In December of 1746, John, an Anglican preacher, started a free medical dispensary[1] in London. Given the dismal condition of the health and hygiene among the poor of London, along with the equally dismal condition of the current hospitals and medical infirmaries, the free “medical clinic” was a booming success. The success of this first dispensary inspired him to continue setting up medical ministries in Bristol and Newcastle.[2]
Unfortunately, not everyone was happy with John’s dabbling in medical work—after all, he was a preacher, not a doctor—and because he was never formally trained, he was criticized by the medical establishment of his time.[3] However, he continued his work, justifying it on the basis that just as lay preaching was necessary because of the lack of readily available “official” preaching, so too were his medical dispensaries necessary because of a lack of healthcare for those who could not afford it.[4] John did, however, acknowledge his limitations as a lay physician by choosing to mainly treat chronic diseases and advising patients to see a physician for acute illnesses.[5]
In his medical endeavors, John turned to another powerful tool: Education. In 1747, he published a compilation of “home remedies” called The Primitive Physic or An Easy and Natural Method of Curing Most Diseases. This book advocated for fresh air, cleanliness, and readily digestible food, and specifically omitted opium and quicksilver[6] as treatments, which were in common usage at the time by contemporary physicians. Because of its high demand, the book caused a stir, and John was again criticized by the professional physicians because of his lay status.[7]
Why would he invest so much time into medical work? John’s use of medical work was an extension of his understanding of salvation, clarified in one of his personal letters: “It will be a double blessing if you give yourself up to the Great Physician, that He may heal soul and body together. And unquestionably this is His design. He wants to give you . . . both inward and outward health.”[8] John understood salvation in holistic terms—the restoration of the whole person into the image of God.[9] After all, if death comes as the physical consequence to the spiritual malady of sin, why should not life come as the physical consequence to the spiritual gift of salvation?
In modern Adventist terms, we might see him as what Ellen White would call a “medical missionary,” yet John lived long before the term existed in Adventism or Christianity at large.[10] Despite this, he recognized the necessity of integrally weaving spiritual and physical healing and the impossibility of separating the two in any real and meaningful ministry. In a letter, he described his view of this union: “By salvation I mean, not barely (according to the vulgar notion) deliverance from hell, or going to heaven, but a present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our soul after the image of God…”[11]
Unfortunately, most people do not recognize John Wesley—founder of the Methodist movement and companion of George Whitefield and Charles Wesley—as a medical missionary. But as I read John’s letters, I cannot help but see the intense similarity to Ellen White’s synthesis of salvation: “To restore in man the image of his Maker, to bring him back to the perfection in which he was created, to promote the development of body, mind, and soul, that the divine purpose in his creation might be realized—this was to be the work of redemption.”[12] The view of “whole-person” restoration is much more than a simple Adventist ideology.[a] In fact, this idea of ministry combined with medicine extends way beyond Adventism or Methodism, and instead stems all the way back to the original “church service” in the wilderness: The sanctuary service.
For some, the idea of the sanctuary message being the foundation of our health message is not immediately obvious. Growing up as an Adventist, I used to think the sanctuary message was something of “fun facts about the Bible.” For being one of the pillars of our faith, it seemed like somewhat of an anticlimactic message. Maybe it said something about the time in which we were living, but apart from the “did you know that there is a sanctuary in heaven?” revelation, it appeared somewhat of an impractical–if not trivial–truth.
The view of “whole-person” restoration is much more than a simple Adventist ideology.
However, the sanctuary message is much more than a “fun fact”—it is a coherent theological framework that explains the plan of redemption. In the sanctuary message is the implied assumption that God’s work on earth is historical, physical reality.[13] In other words, God doesn’t work with some kind of magic fairy dust—He works through literal means with our literal lives. For some people, this seems somewhat obvious. Most people, however, do not realize the full implication of this—especially in terms of our sanctuary message.
If you read the books of Moses, you find that Levitical priests in the Old Testament were much more than ministerial workers. Not only were Levitical priests in charge of worship services—they were in charge of medical work. Levitical priests were responsible for diagnosing diseases.[14] Put in modern terms, the ministerial workers were also the medical workers.
The Levitical laws on health focused on preventing disease and promoting health as opposed to treating diseases.[15] This was countercultural for the time: Ancient cultures contemporary to the Israelite nation had extensive lists of medicines and procedures for treating diseases. Medical historian Ralph Major describes Moses as “the greatest sanitary engineer that the world has ever seen” because “Moses recognized the great principle that the prevention of disease is usually simpler and invariably more far reaching than the cure of disease… His doctrines [in the book of Leviticus] could be summed up by the objects of sanitation today—pure food, pure water, pure air, pure bodies and pure dwellings.”[16]
Given this scriptural background, it is no surprise that John Wesley followed in this same ideological lineage that we as Adventists also fall under. Critically, our emphasis on both physical and spiritual healing is an extension of our sanctuary doctrine.
