Pastor Joel Webb and Doreen Virtue debate Reiki's origins, tracing its 1930s Buddhist roots and Hawayo Takata's fabricated Christian links against biblical laying on of hands for ordination or sin imputation. Webb argues sign gifts like tongues have ceased since Pentecost, distinguishing God's providential healing from counterfeit New Age energy practices that risk demonic influence. Ultimately, the discussion warns believers to avoid "strange fire" and trust in God's sovereign grace rather than seeking financial gain through unscriptural spiritual commerce. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: CohereLabs/cohere-transcribe-03-2026, WAV2VEC2_ASR_BASE_960H, sat-12l-sm, script v26.04.01, and large-v3-turbo
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Reiki Healing and Theology00:02:27
Hi, this is Pastor Joel Webben with Right Response Ministries, and you're listening to another episode of Theology Applied.
And this episode, I was privileged to have as a special guest Doreen Virtue.
Today's topic is something that she's been dealing with a lot on her channel with her ministry, which is Reiki healing.
And when I say dealing with a lot, what I mean is that she's been getting a lot of flack.
Now, she's gotten a lot of encouragement as well, but she's gotten a lot of pushback.
And ironically, a lot of it has come from those who profess to be followers of Christ.
They say Reiki healing or energy healing.
Is really nothing different than the biblical principle of laying on of hands.
Well, both Doreen and I would beg to differ.
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Without further ado, here's our show Applying God's Word to every aspect of life.
This is Theology Applied.
All right.
So, welcome to another episode of Theology Applied.
And as I've already mentioned, I'm privileged to be joined now, I believe, for the third time by our special guest, Doreen Virtue.
Doreen, would you just take a moment and introduce yourself to our listeners?
Hi, Pastor Joel.
It's great to be back with you.
Uncovering Marketing Lies About Reiki00:05:35
Hi, everyone.
This is a topic that is pretty intense.
Whenever I post about this or do a video about it, I get a lot of pushback.
So, I'm really glad to talk with you today because I was, before I was saved, I was a Reiki master and an energy healer.
I didn't know that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I have a background in Reiki.
I received it, I gave it.
And I've just, I want to sound the alarm, especially for professing Christians, about the real truth background of Reiki and why Christians should have nothing to do with Reiki and energy healing in general.
So, real quick.
So, that's our topic.
We're going to talk about Reiki energy healing, and we're going to be talking about The biblical principle of laying on of hands.
And you said you've gotten pushback, and I can only imagine we've corresponded a little bit in preparation for this episode that the pushback, some of it is coming, or maybe even a lot of it, is coming from professing Christians who are saying, Well, the Bible says laying on of hands, we pray for the sick and we lay on our hands.
What's the difference between that and Reiki?
So, my question is this So, what have you done recently in the internet world that has so upset so many people?
What do you think the If you could put your finger on it, what is the thing that people are taking the issue with the most?
It's exactly what you and I talked about, and what I'm so excited you're going to talk about today is that people have been told lies, marketing lies, that go back to the history of Reiki in its beginning.
So, if I could just real quickly give a capsule history, it was invented or discovered, depending on how you look at it, by a man in Japan in the 1930s named Asui, Mikhail Asui.
And he was a student of world religion, and he got inspired.
For Reiki through a Buddhist manuscript that he says he has a revelation.
He wrote a book about this.
He said he had a revelation, and it involves these symbols that practitioners are attuned to.
They're very bizarre symbols.
Maybe we can show some of them here on this video.
And so, as a Reiki master, you go through a series of different classes to get attuned upward.
And it's often very expensive to become a Reiki master.
And so you want, you know, there's this kind of snobbery that you want to go to a teacher who comes from the Asui lineage, which was my teaching.
That's the originator.
But what happened was that Asui taught 2,000 students Reiki.
And Reiki is an energy that supposedly comes from the universe, which is, of course, a New Age term.
The New Agers are all about universal energy.
And Reiki itself means spiritual universal energy.
Reiki is spiritual energy.
And so it comes through these symbols you've been attuned to and often through your hands, but you don't have to use your hands.
People do different things to send Reiki energy.
But I want to tell you, Pastor Joel, that it's palpable.
I mean, there's something real going on.
There's a lot of scientific studies that people say it's bogus, it's just a placebo.
And I believe that.
But Whenever I got or received Reiki before I was saved, I haven't been involved with that since you could feel this pulsating effect, similar to kind of like a vibrating chair.
I mean, it was real, and I would have physical effects from it.
So, Reiki's real, but the question is, what's its source?
So, Asui taught 2,000 students.
One of his students went on to teach a Hawaiian woman, a Japanese American woman named Haya, I cannot pronounce her name, Hawaii Takato.
Okay.
And so Takata was a Reiki master who went to, who took Reiki from Japan to the West, very similar to how Yogananda brought yoga from India to California and the West.
So Takata admittedly, she's passed on now.
She admitted that she made up a story that Asui was a Christian theology professor at a Christian school and that he received Reiki inspiration from Jesus Christ.
And Jesus's healings, and she just completely fabricated this story.
She said, admittedly, to make Reiki more appealing in the West.
So she lied.
And so later it was discovered that Asui never said that.
He said he obtained the knowledge of Reiki from the Buddhist religious book Tantra.
And Tantra is an energy, very sexualized energy that's taught, that's popular in the New Age Tantra of the Lightning Flash.
Is where he got this.
It had nothing to do with Christianity.
I mean, he was a student of world religion, and one of the religions was Christianity.
But Reiki's not Christian.
So, anyone who's citing that, unfortunately, they've been deceived by this original marketing lie.
Wow.
Pentecost and the Order of Salvation00:15:41
So, some of the pushback that you're getting is from professing Christians saying, well, but there is a biblical principle for the laying on of hands.
How have you responded to that?
Yeah, so I mean, I've said that one has nothing to do with the other.
It's like trying to equate modern day psychics with biblical prophets.
You know, they can seem similar, but they're nothing like each other.
Gotcha.
Okay, well, let's go ahead and just take a moment and look at, as you were speaking, I was going ahead and marking my places in my Bibles just so that we can look at a few passages.
There are numerous texts throughout Scripture that mention the laying on of hands.
And there are at least a few, at least three or four, or even five purposes for laying on of hands in the scripture.
So I've selected, obviously, not all the texts that reference the laying on of hands, but I've selected kind of a sampling, if you will, of some of these texts to show us some of the different biblical purposes for the laying on of hands.
Because it's not all related to healing, although that is one of the purposes.
We see Jesus praying for the sick and laying his hands on them, but we certainly see that in the life of the disciples and the apostles.
And we even have a command.
We are actually exhorted that is any among you sick?
James chapter 5, then let him go to the elders of the church that they may pray for him, anointing him with oil and laying hands on him and praying for him.
The sick person will be made well.
So here are just a few texts.
Is that okay if I read some?
Oh, please.
This is what we need for professing Christians to understand.
Right.
All right.
So here we go.
So this is Acts chapter 8, verse 17.
It says, Then they laid their hands on them and they received.
The Holy Ghost or the Holy Spirit.
And so, one of the purposes that we see for the laying on of hands, particularly in the New Testament, since Pentecost in Acts chapter 2, from that point on, we see the laying on of hands by the apostles in such a way that people are receiving the Holy Spirit.
And we see, I believe it was Simon the sorcerer, who, when he discovers, when he witnesses the apostles laying on their hands and people receiving the Holy Spirit, Spirit with certain signs, sign gifts that are validating that they did in fact receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
This sorcerer, you know, he tries to bribe and buy not just the Holy Spirit, not just that he would receive the Holy Spirit, but the ability that the apostles seem to exclusively possess to be able to lay his hands on people and for them to receive the Holy Spirit.
