SECTION IX.

THE REVELATION OF THE ESSENTIAL ROYAL POWER OF CHRIST AND HIS KINGDOM OF HEAVEN IN THE MIRACLES WHICH HE PERFORMED.

(Matt. viii.-ix. 34.)

The Evangelist, in his concluding remark on the Sermon on the Mount, had already expressed the living unity between the words and deeds of Jesus. He taught as one having power (the power of the life of His doctrine). He proved this, while descending from the mountain, and after He had descended, in a series of miracles. This series manifestly forms a living combination in the mind of the Evangelist. It is a rich wreath of the most manifold miracles. But although the Evangelist gathered this wreath in a spirit of careful selection, yet in general he did not depart from historical sequence. Had this been the case, he would undoubtedly have kept the raising of the dead to the close, and would have separated from the consecutive narration of the miracles some other historical pieces which are mixed up with it. It is only the healing of Peter's wife's mother, and of the multitude of sick and possessed persons, which belongs to an earlier period, the period of his first sojourn at Capernaum (see ii. 80). The other miracles all belong to the period of His second residence there, and especially to the time of which His voyage across the sea to Gadara forms the middle point. And as we must recognize in the words of the Sermon on the Mount a succession of creative operations, so these miracles are for us a fresh series of divine sayings. This holds good respecting the life of Jesus as a whole. His words are works of wonder, and His miracles are words of God.

The miraculous cures begin significantly with the healing of the leper. When Jesus came down from the mountain, accompanied by great multitudes, 'Behold, there came a leper and worshipped Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean.' This leper is the representative of human life, such as it has become here below, in the low grounds of the world, in contrast to the life on the Lord's mountain heights.¹ And Jesus put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, '1 will; be thou clean.' And immediately his leprosy was cleansed; he put on the fair appearance of perfect health. According to the Old Testament law, touching a leper made a man unclean himself; but here is a demonstration of the New Testament, positive (health-giving) vigour of Christ's life, in that His touch cleanses the leper. And it is in this way that He heals mankind in general, by bringing His life into close contact with them. He does not need to fear that by this contact they will draw Him down into their uncleanness (leprosy, sin, corruptness); on the contrary, He draws them up into His purity. After the leper was healed, Jesus charged him, saying, 'See thou tell no man; but go thy way, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.' He should, in the first instance, say nothing of the touching which had taken place, because by that he would expose the Lord to the necessity of undergoing a Levitical quarantine² for the sake of the more timid among the people. But he might with prudence let the priests know that he had been healed miraculously by Jesus, after the healing had been certified to them by the official declaration, and the acceptance of the offering; so that he could bring forward a testimony to them (εἰς μαρτύριον αὐτοῖς), because otherwise, in consequence of their former ill-feeling against Jesus, they might have been inclined to question the reality of the cure. So the leper should provide himself with that attestation before he told of the miraculous aid of our Lord. This is capable of a more general application. Believers should first obtain the world's acknowledgment of the blessed effects flowing from Christ, and manifesting themselves in ordinary life, that thereby the way may be prepared for the acknowledgment of His name also.

The first man who required help came to our Lord at His descent from the mountain; the second, at His entrance into Capernaum, where He dwelt. His first miracle contained the striking feature that He touched a leper; and the second was still more remarkable, as a rendering of help to a heathen, in doing which He exalted the faith of this man above that of many in Israel. This man was a centurion at Capernaum. He came to Jesus, and besought Him, saying, 'Lord, my servant (domestic) lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.' Jesus immediately said to him, 'I will come and heal him.' But it seemed to the centurion too much for himself and his servant, and unnecessary for Jesus to take the trouble of coming to his house. 'Lord, I am not worthy,' said he, 'that Thou shouldest come under my roof; but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed.'

