Dennis Tuuri

We continue this morning with our series of discussions going through the scriptures looking at church government. And I wanted us to take one week now to talk about the concept of laying on of hands. Now this is an area in which there has been much controversy over the last 2,000 years. That’s because it’s an area that’s very closely related to the form of the polity of the government of the churches—that of the various churches that form the various branches that, as it were, of Protestant Christianity.

And there are good men, it must be said, within all of these different forms: congregational, episcopal, and Presbyterian. There are good men in each of these groups that understand ordination from markedly different perspectives. And of course, laying on of hands is integrally involved this morning in the text before us and is in other places as well with the ordination of officers of the church.

Now, it would be presumptuous for me to get up here before you this morning to try to tell you that all this could be resolved very simply and point to a few scripture texts and glibly go on our way condemning those men who have spent years studying this perspective out, trying to understand it from a scriptural perspective and then coming up with a different conclusion than what we may have. I won’t attempt to do that further.

I will leave most of the discussion of polity for later passages of scripture. We won’t want to try to build our concept of church polity upon a single fact such as laying on of hands. What I do want to do this morning though is to give a larger context to the rite of laying on of hands. Talk about the import of the rite itself. What it teaches and regardless of what particular polity may be espoused by a person, what we’re going to talk about in terms of what the laying on of hands teaches should be found within whatever discussion we have about ordination or laying on of hands.

And if laying on of hands is used in a way contrary to, I think, the general context which we’ll discuss this morning, we can certainly say it is unbiblical. So we’re going to look at the general concept now of laying on of hands and try to get at some of the meaning that is in that this morning.

Now, one of the things that must be pointed out, of course, is that as we do this, we will use the basic presuppositions that form the part of the doctrinal statement of this church where we presuppose that there is a great deal of continuity between the old covenant and the new covenant. That there is some discontinuity obviously in the prosperity, the gospel preaching and other things we’ve mentioned. But still, we obviously have approached the subject of church government rather building upon the base of the Old Testament. And I think the passage we have here before us and specifically the rite of laying on of hands reinforces this in our minds.

I bring that out because some of the groups that would reject the laying on of hands or any ordination do so primarily on the basis of New Testament texts or the lack of New Testament texts. We’re not bound in that fashion. We believe that God has given us a form of government that the church has been a reality throughout the scriptures and so we have much material to draw on in the old covenant as well, looking of course for any changes that may occur in the new covenant administration of the church.

It is interesting that the passage we have here in front of us in Acts 6, there is no—this first incident of the laying on of hands I believe in terms of the formation of the early church, the organization of it and ordination of officers—and yet there’s no explanation given for why the rite was chosen or what it was to entail or anything else. There’s some things we can get by implication but there’s no detailed discussion of it which is interesting and I think reconfirms our idea that we must look at the church in the old covenant for some degree of understanding of this rite that has been carried on in the new covenant church.

Now first thing I want to notice about the laying on of hands is that it is the hands that are involved and that may seem real obvious. But it’s important and it’s important for what the rest of what I’ll have to say this morning. And I think it’s important for understanding the doctrine of the laying on of hands to recognize that the hand is an important thing to men. It’s an important thing to God.

Even in pagan drama for instance we have the importance of the hand in various aspects. As I was preparing for this talk I thought of one of the last Star Wars movies and how the evil head of the evil empire, the dark empire, finally tried to come for Luke with the power coming out of his hands. I don’t know if maybe you’ve seen that movie here or not, but you know, he does this kind of a thing here. Power comes out and Luke gets hit by the power and—demonstration: the hand is an important thing to us.

There are many of course instances of this in pagan dramas, but it is an important thing to recognize that it strikes true in a common chord with us. Many of the things we see, for instance, in many science fiction movies play on themes that are biblical in nature and yet twisted for the use of the particular vehicle. And I could spend a whole week talking about that, I suppose. But Satan never invents anything. He takes the truth and twists it. And so there is a truth to the power coming out of one’s hands as well.

