The Apostle puts in two separate clauses what, in the case in hand, was
really one thing--'hath made this man strong,' and 'hath given him
perfect soundness.' Ah! we can part the two, cannot we? There is the
disease, the disease of an alienated heart, of a perverted will, of a
swollen self, all of which we need to have cured and checked before we
can do right. And there is weakness, the impotence to do what is good,
'how to perform I find not,' and we need to be strengthened as well as
cured. There is only one thing that will do these two, and that is that
Christ's power, ay, and Christ's own life, should pass, as it will pass
if we trust Him, into our foulness and precipitate all the
impurity--into our weakness and infuse strength. 'A reed shaken with
the wind,' and without substance or solidity to resist, may be placed
in what is called a petrifying well, and, by the infiltration of stony
substance into its structure, may be turned into a rigid mass, like a
little bar of iron. So, if Christ comes into my poor, weak, tremulous
nature, there will be an infiltration into the very substance of my
being of a present power which will make me strong.
My brother, you and I need, first and foremost, the healing, and then
the strength-giving power, which we never find in its completeness
anywhere but in Christ, and which we shall always find in Him.
And now notice, Jesus Christ does not make half cures--'this _perfect_
soundness.' If any man, in contact with Him, is but half delivered from
his infirmities and purged from his sins, it is not because Christ's
power is inadequate, but because his own faith is defective.
Christ's cures should be visible to all around. A man's own testimony
is not the most satisfactory. Peter appeals to the bystanders. 'You
have seen him lying here for years, a motionless lump of mendicancy, at
the Temple gate. Now you see him walking and leaping and praising God.
Is it a cure, or is it not?' You professing Christians, would you like
to stand that test, to empanel a jury of people that have no sympathy
with your religion, in order that they might decide whether you were
healed and strengthened or not? It is a good thing for us when the
world bears witness that Jesus Christ's power has come into us, and
made us what we are.
And so, dear friends, I lay all these thoughts on your hearts. Christ's
gift is amply sufficient to deliver us from all evils of weakness,
sickness, incapacity: to endue us with all gifts of spiritual and
immortal strength. But, while the limit of what Christ gives is His
boundless wealth, the limit of what you possess is your faith. The
rainfall comes down in the same copiousness on rock and furrow, but it
runs off the one, having stimulated no growth and left no blessing, and
it sinks into the other and quickens every dormant germ into life which
will one day blossom into beauty. We are all of us either rock or soil,
and which we are depends on the reality, the firmness, and the force of
our faith in Christ. He Himself has laid down the principle on which He
bestows His gifts when He says, 'According to thy faith be it unto
thee!'