Behold, I will bring it health and cure, and I will cure them. Here, as in so many other Scriptures, the moral, political, social, and spiritual recovery of Israel is spoken of under the image of bodily healing. For all healings of the body are types and pledges of the better healing. If God so cares for the body, which today is and tomorrow is cast into the tomb, shall he not care for the soul, which is eternal? This ver. 6 is a promise that the Divine treatment of sin shall be effectual. The Lord is Jehovah-rophi. He heals them that have need of healing.

I. SIN IS AN AWFUL FACT. All nations have recognized this and mourned over it. But it has not been created by Christianity. True, the Christian faith brands it with the stigma of shame as none other does; foreverywhere sin has cast its deep shadow and driven noble souls, not a few, to utter despair. But it was here before Christianity. Hence -

II. THE QUESTION OF QUESTIONS HAS BEEN - WHAT IS TO BE DONE WITH IT? And the answers have been very different. Note:

1. The answer of the philosopher, which extenuates it, on the ground:

(1) Of the imperfection of our nature. If we knew more, it is said, had larger comprehension of truth, we should not sin. But is that true? Is increase of knowledge always increase of virtue? Are little children, who know so little, less virtuous than many an educated man? The names that are accursed forever, Nero, Herod, Balaam, Philip II. of Spain, Alva, and many more, were all educated men.

(2) Of the tyranny of the body. It is this cursed flesh, they say. Get rid of that, and the soul will be pure. Hence one reason wherefore St. Paul's doctrine of the resurrection was so opposed at Corinth, because they thought it was a bringing back of all that dread source of evil which it was hoped was done with forever when death came. Now, no doubt, the flesh is the occasion of sins not a few. But there are many sins, and those which probably God will most sternly condemn, which are quite independent of the body. Malice, envy, hatred, and all uncharitableness need no "flesh" for their existence. And even in those sins which are especially of the flesh, myriads of victories over it, victories continually renewed, prove that it can, as it ought to, be kept under and brought into subjection.

(3) Of its being a form of good. Without it, it is urged, virtue could not be attained; for it is in the conflict with sin that virtue is developed, disciplined, and strengthened. Virtue would lie dormant, lethargic, and be a miserable weakling, were it not that sin roused her up, exasperated her, and forced her to stand on her defence. But such argument confounds temptation with sin. What is urged is true of temptation, but never of sin. Nor is sin needed as the foil, the dark background on which virtue shall shine out with greater lustre than but for this foil had been possible to it. For sin is, some affirm, a necessary condition, almost an ingredient, of good. Moral evil cannot be so evil as it is thought. The devil is not so black as he is painted. But is sin necessary to manifest goodness? Where, then, is such background in God, or in the angels, or in the saints in glory? None, therefore, of these extenuations will stand. Reason, conscience, and God's Word alike condemn them.

2. There is the answer of despair, which regards it as inevitable and invincible. This answer does not make light of it, but regards it as that which can neither be helped nor overcome. They believe there is a kingdom of evil, independent of God, with its all but omnipotent, omnipresent, and omniscient head, like unto God. This was the creed of ancient Persia, against which, that his countrymen might not be carried away by it, Isaiah protested with all his might; cf. Isaiah 45:5-7, "I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me... I form the light, and create darkness: I make peace, and create evil: I the Lord do all these things." And Manicheism was a like heresy. And the moral despair which regards sin as inevitable is practical Manicheism. But this is a terrible error; for he who has come to believe in the existence of a god of evil as well as a God of goodness will soon come to believe only in the former and not in the latter at all. Moreover, conscience in her deepest utterances gives no countenance to this invincibility of evil. "Father, I have sinned," is its confession. It never urges that it had no power to resist - that it was forced to sin. It is a dread snare of the devil to persuade men that sin is invincible. Believe him not. Myriads of holy souls give him the lie; and, through the might of Christ your Lord, you may give him the lie likewise. But note now -

III. CHRIST'S ANSWER TO THIS QUESTION. This verse is one of innumerable others which affirm the same truth.

1. He does not make light of it or extenuate it. His high and holy teaching, his blameless life, the doom he pronounced on sin, above all, the death he died, were one emphatic protest against and condemnation of sin. But:

2. He did not regard it as invincible. He distinctly promises deliverance from it, and:

3. This he gives. By blotting out the record of the past. By the present help of his Spirit. By the bright prospect of eternal life. Facts prove all this. He healed them that had need of healing. No disease baffled him. His resources did not run out, and the healing was a real one. And so it is still. Let us come to him and see. - C.