In art, Rodin, the famous sculptor—I remember several years ago, 10, 15 years ago, when I was minimally involved, I guess, and appreciating art, but I really appreciated the sculptures of Rodin and his portrayal of hands. You won’t see many great sculptors of other parts of the body necessarily, but the hand is an important thing for us to dwell upon. It seems as we look into the art structures that are used in anthropology, of course, it’s the hand that’s one of the distinctive factors that makes man not an ape. The ability to do this with our thumbs and our hands is something that apes cannot do and sets us apart as it were from the rest of the created order.

In theology, of course, we also see the importance of the hand, specifically God’s hand. There’s an important part of what the scriptures have to teach us. And while this may seem obvious, again I want to sort of set the stage for what I’m going to be saying in a couple of minutes by going over some of these references to God’s hands.

In Genesis 49:24 and 25, we read that the blessing that Jacob places upon Joseph is made effectual, quote, by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob, by the name of Shepherd, the rock of Israel, by the God of your father who will help you, by God Almighty, who will bless you, by the hands of the mighty one of Jacob. Though Jacob had placed the blessing upon Joseph’s sons with his hands, yet it’s God’s hands that are acknowledged as producing that blessing.

God’s right hand is talked about as God’s power in Exodus 15:6. In Exodus 7:4, we’re told that God accomplished the redemption of his people by the laying of his hand upon Egypt: and bringing forth my host, my people, the sons of Israel. In Exodus 13:9, where we have the institution of the Feast of Passover, Moses reminds us that with a strong hand, the Lord has brought us out of Egypt. In Deuteronomy 6:21, part of the central thing we’re supposed to teach our children is that we were Pharaoh’s slaves in Egypt, and the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.

Of course, prefiguring the redemption wrought in Jesus Christ, again, by the hand of God. And then, not only in salvation, but then in the conquering of the promised land as well—we are told in many passages, Deuteronomy 7:8 specifically, that redemption was: the Lord has brought us out with a mighty hand and redeemed us and then brought us into the land. And it was the hand of the Lord then that went forth conquering before the nations. And the scriptures tell us that the other nations were put under the hand of Israel then because the hand of God was upon Israel and the hand of God was against those people in Canaan that he would drive out.

In the New Testament, of course, this is true as well. John the Baptist in Luke 1:66 is mentioned as having the hand of the Lord being with him, the power of God, the will of God upon him. In John 3:35, we’re told that God has given—the God the Father has given all things into the hand of Jesus. In Acts 4:28, we read, “The very crucifixion itself, the great act that accomplished our redemption was brought about by the hand and the foreordained will of God the Father”—in a similar fashion, which we’ll be talking more about in a couple of minutes, to the conquering of the land of Canaan.

Then the gospel’s progress in Acts 11:21 is characterized as being accomplished by the hand of the Lord that was with the men of Cyprus and Cyrene who brought the gospel to Antioch. The hand of God was with them as they went forth preaching or proclaiming the gospel of King Jesus and calling men to submit to it.

Several weeks ago, we talked about the king and how in 1 Samuel 5:6 and 7 we have the account of Israel asking for a king that he would fight their fights for them. We mentioned at the time that God had already demonstrated his power over his enemies. We didn’t talk specifics then but remember what had happened just prior to that was that the ark of the Lord had been taken into captivity and that God then was, as it were, going into captivity for his people.

Remember they put—let’s see, let’s just turn to 1 Samuel 5 and I’ll read a little bit of this. This gives us a real good picture of what I’m trying to talk about here in terms of the hand of God and the importance of it.

The Philistines took the ark of God and they brought it from Ebenezer unto Ashdod. They brought it to the house of Dagon and set it up by Dagon, their god. So they put the ark of God, as it were, in subjection to or under the control of the god Dagon. But what happens then in verse three—and most of you probably know this story—but go on in the morning, they look at the—they go into their temple of the god Dagon and there the god Dagon is bowing down to the ark. There’s been a reversal here of supremacy.

