We are going to continue this morning with her study of the book of Matthew and the miracles he records for us in chapter 8. Let us begin this morning reading versus 5-17.
“And when Jesus entered Capernaum a centurion came to Him, imploring Him, and saying, ‘Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, fitfully tormented.’ Jesus said to him, ‘I will come and heal him.’ 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. 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.’ 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. I say to you that many will come from the East and West, and recline at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; 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.’ 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.
When Jesus came into Peter’s home, He saw his mother-in-law lying sick in bed with a fever. He touched her hand, and the fever left her; and she got up and waited on Him. 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. This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases.”
One of the great advantages to slowly studying the Gospels is the subtle things about the character and message of Jesus that are revealed only after you have taken time to steep in the story. These miracles were recorded by Matthew for the primary purpose of exhibiting the divine authority of Jesus, proving by supernatural power that Jesus had the authority to teach in the way that He did. But that is not all that was accomplished with these miracles. Matthew was intentional with the miracles he recorded to get across the most information, the greatest lessons possible. In addition to proving the divine authority of Jesus, Matthew is also showing Christ’s continuing assault on the religious pride of the Pharisees.
Through the years leading up to the time of Jesus, there were a great focus in the minds of the religious Jews upon their status as the “chosen people” of God. Even more so with men. There was a prayer that was common amongst the Pharisees that was added in to their regular routine every morning that said “Lord, I thank you that I was not born a slave, a Gentile, or a woman.” This is in the Talmud, the respected tradition of the Pharisees. As the Jewish scholars had time to study and understand the Old Testament they began to find ways to pump themselves up above everyone else. Human pride will always find ways of categorizing others as lesser. And if you are willing to play games with the true meaning of Scripture it is not hard to cut out a nice little niche for yourself.
This created an immense pride within the religious Jews that culminated with the most religious among them being unwilling to even touch Gentiles let alone going to their house for fear of being defiled in some way. Many would even go so far as to not touch even a Jewish woman for fear that she might be in her menstrual cycle which would defile them. They would walk around with their hands in their big sleeves, being sure never to brush up against someone, never going near anyone who is not part of their club.
Where did this pride come from? Well they knew they were the chosen people of God. God had picked them, they were the descendants of Abraham, they were loved by God and so they were better than everyone else. How could they justify this superiority complex? There is some truth to it. God did choose them, in Deuteronomy 7 we read, “for you are a holy people to the Lord your God; the Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his own possession out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth.” but God did not choose them not because of anything they had done, not because of anything that set them out as especially unique or great. He made that quite clear. Deuteronomy 7 continues “the Lord did not set His love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which He swore to your forefathers.”
They were chosen for a purpose, they were to be a kingdom of priests, a holy nation whose purpose was to bring all the peoples of the world to God. From the beginning, from God’s selection of Abraham and his descendants the purpose was for them to be a light in a dark world. God was always globally focused as it came to salvation. The Jews were told to separate themselves from the Gentiles not in order to hold themselves up but so that they would not be seduced by the pagan religions of the world. But instead of being a kingdom of priests, drawing the peoples of the world to God, the Jews of Jesus’s time had manipulated those rules that were meant to keep idolatry out and turn them into a system of keeping the Gentiles away from God.
After spending the last three chapters tearing away at the religious and moral teachings of the Pharisees that corrupted the Word of God, Matthew is now focusing on both the authority of Jesus through these miracles, while at the same time tearing away at the Jewish exclusivism and slowly introducing his Jewish readers to the fact that Jesus’s ministry would be the gateway for the Gentiles to come to God that they were always supposed to be.
He began by shocking them with the healing of the leper as we saw last week; and continues with the story of this Centurion. Again, he only gives a handful of verses to a story that has pages worth of implications. Before we can get into all of that, I want to just point out a few things about this Centurion.
Centurions are mentioned a couple of times in the New Testament and they are all, actually, positive interactions. For as much as the Jews tended to hate or at the very least mistrust their Roman occupiers, throughout the New Testament, the Roman soldiers tend to come out looking okay if you think of them as men just doing their job. But the centurions themselves are all mentioned positively.
A Centurion was a man in charge of roughly a company sized group of soldiers. Between 80 and 100. If you are looking at it in comparison to today’s military, they were somewhat of a mix between a company First Sgt. and a company Captain. It took roughly 10 to 15 years of service in the ranks for a soldier to work his way up to that position and they usually held it for life. They came from the rank and file, they usually were not from the social and political elite of Rome, but they were men who showed initiative, bravery, intelligence: all-around the best soldiers. The man you would want to follow into battle.
