Chapter 8

Verses 1-17 — our Lord’s power over disease. Again we pick up the multitudes which we lost in Matthew 5:1. “When he was come down from the mountain [from the sermon on the mount] great multitudes followed him” — one difference: they followed Him before because of the miracles which He performed; they follow Him this time because He taught doctrine. Principle: The world doesn’t even know it but they are hungry for Bible doctrine.

In verses 2-4 we have the case of a Jewish believer.

Verse 2 — “And, behold, there came a leper.” Leprosy is a hopeless disease. It was especially hopeless at the time in which this occurred. It illustrates the hopelessness of man as a sinner — cf. Leviticus 13:1-59, in which passage we have the subject of leprosy and how the priest examined the patient and found him “unclean.” The clinical procedure for a cured leper was specified in Leviticus chapter 14:1-57. The priests of Israel used Leviticus chapter 13 all of the time, they frequently had cases of leprosy and so there was a constant use of that particular chapter. But Leviticus chapter 14 was not used except in two cases over a period of about 500 years. It was not generally used because, of course, no one was cured. Both of the exceptions were miracles. In this case Jesus is going to cure this leper for one reason: to send him to the priesthood. The priesthood had already pronounced that this man was a leper, perhaps two years before or perhaps six months before, and they had recorded him as a leper. Now he is going to come back to them to be erased from the leper records. Of course the priests would then want to know how he was cured and this leper would then record what we are about to study.

This man is a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ and we gather some of that information from the fact that in verse 2 we have, “and worshipped [kept on worshipping Him] him,” but the imperfect tense indicates that he had been worshipping Him for a long time. The imperfect tense of the verb “to worship” indicates that this man was a believer and had been worshipping the Lord Jesus Christ before He went up into the mountain. And notice, he called Him Lord: “saying, Lord.” No one can call Jesus Lord unless he is born again — 1 Corinthians 12:3 — and Jesus becomes Lord at the moment of salvation, not twenty years later after you have agonised! Now he says: “if,” and this is a third class condition, which shows that he is not only a born again believer but he is a smart one; “if thou wilt.” In other words, “it is in your hands.” The third class condition recognises the sovereignty of God in the matter. This leper is willing to go either way. If the Lord wants to heal him he knows that He can and he will be thankful for it, but if He doesn’t want him to be healed he knows that the Lord has a purpose for the leprosy and so he will fulfil the principle of “in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.” It doesn’t say, in everything ask for healing, it says in everything give thanks. This applies just as much today as did in the day of the leper. If the Lord wants to heal you He can heal you, don’t go to any divine healer. Divine healers are fakers all the way.

“thou canst” — simply means omnipotence: You have the power; “make me clean” — and this means to make him whole, cleanse here is the removal of leprosy.

Verse 3 — Jesus demonstrates His power over disease by healing the hopeless case of leprosy; “and touched him.” One thing you do not do is touch a leper and He touched a leper; “saying, I will” — it is my will, in other words, I have a purpose for your cleansing. There were literally thousands and thousands of lepers in that part of the world and Jesus only healed a few. Does this mean that He was remiss when He overlooked the rest? And He couldn’t overlook them, they were everywhere in the ancient world. The point is: whenever someone was healed by Jesus Christ it had a purpose. Jesus was not remiss in His duty. He didn’t come to heal people, He came to save, He came to present Himself as saviour. For anyone to get saved they have to have operation volition and they have to of their own volition believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and these acts of healing were all designed to focus on the person of Christ, and the uniqueness of His person leads to the uniqueness of His work, and through this a person can find Christ as saviour. So the purpose of healing was not to alleviate suffering but to focus attention on the Lord Jesus Christ.

“be thou clean” — the aorist tense tells us that he would never get leprosy again. Once and for all he would be clean. In other words, however this man was going to die it would not be by leprosy; “And immediately his leprosy was cleansed.”

