Editorial March 18, 1911 Issue

THE SIMPLE GOSPEL

Archibald McLellan

The record of the three years of Jesus' public ministry, as it is given in the four Gospels, is full of the accounts of his healing of the sick, and we get a glimpse of the real magnitude of his labors through John, who closes his account with the statement that if all the things which Jesus did should be written, "even the world itself could not contain the books." And yet, brief as the printed record is, so many are the instances chronicled where the Master in his loving compassion "healed them all," besides the multitude of specific cases, that the account as a whole must compel the attention of every thoughtful Christian to this characteristic phase of the Messiah's ministry.

It would seem, however, that the impression which these accounts of healing make upon the reader is largely determined by the previous training of the individual. To those whose concept of Christianity has been molded in the theological beliefs of what might be called the "old school," these wonderful manifestations of the power of God are regarded as miraculous occurrences, entirely outside of law and order, and possible only through some special grant to the individuals who lived in the time of the great Master. To a certain other class, who pride themselves upon their intellectual endowment and "hard-headed common sense," these marvelous works are no more than coincidental occurrences which were distorted by human credulity into so-called miracles, and possess no spiritual significance. To still another class, they present evidence of the very presence and power of God, a divine dispensation which they hope will be manifested again on earth in connection with the reappearing of Jesus in the flesh, but not possible except under such circumstances.

None of these concepts of Jesus' works, however, can be said to present a very helpful or a very cheering picture to the man who to human sense is desperately ill and has resorted to every material system of healing, only to find that his hope is vain. Facing a blank wall of despair, so far as earthly hopes are concerned, with a problematical future heaven as the only consolation his religious belief can offer, his case is desperate indeed. What such a man needs is not a future prospect, but a present help in overcoming the disease from which he is suffering. To tell such a one that God does not heal men at this time, although it is admitted that He did heal thousands of persons of "all manner of diseases" in the early years of Christianity; or to assert that the healing works of the Master were done by material means, although supposed by the Gospel writers to have been the result of spiritual power; that, therefore, if medicine or surgery cannot heal him it is plainly "the will of God,"—to pursue either of these courses in seeking to comfort one in dire extremity, would be much like giving a starving man a stone in answer to his appeal for bread.

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