by Dr. Don Williams
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John Wimber: Prophet of
the Kingdom
by Dr. Don Williams
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John Wimber was a Kingdom man. He rightly saw
the center of Jesus’ good news as the in-breaking presence of the Kingdom
of God. Behind this is the cosmic battle between God and Satan for rulership
over this planet. When Jesus showed up, the showdown began. People were
forgiven, healed and released from demons. This was radical business. The
Holy Spirit, promised in the Old Testament for the end-times, breaks out in
power as the Kingdom is preached. For Wimber, Kingdom ministry wasn’t just
for then, it's for now. But what does this mean for us? Let me illustrate.
I boarded a British Airways jet in Los Angeles bound for London. Once seated, I watched a video of Big Ben, Westminster Abbey, Buckingham Palace, Parliament and other memorable sights. A steward with a British accent then offered me a cup of tea. The blanket for my feet was Scottish plaid. Here I was in L.A., experiencing a taste of my destination: Great Britain. Similarly, as we submit to Christ as Savior and Lord, God gives us a taste of our destination, his heavenly Kingdom to come. We experience the power of the Spirit, the lost saved, the sick healed, the demonized delivered. The future triumph over Satan and the restoration of all things is present in some measure now. Not all we pray for are healed. Not all we witness to are saved. But like my experience of leaving L.A., the signs of our destination surround us. While we experience the Kingdom partially now, it is nevertheless real. Wimber’s unique contribution to the church was to grasp that the theology of the Kingdom demands that we minister the Kingdom. He expected to have the Spirit’s anointing as he preached, prayed for the sick, and cast out demons. His class at Fuller Theological Seminary in the early 80’s (MC-510), became famous not because he taught about supernatural Kingdom ministry, but because he ended each class with a workshop where Kingdom ministry happened. This changed many faculty and students forever. It also threatened the unity of the Seminary where theory and practice tend to separate. While the class was suspended in a cloud of controversy, the damage had already been done. The word was out: God is alive, speaking, healing, delivering today. The Kingdom coming is also the Kingdom come. In reflecting back upon that time, it is clear to me that John Wimber was called to be prophetic to the whole church. The Cambridge scholar C.H. Dodd tagged Jesus’ ministry as “realized eschatology.” In Basil, Switzerland, Oscar Cullmann, using a World War II analogy, showed that the church is in a mopping up operation between “D- Day,” the decisive invasion of enemy territory, and “VE-Day” the final victory when all the powers of evil will be destroyed. Through Wimber, God held the church accountable for this Biblical theology. No less a person than Albert Schweitzer, scholar, musician and medical missionary (a sort of Mother Teresa of a previous generation) wrote, “Our religion must renew itself by contact with Paul’s Kingdom-of-Heaven religion.... Steeled by it, our religion becomes independent of welcome from the spirit of the age, or of seeing outward success.... Our belief in the Kingdom of God must remain primitive Christian, in the sense that we expect its realization not from deliberate organized measures, but from a growing power of the Spirit of God.” (in The Mysticism of St. Paul, pp. 388f) And this from a man who had no evangelical tendencies! While George Ladd at Fuller taught the presence of the Kingdom, Wimber insisted that we do what we teach, hands on. He recovered the Gospel records of Jesus’ healing ministry for the church as a handbook for ministry today. We are not only to hear the word of Jesus and emulate the character of Jesus, we are to do the works of Jesus. This throws us into the need for a radical intimacy with Him and a complete dependence upon the present manifestation of the Spirit. This is a good place for us to stay if our spiritual life is to be real. For Wimber, in contrast to the ancient creeds (Like the Apostles’ Creed, “born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate”), something decisively happened between Jesus’ birth and crucifixion: the Kingdom came. So as we preach and pray, the Kingdom will keep on coming against all evil until the King Himself comes and consummates all things. To be true to John Wimber is to continue his prophetic task - minister the Kingdom in the power of the Spirit. We must display to the larger church and to the world that our good theology is real. This is Wimber’s legacy and our inheritance. Go for it!
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