Luke 13

Chapter 13. The Son of Man and SicknessThen should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her? (Luke 13-16)The miracle recorded in this chapter is peculiar to Luke, and it sheds much light upon the subject of divine healing and the ministry of our Lord to the sick and suffering. Among the special teachings we may gather from it may be mentioned: The Relation of Satan to Disease Our first introduction to this woman points to a deeper cause for her trouble than mere physical condition. It is said she had “been crippled by a spirit” (Luke 13:11). There is no doubt about what this means. A demon power had taken possession of her body and bound her limbs so that she “could not straighten up at all” (Luke 13:11). We must not carry this too far by concluding that all sickness comes directly from Satanic power. Sickness may come from a physical cause, and it may come from the direct stroke of God Himself in judgment. We read that “the Lord struck the child that Uriah’s wife had borne to David, and he became ill” (2 Samuel 12:15). But that it is often the result of demon power, there can be no question if we are to believe the words of the Lord Himself. In this case an evil spirit had taken control of the limbs of this helpless cripple and bound her hand and foot for 18 years. This does not at all imply that she was a bad woman or under the control of the wicked one in her spirit and life. On the contrary, she is expressly described as “a daughter of Abraham” (Luke 13:16) and was evidently regarded by the Lord as a true servant of God. Satan may and does afflict God’s children even as of old he inflicted on Job his loathsome boils and later tried to hinder Paul in his work in a similar way. The realization of this fact ought to be a powerful incentive to us in claiming healing and refusing to be disabled and defiled by the touch of our hated adversary. Let us arise and repel his power, and the Lord will come to our aid as He did to hers. Submission to sickness is not always submission to God, but often to God’s enemy and ours, and the exhortation is as applicable to our bodies as to our spirits: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). The Relation of Divine Healing to the Very Impulses of Humanity The Lord appeals to the sentiment of human compassion even for a suffering brute and asks, “Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water? Then should not this woman… be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” (Luke 13:15-16). Surely, God is not less pitiful than human compassion, and on the very lowest grounds of humanity we may expect Him to meet the needs of our physical life as well as of our higher nature. Sickness and the Will of God We know of no stronger statement of the Lord’s willingness, nay more, the Lord’s will to heal His trusting children than the 16th verse, “Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?” This word “should” expresses much more than willingness. It expresses obligation, right, something which it would be wrong not to do. It places divine healing on a very high and solid plane as not only a possible and actual intervention of God for the help of His suffering children, but as His normal provision for the believer. It is something that is included in our redemption rights, something that is part of the gospel of His grace, something that is already recognized as within His will and not requiring a special revelation to justify us in claiming it. If God expects us to do what we ought to do, surely we may expect as much from Him. There is something startling in the positiveness and force with which this is here expressed, and surely no trusting child of God should ever doubt again His perfect readiness to help and heal. The Sacredness of Divine Healing The reason the Lord Jesus healed on the Sabbath so frequently appears to have been to lift it out of the plane of a mere material work and place it on the level of the other spiritual blessings of the gospel. The Pharisee, like our modern materialists, looked upon the healing of sickness as a piece of work very much like the mending of a broken chair. “There are six days,” he said, “for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath” (Luke 13:14). Therefore the Lord purposely healed on the Sabbath day that He might lift the healing of the body from a work of human professionalism to a spiritual experience and a heavenly blessing. It is the experience of most of those who have felt the Lord’s touch upon their bodies that it has a spiritual value even greater than a physical benefit. The health and strength we receive from God does not seek for its exercise in worldly pleasure and sensual indulgence, but in holy service for God and our fellow men. The health and vigor the Holy Spirit imparts reach out for the highest ministries and bring to the heart a spiritual quickening and a realization of the Lord’s presence and grace which we value much more than the relief from pain or infirmity. Nothing makes Christ so intensely personal as to know Him as the very life of our conscious being and our material organism. God has made our body a trinity and there is an interdependence between spirit, soul and body which we cannot ignore. The presence of disease is a hindrance not only to our spiritual usefulness but to our higher experiences, and while divine healing is not the greatest blessing of the gospel, it is a part of it and has a reflex influence on every other part of our nature. Divine Healing and Faith While the Lord is willing to heal, this passage clearly teaches us that there is a distinct responsibility upon us to claim His healing by definite and aggressive faith. He did not go to her and press upon her His healing touch until she had first reached out to meet Him in response to His call. When Jesus saw her, he called her to Him and said: “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity” (Luke 13:12). He had not yet touched her or even approached her, but He announced to her the great fact of divine power and summoned her to meet it by going to Him. Remember that “she was bent over and could not straighten up at all” (Luke 13:11), but the moment that word came to her, it constituted her authority to claim deliverance and to put on His strength and step out to meet Him. This she did. Somehow she crossed the synagogue until she came to where He was. Somehow that crippled form took hold of new life and strength until she stood erect or crawled across the intervening space and acted as if His word were already true. Then it was that “he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised God” (Luke 13:13). His actual touch followed her act of faith. She had already taken the healing, and all that was needed was for Him to complete it by the actual manifestation. So still we must go out to meet God. We have not to do this in the dark and without His hands being extended first to us. His word to her, “You are set free from your infirmity” (Luke 13:12), was authority enough for her to act upon. It was just as when He said to the paralytic, “Friend, your sins are forgiven” (Luke 5:20). But the paralytic must believe and receive that word before it could be made good to him; and so this woman must believe what the Lord had declared and act as if it were true, and when she did this He followed it with the fullness of His power and blessing. The reason we are not receiving more help from God is because we are waiting for something first to come to us in our physical senses as a manifestation of God’s presence and help. This is inverting the divine order. We must first believe without sight or sign and then will come the vindication of faith and the touch of God. The Rights of Faith The question naturally arises: Has everybody the right thus to claim deliverance from sickness? Certainly not. This passage teaches that only the believer may claim the Lord’s healing: “Should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham… be set free?” (Luke 13:16). A daughter of Abraham is a daughter of faith. “Those who believe are children of Abraham” (Galatians 3:7). It is the one who believes in the Lord for healing to whom the promise of healing applies. Surely, this truth is very obviously taught in the great commission in the 16th chapter of the Gospel of Mark. The modified translation of that passage as given by Dr. Robert Young brings this out very clearly. “Signs shall follow them that believe these things” (Mark 16:17). In the old version it is “These signs shall follow them that believe”. This, however, is not really true, for the signs of healing do not follow all believers, but they follow those who believe for the signs. It is the law of the New Testament just as binding as the laws of nature and the great law of the fitness of things that, “According to your faith will it be done to you” (Matthew 9:29). How very solemn is the position in which all this places us. The Lord throws down to us the gauntlet, and if we dare to take it up we may have accordingly. There is a fine force in Luke 10:19, “I have given you authority to trample on snakes and scorpions and to overcome all the power of the enemy.” We quite miss the meaning of this when we fail to translate it by the right word, “authority.” It is not power that He gives us. We do not have the power. He has the power. But He gives us authority to act as if we had the power, and then He backs it up with His power. It is like the officer of the law stepping out before a mob and acting in the name of the government. His single word is stronger than a thousand men because he has authority, and all the power of the government is behind him. So faith steps out in the name of heaven and expects God to stand by it, and as we thus stand we shall not be disappointed. Are you living up to your redemption rights or are you letting them go by default?