For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins-” (then he said to the paralytic), “Get up, and take up your mat, and go to your house.”
He arose and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
As Jesus passed by from there, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax collection office. He said to him, “Follow me.” He got up and followed him. As he sat in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw it, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick do. But you go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ for I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv9, 10, 13 Christ calleth the humble sinners unto him, but he…
Christ calleth the humble sinners unto him, but he condemneth the proud hypocrites.
At the customer’s table, where it was received.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv5–13 5 For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins…
5 For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?
Ver. 5. For whether is it easier, &c.] q.d. It is a work of one and the same Almighty power to pardon sin, and with a bare word only to heal the sick, such as are counted past cure especially. Think the same of the soul’s sicknesses, and say with that ancient, Ego admisi, Domine, unde tu damnare potes me, sed tu non amisisti, unde tu salvare potes me.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv7, 9, 10, 11, 12 Mark saith. And immediately he arose, took up his…
Mark saith. And immediately he arose, took up his bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion, Mar 2:12. Luke saith, And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, we have seen strange things today, Luk 5:25,26. They all agree in sense, though not in words. With Christ’s word there went out a power, enabling him to do what he had commanded him. He immediately stands upon his feet, takes up his bed, or couch, that whereon he lay, ( saith Luke), and went home in the sight of them all, so as none could doubt concerning the cure. What effect hath this upon the people?
They marvelled, saith Matthew; they were amazed, and filled with fear, saith Luke. Here is not a word of their believing and owning Christ as the Son of God, which was the great thing the miracle was wrought to bring them to; but blindness was happened to Israel, seeing they saw and could not perceive. The miracle wrought in them an awe and reverence of him as an extraordinary person, and put them into a kind of ecstasy and admiration; and the text saith they
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glorified God; but not aright: they praised God, not for sending his Son into the world to save sinners, but for giving such power unto men; they would still own Christ no more than a man, though a man to whom God had given great power.
No man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost, 1Co 12:3. Truly to believe, own, and receive Christ as our Lord, requireth the operation of the Spirit of grace, working such a faith and persuasion in us.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv7, 9, 10, 11, 12 Note here, The multitude marvelled, but not believed; they…
Note here, The multitude marvelled, but not believed; they admire our Saviour for an extraordinary man, but did not believe in him as the Son of God: they praise God for giving such power to heal the bodies of men: but not for sending his Son into the world, to save the souls of men.
Learn hence, That the sight of Christ’s miracles is not sufficient to work faith in the soul, but requires the concurring operation of the Holy Spirit; the one may make us marvel, the other must make us believe.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v9 In these verses we have an account of the…
In these verses we have an account of the grace and favour of Christ to poor publicans, particularly to Matthew. What he did to the bodies of people was to make way for a kind design upon their souls. Now observe here,
I. The call of Matthew, the penman of this gospel. Mark and Luke call him Levi; it was ordinary for the same person to have two names: perhaps Matthew was the name he was most known by as a publican, and, therefore, in his humility, he called himself by that name, rather than by the more honourable name of Levi. Some think Christ gave him the name of Matthew when he called him to be an apostle; as Simon, he surnamed Peter. Matthew signifies, the gift of God, Ministers are God's gifts to the church; their ministry, and their ability for it, are God's gifts to them. Now observe,
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1. The posture that Christ's call found Matthew in. He was sitting at the receipt of custom, for he was a publican, Luk 5:27. He was a custom-house officer at the port of Capernaum, or an exciseman, or collector of the land-tax. Now, (1.) He was in his calling, as the rest of them whom Christ called, Mat 4:18. Note, As Satan chooses to come, with his temptations, to those that are idle, so Christ chooses to come, with his calls, to those that are employed. But, (2.) It was a calling of ill fame among serious people; because it was attended with so much corruption and temptation, and there were so few in that business that were honest men. Matthew himself owns what he was before his conversion, as does St. Paul (Ti1 1:13), that the grace of Christ in calling him might be the more magnified, and to show, that God has his remnant among all sorts of people. None can justify themselves in their unbelief, by their calling in the world; for there is no sinful calling, but some have been saved out of it, and no lawful calling, but some have been saved in it.
2. The preventing power of this call. We find not that Matthew looked after Christ, or had any inclination to follow him, though some of his kindred were already disciples of Christ, but Christ prevented him with the blessings of his goodness. He is found of those that seek him not. Christ spoke first; we have not chosen him, but he hath chosen us. He said, Follow me; and the same divine, almighty power accompanied this word to convert Matthew, which attended that word (Mat 9:6), Arise and walk, to cure the man sick of the palsy. Note, A saving change is wrought in the soul by Christ as the Author, and his word as the means. His gospel is the power of God unto salvation, Rom 1:16. The call was effectual, for he came at the call; he arose, and followed him immediately; neither denied, nor deferred his obedience. The power of divine grace soon answers and overcomes all objections. Neither his commission for his place, nor his gains by it, could detain him, when Christ called him. He conferred not with flesh and blood, Gal 1:15, Gal 1:16. He quitted his post, and his hopes of preferment in that way; and, though we find the disciples that were fishers occasionally fishing again afterwards, we never find Matthew at the receipt of custom again.
II. Christ's converse with publicans and sinners upon this occasion; Christ called Matthew, to introduce himself into an acquaintance with the people of that profession. Jesus sat at meat in the house, Mat 9:10. The other evangelists tell us, that Matthew made a great feast, which the poor fishermen, when they were called, were not able to do. But when he comes to speak of this himself, he neither tells us that it was his own house, nor that it was a feast, but only that he sat at meat in the house; preserving the remembrance of Christ's favours to the publicans, rather than of the respect he had paid to Christ. Note, It well becomes us to speak sparingly of our own good deeds.
Now observe, 1. When Matthew invited Christ, he invited his disciples to come along with him. Note, They that welcome Christ, must welcome all that are his, for his sake, and let them have a room in their hearts. 2. He invited many publicans and sinners to meet him. This was the chief thing Matthew aimed at in this treat, that he might have an opportunity of bringing his old associates acquainted with Christ. He knew by experience what the grace of Christ could do, and would not despair concerning them. Note, They who are effectually brought to Christ themselves, cannot but be desirous that others also may be brought to him, and ambitious of contributing something towards it. True grace will not contentedly eat its morsels alone, but will invite others. When by the conversion of Matthew the fraternity was broken, presently his house was filled with publicans, and surely some of them will follow him, as he followed Christ. Thus did Andrew and Philip, Joh 1:41, Joh 1:45; Joh 4:29. See Jdg 14:9.
III. The displeasure of the Pharisees at this, Mat 9:11. They cavilled at it; why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners? Here observe, 1. That Christ was quarrelled with. It was not the least of his sufferings, that he endured the contradiction of sinners against himself. None was more quarrelled with by men, than he that came to take up the great quarrel between God and man. Thus he denied himself the honour due to an incarnate Deity, which was to be justified in what he spake, and to have all he said readily subscribed to: for though he never spoke or did anything amiss, every thing he said and did was found fault with. Thus he taught us to expect and prepare for reproach, and to bear it patiently. 2. They that quarrelled with him were the Pharisees; a proud generation of men, conceited of themselves, and censorious of others; of the same temper with those in the prophet's time, who said, Stand by thyself, come not near me; I am holier than thou: they were very strict in avoiding sinners, but not in avoiding sin; none greater zealots than they for the form of godliness, nor greater enemies to the power of it. They were for keeping up the traditions of the elders to a nicety, and so propagating the same spirit that they were themselves governed by. 3. They brought their cavil, not to Christ himself; they had not the courage to face him with it, but to his disciples. The disciples were in the same company, but the quarrel is with the Master: for they would not have done it, if he had not; and they thought it worse in him who was a prophet, than in them; his dignity, they thought, should set him at a greater distance from such company than others. Being offended at the Master, they quarrel with the disciples. Note, It concerns Christians to be able to vindicate and justify Christ, and his doctrines and laws, and to be ready always to give an answer to those that ask them a reason of the hope that is in them, Pe1 3:15. While he is an Advocate for us in heaven, let us be advocates for him on earth, and make his reproach our own. 4. The complaint was his eating with publicans and sinners: to be intimate with wicked people is against the law of God (Psa 119:115; Psa 1:1); and perhaps by accusing Christ of this to his disciples, they hoped to tempt them from him, to put them out of conceit with him, and so to bring them over to themselves to be their disciples, who kept better company; for they compassed sea and land to make proselytes. To be intimate with publicans was against the tradition of the elders, and, therefore, they looked upon it as a heinous thing. They were angry with Christ for this, (1.) Because they wished ill to him, and sought occasion to misrepresent him. Note, It is an easy and very common thing to put the worst constructions upon the best words and actions. (2.) Because they wished no good to publicans and sinners, but envied Christ's favour to them, and were grieved to see them brought to repentance. Note, It may justly be suspected, that they have not the grace of God themselves, who grudge others a share in that grace, who are not pleased with it.
