And Jesus answering said unto them, They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick.
Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick do, and spiritually this means help can reach only those who recognize their sickness and need. Christ can save only the one who knows himself to be a sinner, for where there is no conviction of sin and brokenness over a fallen condition the heart stays encased in self-righteousness and remains unhealed. He is the great physician for sin-sick souls, whose blood is the one only remedy that avails when felt need leads to repentance, faith, and humble coming to Him as personal Saviour. He therefore came to call sinners to repentance and to seek and save the perishing, deliberately mingling with despised publicans and sinners at Matthew's feast to awaken hope and new life rather than approving their sin. Those who carry on His work are to do the same as spiritual physicians, seeking the diseased with sin with tender, compassionate help and pointing both soul and body to the Great Physician instead of spending undue time on those who already feel whole.
Setting and Picture
The saying was spoken at a banquet Matthew invited Jesus to attend, where publicans and other acquaintances were present to give them opportunity to meet Him. Matthew was a publican despised for working for Rome and for extortion, but Jesus looked beyond his occupation and saw a heart open to truth. Matthew answered His call and followed Him.
The physician picture means those who are whole do not need a physician, but those who are sick do. Spiritually, those who recognize their sickness and need can receive Christ's help, while those who consider themselves sound see no need for Him. The image applies to those sick with sin, whose need is spiritual healing as well as care for the body. He came to call sinners to repentance and could bring spiritual health and hope to those who felt their need, including the publicans and sinners at Levi's feast.
The Pharisees considered themselves spiritually whole and regarded publicans and Gentiles as sick with sin, yet the publicans were less self-satisfied and more open to truth. The Pharisees' pride in needing no enlightenment left them in worse condition than those they despised. As a physician goes to the sick, Jesus went to those who felt their need and recognized need of repentance and pardon, including the publicans and sinners at Levi's feast, unlike those who considered themselves righteous. He welcomed publicans as honored guests and treated them with sympathy and social kindness that affirmed their human dignity, and His words gave hope and awakened the possibility of new life.
Jesus ate with publicans and sinners deliberately because they were spiritually sick and sore-troubled and needed guidance and encouragement. He did not do so to approve their sin or to share their luxuries, amusements, and feasting. His presence was purposeful to teach lessons suited to hearers and to let them know Him, in marked contrast to the Pharisees' approach. His method was tender, forgiving love speaking words of encouragement to satisfy inmost longings, with wisdom exalting truth, searching the heart, reaching the diseased imagination, and drawing the mind after eternal realities. Speech among the unconverted should likewise recommend Christ, for His words were like precious jewels that could remain in hearts and finally yield as He continued to draw them even when they did not yield at once. The seeds of truth sown there through His godly character took root in willing hearts and sprang up after His resurrection and ascension when five thousand were converted in one day under the apostles' teaching.
Recognizing Sickness and Need
Christ can save only the one who knows himself to be a sinner, for pardon and peace require self-knowledge that results in contrition. Knowing our real condition causes us to feel our need of His help, understanding our danger causes us to flee to the refuge, and feeling the pain of our wounds causes us to desire healing. A sense of personal weakness and inefficiency should lead to dependence on Him and His strength and sufficiency, while loss of humility, faith, and integrity should bring deep sorrow.
Where there is no conviction of sin the Holy Spirit cannot work, because the soul encased in self-righteous armor cannot be penetrated by God's arrows. Those satisfied with a mere semblance of religion have no experimental knowledge of Him and no vital connection with Him, yet think they are whole Christians. They listen to the most searching truth without applying it to their own souls and let solemn warnings pass as meant for others. Their need is to come to feel their sickness and need so truth can reach their hearts, for if a person feels whole and sees no need of a physician he remains unhealed. Nominal belief is not enough, but coming to Him in personal need and reaching out by living faith brings saving help and righteousness.
Those who count themselves whole are the self-righteous who from pride of heart, unsubdued character, and ignorance of self, of God, of divine truth, and of pure religion will not admit they are wrong. They indignantly refuse advice, reproof, counsel, and even His instruction, deny all need of reproof, and vindicate themselves as always right with excuses and self-justification. This keeps the soul away from light and grace and leaves it in the enemy's deception, hopelessly and helplessly wrong because it will not be convinced. This was the sin of the Jews, who like all self-sufficient people who feel no need of truth remain closed to it, while like the sick who need a physician those who recognize need are open to help. One whose heart is untouched and who feels no need of a Saviour is like someone who believes he is well.
