Word of Salvation – Vol. 35 No. 30 – August 1990

 

Saving Faith

 

Sermon by Rev. Michael Flinn on Mark 5:25-34

Readings: Lev.15:25-27; Mark 5:25-34

 

Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ,

What must a person do in order to be saved from their sins?  Now that is a fairly basic sort of question.  Most people who call themselves Christians recognize the reality of human sin.  They know that sin has entered the world through the fall of our first parents and that sin has produced an enormous gulf between God and man.  God is angry with his creatures because of their disobedience.

Man is therefore subject to the wrath of God.  But we all know too that Jesus Christ has come.  The Saviour has been sent into the world and this is a time of the year when Christians world- wide will reflect upon this truth.

Salvation Not Automatic

However, we are also very much aware that the presence of Christ does not automatically save people.  Christ has come, to be sure.  And we rejoice about that fact but what about all those people who do not?  Surely salvation is not automatically conferred upon them simply because Christ has come.  How then is it that the work of Christ becomes efficacious in the life of an individual?  What must a person do in order to experience the salvation of Christ?

Surely if ever there was an issue upon which the Christian church should be united it is this one and yet even here there are varieties of answers to this question.  There are those who teach that one cannot do anything at all because salvation is a work of the Holy Spirit and we do not know where and when the Spirit will move next.  So if a person asks what must I do in order to be saved from my sins, the correct response is: “I’m sorry, but you cannot do anything at all.  You must wait upon God and when God does something to you, you will know that you have been saved.”  There are others who in response to this question will come out with a long list of moral requirements: You must live an upright life; you must do penance; you must gain more holiness; you must pray five times a day; and so on.  Still others, albeit outside the church, advocate some sort of ritual procedure: learn how to do transcendental meditation; say your mantra over and over and you will be freed from the shackles of this life.  Be initiated into the exclusive society of the saved by going through the secret ritual procedure.  These are but some of the answers that are given to the question.

But let us turn to the Scripture and let them be our guide.  Jesus, in the passage that we have before us, encounters a encounters a woman with a serious problem.  She has had a flow of blood for twelve years.  According to the legislation, that we read about in Leviticus 15, that would have made her ritually unclean.  Everything and everyone with whom she came into contact would have also become unclean.  Not only has she had to endure the physically debilitating effect of her ailment, she has also been forced to endure the social ostracism associated with it.  Yet even this is not all.  She has spent all her money and endured much at the hands of many physicians in attempts at a remedy.

Jewish Remedies

When the text says that she had endured much, this is no exaggeration.  Jewish writings record the methods employed by physicians to deal with this particular problem.  One prescribed remedy was a concoction of wine mixed with a powder formed from rubber, alum and garden crocuses.  Another treatment was a dose of Persian onions cooked in wine administered with the summons, “Arise out of your flow of blood”.  Another was the carrying of the ashes of an ostrich egg in a certain piece of cloth for a season.  Others prescribed sudden shock.  For twelve years this woman has tried everything and spared nothing but all to no avail.

Yet she believes that if she can touch even the garment of Jesus Christ, she will be healed of this illness.  She makes her way to him through the crowd and surreptitiously touches his outer garment.  Matthew and Luke, who give us more detail here, record that she actually touched one of the tassels of his robe.  In Numbers 15 God had prescribed that his people were to wear four tassels, one on each of the four corners of their outer robe in order to remind them of the law of God.  One of these tassels is all she touched and yet at the moment she did so, she was healed of her affliction and she knew it.  Jesus is aware that he has just healed someone.  Power has gone out from him and so he asks: “Who was it who touched me?”  The disciples are unaware of the significance of the question.  After all, many people are touching Jesus.

The crowd is pressing in on him and this is surely no reason to delay.  Moreover, a young girl’s life is in danger.  They must hurry to reach the house of Jairus, the synagogue official.  But Jesus looked at the woman who had touched him.  In his divine nature, Jesus knows full well who has touched him and he wants to elicit a statement from the woman herself.

Fear and Trembling

The woman, risking a great deal, falls down before him and tells him everything.  She does this “fearing and trembling”.  At this time and in this culture, it was frowned upon for a woman to speak in public.  A woman who spoke openly about a subject such as this this would be even more frowned upon.  And then there is her audacious action of touching Jesus’ garment, something which in the ordinary course of events would have made that garment unclean.  What will the crowd think?  What will Jesus do and say?  Well, she had nothing to fear from the Lord.  Jesus says to her, in an attitude of love and fatherly care, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace and be healed of your affliction.”  Jesus says that this woman’s faith has saved her.  That is the literal rendition of the expression translated, “made you well”.  Now she is to go in peace.  No more trouble, no more trial, no more affliction.

