Acts 9: The Healing of Aeneas: an Echo of Luke 5 and 7
As we have learned, Peter was walking around. But we noted in an earlier post that his walking around was anything but aimless. It was the baby steps of obedience to Jesus’s command to “go, make, baptize, teach all nations.” Luke notes Peter found Aeneas. By accident? Not with Christ enthroned, having been given and now exercising dominion. From the minute He has ascended Luke has been faithful to reveal to us His post-resurrection, post-ascension sovereignty. This episode is no different. Peter’s steps have been ordered (once in obedience) and so have Aeneas even though he is lame.
We all know the story in Luke 5 when Jesus healed a lame man and created a tremendous amount of controversy by claiming authority to forgive sins—that is, God’s authority to forgive sins. It was indeed blasphemy if Jesus was not God the Son. So that all would know the Son of Man had authority to forgive sins in the earth, he told the lame man to take up his mat and walk, which he did.
I also want to you to remember the question John the Baptist asked Jesus: Are you the Christ, or should we expect someone else? What was Jesus’s answer? Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them. Luke 7:22
Luke knows what he is writing. We will see throughout this book echoes of Genesis, as God redeems Man through Christ Jesus in Acts; but he will repeat for us representative acts by His people through the agency of the Jesus-sent, Holy Spirit of God, which were done by Jesus when he tabernacled amongst us in the flesh in Galilee.
Jesus healed a lame man in Luke 5, and Jesus gave that as evidence to John (and everyone else in that house and on the roof that day) who He is: the I am is there, in their midst with redemption, deliverance, and forgiveness of sin. It is important to see those events in Luke chapters 5 and 7 as a seed, and a seed that has fallen into the ground and died to a grand purpose—to bring forth much fruit.
We are seeing the firstfruits in Acts, and with Aeneas in particular. Peter is acutely aware of what is transpiring because he says: Jesus Christ makes you well (the Greek syntax is unique: makes you well Jesus Christ. Either way the emphasis is on Jesus Christ); Make your bed.
It is no accident that Peter’s commands mirror Christ’s. He is a disciple after all, presented with a situation he witnessed when walking around with Jesus. His expectation is Jesus Christ has the same present power to heal even though He is not present bodily. In other words, his witness to the Resurrection, and the Ascension, and the outpouring of His Holy Spirit convinced Peter that Jesus meant what He said when he promised “greater works than these shall you do.”
But this miracle is more than that. It is the same type of evidence Jesus gave to John the Baptist, but it established a much more glorious verdict.
The main character of this story is not Peter. Nor is it Aeneas. Christ Jesus is the central figure of the story, as Luke tells it, and as we should understand it. The question has changed a little bit since John the Baptist’s, but it is essentially the same: Are you the Christ (that is, this Jesus the believers are claiming to have seen alive after His death) or should we expect someone else? The answer with the healing of Aeneas is a resounding yes.
Note how lovely the development of the answer has been from seed in Luke to full ear of grain in Acts. But to employ Christ’s own words: and you shall be my witnesses. The power manifested in the exchange between Peter and Aeneas says not so much about either man—although we can commend Peter for his growing faith and rejoice with Aeneas after he suffered so much for so long—the power proves who Jesus is and where He is and evidence who He has sent to endue us with power to witness to His resurrection and ascension and kingdom.
Jesus is still very much alive. The Holy Spirit of God is very much present and active and powerful. The Father is still glorifying His Son through the increase of faith in Peter and the leaping and walking of Aeneas. The Trinity is moving in this wonderful purpose in the earth through the hearts and lives of these men and women in Acts.
Has that come to an end? Only if like kind no longer produces like kind. If Acts is representative of the witness on the one hand, and fruitfulness of the Seed on the other, then we have a problem today. This generation, like any before it, still is asking: Is He the Christ, or should be expect someone else? My gosh, look at all the answers they have searched for and found, which have brought nothing but dissipation and dismay to all of us.
I think we are foolish to conclude men and women of this generation do not need to see evidence that Jesus is alive, or that His Spirit is here among us, or that the Father is glorifying His Son. Whether we are walking around like Peter, not walking around at all like Aeneas, or observing from the sidelines, we all need vivid reminders that He lives and has dominion over the earth—even paralysis.
Jesus Christ make us well, and let us take our bed and walk.
