Miracles of Healing
Matthew 8:1-17
Matthew Lesson #048
August 31, 2014
www.deanbibleministries.org
What Jesus is doing in this section is giving the credentials of Jesus as Messiah.The term Messiah is a Hebrew word that means the anointed one. It's Greek equivalent is CHRISTOS. The name Jesus Christ is really Jesus the Messiah, identifying His role in human history; that He is the eternal second person of the Godhead who has entered into human history as a human being. This is what is known theologically as the hypostatic union. The Greek word HUPOSTASIS indicates a substance or essence, and so you have thy two natures, full humanity and true deity united together in one person. They are united together inseparably.
As we come to a passage like this we see that Jesus is performing miracles, but some of the miracles He performs He performs out of his humanity and some from His deity. He is living His life in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit and that relates to His spiritual life as a human. But He also demonstrates through what He does that He is the eternal second person of the Godhead; He is also full deity. Some are mistaken in thinking that Jesus did everything just as a man. But there are some things He handled as a man, through His humanity in dependence upon God the Holy Spirit. For example, when He is going through the three temptations (tests) in Matthew chapter four when He was in the wilderness. Those He handled by means of the Holy Spirit and by means of Scripture. Those are tests related to His spiritual life in His humanity.
Other miracles that Jesus performed, such as the healings that we see here, are done through His own power as God demonstrating that He is fully God and can solve the problems of sin; especially in this first section where we see the focus on miracles of healing. We have to understand the dynamics of healing, that sickness and illness are the consequences of a root problem. And that root problem is Adam's original sin. When Adam sinned he plunged the universe into corruption. As a result of that corruption all of the other evils and all of the other horrors that we see in life—death, disease, famines, disasters, horrible acts of war—are the consequences of spiritual death. By demonstrating that He can solve the problems of these consequences through healing Jesus is showing that He can also solve the root problem, which is sin. That is really the sub-text through all these miracles that Matthew is describing and organizing in Matthew chapters eight and nine.
This is all taking place around the Sea of Galilee. Matthew 8:1 begins after the Sermon on the Mount, and the first miracle is when Jesus cleanses the leper. It is important to note that in these four verses it is not said that Jesus heals the leper. He cleanses the leper. That word for cleansing is a term that has spiritual connotations and is emphasizing the fact that this has spiritual significance. It is not simply a matter of physical healing. We conclude our look at these three miracles and begin to look at the doctrine summarizing for us what the Scripture teaches about healing because there is a lot of confusion about it. But one of the things that we note is that Jesus did not heal indiscriminately. By that is meant that He is not going around healing everyone that has a problem, everyone that has a disease; He is choosing and selecting those who He will heal. There is a purpose to it, it is not something that he is doing for everyone. And the point there is that there should never be an expectation that God is going to in this life heal us of all diseases or infirmities or physical calamities. That is not what the Scripture is teaching.
One of the primary purposes for these healings is to give evidence that Jesus is the Messiah because as the Messiah He is the one who will bring in the promised kingdom. And in the promised kingdom, according to Old Testament prophecy, there will not be any of these diseases; there will be a more perfect environment. So what Jesus is doing in these various miracles is giving a preview of coming attractions. He is not in any way saying that this was to be the normative experience of the pre-kingdom dispensation of either the age of Israel in which he lived or in the coming church ages. This is one of the misconceptions that has influenced a lot of Christians over the age because they don't understand these distinctions and they expect that these conditions that Jesus presented in His life would be normative in the church age. They are not. They are to be normative though in the millennial kingdom.
So the first miracle is the miracle of the healing of the leper. Matthew 8:1 NASB "When Jesus came down from the mountain, large crowds followed Him." When Jesus was teaching the Sermon on the Mount more and more people gathered around Him as He was teaching. When He left to get away from the crowd these great multitudes followed Him.
Matthew 8:2 NASB "And a leper came to Him and bowed down before Him, and said, 'Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean'."
