Are we supposed to, as Christians, decree and declare authority over sickness, problems, etc? The short answer is no. I will, of course, give you enough biblical support for that as we go so you can see, from a biblical perspective, how prayer (supplication, asking God) is the proper way to deal with adversity and trials in life.
I want you to pay close attention to Positive Confession, Law of Attraction and how these terms pour into the Declare/Decree ideas that come out of the historical template.
Historical Beginnings of the “Decree and Declare” concept
Emmanuel Swedenborg
The history of the movement that forms the Prosperity Gospel, Word of Faith, and serves as the basis of most Charismatic movements, begins.
Swedenborgianism (The New Church Movement) was a movement in the late 1700s that began to challenge the long-standing views of the church. Science and scientific theory was beginning to capture imaginations across Europe and the church suddenly seemed very stale. Emmanuel Swedenborg, a scientist, began receiving revelation from what he thought was God. This revelation told him that the true meaning of scripture had not yet been completely discovered. There was a correction to the literal meaning of the scripture that needed to be applied and Swedenborg was the only one who could do it.
Part of his teaching included the Doctrine of Correspondence. This meant that the physical properties of nature were representative of the spiritual. The divine truth, or divine influx, was poured into humans. This resulted in a belief that the physical body and the spiritual were somehow connected. This resulted int he mental healing movement.
Swedenborg was a scientist but also a budding revelatory receiver. He believed many heretical things like: God is called whatever name the individual wants to call Him The Holy Spirit is not God The Trinity is not real Jesus’ sacrifice did not atone for sins
Through his revelations and his new teaching of what scripture really meant, Swedenborg was able to begin a mental healing concept that would flow through the subsequent decades.
Franz Mesmer Mesmer was an occultist and a contemporary of Swedenborg. Mesmer (the leader of a movement that would later be called Mesmerism), is also regarded as the father of hypnotism. The hypnotism of his day, however, did not look like the hypnotism of today. It was more like a seance.
Mesmer, also a scientist, believed that the gravitational attraction of the planets affected human health by affecting invisible fluid in the body. This is what became known as animal magnetism. Because people were affected by gravity, he believed the trace amount of the invisible fluid could be affected by using the occult. This “attraction” could be manipulated by any trained person. Thus, disease of any kind were simply obstacles in the fluid’s flow.
So what Mesmer brought to the table was this:
Obstacles to “what you desire” can be manipulated by a trained person Animal magnetism teaches that energy can be transferred Our mind can rule over our life, or the life of another Pain and sickness are manifestations of the mind
So natural energy transference occurs between all animate and inanimate objects.
Phineas Quimby
Phineas Quimby became a student of Franz Mesmer’s when Mesmerism came to America in 1830. He became proficient in mesmerism in two years and began to heal people using “clairvoyance” (the suggestion of willing illness away). He had no medical training and had early success doing this.
Phineas Quimby brought the Power of Thought into this historical palette. His belief was that illness originated in the mind and can be overcome with the truth. If the body could be corrected of wrong thinking, the body will be corrected of its illness.
This morphs into a movement that was termed New Thought. New thought is also called Mind Cure. It is a form of Metaphysics which is still very much in practice today. This also borrows from the concept of Law of Attraction. Law of Attraction has these principles:
Like attracts Like A positive statement/thought will draw a positive reaction Words hold the power to give us what we want
This is also known as the concept of Positive Confession.
Mary Baker Eddy
She became a patient of Phineas Quimby in 1862. After a fall, she declared divine healing. She is the founder of Christian Science. I will attach a booklet I wrote a while back about it. The broad idea of Christian Science is that healing can be done through a greater perception of who God is. This is done through rejecting modern medicine. Her belief was that error and sin are mental disorders.
She links The New Thought Movement to Extreme Christian doctrine
E.W. Kenyon
He went to Emerson College, which at the time he attended, was a hotbed of metaphysical and transcendent concepts.
He links New Thought to Mainstream Christianity. During his time, Kenyon didn’t like the extreme nature of Christian Science but didn’t like the passivity of mainstream Christianity. So the “superior alternative: to both was a mix of New Thought and Christianity. Positive Confession elements show up in his writing, along with ideas of new authority. This is primarily where “Name it and claim it,” “The Believer’s Authority,” and “Little gods Doctrine” all come from.
Kenyon is also well-known for a twisting of scripture that creates the basis for Prosperity, Word of Faith and some Charismatic teachings.
It goes like this:
Before the fall, Adam was in the “God-Class”. He was a replica of God. But he sinned, committing high-treason against God. Because Adam “held the keys” to earth, by sinning, he lost the keys. God lost his power over the world, Satan became the ruler and Adam loses his power of dominion. He and Eve become sin-conscious, lose their connection with God and can only rely on their 5 senses. Humanity can no longer master their circumstances. Because of this, Satan, the new ruler of the world, can put disease on the body.
But there is redemption. Jesus comes to die for our sins, but there is one problem: sin is spiritual, not material. Nothing Christ could do in the material world would work against sin. Christ had to die spiritually. In other words, he had to partake in the nature of Satan in order to conquer sin. He suffered in hell to redeem man’s spiritually. Therefore, the work is done, He doesn’t need to do anything more for us. The new human spirit can now master the soul, body and environment.
