Post by M.R. Hagerty on Apr 7, 2023 19:29:22 GMT -7
Mark 3:7-12, Luke 6:12-19
7 Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and also from Judea, 8 and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him.
9 And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him; 10 for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. 11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, "You are the Son of God!" 12 And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was. (Mark 3:7-12)
12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles: 14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; 15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. 17 Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. 19 And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.
(Luke 6:12-19)
_____________________________________________________________
Commentary
Mark 3:7-11
7 Jesus withdrew to the sea . . and a great multitude from Galilee followed;
Jesus now returns to the shoreline.
In terms of location, it is doubtful the authorities did not know where Jesus was generally at any given moment. They didn’t have cell phones to keep the Jerusalem leadership informed, but if they had wanted to capture Him, they had only to know the general area and to follow the crowds. The key element that kept them at bay for a time was His immense popularity among the people and the people’s general dislike for the Pharisees in general.
To strike when crowds of people were being literally healed in the hundreds would be political suicide unless they could pin down some sort of sorcery or witchcraft for which they could then be seen as the guardians of the ancient faith. We see that even in the plans for the arrest when they had the charges at the ready, they took consideration of the people’s reaction and decided to act at night.
The news of Him was now widespread and this on account of the permanent nature and generosity of His healings. People were not just made to feel slightly better for a few days. They were not trained to exercise a mind-over-matter healing where everything depended on their ability to “claim” their healing. This was the real deal, the genuine article. Something half good or temporary would have been found out rather soon and disaffection would have soon caught up with the original news of His work. So this is a real testimony to the genuineness of His healing power.
9 And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready . . . 10 for He had healed many, [that they] pressed around Him in order to touch Him. . .11 the unclean spirits . . would fall down before Him and shout, "You are the Son of God!"
We cannot adequately appreciate this scene without having been there. As explained earlier, the teaching would draw many who were thirsty for the truth, but the primary reason the multitude followed Him was that He might relieve the desperate plight of maladies and illnesses that had long ago taken the joy out of their faces and replaced it with fretting, bitterness and just plain suffering.
Here the gospels portray this desperation at its fever pitch. Jesus must now plan for contingencies that would protect His very person against the pressure from the crowds. There is a scene from The Greatest Story Ever Told (George Stevens, United Artists 1965) which rather ably conveys this desperateness and near danger. The crowd presses Him toward the edge of the water such that He must walk out on a narrow platform with His eyes out to the sea. Crowding the end of the platform are hundreds of people shouting with hands outstretched that He might touch them. The combination of the action, the setting and music make for a powerful demonstration of just Who He had come to be in their eyes. (Worth seeing.)
The Gospels add to this account what the unclean spirits proclaimed at His presence. These would be spirits inhabiting the bodies of people given over to their influence. Yet in the presence of Jesus, they are revealed as to what they are. They separate themselves as to speak on their own, such that the person possessed is but a passive vessel, merely rendering their speech in natural terms.
But notice the utter command Jesus has over them. They do not utter blasphemous words, they do not sow verbal seeds of doubt among the people. They don’t venture the kind of dialog in which Satan engaged Jesus on the Mount of Temptation. It is as though they are “forced” to proclaim the very truth concerning Him. And that meant command. Command over the very forces of evil. This could only have added to His wonder in the people’s minds. They were familiar with the signs of possession. For such demons to be compelled to admit the truth, being bound from doing otherwise, was effective beyond measure.
Now combine all of this into the completed scene and we have hundreds of people gathered and following every move of but one single Person; the clamour of voices, the arms and hands stretched out to Him for but a single touch, the demons themselves giving voice to His majesty and authentic deity, the need for Him to even separate Himself from the press of the crowd. It is overwhelming to just imagine. It had to be inspiring and humbling to witness in person.
We are prompted to almost utter those prior words Simon Peter, “Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”
Luke 6:12
12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.