Verse 4 — Jesus is now sending a message to the priesthood telling them that the saviour is here, that all of the first advent passages in the Old Testament are now fulfilled in the one who is here. So he tells the leper: “See thou tell no man.” This doesn’t make good sense. The word “see” means give me your attention, focus on what I say. The reason Jesus does this is because the man is excited, he has just been healed. He is about to go and tell everyone: Look I’m clean. Jesus tells him to forget all that. But this is what happens to believers when they first get saved. They want to want to tell everyone about Christ and they don’t have sense enough to come in our of the rain yet, and they would do better if they kept quiet until the learned a bit of doctrine. But Jesus tells this man not to talk to anyone about this but go and see the priests. Why? This leper now cleansed is a message from Jesus Christ to the priesthood: I’m here.

“show thyself to the priests” — this is in keeping with Leviticus chapter fourteen. A cleansed leper under the law of Moses must go to the priest, he must show himself, he must be examined, and after he is pronounced clean and erased from the leprosy rolls then he must offer a special sacrifice, the two birds of Leviticus 14:4 — “and offer the gift that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them [the priests].” If you do things God’s way you are going to have results and you are going to have production. God has a purpose in directing us and He has a reason for each one of us remaining on this earth. We are left here in order to witness for Jesus Christ and to make Him known. The only way to do this is to do it the way the Lord says to do it and the Bible is filled with instructions, specifications, mechanics, and you start by learning something, then you communicate, and you communicate in your own area. Jesus doesn’t send this man out to give his “glowing testimony.” Instead He sends him to the priests because this is where you have to start. You have to start at the place where it is important and the priests are to have the first crack at accepting Christ and the priests are going to have the first opportunity to reject Him, and the priesthood at this time will be under double condemnation. They should have known better.

Verse 5 — Jesus starts into Capernaum from the mountain back in verse 1, now He finally makes it. Notice first of all He deals with a Jew in a hopeless situation. Now to balance things out we are going to meet a Gentile believer who in Judah with his rank, centurion, would be a VIP. He represents the Roman empire, he is a Roman officer attached to the Roman legation in Capernaum, and he is a born-again believer, Gentile type.

Notice the centurion is “beseeching him.” The word “beseeching” means making a request. The present tense tells us he was making a dramatic request. This man is in a land where the Jews have the scriptures and have become religious and have rejected Christ. He is not religious at all, he is a believer, born again.

Verse 6 — Notice that the centurion uses the word “Lord,” the same vocative as the Jewish leper. And he says: “My servant,” but the Greek says: My child. The centurion has a child, a son, who is dying. “Palsy” — the Greek word is paralutikoj, so apparently he had some kind of a paralysis and is on his way out, he is dying; “grievously tormented” means to be tortured, constantly in pain.

Verse 7 — “I will come and heal him.” Here is where the centurion shows that there were Gentile believers who were mature in Judah.

Verse 8 — “Lord, I am not worthy” — orientation to grace. He is saying that his quarters are not good enough for Jesus to enter. Jesus is God and while he occupies VIP quarters the centurion is saying that they were not worthy for God to enter. No question about healing in the whole thing, that’s already been settled. The centurion knows his son will be healed when Jesus said He would heal him, there is no question about that. He says, “speak the word only, and my servant will be healed,” This is great faith and great faith always springs from orientation to grace. He understands that everything depends on who and what God is, not who and what he is.

Verse 9 — he illustrates what he means. “For I am a man under authority [under the principle of authority, literally. His life is lived under the principle of authority].” This is what is wrong with a lot of people today in almost any line you want to discuss. We do not live under the principle of self-discipline. Children at school do not learn under the principle of self-discipline so they study if they feel like it and they cram at the last minute, and there is no self-discipline. A lot of people do not cut it in business because they have no self-discipline; “having soldiers under me.” He has the command of men, so he is saying that he understands the principle of authority.

