Matthew 8:1-17

Then Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law, who was lying in bed with a fever. This time He again physically touches her.

He then heals many people who were brought to him in the evening, who were demon-possessed or sick and He drove out the spirits with a word and healed all the sick. Here He moves into the supernatural realm of spirits.

Jesus calms a storm on the sea of Galilee, where he and his disciples were in a boat. This demonstrates His power over nature and over natural forces.

He then casts out demons from two men who lived in the tombs near Gadara, on the other side of the lake. This is a very different kind of command over the spirit realm than the other case where He drove out spirits.

 

Let’s begin in Matthew 8:1

Large crowds followed Jesus as he came down the mountainside. 

Notice that “Large crowds” followed him. There weren’t just a few folk.

He was up in Capernaum at this time, where his headquarters were established.

This leads to many theories about where the sermon on the mount occurred because the text infers that these happenings occurred as soon as He came down from the mountain, the mountain being where the sermon on the mount was taught.

There’re many different theories but the location’s not important for us to know.

We’re just told that when He came down from the mountain, great crowds followed Him.

 

Verse 2,

Suddenly, a man with leprosy approached him and knelt before him. “Lord,” the man said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” 

 

Leprosy is symbolic of sin in the Bible and up until the 20th century, leprosy was thought to be highly contagious, and it was considered incurable. Even in Brisbane, Australia’s recent history as late as 1959 lepers or sufferers of Hansens disease as it was known as in later times, were isolated to Peel Island in Moreton Bay.

It was the most horrible disease.

When this leper came to Jesus, he didn’t ask, “Will You make me clean?” or “Are You able to make me clean?” He had faith. He recognised the lordship of Christ, and on that basis he said, “If You will, You can make me clean.”

What we ask is not always the Lord’s will. It’s not His will just because we ask for something. What we ask for may be the worst possible thing for us and those around us, but if it is His will, He can do it. He is able.

It’s most important that the will of God comes first and it’s not always an easy thing to put the will of God first.

We sometimes approach God with the words, “Lord, will You do this please because I want You to do it?” But the leper says, “I know You can, but will You?” In other words, is it according to Your will?

This is a bit different from what we hear a lot of today where people demand that the Lord do something for them.

Some believe that we have the right to ask God boldly and confidently for what we need, based on His promises in His Word. The trouble is many confuse exactly what the promises in His Word are.

Others think that we should accept whatever God wills for us with humility and submission to that will.

Jesus prayed this way Himself in the garden of Gethsemane, “Not my will, but yours be done”, and the apostle Paul prayed three times for God to remove his thorn in the flesh, but received the answer of, “My grace is sufficient for you”. His thorn in the flesh was not taken away.

So how should we pray?

Well, we should pray with faith and confidence, knowing that God is able and willing to do more than we can ask or imagine, according to His power that’s at work within us, but we should also pray with humility and reverence, recognising God’s sovereignty and wisdom, and understanding that His ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts higher than our thoughts.

We can’t ever manipulate God. We honour Him and trust Him.

 

Verse 3,

Then Jesus put out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” Immediately his leprosy was cleansed. 

 

“Jesus reached out and touched him.”

I love the picture that J Vernon McGee painted of a possible behind the scenes look into this leper man.

Bear with me as I relate it to you because it gives an insight into the more human aspect of this terrible disease. Here’s.

Have you ever stopped to think that this man not only had the physical disease of leprosy but that he had a psychological hang–up that was terrible?

I don’t know this man’s background, but I imagine that one day he noticed a rash breaking out on his hand.

Perhaps he’d been out ploughing, came in, showed his wife, and she put some ointment on it.

The next morning it was just as red as it could be, and he went out and ploughed again. This went on for about a week, and his wife started getting uneasy.

She suggested he visit the priest. He went to the priest who isolated him for fourteen days. At the end of this period of time the disease had spread. The priest told him he had leprosy. He would need to be isolated from other humans.