So they pick up Dagon again and they set him in his place again and again. That’s real funny because here they are picking up their god and setting him up so that he might be worshiped again. You know, there’s many things we can say about this, but here’s the next thing that happened the next morning. Behold, Dagon was fallen upon his face to the ground before the ark of the Lord and the head of Dagon and both the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold. Only the stump of Dagon was left of him, which is kind of a humorous idea.

And I think James B. Jordan in teaching through 1 Samuel says it seems in the language here that Dagon was trying to escape out of this room, get away from the ark of the covenant, from the power of God and God had slain him as it were on the very threshold as he was trying to flee. But the important thing is that the head of Dagon’s cut off. That’s a very typical wound—a head wound in scripture, of course, people’s heads being cut off. But the important thing here is it says that the palms of his hands were cut off.

Then later in verse six, after it talks about the palms of Dagon’s hands being cut off, it says that the hand of the Lord was heavy upon them of Ashdod. And so we have a holy contrast here, as it were, of the god Dagon, the impotent god of the pagans, having powerless hands being cut off by God. And yet the God of the scriptures, the God that we worship and serve, having a mighty hand upon the people of Ashdod and upon the Philistines.

And of course, God then delivers his ark supernaturally, all on his own, out of the hand of the Philistines, representing the deliverance of the people of Israel. And it’s after that, after God demonstrates his hands being powerful and the cutting off of Dagon’s hands—remember it’s right after that incident, fairly close after that incident—that the people of Israel completely apostasized here and said, “We want a god. We want a king who will go forth fighting for us.”

Well, they just had a king who had been taken into captivity, had successfully beaten the Philistines and cut off the hands of their god with his mighty hand, and yet they rejected him. That’s a good picture to keep in mind of the power of the hand of God, as it were, and the importance of the hands of God in scriptural terminology.

Now, since God’s hands are strong, we know also then that man’s hands, if they’re doing the work of God’s hands, are also in scripture said to be a powerful implement. As I said earlier, in Deuteronomy 7 and Joshua 2, the nations in the promised land are going to be driven up by the Israelites—were said to have been delivered into the hands of the Israelites. Not one of all their enemies had withstood them. For the Lord had given all their enemies into their hands. Joshua 21:44.

We see that man’s hand is empowered by God’s hand. The very first scripture we read, in Genesis 49:23, 24, and 25, which we read it, talked about the blessings that Jacob had put upon Joseph being affected by the power of God’s hand. That verse is preceded by the fact that Joseph—that is, it says here that his bow would involve strength and the arms of his hands were made strong by the hands of the mighty God of Jacob.

The point of that reference to God’s strengthening hand is that Jacob’s hands then are strengthened as well when they place the blessing upon Joseph and that Joseph, if he abides in the faith of the God of strong hand, as it were, he also will have strong hands to do God’s work. Our hands then analogically are strong when they do God’s work, when they become extensions, as it were, in terms of work and service of God’s hand itself in the world around us. God’s hand strengthens our hand and God’s hand is the powerful hand—again a good image to keep in mind of cutting off Dagon’s hands.

And so as a result we have power, as it were, as we do God’s will. Now that’s all by way of context to the laying on of hands. The imposition of hands takes a central element of the anatomy of man that God has given us to be depicted the will and power of God and then the will and power of God being executed by the people that do his service.

Now in terms specifically of the laying on of hands itself, that term there are at least five and probably many more different applications we could put the laying on of hands into in scripture.

First of all, there’s the laying on of hands in blessing. And we’ve already made reference to Genesis 48 when Jacob blesses Joseph by the imposition of his hands. In the New Testament, we have the reference in Mark 10 when the little children are brought to Jesus and Jesus rather than turning them away from himself puts his hands upon them and blesses them. Mark 10:16: he took them up in his arms and began blessing them, laying his hands upon them.

So the imposition of hands, the laying on of hands, in one general category is that which produces blessing.

