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| ALBERT BENJAMIN SIMPSON (1843-1919) |
A.B. Simpson (1843-1919) was the founder of the Christian and Missionary Alliance and by many accounts one of the most important figures in the history of Christian World Missions. I do not mean to critique Simpson on his contribution to evangelicalism and the modern mission’s movement. However his view of divine healing displays many gaps and I believe has led us to the modern aberrations, excesses, and extremes we see propagated in modern Word of Faith and New Apostolic Reformation leaders and teaching that have crept into mainstream evangelical thought. Simpson held the view that divine healing is bound up in the atoning work of Christ. Simpson taught a “Fourfold Gospel” and wrote a short booklet by the same name.[1] I would like to take an in-depth look at his views on divine healing. I studied the booklet and there are many tenuous teachings in his so-called “Fourfold Gospel,” namely that Satan is the source of sickness and illness. Simpson said, “sickness is his work.”[2] He even misquotes the scripture found in Matthew 24:24 saying “that in the last days the spirits of devils shall be upon the earth working miracles, so that, if possible, they shall deceive the very elect.”[3] Matthew 24:24 does not read “spirits of devils” it reads “false christs” and “false prophets” and that they will perform great signs and wonders. Those false christs and false prophets may very well be possessed by devils, but they will not be possessing people to make them sick. The meaning of that passage is that Jesus is saying that these false christs and false apostles will be performing wonderful and great miracles that are seemingly authentic and godly miracles if possible to pull the very elect into their deception. Simpson badly misinterprets this passage to mean that devils can and will give sickness. He actually puts words into Jesus’ mouth. Jesus does not mean that devils can cause sickness which is Simpson’s meaning. Only Job and the woman with the withered hand could possibly be given as justifications for this view. However, God allowed Job’s suffering and even made Satan aware of Job. And the woman with the withered hand was probably that way only through her many years of being possessed, not that the demon caused some palsy in her hand. There is not one other instance of Satan in the Scriptures being the cause of sickness or illness. Rather, God is sovereign in sickness, illness, and disability throughout the Scriptures. Any other view ignores every time that God struck someone with an illness, sickness, or was sovereign in the giving of disability (e.g. Ex. 4:11; Jn 9; Acts 9:1–9; 13:9–12; 2 Kgs 6:16-22; 2 Cor 12:6-7; Gal 4:13-15; 2 Chr. 13:20; 2 Chr. 21:18- 19; 2 Chr. 26:20–21; Rev 8, 9, 15, 16).
According to Simpson, sickness could be a judgment from God, and one must make themselves right before God before healing can take place. Simpson writes
you cannot be healed till that difficulty is made right. You may be in some wrong and crooked attitude. He probably will not restore you till that is adjusted. He may have called you to some service and you are holding back. There will not be healing for the body till you have yielded at this point. There are hundreds of meanings in the sicknesses that are allowed to come upon God’s dear children, and He will show you what His voice is for you (emphasis mine).[4]
Either healing is bound up in the work of Christ in the atonement as he explains throughout this chapter on “Christ our Healer” and is only to be received by faith or it’s not. Nothing man could do by way of works could earn Christ’s atoning work. Simpson even says himself that Divine healing comes by grace, not by works[5] which contradicts his claim that we can receive it only when we make ourselves right with God. These two elements of his teaching contradict each other, are misleading, and contradict the gospel that is to be received by grace through faith. Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel inextricably links divine healing to the gospel. The gospel is not received by works it is received by faith alone. Simpson’s view of getting right before healing can occur makes his gospel a gospel of works.
Simpson taught in the Fourfold Gospel that Christ’s redemption covers all the “liability” of our bodies.[6] This view is not played out in the life of the everyday Christian. Who has lived one full year of their Christian lives without any kind of sickness or illness? Who has lived without a cold, flu, or the coronavirus? Christ’s redemption does not cover “all the liability of our mortal bodies” because every Christian will get ill at some point or another. It is an eventuality of the fall and death is the final illness. Christ’s atoning sacrifice did not cover the liability of our mortal bodies in this life, but rather he has purchased for us through his resurrection the promise of an incorruptible and imperishable body beyond the touch of decay only in the life to come (1 Cor 15:35-58).