The man asked the priest if he could go and say goodbye to his wife and children, but the priest said, “I’m sorry, you can’t go to them. You can’t put your arm around your wife ever again or hold your children in your arms anymore. When anyone comes near you, you must cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’”  From now on you’ll be isolated from all other humans.

He saw his children grow up from a distance. They’d leave food in a certain place, and he’d come and get it after they withdrew because he couldn’t touch them.

He wasn’t able to touch anyone, and no one was able to touch him.

Then one day he came to Jesus and said, “Lord, if You will, You can make me clean.” And what did the Lord Jesus do? He touched him.

May I say to you that the touch of Jesus was one of the most wonderful things that ever had happened to the man. It not only cleansed his leprosy, but it brought him back to his beloved family and also the family of mankind. It also bought him into the family of God because, “Immediately his leprosy was cleansed.” Now in case you think this behind the scenes take on the leper is a bit farfetched, search the heartbreaking story of Phyllis Ebbage who was isolated at the Peel Island leper colony in Moreton bay in the 1950s. This is very close to where I spent a big part of my life at Victoria Point.

 

To verse 4 now,

And Jesus said to him, “See that you tell no one; but go your way, show yourself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 

 

I’m surprised that a lot of Bibe commentators don’t touch this verse. I think it’s because it’s largely been a puzzle as to why Jesus would tell this fully healed leper not to tell anyone. However, there’s really no puzzle if we’re taking the full context into account. Context is king in this case.

Again, we must realise that this incident took place under the Old Covenant, under the law of Moses. In relation to that law, why did Jesus come?

We saw in Matthew 5:17 that Jesus explained why.

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil.

Everything Jesus does while He’s on earth perfectly follows the law.

He had to in order to fulfil it completely and perfectly.

So, we find that in that law, in Leviticus chapter 14 we see 52, yes, 52 verses that are related just to the ritual that was required under the law for the healing of a leper.

They’re highly complex so we won’t go through them here, but they are the law and Jesus’s role is to fulfill the law. Now remember that James 2:10 says,

For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all.

If Jesus had not been obedient to the entire law and all its complexities he wouldn’t have fulfilled it. The result would be that Jesus couldn’t have been raised from the dead because he would’ve been justly receiving the wages of sin, death, and we, you, and I, could not have been saved. Eternal life would have been impossible.

 

So, in our lingo today this instruction to the leper might sound something like this, “Mr leper, I know you’re so excited and in absolute wonderment of what’s just happened to you, and I know you’re itching to tell everyone, but you need to tell everyone in a particular way. You must tell them while still being obedient to Moses law. This law you already know. So, tell these people in the way God instructed by going to the priest and making the offering that the law provides for.”

In the record of this healing in the Gospel of mark we find that this man didn’t do as Jesus commanded but he was so overjoyed that he went out and told everybody he met. We can’t blame him for that. but Jesus was following the law by His instructions.

The crowds pushed in on our Lord, and He was forced to retire from the city and stay in desert places.

This incident can easily be used as picture of Israel and of sin and forgiveness and healing.

The leper can be seen as Israel hopelessly and desperately lost in its sin.

As we’ve said leprosy was closely aligned to sin in the bible.

Then Israel, the leper, finally sees God as He really is, as the saviour, and falls at his feet and worships him. One of the meanings of the word worship in this context is to kiss, like a dog licking his master’s hand. The leper, Israel, finally understands their complete inability to heal themselves and bow down to the master, something they don’t do today.

They reject the Messiah Who God sent to them to take away their sin. One day that’ll change and just like the leper they’ll be healed of the disease of sin by the One who perfectly fulfilled the law, something that they’re presently trying to do themselves.

Many, if not most Israelites, even believe they’re succeeding at it.

Thank God that a multitude of them are in fact coming to a saving knowledge and trust in their Messiah, Jesus Christ.

Jesus now enters into the city of Capernaum in verses 5 and 6,

Now when Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, pleading with Him, saying, “Lord, my servant is lying at home paralysed, dreadfully tormented.”