Another area in which hands are laid upon is in the area of sacrificial use. In Leviticus, the first chapter, the very first offering we are told about—we are told that the individual member of the congregation of the covenant people speak to the sons of Israel, to every one of them individually. When any of you brings an offering to the Lord, you shall bring your offering of animals from the herd of the flock. And one of the things you had to do is, of course, was to lay your hand on the head of the burnt offering that it might be accepted for him to make atonement on his behalf.

In Leviticus 16:21, when we have the instructions for the great day of Atonement, the high priest, Aaron, was to place both his hands upon the head of the goat who would be sent off into the wilderness, taking the people’s sin, as it were, into the land that was cut off. And then the other goat was slain. Of course, both these uses are uses of the laying on of hands, one on the part of the offerer, the other on the part of the high priest—symbolically or representationally for all the nation now putting their hands upon the head of that animal, the guilt that would take away the sins of the people.

So the laying on of hands has sacrificial use as well.

Thirdly, the laying on of hands is talked about in terms of ordination. In Numbers 8, Numbers 8 is an important portion of scripture. We’ll be coming back to in more detail in a few minutes. But Numbers 8 represents the consecration of the tribe of Levi. Remember Levi was the priestly tribe among the priestly people. And out of the tribe of Levi would come even more highly defined priests, as it were, who worship—who ministered rather specifically at the temple and then interior to the temple as well.

Well, and in Numbers 8 we see the consecration of the Levites for the service of the work of the Lord. And the Levites in this passage of scripture, Numbers 8—they are presented before the Lord. And the sons of Israel shall lay their hands on the Levites. The Levites are presented to the people. They’re presented before the Lord. And then all the congregation is gathered together to place their hands upon the heads of the Levites, ordaining them, as it were, putting them into service for the ministry of God specifically in terms of the priestly tribe out of the priestly nation.

So ordination is talked about in Numbers 8 and in Numbers 27, we have the ordination of Joshua, the successor to Moses. And once again, Moses is instructed by God to take Joshua, who is a recipient of the spirit of God and wisdom. And he’s instructed to then take him, a man in whom is the spirit—it says in verse 18 of Numbers 27—and lay your hand on him, and let him stand before Eleazar the priest, and before all the congregation, and commission him in their sight.

Again, the whole congregation was brought together and Moses, representing all the people of Israel, as it were, and God as well of course, lays hands upon Joshua to be his successor in terms of office ordination.

And of course the passage of scripture we began this morning with, Acts 6, which we’re concerned with, indicates an ordination of a group of seven for a specific service and we believe because of some things we said last week that also talks about the ordination of the office of deacons.

So ordination is the third use—the laying on of hands in scripture.

A fourth use is healing. And while there are no direct Old Testament references to this, there are many New Testament references, of course. One of them being Mark 8:23 where a blind man is brought to Jesus. And Mark 8:23 says that taking the blind man by the hand, he brought him out of the village and after spitting on his eyes and laying his hands upon him, he asked him, Do you see anything? And then the man said he saw something and then his sight gets even better.

So healing also is another use of the imposition of hands by various people in the scripture.

And then finally the imposition of hands is also talked about in terms of punishing. Now these are not as direct references but still if you do a search on all the words in the scriptures that talk about the laying on of hands and the laying of hands, you’ll find a whole multitude of verses that talk about punishing people. In Esther 8, chapter verse 7 for instance king Ahasuerus and Queen Esther and to Mordecai—the Jews, he says behold I have given the house of Haman to Esther and him they have hanged on the gallows. Why was he hanged? Because he had stretched out his hands against the Jews.

And anytime some people are coming upon other people to do to punish them or to bring harm to them, there’s talk about them laying their hands upon them, grabbing them as it were and punishing them. Deuteronomy 17:7 talking about the rules of evidence for capital punishment being two or three witnesses—then in verse 7 it says the hand of the witnesses shall be first against him to put him to death and afterward the hand of all the people again. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

The imposition of hands then, the laying on of hands, is used both for blessing. It’s used for sacrificial use. It’s used for ordination. It’s used for healing in the New Testament. And it’s also used to talk about punishing people—again, by way of generally looking at the rite of laying on of hands.

