How Misunderstanding Authority Leaves Christians Open to Presumption
Growing up in the Third-Wave Charismatic Movement (TWC), I noticed a difference between stories of miraculous healings in the New Testament and how the movement’s leaders approached the topic. In the Gospels and Acts, in every recorded instance of healing, Jesus and the apostles spoke or acted authoritatively and the person with whom they were interacting was healed. In the TWC, healing was approached with uncertainty and experimentation, and I never once witnessed a miracle.
For example, Jesus, and later his apostles, would utter a simple command (“Rise, pick up your bed and go home” Matt. 9:6b) and the command would be obeyed. In contrast, TWC leaders would train us to ask questions about the level of pain a person was experiencing, place our hands on certain areas of a person’s body, notice if there was heat emanating from our hands, etc… Jesus and his apostles knew beforehand that their commands would be effective. We were hoping that we’d get the right combination of faith, words, and actions in order for God to respond and a miracle to occur.
So, why could Jesus and his apostles heal people in such dramatic fashion while we couldn’t? I believe the answer has to do with authority.
Authority is the power and right to act or command. In the Gospel of John, Jesus makes it clear he is authorized by God the Father to carry out his mission. He has come in his Father’s name (John 5:43). He’s not on his own. He’s not making it up as he goes along. He has come from the Father, understands what the Father wants him to do, and goes about doing it. If the Father wants Jesus to heal someone, Jesus has the authority to speak to creation and for creation to respond in obedience. Jesus does not experiment with his words to see if something will happen when he speaks. He knows something will happen.
Jesus can delegate this authority to others. Reading the story of the Seventy-Two in Luke 10, we see this dynamic at work. Jesus appoints these disciples, sends them out, and, not surprisingly, they come back with stories about how demons obeyed them. It is not as if these disciples had to drum up enough faith or find just the right combination of words and actions. Jesus gave them authority (Luke 10:19).
After Jesus’ resurrection, he says something remarkable: “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me” (Matt. 28:18). Who gave it to him? God the Father. Why? He was found worthy to receive it (Rev. 5:12). Can he delegate this authority to whom he pleases? Yes.
We find Jesus’ authority at work in the apostles. In Acts 3:1–8, Peter heals a lame beggar by proclaiming, “In the name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk!” Immediately the beggar does so. In Acts 14:8–10, Paul heals a man by commanding him, “Stand up on your feet!” The man obeys. In both instances, Peter and Paul make it very clear to the bystanders that it is not by their own authority they are able to heal. It is by Jesus’ authority delegated to them. It is in his name (ie, by his authority) that they are able to perform these miraculous signs.
How did the apostles know they had this authority? They knew because Jesus had clearly communicated he had given it to them. In addition, lest their claims to authority proved false, they demonstrated the power of Jesus’ authority by actually healing people, casting out demons, and raising the dead. They did so boldly, knowing their commands would prove authoritative.
In contrast, Jesus has not clearly communicated he has given me the authority to heal. When I’ve presumptously attempted to do so, nothing has happened. I’ve never had the authority to accurately discern faith, command healing, identify demon-oppressed people, or cast out demons. And despite the urging of my former TWC leaders that I did have this authority (and they had it as well), I have never seen these leaders perform a verifiable miraculous healing.
What can I conclude from this? Simply that Jesus has not given me the authority to heal. But I could have concluded this before my foolish attempts to command healing since at no point in my life had Jesus clearly given me this authority. Jesus commissioned his apostles at the end of Matthew and the beginning of Acts. He commissioned Paul on the Damascus road and at Ananias’ house. He also had a continuing relationship of direct communication with these men throughout their lives. I have never received a clear, direct commission to perform miracles nor have I been able to do so. Additionally, there is nothing to suggest my former TWC leaders have either.
I’m at peace with this. As my relationship with Jesus has grown through the years, by encountering him in the Bible and trying to follow him, I have experienced something better than the authority to heal people. I have come to know him. In the apostles’ lives this knowledge, too, is all that really mattered (Phil. 3:8).
To be clear, I believe I can ask God to heal people with the confidence he hears my prayers and will respond in the way he sees fit. But I don’t presume to have been given authority by him to heal.
All of this is why I am extremely suspicious of people who claim to have been given the authority to heal (or prophesy, or work miracles, or read people’s minds, etc…) or who teach their followers the same. If they had authority to heal, they would be able to heal. If they had authority to prophesy, they would prophesy accurately. But they don’t, so they can’t. Their presumption has led to many heartbreaking tragedies.
In 2019, a two-year old girl, Olive Heiligenthal, died suddenly and unexpectedly. Her parents, led to believe they had the authority to resurrect her from the dead, spent a week commanding her to live. They led others, in their church and around the world, to do the same. Olive remained dead.
It’s difficult to read about Olive’s death. Losing a young child is an unimaginable tragedy. I cannot imagine that tragedy is helped by spending a week in the presumptive hope that one’s commands will bring the child back to life. Encouraging Olive’s parents in this way seems cruel, condescending, and malicious.
Yet, in 2021, Brandon Lake, a worship leader with Bethel Music (the same label Olive’s mother, Kalley, publishes with) has a popular song on the worship charts in which he sings, “[We’ve] seen real-life resurrection.” I don’t know whose resurrection he’s referring to. It’s not Olive’s. I suspect he’s either referring to some unverifiable story he’s heard from others, exaggerating something he’s experienced first-hand, or lying. When the story is as popular and verifiable as Olive’s, the dead remain dead.
Presumption is acting as if you know something to be true when you really have no idea whether it’s true or not. This kind of behavior is described by the prophet Samuel as, “iniquity and idolatry” (1 Sam. 15:23), perhaps because a presumptive person is setting himself up as his own god. In the past, when I attempted to command healing, I acted presumptuously. I acted as if I knew what I was doing when I had no idea what I was doing. I no longer act this way.
But it seems as if Bethel’s pastor, Bill Johnson, and, perhaps Brandon Lake, have moved past presumption to something even worse. They know they can’t raise the dead; Olive was the proof. Yet they continue to teach and sing as if they can — as if they’re seeing miracles on this scale when it is clear they are not.
Walking into my local Blockbuster as a kid, I remember a VHS copy of “Miami Blues” sitting on the shelves. On the cover, a young Alec Baldwin had his gun drawn under the tagline, “Real badge. Real gun. Fake cop.” I never watched the movie, but the image and tagline stuck with me. A person can look real, he can act real, but he can be fake. He can say the right things but have no authority to say them.
A fake cop can’t arrest anyone, and a charlatan can’t bring anyone back from the dead.
