IN THE WORDS OF JESUS–Part 191

Love is the Fulfilling of the Law

The Miracles of Jesus (continued; part iii)

Our gospel texts that relate the miracles and works of the Master to our own innate abilities that are likely untapped as yet and are our reminder of what the Apostle John, speaking of Jesus, tells us saying: “as he is, so are we in this world” (1 John 4:17). John’s saying along with the second point in the following list combine to be our promise of success in our spiritual walk on the Path to the Kingdom; we have only to be accounted worthy. The Master tells us that:

1. “For verily I say unto you, That whosoever shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; and shall not doubt in his heart, but shall believe that those things which he saith shall come to pass; he shall have whatsoever he saith” (Mark 11:23).
2. “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12).
3. “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27).
4. “…for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove ; and nothing shall be impossible unto you” (Matthew 17:20).

In this combination of sayings we should see the reality of the message that the Master is conveying to us as aspiring disciples. In the second point and in the saying of John above however we find the additional understanding that the ability to believe and  have Faith, doubting nothing is an inherent thing for we are “as he is” and we need only to follow Him and keep His words to develop these. As Vincent tells us, we need to see the idea of believing on Him as to accept and adopt His precepts and example as binding upon the life⁴.

We begin our look at the miracles of the Master with what can be considered His greater miracles; more than healing the sick and disabled and those that were afflicted with ‘demons’ that are highlighted for us in the gospels, more than raising the dead, greater than walking on the water and even His own resurrection, all of which exhibit His unique power to control His own nature and to cure individuals who were desirous and ready to be healed. Over His own nature His power is clear and regarding the sick, disabled and afflicted, we can see that at times the Master is working with each persons own Soul in effecting their relief; we know that He frequently told those who He healed things such as this:

• To the two blind men that He healed He said: “According to your faith be it unto you” (Matthew 9:29) saying in a way that they had a part to play.
• To the man “sick of the palsy, lying on a bed” and those that brought him in, “Jesus seeing their faith”  “Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee” (Matthew 9:2) showing us the role of forgiveness and its ability to release us even from self persecution.
• To the woman that touched His garment to get healed of her infirmity the Master says: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague” (Mark 5:34) which tells us by example of the power that the Master placed on Faith.
• To the centurion who came to the Master for healing of his servant the Master says “Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour” (Matthew 8:13) showing us the awesome power of Faith, even by proxy, through the sick man’s master.
• And again, to the woman who came to Jesus for healing for her afflicted daughter and who, not being a Jew was set aside until her profound statement: “Lord: yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table” telling the Master that He did not need give her much, just a bit. To this the Master replies: “O woman, great is thy faith: be it unto thee even as thou wilt. And her daughter was made whole from that very hour” (Matthew 15:27-28). A testimony again to the Faith, not of the person seeking healing, but of someone who cared for that person and had the Faith to act.

There are other examples but these should suffice to show us the role of the person being healed in the act of healing. But this is not always the case; there are many who did not go to the Master to be healed but were picked out by Him either from His sense of compassion or because they served a purpose in His teaching. Among these are those afflicted with ‘demons’ who are not in their right mind and therefore cannot ask and those who may not have the faith to ask or else did not believe that they were pure enough.

• For the woman that was stooped over we read that “when Jesus saw her, he called her to him, and said unto her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity. And he laid his hands on her: and immediately she was made straight, and glorified God” (Luke 13:12-13). We see here a healing from a different perspective and likely one that was done because Jesus was in a synagogue and it was the sabbath so as to be a lesson to the scribes, Pharisees and rulers of that place.
• The healing of the man with the withered hand is similar. The Master is again in a synagogue and this man is there but is not asking for healing; Jesus apparently knows that they are watching to see if He would heal on the sabbath (in Matthew’s gospel they actually ask Him if he will). In this instance the Master “…said unto the man, Stretch forth thy hand. And he did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other“. Scripture tells us that the scribes and the Pharisees “were filled with madness; and communed one with another what they might do to Jesus” (Luke 6:10-11). Are not the Master’s motives clear in this act of healing?
• A man with dropsy is at a Pharisee’s house when the Master comes to dine on the sabbath and we are told that Jesus says to those gathered “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day? And they held their peace. And he took him, and healed him, and let him go” (Luke 14:3) showing us again of the lesson to be given by way of this act by the Master.
• In another time there is brought to the Master “...a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils” (Matthew 9:32-34). Here again we have unsolicited healing but this time there is no sabbath nor synagogue, just the apparent compassion of the Master.

