Matthew 8:16 Commentary and Bible Study

It was the Sabbath day, the same day that the Lord has cast out the demon from the possessed man in the synagogue, and has also healed Peter’s mother-in-law. The news about these wonderful events (Mark 1:28; Luke 4:37)) has gone out together with the accounts of Jesus earlier miracles. There is an urgent response to this as the people see the possibility of their own sick and sorry finding healing and relief through this miracle-working prophet, as they believe him to be. They understand well enough their need of physical healing, but much less their far greater spiritual need. We can imagine how the knowledge that healing was available for those they loved, who had been long tormented by cruel and long-standing suffering. The news travelled from person to person, and must have gone out like a ripple from Capernaum. It reached the environs of Capernaum first, and who would not stir himself to respond to such a message of hope. Christ healed conditions which physicians on earth knew were utterly beyond their ability to help with. The people did not need to understand how he healed their sick, but only that he could do it, and so they came in droves, to the extent that they crowded round the door of Peter’s house. Luke says that all those who had any that were sick with various diseases brought them, ‘and he laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.’ Truly Capernaum was without excuse for their unbelief, for Christ eliminated sickness from their midst.They came in the evening. Maybe they waited till the sun set, marking the end of the sabbath, or maybe they came then because it was a cooler time of day to bring out the sick. Some came bringing their previously hopeless cases. Here was one who lifted hope when it seemed unable to ever rise again. How long would he be with them? When your need is pressing, you do not delay or wait till it is convenient. You set aside all other concerns and hurry to do what can only be done in this moment. Time waits for no man, and Christ deliberately created a situation in which urgency of response was called for, to teach us how we should respond today to our far greater needs of the soul.None who came were disappointed. No one who led or carried their sick to the door of that house went home again in the same condition. Following the ripple of good news that went out from Peter’s house, there went out another ripple through the community of rejoicing and thanksgiving. The Gospels record this evening’s healings without going into details. Sometimes Scripture tells us a particular case, and we are to learn many lessons from the way Christ dealt with that particular malady by analogy with the soul, but here it is the general ability of Christ to heal all manner of cases without exception that were brought to him. This too has its lessons for us, for the variety of different ways in which unbelieving men and women have plunged into sin is enormous, and yet Christ can deal with every case. It was not just the sick; the whole city came to the door. All wanted to see the amazing sight of incurable conditions being healed, but some had a very personal interest in Christ’s healing powers. Luke tells us ‘And devils also came out of many, crying out, and saying, Thou art Christ the Son of God. And he rebuking them suffered them not to speak: for they knew that he was Christ.’ He healed and he cast out demons also. He was Lord over them too, and they must obey his word. By the same word today God limits the power of temptation of his people, so that they are not tempted above what they are able to bear. As they are driven out, they know the power that has done this to them and forced them to go from where they did not want to go, and they cry out involuntarily and with terror as they recognise him. The Gospels tell us elsewhere that they ask with great anxiety whether he has come to despatch them immediately into the bottomless pit forever. But Christ silences them, for he will not accept their testimony even though it is true. Christ would not rely on the testimony of men (John 5:34); how much less on that of demons.