Mark 5:34

Mar_5:24; Mar_5:34

And a certain woman, which had an issue of blood twelve years.

The power of feeble faith

I. Very imperfect faith may be genuine faith. It was intensely ignorant trust. Again, her trust was very selfish. It was also weakened and interrupted by much distrust.

II. Christ answers the imperfect faith. Christ stoops to her childish thought and allows her to prescribe the path by which His gift shall reach her. Christs mercy, like water in a vase, takes the shape of the vessel that holds it. On the other hand, His grace is given to every one of us according to the measure of the gift of Christ, with no limitation but His own unlimited fulness. Therefore-

1. Let us labour that our faith may be enlightened, importunate, and firm.

2. There can be no faith so feeble that Christ does not respond to it.

III. Christ corrects and confirms an imperfect faith by the very act of answering it. Her ignorance, selfishness, and fear, were all removed. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The faculty baffled-the great Physician successful

I. Let me expose the physicians who delude so many by their vain pretensions. Their names are, Dr. Sadducee, Dr. Legality, Dr. Ceremonial, Dr. Ascetic, Dr. Orthodoxy, and Dr. Preparation.

II. What is the reason of their failure? Because they do not understand the disease. They often prescribe remedies which are impossible to their patients. Many of their medicines do not touch the disease at all.

III. The plight of the patient who has tried these deceivers. She lost all her time. She was no better. She rather grew worse. She spent all that she had.

IV. How a cure can be wrought. I must press to get near Him. I must touch. The least of Christ will save. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

The disease of humanity incurable except by Christ

The disease of fallen humanity is wholly incurable except by the hand of Omnipotence. It is as easy for us to create a world as to create a new heart; and a man might as well hope to abolish cold and snow as hope to eradicate sin from his nature by his own power: he might as well say to this round earth, I have emancipated thee from the curse of labour, as say to himself, I will set myself free from the thraldom of sin. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Determination in the face of tremendous discouragements

When sinners sweep away every other delusion, and view Jesus as the only Saviour they will persevere till they find. When Cortez went to conquer Mexico, he found that the soldiers were few and dispirited. The Mexicans were many, and the enterprize hazardous. The soldiers would have gone back to Spain, but Cortez took two or three chosen heroes with him, and went down to the seaside and broke up all the ships; and now, he said, we must conquer or die. We cannot go back. When it is death or life, heaven or hell, pardon or condemnation, the sinner will be as determined and courageous as these poor Spaniards or as this poor woman. (Anonymous.)

The touch

I. The patient. Note: what courage and spirit she displayed; Her resolute determination; Her marvellous hopefulness.

II. The difficulties of this womans faith. The disease: long-standing: incurable. Her frequent disappointments. Her own unworthiness. Her present poverty. Her extreme sickness.

III. The vanishing point of all her difficulties. All her thoughts have gone toward the Lord Jesus. She has forgotten herself; forgotten the rampant fury of her disease; forgotten her being behind and out of sight: and even her own touch of Him she has put into a secondary place. All that she looks for must come out of Him. If seeking sinners would but think more of Christ, all would be well.

IV. Her grand success. She was healed immediately. She knew that she was healed. She has next the assurance from Christ that she was healed. The wine that cometh out of these grapes is this: the slightest connection with Jesus will bless us. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Apply this thought-

I. To spiritual existences. If I touch but a grain of sand or a bud, I find the Mighty One.

II. To the scheme of spiritual providence. Review your own life from infancy.

III. To the processes of spiritual education. It is a great thing to see God in heavens rich with systems of suns; it is a grander faith, surely, to see Him in a speck of dust.

IV. To the uses of spiritual ordinances. The hymn, the prayer, the lesson, the mere form itself may do men good. Application: The hand must touch Christ, not an apostle, or a minister, or an angel-but God the Son. You may have touched many without benefit; touch Him and you will live. (J. Parker, D. D.)

Who hath touched me?-Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole.

It requires the second sentence to complete the meaning of the first. In the days of the semaphore signals a message came across to England concerning the Duke of Wellington, and half the message was read as it appeared upon the semaphore, and astonished all England with the sad intelligence. It ran thus, Wellington defeated. Everybody was distressed as they read it, but it so happened that they had not seen all the message. Fog had intervened, and when, by and by, the air was clearer and the telegraph flashed out a second time, it was read thus-Wellington defeated-the French. Thus the first sentence may have caused dismay in the poor womans heart, but if the first appeared to kill, the second would make alive. (Anonymous.)

A diseased woman healed

The chief design of our Lords miracles was to confirm His pretensions. But they were more than this. Benevolent, for the greater part in their character, they served to unfold the mercifulness of His nature. They also shadowed forth His mode of serving us. Viewed in this light there is wonderful variety in them.

I. The sad condition of this woman when she came to Christ for relief. Her malady was an inveterate one. We are all sick in our souls. There is a disease in us which has seized on the noblest part of us. It is weakening, polluting, and destroying our immortal spirits.

II. The state of this womans mind in this sad condition. Had it been a despairing state, we could hardly have blamed her. One of the worst features in a penitent sinners case, is frequently a tendency to despair. No sin so great as despair. Your case may be sad, yet not hopeless. There is a Physician you bare not yet tried, or have never tried aright.

III. Her application to Him. There is deep humility evident here, and great self abasement. Sin is a loathsome and shameful thing. The soul would hide itself from every eye. There is great faith: I shall be whole-not relieved. What exalted views she must have had of Jesus. He is no common Saviour. But her faith was not perfect. It settled only on one part of the Lords character. She believed His power, but distrusted His goodness. This mixture of faith and unbelief is very common in every newly converted soul. If real faith be in us, its inferiority is overlooked.

IV. The cure this sufferer received.

1. It was immediate. This is always our Lords mode of acting with one class of persons who come to Him-those who come for pardon-receive it at once. Those who come to have the power of sin subdued in them, are often kept waiting for the mercy they desire. Like the child of Jairus, the disease grows worse while seeking the remedy. But the help sought is found at last.

2. The cure of this woman was one of which she and our Lord were both conscious. You think perhaps, brethren, that it is a small thing with Christ whether you come to Him or not; you conceive that He on His lofty throne has not a look or thought for you; but if you are turning to Him with a broken heart for salvation, there is not an object in the universe He thinks of more than you, there is not a moment in which His eye is off you. Great as is His joy now, it will be greater still when you touch Him and are made whole. He will say to His angels, as He said to His disciples here, Virtue is again gone out of Me. There is another sinner healed. And the woman, too, was aware of the cure which had been wrought in her; She felt in her body that she was healed. Her recovery, however, did not produce in her at first the joyous feelings we might have anticipated. There was a mixture of feeling in her. She feared and trembled after she was healed, as many a pardoned sinner trembles when he has reason to rejoice; but healed she was, and she knew it. And it is not easy to conceive how anyone can be cured of the dreadful disease of sin, and yet remain long ignorant or doubtful about his cure. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

The consciousness of cure

We cannot see His hand as it passes over the book of God, and blots out the dark record of our crimes which is written there; but pardon is not all. Sin is more than a crime against God which needs to be forgiven, it is a disease within a mans heart to be subdued and healed. And if we go on always doubting whether this disease within us is in a way of being healed, the probability is that our souls are sick as ever. It is not easy when a man is ill and recovering, to tell the exact moment in which his disease gives way and his recovery begins; but it is soon seen by those around him that his recovery is begun, and it is soon felt by himself. Just so with the salvation of the soul. A man may doubt for a time at his first return to God, and these doubts may recur again and again at intervals in his future years; nay, they will assuredly recur whenever he allows himself to wander from his God; but the habitual frame of the established Christians mind is not one of doubt and uncertainty. Christ has not done so little for him, that he cannot see it. The Holy Spirit has not touched his heart so slightly, that he never feels His hand. The gospel is not so poor a medicine, that he is always doubting whether it has done him any good. (C. Bradley, M. A.)