Verse 10 — there isn’t any Jew in Palestine who has as much faith as this Gentile Roman officer. Jesus gives the faith award for the year to a Gentile, and right in the middle of all the Jews!

Verse 11 — “many” refers to many Gentiles; “shall come from the east [India was evangelised in the same century] and from the west [all the way to Spain], and shall sit down.” Notice who are going to sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob who are born again believers. You don’t find the Jews sitting down with them, you find the Gentiles. You see these Jewish leaders were looking down their noses at the Gentiles and yet here is a Gentile, a Roman, and he is born again. They are Jews with the Old Testament scriptures which clearly declare the gospel. So Jesus has just given a one-two punch the Jewish religious part of the crowd.

Verse 12 — “But” is a conjunction of contrast; “the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness.” The children of the kingdom are Jews who are exposed to the Word and have the scriptures, who are brought up on the Old Testament, but who have not accepted Christ as saviour. They are religious but not regenerate. The reason they are going to be weeping is because they have missed the boat with regard to salvation, and they are going to gnash their teeth because the Gentiles are going to walk right over them into the “pearly gates.” In other words, they are going to be frustrated two ways because they missed the boat when they had the chance and because Gentiles without their background found Christ as saviour, as illustrated by this Roman soldier.

Verse 13 — “as thou hast believed,” operation faith-rest to the maximum; “so be it done unto thee” — Jesus gives recognition to his faith. This man did not get Jesus to heal his son because he used faith-rest. Jesus healed the centurion’s son because of His own matchless grace but Jesus recognises faith-rest and He does it in front of a large crowd of religious Jews and born again Jews [who do not have faith-rest]. So He uses the centurion to speak to the crowd; He uses the Jewish believing leper to speak to the priesthood.

“And his servant [young son] was healed in the selfsame hour,” an idiom for the same time Jesus spoke. Jesus uses a leper to challenge the priesthood; Jesus uses a Gentile to challenge the Jews.

Verse 14 — a domestic scene. Peter’s wife’s mother is sick; “laid” — lying sick. The Greek word which can’t be translated with one word says she was prostrated very ill — “and sick of a fever.” Verse 15 — “she arose and ministered unto them” — she kept on ministering [cooking, etc].”

Review: First of all we have three hopeless diseases cured by our Lord, demonstrating His power. Leprosy, which reminds us of the defilement of sin [solved by the cross]; the palsy, which reminds us of the helplessness of sin [solved by the filling of the Spirit]; the fever, which reminds us of the restlessness of sin [solved by the Word].

There are three ways in which Jesus healed in this passage: leprosy He healed by volitional thought, word and touch; palsy by word of mouth; fever by the touch of the hand. This tells us something. Jesus actually healed each one in a different way. He thought in the case of the leper and touched him; with the palsy He just opened His mouth and over on the other side of the city the young boy was healed; and the fever He just touched — Peter’s mother-in-law.

1. It isn’t the method of healing but the power of the one who heals.

2. Methods are no good without the person.

3. It was the power of the person of Christ, not the method of healing.

4. Because He was omnipotent there was healing in His thought pattern, voice and touch.

Note: There is no healing in the atonement. God the Holy Spirit gave the Church the gift of healing but not in the atonement. The Spirit gave it separate from the atonement — 1 Corinthians 12:11. God disciplines believers by illness, as in 1 Corinthians 11:30, hence healing is not in the atonement because if it was then no believer would ever be saved. And, taking the debaters technique, assuming that there was healing in the atonement: if there is, then there is no such thing as eternal security because a sick Christian would be a lost Christian.

Verses 16-17, power over demon-induced illness.

Here is a different type of illness. Notice that all of the illnesses mentioned in the previous paragraph are physiologically induced. Now we have an illness which is caused by demon possession.

