Mark 5:32 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Mark 5:32

Comments

Christ turns back and looks around at the crowd to see the woman who had touched him. This is her signal to come forward and show herself. He will not let her take a blessing anonymously, silently, but he wants her to reveal herself. She knows that she must speak of the healing she has freely received, but she comes forward fearful and trembling. Why was that? She has been healed, and her pain has gone and yet she is afraid. Why? It is not so surprising when we remember that her condition has caused her to be ostracised for ten years or more. Now she was being asked to speak to him publicly in front of a great crowd that was going to focus its attention on what she said. But she trembled because this was Messiah. This was God, the God-man, Jesus Christ, the Lord. She trembled in his presence because she knew he was the holy one, come to deliver us from sin. But the secret transaction with Christ must come out into the open. She had been healed entirely. She felt as she hadn't felt for years. She felt so strong and so well. If she could have seen the face, she would have seen that it was restored to a full bloom and colour. She falls down before him in a posture of worship which shows clearly that she regarded him as Lord, and she tells him what she has done and what she has received from him, in the presence of the whole multitude. The crowd strained to hear as she told of her illness – the long duration of it. They listened to how she made up her mind to go to him and express her faith by a touch.

Application

When you come to Christ for salvation, you come to be ruled by him. Some try to miss that out. They want to carry on being the lord of their own life. They want to carry on listening to the same music as before, and make their own decisions without consulting him. They want to keep their own independence while at the same time receiving a benefit from him. But no, I am his; he is my Lord and his will must now govern my life.

Questions

Faith has no merit. Anybody can touch; anybody can fall down before him. We cannot deserve salvation; we cannot make God owe us anything. Years ago there was an argument about whether faith is active or passive. Is it all from me, or is it all from God? Well it is all from God, but there is an active element in me also and yet there is no merit in it. As Isaac Watts puts it, ‘A guilty weak and helpless worm, on thy kind arms I fall.’ That is the answer to the question: we fall down before him as an expression of our total dependence on him.

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Introduction

Mark 5:32 Commentary and Bible Study