IV. The defence that Christ made for himself and his disciples, in justification of their converse with publicans and sinners. The disciples, it should seem, being yet weak, had to seek for an answer to the Pharisees' cavil, and, therefore, bring it to Christ, and he heard it (Mat 9:12), or perhaps overheard them whispering it to his disciples. Let him alone to vindicate himself and to plead his own cause, to answer for himself and for us too. Two things he urges in his defence,
1. The necessity and exigence of the case of the publicans, which called aloud for his help, and therefore justified him in conversing with them for their good. It was the extreme necessity of poor, lost sinners, that brought Christ from the pure regions above, to these impure ones; and the same was it, that brought him into this company which was thought impure. Now,
(1.) He proves the necessity of the case of the publicans: they that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. The publicans are sick, and they need one to help and heal them, which the Pharisees think they do not. Note,
[1.] Sin is the sickness of the soul; sinners are spiritually sick. Original corruptions are the diseases of the soul, actual transgressions are its wounds, or the eruptions of the disease. It is deforming, weakening, disquieting, wasting, killing, but, blessed be God, not incurable. [2.] Jesus Christ is the great Physician of souls. His curing of bodily diseases signified this, that he arose with healing under his wings. He is a skilful, faithful, compassionate Physician, and it is his office and business to heal the sick. Wise and good men should be as physicians to all about them; Christ was so. Hunc affectum versus omnes habet sapiens, quem versus aegros suos medicus - A wise man cherishes towards all around him the feelings of a physician for his patient. Seneca De Const. [3.] Sin-sick souls have need of this Physician, for their disease is dangerous; nature will not help itself; no man can help us; such need have we of Christ, that we are undone, eternally undone, without him. Sensible sinners see their need, and apply themselves to him accordingly. [4.] There are multitudes who fancy themselves to be sound and whole, who think they have no need of Christ, but that they can shift for themselves well enough without him, as Laodicea, Rev 3:17. Thus the Pharisees desired not the knowledge of Christ's word and ways, not because they had no need of him, but because they thought they had none. See Joh 9:40, Joh 9:41.
(2.) He proves, that their necessity did sufficiently justify his conduct, in conversing familiarly with them, and that he ought not to be blamed for it; for that necessity made it an act of charity, which ought always to be preferred before the formalities of a religious profession, in which beneficence and munificence are far better than magnificence, as much as substance is better than shows or shadows. Those duties, which are of moral and natural obligation, are to take place even of those divine laws which are positive and ritual, much more of those impositions of men, and traditions of the elders, which make God's law stricter than he has made it. This he proves (Mat 9:13) by a passage quoted out of Hos 6:6, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. That morose separation from the society of publicans, which the Pharisees enjoined, was less than sacrifice; but Christ's conversing with them was more than an act of common mercy, and therefore to be preferred before it. If to do well ourselves is better than sacrifice, as Samuel shows (Sa1 15:22, Sa1 15:23), much more to do good to others. Christ's conversing with sinners is here called mercy: to promote the conversion of souls is the greatest act of mercy imaginable; it is saving a soul from death, Jam 5:20. Observe how Christ quotes this, Go ye and learn what that meaneth. Note, It is not enough to be acquainted with the letter of scripture, but we must learn to understand the meaning of it. And they have best learned the meaning of the scriptures, that have learned how to apply them as a reproof to their own faults, and a rule for their own practice. This scripture which Christ quoted, served not only to vindicate him, but, [1.] To show wherein true religion consists; not in external observances: not in meats and drinks and shows of sanctity, not in little particular opinions and doubtful disputations, but in doing all the good we can to the bodies and souls of others; in righteousness and peace; in visiting the fatherless and widows. [2.] To condemn the Pharisaical hypocrisy of those who place religion in rituals, more than in morals, Mat 23:23. They espouse those forms of godliness which may be made consistent with, and perhaps subservient to, their pride, covetousness, ambition, and malice, while they hate that power of it which is mortifying to those lusts.
2. He urges the nature and end of his own commission. He must keep to his orders, and prosecute that for which he was appointed to be the great Teacher; now, says he, "I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance, and therefore must converse with publicans." Observe, (1.) What his errand was; it was to call to repentance. This was his first text (Mat 4:17), and it was the tendency of all his sermons. Note, The gospel call is a call to repentance; a call to us to change our mind and to change our way. (2.) With whom his errand lay; not with the righteous, but with sinners. That is, [1.] If the children of men had not been sinners, there had been no occasion for Christ's coming among them. He is the Saviour, not of man as man, but of man as fallen. Had the first Adam continued in his original righteousness, we had not needed a second Adam. [2.] Therefore his greatest business lies with the greatest sinners; the more dangerous the sick man's case is, the more occasion there is for the physician's help. Christ came into the world to save sinners, but especially the chief (Ti1 1:15); to call not those so much, who, though sinners, are comparatively righteous, but the worst of sinners. [3.] The more sensible any sinners are of their sinfulness, the more welcome will Christ and his gospel be to them; and every one chooses to go where his company is desired, not to those who would rather have his room. Christ came not with an expectation of succeeding among the righteous, those who conceit themselves so, and therefore will sooner be sick of their Saviour, than sick of their sins, but among the convinced humble sinners; to them Christ will come, for to them he will be welcome.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv5–13 For whether is easier to say,..... Christ proceeds to…
For whether is easier to say,..... Christ proceeds to clear himself of the charge of blasphemy, and to prove his power to forgive sins, by putting a case to them, of which he makes themselves Judges, and is this: which is easiest to be said,
thy sins are forgiven thee? or to say, arise and walk? Neither of them were easy to a mere creature, but both of them easy to God; and he that could say the one with power and efficacy going along with his word, could say the other as effectually: and whereas it was a plain case, and out of all question, that he could bid this "paralytic" man, though in this weak condition, arise from his bed, stand upon his feet, and go home of himself; and since he had already healed many that were sick of the palsy, and particularly the "centurion's" servant, by a word speaking, he must have equal power to forgive sin. For to heal the diseases of the body in such a wonderful manner, was a very sensible proof of his power to heal the maladies of the soul; and though these are greater than those of the body, yet since both require divine power, he that is able to do the one, is able to do the other. And that it might appear he did not say this in a boasting manner, he adds,
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13 Which is easier - Do not both of them…
Which is easier - Do not both of them argue a Divine power? Therefore if I can heal his disease, I can forgive his sins: especially as his disease is the consequence of his sins. Therefore these must be taken away, if that is.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 Verse 5. For whether is easier, to say, Thy…
Verse 5. For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk?] Both are equally easy, and equally difficult; for both require unlimited power to produce them. And every thing is equally easy to that power which is unlimited. A universe can be as easily produced by a single act of the Divine will as the smallest elementary part of matter.
The common punctuation of the above passage almost destroys the sense: the comma should be placed after easier, and to say, made the first part of the question.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv9–10 Mat 9:9. And as Jesus passed from thence —…
Mat 9:9. And as Jesus passed from thence — That is, from the house in which the paralytic had been cured, he saw a man named Matthew — Modestly so called by himself: the other evangelists call him by his more honourable name, Levi; setting at the receipt of custom — In the very height of his business. The expression επι το τελωνιον, here rendered the receipt of custom, seems properly to mean the place where custom was received. Some late translators render it, the custom-house; “but have we any reason,” says Campbell: “to say it was a house?” The Syriac name is no evidence that it was; for, like the Hebrew, they use the word beth [house] with great latitude of signification. Most probably it was a temporary stall which could easily be erected in any place where occasion required. The word office, (signifying a place where any particular business is transacted, whether within doors or without,) seems an unexceptionable name for the place. And he saith unto him, Follow me — A word which was immediately attended with a secret power, so that he arose and followed him — He immediately obeyed the call, consigning, doubtless, his books and cash to some more careful hand. “Porphyry and Julian, two noted ancient enemies of Christianity, have blamed Matthew for thus rashly, as they are pleased to call it, following one of whom he had so little knowledge. But as it is evident that this publican lived in Capernaum, or near it, he must have often heard our Lord preach, (for it was the town where he ordinarily resided,) and may probably have been witness to a number of his miracles. Wherefore, the opposers of our religion must forgive us, if we affirm that there was neither rashness nor imprudence in the readiness which Matthew showed to follow Jesus when called. He may have been his disciple long before this, and only waited for permission to attend him.” — Macknight.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 For whether is easier to say - Thy “sins…
For whether is easier to say - Thy “sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and walk?” The one involves divine “power,” the other divine “authority,” and neither can be done but by God. One is as easy as the other; and to be able to do the one, involves the right and the power to do the other.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 8, 9, 12, 13 The power of working miracles, and of forgiving sins,…
The power of working miracles, and of forgiving sins, is proper to God, but can be communicated by God to man equally in the sacraments of baptism and penance. (Haydock) --- Which is easier. It is more difficult to remit sins than restore the health of the body. St. Augustine remarks, (tract. lxxii in Joannem) it is more difficult to justify a man than to create the heavens and the earth; but Christ speaks thus, because the Pharisees might otherwise have said, that as he could not confer visible health upon the body, he had recourse to the invisible remission of sins, and that it was easy to grant in words, what no one could discern whether it was really granted or not. In this sense, therefore, the word, "Be thou healed," is more difficult than simply to say, "Thy sins are forgiven thee;" which any one could say, though he might not effect what his word implied. (Menochius) --- Doubtless the healing of the body was easier, for as much as the soul is more excellent than the body, so much is the healing of the soul more difficult and more excellent than that of the body. But since the one is visible, the other invisible, therefore he performs the less, but more evident miracle, in testimony of the performance of the other more excellent, but less evident exertion of his power. Thus he truly verifies what the Baptist said of him, "This is he that taketh away the sins of the world." (St. John Chrysostom, hom. xxx.)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v9 The miracle of the call of Matthew to the…
V
The miracle of the call of Matthew to the Apostolate; the feast of the Lord with the publicans; twofold stumblingblock of the Pharisees and disciples of John: or, Christ’s gracious working despite the contradiction of legal piety.
