http://wooq.blogspot.com/2005/08/doctrinal-heresy-of-healing-through.html
This is a theological rebuttal to the article "Health And Wholeness
Through The Holy Communion" by Joseph Prince, pastor of New
Creation Church, Singapore. The article can be found in the August
2004 issue of Solid Rock, a publication of New Creation Church, or
viewed at the website www.newcreation.org.sg. Another blogger,
Elaine Loh, has provided a more detailed theological rebuttal that
can be found over here.
In this article, Joseph Prince tries to show his readers that the
Holy Communion has the ability to grant divine health to its
partakers. Prince wrote in the article:
As long as we are here on earth, our bodies are subject to the
ageing process, which is part of the divine sentence. All our
bodies are decaying every day. Our brain cells are dying
daily.
The Holy Communion is Gods solution for us to stop the decay. And
even your friends will see the results. They will begin to ask you,
Hey, why do you seem to look younger and younger? You never seem
to age!
One day, when we get to heaven, we will have brand new bodies that
never grow old, never tire and never look bad. Meanwhile, the
Lords Supper is how God helps us offset this process of ageing and
walk in divine health. Every time you partake, you are reversing
the effects of the curse or divine judgement in your body
Throughout the entire article, Prince mainly used 1 Corinthians
11:20-22,27-30 as his main Biblical reference. As I read and reread
through the entire article a couple of times, I have discovered to
my astonishment that Prince absolutely failed to highlight 1
Corinthians 11:23-26, which explains the real purpose of the Holy
Communion:
For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you: The Lord
Jesus, on the night he was betrayed, took bread, and when he had
given thanks, he broke it and said, "This is my body, which is for
you; do this in remembrance of me." In the same way, after supper
he took the cup, saying, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood;
do this, whenever you drink it, in remembrance of me." For whenever
you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord's
death until he comes.
When the Apostle Paul wrote this Scriptural passage, he was making
reference to the event at Luke 22:19, where it states: And he took
bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, "This
is my body given for you; do this in remembrance of me."
The big question to Prince is, if the Holy Communion is intended to
provide divine healing, Jesus would have said, do this to heal
your bodies or do this in remembrance and it will heal your
bodies also. These alternative phrasings would definitely prove
that there is healing in the Holy Communion. Though at the
beginning of the article, Prince made clear that he would refer to
1 Corinthians 11, he probably knew that the verses 23-26 will not
cast his unscriptural doctrine in a favorable light. Thus he chose
to skip these verses entirely altogether.
Even without verses 23-26, Prince has failed to establish a direct
relation between healing and the Holy Communion. Prince
wrote,
What is it to partake unworthily? Read the rest of verse 29 and you
will conclude that if you fail to discern or understand the
significance of the Lords body, you are eating and drinking in an
unworthy manner.
The Corinthians partook unworthily because they did not recognise
that the broken body of the Lord was meant to bring them health and
wholeness.
And by treating the Holy Communion as a ritual, they missed out on
the blessings. They did not understand the significance of the
bread. They did not know why they were partaking. This is what it
means to partake unworthily.
The manner in which we partake will determine whether we experience
the benefits of the Lords body. If our attitude is its just a
piece of bread, then that is what it will be. And we will have
robbed ourselves of the life-giving effects of the bread at His
Table.
The full text of verse 29 is For anyone who eats and drinks
without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment
on himself. Prince is implying that the Corinthians failed to
recognize the life-giving effects, which he took to be healing,
health and wholeness. However, there is a difference between the
phrase recognizing the body and recognizing the benefits of the
body. The former is trying to caution the Christians not to treat
the Holy Communion like an ordinary meal by looking towards the
atonement of Jesus Christ, while the latter is stressing on the
blessings of the atonement.
Was the Apostle Paul concerned that the Corinthians were not
recognizing the blessings? It seems not. At verses 20-22, the
Apostle Paul stated the problem the Corinthians had with the Holy
Communion; that they were treating it like an ordinary meal.
When you come together, it is not the Lord's Supper you eat, for as
you eat, each of you goes ahead without waiting for anybody else.
One remains hungry, another gets drunk. Don't you have homes to eat
and drink in? Or do you despise the church of God and humiliate
those who have nothing? What shall I say to you? Shall I praise you
for this? Certainly not!
The Corinthians were partaking the Holy Communion in a disorderly
manner, with some getting drunk while others getting hungry. It is
clear that the problem was behavioral. It has nothing to do with
recognizing the blessings of the atonement. If the Corinthians had
been partaking in an orderly manner, then perhaps Princes
interpretation might have made more sense.
