Healing at the Table
Why Pentecostals should love the Lord's Supper
Many Pentecostals seek healing in altar calls or anointing services—but what if the Lord’s Table is also a means of divine healing?
The Holy Spirit has always led Pentecostals into the practice of their theology. From the earliest practices of our movement, divine healing has always been a regular experience in Pentecostal churches.
We believe passionately that the Holy Spirit is still doing signs and wonders in our midst.
Acts 2:43 tells us that following the day of Pentecost, the Apostles were filled with the power of God, and signs and wonders abounded in the church.
The immediate story following in Acts 3 shows us the healing of the lame man. People experience healing simply by passing by his shadow. The Apostles begin to mirror the power of Jesus, healing people of all kinds of ailments.
Healing is for God’s people. It is God’s will for us to be healed. We know not whether that healing will come now or in the coming Kingdom of God, but we know that God desires that all would be made new.
Thus, Pentecostals have a strong desire to see healing occur when we call on the name of the Lord.
This paves the way for the Lord’s Supper to carry special significance to the Pentecostal. At its core, the Lord’s Supper is a proclamation. It is our declaration that the Lord Jesus has died, he is risen, and he will come again. It is our corporate and personal declaration that we are part of the Body of Christ. We claim that when we partake of the elements that Jesus’ broken body has provided, restoration and union with God and his people, and his shed blood have covered our sins.
John understood this to mean that Jesus’s giving of his body was an act of giving us eternal life.
“This is the bread that comes down from heaven, so that one may eat of it and not die. I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.” (John 6:50–51)
Writing long after Jesus had died, John interprets the institution of the Lord’s Supper as an act of giving us life. John seems to believe that Jesus, while obviously symbolic with this metaphor, carried some synonymous spiritual meaning when referring to his body being eaten as an experience of receiving life from God.
John, like the Pentecostal, ought to assume that something miraculous happens when we engage—in the instance of the Lord’s Supper, we partake of the Lord Jesus Christ. When we call on his name in prayer for the sick, they are healed… When we invite him into our chaos, we find peace… When we partake of his body, we ought to find the full measure of the life that Jesus has promised us. This ought to include physical, emotional, and spiritual healing. For the Pentecostal, the healing power of Jesus ought to be available at any time in worship, especially when we partake of the life-giving body of Jesus that was broken for us.
When we understand the ministry of Jesus in light of the Old Testament, this is even more significant. 1 Corinthians 15:3 tells us that Jesus died in accordance with the scriptures. Luke 4:27 reveals that Jesus informed the disciples on the road to Emmaus that from Moses to the prophets, the scriptures revealed he was indeed the Messiah.
The Prophet Isaiah writes:
“But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:5–6)
The wounds of his broken body on the cross not only have healed our spiritual condition of sin and fallen nature, but his broken body has brought the healing of our wounds. This ought to be the belief of the Pentecostal.
“But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:16–18)
Pentecostals believe the Spirit is present and at work in all aspects of our service, from the testimonies to the preaching of the gospel to the singing of songs and praise. How much more should we expect healing when we eat the Lord’s Supper, proclaiming his death and soon return as the King of Kings!