Healing of soul and body

Your weekly Dose of Spurgeon

The PyroManiacs devote some space each weekend to highlights from the lifetime of works from the Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon.  The following excerpt is from The Gospel of the Kingdom, page 56, Pilgrim Publications.

"For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say Arise, and walk? Matthew 9:5 

He answers their evil thoughts by a question which was to them unanswerable. Surely the two things are equally beyond human power to work. But to say “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” is the easier to all appearance, because no apparent result is expected to follow by which the reality of the speech can be tested.

Thousands have pretended to absolve a man from sin, who would not have dared to command a disease to disappear. The difference in merely saying is all in favour of the first speech.

If we compare the two miracles, it would be long before one could arrive at an answer as to which is the easier; for they are both impossible with men. In some respects the pardon of sin is the greater work of the two, for its accomplishment requires the whole apparatus of incarnation and atonement.

Our Lord wrought both miracles, and thus confirmed his claim of power by a visible sign which none could question.

He that can pardon my soul can heal my body; for that would seem to be the easier of the two deeds of mercy. I may bring both forms of malady to Jesus, and he will deal with them. Lord, heal my spirit and cure my flesh! Yea, thou wilt do this work most effectually by raising my body incorruptible as thine own.