Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Luke 5:12
And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on [his] face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
12 16. The Healing of a Leper
12. a certain city ] Probably the village of Hattn, for we learn from St Matthew’s definite notice that this incident took place on descending from the Mount of Beatitudes ( Kurn Hattn), see Mat 8:1-4; Mar 1:40-45. Hence chronologically the call of Matthew, the choosing of the Twelve, and the Sermon on the Mount probably intervene between this incident and the last.
a man full of leprosy ] The hideous and hopeless nature of this disease which is nothing short of a foul decay, arising from the total corruption of the blood has been too often described to need further notice. See Leviticus 13, 14. It was a living death, as indicated by bare head, rent clothes, and covered lip. In the middle ages, a man seized with leprosy was “clothed in a shroud, and the masses of the dead sung over him.” In its horrible repulsiveness it is the Gospel type of Sin. The expression “full of” implies the rapid development and horror of the disease; when the man’s whole body was covered with the whiteness, he was allowed to mingle with others as clean (Lev 13:13).
fell on his face ] We get the full picture by combining the three Evangelists. We then see that he came with passionate entreaties, flinging himself on his knees, and worshipping, and finally in his agony prostrating himself on his face.
thou canst make me clean ] The faith of this poor leper must have been intense, for hitherto there had been but one instance of a leper cleansed by miracle (Luk 4:27; 2 Kings 5).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
See the notes at Mat 8:2-4.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Luk 5:12; Luk 5:15
Behold a man full of leprosy
The leper cleansed
I.
LEPROSY AFFORDS A STRIKING REPRESENTATION OF THE CHARACTER AND CONSEQUENCE OF SIN.
1. This spiritual leprosy has rendered all our race unclean in the sight of God and in the judgment of His holy law.
(1) It shuts us out from His presence,
(2) and from a place among His people.
2. No skill or power of man can cure this disease.
3. This malady, if not healed, will issue in death. And remember, death is not cessation of being, but a state of awful terror, pain, and wretchedness. This is the issue to which sin is bringing its victims.
4. Yet, thank God, our case is not altogether hopeless; there is a cure.
II. OBSERVE THE STEPS TAKEN BY THIS LEPER TO OBTAIN A CURE. Thus we may learn what the disposition is, in which we should endeavour to approach the Saviour, who alone can heal our spiritual leprosy.
1. The first thing I would notice in this lepers conduct is the eagerness and haste with which he ran to Jesus immediately he met Him.
2. His reverential selfabasement. His eagerness in seeking relief did not cause him to forget what was due to the character of Him from whom that relief was sought.
3. The confidence he entertained of Christs power. Have not we far stronger grounds for this than he had? (J. Harding, M. A.)
Two pulpits
I. Observe HOW MANY ANONYMOUS BELIEVERS THERE ARE IN THE BIBLE RECORD WHO GIVE HELP ALL ALONG THE AGES. Here are mentioned multitudes, and among them two persons in particular–a leper and a paralytic. And that is all we know about any individual to whom that eventful day was the beginning of renewed life. No name, no history, no after career; but we suppose that these cripples are in heaven now, and we know that their story has helped thousands to be patient and cheerful on the way thither. It is of little consequence who we are; it matters more what we are.
II. EVEN IN EXTREME HOPELESSNESS OF DISEASE ONE MAY EXHIBIT A SUPREME AND ILLUSTRIOUS FAITH. The cases of these two men were as bad as they could well be; yet did our Lord find in them faith enough to be healed. In the rooms of the American Tract Society, in New York, are still standing two objects which I studied for some meditative years, once a month, at a committee meeting. One is a slight framework of tough wood, a few feet high, so bound together with hasps and hinges as to be taken down and folded in the hand. This was Whitefields travelling-pulpit–the one he used when, denied access to the churches, he harangued the thousands in the open air, on the moors of England. You will think of this modern apostle, lifted up upon the small platform, with the throngs of eager people around him, or hurrying from one field to another, bearing his Bible in his arms; ever on the move, toiling with Herculean energy, and a force like that of a giant. There, in that rude pulpit, is the symbol of all which is active and fiery in dauntless Christian zeal. But now, look again: in the centre of this framework, resting upon the slender platform, where the living preacher used to stand, you will see a chair–a plain, straight-backed, armed, cottage-chair–rough, simple, meagrely cushioned, unvarnished, and stiff. It was the seat in which Elizabeth Wallbridge, the dairymans daughter, sat and coughed and whispered, and from which she went only at her last hour to the couch on which she died. Here again is a pulpit; and it is the symbol of a life quiet and unromantic and hard in all Christian endurance. Every word that invalid woman uttered–every patient night she suffered–was a gospel sermon. In a hundred languages, the life of that servant of God has preached to millions of souls the riches of Christs glory and grace. And of these two pulpits, which is the most honourable is known only to God, who undoubtedly accepted and consecrated them both. The one is suggestive of the ministry of speech, the other of the ministry of submission.
III. AN EXPLANATION OF THE MYSTERY AND THE PURPOSE OF SUFFERING. Pain is a sort of ordination to the Christian ministry. Pure submission is as good as going on a foreign mission. Souls may be won to the Cross by a life on a sick-bed just as well as by a life in a cathedral desk.
IV. Hence, we may easily learn WHAT SHOULD BE THE CHIEF OCCUPATION OF AN INVALID. NO one can preach from any pulpit without the proper measure of study. He must thoughtfully ascertain what will make his efforts most pertinent.
1. He will study doctrine.
2. He will study experience, too.
A month ago I saw a brave soldier of the Cross who had been passing through a fiery history of years with broken health, which had taken him from the pulpit of his usefulness and bidden him look into the grave season after season. He was now only able to stand, and sought a new field. Only yesterday he visited me again; in his feebleness he lay on my couch while he talked. He had just come from putting the wife of his manhood, his patient helper and the stay of his home, in the bedlam of a madhouse. Poor in spirit and poor in purse, broken-hearted and alone, he feared he should break again. Yet there he lay, and spoke hopefully and gently. Oh, that valiant brother, quivering in every muscle, but bold and firm in his trustful courage, preached to me in my study as I know I never preached in my church!
V. Some people recover from long illness; Christ heals them, as He did these men in the story. So there is one more lesson for convalescents: WHAT ARE THEY GOING TO DO WITH THEIR LIVES HEREAFTER? It is a solemn thing to die, said Schiller, but it is a more solemn thing to live. We know the story of the Scotch mother, whose child an eagle stole away; half maddened she saw the bird reach its eyrie far up the cliff. No one could scale the rock. In distraction she prayed all the day. An old sailor climbed after it, and crept down dizzily from the height. There, on her outstretched arms, as she plod with closed eyes, he laid her babe. She rose in majesty of self-denial and took it (as she had been taught in that land) to her minister. She would not kiss it till it had been solemnly dedicated unto God I What shall a man do with a life given back to him? (C. S.Robinson, D. D.)
What has God done to save me?
The divinely-offered key to a right appreciation of Christs spiritual work, even to that which theologians call the Atonement, should be sought by observing how our Lord cleansed the lepers, made the blind to see, and the lame to walk. Let us endeavour to realize how He, whose name is the only name given under heaven among men whereby we may be saved, healed mens diseases, in order that we may understand, so far as it has been revealed, how He saves us from our sins.
I. CONSIDER, FIRST, WHY JESUS HEALED. Not to show that He could, but because He pitied the sufferer. When asked to work miracles to prove His ability to do so, He habitually declined. Every act of healing wrought by Christ was an act of pure compassion. He never healed to attract attention to Himself. He often commanded those He healed to say nothing of their cure.
II. CONSIDER, NEXT, HOW JESUS HEALED.
1. The fact that He had compassion upon them was itself the first step in the cure of many who came to Him. There are diseases in which recovery must begin by regaining lost self-respect. In Christ the most dissolute and disgraced found not only pity, but delicate considerateness. Think, e.g., of His treatment of this leper. We can scarcely conceive what the effect must have been upon a man who had for years been closeted with his loathsome self, or with still more loathsome fellow-sufferers–a man who might not eat with human beings unless the same deadly taint was upon them, nor appear in the street except jangling a bell to give warning of the peril his presence brought; who, if he patted upon the head a carrion dog, it must be instantly killed, lest it should brush against others and defile them, because he had touched it; who, if he saw his mother, his child, his wife approach, must fly or shout, Unclean, unclean! Keep afar! We can scarcely conceive what the effect must have been upon such a man, when he saw Jesus draw nigh. The multitude attending the Saviour falls back as men shrink from the plague; for crowds are always cowards. But the Master approaches, and, paying no heed to the jangling bell, the warning cry, lays His hand upon him. For the first time for years the leper feels the touch of a hand that is not hardened by the awful malady. That touch must have made the leper a new man in heart before the quickened pulse could shoot new life into the decaying limbs.
2. In healing, Christ made effort. One must be blind to read the New Testament, and fancy Christs cures cost Him nothing because He was Divine. It was because He was Divine that they cost Him so much. If you would seek beings incapable of suffering, you must not go up toward the angels and the great white throne, for there you will find the Lamb as it had been slain, but down among the oysters. Do you ask, How did Christ bear mens diseases? Thus: He sighed, He prayed, He lifted them in His arms, He put His hands upon them, He drew them to His bosom, He groaned, He felt His strength go from Him, to heal their bodies. If He had done less, He would not have made manifest the longsuttering God; and His saving mens bodies, His bearing their infirmities and healing their diseases, would have been no illustration of the agony with which He wrestled in Gethsemane for the salvation of their souls.
3. In many instances Jesus employed known remedies in physical healing. He manipulated the palsied tongue and the stopped ears–put His fingers in the ears, touched the tongue. He covered the blind eyes with moist clay, a well-known Egyptian remedy for ophthalmia. He inquired minutely the symptoms of the demoniac boy. He bent over those He healed, He touched them, as careful physicians do. Thus He encouraged, not the breach, but the observance of Gods order. He put honour, by His example, upon the use of scientific remedies. At times He healed by a word, without approaching the sick one. But He seems to have dispensed with remedies only when to employ them was impossible, or when they would have been obviously useless, or when there was a special reason for neglecting them. His example said to those apostles to whom miraculous powers were given, Use the best means; pray God to bless their use; and when you can do nothing more, pray. And that is what every wise and instructed Christian tries to do.
4. In all Christs healings there was conspicuously revealed the authority of absolute power. When He spoke, devils obeyed, the dead heard, the despairing hoped, the lost knew that they were found. (William B. Wright.)
The touch of Christ; or, the power of sympathy
A lady visiting an asylum for friendless orphan children lately watched the little ones go through their daily drill superintended by the matron, a firm, honest woman, to whom her duty had evidently become a mechanical task. One little toddler hurt her foot, and the visitor, who had children of her own, took her on her knee, petted her, made her laugh, and kissed her before she put her down. The other children stared in wonder. What is the matter? Does nobody ever kiss you? asked the astonished visitor. No; that isnt in the rules, maam, was the answer. A gentleman in the same city, who one morning stopped to buy a newspaper from a wizened, shrieking newsboy at the station, found the boy following him every day thereafter, with a wistful face, brushing the spots from his clothes, calling a car for him, &c. Do you know me? he asked at last. The wretched little Arab laughed. No; but you called me my child one day. Id like to do something for you, sir. I thought before that I was nobodys child. Christian men and women are too apt to feel when they subscribe to organized charities that they have done their duty to the great army of homeless, friendless waifs around them. A touch, a kiss, a kind word, may do much towards saving the neglected little one who feels he is nobodys child, teaching it, as no money can do, that we are all children of one Father. When Christ would heal or help the poor outcast, He did not send him money, but He came close and touched him.
A lepers logic
This man apparently had no doubt of our Lords ability to heal him. It was about Christs willingness that he was in doubt. As a rule, men do not naturally associate love and power; they believe in the existence of power far more readily than in that of love. Power seems to create distrust in love.
1. Perhaps because the world is so used to seeing power used arbitrarily and selfishly.
2. Because of the consciousness of sin. It was when Peter saw the Divine power of Christ displayed in the draught of fishes that he said, Depart from me, &c. And in the light of this fact, the incident of our text has a peculiar force; for–
I. THE DISEASE FROM WHICH THIS MAN WAS SUFFERING WAS REPRESENTATIVE OF SIN. It was a decomposition of the vital juices, putrefaction in a living body; hence an image of death. The leper was treated throughout as a sinner. He was a dreadful parable of death. The case of this leper, therefore–
II. GAVE OUR LORD AN OPPORTUNITY, NOT ONLY TO DO A WORK OF MERCY AND LOVE UPON A DISEASED MAN, BUT ALSO TO GIVE A SYMBOLIC TESTIMONY OF HIS WILLINGNESS TO DEAL LOVINGLY AND FORGIVINGLY WITH A SINFUL MAN. Let US see how Christs willingness comes out in this incident.
1. It is not repelled by an imperfect faith.
2. It was shown in Christs express declaration. How striking is the way in which He meets that timid If Thou wilt with I will. (M. R. Vincent, D. D.)
If Thou wilt
When the leper said, If Thou wilt, he narrowed his appeal, and directed it to the will of Jesus. His faith in Christs power was very much stronger that his faith in Christs goodness. It contained much that was true, but did not contain much more that was equally true. Christ answered, not according to the imperfection of the appeal, but according to its possibility of being perfected. If Thou wilt is fitting language for us, not because we doubt His goodness, but because we believe in His wisdom. If we learn that it is Gods will that we should suffer and have disappointment, we hope amidst our pain, and know that our disappointment is after all the appointment of the wiser still, and that, whatever may be in the meantime withheld, the answer will be given at last, Be thou clean. (J. Ogmore Davies)
Leprosy
I. PHYSICAL ASPECT.
1. White pustules–eat away flesh–attacking one member after another–at last the bones.
2. Attended with sleeplessness, nightmare, and hopelessness of cure.
3. A living death.
II. SOCIAL ASPECT.
1. Contagion.
2. Lived in a several house, or in bands at a distance from ordinary dwelling.
3. Went with head uncovered, crying, Room for the leper.
III. RELIGIOUS ASPECT.
1. Excommunication–no communion with the commonwealth of Israel.
2. In every way a type of the impenitent sinner. For–
3. Sin is a living death; contagious, and separates from God. (F. Godet, D. D.)
Socially restored, as well as morally
And He charged him to tell no man. Assume that the true state of the case was that Jesus wrought a cure, and left it to the priest to declare the patient cured, and all becomes clear, natural, and Christlike. Two things had to be done to make the benefit complete–the disease had to be healed, whereby the sufferer would be delivered from the physical evil; and it had to be authoritatively declared healed, whereby the sufferer would be delivered from the social disabilities imposed by the law upon lepers. Jesus conferred one-half of the blessing, and He sent the leper to the priest to receive from him the other half. He did this, not in ostentation, or by way of precaution, but chiefly, if not exclusively, out of regard to the mans good, that he might be restored, not only to health, but to society. Hence, also, the injunction of silence. The prevention of unhealthy excitement among the people was only a secondary aim. The primary end concerned the man healed. Jesus wished to prevent him from contenting himself with half the benefit, rejoicing in restored health, and telling everybody he met about it, and neglecting the steps necessary to get himself universally recognized as healed. (A. B. Bruce, D. D.)
Show thyself to the priest, &c.
A certificate of the recovery of a leper could only be given at Jerusalem, by a priest, after a lengthened examination, and tedious rites. It will illustrate the bondage of the ceremonial law, as then in force, to describe them. With his heart full of the first joy of a cure so amazing, the leper had to set off to the Temple for the requisite papers to authorize his return, once more, to the roll of Israel. A tent had to be pitched outside the city, and in this the priest examined the leper, cutting off all his hair with the utmost care; for, if only two hairs were left, the ceremony was invalid. Two sparrows had to be brought at this first stage of the cleansing–the one, Go be killed over a small earthen pan of water, into which its blood must drop; the other, after being sprinkled with the blood of its mate–a cedar twig, to which scarlet wool and a piece of hyssop (Psa 51:1) were bound, being used to do so–was let free in such a direction that it should fly to the open country. After the scrutiny by the priest, the leper put on clean clothes, and carried away those he had worn to a running stream to wash them thoroughly, and to cleanse himself by a bath. He could now enter the city, but for seven days more could not enter his own house. On the eighth day he once more submitted to the scissors of the priest, who cut off whatever hair might have grown in the interval. Then followed a second bath; and now he had only carefully to avoid any defilement, so as to be fit to attend in the Temple next morning, and complete his cleansing. The first step in this final purification was to offer three lambs, two males and a female, none of which must be under a year old. Standing at the outer edge of the court of the men, which he was not yet worthy to enter, the leper awaited the longed-for rites. These began by the priest taking one of the male lambs destined to be slain as an atonement for the leper, and handing it to each point of the compass in turn, and by his swinging a vessel of oil on all sides in the same way, as if to present both to the universally-present God. He then led the lamb to the leper, who laid his hands on its head, and gave it over as a sacrifice for his guilt, which he now confessed. It was forthwith killed at the north side of the altar, two priests catching its blood, the one in a vessel, the other in his hand. The first now sprinkled the altar with the blood, while the other went to the leper and anointed his ears, his right thumb, and his right toe with it. The one priest then poured some oil of the lepers offering into the left hand of the other, who, in his turn, dipped his finger seven times into the oil thus held, and sprinkled it as often towards the Holy of Holies. Each part of the leper which before had been touched with the blood was then further anointed with the oil, what remained being stroked on his head. The leper could now enter the mens court, and did so, passing through it to that of the priests. The female lamb was next killed, as a sin-offering, after he had put his hands on its head, part of its blood being smeared on the horns of the altar, while the rest was poured out at the altar-base. The other male lamb was then slain for a burnt-sacrifice; the leper once more laying him hands on its head, and the priests sprinkling its blood on the altar. The fat, and all that was fit for an offering, was now laid on the altar, and burned as a sweet-smelling savour to God. A meal-offering of fine wheat meal and oil ended the whole; a portion being laid on the altar, while the rest, with the two lambs, of which only a small part had been burned, formed the dues of the priest. It was not till all this had been done that the full ceremony of cleansing, or showing himself to the priests, had been carried out, and that the cheering words, Thou art pure, restored the sufferer once more to the rights of citizenship and of intercourse with men. No wonder that even a man like St. Peter, so tenderly minded to his ancestral religion, should speak (Act 15:10) of its requirements as a yoke which neither our fathers nor we are able to bear. (Dr. Geikie.)
The moral of Luk 5:14
Unless we show ourselves to whomsoever is our priest after our healings and cleansings, and after the gift which is commanded us, we are less pure for having been so cleansed, and more diseased for having been so healed. There can be no greater evil than to be prosperous without being prayerful, and strong without being Godlike. You should never finish your successful commercial enterprise with the balancing of your account at the bank. The only duty of your restored vigour is not merely to pay your doctors bill. Your healing and your prospering are from Israels God; you had better tell Him of them, and tell Him without much ado with man by the way. Tell no man until you know how to speak devoutly, and see no man until you have seen God. You must obey with the new strength before you are free in the use of it. (J. Ogmore Davies.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 12. A certain city] This was some city of Galilee; probably Chorazin or Bethsaida.