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Mat_9:9-17 (Mar_2:13-22; Luk_5:27-39)
9And as Jesus passed forth [on] from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom [custom-house]: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him. 10And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat [reclined at table] in the house, behold, many publicans4 and sinners came and sat down [reclined] with him and his disciples. 11And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples,Why eateth your master with publicans and sinners? 12But when Jesus5 heard that, he said unto them, They that be [are] whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. 13But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.: for I am not come to call the righteous6, but sinners to repentance.7
14Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft [often], but thy disciples fast not? 15And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days8 will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.16No man putteth a piece [patch] of new [unwrought] cloth unto [on] an old garment;9 for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is madeworse. 17Neither do men put new wine into old [skin.] bottles: else the bottles break [the skins burst], and the wine runneth out, and the [skin.] bottles perish:10 but the, put new wine into new [skin.] bottles, and both are preserved [together].11
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
Mat_9:9. On the identity between Matthew and Levi, comp. the Introduction; Mar_2:14; Luk_5:27. Probably Matthew had already, at a former period, entered into closer relationship with the Lord.
Ἐπὶ τὸτε λώνιον.—The place where custom was levied, toll-house, custom-house, collector’s office. His way led Him past the receipt of custom (παράγων) .
Mat_9:10. As Jesus sat, better: lay, or reclined, at table in the house—according to Eastern custom. It was the practice to recline on divans, resting upon the left arm. The house, which is here designated with the article, was, no doubt, that of the publican. Meyer maintains that it was the house of Jesus,12 since we read in the former verse that Matthew followed Him, as if to follow the Lord meant to accompany Him across the street! Luke relates that the feast took place in the house of Levi (Matthew). We cannot see any difficulty, unless, like Fritzsche and Meyer, we were to take in its gross literality an expression which evidently means, that from that moment Matthew followed Christ as His disciple in the narrowest sense. De Wette correctly remarks that it is not likely that Christ ever gave dinner-parties.13
And sinners.—Meyer: Worthless persons generally (!). We should rather say, in general, those whom the Pharisees had excommunicated from the synagogues.
Mat_9:12. The whole—the sick,—i. e., according to Mat_9:13, the righteous and sinners. De Wette supposes that the former referred to persons who were really righteous in the Jewish and legal sense; while Meyer takes it ironically, as applying to their boasted righteousness. We would combine the two ideas. They imagined that they were righteous, regarding legal righteousness as sufficient before God. On the other hand, those who in the text are called sinners, were not merely such from the Jewish point of view, but felt themselves guilty when brought in contact with the righteousness of Christ. Most aptly, therefore, does Calvin designate this as an ironica concessio.
Mat_9:13. I will have mercy.—I take pleasure, I desire. Hos_6:6, after the Septuagint. The opinion of de Wette, that the term חֶסֶד, in Hosea, means piety, is ungrounded.—And not sacrifice. The comparison may be relative; but when mercy and sacrifice are placed in opposition to each other, it becomes absolute, because the sacrifice then loses all its value, and becomes an act of hypocrisy. The expression, πορευθεντες μάθετε, go and learn, answers to the rabbinical formula, צא וּלְמֹד. Schöttgen.
Mat_9:14. The disciples of John, etc.—St. Luke represents the Pharisees as in this case also urging the objection, and Schleiermacher considers this the authentic version of the event. De Wette regards the narrative of Luke as a correction upon Matthew, and deems it improbable that the disciples of John should have come forward as here related. Meyer decides simply in favor of the account of Matthew. Luke may have represented the Pharisees as putting the question proposed by the disciples of John, because the latter shared many of the views of the Pharisees, and were in danger of going further in that direction, from their attachment to John and to his asceticism. These were the disciples of John who would not be guided by their master’s direction to the Lamb of God.
Mat_9:15. The children of the bride-chamber, οἱ υἱοὶ τοῦ νυμ φῶνος.—On the day of marriage, the bridegroom went, adorned and anointed, to the house of the bride, attended by his companions (מֵרֵעים, Jdg_14:11), and led her, attended by her maidens, in festive procession, with music and dancing, at even, by torchlight, into the house of his father. The marriage feast, which was defrayed by the bridegroom, lasted seven days. (See the Bibl. Encyclops. sub Marriage.)
Mourn.—The Lord here indicates that fasting must be the result of πενθεῖν. The other Evangelists have νηστεύειν. “Fasting should be the expression of sorrow; not merely an outward exercise, but the expression of an inward state.” De Wette. The primary object of our Lord, therefore, was to show the impropriety of those fasts which had no proper motive, and hence were untrue. The present was the festive season for the disciples; and it was theirs to show this by their outward gladness. “The Roman Catholics infer from this verse, that, since the death of Christ, it is necessary to fast.” Heubner. If this were to be consistently carried out, we should have to fast the whole year round.
Mat_9:16. No man putteth a patch of un-wrought [or unfulled] cloth.—Two similes taken from common life to illustrate the principles of the Divine economy. In both cases, it is not so much the unsuitableness of adding the new to the old which is brought out, as the folly of bringing together what is not only new, but fresh, with that which is not only old, but antiquated. Hence, in the first example, we have not only a piece of new cloth, but of raw and unwrought material, which will shrink. Accordingly, the piece inserted to fill it up (πλήρωηα) will make the rent worse by the strain upon the old cloth. Similarly, the new wine which is still fermenting, expands, and will thus burst the old skin bottles. The antagonism between the old and the new arises, therefore, not merely from the imperfectness of the old, but also from that of the new, which, however, from its inherent nature, must develop and expand. An arrangement of this kind were, therefore, not merely unsuitable, but even destructive,—making matters worse, instead of improving them. The result in both cases would be, that the old and the new would perish together. A careful examination shows that the two similes are intended to supplement each other. The first meets the case of the disciples of John, with whom the old was the principal consideration, and the new only secondary; i. e., they regarded Christianity merely as a reformation of the Old Covenant, as a piece of new cloth to fill up a rent in the old garment. The second simile applies more especially to the disciples of Jesus. Here, Christianity is the primary consideration (the new wine from the Vine of Israel), whilst the old forms of the theocracy were secondary. In both cases, the result is the same. But, besides its special lessons, the second simile is also intended to show how entirely false the view alluded to in the first simile was, that Christianity was only a piece of new cloth to mend the torn garment of the old theocracy.
Mat_9:17. Bottles, or lit.: skins, ἀσκοί.—In the East, water, milk, wine, oil, and similar commodities, were, and are still, preserved and transported in leathern bottles, which were commonly made of the hides of goats, rarely of camels, and asses. The exterior of the skin, after having been suitably prepared, was generally used as the interior of the bottle. See the quotations of Heubner (p. 128) from Lucian and Aulus Gellius.14
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. It is important to study the external and internal connection between the call of the publican to the apostolate, and the commencement of open hostility to the gracious forgiveness of sins by Jesus on the part of the Pharisees. When they who had a historical claim upon the Gospel rejected its provisions, they were offered to those who had a spiritual claim upon the glad tidings, by being prepared and ready to receive them. Christ, the Saviour of sinners, reviled by the Pharisees, turns to the publicans, and calls one of their number to the apostolic office. Thus, at a later period, the hostility of the scribes and Pharisees of Jerusalem led to His entering a heathen country, when He passed into the territory of Tyre and Sidon, there to display His grace in the case of the Syrophenician woman, Matthew 15. In an analogous manner, also, the Lord interpreted the Old Testament narratives concerning Elijah and the heathen widow of Sarepta, and Elisha and Naaman the Syrian (Luk_4:25, etc.). The conduct of Paul was precisely similar. When the Jews in their unbelief rejected the Gospel, he turned to the Gentiles (Act_13:46; Act_18:6). Hence, while the conversion of the publican was a grand sign that the Lord now turned to the outcasts, the call of Matthew to the apostolate was a miracle of grace.
2. The quotation of Christ from the prophecies of Hosea, is generally adduced as expressing the contrast between the New Covenant and the degenerate form which the Old had assumed. Similarly, it may be applied to the contrast between Evangelical Protestant Christianity and the secularized mediæval Church. Nor are we, perhaps, mistaken in tracing a like difference between a devout and living piety and a fanatical orthodoxy, which too often contravenes the demands of the heart, and is radically opposed to Christian humanity.
3. Perhaps the circumstances in which John the Baptist was placed, may in part account for the gloomy disposition of his disciples. For some time past John had been in prison, and they looked to Jesus for help in this emergency; nor could they understand how, in the meantime, He could take part in festive entertainments.
