremely essential is lacking from the Christian life. But when we turn to baptisms and the laying on of hands, there is a slightly different angle here. When we consider baptism and the laying on of hands, we are moving from the category of things that are intensely personal and which you must do in the inner sanctum of your own heart, that which no one can do for you and which is reflective of the very personal nature of conversion.

When we turn to the consideration of baptism and the laying on of hands, we obviously are on different grounds. We're talking now about things that you don't do for yourself. Of course, they happen to you as a result of your own personal decision.

But in their happening to you, there is always somebody else involved. You do not baptize yourself in water, nor do you lay hands upon yourself, or if you do, I don't know of anyone who has ever done this, but if anyone ever did, they would do so without apparently understanding the whole meaning of what it is. The laying on of hands and water baptism were things that were practiced in the life of believers initially, immediately after their conversion.

Same day, and in many cases, within a few moments of their decision to believe in Christ. They were quickly baptized in water, and they were thereafter subjected to the laying on of hands. And because this was so universally practiced in the early days of the Church, it was common to see these things, baptism and laying on of hands, as the entry right into the community of believers.

And therefore, the mention of these things brings our focus around to the subject of the community life, or the social aspect of the Christian life. The interdependence of the members of the body of Christ. On the one hand, we see ourselves as children of God.

Individually born of God, or to shift the metaphor, adopted. But nonetheless, as individuals, because of our personal faith in Christ, we are children of God. But in another sense, we are seen in the form of the metaphor of a body, in which we are simply members, simply parts of a greater whole.

Likewise, the Bible encourages us to view ourselves as stones in a larger building. In 1 Peter 2.5, it says that we are built up as living stones into a spiritual habitation. That habitation is the temple of God, the temple of the Holy Spirit, which is the Church worldwide, and the Christian individuals are stones in that structure.

That's 1 Peter 2.5, in case you missed the reference. So, we have this kind of imagery in the Bible as well. We have the personal relationship with God, but then it is also necessary to understand our social commitment that is implied in conversion.

Likewise, it says in Romans 8.29, that when we become children of God, we have not come into a family with only one child, but into a family with many children. It says in Hebrews 2 that it behooves God in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through suffering. That's Hebrews 2.10. That God desired to bring many sons to glory.

Likewise, it says in Romans 8.29, Paul said, whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed into the image of his son, so that he might be the firstborn of many brethren. So, Romans 8.29 says that God's intention was that Jesus would simply be the firstborn of many brethren, and Hebrews 2.10 says that God desired to bring many sons into glory. So, even though each person is individually, by his own personal choice, a participant in the family of God, a son or a daughter of God, yet God never intended that it be a family so small as to have only one child.

It is a matter of many children, it's a large family, and every other Christian who shares the same father is part of this family, or body, or temple under construction. And this community aspect of the Christian life is every bit as foundational or fundamental to our correct thinking about what it means to be a disciple of Jesus, as is the personal aspect. And as I said in our introductory lecture, just as there are those who have missed this idea of the personal aspect, or have underestimated it, or not grasped it at all, people who were born into some tradition, perhaps where they were baptized as infants into a fellowship or into a Christian family, and have felt that since they have remained in that tradition, having been baptized as infants, maybe confirmed as young adults, and perhaps fairly regular in their attendance, that this constitutes them as a Christian.

What they are seeing is simply the communal aspect, but not the practical aspect. They're seeing themselves as part of a religious community, but they have never personally had a regeneration. That's a neglect that I hope most of us would not become guilty of.

But on the other hand, once we have understood it's simply a matter of personal relationship with God, then it is possible to neglect the community aspect, to think, well, you know, I don't get along with this church, and I don't get along with that church, and these people over here seem awfully petty, and these ones over here seem awfully indulgent, and they seem to allow all kinds of sin, and this group over here seems all stuffed in liturgical, and this one is very old-fashioned, and this one is much too contemporary and irreverent. And, you know, every church has something wrong with it, and many people have decided on the basis of that, well, I guess, you know, just me and God. God, just be me and God.

And I don't need the church. Well, to tell you the truth, what we might call the church commonly may not be what God calls the church. We often have an institutional idea of what we mean by the church.

And to tell you quite plainly, I think there is an argument for saying we don't need the church if by the church we mean institutions with buildings and corporate papers and non-profit status and membership on the rolls and things like that, because none of those things were part of the church in the early days. Jesus didn't establish that kind of a church, nor did the apostles, nor did such a church exist for the first several centuries. That is a later development.

And I would have to agree that it's not necessarily that kind of a church that we need. But if we understand that the church is made up of all who have been born again of the Spirit of God, who have been baptized by the Spirit into one body, and therefore are members one of another by a spiritual union that God has created, and that this union exists between parties who are not necessarily all meeting in the same place, and in fact does not even exist among everybody who does meet in the same place. Then in any particular gathering of the church you might find some believers and some who have not yet been converted.

Likewise, in a given town where there are many churches, you will find some of the true church in each of the churches, and some who are not in the true church also in each of the churches. The true church is made up of spiritually reborn persons. And institutions and buildings and sometimes often serve only to confuse the nature of the church.

And people often have a very negative view of the church because they are confusing what the Bible calls the church with what we commonly in our culture call the church, which is now an institutionalized concept, rather than the spiritual concept that God has made each member of the true body of Christ into a church. They are interdependent. Each has something to contribute.

Each has a whole set of needs that God intends to meet through the other true members of the body of Christ. Now, the laying on of hands, as well as water baptism, clearly demonstrates this interrelatedness of members of the body of Christ, this community aspect of salvation. Because for the laying on of hands to take place, it is necessary for one party to put his hands or her hands on another party.

There have to be at least two. Jesus said, where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst. And of course, Jesus said also, or gave reason to believe that he is with us even when we are not gathered with two or more.

I have every reason to believe biblically that God is with me even when I am all alone. But there must have been some reason why Jesus said, where two or more are gathered in my name, there am I in their midst. I believe there is a special sense, a different sense, in which Jesus' presence is manifest in a collected body, even if it is only very small.

In some parts of the world, Turkey for example, a person might become a Christian and not find another believer other than the one who converted him. Or if they are converted by reading a tract, they might never discover another believer in the whole country. This would be very unfortunate.

Of course, they can always do evangelism and maybe find another one or two. But in some countries, it is very difficult to find a church such as we think of a church today. But two genuine followers of Jesus gathering together to worship and to pray and to seek the Lord together would constitute, as far as God is concerned, a place where Jesus' presence is manifest as in a church in a sense that is different, fuller than in one person's life.

I believe that God is present with me wherever I go in a personal sense. But when I gather with believers, there is a potential for what God has put in me and what God has put in each other person who has gathered to be pooled. And by the combination of the various gifts that exist in the different members of the body, it is possible for a fuller expression of the complete ministry of Christ to be in evidence.

In evidence to those gathered and in evidence to those who look on from outside. I do not have a healing ministry. Some people apparently do.

I'm not extremely active in evangelism. I love evangelism, but I don't spend very much time at it, partly because my time is all taken with other things that are part of what I'm called to do. And I miss it.

I miss doing evangelism, but I see others that God has called specifically to it, and that becomes their priority, and that is what they should be doing, and it would be wrong for them to stop doing that in order to do what I'm doing. It is not the case that we should look at some kind of spiritual leader somewhere and say, this is what every Christian should be doing and what every Christian should be like. This is the opposite of what Paul taught.