A man full of leprosy] See this disease, and the cure, largely explained on Mt 8:2-4; and see it particularly applied to the use of public preaching, Mr 1:40, &c. See also the notes on Lev. 13, and 14. Le 13:1ff, Le 14:1ff
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
See Poole on “Mat 8:2“, and verses following to Mat 8:5. See Poole on “Mar 1:40“, and verses following to Mar 1:45. Matthew reports this miracle done when Christ came down from the mountain, and immediately after saith, that he entered into Capernaum, Mat 8:5. Mark also, concluding the first chapter with this piece of history, he begins the second with telling us, that he entered into Capernaum after some days. So that some think he was near Capernaum, within the bounds of it, when he wrought this miracle, but there is no certainty of that.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city,…. Or near it, hard by it, very probably Capernaum; Mt 8:1 Behold a man full of leprosy; a disease to which the Jews were very incident, and concerning which, many laws and rules are given, in
Le 13:1. The symptoms of the ancient “lepra”, as laid down by Galen, Aretaeus, Pontanus, Aegineta, Cardan, Varanda, Gordon, Pharaeus, and others, are as follow. The patient’s voice is hoarse, and comes rather through the nose than the mouth; the blood full of little white shining bodies, like groins of millet, which upon filtration, separate themselves from it; the serum is scabious, and destitute of its natural humidity, insomuch that salt applied to it, does not dissolve; it is so dry, that vinegar poured on it boils; and is so strongly bound together by little imperceptible threads, that calcined lead thrown into it swims. The face resembles a coal half extinct, unctuous, shining, and bloated, with frequent hard knobs, green at bottom, and white at top. The hair is short, stiff, and brinded; and not to be torn off, without bringing away, some of the rotten flesh, to which it adheres; if it grows again, either on the head or chin, it is always white: athwart the forehead, run large wrinkles or furrows, from one temple to the other; the eyes red and inflamed, and shine like those of a cat; the ears swollen and red, eaten with ulcers towards the bottom, and encompassed with little glands; the nose sunk, because of the rotting of the cartilage; the tongue dry and black, swollen, ulcerated, divided with furrows, and spotted with grains of white; the skin covered with ulcers, that die and revive on each other, or with white spots, or scales like a fish; it is rough and insensible, and when cut, instead of blood, yields a sanious liquor: it arrives in time to such a degree of insensibility, that the wrist, feet, or even the large tendon, may be pierced with a needle, without the patient’s feeling any pain; at last the nose, fingers, toes, and even privy members, fall off entire; and by a death peculiar to each of them, anticipate that of the patient: it is added, that the body is so hot, that a fresh apple held in the hand an hour, will be dried and wrinkled, as if exposed to the sun for a week e. Think now what a miserable deplorable object this man was, said to be full of it. Between this disease and sin, there is a very great likeness. This disease is a very filthy one, and of a defiling nature, by the ceremonial law; under which it was considered rather as an uncleanness, than as a disease; the person attended with it was pronounced unclean by the priest, and was put out of the camp, and out of the cities and walled towns, that he might not defile others; and was obliged to put a covering on his upper lip, and cry Unclean, Unclean, to acknowledge his pollution, and that others might shun him: all mankind, by reason of sin, are by the Lord pronounced filthy; and by their evil actions, not only defile themselves, but others; evil communications corrupt good manners; and when they are made sensible, freely own that their righteousnesses are as filthy rags, and they themselves as an unclean thing: it is a very nauseous and loathsome disease, as is sin; it is abominable to God, and renders men abominable in his sight; it causes the sinner himself, when convinced of it, to loath and abhor himself: David calls his sin a loathsome disease, Ps 38:7 it is of a spreading nature: this was a sign of it, if it did not spread, it was only a, scab; if it spread, it was a leprosy, Le 13:5. Sin has spread itself over all mankind, and over all the powers and faculties of the soul, and members of the body; there is no place free of it: and as the leprosy is of consuming nature, it eats and wastes the flesh, see Nu 12:10 2Ki 5:10 so sin eats like a canker, and brings ruin and destruction upon men, both soul and body. This disease was incurable by medicine; persons that had it were never sent to a physician, but to a priest; and what he did was only this, he looked upon it, and if it was a clear case, he declared the person unclean; and if it was doubtful, shut him up for seven days, and then inspected him again; and after all he could not cure him; this was the work of God, 2Ki 5:7. All which shows the nature and use of the law, which shuts men up, concludes them under sin, and by which they have knowledge of it, but no healing: the law heals none, it is the killing letter, the ministration of condemnation and death; Christ only, by his blood and stripes, heals the disease of sin, and cleanses from it. There is one thing in the law of the leprosy very surprising, and that is, that if there was any quick raw flesh, or any sound flesh in the place where the leprosy was, the man was pronounced unclean; but if the leprosy covered his skin, and all his flesh, then he was pronounced clean: this intimates, that he that thinks he has some good thing in him, and fancies himself sound and well, and trusts to his own works of righteousness, he is not justified in the sight of God; but if a man acknowledges that there is no soundness in his flesh, that in him, that is, in his flesh, dwells no good thing, but that his salvation is alone, by the grace and mercy of God, such a man is justified by faith in Christ Jesus: the parable of the Pharisee and publican will illustrate this, Lu 18:10. “Who, seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean”; [See comments on Mt 8:2]. Christ could cure lepers, and did; and which was a proof of his Messiahship, and is given among the signs of it, to John’s disciples, Mt 11:5 and as there is a likeness between the leprosy and sin, so between the cleansing of a leper under the law, and the healing of a sinner by Christ: for the cleansing of a leper, two birds were to be taken clean and alive, which were both typical of Christ, and pointed at the meekness of his human nature, his innocence, harmlessness, and purity, and that he had a life to lay down; one of these was to be killed, in an earthen vessel over running water, showing that Christ must be killed, his blood must be shed for the cleansing of leprous sinners; the earthen vessel denoted his human nature, his flesh, in which he was put to death; and the running water signified the purifying nature of his blood, and the continued virtue of it, to cleanse from all sin; and the blood and the water being mixed together, may put us in mind of the blood and water which flowed from the side of Christ, when pierced with the spear; which was an emblem of our justification and sanctification being both from him, on account of which, he is said to come both by water and by blood, 1Jo 5:6. The other bird, after it was dipped with the cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop in the blood of the slain bird, was let go alive; which typified the resurrection of Christ, who was put to death in the flesh, and quickened in the Spirit; and who rose again, for the justification of his people from all sin: the cedar wood, scarlet, and hyssop, which were used in the cleansing of the leper, may either relate to the sufferings, and death, and blood of Christ; the scarlet wool may denote the bloody sufferings of Christ, through which he was red in his apparel; the cedar wood may signify the incorruptibleness and preciousness of the blood of Christ, and the hyssop the purging virtue of it; or else these three may have regard to the three principal graces of the Spirit of God, which have to do with, and are in influenced by the sin cleansing blood of Christ: the cedar wood may signify the incorruptible and precious grace of faith; the green hyssop, the lively grace of hope; and the scarlet, the flaming grace of love, when it is in its full exercise: or else the grace of faith, by which dealing with the blood of Christ, the heart is purified, is only meant; signified by cedar wood, for its permanency; by scarlet, for its concern with the crimson blood of Christ; by which sins, though as scarlet, are made white as wool; and by hyssop, for its being an humble and lowly grace: now the cedar stick, with the scarlet wool, and bunch of hyssop bound unto it, was used to sprinkle the blood of the bird upon the leper seven times, when he was pronounced clean; and expresses the instrumentality of faith, in the application of the blood of Christ for cleansing: though after this, the leper was to shave off all his hair, and wash himself and clothes in water; suggesting to us, that holiness of life and conversation which should follow, upon cleansing through faith in the blood of Christ.
e Chambers’s Cyclopaedia in the word “Leprosy”.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
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12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13 And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. 14 And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 15 But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. 16 And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
Here is, I. The cleansing of a leper, v. 12-14. This narrative we had both in Matthew and Mark. It is here said to have been in a certain city (v. 12); it was in Capernaum, but the evangelist would not name it, perhaps because it was a reflection upon the government of the city that a leper was suffered to be in it. This man is said to be full of leprosy; he had that distemper in a high degree, which the more fitly represents our natural pollution by sin; we are full of that leprosy, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot there is no soundness in us. Now let us learn here,
1. What we must do in the sense of our spiritual leprosy. (1.) We must seek Jesus, enquire after him, acquaint ourselves with him, and reckon the discoveries made to us of Christ by the gospel the most acceptable and welcome discoveries that could be made to us. (2.) We must humble ourselves before him, as this leper, seeing Jesus, fell on his face. We must be ashamed of our pollution, and, in the sense of it, blush to lift up our faces before the holy Jesus. (3.) We must earnestly desire to be cleansed from the defilement, and cured of the disease, of sin, which renders us unfit for communion with God. (4.) We must firmly believe Christ’s ability and sufficiency to cleanse us: Lord, thou canst make me clean, though I be full of leprosy. No doubt is to be made of the merit and grace of Christ. (5.) We must be importunate in prayer for pardoning mercy and renewing grace: He fell on his face and besought him; they that would be cleansed must reckon it a favour worth wrestling for. (6.) We must refer ourselves to the good-will of Christ: Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst. This is not so much the language of his diffidence, or distrust of the good-will of Christ, as of his submission and reference of himself and his case to the will, to the good-will, of Jesus Christ.
2. What we may expect from Christ, if we thus apply ourselves to him. (1.) We shall find him very condescending and forward to take cognizance of our case (v. 13): He put forth his hand and touched him. When Christ visited this leprous world, unasked, unsought unto, he showed how low he could stoop, to do good. His touching the leper was wonderful condescension; but it is much greater to us when he is himself touched with the feeling of our infirmities. (2.) We shall find him very compassionate, and ready to relieve us; he said, “I will, never doubt of that; whosoever comes to me to be healed, I will in no wise cast him out.” He is as willing to cleanse leprous souls as they can be to be cleansed. (3.) We shall find him all-sufficient, and able to heal and cleanse us, though we be ever so full of this loathsome leprosy. One word, one touch, from Christ, did the business: Immediately the leprosy departed from him. If Christ saith, “I will, be thou justified, be thou sanctified,” it is done; for he has power on earth to forgive sin, and power to give the Holy Spirit, 1 Cor. vi. 11.
3. What he requires from those that are cleansed, v. 14. Has Christ sent his word and healed us? (1.) We must be very humble (v. 14): He charged him to tell no man. This, it should seem, did not forbid him telling it to the honour of Christ, but he must not tell it to his own honour. Those whom Christ hath healed and cleansed must know that he hath done it in such a way as for ever excludes boasting. (2.) We must be very thankful, and make a grateful acknowledgment of the divine grace: Go, and offer for thy cleansing. Christ did not require him to give him a fee, but to bring the sacrifice of praise to God; so far was he from using his power to the prejudice of the law of Moses. (3.) We must keep close to our duty; go to the priest, and those that attend him. The man whom Christ had made whole he found in the temple, John v. 14. Those who by any affliction have been detained from public ordinances should, when the affliction is removed, attend on them the more diligently, and adhere to them the more constantly.
4. Christ’s public serviceableness to men and his private communion with God; these are put together here, to give lustre to each other.
(1.) Though never any had so much pleasure in his retirements as Christ had, yet he was much in a crowd, to do good, v. 15. Though the leper should altogether hold his peace, yet the thing could not be hid, so much the more went there a fame abroad of him. The more he sought to conceal himself under a veil of humility, the more notice did people take of him; for honour is like a shadow, which flees from those that pursue it (for a man to seek his own glory is not glory), but follows those that decline it, and draw from it. The less good men say of themselves, the more will others say of them. But Christ reckoned it a small honour to him that his fame went abroad; it was much more so that hereby multitudes were brought to receive benefit by him. [1.] By his preaching. They came together to hear him, and to receive instruction from him concerning the kingdom of God. [2.] By his miracles. They came to be healed by him of their infirmities; that invited them to come to hear him, confirmed his doctrine, and recommended it.
(2.) Though never any did so much good in public, yet he found time for pious and devout retirements (v. 16): He withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed; not that he needed to avoid either distraction or ostentation, but he would set us an example, who need to order the circumstances of our devotion so as to guard against both. It is likewise our wisdom so to order our affairs as that our public work and our secret work may not intrench upon, nor interfere with, one another. Note, Secret prayer must be performed secretly; and those that have ever so much to do of the best business in this world must keep up constant stated times for it.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
Behold ( ). Quite a Hebraistic idiom, this use of after (almost like ) with (interjection) and no verb.
Full of leprosy ( ). Mr 1:40 and Mt 8:2 have simply “a leper” which see. Evidently a bad case full of sores and far advanced as Luke the physician notes. The law (Le 13:12f.) curiously treated advanced cases as less unclean than the earlier stages.
Fell on his face ( ). Second aorist active participle of , common verb. Mr 1:40 has “kneeling” () and Mt 8:40 “worshipped” (). All three attitudes were possible one after the other. All three Synoptics quote the identical language of the leper and the identical answer of Jesus. His condition of the third class turned on the “will” () of Jesus who at once asserts his will () and cleanses him. All three likewise mention the touch (, verse 13) of Christ’s hand on the unclean leper and the instantaneous cure.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
Full of leprosy. Matthew and Mark have simply a leper. The expression, full of leprosy, seems to be used here with professional accuracy. Leprosy was known among physicians under three forms : th dull white, the clear white, and the black. Luke means to describe an aggravated case. The word full in this connection is often used by medical writers, as, full of disease; the veins full of blood; the ears full of roaring. Make me clean [] . All three evangelists say cleanse instead of heal, because of the notion of uncleanness which specially attached to this malady.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
A LEPER HEALED V. 12-16
1) “And it came to pass,” (kai egeneto) “And it occurred, happened, or came to be.”
2) “When he was in a certain city,” (em to einai auton en mia ton poleon) “As he was in one of the cities,” of the Galilean area, an unnamed city, perhaps Hattin, for Matthew recounts the event as happening on his descent from the Mount of Beatitudes, Mat 8:1-4.
3) “Behold a man full of leprosy:” (kai idou aner pleres lepras) “Behold, or take note, a man full of leprosy, covered with or ravaged by leprosy,” an incurable, contagious public disease, requiring solitary quarantining and isolation under the Law, Lev 13:14; Mat 8:2-4; Mar 1:40-45.
4) “Who seeing Jesus,” (idon de ton lesoun) “Then (upon) beholding Jesus,” recognizing Him, who He was, as the Holy One of God, Luk 4:34; Luk 4:41.
5) “Fell on his face, and besought him, saying,” (peson epi prosopon edeethe autou legon) “He fell upon his face (prostrate) and begged him, repeatedly saying,” over and over, pleading, again and again for mercy and healing.
6) “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst,” (kurie ean theles dunasai) “Lord, if you are willing, you are able,” and I believe it. He seemed not to doubt the power of Jesus, but to be uncertain about His will for him.
7) “Make me clean.” (me katharisai) “To cleanse me,” to make me clean. The idea is “I believe this” and “I trust in you.” For leprosy was a type of sin, Isa 64:6.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
CRITICAL NOTES
Luk. 5:12.St. Matthew gives a distinct note of time and place when and where this miracle was wrought: it was after the Sermon on the Mount, and as Jesus came down from the mount, that the leper met him. Full of leprosy.A term of medical accuracy describing the severity of the disease. The leprosy had spread over his whole body, but not in the manner described in Lev. 13:13, for he was still unclean (Luk. 5:14). It is to be specially noticed that when the disease had attained a certain stage the man was pronounced ceremonially clean, and was allowed to mingle with others. Thou canst make me clean.His faith was wonderfully strong, as there was only one case of a leper being cleansed by miraclethat of Naaman.
Luk. 5:13. Touched him.A violation of the letter of the Mosaic law, but an action prompted by the higher law of compassion (Mar. 1:41).
Luk. 5:14. He charged him to tell no man.The reason of the prohibition probably was our Lords unwillingness to allow the attention of the people to be diverted from His teaching to His miracles, and an excitement to be aroused which would interfere with His work. The mischievous effect of disobedience to His commands on this occasion is noted in Mar. 1:45. Shew thyself to the priest, etc.See Lev. 14:1-32. For a testimony unto them.I.e. to the priests that a miracle had taken place.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Luk. 5:12-16
Be clean: be silent.The Mosaic law, which banished the leper from camp and city, which compelled him to go with bare head and rent garment, as one who mourned his own death, and to cry, Unclean, unclean! so often as he approached the haunts of men, was not a sanitary precaution, but a dramatic religious parable setting forth Gods hatred for the various forms of disease and death which spring from sin. Those afflicted by this disease were doubly burdenedthey were the prey of the most loathsome of all physical maladies, and were living emblems of the disastrous effects of sin and of Gods anger against it. Hence we can understand the intense longing with which this leper entreated to be cured, and the compassion of the Saviour for one in his pitiable condition. Note:
I. The astonishing and sublime faith of the leper.Full of leprosy, he draws near to Jesus with the cry, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. Jesus had not long begun His public ministry. He had only just delivered the Sermon on the Mount. He had not fully showed Himself unto Israel. The leper could not possibly have heard many of His words, or have seen many of His works. He may have sat on the mountain, apart from the the groups which gathered immediately round Jesus, and may have heard the divinest words which ever fell from human lips. But a great multitude had also heard them. Yet none but the leper seems to have felt that He who spake as never man spake must be more than manthe Lord from heaven. He does not hesitate to address Christ as Lord; nay, he worships this Lord as God. He kneels down, and falls on his face before Him, as though seeing in Him a divine and ineffable majesty. He has no doubt of Christs power to heal a disease which was yet beyond the scope of human power. But he is humble; he refers himself solely to the pure and kindly will of Christ, leaves the decision to Him, and is prepared to accept it, whatever it may be.
II. The compassion of Christ.Moved with compassion (Mar. 1:41), He put forth His hand and touched him. To touch a leper was to become a leper in the eye of the law and of the priests. So that to heal a leper Christ became a leper, just as to save sinners He who knew no sin became sin for us. What comfort was in that touch, and what promise! For how should Christ take him by the hand and not heal him? how bid him rise, and lift him from the dust, without also raising him from death to life? The touch of Christ was His response to the lepers worship: the words He speaks respond to the lepers prayer. Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. I will: be thou clean. Word answers to word: the response of Christ is a mere echo of the lepers prayer. And so when we cry, Make us clean, God always answers, Be thou clean. But that is not always the answer we hear or seem to hear. We often ask God to create a clean heart within us when He can only cleanse our hearts with a torrent of affliction or with bitter tears of repentance.
III. Our Lords command.To tell no man, and to show himself to the priests. We should have thought that the mans first duty was not to hold his peace, but to tell every man he met what a great Saviour he had found, and to urge them to repair to the Healer, in order that they too might be made whole. Perhaps after all, in spite of the opinion of many good men in the present day, it is not every converts first and great duty to bear verbal witness to the Saviour who has redeemed him. One of the reasons for this command was, doubtless, that our Lord did not as yet wish to draw on Himself the public attention. It was perilous to the higher objects of His mission that the people of Galilee, ignorant and sensual in their thoughts, should crowd round Him, and try to make Him by force the sort of king He would not be. And, therefore, for a time He set Himself to repress the eager zeal of his converts and disciples. Another and more special reason was, that He wished the leper to discharge a special duty, viz. to bear a testimony to the priests. He cared for the absent priests in distant Jerusalem, no less than for the lepers immediate neighbours in Galilee. As yet the priests were prejudiced against Him. They thought of Him as a zealot, a fanatic, who in cleansing the Temple had swept away corruptions at which they connived, by which they had profited. The testimony He wished to send them could hardly have failed to make a deep and auspicious impression on their minds. Jesus would fain have brought them all to a knowledge of the truth and a better mind. And then, too, His deference to their priestly authority could hardly have failed to propitiate them, and to convince them that He was bent on establishing the law, not on making it void.
IV. The lepers blended obedience and disobedience to the command.By lingering on the way and prating to every man he met, it is likely that confused and misleading rumours concerning the miracle would travel before him, and his message would lose much of its value. Till the priests have pronounced him clean, he was a leper in the eye of the law, and had no right to enter the cities and talk with men. If he assumed that he was clean before they pronounced him clean, they would infer that both he and Christ were wanting in respect both to them and to the law. All the grace, all the courtesy and deference, of our Lords act would be cast away, and the special value and force of the testimony to the priests would be impaired, if not lost. Obviously, he thought to honour Christ by much publishing what He had done. Yet to what good end did he honour Christ with his tongue, while he dishonoured by disobeying Him in his life. Let us take the warning, and be swift to hear, slow to speak. Much talk about religionand especially about the externals of religion, about miracles and proofs, about ceremonies or the affairs of the Churchso far from strengthening the spirit of devotion, is perilously apt to weaken it. There are few who are strong enough to talk as well as to act. A great faith such as this lepers is not always a patient, submissive faith. No doubt he would have found it much easier to lay down his life for Christs sake than to hold his tongue for Christs sake, just as Naaman would have found it easier to do some great thing than simply to bathe in the Jordan. Yet we need not think too hardly of him because he could not refrain his tongue. The man who can rule that member is a perfect man, for his faith covers his whole life down to its lightest action.Cox.
The Leper and the Lord.
I. The lepers cry.There is a keen sense of misery. This impels him to passionate desire for healing. How this contrasts with the indifference of men as to soul-cleansing!
1. Note his confidence. He was sure of Christs power to heal.
2. Note his doubt. He is uncertain as to Christs willingness. He has no right to presume on it. Therefore he comes with a modest prayer, breathing entreaty quite as much as doubt. The lepers doubt is our certainty. We know the principle on which Christs mercy flows.
II. The Lords answer.Show Him misery, and He answers with pity. Christs touch accompanies His compassion. Those who would heal lepers must touch them. Christs word accompanies His touch. A word of dignity and conscious power, curt, authoritative, imperative.
III. The immediate cure.Straightway. The healing of the leprosy of sin may be equally immediate. Forgiveness may be the act of a moment, though the conquering of sin be gradual and life-long. Do not suspect, but expect, immediate conversions.Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luk. 5:12-16
Luk. 5:12. Leprosy is Typical of Sin.
I. In virtue of its repulsiveness.
II. As suggesting impurity or defilement.
III. As leading to isolation or separation.Laidlaw.
Leprosy a Symbol of Divine Anger.Leprosy was the most frightful of all diseases, and was regarded by the Jews with special horror, as a symbol of Gods wrath against sin. In Jewish history we read of it as having been directly inflicted by God in punishment of
(1) rebellion (MiriamNumbers 12),
(2) lying (Gehazi2Ki. 5:27), and
(3) presumption (Uzziah2Ch. 26:19). The sufferings of the leper arose
(1) from the physical malady, which gradually and slowly consumed the body, and could neither be cured nor alleviated by human skill, and
(2) from the ceremonial defilement which it involved, and which both excluded him from the Temple and imposed upon him separation from human society. We read of these unhappy outcasts as gathering together into companies outside towns (2Ki. 7:3; Luk. 17:12). Leprosy is taken as a symbol of the depth of spiritual defilement and death in Psa. 51:7 and Isa. 1:6. Leprosy was nothing short of a living death, a corrupting of all the humours, a poisoning of the very springs of life, a dissolution little by little of the whole body, so that one limb after another actually decayed and fell away (Trench).
Leprosy and Death.The leper was the type of one dead in sin: the same emblems are used in his misery as those of mourning for the dead; the same means of cleansing as for uncleanness in connection with death, and which were never used except on these two occasions.Alford.
Human Nature typified by this Leper.Leprosy was to the body what sin is to the soul. Christ heals the leper by His touch. Human nature was typified by this leper. Christ healed us all by His touch. He touched us by taking our nature (Heb. 2:16), and thus cleansed us.Wordsworth.
Fell on his face.By this act of reverence we should not necessarily be led to suppose that this sufferer knew Jesus as a Divine being; but taken in connection with his belief in our Saviours omnipotence, and his use of the title Lord, it indicates that genuine worship was now offered to Christ and accepted by Him.
If Thou wilt, Thou canst.He was convinced of Christs power, but not sure whether He would cleanse this sickness, as evidently this was the first case of leprosy which our Lord had been asked to cure.
Make me clean.
I. The prayer of faith.No doubt of Christs ability to heal him. The only question isIs Christ willing to help him? The prayer shows acquiescence as well as humility.
II. A prayer for physical blessing.In such things we never can know what is really best for us. Threatened death, or loss of property. Are we to pray to have these averted? We are never sure. We must in such temporal emergencies ever say, If Thou wilt, Thou canst.Miller.
An Exemplary Prayer.Whether the leper consciously meant it or not, his words, If Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean, are quite in the spirit of prayer as Christ has taught it to us and exemplified it Himself. It was a prayer for a temporal blessingthe restoration of his health, and is made conditional upon the will of the Lord. So is it with all temporal blessings. We may desire them earnestly and ask for them from God, but leave the bestowal or withholding of them to His gracious will. We accept this as the condition of prayer, because we feel that God in His wisdom knows better than we do what would be best for us. But no such condition attaches to prayers we offer for spiritual blessings, for we can be perfectly sure that all such are good for us. And we see that Christ Himself, in offering the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane to be saved from death (Heb. 5:7), left the granting of His request to be determined by the will of God (chap. Luk. 22:42). The same recognition of the Divine power to fulfil the prayers of the afflicted, together with an equally calm resignation to the will of God, whatever it may be, are to be found in Dan. 3:17-18, and 2Sa. 15:25-26.
Christs Omnipotence.Christs omnipotence is the first attribute that impresses a spectator of His life and work: His calm bearing and air of authority produce a deep impression; His infinite goodness and compassion can only be fully realised as He becomes better known by us. Both anxiety and faith are manifest in this lepers words.
Luk. 5:13. Jesus touched him.
I. None of the Jews would have done this.He was a leper. They kept lepers afar off, for fear of defilement. Jesus was not afraid of defilement. He could have healed him without a touch. But the man needed the touch of a warm hand to assure him of sympathy. Many wish to do Christian work from a distancethrough agents and committees. It is much better to come close to those we wish to benefit. There is a wondrous power in a human touch. You put something of yourself into your gift.
II. The touch left no taint of defilement on Christ.It left the leprous body clean without making the Healer leprous. There is no danger in touching the lowest outcasts, if you go to them with Gods love in your heart, and yearning to do good. Do not slip your tract under the door and hurry away as if you were afraid or ashamed. Go inside these homes. It will not soil your hand to clasp the hands of the poor. You will both bless and be blessed in the deed.Miller.