Verse 16 — “When even was come, they brought unto him many that were possessed with demons: and he cast out the spirits by his word, and healed all that were sick [with demon possession]” Verse 17 — “That” introduces a purpose clause; “it might be fulfilled by Isaiah the prophet, saying, Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sickness.” This quotation from Isaiah 53:4 deals with the issue of healing in the atonement. So a few points on the quotation:

“Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses”

These did not occur at the cross. Notice that at this point in the gospel of Matthew we are still two and a half years from the cross, and when did it occur, at the cross or here? This is not the cross, we will not get to the cross until chapters 26 and 27. This passage is before the cross and it refers to healing people to point to the fact that He is saviour. It does not mean healing in the atonement.

1. The word “took” here means to take by the hand and carry away “our infirmities,” not at the cross but at this point.

2. This passage has to do with the alleviation of suffering rather than the transferring of suffering to Christ. No suffering is transferred to Christ, he didn’t bear our leprosy and fever, etc.

3. There is no such thing as healing in the atonement.

4. The diseases of these people were not transferred to Christ. Jesus was not demon-possessed. To say that there is healing in the atonement is to say that Jesus bore all of these sicknesses and therefore He bore the demon-induced illness, and therefore He had to be demon-possessed. He was never demon-possessed, that’s blasphemy.

5. Jesus took away their diseases but did not transfer them to Himself.

6. Matthew 8:17 quotes Isaiah 53:4 to indicate that healing is not in the atonement but healing was an act of Jesus Christ calling attention to the fact that He is the saviour. The purpose of healing was to focus attention upon Christ as saviour.

7. In the atonement Jesus Christ bore our sins in His own body on the tree. The only thing He bore in the atonement were sins, never sickness — 1 Peter 2:24. And those sins were judged on the cross.

8. This verse 17 clearly indicates that Jesus had power over disease by removing it, not bearing it.

9. The miracles of healing or removing diseases were a presentation of the credentials of the King. These credentials prove that Jesus Christ is the God-Man, the only saviour.

10. Diseases such as leprosy often illustrate the sin of humanity and its solution but they must not be confused with the reality of the cross.

11. Healing is not in the atonement except by way of illustration where Jesus used the removal of disease to demonstrate the uniqueness of His person and the efficacy of His work on the cross.

The power of Jesus Christ over nature, verses 18-27.

Jesus is going to leave again. He retreated from the crowd once for the sermon on the mount; He now retreats from the crowd again. He does it this time to thin down the crowd.

Verse 18 — “When Jesus saw great multitudes about him, he gave commandment to depart to depart to the other side” — across the Sea of Galilee. In other words, He gave the order to the whole crowd that of they were going to follow Him they were to move out and cross the sea. So this is the way He was going to thin out the crowd. For the crowd the departure of Jesus creates a crisis. There are two crises in this section. The first crisis is the departure of Jesus; the second crisis will be the storm on the sea. Some people will never pass the first crisis. There were many people in the crowd who had trusted Christ for salvation but they will not go any further with it. So the issue now is who is willing to grow up as a believer. Jesus now institutes a series of tests to separate the men from the boys and this departure across the water will do exactly that. Many of these people were eternally saved but they would never get on the boat. And it is the same today, a lot of believers will never get on the boat, they will never grow up spiritually, they have no spiritual muscle, no faith-rest technique.

Verses 19-23, the categories of disciples. In verses 19,20 we face the religious disciple, an unbeliever. He is called scribe which means he is a graduate from a school of Jewish theology. He came along because he was impressed by crowds, as religion always is.

Verse 19 — “Master” — no more “Lord” for awhile. his man is an unbeliever and what he is saying in effect is “Doctor.” He is indicating that he recognises Jesus as a religious leader, but that is all. He is full of hot air, he says: “I will follow thee withersoever thou goest.” It is a pretty speech and it means absolutely nothing. He puts this in the future tense to indicate that it is the logical thing to do. “Whithersoever” is a third class condition however — “If thou goest but I don’t think you will.” In other words, this religious man in Jesus’ position wouldn’t leave that crowd, he would stick around and exploit it. He would talk to them every night! He just can’t believe that Jesus is going to leave, he thinks Jesus is bluffing. Being a religious man and being unregenerate the scribe can only think of success in terms of large crowds and therefore he doesn’t think that Jesus will leave a place of comfort for the uncertainties of the unknown, and since he looks at life from the human viewpoint and is impressed with status symbols, he decides that Jesus really isn’t going to go at all and he is safe in saying this. What he is really saying is that he will follow the Lord as long as it doesn’t interfere with his personal comfort.