Simpson likewise taught that Christ’s resurrection infuses healing into our mortal bodies and that this infusing is a “touch of Divine omnipotence.”[7] He wrote that the “very life of His veins is transfused into yours. That is Divine healing.”[8] This is an associative jump that cannot be substantiated. We certainly receive an incorruptible body at the resurrection of the righteous (1 Cor 15). However, that day has not yet come. We cannot infer that we presently receive Christ’s resurrection body infusing healing into our mortal bodies. His resurrection secures the resurrection of our mortal bodies, not the healing of our present mortal bodies.
Simpson additionally taught that Christ did not heal by his deity but by the Holy Ghost (i.e. by his anointing the anointing being a force or power). This is taught by nearly every Word of Faith and New Apostolic Reformation leader. They teach this to knock Jesus down an peg to make him just like us. Many teach that we all have the Holy Spirit, and Jesus had the Holy Spirit, and healed only through the Holy Spirit, so we can too. Anything Jesus can do I can do too—is the mantra of the Word of Faith and the New Apostolic Reformation! Simpson wrote
“When Christ healed the sick while He “was upon earth, it was not by the Deity that dwelt in His humanity. He said, “If I cast out devils by the Spirit of God, then the Kingdom of God is come unto you.” Jesus healed by the Holy Ghost. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because He hath anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to heal the broken hearts.” The Holy Ghost is the agent, then, by which this great power is wrought. Especially should we expect to see His working in these days, because they are the days of His own Dispensation, the days in which it has been prophesied that there shall be signs and wonders. How did Samson receive his strength? When the Spirit of the Lord came upon him. Then he was able to hurl the temple into ruins and their god Dagon with it. The Spirit of God was in his flesh. So when this electric fire is running through our frame, it brings healing and strength to every fibre (emphasis mine).”[9]
Firstly, Simpson describes the Holy Spirit as an electric fire, although no Scripture describes Him or his work in that way. Furthermore, Simpson’s claim that Christ did not heal by his Deity cannot be substantiated by the gospel accounts. Jesus absolutely did heal by the power of his divinity. John 20:30-31 claims that Jesus did many more miracles but these are recorded so that you may “know that Jesus is the Son of God (i.e. divine).” Likewise, Jesus forgave sins and healed simultaneously which is a clear display of his divinity. Christ said while healing the paralytic “that you know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins (Matt 9:6).” In healing the paralytic and forgiving his sins he displays his divinity—for only God can forgive sins. Christ used his divinity to heal and forgive sins simultaneously. He certainly healed and forgave the paralytic by his divinity. For Christ’s miracles to be evidence of his divine sonship, they must have been performed out of his divinity or from his divinity, not merely from his humanity. The Council of Chalcedon says that Jesus is, “acknowledged in two natures unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, inseparably.”[10] Jesus cannot turn off one nature for the other. His divine and human natures are joined indivisibly and inseparably. Jesus is fully God and fully man in one glorious union. Jesus did everything on this earth as God and man in one resplendent indivisible union. In other words, he did and continues to do everything as God and man simultaneously.
Another biblical story in which Jesus' divinity is linked to his healing ministry is when he healed the man born blind and John 9. After Jesus had healed the man born blind later he showed himself to the man. Jesus then asked him “do you believe in the son of man (Jn 9:35).” And in verse 38 the man born blind worshiped Jesus for his healing power and he said “Lord, I believe, and he worshiped him (Jn 9:38).” Here the man born blind worshiped Jesus for his sovereign act of healing in his life and then worshiped him as God. Jesus received worship, and that as God. Only God can be worshiped and thus the man born blind worshiped Jesus as God for healing him as God.
According to Simpson, Faith is the force that enacts Healing, and healing is part of the redemption of Christ as long as you receive it and abide in it.[11] This is the mistake of the modern faith teachers that faith is some kind of force that enacts healing. Modern Word of Faith and New Apostolic Reformation teachers teach faith is the thing that “makes withdrawals” from our heavenly account. Principally, we can see that most of the thoughts of the modern faith movement and the more recent NAR find their roots in the teaching of Simpson on divine healing, particularly that you must somehow abide in or keep your healing. It is somehow up to you to keep, maintain, or abide in that healing. It seems almost like Simpson is teaching that you could lose your salvation if you do not abide in Him. This teaching is certainly communicating that you can lose your healing if you do not abide. Could one likewise lose their salvation if they were not to abide, as Simpson teaches here, that we are to abide in our healing?