Cleansing from sin and improvement of character are impossible while a person fails to realize defects of character and thinks his ways are perfect. Self-sufficiency blinds to fault and keeps from coming to Him in repentance as the Saviour who forgives sin that is repented of and forsaken. Pride of opinion and self-conceit stands in the way of all advancement and growth and is the most hopeless and incurable sin. This was the condition of the Pharisees, scribes, and leaders in self-righteousness, who did not think they needed a Saviour and did not realize they cherished sins needing repentance. By contrast, publicans and harlots who knew they were sinners and showed genuine repentance would go into the kingdom before them, while those claiming to be whole may in fact be sick with sin, deceived, unchristian in words and actions, walking in darkness while flattering themselves they are in the light.
Sickness is deficiency seen when life is critically compared with the great standard of righteousness, the law of God. The law exposes sin and awakens awareness of a fallen, degraded condition in which God-given faculties have been weakened and unfitted for moral advancement by contemplation of sin and misapplication, with pride and self-conceit ruling desire and inclination while there is only a form of godliness and many acts of self-righteousness without real heart change. Offering Christ to one never convicted of sin is like offering a physician to one who believes he is well, so the heart must first be broken by awareness of need before His atoning blood will be valued. The depth of the fall and the need for the physician are understood only by beholding the infinite sacrifice He made to lift sinners from degradation.
He is the physician for sin and His blood the one only remedy, availing only for those who feel their need of it. Salvation comes only in God's appointed way by feeling need of that physician and of the cleansing power of His blood, with repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord, falling helpless on the Rock. This means coming as they are, humbling self before Him, trusting Him as personal Saviour, and seeking His cleansing, leaving no room for trust in one's own righteousness and goodness. Therefore sin does not make prayer hopeless or keep a person from coming to Him, for He came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.
He came to call sinners to repentance and to seek and save the perishing, so that whoever believes will have everlasting life. This need and call apply equally to colored and white people, who through faith may attain eternal life. Those neglected and wounded by others are not beyond His call or care, and those perishing who recognize need can repent and receive life through faith in Him.
The same need applies within the church, for placing the name on the roll means confessing to be diseased by sin, often falling into temptation and desiring the remedy for sin and uncleanness prescribed in the Word. Some members do not realize they are diseased and do not take the gospel remedy, while others long for spiritual restoration. He presented the remedy to the Jewish church lest the whole body become diseased beyond cure, and the same work of calling the diseased to repentance and restoration must be done for churches today. The church is filled with spiritually sick people needing refining until all dross is consumed, yet He as Great Physician longs to save, and people sick with doubt, worldliness, and unrest brought to Him are offered healing and salvation as all who come to Him.
Christ the Great Physician
Christ is the great Medical Missionary and the great Restorer, the greatest physician who ever lived on earth and the great Healer of both body and soul. The record in the fifth chapter of Luke shows His works meeting the spiritual and physical needs of those who sought His help. The sick need a physician, and His work is to help the sick.
As physician to the sin-sick soul He cleanses from the leprosy of sin and brings healing and strength to all in sorrow and affliction with tender, courteous grace by methods peculiarly His own. He helps through simple words none can fail to understand, bringing treasures from the storehouse of wisdom and setting heavenly things and eternity before sufferers. He comes to heal those weakened, ignorant, and degraded by sin, giving His life as a ransom, taking away the sin of the world rather than saving people in their sin, and not destroying God's pure and holy law as the standard of character. God designs to reach the sick, the unfortunate, and those possessed by evil spirits through human servants so they hear His voice, and through human agencies He desires to give a comfort the world does not know, with love shown in unselfish ministry melting hearts hardened by reproof and reforming the wrongdoer more effectively than the sword or the court of justice.
All are sick with sin from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet, and for that reason all need the Physician, so that if people were not sinners they would have no need of a Saviour. When sin presses for mastery and its sting is felt, people should call on Him for help, for He hears every cry for help and when called on in faith helps through temptation. He will pity and hear the prayers of even great sinners, and it is duty to believe Jesus will impart healing, strengthening power rather than approaching God in self-righteousness and self-sufficiency as if having goodness to recommend oneself while forgetting weakness and sinfulness. He rebukes the self-righteous and self-sufficient, but looks with pity and tenderness on the humble, sin-sick person who comes in penitence and contrition, is willing to receive such, and will not turn them away.
