After Being Expelled from the land of the Gergesenes, Jesus and his disciples crossed back northward on Lake Galilee and returned to what had become his hometown, Capernaum. Our Lord Jesus then commenced the most remarkable series of miracles of healing that has ever been witnessed on the face of the earth)
The Capernaum connection
Some commentators seem to think that Jesus and his family relocated to Capernaum years earlier, perhaps for business reasons, while others feel he had only recently been forced to move from Nazareth due to the unpopularity of his teachings. What we know for certain is that, after the wedding reception at Cana of Galilee, the gospel of John records that he, his mother, his brethren (in the flesh), and his disciples went to Capernaum and continued there not many days (John 2:11-12).
It was in Capernaum that Jesus had earlier healed the centurion’s slave; the same centurion who had built the local synagogue (Luke 7:1-10). It was here that Jairus, one of the rulers of the Capernaum synagogue, pleaded for the recovery of his twelve-year-old daughter and his faith was rewarded (Mark 5: 22,23; Luke 8:41).
Jesus had attended services, read from the scriptures and exhorted in the local synagogue at Capernaum (John 6:59). He was a familiar face that must have been well known to the inhabitants of that city.
It was also in and around Capernaum that many of his disciples had lived and worked, including Simon and Andrew his brother, and James and John, the sons of Zebedee. He was yet to call another unlikely companion from that city to follow him in the person of Matthew the tax collector.
The miracles of healing that commenced upon his return from Gergasa were a compassionate reaching out to friends and neighbors, with the prayerful expectation that many, if not most, would see in them the power of God manifest in him. The miracles of Jesus Christ established his authority and through this recognition there was every reasonable expectation that people would respond to his teachings (John 6:29). This applies to our own generation as well.
Miracles certified the Messiah
The miracles were, in a sense, the ultimate verification of his credentials. Just as we expect to see diplomas on the office walls verifying the education of our medical providers, the Jews were not about to accept a Messiah on mere speculative claims. They had endured many false Messiahs in the past, and were skeptical to say the least. It is one of the remarkable features of how the Lord God has dealt with mankind that He has never asked us to believe on “blind” faith. The Lord declared to Israel: Come now, and let us reason together (Isa. 1:18).
He clearly demonstrated the power He had vested in His son through the innumerable miracles that Jesus performed. Truly his miracles of healing were beyond counting; no list in the back of any Bible, or outlined in any Bible dictionary comes even close to giving the full picture. We are told that, earlier in Galilee, Jesus went about preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing all manner of disease and all manner of sickness among the people…and they brought unto him all that were sick, holden with divers diseases and torments, possessed with demons, and epileptic, and palsied; and he healed them (Matt. 4:23-25 KJV RSV).
To further illustrate the magnitude of his miracles one may note, for example, when he fed the 5000 (Matt. 14:14), when he proclaimed the extent of his work to the disciples of John (Matt. 11:5: Luke 7:22), and once again when he fed the 4000 (Matt. 15:30,31). Many other miracles were also performed, which are not recorded in our Bibles for lack of space. With this in mind we can appreciate the possibility that nearly every man and woman who saw and heard Jesus was either a first-hand witness of his miraculous powers or at the very least had the opportunity to hear of them from someone who had made a recent personal observation. The miracles were thus not mere random acts, but carefully designed to illustrate the authority of Jesus Christ and to clearly identify him as the promised Messiah. The same can be said for the types of miracles that were accomplished.
Some diseases more common then
In Matthew 9, as in a number of other places in the gospels, special emphasis is placed on Jesus’ healing of the lame (or palsied), deaf, and blind. These specific maladies were far more prevalent in the first century A.D. than today. Until the beginning of the 20th century, blindness of newborns was a common threat. Standard reference sources point out the extent of this problem in newborns: “During birth, babies may contract gonococcal eye disease from an infected mother. Silver nitrate drops’ placed into the eyes of newborns kill the gonococcus if present. Treatment with antibiotics is usually highly effective.”‘ Deafness and dumbness resulting from early childhood diseases were also far more common. Bacterial infections, which attacked the middle ear, often led to loss of hearing in children and concomitant lack of development of speech. Modern antibiotics and surgical tube implants have essentially eliminated such painful experiences.’
Jesus was confronted with a far greater challenge than is generally appreciated. It may be said that such painful maladies touched nearly every family at some level. Along came the Lord Jesus Christ to heal them, to heal common conditions that had seemed hopeless, beyond the scope of any human physician.
Moreover, Jesus offered a cure for the most fatal disease of all, one in which the mortality rate was, and is, 100%. The most completely fatal of all diseases is caused by the virus, sin. Accompanied with his healing miracles that cured physical deformity was offered the cure for the malady of sin. The teachings of the Messiah were to offer hope for any human condition, for beyond any cure offered by a medical miracle, in the long run that recipient would eventually die! The physical healing was temporary, but the teachings of the Messiah offered a permanent cure for the diseases of the soul.
Miracles were prophesied
The prophets had pointed out centuries before what expectations should accompany the Messiah. Isaiah had written: And in that day shall the deaf hear the words of the book, and the eyes of the blind shall see out of obscurity, and out of darkness (Isa. 29:18 also Isa. 42:18). The phrase in that day was a message that pointed directly to the time when Messiah would come and was understood in that way by the Jews. The message was unambiguous — the blind and deaf would not only be physical conditions that were cured by the Messiah, but there would also be a healing of moral dimensions. They would see out of obscurity and hear the words of the book, His scriptures! Words that had been hidden and unspoken in practice, but now were brought to light and hearing by the teachings of the Lord Jesus Christ.
