“But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men” (Matthew 9:8).
ONE OF US
Jesus lived among us, John explains it as “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). Jesus entered into the human race by means of his birth—born of a woman, as we all were.
He is not ashamed to call us his family: “’Who are my mother and my brothers?’ he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, ‘Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother’” (Mk 3:33–34).
So we can look at Christ as one of us, as representing the human race: “that he by the grace of God should taste death for every man” (Heb 2:9).
So when Jesus performed the miracle of the healing of the man who was paralysed the people saw it as God giving this power to men, because Jesus was a man.
We know what human beings are capable of, we can work hard and accomplish much but some feats are beyond us. And healing a paralysed man is one of them. Yet through Christ this power has been delegated to men.
Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these” (John 14:12).
We can see this power of the Holy Spirit made manifest in the work of the Apostles in as much as Peter’s shadow was used as a point of faith, where with Jesus a lady who was ill had to touch the hem of his garment. Peter’s reach was long, “Crowds also gathered from the towns around Jerusalem, bringing the sick and those tormented by unclean spirits, and all of them were healed” (Acts 5:15).
The Apostle’s Paul feats were different to Peter’s but just as amazing, “God did extraordinary miracles through the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and the diseases and evil spirits left them” (Acts 19:12).
So we praise God that even we who follow Christ nowadays can in some measure have access to the power of the Holy Spirit. We use the gifts of the Spirit, we pray for one another and many of us have wonderful testimonies of God “which had given such power unto men”.
We are blessed to have God’s Spirit with us, moving in us, inspiring us, helping us to move forward in God’s kingdom and fulfilling our potential in Christ.
We praise and thank God for his goodness and grace to us that we may partake in the manifest power of the Holy Spirit.