He is also the living Healer to whom the sick are carried when attacked by disease, patiently giving attention to the afflicted and even when weary calmly receiving sufferers so that people with hopeless diseases were restored to health and strength. Disease is stayed and healing brought when disease is rebuked in the name of Jesus and prayer is made to the Lord for healing, giving at once relief and cure even to a three-year-old child. Those afflicted with bodily disease even to the point of death can be mercifully relieved and healed by Him when earnest prayer is offered in faith, with thanksgiving ascending to Him for relief. In severe illness the family brings the case to Jesus, faith is exercised, and healing comes immediately with praise to God.
Human beings have no power to heal of themselves, and those doing good work depend on Him for the ability and power to do it. Physicians should depend on Christ, whose efficacy makes their efforts to help patients recover effective. Those who treat disease need His supreme wisdom and may have it in their work, and when brought into trying places they are to be led by Him. Those who serve the sick can work with greater wisdom and precision when they rely on Him, and He can bring healing to the sin-sick soul as well as care for bodily illness. Physicians who cooperate with Christ can minister to both body and soul, and pure, unwavering faith in God brings physical as well as spiritual health. Human skill combined with His divine power does marvelous things for recovery when sickness is brought to Him in prayer and He hears prayer and spares life, and giving the sick every possible advantage for health is the highest missionary work. A living connection with Him is worth more than connection with drugs, with pure truth of inexpressible value to sufferers.
He takes a person's case in hand and works with them as they follow His remedy. That remedy includes putting brain, bone, and muscle to work, for dwelling on oneself, brooding over the past, and worrying about the future will not restore strength. He sustains people through bodily infirmities and is to receive the glory for that help, and applied to consumptives He is the great Physician who can heal them.
The spiritually sick need Jesus the Physician and should come to Him for pardon rather than trust in human admiration or worthiness. People must recognize their spiritual degradation and their need of the physician of the soul, and Jesus blesses those who come to Him in humility and contrition, while without confession and repentance they remain in danger of having their names blotted out of the book of life. Before one who is spiritually sick like Dr. Caro can be truly wise he must repent, be converted, recognize his dependence on God, and give up unjust and cruel plans.
Seeking Sinners With Mercy
As physician to the spiritually sick, Christ deliberately mingled with despised Samaritans and publicans, setting aside Jewish Pharisaic prejudice and custom. He accepted Samaritan hospitality, slept under their roofs, ate food prepared and served by their hands, taught in their streets, and treated them with utmost kindness and courtesy. He sat as an honored guest at the table of the publicans, showing by sympathy and social kindness that He recognized the dignity of humanity even in outcasts of society. His sympathy and kind fellowship treated them as people needing spiritual healing and a new life.
He welcomed publicans as honored guests and treated them with sympathy and social kindness that affirmed their human dignity. His presence and words fell with blessed life-giving power on thirsty souls and gave these outcasts hope. They awakened a longing to become worthy of His confidence, stirred new impulses, and opened to them the possibility of a new life and change.
His mission reached every class, seeking out and helping the sick, the poor, the ignorant, and those under Satan's power, while also teaching the rich and honored. He willingly visited and shared hospitality with rich and poor, learned and ignorant, and accepted invitations to meals with Pharisees and publicans. He used those social encounters to turn thoughts from ordinary concerns toward spiritual and eternal things, teaching lessons suited to the needs of His hearers. His example in this did not excuse dissipation or worldly levity.
He did not avoid sinners but ate with them and used such occasions to teach and let them know Him, in marked contrast to the Pharisees' approach. He did so deliberately because they were spiritually sick and sore-troubled and needed guidance and encouragement, despite criticism from priests and rulers who made all possible capital out of His action. He came to speak to erring men the words of encouragement the priests and rulers were unwilling to speak, to satisfy the inmost longings of the soul and help those in need. His method for dealing with the erring is tender, forgiving love, with words always spoken in wisdom that exalt truth, search the recesses of the heart, reach the diseased imagination, and draw the mind out after eternal realities.
