Matthew 8:1-17

ON OUR LORD'S MIRACLES. The Greek word translated miracle means literally ‘power'; the idea of wondering underlies our word miracle. A miracle is therefore some wonderful display of power; the special sense being that of a display of ‘supernatural' power. This does not mean contra-natural, but simply the supervening of a natural law by the will of a Personal God, independent of, and superior to, nature. The operation of the human will furnishes an analogy. The existence of a Personal God includes the possibility of miracles. The analogy of the human will suggests the existence of a motive for the exercise of miraculous power, and the existence of such a motive involves the necessity of miracles. This motive is to be found in God's purpose of revealing Himself as a Spirit superior to the world, so that lost men may be brought back to Him. The miracles of our Lord were wrought to confirm and seal His ministry as the Saviour of men; in each particular case, however, to teach a special lesson pertaining to our salvation. The great miracle is the Person of Christ, whom we know, in whom we trust, whom we love. All other recorded miracles are not only possible, but in a certain sense necessary, if that Divine Human Person existed. God may exert his miraculous power according to a higher law, so that the supernatural is, in its sphere, natural; but this law and the means used are alike unknown to us. Yet the Person of Christ, the greatest of mysteries, is the key to the moral law of the exercise of supernatural power. The alternative is now more clearly than ever, the living personal Redeemer sealing His mission by displays of miraculous power, or blank Naturalism, which, in denying Christ's miracles, soon denies God and what of hope is left to man. As the Sermon on the Mount is a blow at Pharisaism, these Chapter s oppose Sadducism.

CONNECTION. The ‘solemn procession of miracles' found in chaps. 8 and 9 confirms the ‘authority' discovered in the Sermon on the Mount Matthew's order is not chronological, but as usual topical. The lesson of the miracle governs its position in the narrative.

CHRONOLOGY. According to Mark and Luke the healing of Peter's wife's mother and of many others on the evening of the same day took place first; then after an interval the healing of the leper; while the cure of the centurion's servant, according to the more detailed account of Luke, occurred much later. The reason for the order followed in this chapter is obvious: Matthew places in prominent position and together the two miracles performed on persons deemed unclean according to the Mosaic law.