The prophet also says that the eyes of the blind should be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing (Isa. 35:5,6). This is precisely what happened and even the most modern medical treatment could not accomplish what was done by our Lord Jesus Christ. When he healed the man sick of palsy (Matt. 9:6, 7 NIV), he told him: Get up, take your mat and go home. And the man got up and went home. In other words, there was no prolonged physical therapy, no hint of the man hobbling off on crutches or being helped away by friends. Anyone who has ever suffered muscular atrophies knows whereof I speak; the immediate physical activity of one so afflicted is even more amazing than the underlying cure of the illness. This man literally leaps as a hart and immediately had not only the strength to lift himself up, but also to pick up his mat and walk home! The echo of Isaiah’s words should have rung in the ears of many of those who witnessed this miracle. The reaction of the multitudes indicates that this miracle had a powerful spiritual impact, exactly as intended: they marveled, and glorified God (Matt. 9:8).
Yet some withheld their adulation — if only Jesus hadn’t coupled his miraculous healing with the statement that he had also forgiven the invalid’s sins. Yet it was precisely the fulfillment of the words of Isaiah that should have confirmed the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ to offer forgiveness. It is this authority that gives us comfort that he will ultimately forgive our sins if we are faithful.
It is no accident that later in chapter 9 Matthew records the healing of the blind and dumb, thus linking them with the lame as prophesied by Isaiah.
When he heals the blind men, their faith is especially noted (Matt. 9:28) and they immediately proclaim the news to all, eager to share the message.
Tell no man
Why Jesus had warned them not to tell anyone is a difficulty that has puzzled commentators. It is possible that he merely sought some respite, as he had needed on a previous occasion, from the arduous tasks he faced in serving the multitudes. We get a hint this probably was the reason for his injunction to the blind men not to tell anyone (for awhile?) in verse 30 of Matthew 9.
Wonder of total recovery
Again when Jesus heals the dumb man we read that he spake! The prophet had said the tongue of the dumb (would) sing. Incredibly, there was no need for physical therapy; the speech of the restored dumb man appears to have been perfectly intelligible to all who heard.
This set of miracles makes it plain that when the power of God heals there is no halfway measure about it.
In like fashion, the resurrected and glorified saints will be perfect in every aspect; it will not matter what state we have been in prior to our death. We will be restored absolutely and wholly in body and spirit. The silence of the grave will yield to singing His praises, the blindness of death to seeing the brightness of His glory and we will not be lame but instead walk with newness of life.
Some saw, but did not believe
The glorification of the miracles of healing that the multitudes voiced must be set against the undercurrent of disdain harbored by some. Jesus knew the innermost thoughts of some ofthe teachers ofthe law; they had failed completely to recognize his authority in spite of his powerful display of miraculous healing.
Surely these teachers were familiar with the prophecies of old. The scholarship of these elders is not in question, but mere pedantic knowledge of scripture is no guarantee of spiritual seeing and hearing. One can read the scriptures daily for years and yet not be immune to sin. Reading of scripture in and of itself is not a cure for sin unless it is realized that its medicinal value can only be achieved if the word is fully and completely absorbed in our mind and heart. Otherwise it is akin to taking an insufficient dose of medicine. There is the danger to us as there was to those teachers of the law who opposed Christ, that knowledge, instead of energizing us to righteousness, puffs us up with arrogance.
We are made further aware of the spiritual blindness and dumbness of the Pharisees when they berated the disciples of our Lord with the question: Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners? (Matt. 9:11 NIV). They had missed the point of all the miracles they had witnessed. A healthy person doesn’t go to a doctor, it was the lame, blind and dumb who needed the ministrations of the Messiah. The same Jesus that had administered physical healing was now offering spiritual medicine to those most in need — tax collectors and sinners.
We cannot be exactly certain what the sweeping term of “sinner” meant in this context. It has been regarded as having a broad connotation, including women of ill repute and men of rather mean station. We do know that the Jews reserved special approbation for tax collectors (or publicans, AV). Under the Roman conditions of occupying a foreign country the collection of taxes, or tribute, used a system that employed local people to do the dirty work. The Romans appointed Jews, such as Matthew, at the receipt of custom to collect taxes on all goods entering a city. Traditionally the tax collector sat at the city gate and would place a value on the goods carried and levy a percentage of this value as tribute due. The payment for services to the tax collector was based on a percentage of what he was able to raise from his collections. Obviously such a system was fraught with the potential for fraud, both in the judgment on evaluations as well as bribes to avoid taxes. Since tax collectors were locals who worked for the occupying Roman power and were by and large corrupt, the fact that Jesus sat down to dinner with Matthew and his associates must have been scandalous indeed. It is also obvious that the very act of sitting down to share a meal with such supposedly vile people symbolized in Jewish culture an act of fellowship on the part of Jesus Christ.
Examining our own practices
This was an act that the self-righteous Pharisees could not abide. Yet we should be extremely careful before we pass any harsh judgment upon the actions of these Pharisees. Such self-righteous condemnation is endemic to people who profess religion and our own community is not entirely free of such thinking. When someone has been responsible for grievous sin in the ecclesia, they are often ostracized rather than sat down with at dinner to feed them with our love and concern for their recovery.
Too often, removing someone from fellowship is done to purge the ecclesial attendance roll rather than to serve as a means of recovery. The person disfellowshipped is often thereafter ignored; case closed as far as we are concerned!
Yet this is not at all the tenor of what our Lord Jesus is teaching in this case. The miracle of healing of the flesh is coupled with a wonderful lesson on the way to heal the spirit. They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (Matt. 9:12, 13). That marvelous, way of healing spiritual illness is with the medicine of mercy. While offering it graciously and generously is often contrary to the human mind, nevertheless it is the mind of Christ.
The Origin of the Organic World – Part One