So he goes to Peter and asks, you know, he offers him money and saying, can I too have this ability, you know, so that I can lay my hands on people and they would receive.
The Holy Spirit and power.
And Peter immediately chastises him for thinking that he could buy this gift of the Holy Spirit with his money.
He said, May your money perish with you also.
And it seems as though, I don't know if he repents, but he certainly changes his position and doesn't try to buy that ability any longer.
So that's one of the purposes laying on of hands.
We see in the New Testament that people would receive the Holy Spirit.
Now, real quick, just So that, you know, I've got some Pentecostals, you know, who listen to the show.
And so I hate to burst the Pentecostal bubble.
I love you guys, those of you who are Orthodox and well under the banner of Christian Orthodox theology.
I would still disagree with you on this point in terms of the idea of the baptism of the Holy Spirit being a subsequent experience to conversion, right?
So there's conversion, then there's conversion 2.0.
It's similar to Wesleyan theology, which I would also disagree with.
So I'm a Calvinist, I'm a cessationist.
I would disagree with.
The Wesleyan folk, you know, and I would also disagree with the Pentecostal folk.
So, Wesley had this idea of reaching a state of perfection, this enlightenment, this, you know, that you could basically come to a point where you're no longer sinning.
And even Wesley in his theology would understand that, you know, well, there's still a sense in which we're sinning, but it's, you know, he would quote the Apostle Paul from Romans where he says, well, it's no longer I who sin, but sin living in me, you know, and so.
He would look at that, and I believe that's Romans 7, whereas I would look at Romans 7 and say, This is Paul, really, Paul lamenting his state as a Christian.
Paul in Romans 7, I personally take the viewpoint.
I know that there are multiple views on this, but I take the approach that Romans 7 is not Paul before conversion.
It's a picture of Paul after conversion, that even after conversion, he's saying, What a wretched man I am.
Who will save me from this body of death?
And he recounts the conversion.
Christian struggle, ongoing struggle with sin.
So, anyway, so Wesleyan had this idea of Christian perfectionism, holiness, right?
The holiness movement, and that you could reach this certain echelon of sanctification to where you would no longer struggle with sin in the way that you previously did.
Well, Pentecostals kind of took this, and, you know, 1906 would have been the big moment with the Azusa Street revival and those kinds of things.
And so they likened it to, well, the Holy Spirit coming.
Upon someone with power.
And they often would separate and say, well, there's the inward ministry of the Holy Spirit, the indwelling ministry of the Holy Spirit that all Christians have from the moment of conversion.
The Spirit inside of us cries out, Abba Father, and affirms our salvation, that we are, in fact, adopted children of the Lord.
But there's a difference in the Holy Spirit indwelling the Christian, being in the Christian, versus the Spirit coming upon the Christian and anointing them, equipping them with power.
And wonders, and the Pentecostal, the classic position is that the quintessential sign gift of the Holy Spirit is tongues.
And so, you're already saved subsequent to that moment of conversion, somewhere down the line.
It could be a few months, it could be several years, but eventually, you should be pursuing the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
If you're pursuing it, it eventually will occur.
And the sign, the validation or evidence that you've received it is the speaking in tongues.
So, all that back to the text that I just read from Acts chapter 8, verse 17.
My point is to say this was a very unique dispensation within church history.
Now, I use the term dispensation simply speaking of an error of time.
I am personally not a dispensationalist.
I would adhere to a Reformed Baptist 1689 covenantal theology.
But even the covenant theologians can still use the term dispensation.
So, this is a unique error of time.
And what we basically have is there are many people who were converted through the preaching of Jesus, the preaching of Christ and his disciples.
And even the preaching of John.
John preached, he preached a ministry, a sermon, if you will, of the remission of sins, baptism, right?
John's baptism, people coming down to the water and being baptized, and John saying that they're receiving forgiveness of sins.
And John taught this not as a work, works righteousness, but John was the chief among the prophets other than Christ himself.
You know, Jesus even said, of all those born of women, John the Baptist is the greatest, and yet he'll be least in the kingdom of heaven.
But in his earthly ministry, there's none that compares to John the Baptist.
He is the greatest of the prophets, and he's the kind of final prophet underneath this old covenant that's ending, that's closing with Christ establishing the new covenant.
And so, all that being said, John was preaching a gospel message.
It wasn't a Pharisaical message of works.
It was a legitimate message.
And John himself, when approached by Jesus as he's baptizing in the Jordan River, he says, Behold, the Lamb of God who comes to take away the sins of the world.
So, whatever gospel John was preaching, it wasn't a gospel that merely says baptism as a magical, mechanical mechanism saves you, but the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world saves you.
And baptism is a symbol of that, the remission of sins.
And so, it was a message of repentance.
It was a message of Also, we can assume it's implicit that it was a message of faith, believing and trusting the Lamb of God, the Messiah who would come, and that we would be saved through faith in him, his substitutionary death.
So, my point is through John the Baptist preaching, as well as Jesus and the disciples, there were literally thousands, if not tens of thousands, of people who were converted, but before the Spirit was poured out.
Because the Spirit proceeds, we believe within Christian Orthodoxy, we're not Eastern Orthodox, and this is one of the differences.
As those who are Western Christian orthodoxy, in line with St. Augustine, who kind of drew the line on this, we believe that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father, not the Father only, but both the Father and the Son.
And so the Spirit, even the ministry of the Holy Spirit, is a ministry that exudes the Spirit of the risen Christ.
Well, the Spirit was not yet poured out because the Spirit proceeds from not only the Father, but also the Son, who is not yet glorified and ascended to the right hand of the Father to send the Spirit, but also the Son was not yet resurrected.
And so, the Spirit, His chief ministry in the life of believers is to guide us into all truth, to remind us of what Jesus said, to convict us of sin and judgment, and to exude to us the ministry of the risen Christ, who, during the ministry of Jesus, His preaching, and John the Baptist certainly, well, Christ was not yet risen.
And He certainly wasn't yet ascended to the right hand of the Father in order to send, to give the Holy Spirit.
So, what you have is a number of people being converted under the ministry of John the Baptist, as well as Jesus.
And his disciples, and yet the Spirit not yet poured out.
My point is to say this we don't live in that age today.
We don't.
So, this idea that 2,000 years later, that people are coming into Christ and conversion and justification by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone, in the hearing of the gospel, Romans chapter 10, how will they believe unless they hear?
How will they hear unless someone preaches to them?
And so, for us to think that people are preaching the gospel faithfully, people are hearing the gospel, the Spirit is providing faith.
For them to believe the gospel, they're being converted.
So they're truly born again, truly regenerate Christians, and yet they don't have the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
They're waiting for this to be some kind of subsequent experience to happen at a later date, is to completely misunderstand church history.
The last thing I'll say on this, real quick I know it's a side point, but the last thing, it's important.
The last thing I'll say is that the baptism of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, Acts chapter 2, does not belong to our order salutis.
Which is the order of salvation, but rather what it belongs to is the history of salvation.
And the difference between the history of salvation and the order of salvation is this.
The order of salvation for the Calvinist would be something like this it begins with the foreknowledge of God.
The foreknowledge of God is that before the foundations of the world were laid, it's his pre love.
And the foreknowledge of God is not that he, in eternity past, looked through the corridors of time, determining, you know, looking in his omniscience, seeing who would choose him.
And then based off of that information, oh, because I know at a future date this person will exist and they'll choose me, I, in eternity past, will choose them.
Well, that would still be a conditional.
Election.
We believe in an unconditional election.