 

The centurion had undoubtedly heard about the leper’s healing.

A centurion, a Gentile, was a professional military officer in the Roman army who commanded a platoon of troops called a “century”.

A century could be anywhere from a hundred to several hundred men. The number of centurions in a legion was 60. The ordinary duties of the centurion were to drill his men, inspect their arms, food, and clothing, and to command them in the camp and in the field of battle, often leading then into that battle.

Luke’s record tells us that this centurion built a synagogue for the Jews so there’s something else about this man besides his obvious military qualities. He was no fool and he wouldn’t have been afraid of anything much and yet here he’s humbled by his obvious love for his servant and his complete inability to help him.

 

Verse 7 tells us what Jesus said to him.

And Jesus said to him, “I will come and heal him.” 

The centurion answered and said, “Lord, I am not worthy that You should come under my roof. But only speak a word, and my servant will be healed. 

For I also am a man under authority, having soldiers under me. And I say to this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and to another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” 

 

The centurion recognised authority. He could say to a soldier under him, “Do this,” and he did it. Why? Because of power, which is authority. He looked at Jesus and said, “You have that kind of power.” He recognised that Jesus had that kind of authority over physical illness.

 

Verse 10,

When Jesus heard it, He marvelled, and said to those who followed, “Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! 

 

There’re only two recorded occasions where the Lord Jesus marvelled.

One was at the unbelief of Israel, and the other was at the faith of this gentile centurion.

 

Verses 11 and 12,

And I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

But the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth. 

 

Jesus is stating here that a time is coming when many Gentiles, non-Jewish people, will be saved by faith in Jesus and enjoy fellowship with the patriarchs of Israel in God’s kingdom.

However, many Jews, who were supposed to be God’s chosen people, will be rejected, and condemned because of their unbelief and disobedience to God through their rejection of the Messiah, Jesus.

These verses show that God’s salvation is universal, to the Jew and the Gentile and faith in Jesus is the only way to enter his kingdom for both.

Jesus is also warning against a person relying on their ethnic or religious heritage to get God’s favour. The wailing and gnashing of teeth are a picture of the depth of despair and anger of these people who find themselves condemned forever. These are people who really thought they were saved by doing the law, that they were good enough in themselves and that they didn’t need a Saviour.

 

Now verse 13,

Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go your way; and as you have believed, so let it be done for you.” And his servant was healed that same hour. 

 

Although the afflicted servant wasn’t physically there, the centurion’s faith in Jesus caused him to be healed. Jesus touched a leper, and he was healed. Now He heals the centurion’s servant from a distance.

Now we come to the third miracle of healing in verses 14 and 15.

Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house, He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever. 

So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them. 

 

Peter’s mother–in–law was sick with a fever. In the version in Luke 4 verse 38 the fever is described as a great fever. It could well have been life threatening.

Jesus touched her and healed her. This was in an instant, not slowly and even though she was laid low with this fever her strength returned so that she could rise up immediately, prepare a meal for them, and serve them showing that she was perfectly restored.

These 2 verses also display the error and misunderstanding promoted by the Roman Catholic church in relation to priests and marriage.

Notice this healing was performed on Peter’s wife’s mother?

This is the Peter who the Catholics pretend was the first pope and on who the catholic church was built. They force celibacy on and forbid the marriage of priests and nuns, and yet here’s their iconic Peter, a married man, with a wife.

Our Lord may have been staying at Peter’s house at this time, but this is only speculation.

 

Matthew 8:16

When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick, 

 

Notice here how they brought “many” to Him. Matthew makes it clear that there were literally thousands of people healed in that day. For instance, there were thousands of blind men who could now see. There were thousands of crippled folk who were walking around normally. There were thousands of deaf folk who could now hear. This is the reason that Jesus’s enemies never questioned whether or not He had performed miracles. How could they? The healed people were everywhere.

