Smoodock's Blog

Presently, we are studying the early ministry of Jesus, from its conception up to around the first year of publicly presenting himself as the Messiah, and the good news of the coming of the New Covenant, which is the Kingdom of God’s Presence. Matthew’s narrative is presented as five sections with an introduction and a conclusion, and each section contains a new theme of Jesus’ teaching. In the first section (Matthew 4:17 to the end of chapter 8) or first Book, Jesus came announcing the coming of the Kingdom of God, which is a call to return to the Presence of God, vis-à-vis God has finally acted on his promise to reply to mankind’s rebellion (cp. Genesis 3:15). There, mankind was cast out of God’s Presence, now the promised Seed has come to confront man’s evil and bring him back to God, where we were originally.

In section two, or the second Book of Matthew’ s narrative, Jesus answers the question: what happens to the one who returns to the Presence of God? Jesus is God with us! Physically, he was the Presence of God (John 1:1, 14), and he travels through the cities and villages of Galilee and Judea showing us, through a number of miracles what it would be like to return to God’s Presence. We have rebelled and walked away from God, our Creator. Under the covenant of Law, we are found guilty of wickedness and our judgment would have been death (Genesis 2:17; cp, Romans 7:10). However, God chooses to forgive our transgressions and give us life (Romans 6:23), so in this second section Jesus is teaching us what that means.

When Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, it was the Sabbath day, and according to the traditions of the scribes and Pharisees, healing was work and couldn’t be done on the Sabbath (cp. Mark 3:2). Therefore, although folks wanted to be healed, they didn’t bring their friends and relatives, who were sick, until after the Sabbath was past (Matthew 8:16), vis-à-vis after the sun had gone down. At that time the people came bringing both those possessed, who were healed by the word of Christ (Matthew 8:16), and those who were sick, who were healed by the touch of Christ (Luke 4:40).

Scripture always puts a distinction between those afflicted with a disease or a physical handicap and those possessed by an evil spirit.[1] The disease or handicap affects one’s physical body, while a person possessed isn’t in his right mind (cp. Mark 5:15). Thus, the one is healed with the physical touch of Christ, while the other needs the spiritual words of Christ (cp. John 6:63) to liberate him of the power that controls his behavior and his life’s goals.

So, lives are changed, when they come into God’s Presence, and Matthew interprets this as a fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy, which says the (Messiah) will bear our griefs and carry our sorrows (Isaiah 53:4). In other words, do you think that the leper, whom Jesus healed (Matthew 8:1-4) was despised and rejected by men in his community? Was he a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief? Do you think that folks hid their faces from him and did they believe he was smitten by God? Jesus healed him, but his aliments fell upon Jesus, and he bore them throughout his ministry (Isaiah 53:3-4).

Jesus also healed the young man and Peter’s mother-in-law, both of whom were both laid up in their deathbeds and without strength (Matthew 8:5-6, 14-15). Do you suppose that they mourned over their present condition? Do you think they may have thought about the life they were leaving behind, of things they wished they had done but didn’t or simply wishing they could do more? When Jesus healed them, their griefs fell upon him (Isaiah 53:4-5). In other words, Jesus was a man of sorrows, oppressed and afflicted, but he bore it all quietly (Isaiah 53:3, 7), and he, not they, bore the judgment of death (Isaiah 53:8). He was not the Messiah who would lead Israel into battle and destroy all their enemies among the gentiles. Instead, he was the Messiah who would take rebellious mankind, forgive their sins and bring them back into God’s Presence, saving them from the death they chose in their rebellion (cp. Genesis 2:17; 3:1-7, 22-24) and giving them life, which they sought, but didn’t trust God to give them.

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[1] An evil spirit is not what is claimed today, vis-à-vis an evil spirit isn’t an evil or fallen angel. Rather, an evil spirit is something gone wrong with our minds. Our minds are spiritual in nature, in that they cannot be seen, heard, touched, smelled or tasted, vis-à-vis they cannot be accessed through the five gates/senses through which we process our knowledge of truth. I have nine studies on this subject, and they can be accessed on my web page: Our Demons.