Objection: Wesley Said, “Whatever Is True Is Not New, and Whatever Is New Is Not True.” Nobody Believed That Healing Was in the Atonement Until Recently, So It Is Not True.
While John Wesley was unquestionably a great man of God, Scripture contradicts him on this matter.
Daniel said that in the last days, knowledge would be increased.
Daniel 12:4:
But thou, O Daniel, shut up the words, and seal the book, even to the time of the end: many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased.
The WORD itself will not be increased or added to (and woe to the man who tries to write additional Scripture – Revelation 22:18), but we should expect that knowledge of it should increase. If knowledge could not increase, why did Paul pray for the Ephesians to have the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of God and to be enlightened as to what they already had as an inheritance (Ephesians 1:15-23)? Why would he pray that the Colossians would increase in the knowledge of God (Colossians 1:10)?
Church history would NOT seem to indicate that no one ever believed that healing is in the atonement. For starters, Peter thought it was (1 Peter 2:24). The man who listened to Paul at Lystra received faith to be healed listening to Paul preach (Acts 14:7-10), so Paul must have been preaching divine healing. Both Peter and Paul successfully healed the sick.
There ARE writings throughout history of groups that have preached and practiced divine healing, even if it wasn’t “mainstream” at all times. (T. J. McCrossan’s book Bodily Healing and the Atonement, available free online as it is now in the public domain, cites them; you can look them up there. I’m not a historian and I can’t vouch for the accounts, so I’ll let Mr. McCrossan do the talking on that issue.) There was a time in the dark ages before Martin Luther that being born again wasn’t “mainstream” either! Would we assume that the new birth and justification by faith are not true because they were “new” when Martin Luther discovered them in the Word? No, they were nothing NEW – they had been in the Bible all along. These truths had just been lost to most people, including church people. Thank God, they were restored.
The baptism with the Holy Spirit was largely lost to the Church before 1900 or so, though there were people before that who believed in it. It certainly was not “mainstream” before then (except in the early days of the Church). It is nothing “new” but rather something that the Church had lost through tradition and ignorance. Thank God for its restoration!
Divine healing is not “new” either, but it was not “mainstream” before the mid-20th century and it either is or isn’t today depending on which country you inhabit. It’s not a “new” revelation, but rather one that has been in Scripture all along.
The fact is that there have been groups of people throughout Church history who have believed in and practiced divine healing, plenty of whom preceded Wesley. So we can affirm Wesley on this matter – the new birth, the baptism with the Holy Spirit, and healing in the atonement are not NEW, so Wesley would say that they are true because they aren’t NEW doctrines but historically recognized Bible doctrines.
The church is growing in the knowledge of God, and this is TO BE EXPECTED based on Paul’s statement of the purpose of the ministry offices (apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher). Paul said that they were given so that we would come to the knowledge of the Son of God “unto a perfect man” so that we would not be tossed to and fro by every wind of doctrine (see Ephesians 4:11-16). As God builds us this way, we should expect knowledge to increase. The Word will never change, but knowledge of it will increase, and that is a good thing.
Therefore, we can’t assume that just because something is a recent “revelation” that it can’t be from God. God continues to answer prayer for increased revelation of His Word and the New Covenant’s inheritance in Christ that we have received as believers. It would be a shame if no one ever learned any more insights into the Word until Jesus comes back!
The most important thing is that any new “revelation” have the Word to back it to prove that it is a revelation OF the Word, not a revelation BEYOND the Word. Avoid any revelation that is BEYOND the Word!