 

Verse 17 is a direct carry on from verse 16,

that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: “HE HIMSELF TOOK OUR INFIRMITIES AND BORE OUR SICKNESSES.” 

 

Here we come to a verse that’s used more than any other verse by modern day healing ministries.

The verse includes part of the prophecy of Isaiah 53:4-6.

We need to be clear of what’s being healed in the passage in Isaiah.

“Surely He has borne our griefs And carried our sorrows; Yet we esteemed Him stricken, Smitten by God, and afflicted. But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”

Of what are we healed here? This passage from Isaiah clearly states that we’re healed of our transgressions and iniquities. We’re healed because God laid on Jesus the iniquity of us all.

The apostle Peter uses this prophecy as well in 1 Peter 2:24,

“who Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—by whose stripes you were healed.”

Healed of what? “Sins.” Peter’s making it very clear that he’s talking about sin.

Isaiah 53:6 says,

“All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all”.

1 Peter 2:22 repeats this part of the same prophecy by saying,

For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls. 

It was your iniquity and mine which was laid upon the Lord Jesus Christ and obviously, both Isaiah and the apostle Peter are referring to the unimaginably high price that was paid to remove the great disease of mankind, sin. Sin is the one and only sickness or disease that Jesus heals every single time, without exception, to whoever asks.

As we’ve said, this verse in Matthew 8:17, seems to be the foundation on which many healing ministries are built.

The problem is that in these verses, as in many others where Jesus healed the sick, it’s Jesus Himself doing the healing not men.

These are signs that would, or at least should, have convinced the nation of Israel just Who Jesus really was.

Only God had the power over the natural world and over physical illness.

Many individual Jews, and later, many gentiles would believe that Jesus was none other than God in the flesh, the promised Messiah, but as a nation, Israel would reject that.

In this day where sin and Satan still have a powerful foothold, Jesus is just as able to heal as He was back in the sermon on the mount days. He still has power over all the dimension, seen and unseen, in this universe.

But we really need to separate fact from fantasy and romance from reality. Jesus simply did not promise to heal our every physical sickness. Nor has that healing power ever been transferred to a man.

Sure, there were many miraculous healings recorded through the apostles and others in the early church, but we notice in all of these cases it was when they prayed and used the name of Jesus. They never claimed that healing power had somehow been passed onto them.

Also healing certainly didn’t always occur.

The most famous example is the apostle Paul himself in 2 Corinthians 12:7-9,

And lest I should be exalted above measure by the abundance of the revelations, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to buffet me, lest I be exalted above measure. 

Concerning this thing I pleaded with the Lord three times that it might depart from me. 

And He said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. 

There’re other examples recorded in scripture and there are a great many powerful and wonderful preachers and teachers around today that, in spite of their preaching and teaching ministries, have not been physically healed.

 

I remember the awful illness of my brother Pete. As he was in hospital in the last days of his life he had a flow of people from the local church coming into his room and almost all of them fervently prayed for his healing. Of course, this didn’t happen and later many of these people, who were so sure they’d see Pete jump out of bed and leap for joy at his healing, were quite shaken. They found it very hard to come to terms with the fact that their prayers had been so powerful and full of hope but that they’d failed to heal Pete.

Pete himself had more compassion and felt more for these people than he did for himself.

My brother Pete is dead as is my brother Barry and many others whose physical condition didn’t respond to prayer for the sick.

Did God love the leper, the centurion’s servant, and Peter’s mother more than my brothers? Were they more worthy of God’s touch? Did they have more faith? No, No and no!

We need to face the fact that it’s simply not always God’s will to heal. Sometimes it is God’s will to heal but instead of going to an auditorium and rely on some human, we should go directly to the Great Physician, the Lord Jesus Christ?

Today we see huge crowds following this or that preacher and it’s heartbreaking to see just how little knowledge of God’s Word many of these precious people have. There seems to be a lot of what I call “secondary teaching” associated with today’s healing ministries relating to why not everyone gets healed and why in fact few, if any, really get a medically confirmed physical healing. This is always designed to make it the fault of the person who didn’t receive rather than the error of the healing ministry.