Now, specifically in Acts 6, which is our primary concern this morning, we want to see what it has to say to us today about the imposition of hands in a more specific sense. And so we’re going to look at Acts 6 in relationship to Numbers 8 that I mentioned earlier. And we’re going to see a couple three things here.

First of all, we’re going to see that the laying on of hands is a community fact. It is representational and has the idea of identification involved with it.

The second thing we’ll see is that the laying on of hands is a covenant fact and involves blessings and cursings.

And the third thing we’ll see is that the laying on of hands is a theological fact reflecting a truth about God himself.

First of all, the laying on of hands is a community fact. Now, there are many reasons to see Acts 6 paralleling, as it were, several ordinations that occur in the wilderness including Numbers 8, the ordination of the Levites. There is a great deal that could be said about the parallel development of the church in the book of Acts and the development of the church in the old covenant as they were brought out of Egypt through redemption and about to enter into the promised land and inherit the blessings of God.

There are many parallel ideas contained therein. We’ll touch just briefly on a few of them. As I said earlier, as God—one parallel is that God had given the nations around in the land of Canaan rather into the hands of the Israelites. So God now in the book of Acts is giving the pagan, as it were, into the hands of the church. The church is going forth conquering again on the basis of the mighty hand of God and upon his redemptive work.

Now God had promised Israel in Genesis 46:3 that he would make of Israel a great nation. And in Acts 7:17, Luke in writing about this fact talks about the time of the promise drawing near, as it were. The promise drew near when Moses led the people of God out of Egypt. They went in, as we said before, 70 individuals. They came out 70,000 groups—70 clans and tribes. He had multiplied them exceedingly in Egypt and so brought them into a position of blessing into the land of Canaan.

Well, the same thing is true now of what we see going on in the book of Acts. We have the 12—what we talked about last week—the twelve apostles and immediately upon the twelve apostles preaching in the book of Acts and the power from God being sent upon them by the ascension of Jesus Christ and sitting at the right hand of the Father and then sending the gift of the Holy Spirit, immediately thereupon we see the multiplication of the church the same way we saw the multiplication of people in Egypt who are being prepared for deliverance.

So now we see on the basis of the deliverance wrought in Jesus Christ the multiplication of the church.

Another parallel development—and it is that multiplication—of course in both instances, both in the wilderness and in the church of the new covenant and the church of the book of Acts, it is the multiplication and blessings of God that produced the need for a specialization of function in the institutional church.

There are other parallels as well. The phrase “going in, going out” may be completely overlooked when we study through some of these passages, but look at the parallels involved. Joshua was a man who would go out before them and come in before them from Numbers 27:17. Moses is said at the end of his life that he is no longer able to go out and come in. In Deuteronomy 31:2, Jesus in Acts 1:21 is said by Peter that he had been—he had went in and out among them during his earthly ministry. And Paul in Acts 9:28 is described as going in and out among them at Jerusalem.

There is a correlary here in terms of Joshua and Moses then and Jesus and Paul going in, going out, traveling around, spreading the news, gathering to himself as it were a people over which he would govern. And so there’s—many we could go into many more details, but it probably wouldn’t be a good use of our time this morning. It would take us off into another area. But suffice it to say that if you study out the terminology used in Acts and look at that terminology in relationship to the terms used in the deliverance of the people out of Egypt and then their going into the land of Israel, you’ll see many parallel developments.

And so it is with Numbers 8, the consecration of the Levites, and Acts 6 with the consecration of the seven. In both instances, we have the whole church being involved in the ordaining process. In Numbers 8 specifically, all the congregation are said to place their hands upon the people. Now, we know that as I said before, there were several million people in Israel. And it is quite doubtful that every single member of the congregation put their hands upon the Levites.

It is more likely that representatives of the people—which the term congregation can frequently mean, as we talked about several weeks ago, in the assembly of the congregation, that term—it’s more likely the representatives of the people actually puts their hands upon them. But nonetheless, the important thing to remember here is the whole church was involved in the ordaining of these men. So it is in Acts 6, the whole church selects out from among themselves in the book of Acts in the sixth chapter, seven men to minister among them.