That like members of a body, each person has a very different thing to do. And though there may be two persons or three or a group of persons worldwide who do things very similar to each other, yet in any balanced body of Christ, any balanced assembly of Christians, there should be a variety of gifts that do not resemble each other very much. But when combined, they are able to perform all the things that Jesus did when he was on earth.

As I understand it, Jesus, in his body on the earth when he was here, had virtually all the gifts in operation. He operated in the word of knowledge, the word of wisdom, healing, miracles, teaching, exhortation, administration, helps, giving, and the rest, the starting of spirits. He did all that.

But Paul would indicate in 1 Corinthians 12 that that isn't all given to one individual anymore. But the body of Christ is corporate now. Jesus dwelt in one body during those 30 something years that he lived on earth.

Jesus Christ was comprised of one individual. When he ascended on high and gave his same spirit to all his believers, then that man, Jesus, became the head of a body that is comprised of many members, and each member is a human being. Each member has a portion of the ministry of Christ to contribute to their total enterprise.

And so when Christians are gathered together, it is possible for a combination of gifts, a combination of ministries that were seen in the life of Jesus to be found in any gathered group. Two or more is enough for there to be a greater manifestation of Christ's ministry than in a single party. And in a sense, Jesus is present and manifest as present where two or three are gathered in his name in a way that is not the case when a party is all by itself and not gathered with other Christians.

There is a dynamic there, which the Bible speaks of on many occasions, how one could chase a thousand and two could chase ten thousand, that two are better than one, and a three-fold cord is not quickly broken, Ecclesiastes says. And so many times the Bible emphasizes this need for community of some sort, even small community, two or three committed and gathered together, but some, more than one certainly. And the laying on of hands as well as baptism presupposes that in a way that repentance and faith do not.

If you knew only about repentance and faith, you would get no concept of the communal aspect of discipleship, you'd only get the concept of the personal conversion aspect. But as soon as someone mentions baptism and the laying on of hands, you begin to get some concept of what that is. You say, oh, okay, in addition to my conversion there is my involvement, my inclusion, my absorption into a community of believers who have had a similar experience of conversion and who have something to contribute to my life and to receive from me, through me.

Now, the laying on of hands is a very important subject. It is probably of all the six things listed in Hebrews 6.2, 6.1 and 2, those six things, it is the one least spoken of worldwide in the church or churchwide. It is reasonably common to find churches that talk a great deal about repentance and reasonably common to find churches that talk a lot about faith or baptism or eschatology, things like the resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment.

Those things, although it is very rare to find a church that in a balanced way has taught on all these subjects and is not emphasizing one to the exclusion of another, or better yet, has taught clearly on all these subjects and then is going on, not laying that foundation over and over again, but going on to maturity, teaching additional things. That is rare enough in the body of Christ, but rarer still, perhaps, or at least very rare, is a church that has any teaching at all on the subject of laying on of hands. Of all the six items in the list in Hebrews 6.2, it is certainly the one that is most surprising to find there.

At least to me it is, and I dare say probably the most. It is not too shocking once we look at it to say that repentance, faith, baptism, and even resurrection from the dead and eternal judgment should be listed as important matters, foundational, fundamental things. But it is hard to get over our surprise when we find laying on of hands there.

Mostly because of the six things it is the one item spoken of least in the Bible. All the other things that we have been talking about and shall talk about in this series, we have an abundance of biblical material to guide us in our thinking about it. Whereas the laying on of hands, there is not an actual teaching on the subject in the Bible.

There are some implications in a few statements in the epistles about it, but most of what we have on it is anecdotal material. That is to say, a story about it happening here, a story about it happening there. Which again, I have said in the past when we have only anecdotal material, which is very treacherous to try to make absolute statements about that which is seen to happen in this case and happened over here and happened over there.

To make absolutized and universal statements about the practice becomes somewhat difficult, if not dangerous. However, there are a number of ways in which the laying on of hands is seen to be practiced in the Bible, which all have some things in common and therefore may give us some clues as to what the meaning behind it really is. If we would go to the earliest reference in the Bible to one party laying hands on another party, that would be found back in Genesis chapter 48.

I like to, when researching a subject, especially a subject that is relatively obscure in the Bible, I like to find every reference in the Bible to the subject and start at the beginning. Many times when God is seeking to reveal things in the Bible, he does so in a progressive way. This is seen, for example, in how God began to speak to the Jews about the Messiah.

Very obscure and vague references and occasional references to Jesus are found in the book of Genesis. As you get to Exodus, we find clearer teachings only if you understand the types and shadows of the tabernacle and Exodus and so forth. When you get to the prophets, they are much clearer still.

They say things that are almost literal and in some cases are literal. Prophecies about where he will be born and what he will do and what kind of animal he will ride and so forth. But even in the prophets there is some obscurity and of course when Jesus comes himself, that's when the total clarity about the Messiah comes.

So we can see that there is progressive revelation. God will sometimes just give us a vague or obscure reference and then later as the scriptures progress we get more data to add and eventually we can put together a systematic understanding of what this is all about. How God understands it and how we therefore should understand it.

In Genesis 48, Jacob as an old man was apparently confined to his bed. His health was failing him and there was a couple of orders of business he had to finish before he died. One was to confer the patriarchal blessings on his sons of whom he had twelve.

But under the customs of the time, whether they were God ordained customs or not, we are never told, but under the customs of the time, the firstborn son ordinarily would receive the birthright. And the birthright was a set of special privileges that belonged to the firstborn son over and above the privileges that other sons would inherit. Particularly in this particular case, this family was promised certain greatness and destiny, the coming of the Messiah for example and the possession of the land of Canaan.

Obviously the birthright would include those privileges. Whichever son of Jacob received the birthright would be the ancestor of the Messiah and his people would possess the land and so forth. Likewise, another thing in the natural that was part of every man's birthright in those days was a double portion of his physical inheritance.

Any Middle Eastern man, unless he designated that it should be otherwise, would leave his inheritance to all of his sons and a double portion would go to his oldest son. A double portion means exactly twice what the others would get. For example, if he had three sons, his inheritance would be divided into fourths and his oldest son would get two fourths and each of the others would get one fourth.

Or if he had seven sons, his inheritance would be divided into eighths and the oldest son would get two eighths and then the six eighths would be divided among the other six sons. So that the oldest son would get exactly double. Now, Jacob's oldest sons were rascals.

Reuben, the oldest, disqualified himself from the birthright by immorality. The next two, Simeon and Levi, also disqualified themselves by their violent and cruel behavior. Next in line was Judah and as we know from history, Judah did become the possessor of the spiritual aspect of the birthright.

His tribe became the leading tribe and the tribe from which the Messiah came. So the first three sons were passed over and the fourth son then was treated as the firstborn in the spiritual sense. But Judah was never Jacob's favorite.

It was only right that Judah, since he had done nothing to disqualify himself from birthright, that he would fall next in line after the oldest three had disqualified themselves and that he should receive something of the birthright. But Jacob's favorite son was Joseph and even though Joseph was almost the youngest son, he was the second youngest, yet he was the oldest son of the wife, the only wife that Jacob ever loved, Rachel. He bore children by three other women, all older than Joseph, that is all the other sons, but Joseph was the firstborn of Rachel and who's the only woman Jacob ever wanted to bear children by in the first place.

