“AS many as touched Him were made whole." But, remember, they did touch, and it was as many as touched," that received the healing blessing. The touch was the outcome of faith. Some looked on, some heard, some reasoned, but those who touched were healed.
There is a lesson herein for the seeking soul, which teaches him to get close to Christ. Personal contact with Him is the necessity. It suffices not for the sick man to look at the healing medicine, he must take it, if he would be benefited thereby. You must come to Christ, not come towards Him, if you would be healed. The sinner must needs meet the Savior, his soul must come into contact with Him; and when this is the case, lo! the sinner is "made whole.”
There was no virtue in the touch of these sick persons! Think we, that the finger of a paralyzed man had power in it? Or, that in the hand of the leper there was cleansing? The virtue dwelt in Jesus, but through the touch, the blessing was received. The touch was the evidence of faith. It was a direct personal act on the part of him or her who came to Jesus. It was also the sign that the sick needed the healing of the Good Physician. On the one hand, in Jesus there is stored the fullness of grace, and pardon, and cleansing; on the other, there is in us the absolute need; faith puts the empty sinner into communication with the fullness that abides in Christ.
Many a soul carries its burden to this hour, simply because Jesus has not been "touched." Some are content to hear of His gracious works, others satisfy themselves by remaining, as it were, afar off from Him; but the healed people, the saved people, have been content with nothing short of getting close to Christ, each one for himself and herself.
“As many as touched Him were made whole!" We do not wonder at this; there would be no room for surprise if millions upon millions were healed every whit—the surprise is that so few go to Him. Does it astonish us to read of a dying thief being saved, or of a blasphemous man, a persecutor and injurious, being made a follower of the meek and lowly Lord? Or are we surprised to hear, in our own day, of the vilest and worst being "made whole," and living no more the life of sin, but living instead the life of faith? Do we lift up our eyes with amazement and say, "How can these things be?" By no means, for Jesus is so wonderful, and His salvation is so complete, and the cleansing efficacy of His once-shed blood is so perfect, that we know He can and does heal all who come to Him.
“Whithersoever He entered, into villages, or cities, or country, they laid the sick in the streets, and besought Him that they might touch, if it were but the border of His garment." What a sight of power and of weakness, of grace and misery! The Son of God, who had come from heaven, surrounded with every type of human woe. As He walked on, His heart moving in tenderness towards all, hundreds of weak hands would stretch out, as it were, to touch the very skirts of His garment! And if our eyes could but see, we should behold in this our gospel day the selfsame Jesus, the Son of God, moving amongst the longing and perishing children of men, and we should see weak and helpless hands outstretched to touch Him, and "As many as touched Him were made whole.”
Before the night closes in, and the Lord has passed by to return in mercy no more, oh! stretch out the hand of faith and touch Him, for—"As many as touched—”