What is significant about this is that the very first of these miracles of healing that Matthew emphasizes has to do with a leper. Remember that Matthew is not organizing these miracles in chronological order. This is not his purpose. He is not writing the Gospel and giving us a chronological account of the life of Christ. Luke does that. What Matthew is doing is looking at different events in the life of Christ and organizing them according to his theme. And his theme is that he is presenting Jesus as the promised and prophesied King of Israel and as the Messiah. So his selection in the events of the life of Christ is to support his thesis that Jesus is the Messiah. So the very first miracle that he chooses is one related to cleansing a leper. The reason is that because according to rabbinical thought there were only two irrefutable signs or miracles that the Messiah would perform. The first was cleansing or healing a leper and the second was restoring sight to someone who was born blind. No one else could do this.
We have to understand a little about leprosy in the Bible. Leprosy was a slow progressing skin disease. There is a lot of debate in literature as to whether the biblical portrayal of leprosy is identical to the modern understanding of leprosy as Hansen's disease. If we read the account in the Old Testament in Leviticus chapters 13 and 14 it will be discovered that biblical leprosy was something that could appear on clothing and on various fabrics. It was probably some kind of mold or mildew. It is likely that the biblical term was a broader term than our term leprosy in terms of Hansen's disease, but would have also included that as part of the general semantic range of this word. As it affected a human being in terms of a disease it was a progressive skin disease that really wasn't related so much to the deterioration of the flesh as much as it was the deterioration of pain and nerve endings. So a person who has Hansen's disease is a person who as the nerve endings become dull they don't know that they are doing something that is creating pain. So they will burn themselves, cut a finger off, and other things will happen because they don't feel pain there. They are completely numb to those things.
Leprosy in the biblical era was also used as a picture of sin because there was no known cure for leprosy. It was the only means of defilement that didn't involve something related to the touching of the dead or touching some animal that was alive but unclean. Under the Mosaic Law the only way a person could be defiled by another living human being was by touching a leper. All other causes of uncleanness were from touching something that was already dead or touching a living animal that was unclean.
In addition, the very presence of a leper in a house or building would bring uncleanness to the entire structure. So lepers were prohibited from entering into anybody's house and they were prohibited from coming within six feet of anyone else. This caused hostility towards lepers in the ancient world, and this was especially demonstrated by the Pharisees during the time of Christ. There was a complete lack of any sort of grace orientation or compassion towards those who were lepers.
One of the interesting things about leprosy is that no Jew was ever healed of leprosy in the Old Testament since the giving of the Mosaic Law. The Mosaic Law was where stipulations were given in relation to leprosy. It is true that Miriam had a case of leprosy but at that time the Law had not been completely given. So from the time of the complete giving of the Law no Jew was ever healed of leprosy. There was one case of Naaman the Syrian healed of leprosy in 2 Kings but he was a Gentile, not a Jew. Up until the time that Jesus appeared on the scene leper had ever been healed of leprosy. It was for that reason that the rabbis came to the conclusion that only the Messiah would be able to heal a leper. So by choosing this as His first miracle of healing Matthew is making a very strong statement that Jesus is making a claim to being the Messiah.
In the Scripture it teaches in Leviticus 13 and 14 that when a person was believed to have been cleansed from leprosy he was to have that validated by a priest. He would go to the priest with his claim to be healed of leprosy and the initial offering that was given was that of two birds. One would be killed and the other dipped in the blood of the first and let go. Then there would be a seven-day period of investigation of his claims. During this time the priests were to determine if this person were truly a leper. Then they had to validate his claim to be completely healed of leprosy. He would be under observation during that week-long period. If he was declared to have been cleansed, then following that on the seventh day he would go through a complete washing and was to shave all of the hair off his body, along with a few other things, and then on the eighth day he was to give a trespass offering, a sin offering, a burnt offering and a meal offering. Following this the blood of the blood of the trespass offering and then the blood of the sin offering would be put on the healed leper. Following this would be the anointing with oil of the healed leper. So it was a very complex process.
But it had never been done in the history of Israel since the time of the giving of the Mosaic Law. At the end of this when Jesus cleanses the leper he tells him not to tell anybody but to go to the priests and give the appropriate sacrifices. You can imagine what that priest must have thought when the leper shows up and says he has been cleansed of leprosy and there was no frame of reference for dealing with this, other than going back to the Law. This would have created quite a stir.
