As Many As Touched

“AS many as touched Him were made whole." But, remember, they did touch, and it was as many as touched," that received the healing blessing. The touch was the outcome of faith. Some looked on, some heard, some reasoned, but those who touched were healed.
There is a lesson herein for the seeking soul, which teaches him to get close to Christ. Personal contact with Him is the necessity. It suffices not for the sick man to look at the healing medicine, he must take it, if he would be benefited thereby. You must come to Christ, not come towards Him, if you would be healed. The sinner must needs meet the Savior, his soul must come into contact with Him; and when this is the case, lo! the sinner is "made whole.”
There was no virtue in the touch of these sick persons! Think we, that the finger of a paralyzed man had power in it? Or, that in the hand of the leper there was cleansing? The virtue dwelt in Jesus, but through the touch, the blessing was received. The touch was the evidence of faith. It was a direct personal act on the part of him or her who came to Jesus. It was also the sign that the sick needed the healing of the Good Physician. On the one hand, in Jesus there is stored the fullness of grace, and pardon, and cleansing; on the other, there is in us the absolute need; faith puts the empty sinner into communication with the fullness that abides in Christ.
Many a soul carries its burden to this hour, simply because Jesus has not been "touched." Some are content to hear of His gracious works, others satisfy themselves by remaining, as it were, afar off from Him; but the healed people, the saved people, have been content with nothing short of getting close to Christ, each one for himself and herself.
“As many as touched Him were made whole!" We do not wonder at this; there would be no room for surprise if millions upon millions were healed every whit—the surprise is that so few go to Him. Does it astonish us to read of a dying thief being saved, or of a blasphemous man, a persecutor and injurious, being made a follower of the meek and lowly Lord? Or are we surprised to hear, in our own day, of the vilest and worst being "made whole," and living no more the life of sin, but living instead the life of faith? Do we lift up our eyes with amazement and say, "How can these things be?" By no means, for Jesus is so wonderful, and His salvation is so complete, and the cleansing efficacy of His once-shed blood is so perfect, that we know He can and does heal all who come to Him.
“Whithersoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch, if it were but the border of His garment." What a sight of power and of weakness, of grace and misery! The Son of God, who had come from heaven, surrounded with every type of human woe. As He walked on, His heart moving in tenderness towards all, hundreds of weak hands would stretch out, as it were, to touch the very skirts of His garment! And if our eyes could but see, we should behold in this our gospel day the selfsame Jesus, the Son of God, moving amongst the longing and perishing children of men, and we should see weak and helpless hands outstretched to touch Him, and "As many as touched Him were made whole.”
Before the night closes in, and the Lord has passed by to return in mercy no more, oh! stretch out the hand of faith and touch Him, for—"As many as touched—”
Figures and Shadows
"BEFORE THE LORD": "UNTO THE LORD.”
WE have already considered the words “before the Lord," and have seen that they define the position of the man who approached Jehovah, and also of the offering which he brought to Jehovah. Every detail in the position of both offerer and offering was so carefully defined that no manner of looseness, nor of will worship in reference to sacrifice, was possible in Israel. In the words "unto the Lord," a very different teaching from that which has been already under consideration is presented—it is not man's position before Jehovah that we are here led to consider, but Jehovah's attitude towards the sacrifice. The words "unto the Lord" occur far more frequently than the words "before the Lord," as may be observed by a cursory glance down the early chapters of Leviticus; and we may say that the principles which are associated with "unto Jehovah," are even more important than those associated with "before Jehovah," since the former relate to God's estimate of the sacrifice, while the latter relate to man's attitude in approach to God.
The whole question respecting the efficacy of the sacrifice, depended upon God's reception of it. If He did not accept it, the sacrifice was worthless. All the worship of all the world, centered around a non-accepted sacrifice, was invalid. This principle is of the utmost importance, yet it is one which the trend of present-day thought utterly ignores, for it is said, "It is of no moment what a man's religion may be, so long as he is earnest." But if God's requirements be left out of our religion, our religion is vain, even if ours be the religion of all the world. In the affairs of everyday life, a man's earnestness will not bring him to the place upon which his back is turned, and from which his eager footsteps are hurrying. In spiritual things our zeal, if not according to knowledge, is only to our detriment.
The completion of the sacrifice of the burnt offering resulted in "a sweet savor unto the Lord"; and in like manner the memorial of the meal offering was "a sweet savor unto the Lord"; while the crowning glory of the peace offering was a "sweet savor unto the Lord." The sweet savor of the sacrifice unto the Lord was a familiar figure in Israel. The savor of the sacrifice, as pleasing to the gods, was well understood by the heathen before the time of Moses. And it is well to remember the fact, since "higher criticism" conveniently ignores it.
The way in which Jehovah received the sacrifices of sweet savor was upon His altar, and by fire, and as they were consumed upon the altar, He, in figure, partook of them. In the burnt offering, man partook of none of the sacrifice. It was one, wholly ascending to Jehovah, who, by His reception of it in its entirety, showed His good pleasure in it, and His jealousy of its glory, in not allowing man to receive a particle of it. And thus a very excellent figure is presented of God's absolute delight in the willing offering up of Christ, His Son, as a sacrifice upon the cross, in which sacrifice there were depths and heights of love and goodness that none but God could comprehend, and which none but God could receive. The exaltation and the glory of the cross of Christ are infinite, and as such are forever above all human thoughts; they rise up to heaven, "unto the Lord," in a sweet savor which God alone is capable of accepting.
This first principle in sacrifice—the value to God of the offering up of Christ—is usually left outside religion. If it were allowed, the whole business of all the priests of Christendom—Greek, Roman, Anglican—would perish in an hour. For God being absolutely and eternally glorified and exalted in His Holy Being, in His love, His light, His grace, His righteousness, by the death of His Son on the cross, all sacrificing priests re-offering a sacrifice to win God's pleasure are an impossibility. And, as if to witness to the world how impossible their position is before God, none of them in their sacrifices ever allows to God the consumption of the sacrifice, for their altars have no fire upon them, and thus God is outside their "sacrifice.”
But let not the Evangelical professor of The Faith be satisfied as to himself, unless he really rejoice in Christ Jesus; unless Christ, who once for all offered up Himself to God, be his whole and entire trust. And let such as do thus honor the Lord Jesus Christ gratefully acknowledge the fullness of the favor in which they stand, for that which is so pleasing "unto the. Lord" is also "accepted for him, to make atonement for him." The fullness of divine delight in the perfectness of Christ's work on the cross, and the fullness of the acceptance of him who trusts in Christ, go together, and thus "unto the Lord" and "before the Lord" are morally and graciously connected.