8:1 This verse is transitional (cf. 5:1). Great crowds continued to follow Jesus after He delivered the Sermon on the Mount, as they had before.
8:2-3 Matthew typically used the phrase kai idou("and behold,"not translated in the NIV) to mark the beginning of a new section, not to indicate the next event chronologically.
The exact nature of biblical leprosy is unknown. Apparently it included what we call leprosy today, Hansen's disease, but it involved other skin diseases too (cf. Lev. 13-14).363A leper not only had a loathsome disease that made him repulsive to others, but he also was ritually unclean because of his illness. This precluded contact with other people and participation in temple worship. The Jews regarded leprosy as a curse from God (Num. 12:10, 12; Job 18:13). Healings were rare (Num. 12:10-15; 2 Kings 5:9-14). The Jews thought that healing a leper was as difficult as raising the dead (2 Kings 5:7, 14).
The leper in this story knelt (Gr. prosekynei) before Jesus. The same word describes worshippers in the New Testament. However, Matthew probably just described him kneeling leaving his readers to draw their own conclusions about Jesus' worthiness to receive worship (cf. 7:22-23).
The man had great faith in Jesus' ability to heal him. Evidently he had heard about and perhaps seen others whom Jesus had healed (4:24). His only reservation was Jesus' willingness to use His power to heal him.
"In most cases . . . the purpose of the minor characters [in Matthew's story] is to function as foils for the disciples."364
Probably the crowd gasped when Jesus graciously extended His hand and touched the unclean leper. Lepers had to avoid all contact with other people, but Jesus compassionately reached out to him in his helpless condition. Rather than becoming unclean by touching the leper Jesus cleansed him. Jesus expressed His willingness with His word, and He expressed His power with His touch.
"There is a sense in which leprosy is an archetypal fruit of the original fall of humanity. It leaves its victims in a most pitiable state: ostracized, helpless, hopeless, despairing. The cursed leper, like fallen humanity, has no options until he encounters the messianic king who will make all things new. . . . As Jesus reached out to the leper, God in Jesus has reached out to all victims of sin."365
8:4 Why did Jesus tell the cleansed leper to tell no one about his cleansing? Probably Jesus did not want the news of this cleansing broadcast widely because it would have attracted multitudes whose sole interest would have been to obtain physical healing.366In other words, He wanted to limit His purely physical appeal since He came to provide much more than just physical healing.367A corollary of this view is that by keeping quiet the leper would have retarded the opposition of Jesus' enemies who were hostile to Him and who resented His popularity.
More significant is why Jesus told the man to present himself to the priests at the temple in Jerusalem. Jesus was encouraging the man to obey the Mosaic Law concerning the cleansing of lepers (Lev. 14:2). However by sending him there to do that Jesus was notifying the religious authorities in Israel that someone with messianic power was ministering in Galilee. Since no leper had received cleansing since Moses cleansed Miriam and since Elisha had cleansed Naaman the Aramean, the priests should have wanted to investigate Jesus.
"Jesus in effect was presenting His calling card' to the priests, for they would have to investigate His claims."368
This investigation by Israel's leaders--who, we have observed, were surprisingly uninterested in Messiah's birth--was something Jesus initiated by sending the leper to the temple with his offering. When the priests examined the cleansed leper closely, they would have had to certify that Jesus had genuinely healed the man. Their certification should have convinced everyone in Israel of Jesus' power.
Matthew evidently recorded this miracle to show that Jesus' ability to heal leprosy marked Him as the Messiah to all who would pay attention in Israel.
8:5 Centurions were Roman military officers each of whom controlled 100 men, therefore the name "centurion."They were the military backbone of the Roman Empire. Interestingly every reference to a centurion in the New Testament is a positive one. These centurions were fair-minded men whom the Jews respected. Capernaum was an important garrison town in Jesus' day. Probably most of the soldiers under this centurion's command were Lebanese and Syrian Gentiles.369
8:6-7 Matthew recorded that the centurion's address to Jesus (lit. "lord") was polite, though he probably did not intend it as a title of deity.370The Greek word that the centurion used to describe his servant, pais, usually means "servant,"though it can mean "son"(cf. John 4:51). Perhaps reports of Jesus' healing of another official's son led this man to approach Jesus (John 4). Here was one Gentile asking Jesus to come and heal another Gentile. Evidently the centurion sent his request through messengers (Luke 7:3).
It is possible to translate Jesus' response as a question: "Shall I[emphatic] come and heal him?"This translation has the advantage of providing a reason for Jesus emphasizing "I,"namely to focus attention on Jesus' person. Jesus would not have hesitated to go to the centurion because of ritual uncleanness, as Peter later did (Acts 10); He had already touched a leper (v. 3). Jesus' lack of concern about remaining ritually clean shows that He was replacing some laws in the Mosaic Code (cf. Deut. 18:18; Mark 7:19).