It is not only possible that he had actual knowledge that Jesus could perform such a cure from a distance (for the healing of the nobleman's son at Capernaum in that way had taken place already), but he had also formed his own philosophic view of the matter in accordance with his standpoint as a Gentile and a soldier. 'For,' said he, 'I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me; and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another. Come, and he cometh; and to my servant. Do this, and he doeth it.' Humbly as he thought of himself, he thought highly of Jesus. And as he himself was a subordinate officer in the outward realm of the military system, so he thought of Jesus as supreme commander in the kingdom of the genii of health, as first executor of the will of the supreme authority, and therefore as having authority over all spirits subordinate to it. Thus the military mind of this man, guided by faith, was able to form for itself a philosophy of our Lord's working at a distance. Jesus gave full acknowledgment to the evidence afforded of the centurion's views, however strange the form might be, because He saw that he set out from a right hypothesis, faith in His divine dignity in the kingdom of essential power. He marvelled, and said to them that followed, 'Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel. And I say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven: but the children of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness; there shall be weeping (from distress) and gnashing of teeth' (from envious rage). He then turned and said to the centurion, 'Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.' And his servant was healed that same hour. We should not overlook the fact, that it is Matthew, the Evangelist of the Hebrew Christians, who gives this special prominence to the distinction conferred upon the Gentile centurion by the help which our Lord rendered him, and the saying which He uttered regarding him.

Jesus found the first sufferer on His coming to the inhabited world in the vales of His own country; the second, at His entrance into His own city; and He now finds the third on His entrance into His home at Capernaum. This time it is to an aged matron that He brings help — to Peter's wife's mother. She lay sick of a fever. Here the means — belief in miracles — was already present, and so He could proceed at once to act. He touched her hand, and the fever left her. She was immediately able to rise and minister to Him.

But it was not until evening came, and night was drawing on, that the full stream of human distress flowed towards our Lord. For under the cover of night a man ventures to disclose his misery without reserve. There were now brought unto Jesus many possessed with devils, out of whom He cast the unclean spirits with a word. He also healed all the sick that were brought to Him. On this the Evangelist remarks, 'That it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet (liii. 4), saying. Himself took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses.' The Evangelist made this explanation with an insight which has been denied to many critics of the present day; he knew that in order to help the sufferers by His miracles, it was necessary for Jesus to enter into sympathy with them, and that by an historical law of ethical and psychical gravitation, all the misery of mankind fell upon His heart — upon the power of His life.

The over-pressure of the people upon Him now caused our Lord to take ship for the other side of the lake, in order to make the second Gospel pilgrimage from Capernaum, and this time into the country of the Gergesenes or Gadarenes.³ At this departure two followers presented themselves to Him, whose manner of coming forward formed a very marked contrast; and with whom, accordingly, He dealt as the Master in knowledge and care of souls.⁴ The first was a scribe, who came with the enthusiastic expression, * Master, I will follow Thee whithersoever Thou goest.' Jesus replied to him with words of utmost caution: 'The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay His head.' Another of His disciples said to Him, 'Lord, suffer me first to go and bury my father.' This one Ho addressed with the animating words, 'Follow Me, and let the dead bury their dead.' He was able to estimate duly decidedness under the mantle of hesitation, and untrustworthiness in the guise of enthusiastic homage, and to treat either disposition as its nature required. It is probable that both these now increased the retinue of His disciples in the narrower sense,⁵ who took ship along with Him,

It occurred to the Evangelist as worthy of remark, that just after their setting out, an extraordinary tempest arose (καὶ ἰδού). The ship was covered with the waves; but Jesus was asleep. His disciples awoke Him hastily with the cry of alarm, 'Lord, save us, we perish! 'The conduct of our Lord declares in the most telling terms the heavenly peace with which He awoke. At first, maintaining His position of repose, He rebukes the disciples, 'Why are ye so fearful, O ye of little faith?' Then He arises and rebukes the winds and the waves, and there was a great calm. The men who were with Him said with astonishment, 'What manner of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey Him?' Thus Christ manifested Himself now as King in the realm of nature, as He had done formerly in the realm of human life; now as Physician of the sick earth, as formerly of sick man. But if we combine this narrative with the following concerning the healing of the demoniac in Gadara, we have a grand united view. We saw formerly how Christ, when descending from the mountain into the midst of His people, removes every form of misery; we see here how He, as leader of His disciples, annihilates all the terrors of the dark and alien world upon their journey, — the terrors by sea as well as those by land — the danger wherewith the elements, and the dangers wherewith the demons in the world of man, threaten them.