Verse 20 — Jesus gets rid of this man quickly. “The Son of Man has not anywhere to lay his head” — no hotels on the other side. That was enough for the scribe. This statement of our Lord stops the religious man in his tracks. To follow Jesus was going to interfere with his comfort and therefore this man as a religious person (and it is true of all religious people. They are interested in conventions, ritual, social life, pleasures, popularity, but they are not interested in the Lord) is not interested in the Lord. Religion is impressed with the superficial, impressed with crowds, impressed with miracles, impressed with popularity, and so of course religion always fails the test. Jesus was merely a status symbol to this religious man, so obviously he is not going.

Verses 21,22 — we have a believer this time but he is a procrastinator. He is one of those people who says one day I’m going to get with it but even though he is born again he doesn’t allow his regenerate situation to interfere with the usual amenities of life.

Verse 21 — “And another.” The Greek word for another of a different kind, indicating he is saved ; “of his disciples said unto him, Lord, suffer [permit] me first to go and bury my father.” This disciple is entangled in the protocol of society. If he failed to show up at his father’s funeral he is going to be ostracised and he thinks more of the approbation of society than he does of the approbation of the Lord. As long as there is no contest and it is convenient to follow the Lord he will, but if there is a conflict he chooses the approbation of people rather than the approbation of the Lord.

Verse 22 — “But Jesus said unto him, “Follow me [keep on following me]; and let the [spiritually] dead bury their [physically] dead.” In other words, people who are spiritually dead, unbelievers, think a great deal of a funeral. Jesus is telling what He thinks of a funeral. It’s nothing. (The only good thing about a funeral is that it is an opportunity to preach the gospel) A funeral is a part of the protocol of society and it is a big thing in society, it is just the thing to do.

Verse 23 — we have the group who did follow. “His disciples followed Him.” These are the ones who are born again, they are obedient, they don’t know where they are going or when they will eat their next meal. They simply followed the Lord by boarding the ship. We don’t know how many boarded the ship but this is more than the twelve. Principle: You must as a believer get into the boat before any suffering in your life is beneficial. The people back in Capernaum do not go through the storm at sea. The storm at sea is for the believers who get in the boat; it is for those who enter into faith-rest, those who are going to grow up, those who get the Word, those who get in the boat of doctrine. You have to get in the boat of life before the storms of life become beneficial and meaningful, and before you can learn anything from the storms of life. Only those believers who got in the boat had the experience of the storm and benefited by learning many things from it. No storm becomes a testing or a blessing until the believer gets into the boat of God’s Word — doctrine, divine viewpoint. And as soon as you get with divine viewpoint look for the storm when you get into the boat of doctrine. But one nice thing about it: if you are oriented you can sit there and enjoy the storm and laugh at the storm.

Verses 24-27, the crisis of the storm.

Verse 24 — the Sea of Galilee is relatively shallow and has mountains all around and when the wind comes down the valley it really blows up a storm, and that is exactly what happened, it covered the entire ship. In the storm the only ones facing the storm are believers who get in the boat. This is obviously getting with doctrine. In this storm these believers are going to learn their own helplessness and the futility of energy of the flesh. In the storm the disciples learn who and what Christ is and they couldn’t learn it any other way. Of course the storm speaks to us of adversity, pressure, crisis, and so on. So here is maximum pressure to provide blessing.