So the foreknowledge of God is simply his pre love.
It's an amazing thought to think that you and I are eternal in this sense, not divine.
We are not divine, but we are eternal in this sense that there is never a time that we have not existed, at least in the mind of God.
And so, as eternal is the essence of the triune God is himself, so is his will.
The decree of God, the will of God, belongs to the essence of God.
And as old as the essence is, the ancient of days, without beginning, without start, there is never a time that God has not existed.
And so too, there is never a time that his will has not existed.
And because his will is eternal, his will includes his salvation of each individual person that he has foreknown.
And so there was never a time that God has not known you and I, that he has not loved you and I.
So in the order of salvation, it begins with the foreknowledge of God, it's the election of God, there's the drawing of the Holy Spirit.
There is conversion, regeneration with faith and repentance of sin, a profession of faith.
Then we have sanctification, right?
We have perseverance.
He who endures to the end will receive the crown of life.
And then we have glorification, right?
That we're given a new body to go and to be with Christ forever on the last day.
And so my point is I'm leaving some steps out, but I'm just giving a very basic reformed version, Calvinistic version of the order of salutis, the order of salvation.
The history of salvation is different.
See, the history of salvation is God created the world, God sent prophets and his law into the world, types and shadows, the priestly sacrificial system in Israel, all these things pointing towards the Messiah.
Then he sent the Messiah, the incarnation of Jesus, the earthly ministry of Jesus, the substitutionary death of Jesus on the cross, the resurrection of Jesus, the ascension of Jesus.
The outpouring of the Holy Spirit, Pentecost, and then we also have, of course, his glorious return that we are awaiting.
And so, my point is the order of salvation is the order, the process of how God saves an individual.
It's the application of salvation to a specific sinner that God has chosen to save.
That's the order of salvation.
The order of salvation is salvation applied, the order in which salvation is applied in saving an individual.
The history of salvation is the order in which salvation is applied.
Salvation was accomplished, not applied, but accomplished by Christ Himself.
And so, Pentecost, the outpoint of the Spirit in Acts chapter 2, what Pentecostals do is they place this into the order of salvation.
People are converted, and then the order is they receive the Holy Spirit, the baptism of the Holy Spirit.
That's the next step in the order of salvation being applied to individuals.
No, Pentecost belongs to the history of salvation and what Christ has accomplished in history for our redemption.
So, all that being said, one of the purposes of laying on of hands.
Is the giving of the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which was normative in the early church in the first century, especially those first few years right after Jesus' life, death, resurrection, and ascension, because you had a lot of people saved under the ministry of John the Baptist, as well as Jesus and his disciples, before the Spirit was actually poured out.
Hidden Wisdom in the Bible00:05:10
And so you have a little bit of catch up, for lack of a better term.
Where the apostles are basically going back, right?
They're going back over the basis with all the people who came to true saving faith and are actually converted, but they were converted before the Spirit was poured out.
And so now they're laying their hands and they're receiving the Spirit.
And in that dispensation, they are receiving the Spirit with certain sign gifts, in most cases, such as tongues seems to be predominant, or perhaps something else like prophecy.
And again, I believe that that is unique to the first century.
Church as well, because you don't have the closing of the canon, you don't have all the apostles' epistles circulating around.
You're basically, you have the ministry of the Spirit through the apostles and members of the Christian church in power, not just for the healing of the sick, not just for giving people encouraging words of prophecies, but to validate that Christ did indeed raise from the dead and that this is his gospel.
It's a validation of the message, which is.
The gospel.
So, all that being said, that's the first use, or at least I don't know if we should order it, but that's the first example that I'm providing in this episode of the laying on of hands.
Doreen, do you have any response or thoughts about that before we move on?
That's really edifying to see the distinction between the order of salvation and the history of God's plan of redemption.
Isn't that helpful?
Yeah, really helpful.
That was a game changer for me.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so I think I just want to focus on.
That the laying on of hands biblically, as in the context you're talking about, is about the Holy Spirit, where Reiki energy is about a universal energy, has nothing to do with God, the third person of the Holy Trinity.
So, Reiki is what we would call in the Old Testament strange fire, which, as we know, was introduced into the tabernacle and resulted in.
The death instantly of Aaron's two sons because they didn't follow God's instructions.
We're called in Ephesians 5 11 to have nothing to do with darkness and to expose it.
And so when we do this video, it's exposing a counterfeit.
I mean, just like in Exodus, the Pharaoh's sorcerers were able to mimic quite a few of God's miracles that were coming through Moses and Aaron.
And Satan does counterfeit.
We know this.
And Reiki is a counterfeit to.
What you're talking about, the genuine Holy Spirit coming through the biblical laying on of hands.
And we've got to be so discerning and careful.
That's good.
That's really good.
You're right.
Satan, that's what he does.
He counterfeits.
He's not a creator.
I think that's one of the things that we have to remember.
God alone is the creator who creates ex nihilo.
Now, you could say that human beings made in his image are lowercase c creators.
We don't create out of nothing, but we do take.
The resources that God has given us, and we do create, as it were, in a sense of taking these resources that God has provided in the cosmos, in His creation, and making wonderful things.
And we do this in God's common grace, and Christians do this in our ministry, in our preaching of the gospel.
So there's that lowercase c creator, but Satan is not a creator really at all.
All Satan really does is he copies.
But the thing that you pointed out that's so good, Doreen, is he never actually even copies.
He always, what he does is he copies, but he always tweaks and twists and perverts.
It's as close to a copy as you could possibly get while being altered just enough to where it has poison, to where it will harm.
Right.
It's Genesis 3 over and over again.
This false promise, this carrot he dangles in front of people that you'll get something, some secret wisdom, some hidden knowledge.
And new agers are ripe for that temptation.
I mean, when I was in the new age, I would fall for that.
I had certificates from so many different types of energy healing, not just Reiki, but I studied pranic healing and chakra healing and polarity therapy and Qigong and, you know, all.
I was just so hungry for learning what I thought was hidden wisdom, but there is no hidden wisdom.
There is no secret.
I mean, someone who's young watching this, I want to save them a lot of time and tell them that I was saved at a new age at age 58 or 59.
And so I spent decades looking for some secret hidden wisdom, including energy healing, and there is none.
So save yourself time and money and go to the Bible.
God's revealed everything, the scrolls are open in the Bible.
No Secret New Age Wisdom00:09:31
That's right.
Amen.
Yeah, I like what you know, save yourself time and you threw in there, you know, and money.
Yeah, I spent a ton on classes.
Right.
Yeah, as soon as you said the certificates, I was thinking in my mind, I was like, how much did that cost?
I bet they were pricey.
So, oh, yeah.
Yeah.
So, here's another verse.
This is Leviticus chapter 4, verse 15.
And this one might surprise our listeners.
This is another example of the Bible's use of laying on of hands.
It says, and the elders of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull.
Before the Lord, and the bull shall be killed before the Lord.
So we always think of the laying on of hands in a positive light, but here's a negative example.
The uniqueness of this is the elders of the congregation, the congregation being Israel, so the people of God, they're laying their hands on the head of a bull.
And what's said here, what's being communicated, is that they are, it's not just they're laying their hands on the head of the bull, and then the verse goes on and says, and the bull is killed, but the bull is killed as a sacrifice.
To atone for the sins of the people.
So, the significance of the laying on of hands before the bull is sacrificed is that the elders are representative of the congregation, the people of Israel, corporately as a whole, and they are imputing the sin of the people to the bull.
Now, that word impute, you know, comes in imputation.
So, it's, you know, we believe as Orthodox Christians the double imputation, meaning that, you know, that Christ, when he hung on the cross, right, the scripture says, he who knew no sin became.
