Mark 2:17 When Jesus heard it, he said to them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick… When a physician presents himself, one of the first inquiries is, "Is he a regular practitioner? Has he a right to practise? Has he a diploma?" Very properly, the law requires that a man shall not be allowed to hack our bodies and poison us with drugs at his own pleasure without having at least a show of knowing what he is at. It has been tartly said that "a doctor is a man who pours drugs, of which he knows little, into a body of which he knows still less." I fear that is often the case. Still a diploma is the best safeguard mortals have devised. Christ has the best authority for practising as a Physician. He has a Divine diploma. Would you like to see His diploma? I will read you a few words of it: it comes from the highest authority, not from the College of Physicians, but from the God of Physicians. Here are the words of it in the sixty-first chapter of Isaiah - "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek. He hath sent me to bind up the broken hearted." He has a diploma for binding up broken hearts. I should not like to trust myself to a physician who was a mere self-dubbed doctor, who could not show any authorization; I must have him know as much as a man can know, little as I believe that will probably be. He must have a diploma; it must be signed and sealed too, and be in a regular manner, for few sensible men will risk their lives with ignorant quacks. Now Jesus Christ has His diploma and there it is — God hath sent Him to bind up the broken-hearted. The next thing you want in a physician is education; you want to know that he is thoroughly qualified; he must have walked the hospitals. And certainly our Lord Jesus Christ has done so. What form of disease did He not meet with? When He was here among men it pleased God to let the devil loose, in order that there might be more than usual venom in the veins of poor diseased manhood: and Christ met the devil at his darkest hour and fought with the great enemy when he had full liberty to do his worst with Him. Jesus did, indeed, enter into the woes of men. Walked the hospital! Why the whole world was an infirmary, and Christ the one only Physician, going from couch to couch, healing the sons of men. (C. H. Spurgeon.) Parallel Verses KJV: When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. |
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