And what is it that has saved her, according to the Lord?  It is her faith.  Now we know Jesus could have said more.  He could have said: “Go in peace.  I have saved you”, for after all, was it not the power of Christ that healed her from this affliction?  Did not power go out from him to her?  Well, of course it was Christ who did the saving.  But Jesus makes an important point, not only for her benefit but for the whole crowd and for the church of all ages.  So important an instrumental, has been the woman’s faith, that without it she could never have been saved.  With it she was saved.  She received salvation through her faith.  I don’t know of any other way to understand the words of Christ.  Jesus says: “Your faith has saved you.”

Let us consider this matter in more detail.  There are three points that I would like to observe about this matter of saving faith.

The first concerns the necessity of faith.  If we are going to be saved from our sins, we must believe in Christ.  This woman was obviously a very determined sort of person.  She knew that she was unclean physically and spiritually.  And she had tried every possible means of cure.  When it comes to the matter of human sin, some people are not even aware of their malady.  They are blissfully unaware of the fact that they are sinners before a holy God and one day they will stand before his throne of judgment.  Satan has blinded their minds to this truth.  They think things are perfectly okay with them and the way in which they live.

Their moral standards are broad enough to embrace whatever action they choose to perform.  And because they are unaware of their serious condition, they see no need of Christ.  Still others are aware of their malady but they have come to accept themselves and their sinfulness.  They do not believe in the possibility of change.  They are spiritually depressed and they are spiritually depressing.  These people will not exercise faith in Christ because they do not believe that anyone can do anything to help them.

A Determined and Discontented Woman

But when it comes to this woman, we meet with a contrast.  She was determined to do something about this problem that she had.  She was thoroughly discontented with the reality of her condition.  But she was also aware from her experience that the ordinary means of cure were insufficient.  They did not save.  Yet even here she did not give up.  Instead, she transferred her faith to the only one who could do something about her problem: Jesus Christ.  She believed that even to touch his garment would be sufficient.  This was a settled conviction on her part.  This was no mere fleeting: “Oh, well, I might as well give this a try.  I’ve tried everything else.  What have I got to lose?”  How do we know this?  Because the text tells us, in verse 28 that this was what she had been saying.  You can scratch out the word “thought” in your NASB and write “was saying” for that is what the Greek says.  She expressed this conviction in words; she may well have told friends and acquaintances of this conviction before she deliberately made her way through the crowd to reach out that hand to the garment of Christ.  She believed and without that belief she could not have been healed.  Other people were touching Christ.  They themselves may have been afflicted with ailments of some sort.  But not even a touch was enough, not without the vital ingredient of faith.

Children, older people, young people, you and I cannot be saved without faith.  We must recognize our condition and we must recognize that we cannot do anything about it.  We must recognize that Jesus is both able and willing to grant us salvation and we must go to him for it.  And no-one can do that for us.  Children, your parents cannot do it for you.  You must exercise faith in Christ.  Wives, the faith of your husbands will not save you.  You must be determined, as determined as this woman.  You must exercise belief in Christ.  Without that everything else is vain and worthless.  The passage has something to teach us about the vital necessity of faith.

But we can also learn something of the sufficiency of faith.  When this woman exercised her faith in Christ and touched his garment, she recognized instantly that she had been healed.  The cure was immediate and she knew this in herself.  There was nothing else, no procedures that she needed to do, that she needed to go through in order to make the process complete.  She was completely cured.  The words of Christ are particularly interesting in this connection.  He says in verse 34 “your faith has saved you; go in peace, and be healed of your affliction.”

Now Jesus knows full well, that in terms of the legislation pertaining to ritual purification, the woman is still unclean.  She must now wait for a period of seven days and only after that period will she be ritually clean.  Then she must take her sacrifice to the priest.  But Jesus indicates by his words that it is not these ritual provisions and these animal sacrifices that make a person well.  They signify cleansing but they do not grant cleansing.  This woman is already clean.  She has been saved and the instrument of her salvation is her faith.  Of course she must now wait the seven days and then take the sacrifice to the priest but these things will do nothing to alter or add to her present state.  They are not parts of a process which must be completed before she reaches the condition of salvation.  Right now she is in the present state of salvation from her condition and she can go in peace.  What is it that has brought her into that state?  Her faith – no more and no less.