And therefore he wanted to confer something of the birthright on Joseph and what he did, Joseph had two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, Manasseh was the older, and Jacob decided that he would adopt those two sons and make them full heirs each. That means that the tribe of Joseph would become two tribes and therefore later, in the days of Joshua, when the land was divided among the tribes, Ephraim received an inheritance, Manasseh received an inheritance, and the other eleven sons received an inheritance. But since Ephraim and Manasseh together were Joseph's tribe, were Joseph's family, Joseph's family thus got the double portion and that's how Jacob managed to show favoritism to the favorite son, Joseph, even in death.

Now chapter 48 is the account of how this happened. Chapter 49 is where Jacob blesses his other sons, or all twelve of his sons actually, but in chapter 48, before he does that, he adopts Joseph's two sons. He says, just as Reuben and Simeon are, so shall Ephraim and Manasseh be my sons, which is the way that he managed to get a legal double portion given over to Joseph's side of the family.

But the point I want to make about this is that in verse 14 it says, Then Israel, that's Jacob, his name was changed to Israel, stretched out his right hand and laid it on Ephraim's head, who was the younger, and his left hand on Manasseh's head, guiding his hands knowingly, for Manasseh was the firstborn. And he blessed Joseph and said, then he gives this blessing, we'll pass over a moment, verse 17, Now when Joseph saw that his father laid his right hand on the head of Ephraim, it displeased him. So he took hold of his father's hand to remove it from Ephraim's head to Manasseh's head.

And Joseph said to his father, Not so, my father, for this one is the firstborn, put your right hand on his head. But his father refused and said, I know, my son, I know. He also shall be a people, and he also shall be great, but truly his younger brother shall be greater than he, and his descendants shall become as the multitude of nations.

Now, here we get some indication of how the laying on of hands was understood. First of all, it was administered in connection with passing on the patriarchal blessing. And in this case, it's clear that the right hand conferred more blessing than the left hand.

Joseph favored his oldest son, Manasseh, and felt that the right hand of his father should go on to Manasseh since he was the oldest. However, apparently by revelation, since Jacob was blind, he knowingly managed to cross his hands, apparently, and to put his right hand over on the head of the younger son and prophesied that that younger son would be more significant. He certainly was.

The tribe of Ephraim became the second most important tribe in Israel after Judah. Manasseh became a very small and fairly insignificant tribe. Now, the point here is that something was being conferred here symbolically.

There was no magic in the hands of Jacob, but there was a declaration of something that was formally ordained through the laying on of hands. An exaltation of rank, a conferring of privilege that was signified. And when you say signified, it just means it's a word that comes from the word sign.

A sign was given that this was the intention of Jacob by his putting his hand on the boy. Now, as I said, there was no supernatural power as far as we know conferred through the laying on of hands here. It was just a sign and a symbol of the intentions of Jacob that the right hand blessing should go to this boy, the younger.

But the other one should receive blessing and inheritance as well, as signified by getting a left hand. The putting on of hands therefore symbolized the conference or the transference of some privilege, of some blessing to the party receiving the laying on of hands. Now, Jesus actually practiced this as well with children.

In Matthew chapter 19 and verse 13, then little children were brought to him that he might put his hands on them and pray. But the disciples rebuked them and so on and so on and so on and so on. And then, of course, he rebuked them.

And in verse 15, and he laid his hands on them and departed from there. Now, he put his hands on them, and this is associated with him praying for them, although in Mark's version of the same story, which is in Mark chapter 10, verse 16, Mark 10 verse 16 says, and he took them up in his arms and laid his hands on them and blessed them. Same story.

So, in Matthew 19, they were brought so that he might put his hands on them and pray for them, and he did so. Mark tells us that he put his hands on them and blessed them. Now, there's no contradiction here, it's simply an expansion on what happened.

His prayer was a prayer of blessing on these children, and something was conferred by the laying on of hands. Now, although sometimes when Jesus laid hands on people, power went out of him and healed their sickness, we're not told of anything supernatural transpiring here through the laying on of hands, although it may well be that his prayer or blessing may have been a prophecy. That certainly appears to be the case in Old Testament times when a patriarch put his hands on his descendants and blessed them.

That blessing was often in the form of a prophecy about their future destiny. It's interesting to wonder whether that's the form that Jesus' blessing on these children took. It's very possible.

Wouldn't that be amazing to be able to bring your children to Jesus and have him give an inspired prophecy about their destiny and so forth? I don't know if that's the form it took, but I will say this, it looks like a carrying out of the same function that we see repeatedly in the Old Testament of the patriarch commanding a blessing of sorts, usually through the laying on of hands, upon younger persons or parties who are to receive the blessing. And here it's associated with prayer. To lay hands and to pray on people, obviously, is something here that there is some precedent for in Jesus' practice.

And so, yet I believe that his laying on of hands here probably, I can't say this with certainty, it was probably no more a transfer of power in this case than in the case of Jacob laying his hands on his grandsons to adopt them. I can't be sure about this. All I know is that there's no indication that these children were sick or in need of some miracle or in need of some particular demonstration of power.

They were just brought because their parents wanted them to be prayed for, to be blessed. My wife exploits every opportunity she can to get men of God to lay their hands on our kids and bless them. Once we were in Hawaii and Loren Cunningham was just passing through, he was on his way to the far reaches of the world or something, flew in, connected a flight from Kona at Hawaii, and he just dropped by the Honolulu base to speak for about half hour and then he had to run to the plane.

My wife and Benjamin, who was I think our only child at the time, were there and as Loren was being hastened off to the airplane, she interrupted him and says, would you mind praying for my son? And so he put his hands on Benjamin and prayed for him. And then later she did the same thing to Jack Hayford once when he was visiting somewhere. And she's trying to collect as many men of God as she can to lay hands on our sons just to see if as much blessing as possible could be conferred.

Although, again, I don't know that there's any suggestion in the Bible that something supernatural took place by the laying on of hands, a blessing. I mean, what was supernatural was prophetic. It was the prophetic thing.

You know, Jacob prophesied over his sons and his prophecies came true. Jesus may well have prayed prophetically over these children. We don't know.

There's no record of what his prayers contained or what the blessings contained. But I think it would be fair to say, in the absence of further evidence, that no miracle took place here other than perhaps the miracle of prophecy and that was perhaps in the same tradition of the patriarchal blessings administered by the laying on of hands in the Old Testament time. Now, the second time that we read of the laying on of hands in the Old Testament is in Leviticus.

And this is something almost entirely different. There's some similarities in concept here, but it's a very different kind of situation. In Leviticus chapter 16, we have the ritual prescribed for the yearly day of atonement.

By the way, the day of atonement for the Jews was just a few days ago. They just had Yom Kippur. It happens once a year.

They don't do this ritual anymore because this ritual required offering animal sacrifices. It required a temple ritual. There's no temple anymore.

It hasn't been since A.D. 70. And so, the Jews have not been able to practice their religion, nor this ceremony, in the biblical manner for over 1900 years. But where God is prescribing it, in Leviticus 16, verses 21 and 22, it says, Aaron shall lay both his hands on the head of the live goat, confess over it all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions concerning all their sins, putting them on the head of the goat, and shall send it away into the wilderness by the hand of a suitable man.

The goat shall bear on itself all the iniquities to an uninhabited land, and he shall release the goat in the wilderness. Now, chronologically, this is not actually the second occurrence of the laying on of hands in the Old Testament. In the earlier chapters of Leviticus, there were several places where it talked about laying hands, but it was the same idea.

