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And it is doubtful that any soul has received the healing of the gospel apart from prayer by someone, somewhere.ģ:9-10. The miracle occurred at the hour of prayer. By salvation our “feet and ankle- bones” receive strength to walk in God’s will (Rom 8:1), and we can thus enter into His courts, as this man, with praise. Sinners who are evangelized sit, as it were, at the gate “Beautiful.”Īs for the lame man, so for us, there is salvation only in the name of the Lord Jesus (Acts 4:12). It is well symbolized by a “beautiful” gate, for it is a gateway to eternal life, eternal blessedness, heaven, and the presence of God.
![being the man of the house being the man of the house](https://images-cdn.9gag.com/photo/a9dE1nW_700b.jpg)
The gospel is to be associated with beauty for the loveliness of its message. The idea being, human feet are usually ugly, yet these take on beauty because of the spiritual beauty of the gospel. In the remainder of the New Testament the word beautiful ( hōraian) is only once more used, in Rom 10:15, of the feet of the gospel messenger. But he sat at that gate of the temple which was called Beautiful. The lame man sat outside the house of God, just as sinners are outside God’s house (the Church). And as spiritual paupers, we too have nothing to give God for our salvation. We are spiritual beggars in the sight of God. We are unable to walk in God’s ways for us from birth and onward. “Behold, I was brought forth in iniquity, and in sin my mother conceived me” (Ps 51:5). The man was “lame from his mother’s womb.” He was not a cripple through some misfortune of experience or environment. Each of us, in our pre-salvation state, is pictured here. Third, we can take this healing as a picture of ourselves.
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(Though today in the Jewish state there is an incipient feeling that these are not enough.) Likewise, Israel, during this age, is so oblivious to the hope of spiritual healing as to be almost solely occupied with material things, silver and gold. The lame man asked for money because he had given up the hope of being healthy. Perhaps even today this movement to the “gateway” of opportunity has begun. Thus the miracle is at once a sign and a prophecy.Īs the lame man was carried daily to the gate of the temple, so Israel will someday be carried by the hands of God to the threshold of the kingdom once more. Sadly, they refused the spiritual healing the sign symbolized, but a future generation will receive it (and enter the kingdom, God’s house). Peter offers that generation of Israel the kingdom in verses 19-21. Israel needed the healing power of Jesus’ name.Īs the lame man sat at the gate of the temple, “the house of God,” so Israel sat, as it were, on the threshold of the kingdom (which is symbolized by the exaltation of the house of the Lord, cf. Nor, as their history showed, had they gained the ability since then. Their history as a nation, beginning with the Exodus, is marked by their utter inability to walk in God’s laws and statutes. Thus the healing of the lame man is a sign of the spiritual salvation so needed by the nation itself.įrom its birth, the nation of Israel had been lame. But what did it signify? In speaking of it, Peter used the same Greek root that can mean both healing (“made whole”) and salvation (cf. It is called a sign by the leaders themselves (Acts 4:16). Second, we can look at it as a sign to Israel. As Hebrews says, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Heb 13:8). Just as the name of Jesus of Nazareth was associated with such merciful healings in His life, so now it would be associated with the same miracles in resurrection life. It is not unlikely that for 15-30 years he had sat at this spot-long since without hope of health-yet the grace of God reaches him even after all these years have passed. Over 40 years old (Acts 4:22), he was doubt- less a pitiable sight. There are three ways to look at the miracle of this passage.įirst, we can look at the man himself. In Acts 3, Peter and John heal a man who was lame from birth.