A woman which had an issue of blood

This case is crowded with lessons.

I. Note: how many unknown sufferers are about us.

II. Christ had sent this womans illness and was as loving in laying it on her as in lifting it away.

III. She is another instance of the sweet uses of adversity. The afflicted class producing then and now more believers in Christ than any other.

IV. There are many hems of the garment through which we can touch the Divine omnipotence and mercy.

1. Christs humanity is the great hem of the garment, through which we can touch His Godhead.

2. A word of Scripture is often a hem of His garment, through which we draw in salvation to our soul.

3. A sacrament is a hem of Christs garment. All these are valueless unless our touch seeks the Divine Christ within them; but they are saving links to Christ when enlightened faith seeks Him.

V. There is all the difference in the world between pressing and crowding on Christ and touching him. Many crowd Christ, reading much, attending services, singing hymns, and making impassioned prayers, perhaps fruitlessly; while a publican in the temple, or a dying thief-with one word, fall of aim and meaning-finds his soul saved. Be not fussy in religion, but calm your spirit, and speak not until in briefest compass you can name, and lodge, and leave your request with God.

VI. Let mercies received be duly confessed. (R. Glover.)

Twelve years! Long continuance of discipline

It pleases God to lay long and tedious afflictions on some of His servants in this life.

1. To manifest His great power, strengthening them to bear such long afflictions.

2. To magnify His mercy in delivering them at length out of them.

3. That He may make thorough proof and trial of their faith, patience, and other graces of His Spirit in them.

4. To wean them from this world, and to stir up in them a longing for heaven.

5. To make them more earnest in prayer to Him for deliverance. It is therefore no evidence of Gods wrath, nor any sufficient reason to prove such an one to be out of His favour, whom He so holds for a long time under the cross. Be well content, then, to bear afflictions, though of long continuance; submitting in this matter to the will of God, who knows it to be good and profitable for some to be kept long under discipline. (G. Petter.)

A variety of sufferers, their best meeting place

It is strange, the variety of sufferers that meet each other at the feet of Jesus! (R. Glover.)

Coming to Christ

Come to Christ Jesus to be cured in soul and conscience of your sins. Come to Him, and touch Him by true faith, as this diseased woman did, and thou shalt feel Divine virtue to come from Him to heal thee of thy sins, both of the guilt and of the corruption of them. Thou shalt feel His Divine power healing thee of the guilt of thy sins, by the merit of His obedience and sufferings applied to thy conscience by faith; and the same Divine power healing thee of the corruption of sin, that is, mortifying thy sinful lusts, that they may not reign in thee as they have done, and as they do in the wicked and unbelievers. Oh, therefore, thou that feelest thy soul diseased with sin, make haste unto Christ to be cured by this Divine healing virtue that is in Him: pray Him to manifest it in thee; and withal, labour by some measure of faith to apply it to thyself, as this woman did: then shalt thou most certainly be healed in soul, as she was in body. And let not the grievousness of thy disease hinder thee from coming to Christ to be cured, but rather cause thee to make the more speed to Him by faith: for be assured, there is virtue enough in Him to heal all thy sins, though many and grievous, if thou do but see and feel them, and complain of them, and lay them open to Him, and seek earnestly to Him by the prayer of faith to be cured of them. Do this therefore, and do it speedily, without delay. As in a dangerous sickness of body, thou wouldst not dare to put off sending to the physician, lest it cost thee thy life: so much less must thou dare to delay the time in seeking to Christ to be healed of thy sins, lest it cost thee the loss of eternal life, and the salvation of thy soul. Be careful, therefore, forthwith to seek to Christ to be healed of thy sins. The rather, because there is no other means or physic in the world to cure thee, besides the Divine healing virtue that is in Christ Jesus: no power or virtue that is in any herb, precious stone, or mineral, can cure thee of thy sins: not all the balm in Gilead; not any power or skill of man or angel can cure thy diseased conscience of one sin: only this Divine virtue that is in Christ can do it: and therefore seek to Him alone to be cured, and not to other vain helps and remedies. When thou feelest thy sins lie upon thy conscience, seek not (as many do) to be cured by merry company, or by following vain sports or recreations, nor by going to the bodily physician to purge melancholy (as if this alone would cure thee): all these are in this case physicians of no value; therefore trust not to them, but go directly to Jesus Christ, to be healed by that Divine virtue which is in him. (G. Petter.)

Majestic faith

Some criticise her faith unfavourably, as if she had a superstitious belief in Christs clothes. Superstition does not act as she did. Her faith was that Christs anointing, like Aarons, goes to the skirts of His garments. One less believing would have sunk, murmuring in despair, quoting dismal proverbs about misfortunes never coming single, and feeling that in her disease, poverty, shame, loneliness, she was specially ill-used by God. Or, if not despairing altogether, feeble faith would have faced Christ, and displayed at large all her claims for help, dwelling on the length of her sorrow, and on the fortune vainly spent in endeavouring to regain her health. But calm, trustful, feeling Christ so willing and so strong to help that there is no reluctance in His heart, she ventures all on a touch of faith. There is a heroism here worthy of Abraham. Full of this faith, she elbows her way through the crowd, and finding the blue hem of Christs garment within her reach, quietly-so that none observe her-she touches it; and at once a swift, gentle tide of health flushes through all her frame, and she feels she has got what she desired. (R. Glover.)

Encouragement to faith

If you have faith, though but in its infancy, be not discouraged, for-

1. A little faith is faith, as a spark of fire is fire.

2. A weak faith may lay hold on a strong Christ; a weak hand can tie the knot in marriage as well as a strong. She, in the gospel, who but touched Christ, fetched virtue from Him.

3. The promises are not made to strong faith, but to true. The promise does not say, He who hath a giant faith, who can believe Gods love through a frown, who can rejoice in affliction, who can work wonders, remove mountains, stop the mouth of lions, shall be saved; but, whosoever believes, be his faith never so small. A reed is but weak, especially when it is bruised; yet the promise is made to it, A bruised reed will He not break.

4. A weak faith may be fruitful. Weakest things multiply most. The vine is a weak plant, but it is fruitful. The thief on the cross, who was newly converted, was but weak in grace; but how many precious clusters grow upon that tender plant!

5. The weakest believer is a member of Christ as well as the strongest; and the weakest member of the body mystical shall not perish. Christ will cut off rotten members, but not weak members. Therefore, Christian, be not discouraged: God, who would have us receive them that are weak in the faith (Rom_14:1), will not Himself refuse them. (Watson.)

Coming to Christ

We are like this woman, inasmuch as-

I. We, too, have a need of Christ. He alone can

(1) pardon our sins;

(2) renew our nature;

(3) strengthen us to wage the spiritual conflict with success.

II. We should have a sense of this need. As long as we suppose that a slight change, a little penitence and contrition, will suffice; so long, not heartily applying to Christ for the blessings we want, we shall go empty away.

III. We have nothing to offer for the blessing we desire. Christs people receive all, and return nothing; for, all they can offer is already His.

IV. We come to a willing Benefactor. He is more ready to give than we to receive. It is as natural to Christ to give blessings to all who ask, as it is for the sun to diffuse its beams on all the objects beneath; if we receive not, it is because we have intercepted the rays flowing from the Sun of Righteousness.

V. In the exercise of faith we are sure of a blessing. All spiritual blessings may be ours, if only we will believe in Christs goodness and grace, and come to Him.

VI. The blessing may be delayed; but no prayer and no exercise of faith is ever lost. (B. W. Noel, M. A.)

Told Him all the truth: Be open with Jesus

This woman has a word for two classes. She urges the penitent to a full confession, and the true convert to an open profession.

