From the book Grace and Glory
by A.J. Gordon, first published in 1872.
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The Twofold Ministry Of Christ
by A.J. Gordon
"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases." (Psalm 103:3).
We have in these words a striking instance of what is known as the Hebrew parallelism.
It is one of the most rhythmical and beautifully balanced sentences in the whole book of Psalms. But we see in the words something more than the rhythm and cadence of poetic measure. There is a parallelism of thought and doctrine here. Forth from the Divine fountain flow two streams of blessing -- forgiveness and health; recovery for the soul and restoration for the body. And these are not merely consecutive in God's plan, forgiveness now and healing hereafter, -- they are parallel; they move side by side as a double manifestation of the same Divine power. They are not two facts even, but the twofold expression of one fact -- the life of God communicated to man, and invigorating and repairing by the same energy both his spirit and his flesh, -- "Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases."
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Considering Jesus Christ now as the manifestation of God's life and grace, let us see how this twofold blessing comes to man through Him. Observe, then, --
I. Christ's twofold ministry while on earth
You have to take only the most casual glance at His life to discover how constantly He exercised a double ministration to men. He healed the sick and forgave the sinner. He fed the hungry with bread for their bodies, and He fed the penitent with bread for their souls. He said to one suffering woman, "Thou art loosed from thine infirmity," and He said to another sinning woman, "Thy sins are forgiven thee." From the day He began His earthly ministry till the day He finished it by entering into glory, two things could be said of Him, and the one just as truly as the other: "Himself took on our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses," and, "Who Himself bare our sins in His own body on the tree."
And the reason why He carried on for us this double service is obvious. Man is a double being, and Christ could only be a perfect Saviour by meeting and ministering to him in both elements of his nature. There is a wonderful pith and force in that Saxon word whole, as applied to man -- "Thou art made whole." Sin has halved us; it has so divided this house of our tabernacle against itself that it must fall. The forgiven soul in a sick body is but half a man: the well body enclosing an unforgiven soul is but half a man. And this dreadful schism in our nature Christ came to heal; not by widening the breach, putting the soul into heaven, and the body in the grave, and dooming them to eternal separation In that case all the Saviour could say would be "Thou art made half"; one fragment of thy dual nature has been rescued and made immortal, but the other half has perished. Strictly speaking, man can never be made whole till he has been made holy -- till his sanctified soul has had prepared for it a sanctified body, and the two have been re-married for ever in the land of Beulah.
How blended and interdependent are these two elements of our life! -- so one, that it is almost inaccurate to speak of them even as a duality. The blush on the cheek is but the tide of the soul's emotion breaking upon this outward shore; the smile was on the spirit before it was on the face, and the frown was on the soul before its shadow crept across the outward visage. So truly a unit is man as to his inner and outer being, that none has been able to fix the boundary between the spirit and the body. The coast-line of flesh and blood is so flooded and overflowed by the waves of feeling and emotion which are constantly rolling in from the deeps of the soul, and the deeps of the soul are so perpetually stirred by the sensations and impressions of the body, that none can exactly define the bounds of either. And so Christ's action upon man was of that twofold nature which touched his whole life. There went out from him "saving health" as well as saving grace.
Now, we dwell much on the sinlessness of Christ, and the power which He thereby possessed of redeeming men from their sins; but have we thought also that He was the only being, so far as we know, who had perfect healthfulness? It must have been so. Sickness is the fruit and consequence of Sin, either actual or ancestral. But Christ had neither personal nor hereditary taint. If He knew pain and suffering of body, it was imputed, not original; it was ours, not His. "In Him was life," -- that Divine, unfallen life in which no seed or germ of sickness could be present. Hence those who came in contact with Him received healing as inevitably as they received pardon. "And as many as touched Him were made perfectly whole," says the evangelist.