4. It is significant, that even at that period the objections of the disciples of John were allied to those of the Pharisees. But there was this difference between them, that while the latter questioned the disciples, as if to turn them from their Master, the followers of John addressed themselves directly to the Master Himself. Even in their case, however, we miss that full παῤῥησία which should characterize the Christian. They do not venture to blame Christ openly. The Pharisees had questioned the disciples, “Why eateth your Master?” etc.; while the disciples of John ask the Master, “Why do Thy disciples fast not ?” Fanaticism assumes only the appearance of παῤῥησία, especially when, kindled by the sympathy of an excited majority, it is arrayed against a minority. Then those flaming declamations of self-satisfied eloquence burst forth, which the multitude regard as the voice of an archangel, while they are utterly opposed to that deep calm engendered by the Spirit of adoption, who inspires even a weak minority to speak with παῤῥησία. Finally, this occurrence seems to form the turning-point in history at which the later disciples of John separated from their teacher. The difference, which was afterward fully established, continues even to this day.
5. The reply of the Lord to the disciples of John contains a canon perpetually binding, in respect of the relation between form and substance. The principles itself has never been sufficiently appreciated. Even Master Philip [Melanchthon] seemed always prone to put the new wine of Gospel truth into the old bottles. The same attempt was made at a later period by the Jansenists, and gave rise to the tragic history of the Port Royal. In our own days, also, some seem still to be of opinion that the unwrought cloth may be put upon the old garment, and the new wine be preserved in decaying bottles. “The warning of Christ applies to all times, that the life of His Church is not to be surrendered by forcing it into antiquated forms. But it also implies that genuine Christian forms should be preserved, along with the truth which they convey.”
6. “The reply of Jesus to His disciples appears the more striking, when we remember the last testimony of the Baptist concerning Him.” He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who standeth and heareth him, rejoiceth greatly because of the bridegroom’s voice (Joh_3:29). Jesus seems only to continue and to follow up the speech of their master when He replied to John’s disciples: “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn and fast, so long as the bridegroom is with them?” Lastly, the Lord here points forward to His future sufferings and death as a period for inward fasting. This fasting, which is to succeed the sufferings and death of Christ, consists in a complete renunciation of the world.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Jesus goes to all classes, into all streets, and to all men.—The greatness of Divine grace, which can make of a publican an Apostle. 1. According to Jewish traditionalism, the publican was an excommunicated person; but he is now called to assist in founding the communion of Christ. 2. He was an apostate from the people of God, but called to become one of the pillars of the Church of God. 3. An instrument of oppression, but becomes an instrument of glorious liberty. 4. A stumblingblock and a byeword, but becomes a burning and a shining light.—Grace is not stopped by any customhouse, and pays no toll.—High call of the Lord to the publican, and great faith of the publican in the Lord.—Matthew the Apostle relates, to the glory of God, that he had formerly been a publican.—The publican and the Apostle.—The Divine call must determine us to relinquish an ambiguous occupation.—Strange circumstance, that the Lord and His disciples should sit down at meat with publicans and sinners. 1. How can this be? Because the Lord does not conform to the publicans and sinners, but they to Him. He not only continues the Master, but becomes theirs. 2. What does it convey to our minds? Infinite compassion, manifesting itself in full self-surrender, despite difficulties and objections.—Christ and His disciples are still at meat with publicans and sinners.—When the Pharisees saw it, they said, Why? How this question has ever since been reiterated in the history of the Eucharist (Novatianism; refusal of the cup; Eucharistic Controversy).—The reply of Jesus, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick:” 1. A calm exposition: they that are whole are really whole, and they that are sick, really sick, in the legal sense. 2. A solemn warning: they that are whole are sick unto death, because they deem themselves whole; while a sense of their spiritual sickness renders the others capable of life. 3. A decisive judgment: salvation is for sinners who feet their need, not for the self-righteous.—Eternal import of the saying, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” 1. Rather mercy than sacrifice, if the two be put in comparison; 2. only mercy and not sacrifice, if the two are put in antagonism; 3. mercy exclusively, to the rejection of sacrifice, if the one is set up in contradiction to the other.—Mercy the most acceptable and holy sacrifice.—Sacrifices, to the exclusion of mercy, not offerings, but robbery.—Sad conflict between mercy and sacrifice, throughout the course of history.—Lessons derived from the declaration of Jesus, “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance:” 1. Character and prospects of the sinners who listen to the call of Jesus. 2. Character of the religion which ignores Christ and His pardon.—Inquiry of the disciples of John, or characteristics of the legalist: 1. He would give laws to others as well as to himself; 2. he would give laws without heeding the requirements of the case; 3. he is ready to take the part of the worst legalism (“we and the Pharisees”), and to assail with his puny objections the holiest liberty (“but Thy disciples fast not”).—Arrogance of legalism: 1. The disciples of the Baptist assume the place of being the masters of the Lord; 2. they venture to censure Him according to the traditions of their school; 3. they adduce the Pharisees as authorities against Christ Himself.—The bridal and the mourning season of the disciples: 1. Wherein each consists; 2. the appropriate manifestation of each.—It is one of the first principles of true Christianity, that every outward manifestation must proceed from an inward state.—The Christian life a continuous marriage feast, which may be interrupted, but is not broken up, by the sufferings of this present world.—Christ the Bridegroom of the Church: 1. As such He came at first; 2. as such He went away; 3. as such He will return.—Sad mistakes in the kingdom of God, which can only entail harm: 1. To mend that which is antiquated by putting on it a piece of new cloth; 2. by forcing the new life into antiquated forms. Or, 1. To garnish legalism with the gospel; 2. to force the gospel into the forms of legalism.—All attempts at patching unavailing.—The law and the gospel cannot be mixed up: 1. Because the gospel is infinitely more strict than the law (the unwrought piece shrinks); 2. because it is infinitely more free than the law (the new wine bursts the mouldering bottles).—Hierarchism might learn many a lesson from those who patch, and from those who cultivate the vine.—The sentence of Christ upon ecclesiastical questions: 1. New cloth, a new garment; 2. new wine, new bottles.—The true principles of genuine ecclesiastical conservatism.—Above all, we must aim to preserve, 1. the life along with the forms; and then, 2. the forms with the life.—Consequences of false conservatism in the Church: 1. These attempts at tailoring in spiritual matters are opposed even to common sense and everyday practice. 2. The old forms are destroyed by the new life, and the new life by the old forms. 3. The work of destruction is continued while they clamor against destruction, until the new and the old are finally separated.—How the Lord prepares the wed ding garment and the new wine for the kingdom of God.—The threefold mark of the new life: 1. It assumes a definite outward form; 2. it cannot continue in the false and antiquated forms; 3. it must create for itself corresponding forms.
Starke:—Christ is not ashamed of the greatest sinners.—Osiander:—It is easier to convert open sinners than hypocrites. This is more difficult than to break through a mountain of iron.—Christ the highest Physician.—Difference in ecclesiastical usages is not incompatible with unity in the faith.—Zeisius:—Constraint and Christian liberty cannot well be combined.
Gerlach:—Marginal note of Luther: There are two kinds of suffering,—the one of our own choosing, such as the rules of the monks, just as the priests of Baal cut themselves (1Ki_18:28). The world, the Pharisees, and the followers of John regard such sufferings as a great matter, but God despises it. The other kind of suffering is sent us by the Lord; and willingly to bear this cross, is right and well-pleasing in the sight of God. Hence Christ says that His disciples fast not because the Bridegroom is with them: i. e., since God had not sent them sufferings, and Christ was still with them to protect them, they neither sought nor invented sorrow for themselves, for such were without value before God; but when He was taken from them, they both fasted and suffered.
Heubner:—Compassion and love toward sinners is the sacrifice most acceptable to God—of far greater value than the most pompous worship.—Christianity is opposed to all slavish discipline.—The doctrine of Jesus cannot be combined with the old traditions of Pharisaism. This were only miserable patch-work.
Footnotes:
[4] Mat_9:10.—[Publicans for τελῶναι is better than taægatherers which has been suggested by some as more intelligible. For, as Dr. Conant correctly remarks, a taægatherer is not necessarily a publican, though a publican is a targatherer. The term publican is as much established in Scriptual usage, as the terms Pharise, Sadducee, scribe, Baptist, etc. It suggests the oppressive system of taxation in the old Roman empire and the arbitrary exaction and fraud connected with it. The taxes were sold by the Roman government to the highest bidders, who gave security for the sum to be paid to the state, and were allowed to collect from the provinces as much as they could beyond it, for their own benefit and that of their numerous agents and subagents.—P. S.]
[5] Mat_9:12.—Ἰησοῦς is omitted in Cod. B. [also in Cod. Sinait] and in some translations. According to Meyer it was inserted from the parallel passages.
[6] Mat_9:13.—[Dr. Lange omits the article before righteous, according to the Greek. The art would seem to imply that there are really righteous persons; while there are such only in their own conceit Dr. Conant omits the art., and translates: righteous men.—P. S.]
[7] Mat_9:13.—Εἰς μετάνοιαν is wanting in Cod. B., D., L., [Cod. Sinait], in several translations and fathers. Comp. Luk_5:32.