Christs Union with our Nature.When He took upon Him our flesh, He did not only deign to touch us with His hand, but was united to one and the same body with ourselves, that we might be flesh of His flesh.Calvin.
Be thou clean.Such an imperative as the tongue of man had never hitherto uttered. Thus has hitherto no prophet healed. Thus He speaks in the might of God who speaks and it is done (Stier). Contrast with Christs words those used by St. Peter in Act. 3:6; Act. 3:12.
Answers to Prayer.The leper had known that Christ was able to heal him; now he knew that Christ was willing to do so. In his case there was no delay between the offering of the prayer and the gift of the blessing asked. But in our experience there may be delay in our receiving the blessing we crave. There may lie between the majestic and merciful words I will and the visible result sometimes weeks and years. The prayer of faith our Lord hears at once, and He gives the soul assurance of having been heard through the Holy Spirit; but the fulfilment of the prayer He often accomplishes only after a long time, and by the delay He would prepare us for a greater benefit than that for which we asked. In the holy sacraments which appeal to our senses we have Christ stretching forth His hands to touch and cleanse the soul.
Luk. 5:14. To tell no man.The soul that has received blessing from God, and is conscious of it, is apt to lose the freshness and beauty of its spiritual life by talking too freely to others of its secret experiences, just as a rose sprinkled with dew loses something of its freshness when it is plucked and passed from hand to hand. We are instinctively slow to speak of the things that touch us deeply, and a certain hardness and coarseness are observable in the character of those who are ready to speak of their deepest spiritual experiences to those who are willing to listen to them. No one can, indeed, receive great spiritual benefits from God without revealing the fact to others, but the unconscious testimony of a humble, devout life is often far more eloquent than words that come too readily from the lips.
To tell no man.Besides the reason suggested above in the Critical Notes, Christ may have intended that the man who had been cleansed should lose no time in proceeding to the Templeshould go on this errand without saluting any by the way or pausing to tell about his cure. The reasons for the journey:
1. Obedience to the Mosaic regulations concerning leprosy.
2. The expression of gratitude to God for the benefit received.
3. That the priests might learn, and by their examination of the person cleansed attest, that a mighty work had been wrought by the power of God.
Testimony.The priests and people of Jerusalem were inclined to be hostile towards Christ: the effect of this miracle notified to them should have been to produce faith in Jesus. It was now a testimony to them; it might, in case of persistent unbelief, become a testimony against them.
The Kings Touch.This Kings touch cures all sorts of diseases. It did so while He walked in a low, despised condition on earth; and it does so still by that virtual Divine power now that He is in heaven. And although His glory there is greater, His compassion is not less than when He was here; and His compassion always was, and is, directed much more to souls diseased than to bodies, as they are better and more valuable.Leighton.
Superstitious Inferences from the Narrative.The use made of this passage by Roman Catholic theologians in support of confession to priests and the observance of penance seems farfetched. It is not the priests who heal, but Christ: they merely attest the fact, and their doing so is simply because of their administration of laws partly ceremonial and partly sanitary, which are now abolished. There is no record of powers corresponding to theirs being instituted in connection with the ministers of the Christian religion.
Luk. 5:15. Grateful, but disobedient.St. Mark informs us that the man who had been cleansed disobeyed the strict injunction of Christ and blazed abroad the matter. His disobedience was culpable, though natural. His joy at recovering health must have been very intense, and his instinctive feelings must have led him to say, like the psalmist, Come ye and hear, all ye who fear God, and I will declare what He hath done for my soul (Psa. 66:16). As a result, however, of his impulsive conduct, Christ was incommoded in His work by the multitudes that thronged to Him to be healed of their infirmities.
What the Miracles of Healing were.Our Lords miracles of healing may be regarded
I. As proofs of His Divine mission, His Messiahship, and His divinity.
II. As a means of disarming prejudice, and thereby securing a favourable reception for His teachings.
III. As encouragements to believing prayer under the ordinary trials of life.
IV. As emblems of the spiritual blessings which He bestows.
V. As examples to be copied by His disciples in all time.Johnston.
Luk. 5:15-16. Great multitudes came together and He withdrew Himself.
I. The first cleansing of a leper was a trumpet-call to all sufferers to flock to the Emmanuel presence.
II. But He, whose praise was on all lips, and who was Himself the holy centre of all these activities and all these mercies, withdrew and prayed. It was not one withdrawal, one wilderness, one prayer (all is plural in the original): the withdrawals were repeated, the wildernesses were more than one, the prayers were habitual. Solitary prayer was His custom. Is it ours? Does not the question humble us? Prayer divided His life with teaching and healing. We too need the desert. It is not safe to have the world always with us.Vaughan.
The Prayers of Christ.
I. How different from ours!No confession of sin. That topic was a blank to Him. No need of forgiveness.
II. How real His prayers!For strength. How often is it said, He looked up to heaven! Father, I thank Thee! There was no acting, no feigning, in His devotions. He really prayed, and was really answered. Prayer was no luxury, no self-indulgence.
III. How continual His prayers!He was ever withdrawing Himself from human sight and contact. Do we not need like withdrawings, and more of them?Ibid.
Luk. 5:16. Withdrew Himself into the wilderness.By solitary communion with God and by holy meditation even Jesus was strengthened. It is a proof of the completeness of His assimilation to us that He sought and found help by those means of grace which are at our service. Could any argument for the duty of prayer to God be stronger than this which is afforded by the example of Christ? If He found prayer a necessity of His life, how much more should we!
A Testimony to the Truthfulness of the Gospels.The insertion of this reference to Christs prayers is a testimony to the truthfulness of the Gospels. Had the writers invented the stories of His miraculous powers, and aimed at representing Him as altogether a supernatural being, the ideas of humility and dependence upon God, which prayer implies, would have seemed to them foreign and contradictory to their purpose.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Appleburys Comments
Jesus Heals a Leper
Scripture
Luk. 5:12-16 And it came to pass, while he was in one of the cities, behold, a man full of leprosy: and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. 13 And he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou made clean. And straightway the leprosy departed from him. 14 And he charged him to tell no man: but go thy way, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 15 But so much the more went abroad the report concerning him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed of their infirmities. 16 But he withdrew himself in the deserts, and prayed.
Comments
a man full of leprosy.Leprosy was one of the most dreaded diseases of Bible times. Medical science has made great progress in relieving the suffering of lepers, but in Bible times there was no cure for leprosy except a miracle of God. For the laws pertaining to leprosy see Lev. 13:1 to Lev. 14:47.
There are many parallels between leprosy and sin. Both are small in beginning, but deadly in the end. Sin, of course, can be overcome by the divine remedy only. Only the blood of Christ can blot out sin.
Priests were appointed to diagnose cases of leprosy and to pass on the cure. This accounts for the fact that Jesus, after healing a leper, directed him to the priest as the Law of Moses required.
At least three persons in Old Testament times were stricken with leprosy because of their sin: (1) Mirriam (Num. 12:9-15); (2) Gehazi (2Ki. 5:25-27); and (3) Uzziah (2Ch. 26:16-21). This does not suggest that all lepers were being punished because of their sins.
full of leprosy.The law required the leper to separate himself from the camp of the Israelites and to warn others who might approach him (Luk. 17:12-13). This man, however, came into the presence of Jesus, for he was full of leprosy. Just what that meant is not known. There was a regulation in the Law for one whose whole body was covered with leprosy (Lev. 13:12-13). Such a person was clean, but the leper who came to Jesus, quite evidently, was not. We can be sure of two things: (1) the dreadful plight of the leper, and (2) the gentle response of the merciful Master who touched him and said, I will; be thou made clean.
And he charged him to tell no man.Jesus did not come into the world for the primary purpose of healing lepers. It is appointed unto man once to die (Heb. 9:27). Jesus did heal many lepers and others who were sick. Even so, disease and death remain in this world; but in heaven, death shall be no more (Rev. 21:14).
Why did Jesus forbid him to tell about his cure? Such news would bring so many that He would not be able to go from city to city to preach the Kingdom of God, and that is what He came to do (Luk. 4:43).
But so much the more went abroad the report.More than once people disregarded the wishes of Jesus. There is no indication that He blamed them, for when they brought their sick to Him He healed them.
a great multitude came together to hear, and to be healed.See Mat. 4:23-24. Their cries for help were heard; and when He had healed their sick, He withdrew into a quiet place to pray.
and prayed.Prayer for Jesus was just as natural as for a son to talk to his father. He was Son of God, but He was also Son of Man. As a man, He talked to His heavenly Father. He often deliberately slipped away from the crowds when the pressures of His ministry were heaviest in order to have time to talk to the Father. When He prayed, He spoke to the Father with reverence. He put the Kingdom of God first in His prayers. He didnt hesitate to tell the Father of His own needs. His trust in God leads others to trust Him. His thanksgiving for the blessings of God sets an example for all to follow when they pray. Thy will be done is basic in all His petitions, and should be in ours too.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Butlers Comments
SECTION 2
Cleansing Men (Luk. 5:12-26)
12 While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. 13 And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him. 14And he charged him to tell no one; but go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to the people, 15But so much the more the report went abroad concerning him; and great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirmities. 16But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.
17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, there were Pharisees, and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18And behold, men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they sought to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; 19but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20And when he saw their faith he said, Man, your sins are forgiven you. 21And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, Who is this that speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? 22When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, Why do you question in your hearts? 23Which is easier, to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Rise and walk? 24But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sinshe said to the man who was paralyzedI say to you, rise, take up your bed and go home. 25And immediately he rose before them, and took up that on which he lay, and went home, glorifying God. 26 And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen strange things today.
Luk. 5:12-16 The Defiled: . . . there came to him a man full of leprosy . . . Lepers were some of the most pathetic people of that era. It was not the physical but the social consequences of their malady that made their situation so extreme. Leviticus chapters 13 and 14 give scrupulous directions for the ostracism of lepers. They were cast out of towns and villages and had to live far away from healthy people. Often they lived in caves or tombs. They were not allowed to come within one hundred feet of a well person. When anyone approached, the leper was required to cry out concerning himself, Unclean, unclean! Often people who were well threw stones at lepers (even rabbis). No one was allowed to touch a leper. Lepers were deprived of all religious contact. They were considered outcasts from the camp of Israel. They were forbidden access to the Temple and its services. It was the social, religious and psychological deprivation that made the lepers such pitiful cases then.
Note the desperation in the lepers plea: he fell on his face and besought him, Lord if you will, you can make me clean. The Greek word translated besought might more literally be translated, begged. It is interesting that the leper asked for cleansing (Gr. katharisai) and not healing. The leper expressed humility, absolute faith in Jesus ability, and acquiescence to whatever Jesus willed to do. This is the kind of attitude Jesus always honors (cf. 1Jn. 5:14-15). With this kind of total commitment, Jesus was able to do the impossible. He could do for this defiled untouchable what no one else could doHe could cleanse! It is the Lords will to cleanse the defiled. So, Luke records, He touched the leper and said, I am willing, be cleansed (Gr. katharistheti).
No one was supposed to touch a leper lest they too be defiled. Jesus act declares: (a) I have authority to fulfill and supercede the LawI am the Lawgiver; (b) I have power to take away the penalty that keeps man from God; (c) Love fulfills the Law! Jesus did not fulfill the Law and take away the penalty in fact, however, until He died on the cross and rose from the dead. This incident was simply a typical prediction of what He was going to do. Although Jesus fulfilled and superceded certain aspects of the Mosaic Law in order to show their true meaning, He never ignored the authority of that Law so long as it was in effect. Therefore, He ordered the leper to go to the priest, make the required sacrifices, and receive official cleansing before re-entering society.
To keep from enlarging the great throngs seeking Him merely for healing and to keep from increasing the agitation against Him already at work among the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus told the man to say nothing to anyone about his healing. Mark tells us that the man went out and began to spread the news so widely that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town because of the great multitudes which gathered to be healed of their infirmities, (Mar. 1:45), so Jesus had to stay out in the country. Luke notes that He withdrew into the wilderness (uninhabited areas) to pray. If these multitudes had sought Jesus to learn of the will of God for their spiritual lives and to commit themselves to Him for atonement and regeneration, He would not have withdrawn. Their primary concern, however, appears to have been physical and not spiritual.
A Brief Study of Biblical Leprosy:
1.
The word lepra in pre-biblical Greek meant psoriasis or scaly. Translators of the Latin Vulgate took this Greek word and rendered it into the Latin as leprosas, and it was from the Latin that our first English transliteration (not translation) leprosy came! Had the Greek word been translated it would have appeared as scaly. Even the Latin leprosus means a scaling or peeling condition and the Latin word liber (book or parchment or leaves) is of the same derivation as leprosus.
2.
The Hebrew word tzaraath is from a root word meaning to cast down, to defile. In Lev. 13:1-59; Lev. 14:1-57, even garments and walls of houses could have tzaraath. This Hebrew word is translated in the English Bible as leprosy.
3.
Priests of the Old Testament were given only a few days to diagnose tzaraath. It is medically impossible to diagnose modern Hansens disease (modern leprosy) in such a short time. This suggets that the leprosy of the Bible was not the Hansens disease (leprosy) we know today.
4.
The Hebrew tzaraath and the Greek lepra, lepros apparently denoted numerous skin conditions which were pronounced unclean for religious and social reasons but which were curable. These skin conditions served the same purpose as other conditions which incurred defilementto show the absoluteness of mans estrangement from God because of sin.
5.
It is significant that the only leper healed in the New Testament was one of the 10 Samaritan lepers. All other lepers were cleansed. Apparently the Samaritan was simply healed since he could not be sent to a Jewish priest to be cleansed.
6.
It is also significant that there is no mention of leprosy (defilement) after the death and resurrection of Christ. The Law was nailed to the cross and fulfilled; there was no more ceremonial defilement. So, while the apostles healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, caused the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, they never cleansed a leper!
7.
Modern doctors have shown that the symptoms related in Leviticus chapter 13 have no connection with the disease we call leprosy (mycrobacterium leprae) which is really Hansens disease. Hansens disease is an uncurable disease mainly affecting the nervous system.
Luk. 5:16-26 The Defeated: Luke mentions for the first time in his gospel the presence of Pharisees. The religious sect known as the Pharisees probably originated in the days of the Seleucid-Jewish struggles from a group of Jews who called themselves the chasidim. The Hebrew word chasidim means, the pious ones and they resisted to the death any encroachments of Hellinistic paganism upon their Jewish culture. This took place about 300200 B.C. This group gained the favor of the majority of the common people and were able, by the time of Jesus, to exert tremendous influence upon society.
The Hebrew word pharashim (Pharisee) means, distinctly divided or separated and the Pharisees were extreme separatists. They were promoters of a traditional, exclusivistic Judaism. They numbered about 6000 in Jesus time. They were contemptuous of all who did not follow their traditions. The fundamental feature of Pharisaism was extreme legalism. In their zeal for the preservation of Jewish culture they devised thousands of traditions and rules about the Scriptures in order to protect the Law from being violated. They cared more for their rules than they did either the Law or men (cf. Mat. 12:1-8; Mar. 2:23-28; Luk. 6:1-5; Mat. 15:1-20; Mar. 7:1-13, etc.). They did believe in divine providence, the free will of man, resurrection from the dead and final judgment, and a coming Messiah. They placed great store in history and the traditional culture of the Jewish race but were interested in politics only when politics interfered with their cultural and religious traditions. They were outwardly, very religious, and were the recognized (even by Jesus, Mat. 23:1) repositories of religious instruction. They were, however, for the most part hypocritical in their relationship toward God (cf. Mat. 23:1 ff). See the following chart, The Religious/Political Frame of First Century Judaism, for the origins of Jewish sects.
THE RELIGIOUS/POLITICAL FRAME OF FIRST CENTURY JUDAISM
*
Not all priests were Sadducees.
*
Not all rabbis were Pharisees.
The Pharisees, charged with the responsibility of maintaining the purity of Judaism, were here in Galilee investigating the sudden popularity of the itinerant Galilean rabbi, Jesus. Very little was officially known about Jesus. He had not gone to rabbinical schools; He apparently had little respect for Judea (had not spent much time there) which was the capital of conservative Judaism; it was being rumored that He took a very liberal view toward the traditions of the Pharisees. Jesus was teaching and preaching the word (cf. Mar. 2:1-2) and they wanted to know where He stood doctrinally. They were concerned as to whether Jesus of Nazareth based His teaching on traditional rabbinical authority or not. They soon found out!
Four friends with a frantic faith brought a man afflicted with paralysis to be healed by Jesus. The Greek word for bed is klines and denotes a couch for reclining at meals, in distinction from a krabbatos which in Greek would mean, pallet or mattress. They could not get this couch through the door since people were jammed into the house and out around the door (cf. Mar. 2:1-2). They carried the couch to the roof-top of the house, took away some of the tiles of the roof, and let the man and his couch down through the roof into the room. The Greek word describing the mans affliction is paralelumenos. It is a perfect participle which means he had been paralyzed in the past and continued to be so. The word literally means, loosed from something that is consistently fixed, Part of the mans body had been loosed from its normal consistency to the rest of the body. We know today that paralysis has something to do with the malfunction of the nerves of portions of the body in their connections to the brain. Brain damage (through stroke or accident) is usually what causes paralysis. Paralysis is almost totally incurable by medical technology.
Jesus surprised everyone with His first action toward the man. He said, Man, your sins are forgiven you! Matthew (Mat. 9:2) notes Jesus said, Be of good cheer . . . your sins are forgiven. Why did Jesus say this first and leave the more serious problem of the mans paralysis for later? Because the paralysis was not the more serious problem! Jesus is forcing the more serious issues first: (a) the man needs forgiveness even if he never receives healing; (b) most serious of all, the issue of His deityHis divine authoritymust be declared in uncertain terms. The Pharisees recognized immediately the seriousness of Jesus initial statement. They recognized that such a claim (to be able to forgive sins) was, if false, blasphemy. What they reasoned within themselves was true! Only God can forgive sins! The problem was the Pharisees refused to accept the idea (taught in the Old Testament, Isa. 7:14; Mic. 5:2) that God could reside in a human body (become incarnate).
Jesus, by supernatural knowledge, knew what they were reasoning within their minds. He proceeds to present incontrovertible proof of His authority. They cannot test the invisible power to forgive sins, but they can test His visible power to heal a paralytic. The healing proves the other. God would not grant such power to a liar and fraud. It is easy to say, Your sins are forgiven you, and no external evidence will be available to verify its factuality. But to say to a paralyzed man, Rise, take up your bed and go home is not easy for it can be subjected to external verification! The following chart, somewhat appropriated from The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. II, pgs. 139142, by Harold Fowler, pub. College Press, demonstrates the logical defense Jesus made against the charge of blasphemy.
Notice, Jesus did not say, By the power of God, rise . . . but, I say to you, rise . . . Eventually the Jews crucified Jesus on the charge of blasphemy. Jesus was not guilty of blasphemy because He proved that He possessed the absolute power of God and thus rightfully claimed the prerogatives of Almighty God.
The reactions of the multitudes are interesting: (a) they were afraid (Mat. 9:8; Luk. 5:26) (Gr. ephobethesan from phobia); (b) they were amazed (Mar. 2:12; Luk. 5:26) (Gr. ekstasis; they were ecstatic); (c) they glorified God (Mat. 9:8; Mar. 2:12; Luk. 5:26)the word glorified in the O.T. comes from kavod which means weight and apparently derives from the idea of a persons wealth or worth; (d) they said, We have seen strange (Gr. paradoxa from which we get paradoxical) thingsthe word paradox means, that which is contrary to the norm. They certainly did see strange and wonderful things from Jesus. No one had ever manifested such divine powerno one in their right mind had ever made such astounding claims. But perhaps the most paradoxical thing they saw that day was the refusal of the Pharisees to accept what they had seen with their own eyes verified to be true!
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
(12-16) A man full of leprosy.See Notes on Mat. 8:2-4. The precise description is peculiar to, and characteristic of, St. Luke, as is also the mans falling on his face. The latter is interesting as explaining the more general worshipping of St. Mark.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
29. HEALING OF THE LEPER, Luk 5:12-15 .
Mat 8:2-4
For notes on this miracle see parallel section on Matthew.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And it came about, while he was in one of the cities, behold, a man full of skin disease, and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face, and besought him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” ’
All background information is suppressed in order to focus entirely on the man and his condition, although Luke probably expects us to recognise that we are still near the Lake of Gennesaret. (It may also have been in order to prevent embarrassment to a well known figure. The man was still open to rebuke for having ventured into the city while ritually unclean). He was ‘full of skin disease’, a clearly severe case. (‘Full = pleres, a term regularly used by medical men to describe the progress of a disease). And now he was meeting someone Who was ‘full of the Holy Spirit’ (Luk 4:1). As being unclean he was not supposed to approach anyone, least of all a prophet of Israel in Whom was the Holy Spirit. But when he saw Jesus, concerning Whom he had heard so much, he fell on his face before Him. In his heart he knew that this man could help him.
And he begged Him saying, ‘Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.’ His doubt was not whether He could do it, but whether He would. For many turned away from him in disgust when they saw him. It was a cry of faith, and yet of anguish.
Notice his desire, to be made ‘clean’. This is the thing above all that hurt him so deeply, not so much the dreadful disfigurement, but being unable to approach God’s house and being unable to be in contact with fellow human beings.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The Cleansing of A Skin Diseased Man (5:12-16).
The cleansing of a skin diseased man by touching him is something that would have affected the ancient mind like little else. It indicated a mastery over disease and uncleanness that was unique. Skin disease was held in horror by all, and skin diseased men and women were to be avoided. They were expected to avoid human company, except for their own kind, and to call ‘unclean, unclean’ so as to warn people to keep away from them (Lev 13:43-46). For in Jewish Law skin disease rendered them permanently ritually unclean. They could neither live among men nor approach the Dwellingplace of God. And any who came in contact with them became ‘unclean’ and unable to enter the temple until they again became clean.
It is no accident that in Luke this story follows the cry of Peter, ‘Depart from me for I am a sinful man, O Lord’, and precedes the one in which Jesus declares that a man’s sins are forgiven, for it illustrates that He could also make Peter ‘clean’, and can truly forgive sins.
There are a number of indications in the Old Testament that Israel were seen as the equivalent of skin diseased persons. Isaiah could cry out, ‘We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags’ (Isa 64:6), a typical picture of a skin diseased person, and some have seen in the Servant of Isaiah 53 the picture of a skin diseased person as He bore the sin of others. Moreover the picture in Isa 1:5-6 of Israel as covered with festering sores could well have been of a skin diseased person. And the worst fate that could befall a man who usurped the privileges of God’s sanctuary was to be stricken with skin disease (1Ch 16:16-21). Never again could he enter the Temple of the Lord. So like the skin diseased man, Israel were unclean before God (Hag 2:14), although in Haggai it is by contact with death. However, being skin diseased was seen as a living death, so the thoughts are parallel. Thus a skin diseased man was a fit depiction of Israel’s need.
