comments on this verse that ‘spirit is the ruling faculty in man . . . through which he holds communion with the unseen world’; the soul is ‘the seat of all his impulses and affections, the centre of his personality’; while the body ‘links him to the material world and is the instrument of all his outward deeds’.[4] In the history of the Church there have indeed been times when Christians have operated with a split view of matter versus spirit, body versus soul, but today many are returning to the view – much more characteristic of the Bible as a whole – that human beings are complex creatures, functioning at many different levels, and in whom body and emotions, relationships and environments are all part of what it is to be human, and all these aspects have their part to play in our understanding of health. One contemporary biologist cautions against a ‘reductionist’ view:
If humans are to be understood essentially in terms of genes and their products, then illness is to be corrected by manipulating them. The result is drug-based medicine and genetic counseling or engineering. These can be extremely effective in certain circumstances, but medical care based on this approach focuses on illness rather than on health.[5]
Shalom
To explore a Christian understanding of health, we need to turn to the witness of the Old and the New Testaments. We begin with one significant Hebrew word: shalom.
Most frequently translated ‘peace’, shalom means much more than the absence of conflict. It is also translated as good health, favour, completeness, prosperity, rest, welfare. Shalom carries the sense that all is well, peaceable and safe. Therefore shalom is much more than the absence of disease, broader even than the absence of feeling ill. Health is part of shalom, the wholeness of life whereby each dimension of our being – physical, relational, emotional and environmental – is open to God and God’s ways. The vision of peace in Isaiah 2.1–5, which could almost be a definition of shalom, is set in contrast to the sickness of the nation (1.5–6), its idolatry (2.6–22) and the social injustices (3.13–15) that bring the judgement that the Lord will not be a healer (3.7b).
It is a longing for shalom that the psalmist expresses when he writes: ‘There is no soundness in my flesh because of your indignation; there is no health in my bones because of my sin’ (Ps. 38.3). It is shalom that the psalmist celebrates: ‘Let those who desire my vindication shout for joy and be glad, and say evermore, “Great is the Lord who delights in the welfare [shalom] of his servant”, (Ps. 35.27).
The social dimension to shalom becomes very evident in Jeremiah’s plea that the exiles should pray for the city in which they find themselves: ‘But seek the welfare [shalom] of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare’ (Jer. 29.7).
The wider environmental dimensions of shalom are clear in Isaiah’s vision of the coming abundance of life when all people return to the Lord and his ways:
For you shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. Instead of the thorn shall come up the cypress; instead of the brier shall come up the myrtle; and it shall be to the Lord for a memorial, for an everlasting sign that shall not be cut off. (Isa. 55.12–13)
This vision speaks of a healed environment when God’s kingly rule is established. As the Catholic theologian Hans Küng once famously wrote: ‘God’s kingdom is creation healed.’[6]
Each part of the prophecy of Isaiah has its emphasis on shalom. The first part of Isaiah speaks of the coming kingly rule of God’s Messiah as a rule of shalom, of peace, justice and righteousness. The coming One is named Prince of Peace (shalom) (Isa. 9.6–7). In the second part of Isaiah, God’s kingly rule is a recapitulation of God’s eternal covenant of peace: ‘For the mountains may depart and the hills be removed, but my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace [shalom] shall not be removed, says the Lord, who has compassion on you’ (Isa. 54.10).
In the third part of Isaiah, the preacher stands in the shoes of the coming king and announces that God has anointed him ‘to bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour and the day of vengeance of our God’ (Isa. 61.1–2).
Naturally, when centuries later Jesus ‘went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and curing every disease and every sickness’ (Matt. 9.35), it was understood that Jesus was the bringer of shalom. In fact, he applies the text from Isaiah 61 to himself in the synagogue at Nazareth (Luke 4.1–16), and Matthew records John the Baptist’s question of Jesus:
‘Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?’ Jesus answered them, ‘Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the poor have good news brought to them.’ (Matt. 11.3–5)
This echoes the passage in Isaiah 35.5–6, which describes God’s salvation of Israel and the health-giving signs of the messianic age: salvation and health belong closely together; here is the kingdom of peace; Jesus is the bringer of shalom.
Healing in the New Testament
As we will discuss more fully, Jesus exercised a very extensive ministry of healing. This ministry continues into the New Testament church, and gifts of healing were referred to in some of the New Testament epistles (1 Cor. 12.9) and the Acts of the Apostles. The apostles demonstrated many signs and wonders among the people (Rom. 15.19; 2 Cor. 12.12), and in the post-Pentecost church many of the sick and those afflicted with unclean spirits were healed. Peter and John healed a man lame from birth, in the name of Jesus (Acts 3.6). At one time the sick were laid on cots in order that Peter’s shadow might fall on them as he passed by, so that they might be healed (Acts 5.12–16). Philip was instrumental in the cure of people possessed, or suffering from paralysis (Acts 8.6–8). Paul and Barnabas were able to speak of signs and wonders (Acts 15.12), and God, we read, performed extraordinary miracles through Paul: handkerchiefs and cloths that had touched his skin were brought to the sick and they were cured (Acts 19.11–12). By prayer and the laying on of hands, Paul cured the father of Publius of his fever and dysentery (Acts 28.8).
Matthew says that disciples ministered to Christ by ‘visiting those who are ill’ (Matt. 25.39), and John tells us they prayed for one another ‘that you may be in good health’ (3 John 2). The practice of anointing with oil, and praying for those who were ill by calling for the elders of the Church, is referred to in the Letter of James (5.13–15).
Not everyone was healed, however. Paul himself refers to his own ailment as a ‘thorn . . . in the flesh’ (2 Cor. 12.7), with which God gave him the grace to cope. This ‘thorn’ has been variously interpreted as an eye disease, a form of epilepsy, a susceptibility to malaria – or maybe some psychological distress following the opposition to his ministry, or his anguish resulting from the unbelief of his Jewish compatriots. Indeed, speculation has been very wide, and certainty about this is impossible. We are told that Timothy had stomach trouble and ‘frequent ailments’ for which Paul prescribed ‘a little wine’ (1 Tim. 5.23); Epaphroditus became so ill that he nearly died (Phil. 2.27); and Paul had to leave Trophimus behind when he left Miletus, because he was ill. Weakness and illness – indeed some deaths – were put down to inappropriate use of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 11.30).
Jesus refers to physicians in the Gospels, even of a poor woman who had suffered at the hands of many of them (Matt. 9.12; Mark 2.17; 5.26; Luke 8.43). Luke was a doctor, described by Paul as ‘the beloved physician’ (Col. 4.14). Both Paul and Luke would have known the paragraphs from the second- century bc book of Sirach, which refers to medical skill, indicating that medicines are gifts of the Creator,