I. THE VISIT WHICH THIS GOOD PHYSICIAN PAYS TO THE POOR PATIENT WHO HAS NEED OF HIM. The patient is a wretched being, who, in a spiritual point of view, is diseased from head to foot, and hath "no soundness in him." He has the disease of human nature, the disease which you and I have — sin. He has become painfully alive to the humiliating fact that there is no good thing in him — that all his doings have been evil — and that the sentence of death eternal hangs over his soul. He cannot heal himself. His fellow-sinners cannot heal him. Is not then his case desperate? It would be so indeed were it not for a voice from heaven which saith of this poor sinner, "I will bring him health and cure." Every word is a word of comfort to that sinner's soul. There is comfort in the first word "I" — I will do it. For who is it that speaks? It is Jesus, the great, the mighty Saviour of the soul — that famous, that renowned Physician who hath healed already such a multitude of sinners, and hath never lost a single patient. There is comfort in the next word, "I will bring" — for, alas! this sinner cannot fetch his cure. But look at the last words of the sentence, and behold still more abundant comfort for this perishing transgressor. "I will bring," saith the Lord — What? A medicine? A healing application that will be likely to avail — that may conduce towards recovery? No, but — Oh, bold words! words only fit for an Almighty Saviour! — I will bring him health and cure — something so sovereign in its virtue, so sure, so swift in its effects, that, the moment it is tried upon the patient, he is well; not only in part restored; not only altogether freed from his disease; but well — in full, in perfect health. The balm which the Physician brings to cure the sinner with is the blood which He hath shed for them, the life which He hath given for them, the full, the perfect and sufficient sacrifice which He hath offered up for them. And this balm, is not medicine only — for that may heal or not heal; that is a mere experiment upon a broken constitution, and may be ineffectual; but the balm which Jesus brings the sinner may well be styled "health and cure"; for it is everything at once which the sinner's case requires. This precious blood "cleanseth from all sin." But we have not yet attended this Good Physician to His patient. We have not yet ascertained, I mean, how He may be said to "bring" this "health and cure" to the poor sinner's soul. It is when He opens that sinner's eyes to view Him as a Saviour — when, by His word or by His ministers, He sets His love before that sinner's soul, and by His Holy Spirit makes him see it.

II. OBSERVE THE GOOD PHYSICIAL ACTUALLY CURING THE POOR PATIENT HE ATTENDS. There is a difference between a remedy brought near, and a remedy applied; and there is a difference again between Christ's "bringing health and cure" to the sinner, and that sinner's being cured. "The grace of God that bringeth salvation" is said to "appear unto all men"; but we know that all men to whom it appeareth are not saved by it. Many men perceive that Christ is their Physician, yet will not take His remedy; and many men believe that they have used the remedy when they have only done so in appearance. The patient we have endeavoured to describe is a really humbled and awakened soul, and the Lord, who brings him health, gives him faith also, to be healed. He believes in Jesus as a Saviour. He casts his soul on Him for pardon and righteousness.

III. NOW PROCEED TO THE BLESSINGS MY TEXT DESCRIBES HIM AS BESTOWING ON THE POOR PATIENTS HE HAS HEALED. "I will reveal to them," says He, "the abundance of peace and truth."

1. We may regard this peace and truth as the privileges of the redeemed sinner. When our poor sick bodies are recovered unexpectedly from a painful and a dangerous disease, how do we rejoice in our newly acquired health! How are our fears calmed and our anxieties removed! but these natural emotions are not to be compared for a moment with the spiritual feelings and experiences of the pardoned sinner; no sooner hath the Good Physician healed the soul than what doth He reveal to it? "The abundance of peace and truth." Peace — for "being justified by faith, he hath peace with God through Jesus Christ our Lord." Christ "revealeth" also to him "the abundance of truth." He enjoys, through the Spirit which Christ sends him, a glorious and most comfortable apprehension of the truth of God — of the truth of His grace, of the truth of His covenant, of the truth of His promises.

2. Consider this "abundance of peace and truth" as referring also to the character acquired by the believer in consequence of his faith. Christ may be said to have revealed to His people the "abundance of peace" in that He hath given them a peaceful spirit — in that He hath sent that Dove-like Messenger to rest upon their souls who is "first pure, then peaceable," and who makes the hearts He enters like Himself. And Christ may be said also to have revealed to him "the abundance of truth," by enabling him to walk in truth. He is "an Israelite indeed in whom is no guile," no crooked policy, no artful management. His aim is, on all occasions, to be "a child of the light and of the day" — "sincere and without offence unto the day of Christ" — "having no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reproving them."

(A. Roberts, M. A.)