Understanding the AnointingThat woman did not touch Jesus' person, for He said, "Who
touched my clothes?" His disciples replied, "Thou seest the
multitude thronging thee, and sayest thou, Who touched me?"
(Mark 5:31).
There's no telling how many people touched His clothes. We
read in verse 27 that the woman had come "in the press behind."
That means the people were pressing in on every side—pressing
up against each other. Yet this power didn't flow out to all of
them; it only flowed out to this woman.
Third, the healing power is transferable or transmit-table: It
will flow from one person to another, mainly by touch, such as
by the laying on of hands. We saw in Luke 6:19 that "... the
whole multitude SOUGHT TO TOUCH HIM: for there went
virtue [or power] out of him, and healed them all."
How Healing Power Is 'Stored'
Another way the healing anointing is transmitted from one
person to another is by the application of a cloth or handkerchief
to a sick person's body. We need to realize that this healing
power is capable of being "stored" in cloth, as it was in Jesus'
garment and in the handkerchiefs of Paul, as we saw in Acts
19:12.
Evidently Jesus' clothes had absorbed that anointing, and it
flowed out to the woman when she touched His robe. Evidently
that's what happened with Paul when he laid his hands on those
handkerchiefs. The anointing he was anointed with flowed into
those cloths and they became "storage batteries," so to speak, of
that anointing or power. Then, when the cloths were laid on the
sick, the diseases departed from them, and evil spirits went out
of them.
But God did it all: God anointed Jesus of Nazareth, and God
wrought special miracles by the hands of Paul. Jesus said of His
own ministry, ". .. t he Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the
works" (John 14:10). That same power accomplished the same
results in Paul's ministry when those cloths were laid on the sick.