Vergelyking tussen die genesingsteologie van John G Lake en Hannes Jonker

Abstract

In this article the theological thinking on healing of two leaders in the Apostolic Faith Mission of South Africa (AFM) is discussed. John G Lake, together with Thomas Hezmalhalch, came to South Africa in 1908 to preach the Pentecostal message. From their work the AFM originated. Lake did his apprenticeship with Dowie and his Zionist Movement, where divine healing received great emphasis. Hannes Jonker joined the AFM at the end of the 1980s and spent his academic life at a theological seminary, writing about and practicing divine healing. There are remarkable similarities between these two men’s ideas. Both preferred the term ‘divine healing’ in order to emphasise that healing is the exclusive work of God. Both explained illness in terms of sin, and healing in terms of the atonement. Both of them emphasised that the local congregation is the body of Christ mediating healing to ill people. Differences between them consist of the way they use the Bible in their attitude towards medical help; and Jonker’s admission that sickness might in some instances be inexplicable, while Lake persisted in his view that all illness can be treated in a biblical way.