IN THE Jewish synagogue service of Christ's day it was the practice for the one who gave the "last lesson," or what we would call the "sermon," to read two or three verses from the prophets and then lecture or comment on them.
On a Sabbath morning late in the spring of A.D. 29, Jesus was called on to present this part of the service in the synagogue at Capernaum. A little while before this, Jesus had healed a demon-possessed man in that same synagogue on a Sabbath morning. The spies that were assigned by the rulers at Jerusalem to follow Jesus and report any wrongdoing on His part were watching Him intently on this Sabbath because there was a man seated in the congregation who had a withered right hand. "And," Luke 6:7 tells us, "the scribes and Pharisees watched him, whether he would heal on the sabbath day; that they might find an accusation against him."
The Greek word that is translated "hand" may also include the arm; therefore, it is not in anyway doing violence to this text to suggest that this man's right arm, as well as his hand, may have been withered. It is interesting that Luke the physician identifies which hand it was, making a point that it was the right one. The other synoptic writers (Matt. 12:10; Mark 3:1) do not mention this fact.
So we see a man in church on the Sabbath day with a withered right arm. He was in the right church on the right day—worshiping at the same time and place that Jesus was—but he had a deformity—a withered right arm. Today God's people are worshiping in the right church and on the right day, but also with a withered "right arm."
If you are of the opinion that the "right arm" is the medical work, then you might challenge this statement. Adventists are known the world over for the fine medical work that we have developed. It's true that our medical work is a part of what we call the "right arm," but not all of it by any means. The "right arm" passages all seem to follow the pattern of Testimonies, volume 6, page 327, which speaks of health reform as the right arm, and page 229, which reads: "The medical missionary work is as the right arm to the third angel's message which must be proclaimed to a fallen world."
On page 288, and in several other passages, the right hand is included with the right arm as a figure that represents "medical missionary work."
It is quite a study in itself to discover what the Spirit of Prophecy includes in "medical missionary work." But as you look up these passages, it soon becomes evident that much more is intended than we are accomplishing in our sanitariums and hospitals. A few pas sages that demonstrate this point follow:
Medical missionary work brings to humanity the gospel of release from suffering. It is the pioneer work of the gospel. It is the gospel practiced, the compassion of Christ revealed.—Medical Ministry, p. 239.
The mission of Christ was to heal the sick, encourage the hopeless, bind up the brokenhearted. This work of restoration is to be carried on among the needy, suffering ones of humanity. God calls not only for your benevolence, but your cheerful countenance, your hopeful words, the grasp of your hand. Relieve some of God's afflicted ones. Some are sick, and hope has departed. Bring back the sunlight to them. There are souls who have lost their courage; speak to them, pray for them. There are those who need the bread of life. Read to them from the Word of God. There is a soul sickness no balm can reach, no medicine heal. Pray for these, and bring them to Jesus Christ. And in all your work, Christ will be present to make impressions upon human hearts. This is the kind of medical missionary work to be done. Bring the sunshine of the Sun of Righteousness into the room of the sick and suffering. Teach the inmates of the poor homes how to cook. "He shall feed his flock like a shepherd," with temporal and spiritual food.—Ellen G. White manuscript 105, 1898.
We are living in a time when Seventh-day Adventists the world over are beginning to recognize that we have not, to a large extent, been doing this kind of medical missionary work as God intended us to accomplish it, and therefore it is true that we have been laboring with a withered right arm. To us Jesus is commanding, "Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind" (Luke 14:21).
The September, 1970, Ministry magazine has an interesting picture on the cover. It shows a left arm and a right arm holding a Bible. The left arm is clothed in a dark suit and obviously represents that of a minister, while the right arm is clothed in a white professional smock sleeve and represents that of a doctor. It is intended to tell of renewed emphasis in doctor-minister cooperation in medical-missionary evangelism.
Suppose the picture had portrayed the right arm as shorter and withered. Would such a representation have been more accurate, or would it be a distortion? The important thing is that today the withered right arm IS being re stored, just as Jesus healed the man with the withered right arm and hand in the synagogue at Capernaum that Sabbath morning.
After challenging the Jews who were sent to spy on Him with the words, "Is it lawful on the sabbath days to do good, or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy it?" Jesus commanded the deformed man, "Stretch forth thy hand."
God expects us to do more on the Sabbath day than to attend church and eat a pleasant meal and take a nap. He expects us to follow Jesus' example—to do good and save life in unselfish ministry for others. He is commanding us to stretch forth the atrophied right arm and put the right hand to work in loving service to those in our own neighborhoods.
The scripture tells us that the man "did so: and his hand was restored whole as the other" (verse 10). This is a promise of what will happen in and for this church as we follow Jesus' example and command:
When the third angel's message is received in its fullness, health reform will be given its place in the councils of the conference, . . . and in all the household arrangements. Then the right arm will serve and protect the body.— Testimonies, vol. 6, p. 327.
Luke records that those sent to spy on Jesus "were filled with madness" (v. 11) after He healed the man with the withered right hand. Mark adds: "And the Pharisees went forth, and straightway took counsel with the Herodians against him, how they might destroy him" (Mark 3:6).
Whenever we do what God wants us to do rather than what men sometimes think we should be doing, conflict and difficulty are sure to follow. Satan becomes upset and begins to stir things up against us. We can expect to be misunderstood and we can expect opposition as we begin to put Christ's program of medical-missionary evangelism into practice. This is what Satan is afraid of, be cause this is part of God's program for reviving His church in the last days:
Said the angel, "Abstain from fleshly lusts which war against the soul." You have stumbled at the health reform. . . . You are stumbling over the very blessing which Heaven has placed in your path to make your progress less difficult. Satan presents this before you in the most objectionable light, that you may combat that which would prove the greatest benefit to you, which would be for your physical and spiritual health.—Ibid., vol. 1, p. 546.
In the preparation of a people for the Lord's second coming, a great work is to be accomplished through the promulgation of health principles.— Counsels on Health, p. 206.
It is interesting that Luke introduces this miracle of the healing of the withered right hand just before the ordination of the twelve and the Sermon on the Mount, which seems to be Christ's ordination sermon for His disciples.
Can it be that ministers in our church are not fulfilling their ordination vows unless they incorporate the work of the right arm in their ministry? It may sound like an extreme position if we answer in the affirmative, but notice again what the Lord Himself reveals on this point:
I wish to tell you that soon there will be no work done in ministerial lines but medical missionary work. . . . You will never be ministers after the gospel order till you show a decided interest in medical missionary work, the gospel of healing and blessing and strengthening. ... I wish to say that the medical missionary work is Cod's work. The Lord wants every one of His ministers to come into line. Take hold of the medical missionary work, and it will give you access to the people. . . . Medical missionary work, ministering to the sick and suffering, cannot be separated from the gospel.—Ibid., pp. 533, 534.
The motto of Loma Linda University, "To Make Man Whole," is also the goal of the ministry. This wholeness, which leads to holiness, includes the physical and mental as well as the spiritual. It is long past time to restore the fullness of the beauty of Christ's ministry of love to a world writhing in the pain of sin, to combine ministry for the physical needs of those about us with our ministry to their spiritual needs, to rise up, as Jesus commanded the man with the withered right hand, and stretch forth the long-neglected right arm so that Christ can not only make us whole again but we can be used by Him "to make man whole."