Accursed.
He became sin.
Our sin was laid upon his shoulders, right?
So, substitutionary atonement.
That Christ, he didn't just die as an example of sacrificial love for your friends, right?
Jesus did say, Greater love has no one else than this, that a man would lay down his life for his friends.
So, the cross is an example of love.
But if it is merely an example of love, then we're all still dead in our sins and hell bound.
So, Christ did not merely show us sacrificial love.
For others in the cross.
It's not just an example.
Christ died as a substitute.
That means Christ actually died in our place.
And so, this idea of imputation, like even in the garden, so think about this in the garden of Gethsemane, right before his arrest, he's praying and he's beginning to sweat drops of blood.
And God even sends an angel to nourish him and to strengthen him.
And what we have really that's occurring is Jesus is already beginning to suffer under the wrath of God.
He's not yet beginning to physically suffer with the physical torture and pain of crucifixion.
But what's happening is the sin of the world, of all those who God has elected unto salvation to put their hope and faith in Christ, their sin, all of their sin, is being laid upon his shoulder.
And he's already beginning to experience the displeasure and the wrath of God.
And he's praying, if there's any other way for this cup to pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done, which does not mean, just for the record, that the will of God within the Trinity is divided.
That's one more thing to say.
I said it earlier in passing.
I don't expect anyone to catch it, but I said the will of God belongs to the essence of God, not to the personhood of God, right?
So we have one God and therefore one divine essence.
We have a triune God and therefore three persons.
But God does not have three wills, each belonging to each of the three persons.
God has one will because the will of God belongs to the essence of God.
Therefore, what I mean by that is the Father, the Son, and the Spirit in their will are always aligned.
There is no break or schism in the will of God.
Now, people will point to the Garden of Gethsemane when Christ says, If possible, let this cup pass from me, but not my will, but yours be done.
And people say, Well, right there, the Son and the Father have a different will.
Well, it's a little bit complicated, but what we see going on there is that the divine Son, the Son in his divine essence, does not have a different will than the Father.
But what's unique is, again, will doesn't belong to person, it belongs to essence.
Or here's another word nature.
See, the Son possesses two natures.
And therefore, the Son of God, unique among the other two persons of the Trinity, Father and Spirit, the Son does in fact possess two wills.
He possesses the divine will, which is perfectly shared among all three persons of the Trinity Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
But he also has the human will.
But the human will is not sinful.
Christ is sinless.
So even in his human will, Jesus, what he demonstrates for us in his humanity again and again and again, is what perfect humanity actually looks like.
What What the human will would look like when perfectly submitted in righteousness to God.
So, still not the divine will because it's the human will.
So, it's separate from the divine will, but it's not in rebellion to the divine will, saying, Hey, I'd love for this cup to pass, but at the end of the day, I'm in submission to you.
So, all that being said, Jesus is already beginning to experience the wrath of God because sin is being imputed to him, accredited to him.
So, that's another word for imputed.
Imputation, right?
So we believe that the flip side of imputation is that for Christians, his righteousness is imputed to us, not by any works done unto the law so that no man may boast, but through faith, by grace alone, through faith alone.
So for those who have faith in Jesus, the righteousness of Christ is imputed to us.
Or as Paul says in Galatians, speaking of Abraham, he believed God and it was accredited to him.
So imputation, just think of like almost like a bank transaction.
Like if I was.
To go online, and I don't know, Doreen, if you use Wells Fargo and I use Wells Fargo and I want to do an online bank transfer, I'm accrediting certain funds to your account or vice versa.
That's what it is to impute.
So, the double imputation is the idea that our sin was imputed to Christ.
So, he who knew no sin became sin.
And so, he was a curse, literally a curse, not a curse.
He was that also a curse, but he became a curse himself, hanging on the tree.
And God pouring out his white hot wrath upon his head because he became sin.
Right in that moment, Jesus became the most vile, heinous, Wicked sinner to ever walk the earth because in that moment he bore all the sins of all God's people in every age.
And so our sin was imputed to him, and through faith his righteousness is imputed to us.
Double imputation his righteousness to us, our sin to him.
And so, all that being said, in the Old Testament, we see, right, because the Old Testament shows us the gospel, it shows us types and shadows.
Now, we know this side of the cross within redemptive history again, not the order of salvation, but the history of salvation.
We as New Testament Christians, we know with much more clarity.
The gospel.
But that's not because the gospel was not already at work in the world.
The gospel, like the will of God, because the gospel is within the will of God, the gospel is as old as God Himself.
The gospel is the ancient gospel.
It was always in the mind of God to redeem a people for Himself by grace alone, through faith alone, and Christ alone.
And so we see the gospel as early as the gospel, really, if we were to say it begins, and it's really hard to speak of chronological order, it's really more of what we might call in philosophical terms the order of logic, a logical order.
But the logical order of the gospel is this that the gospel first began in the mind of God, in the councils of eternity.
We would call this in covenantal language the covenant of redemption.
The covenant of redemption made between the Father and the Son by the Holy Spirit.
So, between Father and Son by the Holy Spirit to purchase a people for Himself and to give them as a bride to the Son for the Son to give them back as a gift of glory and honor to the Father.
And so, the covenant of redemption that's where the gospel first has its roots.
It's eternal.
It's as eternal as God is, so is the gospel.
We see it in human history first come into play in Genesis chapter 3.
That is, God is dealing out curses to Adam and Eve and to the serpent, in the middle of God handing out curses for sin.
And it was just for God to do this.
He wasn't being harsh or unfair, just for God to do this.
He told them, If you eat of the fruit, you shall surely die.
And so God is simply doing what he said would happen if they chose to disobey, and Adam and Eve chose to rebel.
And yet, even in the midst of dispensing curses, our incredibly merciful God.
Gives us the first glimpse of the gospel.
He says, I shall put enmity between you, speaking to the serpent, and the woman, and your offspring and hers.
You shall strike his heel, but he shall crush your head.
So, Adam and Eve, they knew Jesus Christ as the serpent crusher.
Abraham knew Jesus Christ as the seed, the promised seed through whom all the nations would be blessed.
Right?
Skip further.
David knew him as his son who eventually would sit on his throne, and the increase of his government there shall be no end.
Biblical Laying on of Hands Explained00:15:31
Right?
And then we further and further, this is progressive revelation of the gospel of Jesus Christ, which we now in the New Testament see with immense clarity.
All that back to the point.
In the Old Testament, the gospel existed, but it was alluded to with types and shadows.
And one of those types and shadows is the whole priestly animal sacrificial system that we see in Israel with the tabernacle and then the temple.
And one of the practices within this system is the practice of imputation.
Sin of the people being imputed into a substitute who would take the penalty for that sin.
As Romans says, the wages of sin is death.
And so, an animal taking the penalty, the death, which is the wages for sin, but first, in order for the animal to actually stand in, representative of the people, the animal, before it takes the penalty, it also has to take the sin.
And so, this act of imputation.
And so, one of the examples, ironically, within biblical language of the laying on of hands is not merely just to heal, but to impute a curse of sin that brings about death.
Doreen, what do you think about that?
Amen.
I love how you have the history of God's redemptive plan and the different covenants.
And it was just beautifully put.
Thank you.
Cool.
Thanks.
All right.
So I'll just do a couple more real quick.
I know I'm going long on these.
I'll try to go quicker.
But all right.
So here's one.
This is, let's see, we've got 1 Timothy 5, verse 22.
It says, Do not be hasty in the laying on of hands.
Nor take part in the sins of others.
Keep yourself pure.
Now, if we're not careful, that sounds like what we just talked about this imputation of sins.
Like if I lay on hands to this person, they might have some kind of spiritually negative energy.
They may have some kind of demonic, you know, or sinful or evil kind of thing going on.
If I touch them, if I lay hands on them, it might be contagious.
You know, they might spread the spiritual virus and I might contract it.
That's not the context.
Of this particular passage, 1 Timothy 5, verse 22, is talking about the laying on of hands for ordination, for appointing someone or installing someone into a position of spiritual authority for ministry.
And so, what Paul is ultimately saying to his son of the faith, Timothy, who's one of the purposes of Paul leaving him in the area where he is, is to set up elders, to appoint elders in these local churches.
Paul did the same thing with Titus.
And so, Paul is basically warning Timothy, he says, as you look.
To appoint men to positions of spiritual authority, namely eldership in local churches, don't be hasty.
Take your time.
Make sure that they meet the qualifications.
And so we see in this biblical text that another biblical purpose of laying on of hands is for the ordination or the installment, the elevation of people into positions of spiritual authority.
So that would be another example.
I mean, this is where in the new age, and I was very guilty of this myself, is You will hear kind of a rumor that seems to justify a New Age method that it's in the Bible, you know, that the magi are astrologers, so therefore astrology is okay.
And this is just a complete example of taking a verse, like you had said, about ordination out of context and say, see, the Bible says laying on of hands, therefore, and this is the slippery slope that the New Age has, such a fallacy and heresy, that if it says it in the Bible, it must be okay.
No, the Bible is a newspaper, a history book of what not to do when we are unsaved.
When we are, I mean, look at the book of Judges, right?
In those days, people had no king and they did whatever they wanted.
And that's what we have to look at the context.
Amen.
I completely agree.
So here's one more text, right?
So 2 Timothy 1, verse 6, it says, For this reason, Paul writing to Timothy again in his second epistle, for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame.
To nourish, to stir up, to be a good steward of the gift of God, which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
For God gave us a spirit not of fear, but of power and love and self control.
Therefore, do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me, his prisoner, but share in the suffering for the gospel by the power of God.
So, what Paul is doing here is basically it seems as though between Paul's first letter to Timothy and now his second letter, Timothy has been at least tempted.
If he hasn't acted on it, he's at least been tempted, or perhaps he communicated through letter to Paul that he's getting nervous.
He's up against some opposition, particularly in his preaching.
That's what it seems like.
If we follow through with the context, God hasn't given us a spirit of fear.
Don't be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord.
Share this testimony.
Preach Christ and Him crucified in His gospel, the remission of sins through faith alone and not by.
The works of the flesh and renounce those false teachers and those Judaizers and whoever else might be trying to pervert the gospel.
And so, what Paul is ultimately saying here is he's speaking about this gift, right, that Timothy has.
And people get real creative and get real excited about what that gift might be.
I am almost positive that it was the gift of teaching, which is one of the spiritual gifts listed in Paul's various lists of spiritual gifts, which we have a list in, well, two lists technically, in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, we have a list in Romans chapter 12, we have a list in Ephesians chapter 4.
And so we have these gifts of spiritual, our list of spiritual gifts.
And I've already made my argument for cessationism.
Just for the record, the cessationist does not believe that all the spiritual gifts have been done away with, but particularly the sign gifts that were primarily purposed to validate the message of the gospel, which has now been validated, but also to spread the gospel to every tribe, tongue, and nation, like tongues being able to speak in these other tongues of men so that the gospel could go out to the Gentiles, which God, by his grace, has.
Accomplished.
There's still more work to be done, but the gift of tongues in the first century kind of kick started this mission, the Great Commission of going to every tribe and tongue and nation, discipling the nations and getting the gospel into each person's tongue.
So, all that being said, my point is I believe that the particular gift here could have been a sign gift because this is still early on and we still see the sign gifts at work in some sense.
But here's the ironic thing we actually see the sign gifts starting to fade away.
This is Paul's second letter to Timothy.
In his first letter to Timothy, And I know my continuationist brothers and sisters will not appreciate what I'm saying right now.
So just you can do earmuffs, you know, and then come back into the conversation later, you know.
But this is what I believe, and I believe that it is biblical.
And I hope that you would hear me out.
And feel free to give me some pushback, and I'll try to respond to some of the comments.
But my point is this Paul's first letter to Timothy, Paul says, drink a little wine for your stomach's sake and not only water.
So Timothy has some kind of stomach ailment, and Paul prescribes wine.
Now, keep in mind, this is the same apostle Paul.
Who people were taking articles of his clothing, his handkerchiefs, just any kind of cloth that had touched his body.
These aren't prayer cloths, right?
This isn't your Joyce Meyer, you know, she's prayed and anointed these cloths with oil or perfume and prayed over them and then will mail them for, you know, $150.
No, this isn't like Paul praying over cloths and then people taking them.
This is literally like Paul's just doing his ministry.
He's not thinking about the cloth at all.
It's just a shirt that he was wearing.
That somehow somebody got a hold of it and it's being cut up into pieces.
And here's the crazy thing, right?
Because you think, oh, that's just crazy superstition.
No, what the Bible says is that it may have been superstitious, but Paul, as an apostle of Christ, was so anointed by God that these cloths from Paul that he did not pray over, that he did not anoint, but just randomly were falling into the hands of people were actually making sick people well.
My point is this instead of writing to Timothy, right, because somebody had to deliver this letter, physically deliver the letter from Paul to Timothy.
So instead of saying, drink a little wine for your stomach's sake, why don't you just wrap that letter?
With one of your claws and let Timothy touch it, right?
Then he could just be all better.
Why doesn't Paul do this?
Because Paul's letters to Timothy are towards the end of his lifetime, towards the end of his ministry, and I believe we're already beginning to see some of these sign gifts fall away.
Now, for the record, I still believe that the gift of healing exists.
Well, this is what I should say.
I still believe that God heals.
That's how I should say it.
I should be careful in my language.
I believe that God physically heals people in miraculous ways.
Today, he certainly heals people through his providence.
Every time somebody is recovered from any ailment, it is because God is doing it.
God's sovereign over all things.
So, God gets glory for every healing, even if we are healed naturally.
Who created those antibodies and all that, you know, and in God's common grace?
Who gave us, you know, certain medicines and all these things?
But I believe that God even miraculously heals people today.
However, the gift of healing, or what we should say, healers, A specific individual who seems to have a specific anointing to heal on a regular basis and not just prayers of petition, God, would you please heal this person?
But declarations, statements, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
That I don't believe exists anymore.
So I believe that we still have healings and that the church, like James chapter 5, especially elders of the church, I just got done doing that this week.
A family in our church had one of their children.
Have to go to the emergency room with an asthma attack.
I immediately contacted the family, asked if I could go.
I went to the emergency room and I walked in there and I wore my mask just long enough to get into the room and then I took it off and I prayed for this child that God would open his lungs and miraculously heal him.
And by God's grace, I just got confirmation today that the child is recovering remarkably and gets to go home.
And so praise God, praise the Lord.
But Joel Webb is not a healer, and Joel Webb doesn't have the gift of healing.
I didn't declare anything.
I petitioned and asked the Lord to heal, and sometimes he does and sometimes he doesn't.
Now, my point is to say with all of this, I believe that you see these kind of sign gifts starting to fade away.
So in 2 Timothy, because this is 2 Timothy, the text that I read, 2 Timothy 1, verse 6, for this reason, I remind you to fan into flame, right?
So he's saying, increase the gift.
Well, Paul in 1 Timothy says, drink wine for your stomach ailment, and neglects to send him wine.
