0348. He Was Made Whole

He Was Made Whole

"And immediately the man was made whole, and took up his bed, and walked" (Joh_5:9).

We will take time for but two things:

1. He was made whole. He was not merely made better, or greatly improved, or started on the way toward health–he was made whole.

That is just what Christ does for the sinner. He does not "help the sinner to help himself;" he does not give the sinner a code of morals and some rules of life, by which he may improve his conduct and save his own soul. Christ makes the sinner whole.

On the Cross God laid our iniquities on Christ, "He made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God, in Him."

When the sinner believes he is saved, God pronounces him whole. God recognizes his sins as on Christ, and Christ’s righteousness as on him. A sinner saved, is a sinner justified. He is blessed indeed, because God does not impute iniquity to him. He is whole.

2. He was made whole, immediately. There was no delay; it was a matter of an instant. Thirty-eight years sick, and made whole in a moment of time. Salvation is not a process, it is a miracle; salvation is not a "patching up, of the old man," it is the "creating of a new man."

If salvation was a process, it would take a lifetime to perfect it; but if salvation is a creation, an act of God, it takes but a twinkling of an eye to perfect it. Perfectly saved in a second of time.

Of course, the saved have a new life, and that life must grow; and the saved have an old life and that must be reckoned dead and crucified and reckoned dead; the new man must be put on and the old man must be put off–and all of this is not the work of a moment–"I die daily" said Paul.

But salvation, the new birth, is accomplished immediately that one believes. One cannot grow into grace but he can grow in grace. There must be life before there can be growth. One cannot work out his own salvation, with fear and trembling, until God has first worked in something for him to work out.

"Immediately he was made whole," day by day he took up his bed and walked. Being whole, he began at once to walk and continued to walk the rest of his days–because he was whole. Immediately we are saved–we begin to walk, and we continue to walk, on and on, until finally we walk with Him in white. Salvation is immediate, the walking is progressive.

Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR