Stigmata
What is stigmata?
Are stigmata
biblical?
Stigmata are wounds
miraculously appearing on a person's body which are apparently without natural
cause, and which mimic the wounds or sufferings of Christ at the crucifixion.
Stigmata normally include nail wounds on the hands
and feet, an open wound in the side, cuts on the forehead which resemble the
cuts made by a crown of thorns, stripes on the back that resemble whip-marks
and at times, bleeding from the eyes or sweating blood.
Many reported stigmatics are physically weak or
chronically ill before the appearance of stigmata, and many also display
reluctance to eat or drink.
Since there have been scientific studies linking
anorexia with self-mutilation, there has been speculation as to whether
stigmata is actually due to this.
But the Catholic Church claims to have watched
stigmatics closely to verify that the wounds are not faked or caused because of
mental illness, and though there were many inauthentic instances of stigmata,
they do report seeing supernatural stigmatic events.
The
idea is that when a person's fealty to Christ reaches a certain spiritual
depth, that person will manifest on their body the wounds of Christ, literally "sharing
in His suffering" (Philippians 3:10; 2 Timothy 1:8; 1 Peter 4:13).
The
verse that is most often given as proof of stigmata is Galatians 6:17, which says "…
for I bear on my body the marks of Jesus."
But do these verses prove that stigmata are
biblical? Taken as a whole, the Bible does not support stigmata.
That is not to say that supernatural appearance of
wounds is impossible, nor is it to suggest that the wounds could not be
self-inflicted because of a psychosomatic association with Christ.
Demons could create these wounds to deceive—a
theory that is supported by the fact that some stigmatics have prayed and asked
for the wounds to be taken away, and those prayers were answered - and they
could also be a result of mental illness.
It is not biblical to assume stigmata are caused by
God. Christ is alive now. His suffering on the cross is done. It is finished (John 19:30; Hebrews 10:10,
14).
Our sins are paid and Jesus has sat down at the
right hand of God in glory (Hebrews 10:12; Hebrews 1:3).
There is nothing in the Bible to suggest that we
need to suffer Christ's physical wounds to experience closeness with Him.
Furthermore, the suffering that Paul says we share
is a purposeful suffering - it is the persecution that comes from sharing the
Gospel with a lost and antagonistic world.
In
all three verses that refer to the believers' sharing in Christ's sufferings,
those sufferings are endured to preserve the truth of the Gospel, and to
communicate it to those in need.
When
Paul says, "I bear on my body the marks of Jesus" it is in the
context of circumcision.
Circumcision was a physical sign that a Jew
belonged to God, and so when the Gentiles were being saved, some of the Jews
started thinking the Gentiles should be circumcised.
Paul said that circumcision no longer counted for
anything because we are new creations in Christ (Galatians 6:15).
Then
he says "from now on let no one cause me trouble, for I bear on my body
the marks of Jesus."
It is more likely that he is contrasting the
symbolic circumcision with the very real scars and wounds on his flesh (and on
the flesh of many Gentile believers) that were caused by persecution endured
while spreading the gospel.
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