Luke 7:22 Commentary - Dr Peter Masters

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Luke 7:22

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As you look through the passage, he never said to the disciples of John the Baptist, go and tell John, ‘Yes, I am the Messiah; you do not have to look for another.’ What he did was to draw attention to his deeds; he replied by his deeds. While the disciples of John the Baptist were there, they saw a flurry of astonishing healings and works of compassion, and that was the reply that they needed. First he replies to their doubts by healing sicknesses, long-term illnesses for which there appeared to be no hope and no cure, and the healing was instantaneous. All the healings of Christ – save one which was in stages to teach a particular lesson – were instantaneous, immediate, and they were obviously divine healings. The person was completely healed, not partially healed, and everything was put right; the disease was removed. If limbs were affected and were withered and shrivelled away, they would somehow be reconstituted in a moment. The healings of Christ were all irreversible: until the death of the person there was no relapse. Neither were there any cases which were too hard for him. At that time no one else could do help; these healings could be ascribed only to the power of God. He was saying to the disciples of John, and to John the Baptist himself, was this: ‘You see all these things? This is the message: I am come to deal with individuals and to make them whole. I am not dealing with society as a whole; I am dealing with individuals. I am doing it on a massive scale – millions of individuals – but I am going to people and dealing with them one by one. After he had done these works he says, ‘Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard;’ – and this statement is tremendous – ‘how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.’ Those words are just a collection of verses from the Book of the prophet Isaiah. In that wonderful putting together of all these prophecies, which tie in exactly with what Christ was doing, he is saying to John the Baptist, ‘Isn't this what you should have expected? Shouldn’t you have expected a Saviour full of compassion, who would restore sight to the blind and raise the dead and heal the sick in every way, and preach the gospel to poor and needy people?’ These miracles were signs. Everything he did, he did as a sign. Partly they were given as a sign that he was truly who he claimed to be, the Son of God, but they were also given to show the kind of things he would do for souls. They are signs of something bigger, something better. Is there something bigger and better than having your sight restored to you if you are blind? Oh yes. Because if you have your sight restored, you will be tremendously benefited, but how long will you have it? One day your body will fail and you will pass from this world. But when he gives spiritual sight to a person, it means that that person will live for all eternity. The sign, the lesser thing, is to give sight to the blind literally; the greater thing is for the souls to be able to see.

Application

The bodily healings pictured the spiritual illnesses that afflict men and women: the blind saw the compassion of the Lord, the power of the Lord, but it was a picture of spiritual blindness. As sinners and rebels against God we are all by nature spiritually blind. We cannot see our way to him; we cannot find the way to heaven. Before God works in our hearts and we become converted, we don't realise how condemned we are, how bad our sin is, how we deserve to be shut away from God for all eternity. We don't tremble, we don't see our need of forgiveness and of conversion. We do not understand society and why it's in the state that it is in. We are so blind. It is worse than a physical disease. Spiritually blind means that we cannot see the things of God; we have no taste for them, no desire for them. It's a wonderful thing to come to Christ because your spiritual blindness is cured and you understand why you are here, and you understand the way of salvation. You understand about human nature and the world and what God plans in the future and about heaven. You understand about Christ and his wonders and you are given sight.

The lame walk, and that's a picture of us too. Christ literally healed the crippled and the disabled and the badly wounded and injured, but it was a spiritual picture as well. It's the same with us with all our little perversions. Are you a habitual liar so that you can't stop? Excuses tumble out, dishonest things tumble out. Do you have any other serious disability? Are you hopelessly proud and your pride comes into everything? It spoils you, and sometimes you are ashamed, and you wish you could get rid of it, but you come first in your life. Do you have an awful temper, and you hurt people around you and you wish you hadn't said those things and flown off the handle, but it's somehow in you and you can't stop it. You are lame; you can't control some part of your being. When you are converted to Christ, he gives you some power. You still need his help and you may just relapse in a way, but nothing like what you were before, because he gives you power and you can control yourself. Not just your limbs but your emotions and your moods and your worst side.

Deafness is a picture of the spiritually deaf: insensitive to God. When he speaks in his word, it means nothing to us. The dead are raised. That is us before conversion: spiritually dead, no life in us, no spiritual experience, no love for God, no gratitude to him, no joy deep within us because we have heaven and we have Christ. The dead are raised and given life and purpose, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. When you are converted, it's because you have been made poor, and you say to yourself, ‘I am a needy person and I need the forgiveness of God. I need new life and I need to know him and belong to him.’

You doubt partly because you have got the wrong idea about what God is doing. God is not repairing the material world. It never was his intention to make this world, as we know, it a better place. God is not mending society all around the world and giving us a happy time, and full harvests and plenty of food and everything we want. That is not his intention at all. He is dealing with individuals, one by one, and that's what Christ demonstrates to these disciples of John. He says in effect, ‘Watch me heal this one here and this one there.’ He is healing lots of people but he is dealing with individuals, and he teaches them the purpose of his coming: to be a blessing and to save the souls of individual people. It is as though he says, ‘Don't you understand? I am not saving the world from itself. I am saving individuals and bringing them to love me and to know me, and I'm changing them and forgiving their sin.’ That is why it says here, quite distinctly, ‘to the poor the gospel is preached.’ What is the gospel? The good news of having your sins forgiven. When you repent Christ forgives your sin.

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Luke 7:22 Commentary and Bible Study