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When heaven invades earth & Supernatural power of a transformed mind

Footsteps in the fog

SECRETS TO IMITATING GOD & STRENGTHEN YOURSELF IN THE LORD
By Bill Johnson
Authentic Media. 180/163 pages. £11.99
ISBN 978 1 850 789 536

WHEN HEAVEN INVADES EARTH & SUPERNATURAL POWER OF A TRANSFORMED MIND
By Bill Johnson
Authentic Media. 189/167 pages. £11.99
ISBN 978 1 850 789 529

The Christian life is supposed to be a life of miracles.

It is meant to be a life of the supernatural, a life like Jesus in terms of the miraculous not just the moral. Christians should be able to still storms, heal the sick and raise the dead just like Jesus — in fact, we should be able to do even greater miracles (a reading of John 14.12). This is Johnson’s theology as he presents it in his gentle, readable yet polemical style.

The author refers, on more than one occasion, to the stilling of the storm on the lake (Mark 4, etc.) and states that Jesus’s ‘little faith’ rebuke was a way of saying, ‘you could have performed that miracle yourselves’. Was this really the case? Was not their fear the problem when they should have trusted in Jesus? And, more generally, were not Jesus’s miracles ‘signs’ of his unique identity as the Christ, the Son of God (John 20.31)?

Christian hope is played down in favour of kingdom possibilities now. The groaning of Romans 8.23, for example, he seems to read as a longing for the fulfilment of our ‘destiny’ in this life (despite the ending of that verse). ‘Destiny’ and ‘inheritance’ are very important words to Johnson and relate very much to this life and world, not the one to come. Theologically, this would be called an over-realised eschatology. The sense is not at all that of Ephesians 1.14 (etc.), where we have a little now but so much more to come in the future. In fact, it feels more like the reverse, almost as if we can build the kingdom of God on earth and the world to come is not much more than an extension of this.

And yet, for all my theological misgivings, I have felt quite deeply challenged by these books. My faith is undoubtedly too intellectual, in that sometimes that is all it is. There is far too little joy, peace and power in my life. I take far too few risks for God. I spend too little time meditating on the Bible. I need to be filled with the Holy Spirit on a far more regular basis.

I won’t recommend these books, but if they do find their way to you, take from them the longing for the Spirit of Christ that we all need.

Oliver Rice,
Bow Baptist Church, East London