A prayer cloth.
I think there's a reason to that.
And I know, you know, the charismatics can say, you're reading way too into the text.
Well, I wish you would read more into some other text, you know.
But, anyways, my point is, you know, I think the sign gifts are already starting to fade off in 1 Timothy.
This is now 2 Timothy, so it's even later.
So I think that these sign gifts are already, you know, fading away even more because the message has been established.
Churches have been planted.
The gospel has been validated.
The message is here to stay.
Now, that being said, If that's the case, if I'm right about that, even if I'm wrong about it, it doesn't really matter for this purpose.
But if I'm right about that and the gifts are starting to fade away, the idea of Paul writing to Timothy in regards to a sign gift and saying, fan it into flame, make it even stronger.
If the sign gifts are fading and Paul's saying, let's take this up a notch, that doesn't seem to make sense.
So I think the particular gift that Paul is referencing is the gift of teaching, which is a gift of the spirit.
It is a spiritual gift that is still alive and well today.
Cessationists don't believe all gifts have ceased.
I'm using the gift of teaching right now.
So, all that being said, I think Paul's saying, fan this into flame.
Now, here's the question.
Romans, there's also a text in Romans that says, I long to see you that I might impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong.
So there is a debate.
Is one of the purposes of laying on of hands, because that's what Paul says here in 2 Timothy 1 6, he says, For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands.
Is there a biblical principle from the apostles specifically of laying on of hands to impart a spiritual gift?
I personally would side with various reform scholars that there's not.
That Paul, even when he speaks to the Romans, I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to make you strong.
I think he's referring to doctrine.
I don't think Paul's saying, I have this ability to lay my hands on you and impart one spiritual gift that I possess to you.
Or to be a.
Go ahead.
Go ahead.
It doesn't say that.
We can't speculate.
If it doesn't say it in the Bible, then it's not God's word.
Right.
And that's, and one of the reasons I would disagree with that is because Paul actually says in 1 Corinthians 12 that the Holy Spirit gives gifts.
The Holy Spirit is the one who sovereignly gives gifts to those he appoints.
And so the Holy Spirit gives gifts.
Now, for you to say, well, God also heals, but he heals through men laying on their hands and praying.
Okay.
I see what you did there.
I understand that.
So why can't a person be a conduit of the Holy Spirit laying on of hands and imparting a gift?
Well, again, I don't think we have enough biblical evidence for that.
We only have a couple places, instances of the impartation of a spiritual gift.
And I think we can easily read that as the gift is I'm going to be there and I'm going to minister among you.
I'm going to preach.
I'm going to impart doctrine that will strengthen your faith.
So, all the way back here, 2 Timothy 1, verse 6, I think what Paul's saying is he's saying, fan into flame this gift.
I believe it's the gift of teaching or the gift of preaching.
And he says, and it's a gift that you received through the laying on of hands, the laying on of hands.
And it's a gift that you need to grow in because God hasn't made you afraid.
That really makes me think it's preaching and teaching that Timothy is tempted to shrink back or shrinking back in a bold proclamation of the gospel because of some opposition he's experiencing.
And Paul's saying, No, you need to be bolder now than ever and fan that gift of teaching into flame.
And it's a gift that you received through the laying on of my hands.
Well, I think that that actually is a reference right back to what we saw in 1 Timothy chapter 5 when he says, Don't lay hands on quickly.
Fan the Gift of Teaching into Flame00:08:06
Meaning, the laying on of hands in such a way that it symbolically is appointing someone to ministry.
So, I think Paul, what he's actually saying is he's saying, You didn't receive the gift of preaching through me, an impartation of that spiritual gift through me.
I think what Paul's saying is he's reminding Timothy of Timothy's own ordination, that Paul was there ordaining Timothy with likely a congregation gathered around and perhaps some other elders.
Maybe they laid on hands of Timothy along with Paul.
And he's saying, We laid hands on you and appointed you to the ministry.
To the ministry of preaching the gospel, a workman, you know, rightly dividing the word of truth with nothing to be ashamed of.
So don't you dare shrink back now.
You were ordained publicly, and I was there at your ordination, the one who is instituting you into the office of an elder to preach the gospel with boldness.
Don't you dare shrink back now, but fan that gift into flame.
So I think Paul, what he's referencing is the laying on of hands once again for the appointment of spiritual authority, namely eldership.
And in that appointment, I don't think Paul's saying you received then, in the moment of your ordination ceremony, that's when you received the gift of preaching, because that's inconsistent with what Paul says to Timothy.
What does he say?
Don't lay on hands quickly.
First, make sure they're qualified.
And one of the qualifications is able to teach.
So I think what Paul's saying is I laid on hands and ordained you in ministry.
And I ordained you in ministry because you met the elder qualifications.
And one of them is that you were a heck of a preacher.
You're a preacher, Timothy.
And I wouldn't have laid my hands on you to ordain you in ministry if you weren't a preacher.
And don't you stop preaching.
So, all that being said, some would say another purpose of laying on hands is the impartation of spiritual gifts, which I believe.
Don't actually exist as a biblical category at all.
Agreed.
And I mean, this is the kind of pushback I've been getting from people when I warn them about Reiki.
And, you know, we look at the history of the man who invented it, Usui, and he was a Shigendo practitioner, which is Japanese shamanism.
And they're involved with divination, mediumship, I mean, just a whole host of sins.
And then they have this.
Energy healing in the middle of that.
And the most offensive pushback I got, and it was probably from three or four people, Pastor Joel, is that Jesus was conducting Reiki sessions when he healed people.
And I mean, I want to.
How do they defend that?
They just say that.
They say, well, Jesus was like a Reiki master.
I want to cry when I hear that.
It just breaks my heart that people would think that, believe that, and say it.
Yeah, that's ridiculous.
All right, let me give just one more example.
So, this is Mark chapter 10, verse 16.
Mark chapter 10, verse 16.
It says this And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
All right, so if you're familiar with this passage, if I were to back up, you'll definitely will ring a bell starting in verse 13.
And they were bringing children to him that he might touch them.
And the disciples rebuked them.
But Jesus saw it.
He was indignant and said to them, Let the children come to me.
Do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God.
Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.
Then it goes to verse 16.
And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them.
So this is Jesus, not just the apostles or a prophet or a priest in the Old Testament.
This is Christ himself laying his hands on children.
And in this context, it's not specifically sick children that Jesus is laying his hands on them to be healed, but rather it is children that the parents are bringing them to Jesus in order to receive a blessing.
And so Jesus is blessing the children.
And so that's why often in more traditional churches, many Reformed churches, some Lutheran churches, Reformed Baptist, Reformed Presbyterian, perhaps even Anglican churches, and even in Catholic churches, which I would Obviously, disagree with, but it is a common practice.
I do this in my church.
So I give a benediction at the end of each service.
We conclude our service by singing the doxology corporately, but then I finally, right after the doxology, I say, pronounce a benediction, a blessing to the people.
Lord bless you and keep you.
And as I do that, I raise my hands up and outward.
Now, traditionally, what that comes from is that the minister would actually usually do that for each individual person as they were leaving the worship service.
He would actually hold out his hands and touch them and bless them.
And so, over the centuries, it became You know, extending, reaching out the minister, the vicar, reaching out his hands and giving a blessing to the people.
And so, but that being said, I would be perfectly comfortable.
It doesn't mean that the minister is Jesus, but what it does mean is that, see, there was a time in our culture where people used to have a high view of the church.
So part of the reason people are offended by it now is because we have such a low view of the church, which is why we were perfectly content to close all of our church doors for months and months and months over the last couple of years.