I. To the penitent, urging a full avowal of their state and condition. Tell Jesus all the truth

(1) about your disease. Show yourself in all your foulness to the great Physician. Do not draw the picture flatteringly when you are in prayer. Do not use dainty terms; but make a clean breast of every sin.

(2) about your sufferings. Tell how your heart has been broken, your conscience alarmed. Let your sorrows flow in briny floods before the Lord. Though no other can understand them, He can.

(3) of your futile attempts after a cure; your wicked, sinful pride in seeking a righteousness of your own, instead of submitting to that of Christ.

(4) regarding your hopes.

(5) and your fears.

II. Reasons for this.

1. The Lord knows it all already. It would be folly to deny or attempt to hide what He has seen.

2. To tell Him will be a very great service to you. It will tend to make you feel your need more. While you are in the act of opening your heart to God, He will pour in the oil and wine of His Divine grace.

III. To those who are converted, but who have not yet acknowledged their faith in the presence of others.

1. This is for Gods glory. The Christian is not to be always wishing to expose what is in him; that were to make himself a Pharisee; but if God has put in you anything lovely, beautiful, and of good report, who are you that you should, by covering it, rob Him of His praise?

2. For the good of others. In the case before us, the womans confession was doubtless intended to strengthen the faith of Jairus, who was sorely tried by this delay. You do not know of how much service your open confession of Christ might be to some trembling soul.

3. For the persons own sake. I have no doubt this was the main reason. Suppose Christ had let her go home quietly, without any word from Him-when she reached home she would have said, Ah, I stole that cure; I am so glad I have it. But one day there would come a dark thought, What if it should die away after a time; then I shall be as bad as ever; for I never asked him. Conscience would say to her, Ah, it was a theft; and though she might excuse herself, still she would not be easy. Now Christ calls her up, and conscience cannot disturb her, for He gave her the cure before them all. She need not be afraid of the return of her disease, for Jesus has said, Thy faith hath made thee whole. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Salvation

There are three great truths which are illustrated in this narrative.

I. Salvation needed. That woman needed healing; we need saving. The gospel is the remedy, and the fact of the gospel being provided is a sufficient proof of the necessity of it. A remedy suggests the evil which is to be remedied. Justification by faith is a remedy to meet a special case of necessity. The most obvious and legitimate method of being justified is to be just; let me be just, and I am justified in the eye of the law. So the angels are justified. But we have sinned. How, then, are we to be justified? The gospel tells us we are to he justified by faith; we are to believe in Jesus Christ, and on the ground of His great sacrifice on our behalf we shall be accepted as just, though we ourselves have sinned. If you see a lifeboat on the seashore, it suggests storms and deaths; so the gospel suggests the ruin which it is meant to remedy. Look abroad on the world, and you will see evidences enough of the necessity. Consult your own consciences and history, and everyone will know in himself that there was need for such a remedy-that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Christ has come into the world as a propitiation for the sins of the whole world. A universal remedy indicates a universal necessity.

II. Salvation provided. Jesus obeyed the law we had broken; He suffered the punishment we had merited; He obeyed and suffered on our behalf. He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities.

III. Salvation obtained-obtained by faith. We accept Christ as our representative. (N. Hall, LL. B.)

The resource of faith

Here, then, is an exhaustless reservoir of power, the power of Omnipotence, and the means by which it may all be made available to feed our lives. The mill owner stores up in a reservoir on the heights the water that shall run his mill. Then he needs only a channel or sluice way that shall bring the water to his wheels. If it was an exhaustless reservoir, like the Atlantic Ocean for extent, he would have no fear that his mill would run dry. These miracles and this text teach the Christian that Omnipotence and Omniscience alone bound the reservoir of his spiritual graces, and that he has under his own control the width and depth of the channel called faith which brings them into his life. When Franklin grasped the principle of electricity, he could not only draw the lightning from a single cloud: all the electricity in the earth and in all the clouds was at his command, and he could send it upon his errands. When James Watt mastered the principle of the expansive power of steam, not only the little cloud of vapour that issued from his mothers tea kettle was under his control, but all the steam that could be generated by the stored up combustibles of the world was really his. When the Christian can grasp this truth of the power of faith, the infinite spiritual resources of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost are his. All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth, There is the reservoir. All things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive. There is the channel that conveys the power into our lives and makes it available. (Sermons by Monday Club.)

The persistence of faith

Again, Jairus and the woman and the blind men teach us not only what faith is, but what it inevitably involves. It always involves a persistent effort. Even though death has stiffened his little daughters limbs, and silenced her tongue, and has rolled the deep, dark stream which no soul was ever known to recross between her and him, Jairus will still persist. He will not give over his efforts. Come and lay Thy hand upon her and she shall live, is his entreaty still. Though the invalid for twelve years has tried physician after physician and has received no help, she will try again. It could not have been easy for her to press through that curious throng of stronger ones, but she does it until she even grasps His garments hem, and then He turns and speaks the healing word. Our Lord at first seemed to take no notice of the blind men, but when they persistently followed Him, when He saw that the rebuke of pitiless bystanders had no effect but to increase their effort to reach Him, when they followed Him into the house, then He touched their eyes. Persistent effort is not true faith, but it always accompanies true faith. Thunder never split the heart of the oak tree, but it always accompanies the lightnings flash, and tells to all about of the lightnings presence. The farmer does not show his faith by lying in his bed and waiting for God to plough and harrow his field and sow his seed. He ploughs, and harrows, and sows, and shows his faith in then waiting for God to give the increase. Gods winds are always blowing; the man of faith spreads his sail before God can fill it. (Sermons by Monday Club.)

Gospel pictures

As a picture from a magic lantern is dashed upon the screen, is looked at for a moment, then vanishes, and is gone, so different persons come upon the stage in the narratives of the Evangelists, enact perfect dramas, exquisite in texture and construction, and momentous in moral bearing, and then pass away. There is no lineage, no record, no name; and yet all is so vivid and powerful. (H. W. Beecher.)

Sickness spoils life

She was sick; and what is all the world worth when one is sick? What is all that is presented to the eye, what is the income of the year, what are all the treasures of life worth under such circumstances? What is everything that can be desired worth when one is thoroughly sick? Sickness takes the flavour out of everything. It changes the whole current and course of desire and feeling. She had long been sick. She had worn out years in sickness, and those years had well nigh worn her out. All that a man hath will he give for his life. (H. W. Beecher.)

An ungrateful reception of healing

Well, ought she not, in that very instant, to have cried out? Ought she to have taken such bounty, and to have borne no witness to it? It is true that she did not say anything; but her silence was not altogether from ingratitude. It may have been a relative want of appreciation of the greatness of the favour. She may have said to herself, How do I know that it is anything more than my imagination? I will say nothing about it until I am sure;-just as a great many persons, when they begin to feel the saving power of the Divine Spirit in their souls say, I will not speak of this; I will wait; I will see what it is. She may have said, How Can I speak of this? My lips refuse to open; I cannot speak. It may have been sensibility, delicacy of feeling, shrinkingness, that kept her from speaking. How many there are who believe that they have been pardoned, and that the blood of Christ which takes away the stain of sin has healed them, but who consult their sensibility and their shrinking tastes, and say, How can I speak of this? And it does not look as though it were wicked. Yet, if there be anything that a person ought to acknowledge, it is obligations which touch the great core of things. He who has been healed by a faithful physician should be the friend of that physician as long as he lives. It may be that he acted professionally; it may be that he took his fee; but money never pays a physician who performs his duty faithfully. If your child has come back from death, never forget the faithful old nurse that made her bosom a cradle in which the child rocked, and gave her days and nights to the care of it. For such service as hers nothing material can be an adequate compensation. We are ungrateful in a thousand ways which we hardly suspect. We do not pay what we owe to men who enfranchise our understanding. Authors who give us a higher and nobler conception of life; poets who give wings to our fancy, so to speak, enabling us to fly higher than ordinary men, who stumble and fall down in the midst of the vulgarities of society; those who make virtue beauteous, and draw us to it,-who can repay the services of such as these? Men scarcely know what they owe to those who fortify them in virtue; to those who make it plain to them that integrity is safe under all circumstances; to those who have walked before them in the beauty of holiness; to those who have redeemed them from the conception that religion is a bondage, and led them to see that it was an efflorescent garden full of sweet delights. There is among men a great lack of the sense of their obligation toward those who have served them. (H. W. Beecher.)

