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Chapter 12—Other Object Lessons
God’s healing power runs all through nature. If a tree is cut, if a
human being is wounded or breaks a bone, nature begins at once to
repair the injury. Even before the need exists, the healing agencies
are ready, and as soon as a part is wounded, every energy focuses on
the work of restoration.
So it is in the spiritual realm. Before sin created the need,
God provided the remedy. Every soul who yields to temptation
is wounded by the adversary, but whenever there is sin, there is the
Savior. It is Christ’s work “to heal the brokenhearted, to preach de-
liverance to the captives, ... to set at liberty those who are oppressed.”
Luke 4:18
.
In this work we are to cooperate. “If anyone is detected in a
transgression ... restore such a one.”
Galatians 6:1
, NRSV. The
word here translated “restore” means to put in joint, as a dislocated
bone. How appropriate the figure! People who fall into error or
sin are thrown out of relation to everything about them. They may
realize their error and be filled with remorse, but they cannot recover
themselves. They are confused and perplexed. They are to be
reclaimed, healed, re-established. “You who have received the Spirit
should restore” them. Only the love that flows from the heart of
Christ can heal. Only a person in whom that love flows, even as the
sap in the tree or the blood in the body, can restore the wounded
soul.
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Love’s agencies have wonderful power, for they are divine. The
soft answer that “turns away wrath,” the love that “suffers long and
is kind,” the charity that “will cover a multitude of sins” (
Proverbs
15:1
;
1 Corinthians 13:4
;
1 Peter 4:8
)—if we would learn the lesson,
our lives would be gifted with power for healing. Life would be
transformed, and the earth would become a likeness and foretaste of
heaven!
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