The priest laid hands on an animal. The reason I turn to this passage is this is the only passage that tells anything about what the significance of that act is. In the first eight chapters of Leviticus, there is elaborate ritual for the offering of various kinds of sacrifices.

There were five different kinds of offerings, and they had to be offered in a certain ritualistic way. In each case, the animal that was brought for sacrifice prior to its being killed had hands laid upon it by the priest. But nowhere in those first eight chapters of Leviticus is there any interpretation of that practice given, only here.

And here we can see what is the probable meaning of it, even in the earlier chapters. The priest would lay hands on the animal and confess the sins of the people upon the animal. Then the animal would go away into the wilderness bearing their sins.

And, of course, it was assumed that the animal would die. It was a domestic animal, a little goat, and it was led out to the wilderness where all kinds of animals would be out there, predators that would kill it. Actually, history tells us that this so-called scapegoat, as it was called, occasionally came wandering back into camp, and so it later became part of the ritual, not prescribed in scripture, but part of the ritual of the rabbis to take the goat out and push it off a cliff in the wilderness, just to make sure it didn't come back.

And that is a fact, no joke. The important thing was that the animal was symbolically carrying away the sins of the people. No doubt this is the concept that John the Baptist had in mind.

In John chapter 1, when he saw Jesus, he said, Behold, the Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world. Now, it is impossible, it says in Hebrews chapter 10, impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. However, all the sacrifices of the Old Testament were to symbolize something yet future which would, in fact, take away sins.

Jesus Christ, who is the Lamb of God, who does take away the sins of the world. And every animal that was sacrificed in the Old Testament was an enacted prophecy of the eventual coming of the Lamb of God, who would die and really remove the sins. But the Bible makes it very clear that these animals did not really, literally remove people's sins.

They were just, again, a sign. It was just a sign and a ritual to convey the notion that God intended and could and would eventually transfer the sins of a sinful people to an innocent victim, as innocent as a lamb or as a little goat. One which could have obviously never sinned since goats and lambs are not moral beings, they have no sin, they're entirely innocent.

And yet that the guilt would be transferred from the guilty to the innocent, and the innocent would then die as if guilty. That's the whole concept that the sacrificial system of the Old Testament was to convey. And part of the signification of that, part of the symbolic ritual to convey that notion, involved the laying on of the hands while confession of sins was being made, which symbolized the transfer of all the sins confessed through the hands, as it were, to this animal.

And when the animal was led away, it was as if it were symbolically carrying those sins on itself away. We don't have time to look at all the fabulous New Testament scriptures that connect this concept with what Jesus has done. Some of them are very familiar to us, no doubt.

It says in 1 Peter 2, I think it's around verse 24, it says, I think that's 2.24 of 1 Peter, if not, maybe the next verse. Likewise, 2 Corinthians 5.21 says, And likewise, I think it's in 1 Peter 3. This one just came to my mind, although I don't know the verse number. Let me find it.

I'm pretty sure. Yeah. 1 Peter 3.18 says, The point here is that this scapegoat ritual, as well as the sacrificial ritual that was conducted daily in the temple, all was a picture of the transfer of guilt that would eventually take place from repentant people to those who were not innocent.

To the Lamb of God who would die and carry their sins. This is a literal transfer. This is not a legal fiction.

This is something that somehow in God's economy managed to happen. Now, you can't do this in the natural. Don't try this at home.

It is impossible in a court of law for one person to really become guilty of what somebody else did. I mean, for a really innocent person to become really guilty. It is possible for an innocent person to be punished for the crimes of an innocent person, of a guilty person.

This is done sometimes by accident. Sometimes the courts mistakenly punish an innocent person, and because the real criminal goes free, that innocent person is bearing the penalty of a guilty person's sins. But that's different.

That innocent person never actually becomes guilty of that sin because he hasn't committed it. Jesus, however, through some kind of miraculous thing that only God understands, I suppose fully, managed to actually become guilty instead of us. To become sin so that we might become righteousness, and to die as the real scapegoat and as the real sacrifice so that our sins really, in a real sense, were transferred to him.

But the laying on of hands to the animal in the Old Testament signified, or by a symbol, suggested the concept of a transfer, a conferring of guilt to one party from a previous party who already possessed it. So as blessing and privilege could be symbolically transferred by the laying on of hands, so could guilt and responsibility in the Old Testament. Now I'd like you to turn to the third sense in which the Old Testament speaks of the laying on of hands, then we'll start moving to New Testament teachings on the subject.

In Numbers chapter 27, Moses, his life is nearing an end, and it's necessary for him to appoint a successor, to be the leader of the Israelites after his death. And so at verse 18 we begin to read, Numbers 27, 18, and we'll read through verse 23. And the Lord said to Moses, Take Joshua the son of Nun with you, a man in whom is the Spirit, and lay your hand on him.

Set him before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and inaugurate him in their sight. And you shall give some of your authority to him, that all the congregation of the children of Israel may be obedient. That is to him, Joshua.

He shall stand before Eleazar the priest, who shall inquire before the Lord for him by the judgment of the Urim. At his word they shall go out, that is to battle, and at his word they shall come in, both he and all the children of Israel with him, all the congregation. So Moses did as the Lord commanded him.

He took Joshua and set him before Eleazar the priest and before all the congregation, and he laid his hands on him and inaugurated him just as the Lord commanded by the hand of Moses. Now, here we have a third sense, but in some respects similar to the others, in which the laying on of hands is administered. This time it is to appoint a successor or to ordain a man to a position of authority.

This time the man who already possessed indisputable authority, Moses, is seeking to confer his rank and his authority, at least some of it, it says, put some of your authority on him. Joshua never quite had as much authority as Moses, but enough to be the indisputable leader of the children of Israel after Moses' death. This authority which Moses possessed was symbolically conferred to Joshua by the laying on of hands.

Now I want you to understand something. Joshua had this authority not because he received the laying on of hands. He had this authority because God gave it to him.

God told Moses, I have appointed Joshua to be your successor. The laying on of hands was the symbolic, visible way of designating this fact. By putting hands upon Joshua, Moses was visibly showing all of Israel, this is the man, it says, if you could imagine authority flowing from me into this man upon whom my hands are laid.

Just like when the priest put his hands on the animal, as if you could picture the guilt flowing from the man to the animal. So also, it says, if you could see or imagine the authority flowing from the possessor, Moses, to the receptor, Joshua. Now, I am convinced that there was no actual authority conferred with the act of laying on of hands in the sense of Joshua's right to really rule the people came not from this act, but it came from God's choice of him.

Just like God had chosen Moses previously, now he chose Joshua and it's that choice that gave him authority. But this was the official way of showing. God ordained that this method should be used to demonstrate symbolically the passing of authority from one man to another.

In the New Testament, the laying on of hands often is referred to in connection with this very concept of transferring authority from one person to another. We first begin to see this happening in the book of Acts in chapter 6. In Acts chapter 6, at this point, up to this time, in the early chapters of the book of Acts, the only recognized authorities in the church were the apostles. There had been no delegation of tasks.

There had been no subordinates recognized. Jesus had ordained the apostles as the leaders and so far up through chapter 5, they were the only leaders in the church, at least the only recognized official leaders. If there were others leading in some capacity, they were not, let's put it this way, authorized or ordained as far as we know.

So all leadership duties fell upon the apostles up to this point, which included the preaching duties, the teaching of the new converts, as well as the administrative stuff. And one of the administrative tasks that fell to them was distribution of food, because as we read in both Acts chapter 2 and in Acts chapter 4, there were a number of poor people in the church and some who were not at all poor and had lands and things that they could sell so they could help those who were poor and were told that they laid the proceeds of these sales at the end of Acts chapter 4, were told that the proceeds were laid at the feet of the apostles. Why? Because the apostles had the authority and the responsibility to distribute them.

The problem was the apostles already had a full-time job preaching and they found it difficult to do all things well. They realized that there was a need to devote themselves to spiritual ministry and it made it difficult for them really to be good administrators and do the practical stuff, too. It became evident with the growing Christian community there were both physical and spiritual needs of the community, and while the apostles at this point had authority over all areas of ministry, it was to their advantage and to that of the kingdom of God, it seemed, to designate some people and give them authority to take on that particular role that the apostles had formerly had authority over, namely the distribution of food.

This became apparent to them when certain injustices were brought to their attention. No doubt the apostles were doing their best to be just and fair in the distribution, but anyone who's had any awareness of the welfare system knows how difficult it is to verify whether a person has a valid claim or a pretended claim to benefits, and that it must take an awful lot of administrative oversight in order to make sure that out of a church of 3,000 people, many of them poor, that the distribution was being fairly done and that no one was really getting more than they should and so forth. Apparently the apostles were more devoted to their preaching than to this administrative task, and therefore some complained, and probably rightly, that there was an inequality in the distribution.

It says in verse 1 of Acts 6, Now in those days when the number of the disciples was multiplying, there arose a complaint against the Hebrews, that is the local Jewish Christians who spoke Aramaic and kept Jewish customs, by the Hellenists. Now Hellenists, or Greeks in the New Testament, refers to Jewish people who had not kept the Jewish culture, but because they mostly lived in other countries, they had adopted the Greek language and Greek customs. There were two classes of Jews worldwide at this time, those that regarded themselves as true Hebrews, and those that had sold out to a certain extent as Hellenists.

They had accepted Greek culture and language partly because they lived in Greek cities and Greek parts of the world outside of Palestine. And so the Hebrews did tend to kind of discriminate against the Hellenists, at least outside of the church, the Jews were that way, and apparently inside the church there was some evidence that this prejudice continued, that the Hellenistic widows were not being cared for quite as diligently and carefully as the Hebrew Christian widows were. Now it says, when the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, it is not desirable, notice the whole church is called the multitude of the disciples, everyone was a disciple then, and said, it is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables.

Therefore, brethren, seek out from among yourselves seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business, but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word. The same pleased the whole multitude, and they chose seven men whose names were given. Then in verse six, whom they set before the apostles, and when they had prayed, they laid hands on them.

Now this laying on of hands was no doubt symbolizing the same thing as Moses laying his hands on Joshua, namely that some of the authority was being passed along to these men. The apostles had formally had all the authority to lead and to make decisions and to arbitrate. Now the issue of distribution of food was being passed along to these guys, and these guys were given authority from the apostles to make all the decisions in this matter, so the apostles could just get their hands off that business and spend their time in the word of God and prayer, which they considered to be their priority, and I'm glad they did.

So here we see that the early church practiced the laying of hands for the conferring of authority also to an officer, what we would now call ordination. Ordination is simply ordaining a person or authorizing a person to act authoritatively on behalf of those who are doing the ordaining. In a church, in a congregation, or in a denomination, many times ministers are ordained, and this usually by the laying on of hands, carrying on the custom, or I don't know if it's usually this way, but in many denominations it is still practiced following the customs of the early church, to lay hands on a person to ordain them to ministry.

There are a number of times in the Bible that we read of such taking place, when Paul and Barnabas were sent out on their first missionary journey. The elders of the church that sent them out laid hands upon them. If you look at Acts 13, Acts 13 verses 1 through 3, it says, Now in the church that was at Antioch there were certain prophets and teachers, Barnabas, Simeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Menaean, by the way there's no racism apparently in this particular church, Lucius of Cyrene would have been black, Cyrene was a black African nation, and Simeon who was called Niger, Niger also means black or has that connection, so in all likelihood he was another black man, so there was a mixed racial eldership here it would look like.

Menaean who had been brought up with Herod, the Tetrarch, and Saul. Now Barnabas is mentioned first, Saul is last, perhaps referring to seniority, but these five men who are named apparently made up the eldership or the leadership of that church. It says they were prophets and teachers, it does not identify them as elders, but partly because no one up to this point had been called elders.

However, shortly after this, in chapter 14, we find the first reference to elders, and it would appear that what these five men did in the church of Antioch corresponds to what later on elders did in churches. Now here is the eldership, And as they ministered to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, Now separate to me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them. Then having fasted and prayed, they laid hands on them and sent them away.

Now here is the laying on of hands again in ordination. This time men who are already in church leadership are sent forth to do something additional. They are given authority to do what they apparently were not at liberty to do previously, and that is to go plant new churches, which is what they did after this.

Now what is the purpose of the laying on of hands in a case like this? What is symbolized? What is symbolized is this, the connectedness of the parties laying hands and the parties who are having hands laid upon them. Very important. When Moses laid hands on Joshua, it is as if he was propelling Joshua forward and saying, You are going to take this torch that I have been carrying and you will carry it with the same authority that I have carried it.

I am passing the torch to you. And whatever you do from now on as a leader is simply a continuation of what I have been doing. You may do different things than what I do, but they sure as heck had better be in the same spirit as I have done it because I am the one launching you and whatever you do, you do as an extension of my own authority that I have passed along to you.

And when the apostles laid hands on the seven men to distribute food in the church, it was similar. They are saying, We have been doing this until now, but with the laying on of hands we are saying, We are giving this business to you. And the very symbolism of laying on of hands no doubt suggests a connectedness, an extendedness, as whatever you do is an extension of my own hands doing.

With the laying on of hands in this formal setting, it is as if you become an extension of my own body and of my own hands and my own fingertips. So that whatever you do in a sense is going to fall back on me. Whatever you do under my authorization becomes my responsibility because you are simply an extension of my ministry now.

And these elders in Antioch laying hands on Paul and Barnabas and sending them out, it is similar. Essentially it is as if they were saying, We are not able to go into all the world and plant these churches. We have a church to run here, but the Holy Spirit has sent you out and we lay hands on you as if to signify that from now on whatever you do, you do as an extension of ourselves.

You are now authorized to plant churches. Now you know that authorization was important in the early church. Jesus only planted one church and he left 12 men in charge of it.

And that church was in one spot in an upper room in Jerusalem. And it grew to many thousands, but it was still in one spot in Jerusalem. It was only one church.

When persecution broke out over the death of Stephen and Christians from Jerusalem were scattered throughout the world, spontaneous evangelism took place, unauthorized. The men who went out preaching everywhere, including Stephen, not Stephen, but Philip, were not authorized by the apostles to go out and plant churches. It just kind of happened.

They just went out and told people about Jesus and churches happened. And what the apostles in Jerusalem discovered was they were getting reports back from all over the world of brush fire movements springing up spontaneously, which were surrounding Jesus and the gospel. And the question in their mind would have to be, of course, is this part of the same thing here we have in Jerusalem or is this something else? By the way, the way that different churches are connected to each other spiritually is still confusing to many.

And you can imagine that it would be initially at a time when for years there had only been one church in one place. Suddenly they're hearing that there's people who believe in Jesus over here and some over there and some over there. We didn't authorize anyone to start these churches.

