Capernaum is called His own city because, though the Lord Jesus was born in Bethlehem and brought up in Nazareth, He had made His home there. Thus was Capernaum “exalted to heaven.”
We have had sin before us in its polluting character, now we have man in his helplessness. “And behold!” The Holy Spirit in effect says “Now mark!” The man could not come himself, he was dependent on others to bring him. In Mark we are told he was borne of four. “When he saw their faith” his, as well as theirs who brought him. He always responds to faith. There is an utterly helpless man laid before Him. Why did the Lord say, “Thy sins be forgiven thee"? They had brought him to Jesus that He should effect a physical cure. This He did, and much more. Could we suppose the Lord would say “Thy sins be forgiven” to one not troubled about them? He knew the man's heart, others saw his helplessness. The Lord shows He not only knew what was going on in him, but also He knew their thoughts; He is the Omniscient One. The scribes say, “This man blasphemeth.” They were the blasphemers really, blind to the true glory of the One Who was there.
It is easy for a man to say “Thy sins be forgiven thee"; a wicked man can say it, but where is the proof of his authority for so saying? When they accused Him of blasphemy, He who searches the heart says, “Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk?” That is the point. If one can give the man power to walk, He must be God, and have power to forgive sins also. “But that ye may know that the Son of man has power on earth to forgive sins,” etc. He is never addressed as “Son of man,” but the Lord constantly uses the title Himself. It is not so limited as Messiah, and it is on His rejection as Messiah that it is brought out. It is Messiah in Psa. 2, Son of man in Psa. 8, but, the same Person. There is nothing saving in merely knowing scripture, or committing it to memory, though excellent in its way; for without faith in Christ as a divine Person it will not avail for your soul. “Whom say ye that I am?” “The Christ, the Son of the living God!” This knowledge was divinely communicated to Peter by an act of grace; as says the Lord, “Blessed art thou"... “for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven (16.).”
“But when the multitudes saw it, they were afraid (R.V.) and glorified God, which had given such power unto men” (ver. 8). This was not really God-honoring, or honoring to the Lord. They were blind to the true glory of the Lord, as much as were the religious leaders. It should read here, “they were afraid” not “they marveled” as in our A.V.
We were seeing that in this Gospel we do not get things so much in order of time. In each of the Gospels we get a selection—a small selection of events, but it is a divine selection and a divine arrangement. In Matthew this is dispensational.
In these two chapters, 8, 9, we get this wonderful cluster of miracles to prove that He who gave the principles of chaps. 5-7, is able to do everything which it is the object of the Spirit to give us in this wonderful group.
It is very lovely to see how the incident which follows (vers. 9-13) is given by Matthew. He seeks to hide himself. It is only in this Gospel that Matthew the writer, when giving the list of the apostles, calls himself there “the publican” or tax-gatherer—an opprobrious name. Thus he humbles himself whilst here he hides himself, for you would not know, from what Matthew tells us, that it was in his house. For this we are indebted to Luke, who beautifully tells us that “Levi (i.e. Matthew) made Him a great feast in his house” (chap. 5).
It is one thing for a person to elect to follow the Lord, and quite another for the Lord to call one to follow Him. In a previous chapter, a certain man said he would follow, and the Lord lets him know that such a course demands sacrifice, for nature has its attractions. We do not know the thoughts of the heart, the Lord does. When those polite enough to beseech Him to depart, did so, He went. Well, Matthew was ready at once to abandon his position and follow Jesus. That indeed delighted the Lord. He does not want divided hearts. He wants all our heart. The response of Matthew brings this out. He was ready to follow the Lord, and it was given to Luke to disclose to us that this Levi made for the Lord a feast, yea, a “great” feast.
The word “Behold” introduces something significant in these narratives. What the Spirit attracts our attention to here is that many publicans and sinners came and reclined with Jesus and His disciples. We are not told they were invited. Publicans and sinners are often classed together—the tax-gatherers who farmed the Roman taxes, and the sinners. Tax-gatherers are generally disliked, and with a corrupt government the dislike was inveterate. Matthew was not the only one blessed, there was Zacchaeus also, and there were others not mentioned by name.
“And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners?” (ver. 11). These religious men looked down with contempt on publicans and sinners. In the Gospel of Luke we see that publicans were permitted to go into the temple, but the Pharisee looked at himself as on a higher pedestal.
When the Pharisees saw this, they said to the disciples what was really a charge against the Lord: “Why eateth your master,” etc. And when Jesus heard, He said unto them, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” There you have two classes; those who trusted they were righteous did not realize their need of the physician, though really needing Him as much as any. It is a dangerous thing to attack the Lord's disciples. The Lord uses scripture more against the adversaries than against the disciples in ver. 13. “I am not come to call the righteous but sinners.” This was, the business of the Lord here. He came on behalf of poor sinners — “to seek and to save the lost.” He is the One who wills, who shows mercy. If a soul is saved and blest, it is because God has had mercy. We all belong to one common lump, and those saved are vessels of mercy afore-prepared unto glory; while in the case of the lost, He endures “with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction” —fitted not by God, but fitted by themselves to destruction.
They were complaining of the Lord having to do with publicans and sinners, and He lets them know that such were the objects of His coming. “To repentance” is not properly here and should be left out. It is given in the parallel passage in Luke. Repentance is, as is faith, the gift of God, “Then hath God also to the Gentiles, granted repentance unto life” (Acts 11:1818When they heard these things, they held their peace, and glorified God, saying, Then hath God also to the Gentiles granted repentance unto life. (Acts 11:18)).
“I will have mercy.” It is very beautiful. He retreated into Himself when Israel forfeited everything. They did not appreciate the grace that had dealt with them, for it is all grace, sovereign grace, up to the end of Ex. 18. Law came in by the way, and the people showed they did not value the grace, by their taking the ground of conditional blessing, and so they forfeited everything. God could not have gone on with them if He had not retreated into Himself. You get the book of Exodus divided into three parts—first, pure grace; then, pure law; and lastly, a mixture of law and grace. What follows now takes up the attempt to mix up grace and law. That is just what is pleasing to the natural man. How little is it seen that we are “not under law,” though “legitimately subject (ἔννομος) to Christ.” Law demanded what man could never give, and cursed him for not giving it. Grace gives us power to keep the law and blesses us for doing it. “For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit” (Rom. 8). Patchwork and broken bottles will not do for God, if they do for man.
We never read of the Lord fasting except during the forty days before His ministry. Fasting is all right in its place, but in the presence of the bridegroom it is out of place. The disciples here represented the children of the bride chamber. The bridegroom was a familiar figure in the O.T. Take for instance, the nook of Song of Solomon. We have to distinguish between the bride of Christ, and Israel. Jerusalem is looked upon as the bride, and the cities of Judah as her companions. But the bride of Christ is composed of all saints between Pentecost and the rapture of the saints to meet the Lord in the air. We are in the position now of being “sorrowful but always rejoicing.” For here there is so much to make us sorrowful—the condition of the Lord's people and of the world: and, if we but look at ourselves, how little do we respond to His wondrous grace!
Some people speak of practical truth, but every bit of truth ought to have its due effect upon us. God was not on speaking terms with Lot. He is never called the God of Lot, though Lot was just, and vexed his righteous soul. But with Abraham God did not hide from him what He was about to do, He told him His bosom secrets. There we have a picture of what effect dispensational truth should have on us. It made Abraham an intercessor.
New cloth is what grace is bringing in now. It is not to be used to patch up the old. That is what men seek to do; it is an awful mistake. They mix up Judaism and Christianity. What the Lord was bringing in was not suitable to the old forms at all. Truth must have its own proper form. Then both are preserved.