Chapter 12—Other Object Lessons

God’s healing power runs all through nature. If a tree is cut, if a human being is wounded or breaks a bone, nature begins at once to repair the injury. Even before the need exists, the healing agencies are ready, and as soon as a part is wounded, every energy focuses on the work of restoration.TEd 68.1

So it is in the spiritual realm. Before sin created the need, God provided the remedy. Every soul who yields to temptation is wounded by the adversary, but whenever there is sin, there is the Savior. It is Christ’s work “to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, ... to set at liberty those who are oppressed.” Luke 4:18.TEd 68.2

In this work we are to cooperate. “If anyone is detected in a transgression ... restore such a one.” Galatians 6:1, NRSV. The word here translated “restore” means to put in joint, as a dislocated bone. How appropriate the figure! People who fall into error or sin are thrown out of relation to everything about them. They may realize their error and be filled with remorse, but they cannot recover themselves. They are confused and perplexed. They are to be reclaimed, healed, re-established. “You who have received the Spirit should restore” them. Only the love that flows from the heart of Christ can heal. Only a person in whom that love flows, even as the sap in the tree or the blood in the body, can restore the wounded soul.TEd 68.3

Love’s agencies have wonderful power, for they are divine. The soft answer that “turns away wrath,” the love that “suffers long and is kind,” the charity that “will cover a multitude of sins” (Proverbs 15:1; 1 Corinthians 13:4; 1 Peter 4:8)—if we would learn the lesson, our lives would be gifted with power for healing. Life would be transformed, and the earth would become a likeness and foretaste of heaven!TEd 69.1