In contrast Jesus was conscious of His own superlative purity. He was master over uncleanness, it could not survive His touch, nor could He be defiled by it. Thus when a skin diseased man approaches Jesus for healing we may well see behind it the intention of also depicting Israel in its need, a need which can only be healed by the Messiah. Compare Luk 7:22 where the cleansing of the skin diseased is a sign of the presence of the Messiah.
There may also be intended a reminder of the fact that a greater than Elisha was here. Elisha had enabled the healing of a skin diseased man (2 Kings 5), but he had not touched him. Rather he had sent him to wash seven times in the Jordan. He had put him firmly in the hands of God, and God had healed him. But here Jesus had taken it on Himself. It was He Who had healed him. The implication could be drawn by the reader.
We may analyse this passage as follows:
a While He was in one of the cities (Luk 5:12 a).
b Behold, a man full of skin disease, and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face (Luk 5:12 b).
c And besought him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” (Luk 5:12 c).
d And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, “I will, be you made clean.” And immediately the leprosy left him (Luk 5:13).
c And he charged him to tell no man: “But go your way, and show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, for a testimony to them” (Luk 5:14).
b But so much the more went abroad the report concerning him, and great crowds came together to hear, and to be healed of their infirmities (Luk 5:15).
a But he withdrew himself in the deserts, and prayed (Luk 5:16).
In ‘a’ Jesus is in ‘one of the cities’ where He can meet with man. In the parallel He is in the deserts where He could meet with God. In ‘b’ the skin diseased man comes to Jesus, and in the parallel the crowds with infirmities come to Jesus. In ‘c’ the man pleads to be made clean and in the parallel he is to go to the priests because he is clean. And central to it all is that it was Jesus Who had made him clean.
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Jesus Heals a Leper ( Mat 8:1-4 , Mar 1:40-45 ) Luk 5:12-16 records the story of Jesus healing a leper. Within the context of the theme of Luke, which is the training of the Twelve to be witnesses of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, this leper himself became a witness of his miraculous healing. Jesus instructed him to simply give a testimony to the priest of his cleansing, but the leper takes his testimony much further, to the multitudes, so that Jesus had a difficult time entering the cities and had to withdraw into the wilderness for solitude.
Luk 5:12 Comments In Luk 5:12 the leper asks Jesus Christ to make him clean ( ) rather than to heal him. According to the Mosaic Law, leprosy was a disease of uncleanness that required his separation from society (Lev 14:1-57). This testimony of Jesus cleansing the leper is placed within the context of a section in Luke’s Gospel in which Jesus is demonstrating His divine authority over sin.
Luk 5:14 Comments – In Luk 5:14 we see that Jesus commanded the lepers to follow the Law of Moses in their cleansing process. This legal procedure is found in Leviticus 14.
Lev 14:2, “This shall be the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing: He shall be brought unto the priest:”
In this verse Jesus charges the healed leper not to testify to other men, but rather limit his testimony to the priest. In contrast, in the region of Gadara, where Jesus was rejected (Luk 8:39), He told the healed demoniac to tell all the Gadarenes what God has done. However, in some places in Palestine where people received Him, He told them to be silent about what God had done (Mat 8:4; Mat 9:30, Mar 5:43, Luk 5:14; Luk 8:56). Why did He do this? Perhaps because Jesus knew that He could not return to the country of the Gadarenes and there would be no one else to preach the Gospel to them. However, in the regions where multitudes came out to hear Jesus, He needed the liberty to move about and to teach to smaller crowds in order to better communicate the Good News.
Luk 5:15 But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities.
Luk 5:15
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Healing of a Leper and of a Paralytic. Luk 5:12-26
Healing a leper:
v. 12. And it came to pass when He was in a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy, who, seeing Jesus, fell on his face and besought Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean.
v. 13. And He put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him.
v. 14. And He charged him to tell no man; but go and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
v. 15. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of Him; and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities. Luke does not, as a rule, tell the Gospel-stories in the order in which they happened, except in a general way. This usually, as here, appears from the words with which he introduces the story. Jesus was at one time in one of the little cities of Galilee, where there was a man full of leprosy. The loathsome disease had reached its full virulence in his case, and he was suffering in proportion. When this poor man saw Jesus, he fell down upon his face in the attitude of abject supplication, as an unworthy slave might ask a favor of a mighty king. His earnest prayer was a model for all times. For, since he is asking for a temporal gift, for a thing concerning this life only, he makes no demand, he sets no time, but places the fulfillment entirely in the hands of Jesus: Lord, if Thou wilt. Thou canst make me clean. It is a prayer in the form of a statement, the strongest possible form. It throws the burden upon the Lord and pleads more effectively than a delineation of symptoms could possibly do. And since the matter was left to the will of the Lord, the Lord chooses to exercise that will and the almighty power behind that will in hearing the prayer of the sick man: I will, be thou cleansed. And the almighty words had the effect that the Lord intended: the leprosy immediately departed from the man. Jesus then gave him the earnest order not to speak of the matter, but above all to hurry to the priest, in order that the latter might make the proper declaration of cleanness, and accept the sacrifices which were prescribed at such a time, Lev 14:1-57. The Lord did not want the matter published abroad, in order that the news might not reach the priest before the former leper arrived and a spiteful examination refused to declare him clean. And Jesus at all times wanted the people to understand that the miracles were only secondary manifestations of His ministry, His chief work being the preaching of the Gospel. But the word concerning this miracle done to the leper went out all the more, with the usual result. Great crowds gathered to hear Him and also to be healed of their sicknesses, the latter reason being the more urgent for their coming to Jesus. But Jesus took the first opportunity that presented itself, and retired for prayer and spiritual communion:
v. 16. And He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed. He asked and received strength from His heavenly Father to carry on His work according to the divine will. This constant communication with God was the secret of His being able to perform so much work; a hint that might well be applied in the case of all His followers.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Luk 5:12-14 . See on Mat 8:1-4 ; Mar 1:40-44 . According to Matthew, immediately after the Sermon on the Mount; in Luke (comp. Mark), without any definite statement of place or time, as a fragment of the evangelic tradition.
] as Luk 2:15 ; Mat 9:10 . is not nempe (Fritzsche, ad Matth . p. 341), but, in accordance with Hebraic simplicity, the and , which, after the preparatory and yet indefinite , leads the narrative farther on. The narrator, by means of together with a note of time, first calls attention to the introduction of a fact , and then, in violation of ordinary syntax, he brings in afterwards what occurred by the word .
. .] according to Mark: in a house .
] a high degree of the sickness.
Luk 5:14 . ] and He , on His part.
. . .] a transition to the oratio directa . See on Mar 6:8 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
2. The first Excursion from Capernaum to the surrounding Districts. The Son of Man the Physician of the Sick, the Friend of Publicans, the Lord of the Sabbath, the Lawgiver in the Kingdom of God
Chs. Luk 5:12 to Luk 6:49
a. The Son Of Man, The Physician Of The Sick (Luk 5:12-26)
(Parallels: Mat 8:1-4; Mar 1:40-45.Paralytic: Mat 9:1-8; Mar 2:1-12.)
12And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy; who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thoucanst make me clean. 13And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: bethou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. 14And he charged him to tell no man: but go, [said he,] and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thycleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. 15But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him [did the report concerning him go abroad]: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him4 of their infirmities.16And [But] he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed [kept himselfsecluded in the solitary places, and gave himself to prayer]. 17And it came to pass on a certain day [on one of the days], as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors [teachers] of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town [village] of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord [God of Israel] was present18[in Jesus] to heal them. And, behold, men brought in a bed a man which was taken with a palsy [who was paralyzed]: and they sought means to bring him in, and to layhim before him. 19And when they could not find by what way they might bring him in because of the multitude, they went upon the housetop, and let him down through thetiling with his couch [pallet] into the midst before Jesus. 20And when he saw theirfaith, he said unto him,5 Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.6 21And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Whocan forgive sins, but God alone? 22But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, he answering 23said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? Whether [Which] is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk? 24But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (he said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. 25And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay [had been lying],and departed to his own house, glorifying God. 26And they were all amazed [utter astonishment seized all], and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange [unheard of] things to-day.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
General Remarks.Mark and Luke relate the healing of the leper immediately after the Saviours leaving Capernaum; Matthew, on the other hand, puts it after the Sermon on the Mount. To us the former order appears to be the most exact. A glance at Mat 8:9., compared with Mark and Luke, gives clear indication that in this chapter of the first Gospel many miracles are chrestomathically connected without respect to an exact chronology. As Luke relates (Luk 5:12) that this miracle took place when Jesus was in one of their towns, and Mark (Luk 1:43), that the Saviour drove from Him () him whom He had healed (apparently from a house in which the leper had stopped), this of itself proves that this miracle could not have taken place as Matthew appears to indicate to us (Luk 8:7; comp. Luk 5:5), on the way between the Mount of Beatitudes and Capernaum, but after His entrance into an unnamed town. From Mar 1:45 it appears, moreover, that Jesus cannot have returned immediately after the healing of the leper to Capernaum, which we should otherwise conclude from Mat 8:1-13. From all these grounds we adhere to the order of Mark and Luke. Another view will be found represented by Lange, Matthew, p. 150. Audiatur et altera pars.
Luk 5:12. In a certain city.The name is not given, but from the connection it appears that it was a town in Galilee which the Lord visited on this journey, undertaken (see above) in order to visit Jerusalem at the Feast of Purim, and ending there, and which, therefore, probably lay in the direction of Juda.
Full of leprosy.See Lange, Matthew, p. 150, and the there cited authors.
Lord, if Thou wilt.It may be assumed that the faith of the leper had been aroused and strengthened by the report that had gone ut concerning Jesus (see Luk 4:37), and which may have extended even to his neighborhood.
Luk 5:13. And He.Mark alone adds: . The stretching out of the hand, a token of miraculous power, was at the same time a revelation of condescending love, since He by touching a leper might have been accounted Levitically unclean.
Be thou clean.Such an imperative as the tongue of man had hitherto never uttered. Thus has hitherto no prophet healed. Thus speaks only He in the might of God who speaks and it is done. (Stier.) That here it is no declaring a leper clean by already discovering the beginning of recovery (Von Ammon, Leben Jesu, p. 113), but a miraculous cleansing of a sick man whom the physician Luke designates by , is self-evident. Why else should silence be imposed upon the man, and to what serves the of Mark?
Luk 5:14. And He charged Him.According to Mark even in a sharp vehement tone, , from which, however, it by no means follows that the Saviour displayed any resentment against him whom He had delivered, as Von Ammon will have it.To tell no man.For the different explanations of this command by earlier and later expositors, see Lange, Matthew, p. 151.In order to judge rightly here we must take special note of the place where, the time when, and the person on whom, the miracle was done. The Saviour finds Himself now in the heart of Galilee, in the land of longing after freedom, of enthusiasm, of insurrection. The fame of His miracles at Capernaum had undoubtedly intensified expectation in a high degree. The one healed was a man who by his coming and crying to Jesus had already shown great courage and strength of faith, who now was bound to his deliverer by bonds of most intimate gratitude, and who doubtless was thereby lacking in the necessary considerateness needful to apprehend when he should speak of Him or be silent. Here, therefore, a sharp reminder was just in place, and we do not, therefore, at all need to assume that the Saviour gave it from fear of being Himself accounted Levitically unclean, on account of His contact with the leper.
But go and offer.A transition from the oratio indirecta to the directa not strange in the usus loquendi of the New Testament. See Winer, 63, 2. The here-mentioned sacrifice we find prescribed, Lev 14:10; Lev 14:21. The Saviour stoops so low as to permit His miracle to be judged by the priest as to its genuineness and completeness.
. For the priests themselves, and of what else than of Jesus Messianic dignity and redeeming power?
Luk 5:15. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of Him.The cause Mark gives (Luk 1:45); the delivered one forgets the injunction, 1Sa 15:22. Thankful joy makes silence impossible for him. We will not censure his behavior too severely, for it must have come hard to him not to venture to utter the name of his deliverer. It is noticeable also, that in the Gospels we never find the behavior of those who transgress such a command very severely censured. Yet, certainly he did the cause of Christ no service, since, indeed, on every hand the enthusiasm of the people soon reaches such a height that the Saviour holds it advisable to abide in a desert region, where He devotes Himself to solitary prayer. This latter, moreover, is emphasized with peculiar force by Luke, agreeably to his custom.
Luk 5:17. And it came to pass.In view of the slender thread by which this narrative is connected with the foregoing one, nothing constrains us to suppose that this miracle took place precisely on this journey and very soon after the former one. The variance mentioned here as existing between the Saviour and the Pharisees, testifies to a later period. (See Lange, Matthew, p. 166.)
. Not to be understood of the Lord Jesus, who, in Luke, is commonly called (the healing power dwelling in Him revealed itself, Olshausen), but of the Father who operated through the Son. Here also the Divine energy does not manifest itself before faith has shown itself. But while in the foregoing miracle the faith of the sick man himself appears in the fore-ground, here the sufferer is passive, and is, not only in a bodily but also in a spiritual respect, borne by the faith of those who at any cost will bring him before the feet of the Lord. There is nevertheless no ground for the supposition that he himself did not share in this faith. Would he have been brought wholly against his will in so extraordinary a way to the Saviour? On the contrary, we may name him infirm in limb but fresh in heart, a chief warrior of faith on the litter. Lange, Leben Jesu, ii. p. 665.
Luk 5:18. . The cessation of nervous activity is a disease that is found everywhere in various forms. Sometimes it attacks the whole body, sometimes only parts of it. The old authors named the former , the latter ; but now I see that they call both . Commonly those who are attacked in all their members by severe nervous debility, are quickly taken away; if not, they live, it is true, but seldom recover their health, and for the most part drag on a miserable life, losing, moreover, their memory. The sickness of those who are partially affected, is, it is true, never severe, but often long and almost incurable. From the physician Corn. Celsus, L. 3. Medicin, Luke 27, cited by Hug, Criticism upon the Life of Jesus by Strauss, 2. p. 20.
Luk 5:19. They went upon the housetop.Hug, l. c. p. 22, shows that such a thing could be done without any danger. Comp. the valuable statements of Winer, i. p. 283. Even if in this dwelling there was no stair-case outside, a way could have been made over the roof of another to gain access to the place where Jesus was stopping. A breaking up of the roof right over the place where Jesus was, is the less inconceivable, inasmuch as corpses were often in this way removed from the house of death. See Sepp, ii. p. 160.
Luk 5:20. Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.Only the most superficial unbelief can from this word, spoken for an entirely definite case, draw the conclusion that the Saviour at all times regarded special suffering as punishment for special sins. Here, however, trouble of conscience appears actually to stand in the way of restoration of the body, and the Saviour, who with unerring glance looks through the outward and inward condition of the sick man, begins in this way to heal his soul.
Luk 5:21. Who is this.This very wondering of the Pharisees shows plainly that here not only was forgiveness promised but also bestowed, which was exclusively a Divine work.Who can forgive sins, but.And, therefore, whoever forgives sins must be infinitely more than man. So think they, much more justly than many later scribes.
Luk 5:23. Which is easier.Which was easier could be well made out without trouble. Miracles had other prophets also performed, but really to bestow forgiveness, that belonged to the Searcher of hearts alone, or His highest representative on earth. They think, however, that to say that sin is forgiven, is undoubtedly the easiest, particularly so long as inquiry is not made respecting the credentials of the speakers authority; that they may not, however, doubt longer of these latter, the Saviour accomplishes the miracle of healing, whereby the blessing of the forgiveness of sins is at once manifested and sealed.
Luk 5:25. Took up that whereon he had been lying.Suavis locutio, lectulus hominem tulerat, nunc homo lectulum ferebat. Bengel.
Luk 5:26. They glorified God.An admirable antithesis, the enthusiasm of the people over against the murmuring of the scribes. The dissonances dissolve themselves in harmony, the shadows in light and life.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Were we disposed with a certain school of criticism to make a distinction between more difficult and more easy miracles, the healing of the leper, undoubtedly, would belong to the category of the first. To make, by the utterance of a word, a man full of leprosy so clean that he can freely show himself to the most searching eye, is a deed which deserves a place not only in the sphere of the mirabilia, but also in that of the miracula in the strictest sense of the word. Comp. 2Ki 5:7. It is no wonder that the Saviour mentions this kind of miracle also with special emphasis to the disciples of John the Baptist as proofs of His Divine mission, Luk 7:22. Moreover, like all miracles, this kind of healing especially has a symbolical character. As even in the Old Testament leprosy was an image of sin, see Psa 51:9; Isa 1:6, and elsewhere, so was purification from leprosy a type of the forgiveness of sins. This and the following miracle give us to behold the Saviour as the living image of Him who once said to Israel: I am Jehovah, thy physician, Exo 15:26.
2. As the miracle itself is a symbol of the highest blessing of the New Covenant, the confirmation of the miracle takes place altogether in an Old Testament manner. The Saviour is not come to destroy the law and the prophets, but to fulfil them, Mat 5:17. Moreover, the priests must by the testimony here required of them be hindered from denying afterwards that the man had actually been leprous.
3. The forgiveness of sins bestowed by the Saviour on the paralytic is an unequivocal proof of His celestial dignity. With entire justice, therefore, does Bengel say: clestem ortum hic sermo sapit. But it may justly be called incomprehensible that sometimes men have imagined themselves to have found in the bestowal of this benefit of the Saviour before His death an argument against the indispensable necessity and power of His atoning death. Was not then, considered from the Divine point of view, the sacrifice of perfect obedience, an eternal deed? And could He who was to bring it, not bestow the highest gift of grace on a sinner even before this deed was as yet in the fulness of time perfected?
4. The connection between natural and moral evil is undoubtedly placed by the Lord here, but by no means everywhere in a similar manner, in the foreground. Before the assertion was ventured that Jesus was in this respect as much in error as the Jews with their limited notions, it would have been better first to take more account of declarations such as Luk 13:5; Joh 9:8. Is the Saviour to be regarded as standing below the author of the book of Job, or below Moses, who undoubtedly represents misfortunes of the people as punishments of the people (Deuteronomy 28), but by no means concludes from personal misfortune as to personal transgression? We must rather assume here an especially immediate connection existing between sin and sickness, which, it is true, was not known to the superficial view of the beholder, but doubtless well known to the Searcher of hearts. [The disease was certainly one which is one of the most frequent consequences of sinful profligacy.C. C. S.] Besides, it might yet be a question, which stood the lower, the Jews who considered misfortune and punishment ordinarily as synonymous words, or so many nominal Christians who will never behold in their own fate a direct retribution of sinful action.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
The cleansing of the leper, the image of the redemption of the sinner.How the sinner stands with respect to the Lord and the Lord with respect to the sinner: 1. a. With an incurable malady, b. with awakened faith, c. with eager entreaty; 2, a. with a mighty arm, b. with a compassionate heart, c. with an earnest injunction.Whither Jesus comes there He finds wretchedness; where Jesus finds wretchedness He is ready for healing.Deep misery, great grace, imperfect thankfulness.The prayer of faith; how sweetly it sounds; how much it desires; how richly it rewards.The healing of the leper a revelation of the compassionate love, of the boundless might, of the adorable wisdom of the Saviour.The redeemed of the Lord called: 1. To show himself, 2. to offer sacrifice, 3. to be silent when the Lord will not have him speak.The injunction of silence which the Saviour here and elsewhere imposes on the healed: 1. Seemingly strange, 2. fully explicable, 3. most momentous: a. for our knowledge, b. for our faith, c. for our following the Lord.Offer unto God thanksgiving and pay thy vows unto the Most High, Psa 50:14.Obedience is better than sacrifice, 1Sa 15:22.Un-enjoined testifying of Christ: 1. Whence it comes, 2. whither it leads.Solitary prayer the best refreshment, consolation, strengthening, as for the Saviour so also for all His people.The healing of the paralytic a proof of the truth of Simeons prophecy, Luk 2:34 : Christ to the one a Rock of hope, to the other a Stone of stumbling.The great impulse to hear the word of God why: 1. Then often so great, 2. now often so slight?The Saviours miraculous cures the revelation of a heavenly might.No better service of friendship than to bring the sick to Christ.Access to Jesus never barred.Jesus the Searcher of hearts: 1. Over against praying faith, 2. over against murmuring unbelief.The greatest message of joy for the sinner.The connection between sin and sickness.The first accusation of blasphemy in the public life of the Saviour: 1. Its occasion, 2. its injustice, 3. its result.Two things, both alike impossible with man, both alike easy for the Son of Man.The authority of the Son of Man upon earth: 1. An extended, 2. a beneficent, 3. a vehemently disputed, 4. a triumphantly vindicated authority.The mournful coming to Jesus, the believing waiting on Jesus, the God-glorifying return from Jesus.The result of this miracle, a confirmation of the old word of the sacred poet, Psa 2:11; Psa 12:1. Serve the Lord with fear, 2. rejoice with trembling, 3. kiss the Sonblessed are all they that trust in Him!The benefit of the forgiveness of sins: 1. Missed with pain, 2. sought with earnest desire, 3. graciously bestowed, 4. unbelievingly denied, 5. convincingly sealed, 6. thankfully enjoyed.Jesus: 1. The Searcher of hearts, 2. the Physician of the sick, 3. the Bestower of eternal life.
Starke (on the first miracle):Temporal things we pray for with conditions, but spiritual things, for the most part, wholly without conditions.Thus does it often fare with us that we doubt not, to be sure, of the might of God, but do doubt somewhat of His will, 2Ch 20:6; 2Ch 20:12.It is to the almighty Saviour easy to help by a word.Majus:A faithful servant of Christ must seek neither honor or renown with his works.Quesnel:Sometimes, after Jesus example, we must prefer to the exercise of Christian love, solitude and prayer.(On the second) Quesnel:The faith, the prayer, and the love of pious people often help towards the conversion of the sinner.It must needs come inwardly and outwardly to a thorough breaking through all hinderances to Jesus.Majus:The faith of another may well in some respects be serviceable to one, but to the forgiveness of sins he can give no help at all.Brentius:God gives us the most useful and best things always first.A healthy soul in a healthy body a great benefit.Hedinger:Respecting Divine things and works partisan reason judges as the blind of color.People of over-brisk wits must be met in love, and with speeches spiced with salt, Col 4:6.Canstein:The enemies of Christ must often against their purpose further the honor of Christ.