This is something to which in practice few people can relate. We have no difficulty understanding the “alone time” concept of being separate from the distractions of life; we even long for it frequently. But the idea of a whole night in prayer taxes our capacities in today’s world. We are easily bored with the plenitude and variety of entertainments available to the average person. While we can appreciate the break that solace and a peaceful setting of undefiled nature would provide, some may find themselves with nothing more to say after the first twenty minutes.
They will have cycled through all their loved ones and friends, all those altruistic concerns like praying for our leaders and our nation, and for those hungry and hurting in the world. But then they may become silent while thinking of more to say and feel. They will begin to pay more attention to the rustling of the leaves or the chirping of the birds, or the babbling of a brook, and begin to ask themselves how long is enough in pleasing God with the service of prayer?
Jesus’ prayer was strikingly dissimilar to the descriptions above. It is proper to surmise that He would have spent the time praying intensely for each man who would walk with Him, not just in general, but with the insight He had as to each man’s gifts and failings. He would pray for direction from His Father as to where He should be and what He should do. He would be praying for insight to see the workings of the evil one in thwarting His plans and for the continued power from the Father to upset the hold of unclean spirits on men, and to discharge them to their judgment and destiny.
When we think about prayer being a dialog in a relationship, we can begin to see how it can very naturally fill hours of time, much as we were ready to do and did with our youthful infatuations and those we eventually came to cherish when falling in love. Time did not matter, nor did we think about having talked too much or for too long. It’s a secular analogy, but a relationship of love has parallels wherever it may be found and in whatever context, even the spiritual. It is the behavior of devotion, plain and simple.
Luke 6:13
13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles:
We can see that some aspect of His all-night prayer must have concerned whom He would call to complete the number of His closest disciples. The number twelve can be taken down several paths of numerology and imagery, some perhaps valid, some rather speculative and fanciful. Later in the Gospels we hear Jesus proclaim, “ you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matthew 19:28) Also, in the Revelation we see these thrones and crowns.
So aside from the numerology or symbolism that ‘twelve’ might convey, their number is at the very least intended to align with the number of the historic tribes; and perhaps that number was itself inaugurated on the basis of divine symbolism and the meaning of numbers.
“whom He also names as apostles”
The word apostolos means one who is sent, usually with a message, but can include the idea of a mission. The idea that it meant someone with authority was something added by its special NT association with the Twelve and the unquestioned authority these had over the churches. But authority as a connotation was really not part of the original term. So the term carries with it both the idea of being called and of subsequently being sent.
There are many people running today, but God hasn’t sent them. We all are expected to take the exhortations from Scripture and preach the Gospel to those whom God desires to save. But the calling to full-time, dedicated ministry is something not all people receive. Some, with minds of their own, are not willing to wait for that calling or may even doubt it will ever come. Desiring ministry anyway, they take matters into their own hands and then work and strive to strike out a ministry for themselves under the guise that they are doing all for God according to His general exhortation that we “Go.” The result can be an array of ministries and tent meetings that look more like man than the true calling of God.
To some degree, the focus in the Catholic Church that bases its worship and work on preserving the authentic callings of the holy Apostles is sincerely elemental to a NT faith. The recent revival in Protestant churches to return to the faith of the New Testament church is meant with similar sincerity, at least in recognizing the germinal value of the historic apostolic callings. But the same principle applies – wherever men abandon secular life for full-time service, they must do so because they are called. And such men, and those who receive them, should test the genuineness of that calling.
Luke 6:14-16
14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; 15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
These are familiar to us when we read them, but only the names of a few seem to stick more tenaciously in our memory. We note there are three James mentioned, two of which are apostles. James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, and James the son of Alphaeus. These are not to be confused with the James here said to be the father of Judas or with the later James, the half-brother of the Lord, not listed here among the apostles (Matthew 13:55.)
We also see two named Judas (pronounced ‘youdas’). The first Judas is said here and in Acts to be the son of James (separate from the two apostles.) He cannot be the author of the Epistle of Jude because there the author clearly states he is the brother of James. Some have therefore attributed the Jude of the epistle to be the half-brother of Jesus. Since Jesus also had a half–brother named James (Matthew 13:55), this would make Jude of the epistle the brother also of James (as stated there.)
