WinkVibe

While Jesus was ministering near the Sea of Galilee, He was being thronged by a multitude. Among the crowd was a woman who, for 12 years, had suffered a chronic hemorrhage and had spent her entire substance on care from physicians whose efforts to treat the malady had altogether failed.

Now, knowing that the reputed healer from Nazareth was in that region, she exercised faith born of desperation.

"If I may but touch his clothes, I shall be whole," she reasoned (Mark 5:28). That impression was validated when she approached Him from behind, touched His garment and was immediately healed.

The wording used in the scriptures to record Jesus' response on this occasion is instructive. We read in both the Mark and Luke accounts that He perceived that "virtue" had gone out from Him, prompting Him to ask who had touched Him. What followed, of course, was His declaration that the woman's faith had made her whole (see Mark 5:30-34 and Luke 8:46-48).

A similar application of the word virtue is found in Luke 6:19, where we read, "And the whole multitude sought to touch him: for there went virtue out of him, and healed them all" (emphasis added).

We might be inclined to understand virtue in a gospel sense to mean moral cleanliness, goodness, righteousness. But the context of these passages gives us to understand that the word can also be taken to mean power — specifically, the power to heal. As we glance at the footnotes, we find that, in each instance, the word virtue is a translation from a Greek term meaning "power." Indeed, a popular dictionary gives one of several definitions for virtue as "effective power or force; efficacy; esp., the ability to heal or strengthen (the virtue of a medicine)" (Webster's New World College Dictionary, Fourth Edition, IDG Books Worldwide Inc., copyright 2001).

That understanding can help us to better grasp the meaning of the Book of Mormon passage occurring at the point where Alma is embarking on a mission to reclaim the Zoramites, who had fallen away from the gospel of Christ. It reads, "And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to do that which was just — yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them — therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God" (Alma 31:4, emphasis added).

Suppose, in the foregoing passage, we were to substitute the term healing power for virtue. It would then read, "Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the healing power of the word of God."

Many a troubled soul has found that there is, indeed, healing power in the word of God, whether it is in the scriptures or in the inspired preaching of the Brethren or other good and wise Latter-day Saints. It has power to assuage doubts, to assure, to soothe, to encourage, to console. Sometimes, it can be like a painful but beneficent course of medical treatment in that it has power to chastise, to convict, to reform, to call to repentance.

With a moment's reflection, we realize that this definition of virtue, i.e. healing power, is not far removed in concept from its other definition, moral cleanliness and goodness. One whose character is morally clean and exemplary has power to heal others through teaching and tender watch care.

And remaining free from or being cleansed of sin does indeed bring about healing, particularly, the healing that comes by virtue of Christ's atoning sacrifice. That the physical healing performed by Christ and His servants typifies the spiritual healing that He accomplished through the Atonement is implicit in this statement of Alma to the ailing and repentant lawyer Zeezrom: "If thou believest in the redemption of Christ thou canst be healed" (Alma 15:8).

Let us each take to heart those words as we ponder the "virtue of the word of God" and of Christ's mercy and sacrifice.

ncG1vNJzZmivp6x7tbTEnJ%2BuqpOdu6bD0meaqKVfZ31xgo5uZmprX2eAc3%2BTcWxsZ5iarq21zaBkr6GiqcKm