03.50. The Cure: 2Ki_5:14-15

Chapter 14 The Cure
2 Kings 5:14-15

"They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick! I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance!" Thus spake our blessed Lord to the self-righteous scribes and Pharisees. If He is the Good Physician, who is found among the sick, why does He seek them, except to heal them? If He is the Friend of publicans and sinners, for what purpose is it but to call them to repentance, and to separate them from sin for ever? He came into the world to save sinners, and every miracle of mercy that he wrought, showed that his design was, that sinners might be saved; that is, not only pardoned, but transformed into new creatures by the renewing of their mind, so as to become devoted to God. Pardoning grace is always sanctifying grace. Of such things we shall be at least reminded in this concluding portion of Naaman’s history.

"Then went he down, and dipped himself seven times in Jordan, according to the saying of the man of God: and his flesh came again like unto the flesh of a little child, and he was clean. And he returned to the man of God, he and all his company." The narrative now takes a favorable turn, and Naaman obtains the object of his wishes. Let us praise God for it; for we should have regretted to this day had the leper returned uncured, when an effectual remedy had been Divinely pointed out to him. And yet he had very nearly foregone the benefit of it; so destructively may any one stand in his own light, when he presumes to judge of Divine things by his own imagination; and arbitrarily undertakes to determine how the finger of God shall be recognized. Let us now observe how the Syrian was first cured of his folly, and then of his disease.