Unpurposed healing

Ah! it is a good thing for men to be filled with grace to such a degree as that their unconscious moods and unpurposed influence shall be healing, as well as the things which they intend. So it was with our Master. Purposely He cast out demons. He set persons free from insanities. He quenched the fire of fevers. Dropsies were dried up by Him. Men were brought to health on every side through His instrumentality. With a word, with a gesture, with a look, with a touch, He did great works of beneficence. But so full was He of Divine savour, of spiritual power, that His very garments, as it were, were imbued with it; and when the woman stole up and touched the hem of His garment, straightway she experienced a joyful release. Oh, soul-filling surprise! She that for twelve years had not known one hours exemption from disease, felt the sovereign balm of perfect health flow through her veins; and she stood restored! She was well! (H. W. Beecher.)

Touches that do not touch; or contact without sympathy

There seems to be requisite, then, a relation between souls before the real and rich fruits of life can come to them in the highest forms of Christian experience. Let us look along the lines of analogy a little. Souls touch each other in various ways. Life touches life variously. People live together in bodily contact. They live in agreement only as to bodily conditions. They are related to each other simply by the necessity of food, raiment, warmth, protection. Ten thousand wedded souls are to each other simply as a blade is to knife. There is no real vitality between the two. Only in regard to provision for worldly wants and in bodily conditions are they in contact. But, then, these are the lowest, rudest forms of contact; yet there are people that are more in sympathy. There are multitudes that come into sympathy with each other only through their children. The cradle is a reconciler, often, between husband and wife. It opens up, in the rude, hard man, streams like those which Moses brought forth from the rock. For the childs sake, the mother becomes dear to him. There is mediation; and yet how little of life is there in common between two such souls! Again, people dwell together in single lines of mutuality. Many persons live together in all intellectual qualities, but in no other respects. Many dwell together being in accord in their tastes; but in no other regards. Many live together in literature, in history, in the ordinary and easier forms of knowledge that are of the earth earthy; but they never rise into eminence, aspiration, glorification, of each other, and never see anything in each other except that which the bird sees, or which the animal sees. They do not touch each other; and yet they are in perpetual contact. Higher phenomena of life there are, however; and there is developed heroism at times. There is a coming together of soul with soul, not through the ministration of the body, nor of taste, nor of thought, nor of mutual service, alone, but by that rare inflammation of the whole soul which has no definition, and which no man can describe. It is not needed by those who have it; it is not possible to those who have it not. Every faculty in one, then, has sympathy with every faculty in the other. Either they fit each other by exact agreement, or the positive element of one is just adapted for the absence of it in the other. Thus souls come together in an indefinable way. They are conscious that their liven mingle and blend. This is the rarest and highest form of contact; and yet is the revelation of that law by which men can rise from bodily conditions into social, and from those conditions into intellectual; but the consummation lies in that invisible, indescribable element which inheres in every man and woman-inheres sometimes only as a seed ungrown, and at other times develops and is full of fragrance, and then is full of fruit. (H. W. Beecher.)

The survival of the fittest and a higher law

Jesus did not say to this woman, Go away; you are too weak and broken to hold your own in the world; best for you to be down and wait for the end, while others take your place she can do your work. That would have been a sorrowful word, not to her only, but to us also; for it would have set a limit, not to Christs power merely, but to His very compassion, and therein also to ours. That, however, is not the law which human hearts acknowledge. Our power may easily have limits, but our pity must have none; and as we can help not a little even when we cannot heal, it is bound upon our conscience never to be inhuman. The bruised reed He would not break. But this, while it is the supreme law of mans nature, is by no means the law of nature elsewhere. Nature throws away her broken vessels with no compunction or pity whatever. Everywhere the weak and sickly among the lower animals are ruthlessly killed off, and only those remain which are able to do for themselves. The fit survive-the feeble perish. It is hardly necessary to lead any proof of this. The stricken deer turns aside to die, while the fat herd sweeps on indifferent to its fate. The park of lean wolves know of no surgery for a fainting comrade, except to fall on him and rend him in pieces. The frail bird that cannot fly with the rest of the brood is tumbled from the nest and left to its fate. Nature has, indeed, a great healing power for the strong and healthy in case of accident, so that wounds and broken bones soon come together again. But among wild animals sickness, disease, feebleness, and age meet with no compassion. In their warfare it is still Vae victis, for they cannot cumber themselves with the wounded. The halt and the blind get no chance at all. The weak and sickly are left to their fate, and the sooner it comes the better, for their kindred turn from them, and their friends will not know them. Unfit for the struggle of existence which is their supreme business, they perish without ruth or remorse. Thus everywhere on sea and land, and in the lightsome air, among all creatures that swim, or fly, or creep, or run, we find this law working, and doubtless working for the general good of the whole, yielding a benevolent harvest of health and comfort to the unthinking creatures of God. But now, when we pass from them into the province of man, we meet at once with a law which breaks in upon this, and controls it. The struggle for existence goes on there too, but it is no longer supreme and all in all. Everywhere it is modified by ideas that are confessedly of greater moment and higher authority. Sometimes it is set aside altogether, for we are not always bound to exist if we can, but we are always bound to do right. Thus the moral rises above the natural, and even flatly contradicts it. The struggle for existence is subordinated to the struggle for a higher perfection. Instead of the survival of the fittest, we have a law requiring the strung to help the weak, the healthy to improve their health for the sake of the diseased, and even those who are hopelessly stricken, and forever invalided from the battle of life, are cast on us as a peculiar care, to neglect which were to outrage the noblest instincts of humanity. The natural law, everywhere else in full swing, that the weak and sickly, the halt and blind, must be left to their fate, or even hurried out of the way, not only does not hold among us, but the very reverse of it holds. And the moral principle which thus asserts its supremacy vindicates its claim by many fruitful results. For often times the poor cripple whom natural law would have cast away, has grown up to bless the world with wise and noble counsel, and blind men, all unfit for the mere struggle of animal life, have yet done brave and good service in the higher warfare of humanity; and even the utterly broken, the helplessly disabled, who can only stand and wait, have yet, by their meek patience under affliction, shown us an example which made our hearts gentler, humbler, better, and was well worth all the care we bestowed on them. So it is, at any rate, that no sooner do we pass from the mere natural life of animals to the moral life of man, than we find another law breaking in upon the law of survival of the fittest-controlling, suspending, even utterly reversing it, with an authority which cannot be gainsaid, without forfeiting all that is most nobly and distinctively human. (Walter C. Smith, D. D.)

Christs kindness in discipline

It is not often that we are able to perceive the full purpose of any one of Gods dealings. Seldom can we see the perfect fruit of the chastisement He allots us. And no wonder: the life of man is so short; the purposes and operations of God are so vast.

I. In the conduct of our Lord notice-

1. Christs apparent harshness. He insisted on the womans coming forth to tell her shame. But see Christs real kindness. It was not in mere assertion of authority that He called her forth. It was to complete the blessing. He would give her His benediction before she went. Again, it was to purify and strengthen her faith. He would prepare her to confess Him elsewhere. Christ alone knew the trials to which this woman would be exposed at home.

2. So in like manner and with like purposes, will Christ deal with you, if you be of those who have come to Him with faith. The purpose of all Christs discipline-the discipline that we experience-is exemplified in His conduct to this woman. First, we noticed that He called her forth to receive further blessing. She came for healing only, but He would give her spiritual grace. Like her, many now come to the Saviour, barely praying for pardon, for deliverance from punishment. But Christ did not achieve redemption merely to keep men out of hell-He died to take them to heaven. Now, to prepare for heaven much grace is necessary, and men must be summoned to return to Christ again and again, that they may receive far more than the blessing for which they first came. Christ has yet richer favours to bestow; and if His people do not apply for them they must be placed in circumstances where they will feel their want and their need, and hungrily ask Him for more. Next, we saw that He called her forth to purify and strengthen her faith. There is no need for me to tell you that your faith is both imperfect and impure. Would you not desire your faith to grow stronger and larger? Then it must be used and tried, exercised and trained. Again, we noticed that Christ was probably preparing this woman to witness for Him in time to come. He requires from all men the public profession of His name. Salvation is not a sort of spiritual luxury to be enjoyed in private. And, further, men never know what lies before them as messengers of God; they are ignorant of the high and arduous service to which, may be, they have been appointed. But Christ knows it; and He prepares them and exercises them in bearing testimony for God in one difficulty and trial after another, until they are ready for the work they have to do. Thus does He grant to His applicants, not only the healing they pray for, but also the strength which they are content to lack. As in the experience of this woman, so in His treatment of us, will Christ combine apparent harshness with real kindness.

II. For the further investigation of this subject shall we turn from the Saviour to the saved, and try to trace the feelings of this woman as the black cloud of Christs seeming displeasure passed over her.

1. We find her full of sudden joy at feeling in her body that she was healed of that plague. Twelve years misery, labour, expense, and disappointment are all at an end. How universal the joy must have been. No fibre of her frame that did not thrill with gladness. And there was another cause of joy too; she bad escaped the exposure she so much dreaded. But her joy was all at once quenched in awe and fear when He asked, Who touched Me? and when He asked again, and when He looked round about with a gaze that showed He knew her that had done this thing. So feeling, for a moment, she comes forward and tells Him all the truth. But, instead, sounds came upon her ear tenderer and tenderer, and stronger in consolation: Courage, daughter; thy faith hath saved thee, etc. Ah! what feelings were hers, as she rose and departed. It would take her long to disentangle all their varied happiness. Did she not feel that the benediction of Christ amply made up for the loss of secrecy? She was really happier for the discipline through which He made her pass. Had she gone away as she hoped and planned, she would have carried with her none of this joy-the love of Christ. She would have received the cure, and that alone. And, on the other hand, she would have had doubts as to Christs willingness to heal her; doubts as to His forgiveness of her intrusion and underhand application; doubts, too, as to the permanence of the cure-all would have been in uncertainty. But now she knew that His will healed her, His kindness welcomed her, His grace blessed her. Moreover, had she gone away as she hoped, she would have retained her superstition with her faith. It would have cramped and enfeebled it, and she might never have believed in Jesus to the salvation of her soul. And the weakness that made her come to Christ in the crowd behind might have betrayed her into greater fear of man at home, and she might never have been able to confess His name. But now she knew Him, and believed in Him-not in the fringe of His garment; now she had confessed Him before the multitude, and would not fear to confess Him before her friends. Would she not be sure that it was loving wisdom that deprived her of the convenience which she had yearned for, and substituted blessings of which she had not dreamed? And, further, was she not glad that she had been made to undergo all this? If she could have had her choice, and it were all to do over again, think you she would have wished to go away secretly without seeing Christs beaming eye and hearing His Courage, daughter, go in peace? Surely not. She saw now that Christs kindness, though it seemed harsh at first, was wiser than her own selfish cowardice, and secured her greater happiness.

2. This narrative shows us also a person undergoing harsh discipline, and perceiving herself in a few moments the kindness which appointed it. Now this makes it specially interesting. It is so seldom we can see both sides of any dispensation-the peaceable, happy fruit as well as the present grievousness-that every instance in which we can do so ought to receive most careful meditation. It is not always granted to Christians to see this happy change so suddenly; and yet some time or other in the experience of every believer as swift a vision of Gods kindness in discipline is accorded. And from over us will the cloud sometimes pass as quickly as in this case. Many a discipline which we think harsh we shall find to be kind. Not only will it really be kind, but we shall know it to be so, and shall receive the joy of experiencing Gods goodness. Many an exposure or trial that we would have avoided at any cost will turn out to be the means of bringing blessings which we shall reckon cheaply bought. Conclusion: It is painful when speaking of privileges and securities, to think that they are limited to a few. But I must warn you that none but those who come to Christ for salvation may hope that He is training them for eternity. Those who do not touch Christ by faith, their sorrows are but sorrows, their disappointments bring no outweighing joy, their troubles are not trials, only calamities. Of how much are you depriving yourselves by unbelief! Now that Jesus is near, is even waiting for you, will you not trust in Him and come to Him to be healed? (J. Alden Davies.)

A cure by the way

Jesus was pressing through the throng to the house of Jairus to raise the rulers dead daughter; but He is so profuse in goodness that He works another miracle while upon the road. While yet this rod of Aaron bears the blossoms of an unaccomplished wonder, it yields the ripe almonds of a perfect work of mercy. It is enough for us, if we have some one purpose, straightway to go and accomplish it; it were imprudent to expend our energies by the way. Hastening to the rescue of a drowning friend, we cannot afford to exhaust our strength upon another in like danger. It is enough for a tree to yield one sort of fruit, and for a man to fulfil his own particular calling. But our Master knows no limit of power or boundary of mission. He is so prolific of grace, that like the sun which shines as it fulfils its course, His path is radiant with loving kindness. He is a fiery arrow of love, which not only reaches its ordained target, but perfumes the air through which it flies. Virtue is always going out of Jesus, as sweet odours exhale from the flowers; and it always will be emanating from Him, as light from the central orb. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Men speak of killing two birds with one stone, but my Lord heals many souls on one journey. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Tell all to Jesus

If your heart be very grieved, do, I pray you, remember that compassion is one of the most rapid ways of getting relief. While the banks hold good the lake swells; let them break, and the water is drained off. Let a vent be found for the swollen tarn up yonder on the mountains, and the mass of water which might otherwise inundate the valleys will flow in fertilizing streams. When you have a festering, gathering wound, the surgeon lets in the lancet and gives you ease. So confession brings peace. (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Confessing Christ

Why should the wonders He hath wrought be hid in darkness and forgot? When I look abroad upon nature, it is true I do not see nature fussily trying to make itself tidy for a visitor, as some professors do, who, the moment they think they are going to be looked at, trim up their godliness to make it look smart. But on the other hand, Nature is never bashful. She never tries to hide her beauties from the gazers eye. You walk the valley; the sun is shining, and a few raindrops are falling; yonder is the rainbow; a thousand eyes gaze at it. Does it fold up all its lovely colours and retire? Oh, no! it shrinks not from the eye of man. In yonder garden all the flowers are opening their bejewelled cups, the birds are singing, and the insects humming amid the leaves. It is a place so beautiful that God Himself might walk therein at eventide, as He did in Eden. I look without alarming the bashful beauties of the garden. Do all these insects fold their wings and hide beneath the leaves? do the flowers hang down their heads? does the sun draw a veil over his modest face? does nature blush till the leaves of the trees are scarlet? Oh, no! Nature cares not for gazers, and when they come to look upon her, she doth not hasten to wrap a mantle over her fair form, or throw a curtain before her grandeur. So the Christian is not to be always wishing to expose what is in him; that were to make himself a Pharisee; yet, on the ether hand, if God has put anything that is lovely and beautiful and of good report in you, anything that may glorify the cross of Christ, and make the angels happy before the eternal throne, who are you that you should cover it? Who are you that you should rob God of His praise? What! Would you have all Natures beauties hid? Why, then, hide the beauties of grace? (C. H. Spurgeon.)