Are these cults? Are we going to accept these as part of ourselves or are we going to have to denounce them as something that started in rebellion? We didn't start these things. Who started this anyway? Is it genuine? Is it perverted? What is it? And therefore the apostles made a point of visiting such groups. We know in Acts chapter 8, Philip, without authorization, went to Samaria and started preaching and people got saved and he started something and no doubt sent word back to the apostles because they heard about it.

And what did they do? They went to visit, to check it out, to see what it is. Now they knew Philip. They had laid hands on him to become a deacon but they'd never sent him out as a missionary to plant churches.

That's sort of an apostolic kind of a task. He was never recognized as an apostle or anything like that. So they had to go and check it out.

And when they did, they authorized it and they did so by the laying on of hands, as we know. And the Holy Spirit fell upon those in Samaria when Peter and John, two apostles, laid hands upon them. And in doing so, Peter and John were saying, we recognize this work here in Samaria.

Though we didn't start it, we recognize it as authorized by us. It is part of the same movement that we're heading up in Jerusalem. We're connected.

And likewise, when Saul and Barnabas were sent out from Antioch, the fact that hands were laid upon them suggests that now you guys can plant churches and we won't raise any questions about whether we're connected or not. We're connected to you. We're authorizing you right now to go out and do this.

We won't have to check up on everything you do and come check each individual case to decide whether this is a real church or not. The Holy Spirit, we recognize, has made you apostles to go out and do this very thing. In fact, in Acts 13, after they're sent out, we find for the very first time, Saul and Barnabas are called apostles in this chapter.

They were never called apostles before that. They're sent out as apostles. And as apostles, of course, it went without saying that they could establish churches and they would be part of the whole network.

They would be automatically connected in spirit to the original started by the apostles in Jerusalem. Now, what this signifies, the laying on of hands signifies a connectedness, such a connectedness that as authority is symbolically transferred, so is responsibility. There is no authority without responsibility.

And, contrarywise, the reverse of that is there's no responsibility where there's no authority. I cannot be held responsible for what I had no authority in. I have no authority to force you to behave.

You can do that and I can't do much to you. That is, if you misbehave, I can't forcibly stop you. I have no authority to do that.

An officer could, I suppose, if you're doing something against the law, but I don't have the authority to stop you. And, therefore, I can't be responsible for what you do. If, however, you were my children, and you were very little, and I do have both the power and the authority to stop you, then if you turn out bad, that's my responsibility.

Because I had authority, like Eli and his sons. Eli was held responsible for what his sons did. Why? Because they made themselves vile and he did not restrain them, the Bible says.

He had the authority to restrain them in a sense that most people don't have authority to restrain other people. If you have no authority, you can't be held responsible. But if you have authority, you are responsible.

Now, if you confer authority, if you authorize somebody and say, okay, you may now act authoritatively, then the responsibility for their actions obviously comes back to you. We made this mistake once in a church I was in some years ago. There were two guys who had music ministries.

One was in a Christian band. The other did concerts in prisons and things like that. And both of them were begging to be ordained.

One of them said it would help him get into prisons to have ordination papers and so forth. And the other one just had delusions of grandeur or something, thought it would be great to be ordained. And they kept bugging us.

And the elders who were being pressed upon by this had misgivings about them. Both of them had things in their life that were not exactly, you know, didn't give us total confidence in their character and what they might do. But they kept pressing and kept pressing and they had been walking with the Lord a long time.

And they were in ministry. And eventually we just kind of succumbed to the pressure and we went ahead and ordained them before the whole church with the laying on of hands. Later both of them backslid.

And many of them did very scandalous things. And the responsibility for what they did until such a time as they renounced their ordination or ceased to be acting as members of the church fell upon the elders who ordained them. Because if doors open for them based on our authority or our authorizing them then whatever they did once they walked through those doors in some sense falls back on our shoulders.

Paul warned Timothy against this very thing in 1 Timothy 5.22. You might know that in 1 Timothy Paul is commanding Timothy to appoint elders and deacons in the church. And this was done through the laying on of hands. And part of his instructions to Timothy about this in 1 Timothy 5.22 was do not lay hands on anyone hastily which would in this case mean prematurely nor share in other people's sins.

Keep yourself pure. Now there's a direct connection between laying hands hastily on someone and sharing in someone else's sins. Because if you authorize them by the laying on of hands and they go out and sin and using that authorization are able to do damage because you've authorized them then you share in the guilt of their sins.

And Paul said to Timothy don't do that. Now he did tell him to lay hands on people and to ordain elders in every city but not hastily. He wasn't to do so without checking their character getting recommendations this is all clear in chapter 3 that they had to meet a very strict set of criteria and he should not hastily or prematurely give anyone authority.

He shouldn't lay hands on them hastily because he might find himself in so doing becoming somewhat a participant in their sins if you chose someone who is undeserving of the position immature prone to use the office for their own sinful purposes and that becomes the responsibility of those who laid hands on them. So the laying on of hands in the New Testament is connected very much in many cases to the church and its government and the flow of authority in the church itself. Jesus is the head of the church but he appointed the elders I should say the apostles the apostles appointed elders and so participation in the community of God must of course recognize whatever authority there is in church officers but the passing along of that authority which is done by the laying on of hands is a very responsible kind of a thing and those who have such authority and are in the business of conferring it on others need to be aware that once hands are laid upon a person in this sense there is an extendedness of oneself embodied in that person.