Simpson furthermore believed that a positive mental outlook contributed to healing and answered prayer. This adds to the contradictory nature of divine healing being part of the atonement. Either we receive divine healing as we receive the gospel, and we should never get sick again, or it’s not. His belief that a positive mental outlook contributes to your healing shows that it cannot be included in the benefits of the atonement. We don’t receive the forgiveness of sins and the other benefits of the atonement through a positive mental outlook, so why would we receive another benefit of the atonement also through a positive mental outlook?
Simson’s inclusion of physical healing as one of the four major aspects of the gospel message cannot be worked out in any practicality. If people aren’t healed then have they even received the full Fourfold Gospel? If someone even becomes ill at all in any way in this life, which is a necessary destiny for every man, then that person has essentially not embraced all the truths of the gospel. Moreover, they may have actually rejected one of the four cornerstones of Simpson’s gospel. Correspondingly, their lives might actually be in eternal jeopardy. If Simpson’s inclusion of divine healing in the gospel is accurate, then did all the people in the New Testament who got ill—did they not embrace the full gospel? What about Paul’s thorn, Timothy’s stomach, Trophimas was left ill by Paul, Epaphroditus was near death but God had mercy, the man born blind in John 9 so that the “works of God might be displayed in him.” In exodus 4:11 God says to Moses “who made man’s mouth? Who makes him mute, or deaf, or seeing, or blind? Is it not I the Lord?” How could God provide for healing in the atonement when he credited himself with making men mute, deaf, and blind? It would be contradictory for God to credit himself with being sovereign over men to being born blind like John 9 and likewise mute or deaf and then also provide for the eradication of those things in the atonement. Were the 12 apostles, outside of John, who died by persecution and the sword also outside the scope of divine healing and the benefits of healing in the atonement? Jesus has promised, “In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart I have overcome the world (Jn 16:33).”
Furthermore, if someone is relatively healthy and does not require healing of some type, then have they received the gospel? If healing is part of the four main aspects of the gospel, and a person does not necessarily require the benefits of that aspect of the gospel, then have they or can they receive the Fourfold Gospel? The gospel must be fully received by the whole person to receive eternal life and not individual elements by certain people who “need” certain aspects. I would posit this is a pseudo-gospel because it adds elements to the gospel that before Simpson had not been proposed in Christian history. Simpson added the element of health into the atonement that had never before been hypothesized, and in so doing, he expanded the atonement to unbiblical boundaries.
If healing is part of the benefits of what Christ has done for us on the cross then why is it necessary for others to pray for a Christian’s healing (James 5:13-16) if it is an inclusion in the gospel? Individuals pray on their own to receive the gospel on their own. We receive the gospel ourselves by faith, not through proxy prayers. We receive the gospel ourselves. We have no human mediators that help us receive the benefits of the gospel. We receive it personally. Why would you need someone else to pray for your healing if that is a part of your reception of the gospel (i.e. your divine healing)?
One stunning scripture that most opposes Simpson’s view is where Paul, writing to the Galatians, said that it was because of his ailment that he preached the gospel to them. Notice it was not in spite of his ailment, but rather it was because of his ailment that he preached the gospel to the Galatian believers. How can a pillar of the gospel be divine healing, but Paul preached the gospel to them because of his ailment? This would be contradictory at best, and at worst Paul preached an incomplete gospel. Moreover, according to Simpson, one of the main remedies of the gospel was the reason Paul preached the gospel to the Galatians. How could Christ’s redemptive work include physical healing when Paul did not experience that physical healing and was a cornerstone of why he preached to the Galatians? Paul’s ailment was the reason that the gospel was preached to the Galatians. Not only that, but the Galatians did not despise him or scorn him for his ailment, but received him as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus. If physical healing is part of the atoning work of Jesus Christ, then the Galatian believers should’ve rejected Paul and scorned him and despised him, but rather they receive him as an angel of God. Although divine healing does happen by the sovereign will of God, the true gospel that Paul and the Apostles preached does not necessarily include divine healing in Christ’s redemption. Paul wrote, “You know it was because of a bodily ailment that I preached the gospel to you at first, and though my condition was a trial to you, you did not scorn or despise me, but received me as an angel of God, as Christ Jesus (Gal 4:13-14 ESV).” It would seem that Paul’s ailment was necessarily part and parcel to his message that the “word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God (1 Cor 1:18).”