The main difficulty with this identification is that the church has historically attributed the Epistle of Jude to the apostle. But that cannot succeed without resolving the two designations, ”son of James” and “brother of James.” Here, Judas the apostle (not Iscariot) is also called Thaddeus (Mark 3:18), the full name being Lebbeus Thaddeus.
The names we hardly hear anything about elsewhere are Bartholomew, James the son of Alphaeus (James the less), Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, discussed above. We have no informed explanation why the NT does not give equal time to these four. Philip receives mention again in Acts with regard to the Ethiopian eunuch. As for the James, son of Zebedee, he is martyred early in the Acts and is subsequently overshadowed by James, the Lord’s brother, overseer of the Jerusalem church and the writer of James.
What is of interest to almost everyone is that the betrayer was among those deliberately chosen. Some see this as a case of predestined purpose. Jesus had to die for the sins of the world. He therefore had to be put to death at the hands of men. Betrayal was not the only means, but certain a means of accomplishing this. As to why betrayal and not simply the devious ends of his detractors, is the subject of many sermons and papers.
Perhaps the best accounting is that Jesus wished to show that His love and calling to service are extended to all, even at the risk of rejection and jeopardy against His own purposes. It is to show the pure, untainted, unbiased love of God to all regardless of love, doubt or ill towards Him, that He may be found unassailable in mercy and grace in the day of judgment.
Much philosophically has been ventured on the enigma of Judas Iscariot. The pop musical Jesus Christ Superstar attempted to bring all such philosophizing into focus by making Judas the trapped and predestined hero.
Some have offered that Judas will have an argument against God in the day of judgment, in that he can claim he fulfilled the promises of God – Jesus had to die for the sins of the world and he was the key to making that happen.
The counterexample comes from the OT, where we see God using Babylon and Assyria to inflict a well- deserved punishment on His people. But He then judges Assyria and Babylon for their role. This is seen as gross contradiction in the hands of a fickle God. It is a mystery that is wrapped up in the will to do evil and the Lord taking advantage of that will in order to use a tool for punishment, useful to His own ends. But the tool may not claim special pleading, because their heart was evil to begin with. Such will be the case with Judas.
Luke 6:17-19
17 Jesus came down with them . . . and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, . .18 had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases . . 19 for power was coming from Him and healing them all.
Again, He resumes His ministry of teaching and healing, but now with the full compliment of His apostles. The keynote here in people’s rush to see Him is that ”power was coming from Him . .” Some have offered that this is merely a way of explaining that Jesus was calling down power that came directly from Heaven to the individual. But there are reasons to interpret this as explaining the channeling of power through the very Person of Jesus Himself. This is not meant to be a scientific description, but the words are clear that power was coming from Him, that He was a functional part of the channeling of such power.
It was once observed in a healing service of the late seventies that light was seen transferring from the healer to the recipient, like salvos from a cannon. It is anecdotal to be sure, but it does align marvelously with the statement we have here in the Gospels.
On the other hand, we are not to devise an interpretation that is so mechanical that Jesus must receive a sort of “allotment” of power which He held locally in Himself, dispensed as He wished, then refilled through prayer. It is a power of the Father, given by the Father through the Son. It is a divine chain of blessing but not to the extent that we must today always seek a healer or we are without remedy. As Jesus is today at the righthand of the Father and likewise in our hearts, He still remains that functional key, laying hold of the Father and the believer in marvelous union, that the channeling of such power remains a hope to every believer.
7 Jesus withdrew to the sea with His disciples; and a great multitude from Galilee followed; and also from Judea, 8 and from Jerusalem, and from Idumea, and beyond the Jordan, and the vicinity of Tyre and Sidon, a great number of people heard of all that He was doing and came to Him.