It is of course a vote of confidence that one places in a person it is an affirming thing when you say I am willing to make myself vulnerable and my reputation and my ministry subject to whatever consequences come as a result of your actions that's a very affirming kind of thing to do to a person and it speaks of a oneness in the body of Christ a connectedness that suggests that we just don't go out and do things on our own we do so as some existing church some existing authority authorizes it in particular this school I started ten years ago because the church where I was an elder laid hands on me and six other heads of households the seven families moved together to Oregon and started the school under the authorization of the church that we belonged to since that time it was decided by both the church and ourselves on very friendly terms that it was better for the school to act independently partly because the church was subject to a denominational doctrinal norm which we didn't hold to which wasn't a problem to our pastor but it was a problem to some of his superiors and therefore it was decided that the school should go independent as opposed to be connected to that denomination but still it was authorized by an existing church in the beginning when organizations are too hasty to authorize people into ministry and ignore what Paul said here about hastily ordaining people laying hands on them it is often disastrous it is very often a disastrous thing Phil could tell you the Christian community in Australia to which he used to belong it grew rapidly because there was a real revival happening and it grew in a few years time to about 500 adults in the community and this community was housed in individual houses men's houses and women's houses or brothers houses and sisters houses which would house maybe 5 or so maybe 5 or more individuals and each house needed an overseer well eventually they had 50 houses or so and therefore they needed about 50 overseers the problem was the movement had started only a few years earlier and there weren't very many older Christians in the movement most of the ones who were the oldest in the Lord were only a few years old in the Lord and so almost by necessity the ministry began to ordain as house leaders persons who were relatively young in the Lord and this gave them an authority which they did not have the maturity to properly exercise and there was a great deal of abuse of authority the community eventually blew up they were under the assemblies of God and the assemblies of God stepped in and disbanded the community because of complaints of abuse of authority and so forth in some of the houses and this came about because of leaders who were given authority prematurely hands were hastily laid upon them the same is true in many other kinds of organizations this is something to avoid realizing that the laying on of hands suggests unity it suggests connectedness it suggests shared authority and responsibility and therefore one ought to be cautious about doing it but that's not the only sense in which the laying on of hands is practiced in the New Testament no doubt the other ways it is practiced also contribute to our understanding of what the writer of Hebrews meant when he spoke of laying on of hands as something foundational there are at least two other significant ways in which the laying on of hands was practiced in the New Testament apart from or in addition to ordaining church leaders the other two practices had to do with healing on the one hand and the baptism of the Holy Spirit on the other we see in the book of Acts on the one hand and the other I didn't mean that as a pun as far as healing is concerned this is modeled in the life of Jesus extensively it was not always the case that Jesus healed by laying on of hands in fact there are a few occasions where he healed and even cast out demons out of people who never saw his face or came into close contact with him because somebody came on their behalf the centurion who pleaded with Jesus for his servant said I'm not worthy to have you come under my roof so just speak the word and it will happen and it did the Syrophoenician woman whose daughter was plagued by demons did not bring her daughter with her when she came to Jesus but Jesus spoke the word from there and the girl was healed or delivered and there are a few other cases where we see this where Jesus could speak and at a distance people were healed but more common was the practice of healing people who had physical contact with him sometimes even without his choosing it there were times that like the woman who came up behind him without his knowing it and touched the hem of his garment and this contact with Jesus indirect as it seemed to be caused power to go out of him as the Bible says and she was healed more often still Jesus deliberately put his hands on people or in some way or another touched them sometimes with blind people he'd put his fingers in their eyes or with a deaf person he'd put his fingers in their mouth and touch their tongue a few occasions he'd put mud in their eyes or so and I mean Jesus did different things but most of his healings had something to do with physical contact and in many cases it simply said that he put his hands on the sick and they recovered but whatever Jesus' practices were and however they may have differed from place to place and case to case when Jesus predicted the healing ministry of the church he did connect it with the laying on of hands in Mark 16 and verses 17 and 18 Mark 16, 17, 18 Jesus said these signs will follow those who believe in my name they will cast out demons they will speak with new tongues they will take up serpents and if they drink anything deadly it will by no means hurt them they will lay hands on the sick and they will recover here Jesus very clearly connects the laying on of hands with healing the sick which is something he modeled himself and which he said would happen in the church now I don't want to take too much time to discuss this but I might just say something about this passage because it has led to I think some confusion for one thing the passage is in dispute as to whether it's even in the original text I believe it is authentic I believe Jesus really said these words many are not convinced of this and think it doesn't belong there because some manuscripts contain this section and some manuscripts do not manuscripts of the book of Mark I believe it's authentic and belongs here some would dispute that but we'll go on the assumption that it is authentic Jesus said these signs shall follow those who believe now some have felt that all believers individually should do all of these things because Jesus said these signs should follow those who believe actually only a few of these things are really usually expected of all believers by those who take this view some believe that all believers should speak in tongues because these signs should follow those who believe they should speak with new tongues therefore every Christian should speak in tongues likewise casting out demons is thought to be something every Christian should be doing because he says these signs should follow those who believe they should cast out demons similarly laying hands on the sick for recovery is another thing often thought to go with all believers however if we reason this way we should also reason that all believers should take up serpents and drink deadly poison which is not usually practiced by the more rational streams of Christianity I'd like to suggest to you an alternative understanding of the passage I think when he says these signs should follow those who believe he doesn't mean that every individual believer will do all of these things or even necessarily any of these things but wherever there are those who believe there will be such signs as these that is when the believers go and establish communities and people find in this town there are some who believe here among those who believe there will be such signs going on, demons will be cast out there will be healings, there will be some speaking in tongues and even supernatural immunity to poisons and so forth can be often found we have a case of that where Paul was bit by a serpent in Acts chapter 28 I believe it is and was unhurt by it now this would not be quite the same thing is that wherever there are believers every individual believer will be casting out demons, healing the sick and praying in tongues it might be but it doesn't necessarily say so and for that reason I don't think it's proper to take this passage and to say well this is normative for the individual Christian, you should speak in tongues, you should cast out demons, you should heal the sick what I find in the book of Acts is that most of these things as far as the healing and the casting out demons initially were done only by the apostles and after a while there were others doing them too but not very many are recorded in the book of Acts as doing them, Philip and Stephen are the only other people outside the apostolic group that are in the book of Acts said to have done any miracles or healed the sick or whatever this does not mean that only such remarkable exceptions as they can do such things but it certainly does not give us the impression that out of the thousands of converts all of them were out running around doing all of these things but wherever the believers went someone was, wherever the believers went these signs or signs like them were following those who believed and so I understand the laying on of hands to be for healing the sick is not necessarily at least the evidence of scripture is not necessarily compelling to say that every Christian has a duty to lay hands on every sick person they meet and heal them but that such signs should not be absent there should be such signs and evidence wherever believing communities exist there should be some people getting healed by the laying on of hands so physical contact through the laying on of hands is often what is associated with healing now in some cases it wasn't even hands but some somewhat less direct contact between an apostle and a sick person would get them healed in Acts chapter 5 verses 15 and 16 we have what is probably an exceptional case rather than normative in Acts chapter 5 verses 15 and 16 it says so that they brought the sick out into the streets and laid them on beds and couches that at least the shadow of Peter passing by might fall on some of them also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits and they were all healed now here is something amazing going on in Jerusalem everyone who had demons everyone who was sick even those brought from outside the city were they just lined the streets waiting for Peter to come out of his house and go walking down the streets so that if at least his shadow might fall across them and the implication is they got healed when this happened now he didn't even lay his hands on them in a case like this but there was some connectedness there was a sense in which the healing was still associated with Peter because that shadow which connected his feet with the at one point the sick person when that happened they were healed similarly Paul experienced an exceptional set of miracles in Ephesus in Acts chapter 19 we're told that these were special miracles so that we're not to expect that they would happen all the time in every place nor apparently did they even happen in every place in Paul's ministry it would appear to be a special thing in Acts 19 verses 11 and 12 Acts 19 verses 11 says God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul or special it says in King James unusual is a good term too so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick and the diseases left them and evil spirits went out of them now how are we to understand this was there magic or power in these hankies and aprons that went out from Paul was there magic in the shadow of Peter or is it that God was willing to heal these people but wanted to do so in some way to connect in their minds with the person he was seeking to