Biblically, leprosy was used as a depiction of the corruption of sin. It not only rendered the person unclean but any place that he entered. This shows that the sin of Adam was not something that just affected Adam but it affected everything in the physical environment because of man's sin. It emphasizes therefore the universal corrupting effect of sin.
Secondly, the uncleanness of the leper was prominent. All other uncleanness had a sacrifice for cleansing. If you were to touch a dead body then you had to wait a prescribed period of time and then bring an offering to the temple, and you were cleansed. If you ate food that was unclean, again you would present a sacrifice for that. If there were any number of other things that rendered you ritually unclean there was a prescribed sacrifice so that you could be rendered clean again. Except for leprosy. Leprosy was permanent, there was no ritual cleansing possible because ritual can't resolve the sin problem. Sin can only be resolved by God.
A third point is that when leprosy was spoken of it was spoken of only as being cleansed, not in terms of a physical healing. That is the emphasis here. The reason is that it has this spiritual connection related to cleansing. Cleansing is a spiritual issue, not a physical issue.
Finally, like sin leprosy corrupts the whole person and could not be cured by something that man would do.
In verse 2 we are told that a leper came and worshiped Jesus. What is unusual here is that the leper approached Jesus. He was, according to the Law, supposed to keep a distance of six feet. In the parallel passage in Luke chapter seven we are informed that the man was full of leprosy. He was in an advanced stage of the illness. It was obvious to all that this was a leper that was coming. He was probably dressed in rags and probably stank. He was a social outcast and whenever a leper was moving around close to anyone else he had to cry out, "Unclean, unclean", to make sure people would keep their distance. Jesus doesn't prevent him or pull away from him as the rabbis would have. He comes to Jesus, bows down and worships him. The word for worship here is literally the word meaning to bow down, and it is giving an act of reverence to someone. It is the same word that is typically translated "worship".
We see four things in terms of his approach. He is confident as he comes to Jesus. If he had approached a rabbi he would have been shunned. There was an atmosphere of animosity and hostility from the rabbis and yet this leper understands who Jesus is so clearly that he shows no fear, no anxiety, and no trepidation in approaching Jesus. He comes to the crowd in full confidence that Jesus is not going to reject him and Jesus is not going to be hostile to him. This is a full understanding of grace at this point.
Second, when he comes to Jesus Luke tells us he bowed down. Matthew uses a different word, the word PROSTHENEO, meaning to worship; and this again shows that he knows who Jesus is. He understands that He is the God-Man, that He is capable of healing him. The issue isn't really can Jesus heal him; it is will Jesus heal him.
It is interesting that there were undoubtedly scribes and Pharisees in the multitude; that they were all well dressed out in the public so they would look good on the outside. Later on Jesus said they look good on the outside but they are like whitewashed sepulchers, and dead men's bones. There is corruption on the inside. In contrast, the leper is corrupt on the outside but he is reverent, worshipful and trusting in Jesus on the inside. So the third thing that we see is the leper had humility. Humility is always indicative of grace orientation. He is not presumptuous. He submits himself to the authority of Jesus but he believes Jesus can heal him, even though he is not sure that Jesus will heal him. "Lord, if you are willing". He recognizes Jesus has the power and the authority to do it but that He may choose not to.
One of the problems in the healing movements to day is this presumption that God ought to heal every one of us of our diseases. That is not what Scripture says. In fact, those who are healed in Scripture from some physical calamity are very rare. It only occurred during a few periods of human history. During the time of Moses we see Miriam healed. During the time of Elijah and Elisha there are a couple of episodes, but this is abnormal. Healing is rare and it is always for a specific purpose.
Matthew 8:3 NASB "Jesus stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, 'I am willing; be cleansed.' And immediately his leprosy was cleansed."
It is interesting that He uses the word "cleansed" here. He doesn't used the word heal because he is showing it is fundamentally a spiritual issue in terms of his ability to be ritually purified.
Matthew 8:4 NASB "And Jesus said to him, 'See that you tell no one; but go, show yourself to the priest and present the offering that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them'."