9 And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready for Him because of the crowd, so that they would not crowd Him; 10 for He had healed many, with the result that all those who had afflictions pressed around Him in order to touch Him. 11 Whenever the unclean spirits saw Him, they would fall down before Him and shout, "You are the Son of God!" 12 And He earnestly warned them not to tell who He was. (Mark 3:7-12)
12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God. 13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles: 14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; 15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. 17 Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place; and there was a large crowd of His disciples, and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, 18 who had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were being cured. 19 And all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.
(Luke 6:12-19)
_____________________________________________________________
Commentary
Mark 3:7-11
7 Jesus withdrew to the sea . . and a great multitude from Galilee followed;
Jesus now returns to the shoreline.
In terms of location, it is doubtful the authorities did not know where Jesus was generally at any given moment. They didn’t have cell phones to keep the Jerusalem leadership informed, but if they had wanted to capture Him, they had only to know the general area and to follow the crowds. The key element that kept them at bay for a time was His immense popularity among the people and the people’s general dislike for the Pharisees in general.
To strike when crowds of people were being literally healed in the hundreds would be political suicide unless they could pin down some sort of sorcery or witchcraft for which they could then be seen as the guardians of the ancient faith. We see that even in the plans for the arrest when they had the charges at the ready, they took consideration of the people’s reaction and decided to act at night.
The news of Him was now widespread and this on account of the permanent nature and generosity of His healings. People were not just made to feel slightly better for a few days. They were not trained to exercise a mind-over-matter healing where everything depended on their ability to “claim” their healing. This was the real deal, the genuine article. Something half good or temporary would have been found out rather soon and disaffection would have soon caught up with the original news of His work. So this is a real testimony to the genuineness of His healing power.
9 And He told His disciples that a boat should stand ready . . . 10 for He had healed many, [that they] pressed around Him in order to touch Him. . .11 the unclean spirits . . would fall down before Him and shout, "You are the Son of God!"
We cannot adequately appreciate this scene without having been there. As explained earlier, the teaching would draw many who were thirsty for the truth, but the primary reason the multitude followed Him was that He might relieve the desperate plight of maladies and illnesses that had long ago taken the joy out of their faces and replaced it with fretting, bitterness and just plain suffering.
Here the gospels portray this desperation at its fever pitch. Jesus must now plan for contingencies that would protect His very person against the pressure from the crowds. There is a scene from The Greatest Story Ever Told (George Stevens, United Artists 1965) which rather ably conveys this desperateness and near danger. The crowd presses Him toward the edge of the water such that He must walk out on a narrow platform with His eyes out to the sea. Crowding the end of the platform are hundreds of people shouting with hands outstretched that He might touch them. The combination of the action, the setting and music make for a powerful demonstration of just Who He had come to be in their eyes. (Worth seeing.)
The Gospels add to this account what the unclean spirits proclaimed at His presence. These would be spirits inhabiting the bodies of people given over to their influence. Yet in the presence of Jesus, they are revealed as to what they are. They separate themselves as to speak on their own, such that the person possessed is but a passive vessel, merely rendering their speech in natural terms.
But notice the utter command Jesus has over them. They do not utter blasphemous words, they do not sow verbal seeds of doubt among the people. They don’t venture the kind of dialog in which Satan engaged Jesus on the Mount of Temptation. It is as though they are “forced” to proclaim the very truth concerning Him. And that meant command. Command over the very forces of evil. This could only have added to His wonder in the people’s minds. They were familiar with the signs of possession. For such demons to be compelled to admit the truth, being bound from doing otherwise, was effective beyond measure.
Now combine all of this into the completed scene and we have hundreds of people gathered and following every move of but one single Person; the clamour of voices, the arms and hands stretched out to Him for but a single touch, the demons themselves giving voice to His majesty and authentic deity, the need for Him to even separate Himself from the press of the crowd. It is overwhelming to just imagine. It had to be inspiring and humbling to witness in person.
We are prompted to almost utter those prior words Simon Peter, “Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man.”