Once they reach this position, they could make quite a bit of money for themselves through both legal and not so legal ways. There are a lot of stories about how centurions made wealth. Everything from extorting their own troops, taking bribes from soldiers to keep them off the bad jobs list, to having a local conquered population dig a trench, build a bridge over it and then require them to pay a toll to cross it. A lot of the centurions were loved by their troops but there were quite a few who were hated as well. You get all kinds.
But our Centurion was very obviously not one of the bad guys and let me show you why. First off, he is concerned about his slaves. At the time, slaves across the Roman Empire were treated with varying levels of care by their masters. Some saw them as little more than tools to be discarded when used up. It was common practice for a slave to be sold off, released to fend for themselves, or simply killed when the cost of keeping them became more than their labor was worth. Like killing an ox that could no longer pull the plow.
But our Centurion cares deeply for his slave. Not only does he care about his slave enough to implore Jesus to come and heal him, he refers to him as his PAIS. A word that could refer to a child or a slave. Almost like how some people refer to their pets as their “children.” Caring masters would refer to their slaves as “children” as a way of showing how much they value them and feel responsible for them.
We also know that this centurion was respectful of the Jews and their customs. Matthew does not explain it here, but in Luke’s gospel we are told that he sent some Jewish elders on his behalf to bring this message to Jesus. He did not want to approach Jesus himself, as he was a Gentile and it would not have looked good for a Jewish Rabbi to be doing favors for a Gentile like that. Of course, Jesus was no ordinary Rabbi and not bound to the taboos of the Pharisees, but this Centurion did not know that and so he showed great respect. Even more, we see that when Jesus agrees to come to his house, the centurion again sends intermediaries, Luke calls them “friends,” to stop Jesus from entering his house. Not because of his own customs but because he knew that Jews would not enter his house in order to not be defiled.
We can also see that he was what was known as a “God-fearing Gentile,” a Gentile who was committed to the God of Israel because of a couple of different things. Again, in Luke’s gospel account we read “when he (the centurion) heard about Jesus, he sent some Jewish elders asking him to come and save the life of his slave. When they came to Jesus, they earnestly implored Him saying “he is worthy for you to grant him this: for he loves our nation and it was he who built us our synagogue.” He was a God-fearing Gentile who provided the funds to, in essence, build a church for a group of Jews who would not even allow him to enter it.
We can see even more in the way he addresses Jesus as “Lord” and his amazing recognition of who Jesus is. Look at verse 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.” This Centurion did not refer to Jesus as “Lord” out of courtesy, he recognizes Jesus as having divine authority and he uses reasoning from the lesser to the greater to demonstrate his understanding of exactly who Jesus is. “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.”
You see, this centurion understood the delegation of power. He recognized authority when he saw it. He knew that he had the power to make soldiers and slaves do his bidding simply by giving them orders. Jesus on the other hand had supernatural powers that obeyed with just a word.
And that brings us to our next point which is the power of the word. I am a firm believer in the phrase “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me.” This got me into trouble in grade school. I was perfect kid who never got in trouble, never talked back to the teacher, never argued. But this was one that got me sent out in the hallway but that is a story for another time. After the speech about why I should not argue with my teacher even if I am right. What I came to understand in greater detail after a long discussion with my dad was why this phrase is true depending on how you look at it. It is all about where the power of words comes from.
Words in and of themselves hold no power, it is what they represent that has power. When we are talking about insults, the phrase “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me” is true only if you give authority or weight to the opinion of the person who said them. If I do not care at all about your opinion, about what you think of me, you can throw all kinds of words at me and it will not hurt a bit. But if I do care about your opinion, you do not even have to use words, just a look can be devastating.
In a very similar way, the authority of words only matters if there is something to back it up. In the case of the centurion, he recognized the authority of his words over his soldiers and his slaves came from the system of punishment that would come down upon any disobedience. He had authority, his words were obeyed, because he had the power of the Roman army behind him.
And this is the amazing revelation of his statement in verses 8-9. “I have authority over soldiers and slaves, if I say jump, and they jump. I have authority over men because of the Roman army, because of the power of Rome. But you Jesus, just say the word and my servant will be healed.” What is the centurion saying? “You Jesus have authority over creation, over disease, over paralysis such that all you have to do is say the word and my servant will be healed.” Where does that kind of authority come from? Who has the power over creation itself? This Centurion, by this statement is recognizing Jesus as God. The very point that Matthew is trying to make by describing these miracles. The very point of these miracles themselves.
