[Songs in the Night - November 17]
Jesus Christ maketh thee whole. Acts 9:34
OUR text is from Peter's words to Aeneas, the paralytic,
whom the apostle found at Lydda and healed.
We
are not told that he was one of the saints; the presumption,
therefore, is that he was not, but that at
most he was a friend to some of them, and that thus
the apostle's attention was drawn to him.
The fact that
he had been bedfast, helpless, eight years, testified that
the healing was a miracle.
Its fame spread abroad, and
resulted, we are told, in the drawing of many unto the
Lord and to the church.
Thus did the Lord establish
the church and attract to it those who were in the
right attitude of heart, using miracles then, as he now
uses other means.
Those miracles cannot have lasted
much longer than the apostles themselves, the gifts of
healing etc., being granted only through the laying on of hands of the apostles—and the twelve had no successors—the heavenly Jerusalem had twelve foundations,
and no more, and in them were written the
names of the twelve apostles, and no others. Z'02-105 R2987:5 (Hymn 264)