When He had come to the other side, into the country of the Gadarenes, there met Him two demoniacs coming out of the tombs⁶ in which they dwelt, exceedingly fierce, so that no one dared venture to pass that way. And remarkable as was the way in which the tempest had seemed to stop His course, not less strangely did these possessed men seek to oppose His journey (καὶ ἰδού). They cried, saying, 'What have we to do with Thee, Jesus, Thou Son of God? Art Thou come hither to torment us before the time?' Yet, behind this expression of defiance, it was already perceptible that the demoniacs felt that He would overcome them. At some distance from this scene there was a great herd of swine feeding. And now, by a mysterious occurrence, evidence was given of the old elective affinity between the serpent and the swine, the union of which is exhibited in the dragon, between devilishness and swinishness. The devils besought Him, saying, 'If Thou cast us out, suffer us to go away into the herd of swine.' 'Go! 'was our Lord's reply. Next followed the paroxysm of the healing of the diseased. The demons entered into the swine; and behold the whole herd ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters. They that kept them fled, and told in the city the misfortune that had happened, and also the healing of the demoniacs. And now the whole of the inhabitants of the city went to meet our Lord, a deputation which grew into a general procession. When they saw Him, they besought Him that He would depart out of their coasts. The vanquisher of the demons was too formidable for them to venture to expel Him by force. But as in ^Him, instead of in the demons of their district whom His arrival had only disturbed, they were inclined to find the destroyer of their swine, His visit seemed to them to bring disaster. They did not see in Him the healer of their miserable fellow-men. Jesus compassionated the low spirituality of the magistracy and inhabitants of Gadara, who believed that in Him they were turning away a great misfortune from their territory. He complies with requests which decidedly forbid His visits. He immediately entered into the ship and returned to Capernaum, which now, as His own city, still received Him with joy.

Hardly had He returned when another sufferer was brought to Him — a paralytic, borne upon his bed in such a way as to excite surprise (καὶ ἰδού). Jesus recognized the working of a decided faith in the courage which these men showed. He seems to have found this faith above all in the sick man himself. This is shown by the way He spoke to him: 'Son, be of good cheer, thy sins be forgiven thee! '' And behold,' says the Evangelist, 'certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth.' It is well worthy of remark, that, according to Matthew, the Galilean scribes first manifested a feeling against Jesus when He announced to the poor sufferer the forgiveness of his sins. They thought, doubtless, that spiritual forgiveness of sin belongs to God alone, and Levitical forgiveness to none but the temple officials, the priests, Jesus saw, the working of their discontent, their inward embitterment, and said to them, 'Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say. Arise and walk? 'They could not deny that divine power and authority belonged to the second saying as well as to the first; and could not but own that the inward and hidden fact, the reality of the forgiveness of sin, which was not perceptible to the eye, was proved if the Lord performed the miracle which was perceptible to the eye, and made the lame whole by a wonder-working word. After He had thus compelled them to own beforehand the validity of such a proof, He continued, 'But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power to forgive sins on earth (that is, not merely with a heavenly, but also with a human social validity of absolution, so that the absolved finds a Church of like-minded members), Arise,' continued He, addressing the paralytic, 'take up thy bed and go into thine house! 'And he arose and departed to his house. At the sight of this miracle the multitudes were seized with a sacred awe, and glorified God, who had given such power to men.