Sometimes when people hear the gospel for the first or even the umpteenth time, they have a hang-up right at this point.  The gospel says believe in Jesus Christ and you shall be saved from your sins.

How Can It Be That Simple?

But our minds tell us that this surely cannot be the case.  How can it be that simple?  You mean all I’ve got to do is believe in Christ?  Surely there must be something more.  There must be some procedure I have to go through.  Haven’t you got some special ritual for me perform?  Are there no tests that I must undergo?  Where is the penance that I must do?  Surely I must pay for my sins in some way!  And the answer is always, “No!  All you have to do is exercise faith in Christ.”  To be sure, you have to do that and in itself that is very hard to do, especially when your fallen reason tells you that that is completely inadequate and there must be something more but it is true.  Faith in Christ is sufficient.  You and I do not need anything else at all.

There is one other point that we can make concerning faith as it is revealed in this passage and that concerns the’ potency of faith.  What do I mean by that?  Well, if you think about it you will realize that the faith of this woman is far from perfect.  Her faith is weak.  In all likelihood, it is mixed with magical notions about the power of Christ.  She believes that all she has to do is touch the tassel of his garment.  She may well have understood that there was something special about the garment itself simply because Christ was wearing it.  Then too, she certainly understands that personal touch is necessary.  Now we know that this is not the case.  None of us have seen and touched Jesus Christ or any of his garments for that matter and yet salvation is as freely available to us as it was to this woman.  Remember Jesus’ encounter with the Roman centurion.  This man pointed out that all he had to do was speak the word and that was enough for his slave to be saved.  He did not need to come to his house; he did not need to touch the slave.  All he had to do was exercise his authority from afar.  And Jesus marvelled at the depths of the man’s faith, pointing out that even in Israel he had not encountered such faith as that man displayed.

Weak Faith Still Sufficient

Well, the point is that this woman’s faith was not as mature as that of the centurion.  She understood that she had to touch the garment of Christ.  But even though her faith is weak and possibly even tinged with a magical understanding, it is still sufficient.  Jesus honours her faith.  He points out to her that it is her faith that has saved her.  It is the grasp of her faith and not of her hand that is significant.  There is nothing whatsoever that is magical about his garments or even his person.  It is faith that is important.  Even though that faith is weak, it is still powerful unto salvation.  If we have faith even the size of a mustard seed we can move mountains.  Jesus means by that statement that faith, even when it is weak and very small, is yet powerful enough to overcome enormous obstacles.

If you do not know the blessing of salvation and you want to be saved from your sins, I will tell you what you must do.  I am not going to say, do not do anything.  I am not going to say wait upon God.  I cannot find one instance in the entire Bible where such a response is given to one asking a genuine question about salvation.  If you want to be saved, you must exercise faith in Christ.  Believe and trust in what he has done on the cross.  Simply believe.  You say: Oh, I want to believe, but my faith is weak.  There are all these rationalistic ideas that come to the fore in my mind.  There are all these “buts..!”. which I cannot answer.  My friend, let me tell you: Jesus will honour faith, even when it is weak.  Even when faith is tinged with doubt and false notions, it is enough to enable a person to receive salvation.  Remember the man who said, “I believe Lord, but help me in my unbelief.”  If you want to be saved this is what you must do.

To those who are Christians, be encouraged with the message of this text.  Our faith is not perfect, but it does not have to be.  Our faith, even when weak and imperfect, is enough.

Jesus honours it.  When people ask you why you are Christians, please do not be afraid to tell them.  When people want to know how to become Christians, do not be at a loss for words.  When people ask, tell them what they must do.  Tell them about the need for faith in Christ.  Tell them that this is all they need.  Tell them about how you yourself came to that point where you exercised faith in Christ for the first time.  If you cannot remember when that was, wonderful!  Tell them about that too.  People will ask the “how” questions.  If we cannot answer that question biblically we have no business thinking that we can witness for Christ.  We have a wonderful gospel.  We have a liberating gospel, a gospel which really saves.  May God make us faithful with it unto Christ.

AMEN