Mark 5:33-34. But the woman fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her, came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth. And He said unto her, Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.1
1Preached on the Friday evening of a Dingwall communion season, on 30 July 1982.
This is one of the great miracles the divine Redeemer performed during His time in this world. These miracles demonstrated that He was sent by the Father, that He had come in God’s great name to save, that He was the One in whom compassions flow. These miracles not only demonstrate that He was the Messiah, but they pour light on the spiritual miracle wrought in the soul by His power. That is something we should be desiring light upon on this day of self-examination and prayer. The Saviour has said, “Marvel not that I said unto you, Ye must be born again”. There is no hope of salvation apart from being born again – the Holy Ghost beginning the good work that He will perform until the day of Jesus Christ. We ought to be seeking light on the nature of this work which the Holy Spirit begins in the soul of sinners in this world.
We shall endeavour to notice: (1.) This woman knew what was done in her. (2.) The Saviour also knew what was done in her; He had been conscious of power going out of Him in the change that took place in her. (3.) The Saviour then said to her: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague”.
1. She knew what was done in her. She knew this because she also knew what had been true of her before. We are told here that she had an issue of blood, which rendered her unclean in the sight of God and debarred her from the congregation of God’s people, and the source of uncleanness was within herself. This is true of every one of us spiritually: we have a fountain of sin within; we are born in sin and shapen in iniquity; we have a sinful nature. We are born into this world spiritually dead, the corruption of spiritual death reigning in our souls. We have no knowledge, no life, no light, no love to God. We cannot discern God’s glory or even our own need, while what is sinful flows forth in our thoughts, words and deeds.
That is what the Word of God says, though men nowadays make a great deal of noise about deprivation and social conditions being the cause of the evils in the world. That is all just spiritual darkness. The evils in the world arise from your heart and my heart, and the hearts of the children of men spread over the earth. It is out of the heart, the Saviour says, that murders and adulteries and fornications proceed, and every sin that ever was committed in this world. Particular environments may increase these sins but they are not their root. The root of sin is in the heart, and the flowing forth of sin in the world renders the sinner unclean in the sight of God. The guilt of our sins and the unholiness of our sins leave us unclean. God is just and holy, and sin is that abominable thing which He hates. He has prepared a place in eternity, a bottomless pit, where those who die in their sins will be put away for ever and ever.
This woman was debarred from the congregation of Israel. When others went up to Jerusalem at the feasts, she was outside. As she had a loathsome disease, she was debarred from the congregation that worshipped God. So, as long as we have not been born again, we cannot worship God; we cannot draw near to Him. We may do so outwardly, but we cannot do so inwardly, in our souls. We cannot say that we are of the circumcision who worship God in the Spirit and rejoice in Christ Jesus and have no confidence in the flesh. Such was the sad, desperate condition this woman was in.
She knew only too well that she was unclean in the sight of God, and that she was debarred from the worship of God. That was the beginning of the change that took place in her. So it always will be in the spiritual change that takes place in a sinner: he will know that he is unclean. By nature we do not know this. While we may say, Yes, we are sinners and we are all sinners, yet we do not think that we are sinners who are going to perish under the wrath of God; we have no sense of our uncleanness in God’s sight; we have no sense of not being numbered among the people of God. This woman did.
And so she felt her need of a physician. Can you say this Friday evening in Dingwall: Yes, I know that I am a sinner. I feel I am a sinner who is unclean, a sinner that is guilty and unholy; and I feel I need a physician? Because of her uncleanness, she felt her need of a physician, and we are told here that she went to many physicians. And this is true also of the sinner who is awakened, who realises his sins and iniquities, who realises his uncleanness and guilt in the presence of God: he feels his need of a physician. From the spiritual point of view, the first physician to which the sinner turns is Moses. He turns to the law of God to see if he can get healing, to see if he will find, instead of sinning against God, a beginning of keeping God’s commands, and thus secure the favour of God. He looks to the law of God – to keeping God’s commands – as a physician.
But there is no healing there; the law is only a lance, to probe the wounds still further, to open up the fountain still further. So when the sinner turns to the law of God, when he begins to understand the spirituality and the holiness of this law, he begins to see his own sinfulness more and more, for by the law is the knowledge of sin. That is all there is in the law of God for the soul. It is the law of sin and death. As, by going to a physician, the woman was not better but worse, so it is in the experience of the soul who has begun to learn his sinnership. He has found, when expecting healing from the law of God, that he is not better but worse. It is in the very nature of the law of God to make sin known, to probe, with the lancet of the law, the depths of iniquity and depravity in the human heart.
