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The Leper, the Centurion's Servant,
and Peter's Wife's Mother (Matt. 8: 1 - 15).
After the record of Matt. 4: 23, 24 the Lord ascended a mountain and taught.
Teaching begins the chapter and teaching is the last thing spoken of in Matt. 7: 28, 29,
viz., "sayings", "doctrine (or teaching)", and "taught as one having authority". Mighty
words on the mountain are immediately followed by mighty works in the valley, "When
He was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed Him, and behold there
came a leper". The three miracles that are recorded in Matt. 8: 1-15 are suggestive of
much teaching.
The Leper. . . . . . . . . . . .
Israel.
The Lord touched him.
The Centurion's Servant. . . . .
The Gentile.
Healing at a distance.
His faith compared with that of Israel.
Peter's Wife's Mother. . . . . .
A Woman.
The Lord touched her.
The Pharisee in his prayer thanked God that he was not born (1) a Gentile, (2) a
slave, or (3) a woman, which position of "splendid isolation" is gloriously done away
"in Christ" for Gal. 3: 28 shows that there is
(1). Neither Jew nor Greek.
The Gentile.
(2). Neither bond nor free.
The Slave.
(3). Neither male nor female.
The Woman.
Here in these three opening miracles the Lord breaks through many traditional
barriers; He touched a leper! He healed a Gentile! He healed a woman! There is a
dispensational lesson here which the reader should observe, as well as a moral one. Both
the leper and the woman were healed by personal contact; the Gentile, however, was
healed at a distance. This peculiarity comes out again in Matt. 15: 21-28; in both cases,
too, reference is made to the great faith of the Gentile.
Going back again to the first of these miracles, let us see for what the leper prayed,
"Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me CLEAN". The response equally insists upon
the same thought, "immediately his leprosy was CLEANSED". The command that
followed still keeps cleansing uppermost, "show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift
that Moses commanded for a testimony unto them".
Lev. 14: contains the intensely instructive "law of the leper in the day of his
cleansing". Christ's dying and rising again is clearly set forth; the cleansed leper is
atoned for by the blood, and re-consecrated by the oil. Here in the leper may be seen
Israel's condition before God, "no soundness, but wounds, bruises and putrifying sores".
The leper's condition cut him off from worship and service, rendering him quite unfit for
any act of ministry in any shape or form; such was Israel--Israel that was destined to be a
kingdom of Priests, Israel of whom the Gentile will yet say, "They are the ministers unto
our God"; Israel a leper.