He prohibits the leper from telling anyone. We know from Mark that the leper doesn't quite follow that advice. He is so overwhelmed with his excitement and he tells people. But there are a few reasons why Jesus might tell him not to tell anyone. First of all, because Jesus is following the Mosaic Law and the real issue immediately after healing is that the healed leper needs to go to the priest and have the healing verified and validated and to offer the appropriate sacrifices. Second, Jesus' fame was already spreading throughout Galilee and He was not doing this to gain additional publicity or testimony of His character. Third, Jesus did not want to further excite the multitudes who at this stage were still focused on a political Messiah rather than a spiritual Messiah. This is not the only time Jesus heals somebody and tells them not to tell anyone. It is because He needs to keep a lid, as it were, on all of this political action that was going on among the Jews who were still looking at Him as someone who would lead a revolt against Rome. Lastly, He is telling this man not to tell anyone but to go to the priests. The reason He does that is because the priests have to validate and verify the miracle. They have to follow the Levitical procedure, and there had to be a seven-day observation. So what Jesus is doing in a very subtle and sophisticated manner is telling the leper to go to the priests because by doing that He is forcing the priesthood to verify and validate the miracle that they would understand was a unique and distinct sign that Jesus was indeed the Messiah.
The other thing we ought to note here is that Jesus was forbidden by the Mosaic Law to touch the leper because the leper was unclean, according to Leviticus 5:3. But Jesus touches the leper because the power is going from Jesus to the leper and the leper cannot infect Jesus with the disease. Jesus was not fearful of the leper as the Gentiles would be.
Then we move to a second healing episode. This first episode with the leper involved a Jewish leper. The shift that occurs in the next miracle is that the one who is healed involves a Gentile. It is Jesus' ministry to a Gentile that is emphasized. It covers vv. 5-13 and is the longest description of Jesus' miracles in this opening section. It also emphasizes a contrast between the faith of the Jews and the faith of this Gentile centurion.
Matthew 8:5 NASB "And when Jesus entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, imploring Him."
The Luke account says that a centurion sent officers of the synagogue, elders of the community, to talk to Jesus. They were his go-betweens, his mediators, and Matthew just cuts out the intermediate individuals involved recognizing that it is the centurion through these intermediaries that is pleading with Jesus. This takes place in Capernaum, the town of Jesus. In Luke 7:4, 5 we are told that this centurion was such a lover of Israel and lover of the Jews that he gave of his own wealth and money required to build the synagogue.
Matthew 8:6 NASB "and saying, 'Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fearfully tormented'."
The word servant there is PAIS, which is related to a young person, probably a boy who is a servant and is dear to him. He cared deeply for him and he is lying at home paralyzed in a lot of pain. Luke tells us that he is on the verge of death.
Matthew 8:7 NASB "Jesus said to him, 'I will come and heal him'. [8] But the centurion said, 'Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed'."
There is a recognition here by the centurion that a Jew should not come into the unclean home of a Gentile. He is probably like the centurion Cornelius in Acts chapter ten, someone who is a seeker of God. But he still would be considered unclean and he recognizes that Jesus should not come under his roof. He also recognizes the principle of the delegation of authority. Jesus is in command and all Jesus has to do is say a word and the centurion's son will be healed. He doesn't have to personally come and do anything.
In the first example we saw that when Jesus healed the leper He touched him and gave a command. The leper was immediately healed. In this situation we see that it is different. Jesus doesn't follow the same protocol every time. There is no standard. He doesn't even come into presence of the paralyzed servant; He simply says he will be healed.
Matthew 8:9 NASB "For I also am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does {it}."
This causes Jesus to marvel at the faith of the centurion.
Matthew 8:10 NASB "Now when Jesus heard {this,} He marveled and said to those who were following, 'Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel'."
This is the real core and heart of this particular healing. It is demonstrating that Jesus is already seeing some opposition. It is foreshadowing the coming opposition but even here it recognizing that there is not much faith in Him in Capernaum. Later on there will be statements regarding the faithlessness of many in Capernaum. But this Gentile, in contrast to the Jews, is showing great faith. Another thing we should observe here is that it is not the centurion's servant who has faith. There is no indication that the centurion's servant trusts in Jesus, that he has any faith in Jesus' ability to heal him, or anything else. All we see is that it is the centurion's faith that is what is significant, not the faith of the servant.