Best to apply direct to the Master

A tenant farmer on a rich lords estate had been refused a renewal of his lease by the steward of the estate. Instead of giving up, the farmer went to the owner himself, laid the matter before him, and was successful in getting his renewal. Why? He had gone to the one who had the ultimate power to grant or refuse. So Jairus, so the woman with the bloody flux, when all human help failed, went to Him in Whom alone was the power to heal and make alive. All the bread in the world will not keep you from starving, if it is shut up in storehouses, and you have no key, There may be water enough in the well; but if you have no bucket to draw it with, it will do you no good. And all Christs treasures of healing for body and soul will be nothing to you, if you do not go to Him for your share of them. (Sunday School Times.)

The sanctity of touch

I. How great and mysterious the importance attaching to touch in the Old Testament.

1. Thus touch is pollution (Hag_2:12-13).

2. Thus touch is consecration (Exo_30:26; Exo_30:29).

3. Thus touch is strength (Dan_10:10; Dan_10:16; Dan_10:18).

4. Thus touch is wisdom (Jer_1:9).

5. Thus touch is purity (Isa_6:7).

II. The great lesson of the New Testament is by touch, to show to us the absolute communicability of the Divine power and holiness; it is the story also of the vaccination of the world. The Old Testament is the story of the first man, and how one sin tainted the world. The New Testament is the story of the second Man, and how His holiness purified the tainted stream. Jesus went about touching. The holy awakening of Divine grace restores man.

III. There is no cure without contact. You cannot satisfy hunger without eating, although your table be covered with food. You cannot satisfy thirst without drinking, although fountains play before the eye. You cannot satisfy faith by reading about Christ, or by knowing Him-you must appropriate Him. Imputed righteousness is really transferred righteousness; the purity of the Saviour becomes ours. What does the whole teaching and miraculous life of our Lord convey to us but this doctrine-Transfusion. Faith is the finger by which man touches God. Meanwhile it is not faith that saves; it is faith in Jesus Christ. We are not saved by faith as an act of the mind, but by faith on the object of the mind. It is not the faith, but the Person. No cure without contact. Thus if man cannot come to God, God must come to man, or these two can never meet. This is the meaning of Christs incarnation. By faith we come into contact with God, and are saved; by sympathy, we come in contact with man and cure. (E. P. Hood.)

Touch is the key to all the senses

Touch is the principle of all the senses. Perhaps, also, I shall be right, if I say that it is the most subtle of all the senses. There is no sensation without touch; sight is touch; fragrance is touch; we give that name to what is the sense of resistance; but all things are known to us and are related to us by touch. Touch is the internal sensitive principle-it is the principle of communication, and of reception, and of translation. We are told that particles are constantly floating off to touch the sensitive body, to bid the door of sensation spring open; and I think you must have felt that while those avenues are touched by their proper affinities, there are other senses within which are not touched, and never awakened, but which might own and yield to the appropriate key. Touch is, to me, far from being that endorsement of materialism it has been described as being; it is the assurance of an inhabitant behind the gateway. Indeed, the more closely I look into any of the senses, the more spiritual they become. All knowledge is by contact; all sympathy is in contact; and sin and purity, and health and disease, grow in contact. How true it is that there is no cure, no healing, without contact-that is, without mutual touching. If we cannot get near to that which heals, how can it heal us? Suppose I know of the medicine which might cure me, but I am in England, and the medicine or the physician is in America, and it is the only medicine-how can I be cured? Hence, then, guard the avenues of touch. It has been well said that the skin isolates the man, and makes him world tight; but it is necessary that the worlds goods should come into his house-necessary, too, that the refuse and wear and tear should be carried forth, and that he should go out and in with the freedom of a man. The skin is our abode, not our prison; and the porous skin has its bivalve doors and windows, to admit supplies from without, and to allow the spirit to steer forth from within. Some things we must be careful to touch not. (E. P. Hood.)

Sin spreading by contact

It contains also the history of the transference of Divine holiness, but it is especially the history of the inoculation of sin; it is the history of the drop that taints and ruins the race-the fatal virus; it is not inconceivable. I remember, some time since, when in the University of Edinburgh, being told of a young man who slightly touched his two fingers with the dissecting knife, they were instantly cut off to save his life, so fatal was the touch of corruption. Such is the corrosive power of poisonous touch. We can appreciate the touch of fire, the touch of caustic, the touch of poison; but can we not appreciate the touch of sin? Can we not so far appreciate it as to know its power, its danger, and to see in it the dreadful virus tainting and damning our race? (E. P. Hood.)

Christianity a healing influence

Now it is, as I have before said, not difficult to perceive to what teaching all the doctrine concerning touch in the Old Testament and in the New, points: even to the great doctrine of a transferred or transfused purity. It is mournfully true that, for the most part, except as we are divinely breathed upon, we but add to each others impurity. Let the Book be removed from our midst-let all church ordinances expire from among us-let every opportunity of prayer be suspended or at an end-and all the offices of the religious life, as aided and inspired by the sacred Scriptures, and then what shall we see? Still man would exercise his powers as an artist-still would he utter himself in poetry and in song, in painting and in sculpture. Can you doubt for a moment, or wonder, what would be the nature of those performances? Anacreon, and Juvenal, and universal impurity over the marble and over the canvas. When you think of mans genius, his native genius, you are not to think of it as you behold it here, but as it was in the day in which the apostle bore his witness in the prison at Rome, and on the hill of Greece; and you must see how the touch of holiness transformed all that impurity into the holy lights of virtue and truth. But Greece, and Rome-what power had they to impart purity to each other? Therefore is there needed another ray, another touch, another hallowing fire. (Ibid.)

Twelve years! The contrasts of life

In Capernaum there were two houses whose inmates are strangely linked together in the Gospel history. The one was the house of Jairus, which perhaps stood on the rising ground fast by the synagogue: the other was the house in which the nameless woman, with the issue of blood, dwelt, which probably was situated in the poorer part of the city. Let us mark the contrasts of life presented by these two houses in the twelve years twice mentioned by Mark.

I. Hope and fear-There was a day when a great event took place in the house of Jairus. A child was born. What congratulations of friends, etc. The same year-perhaps the same month and day-a memorable event took place in the house of a poor woman. Issue of blood (Mar_5:25). How it came is not told. Such contrasts are common. In one home they are lifted up with hope and joy; while in another there is the gloom and trouble.

II. Health and sickness. In the house of Jairus all goes well. The child grows. She is the joy of her parents, etc. But alas! how different have been the circumstances in the other house. Perhaps the woman thought at first that her ailment was slight and temporary. Certainly she was buoyed up with the hope that it would yield to the skill of physicians. But disappointed.

III. Comfort and penury. Jairus must have held a good position: he was wealthy. As to the woman, we cannot tell what her original condition was. At any rate, she soon felt the pressure of adversity.

IV. Society and loneliness. Jairus had wife and daughter, and many friends. If he needed sympathy, there would be always people ready to give it. Besides, he had his place and his duties, as a ruler of the synagogue, to furnish him with honourable employment and holy rest. But how different with the poor woman. She is represented as alone. No one is named as taking interest in her case.

