Then, in chapter 8, the Lord begins in the midst of Israel His patient life
of testimony, which closed with His rejection by the people whom God had so
long preserved for Him, and for their own blessing.
He had proclaimed the kingdom, displayed His power throughout the land, and
declared His character, as well as the spirit of those who should enter the
kingdom.
But His miracles,
[see note #24] as well as the whole Gospel, are always
characterised by His position among the Jews and God's dealings with them,
till He was rejected. Jehovah, yetthe man obedient to the law, foreshewing
the entrance of the Gentiles into the kingdom (its establishment in mystery
in the world), predicting the building of the church or assembly on the
recognition of His being Son of the living God, and the kingdom in glory;
and, while detecting as the effect of His presence the perversity of the
people, yet bearing on His heart with perfect patience the burden of
Israel.
[see note #25] It is Jehovah present in goodness, outwardly one of
themselves: wondrous truth!
First of all, we find the healing of a leper. Jehovah alone, in His
sovereign goodness, could heal the leper; here Jesus does so. "If thou
wilt," says the leper, "thou canst." "I will," replies the Lord. But at the
same time, while He shews forth in His own Person that which repels all
possibility of defilement-that which is above sin-He shews the most perfect
condescension towards the defiled one. He touches the leper, saying, "I
will, be thou clean." We see the grace, the power, the undefilable holiness
of Jehovah, come down in the Person of Jesus to the closest proximity to
the sinner, touching him so to speak. It was indeed "the Lord that healeth
thee."
[see note #26] At the same time He conceals Himself, and commands the man,
who had been healed, to go to the priest according to the ordinances of the
law and offer his gift. He does not go out of the place of the Jew in
subjection to the law; but Jehovah was there in goodness.
But in the next case we see a Gentile, who by faith enjoys the full effect
of that power which his faith ascribed to Jesus giving the Lord occasion to
bring out the solemn truth, that many of these poor Gentiles should come
and sit down in the kingdom of heaven with the fathers who were honoured by
the Jewish nation as the first parents of the heirs of promise, while the
children of the kingdom should be in outer darkness. In fact the faith of
this centurion acknowledged a divine power in Jesus, which, by the glory of
Him that possessed it, would (not forsake Israel, but) open the door to the
Gentiles, and graft into the olive-tree of promise branches of the wild
olive-tree in the place of those which should be cut off. The manner in
which this should take place in the assembly was not now the question.
He does not however yet forsake Israel. He goes into Peter's house, and
heals his wife's mother. He does the same to all the sick who crowd around
the house at even, when the sabbath was over. They are healed, the devils
are cast out, so that the prophecy of Isaiah was being fulfilled: "Himself
took our infirmities and bare our sicknesses." Jesus put Himself in heart
under the weight of all the sorrows that oppressed Israel, in order to
relieve and heal them. It is still Emmanuel, who feels for their misery and
is afflicted in all their affliction, but who has come in with the power
that shews Him capable of delivering them.
These three cases shew this character of His ministry in a clear and
striking manner. He hides Himself; for, until the moment when He would shew
judgment to the Gentiles, He does not lift up His voice in the streets. It
is the dove that rests upon Him. These manifestations of power attract men
to Him; but this does not deceive Him: He never departs in spirit from the
place He has taken. He is the despised and the rejected of men; He has
nowhere to lay His head. The earth had more room for the foxes and the
birds than for Him, whom we have seen appear a moment before as the Lord,
acknowledged at least by the necessities which He never refused to relieve.
Therefore, if any man would follow Him, he must forsake all to be the
companion of the Lord, who would not have come down to the earth if
everything had not been in question; nor without an absolute right,
although it was at the same time in a love which could only be occupied by
its mission, and by the necessity that brought Him there.
The Lord on earth was everything or nothing. This, it is true, was to be
felt morally in its effects, in the grace which, acting by faith, attached
the believer to Him by an ineffable bond. Without this, the heart would not
have been morally put to the test. But this did not make it the less true.
accordingly the proofs of this were present: the winds and waves, to which
in the eye of man He seemed to be exposed, obeyed His voice at once-a
striking reproof to the unbelief that woke Him from His sleep, and had
supposed it possible for the waves to engulf Him, and with Him the counsels
and the power of Him who had created the winds and waves. It is evident
that this storm was permitted in order to try their faith and manifest the
dignity of His Person. If the enemy was the instrument who produced it, he
only succeeded in making the Lord display His glory. Such indeed is always
the case as to Christ, and for us, where faith is.
Now the reality of this power, and the manner of its operation, are
forcibly proved by that which follows.
The Lord disembarks in the country of the Gergesenes. There the power of
the enemy shews itself in all its horrors. If man, to whom the Lord was
come in grace, did not know Him, the devils knew their Judge in the Person
of the Son of God. The man was possessed by them. The fear they had of torme
nt at the judgment of the last day is applied in the man's mind to the
immediate presence of the Lord: "Art thou come to torment us before the
time?" Wicked spirits act on men by the dread of their power; they have
none unless they are feared. But faith only can take this fear from man. I
am not speaking of the lusts on which they act, nor of the wiles of the
enemy; I speak of the power of the enemy. Resist the devil and he will flee
from thee. Here the devils wished to manifest the reality of this power.
The Lord permits it in order to make it plain, that in this world it is not
merely man that is in question whether good or bad, but that also which is
stronger than man. The devils enter into the swine, which perish in the
waters. Sorrowful reality plainly demonstrated that it was no question of
mere disease or of sinful lusts, but of wicked spirits! However, thanks be
to God, it was a question also of One who, although a man on earth, was
more powerful than they. They are compelled to acknowledge this power, and
they appeal to it. There is no idea of resistance. In the temptation in the
wilderness Satan had been overcome. Jesus completely delivers the man whom
they had oppressed with their evil power. The power of the devils was
nothing before Him. He could have delivered the world from all the power of
the enemy, if that only had been in question, and from all the ills of
humanity. The strong man was bound, and the Lord spoiled his goods. But the
presence of God, of Jehovah, troubles the world even more than the power of
the enemy degrades and domineers over mind and body. The control of the
enemy over the heart-too peaceful, and alas! too little perceived-is more
mighty than his strength. This succumbs before the word of Jesus; but the
will of man accepts the world as it is, governed by the influence of Satan.
The whole city, who had witnessed the deliverance of the demoniac and the
power of Jesus present among them, entreat Him to depart. Sad history of
the world! The Lord came down with power to deliver the world-man-from all
the power of the enemy; but they would not. Their distance from God was
moral, and not merely bondage to the enemy's power. They submitted to his
yoke, they had become used to it, and they would not have the presence of
God.
I doubt not that that which happened to the swine is a figure of that which
happened to the impious and profane Jews who rejected the Lord Jesus.
Nothing can be more striking than the way in which a divine Person,
Emmanuel, though a man in grace, is manifested in this chapter.