Heubner:Jesus, the Pure, is infected by no impurity.What would avail us an impotent even though benevolent Saviour?The healing of the paralytic: 1. Christ begins it in the soul, 2. vindicates it against suspicious thoughts, 3. accomplishes it victoriously and gloriously on the body of the man.Christs power to forgive sins: 1. The nature of this power (Luk 5:20), 2. its certainty (Luk 5:22-24), 3. its importance (Luk 5:26).Rieger:Jesus, a Saviour after the heart of the men who have begun to be heartily disposed towards God.Steinhofer:Three states of the soul in reference to the forgiveness of sins: 1. When one seeks it, 2. when one believes it, 3. when one has it.Ranke:Happy he who seeks his help with Christ, for: 1. For His love there is no man too mean, 2. for His power there is no misery too great, 3. the condition of His help is for no one too hard.Rautenberg:Pray for One another: 1. How this is done, 2. what fruit this brings forth.Otto:The leper: 1. The sufferers lamentation; he entreats: a. believingly, b. patiently. 2. The Physicians gracious promise; He utters: a. words of comfort and promise, b. words of might and command.Fuchs:The paralytic; theme: the blessing of sickness: it leads: 1. To knowledge of ourselves, 2. to the Physician of our souls, 3. to the exercise of Christian virtues, 4. to the praise of the Lord.Brastberger:Forgiveness of sins, the source of all comfort.Ahlfeld:1. The sick man, 2. his friends, 3. the Physician.Bachmann:Christs power to forgive sins: 1. A most comforting, 2. a variously misapprehended, 3. an irresistibly attested, 4. a much to be glorified power.Stier:Concerning the comfort of the forgiveness of sins: 1. How much we all need it, 2. how Christ has it ready for us all, 3. how each one may receive for himself this comfort.J. P. Hasebroek:We have seen strange things to-day. A glance: 1. At the subject, 2. the means, 3. the fruit of true spiritual recovery, of which this miracle is a type.
Footnotes:
[4]Luk 5:15.Rec.: . To be omitted, as by Griesbach, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Meyer, [Alford,] &c, not only on account of authorities of weight, but also of its uncertain position [om. B., Sin.].
[5]Luk 5:20.Rec.: , apparently only a gloss [om. B., Sin.].
[6] . The old grammarians are not at one as to the explanation of this form. The correctest view explains it as perf. pass. of the Doric form, related to the perf. act. . Winer.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
(12) And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy; who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. (13) And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; Be thou clean; and immediately the leprosy departed from him. (14) And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. (15) But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear: and to be healed by him of their infirmities. (16) And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed.
For observations on the history of the leper, See Mat 8:2 , etc.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
12 And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
Ver. 12. If thou wilt, thou canst ] It is a ready way to speed, to found our prayers upon the power of God.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
12 16. ] HEALING OF A LEPER. Mat 8:2-4 .Mar 1:40-45Mar 1:40-45 . In Matt. placed immediately after the Sermon on the Mount; in Mark and here, without any note of time: see notes on Matt.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
12. ] . (a touch of medical accuracy from the beloved physician) implies the soreness of the disease.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Luk 5:12-16 . The leper (Mat 8:1-4 , Mar 1:40-45 ).
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Luk 5:12 . . . for , one of the cities or towns of Galilee in which Jesus had been preaching (Mar 1:39 Luk 4:44 ). , after , very Hebraistic. , full of leprosy ( in parallels). Note here again the desire to magnify the miracle. , etc., the man’s words the same in all three narratives. His doubt was as to the will not the power to heal.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Luk 5:12-16
12While He was in one of the cities, behold, there was a man covered with leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and implored Him, saying, “Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean.” 13And He stretched out His hand and touched him, saying, “I am willing; be cleansed.” And immediately the leprosy left him. 14And He ordered him to tell no one, “But go and show yourself to the priest and make an offering for your cleansing, just as Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.” 15But the news about Him was spreading even farther, and large crowds were gathering to hear Him and to be healed of their sicknesses. 16But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray.
Luk 5:12 “He was in one of the cities” Lev 13:46 and Num 5:2-4 forbade lepers from involvement in normal Israeli society.
“a man covered with leprosy” Luke, the medical doctor, uses several medical terms in this passage.
1. in Luk 5:12 he denotes the severity of the illness by use of a technical term
2. in Luk 5:18 he uses the technical term for “paralyze”different from Matthew and Mark who used the more popular term
3. in Luk 5:31 Luke uses the medical term for “well”
“leprosy” There were many illnesses covered by this term. Whether it is modern leprosy is uncertain. Leprosy (or whichever skin disease was meant) was seen in Judaism as an illness given by God as punishment (possibly because of Uzziah, cf. 2Ch 26:16-23).
“Lord, if You are willing, You can make me clean” This man obviously had heard of Jesus’ power, but was uncertain of His willingness. This is an example of a third class conditional sentence which means potential action, contingent on other actions.
Luk 5:13 “He. . .touched him” Technically this would have made Jesus ceremonially unclean. Jesus’ life showed the priority of people over Jewish rules and ceremonial cleanliness.
Luk 5:14 “He ordered him to tell no one” Jesus veils His deity in the Synoptic Gospels until the great redemptive events are complete. See full list in the texts at Luk 8:56. Jesus did not want to be known as a healer only. The gospel was not yet complete. Jesus was offering more, far more, than physical healing. From Mar 1:45 we learn this man disobeyed.
“go and show yourself to the priest” This refers to regulations found in Lev 14:1-32. Jesus wanted
1. to witness to the priest
2. to show that He did recognize and fulfill the Mosaic law
Luke records another leper who was told to do the same thing in Luk 17:14.
Luk 5:15 “the news about Him was spreading even farther” Fallen, sick, lonely humanity will go anywhere for help and hope.
Luk 5:16 “But Jesus Himself would often slip away to the wilderness and pray” Jesus, God’s Son Incarnate, set the example for believers’ prayer lives (cf. Luk 3:21; Luk 5:16; Luk 6:12; Luk 9:18; Luk 9:28). If Jesus needed to get away and pray to face life, how much more do we!
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
when He was = in (Greek. en, as in Luk 5:7) His being.
a certain city = one of the cities. Probably one in which “most of His mighty works were done”, viz. Chorazin or Bethsaida. When named together these arein this order. By comparing Luk 5:18 and Mar 1:45 with Mar 5:29, Mat 9:10 and Mar 2:15, it seemsthat that certain city was not Capernaum. The attempts to “touch “the Lord were all in that city or neighbourhood (Luk 6:19. Mat 9:20; Mat 14:36. Mar 3:10; Mar 6:56. Compare Luk 5:15). Hence this city was probably Chorazin.
behold. Figure of speech Asterismos. App-6and App-133.
full of leprosy. “Full”, in this connection, is a medical word. Compare Col 4:14. See note on Exo 4:6.
on. Greek. epi. App-104. Not the same case asin Luk 5:24. Greek. deomai. App-134.
Lord. Now being proclaimed as to His person: the King, Lord of all and yet (Luk 5:24) the Son of man. Compare Mat 8:2, Mat 8:6, Mat 8:8, Mat 8:20.
if. Denoting a contingent probability. See App-118.
wilt. Greek. thelo. App-102.
clean. The sick are healed: lepers are cleansed.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
12-16.] HEALING OF A LEPER. Mat 8:2-4. Mar 1:40-45. In Matt. placed immediately after the Sermon on the Mount; in Mark and here, without any note of time: see notes on Matt.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Luk 5:12. And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
There was not much faith there, but faith even as a grain of mustard seed will serve; and therefore Christ did not refuse the poor lepers plea.
Luk 5:13-15. And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.
But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. Oh, that sinners would come to Christ in this spirit now, to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities! Some of you have come to hear, but have you come to Christ to be healed? Have you really come for that purpose? Alas! Some come even to Gods house only to see, or to be seen; how can such people expect to receive a blessing? Yet my Master is so gracious that, often, he is found of them that sought him not. So may it be with any careless ones who are with us now!
Luk 5:16-17. And he withdrew himself into the wilderness, and prayed. And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them.
These were the least hopeful patients that the great Physician ever had; for to heal these doctors of divinity, and to bring these proud learned Pharisees down to accept the gospel, needed an omnipotent display of divine power. Penitent sinners are readily brought to Christ; but, often, the self-righteous, who think they are rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing, are not to be persuaded to accept the fine gold which Christ presents to all who ask him for it. The Lord grant that, if any such people be here, the power of the Lord may be here to heal them!
This exposition consisted of readings from Luk 4:33-41; and Luk 5:12-17.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Luk 5:12. [ , in one of the cities) See Gnom. on ch. Luk 1:1, Obs. 2, Not. marg. E. B. To wit, the particle , in, is not in this passage to be too closely pressed, as if it would not admit of the meeting with the leper having occurred in the neighbourhood of the city; comp. Mat 8:1-2. This seems to be the very reason of the Transposition, that Mark, whom Luke follows, chose to tell first the miracles wrought within the city, ch. Luk 1:21, etc.-Harm., p. 253.- , full of leprosy) Among those who hold that the leper mentioned in the Gospel of Matthew is a different one, there are not wanting some who unduly wrest this phrase, which is used by Luke alone, and not by Mark also, as if it implied that the leper mentioned by Mark and Luke was clean according to the law (where the leprosy covered all the flesh), Lev 13:13; Lev 13:17, and therefore had the power of entering the city. But still he is sent away to the priest: therefore he had not before this shown himself to the priest; wherefore he must have been separate, as one accounted impure, even though the leprosy was very full upon him.-Harm., p. 253.- , on his face) No common humiliation.-V. g.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Luk 5:12-16
4. JESUS CLEANSING A LEPER
Luk 5:12-16
12 And it came to pass,-Parallel records of this healing are found in Mat 8:2-4 and Mar 1:40-45. While Jesus was “in one of the cities,” a man “full of leprosy” came to Jesus and “fell on his face,” and said, “Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” Among all the diseases to which human flesh is heir, leprosy is one of the worst; it is more tenacious in its grasp, most defiant of treatment, most infectious, more loathsome. Leprosy enforces almost utter seclusion from society, and from all that makes life pleasant and happy. Frequently this disease came under the notice of Jesus and his healing hand. “Leper” is derived from “Lepis,” which means “a scale”; it is so called because the disease shows itself in dry, thick scales, or scabs, which are white in common leprosy. (Exo 4:6; Num 12:10; 2Ki 5:27.) The spots are usually about the size of a dollar. This man was “full of leprosy”; his body was thoroughly infected with the disease;the disease was in its worst form.
13 And he stretched forth his hand,-Jesus stretched forth his hand and touched him; it was considered a dangerous thing to touch a leper; the leper was unclean, and the one who touched him became unclean, but Jesus touched him with the healing power. When he touched him Jesus said: “I will; be thou made clean.” The leper had thrown himself on the mercy of Jesus, and had faith strong enough to prostrate himself at the feet of Jesus; hence Jesus said, “I will.” Some think that Jesus violated the law of Moses when he stretched forth his hand and touched the leper; however we may look for an interpretation of the law in the divinity of Jesus; the law had been given for those who were subjects to the law, but Jesus was himself the lawgiver. The man was healed immediately; “and straightway the leprosy departed from him.” The cure was instantaneous; the leprosy, the cause of his defilement, “departed from him” at the very moment that Jesus spoke.
14-16 And he charged him to tell no man:-Jesus frequently gave this prohibition. (Mar 5:43; Mar 7:36.) The reasons for this may vary according to the circumstances. Jesus was not wanting to create a sensation, in the enthusiams of the blessing received, the recipient often forgot or disregarded the command not to tell what had been done. The excitement of the people needed to be repressed so that greater good could be done again they did not know enough about Jesus to bear intelligent testimony about him;sometimes it was not wise because the one who had received the blessing might be so enthusiastic that the enemies of Jesus would do harm to the one who espoused his cause. Jesus did not wish to arouse undue excitement (Mar 1:45), nor would he expose himself or the cleansed leper to the charge of violating the law. He was commanded to show himself “to the priest, and offer” for his “cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them.” There were two stages in the ceremonial or purification of the leper (Lev 14:1-32); the purifying ceremonies and offerings were united with confessions of sin and pollution, and with grateful acknowledgment of God’s mercy.
But so much the more went abroad the report-Jesus had commanded the cleansed leper to “tell no man,” but the report of what Jesus had done “went abroad,” and “great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed of their infirmities.” The unintentional disobedience of the man who had been healed in telling about his cure caused the great multitude to come together “to hear” Jesus and “to be healed of their infirmities.” Another result recorded by Mark (Mar 1:45) was that he could no longer enter into any city, both because it had become known that he had touched a leper and the crowds and excitement might attract the suspicious notice of the authorities. Jesus was forced for a time to go into desert places. When he “withdrew himself in the deserts” he spent much time in prayer. Luke signifies in his record continuous coming together of the multitudes so that Jesus could not do his most effective work.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Cleansing, Power and Pardon
Luk 5:12-26
Jesus did not hesitate to touch the leper, because He could no more be polluted by uncleanness than could a ray of light by passing through a fetid atmosphere. The question is never in can or will, as applied to Christ, but whether we will trust Him and can believe.
The Mosaic offering was a pair of birds, one of which was killed over running water; while the other, having been dipped into this mingled blood and water, was freed to fly away in its native air. Is not this the meet emblem of the forgiven and cleansed soul? See Lev 14:2-32.
At first the bed bore the paralytic, but after the power of Jesus had entered into him, he bore the bed. So Jesus pours His energy into our anemic natures, and we master what had mastered us. The miracle in the physical sphere, which men could test, approved His power in the realm of the spiritual, where only the forgiven one could actually know.
Do not forget to withdraw from the crowd, however eager it is, that you may pray, Luk 5:16.
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
A Leper Cleansed — Luk 5:12-15
And it came to pass, when He was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus, fell on his face, and besought Him, saying, Lord, if Thou wilt, Thou canst make me clean. And He put forth His hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou clean. And immediately the leprosy departed from him. And He charged him to tell no man: but go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of Him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities- Luk 5:12-15.
In this wonderful miracle of our Lord-a miracle duplicated many times in His ministry on earth-we find Him dealing with a man afflicted with leprosy, which is used in Scripture to illustrate the disease of sin. There are four things to be said of leprosy that are all true of sin. First, it is a constitutional disease; secondly, it is a loathsome disease; thirdly, it is an infectious disease; and lastly, so far as human power of healing was concerned, in the days of old, it was an incurable disease. In our day, science has discovered ways to cure it if taken in time, and to alleviate the suffering of those who have been ill longer. But in Bible times, no such method was known. God alone could undertake for the leper; that is what made the miracle of the Lord so significant.
Leprosy is a constitutional disease, and in that it pictures mans sinful state by nature. You see, the trouble with all mankind is not that they become sinners by sinning, but they sin because they are sinners. We are are born in sin and are shapen in iniquity. The virus of sin is in our being, from the moment we draw our first breath. We readily disobey God and go from one sin to another because of the sinful nature with which we are born. We do not all sin in exactly the same way, but the Scriptures say that all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God.
I remember reading some years ago in a Medical Journal of a dance which was held in the city of Calcutta, India, where there were many beautiful ladies, noblemen, people of wealth and culture. One young woman, the belle of the evening, was dancing with a Scottish doctor. He said, when he brought her back to her seat, May I have a word with you? I hope you wont take offense. I couldnt help but notice it, but upon your shoulder there is a certain spot. Has it been there long? The young ladys face colored. Yes, doctor; it appeared some months ago, and it has bothered me considerably. He said, I wish you would come down and see me tomorrow. I would like to call in a specialist along a certain line and have him look at this spot. The young lady was rather frightened, but she did as he asked, and the next day after a thorough examination of the spot, she received word that she had the disease of leprosy. One little spot upon her shoulder and yet the disease was working within, and soon it would be manifested more and more, and that beautiful body would be marked and scarred.
Isnt that just like sin? And yet so often it seems to be such a little thing to begin with; some habit which one knows is not right, so insignificant, and it grows and grows until at last sin is manifested in all its terrible corruption. A little sin leads to something worse, and it increases until it is emphasized in the whole life and is a spiritual form of leprosy.
Leprosy is one of the most loathsome of all diseases, and sin is loathsome. It is the most loathsome think in the entire universe of God. It is the one thing which has blighted the whole universe, broken millions of hearts and brought dishonor to God, the One who created the world. There is nothing in His sight so hateful as sin. We are told in the book of Proverbs that fools make a mock of sin, but among the righteous there is favor. Many are the foolish, careless, frivolous folk, who say, A short life and a merry one, and, We might as well get all the enjoyment we can and indulge in every evil. They do not seem to realize the loathsomeness of sin.
Leprosy is an infectious disease. One might easily pass it on to others by contact with them; and that was why the leper, whence once discovered, was sent away from his friends and family. He had to dwell apart in the wilderness. The Old Testament regulations were very strict. He had to present himself before a priest to be examined, and if found to be leprous he was obliged to remain without the camp, far from the dwellings of healthy folk. He had to put a cover on his upper lip and cry, Unclean, unclean. That is Gods picture of the sinner. Separated from others, you see, because he might infect them. Those who live in sin are continually infecting others, for one sinner destroyeth much good. Yet in every heart is this virus working until checked by divine grace.
Leprosy was an incurable disease in olden times, and sin is incurable so far as human help is concerned. Scientists and philosophers have tried to evolve plans and schemes which might rid the human race of sin, but today, in spite of all their work and effort, sin reigns and ruins as heretofore. We are as wicked a people as mankind has ever been. No cure has been invented but the divine one,-the mighty power of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.
There was no possibility of mistaking this case. Leprosy was openly manifested. Some mens sins are open. In some men the sins are not so evident. We have no difficulty in recognizing that broken-down drunkard as a sinner; the licentious mans evil habits soon become evident to all. Some are able to keep their sins covered, like a leper covering his body with beautiful clothing. But God sees and knows all our wickedness and is going to deal with every man according to His Word.
However, no matter how sinful or vile we have become; no matter how polluted or unclean our hearts may be, there is healing and cleansing if we will but come to our blessed Lord who is as ready today to deliver from sin and its guilt and power, as He was to heal and save those who came to Him of old. No case is too bad for Christ. George Whitefield used to cry out sometimes, My friends, Jesus will take even the devils castaways. This expression gave great offence to Lady Huntingdon, who was a warm friend of Whitefields as also of the Wesleys, but she thought the expression savored of irreverence and was not becoming on the lips of a gospel preacher. She is reported to have taken Whitefield to task for it, and he listened humbly and then sometime later asked one who had been converted through his ministry to go and see Lady Huntingdon and give her the story of his conversion. He told her how he had been down in the very depths of sin, a drunkard and a blasphemer, until at last he felt the only thing left was suicide. He would rather risk unending misery in the world to come than continue in the awful wretchedness which sin had brought into his life here. And so with this in mind he was on his way early one morning to throw himself into the River Thames and end it all, as he thought, when passing by Moorfields, he saw a great throng gathered at that early hour, and found they were listening to the great field-preacher, George Whitefield. Drawing near to the outskirts of the crowd, he heard the stentorian voice of the evangelist exclaim, My friends, Jesus will take even the devils castaways. It went home to his heart and he came to Christ. As Lady Huntingdon listened to the story, tears filled her eyes, and when she met Whitefield again she said to him, Do not be afraid to tell them that Jesus will take even the devils castaways.
We are told here that Jesus put forth His hand and touched the leper. Had He been but an ordinary man, such contact would have made Him ceremonially unclean, but instead of that, the leper was immediately cleansed, and the Lord Jesus commanded him to go to the temple and offer for his cleansing according as Moses had given instruction. This instruction is found in the fourteenth chapter of the book of Leviticus. Perhaps never before had any priest in Israel for hundreds of years had a cleansed leper come to him in order that this service might be carried out. Jesus said it was to be for a testimony unto them; and how much it must have meant when a man thus healed came to the priest and asked him to examine him carefully, and then to offer the sacrifices as prescribed in this chapter. In the thirteenth chapter of Leviticus we read how the priests were to diagnose cases of leprosy and undoubtedly they had to refer to this portion of the Word many, many times, for there were large numbers of lepers in Israel in those days. But possibly the fourteenth chapter was practically a dead letter, as there had never been an occasion for any of them to carry it out. What a testimony it must have been then when this leper, and in the months to follow many others, came to the temple in order to be officially pronounced clean and restored to the congregation of the Lord. One is not surprised to turn to the book of Acts later on and read, A great company of priests were obedient to the faith. They had known so many cases of the power of the Lord Jesus to heal that they must have realized, particularly after they learned of His resurrection from the dead, that He was in very truth the promised Messiah of Israel.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Chapter 26
How Does A Sinner Approach
The Lord To Obtain Mercy?
Piecing together the accounts of Matthew, Mark and Luke, it appears that this event took place just after our Lord had finished his Sermon on the Mount. The people were astonished at his doctrine: For he taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes. When he came down from the mountain, great multitudes followed after him. And this one man full of leprosy made his way through the crowd. He came through the great mass of men, crying, Unclean, unclean. When he got to the Saviour, he fell down at his feet and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. And Jesus put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean.
Here is an unclean leper seeking mercy from the hands of Christ; and he obtained the mercy he sought. The Lord made him whole.
When I read about this leper and the mercy he obtained from the Lord Jesus, I think to myself, If one has been made whole, why not another? Does God forgive sin, then why not my sin? Does God justify the ungodly, then why not me? Does Christ receive sinners, then why not me? Is there mercy with the Lord for the guilty, then why not for me? Did Christ die for sinners, then why not for me? Does God save the unrighteous, then why not me?
If we would obtain mercy, we must seek mercy like this poor leper, from the hands of the Lord Jesus Christ. Let every saved sinner, as he reads again of Gods free, saving grace in Christ, remember and rejoice in what the Lord has done for him by his matchless, free and sovereign grace in Christ Jesus.Let every poor, lost soul, whose uncleanness before God causes him to crave the cleansing Christ alone can give, look to the Son of God by faith.
Deep Sense Of Need
This poor wretch came to the Lord Jesus with a deep sense of his need. We do not read anything else in the Bible about the history of this man. We do not know who his parents were, where he was from, how old he was, or what became of him. He seems to be set before us for one reason only, and that is to show us how a sinner must come to the Lord Jesus if he would obtain mercy. And the first thing is this: If we would obtain mercy from Christ, we must come to him because we need him. No sinner will ever come to Christ in faith until God the Holy Spirit creates in him a sense of his need. No one seeks mercy until he needs mercy.
You are familiar with what leprosy is and what it represents. Leprosy was a loathsome disease, common during the days of our Lords earthly ministry. It was a disease so peculiar that it was always considered a mark of divine displeasure on those who were afflicted with it (Num 12:10; 2Ki 5:27; 2Ch 26:19). Because they were ceremonially unclean, lepers were not allowed to walk in the company of others, or come into the house of God.
