THE “power of God unto salvation” is the Scripture definition of the gospel. Romans 1:16. Salvation means “to save.” As applied to man, we cannot think God’s purpose or power to be less comprehensive than man’s needs. The gospel, then, must be “the power of God unto salvation” from all that which man needs to be saved.
To ancient Israel God said,
Exodus 15
26 I am the Lord that, heals you.
As a result of that healing, the mighty host of freed men entered the promised land without a feeble one in their ranks. What, a glorious deliverance that was—first rescued from the taskmasters of Egypt, who embittered their lives by cruel exactions; and then healed of all the physical maladies which were the natural result of the unwholesome habits and depressing environment to the influence of which they had for several centuries been subjected in the land of Egypt.
Egypt is the recognized type of moral darkness and depravity, of disease and degeneracy. It is interesting to notice that the gospel of deliverance which Moses taught offered redemption from physical as well as moral degeneracy. In instructing His people here in the wilderness, God did not stop with the so-called Decalogue, or moral law, but supplemented it by a code of sanitary regulations which have been the recognized model during all the ages since.
The sanitary code of Moses included minute instructions about diet, cleanliness, clothing, domestic sanitation, disinfection, and quarantine; and the outdoor life and constant moving from place to place, the pure diet of manna, and the crystal pure water from the rock, afforded the conditions most essential for physical regeneration, and a return to natural and original simplicity. While the daily instruction in moral principles given by Moses and his associates, was the means of educating a semi-barbarous horde up to the level of a godly people.
Christ came to this earth with a mission of deliverance, whose scope was large enough to comprehend the whole world, with all its needs; all its infirmities, mental and physical as well as moral, all its woes, its misery, its pain, its diseases and deformities,—to open all the prison doors and to set its captives free.
That Christ recognized His mission as one of healing to the body as well as to the soul is evidenced by the fact that He was, during the few short years of His ministry, constantly employed in healing the sick, the blind, the lame, as well as the broken-hearted. Two-thirds of His miracles were miracles of healing. A few short words often record the labor of weeks. It is written of Him, when leaving Capernaum, that He had healed the multitudes.
Matthew 8
16 When the even was come, they brought unto Him many that were possessed with devils: and He cast out the spirits with His word, and healed all that were sick:
17 That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses.
Matthew 12
15 …great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them all.
In sending forth His disciples, Christ commissioned them to preach the gospel and to heal the sick.
Luke 9
2 And He sent them to preach the kingdom of God, and to heal the sick.
Man needs physical healing as much as moral regeneration, and complete success is not possible in either one without the other.
Any conditions which benumb the conscience and lessen the acuteness of the moral sensibilities, excite the animal propensities, and weaken the spiritual forces which resist them. The prophet Ezekiel tells us that the iniquity of Sodom was:
Ezekiel 16
49 …pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness.
Physiology clearly shows us how fullness of bread, combined with abundance of idleness, opens wide the door to all the sins of Sodom and their awful consequences. Surfeiting and idleness fill the body with poisons which excite the propensities, while they benumb the moral faculties, weaken the will, and stifle the voice of conscience.
The crying need of the world today is the preaching of a great gospel,—a gospel broad enough to reach and rescue the whole man. That gospel which seeks to save the soul while ignoring or mistreating the temple of the soul, is incapable of bringing a lost race back to the fold of happy obedience, and is impotent to restore in man the divine image which sin has well-nigh effaced.
DOWNLOAD
