Jesus’ miracles, not least His healing miracles, were examples of His great kindness to those He encountered in this world. They were also demonstrations of His power and wisdom. But they were more than that; they were intended to illustrate His great kindness in the healing of sinners’ souls. For instance, we read of a time when “a great multitude of people . . . came to hear Him, and to be healed of their diseases; and they that were vexed with unclean spirits: and they were healed” (Lk 6:17,18). We are pointed here, first, to the variety of ways that sin shows itself in people’s lives, and to Christ’s power to deliver them from their sins, no matter what these sins are. And, second, we are pointed to the power of the devil and his minions in powerfully influencing human souls away from God and towards sin, and to Christ’s power to deliver these souls from the devil’s influence and in bringing these souls under His own permanent saving influence.
One particular example is bringing Jairus’s daughter back to life. It illustrates several aspects of how Jesus brings spiritually dead sinners to life. Jairus would have been a prominent individual in his community, as a ruler of the local synagogue; yet trouble came to him and his family when his only daughter took ill and died. She was already dying when Jairus went out to call Jesus so that He would heal the girl. But while Jesus was speaking to the woman whom he had healed of her issue of blood, a messenger came to give Jairus the sad news that his daughter had died. It is helpful to notice that he was not discouraged by this disappointing message; he still looked to Jesus to recover his daughter. Nor was he discouraged by the scorn expressed by those waiting in the house when Jesus indicated that the girl was not dead, only sleeping – meaning by the idea of sleeping that, though she was dead, it was only temporary, just as when we go to sleep at night we expect to waken in the morning. And no one should be discouraged in seeking the Saviour, by any opposition, including mockery, sometimes more difficult to bear than any other form of opposition.
The girl was now dead; she could not move; she could not speak; she could do absolutely nothing. It is similar with sinners in a state of nature:
they are spiritually dead; they can do nothing that is spiritually good; they cannot move towards God in the slightest degree – in other words, they cannot exercise faith – they cannot exercise any grace, such as love to God or spiritual love to any of God’s children, repentance towards God, zeal for His honour; they cannot walk through this world in the fear of God, with a holy love to God’s commandments; they have no desire to serve Him. All these defects are the result of spiritual death. But we are not to think only of human inability; there is also the serious fact of a complete unwillingness to do what is pleasing to God, due to the corruption of the natural heart. That heart is not in a neutral state, in equilibrium between God and the devil; the natural heart is on the side of the devil and opposed to God and His holy will, as expressed in the demands of His commandments for heart obedience.
What the sinner needs is to be made spiritually alive, and that is illustrated by the work of Christ in Jairus’s daughter. He made her alive, what no mere human being could do, except when Peter, for instance – one of Christ’s ambassadors – raised Dorcas from the dead, in direct reliance on divine power, when he told her to arise (Acts 9:40).
Jairus’s daughter was made alive by the simple call of Christ. He said, “Maid, arise” (Lk 8:54). And she came alive at once. So, whenever Christ calls sinners to Himself, they come. When He calls, “Come unto Me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28), sinners come at once – that is, when the call is intended to be effective, when the Saviour gives the Holy Spirit to impart spiritual life into the soul.
There is an outward call which may not be made effective, as is very often the case when the gospel is preached. Even on the Day of Pentecost, when 3000 sinners were called effectually – made spiritually alive and brought to believe on the Saviour – there must have been many others who heard the preaching of Peter and the other disciples, but did not benefit spiritually; they remained dead in trespasses and sins. That is what happens time and again when the gospel is preached, except that it is exceptional for a significant number of souls to be made alive at any one time. But it is always entirely possible for the Saviour to call sinners effectively to Himself – more of them or fewer. Then, for the rest of their lives, they show that they are no longer what they once were – spiritually dead – but looking to Christ for salvation and seeking to live to the glory of God.
Again, though Jairus’s daughter was made alive at once when Jesus spoke to her, this is not necessarily the case when a sinner hears the voice of Christ in the gospel. When that call is made effective, the sinner is truly made alive and will never return to Satan’s kingdom. But we are not to expect that every sinner’s conversion experience will be identical. Think, for instance, of
Lydia listening outside Philippi to Paul’s preaching: the Lord opened her heart, so “that she attended unto the things which were spoken of Paul” (Acts 16:14). But consider also the man in charge of the local prison, into which Paul and Silas were thrown, but was so disturbed that he was ready to commit suicide. Yet he was brought to a living faith by the answer of Paul and his companion to the jailor’s straightforward question, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” The answer given was: “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved, and thy house” (Acts 16:30,31). Lydia’s experience seems much more gentle.
Perhaps none of the people we have mentioned was brought to spiritual life by the actual voice of Christ; they were made alive through the gospel call ministered by the messengers of Christ speaking under the authority of their Master, and applied to their souls by the saving power of the Holy Spirit.
There are also those who seem as if they have been called into the kingdom of God, although that has not actually happened. This was the case with Judas Iscariot, for instance, and Simon the sorcerer, but their true spiritual state was, before very long, made evident. That discovery may not be made quickly, or even in this life, which is one reason why we have no right to be complacent about our spiritual state and why we are called: “Give diligence to make your calling and election sure” (2 Pet 1:10). It is one more reminder that true religion requires diligence, not from our own strength, but through the strength that comes from heaven.
Paul emphasises that it was “by the foolishness of preaching” that it “pleased God” “to save them that believe”. This is still the instrument that it pleases God to use, most often but not always, in saving sinners. Sinners today may follow the Jews of Paul’s time in seeking some special sign from heaven to justify them believing on Christ, and others may follow the Greeks of that era in seeking spiritual understanding through human ways of thinking. But there is a better way, the only way to find salvation, and that is through gospel preaching. So Paul stresses, in opposition to the empty spiritual wells that the Jews and Greeks wanted to use: “We preach Christ crucified”. Similarly the people of this generation – if they at all feel their need of spiritual life and salvation from sin – generally look to human thought as the source of spiritual instruction. But the Word of God, and the preaching of that Word, are where we must go for the call of Christ which directs us to the narrow way that leads to everlasting life.
It was soon obvious that Jairus’s daughter was alive. We need have no doubt that she ate the food that Jesus commanded her parents to give her. Similarly, there is no need to question the spiritual state of a sinner who is greedily receiving the spiritual food that is provided in the Word of God.