7. The Healing of a Woman With An Issue of Blood
The Healing of a Woman with an Issue of Blood Matt. 9:20-22; Mark 5:25-34; Luke 8:43-48
In all three accounts which we have of this miracle, it is mixed up with that other of the raising of Jairus' daughter, and cuts that narrative in two. Such overflowing grace is in Him, the Prince of life, that as He is hastening to accomplish one work of power, He accomplishes another, as by the way. "His obiter," in Fuller's words, "is more to the purpose than our iter;" his πάρεργον, one might add, than our ἔργον. To the second and third Evangelists we owe the distinctive features of this miracle. St. Matthew relates it so briefly, and passes over circumstances so material, that, had we not the parallel records, we should miss much of the instruction which it contains for us. But it was intended, if not by their human penmen, yet by their divine Author, that the several Gospels should thus mutually complete one another.
The crowd followed and pressed upon the Lord, curious to witness what the issue would be, and whether He could indeed raise the dead child, which, by his consenting to accompany Jairus home, He seemed pledged to do; and yet not all in that crowd out of idle curiosity and eagerness to witness some new thing. Mingled with the unmannered multitude, and to most eyes confounded with it, was "a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." St. Mark, whose words I quote, shows himself here, as ever, the most vigorous painter of the outward features of that which he narrates. This woman, afflicted so long, who had suffered much from her disease, perhaps more from her remedies, all whose means had been wasted in the costly but vain quest of some cure, "when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment; for she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole." The faith of this poor sufferer was a most real faith (" Thy faith hath saved thee"), while yet the manner in which Christ's healing power presented itself to her as working, was not without error. It was a material conception which she formed of it. He healed, as she must have supposed, not by the power of his holy will, but rather by a certain magical influence and virtue diffused through his person and round about Him; with which if she could put herself in relation, she would obtain that which she desired. And she may have "touched the hem of his garment," not merely as its extremest part, and therefore that which she, timidly drawing near, could most easily reach, but as attributing a peculiar sanctity to it. For this hem, or blue fringe on the borders of the garment, was put there by divine command, and was to remind the Jews that they were God's people (Num. 15:37-40; Deut. 22:12). It had thus acquired so peculiar a significance, that those who wished to be esteemed eminently religious were wont to make broad, or to "enlarge the borders of their garments" (Matt. 23:5). But her faith, though thus imperfect in its form, and though it did not, like a triumphant flood-tide, bear her over the peculiar difficulties which beset her, a woman, coming to acknowledge a need such as hers, was yet most true in its essence. It found, therefore, what it sought; was the channel to her of the blessing which she desired. No sooner had she touched the hem of his robe than "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?" The Evangelists employ language which in a measure falls in with the current of the woman's thoughts; yet we cannot for an instant suppose that healing power went forth from the Lord without the full consent of his will, —that we have here, on his part, an unconscious or involuntary healing, any more than on another occasion, when we read that "the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all" (Luke 6:19). For if power went forth from Him to heal, without reference, on his part, to the spiritual condition of the person that was its subject, the ethical, which is ever the most important part of the miracle, would at once disappear. But He who saw Nathanael under the fig-tree (John 1:48), who "needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man" (John 2:25), must have known of this woman how sorely in her body she required his help, and how in her spirit she possessed that faith which was the one condition of healing, the one channel of communication between Him and any human need. Nor may the question which the Lord asked, "Who touched my clothes?" be urged as implying that He was ignorant who had so done, and only obscurely apprehended that something had taken place. The question, as the sequel of the history abundantly proves, had quite another purpose than this. Had she who came thus behind the Lord been allowed to carry away her blessing in secret, as she proposed, it would not have been at all the blessing to her, and to her whole after spiritual life, which it now was, when she was obliged, by this repeated question of the Lord, to come out of her hiding-place, to avouch at once what she had nought, and what she had found, of help and healing from Him. And when some further argue that He could not have known, seeing it would have been inconsistent with absolute truth for Him to have professed ignorance, and asked the question which He did ask, if all the while He perfectly knew what He thus implicitly averred Himself not to know, there is surely a misapprehension here. A father when he comes among his children, and demands, Who committed this fault? himself conscious, even while he asks, but at the same time willing to bring the culprit to a free confession, and so to put him in a pardonable state, can he be said in any way to violate the laws of the highest truth? The same offence might be found in Elisha's "Whence comest thou, Gehazi?" (2 Kin. 5:25), when his heart went with his servant all the way that he had gone; and even in the question of God Himself to Adam, "Where art thou?" (Gen. 3:9), and to Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" (Gen. 4:9). In every case there is a moral purpose in the question,—an opportunity given even at the latest moment for making good at least a part of the error by its unreserved confession, an opportunity which they whose examples have been here adduced, suffered to escape; but which this woman. had grace given her to use.