 

Jesus Christ, during His earthly ministry, performed many miracles as we’ve seen in this chapter of Matthew, and we’ll see many more in the other gospels.

Even His enemies acknowledged this. We find that the New Testament says that Jesus’ apostles, as well as certain other Christians, also performed miracles. Nobody could deny this either.

After one particular miracle, the religious leaders asked among themselves in Acts 4:16,

What shall we do to these men? For, indeed, that a notable miracle has been done through them is evident to all who dwell in Jerusalem, and we cannot deny it.

No one can argue the fact that the same level of miraculous works as early Christians did does not occur today and it’s a fair question to ask why.

 

One view says that these miraculous signs were to confirm the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ. There was no written New Testament of the Bible then of course, and these signs confirmed that Jesus was truly the promised Messiah who’d come into humanity.

Many people believe that this was the only reason miracles were performed and once the message of Christ had been confirmed, miracles of that order stopped.

When Paul wrote to the Romans in Romans 15 he stated in verse 9 that the signs and wonders followed him wherever he preached. So, even though they weren’t recorded every time Paul preached these miraculous signs were present. This gives strength to the case that the main purpose of the miracles was to confirm the message of Christ at the beginning.

 

Others disagree that miracles ceased with apostles. They believe miracles are still possible. The lack of miracles among believers today is explained by these people as a problem with Christians, not God.

It’s due to sin and lack of faith rather than the Lord. The line goes that if Christians would only believe what God says in His Word then we’d see more miracles.

The problem with this view isn’t that are very few miracles occurring today like those in the New Testament, it’s that no miracles like this are taking place in our day and age. So, what are they saying? That in the huge crowds that attend these meetings all around the world there’s absolutely no one with any faith in Christ.

While it’s true that no Christian truly takes God at His Word all the time, even though many might say they do, we read that the apostles and the disciples, along with many others in the early church, were not always spiritual giants either. Many of these struggled between the things of this world that we exist in and 100% belief in God’s Word. We could write endless stories about Christians whose faith in God and Christ was great but who suffered physically. In fact many great ministries, many wonderful hymns and many great writings may never have come into existence if were not for these physical challenges.

If the Lord wants to perform miraculous signs, for whatever reason, He can always find some way.

Although not the norm for the church age, physical healing can still occur when God sees fit. This view says miracles did have value in confirming to the gospel of Jesus. However, it doesn’t assume that since we now have the written New Testament, God no longer works miracles.

Miracles weren’t the norm for most people in the early church and they certainly are not the norm today. Yet there are occasions when the Lord, for His own reasons, will still choose to do the miraculous and we shouldn’t presume to know God’s will in every situation and rule out this possibility.

 

We also need to be aware of the fact that miracles didn’t always cause everyone to believe. In fact, there were always doubters who could come up with alternative explanations to the miraculous deeds which they witnessed. Thus, miracles, by themselves, are not enough. Any miraculous sign must be accompanied by a clear presentation of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The verse in Acts 4:16 that we saw just before confirms this. These religious leaders could not deny the miracles, and I believe many saw them firsthand, and yet they reject Jesus as the Messiah as did a host of others.

 

As we’ll see shortly in chapter 12, after seeing firsthand Jesus heal a demon–possessed man, the Pharisees even accused Him of being Satan’s servant. They were so confident in their assessment of Who Jesus and so desperate to explain away His miracles that they actually accused Him of casting out demons through Satan’s power.

See it’s not the miracles that make a person believe, It’s the good news, the gospel, that’s  the power of God that leads people to salvation.

 

Instead of joining the many who’ve placed their faith in a human down here on earth who claims to have the power to heal, let’s take our case to the Great Physician and say with the leper, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” Then whether we’re healed or not healed, He gets the glory. We trust Him to never leave or forsake us even in an hour of great physical need.

Until next time my friends may The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.