V. But there came a time when the fortunes of these two people were strangely assimilated and when in their extremity they met and found relief at the feet of the same Saviour. Lessons:

1. Trouble comes to all.

2. Trouble should drive us to Christ.

3. Trouble should bind us more closely in sympathy and love with our brethren.

4. Trouble should endear to us the more the hope of heaven. (W. Forsyth, M. A.)

Methods of spiritual treatment

There are cases in which the physicians must still, to save life, resort to treatment which is painful. But it is now known, it is now conclusively settled among physicians, that the way to master disease is not to torture the patient into health or into his grave, but to provide that those miraculous processes of nature which include healing should as far as possible have fair play, to make art the handmaid of nature, instead of offering any violence to nature in the name of art. Now-a-days, therefore, your physician who is not an age behind his age does not give you drugs in doses which horribly aggravate your suffering-he prescribes fresh air, the delights of travel, gentle exercise, good diet, warmth, comfort, suggests that pleasant company has its own benign influence on body and mind, recommends innocent amusement, and, as regards the welfare of this mortal tabernacle, agrees with the ancient maxim that godliness with contentment is great gain. It is certain that more cures are effected by the modern system of medical treatment, while, as for the soothing of pain, no comparison is possible between them. The difference between the two systems is that by the one the attempt is made to check and to extirpate disease by violence, by the other to aid nature by gentle methods to overcome it. From doctors for the body is not the passage easy to doctors for the soul? Among them, too, the curing of disease by violence has been milch and long in vogue. In our day, it is true, we hear little and know less of the coarser and more outrageous means which were once universally approved for effecting spiritual cures. We dont now believe that we can save souls by burning the bodies belonging to them. Looking thus to the general scope of the teaching of Christ, we have no difficulty in seeing what religion was meant by Him to be in relation to all moral and spiritual disability and disease. It was not to be a system of bleeding and blistering, of curing by counter irritation, of making six days of the week holy by making the seventh miserable, of making earth a place of torment in order to render heaven accessible, of overcoming one disease by the production of another. It was to be a kindred influence with the sunshine, and the air of shores and hills, and the kindly ties of home, and the sympathy which is born of comradeship in adversity and sorrow-it was to be an influence kindred with all these in restoring to health those that were ready to perish. Every way you choose to look at it, this is the character of the Christianity of Christ. (J. Service, D. D.)

Christ discriminates His healing virtue

Who would not think that a man might ladle up a dish of water out of the sea, without its being missed? Yet that water, though much, is finite; those drops may be numbered: that art which hath reckoned how many grains of sand would make up a world, could more easily compute how many drops of water would make up an ocean. Whereas, the mercies of God are absolutely infinite, and beyond all possibility of proportion; and yet this bashful soul cannot steal one drop of mercy from this endless, boundless, bottomless sea of Divine bounty, but it is felt and questioned. (Bp. Hall.)

Virtue had gone out of Him!

Christ an inexhaustible reservoir of grace:-As heat goeth out of the sun into the air, water, earth, earthly bodies, and yet remains in the sun; so here. A fountain is not drawn dry, but cleared; so skill is not lost by communicating it to others, but increased. (John Trapp.)

The looks of Jesus

And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing. The record in this Gospel of the looks of Christ is very remarkable. Let us gather them together and by their help think of Him whose meek, patient eye is still upon them that fear Him.

I. The welcoming look of love and pity to those who seek Him. There are two recorded instances-that of our text and that of the young ruler.

II. The Lords looks of love and warning to those who found Him. There are three instances of this class- Mar_3:34; Mar_8:32; Mar_10:23-27. The stooping love which claims us for His brethren, shines in His regard none the less tenderly though He reads and warns us with His eye.

III. The Lords look of anger and pity on His opponents. This took place in the synagogue (Mar_3:1-5).

IV. The look of the Lord on the profaned temple (Mar_11:11). How solemn that careful, all-comprehending scrutiny of all that He found there. (A. Maclaren, D. D.)

The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mark

TOUCH OR FAITH?

Mar 5:28, Mar 5:34.

I. The erroneous faith.

In general terms there is here an illustration of how intellectual error may coexist with sincere faith. The precise form of error is clearly that she looked on the physical contact with the material garment as the vehicle of healing-the very same thing which we find ever since running through the whole history of the Church, e.g. the exaltation of externals, rites, ordinances, sacraments, etc.

Take two or three phases of it-

1. You get it formularised into a system in sacramentarianism.

{a} Baptismal regeneration,

{b} Holy Communion.

Religion becomes largely a thing of rites and ceremonies.

2. You get it in Protestant form among Dissenters in the importance attached to Church membership.

Outward acts of worship.

There is abroad a vague idea that somehow we get good from external association with religious acts, and so on. This feeling is deep in human nature, is not confined to the Roman Catholic Church, and is not the work of priests. There is a strange revival of it to-day, and so there is need of protest against it in every form.

II. The blessing that comes to an erroneous faith.

The woman here was too ‘ritualistic.’ How many good people there are in that same school to-day! Yet how blessed for us all, that, even along with many errors, if we grasp Him we shall not lose the grace.

III. Christ’s gentle enlightenment on the error.

‘Thy faith hath saved thee.’ How wonderfully beautiful! He cures by giving the blessing and leading on to the full truth. In regard to the woman, it might have been that her touch did heal; but even there in the physical realm, since it was He, not His robe, that healed, it was her faith, not her hand, that procured the blessing. This is universally true in the spiritual realm.

{a} Salvation is purely spiritual and inward in its nature-not an outward work, but a new nature, ‘love, joy, peace.’ Hence {b} Faith is the condition of salvation. Faith saves because He saves, and faith is contact with Him. It is the only thing which joins a soul to Christ. Then learn what makes a Christian.

{c} Hence, the place of externals is purely subsidiary to faith. If they help a man to believe and feel more strongly, they are good. Their only office is the same as that of preaching or reading. In both, truth is the agent. Their power is in enforcing truth.

Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 5:34. Ὕπαγε εἰς εἰρήνην, go in peace [lit. into peace]) comp. Luk 7:50, note.—ἴσθι, be) permanently so. After her long continued misery, the benefit conferred is a lasting one.

Bengel's Gnomon of the New Testament — English translation (T&T Clark, Edinburgh, 1860) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Mar 5:34 . The woman had already heard the fame of Jesus (Mar 5:27 ). From what Jesus said to her she would for the first time get some idea of His exquisite sympathy, delicately expressed in the very first word: θύγατερ , daughter , to a mature woman, probably not much, if at all, younger than Himself! He speaks not as man to woman , but as father to child .

Note how vivid is Mark’s story compared with the meagre colourless version of Mat 1 A lively impressionable eye-witness, like Peter, evidently behind it.

The Expositor's Greek Testament, edited by W. Robertson Nicoll (1897–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Verse 34. Be whole of thy plague.] Rather, continue whole, not, be whole, for she was already healed: but this contains a promise, necessary to her encouragement, that her disorder should afflict her no more.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(34) Go in peace.—The phrase has become so idiomatic that we dare not change it, but it may be well to remember that the true meaning of the Greek is “Go into peace.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

34. Daughter] Our Lord is recorded to have addressed no other woman by this title. It calmed all her doubts and fears.

go in peace] This is not merely “go with a blessing,” but abi in pacem, enter into peace, “as the future element in which thy life shall move,” and be whole of thy plague. Be = esto perpetuo. “Post longam miseriam, beneficium durabile.” Bengel.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he said unto her, daughter,.... Instead of reproving her, or showing any anger, or resentment at her, as she feared, he speaks to her in a very soft, kind, and tender manner, and called her "daughter", which was not only an expression of affection and civility, this being an affable, courteous way of speaking used by the Jews; but might signify her spiritual relation through him, being a child of God by adopting grace. She was a daughter of Abraham by natural descent, as was the woman bound by Satan eighteen years, Luk 13:16 and so she was likewise in a spiritual sense, being one that walked in the steps of his faith, believing in hope against hope; and she was also a daughter of the Lord God Almighty, as her faith showed her to be, Gal 3:26, and to this our Lord may chiefly refer; she was one of those that were predestinated to the adoption of children, and were given to Christ as such; and who are evidentially the children of God by faith in him: and to have a testimony of adoption from the Spirit of God, and from the mouth of Christ himself, as this woman had; how great a blessing is it!