She went to many physicians. The sinner not only goes to the law, represented by Moses as a physician, but he turns to Aaron. He turns to the worship of God, to the means of grace; he turns to the Bible and the preaching of the gospel. He is ready to think that this will be a physician, that there is healing there. Well, we must learn that the means of grace alone will never heal our souls. There is but one Physician and He will certainly heal our souls in the means of grace; He will certainly cause us to sing with the Psalmist: “All thine iniquities who doth most graciously forgive, who thy diseases all and pains doth heal and thee relieve”. But the means of grace alone will not suffice. The woman only grew worse, and so the sinner who is putting his trust in attending the means of grace discovers that he is nothing better but rather worse, that he is as far off from healing as ever.
Now the woman realised that she had spent all that she had; she was bankrupt. What need there is of realising that we are empty, of saying as the Psalmist did: “I looked on my right hand and viewed, but none to know me were, all refuge failed me; no man did for my soul take care”! She was poor, so poor that she was bankrupt. But she had heard of Jesus. This is something altogether new: to hear of Jesus and turn away from the law, from being satisfied with the means themselves – because of hearing the gospel of the glory of the blessed God, and hearing of Jesus in that gospel.
No one is saved by the law; no one is saved by conviction of sin. Conviction is not conversion. There may be great changes through conviction of sin even when the sinner is not converted. When we read in Psalm 19 about the “law” converting, what is meant by the law is the five books of Moses. Sinners are not converted by the law. They are convinced of sin – they get a knowledge of sin – by the law, but they are converted by the gospel, by Christ in the gospel, by hearing about this Physician, who has balm for the very disease that they have and has the power to apply that balm. These sinners hear about the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness: “In that day there shall be a fountain opened to the house of David and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem for sin and for uncleanness”. And that fountain contains the balm; that fountain is the Physician.
When the gospel speaks about Jesus and declares the fullness of Jesus, it is telling us about the One who is the fountain of life. “Because of life the fountain pure remains alone with Thee.” And this Person is the Son of God, the Son of the Father in truth and love, the One in whom there is life. But He could not be the fountain for sin and for uncleanness by just being the Son of God. As the Son of God, He could perform this miracle to the woman’s body, but He could not be the fountain open for sin and for uncleanness. This divine Person needed a humanity, which was formed in the womb of the Virgin, conceived by the power of the Holy Ghost – a holy, sinless humanity which He took into union with His divine Person. He was born into this world as the Son of God in our nature.
The woman had heard of Jesus, and He had power as the Son of God in our nature to heal her body, but He did not have power to heal spiritual diseases by the exercise of power alone. Something else was needed: this fountain for sin and uncleanness had to be opened. But it could be opened in only one way: by the sword of divine justice (even although this is a different figure of speech, in Zechariah 13). There could be no pardon for a sinner, no eternal life, no spiritual healing, apart from this Person being opened by the sword of divine justice.
That is what we read of on the cross of Calvary: “Awake, O sword,” for the sword that had been asleep in a certain sense. This sword was indeed awake and was exercised at the time of the flood, when a whole generation, apart from one family, was swept into the blackness of darkness for ever; it was awake when Sodom and Gomorrah were visited with fire from heaven; it was awake again and again as judgements came upon men and women in this world. But it was asleep when Abel went to heaven; it was asleep when Abraham went to heaven – and Isaac, Jacob, David, Jephthah, Samuel, and all the other Old Testament saints. As they entered heaven, this sword remained in the scabbard; it did not awaken against them.
What about yourself? You are going on to eternity; what do you expect to meet at the other side of death? If you are determined to carry on in sin, to reject Christ, and to die in your sins, the Saviour is saying to you: “Except ye believe that I am He, ye shall die in your sins”. There is nothing more sure than that. The sword will not be asleep on the other side of death when your soul enters, but it will lay you down in everlasting sorrow. So why was it asleep in the scabbard? Why did it need to be awakened by God the Father? Because it was sleeping in Christ’s promise that He would come in the fullness of time. He would then pay the ransom price for Abel and for Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, for Enoch and all the other Old Testament saints.