But this question itself, "Who touched my clothes?" or as it is in St. Luke, "Who touched Me?" when indeed the whole multitude was rudely pressing upon and crowding round Him, may suggest, and has suggested, many profitable reflections. Out of that thronging multitude one only touched with the touch of faith: all the others, though as near or nearer in body, yet lacked that faith which would have been the connecting link between Christ's power and their need; for there may well have been many sick and suffering among them; and thus they crowded upon Him, but did not touch Him in any way that virtue should go out of Him on them. It is evermore thus in his Church. Many throng Christ; his in name; near to Him and to his sacraments outwardly; yet not touching Him, because not drawing near in faith, not looking for, and therefore not obtaining, life and healing from Him, and through these.
The disciples, and Peter as their spokesman, wonder at the question, and in answer hardly stop short of finding fault with what is so inexplicable to them: "Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?" He, however, re-affirms the fact, "Somebody hath touched Me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me;" whereupon the woman, perceiving that concealment was useless, that to repeat the denial which she probably had made with the rest, for "all denied" (Luke 8:45), would profit her nothing; unable, too, to escape his searching glance, for "He looked round about to see. her" (Mark 5:32), "came trembling, and falling down, before Him, she declared unto Him," and this "before all the people, for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was healed immediately." Olshausen traces, with much beauty, here the loving and gracious dealings of the Son of Man, who evermore sought to make through the healing of the body a way for the healing of the soul. This woman had borne away a maimed blessing, hardly a blessing at all, had she been suffered to bear it away in secret and unacknowledged. She desired to remain in concealment out of a shame, which, however natural, was untimely now, in this crisis of her spiritual life: and this her loving Saviour would not suffer her to do. By a gracious force He drew her from the. concealment she would have chosen; while even here He spared her as far as He could; for not before, but after she is healed, does He require the open confession from her lips. She had found it perhaps altogether too hard, had He demanded it of her before; therefore does He graciously wait till the cure is accomplished, and thus helps her through the narrow way. Altogether spare her this painful passage He could not, for it pertained to her birth into the new life.
And now He dismisses her with words of gracious encouragement: "Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole." Her faith had made her whole, and Christ's virtue had made her whole. Not otherwise we say that we are justified by faith, and justified by Christ; faith not being itself the blessing; but the organ by which the blessing is received; the right hand of the soul, which lays hold on Him and on his righteousness. "Go in peace;" this is not merely, "Go with a blessing," but, "Enter into peace, as the future element in which thy life shall move;--and be whole of thy plague."
Theophylact traces a mystical meaning in this miracle. The complaint of this woman represents the ever-flowing fountain of sin; the physicians under whom she was nothing bettered, the world's prophets and sages, who, with all their medicines, their systems and their philosophies, prevailed nothing to stanch that fountain of evil in man's heart. To touch Christ's garment is to believe in his Incarnation, wherein He, first touching us, enabled us also to touch Him: and on this that healing, which in all those other things was vainly sought, follows at once. And if we keep in mind how her uncleanness separated her off as one impure, we shall have here an exact picture of the sinner, drawing nigh to the throne of grace, but out of the sense of his impurity not "with boldness, "rather with fear and trembling, hardly knowing what there he shall expect; but who is welcomed there, and, all his carnal doubtings and questionings at once hidden and expelled, dismissed with the word of an abiding peace resting
Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord.
