Letter To Brother Charles H. Parham, March 24, 1927 By John G. Lake

Letter To Brother Charles H. Parham, March 24, 1927

By John G. Lake
(Excerpts)


The revelation of Jesus Christ as Savior and Healer through the simple teaching of the cross, surpassed in Paul's estimation every other knowledge and led him to declare:

I determined not to know any thing among you, save Jesus Christ, and him crucified.

Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.

I am not ashamed of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

It is the power of God unto salvation, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.


Who has authority to pray for the sick? 

Is this holy ministry only given to the few? 

Is it a ministry to all Christians or to the clergy only?


Jesus said:

If ye shall ask any thing in my name, I will do it.

Ask, it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you.

These signs shall follow them that believe; In my name shall they (the believers) cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues...they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.


The apostles were commanded to go into all the world — to make believers in every section. 

The signs were to follow the believers, not the apostles only.


This was heaven's characteristic. It was the trademark of the Christ on His goods. 

It was the brand, the stamp burned into the soul of the believer with heavenly fire.


Baptism in the Spirit of Jesus was Christ reproducing Himself in the believer. 


To what extent was this reproduction to be a fact? 

We contend that Jesus taught that the believer was empowered by the Spirit's incoming and indwelling so that he was Christ's ambassador on earth.

Then he must perform Christ's most holy ministries to sinful and sick just as Jesus himself would do.


If this is true then the believer is a priest in every respect. 

The believer must then perform Christ's priestly ministry.

The believer, then, is expected to heal the sick. 


Jesus said that a believer should lay his hands on the sick and heal them, they were not to die, they were to recover. 

They were healed through the believer by the power supplied from heaven by Jesus Christ to the believer.


We desire to ask, should the believer-priest also forgive sins or pronounce absolution to the penitent seeker after God? 

We believe he should. 

We are sure that it is the privilege of the modern Church to see this tremendous truth and privilege that was purposed by the Lord to be the glory of Christianity.


Jesus said the believer should cast out devils. 

He believes he should. He does it. 

The devil is ejected from further possession.

How did he do it? By the exercise of the bestowed power as Christ's believer-priest he exercises spiritual authority over the devil in the candidate and frees him from control.


In this, he has performed the Christ-function. 

The sick likewise are healed through the believer-priest. 

In this also he performs another Christ-ministry. 

Then how about sin? 

Why does not the believer-priest by the same spiritual power and authority destroy the consciousness of sin in the soul and pronounce absolution for sins that are past?


We are asking these questions in order to discover what the believers' ministry as Christ's representative is.

We are not alone in our faith that the believer should perform the full ministry of the Christ.


"I am a priest." — Browning.


"The early Church lost its power when it lost sight of its high priestly office." — Bishop Burnett.


"The church needs to realize in new ways the inherent priesthood of Christian believers." — Lambeth Conference of Anglican Bishops, 1906.


"The authority to pronounce absolution and remission of sins that are past and fulfill the aspirations of the soul for the future, I believe to be spiritual and not ecclesiastical and traditional, and to belong equally to everyone who has received such absolution and remission, and such gifts of the spiritual life." — Lyman Abbot.


"The experience of the Free Church confirms what we should expect from study of the New Testament and modern psychology, that the priesthood of all believers rests on sounder evidence than the priesthood of some believers." — Rev. Dr. Glover of Cambridge.


"With the Quaker it is not that there is no clergy, but that there is no laity, for we are all priests unto the Highest." — John H. Graham in the Faith of the Quaker.


"I am ever in the presence not only of a Great Power, or a Great Lawgiver, but a Great Healer." — Lyman Abbot.


Therefore every believer on Jesus Christ is authorized by the Lord to do as He has done, assured of Christ's assistance.


"Greater things than these shall ye do, because I go unto the Father," said Jesus. 

The Lord working with them by signs following. 

"Lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world." 

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