thy faith hath made thee whole: through faith in Christ she received the cure from him; for it was not her act of faith that either merited, or procured it, but his power, and he himself the object of her faith that effected it: though he is pleased to take no further notice of the virtue that went out from him; but commends her faith, for her further and future encouragement in the exercise of it, and for the encouragement of others to believe in him. In the Greek text it is, "thy faith hath saved thee"; both from her bodily disease, and from her sins: not that there is such an intrinsic virtue in faith as to deliver from either; for certain it is, that it was not virtue that went out of her faith, but virtue which went out from Christ, that cured her of her issue; though faith was the means of drawing it out; or it was that, through which, virtue from Christ exerted itself, and produced such an effect: and it is as certain, that not faith, but Christ, is the author and cause of spiritual salvation: faith looks to Christ for salvation, and receives every blessing of it from him, as righteousness, peace, pardon, adoption, and eternal life; so that believers are saved by grace, through faith; through the exercise of that grace they have the joy, and comfort Of salvation now; and through it they are kept, by the power of God, unto the full possession of it hereafter.

Go in peace; to thine house; all health and happiness attend thee; let no uneasy thought, about what has passed, dwell on thy mind; be joyful and thankful for the mercy received, and never fear, or dread, a return of the disorder. Peace is the effect of faith in Christ, of pardon through his blood, and salvation in him; true, spiritual, solid peace is enjoyed in a way of believing; it is the fruit of a view of interest in justification by faith in Christ's righteousness; and nothing more effectually produces and secures it than a sense of, all spiritual diseases being healed, or an application of pardoning grace and mercy, through the blood of Christ; which itself speaks better things than that of Abel, even pardon, and so peace: such who are blessed in this manner, and walk under a view and sense of these things, go in peace all their days, and at last enter into peace, even into the joy of their Lord.

And be whole of thy plague: she was so already; but this was a confirmation of it, and what might assure her, that she should remain so, and no more be afflicted with that chastisement. Sin pardoned, though sought for, shall not be found; nor condemnation come upon the pardoned sinner; he is whole and sound, and shall be no more sick, and much less die the second death.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

34 And he said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.

Ver. 34. Daughter, thy faith, &c.] They that can shame themselves to honour Christ, shall receive much settlement and inward satisfaction.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Our Lord here reassures this trembling woman, who feared, it may be, lest, because she had abstracted the blessing secretly, he might punish her with a return of her malady. On the contrary, he confirms the benefit, and bids her be whole of her plague. The Greek expression here is stronger than that which is given as the rendering of what she had used when we read that she said within herself, "I shall be saved (swyhsomai)." Here our Lord says, Go in peace, and be whole (isyi ugihv). It is as though he said, "It is not the mere fringe of my garment, which you have touched with great faith, and with some hope of obtaining a cure it is not this that has cured you. You owe your healing to my omnipotence and your faith. Your faith (itself my gift) has delivered you from your issue of blood; and this deliverance I now confirm and ratify. "Go in peace. The original Greek here (upage eiv eirhnhn) implies more than this. It means "Go for peace." Pass into the realm, the element of peace, in which henceforth thy life shall move. It is here obvious to remark that this malady represents to us the ever-flowing bitter fountain of sin, for which no styptic treatment can be found in human philosophy. The remedy is only to be found in Christ. To touch Christ"s garment is to believe in his incarnation, whereby he has touched us, and so has enabled us by faith to touch him, and to receive his blessing of peace.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

34. ἡ πίστις σου σ. σ. Cf. Mar 10:52. Calvin points out that these words do not encourage a belief in the efficacy of relics. With the address comp. τέκνον (Mar 2:5).

ὕπαγε εἰς εἰρήνην. Cf. Luk 7:50; Luk 8:48, 1Sa 1:17; 1Sa 20:42. Stronger than ἐν εἰρήνῃ (Act 16:36; Jas 2:16), which attaches the peace to the moment of departure rather than to the subsequent life. Vade in pace (Vulg.) is inadequate.

ἴσθι ὑγιὴς ἀπό. Be safe from; there is no fear of a return of the infliction. See on Mar 3:10.

Bernice or Veronica as the name of this woman first appears in the Acts of Pilate, Gospel of Nicodemus i. 7. Eusebius (H. E. vii. 18) saw statues at Caesarea which were erroneously believed to represent Christ and this woman. Sozomen (Mar 5:21) and Philostorgius (Mar 7:3) say that Julian removed the statue of Christ and set up one of himself, which was destroyed by lightning. Ps.-Ambrosius (serm. 46) has the strange idea that this woman was Martha, the sister of Lazarus. Macarius Magnes (Mar 1:6) makes her a princess of Edessa.

Cambridge Greek Testament for Schools and Colleges (Cambridge University Press, 1896; 21 vols, various authors incl. Carr, Maclear, Plummer, Farrar, Lumby, Moule, M. R. James, Simcox) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

34. ὕπαγε εἱς εἰρήνην—go in health. An exact translation of the Heb. לֵךְ לְשָׁלוֹם, the salutation used by them in saying farewell. εἰρήνη does not have its Greek meaning, peace, but one imported directly from the Heb., general wellbeing, or in this case, health. This is the primary meaning of the Heb. word, and peace only a secondary meaning, whereas peace is the only meaning of the Greek word. Our version translates it always peace, which is misleading.

καὶ ἴσθι ὑγιὴς—and be well. This must not be taken to mean that the cure was performed now for the first time, as everything in the story points to the fact that the cure was effected when she touched Jesus, v. 29.

THE DAUGHTER OF JAIRUS

This is the only case of raising of the dead related by all the Synoptics. Only Lk. tells of the case at Nain, 7:11-17. The words, she did not die, but sleeps, lend themselves so readily to the supposition that this was not a case of raising the dead, that it is no wonder that they have been so used. Beyschlag treats it as a case in which the state ordinarily called death has been reached, but in which there has been no final separation of soul and body, so that there is a possibility of awakening, which there would not be, if the connection between the two had been actually severed. Holtzmann treats the language more rudely as a contradiction within the story itself of its miraculous intention. Everything else in the three accounts favors the hypothesis of death. The announcement in Mt. is that the child is dead, in Mk. and Lk., that she is dying, and later, that she is dead. Lk. says that they knew her to be dead, an expression which is inappropriate, if it was their mistaken supposition. And Jesus signifies his sense of the momentousness of the occasion by taking with him only the three, a selection reserved for the critical periods of his life. On the other hand, the explanation of Jesus’ words, which makes she did not die, but sleeps mean that this was not an ordinary case of death, though really death; but resembling sleep, since the child was to be raised, does not seem quite adequate. And Beyschlag’s explanation is worthy of serious consideration. But it is purely an exegetical consideration. His general objection to miracles of resurrection is a question by itself, and the theory of miracles to which it belongs discredits many of Jesus’ miracles without sufficient reason. He attributes the genuine cases to the immense influence of Jesus’ personality on other men, with its reaction on the body, and of course excludes all miracles on nature, and of actual reanimation of a dead body. When once the soul and body are finally severed, the possibility of reanimation ceases. Meantime, it seems quite certain that the narratives themselves treat this as a case of raising the dead.

International Critical Commentary — older volumes (1896–1929), various authors — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

In peace [εις ειρηνην] . Lit., into peace. Contemplating the peace in store for her. Mark alone adds, Be whole of thy plague.

Marvin R. Vincent, Word Studies in the New Testament (1887–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.