It was evidently not without intention that the Evangelist inserted among these miracles his own calling from the office of publican to that of apostle, which indeed took place about this time. That the Lord made a publican an apostle was itself a miracle. Departing from the house in which he had healed the paralytic. He saw a man named Matthew (Levi) sitting at the receipt of custom, and said to him, 'Follow Me.' And he arose and followed Him. Matthew made a feast for his Master, at which occurred the extraordinary circumstance (καὶ ἰδού), that many publicans and sinners (excommunicated persons) came and sat down with Jesus and His disciples. The Pharisees were very angry at this circumstance, and said to the disciples, 'Why eateth your Master with Publicans and sinners?' When Jesus perceived this displeasure, He gave for reply, 'They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.' He showed that, according to the judgment of the Pharisees, who thought themselves whole and the publicans and sinners sick, He had to pay attention to the latter. 'But go ye,' added He, reprovingly, 'and learn the meaning of the word (of the Lord in Hosea vi. 6), I will have mercy and not sacrifice.' He then concluded with the plain declaration, 'I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.' But as the Pharisees were offended at Jesus' eating with publicans and sinners, so it was offensive to John's disciples, whose master then lay in prison, and who seem to have watched the Lord with trouble of mind, that during this time, so sorrowful for them, He could be present at a feast. They showed their uprightness, however, in not coming to speak to His disciples behind His back, but openly to Himself. 'Why,' asked they, 'do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but Thy disciples fast not? 'With all their injured feelings, they are modest enough to make no immediate reproach against Himself. Our Lord's reply could not fail to make them feel that they quite misunderstood the highest sign of that time, and especially the relation of Jesus to the Baptist and to the Pharisee party. 'Can the children of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.' The choice of this figure was doubly striking, as John the Baptist himself had designated our Lord as the Bridegroom (see vol. ii. p. 160). It is, above all things, necessary for them to know that the time of the first recognition and connection which obtains between the Saviour of the world and believers, is a great and real festival, a bridal time among the times. And it is specially necessary for them to know that He Himself is a new life, and founds and diffuses new life; and that He will by no means mix up this life with the antiquated forms of outside religious traditionalism. There are two ways in which they might think of such a mixture. They might, in their present confused notions, favour Pharisaism to the utmost, and consequently strain as far as possible their demands upon Jesus, desiring Him to apply all His strength and activity to reform (or patch) the old religion. Or they might, more in accordance with the fundamental feature of their own standpoint, propose a more reasonable composition between the old and the new, — rate the old at less value; place the cause of Christ higher; own that Jesus disseminated a new life, but at the same time desire that He should disseminate it in the old traditional forms. In the former case their desire would have been to patch Judaism with Christianity; in the latter, to supplement Christianity with Judaism, and force it into its forms. But the Lord cannot admit even the latter request, and still less the former. The following similitude was directed against the former: — 'No man putteth a piece of new cloth into an old garment; for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse.' By these words He intimated plainly enough that He considered the accustomed Jewish religious forms as an old and tattered garment. The lesser request He declined with an equally significant similitude: — 'Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.' Thus the form and the life must both issue from one substance, and then the life assures the form, and the form the life.