When people had a high view of the church, one of the things that they recognized is that the minister, that he was representative, not that he is Christ, that would be blasphemy, but that on the Lord's day, when the saints gathered together, the minister appointed by that church, ordained, that as he rightly preached the word of God and rightly administered the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper, that he was representative of Christ.
That the people, when we gather to church, we are gathering to receive a word.
From Christ.
And so the minister would bless the people as Christ would bless the people, as representative.
It wasn't a statement of arrogance or pride or anything like that.
And so, all that being said, very few churches, at least Protestant churches, sadly, still practice this, but I believe it's a biblical practice and a good practice, and it certainly follows the pattern of church history that the minister of God, because on the Lord's day when the church gathers together, he is representing Christ, he follows Christ's example, who would lay his hands on his people and And extend to them a blessing.
And so, all that being said, that's another purpose of the laying on of hands that we see Jesus model, and you might even see your pastor, your minister model on the Lord's day is to extend a blessing.
Go ahead.
That's so interesting because, you know, we're Reformed Baptist, and my husband was always wondering why our pastor would raise his hand at the end of the service when he said the benediction, reading scripture.
That's what it's from.
That's from the history.
Oh, he'll love hearing that.
Yep.
R.C. Sproul's got a great teaching.
I can't remember the name of it.
So, you know, and finding a specific teaching is like finding a needle in a haystack.
Yeah.
I mean, R.C. Sproul just so many teachings.
So prolific.
You know, it's not like finding a needle in a haystack because Ligonier actually has a pretty good search engine.
So, anyways, I highly recommend Ligonier and R.C. Sproul's one of my favorites.
And he, I think I first learned that from him and then I read up on it a little bit more.
But R.C. Sproul, I remember he has a teaching where I think it's on renewing your mind, the podcast that he has.
I listen to it every day.
Minister of God extending his hands and blessing.
The people of God.
So, anyways, I got to give RC Sproul credit for that.
So, that's so what we've seen now is that, all right, so I've gone through, I did this on purpose.
I wanted to show there's multiple, multiple different reasons for the laying on, the practice of the laying on of hands throughout scripture.
Trust God's Provision Over Energy Healing00:16:13
And notice, we haven't even gotten to healing yet.
And my reason for doing that is to say to truncate all of the biblical testimony to laying on of hands and it making sick people better.
Okay, there is a precedence for that in Scripture, but there's also laying on of hands to impute sin, to curse.
There's laying on of hands to give a blessing to those who are physically healthy, like children.
There is the laying on of hands for the appointment of ministry to set someone apart.
For the work of the gospel.
I don't have time to look at other texts, but there's another text where the laying on of hands, the Bible uses that exact phrase, the laying on of hands, and it means to beat someone up, to physically assault them.
And so there's the laying on of hands that, like, I hope they don't lay hands on me.
And we always make a joke about that, but that joke actually comes from an actual verse in the Bible that talks about laying on of hands that the person was assaulted, that they were physically beat up.
So there's the laying on of hands that imputes sin, that curses someone spiritually.
There's the laying on of hands that That actually harms and beats someone up physically.
There's a laying on hands that blesses someone spiritually.
There's a laying on hands that appoints someone in an ordination ceremony for a position of spiritual authority and public ministry.
There's a laying on of hands in all these different ways.
And so to pretend as though the laying on of hands always in biblical terms is a reference to physical healing is to just not read the Bible, it's to cherry pick.
Yeah.
And I mean, and it's definitely not Reiki, which was discovered in 1930.
So, I mean, the Bible is thousands of years old.
I mean, one of the things I just want to say as we're closing is that people get hooked and addicted to the new age because it seems to work.
Again, Satan's counterfeiting.
And Justin Peters, who, as you know, was born with cerebral palsy and he spent a lot of years going to faith healers trying to get healed, and none of it worked.
And he ended up doing his dissertation or his thesis.
At Southern Baptist Seminary, on how faith healers are bogus, you know, Benny Hinn and all these different ones that he went to.
And he told me something that I just, it just so makes sense.
Because I asked him, I said, how come some people seem to be healed through going to a shaman or a Reiki master or a Christian science practitioner, which are clearly apostate heretics?
And he said that it's nuanced that demons sometimes inflict.
Injury or disease on people, and then lead them to the false practitioner.
And then they relieve that person of the oppression, and it looks like a healing, but then that person attributes their healing to the false practitioner, and they get hooked into that system.
And that makes so much sense because, you know, I was raised Christian science and we saw healings constantly in my family, myself, at church.
We'd have the testimony meetings every Wednesday, and people were healed of everything from.
Broken bones to cancer, and I grew up with that, so I thought Mary Baker Eddy had discovered the truth.
I know people feel the same way about Reiki and energy healing, but it's counterfeit just because something seems to work does not mean it's from God.
That was what I had to get through my head when I was saved.
It seems to work, but look at where it's pointing you is it pointing you to Jesus?
Is it pointing you to scripture?
If it is, you know, it's like John said in 1 John 4, we have to test the spirit if it's.
If it's Reiki, it's pointing you to new age circles.
It's pointing you to seances and mediumship and divination and yoga and things that are not scriptural.
We have to be so careful.
Amen.
You're absolutely right.
So let's go ahead and end now by me.
I just want to ask you a couple questions.
So, one of the questions that I have is in the practice of Reiki healing, is there a petition?
Meaning, does the Reiki master, as they're laying on their hands, do they speak out loud?
And when they speak out loud, do they speak to Jesus?
Do they speak to God?
And is in their speaking, is there a declaration of healing or is there a humble Request, a petition?
Do they ask?
Are they laying on hands and asking God to heal?
That's one of my questions.
Yeah.
In traditional Reiki, you're a conduit, you're a mediator of the universal energy through these symbols you've been attuned to.
Now, you're going to hear from professing Christians who say that they're blending the two, that they're channeling universal energy while talking to Jesus.
But I can tell them that that's not the real Jesus.
The real Jesus says, if you love me, you will obey my commandments.
And the commandments go back to the moral law to love God with all of our heart.
And that doesn't mean love in the sense of inclusiveness and everything goes and just leave me alone while I sin in peace.
That's love, meaning trusting God, obeying God.
And in looking at the Ten Commandments, we should have no other gods before Him and no idols.
And Reiki is idolatry.
And that's the crux of New Age heresy, it's having another God.
You're absolutely right.
Yeah.
So, the reason why I ask that question is because it goes back to kind of what I was trying to say earlier about sign gifts and these kind of things.
And so, I know that for at least a portion of your audience and mine, I'm going to lose people here, but I'm still going to do my best.
And I'm just humbly asking that our audience who disagrees with me over the sign gifts of the Holy Spirit, whether they've ceased or continued, if you would just have enough humility to consider it.
And I promise you, if you're like, well, it's a two way street, why don't you have enough humility to consider it?
Well, I have, and I still do.
I am a cessationist.
I am convinced of that position, and yet I have a few close friends who are continuationists.
One of them I just spoke to for an hour on the phone yesterday, who I allowed to sit there and make arguments for continuationism.
And we have this kind of conversation once every few months, and I hear his arguments out, and some of them are decent arguments.
I ultimately disagree with them.
I have my position, but I'm not a closed book.
I want to believe the scripture.
Period.
Wherever it leads.
I'm not afraid of ending up in this position or that position.
What I'm afraid of is not obeying the Bible.
That's my greatest fear.
I want to follow the Bible wherever it leads.
I believe that the Bible leads to cessationism.
I really do, and that's why I'm here.
But all that being said, I hope that you would have that same kind of humility and hear me out.
If the sign gifts were passing away, then we have prophecy, we have tongues.
Of interpretation of tongues, those being some of the chief ones.
There are still gifts that continue to this day in this church age of teaching and gifts of helps and administrations and encouragement, these kinds of things.
And I do believe that healing has continued, but a gift of healing or a healer, I don't believe has continued.
And I believe that we find that James chapter 5, I think, would be an example.
And all the examples I've already, you know, not that I gave a ton of examples, but I did give a lot of exegesis of the.
1 Timothy and 2 Timothy, drink a little wine, those kinds of things.
And so, with all that, bearing all that in mind, I believe that healing today is primarily a corporate, it's always been a sovereign work of God.
But as it pertains to man or any conduit, which even that word makes me a little uneasy, but to use that word, I believe that the conduit, if anything, is a corporate conduit, meaning that I think God does miraculously heal today in response to the prayers of God.
Of the church.
It is not bring them to the individual healer as they have their healing crusade, you know, the Catherine Coleman or the Benny Hinn or the whatever.
I think it's no, take them to the elders of the church.
And it's not because the elders of the church, right?
It's the same thing I said earlier about why the minister raises his hand and pronounces the blessing and the benediction to the people.
Why?
Because he's the man of God, he's the anointed.
No, no, it's nothing inherent to the minister.
Not his righteousness, not his holiness, and not his supernatural power.
It's because he's representing Christ.
And I think when we take the sick to the elders of the church, it's not just that they represent Christ, but they also stand in as representative of the body.
So they represent Christ in one sense, who is the head, but they're also in that moment standing in representative of the body of Christ, the church, the congregation.
And so when we pray for the sick today, number one, it's not declarations.
It's not rise up.
In the name of Jesus Christ, rise up and walk.
It's not.
We see that modeled by the apostles.
There's only a very small, we know in the New Testament that there were many people in the church beyond the apostles who had signed gifts that had the ability to prophesy.
Like Philip had four daughters who prophesied, right?
You got to do something with that.
And so there certainly are biblical texts for that.
But we don't have biblical texts, even in the first century, that talks about a whole dozens and dozens of Christians outside of the apostles healing the sick with declarations.
I think we're meant to assume that that was unique.
And so, what we have instead is petitions.
So, number one, you don't just have somebody rubbing their shoulder and moving energy through them.
You don't have that.
You always have words.
You always have words.
And this is why you have words.
You have words so that the people will turn and give God the glory, that they'll turn, that they'll hear the word.
How will they believe unless they hear?
Right?
So, it's not just what they see.
In a miraculous healing, but it's what they hear, right?
It's just like Peter and John, as they're going to the gate called Beautiful, and there's a man there who's lame since birth, and silver and gold have we none, but we do have, right?
And they declare, as apostles, in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.
And all of a sudden, the people are looking to them, you know, as though they were some kind of deity, and they say, hey, hey, men, you know, men of Israel, don't look to us like this, as though in our own power we made this man.
But simply Jesus, who you crucify.
And so they turn.
And even in their declaration, they say, they don't say, rise up and walk.
No, they say, in the name of Jesus of Nazareth.
So my point is in healing today, I don't believe we have healers today.
And I don't believe that we make declarations of healing and gifts of healing.
But I do think we still have a God who heals.
I think he primarily heals through the corporate prayers of his church, elders representing both Christ and the church, and through humble prayers.
Petitions, requesting the Lord, asking Him for healing, knowing that He may heal, He may not.
And in this, always it's with words.
It's never this silent, you know, rubbing of the shoulder or something.
It's always with words.
And the words should be humble.
They should be a request.
And they should always be saturated with the name of Jesus.
This is about Jesus.
I'm calling out to Jesus.
I'm asking Jesus, you alone are the one who has the power to heal.
And so that would be my question is what Reiki healer, right?
So even those who are saying, oh, yeah, well, Reiki is Christian.
Reiki is.
The power of Jesus was the first Reiki healer, blah, blah, all the stuff that you've shared, Doreen.
My question is okay, then go find a Reiki healer.
Go find a Reiki healer who heals with a team, right?
Like a team of elders, multiple Christians in a church praying.
So, number one, he's not a one man show.
He's got a team and he's representing others and he's using words the entire time.
He's calling out to Jesus.
It's not a declaration of pride pretending to be an apostle, but rather it's a humble petition of request.
And he also.
Leaves room for the sovereignty of God, like Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.
Our God can deliver us from the fire, but even if He doesn't, you know, and saying, and here's the last one, and He doesn't take your money.
So there you go.
There you go.
Let's talk about money real quick because people in the New Age are always accusing me of becoming a Christian for money.
And it's ridiculous.
I don't take any donations.
I don't have a Patreon account where people can donate to me.
I, you know, I'm basically broke.
My husband had to go get a new job.
I work part time at a job.
And So, the people who give the pushback about this are the people making money off of Reiki and energy healing and teaching.
And it's threatening to them that we're saying this because we are threatening their industry.
And it just reminds me so much of Acts 19, where the silversmiths got so angry with Paul, they wanted to kill him because people stopped buying their goddess statues, their Artemis statues, because Paul was saying the gospel that Jesus is the one true God, that we don't need these goddesses.
In fact, it's blasphemy.
Polytheism, and the you know, the so he was hunted, and also Acts 16, where Paul cast the python demon spirit out of the young girl who was possessed and was a psychic.
Her managers made a lot of money off of her psychic readings, so they got very angry with Paul.
And so, people get angry of us saying this because it threatens their livelihood.
But what I want to say to those who have a new age livelihood, trust in God's provision, repent.
That's what I had to do is just repent.
My livelihood was in the new age.
I was really concerned.
What am I going to do?
I have all these employees.
I've got my family, this ranch I have to deal with.
I gave it all to God.
I just repented and said, Your will, not my will.
And God's provided not riches, but needs.
And that's what He promises for those who sincerely believe.
Amen.
That's so good.
That's a great note to end on.
All right.
Well, Doreen, let us know, our listeners, how can they follow you?
How can they be praying for you?
Because you're right.
If you were in it for the money, you would have stayed right where you were.
And so I want our listeners to be able to support you, to pray for you.
How can they follow you, keep up with you, and be a blessing to you?
Oh, thanks.
Well, don't follow me, follow Jesus.
But you can see my posts.
Instagram is the easiest one.
That's where I'm most active.
You can send me a message there.
I'm the only one that reads and replies to messages.
And I'm kind of busy.
So it takes me a while sometimes.
I do my best to.
Keep an eye out for those who are newly coming out of the new age so I can support you.
And if you're nice, if you write me a nice letter, even if you disagree with me, I will read and respond.
But if you write me a mean letter, I can't take it.
So I don't respond to mean letters.
And how you can pray for me my family is still new age, and it breaks my heart every single minute of every day that they shun me, they won't talk to me, they think that I'm.
You know, not loving because I'm calling out the new age.
So, if you could just pray for my family's salvation, pray Christian prayers.
Support Those Leaving the New Age00:00:48
I don't want any Reiki for my family.
Just please pray biblically for my family to come to know Jesus, the real Jesus, and to repent and be saved.
Amen.
Great.
All right, Doreen, thank you so much for coming on the show.
Thank you, Pastor Joel.
It's always an honor to be with you.
God bless you in your ministry.
As a special thank you for your gift of any amount, we'll be happy to send you a free digital book.
From our store.
To access this offer, visit rightresponseministries.comslash offer.
We highly recommend Pastor Joel's book, Am I Truly Saved?
If you or someone you know has wrestled with doubts about the love of God, this would be a great resource.
As a reminder, to get this offer, go to rightresponseministries.comslash offer.