Man in his fallen state can impart disease, but not health. It is the most pathetic comment on our corrupt condition by nature, that sickness is the only thing we have that is contagious. We can give out an infectious disease from our very breath, or through the slightest touch of the body; but who has been able to communicate health to another ? This is the solitary glory of the Virgin's Son. Here, for once in our poor world, is contagious life. Here is a being in whom an abounding, infectious health is present, so that it only needs the contact of a finger-tip, that it may leap like the electric current to thrill and vitalize the sickly body. This spontaneity, this outgushing fulness of the Divine healing from the person of Jesus Christ, is, to me, a fact of the greatest significance.
Whatever help man imparts to his brother is through medicine and the vital agencies of nature. If he attempts at all to cure by transmitting his own vitality, he does it only by the most strained and laborious effort, -- as though the life currents in him were so low and feeble that they must be forced before they can be made to yield even the smallest assistance to another. But not so with the Son of Man. His healing was an overflow, not an effort. Witness the marvellous miracle of the recovery of the woman with an issue of blood. It is a work so unconscious and so utterly passive that it seems like a miracle spilt over from the fulness of His Divine life, rather than a miracle put forth. She came behind Him in the crowd and touched the hem of His garment, "and immediately He perceived that virtue had gone out of Him," we are told. No effort at healing here; no gathering up of the powers of His Divine manhood for the mighty miracle! Where human skill had exhausted itself only to fail, this heavenly man succeeded without even an effort of the will, -- as though it were an accident of His omnipotence, a spontaneous overflow from Him "in whom dwelt all the fulness of the Godhead bodily."
Have you run through the list of Christ's miracles to notice how often the word "touch" occurs in connection with them? Sometimes it is Christ touching the sufferer, and sometimes it is the sufferer touching Christ. But nothing more energetic or vigorous seems necessary. And that is a striking tribute to the life-giving power of Christ.
Great forces need but small conductors to transmit them. The surcharged battery requires only a fingertip to unlade its mighty energy. An engine needs but a single coupling to transmit all its prodigious force and momentum. And Christ, because He is mighty to save, needs nothing of us but our consenting faith, and, because He is mighty to heal, needs only the touch of our faith that all His "saving health" may become ours. Touch, indeed, is but the gesture of faith. It is the visible confession of confidence in the power of Christ to make whole. Hence it is all one, whether it is said of the ministry of Christ that "as many as believed on Him were made whole," or "as many as touched Him were made whole." In either case saving virtue went forth from Him.
You see, then, how all through His life the double ministry of Jesus was in exercise. Men believed on Him, and were forgiven; men touched Him and were healed. His abounding grace made instant response to the sinner's faith. His abounding life gave instant answer to the sick man's touch. And so blended and interlaced are these two elements in the ministry of our Lord that they are constantly crossing, -- healing emerging in forgiveness, and forgiveness in healing. It is because sin and sickness are so related that grace must take such direction in pursuing them. Like two converging lines of an angle, each of which when followed leads to the other, so with transgression and disease. Follow sickness back to its remotest cause, and you will find sin; follow sin to its last effect, and you will find disease. Blessed be God, then, that in Christ we have the double man, who could confront and master the double problem. He was the sin pardoner, who could cleanse transgression back to its original fountain. He was the life-giver, who could reach disease in the last and remotest retreat and heal it. Hence the constant contact and interfusion of these two offices of the Son of God. Recall that striking instance of His dealing with the sick of the palsy The first word we should expect to hear from His lips as He gazed upon the helpless sufferer would be, "Thou art made whole." That was what the man wanted, and that was what the friends who brought him expected. But, instead of that, "He said to the sick of the palsy, Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee."