[8] Mat_9:15.—[Days, ἠμέραι, without the article. So also Lange: Es werden aber Tage Kommen. Cod. Sinait omits the words: ἑλεύσονται δὲ ἡμεπαι, ὁθαν ἀπαρθῃ ἀπ’ αὐτων ὁ νυμφίος.—P. S.]
[9] Mat_9:16.—[Dr. Lange: Niemand flickt einen Lappen von ungewalktem Zeug auf ein altes Kleid, i.e., a patch of unfulled cloth on an old garment, which is more literal.]
[10] Mat_9:17.—Lachmann, following B. and other Codd. [among which must be mentioned now the Cod. of Mt. Sinai] reads ἀπόλλυνται [instead of ἀπολοῦνται].
[11] Mat_9:17.—[Preserved together, συν τηποῦνται; Lange: “miteinander erhalten.”—P. S.]
[12][Meyer means, of course, the house in which Jesus dwelt at the time. For from Mat_8:20; Luk_9:58, it is evident that Christ had no house of his own.—P. S.]
[13][It is due to Meyer to remark that he treats this objection as gratuitous, since the Evangelist, he thinks, speaks only of an ordinary meal of Jesus with His disciples. But whence the “many publicans and sinners,” who took part in it?—P. S.]
[14][Comp. also Dr. Robinson, Bibl. Researches, ii., p. 440, and Dr. Hackett, Illustrations of Scripture from Eastern Travel. pp. 44–46. who tells us that he met these skin-bottles, or bags made of the skins of animals for holding water, wine, and other liqui is in the houses, and transporting them on journeys, at Cairo at almost every turn in the streets, and everywhere in Egypt and Syria. It was a ‘water-skin’ (according to the Hebrew) which Abraham placed on the shoulder of Hagar, when he sent her forth into the desert (Gen_21:14).—P. S.]
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv10–13 And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at…
And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house--The modesty of our Evangelist signally appears here. Luke says (Luk 5:29) that "Levi made Him a great feast," or "reception," while Matthew merely says, "He sat at meat"; and Mark and Luke say that it was in Levi's "own house," while Matthew merely says, "He sat at meat in the house." Whether this feast was made now, or not till afterwards, is a point of some importance in the order of events, and not agreed among harmonists. The probability is that it did not take place till a considerable time afterwards. For Matthew, who ought surely to know what took place while his Lord was speaking at his own table, tells us that the visit of Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue, occurred at that moment (Mat 9:18). But we know from Mark and Luke that this visit of Jairus did not take place till after our Lord's return, at a later period from the country of the Gadarenes. (See Mar 5:21, &c., and Luk 8:40, &c.). We conclude, therefore, that the feast was not made in the novelty of his discipleship, but after Matthew had had time to be somewhat established in the faith; when returning to Capernaum, his compassion for old friends, of his own calling and character, led him to gather them together that they might have an opportunity of hearing the gracious words which proceeded out of His Master's mouth, if haply they might experience a like change.
behold, many publicans and sinners--Luke says, "a great company" (Luk 5:29) --came and sat down with him and his disciples. In all such cases the word rendered "sat" is "reclined," in allusion to the ancient mode of lying on couches at meals.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv5–13 5. Whether is it easier to say — That…
5. Whether is it easier to say — That is, to say it with a clear and visible effect to sustain it. Any popish priest can SAY, Thy sins be forgiven thee, and the credulous may believe that a miracle of pardon is performed. But it is not quite so easy to perform the bodily miracle. The papist may claim that he performs a miracle in transforming the sacramental elements into real flesh and blood, and his followers may believe him. But it always takes a sensible and material miracle, attested beyond rational doubt, to make the moral miracle credible. When a man does heal the sick, and raise the dead at will, we may then begin to believe that he has authority to forgive the sins by which disease and death are produced.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 6. take up thy bed] The Oriental frequently spreads…
6. take up thy bed] The Oriental frequently spreads a mat upon the ground and sleeps in the open air, in the morning he rolls up his mat and carries it away.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv5–13 (5) Whether is easier, . . .?—The form of…
(5) Whether is easier, . . .?—The form of the question implies what we call an argument à fortiori. It was easier to say, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” for those words could not be put to any outward test, and only the consciousness of the sinner could attest their power. It was a bolder and a harder thing to risk the utterance of words which challenged an immediate and visible fulfilment; and yet He was content to utter such words, without fear of the result. Measured in their true relation to each other, the spiritual wonder was, of course, the greater; but here, as so often elsewhere, He puts Himself, as it were, on the level of those who hear Him, and vouchsafes to speak to them according to their thoughts.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv5–13 For. The expansion of his rebuke of their accusation,…
For. The expansion of his rebuke of their accusation, by his question and the command connected with it. Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee (Revised Version, are forgiven, omitting "thee"); or to say, Arise, and walk? The former, because the truth or otherwise of the latter is at once visible. Observe that the two alternatives cover the two realms of influence, the spiritual and the physical. Men will not believe profession in the former realm if it be unaccompanied by visible results in the latter.
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The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv6, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 But that ye may know that the Son of…
Mat_9:6
But that ye may know that the Son of Man.
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Forgiveness
This narrative is remarkable,
1. Because it is evident that while our Lord forgave the sick mans sins for his own sake, He healed his disease for the sake of those who stood by.
2. Because our Lord claims the power of forgiving sins, not because He is the Son of God, but because He is the Son of Man.
3. It is one of the very rare instances in which a miracle seems to have been performed for the purpose of convincing unbelief. What is this forgiveness? It must be the same thing as human forgiveness. Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive them that trespass against us. It therefore cannot mean the remission of punishment. Forgiveness is reconciliation; the offence is no longer allowed to stand between the parties. When God forgives He receives us back to His favour. It is free, full, and outruns our repentance. But He does not destroy the consequences of sin; the punishment remains. But it entirely changes the character of the punishment. What we regarded as the blow of an angry Ruler, becomes the chastisement of a kind Father. Our Lord claims the power of forgiving sins, not because He is the Son of God, but because He is the Son of Man. Why does our Lord thus describe Himself? We are accustomed to think that the pardon of sin is a power possessed by God alone. When Christ calls Himself the Son of Man, He is displaying before our eyes a pattern of what we ought to be, and of powers we ought to possess. Were we perfect beings, the power of forgiving sins would be ours. The ministry of reconciliation is committed to man. The forgiveness of sins is the reconciliation of the sinner to God; people of great personal holiness have the power of reconciling sinners to God. This may fall short of the power to forgive; but it is because the holiest man falls short of the measure of Christ. We may now see why our Lord accepted the challenge of unbelief. He cured the man to show the bystanders that they ought to have like power. It was man, not God, who had made the way of forgiveness hard. Love raised the life that self-righteous scorn had trampled down. (J. P. Wright, M. A.)
The forgiveness of sins
Christ here addressed the soul of the man first; sometimes His first attention was given to the body. From the indiscriminate order of Christs procedure in this matter, we like to see how body and soul are equally dear to God. The power which is given to Christ upon earth to forgive sins.
1. There is a beautiful justice in the fact that He who purchased the pardon, at such an untold price of suffering, should be the one to whom it is permitted to have the joy of giving it.
2. At the moment when our blessed Lord said these words the apostles were all standing by; and He did His own work, in His own solitude, to His own glory.
3. In these words on earth I read the blessed promise that so long as this earth shall last, more and more wicked though it may grow, He will never leave this earth while it is an earth, but will be always here to do His forgiving work. (J. Vaughan, M. A.)
The forgiveness of sins
I. As the great want of man.
II. As the peculiar achievement of christ.
III. As the primary offer of the gospel. (J. A. Seiss, D. D.)
1. The force of the name Son of Man, implying
(1) Divine origin.
(2) Representative of manhood. Not the Son of the Jew, or carpenter.
(3) Brotherhood.
(4) Manlike sympathy.
2. His grand prerogative-power on earth to forgive sins.:Forgiveness is His own right by virtue of His
(1) Sacrifice;
(2) Intercession (Act_5:31).
3. The great blessing-forgiveness. The soul might have been healed and the body untouched; but the paralysis, both moral and physical, was removed.
(1) Forgiveness is obtainable on earth.
(2) Many realized it now. (J. Harris.)
The Son of Man
There have been two men in the world, says St. Paul: the fallen Adam, with his infantile and undeveloped perfections; and the Christ, with His full and complete humanity. All other men are fragments; He is the Entire and perfect Chrysolite. Aristotle is but the rubbish of an Adam, and Adam is but the dim outline sketch of a Jesus. And between the two there have been none. The one Man as God meant Him, the type of man, the perfect humanity, the realized ideal, the home of all the powers of manhood. (Dr. Maclaren.)
Eastern beds
The Oriental frequently spreads a mat upon the ground and sleeps in the open air. In the morning he rolls up his mat, and carries it away. (A. Cart, M. A.)