Again, we could go on but the idea should be clear that these above did not look to the Master for healing but He chose them. They are not commended for their Faith, not forgiven of their sins but they are healed nonetheless. We can only surmise that the lessons provided by each of the groups that we have outlined above are lessons that the Master wanted both us and those in His time to receive. Based on this second group we should see that, had He chosen to do so, He could have healed the first group outright as well, but He did not. He used their Faith and believing in such a way as they became a party to the healing. What do we see here? That there are two distinct methods of healing; one by the power of the healer and the other by the power of the healed in combination with the action of the healer. In both instances however we need to see that these are instant healings and in this is the miracle of them.

We need also to see that these types of healing can be performed by others. The Master sent forth His disciples with these instructions according to the Gospel of Matthew: “preach, saying, The kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:7-8). We see, from Mark’s Gospel, this upon their return: “And they went out, and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many devils, and anointed with oil many that were sick, and healed them” (Mark 6:12-13). From Luke we have only his telling us that “And they departed, and went through the towns, preaching the gospel , and healing every where” (Luke 9:6). It is interesting that there is no instruction on how to heal and how to ‘cast out demons’ except in the statement by each writer that Jesus:

• “…he gave them power against unclean spirits, to cast them out , and to heal all manner of sickness and all manner of disease” (Matthew 10:1).
• “...and began to send them forth by two and two; and gave them power over unclean spirits” (Mark 6:7)
• “…and gave them power and authority over all devils, and to cure diseases. And he sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick” (Luke 9:1-2).

So we find here no instruction other than the idea that the Master did give them something by way of power or of authority which are from the same Greek word, exousia, which is undefined in the text and which comes complete with a number of meanings which can range from the idea that Jesus TOLD them to do it to the idea that He gave them some special something to enable them to do it. We saw in our posts over the last few days that we used the Master’s saying from John’s Gospel in this reference; the Master said: “Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do ; because I go unto my Father” (John 14:12) and for us we should see this as that special something. The idea that we need to take from this is that Jesus TOLD them to do this thing, to heal and to cure, and that is the authority and we should see also that they were able to do this thing, to heal and to cure, because the were doing as He said by believing on the Master, following Him and keeping His words. We said yesterday on this saying by the Master that:  It is for us a statement of fact that if we believe on Him, as it was defined for us by Vincent and to which we have given the notion of following Him and doing His word, we will be able to do the things that He did here on this Earth. Here, as we said, there is no limitation to just His miraculous acts but to all His works; His Love, His Wisdom, His ability to teach and to live as a Son of the Father plus all the His abilities to work ‘wonders’ in the Earth. While some of the churches would like to believe that there is some supernatural or magical power with with one is blessed as in the gifts of the Spirit, we should realize that this thing, to heal and to cure, is a innate right to which we gain access by believing on the Master as we have defined it above.

There is a part of the sending out of the disciples or apostles here and the sending out later of the seventy (or as some versions state, the seventy two) that should serve for us to be an observation from which we can glean much understanding. The Master did give them specific instructions on how they should act; how they should keep His words.

• “Take nothing for your journey, neither staves, nor scrip, neither bread, neither money; neither have two coats apiece. And whatsoever house ye enter into, there abide, and thence depart” (Luke 9:3-4).
• “And commanded them that they should take nothing for their journey, save a staff only; no scrip, no bread, no money in their purse: But be shod with sandals; and not put on two coats. And he said unto them, In what place soever ye enter into an house, there abide till ye depart from that place” (Mark 6:8-10).
• “Provide neither gold, nor silver, nor brass in your purses, Nor scrip for your journey, neither two coats, neither shoes, nor yet staves: for the workman is worthy of his meat. And into whatsoever city or town ye shall enter, enquire who in it is worthy; and there abide till ye go thence. And when ye come into an house, salute it. And if the house be worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it be not worthy, let your peace return to you” (Matthew 10:9-13).

Aside from the minor differences in the lists of items which are of no moment what should we get here as our observation? Some commentaries suggest this is a lesson on poverty and reliance on divine providence¹⁰ but this idea is of a doctrinal nature. We should see in this the disciples observance of the Master’s teachings on being humble and being meek and as instructions to not seek out the highest room but to be content with what you have. To go out among the people as servants and nothing more and to “to preach the kingdom of God”.

We will continue with these thoughts in our next post.

Note on the Quote of the Day