The Medes and Persians believed in some form of a doctrine
of infallibility in their kings and leaders.
If a law were on the books, it was incontrovertible, sacrosanct. The other leaders in the kingdom were jealous
of this exile, Daniel’s, rise to power in their world. They found a way to trick the king into
issuing a decree that would do one of two things, it would force Daniel to
recognize the king as supreme and his laws as inviolable or it would force the
king to enforce the law by putting Daniel into the lion’s den for his failure
to recognize the king as the supreme law giver.
It was a play to the king’s vanity and it worked the way they knew it
would. They knew Daniel wouldn’t obey
it, the first possibility was a null possibility because they knew Daniel was a
faithful man to his God. They also knew
the king would enforce the law because of the same vanity that caused him to
issue it. If he failed to enforce the
law, it was an admission of fallibility; a Catch-22 situation unless the king
was willing to bow his knee before Daniel’s God.
These two stories have something in common beyond the
healing of hopeless cases. What they
have in common is that Jesus did something in both that seemed unnecessary and yet
was the most important part of the healing.
In the first instance we are told that this man who was “full of leprosy”
approached Jesus, which was absolutely forbidden for a leper to do. He would have been required to warn anyone
coming his way that he was a leper and to therefore stay well clear of him
because of the potential for contagion and therefore ritual impurity. Jesus, however, not only allowed this breach
without rebuke, He stretched out His hand and touched the man as part of the
healing. Touch was something denied this
person so long as he showed any signs of leprosy, it was an act of pure love,
identifying with the leper and his leprosy while at the same time communicating
the purity of God to this man in healing him.
The same as the cross and the taking away of sin. In the second healing, Jesus offered
forgiveness first and healing second.
There seemed to be no reason other than provocation for this based on
the reaction of the scribes and Pharisees, but we cannot believe Jesus did this
for only that reason. Sin must have been
somehow connected with this paralysis and must have spoken deeply to the man’s
soul, it would have only been a partial healing if his mobility had been
restored without the forgiveness of sin.
John writes to this community, “the elect lady and her
children”, for two purposes, to encourage those who know the truth to walk in
the truth, obedient to the commandment to love one another, and also to warn
concerning antichrists, not to receive them.
His particular concern is those who deny that Jesus came “in the flesh.” We’ve seen that this was apparently a major
concern in the region in which John ministered.
Docetism, the idea that Jesus just seemed to be in the flesh, is a
problem in that if He didn’t take on flesh then did He redeem it? Does the flesh matter at all or is only the
soul of importance? John knew that the
flesh was important, we are created in the image of God not simply enfleshed
souls, important enough that those who deny this were not considered to be in the
truth and must be treated as lepers, kept at a distance, for the safety of the church.
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