Leprosy fitly represents the plague of sin with which sons of Adam are diseased. It is to the body what sin is to the soul. W. M. Thomson, in his famous work, The Land and the Book, describes lepers in Israel as follows.
The hair falls from the head and eyebrows. The nails loosen, decay and drop off. Joint after joint of the fingers and toes shrink up and slowly fall away. The gums are absorbed and the teeth disappear. The nose, the eyes, the tongue, and the palate are slowly consumed.
The leper was a miserable, outcast creature. He was walking death. Leprosy, like sin, was a loathsome, unclean disease. Leprosy, like sin, was (by human means) an incurable disease. Leprosy, like sin, was a consuming disease. Leprosy, like sin, was the sure forerunner of death.
The man here held before us by the Spirit of God had a keen sense of his desperate need. Here is a man whose body was covered from head to toe with leprosy. His disease was always before him. There was no hiding it. His body was covered with ulcers oozing with a liquid of sickening smell. His body was racked with pain. Luke tells us that he was full of leprosy. He knew that he needed help. He needed supernatural, merciful, divine help. He needed the help of God. Without it, he would surely die.
This is the very reason men and women do not come to Christ. They do not have any sense of need. They do not know their need of Christ. But when the plague of sin in a mans heart causes his very soul to burn with fever; when the sinners knows he is lost, helpless, unclean and doomed, that without Christ he must surely die, then he seeks him.
Christ The Healer
Christ alone has power to heal our souls. The cleansing from leprosy was portrayed in the ceremonial law (Leviticus 14); but it is the gospel that reveals the cure. The cleansing of grace is found only in Christ (Eze 36:25; 1Jn 1:7-9). His blood alone can cleanse the leprous soul. His mercy alone can save. Christ alone can make the unclean clean and righteous before God. Those who know their need of mercy will soon obtain mercy.
All the fitness he requireth
Is to feel your need of him.
And it is the work of God the Holy Spirit that makes us know our need of Christ. Robert Hawker wrote, This poor creature, which came to Jesus, is the representative of every poor sinner, when convinced of the leprosy of sin, from the teaching of God the Holy Ghost. Such an one is convinced of Christs ability, because God the Spirit hath taught him who Christ is, and what Christ is able to perform. Joseph Hart gives us the same thing in one of his great hymns …
What comfort can a Saviour bring
To those who never felt their woe?
A sinner is a sacred thing;
The Holy Ghost hath made him so.
New life from him we must receive,
Before for sin we rightly grieve.
This faithful saying let us own,
Well worthy tis to be believed,
That Christ into the world came down,
That sinners might by him be saved.
Sinners are high in his esteem.
And sinners highly value him.
Utter Humiliation
This leper came to the Lord Jesus in utter humiliation. Matthew tells us he came worshipping. Luke says that, Seeing Jesus, he fell on his face. Mark tells us that he came kneeling. That is just the way sinners must come to the Saviour, kneeling and falling on their face at his feet, worshipping! The sinner must come down, down from his pride, down from his self-righteousness, down from his self-sufficiency! He must come down in his own eyes, down, down, down, all the way down to the feet of Christ (Luk 18:9-14).
If ever we see who and what we are, we will come down. You and I are poor sons and daughters of Adam, full of uncleanness, cursed, condemned and ready to die. We are utterly helpless and completely unworthy of Gods slightest notice.
If ever we see who Christ is and what he is, we will come down. He is holy, righteous and true. He is a God full of mercy, love and grace. He is a God able and willing to save. He is a Fountain opened for cleansing. He is God, whose glory it is to forgive sin.
God knows how to bring sinners down to the feet of his Son. Psalms 107 is a song of praise to God for his wondrous work of providence by which he brings chosen sinners down. But providence alone will not cause sinners to seek the Lord. God brings sinners down by causing his holy law to enter their hearts, exposing their sin, pronouncing their uncleanness and declaring their guilt (Rom 7:9). And God brings sinners down by the gospel, by revealing Christ to them and in them (Zec 12:10; Gal 1:15-16).
Do you feel your desperate need of Christ? Has your heart been broken and humbled at the feet of Christ? Are you sweetly compelled, like Job, to cry, I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes (Job 42:5-6)?
Great And Weak Faith
This poor leper came to the Lord Jesus in very weak faith, but faith that obtained great grace; and that makes the weakest faith great faith (Heb 11:6). I do not know how he came to have faith in Christ. Perhaps he had heard our Lord preach. Perhaps he was familiar with the Old Testament prophets. Perhaps he had heard the fame of our Lord from others. But this much is certain: he knew who Christ was. He believed his claims. And he came to the Saviour in faith, because God the Holy Spirit had given him faith in Christ (Eph 2:8; Col 1:12).
The leper came to the Lord by himself. Others had been led to Christ by one of his disciples, but not this man. Others were picked up and brought to the Lord, but not the leper. Others, who could not come and were not brought, were blessed by a visit from the Lord himself, but not this leper. Everyone had given this poor man up as a hopeless case. He was a lonely, isolated man. No man cared for his soul. No one could or would take him to the Saviour. But it is our Lords delight to save the hopeless, the helpless and the friendless.
This leper came to the Lord Jesus against many obstacles. He had no precedent to follow. No leper had come to the Saviour before him. He had no promise of cure. He was not invited to come. And he had no legal right to come. Yet, the leper came to Christ confessing faith in him. He worshipped the Lord Jesus Christ as God. It appears that he believed him to be the very God by whom others like him were healed in days of old. He bowed to and worshipped Christ as his Lord. He knew Christ had it in his power to make him clean and whole. And he confessed his faith in Christ in his own words. He did not merely repeat a prayer someone else told him to say!
In all those things this mans faith appears to be great and remarkable. Truly, it was. Yet, he displayed a great weakness of faith. Though he had no doubt that the Lord Jesus was able to heal him, he doubted whether he would heal him. He said, to the Lord Jesus, If thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
All Gods children in this world know by experience what it is to come to the Lord Jesus with such weakness of faith. Where is the saved sinner who has not come to the throne of grace, seeking mercy and grace in time of need, while very greatly in doubt that God would give the mercy and grace needed? God forgive our unbelief!
It was in just such weakness of faith that this poor leper came to the Saviour. But such is the greatness of our Saviours grace, such is the character of our God who delighteth in mercy, that the weakness of our faith does not restrain his arm of grace! The Lord Jesus was moved with compassion toward this poor soul (Mar 1:41). And he put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean (Luk 5:13).
Total Submission
This leper came to the Lord Jesus Christ, knowing his need of him, in great humiliation and in faith. And he came to the Saviour in total submission. He recognized that the whole issue was in the hands of Christ. He cried, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
He understood what few understand. Grace is Gods prerogative alone. Salvation depends entirely upon the will of the Lord our God, who has mercy on whom he will have mercy. Christ alone has the right to save and the power to save; and the whole matter of salvation is according to his own sovereign will (Rom 9:16; Rom 9:18). Recognizing the sovereignty of Christs power and the sovereignty of his will, the leper submitted to the Lord with joyful hope. He simply threw himself upon Christ. And we must do the same. Lord, if you will, you can save me.
Yet, he had hope. The Lord had never refused such a request before. And there is hope for us. God never has yet turned away one seeking, believing, submissive sinner. It seems likely, therefore, that he will not turn any away now.
Perhaps he will admit my plea,
Perhaps will hear my prayer;
But if I perish, I will pray,
And perish only there.
I can but perish if I go,
I am resolved to try;
For if I stay away I know,
I must forever die.
But if I die with mercy sought,
When I the King have tried;
This were to die (delightful thought!)
As sinner never died.
Edmund Jones
The leper could not be worse off, even if he had been rejected. And if it were to happen that you sued for mercy and obtained it not, what would be your loss?
Mercy Obtained
But that was not the case. This poor leper obtained the mercy he desperately needed. He put forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean. The Lord Jesus was moved with compassion toward him. And being moved with compassion toward him, he healed him immediately and completely.
Yet, there is more. The Lord Jesus healed this poor leper by touching him. Imagine that! Infinite, spotless purity reached down and touched utter corruption! The spotless Lamb of God took into union with himself our nature. He became one of us that he might save us poor, leprous sinners from our sin and make us clean by the sacrifice of himself. Upon the cursed tree, our Lord Jesus Christ was made sin for us (2Co 5:21). He who is altogether holy and pure, clean and righteous was made unclean before his own holy law, just as the priest who burned the red heifer with her dung was made unclean by the sacrifice required in Num 19:7. The Lord Jesus was made sin for us, that we might be made the righteousness of God in him. He died for his elect, the just for the unjust, because there was no other way he could make us just!
An Important Lesson
When we read Luk 5:14-15, we will find a very important lesson taught by our Master.
And he charged him to tell no man: but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. But so much the more went there a fame abroad of him: and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities (Luk 5:14-15).
This cured lepers disobedience to the Saviours express command is here recorded by divine inspiration for a reason. The Holy Spirit is here showing us that there is a time to be silent about the things of God, as well as a time to speak (Ecc 3:7). Our Saviour says, Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn again and rend you (Mat 7:6).
I realize that this is a matter to be dealt with carefully; but sometimes we serve the cause of Christ better by silence than by speech. It is best for us to be silent when the cause of Christ cannot be served by us speaking. We do not serve the cause of Christ by trying to cram our doctrine down the throats of those who oppose it. It is best to leave such people alone, until God opens the door to minister to them. It is best for us to be silent when those around us have no interest in hearing the good news of Gods grace. It is best for us to be silent when those around us only quibble and scoff at the things of God. And it is certainly best for us to be silent when we are supposed to be doing something else. It is a rare thing for an employer to pay a man wages to teach others the things of God.
No doubt, this man was sincere and blazed the matter abroad because he wanted all around him to know what great grace he had experienced. But the result was that Jesus could no more openly enter into the city. There is a zeal which is not according to knowledge. Such zeal causes much harm. I would not attempt to prescribe to any when he should be silent and when he should blaze abroad the things of God. Yet, I do know that there are times when we serve our Saviour and the interests of his kingdom far more effectively in silence than in other ways. Commenting on this passage, J. C. Ryle cautions
The subject is a delicate and difficult one, without doubt. Unquestionably the majority of Christians are far more inclined to be silent about their glorious Master than to confess him before men and do not need the bridle so much as the spur. But still it is undeniable that there is a time for all things; and to know the time should be one great aim of a Christian. There are good men who have more zeal than discretion, and even help the enemy of truth by unseasonable acts and words.
May God give us the Spirit of wisdom, that we may serve and not hinder his cause in this world, that we may serve our Saviour with good sense. We must never be fearful to confess Christ before Pharaoh, as Moses did, or before Herod, as John the Baptist did. Yet, we must not cast the pearls of his grace before swine to be trampled beneath their feet with contempt.
Still, there is more. Not only did the Saviour command this healed leper to tell no man, he also said, but go, and shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. He told him to go and show himself to the priest, specifically for a testimony unto them. He was told to go to the priest, so that the priest would pronounce him clean, as a testimony to the priests, either a convincing testimony to them that the Lord Jesus was the Son of God and true Messiah, or a standing testimony against them forever.
Certainly there is still more in this command. For all grace and mercy we should, first and foremost, show ourselves to the Lord Jesus Christ, our great High Priest and Almighty Saviour, the Author and Giver of all. He is to be eyed and acknowledged first in all things. In all things let us live before him and unto him, not before men and unto men. As Paul puts it, Do I seek to please men? for if I yet pleased men, I should not be the servant of Christ (Gal 1:10).
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
if thou will
The leper, knowing the Lord’s power to heal, seems to question His willingness.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
a man: Mat 8:2-4, Mar 1:40-45
full: Luk 17:12, Exo 4:6, Lev 13:1 – Lev 14:57, Num 12:10-12, Deu 24:8, 2Ki 5:1, 2Ki 5:27, 2Ki 7:3, 2Ch 26:19, 2Ch 26:20, Mat 26:6
fell: Luk 17:16, Lev 9:24, Jos 5:14, 1Ki 18:39, 1Ch 21:16
besought: Luk 17:13, Psa 50:15, Psa 91:15, Mar 5:23
if: Gen 18:14, Mat 8:8, Mat 8:9, Mat 9:28, Mar 9:22-24, Heb 7:25
Reciprocal: Lev 14:2 – He shall Luk 7:22 – the lepers
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
2
Lepers were under perpetual quarantine by the law of Moses (Lev 13:45-46), which accounts for the earnestness of this unfortunate man.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
[When he was in a certain city, behold, a man full of leprosy.] “The walled cities are more holy than the land of Israel in general, because they cast out the leprous from them.” Which must be understood (if we allow of the Rabbins for interpreters) of cities that had been walled from the days of Joshua. If this city which the evangelist here mentions were of that number, no leper would have been suffered in it, unless absolved from his uncleanness by the priest. For the leprosy remained after that absolution; and the sick man was not healed but restored to the church. That the man is here said to be full of leprosy; the passage may not impertinently be compared with Lev 13:12-13.
Whether he had been purified by the priest before or no, however, Christ sends him to the priest, to offer what was required from the leper that was cleansed. The law of Moses hardly supposeth the leper healed when he was made clean. It is a question, indeed, whether the disease was ever curable but by a miracle. And therefore is this man sent to the Temple to shew himself to the priest, and offer for a testimony unto them; Lev 13:14; that is, that he might bear witness, that the leprosy, an incurable disease, was now healed by miracle, as formerly it had been in Miriam and Naaman: and so there was now a great prophet arisen in Israel.
Fuente: Lightfoot Commentary Gospels
WE see in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s power over incurable diseases. “A man full of leprosy” applies to Him for relief, and is at once healed. This was a mighty miracle. Of all ills which can afflict the body of man, leprosy appears to be the most severe. It affects every part of the constitution at once. It brings sores and decay upon the skin, corruption into the blood, and rottenness into the bones. It is a living death, which no medicine can check or stay. Yet here we read of a leper being made well in a moment. It is but one touch from the hand of the Son of God, and the cure is effected. One single touch of that almighty hand! “And immediately the leprosy departed from him.”
We have in this wonderful history a lively emblem of Christ’s power to heal our souls. What are we all but spiritual lepers in the sight of God? Sin is the deadly sickness by which we are all affected. It has eaten into our constitution. It has infected all our faculties. Heart, conscience, mind, and will, all are diseased by sin. From the sole of our foot to the crown of our head, there is no soundness about us, but wounds, and bruises, and putrefying sores. (Isa 1:6.) Such is the state in which we are born. Such is the state in which we naturally live. We are in one sense dead long before we are laid in the grave. Our bodies may be healthy and active, but our souls are by nature dead in trespasses and sins.
Who shall deliver us from this body of death? Let us thank God that Jesus Christ can. He is that divine Physician, who can make old things pass away and all things become new. In Him is life. He can wash us thoroughly from all the defilement of sin in His own blood. He can quicken us, and revive us by His own Spirit. He can cleanse our hearts, open the eyes of our understandings, renew our wills, and make us whole. Let this sink down deeply into our hearts. There is medicine to heal our sickness. If we are lost it is not because we cannot be saved. However corrupt our hearts, and however wicked our past lives, there is hope for us in the Gospel. There is no case of spiritual leprosy too hard for Christ.
We see, secondly, in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s willingness to help those that are in need. The petition of the afflicted leper was a very touching one. “Lord,” he said, “if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.” The answer he received was singularly merciful and gracious. At once our Lord replies, “I willl: be thou clean.”
Those two little words, “I will,” deserve special notice. They are a deep mine, rich in comfort and encouragement to all laboring and heavy laden souls. They show us the mind of Christ towards sinners. They exhibit His infinite willingness to do good to the sons of men, and His readiness to show compassion. Let us always remember, that if men are not saved, it is not because Jesus is not willing to save them. He is not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.-He would have all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth.-He has no pleasure in the death of him that dieth.-He would have gathered Jerusalem’s children, as a hen gathereth her chicks, if they would only have been gathered. He would, but they would not.-The blame of the sinner’s ruin must be borne by himself. It is his own will, and not Christ’s will, if he is lost forever. It is a solemn saying of our Lord’s, “Ye will not come unto me that ye might have life.” (2Pe 3:9. 1Ti 2:4. Eze 18:32. Mat 23:37. Joh 5:40.)
We see, thirdly, in this passage, what respect our Lord Jesus Christ paid to the ceremonial law of Moses. He bids the leper “go and show himself to the priest,” according to the requirement in Leviticus, that he may be legally pronounced clean. He bids him offer an offering on the occasion of his doing so, “according as Moses commanded.” Our Lord knew well that the ceremonies of the Mosaic law were only shadows and figures of good things to come, and had in themselves no inherent power. He knew well that the last days of the Levitical institutions were close at hand, and that they were soon to be laid aside forever. But so long as they were not abrogated He would have them respected. They were ordained by God Himself. They were pictures and lively emblems of the Gospel. They were not therefore to be lightly esteemed.
There is a lesson here for Christians, which we shall do well to remember. Let us take heed that we do not despise the ceremonial law, because its work is done. Let us beware of neglecting those parts of the Bible, which contain it, under the idea that the believer in the Gospel has nothing to do with them. It is true that the darkness is past, and the true light now shineth. (1Jn 2:8.) We have nothing to do now with altars, sacrifices, or priests. Those who wish to revive them are like men who light a candle at noon day. But true as this is, we must never forget that the ceremonial law is still full of instruction. It contains that same Gospel in the bud, which we now see in full flower. Rightly understood we shall always find it throwing strong light on the Gospel of Christ. The Bible reader who neglects to study it, will always find at least that by the neglect his soul has suffered damage.
We see, lastly, in this passage, our Lord Jesus Christ’s diligence about private prayer. Although “great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities,” He still made time for secret devotion. Holy and undefiled as He was He would not allow the demands of public business to prevent regular private intercourse with God. We are told that “He withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed.”
There is an example set before us here, which is much overlooked in these latter days. There are few professing Christians, it may be feared, who strive to imitate Christ in this matter of private devotion. There is abundance of hearing, and reading, and talking, and profession, and visiting, and almsgiving, and subscribing to societies, and teaching at schools. But is there, together with all this, a due proportion of private prayer? Are believing men and women sufficiently careful to be frequently alone with God? These are humbling and heart-searching questions. But we shall find it useful to give them an answer.
Why is it that there is so much apparent religious working, and yet so little result in positive conversions to God,-so many sermons, and so few souls saved,-so much machinery, and so little effect produced,-so much running hither and thither, and yet so few brought to Christ? Why is all this? The reply is short and simple. There is not enough private prayer. The cause of Christ does not need less working, but it does need among the workers more praying. Let us each examine ourselves, and amend our ways. The most successful workmen in the Lord’s vineyard, are those who are like their Master, often and much upon their knees.
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Notes-
v12.-[A man full of leprosy.] Gill, in his commentary on this passage, gives a long list of the symptoms and indications of leprosy, as laid down by Galen, Aretus, Pontanus, gineta, Cardan, and others. Those who wish to study the subject are recommended to read what he has compiled. It will be found more interesting to medical men than to general readers.
The disease of leprosy is still to be found in some parts of the world, though comparatively unknown in England. There is said to be a small island on the coast of South Africa, near the Cape of Good Hope, which is appropriated by the Colonial Government to lepers. It is mentioned in “M’Cheyne’s Memoirs,” p. 200.
v13.-[I will.] It is remarked by Mr. Burgon that this “is the saying of God, and of God only,-the saying of Him, whose almighty will is the cause of all things. When His servants wrought miracles, far different were the phrases they used. Joseph says, ‘It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace.’ ” Gen 41:16.
v16.-[Withdrew himself.] Gualter remarks on this expression that it should teach ministers of the Gospel to beware of too much familiarity, and too frequent public intercourse with their hearers. He considers that excessive familiarity between ministers and hearers leads to contempt, and that habits of privacy and retirement are on every account essential to a minister’s position.
[and prayed.] This frequent mention of our Lord’s praying is peculiar to Luke. Wordsworth remarks, “a similar instance is seen in his narrative of our Lord’s baptism, and of the transfiguration. (Luk 3:21, and Luk 9:28-29.) The Gentiles, for whom Luke’s Gospel was especially designed, needed instruction in the duty and benefits of prayer. Accordingly this subject occupies a prominent place in his Gospel. It is eminently the Gospel of prayer.” See Luk 6:12. Luk 9:18, Luk 9:28. Luk 11:1. Luk 18:1. Luk 22:41, Luk 22:46.
Fuente: Ryle’s Expository Thoughts on the Gospels
Luk 5:12-16. HEALING OF A LEPER. One of the cities (Luk 5:12). Probably not Capernaum.
Full of leprosy. A term of medical accuracy, probably referring to the severity of the disease in this case. On this disease, see Mat 8:2. In Luk 5:14, there is a change to the direct address: but go, and show thyself, etc. Luk 5:16 breaks off the direct connection of time with what follows; the length of the interval is uncertain.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. The petitioner, that in a very humble and submissive manner sues unto Christ for cure and healing: A leper fell on his face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
He does not question Christ’s power, but distrusts his willingness to help and heal him. Christ’s divine power must be fully assented to, and firmly believed, by all those that expect benefit by him, and healing from him.
Observe, 2. The great readiness of Christ to help and heal this distressed person: Jesus touched him, saying, I will; be thou clean.
By the ceremonial law, the leper was forbidden to be touched; therefore Christ touching this leper, shows himself to be above the law; that he was the Lord of it, and might dispense with it. And his healing this leper, by the word of his mouth and the touch of his hand, showed him to be truly and really sent of God; for leprosy among the Jews was accounted an incurable distemper, called the finger of God; a disease of his sending, and of his removing.
Our Saviour, therefore, as a proof of his being the Messiah, tells John’s disciples, That the lepers were cleansed, and the dead raised by him; Mat 11:5 which two being joined together, do imply, that the cleansing of the leper is as much an act of divine power, as the raising of the dead; and accordingly, it is said, Am I God, that this man sends unto me to cure a person of his leprosy? 2Ki 5:7
Observe, 3. The certainty and the suddenness of the cure was a farther proof of Christ’s divine power; Immediately the leprosy departed. Christ not only cured him immediately, but instantaneously; not only without means, but without the ordinary time required for such a cure. Thus Christ showed both power and will to cure him miraculously, who believed his power, but questioned his willingness.
Observe, 4. A twofold charge and command given by Christ to the leper.
1. To tell it to no man. Where the great modesty, piety, and humility of our Saviour are discovered, together with the prudent care he took of his own safety: his modesty, in concealing his own praises; his humility, in shunning all vain-glorious applause and commendation; his piety, in referring all the honor and glory to God his Father; and the care of his own safety appeared, lest the publishing of his miracle should create untimely danger from the Pharisees.
2. The next part of the charge given to the recovered leper, is, to go and show himself to the priest, and to offer the gift which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them; that is, to testify to the Jews, that he did not oppose the ceremonial law, which required a thank- offering at his hand; and also that the miracle might testify that he was the true and promised Messiah.