Consider it: If the Sanctuary is historical—literal reality—that means that the choices God made for the Sanctuary also hold literal implications for how we are to conduct ourselves. If the Sanctuary was truly a real model of a literal sanctuary in Heaven—and if it is a model that we are to follow—then the work of the priests in the sanctuary service is also a model of our work as a “spiritual priesthood.”[17] And here is where the gap between the sanctuary message and the medical missionary work is bridged. Because of this historical understanding of the sanctuary message, we believe that God is intimately interested in the physical well-being of His children. This is why we believe the health laws in Leviticus still hold practical value today: The health laws are not merely allegorical spiritual truths (though they certainly do have spiritual truths in them)—they hold real, physical truths for us to follow. For example, unclean meats[18] are still massive carriers of diseases; mold[19] still has adverse effects on health.[20]
Based on this idea of literal, physical truths in the Sanctuary, Peter’s description of us as a “royal priesthood” is more than a poetic description of our identity; rather, it is a concrete prescription and guide for how we are to act in our ministry. This idea is affirmed in the New Testament by the ministry of Jesus Himself: “And Jesus went about all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of sickness and all manner of disease among the people.”[21] Given the integral role of physical health in spiritual well-being, it comes as little surprise that Jesus spent more time healing the sick than preaching.[22]
This is the only way that Christianity has successfully operated in evangelism. Medical missionary work is not an Adventist phenomenon. Instead, it is a spiritual heritage that spans beyond the dawn of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church and goes back to the Sanctuary in Israel. It is the method that Christ Himself used. Let us, then, labor to save souls in the same way. If we want to see success in our evangelistic efforts, we must set our efforts on holistic salvation—the restoration of the whole person back to the image of God. Any effort apart from this will prove faulty or useless. The choice is ours: Will we choose Christ’s method or opt for one that human wisdom deems more effective and convenient?
[1] A dispensary is “a place where medicine or medical or dental treatment is dispensed.” “Dispensary.” 2024. In Merriam-Webster Dictionary. https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dispensary.
[2] Richard Heitzenrater, Wesley and the People Called Methodists, Second Edition (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2013), 186-187.
[3] For an overview of the critiques of John Wesley’s medical work see Randy Maddox, “Reclaiming the Eccentric Parent: Methodist Reception of John Wesley’s Interest in Medicine,” in ‘Inward and Outward Health’: John Wesley’s Holistic Concept of Medical Science, the Environment and Holy Living, ed. Deborah Madden (London: Epworth, 2008), 15-47.
[4] Michael K. Turner, “John Wesley, Medical Reform, and the Methodist Revival in 18th Century England” Oxford institute of Methodist Theological Studies, 7.
[5] Ibid, 6.
[6] A common name for mercury.
[7] Paul Dakin, “John Wesley: Amateur Physician and Health Crusader – Hektoen International,” hekint.org, accessed June 13, 2024, https://hekint.org/2017/01/30/john-wesley-amateur-physician-and-health-crusader/.
[8] Letter to Alexander Knox (26 October 1778), in The Letters of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M., edited by John Telford (London: Epworth, 1931), 6:327. Another good example is Letter to Miss Agnes Gibbes (April 28, 1784), Methodist History 6.3 (1968): 53.
[9] Phillip Ott, “John Wesley on Health: A Word for a Sensible Regime,” Methodist History 18 (1980), 194-204; E. Brooks Holifield, Health and Medicine in the Methodist Tradition: Journey Toward Wholeness (New York: Crossroad, 1986), 18-22; and Maddox “John Wesley on Holistic Health and Healing,” 6-9.
[10] David Hardiman, “Healing bodies, saving souls. Medical missions in Asia and Africa,” (Clio medica Amsterdam, Netherlands, 2006), 80, 1–348.
[11] John Wesley, A Farther Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion in The Works of John Wesley, ed. G.R. Craig (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1989), 11:106.
[12] Ellen G. White, Education (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1903), 15.
[13] Fernando Canale, “Vision and Mission-Part 2: Christ, Spirituality, and the Emerging Remnant Church,” Journal of the Adventist Theological Society 27, no. 1 (2016), 216.[14] See Leviticus 13
[15] Winnail, Douglas S. 2014. “Bible Health Laws.” Tomorrow’s World. December 16, 2014. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://www.tomorrowsworld.org/magazines/2004/march-april/bible-health-laws.
[16] A History of Medicine, vol. 1, 62–64.
[17] 1 Pet. 2:4-10
[18] See Lev. 11
[19] See Lev. 13:47-59
[20] The Institute for Functional Medicine. 2023. “Mold Toxicity: Pathways, Diseases, & Interventions | the Institute for Functional Medicine.” November 6, 2023. Accessed July 8, 2024. https://www.ifm.org/news-insights/mold-toxicity-pathways-diseases-interventions/.
[21] Matt. 4:23
[22] Ellen G. White, Ministry of Healing (Mountain View, CA: Pacific Press Publishing Association, 1905), 19.