That sword slept in the scabbard until the Son of God said, “Father, the hour is come” – the hour when it awoke out of the scabbard and smote this Person. We read that, when His body was on the cross, the Roman soldier took a spear and pierced His side, and there came out blood and water. That was the way this fountain was opened: through the broken body and the shed blood of Christ, through the wounds of the crucified Lamb in the midst of the malefactors, through the atoning death of the Saviour, satisfying the claims of law and justice, so that there flows from this fountain the blood that cleanses from all sin, and the grace of the Holy Spirit that gives life that shall never end.
The unclean sinner, after attending other physicians, is nothing better, but rather worse. He now hears of Jesus, and the fountain in Him for sin and for uncleanness. How altogether suitable it is to his need! There sprang up in the soul of this woman a desire. Did you ever have a desire after Christ? Well, how did you get it? Was it through hearing of Jesus? Was it as a poor, bankrupt sinner hearing of Jesus? A desire sprang up in this woman’s soul: “If I may touch but His clothes, I shall be whole”. If she would get near this Person and get to touch His garments, she knew she would get virtue in this glorious One. And the sinner who hears about Jesus has this desire after Jesus. He now comes to the means of grace and does not depend on them for salvation, but he is seeking Jesus, asking, How can I get near Him, believe in Him, rest in Him, be united to Him for time and for eternity?
When this woman came where Jesus was, He was surrounded by a great number of people. She had to press through the crowd to get near Jesus. Often, just before the time of deliverance, many things arise in the soul and come between it and Christ. There is the multitude of their transgressions, the greatness of their sins, their unworthiness, their inability, their shame on account of their sin and iniquity. But these concerns cannot prevent this desire being fulfilled. This desire will carry the soul through every obstacle between the soul and Christ.
The woman got near Him. She received from the fullness of Christ what dried up her plague and met her need in the very way she felt it must be met. So when the sinner meets Christ in the everlasting gospel, he gets near to Christ as the Saviour – in His blood that cleanses from all sin, in the love that He manifested when, having loved His own, He loved them unto the end. And the soul is enabled to draw out of the fullness of Christ and taste of the salvation in which His glory is made great. Thus their guilt is removed; they are admitted into God’s favour; they are brought to taste and see that God is good and who trusts in Him is blessed. Their acceptance as righteous in God’s sight means that they enjoy His favour; they enjoy His love, which is shed abroad in their hearts through the Holy Ghost. But the plague of sin will remain in them all along their journey in this world, until they die. Then the plague will be fully healed. This woman received this from the Saviour. She knew what was done in her. It was something she could not deny.
2. The Saviour knew what was done in her. Undoubtedly she wished to go away in secret and say with the Psalmist: “He hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God”. She wanted to go away to the secrecy of her home, to praise the Lord for what she knew had been done in her. She was on the point of doing so when the voice of the One to whom she had come in her need arrested her by these words, “Who touched Me?” We read that the disciples remonstrated with the Saviour: “Thou seest the multitude thronging Thee, and sayest Thou, Who touched Me? And He looked round about to see her that had done this thing.”
The disciples denied that they had touched Him, that they had received anything out of the fullness of Christ at that time. But the omniscient eye of God knew every exercise of her heart and mind, and knew about the false physicians, her bankruptcy, her need, and all that she had received out of His fullness. As she was going to remain silent, she would remain among those who were denying that they had received anything from Christ.
One point I would make here is that the Lord’s people ought to be careful in company not to say about sermons they hear: “Well, I got nothing”. There might be somebody in the company, especially a young believer, who got something from that sermon, and an old believer speaking like this might cast doubt on the reality of what the young believer received. People should be careful what they say about receiving out of the fullness of Christ.
Everyone denied that they had received anything from Christ at that time, but the woman came because she could not continue to deny that she had received something out of the fullness of Christ. She came “fearing and trembling, knowing what was done in her”; she “came and fell down before Him, and told Him all the truth”. She could not hide any longer, for she knew what was done in her, and she had to come to confess Him; she had to tell the Saviour all the truth, in the presence of His disciples. She did not do this in the spirit of self-confidence, but fearing and trembling. She could not get out of her situation except by denying that she had received anything out of the fullness of Christ and that Christ was precious to her.
It is “with the heart man believeth unto righteousness” – that is, faith is an unseen thing that goes on in the heart – “and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation”. The two things are bound up together. “Knowing what was done in her”, she was making confession. Now you may be in that situation this evening; you cannot deny Christ. You know you got something out of His fullness; you cannot deny it. Yet you are remaining among those who are denying it. The commemoration of the death of Christ is an opportunity for us to confess that we have received something out of the fullness of Him whose body was broken and whose blood was shed for the remission of the sins of many.