Learn hence, that our blessed Saviour would have the ceremonial law punctually observed, so long as the time of its continuance did endure; though he came to destroy that law, yet while it stood he would have it exactly observed. See note on St.Mat 8:2
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
Luk 5:12-16. Behold a man full of leprosy Of this miracle, see the notes on Mat 8:2-4, and Mar 1:45. And he withdrew himself into the wilderness and prayed The original expression, , , implies that he frequently did this. Though no one was ever more busily employed than he was, or did so much good in public as he did, yet he found time for pious and devout retirement: not that he needed to avoid either distraction or ostentation; but he meant to set us an example, who have need so to order the circumstances of our devotion as to guard against both. It is likewise our wisdom so to order our affairs, that our public work and our secret devotions may not intrench upon, or interfere with each other. Observe, reader, private prayer must be performed secretly; and how much soever we have to do in the best business in this world, we ought to have stated times for it, and steadily to attend to them.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
2. The Lepers: Luk 5:12-14.
In Mark (Mar 1:40), as in Luke, the cure of the lepers took place during a preaching tour. Matthew connects this miracle with the Sermon on the Mount; it is as He comes down from the hill that Jesus meets and heals the leper (Luk 8:1 et seq.). This latter detail is so precise, that it is natural to give Matthew the preference here, rather than say, with Holtzmann, that Matthew wanted to fill up the return from the mountain to the city with it.
Leprosy was in every point of view a most frightful malady. 1 st. In its physical aspects it was a whitish pustule, eating away the flesh, attacking member after member, and at last eating away the very bones; it was attended with burning fever, sleeplessness, and nightmare, without scarcely the slightest hope of cure. Such were its physical characteristics; it was a living death. 2 d. In the social point of view, in consequence of the excessively contagious nature of his malady, the leper was separated from his family, and from intercourse with men, and had no other company than that of others as unhappy as himself. Lepers ordinarily lived in bands, at a certain distance from human habitations (2Ki 7:3; Luk 17:12). Their food was deposited for them in convenient places. They went with their head uncovered, and their chin wrapped up; and on the approach of any persons whom they met, they had to announce themselves as lepers. 3 d. In the religious point of view, the leper was Levitically unclean, and consequently excommunicate. His malady was considered a direct chastisement from God. In the very rare case of a cure, he was only restored to the theocratic community on an official declaration of the priest, and after offering the sacrifice prescribed by the law (Leviticus 13, 14, and the tract Negam in the Talmud).
The Greek expression is: And behold, a man! There is not a verb even. His approach was not seen; it has all the effect of an apparition. This dramatic form reproduces the impression made on those who witnessed the scene; in fact, it was only by a kind of surprise, and as it were by stealth, that a leper could have succeeded in approaching so near. The construction of the 12th verse ( ……) is Hebraistic, and proves an Aramaean document. There is nothing like it in the other Syn.; the eye-witness discovers himself in every feature of Luke’s narrative. The diseased man was full of leprosy; that is to say, his countenance was lividly white, as is the case when the malady has reached an advanced stage. The unhappy man looks for Jesus in the crowd, and having discovered Him () he rushes towards Him; the moment he recognises Him, he is at His feet. Luke says, falling on his face; Mark, kneeling down; Matthew, he worshipped. Would not these variations in terms be puerile if this were a case of copying, or of a derivation from a common source? The dialogue is identical in the three narratives; it was expressed in the tradition in a fixed form, while the historical details were reproduced with greater freedom.
All three evangelists say cleanse instead of heal, on account of the notion of uncleanness attached to this malady. In the words, if Thou wilt, Thou canst, there is at once deep anguish and great faith. Other sick persons had been cured,this the leper knew,hence his faith; but he was probably the first man afflicted with his particular malady that succeeded in reaching Jesus and entreating His aid,hence his anxiety. The older rationalism used to explain this request in this way: Thou canst, as Messiah, pronounce me clean. According to this explanation, the diseased person, already in the way of being cured naturally, simply asked Jesus to verify the cure and pronounce him clean, in order that he might be spared a costly and troublesome journey to Jerusalem. But for the term , to purify, comp. Luk 7:22, Mat 10:8, where the simply declarative sense is impossible; and as to the context, Strauss has already shown that it comports just as little with this feeble meaning. After the words, be thou clean (pronounced pure), these, and he was cleansed (pronounced pure), would be nothing but absurd tautology.
Mark, who takes pleasure in portraying the feelings of Jesus, expresses the deep compassion with which He was moved by this spectacle (). The three narratives concur in one detail, which must have deeply impressed those who saw it, and which, for this reason, was indelibly imprinted on the tradition: He put forth His hand, and touched him. Leprosy was so contagious, that this courageous act excited the liveliest emotion in the crowd. Throughout the whole course of His life, Jesus confronted the touch of our impure nature in a similar manner. His answer is identical in the three narratives; but the result is variously expressed. Matthew says: his leprosy was cleansed, regarding it from a ceremonial point of view. Luke simply says: the leprosy departed from him, looking at it from a human point of view. Mark combines the two forms. This is one of the passages on which they rely who make Mark a compiler from the other two; but if Mark was anxious to adhere so slavishly to the minutest expressions of his predecessors, to the point even of reproducing them without any object, how are we to explain the serious and important modifications which in so many other cases he introduced into their narratives, and the considerable omissions which he is continually making of the substance of what they relate? The fact is, that there were two sides to this cure, as to the malady itself, the physical and the religious; and Mark combines them, whilst the other two appear to take one or the other.
The prohibition which Jesus lays on the leper appears in Luk 5:14, in the form of indirect discourse; but in relating the injunction which follows it, Luke passes to the direct form. This form is peculiar to his narrative. Luke and Matthew omit the threat with which Jesus, according to Mark, accompanied this injunction (). What was the intention of Jesus? The cure having been public, He could not prevent the report of it from being spread abroad. This is true; but He wanted to do all in His power to diminish its fame, and not give a useless impetus to the popular excitement produced by the report of His miracles. Comp. Luk 8:56; Mat 9:30; Mat 12:16; Mar 1:34; Mar 3:12; Mar 5:43; Mar 7:36; Mar 8:26. All these passages forbid our seeking a particular cause for the prohibition He lays on the leper; such as a fear that the priests, having had notice of his cure before his reaching them, would refuse to acknowledge it; or that they would pronounce Jesus unclean for having touched him; or that the sick man would lose the serious impressions which he had received; or that he would allow himself to be deterred from the duty of offering the sacrifice.
Jesus said, Show thyself, because the person is here the convincing proof. In Luke we read, according as Moses…; in Matthew, the gift which Moses…; in Mark, the things which Moses…Most puerile changes, if they were designed!
What is the testimony contained in this sacrifice, and to whom is it addressed? According to Bleek, the word them would refer to the people, who are to be apprised that every one may henceforth renew his former relations with the leper. But is not the term testimony too weighty for this meaning? Gerlach refers the pronoun them to the priests: in order that thou, by thy cure, mayest be a witness to them of my almightiness; but according to the text, the testimony consists not in the cure being verified, but in the sacrifice being offered. The word them does indeed refer to the priests, who are all represented by the one who will verify the cure; but the testimony respects Jesus Himself, and His sentiments in regard to the law. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus repels the charge already preferred against Him of despising the law (Mat 5:17 : Think not that I am come to destroy the law). It is to His respect, therefore, for the Mosaic legislation, that this offering will testify to the priests. During His earthly career, Jesus never dispensed His people from the obligation to obey the prescriptions of the law; and it is an error to regard Him as having, under certain circumstances, set aside the law of the Sabbath as far as He Himself was concerned. He only transgressed the arbitrary enactments with which Pharisaism had surrounded it.
We see by these remarkable words that Jesus had already become an object of suspicion and serious charges at Jerusalem. This state of things is explained by the narrative of the fourth Gospel, where, from the 2d chapter, we see Jesus exposed to the animosity of the dominant party, and accords to Joh 4:1. He is even obliged to leave Judaea in order that their unfavourable impressions may not be aggravated before the time. In chap. 5, which describes a fresh visit to Jerusalem (for the feast of Purim), the conflict thus prepared breaks forth with violence, and Jesus is obliged to testify solemnly His respect for this Moses, who will be the Jews’ accuser, and not His (Joh 5:45-47). This is just the state of things with which the passage we are explaining agrees, as well as all the facts which are the sequel of it. Notwithstanding apparent discrepancies between the Syn. and John, a substantial similarity prevails between them, which proves that both forms of narrative rest on a basis of historic reality.
The leper, according to Mark, did not obey the injunction of Jesus; and this disobedience served to increase that concourse of sick persons which Jesus endeavoured to lessen.
This cure is a difficulty for Keim. A purely moral influence may calm a fever (Luk 4:39), or restore a frenzied man to his senses (Luk 4:31 et seq.); but it cannot purify vitiated blood, and cleanse a body covered with pustules. Keim here resorts to what is substantially the explanation of Paulus. The leper already cured simply desired to be pronounced clean by authorized lips, that he might not have to go to Jerusalem. It must be acknowledged, on this view of the matter, that the three narratives (Matthew as well as Luke and Mark, whatever Keim may say about it) are completely falsified by the legend. Then how came it to enter into the mind of this man to substitute Jesus for a priest? How could Jesus have accepted such an office? Having accepted it, why should He have sent the afflicted man to Jerusalem? Further, for what reason did He impose silence upon him, and enforce it with threats? And what could the man have had to publish abroad, of sufficient importance to attract the crowd of people described Mar 1:45?
Holtzmann (p. 432) concludes, from the words and , literally, He cast him out, and having gone forth (Mar 1:43; Mar 1:45), that according to Mark this cure took place in a house, which agrees very well with the leper being prohibited from making it known; and that consequently the other two Syn. are in error in making it take place in public,
Luke in a city, Matthew on the road from the mountain to Capernaum (Luk 8:1). He draws great exegetical inferences from this. But when it is said in Mark (Mar 1:12) that the Spirit drove out () Jesus into the wilderness, does this mean out of a house? And as to the verb , is it not frequently used in a broad sense: to go out of the midst of that in which one happens to be (here: the circle formed around Jesus)? Comp. Mar 6:34 (Mat 14:14), Luk 6:12; Joh 1:44, etc. A leper would hardly have been able to make his way into a house. His taking them by surprise in the way he did could scarcely have happened except in the open country; and, as we have seen, the prohibition of Jesus can easily be explained, taking this view of the incident. The critical consequences of Holtzmann, therefore, have no substantial basis.
Fuente: Godet Commentary (Luke, John, Romans and 1 Corinthians)
XXXIV.
JESUS HEALS A LEPER AND CREATES MUCH EXCITEMENT.
aMATT.VIII. 2-4; bMARK I. 40-45; cLUKE V. 12-16.
c12 And it came to pass, while he was in one of the cities [it was a city of Galilee, but as it was not named, it is idle to conjecture which city it was], behold, bthere cometh {acame} bto him a leper [There is much discussion as to what is here meant by leprosy. Two diseases now go by that name; viz., psoriasis and elephantiasis. There are also three varieties of psoriasis, namely, white, black and red. There are also three varieties or modifications of elephantiasis, namely, tubercular, spotted or streaked, and ansthetic. Elephantiasis is the leprosy found in modern times in Syria, Greece, Spain, Norway and Africa. Now, since Lev 13:1-59., in determining [176] leprosy, lays great stress on a white or reddish-white depression of the skin, the hairs in which are turned white or yellow, and since it also provides that the leper who is white all over shall be declared clean, and since in the only two cases where lepers are described– Num 12:10, 2Ki 5:27–they are spoken of as “white as snow,” scholars have been led to think that the Biblical leprosy was the white form of psoriasis. But the facts hardly warrant us in excluding the other forms of psoriasis, or even elephantiasis; for 1. Leviticus xiii. also declares that any bright spot or scale shall be pronounced leprosy, if it be found to spread abroad over the body; and this indefinite language would let in elephantiasis, cancer and many other skin diseases. In fact, the law deals with the initial symptoms rather than with the ultimate phases of the fully developed disease. 2. Elephantiasis was a common disease in our Saviour’s time, and has been ever since, and would hardly be called leprosy now, if it had not been popularly so called then. The word “leprosy” comes from “lepo,” which means to peel off in scales. It is hereditary for generations, though modern medical authorities hold that it is not contagious. However, the returning Crusaders spread it all over Europe in the tenth and eleventh centuries, so that according to Matthew Paris there was no less than nine thousand hospitals set apart for its victims. The facts that the priests had to handle and examine lepers, and that any one who was white all over with leprosy was declared clean, led scholars to think that the laws of Moses, which forbade any one to approach or touch a leper, were not enacted to prevent the spread of a contagion, but for typical and symbolic purposes. It is thought that God chose the leprosy as the symbol of sin and its consequences, and that the Mosaic legislation was given to carry out this conception. Being the most loathsome and incurable of all diseases, it fitly represents in bodily form the ravages of sin in the soul of a man. But there must also have been a sanitary principle in God’s laws, since we still deem it wise to separate lepers, and since other people besides the Hebrews (as the Persians) prohibited lepers from mingling with other [177] citizens. Elephantiasis is the most awful disease known. The body of its victim disintegrates joint by joint, until the whole frame crumbles to pieces. Psoriasis is milder, but is very distressing. Mead thus describes a case: The “skin was shining as covered with flakes of snow. And as the furfuraceous or bran-like, scales were daily rubbed off, the flesh appeared quick or raw underneath.” In addition to the scaly symptoms, the skin becomes hard and cracks open, and from the cracks an ichorous humor oozes. The disease spreads inwardly, and ends in consumption, dropsy, suffocation, and death], ca man full of leprosy [Some have thought that Luke meant to indicate one so completely covered with leprosy as to be clean ( Lev 13:28, Lev 13:29, Lev 13:36, Lev 13:37). But the fact that Jesus sent him to the priest, shows that he was not such a clean leper. Luke meant to describe a leper in the last stages of the disease–a leper past all hope]: and when he saw Jesus, bbeseeching him, and kneeling down to him, and saying to him, che fell on his face, aand worshipped him, cand besought him, saying, bunto him, cLord [The Jews, in addressing any distinguished person, usually employed the title “Lord.” They were also accustomed to kneel before prophets and kings. It is not likely that the leper knew enough of Jesus to address him as the Son of God. He evidently took Jesus for some great prophet; but he must have had great faith, for he was full of confidence that Jesus had power to heal him, although there was but one case of leper-cleansing in the Scriptures– 2Ki 5:1-19, Luk 4:27], if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean. [The leper believed in the power of Jesus, but doubted his willingness to expend it on one so unworthy and so unclean. In temporal matters we can not always be as sure of God’s willingness as we can be of his power. We should note that the man asked rather for the blessing of cleanness than for health. To the Jew uncleanness was more horrible than disease. It meant to be an outcast from Israel, and to be classed with swine, dogs and other odious and abhorrent creatures. The leper, therefore, prayed that the Lord would remove his shame [178] and pollution.] b41 And being moved with compassion, he stretched forth his hand, and touched him [Mark habitually notes the feelings, and hence also the gestures of Jesus. It was not an accidental, but an intentional, touch. Popular belief so confused and confounded leprosy with the uncleanness and corruption of sin, as to make the leper feel that Jesus might also compromise his purity if he concerned himself to relieve it. The touch of Jesus, therefore, gave the leper a new conception of divine compassion. It is argued that Jesus, by this touch, was made legally unclean until the evening ( Lev 13:46, Lev 11:40). But we should note the spirit and purpose of this law. Touch was prohibited because it defiled the person touching, and aided not the person touched. In Jesus’ case the reasons for the law were absent, the conditions being reversed. Touching defiled not the toucher, and healed the touched. In all things Jesus touches and shares our human state, but he so shares it that instead of his being defiled by our uncleanness, we are purified by his righteousness. Moreover, Jesus, as a priest after the order of Melchizedek ( Heb 5:6), possessed the priestly right to touch the leper without defilement– Heb 4:15], and saith unto him, {csaying,} I will; be thou made clean. [The Lord’s answer is an echo of the man’s prayer. The words, “I will,” express the high authority of Jesus.] b42 And straightway the {ahis} cleprosy departed from him, {awas cleansed.} band he was made clean. [“Luke says, ‘departed’, giving the merely physical view of the event. Matthew says, ‘was cleansed’, using ceremonial language. Mark combines the two forms”–Godet.] 43 And he strictly charged him, cto tell no man [The language used indicates that Jesus sternly forbade the man to tell what had been done. The man’s conduct, present and future, shows that he needed severe speech. In his uncontrollable eagerness to be healed he had overstepped his privileges, for he was not legally permitted to thus enter cities and draw near to people ( Num 5:2, Num 5:3); he was to keep at a distance from them, and covering his mouth, was to cry, “Tame, [179] tame–unclean, unclean” ( Lev 13:45, Lev 13:46, Luk 17:12, Luk 17:13). The man evinced a like recklessness in disregarding the command of Jesus]: band straightway sent him out, a4 And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; {bsay nothing to any man:} [Several reasons are suggested why the Lord thus commanded silence: 1. It may have been better for the man not to mention his cure ( Joh 9:34). 2. He required the decision of the priest to make him legally clean; and too much talk might so prejudice the priests as to lead them to refuse to admit his cure. 3. But the best reason is that it accorded with our Lord’s general course, which was to suppress excitement, and thus prevent too great crowds from gathering about him and hindering his work. To take this view is to say that Jesus meant to prevent exactly what happened] cbut go, and show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, according as Moses commanded, bthe things which {athe gift that} Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them. [Though healed of his leprosy, the man was not legally clean until declared so by the priest. The priest alone could readmit him to the congregation. The local priest inspected the healed leper, and if he was found clean or cured, he was purified by the use of two birds, cedar wood, scarlet and hyssop, razor and bath. After seven days he was again inspected, and if still cured the priest repaired with him to the temple, where he offered the gift for his cleansing, which was three lambs, with flour and oil; or if the leper was poor, one lamb and two doves or pigeons, with flour and oil ( Lev 14:19-22.). The healed leper was a testimony that Messiah, the great Physician, had come, and that he respected the law of Moses. This testimony was given both to priests and people.] 45 But he went out [from the presence of Jesus and from the city], and began to publish it much, and to spread abroad the matter, {c15 But so much the more went abroad the report concerning him:}. [The leper was so elated that he could scarcely refrain from publishing his cure, and he must also have thought that this was what Jesus really [180] wanted–that in commanding him not to publish it he did not mean what he said] and great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by him of their infirmities. binsomuch that Jesus could no more openly enter into a city [Not a natural or physical inability, but the inability of impropriety. Jesus could not do what he judged not best to do. The excitement cause by such an entry was injurious in several ways: 1. It gave such an emphasis to the miracles of Jesus as to make them overshadow his teaching. 2. It threatened to arouse the jealousy of the government. 3. It rendered the people incapable of calm thought. Two things constantly threatened the ministry of Jesus, namely, impatience in the multitude, and envious malice in the priests and Pharisees. Jesus wished to add to neither of these elements of opposition. Thus the disobedience of the leper interrupted Jesus, and thwarted him in his purpose to visit the villages. Disobedience, no matter how well-meaning, always hinders the work of Christ], c16 But he withdrew himself in the deserts, {bwas without in desert places:} [That is, the the remote grazing-lands like that desert in which he afterwards fed the five thousand. Such was our Lord’s unexampled meekness that he preferred the silent deserts to the applause of multitudes. His meekness was as high above the capacity of a merely human being as were his miracles] cand prayed. [Luke’s gospel is pre-eminently the gospel of prayer and thanksgiving] band they came to him from every quarter.
[FFG 176-181]
Fuente: McGarvey and Pendleton Commentaries (New Testament)
Mat 13:2-4; Mar 1:40-45; & Luk 5:12-16. Mark: And a leper comes to Him, calling upon Him, and kneeling down before Him, and saying to Him, If You may wish, You are able to cleanse me. And Jesus being moved with compassion, and reaching forth His hand, touched him, and says to him, I am willing; be thou cleansed. The Greek for be thou cleansed, is katristheti, which is in the imperative mode, passive voice, and aorist tense. Therefore it literally means, Be thou completely cleansed instantaneously; Be thou clean, E.V., is too weak a translation of the word our Savior spoke.
Luke says this man was full of leprosy, in contradistinction to a case of leprosy occupying a part of the body. No wonder he was exceedingly importunate, as he was leprous all over.
And charging him, He immediately sent him away, and says to him, See that you tell nothing to any one; but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing those things which Moses commanded for a testimony unto them. The lepers in Palestine still have their separate quarters in the cities, dwelling to themselves, as in the days of Christ. I met them at Shechem and at Jerusalem. The popular idea that the separation is because of the contagion of the disease is utterly incorrect. It is not contagious. If it were, what would become of the priests, who, in the discharge of their official duties, are in constant contact with it? See the law of the leper (Leviticus 14), and you will find that when the priest made the examination, and pronounced it leprosy, the victim must go away from society, and live in the leprous quarters. It was well understood among the Jews that leprosy was utterly incurable by human agency. Hence when God, the only Healer, had mercy on the poor leper, he must go to the priest, submit to his diagnosis, and receive from him a certificate of healing, before he was allowed to go into society. While leprosy is not contagious, and not so understood where it is prevalent this day as I came in contact with them, laying a coin on each arm reached forth in supplication, both hands having been eaten off by leprosy yet it is incorrigibly hereditary, from the fact that, like scrofula, it is a blood trouble, affecting every corpuscle of blood in the system, so that it is invariably transmitted to the succeeding generation. Leprosy is a most vivid emblem of inbred sin, which is not necessarily contagious, but inevitably hereditary. Infants born of leprous parents are bright and sprightly, exhibiting no signs of the disease. Yet, soon or late, it is certain to make its appearance, if they do not meet the Healer. So infants born into the world have no actual sin, but have inherited the sinward tendency, which, if not eradicated by grace, will certainly develop into actual transgression. The bite of the rattlesnake when a little thing, soon after evacuating the egg, will not hurt you. But the time will come when he will poison and kill you. While the leprous taint in the blood emblematizes inbred sin in the irresponsible infant, the eruptions on the body represent actual transgressions. e what a striking symbol, not only of inbred sin, but the awful spiritual death which supervenes! You have leprosy in your blood, and feel vigorous and healthy. Before you are aware, it develops on your finger and it drops off; continues its work of destruction till your hand drops off at the wrist. It begins on your face; takes away your nose, and then an eye; reaches your brain, and, fortunately, death comes suddenly to your relief. The reason why the law of Moses required them to live separate was because of the awful loathsomeness of the disease indescribable, horrific, living death! Leprosy, fortunately for us, is not common in America, though I have seen cases of it; but quite common in the Bible lands, where I met them during both of my tours, thus, like everything else in those countries, so wonderfully corroborating the Bible.