And those seven men then are ordained.

Now, there’s no specific—there’s not a specific Greek term used in Acts 6 when it says that they laid their hands upon them. It’s not immediately apparent that “they” refers to the apostles. I believe it does but the important thing to remember there is the apostles are acting on the basis of the whole congregation. It is after all the congregation’s through the selection of these men meeting the qualifications given to them by the apostles. It is the congregation then who are selecting these men and ordaining them, as it were, into office through the hands of the 12, the apostles.

So we have a whole church ordination going on in both occurrences. We have a separation for a specific task also in Numbers 8 paralleling in Acts 6. Numbers 8 of course the ministry of the temple of God, the tabernacle in the wilderness and then teaching the people as they go into the promised land. And so also the deacons are called upon to fulfill a specific task and are separated and ordained for that reason.

And in both instances there is no mention of a transference of power or a fuller gift of the Holy Spirit coming upon the men. The Levites are simply said to have been ordained by the people, commissioned by them, hands laid upon them, and then they do the work that God has set them to do. So it is with the deacons. They are set apart by the people. They are elected. They’re appointed, as it were, by the people. They then have hands set upon them, and there’s no indication that anything miraculous happened here. They simply go about doing the work that they’ve been ordained, commissioned by the people to do.

This tells us a very important fact about the laying on of hands. This says that it is a community fact. All the congregation was involved in placing their hands upon these men. Remember that the Levites in Numbers 8 were not the only ministers of God, were they? They weren’t the only priests. Remember we talked before about the idea of concentric circles in the land in the nation of Israel. And we know that God had told them that they would be a holy people, a royal priesthood, as it were in their totality, not just the Levites.

It is wrong to think of the Levites as being the only priest in one sense. Now certainly they had a specialized task of priestly service in relationship to the tabernacle and then later in teaching the law and offering sacrifices. But it is certainly no denial of the fact that all the nation of Israel as we said before were priests before God.

The Levites represented the people. Remember the Levites were selected to replace the firstborn of the people—the firstborn whom God had killed of the Egyptians and of their cattle. He had defeated the nation of Egypt because he had killed the firstborn. So he had redeemed the people to himself. And now representing that redemptive community, representing the covenant community that he had called forth to himself, he sets apart the Levites to represent the firstborn. And the firstborn then means the all of the people that were in the nation. The firstborn representative of the entire congregation.

What this means of course is that in Numbers 8, the ordination of people for special service and carried with it the idea of identification and representation. The Levites represented all of the people and there was a requirement of all the people to follow the Levites example as they—as we talked before specifically taught God’s law and offered sacrifices. All the people were to follow God in teaching the law, in offering up prayers, and sacrificing themselves to be God’s holy possession. The Levites signified that. The Levites did not do that to the exclusion of the rest of the tribe of Israel.

Now, the same thing is true, I believe, in Acts 6. Acts 6 teaches us, as we’ve said before, that there were created a special group of people to do an institutional function. But that is not to say that we are all not deacons of a certain sense. We said last week that we are all to be servants. We are all called apart to do the gifts that God has given us for service.

In 1 Peter 4:10, as every man hath received the gift, even so, minister the same one to another as good stewards of the grace of God. We are told that every person is gifted. Every person is to be a deacon before God. Now, it’s true that these men were given an institutional task. That institutional task was one of leadership and by way of representation of all the people.

Both instances teach us that all the people are really the ones who are ordained in a sense to do the work of God.

Now, this has tremendous implications and it has tremendous implications for the subject of church polity which we’ll just touch on briefly but which if you begin to think through means a lot and helps us to understand some of the errors that have occurred in the various forms of church government. What this means is that when we ordain a man to office, when we lay hands on somebody in terms of ordination, it is not to say that person should do it and we’ll watch you do the work. It does not mean that then the covenant community becomes a spectator for the majority of the people. Just the reverse.