Physical and Spiritual Healing/Why Did Jesus Ask Those He Healed to “Tell No Man” About His Physical Miracles

This week I’m studying the miracles Jesus performed while He was on the earth and why He performed miracles. According to the gospel study manual, He performed miracles for many reasons including: to show love and compassion, to build faith, and to prove His power.

But one thing that has caught my attention over and over again is that Jesus repeatedly asked those He healed to tell no one else about it. I've been thinking about why Jesus made this request. After all, His miracles did prove His power. They did build faith and they led people to him. They showed that He was compassionate.

I wonder if Jesus was concerned that many would see him only as a physical healer and not realize His important role as a spiritual healer, or why it was important to be healed spiritually. I feel this point is made over and over again. For example, in Mark 2, the people brought Jesus a man of palsy. He first performed a spiritual miracle by forgiving the man of his sins. The scribes who were there thought it was blasphemous that Jesus could claim to heal a man spiritually. Jesus responded by saying, in verse 9, "Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and take up thy bed and walk?" And then to show His spiritual power, He commanded the man with palsy to be healed physically. And the man with palsy arose and went out. Jesus performed the spiritual miracle first, and then when He wasn't believed, He performed the physical miracle.

In that same chapter of Mark, I feel that Jesus needed to remind those around him of His power to heal spiritual infirmities. When the scribes asked him why He ate with the sinners, Jesus said, in They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." .

In Matthew 10:28, He makes a statement that makes me wonder if He thought spiritual health is much more important than physical health. He said, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell."

Jesus performed many miracles, both physical and spiritual. Both were important. I wonder how many miracles Jesus performed that Jesus performed that didn't make it into the scriptures because those He healed followed His injunction to tell no man.

I find it interesting that between the two types of miracles, physical and spiritual, His power to heal physical ailments were what spread His fame abroad. In Mark 1:45, it says that the Lepers, for example, "began to publish it much and to blaze abroad the matter," – so much so that Jesus couldn't enter the city because people came to him from every quarter. In Luke 5: 15, it says, "But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed of him by their infirmities."

With so much overwhelming attention and demand for His power to heal physically, Jesus "withdrew himself into the wilderness and He prayed." He probably needed the rest and He needed the quiet moments to pray. I wonder if one of the things He prayed about were that people would seek him for spiritual healing as well as physical healing – because that's what is ultimately the most important thing.