8:8-9 The centurion confessed that he felt unworthy to entertain Jesus in his home (cf. 5:3). John the Baptist had also expressed a similar feeling of unworthiness (3:14). The basis for the centurion's feeling of unworthiness (Gr. hikanos) was the authority that he believed Jesus possessed. He believed Jesus had sufficient authority to simply speak and He could heal his servant (cf. John 4:46-53).
All authority in the Roman Empire belonged to the emperor who delegated it to others under his command. When the centurion gave a command it carried all the authority of the emperor, and people obeyed him. A soldier who might disobey an order the centurion gave was really disobeying the emperor. The centurion realized that Jesus also operated under a similar system. Jesus was under God's authority, but He also wielded God's authority. When Jesus spoke, God spoke. To defy Jesus was to defy God. Jesus' word, therefore, must carry God's authority to heal sickness. The centurion confessed that Jesus' authority was God's authority, and Jesus' word was God's word.
8:10 Jesus expressed astonishment at this Gentile's great faith in Him.
"Wonder' cannot apply to God, for it arises out of what is new and unexpected: but it might exist in Christ, for he had clothed himself with our flesh, and with human affections."371
The introductory clause "I say to you"or "I tell you"alerted Jesus' disciples that He was about to say something very important (cf. 5:22). The greatness of the centurion's faith was due to his perception of Jesus' relationship to God. It was not that he believed Jesus could heal from a remote distance. Moreover the centurion was a Gentile who evidently lacked the knowledge of Old Testament revelation about Messiah. No Jew that Jesus had met had shown such insight into His person and authority.
One of the reasons Matthew evidently stressed the uniqueness of the centurion's faith so strongly was he wanted to show the movement in Jesus' ministry from Jews to all people (cf. 1:1, 3-5; 2:1-12; 3:9-10; 4:15-16; 28:18-20).
"This incident is a preview of the great insight which came later through another centurion's faith, Then to the Gentiles God has granted repentance unto life' (Acts 11:18)."372
8:11-12 Again Jesus introduced a solemn truth (cf. v. 10). He then referred to the messianic banquet prophesied in Isaiah 25:6-9 (cf. Isa. 65:13-14). There God revealed that Gentiles from all parts of the world will join the Jewish patriarchs in the kingdom. The Old Testament has much to say about the participants in the kingdom. God would gather Israel from all parts of the earth (Ps. 107:3; Isa. 43:5-6; 49:12), but Gentiles from all quarters of the earth would also worship God in the kingdom (Isa. 45:6; 59:19; Mal. 1:11). The Gentiles would come specifically to Jerusalem (Isa. 2:2-3; 60:3-4; Mic. 4:1-2; Zech. 8:20-23). As mentioned previously, in Jesus' day the Jews had chosen to view themselves as uniquely privileged because of the patriarchs. This led them to write the Gentiles out of the kingdom despite these prophecies.
"The Jew expected that the Gentile would be put to shame by the sight of the Jews in bliss."373
The "sons [or subjects] of the kingdom"(v. 12) are the Jews who saw themselves as the patriarchs' descendants. They thought they had a right to the kingdom because of their ancestors' righteousness (cf. 3:9-10). Jesus turned the tables by announcing that many of the sons of the kingdom would not participate in it, but many Gentiles would. Many "sons of the kingdom"would find themselves outside the banquet. The terms "weeping and gnashing of teeth"(cf. 13:42, 50; 22:13; 24:51; 25:30; Luke 13:28) were common descriptions of gehenna, hell (4 Ezra 7:93; 1 Enoch 63:10; Psalms of Solomon 14:9; Wisdom of Solomon 17:21).374This interpretation finds confirmation in the expression "outer darkness,"another image of rejection (cf. 22:13; 25:30).375
"The idea of the Messianic Banquet as at once the seal and the symbol of the new era was a common feature in apocalyptic writings and an extremely popular subject of discussion, thought, and expectation."376
The Greek text has the definite article "the"before "weeping"and before "gnashing."This stresses the horror of the scene.377The terms probably picture suffering and despair respectively.
Jesus shocked His hearers by announcing three facts about the kingdom. First, not all Jews would participate in it. Second, many Gentiles would. Third, entrance depended on faith in Jesus, the faith that the centurion demonstrated.
