Luke 7:9 Commentary and Bible Study

‘When Jesus heard these things, he marvelled at him,’ at what the centurion had said in his message, ‘and turned him about and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel’, or as we might say today, ‘no, not in the whole of Israel.’ Now that is quite an astounding thing to say, and as many people have pointed out there are really only two occasions in all the Gospels and the whole of the New Testament when it is recorded that Christ marvelled at something, marvelled at it and was taken aback in awe. Of course the Lord Jesus was never surprised. He knew all things. He was God; there was nothing that could possibly happen but that he already knew it – he knew it, he expected it, he could see it in advance, and therefore when it says that Christ marvelled, it means something particularly significant, because he doesn't just marvel as we might. When we marvel at something or we are amazed at something, it's ninety-nine percent surprise which makes us do so. But if you marvel, not because you are surprised, then it's rather like going back and seeing a beautiful panorama that you have perhaps seen many times before, and you go back and you know what it looks like and you relive the awe. You look at that particularly beautiful landscape, but you know when you look at it that it is still going to strike home to you, its particular grandeur, and in this sense Christ though he expected this, was awed and filled with marvelling and amazement at the faith of this centurion. ‘And turned him about, and said unto the people that followed him, I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.’ He sought to convey to the crowd who were there how remarkable this was. He wanted them to be astonished and surprised. He says in effect, ‘Doesn't this amaze you? Here are you, the Jews, you have the Scriptures. God has worked again and again and again in your national history. He has trained you to believe in a coming Messiah. He has giving wonderful prophecies that are now being fulfilled before your eyes, and even though you who have been trained to believe, most of you do not. But here is this gentile, pagan, Roman officer, he's got the point. He understands. Don't you find that astonishing?’ He was communicating this to them to stir up their hearts. What had his faith achieved? Why was it so great? Not just because he was a Roman showing more faith than many Jews, but because his faith was great in and of itself. That is what Christ had noted in his words, which expressed a faith unlike many others who Christ healed. Many came to Christ and asked him to come with them and heal their loved ones, but it was rare to believe he could work at a distance like this. In one case Jesus forced a man to believe he could heal on the strength of his word alone, and the man was obliged to go home with just Christ’s promise to assure him (John 4:50), but only this centurion believed this without being prompted. By faith he saw that Jesus Christ, though a true man, could work remotely as only God can work – he did not know and did not need to know how; there was a whole world of spiritual beings, and a whole hierarchy of divine servants he did not know anything about – and nothing was too hard for the Lord. How could a simple word achieve so much? Only because the one who spoke it had divine power and limitless authority.