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I. Down From the Mountain

A. Matthew’s Second Book

With this lesson, we start the "second book" of Matthew’s Gospel. It consists of a narrative section that tells ten miracle stories (Chapters 8-9), followed by a sermon that Jesus gives to His newly chosen Apostles (Chapter 10).

In the section immediately preceding, the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew depicts Jesus teaching with authority - as the definitive interpreter of the Law of Moses, bringing that Law to its "fulfillment" (see Matthew 5:17). In these miracle stories, he shows Jesus coming down from the mountain and "acting" with authority. His deeds in this section continue His interpretation of the Law of Moses, revealing the fulfillment of the Law in the communication of God’s mercy and forgiveness of sin.

On the surface, these stories demonstrate Jesus’ command over sickness, the demons, the forces of nature, and even death. But Matthew provides a deeper Old Testament context for Jesus’ actions. In effect, he is offering an inspired commentary on what Jesus is doing, showing how His actions relate to God’s redemptive plan for Israel and the nations.

B. Bearing Infirmity and Sin

The most dramatic events in this second book are the healings. Jesus not only heals, but touches people whom, under the Law, were considered ritually impure or "unclean" - a leper (see Matthew 8:2-4), a dead girl (see Matthew 9:18-19,23-25) , a woman with chronic menstrual hemorrhaging (see Matthew 9:20-22).

Notice how frequently in these chapters the Gospel emphasizes this "touch" of Jesus (seeMatthew 8:3, 15; 9:21,25,29).

Touching lepers, corpses and menstruating women, especially, was thought to defile a person and make that person, too, ritually unclean. More generally, the Jews, especially the Pharisees, believed that they were defiled by any contact at all with a broad category of people defined as "sinners."

To explain what Jesus is doing in these healings of word and touch, Matthew employs a formula citation from Isaiah (see Matthew 8:17; Isaiah 53:4).

By His touch of the untouchables, Matthew explains, Jesus is "fulfilling" Isaiah’s prophesy that God would send a Suffering Servant to take on Israel’s infirmities and diseases (seeMatthew 8:16).

In Isaiah’s prophesy, the physical infirmities borne by the Servant are a sign of Israel’s sin (see Isaiah 53:6,12; Psalm 107:17). In the same way, then, Matthew wants us to see these healings of Jesus as signs that Jesus is taking on the sin of Israel and extending to Israel God’s mercy and forgiveness.

This is made more explicit when He heals the paralytic (see Matthew 9:1-8). Note that Jesus does not say, "I forgive your sins." He speaks in a voice sometimes called "the divine passive." He says: "Your sins are forgiven."

Matthew has already told us that Jesus’ mission in coming into the world was "to save His people from their sins" (see Matthew 1:29). These works of physical healing in Chapters 8 and 9 prepare for and symbolize in a powerful way the spiritual healing - the forgiveness and reconciliation between God and man - that He will enact on the Cross.

Jesus isn’t pronouncing the forgiveness of sins so much as He is announcing it. Still, what He is saying is so radical - that atonement for sins can be made outside of the Temple system of sacrifice - that His shocked enemies call it "blasphemy" (see Matthew 9:3).

But there is a larger context that Matthew evokes in quoting this passage from Isaiah.

In Isaiah, the call of the Suffering Servant was seen as ushering in the restoration of all Israel from exile and servitude, and the extension of the blessings of Israel’s salvation "to the nations…to the ends of the earth" (see Isaiah 49:6).

Throughout this section, we’ll see Matthew’s using his Old Testament allusions to announce that Jesus has begun Israel’s restoration and with it the offer of salvation to the nations.

This is the undercurrent in the story of Jesus’ healing of the centurion’s servant (seeMatthew 8:5-13). Marveling at the centurion’s faith, Jesus delivers a promise charged with Old Testament echoes.

He pictures the twelve exiled tribes being gathered from east and west (see Psalm 107:3). He evokes the heavenly banquet the Messiah was expected to bring (see Isaiah 25:6-9). He alludes to God’s promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (see Genesis 22:18; 26:3-5;28:14) - promises that include all nations sharing in the blessings of Abraham’s descendants. He also uses a figure of speech ("grinding of teeth") used in the Old Testament to describe that attitude of the wicked, those who resist God’s saving plan (seePsalm 37:12; 112:10).

From this rich array of Old Testament imagery, Jesus makes a blunt point: Those non-Jews like the centurion who have faith in Him will find a place in the kingdom of heaven, while the natural "sons of the kingdom" - the children of Israel, the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob - if they refuse to believe, will find themselves cast out.

Continue to Section 2