As the Great Physician and living Healer, He ministers to soul and body, and connection with God brings His instruction and reveals His salvation to those who are sick and need a physician. He approaches suffering and needy people simply and understandingly. His teaching gives soul-saving truth in ordinary words all can understand, rather than in set forms of speech.
Workers as Physicians for Souls
Study of Christ's ministry of healing gives precious lessons for gospel ministry, for He is seen as the great Medical Missionary and Restorer meeting both spiritual and physical needs of those who sought help. Medical missionaries are needed everywhere to do the work He did on earth, taking their appointed place, standing firmly and laboring patiently to reveal principles of righteousness to needy souls. Doing this work requires greater faith in the Word of God, a work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, and learning from Christ His meekness and lowliness of heart in order to testify of His power and impart enriching light from God. Ministers are spiritual physicians responsible for skillfully caring for those diseased with sin, warning sinners, grieving over them, and pleading with them for salvation. As a physician must recognize different diseases and know what treatment is needed, so a pastor must understand people and discern what will guide each in the right direction. Those who care for the church are to seek out the spiritually diseased to bring healing, not poison through evil suspicions, criticism, and faultfinding that harm the flock and hinder its work.
The physician is to relieve physical suffering with simple remedies and point the sin-sick soul to Christ's power to heal, since His coming to help the sick applies to spiritual sickness as well as bodily illness. The Christian physician or nurse should bring mercy through care for the body and by speaking of Christ's healing power for the soul, for practical care joined with sympathy prepares hearts to receive truth. When physical suffering softens the heart there is opportunity for comfort, promises, and directing to the Great Physician, and patients hearing the word of life may have softened hearts and accept Him. Treating the bodily sick gives opportunity to exert right influence by pointing sick souls to Jesus for spiritual healing, and workers should point the sick and suffering to Him as the great Physician on whom to appeal and depend with confidence for bodily restoration. Sanitariums must therefore become homes where healing is ministered to sin-sick souls, largely a spiritual work including prayer and laying on of hands under the special direction of the Spirit of God. Those selected as missionary physicians must be sacredly set apart as is the gospel minister, work with consecration and living connection with the great Healer, and allow no selfish motives to draw them from duty to private practice.
Ministry and medical missionary work belong together for healing churches before they can have healthy Christianity, with health reform as the ministry's helping hand. His leading includes instructing in health and temperance, and those standing apart from that work do not follow where He leads. Undue time and attention should not be spent on those who already know the truth, because that creates selfishness and helplessness. Work should instead go to souls taking no interest in religious things, for every soul is of value and those knowing truth must find how best to meet and help them. The same principle applies to care and kindness generally: attention should go to the afflicted, bruised, wounded, lame, and needy who test character, rather than being lavished on those needing no help.
Those spiritually sick, inclined to err and easily tempted, need compassionate help and mercy rather than repulsion, for Christ pleads for them as intercessor. They are to be treated faithfully and compassionately with earnest prayer and encouraging words, so the weak in faith may be strengthened. Christ reaches with divine power to encourage the sin-sick and discouraged to higher life, while those feeling whole must humble themselves and be broken on the Rock to be changed into His likeness upon submission. Trials reveal need of God, for the wounded need a physician and those pressed almost beyond endurance need a helper, and hardship can draw them to God rather than destroy them. A young man spiritually sick through overexcitement and deception by unreasonable impressions needs kind treatment and guidance to recover and abandon mistaken ideas. Edith did not recognize her spiritual need, and praise and attention from friends deepened her blindness. Elder Matteson is spiritually weak and needs grace to make him strong.
Medical missionary work itself that has become sick through Dr. Kellogg's influence needs care of the great Physician, and when done as heaven designs its character will be different. James was delivered from Satan's attack and placed in the Great Physician's hands, who applied healing balm and set him free. Those doing good work depend on Him for ability and power to do it. Those who recognize weakness need Christ as physician and strength, while those regarding themselves as whole do not seek Him, so a sense of personal inefficiency should lead to dependence and loss of humility, faith, and integrity should bring deep sorrow. Those who know they are helpless need Him as physician, and the verse warns against self-sufficiency and calls for humility and self-examination, that the needy may come for forgiveness and strength.
