spirit and healing in africa - University of the Free State

elationship rather than a state 45 , because shalom refers to material and physical well-being
within a social context. Joseph Savage (2001) states in his research on the relation between
shalom and health/healing that healing is an accepted term for denoting the restoration of
shalom.
The inclusion of human life in God’s shalom, or wholeness, means that a person is being
restored in the sense that he or she receives a renewed identity, a revived spirit, and a regenerated
body because the human being partakes in the mystery of the communion of the Father, the Son,
and the Spirit (Van der Kooi 2006:240). It is about the restoration of all dimensions that belong
to God-given life. In this light the connection between healing (becoming whole) and salvation
(as wholeness of God) can be mentioned. Though healing and salvation cannot be connected in a
direct line, in etymological terms ‘whole’, ‘heal’ and ‘holy’ belong to the same semantic group.
The Latin terminology of sanus (healthy) and sanctus (holy) share the same root, so that both
sanctification (as in salvation) and healing have to do with the materialization of wholeness (cf.
Moltmann 1992:175; Veenhof 2005:269). Health, then, can be considered as a physical,
environmental, psychological, social, moral and spiritual concept, that indicates that the shalom
or health that is communicated by the Spirit is to be understood as a wide soteriological concept.
Eisenbeis (1966) stresses that shalom describes a particular aspect of the relationship with God,
which makes shalom to become closely related to salvation. It must be emphasized that this
soteriological meaning of health does not focus on whether and how healing exists, but it draws
the attention to the One to whom health is ascribed (Conradie 2006:19), and this focus on God
can be attributed to the life-giving and relation-fostering work of the Holy Spirit.
7.3 THE HOLY SPIRIT AND HEALTH
In the preceding section it is pointed out that the Holy Spirit can be characterized as the bond of
mutual love between the Father and the Son. The person of the Spirit is identified as the One
who constitutes and seeks relationality. The Spirit of God does not only embrace the
This way, shalom denotes active rejection of all forms of injustice (political, economic, social, psychological,
physical, individual, and communal). A final crucial notion of the biblical concept of shalom is in line with shalom
as relational category, namely that shalom is always manifested externally (cf. Von Rad 1977:402-406). In the Old
Testament shalom is never explicitly related to inward peace, but shalom turns out to be a movement to the exterior,
to the other. It means that God’s shalom needs concrete everyday life; women, man, land, animals, and vegetation
constitute the interwoveness of life, and therefore they can become expressions of God’s shalom.
45. Unlike Von Rad, Westermann (1969:144-177) is of the opinion that shalom, as wholeness and well-being,
should be considered as a state rather than a relationship. Gerleman (1971:919-935) concludes that shalom can best
be understood as both a state and a relationship.
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