Forgiveness personal
The Rev. H. Wilkins, Cheltenham, in Good Cause for Good Cheer, writes: It is no general statement, but a personal assurance of the forgiveness of sins. Looking with His own keen glance of love into the sick mans eyes, He says: Thy sins be forgiven thee. The general truth of the pardon of sins is not enough for us, we want a personal forgiveness. One day when Martin Luther was almost overwhelmed with despair in his cell at Erfurth, an old monk tried to comfort him by repeating the article of the Apostles Creed, I believe in the forgiveness of sins. Luther often repeated the same words. Ah! said the good old monk, it is not enough to believe in the forgiveness of Davids sins or Peters sins; this the devils believe. Gods command is to believe that our own sins are forgiven. This was the assurance that Jesus gave here. He knew this mans life-history; He knew, probably, that there was a close connection between his suffering and his sin; but whatever his sins were, they were frankly forgiven.
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv5–13 5. Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be…
5. Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee. To say, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” was easy, for no visible result could test the saying. To say, “Take up thy bed and walk,” was not apparently so easy, for failure would cover with confusion. He said the last, leaving the inference—If I can do the most difficult, then I can do the easier.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v9 Mat_9:9. Receipt of custom.—Place of toll (R. V.). See…
CRITICAL NOTES
Mat_9:9. Receipt of custom.—Place of toll (R. V.). See Introduction.
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Mat_9:10. Jesus.—He (R. V.), probably Matthew. Sat at meat in the house.—The modesty of our Evangelist signally appears here. Luke says (Luk_5:29) that “Levi made Him a great feast,” or “reception,” while, Matthew merely says, “He sat at meat,” and Mark and Luke say that it was in Levi’s “own house,” while Matthew merely says, “He sat at meat in the house.” Whether this feast was made now, or not till afterwards, is a point of some importance in the order of events, and not agreed among harmonists. The probability is that it did not take place till a considerable time afterwards (Brown).
Mat_9:11. When the Pharisees saw it.—Rev. A. Carr thinks that though not guests, they came into the house—a custom still prevalent in the East.
Mat_9:12. They that be whole.—A touch of irony.
Mat_9:13. I will have mercy and not sacrifice.—I.e. the one rather than the other. Quoted from Hos_6:6. “Sacrifice,” the chief part of the ceremonial law, is here put for a religion of literal adherence to mere rules; while “mercy” expresses such compassion for the fallen as seeks to lift them up (Brown). To repentance.—Omitted by leading MSS. and R.V.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mat_9:9-13
The treatment of sinners.—The calling of “Matthew the publican” appears to have excited a great deal of attention. The mingled wealth and infamy of his avocation; the fact that he was actually engaged in it when called away from it by the Saviour; and the readiness and completeness with which he responded—“rising” up, and, as it were, leaving the “violence” which was then “in his hands” (Jon_3:8)—would all have this effect. All men of all sorts would hear of it with wonder. Nor is it surprising, that being the case, that it soon led, as described to us here:
1. To a great movement.
2. To a strong remonstrance.
3. To a most instructive reply.
I. A great movement.—A great movement, on the one hand, in the way of desire. It is characteristic of the true disciple that he wishes other men like himself (Act_26:29). Having learned the truth—and that happy truth—and that truth, moreover, which, amongst its first teachings, teaches both the duty and privilege of “loving one another”—such a man cannot help desiring that others should be as he is. And he will desire this first, also, as a matter of course, for those nearest to himself (Joh_1:41). And he will desire this most, when, as in the present instance he has given up much for its sake. What can I do for my brother outcasts in regard to this matter? How can I show them that there is something better than all their idolised gains? How have I learned this myself? I will bring them, if I can, under the same influence which has taught it to me. They shall meet in my house with my Master Himself. The thought was as new—but as natural under the circumstances—as his conversion itself. In the way of effort. The thing desired was soon brought about. Soon after there was a new sight—a very new sight—in the city of Capernaum. In the tax-gatherer’s house there is a vast assemblage of such men as himself, or rather, we should say, of such men as he had previously been. “Many publicans and sinners” are “sitting down” in his company. They are sitting down as his guests. In order to bring them together he has made a “great feast” (Luk_5:29); of which, however, it may be noted by the way, he does not tell us himself. To this feast he has invited also both the Saviour and His disciples. All that can be done, therefore, Matthew has done to bring about his desire. It is a very notable fact. The previous gain-lover is now a soul-lover instead. The man who was always for making money is now spending it freely. He who sat formerly in the “receipt of custom” is now at the feet of the Saviour; and is doing all he can to bring others under the sound of His voice. All Capernaum, we cannot doubt, would look on with surprise.
II. A strong remonstrance.—Some would look on, we are reminded next, with much more than surprise. They would look on, we may almost say, with indignation and hate; with a degree of indignation that very soon found expression in words. The persons so speaking, would, very naturally, be amongst the Pharisees of the place. Their very name signified that they held themselves aloof from all others. It would shock them, therefore, especially to see an assembly where the very opposite idea was in force. They might almost be excused, indeed, if they looked upon it as a kind of reproach to themselves. The ground of their remonstrance would, therefore, be connected with this self-same idea. Are we not as Israelites, a people separated from the rest of the world? (Deu_16:2, etc.). Are we not as Pharisees, a body of Israelites pledged to see that this separation be carried out to the full? But what is it we see here? We see this new Teacher, though a teacher of holiness, sanctioning confusion instead; sitting down at the same table at a common feast with men notorious for their sins. “This man receiveth sinners and eateth with them” (Luk_15:2). That is the point—that is the sting—of their cry. A remonstrance, finally, which is all the more remarkable because of the persons to whom it is made. “When the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples,” Why doth your Master do thus? Apparently there was a holy majesty about Him which prevented them from saying this to Himself. Apparently, on that very account, they felt the supposed scandal the more. That such a man should eat with such! This, to them, was the unendurable wrong.
III. A complete reply.—This was given by going further into the nature of things. What seems so objectionable was not at all so when further examined. So far from this, the thing objected to was what ought to be done. Whether we consider the needs of men on the one hand, or what is pleasing to God on the other, it is what ought to be done. If mercy is to be shown it should be shown to those who need it the most (Mat_9:12, end of 13). Also, that mercy is to be shown is abundantly manifested from what God Himself has said on the point. Of the two ways, in fact, of worshipping God this is the way He prefers. “I will have mercy and not sacrifice.” If you can give both, give “mercy” the first. If you cannot give both, give “mercy” alone. Nothing, therefore, is more pleasing to God than what is being done at this time. Also, it is just that which ought to be done by Myself. Here, as we saw, was the crowning grievance in this Pharisaic remonstrance. Herein, on the contrary, the Saviour shows them, was His crowning justification. He had come into the world—He had been sent into the world—to carry out in practice the very spirit described in that text. “Mercy, and not sacrifice,” was to be in all things the rule of His life. Why should He be blamed, therefore, for acting upon it in “calling sinners” to Himself? Especially when it was remembered that in doing so He was calling them to “repentance” as well?
Here, therefore, in conclusion, we see the special glory of the mercy of Christ. It is mercy to the sinner, but not to his sins (cf. Psa_130:4). It is mercy to the man who needs mercy the most—to the greatest, the most notorious, the most generally despised. But mercy to him, at the same time, with still more mercy in view, viz., that kind of mercy which shall help to make him the greatest of saints. See how conspicuously this change was effected in the person of Matthew himself! How much more he had learned of the mind of Christ than those Pharisees who despised him! How holy he had become both in his desires and efforts through coming to Christ! And how well he discerned (and acted on) both the kind of “separation” that is desirable, and where it should come in. Separation rather unto Christ than away from our fellows. Separation as a consequence, and not as a means! Separation in love, and not in contempt!
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Mat_9:9. The call of St. Matthew.—It may be that this was their first meeting, and that a magnetic attraction was exerted upon the publican by that countenance which owed its majesty not to external comeliness so much as to the dignity and goodness of soul reflected in its features. It is, however, much more likely that Jesus had become previously acquainted with Matthew in Capernaum, had secured his affection and permitted him to return for a while to his tax-collecting, as the sons of Jonas to their fishing, so that now there needed but the recognition and. repeated claim. That claim was peremptory. Not less prompt was the obedience rendered.
I. It was a good indication of energy that he rose up. The man who rouses himself to receive a message, who starts to his feet and reflects in the attitude of activity and readiness, like the children of Israel in their early observance of the Passover, is more likely to obey his conscientious conviction than he who remains seated and will scarcely shake off habitual lethargy sufficiently to give fair attention.
II. It was a noble thoroughness of surrender.—He “left all.” And yet to leave all is often easier than to leave half, to evacuate an untenable position at once than to retreat by a few yards at a time and be beaten back blow by blow. Hesitation petrifies resolution now as it did in Lot’s wife.
III. Thus he “followed,” esteeming the reproach of Christ greater riches than the treasures in Egypt. He was to find the preciousness of a clear conscience and of investments made, not in material securities but in the gratitude and happiness of men whose welfare he advanced; he was to learn the value of his Lord’s teaching, to enjoy the golden smile of His friendship and the heavenly rewards of His service.—C. E. B. Reed, M.A.