One of the myths that is heard from the faith healing movement is that you have to have faith in order to be healed. In many of Jesus' miracles the person who was healed it is not stated whether or not they have faith or whether they are even believers, and so that is not necessarily a prerequisite biblically for Jesus' healing.
"Now when Jesus heard {this,} He marveled …" This is in Jesus' humanity. Deity does not marvel; deity does not show amazement. Marveling or amazement is a response to something new or unexpected. God is omniscient, He never ever runs into anything new or unexpected. In terms of Jesus' omniscience He knew that this centurion would have this faith from eternity past; but in His humanity He shows this amazement.
This takes us to an understanding of the doctrine of the hypostatic union. In one of the aspects of that doctrine we talk about a Greek word KENOSIS, coming out of Philippians 2:5-7, and the emphasis there is that Jesus restricted the use of His divine attributes during the incarnation. As He entered into humanity and went from eternity into time Jesus willingly restricted the use of His divine attributes. Often we find that in this definition people will say He restricted the independent use of His divine attributes. I take issue with that word "independent" because Jesus as the second person of the Trinity never used His divine attributes independently of the Father anyway. He is always in complete harmony with the will of God. So it is better to simply say He restricted the use of His divine attributes during the incarnation—only in the area of His life as a human being. He still utilized aspects of His deity at times. For example, in healing. But it is as if these two natures—His undiminished deity and true humanity—are welded inseparably together. There is a firewall between them in a sense so that Jesus' humanity only accesses His deity under certain times and conditions in order to demonstrate who He is. The rest of the time His deity is not influencing His humanity. He is living His life as a human being just as you and I live our life. He faces challenges and problems, He is weary and hungry; He has all of these different limitations upon His as a human being and He has to handle them the same way we do. Let's face it: if Jesus handles His temptations out of His omnipotence, then how can that be a pattern for us in handling our temptations? The pattern has to be consistent. Jesus handles the problems that He faces in His humanity through the same tools, the same problem-solving devices that you and I do. He handles them by trusting in the Word of God and walking by the Spirit. Then He was able to live a sinless life.
Jesus is now going to make a spiritual point regarding the significance of this particular healing event and what it signifies.
Matthew 8:11 NASB "I say to you that many will come from east and west, and recline {at the table} with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven".
The word "recline" [some versions have "sitting down"] is the Greek word ANAKLINO, which means to recline or to lie down. It is a picture of a banquet. This imagery is used several times to depict the millennial kingdom and that is what Jesus is describing here, and that there will be many there who come and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The mention of the three patriarchs of Israel indicates that he is talking about the Jewish kingdom as prophesied in the Old Testament. Then He makes a statement of contrast: the sons of the kingdom won't be there.
Matthew 8:12 NASB "but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
The term "sons of the kingdom" is used in Matthew 13:38 to refer to believers. There are some who think that this is a technical term for believers, and they will take this and say what this is talking about is carnal believers who will be cast out into outer darkness. On the good side of that teaching there are those who say this is all figurative language. I believe they are correct on that. This is all figurative language to express rejection and shame. And there are those within the free grace movement who will say that what this is simply saying in a hyperbolic way is that there are going to be believers who because of failures in the spiritual life do not receive rewards at the judgment seat of Christ; and that according to 1 John they will experience shame at the judgment seat of Christ, and that is all that is being said here.
I differ with that. I think that may be true in other passages where there is this language because I don't think that any of the terms here are technical. What is interesting if lordship advocates will take the outer darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth as technical, but not sons of the kingdom. The free grace side takes sons of the kingdom as technical and the other as figurative. I think that neither of them are technical terms. Sons of the kingdom refers to those to whom the kingdom is properly being offered at this stage in Matthew's Gospel. That would be the Jews. They were the rightful heirs of the kingdom, according to the proclamation of the Abrahamic, Land, Davidic, and New covenants in the Old Testament. But I believe that what Jesus is saying here by way of contrast is that there are those who will be in the kingdom and there will be those who are not going to be in the kingdom but in a place of punishment—referring to the unbelievers. The destiny of this particular generation of Jews who reject Jesus as Messiah will be eternal condemnation and the lake of fire.