Luke 6:12
12 It was at this time that He went off to the mountain to pray, and He spent the whole night in prayer to God.
This is something to which in practice few people can relate. We have no difficulty understanding the “alone time” concept of being separate from the distractions of life; we even long for it frequently. But the idea of a whole night in prayer taxes our capacities in today’s world. We are easily bored with the plenitude and variety of entertainments available to the average person. While we can appreciate the break that solace and a peaceful setting of undefiled nature would provide, some may find themselves with nothing more to say after the first twenty minutes.
They will have cycled through all their loved ones and friends, all those altruistic concerns like praying for our leaders and our nation, and for those hungry and hurting in the world. But then they may become silent while thinking of more to say and feel. They will begin to pay more attention to the rustling of the leaves or the chirping of the birds, or the babbling of a brook, and begin to ask themselves how long is enough in pleasing God with the service of prayer?
Jesus’ prayer was strikingly dissimilar to the descriptions above. It is proper to surmise that He would have spent the time praying intensely for each man who would walk with Him, not just in general, but with the insight He had as to each man’s gifts and failings. He would pray for direction from His Father as to where He should be and what He should do. He would be praying for insight to see the workings of the evil one in thwarting His plans and for the continued power from the Father to upset the hold of unclean spirits on men, and to discharge them to their judgment and destiny.
When we think about prayer being a dialog in a relationship, we can begin to see how it can very naturally fill hours of time, much as we were ready to do and did with our youthful infatuations and those we eventually came to cherish when falling in love. Time did not matter, nor did we think about having talked too much or for too long. It’s a secular analogy, but a relationship of love has parallels wherever it may be found and in whatever context, even the spiritual. It is the behavior of devotion, plain and simple.
Luke 6:13
13 And when day came, He called His disciples to Him and chose twelve of them, whom He also named as apostles:
We can see that some aspect of His all-night prayer must have concerned whom He would call to complete the number of His closest disciples. The number twelve can be taken down several paths of numerology and imagery, some perhaps valid, some rather speculative and fanciful. Later in the Gospels we hear Jesus proclaim, “ you also shall sit upon twelve thrones, judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” (Matthew 19:28) Also, in the Revelation we see these thrones and crowns.
So aside from the numerology or symbolism that ‘twelve’ might convey, their number is at the very least intended to align with the number of the historic tribes; and perhaps that number was itself inaugurated on the basis of divine symbolism and the meaning of numbers.
“whom He also names as apostles”
The word apostolos means one who is sent, usually with a message, but can include the idea of a mission. The idea that it meant someone with authority was something added by its special NT association with the Twelve and the unquestioned authority these had over the churches. But authority as a connotation was really not part of the original term. So the term carries with it both the idea of being called and of subsequently being sent.
There are many people running today, but God hasn’t sent them. We all are expected to take the exhortations from Scripture and preach the Gospel to those whom God desires to save. But the calling to full-time, dedicated ministry is something not all people receive. Some, with minds of their own, are not willing to wait for that calling or may even doubt it will ever come. Desiring ministry anyway, they take matters into their own hands and then work and strive to strike out a ministry for themselves under the guise that they are doing all for God according to His general exhortation that we “Go.” The result can be an array of ministries and tent meetings that look more like man than the true calling of God.
To some degree, the focus in the Catholic Church that bases its worship and work on preserving the authentic callings of the holy Apostles is sincerely elemental to a NT faith. The recent revival in Protestant churches to return to the faith of the New Testament church is meant with similar sincerity, at least in recognizing the germinal value of the historic apostolic callings. But the same principle applies – wherever men abandon secular life for full-time service, they must do so because they are called. And such men, and those who receive them, should test the genuineness of that calling.
Luke 6:14-16
14 Simon, whom He also named Peter, and Andrew his brother; and James and John; and Philip and Bartholomew; 15 and Matthew and Thomas; James the son of Alphaeus, and Simon who was called the Zealot; 16 Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.
These are familiar to us when we read them, but only the names of a few seem to stick more tenaciously in our memory. We note there are three James mentioned, two of which are apostles. James, the brother of John, the son of Zebedee, and James the son of Alphaeus. These are not to be confused with the James here said to be the father of Judas or with the later James, the half-brother of the Lord, not listed here among the apostles (Matthew 13:55.)