Those who are well do not need a physician, but those who are sick do, and spiritually this means help can reach only those who recognize their sickness and need. Christ can save only the one who knows himself to be a sinner, for where there is no conviction of sin and brokenness over a fallen condition the heart stays encased in self-righteousness and remains unhealed. He is the great physician for sin-sick souls, whose blood is the one only remedy that avails when felt need leads to repentance, faith, and humble coming to Him as personal Saviour. He therefore came to call sinners to repentance and to seek and save the perishing, deliberately mingling with despised publicans and sinners at Matthew's feast to awaken hope and new life rather than approving their sin. Those who carry on His work are to do the same as spiritual physicians, seeking the diseased with sin with tender, compassionate help and pointing both soul and body to the Great Physician instead of spending undue time on those who already feel whole.
Setting and Picture
The saying was spoken at a banquet Matthew invited Jesus to attend, where publicans and other acquaintances were present to give them opportunity to meet Him. Matthew was a publican despised for working for Rome and for extortion, but Jesus looked beyond his occupation and saw a heart open to truth. Matthew answered His call and followed Him.
The physician picture means those who are whole do not need a physician, but those who are sick do. Spiritually, those who recognize their sickness and need can receive Christ's help, while those who consider themselves sound see no need for Him. The image applies to those sick with sin, whose need is spiritual healing as well as care for the body. He came to call sinners to repentance and could bring spiritual health and hope to those who felt their need, including the publicans and sinners at Levi's feast.
The Pharisees considered themselves spiritually whole and regarded publicans and Gentiles as sick with sin, yet the publicans were less self-satisfied and more open to truth. The Pharisees' pride in needing no enlightenment left them in worse condition than those they despised. As a physician goes to the sick, Jesus went to those who felt their need and recognized need of repentance and pardon, including the publicans and sinners at Levi's feast, unlike those who considered themselves righteous. He welcomed publicans as honored guests and treated them with sympathy and social kindness that affirmed their human dignity, and His words gave hope and awakened the possibility of new life.
Jesus ate with publicans and sinners deliberately because they were spiritually sick and sore-troubled and needed guidance and encouragement. He did not do so to approve their sin or to share their luxuries, amusements, and feasting. His presence was purposeful to teach lessons suited to hearers and to let them know Him, in marked contrast to the Pharisees' approach. His method was tender, forgiving love speaking words of encouragement to satisfy inmost longings, with wisdom exalting truth, searching the heart, reaching the diseased imagination, and drawing the mind after eternal realities. Speech among the unconverted should likewise recommend Christ, for His words were like precious jewels that could remain in hearts and finally yield as He continued to draw them even when they did not yield at once. The seeds of truth sown there through His godly character took root in willing hearts and sprang up after His resurrection and ascension when five thousand were converted in one day under the apostles' teaching.
Recognizing Sickness and Need
Christ can save only the one who knows himself to be a sinner, for pardon and peace require self-knowledge that results in contrition. Knowing our real condition causes us to feel our need of His help, understanding our danger causes us to flee to the refuge, and feeling the pain of our wounds causes us to desire healing. A sense of personal weakness and inefficiency should lead to dependence on Him and His strength and sufficiency, while loss of humility, faith, and integrity should bring deep sorrow.
Where there is no conviction of sin the Holy Spirit cannot work, because the soul encased in self-righteous armor cannot be penetrated by God's arrows. Those satisfied with a mere semblance of religion have no experimental knowledge of Him and no vital connection with Him, yet think they are whole Christians. They listen to the most searching truth without applying it to their own souls and let solemn warnings pass as meant for others. Their need is to come to feel their sickness and need so truth can reach their hearts, for if a person feels whole and sees no need of a physician he remains unhealed. Nominal belief is not enough, but coming to Him in personal need and reaching out by living faith brings saving help and righteousness.
Those who count themselves whole are the self-righteous who from pride of heart, unsubdued character, and ignorance of self, of God, of divine truth, and of pure religion will not admit they are wrong. They indignantly refuse advice, reproof, counsel, and even His instruction, deny all need of reproof, and vindicate themselves as always right with excuses and self-justification. This keeps the soul away from light and grace and leaves it in the enemy's deception, hopelessly and helplessly wrong because it will not be convinced. This was the sin of the Jews, who like all self-sufficient people who feel no need of truth remain closed to it, while like the sick who need a physician those who recognize need are open to help. One whose heart is untouched and who feels no need of a Saviour is like someone who believes he is well.
