Big Healing Book - Luke 17:12-19

Luke 17:12-19:

And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
And fell down on his face at his feet; giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Notes on Luke 17:12-19:

The lepers knew what Jesus meant when He told them to show themselves to the priests. That is what you did when you were cleansed of leprosy so that the priests could certify your healing. As they obeyed Jesus, they were cleansed on their way. It is interesting that they were not cleansed on the spot before they went, but as they went. They had to act in faith on Jesus’ words that they could go show themselves to the priests and be certified as cleansed.

“As they went” doesn’t just mean that they went home for the night. They “went” to the priests to show that they were healed. That involved an act of faith on their part; they would not have wanted to go and show themselves to the priests if they did not believe that they were truly healed on the basis of nothing more than the words of Jesus.

As far as walking in faith for their healing went, all ten of them succeeded. Sadly, only one came back to glorify God and thank Jesus. I and others who minister divine healing have found that this is too often the case when people receive miracles. Rather than telling everyone they know and inviting them to the next service to get healed as well, they just take their healings and go back to living however they were living before. On many occasions the only way I even found out about their healings was through a chance meeting or a third-party report, or maybe seeing them a year later in the same church when I visited again. Such selfishness hinders the work of God. The gospel could spread much more quickly if all people would “publish” to the heathen the wonderful things that Jesus has done for them!

Some preachers have attempted to draw a distinction in the last verse by saying that TEN lepers were healed but only one was “made whole.” The word used for “made whole” is NOT iaomai, the word used more commonly to denote physical healing. Rather, it is sozo, which can mean saved, healed, and some related things. Given that sozo is a less-specific word rather than a more-specific word concerning healing, I don’t know that you can really infer that one leper got something the others did not get.