Matthew 8:13 NASB "And Jesus said to the centurion, 'Go; it shall be done for you as you have believed.' And the servant was healed that {very} moment."
In other words, the centurion had faith. His faith was superior to anything that Jesus saw among the Jews and so He is saying, "According to your faith, your trust in me that I can heal him, your servant is healed". One of the things that we see here is the immediacy of Jesus' healing. It is not something that took time.
Then we come to the third episode. This is when Jesus comes to Peter's house. Peter's house has been discovered in Capernaum. There is a Roman Catholic Church that is built above it. There is evidence and graffiti in the house related to the worship of the Lord that makes it pretty clear that this particular structure was a scene of worship as early as 100 AD. It was clearly a private home at first and then it became a site where Christians gathered to worship, and so there is fairly strong evidence that this was indeed Peter's home.
Matthew 8:14 NASB "When Jesus came into Peter's home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. [15] He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him."
In a parallel passage in Luke He helps raise her up, and she is immediately healed. If you compare Matthew's account with Luke we see that in terms of the chronology Jesus first went to the synagogue that day. That tells us it was on the Sabbath. He then went out of the synagogue. Following that service, according to Luke 4:31-37, He cast a demon out of one who was demon possessed, and then He came to Peter's house. It is there that He heals Peter's mother-in-law. A couple of things are left out. First, there is not indication that Peter's mother-in-law has any faith in Jesus. There is no indication that she is saved, no indication that she is trusting Jesus, or has even asked Jesus to heal her. He just goes into the house, sees that she is ill and He heals her, again giving evidence that He is the Messiah.
What we see in all of these episodes is that Jesus is the one who has the ability to solve problems that are caused as a result of sin—not personal sin but the entrance of sin into human history. Therefore He is making it plain to being the Messiah. This comes out very clearly in the final quote from Isaiah 53:4 in Matthew 8:17.
Matthew 8:16 NASB "When evening came, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed; and He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were ill."
He cast out the spirits—EKBALLO. It doesn't say He exorcised them, the Greek word EXORKIZO, a ritual magical process of various incantations and other things. That word was never used of the disciples, the apostles or Jesus. Exorcism in the Bible is always what pagans do. What Jesus and the disciples do is exercise authority over the demons and to case them out, and it is immediate. Here this is one of those general statements where Jesus is showing grace to the multitudes and is healing them of their diseases, as well as casting out demons.
This was for a purpose.
Matthew 8:17 NASB "{This was} to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: 'HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND CARRIED AWAY OUR DISEASES'."
The faith healers will take this verse out of context and say Jesus does to heal you. There are so many who are deceived. They read this in the English and say Jesus died to heal me and if I am sick it must be because of some personal sin. I just don't have the right kind of faith in Jesus and so if I was really saved or really spiritual I would be healed.
What is interesting here is that Matthew, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, changes the terms that are used in the Isaiah passage. In Isaiah 53:4 the words related to healing and sickness are all used in parallelism—words for sin and trespass. But here when there is a word substitution we read in Matthew's quote: "He Himself took our infirmities". He received them. That is the Greek word LAMBANO. But in the Septuagint (LXX) the word is PHERO, which indicates a ceremony or ritual. Isaiah 53:4 is talking about the atonement. But not Matthew 8:17.
The last line, "He bore out iniquities" is the Greek word BASTAZO, and this too is a substitute for the Greek word in the LXX, ODUNAO. Both of these words simply indicate that what Jesus is doing at that particular time is removing and healing the sickness from people who were diseased. He is not using the words from Isaiah 53:4, which have an atonement nuance to them and are used in terms of ceremonial or ritual sacrifice. So when Matthew quotes from Isaiah 53:4 through the inspiration of the Holy Spirit he changes the verbs to indicate all he is saying is that Jesus is healing them of their physical diseases. He is not relating it to the atonement at all.