Cleansing from sin and improvement of character are impossible while a person fails to realize defects of character and thinks his ways are perfect. Self-sufficiency blinds to fault and keeps from coming to Him in repentance as the Saviour who forgives sin that is repented of and forsaken. Pride of opinion and self-conceit stands in the way of all advancement and growth and is the most hopeless and incurable sin. This was the condition of the Pharisees, scribes, and leaders in self-righteousness, who did not think they needed a Saviour and did not realize they cherished sins needing repentance. By contrast, publicans and harlots who knew they were sinners and showed genuine repentance would go into the kingdom before them, while those claiming to be whole may in fact be sick with sin, deceived, unchristian in words and actions, walking in darkness while flattering themselves they are in the light.
Sickness is deficiency seen when life is critically compared with the great standard of righteousness, the law of God. The law exposes sin and awakens awareness of a fallen, degraded condition in which God-given faculties have been weakened and unfitted for moral advancement by contemplation of sin and misapplication, with pride and self-conceit ruling desire and inclination while there is only a form of godliness and many acts of self-righteousness without real heart change. Offering Christ to one never convicted of sin is like offering a physician to one who believes he is well, so the heart must first be broken by awareness of need before His atoning blood will be valued. The depth of the fall and the need for the physician are understood only by beholding the infinite sacrifice He made to lift sinners from degradation.
He is the physician for sin and His blood the one only remedy, availing only for those who feel their need of it. Salvation comes only in God's appointed way by feeling need of that physician and of the cleansing power of His blood, with repentance toward God and faith toward the Lord, falling helpless on the Rock. This means coming as they are, humbling self before Him, trusting Him as personal Saviour, and seeking His cleansing, leaving no room for trust in one's own righteousness and goodness. Therefore sin does not make prayer hopeless or keep a person from coming to Him, for He came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.
He came to call sinners to repentance and to seek and save the perishing, so that whoever believes will have everlasting life. This need and call apply equally to colored and white people, who through faith may attain eternal life. Those neglected and wounded by others are not beyond His call or care, and those perishing who recognize need can repent and receive life through faith in Him.
The same need applies within the church, for placing the name on the roll means confessing to be diseased by sin, often falling into temptation and desiring the remedy for sin and uncleanness prescribed in the Word. Some members do not realize they are diseased and do not take the gospel remedy, while others long for spiritual restoration. He presented the remedy to the Jewish church lest the whole body become diseased beyond cure, and the same work of calling the diseased to repentance and restoration must be done for churches today. The church is filled with spiritually sick people needing refining until all dross is consumed, yet He as Great Physician longs to save, and people sick with doubt, worldliness, and unrest brought to Him are offered healing and salvation as all who come to Him.
Christ the Great Physician
Christ is the great Medical Missionary and the great Restorer, the greatest physician who ever lived on earth and the great Healer of both body and soul. The record in the fifth chapter of Luke shows His works meeting the spiritual and physical needs of those who sought His help. The sick need a physician, and His work is to help the sick.
As physician to the sin-sick soul He cleanses from the leprosy of sin and brings healing and strength to all in sorrow and affliction with tender, courteous grace by methods peculiarly His own. He helps through simple words none can fail to understand, bringing treasures from the storehouse of wisdom and setting heavenly things and eternity before sufferers. He comes to heal those weakened, ignorant, and degraded by sin, giving His life as a ransom, taking away the sin of the world rather than saving people in their sin, and not destroying God's pure and holy law as the standard of character. God designs to reach the sick, the unfortunate, and those possessed by evil spirits through human servants so they hear His voice, and through human agencies He desires to give a comfort the world does not know, with love shown in unselfish ministry melting hearts hardened by reproof and reforming the wrongdoer more effectively than the sword or the court of justice.
All are sick with sin from the crown of the head to the sole of the feet, and for that reason all need the Physician, so that if people were not sinners they would have no need of a Saviour. When sin presses for mastery and its sting is felt, people should call on Him for help, for He hears every cry for help and when called on in faith helps through temptation. He will pity and hear the prayers of even great sinners, and it is duty to believe Jesus will impart healing, strengthening power rather than approaching God in self-righteousness and self-sufficiency as if having goodness to recommend oneself while forgetting weakness and sinfulness. He rebukes the self-righteous and self-sufficient, but looks with pity and tenderness on the humble, sin-sick person who comes in penitence and contrition, is willing to receive such, and will not turn them away.