This Centurion gets it. And look at verse 10, “now when Jesus heard this, he marveled and said to those who were following him, ‘truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel.” That word “marveled” is used quite a bit throughout the Gospels. Jesus does quite a bit that marvels the crowds. His statements, his teachings, his miracles, over and over again the crowds are amazed, marveled by Jesus. But here it is the other way around. In fact it is one of the only times that Jesus ever marveled at something. He is amazed that this Gentile soldier showed more genuine faith in Him than He had found with anyone in Israel. Many Jews had believed in Jesus, but none had shown the sincerity, the sensitivity, the humility, the depth of faith that this Gentile centurion had shown.
The indictment gets even worse before the end of this chapter, look down to verse 23. The next day, the crowds get so bad that Jesus decides they have to leave and while there on a boat a great storm comes up and these disciples of Jesus are terrified. Look at verse 25 “and they came to him and will come up saying, ‘save us, Lord; we are perishing!’ And He said to them, ‘why are you afraid, you men of little faith?’ Then He got up and rebuked the winds and the sea, and it became perfectly calm. The men were amazed, and said, ‘what kind of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?”
The Jewish disciples of Jesus showed a lack of real faith and are amazed at the authority of His word. You have to wonder, why did they not get it? They are watching all these miracles happen right in front of them and they are not picking up on it. And yet this Gentile who will not even come to Jesus himself out of humility gets it.
Jesus is the logos, the very word of God. The power and authority of God made manifest on the earth. That is how John begins his gospel. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being…. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we saw His glory, glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.”
This Centurion gets it; the words of Jesus have meaning, have power because of the authority behind the words. And the authority behind the words is Jesus himself. The fullness of deity dwelling in bodily form. The image of the invisible God and the one through whom all things were created and the one all things were created for. That is who Jesus is, that is the source of power in His words.
And if we recognize His power to heal diseases, to heal paralysis, to cast out demons, to calm the winds and the waves. If the power and authority of God over creation exists in the words of Jesus than what about his teachings? What about the Sermon on the Mount? What about His commands?
“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. I say to you that many will come from the East and West, and reclined at the table with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven; but the sons of the kingdom will be cast out into the outer darkness; in the place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”
Ouch! He is just driving it home. This is not so much a subtle hint as a 2 x 4 to the head of Jewish pride. Those who had less spiritual advantage, less opportunity to know God’s truth would show greater response to the gospel than God’s own chosen people who consider themselves to be the sons of the kingdom simply by being born in the lineage of Abraham.
The gospel came through Abraham’s seed as Matthew made it clear in the genealogy of Jesus. But the benefit of the gospel, the salvation that comes with being made a member of the kingdom of heaven comes not by genealogical dissent but by faith. We are justified by faith alone. Not by being born into the right group, not by some religious lifestyle, not by actions, the right prayers, staying away from the wrong people.
Jesus had an important message to get across to the Jews of His day. Anyone who did not recognize who Jesus is will be cut off from God. The Jews had convinced themselves that because of their heritage, because they were the chosen people they would be the only ones allowed at the great feast of heaven. They thought that God had given the unique promises and privileges of His kingdom to them only; but because they rejected the king when He came to them, they disqualified themselves from God’s blessing of light and destined themselves for outer darkness where instead of feasting throughout eternity they would suffer forever the horrors of the weeping and gnashing of teeth.
Paul makes it clear in Romans 3 and 4 that it is the children of Abraham’s spiritual faith, not the children of his physical body that are the ones God adopts as His own children. The Jews have been replaced by the church as God’s kingdom of priests upon this earth. Peter makes that abundantly clear in his first epistle. In 2:9 he says to the church “you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession.” Taking the statement of God from Deuteronomy 7 and directly applying it to the church. He then makes it clear the purpose of the church, the same purpose that Israel had as the chosen people before they rejected their king, “so that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who has called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.”
This is not to say that God will not use the Jewish people in the future. I wholeheartedly believe in the millennial rule of Jesus from the throne of David in Jerusalem at the head of a redeemed Israel. But for now, the Jewish people have been cut off unless they become part of God’s church on this earth.
Jesus’ little statement in the midst of this healing would not have gone unnoticed by the Jews around him. It would have been hard for them to swallow. Those questions of “who is he to say that about our people” would be floating in the minds of all those who heard it. And again, to answer that question Jesus responded in verse 13 “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.”
This Centurion understood the truth. He knew what gave power and authority to the words of Jesus. If you can deny that he is God in the face of all of these things, it is not because there is no evidence, it is because there is no faith in your heart. And there is no faith there because your heart is bound by sin. If you can see the truth, then you need to ask yourself about how much authority you put on all of the other words of Jesus.