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Luke 8:40–48
“Jesus said, ‘Someone touched me, for I perceive that power has gone out from me’ ” (v. 46).
Gentiles were not the primary focus of our Lord’s earthly ministry (Matt. 15:24), but Jesus did heal some of them, such as the Gerasene demoniac (Luke 8:26–39). After exorcising the legion of demons from that man, Jesus returned to Galilee, where a crowd was waiting for Him. A man named Jairus, who was important in the society as “a ruler of the synagogue,” was present, and he implored Christ to come to his home, for he wanted the Savior to heal his daughter (Luke 8:40–42a).
Jesus immediately set off for Jairus’ home (Luke 8:42b), and we will learn what happened there in our next study. Yet something incredible happened along the way, which we read about in today’s passage. As a crowd pressed in around Jesus, a woman made her way toward Him. Not unlike the Gerasene demoniac, this woman was in a desperate condition. Luke 8:43 reports that she had a flow of blood for more than twelve years, a reference to ongoing menstruation. This condition would have rendered her ritually unclean in her Jewish society (see Lev. 15), so she was effectively a social outcast. In fact, even the gentiles would have avoided her, because Greco-Roman writers thought that the touch of a menstruating woman was harmful. Not only was she considered unclean, but she was also impoverished, for Luke adds that she had spent all her money on physicians in a futile attempt to find a cure (Luke 8:43).
Desperate for help, the woman moved through the crowd, unseen by Jesus, and touched the hem of His garment, probably the tassels that Jewish men wore on the edges of their clothing to remind them of God’s law. When she did so, she was healed (Luke 8:44; see Num. 15:37–41). Note that she may have had an imperfect faith mixed with superstition; many ancient people believed that healing properties could be transmitted by artifacts such as clothing. If so, her healing is evidence of God’s kindness to people with imperfect faith, which is good news, since the only faith that sinners can have is imperfect. John Calvin comments, “God deals kindly and gently with his people—accepts their faith, though imperfect and weak—and does not lay to their charge the faults and imperfections with which it is connected.”
Jesus understood that healing power had gone out from Him even though He did not see the woman at first. She came forward when He asked to see her, and He praised her faith (Luke 8:45–48).
Coram Deo Living before the face of God
Our faith itself has no intrinsic power. What is of value is the object of our faith, Jesus Christ. That means that God can work even through imperfect faith to save us. Our faith will always be imperfect before we are glorified and the presence of sin is removed from us forever, but because it is faith in a perfect Savior, we can be sure that God will always accomplish our salvation.
for further study
- Psalm 103:1–3
- Zephaniah 3:17
- Matthew 9:18–22
- Mark 9:24
the bible in a year
- 2 Samuel 17–18
- Luke 21:1–19