And He, having gone out, began to proclaim everything, and spread abroad the history, so that He was no longer able to come publicly into the city; but was off in desert places, and they continued to come to Him from all parts. Luke: But He was away in the deserts, and praying. Why was Jesus so much opposed to their publishing His mighty works, and why could He not come into the city at this time, but must hide away in the deserts i.e., in an uninhabited region of country? From time immemorial, the Jews had all understood that Christ was to be their King. At that time the nation was in deep distress, because thirty years had elapsed since the death of Herod the Great, and during which they had no king, but had been reduced to a Roman province, and were ruled by a proconsul sent out from Rome, thus their liberties gone and their people subject to the Gentiles. Hence, throughout the Hebrew nation, there was a deep sigh, and a perpetual cry to God to break the Roman yoke, restore to them their independence, and give them a king of Hebrew blood to reign over them. These wonderful miracles, when published abroad, raised the people on tiptoe to crown Him King of the Jews. In that case the Roman authorities would have killed Him before He had completed the work He Came to do.
Hence, in order to prevent His own coronation, and the sudden outbreak of a terrible, bloody war, which would have interrupted His ministry and expedited His death, He found it necessary to avoid the multitude. These intervals, which He spent off in the desert in communion with His Father, were wonderful times of refreshing to His spirit, and invigoration for the arduous work and terrible ordeals which awaited him.
Fuente: William Godbey’s Commentary on the New Testament
Luk 5:12-16. The Healing of a Leper (Mar 1:40-45*, Mat 8:1-4*).Lk. keeps closely to Mk., but adds (Luk 5:16) that Jesus in His retirement gave Himself to prayer. It is characteristic of him also to speak of Jesus simply as he; perhaps the disciples did so (cf. 1Jn 3:3; 1Jn 3:5), as was the case with the followers of Socrates and Pythagoras.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 12
This city was Capernaum, according to Mark, (Mark 2:1,)–a city where Jesus was then residing, (Matthew 9:1,) having removed from Nazareth, (Matthew 4:13,) to be safe from Herod Antipas.–Leprosy. In order to prevent the spread of this dreadful disease by contagion, those afflicted with it were subjected to great restrictions and privations,–being cut off, in a great measure, from direct intercourse with others, and thus rendered wretched and almost hopeless outcasts from society. The directions in regard to their examination by the priests, and the rules and restrictions which they were to observe, are given in Leviticus 13:1-14:57.–Fell on his face; that is, prostrated himself before him.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
5:12 {2} And it came to pass, when he was in a certain city, behold a man full of leprosy: who seeing Jesus fell on [his] face, and besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.
(2) Christ, by healing the leper with only his touch and sending him to the priest, witnesses that it is he, through whom and by whom, apprehended by faith, all we who are unclean according to the law are pronounced to be pure and clean by the witness of God himself.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
1. Jesus’ cleansing of a leprous Jew 5:12-16 (cf. Matthew 8:1-4; Mark 1:40-45)
This miracle was to be a "testimony" to others about Jesus’ person (Luk 5:14). It authenticated His person and His teaching. It also shows the blessings that Jesus brought to people, specifically the spiritual cleansing of those whom sin has polluted (cf. Luk 4:18).
"Like sin, leprosy ["a defiling skin disease" TNIV] is deeper than the skin (Lev 13:3) and cannot be helped by mere ’surface’ measures (see Jer 6:14). Like sin, leprosy spreads (Lev 13:7-8); and as it spreads, it defiles (Lev 13:44-45). Because of his defilement, a leprous person had to be isolated outside the camp (Lev 13:46), and lost sinners one day will be isolated in hell. People with leprosy were looked on as ’dead’ (Num 12:12), and garments infected with leprosy were fit only for the fire (Lev 13:52)." [Note: Wiersbe, 1:186.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
One of the cities of Galilee is what Luke meant in view of the context. He revealed his particular interest in medical matters again by noting that leprosy covered this man completely. There could be no doubt that he was a leper. As Peter had done, this man fell on His face before Jesus (cf. Luk 5:8). As Peter, he also appealed to Jesus as "Lord" (Luk 5:8). This address was respectful and appropriate for addressing someone with special power from God. [Note: G. Vermes, Jesus the Jew, pp. 122-23.] The leper was very bold in coming to Jesus since his leprosy separated him from normal social contacts. His conditional request cast doubt on Jesus’ willingness to heal him, not His ability to do so. It may express his sense of unworthiness to receive such a blessing.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
B. The beginning of controversy with the Pharisees 5:12-6:11
One of Luke’s purposes in his Gospel and in Acts appears to have been to show why God stopped working particularly with Israel and began working with Jews and Gentiles equally in the church. [Note: Liefeld, p. 879.] The Jewish leaders’ rejection of Jesus was a major reason for this change. The conflict between them is an important feature of this Gospel.
This section of the Gospel includes six incidents. In the first one Jesus served notice to the religious leaders in Jerusalem that the Messiah had arrived. In the remaining five pericopes, the Pharisees found fault with Jesus or His disciples. Mark stressed the conflict that was mounting, but Luke emphasized the positive aspects of Jesus’ ministry that led to the opposition. [Note: Marshall, The Gospel . . ., p. 206.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 16
THE MIRACLES OF HEALING.
IT is only natural that our Evangelist should linger with a professional as well as a personal interest over Christs connection with human suffering and disease, and that in recounting the miracles of healing He should be peculiarly at home; the theme would be in such thorough accord with his studies and tastes. It is true he does not refer to these miracles as being a fulfillment of prophecy; it is left for St. Matthew, who weaves his Gospel on the unfinished warp of the Old Testament, to recall the words of Isaiah, how “Himself took our infirmities and bare our diseases”; yet our physician-Evangelist evidently lingers over the pathological side of his Gospel with an intense interest. St. John passes by the miracles of healing in comparative silence, though he stays to give us two cases which are omitted by the Synoptists-that of the noblemans son at Capernaum, and that of the impotent man at Bethesda. But St. Johns Gospel moves in more ethereal spheres, and the touches he chronicles are rather the touches of mind with mind, spirit with spirit, than the physical touches through the coarser medium of the flesh. The Synoptists, however, especially in their earlier chapters, bring the works of Christ into prominence, traveling, too, very much over the same ground, though each introduces some special facts omitted by the rest, while in their record of the same fact each Evangelist throws some additional coloring.
Grouping together the miracles of healing-for our space will not allow a separate treatment of each-our thought is first arrested by the variety of forms in which suffering and disease presented themselves to Jesus, the wideness of the ground, physical and psychical, the miracles of healing cover. Our Evangelist mentions fourteen different cases, not, however, as including the whole, or even the greater part, but rather as being typical, representative cases. They are, as it were, the nearer constellations, localized and named; but again and again in his narrative we find whole groups and clusters lying farther back, making a sort of Milky Way of light, whose thickly clustered worlds baffle all our attempts at enumeration. Such are the “women” of chap. 8. ver. 2 {Luk 8:2}, who had been healed of their infirmities, but whose record is omitted in the Gospel story; and such, too, are those groups of cures mentioned in {Luk 4:40; Luk 5:15; Luk 6:19; Luk 7:21}, when the Divine power seemed to culminate, throwing itself out in a largesse of blessing, fairly raining down its bright gifts of healing like meteoric showers.
Turning now to the typical cases mentioned by St. Luke, they are as follows: the man possessed of an unclean demon; Peters wifes mother, who was sick of a fever; a leper, a paralytic, the man with the withered hand, the servant of the centurion, the demoniac, the woman with an issue, the boy possessed with a demon, the man with a dumb demon, the woman with an infirmity, the man with the dropsy, the ten lepers, and blind Bartimaeus. The list, like so many lines of dark meridians, measures off the entire circumference of the world of suffering, beginning with the withered hand, and going on and down to that “sacrament of death,” leprosy, and to that yet further deep, demoniacal possession. Some diseases were of more recent origin, as the case of fever: others were chronic, of twelve or eighteen years standing, or lifelong, as in the case of the possessed boy. In some a solitary organ was affected, as when the hand had withered, or the tongue was tied by some power of evil, or the eyes had lost their gift of vision. In others the whole person was diseased, as when the fires of the fever shot through the heated veins, or the leprosy was covering the flesh with the white scales of death. But whatever its nature or its stage, the disease was acute, as far as human probabilities went, past all hope of healing. It was no slight attack, but a “great fever” which had stricken down the mother-in-law of Peter, the intensive adjective showing that it had reached its danger point. And where among human means was there hope for a restored vision, when for years the last glimmer of light had faded away, when even the optic nerve was atrophied by the long disuse? And where, among the limited pharmacopoeias of ancient times, or even among the vastly extended lists of modern times, was there a cure for the leper, who carried, burned into his very flesh, his sentence of death? No, it was not the trivial, temporary cases of sickness Jesus took in hand; but He passed into that innermost shrine of the temple of suffering, the shrine that lay in perpetual night, and over whose doorway was the inscription of Dantes “Inferno,” “All hope abandon, ye who enter here!” But when Jesus entered this grim abode He turned its darkness to light, its sighs to songs, bringing hope to despairing ones and leading back into the light of day these captives of Death, as Orpheus is fabled to have brought back to earth the lost Eurydice.
And not only are the cases so varied in their character, and humanly speaking, hopeless in their nature, but they were presented to Jesus in such a diversity of ways. They are none of them arranged for, studied. They could not have formed any plan or routine of mercy, nor were they timed for the purpose of producing spectacular effects. They were nearly all of them impromptu, extemporary, events, coming without His seeking, and coming often as interruptions to His own plans. Now it is in the synagogue, in the pauses of public worship, that Jesus rebukes an unclean devil, or He bids the cripple stretch out his withered hand. Now it is in the city: amid the crowd, or out upon the plain; now It is within the house of a chief Pharisee, in the very midst of an entertainment; while at other times He is walking on the road, when, without even stopping in His journey, He wills the leper clean, or He throws the gift of life and health forward to the centurions servant, whom He has not seen. No times were inopportune to Him, and no places were foreign to the Son of man, where men suffered and pain abode. Jesus refused no request on the ground that the time was not well chosen, and though He did again and again refuse the request of selfish interest or vain ambition, He never once turned a deaf ear to the cry of sorrow or of pain, no matter when or whence it came.
And if we consider His methods of healing we find the same diversity. Perhaps we ought not to use that word, for there was a singular absence of method. There was nothing set, artificial in His way, but an easy freedom, a beautiful naturalness. In one respect, and perhaps in one only, are all similar, and that is in the absence of intermediaries. There was no use of means, no prescription of remedies; for in the seeming exception, the clay with which He anointed the eyes of the blind, and the waters of Siloam which He prescribed, were not remedial in themselves; the washing was rather the test of the mans faith, while the anointing was a sort of “aside,” spoken, not to the man himself, hut to the group of onlookers, preparing them for the fresh manifestation of His power. Generally a word was enough, though we read of His healing “touch,” and twice of the symbolic laying on of hands. And by the way, it is somewhat singular that Jesus made use of the touch at the healing of the leper, when the touch meant ceremonial uncleanness. Why does He not speak the word only as He did afterwards at the healing of the “ten?” And why does He, as it were, go out of His way to put Himself in personal contact with the leper, who was under a ceremonial ban? Was it not to show that a new era had dawned, an era in which uncleanness should be that of the heart, the life, and no longer the outward uncleanness, which any accident of contact might induce? Did not the touching of the leper mean the abrogation of the multiplied bans of the Old Dispensation, just as afterwards a heavenly vision coming to Peter wiped out the dividing-line between clean and unclean meats? And why did not the touch of the leper make Jesus ceremonially unclean? For we do not read that it did, or that He altered His plans one whir because of it. Perhaps we find our answer in the Levitical regulations respecting the leprosy. We read in {Lev 14:28} that at the cleansing of the leper the priest was to dip his right finger in the blood and in the oil, and put it on the ear, and hand, and foot of the person cleansed. The finger of the priest was thus the index or sign of purity, the lifting up of the ban which his leprosy had put around and over him. And when Jesus touched the leper it was the priestly touch; it carried its own cleansing with it, imparting power and purity, instead of contracting the defilement of another.
But if Jesus touched the leper, and permitted the woman of Capernaum to touch Him, or at any rate His garment, He studiously avoided any personal contact with those possessed of devils. He recognized here the presence of evil spirits, the powers of darkness, which have enthralled the weaker human spirit, and for these a word is enough. But how different a word to His other words of healing, when He said to the leper, “I will; be thou clean,” and to Bartimaeus, “Receive thy sight!” Now it is a word sharp, imperative, not spoken to the poor helpless victim, but thrown over and beyond him, to the dark personality, which held a human soul in a vile, degrading bondage. And so while the possessed boy lay writhing and foaming on the ground, Jesus laid no hand upon him; it was not till after He had spoken the mighty word, and the demon had departed from him, that Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up.
But whether by word or by touch, the miracles were wrought with consummate ease; there were none of those artistic flourishes which mere performers use as a blind to cover their sleight of hand. There was no straining for effect, no apparent effort. Jesus Himself seemed perfectly unconscious that He was doing anything marvelous or even unusual. The words of power fell naturally from His lips, like the falling of leaves from the tree of life, carrying, wheresoever they might go, healing for the nations.
But if the method of the cures is wonderful, the unstudied ease and simple naturalness of the Healer, the completeness of the cures is even more so. In all the multitudes of cases there was no failure. We find the disciples baffled and chagrined, attempting what they cannot perform, as with the possessed boy; but with Jesus failure was an impossible word. Nor did Jesus simply make them better, bringing them into a state of convalescence, and so putting them in the way of getting well. The cure was instant and complete; “immediately” is St. Lukes frequent and favorite word; so much so that she who half an hour ago was stricken down with malignant fever, and apparently at the point of death, now is going about her ordinary duties as if nothing had happened, “ministering” to Peters many guests. Though Nature possesses a great deal of resilient force, her periods of convalescence, when the disease itself is checked, are more or less prolonged, and weeks, or sometimes months, must elapse before the spring-tides of health return, bringing with them a sweet overflow, an exuberance of life. Not so, however, when Jesus was the Healer. At His word, or at the mere beckoning of His finger, the tides of health, which had gone far out in the ebb, suddenly returned in all their spring fullness, lifting high on their wave the bark which through hopeless years had been settling down into its miry grave. Eighteen years of disease had made the woman quite deformed; the contracting muscles had bent the form God made to stand erect, so that she could “in no wise lift herself up”; but when Jesus said, “Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity,” and laid His hands upon her, in an instant the tightened muscles relaxed, the bent form regained its earlier grace, for “she was made straight, and glorified God.” One moment, with the Christ in it, was more than eighteen years of disease, and with the most perfect ease it could undo all the eighteen years had done. And this is but a specimen case, for the same completeness characterizes all the cures that Jesus wrought. “They were made whole,” as it reads, no matter what the malady might be; and though disease had loosened all the thousand strings, so that the wonderful harp was reduced to silence, or at best could but strike discordant notes, the hand of Jesus has but to touch it, and in an instant each string recovers its pristine tone, the jarring sounds vanish, and body, “mind and soul according well, awake sweet music as before.”
But though Jesus wrought these many and complete cures, making the healing of the sick a sort of pastime, the interludes in that Divine “Messiah,” still He did not work these miracles indiscriminately, without method or conditions. He freely placed His service at the disposal of others, giving Himself up to one tireless round of mercy; but it is evident there was some selection for these gifts of healing. The healing power was not thrown out randomly, falling on any one it might chance to strike; it flowed out in certain directions only, in ordered channels; it followed certain lines and laws. For instance, these circles of healing were geographically narrow. They followed the personal presence of Jesus, and with one or two exceptions, were never found apart from that presence; so that, many as they were, they would form but a small part of suffering humanity. And even within these circles of His visible presence we are not to suppose that all were healed. Some were taken, and others were left, to a suffering from which only death would release them. Can we discover the law of this election of mercy? We think we may.
(1) In the first place, there must be the need for the Divine intervention. This perhaps goes without saying, and does not seem to mean much, since among those who were left unhealed there were needs just as great as those of the more favored ones. But while the “need” in some cases was not enough to secure the Divine mercy, in other cases it was all that was asked. If the disease was mental or psychical, with reason all bewildered, and the firmaments of Right and Wrong mixed confusedly together, making a chaos of the soul, that was all Jesus required. At other times He waited for the desire to be evoked and the request to be made; but for these cases of lunacy, epilepsy, and demoniacal possession He waived the other conditions, and without waiting for the request, as in the synagogue {Luk 4:34} or on the Gadarene coast, He spoke the word, which brought order to a distracted soul, and which led Reason back to her Jerusalem, to the long-vacant throne.
For others the need itself was not sufficient; there must be the request. Our desire for any blessing is our appraisement of its value, and Jesus dispensed His gifts of healing on the Divine conditions, “Ask, and ye shall receive; seek, and ye shall find.” How the request came, whether from the sufferer himself or through some intercessor, it did not matter; for no request for healing came to Jesus to be disregarded or denied. Nor was it always needful to put the request into words. Prayer is too grand and great a thing for the lips to have a monopoly of it, and the deepest prayers may be put into acts as well as into words, as they are sometimes uttered in inarticulate sighs, and in groans which are too deep for words. And was it not truest prayer, as the multitudes carried their sick and laid them down at the feet of Jesus, even had their voice spoken no solitary word? And was it not truest prayer, as they put themselves, with their bent forms and withered hands right in His way, not able to speak one single word, but throwing across to Him the piteous but hopeful look? The request was thus the expression of their desire, and at the same time the expression of their faith, telling of the trust they reposed in His pity and His power, a trust He was always delighted to see, and to which He always responded, as He Himself said again and again, “thy faith hath saved thee.” Faith then, as now, was the sesame to which all Heavens gates fly open; and as in the case of the paralytic who was borne of four, and let down through the roof, even a vicarious faith prevails with Jesus, as it brings to their friend a double and complete salvation. And so they who sought Jesus as their Healer found Him, and they who believed entered into His rest, this lower rest of a perfect health and perfect life; while they who were indifferent and they who doubted were left behind, crushed by the sorrow that He would have removed, and tortured by pains that His touch would have completely stilled.
And now it remains for us to gather up the light of these miracles, and to focus it on Him who was the central Figure, Jesus, the Divine Healer. And
(1) the miracles of healing speak of the knowledge of Jesus. The question, “What is man?” has been the standing question of the ages, but it is still unanswered, or answered but in part. His complex nature is still a mystery, the eternal riddle of the Sphinx, and Oedipus comes not. Physiology can number and name the bones and muscles, can tell the forms and functions of the different organs; chemistry can resolve the body into its constituent elements, and weigh out their exact proportions; philosophy can map out the departments of the mind; but man remains the great enigma. Biology carries her silken clue right up to the primordial cell; but here she finds a Gordian knot, which her keenest instruments cannot cut, or her keenest wit unravel. Within that complex nature of ours are oceans of mystery which Thought may indeed explore, but which she cannot fathom, paths which the vulture eye of Reason hath not seen, whose voices are the voices of unknown tongues, answering each other through the mist. But how familiar did Jesus seem with all these life-secrets! How intimate with all the life-forces! How versed He was in etiology, knowing without possibility of mistake whence diseases came, and just how they looked! It was no mystery to Him how the hand had shrunk, shriveling into a mass of bones, with no skill in its fingers, and no life in its clogged-up veins, or how the eyes had lost their power of vision. His knowledge of the human frame was an exact and perfect knowledge, reading its innermost secrets, as in a transparency, knowing to a certainty what links had dropped-out of the subtle mechanism, and what had been warped out of place, and knowing well just at what point and to what an extent to apply the healing remedy, which was His own volition. All earth and all heaven were without a covering; to His gaze; and what was this but Omniscience?
(2) Again, the miracles of healing speak of the compassion of Jesus. It was with no reluctance that He wrought these works of mercy; it was His delight. His heart was drawn towards suffering and pain by the magnetism of a Divine sympathy, or rather, we ought to say, towards the sufferers themselves; for suffering-and pain, like sin and woe, were exotics in His.
Fathers garden, the deadly nightshade an enemy had sown. And so we mark a great tenderness-in all His dealings with the afflicted. He does, not apply the caustic of bitter and biting words. Even when, as we may suppose, the suffering is the harvest of earlier sin, as in the case of the paralytic, Jesus speaks no harsh reproaches; He says simply and kindly, “Go in peace, and sin no more.” And do we not find here a reason why these miracles of healing were so frequent in His ministry? Was it not because in His mind Sickness was somehow related to Sin? If miracles were needed to attest the “Divineness of His mission, there was no need of the constant succession of them, no need that they should form a part, and a large part, of the daily task. Sickness is, so to speak, something unnaturally natural: It results from the transgression of some physical law, as Sin is the transgression of some moral law; and He who is mans Savior brings a complete salvation, a redemption for the body” as well as a redemption for the soul. Indeed, the diseases of the body are but the shadows, seen and felt, of the deeper diseases of the soul, and with Jesus the physical healing was but a step to the higher truth and higher experience, that spiritual cleansing, that inner creation of a right spirit, a perfect heart. And so Jesus carried on the two works side by side; they were the two parts of His one and great salvation; and as He loved and pitied the sinner, so He pitied and loved the sufferer; His sympathies all went out to meet him, preparing the way for His healing virtues to follow.
(3) Again, the miracles of healing speak of the power of Jesus. This was seen indirectly when we considered the completeness of the cures, and the wide field they covered, and we need not enlarge upon it now. But what a consciousness of might there was in Jesus! Others, prophets and apostles, have healed the sick, but their power was delegated. It came as in waves of Divine impulse, intermittent and temporary. The power that Jesus wielded was inherent and absolute, deeps which knew neither cessation nor diminution. His will was supreme over all forces. Natures potencies are diffused and isolated, slumbering in herb or metal, flower or leaf, in mountain or sea. But all are inert and useless until man distils them with his subtle alchemies, and then applies them by his slow processes, dissolving the tinctures in the blood, sending on its warm currents the healing virtue, if haply it may reach its goal and accomplish its mission. But all these potencies lay in the hand or in the will of Christ. The forces of life all were marshalled under His bidding. He had but to say to one “Go,” and it went, here or there, or any whither; nor does it go for naught; it accomplishes its high behest, the great Masters will. Nay, the power of Jesus is supreme even in that outlying and dark world of evil spirits. The demons fly at His rebuke; and let Him throw but one healing word across the dark, chaotic soul of one possessed, and in an instant Reason dawns; bright thoughts play on the horizon; the firmaments of Right and Wrong separate to infinite distances; and out of the darkness a Paradise emerges, of beauty and light, where the new son of God resides, and God Himself comes down in the cool and the heat of the days alike. What power is this? Is it not the power of God? Is it not Omnipotence?