As we continue along the Book of Matthew this season, last week, Pastor Todd spoke on Matthew 8. Matthew 8 deals with the beginning of Jesus’ supernatural memory (according to the Gospel of Matthew). In the first 17 verses, we see Jesus exhibiting power from the kingdom of heaven (which he just taught about during the Sermon on the Mount Matt. 5-7). This initial display of miracles falls into three basic categories: 1. Purity, which has the power to cleanse even physical ailments such as leprosy. 2. Verbal Authority, by his very words, Jesus an effect change regardless of geographical proximity. 3. Exorcisms, by his connection with the kingdom of heaven, his exorcisms are of a different character than typical Jewish and pagan exorcisms. So let’s look a little closer at those categories.
Purity of Jesus
When we think of purity in the Christian world, we often think in terms of mental purity: clean images that are not tainted by the lusts of the flesh, the lusts of the eyes, and the pride of life. However purity goes far beyond that.
Purity is more than mental purity. It’s scope is encompassing. When we think in terms of the Christian life as hollistic, we think mind, body, spirit. A hollistic view of the faith leads us to a lifestyle that is not just a matter of morality. It is a matter of right living with our thoughts, attitudes, actions, words, finances, relationships, and more.
In like manner, purity is a hollistic call for the children of God. Purity is more than not thinking lustful thoughts and coveting our neighbors’ wares. In the Beattitudes, Jesus says “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” This is a purity that reaches into every category of our lives.
How does a pursuit of purity relate to Jesus’ supernatural ministry? The reason is in the first miracle as Jesus descends the mountain. He heals a leper, who was considered unclean (unpure). According to the law, he was to be outcast away from people so that his impurity wouldn’t infect other people. Furthermore, anyone who came in contact with the leper would be considered unclean.
Jesus had just taught about the kingdom of heaven. Now He exhibits this power from heaven. He touches the leper, who is then instatnly healed. Technically, Jesus would have been considered unclean if he touched the leper. However, Jesus was more pure than the leper’s uncleanness. Not only did Jesus’ purity prevent the leper’s uncleanness from infecting Jesus, it also flowed into the leper and cleansed him.
This is a bigger view of the power of purity. We are to pursue a Christlike purity that is more powerful than the uncleanness in the world around us. How do we pursue such a purity?
First, we do avoid impure images. As Jesus said, “The eyes are the window into the soul. If you fill them with darkness, it will alter your vision” (paraphrased). We are also to avoid impure thoughts, thus Paul’s instruction to “Take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.” However, purity is not just a matter of avoidance. It is also a matter of pursuing the character of Jesus in our own lives. We pursue a pure love that comes from God. We pursue a pure knowledge of the truth. We pursue a pure motivation for whatever we do. A pure life is what we are called to model from Jesus.
One of the natural consequences of pursuing purity like Jesus is living in the power of God. As Moses glimpsed God and emanated some of His glory, so we experience the same. Likewise, the purity of God can flow through us and overcome impurity in others, like Jesus’ healing of the leper’s impurity.
Thus we are not instructed to seek the ability to heal in the scriptures, but rather to pursue purity. For it is in a true purity in Jesus that much of the power of God is manifest in our own lives: mentally, spiritually, emotionally, and physically.
Verbal Authority of Jesus
This part of Matthew 8 turns to Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law, along with several other people. It is a testament to the verbal authority of Jesus.
John 1 says that Jesus is the “Word.” “The Word was with God; the Word was God.” Jesus is clearly identified as the walking incarnation of God’s very word. Is it any wonder that the words Jesus spoke held the weight and authority of God. Fallen men need to expand their knowledge and experience in the field of medicine to be adept as healers. There is a lot of trial and error, mistakes, procedures, and corrections. That isn’t to denounce medicine in any capacity. Medical achievements over the past 2000 years have greatly improved the quality of life for humanity.
Scripture is very clear that God grants wisdom to those who ask (James 1). One of the tendencies of humans to to look at life in terms of opposite extremes (due to our fallen nature). Either I can’t touch a drop of alcohol or I glorify drunkenness. Either Genesis is the only accurate source to our origins, or science is. Either every variation of creature was personally created by God, or the came about through evolution. This tendency toward extremities can even be found within the Christian community. Either a person is faithfully wise to seek out the knowledge of a physician or they are faithless because they don’t believe God for a supernatural remedy.
In God’s kingdom, there is room for both. When we acknowledge that, we can better interact with the supernatural elements of Jesus. Miracles aren’t guaranteed to happen all the time in every scenario. If they did, miracles wouldn’t be miracles, they would simply be a law of nature. Miracles are unique because they are not always readily available.
Having said that, we can look at the power of Jesus’ words as an example for us. Proverbs tells us “Life and death are in the power of the tongue.” And we are regularly encouraged to moderate our words in the New Testament. Why is that? Because, as Christians, there is power in our words. There is power to heal and harm. We can speak life or death, goodwill or curses. Most of these usually work on a psychological/emotional level. However, with all things Gospel related, using our words effects and influences life on a holistic scale, including body and spirit. So yes, with the power of Jesus residing in us with the Holy Spirit, we are able to speak healing to people’s physical bodies as well as their emotioanl problems.
The degree to which miracles come forth as a result is the degree to which our supernatural element plays a part. However, we cannot afford to discount the work of God when we see results from a more non-supernatural appearance. That is to misunderstand the hand of God completely, as well as our mission on earth.
Exorcisms of Jesus
Finally, Chapter 8 deals with Jesus’ power to perform exorcisms. We see more interactions with demons as the Gospel goes on. This section merely touches on the phenomenon of Jesus and the possessed. However, there is enough here to make an assessment.
Matthew noted that Jesus was able to cast out demons simply with his words. In a way this is an extension of the second point. Yet it is unique enough to warrant a separate entry here. In the ancient world, there were certain rituals as well as prayers/incantations that needed to be said to cast out demons in their prescribed ways (whether Jewish or Pagan). Yet Jesus comes on the scene and foregoes all ritualism. He simply commanded the demons to come out with his very words. This was a significant enough difference from the expected norm that Matthew took note of it.
The power of Jesus’ words again effects a change in his environment. The thing about exorcisms is that there is no human resolution for it. It involves supernatural beings (demons) that must be cast out by engaging in supernatural activity. However, with Jesus’ example, we see there is no need for an elaborate ritual to cast out a demon (the sons of Sceva tried that and failed), only the power of Jesus’ name.
So when we are empowered by the Holy Spirit, we are in a place to carry on Jesus’ mission by the same way. We engage in the supernatural in the power and name of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Demons still must submit to the name of Jesus.
So those are the initial miracles that started Jesus’ supernatural part of the ministry. This all happened on the cusp of the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus’ typical format was to teach, model, and send his disciples. Here he taught the Sermon on the Mount, modeled the power in chapter 8, and will then delegate his disciples to do likewise. As an extension, we are encouraged to follow suit. We are also disciples of Jesus who are called to carry out his mission in like manner. We learn from Jesus’model (ideally from the model of physical mentors of the faith), we do likewise, and we train others up as well.
How did this post affect you? What are your thoughts? Let me know in the comments.