The Bible Says He Did

I finished the book “And He Healed Them All”, mentioned in an earlier blog. Those exact words are used in Matthew 12:15, but the concept is the same in Matthew 4:24, Luke 4:40, and Luke 6:17. It’s different from the healing scenes where the person is described, the healing is given and there is a result – such as the healing of the ten leprous men in Luke 17:11-19, with an odd result:

And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? (Luke 17:17 KJV)

Think of the multitudes. A couple of numbers are given in the gospels – 3,000 and 5,000. How many in that group were healed? I believe in groups of those sizes, the portion of ill would be greater than the average because the news of His healings would have travelled at the speed of sound – the sound of rejoicing by those healed, and their families.

Can you really understand what it would take to heal even ten percent – 300 to 500 – of the numbered multitude? Think of the woman who believed she would be healed simply by touching His garment, so she reached out:

And straightway the fountain of her blood was dried up; and she felt in her body that she was healed of that plague. And Jesus, immediately knowing in himself that virtue had gone out of him, turned him about in the press, and said, Who touched my clothes? (Mark 5:29-30 KJV)

He knew.Strong’s gives the Greek δύναμι translated as “virtue”:

From G1410; force (literally or figuratively); specifically miraculous power (usually by implication a miracle itself): - ability, abundance, meaning, might (-ily, -y, -y deed), (worker of) miracle (-s), power, strength, violence, mighty (wonderful) work.

You might be familiar with an English word from that root – dynamic:

always active or changing: having or showing a lot of energy: of or relating to energy, motion, or physical force

With that in mind, I’ve settled on two thoughts. First, Jesus was as human as we are. The virtue in Him was God. The physical touch to the hem of His garment drew on that virtue, that miraculous power of the living God. That touch also impacted the physical Jesus by the change to the woman. I would expect that loss of miraculous power to be small – and wonder what it would be like multiplied by three or five or even greater hundreds of times. I imagine it would be tiring – but, He healed them all.

Second, I wonder how much we limited our Lord’s ability to work through us. There is no physical garment to touch, but we do pray for His miracles. We pray for healing for loved ones whose pain and suffering (whether physical or spiritual) is evident. Yet our prayers need to include, “Thy will be done.” That takes faith, doesn’t it?

He healed all in the multitudes, but not all in the world. We may not understand why, but we can build our faith and believe:

Likewise the Spirit also helpeth our infirmities: for we know not what we should pray for as we ought: but the Spirit itself maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. And he that searcheth the hearts knoweth what is the mind of the Spirit, because he maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God. And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:26-28 KJV)