". . . the locus of the people of God would not always be the Jewish race. If these verses do not quite authorize the Gentile mission, they open the door to it and prepare for the Great Commission (28:18-20) and Ephesians 3."378
8:13 Other similar words of Jesus help us understand what He meant when He said that He would do for the centurion "as"(Gr. hos) he had believed (cf. 15:28). Jesus did not grant his request because the centurion had faith or in proportion to his faith. He did so in harmony with what the centurion expected. Jesus did for him what he expected Jesus would do for him.
"It is . . . interesting to observe that the Gentile follows the Jew in the sequence of healing events. This is in accord with Matthew's plan of presenting Jesus first as Son of David and then as Son of Abraham."379
This healing marked Jesus as the Messiah who was under God's authority.
Peter and his family were evidently living in Capernaum when Jesus performed this miracle (4:13). People considered fever a disease in Jesus' day rather than a symptom of a disease (cf. John 4:52; Acts 28:8). Jesus healed Peter's mother-in-law with a touch. His touch did not defile the healer, but it healed the defiled (cf. v. 3). Matthew consistently stressed Jesus' authority in this brief pericope. He probably mentioned the fact that when Jesus healed the woman she immediately began to serve Him to illustrate the instantaneous effectiveness of Jesus power (cf. v. 26). Usually a fever leaves the body weak, but Jesus overcame that here.380
"Some see great significance in Matthew's deliberate rearrangement of these miracles. Since Matthew did not follow the chronological order, it seems he intended to illustrate the plan of his Gospel. Accordingly, the first miracle shows Christ ministering to the Jews. His mighty works bore testimony to His person, but His testimony was rejected. Consequently, He turns to the Gentiles, who manifest great faith in Him. Later, He returns to the Jews, represented by the mother-in-law of the apostle to the Jews. He heals her and all who come to Him. This third picture is that of the millennium, when the King restores Israel and blesses all the nations."381
By healing a leper who was a social outcast, a Gentile, and finally a woman, Jesus was extending His grace to people the Jews either excluded or ignored as unimportant. Jewish narrowness did not bind Jesus any more than disease and uncleanness contaminated Him.382
"He began with the unfit persons for whom there was no provision in the economy of the nation."383
This miracle shows Jesus' power to heal people fully, instantaneously and completely.
That evening many other people brought their afflicted friends and relatives to Jesus for healing. In the Jewish inter-testamental literature the writers spoke of demons as responsible for making people ill.384Jesus cast out many demonic spirits and healed many who were sick.
Matthew noted that Jesus' healings fulfilled messianic prophecy (Isa. 53:4). Matthew's citation from Isaiah really summarized all the healings in this chapter so far. He interpreted Isaiah freely as predicting the vicarious sufferings of Messiah. This was in accord with Isaiah's prophecy concerning Messiah that appears in Isaiah 53. The Old Testament taught that all sickness is the direct or indirect result of sin (cf. 9:5). Messiah would remove infirmities and diseases by dying as a substitute sacrifice for sin. He would deal with the fruit by dealing with the root. Jesus' healing ministry laid the foundation for His destroying sickness with His death. Therefore it was appropriate for Matthew to quote Isaiah 53:4 here. Jesus' healing ministry also previewed kingdom conditions (cf. Isa. 33:24; 57:19).
"Thus the healings during Jesus' ministry can be understood not only as the foretaste of the kingdom [in which there will be little sickness] but also as the fruit of Jesus' death."385
For Matthew, Jesus' healing ministry pointed to the Cross. The healings were signs that signified more than the average observer might have understood. Matthew recorded that Jesus healed all types of people. Likewise when He died, Jesus gave His life a ransom for many (20:28). Jesus' ministry of destroying sin in death was an extension of the authority that He demonstrated in His ministry of destroying sickness during His life.386
". . . it is to cast Jesus' activity of healing in the mold of serving' that Matthew informs the reader in a formula-quotation that Jesus, through healing, fulfills the words of the Servant Song of Isaiah: He took our infirmities and bore our diseases' (8:16-17; Isa. 53:4). In healing, Jesus Son of God assumes the role of the servant of God and ministers to Israel by restoring persons to health or freeing them from their afflictions (11:5). Through serving in this fashion, Jesus saves' (9:22)."387
Some Christians believe that Isaiah 53:4 and Matthew 8:16-17 teach that Jesus' death made it possible for people today to experience physical healing now by placing faith in Jesus. Most students of these and similar passages have concluded that the healing Jesus' death provides believers today will come when we receive our resurrection bodies, not necessarily before then.388This conclusion finds support in the revelation about the purpose of periods of healing that the Bible records. Many Christians today fall into the same trap the Corinthian believers fell into when they demanded future blessings now (cf. 1 Cor. 4:6-13).389
This summary pericope stresses Jesus' power over every affliction.