Notice what Jesus was doing: “but he was asleep.” The imperfect tense means that He kept on sleeping through the storm. Of course we know that Jesus is the God-Man. Deity is omnipresent and obviously His deity isn’t sleeping and His deity can’t sleep, it is all over that lake. It is His humanity which is sleeping. The question is: why did the humanity of Christ go to sleep in a storm? Well, the boat represents the doctrine of the Word, the promises of the Word, and so on, and the disciples who were not in the boat for one reason or another will not learn this lesson but the ones who followed the Lord need sharpening up and this is the way they are going to get it. Only the disciples in the boat faced the storm and they are the ones who will learn the great principle: the only place of safety is in the boat. No matter how great the storm is, no matter how great the pressure, the only place of safety and stability is in the Word. All the crises and storms and adversities of your life must be oriented to doctrine, must be oriented to divine viewpoint. There was only one safe place. While the waves were breaking over that ship it was still safe. Jesus demonstrated that it was the only safe place: His humanity was sleeping, resting in the storm. So to enjoy their safety all the disciples have to do is take a lesson from the Lord. Of course the only way to rest is to use doctrine. Jesus Christ is in the boat with them and He is God. Obviously nothing can hurt God; He controls the storm, the storm doesn’t control Him.

By sleeping in the storm Jesus taught the lesson of the faith-rest technique. While the disciples followed Jesus on the boat they did not follow Him in resting, and the next verse records their failure, but at least we learn lessons by failure. That is what makes a great believer: one who can learn lessons from his failures instead of getting discouraged and upset.

Verse 25 — “And his disciples came [aorist tense, they got over there as quickly as they could] to him, and awoke him.” This is rather humorous. First of all, what did they call Him? They called Him Lord [God]. Isn’t that something! Here is God in the boat and they wake Him up and they don’t call Him by His humanity, they don’t call Him Jesus, they call Him God! — “deliver us: we are about to perish.” How could they die, they are in the boat with the Lord.

Why did they wake up the humanity of Christ? Who is going to get them out of the jamb? The deity of Christ, and the deity of Christ doesn’t sleep. All they have to do is remember the essence box and apply it. His deity is omnipotent; He has power over nature. Why bother the humanity of Christ, He is resting. Just enjoy it, everything is all right. There is nothing more inconsistent than a panic-stricken believer.

Verse 26 — Jesus made Himself understood in the noise of the storm. The voice that carries through the storm is the Word of God. “Why are you frightened, O you of a little faith.” It doesn’t say no faith, it says a little faith. They had enough faith to get in the boat. They didn’t know where they were going but they followed Jesus and that is faith. They just didn’t have enough faith for the storm.

Then He spoke to the storm and in about one second it was as smooth as glass on the sea. He reprimanded the winds.

We learn to know the Lord in the storm. Psalm 39:14 — “Many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivereth him from them all”.

Verses 28-34, the power of Jesus over demons.

There are several accounts — Mark 5:1-13; Luke 8; and the rest of this chapter. It simply boils down to this: over on the other side of the Sea of Galilee in the country of the Gergesenes or the Gaderenes [one is Hellenised and one is Hebrewised] they had a bootleg deal going. Prohibition was on. The Jews who had become Hellenised liked swine. It was a great place to raise hogs and at night they could be shipped across the sea and given to Jewish customers who have developed a taste for swine’s flesh, and they have to do it on the quiet. It was quite an industry because you could charge outrageous prices for it. They were very prosperous over there and there were a couple of demon-possessed men — only one is mentioned here — and when Jesus landed these two demon-possessed men wanted help. They fell on their faces, they couldn’t speak and the demons did the talking, and there was a conversation between Jesus and the leader of the demons. The result was that the demons were removed from the two men and they were put in the hogs which ran off the cliff and drowned. As a result this was quite a loss to the owners of the swine. Consequently they wanted to get rid of Jesus so they asked Him to leave. While the industry was ruined two men who had been uncontrollable, two maniacs, were now sitting in their right minds, born again.