In all three accounts which we have of this miracle, it is mixed up with that other of the raising of Jairus' daughter, and cuts that narrative in two. Such overflowing grace is in Him, the Prince of life, that as He is hastening to accomplish one work of power, He accomplishes another, as by the way. "His obiter," in Fuller's words, "is more to the purpose than our iter;" his πάρεργον, one might add, than our ἔργον. To the second and third Evangelists we owe the distinctive features of this miracle. St. Matthew relates it so briefly, and passes over circumstances so material, that, had we not the parallel records, we should miss much of the instruction which it contains for us. But it was intended, if not by their human penmen, yet by their divine Author, that the several Gospels should thus mutually complete one another.
The crowd followed and pressed upon the Lord, curious to witness what the issue would be, and whether He could indeed raise the dead child, which, by his consenting to accompany Jairus home, He seemed pledged to do; and yet not all in that crowd out of idle curiosity and eagerness to witness some new thing. Mingled with the unmannered multitude, and to most eyes confounded with it, was "a certain woman which had an issue of blood twelve years, and had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse." St. Mark, whose words I quote, shows himself here, as ever, the most vigorous painter of the outward features of that which he narrates. This woman, afflicted so long, who had suffered much from her disease, perhaps more from her remedies, all whose means had been wasted in the costly but vain quest of some cure, "when she had heard of Jesus, came in the press behind, and touched his garment; for she said, If I may touch but his clothes, I shall be whole." The faith of this poor sufferer was a most real faith (" Thy faith hath saved thee"), while yet the manner in which Christ's healing power presented itself to her as working, was not without error. It was a material conception which she formed of it. He healed, as she must have supposed, not by the power of his holy will, but rather by a certain magical influence and virtue diffused through his person and round about Him; with which if she could put herself in relation, she would obtain that which she desired. And she may have "touched the hem of his garment," not merely as its extremest part, and therefore that which she, timidly drawing near, could most easily reach, but as attributing a peculiar sanctity to it. For this hem, or blue fringe on the borders of the garment, was put there by divine command, and was to remind the Jews that they were God's people (Num. 15:37-40; Deut. 22:12). It had thus acquired so peculiar a significance, that those who wished to be esteemed eminently religious were wont to make broad, or to "enlarge the borders of their garments" (Matt. 23:5). But her faith, though thus imperfect in its form, and though it did not, like a triumphant flood-tide, bear her over the peculiar difficulties which beset her, a woman, coming to acknowledge a need such as hers, was yet most true in its essence. It found, therefore, what it sought; was the channel to her of the blessing which she desired. No sooner had she touched the hem of his robe than "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?" The Evangelists employ language which in a measure falls in with the current of the woman's thoughts; yet we cannot for an instant suppose that healing power went forth from the Lord without the full consent of his will, —that we have here, on his part, an unconscious or involuntary healing, any more than on another occasion, when we read that "the whole multitude sought to touch Him, for there went virtue out of Him, and healed them all" (Luke 6:19). For if power went forth from Him to heal, without reference, on his part, to the spiritual condition of the person that was its subject, the ethical, which is ever the most important part of the miracle, would at once disappear. But He who saw Nathanael under the fig-tree (John 1:48), who "needed not that any should testify of man, for He knew what was in man" (John 2:25), must have known of this woman how sorely in her body she required his help, and how in her spirit she possessed that faith which was the one condition of healing, the one channel of communication between Him and any human need. Nor may the question which the Lord asked, "Who touched my clothes?" be urged as implying that He was ignorant who had so done, and only obscurely apprehended that something had taken place. The question, as the sequel of the history abundantly proves, had quite another purpose than this. Had she who came thus behind the Lord been allowed to carry away her blessing in secret, as she proposed, it would not have been at all the blessing to her, and to her whole after spiritual life, which it now was, when she was obliged, by this repeated question of the Lord, to come out of her hiding-place, to avouch at once what she had nought, and what she had found, of help and healing from Him. And when some further argue that He could not have known, seeing it would have been inconsistent with absolute truth for Him to have professed ignorance, and asked the question which He did ask, if all the while He perfectly knew what He thus implicitly averred Himself not to know, there is surely a misapprehension here. A father when he comes among his children, and demands, Who committed this fault? himself conscious, even while he asks, but at the same time willing to bring the culprit to a free confession, and so to put him in a pardonable state, can he be said in any way to violate the laws of the highest truth? The same offence might be found in Elisha's "Whence comest thou, Gehazi?" (2 Kin. 5:25), when his heart went with his servant all the way that he had gone; and even in the question of God Himself to Adam, "Where art thou?" (Gen. 3:9), and to Cain, "Where is Abel thy brother?" (Gen. 4:9). In every case there is a moral purpose in the question,—an opportunity given even at the latest moment for making good at least a part of the error by its unreserved confession, an opportunity which they whose examples have been here adduced, suffered to escape; but which this woman. had grace given her to use.