He is also the living Healer to whom the sick are carried when attacked by disease, patiently giving attention to the afflicted and even when weary calmly receiving sufferers so that people with hopeless diseases were restored to health and strength. Disease is stayed and healing brought when disease is rebuked in the name of Jesus and prayer is made to the Lord for healing, giving at once relief and cure even to a three-year-old child. Those afflicted with bodily disease even to the point of death can be mercifully relieved and healed by Him when earnest prayer is offered in faith, with thanksgiving ascending to Him for relief. In severe illness the family brings the case to Jesus, faith is exercised, and healing comes immediately with praise to God.
Human beings have no power to heal of themselves, and those doing good work depend on Him for the ability and power to do it. Physicians should depend on Christ, whose efficacy makes their efforts to help patients recover effective. Those who treat disease need His supreme wisdom and may have it in their work, and when brought into trying places they are to be led by Him. Those who serve the sick can work with greater wisdom and precision when they rely on Him, and He can bring healing to the sin-sick soul as well as care for bodily illness. Physicians who cooperate with Christ can minister to both body and soul, and pure, unwavering faith in God brings physical as well as spiritual health. Human skill combined with His divine power does marvelous things for recovery when sickness is brought to Him in prayer and He hears prayer and spares life, and giving the sick every possible advantage for health is the highest missionary work. A living connection with Him is worth more than connection with drugs, with pure truth of inexpressible value to sufferers.
He takes a person's case in hand and works with them as they follow His remedy. That remedy includes putting brain, bone, and muscle to work, for dwelling on oneself, brooding over the past, and worrying about the future will not restore strength. He sustains people through bodily infirmities and is to receive the glory for that help, and applied to consumptives He is the great Physician who can heal them.
The spiritually sick need Jesus the Physician and should come to Him for pardon rather than trust in human admiration or worthiness. People must recognize their spiritual degradation and their need of the physician of the soul, and Jesus blesses those who come to Him in humility and contrition, while without confession and repentance they remain in danger of having their names blotted out of the book of life. Before one who is spiritually sick like Dr. Caro can be truly wise he must repent, be converted, recognize his dependence on God, and give up unjust and cruel plans.
Seeking Sinners With Mercy
As physician to the spiritually sick, Christ deliberately mingled with despised Samaritans and publicans, setting aside Jewish Pharisaic prejudice and custom. He accepted Samaritan hospitality, slept under their roofs, ate food prepared and served by their hands, taught in their streets, and treated them with utmost kindness and courtesy. He sat as an honored guest at the table of the publicans, showing by sympathy and social kindness that He recognized the dignity of humanity even in outcasts of society. His sympathy and kind fellowship treated them as people needing spiritual healing and a new life.
He welcomed publicans as honored guests and treated them with sympathy and social kindness that affirmed their human dignity. His presence and words fell with blessed life-giving power on thirsty souls and gave these outcasts hope. They awakened a longing to become worthy of His confidence, stirred new impulses, and opened to them the possibility of a new life and change.
His mission reached every class, seeking out and helping the sick, the poor, the ignorant, and those under Satan's power, while also teaching the rich and honored. He willingly visited and shared hospitality with rich and poor, learned and ignorant, and accepted invitations to meals with Pharisees and publicans. He used those social encounters to turn thoughts from ordinary concerns toward spiritual and eternal things, teaching lessons suited to the needs of His hearers. His example in this did not excuse dissipation or worldly levity.
He did not avoid sinners but ate with them and used such occasions to teach and let them know Him, in marked contrast to the Pharisees' approach. He did so deliberately because they were spiritually sick and sore-troubled and needed guidance and encouragement, despite criticism from priests and rulers who made all possible capital out of His action. He came to speak to erring men the words of encouragement the priests and rulers were unwilling to speak, to satisfy the inmost longings of the soul and help those in need. His method for dealing with the erring is tender, forgiving love, with words always spoken in wisdom that exalt truth, search the recesses of the heart, reach the diseased imagination, and draw the mind out after eternal realities.
