When he came down from the mountain, great crowds followed him. And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed. And Jesus said to him, “See that you say nothing to anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a proof to them.”
a leper - "... a disease at all times terrible, but aggravated, in the opinion of that day, by the belief that it was direct 'stroke of God,' as a punishment for special sins. It began with little specks on the eyelids, and on the palms of the hand, and gradually spread over different parts of the body, bleaching the hair white wherever it showed itself, crusting the affected parts with shining scales, and causing swellings and sores. From the skin it slowly ate its way through the tissues, to the bones and joints and even to the marrow, rotting the whole body piecemeal. The lungs, the organs of speech and hearing, and the eyes were attacked in turn, til, at last, consumption or dropsy brought welcome death. The dread of infection kept men aloof from the sufferer, and the Law proscribed him, as, above all men, unclean. The disease was hereditary to the fourth generation. No one thus afflicted could remain in a walled town, though he might live in a village. There were different varieties of leprosy, but all were dreaded as the saddest calamity of life. The leper was required to rend his outer garment, to go bareheaded, and to cover his mouth so as to hide his beard, as was done in lamentation for the dead. He had, further, to warn passers by away from him by the cry of 'Unclean, unclean;' not without the thought that the sound would call forth a prayer for the sufferer, and else from the fear of infection, than to prevent contact with one thus visited by God, and unclean. He could not speak to any one, or receive or return salutation. ... one might have expected that Divine compassion would have been extended to those, who bore such heavy burden of their sins. Instead of this, their burdens were needlessly increased. True, as wrapped in mourner's garb the leper passed by, his cry 'Unclean!' was to incite others to pray for him—but also to avoid him. No one was even to salute him; his bed was to be low, inkling toward the ground. If he even put his head into a place, it became unclean. No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept from a leper; or, if the wind came from that direction, a hundred were scarcely sufficient ... As the leper passed by, his clothes rent, his hair disheveled, and the lower part of his face and his upper lip covered, it was as one going to death who reads his own burial-service, while the mournful words, 'Unclean! Unclean!' which he uttered proclaimed that his was both living and moral death." (Pentecost)
show yourself to the priest - "Imagine the stunning impact on the priest, since no record exists of any Israelite being cured of leprosy except Miriam (Num 12:10-15)." (Ryrie)
offer the gift that Moses commanded - "The elaborate ritual of cleansing for a leper involved two birds, one killed as a symbol of purification and the other released as a symbol of man's new found freedom (Lev 14:4-7), having and washing (Lev 14:8-9), and the offering of guilt, sin, burnt, and grain offerings (Lev 14:12, 13, 21). The blood applied from ear to hand to foot signified that the person was fully cleansed (Lev 14:14)." (Ryrie)
for a proof to them - "In these miracles we have before us the manifestation of the King. Jehovah alone could manifest Himself thus in mercy, healing and restoring ... What He did, furthermore, is seen in the Old Testament in connection with the kingdom. The signs manifest the King as well as the Kingdom. In Isaiah 35 we have a description of the kingdom as the King is to set it up. He came, and that He is the King and His kingdom at hand, is proven by Him in doing the signs enumerated in the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. The King and the Kingdom is rejected, the Kingdom postponed, and Israel and the nations wait with a groaning creation for the glorious fulfillment of this chapter in Isaiah. The fulfillment will come, when the King comes back to the earth, then 'the ransomed of Jehovah shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.'" (Gaebelein)
"The Mosaic law required one who had leprosy, or was suspected of having it, to undergo an elaborate ritual of cleansing in order to be accepted in society. If this man tarried in Galilee to be a witness to Christ without undergoing the proper ritual of cleansing, he would have been deemed unclean and therefore his witness would have been nullified (cf. Lev 14). But there was an additional reason why Christ sent the cleansed man to the priest. The man was to be a testimony to them (Luke 5:14). When the man went to the priest and claimed to be a cleansed leper, the priest would have to investigate whether the man had been a leper and then determine his present condition. The priest would make inquiry as to the means by which the man had been cleansed. This would give the cleansed man an occasion to present to the priest the evidence that the One who claimed to be Messiah had power to cleanse lepers. This would make it necessary for the priests to investigate the claim, and the evidence would then be present to the Sanhedrin for its investigation and final declaration. Thus Christ was bringing evidence to those in high authority in the religious realm. He was generating an investigation of His person and His claim." (Pentecost)
"Leprosy is a slowly progressing and intractable disease ... This disease in an especial manner rendered its victims unclean; even contact with a leper defiled whoever touched him, so while the cure of other diseases is called healing, that of leprosy is called cleansing (except in the case of Miriam [Num 12:13] and that of the Samaritan [Lk 17:15] where the word 'heal' is used in reference to leprosy) ... It should be observed here that the attitude of the Law toward the person, garment or house suspected of leprosy is that if the disease be really present they are to be declared unclean and there is no means provided for cure, and in the case of the garment or house, they are to be destroyed. If, on the other hand, the disease be proved to be absent, this freedom from the disease has to be declared by a ceremonial purification. This is in reality not the ritual for cleansing the leper, for the Torah provides none such, but the ritual for declaring him ceremonially free from the suspicion of having the disease. This gives a peculiar and added force to the words, 'The lepers are cleansed,' as a testimony to Our Lord's Divine mission." (Pentecost)