authorize as his messenger by the laying on of hands or even something less direct contact a shadow or even something sent from the person contact with that thing is what brought the healing not because there was power in the thing itself but because receiving such a hanky or having that shadow cross over you or receiving the laying on of hands was a way in which God connected the healing with the person who was his messenger and the healing was a sign to confirm the words of the messenger that is actually how the Bible throughout the book of Acts always speaks about healing it is always and in Mark too it is always seen as a way of confirming the word the last verse in the gospel of Mark says they went forth preaching the word God working with them confirming the word with signs following likewise in the New Testament the healings typically had the effect of authorizing God's chosen messenger and and so to show the connectedness of what God was doing in the life of the sick person being healed or casting out demons with the gospel itself which was preached by the messenger God apparently made sure that there was some sense of connection some connection in the mind of the recipient at least whether it was a direct connection of the hands of the apostle or or a somewhat less direct connection like a hanky or a shadow now some people have seen this as evidence that all that took place here was a faith release Catherine Kuhlman used to tell people who needed a healing to put their hand on the radio as they listened to her and they'd be healed to lay hands on the radio and I don't know I suppose maybe some people got healed that way I know it is claimed that some did and I personally have no reason to doubt it but why in the church that I was first in the first charismatic group that I ever knew that tried to make some account of the biblical stories of healings and modern healings as well the explanation was given which I now question that this was for the purpose of a faith release that is to say a person was healed by his faith but faith requires some point of contact faith you know to sit and say I believe God will someday heal me of the infirmity I now have never quite ever lays hold on the healing it's just kind of a hopeful thing it's out there in the future sort of vague but if you say I expect to be healed at the moment I touch this radio or at the point I receive this hanky from Paul or at the point where this man's hands laid upon me it provides a point of contact so that the faith is no longer kind of nebulous and out there somewhere in the vague future somewhere but there's a connectedness to a particular event which allows me to say I expect it now and that heightened expectation at that point of contact is a release of faith that is sufficient to grant the healing this is how many have explained the significance of the laying on of hands in these other occasions I personally do not think that that is the best explanation for one thing in Catherine Pullman's readings many people got healed claiming that they weren't expecting to be healed in fact they didn't even believe in God when they came and they didn't have to believe in God until they felt themselves healed sitting in the meeting healing is not always the direct result of faith and there is at least one case in the Bible which has a similar kind of phenomenon taking place where there is absolutely no faith present in 2 Kings 2 Kings chapter 13 2 Kings 13 verses 20 and 21 we won't take the time to look there but you can write that down and check it out for the accuracy of my statement if you'd like later after Elisha the prophet died he was apparently thrown in an open tomb and his body there decayed and was left in nothing but bones at a later time there was a war and certain people carrying a dead body saw a group of raiders approaching and wished to be rid of the dead body so they just threw it in the nearest place they could at random it happened to be Elisha's tomb and they threw this dead body into Elisha's tomb and the scripture says when this dead corpse touched the bones of Elisha it sprang to life again this is 2 Kings 13 verses 20 and 21 now here we see something very much like a hanky from Paul or a shadow from Peter or a laying on of hands from somebody or another causing a miracle to happen here it was contact with the bones of Elisha but it can never be argued that this dead body released faith or expected to be raised at the moment that it touched the bones there was some other principle active here other than a point of contact or a faith release nobody expected this to happen it was something that is in my understanding akin to in principle is akin to these other things and the thing that it has in common is this Elisha had been God's prophet and messenger to people and by continuing to associate miracles with that prophet God was continuing to give signs that that prophet was his man and his messenger and was to be heard even though he had died he had had messages still remembered by the nation of Israel and by continuing to work through him God showed that the anointing or the truthfulness of this man's words were still being honored by God even after his death it is my observation in scripture that such miracles were done in connection with words spoken by God's messenger and there was some usually tangible means by which God symbolically portrayed that the miracle was associated in some way with that messenger and that God did the miracle to confirm the messenger the apostles or others the prophet in the Old Testament and the laying on of hands no doubt in such cases as healing and the baptism of the spirit may well have carried that significance there is again a connectedness now we only have a few minutes I wish we had more but let me in the time that remains put into words what I consider to be the basic issue and the fundamental foundational concept that we are to grasp from this whole concept of laying on of hands it can be put in these terms by asking this question is it necessary to have hands laid upon you in order to be healed or in order to be baptized in the Holy Spirit does anyone know the answer to that question let me put it another way can you be healed and or baptized in the Holy Spirit without the laying on of hands yes it would appear to be so even in Jesus case he sometimes heals without the laying on of hands and there are people who testify to healings who have had no minister lay hands upon them furthermore there are not only cases of testimonies in modern times but even a couple of cases in the New Testament where people were baptized in the Spirit without the laying on of hands the book of Acts chapter 2 on the day of Pentecost the Spirit fell upon the gathered 120 without anyone laying hands upon them as far as we know likewise in the household of Cornelius the gathered group received the baptism of Spirit without the laying on of hands now this raises the obvious question if God can heal and baptize in the Holy Spirit without the laying on of hands then why practice it what does it add what is the point of laying on of hands if it is unnecessary essentially if it is something that can happen without it then why bother with it once again symbolism is the value of it God could ordain Joshua without Moses laying his hands on him God can transfer the guilt of the world to Jesus Christ without anyone laying hands upon him God can raise the dead heal the sick baptize in the Spirit without anyone laying hands on them so what's the point in all these cases the laying on of hands symbolizes something but something extremely essential and that is connectedness and this is how I understand it if I am sick and wish to be healed or I am lacking in the fullness of the Holy Spirit and wish to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit I have a couple of options one is I can say I will isolate myself from my prayer closet and I will pray and I will not come out until God gives this to me because I don't need you I just need God and no one else it's just me and God but that's just the mentality that God is trying to overthrow through the ordaining of the practice of laying on of hands you see it is true Jesus can heal me and baptize me with the Holy Spirit without anybody touching me because Jesus is the one I get it from in any case with or without the laying on of hands I am getting it from Jesus not from anybody else but I acknowledge by seeking the laying on of hands I acknowledge that Jesus is in you and you are a member of his body and that he acts largely mostly through people he can act independently but that's not what he prefers in this present age he acts through the church he acts through his people and by saying listen I can go in my closet and pray for healing but if I come to you I say listen would you lay your hands on me and pray for me to be healed because I am going to get this from Jesus not from any man but I want to affirm you as a member of Christ as one in whom Jesus dwells I want to acknowledge you as a member of his body so that with your hand upon my head I receive his hand that we are of his hands and his feet of his flesh and his bones and that it is acknowledging the reality that God has ordained namely that Jesus works through his people and that I am not going to be so rebellious as to say well I am just going to get it from Jesus and I won't get it from anyone else but I will say if that is what God has chosen then I will acknowledge this I will honor this I will receive from Jesus through vessels who may be imperfect but chosen nonetheless even as I am an imperfect vessel chosen to minister I will receive from the vessels that God has ordained and this would be the apparent explanation as best I can understand it of why God would have things done through the laying on of hands which could be as well done by him without it it's the symbolism of the act it's the idea of saying I receive from your hands that which I seek to receive from God's hands because I see your hands you are of his flesh and of his bones as the Bible says you are his body, you are members of his body and I receive through you as a vessel of honor I affirm you I acknowledge you, I dignify you as a member of Christ and I look to Jesus not you, but I look to Jesus through you to minister and by so doing I am acknowledging the true nature of the body of Christ and of you as his agent seeking your hands laid upon me now, you might say then, since you can be healed or baptized in spirit without the laying on of hands is it okay to seek it without that? I don't know, I suppose if you wanted the power from on high let's say you wanted electricity to listen to a radio broadcast you could do a couple of things one is you could set up a lightning rod in the backyard, connect it to a transformer and plug in your radio and pray for lightning to strike at the moment you wish for power to listen to the radio there's another way you can do it though, you can plug in to an existing source and you don't have to wait for lightning to strike in other words, there's a more ordinary way to connect and to receive that power you can pray in your closet for power to strike you from on high in a way that God has not promised necessarily or is not the norm that God has depicted in Scripture but is more normative to do so through connecting with the existing body of Christ through the laying on of hands this is the method that God normally ordained it to be done there's nothing that would forbid God from giving you these things another way but if I were serious about desiring from God such things as I think the Bible promises I would seek them in the manner that the Bible depicts as normative and that would be through the laying on of hands which acknowledges my indebtedness and my dependency on my brothers and sisters as agents of Christ speaking to me and ministering to me and Him working through them on my behalf and that is what I understand to be a fundamental truth that God wishes us to understand through this practice of the laying on of hands Music by Ben Thede