Mat_9:10. Matthew’s feast.—The scene now shifts. Hitherto Christ had been the inviter, Matthew the invited; the order is inverted and the Master becomes His disciple’s guest. Levi made Him a great feast, expressive of gratitude; for he could look even upon commands as mercies and on self-denying service as a privilege. Jesus came to the feast thus prepared for Him; and so it ever is. He calls us to Himself and then accepts our invitation, not disdaining to enter the poor chamber of our heart; for unlike the petty lords of earth who stand on ceremony as a stool to give them height, His native glory fears no eclipse but freely condescends to men of low estate. It is interesting to remark the character of Levi’s feast. “There was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them.” One can see that Matthew had already studied to good purpose his Lord’s character.
I. First of all he perceived that he could best serve Him, not by eating and drinking alone in His presence, but by inviting the outcasts of society and befriending them for the sake of Him who made their cause His own.
II. He invited to the feast his old associates.—Many men would have forsworn the class from which they had been called and sought some new field of benevolence; whereas he does not disown his publican comrades, but selects them as earliest recipients of his bounty.
III. He recognised that the best thing he could do for them was to bring them into contact with Jesus.—Instead of going among them and talking about his new Master, he wisely brought them face to face with Him whose teaching he could not match either for breadth or power.
IV. This intercourse between Christ and the publicans Matthew contrived to bring about by means of an entertainment.—He knew well that most of them would never come to hear a formal discourse from the Lord, but that meat and drink would open their hearts to receive the scattered seeds of His teaching. Upon the same principle may be defended many acts of the modern church to which exception is often taken.—Ibid.
Mat_9:11-12. The words that came of Matthew’s promotion. (For children).—Do you children know what is meant by promotion? It means going up. From a tax-gatherer for the Roman Emperor, Matthew became an Apostle, that is, a messenger of our Lord and Saviour. Was not that a promotion for Matthew? Yes, and he felt it to be so, and he was very glad, and to show his gladness he made a feast, and he invited Christ and His disciples, and a number of his old friends who were publicans as he had been. But some other people came to the feast besides the Saviour and the disciples, and the publicans and sinners. Some Pharisees were there, and they began to find fault and to say, “Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?” And what I want to speak to you most about is the answer which Jesus made to the Pharisees, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
I. Jesus is a Physician for all, because all are sinful.—Some years ago I used to visit a large hospital every week. In the first room I used to find men very thin, with very bad coughs, and hardly able to breathe. They were in consumption. The next room was the accident ward, where men were lying with broken legs, or walking about with bandages on their heads or arms. Then, in another room, there were men with fever, tossing from side to side, and finding no rest anywhere. And last of all there was a room strongly bolted, where men were put who were prisoners and were sick. This was a very sad case to be in—not only to be sick but to be in prison. Now, did all these people need a doctor? Yes. Were they all equally sick? No; some were much worse than others, but they all wanted a doctor or they would not have been in a hospital. Now, my dear children, this world is like a hospital—everybody in it needs to be cured of sin.
II. But Jesus does not cure everybody’s sin.—How is this? It is not because He is not able, nor yet because He is not willing, but because some people do not want to be cured. In a sad railway accident which happened some time ago a young lady was taken out of one of the carriages, and she said she was not hurt at all, she felt no pain. She stood up and tried to walk, and then fell back dead. She had received a very serious injury, and yet she did not feel it at the moment. So it was with these Pharisees. Now you will say, “How do we come to feel that we need Jesus to heal us?” It is by trying to do right by ourselves that we find out how weak we are.
1. Jesus is a physician who can see what is the matter with us as soon as He looks at us.
2. Jesus is always at home.
3. Jesus can attend to all who come to Him at the same moment.
4. Jesus never fails to cure. There is an old saying I am sure you will remember if I tell it to you. It is, “The three best doctors that a man can have in this world are, Dr. Diet, Dr. Quiet, and Dr. Merryman.” Now let the Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour be these three doctors to you.—W. Harris.
Mat_9:11. Jesus with the sinners.—
I. He sympathised with them as His brother-men.
II. He knew that they had in them the making of better men.—S. Pendred.
Mat_9:12. The soul’s malady and cure.—The charge brought against Christ (Mat_9:11) was groundless.
1. He did nothing but what was according to His commission (1Ti_1:15).
2. He went with sinners, not to join in their sins, but to heal them of them. To accuse Christ was, as Austin saith, as if the physician should be accused because he goes among them that are sick of the plague.
I. The dying patients.
1. Sin is a soul-disease.—Sin may be compared to sickness.
(1) For the manner of catching: (a) Often through carelessness. So Adam. (b) Sometimes through superfluity and intemperance. So our first parents.
(2) For the nature of it. (a) Sickness is of a spreading nature (Isa_1:5-6). The understanding, memory, will, affections, conscience, are diseased. Conscience is either erroneous, dumb, or dead. (b) Sickness debilitates and weakens the body. So the soul (Rom_5:6). (c) Sickness eclipses the beauty of the body. Sin has turned beauty into deformity. (d) Sickness takes away the taste. So the sinner has lost his taste for spiritual things. (e) Sickness takes away the comfort of life. So the sin-sick soul is void of all true comfort. (f) Sickness ushers in death (Jas_1:15).
2. Sin is the worst disease.—
(1) The body may be diseased and the conscience quiet. But see Isa_57:21.
(2) The body may be diseased and the favour of God enjoyed. But soul-diseases are symptoms of God’s anger.
(3) Sickness, at worst, doth but separate from the society of friends; but this disease, if not cured, separates from the society of God and angels.
II. The healing Physician.
1. Christ is a soul-physician.
2. Why Christ is a physician.—
(1) In regard of His call (Luk_4:18).
(2) Because of our need. Not because we desired Him, but because we needed Him.
(3) Because of the sweetness of His nature. Like the Good Samaritan.
3. Christ is the only physician (Act_4:12).
4. How Christ heals.—
(1) By His word.
(2) By His wounds (Isa_53:5).
(3) By His Spirit.
(4) By His rod. Why are not all healed? (a) Because all do not know that they are sick. (b) Because they love their sickness. (c) Because they do not look out after a physician. (d) Because they would be self-healers. (e) Because they do not take the physic which Christ prescribes them. (f) Because they have not confidence in their physician.
5. Christ is the best physician.—
(1) The most skilful.
(2) He cures the better part, the soul.
(3) He causeth us to feel our disease.
(4) He shows more love to His patients than any other physician. (a) In that long journey He took from heaven to earth. (b) He comes to His patients without sending for (Isa_65:1). (c) He Himself lets blood to cure His patients. (d) Our repulses and unkindnesses do not drive Him from us. (e) He Himself drank that bitter cup which we should have drunk.
(5) The most cheap physician (Isa_55:1).
(6) Christ heals with more ease than any other.
(7) He is the most tender-hearted physician.
(8) He always prescribes the physic which is suitable, and withal blesseth it.
(9) He never fails of success.—Thos. Watson.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
F. W. Grant 1903 · Public Domain On v9 Section 3. (Mat 9:9-26.)
Section 3. (Mat 9:9-26.)
Opening the presence of God to men.
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That which follows here is in extension of such thoughts as these, and fully assures us that we are to find this spiritual meaning in what has been before us. For now the Lord openly declares His grace and justifies it, telling men too that it cannot be used to patch up the legal system, nor will the spirit of it be confined within the Mosaic ordinances. Come for the need of men He the Representative (as He has proved Himself) of God on earth, freely receives sinners, and makes faith welcome to draw upon Him at all times. Thus the presence of God is opened to men. They may refuse, but they are not refused. While, though at present only to be told in parables for the wise, the truth of Israel’s - and indeed man’s - condition is that he is dead, and needing life, and Christ’s mission needs must be, therefore, to raise the dead. This completes His manifestation; therefore; while the mystery in which it ends shows how little faith there is anywhere to receive it, and prepares us for the full rejection of Him by the mass, which is soon to appear.
1. The call of the tax-gatherer* follows immediately the cure of the paralytic; and this in the order of time, as the words show. The challenge of His authority and the grace He is showing, only makes the assertion of it more imperative, as it would have made it weakness to give way. All was in question now; and now, therefore, He will make as plain as possible what is in His heart. "Tax-gatherers and sinners" are with them in natural association; and that association He never disclaims. But who are not sinners? If He refuse men on that ground He must refuse all; Matthew the tax-gatherer, called into the circle of His immediate Mowers, is to be the witness to all men of His grace for all.
{*"Publican," borrowed from the the Latin, is not the proper rendering. This was the name of those who paid into the "public" treasury the fixed sum for which they farmed the taxes of special provinces. Under these, who generally lived at Rome, were overseers of districts, and under these again the actual collectors, who being in close relationship to the people, themselves in general grossly extortionate, and a sign of subjection to the hated Roman government, were of all men, it would seem, most bitterly hated by the people; and especially, as Edersheim observes, the custom-house official, such as Matthew was. His being a Jew, as many were, would naturally be the climax of his wickedness in the eyes of the people.}
The feast at which we find Him directly afterwards, took place in fact after His return from Gadara, as we see in Mark and Luke. The account of the healing of the paralytic and of Matthew’s call are historically parenthetical. The special purpose is maintained all through.