Moreover, how many people throughout Christian history have had the opportunity, like Paul, to preach because of a disability, ailment, or sickness that they would not otherwise have had had they not been disabled, sick, or had some other infirmity? I think of more recent examples such as Joni Eareckson Tada (paralysis), Nabeel Qureshi (cancer), and Nick Vujicic (born without limbs). I also think of Krista Horning’s Book Just the Way I Am: God's good design in disability, which highlights families and individuals with disabilities and how they glorify God in and through their disabilities. This book is magnificent! Every page is beautiful pictures of people affected by disabilities and their scripture and messages that they would share of Christ and his glorious gospel.
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| "Just the Way I Am" by: Krista Horning |
I have observed that the view that healing is bound up in the atoning redemptive work of Christ is a convenient theology for those who are not chronically ill, disabled, handicapped, or face some other debilitating malady. If we look at the global number of people affected by disability put out by the World Health Organization they estimate that up to 18% of the world’s population experience some degree of disability.[13] They record, “around 720 million people have difficulties in functioning with around 100 million experiencing very significant difficulties.”[14]
This means that up to 720 million people have some physical difficulty in functioning and 100 million people have very significant difficulty in functioning. What has Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel done for them? It is not a stretch to conclude that several million people out of that 720 million figure of the global population are Christians. Have those people not received the true gospel of divine healing that live with a permanent disability? Moreover, Simpson’s teaching places a harsh burden on those Christians who struggle under such devastating challenges. This theology places an extra burden on people compounding their suffering unnecessarily. This theological perspective communicates that something is profoundly wrong with people who are handicapped, disabled, chronically ill, or face some other form of physical challenges. This theological view is pastorally cruel.
Furthermore, Simpson seems to reflect the views of his times and was deeply affected by Mary Baker Eddy (founder of Christian Science), Ellen G. White (founder of Seventh Day Adventism), and Bibelheim in the small Swiss town of Männedorf, and then later one of his extremely controversial contemporaries John Alexander Dowie.[15] One thing that we can certainly attribute Simson and his perspective to is the beginnings of divine healing, its modern application, and the excesses that we see in the New Apostolic Reformation. Apart from his contribution, we might not be where we are—having to deal with the aberrations and extremes that are so prevalent in the modern Word of Faith and New Apostolic Reformation and further spreading its leaven (Gal 5:9) broadly throughout evangelicalism. I have only seen this teaching hurt people and shipwreck Christian’s faith (1 Tim 1:19). The organization that Simpson founded, The Christian and Missionary Alliance, still summarizes its Christological DNA on Simpson’s Fourfold Gospel. Even their mission branding incorporates “Savior, Sanctifier, Healer, and Coming King.” I would beg the Christian & Missionary Alliance to likewise reconsider it as one of the staples (DNAs) of its global ministry and gospel proclamation.
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| Christian & Missionary Alliance Mission DNA |
[1] Access Fourfold Gospel here https://cdn.cmalliance.org/wordpress/cmalliance/the-fourfold-gospel.pdf
[2] Simpson, A. B. (1890). The Four-Fold Gospel. The Christian Alliance Publishing Co. 73
[3] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 74
[4] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 82-83
[5] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 89
[6] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 86
[7] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 79
[8] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 87
[9] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 87-89
[10] Bindley, T. Herbert, and F. W. Green, (1950) The Oecumenical Documents of the Faith; the Creed of Nicaea, Three Epistles of Cyril, The Tome of Leo, The Chalcedonian Definition (London: Methuen), 91-92
[11] Simpson, The Four-Fold Gospel. 92-93
[12] Horning, K. (2001). Just the Way I Am: God’s Good Design in Disability. Christian Focua Pubn.
[13] World Health Organization & World Bank. (2011). World report on disability 2011. https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/44575. 27
[14] World Health Organization & World Bank. World report on disability 2011. 27
[15] John Alexander Dowie. (2022). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=John_Alexander_Dowie&oldid=1120446947
[16] What We Believe. (n.d.). Retrieved November 9, 2022, from https://cmalliance.org/who-we-are/what-we-believe/