"If one looks for these miracles in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, and traces our Lord's movements in them, he will be astonished to find that they are put in these Gospels in an entirely different setting ... The Holy Spirit as the writer of the first Gospel has taken certain events in the life of our Lord and grouped them together in such a way that they not only show us how the King proved Himself King and how He was rejected, but to show in the grouping of these miracles the purposes of God, and bring out some very rich yet simple dispensational teachings. The Gospel of Matthew as the Jewish Gospel is the proper place for it. We look now at the first seventeen verse of the eighth chapter. Here we have four different signs. The first is the cleansing of the leper, followed at once by the healing of the centurion's servant, after which our Lord enters Peter's house, and his mother-in-law being sick, He touches her hand and the fever leaves her. The last is the healing of all. Now in these four miracles, following one the other as they do here, we have by the Holy Spirit dispensational teachings concerning the Jews and the Gentiles. The first, the cleansing of the leper, stands for Jehovah among His people Israel. The second, where He is absent, and heals not by His touch but by His Word; this represents the Gentile dispensation which is still running. After this dispensation is passed He will enter the house again, restoring His relations with Israel, and healing the sick daughter of Zion, represented by the healing touch and raising of Peter's mother-in-law. After this is accomplished the millennial blessings come to all in the earth when the curse of sin will be removed." (Gaebelein)
"If we had been with Him, and had been Hebrews, as His disciples were, we should have been greatly startled. First, He touched a leper, an outcast, whom no man must dare to touch. Secondly, He healed the servant of a Roman, who was outside the covenant of Israel, and with whom there could properly be no communication. Thirdly, He touched a woman, who, according to Jewish ideas, did not count. He began with the unfit persons for whom there was no provision in the economy of the nation. A great many people have been sorely troubled about this touching of the leper, saying that in doing so He broke the law. But He was not as other men. On another occasion they said, 'This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.' They meant to say; Pollution is mightier than purity; though He be pure, contact with sinners will produce pollution in Himself. But He was such that He could be a friend of sinners, and suffer no contamination by contact, but rather surcharge them with His purity ... These miracles of Jesus, so far from being violations of law, were restorations of men to the life according to law. Leprosy is unlawful; cleansing is lawful. Fever is due to violation of law; and this Man by touch restored to the law. The King came to restore a lost order." (Morgan)
a leper - "... a disease at all times terrible, but aggravated, in the opinion of that day, by the belief that it was direct 'stroke of God,' as a punishment for special sins. It began with little specks on the eyelids, and on the palms of the hand, and gradually spread over different parts of the body, bleaching the hair white wherever it showed itself, crusting the affected parts with shining scales, and causing swellings and sores. From the skin it slowly ate its way through the tissues, to the bones and joints and even to the marrow, rotting the whole body piecemeal. The lungs, the organs of speech and hearing, and the eyes were attacked in turn, til, at last, consumption or dropsy brought welcome death. The dread of infection kept men aloof from the sufferer, and the Law proscribed him, as, above all men, unclean. The disease was hereditary to the fourth generation. No one thus afflicted could remain in a walled town, though he might live in a village. There were different varieties of leprosy, but all were dreaded as the saddest calamity of life. The leper was required to rend his outer garment, to go bareheaded, and to cover his mouth so as to hide his beard, as was done in lamentation for the dead. He had, further, to warn passers by away from him by the cry of 'Unclean, unclean;' not without the thought that the sound would call forth a prayer for the sufferer, and else from the fear of infection, than to prevent contact with one thus visited by God, and unclean. He could not speak to any one, or receive or return salutation. ... one might have expected that Divine compassion would have been extended to those, who bore such heavy burden of their sins. Instead of this, their burdens were needlessly increased. True, as wrapped in mourner's garb the leper passed by, his cry 'Unclean!' was to incite others to pray for him—but also to avoid him. No one was even to salute him; his bed was to be low, inkling toward the ground. If he even put his head into a place, it became unclean. No less a distance than four cubits (six feet) must be kept from a leper; or, if the wind came from that direction, a hundred were scarcely sufficient ... As the leper passed by, his clothes rent, his hair disheveled, and the lower part of his face and his upper lip covered, it was as one going to death who reads his own burial-service, while the mournful words, 'Unclean! Unclean!' which he uttered proclaimed that his was both living and moral death." (Pentecost)
show yourself to the priest - "Imagine the stunning impact on the priest, since no record exists of any Israelite being cured of leprosy except Miriam (Num 12:10-15)." (Ryrie)
offer the gift that Moses commanded - "The elaborate ritual of cleansing for a leper involved two birds, one killed as a symbol of purification and the other released as a symbol of man's new found freedom (Lev 14:4-7), having and washing (Lev 14:8-9), and the offering of guilt, sin, burnt, and grain offerings (Lev 14:12, 13, 21). The blood applied from ear to hand to foot signified that the person was fully cleansed (Lev 14:14)." (Ryrie)