You say, I am fearing and trembling. So was she. But she came. She had to come. There was nowhere else for her to go. She would like to sing the new song in the secrecy of her own home, rejoicing over what was done in her. But no. The question, “Who touched me?” arrested her; it prevented her hiding away; she knew she could no longer be hid, because the word of Christ had found her. We could say there is a sense in which the word of the Saviour, “This do in remembrance of Me”, finds the people of God. It finds them because it is for them, not for the world. To God’s people, Christ is saying, “This do in remembrance of Me”, because you have touched Me and have received out of My fullness and are united to Me for time and eternity.
Perhaps you are ready to say, If I had assurance, I would come. Then you would have no fear and trembling. But that is not how this woman came. She knew what was done in her. She was not looking for anything more; she fell down before Him and acknowledged Him as her Lord. She fell down at His feet, and the one thing needful is to be at Jesus’ feet. She told Him all the truth. And we are sure that, when she acknowledged it all, she said: It was Thine own work, Thine own power, Thine own healing. It was divine.
3. What the Saviour then said to her: “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague”. We always get a promise with obedience, for “if ye be willing and obedient ye shall eat the good of the land”. The path of obedience is the safe way; it is the path to spiritual prosperity and enjoyment. When she was willing and obedient, trembling though she was, the first thing Christ said to her was: “Daughter”. The woman that had the issue of blood, that was unclean, that was debarred from the congregation, that was saying, “For a disease that loathsome is so fills my loins with pain, that in my weak and weary flesh no soundness doth remain”, was now a daughter of the King. And it was the King who said that she was a daughter. This glorious One raises up those who are oppressed with poverty, that lie very low in the dust and on the dunghill. He raises them to be among the princes of His people, and among the princesses of His people.
What wonderful consolation, what wonderful love flowed into her soul when He said, “Daughter”! Whatever may be true of others, the Lord’s people have many trials about the reality of their faith. And the doctrine of the assurance of grace and of salvation is largely bound up with this: where saving faith exists, there is no doubt that Christ is a Saviour, that none perish that trust in Him, that the one who believes on Christ shall be saved. But doubt comes in: Am I really believing? Have I got the faith that is of the operation of God? Have I got the faith that stands, not in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God? Christ told this woman: “Thy faith hath made thee whole”. It was true that Christ healed her out of His fullness, but it came through the touch of faith. Therefore when He said to her, “Thy faith hath made thee whole”, He was assuring her that the faith she possessed brought her into contact with healing in Him, which she received in her body.
So the soul exercising faith in Christ is brought into union with the divine Redeemer. And when assurance is given that this is the faith wrought by the Holy Spirit, that this is true faith, the faith that really brings one into union with Christ, then there is assurance, and the woman got that. Now you may say, I would come to the Lord’s table if I had more assurance. Well, that is not what this woman did. She came to the Saviour fearing and trembling, and she got assurance when she came. That is what the Lord’s Supper is for: to nourish God’s people, to strengthen their faith, to give them a sense of assurance. Do not let us put it the wrong way round and then lose something on account of our lack of understanding on these matters.
Then Christ said to her: “Go in peace”. These words mean: Go into peace; go into the enjoyment of peace, for “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on Thee”. This is the peace of God that passeth all understanding, that keeps the heart and mind through Christ Jesus. What an encouragement from the Prince of peace! This is a great blessing: peace of conscience, peace of reconciliation, peace through being at rest in God’s love.
Then He also said to her: “Be whole of thy plague”. Her body was healed at once, but the healing of the soul takes time, for there is indwelling sin in the soul and the work of sanctification has to be carried on. When God’s people get near to Christ, when they enjoy His love and favour, their hopes of being sanctified are raised. They are often cast down because of what they find in themselves; they are ready to wonder if this running sore in their souls will ever dry up, but Christ gives the assurance that not only are all their iniquities forgiven, but that the Lord will finally deliver them from indwelling sin. “They shall be brought with gladness great and mirth on every side, into the palace of the King, and there they shall abide.”
How much greater a day of rejoicing will it be when their bodies will be healed at the resurrection and united to their souls, when they will enter, with body and soul reunited, into the marriage supper of the Lamb! This marriage supper will continue throughout the endless ages of eternity, where they will enjoy the peace of God in a state of glory, though they were poor, guilty, hell-deserving sinners in this world. But they were saved in the Lord with an everlasting salvation, and they will never, throughout endless ages, forget that Christ thought on them in their low estate, “for He hath mercy ever”.