And when they which stood by murmured in themselves that He had presumed to pardon sin, He asked, "Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk?" It matters not to the Lord whether He reaches the body through the soul, or reaches the soul through the body. He is the Redeemer of both. Did the sufferer expect healing, and get pardon? Yes; but he received what he asked. The Master simply went behind the curtain of the flesh, and healed the fountain of the soul's impurity. He laid His hand on the spiritual cause, instead of dealing at once with the bodily result. He reached back over all the turbid and troubled streams of disease and physical impurity, and cured the fountain of the heart by His authoritative absolution from sin. And then, as though to humour the ignorance that could not discern the cause, but only the effect, that could not see that pardon is healing in its utmost springs, He adds, "But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thine own house." It is the twofold grace of Christ which we discover running through all His earthly life. He is the second Adam come to repair the ruin of the first. And in order to accomplish this, He will follow the lines of man's transgression back to their origin, and forward to their remotest issue. He will pursue the serpent trail of sin, dispensing His forgiveness and compassion as He goes, till at last He finds the wages of sin, and dies its death on the cross; and He will follow the wretched track of disease with His healing and recovery till in His resurrection He shall exhibit to the world the firstfruits of these redeemed bodies, in which "this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality."
II. Christ's twofold ministry in heaven
We are never to forget that our Lord is simply carrying on in glory what He began on earth. His ministry has not changed as to its character and offices. The only essential difference is that He exercises that ministry now by the Holy Ghost, and through the Church, instead of by His own personal and visible agency. All the characteristics of His ministry remain unaltered. Hence we find that when He had ascended up on high, and committed the preaching of the gospel to apostles and evangelists, the same traits marked their work which distinguished His own. The twofold ministry goes on just as it did while Christ was on the earth. Indeed, it must be so, or the Master's word has not been kept.
Just before His ascension He had breathed the Holy Ghost upon His disciples and said, "Whosesoever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them;" and He had said also, "These signs shall follow them that believe: In My name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they shall drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay their hands on the sick, and they shall recover." No question can there be as to the promise, and none as to the fulfilment. Read Peter's words in the opening pages of the Acts. In one chapter we hear him saying, "Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ, for the remission of sins;" in the next we hear him saying to the lame man, "In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk." It is Christ's ministry still prolonged, -- the same twofold grace, the same double blessing, to the sinner and to the sufferer. And the whole apostolic age is stamped with similar marks. By the same authority with which Paul says to the jailer of Philippi, "Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved," he says to the cripple of Lystra, "perceiving that he had faith to be healed," "Stand upright upon thy feet."
And how is it that this twofold cord of our ministry has been unbraided, leaving us but a single strand? How is it that we still preach the remission of sins, but dare not, on the pain of being deemed enthusiasts and fanatics, hold out the hope that sickness can be remitted by faith in Jesus Christ? O Church of the ascended Christ, carrying still in thy hands thy Master's commission, with no clause annulled and no vestige of authority revoked, what has happened to thee, that the lame must lie at thy doors, and none can take him by the hand and lift him up; that the sick must pine on his couch, and never a cure must be expected through the prayer of faith? Hast thou ceased to walk in the light of the Sun of righteousness, that thou hast no longer any healing shadow to throw upon the sick and dying? And how is it that, instead of mourning and being humbled at the loss of these apostolic gifts, thou art lifted up with self-complacency, speaking reproachfully of such as seek for their revival, and visiting them with cold rebukes? Is it an occasion for pride that "thou hast healing medicines for the sick," and that thou must say to the lame and leprous, "Thy bruise is incurable, and thy wounds are grievous; there is none to plead thy cause that thou mayest be bound up"?
My brethren, we cannot ask these questions too earnestly or repeatedly. There is a cautious reserve of faith which may carry one very near the perilous edge of scepticism; and to let go our confidence in what is highest and hardest to credit in the promises of God may be a token of our wilful choice of what is lowest and most superficial in Christian consecration. I am weary, for one, of the excuses which Christians have framed for their impotence; telling the world that the age of miracles has passed, and that the gifts of healing have been withdrawn. The age of miracles has passed indeed, and perhaps the only reason is, that the age of faith has passed. Christ has given no intimation on the pages of Scripture that the age of miracles is passed with Him. He has not grown old, that the fountains of His saving health must run dry. He who healed the withered hand has not lost the use of His own right hand through infirmity of age. "His arm is not shortened that it cannot save, neither is His ear heavy that He cannot hear."
This page Copyright © 1999 Peter Wade. The Bible text in this publication, except where otherwise indicated, is from the King James Version. This article appears on the site: http://www.peterwade.com/.
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