We also see two named Judas (pronounced ‘youdas’). The first Judas is said here and in Acts to be the son of James (separate from the two apostles.) He cannot be the author of the Epistle of Jude because there the author clearly states he is the brother of James. Some have therefore attributed the Jude of the epistle to be the half-brother of Jesus. Since Jesus also had a half–brother named James (Matthew 13:55), this would make Jude of the epistle the brother also of James (as stated there.)
The main difficulty with this identification is that the church has historically attributed the Epistle of Jude to the apostle. But that cannot succeed without resolving the two designations, ”son of James” and “brother of James.” Here, Judas the apostle (not Iscariot) is also called Thaddeus (Mark 3:18), the full name being Lebbeus Thaddeus.
The names we hardly hear anything about elsewhere are Bartholomew, James the son of Alphaeus (James the less), Simon the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, discussed above. We have no informed explanation why the NT does not give equal time to these four. Philip receives mention again in Acts with regard to the Ethiopian eunuch. As for the James, son of Zebedee, he is martyred early in the Acts and is subsequently overshadowed by James, the Lord’s brother, overseer of the Jerusalem church and the writer of James.
What is of interest to almost everyone is that the betrayer was among those deliberately chosen. Some see this as a case of predestined purpose. Jesus had to die for the sins of the world. He therefore had to be put to death at the hands of men. Betrayal was not the only means, but certain a means of accomplishing this. As to why betrayal and not simply the devious ends of his detractors, is the subject of many sermons and papers.
Perhaps the best accounting is that Jesus wished to show that His love and calling to service are extended to all, even at the risk of rejection and jeopardy against His own purposes. It is to show the pure, untainted, unbiased love of God to all regardless of love, doubt or ill towards Him, that He may be found unassailable in mercy and grace in the day of judgment.
Much philosophically has been ventured on the enigma of Judas Iscariot. The pop musical Jesus Christ Superstar attempted to bring all such philosophizing into focus by making Judas the trapped and predestined hero.
Some have offered that Judas will have an argument against God in the day of judgment, in that he can claim he fulfilled the promises of God – Jesus had to die for the sins of the world and he was the key to making that happen.
The counterexample comes from the OT, where we see God using Babylon and Assyria to inflict a well- deserved punishment on His people. But He then judges Assyria and Babylon for their role. This is seen as gross contradiction in the hands of a fickle God. It is a mystery that is wrapped up in the will to do evil and the Lord taking advantage of that will in order to use a tool for punishment, useful to His own ends. But the tool may not claim special pleading, because their heart was evil to begin with. Such will be the case with Judas.
Luke 6:17-19
17 Jesus came down with them . . . and a great throng of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the coastal region of Tyre and Sidon, . .18 had come to hear Him and to be healed of their diseases . . 19 for power was coming from Him and healing them all.
Again, He resumes His ministry of teaching and healing, but now with the full compliment of His apostles. The keynote here in people’s rush to see Him is that ”power was coming from Him . .” Some have offered that this is merely a way of explaining that Jesus was calling down power that came directly from Heaven to the individual. But there are reasons to interpret this as explaining the channeling of power through the very Person of Jesus Himself. This is not meant to be a scientific description, but the words are clear that power was coming from Him, that He was a functional part of the channeling of such power.
It was once observed in a healing service of the late seventies that light was seen transferring from the healer to the recipient, like salvos from a cannon. It is anecdotal to be sure, but it does align marvelously with the statement we have here in the Gospels.
On the other hand, we are not to devise an interpretation that is so mechanical that Jesus must receive a sort of “allotment” of power which He held locally in Himself, dispensed as He wished, then refilled through prayer. It is a power of the Father, given by the Father through the Son. It is a divine chain of blessing but not to the extent that we must today always seek a healer or we are without remedy. As Jesus is today at the righthand of the Father and likewise in our hearts, He still remains that functional key, laying hold of the Father and the believer in marvelous union, that the channeling of such power remains a hope to every believer.