But this question itself, "Who touched my clothes?" or as it is in St. Luke, "Who touched Me?" when indeed the whole multitude was rudely pressing upon and crowding round Him, may suggest, and has suggested, many profitable reflections. Out of that thronging multitude one only touched with the touch of faith: all the others, though as near or nearer in body, yet lacked that faith which would have been the connecting link between Christ's power and their need; for there may well have been many sick and suffering among them; and thus they crowded upon Him, but did not touch Him in any way that virtue should go out of Him on them. It is evermore thus in his Church. Many throng Christ; his in name; near to Him and to his sacraments outwardly; yet not touching Him, because not drawing near in faith, not looking for, and therefore not obtaining, life and healing from Him, and through these.
The disciples, and Peter as their spokesman, wonder at the question, and in answer hardly stop short of finding fault with what is so inexplicable to them: "Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me?" He, however, re-affirms the fact, "Somebody hath touched Me; for I perceive that virtue is gone out of Me;" whereupon the woman, perceiving that concealment was useless, that to repeat the denial which she probably had made with the rest, for "all denied" (Luke 8:45), would profit her nothing; unable, too, to escape his searching glance, for "He looked round about to see. her" (Mark 5:32), "came trembling, and falling down, before Him, she declared unto Him," and this "before all the people, for what cause she had touched Him, and how she was healed immediately." Olshausen traces, with much beauty, here the loving and gracious dealings of the Son of Man, who evermore sought to make through the healing of the body a way for the healing of the soul. This woman had borne away a maimed blessing, hardly a blessing at all, had she been suffered to bear it away in secret and unacknowledged. She desired to remain in concealment out of a shame, which, however natural, was untimely now, in this crisis of her spiritual life: and this her loving Saviour would not suffer her to do. By a gracious force He drew her from the. concealment she would have chosen; while even here He spared her as far as He could; for not before, but after she is healed, does He require the open confession from her lips. She had found it perhaps altogether too hard, had He demanded it of her before; therefore does He graciously wait till the cure is accomplished, and thus helps her through the narrow way. Altogether spare her this painful passage He could not, for it pertained to her birth into the new life.
And now He dismisses her with words of gracious encouragement: "Daughter, be of good comfort, thy faith hath made thee whole." Her faith had made her whole, and Christ's virtue had made her whole. Not otherwise we say that we are justified by faith, and justified by Christ; faith not being itself the blessing; but the organ by which the blessing is received; the right hand of the soul, which lays hold on Him and on his righteousness. "Go in peace;" this is not merely, "Go with a blessing," but, "Enter into peace, as the future element in which thy life shall move;--and be whole of thy plague."
Theophylact traces a mystical meaning in this miracle. The complaint of this woman represents the ever-flowing fountain of sin; the physicians under whom she was nothing bettered, the world's prophets and sages, who, with all their medicines, their systems and their philosophies, prevailed nothing to stanch that fountain of evil in man's heart. To touch Christ's garment is to believe in his Incarnation, wherein He, first touching us, enabled us also to touch Him: and on this that healing, which in all those other things was vainly sought, follows at once. And if we keep in mind how her uncleanness separated her off as one impure, we shall have here an exact picture of the sinner, drawing nigh to the throne of grace, but out of the sense of his impurity not "with boldness, "rather with fear and trembling, hardly knowing what there he shall expect; but who is welcomed there, and, all his carnal doubtings and questionings at once hidden and expelled, dismissed with the word of an abiding peace resting
Notes on the Miracles of Our Lord.