for a proof to them - "In these miracles we have before us the manifestation of the King. Jehovah alone could manifest Himself thus in mercy, healing and restoring ... What He did, furthermore, is seen in the Old Testament in connection with the kingdom. The signs manifest the King as well as the Kingdom. In Isaiah 35 we have a description of the kingdom as the King is to set it up. He came, and that He is the King and His kingdom at hand, is proven by Him in doing the signs enumerated in the thirty-fifth chapter of Isaiah. The King and the Kingdom is rejected, the Kingdom postponed, and Israel and the nations wait with a groaning creation for the glorious fulfillment of this chapter in Isaiah. The fulfillment will come, when the King comes back to the earth, then 'the ransomed of Jehovah shall return and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.'" (Gaebelein)
"The Mosaic law required one who had leprosy, or was suspected of having it, to undergo an elaborate ritual of cleansing in order to be accepted in society. If this man tarried in Galilee to be a witness to Christ without undergoing the proper ritual of cleansing, he would have been deemed unclean and therefore his witness would have been nullified (cf. Lev 14). But there was an additional reason why Christ sent the cleansed man to the priest. The man was to be a testimony to them (Luke 5:14). When the man went to the priest and claimed to be a cleansed leper, the priest would have to investigate whether the man had been a leper and then determine his present condition. The priest would make inquiry as to the means by which the man had been cleansed. This would give the cleansed man an occasion to present to the priest the evidence that the One who claimed to be Messiah had power to cleanse lepers. This would make it necessary for the priests to investigate the claim, and the evidence would then be present to the Sanhedrin for its investigation and final declaration. Thus Christ was bringing evidence to those in high authority in the religious realm. He was generating an investigation of His person and His claim." (Pentecost)
"Leprosy is a slowly progressing and intractable disease ... This disease in an especial manner rendered its victims unclean; even contact with a leper defiled whoever touched him, so while the cure of other diseases is called healing, that of leprosy is called cleansing (except in the case of Miriam [Num 12:13] and that of the Samaritan [Lk 17:15] where the word 'heal' is used in reference to leprosy) ... It should be observed here that the attitude of the Law toward the person, garment or house suspected of leprosy is that if the disease be really present they are to be declared unclean and there is no means provided for cure, and in the case of the garment or house, they are to be destroyed. If, on the other hand, the disease be proved to be absent, this freedom from the disease has to be declared by a ceremonial purification. This is in reality not the ritual for cleansing the leper, for the Torah provides none such, but the ritual for declaring him ceremonially free from the suspicion of having the disease. This gives a peculiar and added force to the words, 'The lepers are cleansed,' as a testimony to Our Lord's Divine mission." (Pentecost)
"If one looks for these miracles in the Gospels of Mark and Luke, and traces our Lord's movements in them, he will be astonished to find that they are put in these Gospels in an entirely different setting ... The Holy Spirit as the writer of the first Gospel has taken certain events in the life of our Lord and grouped them together in such a way that they not only show us how the King proved Himself King and how He was rejected, but to show in the grouping of these miracles the purposes of God, and bring out some very rich yet simple dispensational teachings. The Gospel of Matthew as the Jewish Gospel is the proper place for it. We look now at the first seventeen verse of the eighth chapter. Here we have four different signs. The first is the cleansing of the leper, followed at once by the healing of the centurion's servant, after which our Lord enters Peter's house, and his mother-in-law being sick, He touches her hand and the fever leaves her. The last is the healing of all. Now in these four miracles, following one the other as they do here, we have by the Holy Spirit dispensational teachings concerning the Jews and the Gentiles. The first, the cleansing of the leper, stands for Jehovah among His people Israel. The second, where He is absent, and heals not by His touch but by His Word; this represents the Gentile dispensation which is still running. After this dispensation is passed He will enter the house again, restoring His relations with Israel, and healing the sick daughter of Zion, represented by the healing touch and raising of Peter's mother-in-law. After this is accomplished the millennial blessings come to all in the earth when the curse of sin will be removed." (Gaebelein)
"If we had been with Him, and had been Hebrews, as His disciples were, we should have been greatly startled. First, He touched a leper, an outcast, whom no man must dare to touch. Secondly, He healed the servant of a Roman, who was outside the covenant of Israel, and with whom there could properly be no communication. Thirdly, He touched a woman, who, according to Jewish ideas, did not count. He began with the unfit persons for whom there was no provision in the economy of the nation. A great many people have been sorely troubled about this touching of the leper, saying that in doing so He broke the law. But He was not as other men. On another occasion they said, 'This Man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them.' They meant to say; Pollution is mightier than purity; though He be pure, contact with sinners will produce pollution in Himself. But He was such that He could be a friend of sinners, and suffer no contamination by contact, but rather surcharge them with His purity ... These miracles of Jesus, so far from being violations of law, were restorations of men to the life according to law. Leprosy is unlawful; cleansing is lawful. Fever is due to violation of law; and this Man by touch restored to the law. The King came to restore a lost order." (Morgan)
No comments:
Post a Comment