As the Great Physician and living Healer, He ministers to soul and body, and connection with God brings His instruction and reveals His salvation to those who are sick and need a physician. He approaches suffering and needy people simply and understandingly. His teaching gives soul-saving truth in ordinary words all can understand, rather than in set forms of speech.
Workers as Physicians for Souls
Study of Christ's ministry of healing gives precious lessons for gospel ministry, for He is seen as the great Medical Missionary and Restorer meeting both spiritual and physical needs of those who sought help. Medical missionaries are needed everywhere to do the work He did on earth, taking their appointed place, standing firmly and laboring patiently to reveal principles of righteousness to needy souls. Doing this work requires greater faith in the Word of God, a work of the Holy Spirit in the heart, and learning from Christ His meekness and lowliness of heart in order to testify of His power and impart enriching light from God. Ministers are spiritual physicians responsible for skillfully caring for those diseased with sin, warning sinners, grieving over them, and pleading with them for salvation. As a physician must recognize different diseases and know what treatment is needed, so a pastor must understand people and discern what will guide each in the right direction. Those who care for the church are to seek out the spiritually diseased to bring healing, not poison through evil suspicions, criticism, and faultfinding that harm the flock and hinder its work.
The physician is to relieve physical suffering with simple remedies and point the sin-sick soul to Christ's power to heal, since His coming to help the sick applies to spiritual sickness as well as bodily illness. The Christian physician or nurse should bring mercy through care for the body and by speaking of Christ's healing power for the soul, for practical care joined with sympathy prepares hearts to receive truth. When physical suffering softens the heart there is opportunity for comfort, promises, and directing to the Great Physician, and patients hearing the word of life may have softened hearts and accept Him. Treating the bodily sick gives opportunity to exert right influence by pointing sick souls to Jesus for spiritual healing, and workers should point the sick and suffering to Him as the great Physician on whom to appeal and depend with confidence for bodily restoration. Sanitariums must therefore become homes where healing is ministered to sin-sick souls, largely a spiritual work including prayer and laying on of hands under the special direction of the Spirit of God. Those selected as missionary physicians must be sacredly set apart as is the gospel minister, work with consecration and living connection with the great Healer, and allow no selfish motives to draw them from duty to private practice.
Ministry and medical missionary work belong together for healing churches before they can have healthy Christianity, with health reform as the ministry's helping hand. His leading includes instructing in health and temperance, and those standing apart from that work do not follow where He leads. Undue time and attention should not be spent on those who already know the truth, because that creates selfishness and helplessness. Work should instead go to souls taking no interest in religious things, for every soul is of value and those knowing truth must find how best to meet and help them. The same principle applies to care and kindness generally: attention should go to the afflicted, bruised, wounded, lame, and needy who test character, rather than being lavished on those needing no help.
Those spiritually sick, inclined to err and easily tempted, need compassionate help and mercy rather than repulsion, for Christ pleads for them as intercessor. They are to be treated faithfully and compassionately with earnest prayer and encouraging words, so the weak in faith may be strengthened. Christ reaches with divine power to encourage the sin-sick and discouraged to higher life, while those feeling whole must humble themselves and be broken on the Rock to be changed into His likeness upon submission. Trials reveal need of God, for the wounded need a physician and those pressed almost beyond endurance need a helper, and hardship can draw them to God rather than destroy them. A young man spiritually sick through overexcitement and deception by unreasonable impressions needs kind treatment and guidance to recover and abandon mistaken ideas. Edith did not recognize her spiritual need, and praise and attention from friends deepened her blindness. Elder Matteson is spiritually weak and needs grace to make him strong.
Medical missionary work itself that has become sick through Dr. Kellogg's influence needs care of the great Physician, and when done as heaven designs its character will be different. James was delivered from Satan's attack and placed in the Great Physician's hands, who applied healing balm and set him free. Those doing good work depend on Him for ability and power to do it. Those who recognize weakness need Christ as physician and strength, while those regarding themselves as whole do not seek Him, so a sense of personal inefficiency should lead to dependence and loss of humility, faith, and integrity should bring deep sorrow. Those who know they are helpless need Him as physician, and the verse warns against self-sufficiency and calls for humility and self-examination, that the needy may come for forgiveness and strength.