It was to be shown at the same time that Jesus was as much at home in the house of mourning as in the house of feasting and joy, and that neither John s disciples nor the Pharisees were able, with all their mourning and fasting, to bring comfort and help' to the comfortless, while He was a ready and powerful helper for them. While He was yet obliged to defend Himself against those attacks, behold there came a certain ruler (of a synagogue, Jairus) and worshipped Him, saying, 'My daughter is even now dead (see above, ii. 163); but come and lay Thy hand upon her, and she shall live.' Jesus immediately arose and followed him, and so did His disciples. But now another extraordinary occurrence took place (καὶ ἰδού). A woman who was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind Him and touched the hem of His garment; for she said within herself, If I may but touch His garment, I shall be whole. Jesus felt and understood her approach, and blessed her faith, although she had expressed it in an extraordinary manner: He turned round, and when He saw her, He said to her, 'Daughter, be of good comfort: thy faith hath made thee whole.' And the woman was made whole from that hour. Thus one distress followed behind Him, while He had another before Him, and was hastening to combat it. Before Him the death of a maiden, behind Him the sickness of a woman, gave Him work to do. But that He on His way to a death-bed could thus feel the mental frames of those who surrounded Him, and had still a power of watching the concealed distress which came slipping ghost-like behind Him; that the timid touching of His garment by a woman needful of help in the midst of a crowd permeated through His soul, and that He could at once resolve to help, and lovingly paused to give her this help, — all this reveals again the fulness of His kingly power, and the freedom of His inward life. But when they came to the ruler's house, it seemed to be too late. The minstrels were already there, and noise of mourning women was heard. He entered with the order, 'Give place; for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth,' For she really was sleeping although dead, since He could awaken her with His word; but for them she was a dead maiden, whom their loudest wailing wakened not. As they laughed Him to scorn, He put them out. He then went in, took the maiden by the hand, and wakened her. The fame of this miracle spread through town and country: it was the first time our Lord raised one from the dead.

After such a deed, the receptive Israelites could not fail to surmise that Jesus was none less than the Messiah. The people, and especially those in distress, were now disposed to own Him openly as such. This soon became evident. As He was returning from Jairus' house, two blind men followed Him, crying, 'Thou Son of David, have mercy on us.' But His resolve of self-renunciation forbade Him to listen openly to this title, which denoted the Messiah. So He went home, and the blind men after Him. Here He met them with the question, 'Believe ye that I am able to do this?' They answered, 'Yea, Lord.' Then touched He their eyes, saying, 'According to your faith be it unto you.' And their eyes were opened. Jesus dismissed them, straitly charging them, saying, 'See that no man know it,' namely, that He had helped them according to their faith that He was the Messiah (see above, ii. 167). But they, when they departed, spread abroad His fame in all that country.

It was certainly surprising (ἰδρύ) that another needing help was brought when these were scarcely gone. The form too in which this sufferer was afflicted, caused particular attention; he suffered from a demoniac dumbness. The demoniac condition was thus disguised by the dumbness of the man, his dumbness occasioned by his spiritual condition. The special proof of the Lord's glorious power given here was, that He only looked at the demon, and freed the sick man from him. His look proved its power: when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake. It was in fact a double, a threefold miracle, which was here presented to view; for not only was the soul of the sick man freed, and with his soul his organ of speech, but also his mind, which had a long-continued and other wise unconquerable version to speaking. He now spoke, and the multitude wondered at it exceedingly, saying, 'It was never so seen in Israel.'

The last five miracles of our Lord form a significant group. The paralytic seeks. His help in a very impetuous, the sick woman in a very stealthy form (see above, ii. 164). The third forms a contrast to these seeking and striving ones: she cannot ask help, for she is dead. The two blind appear as men whose spiritual sight is clear, while the outward light of the eyes is denied them: they meet our Lord with a very advanced faith. The dumb man, on the other hand, is a man whose inward life is most strongly fettered by the power of a demon, so that the access to him seems quite closed; and in his case, as in that of the dead maiden, the blessed power of intercession must be very evident. Hence the people marvelled specially at this last miracle.

But as, on the one hand, and among those who reverenced Him, the readiness to acknowledge Christ had been greatly increasing, so, on the other hand, had been the embitterment of the Pharisees against Him, and they now began blasphemously to say, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils. Thus they sought to defile with their drivel the fresh and fragrant wreath of His works of divine power and love; they ventured to assert that the doer of all these works was in league with the devil, and only by his assistance could have done them. The gloomy spirit of the enthralled enemies of Christ hates not only His doctrines, but also His deeds, for the very sphit of His life is hateful to it.

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