Jesus restores the “God Class”. In Kenyon’s own words, we can become “supermen”. We have God at our disposal. Dominion is restored. We can once again master the body, thus disease can leave the body on command.
This concept is known as Kingdom Now Theology, which is still practiced today.
Decreeing and Declaring is not biblical
When we look at the beginnings of Positive confession, the Law of Attraction and Declare/Decree, we can easily see there are problems with it. Decreeing and Declaring is closely aligned with Positive Confession, and both draw on the Law of Attraction.
The main problem with this idea is that, since we are made in the image of God, we, like God, can speak things into existence. If we operate in faith, according to the principle, then we also can do it. Kenneth Hagin, one of the giants of the Word of Faith movement, said this:
“You can have whatever you say. . . . You always get in your life what you believe for and what you say” (“You Can Have What you Say,” hopefaithprayer.com, Lesson 25). So in this theology, asking God for things, in prayer, is often replaced with decreeing, or demanding things of God.
This is a serious error, because when we operate in our will “I declare this will happen” rather than His will (I pray that this will happen), we are putting our own desires above that of God’s. We are in control, in charge, and not submitting to His will.
The biblical way is to pray in God’s Will (Matthew 26:42), because He knows what we need before we ask Him (Matthew 6:8). When we are in authentic and abiding relationship with Him (John 15:7), we can ask and get what we desire. But here’s the catch: if we are in abiding relationship, meaning that we are deeply understanding what God values and those values are pouring into our life, then we aren’t going to be asking for things that are outside of His Will.
Submission and Suffering
The bible is clear that we are to submit to God (James 4:7, 1 Peter 5:6, Luke 22:42, Proverbs 3:5-6) and that we, as Christians, will suffer (1 Peter 5:10, Romans 8:18, Romans 5:3-5, James 1:2-4, Psalm 34:19). We have to ask ourselves a question: if we can declare and decree away sickness, suffering and all the things we don’t want, where does that leave the endurance we must have during trials? Check out James 1:2-4:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, when you go through trials of many kinds, for the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing.
What James is telling us that the very trials we go through in this world, including sickness, is meant for us to endure through, not to declare away. These very things are in our life to develop our faith. If we can wave a hand and decree them away, we are abandoning the very work of building our faith. Peter says this in 1 Peter 4:12:
12 Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you, as though something strange were happening to you. 13 But rejoice inasmuch as you participate in the sufferings of Christ, so that you may be overjoyed when his glory is revealed. 14 If you are insulted because of the name of Christ, you are blessed, for the Spirit of glory and of God rests on you. 15 If you suffer, it should not be as a murderer or thief or any other kind of criminal, or even as a meddler. 16 However, if you suffer as a Christian, do not be ashamed, but praise God that you bear that name. 17 For it is time for judgment to begin with God’s household; and if it begins with us, what will the outcome be for those who do not obey the gospel of God? 18 And, “If it is hard for the righteous to be saved, what will become of the ungodly and the sinner?” 19 So then, those who suffer according to God’s will should commit themselves to their faithful Creator and continue to do good.
Peter tells us in plain words that we will go through “fiery ordeals”. They have come what - to test us - and these tests, like James stated are designed to build us into strong and mature Christians. Suffering is important. It connects us with Christ, not only because He is our respite in suffering, but also because He suffered and we gain a taste of that suffering. If you look at verse 19, you’ll see that there is suffering in accordance with God’s Will. It isn’t about having authority over it, but submitting to it. We are to continue to do good in our suffering.
Law of Attraction
The Law of Attraction is an old concept. It is built on selfishness. The law is formulated like this: If we desire something we can speak it over and over, and because of our powerful words, the universe will twist to our will.
This is not biblical and not Christian at all. As a matter of fact, it is very closely aligned with modern day Wicca, which in many ways is built upon the concept of Law of Attraction. Christianity is built upon first submission to God’s Will, then service to others. We show our love for God through our obedience, not through authoritative powers.
Prayer
I’m not going to write much about prayer because the bible is explicit about what prayer is and how we are to communicate with God. He is our supplier and our source, not ourselves. We pray in supplication (Philippians 4:6-7), we pray in our weakness (Romans 8:26), pray for one another (James 5:16), pray in solitude (Matthew 6:6), pray in thankfulness (Colossians 4:2), pray constantly (1 Thessalonians 5:17), we stay in relationship with God (John 15:7) - There are many more. Prayer is always the key to relationship and connection with others. We pray for those who are sick or in trouble. We help practically where we can (James 1:26-28).
Our Authority
Our authority is found in Matthew 28:16-19. We are to preach the gospel. We are to show the world who God is and teach others the truth. That’s it. We don’t possess magical or mystical powers that allow us mighty works. When we submit to God, love Him and love others, and teach others who God is, and understanding that the authority we fall under is found in Christ, then we’ve really got something. We can exercise the gifts given us in the way they need to be used, as God designed them for us (Ephesians 2:10).