We learn from Luke that Matthew made Him this feast. He knew well what would be that to Him, and showed it by the company he gathered. These persons had, at least, the consciousness of what they were, and grace could not offend them. At the very entrance upon fellowship with God we find it in learning to be with Him as to what we are, and the light of the first day of new creation breaks upon a barren; restless and shoreless sea. The weariness and distress and remorse of sin are witnesses for God which cannot be bribed, though they may not be listened to; while self-righteousness is lulled to sleep by its own monotone, and dreams of peace where there is no peace.
Yet the light troubles these sleepers and angers them; and so we find in the questioning of the Pharisees now. They could not be indifferent to what might seem so little to concern them as where One in whom, at any rate, they did not believe, could find His company. They might have remembered, but chose rather to forget, that the Baptist also, than whom there could be no sterner preacher of righteousness, had found response to his message in just such a class (Mat 21:32). But the Lord answers, (what indeed they had not ventured to address to Him), that He was a physician; did not, of course, come after them, who were well enough, but to the sick ones; and that they had never learnt, what they needed much to know, that God had said in the Scriptures which they acknowledged, that He would have mercy, rather than sacrifice. It was little mercy indeed that rabbinism showed to these tax-gatherers, as, indeed, "sick" enough, as a class, they were, and needing the physician. But here was One who was the perfect expression of divine mercy, not merely receiving, but actively going out after the objects of it; One who came not to call the righteous but sinners. If so, the chief of sinners would have chief title. But divine love, and the wondrous power of it, are strange to the heart of the legalist at any time; and then Christ must be strange.
2. It is not only the Pharisee who has question as to the Lord’s ways. The disciples of John find Him at variance with their master. But there is a notable difference between them: the disciples of John come straight to the Lord with their question, instead of assailing His followers with it: they do not find fault, but inquire. Moreover they may ask, why His disciples fast not: they could not put such a question as to the Lord Himself. Still what they needed was to know better the glory of Him whom they were addressing, as they needed also to realize the essentially secondary character of what had all its value from its being an expression simply of the spirit of the man who used it. To make it an iron or universal rule would be to degrade it really, - to make it a form from which the life has departed.
Christ had come to His own: and what would be the spirit of those who realized this? The Bridegroom had come to the bride, and should the children of the bride-chamber - the invited guests - clothe themselves with the array of mourners? That would be impossible to one who knew Him aright; there would be time enough for fasting, when the Bridegroom would be ken from them; this, of course, implying His rejection: in those days fasting would be perfectly in place.
But the Lord goes beyond this to speak of the change of dispensation that was now at hand, and for which they must be prepared: a change which would be still more complete and radical; not a mere patch upon an old garment. The garment of legal righteousness was in fact wearing out, and man being exhibited as the prophet had declared him, "all his righteousnesses but as filthy rags (Isa 64:6). What good in patching up what was so utterly gone? Between the new evangelical righteousness and the old legal one there can be only the strife of contradictory principles. There can be no fusion here: with all such attempts the rent is only made worse.
Nor only this: the spirit of the gospel, the free, expansive power of Christianity, cannot be put into the old skins of ceremonial Judaism. Here both the wine will be lost, and the skins will perish. And this has been proved experimentally: the thing has happened; ritualism of every kind is just such an experiment, with the result that we have neither Judaism nor Christianity left. The living organism can only clothe itself with the tissues woven by the life itself.
3. This is already parable, and a parabolic story follows it. We have a picture of things which could not as yet be spoken out: two incidents connected together, which, different as they are, throw light upon one another, and are found, in dispensational and moral application; to continue and complete the lessons which the Lord has been enforcing. The perfect fitness of the whole here, internally, and to the place in which it stands, vouches for the reality of the meaning which we attribute to it.
The truth has been coming more and more into recognition; that Israel, whom the Lord came to heal, is in fact but a corpse, like the ruler’s daughter. We have not the name of this ruler in Matthew; but in the two other Gospels which narrate the miracle, we find that his name was Jairus or Jair (Jdg 10:3, see notes), the "enlightener,"* a name quite suited to those "fathers" of that generation of Israel which had, alas, become a nation of the dead, fathers through whom the enlightening Word has come down to us.
{*This is one of the reasons assigned for a mythical interpretation of the history by Strauss and others, the symbolic meaning of the name; but they might for the same reason make all Scripture mythical; while all that shows inspiration shuts out myth.}
If such then be Israel’s condition; we see why the principle of law must be given up, as just now declared. Law is not for the dead, but for the living: for the dead it is useless. But "if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily, righteousness should have been by the law" (Gal 3:21). These are the two things - life and righteousness - which we find in the Lord’s words just now, and in the narrative here, connected together.
If the principle of law, then; be given up, and grace be shown by the mere goodness of God, the apostle’s question becomes an unanswerable one: "Is He the God of the Jews only? is He not also of the Gentiles?" (Rom 3:29-30,) - will such goodness confine itself within the limits of a feeble and scattered people, or much rather go out to meet the universal need?
So it is, then; that while the Lord is on His way to fulfil a special declared purpose, faith in the woman with the issue claims Him, and finds answer to its claim. Again we have not in Matthew the same detail as in either Mark or Luke, and for the same reason as was noticed before, that it is with the signs which manifest Him that Matthew is occupied. Her disease, an issue of blood, is given, which was not merely a slow sapping of the life away, but, according to the law, defiling also by contact (Lev 15:25-27): so that here again (as with the leper) there is uncleanness, the typical reminder of the effect of sin.
But in this case it is not the Lord who touches, it is faith that touches, not Him, but rather His garment. It is the activity of faith that is here seen; of course, and that lays hold, not of Himself personally, but of His robe - His character as displayed in His life down here. None the less certainly is virtue found in Him; and He pauses on His way to ratify her title to the healing and impute it to her faith. In principle it is the grace to the Gentiles during the present delay of Israel’s blessing.
But He reaches the house at last, and finds the mourners busy, who mock at the quiet words which speak of the power of resurrection in His hands. But the unbelieving crowd being put forth, the maid arises: and so, in spite of her desperate condition and the unbelief that mocks at Him, will Israel, when He appears and at His word to her, arise. It is a figure we have often in the prophets, of the revival of the nation in the last days. (Isa 26:19; Eze 37:1-28; Dan 12:2; Hos 6:2.)
Under this dispensational application we may without difficulty discover an individual one, in which the intertwining of the two miracles, if not presenting so clear a meaning, is yet significant. In Jairus, daughter we have man’s state in its full reality discovered. The Lord is here the Life-giver: the dead hears the voice of the Son of God and lives. This is the divine side of salvation; and here man is passive and recipient merely. But there is another side, and the woman with the issue seems clearly to represent this. Her faith applies to the Saviour for its need, and the issue of blood is staunched. These are the two sides of a common history, to adjust which fully may transcend our power: and yet each has its place. It is Mark, however, especially, who brings out this individual view, as Matthew the dispensational; but the double application, with the place in which we find these in the different Gospels, confirms the whole.
The signs which manifest the King are here complete. We see how truly He is no merely human King, but One "marked out Son of God with power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by resurrection of the dead" (Rom 1:4, Gk.) And such the fore-ordained King of Israel was to be. He is now, therefore, ready to be proclaimed as this over the land; and accordingly we find provision made for this proclamation now by the commission given to the twelve apostles.
F. W. Grant, The Numerical Bible (4th ed., 1903) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv9–10 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXXVI. The Call…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXXVI. The Call of Matthew].
XXXVI. THE CALL OF MATTHEW. (At or near Capernaum.) aMATT. IX. 9; bMARK II. 13, 14; cLUKE V. 27, 28.
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c27 And after these thingsa [after the healing of the paralytic] he went forth, aagain by the seaside [i. e., he left Capernaum, and sought the shore of the sea, which formed a convenient auditorium for him, and which was hence a favorite scene for his teaching]; and all the multitude resorted unto him, and he taught them. 14 And as he aJesus passed by from thence, he saw cand beheld aa man, ca publican, named ccalled Matthew, cLevi, bthe son of Alphaeus [It will be observed that Matthew, in his account of his call, does not make himself prominent. All [189] the evangelists keep themselves in the background. Because Mark and Luke give us the name Levi, it has been thought by some that they describe the call of a different person from the one mentioned by Matthew--an opinion which seems to have started with Origen. But the difference in name is not an important divergence, for many in that day had two names; as, for example, Lebbæus, who was called Thaddæus; Silas, who was called Sylvanus; John, who was called Mark; etc. Moreover, it was then common to change the name; as is shown by the cases of Simon, who became Peter; Joseph, who became Barnabas; Saul, who became Paul, etc. Therefore, as we have previously suggested ( Mat_10:3). It is not likely, however, that Matthew and James were brothers, for Alphæus was a very common Jewish name, and brothers are usually mentioned in pairs in the apostolic lists, and these two are not so mentioned. Pool takes the extreme view here, contending that James, Matthew, Thaddæus, and Simon Zelotes were four brethren], sitting at the place of toll [Wherever it is at all practicable, Orientals sit at their work. The place of toil was usually a booth or a small hut. Whether Matthew's booth was by the lake, to collect duties on goods and people ferried across; or whether it was by the roadside on the great highway leading from Damascus to Acco, to collect taxes on all produce brought into Capernaum, is not material. The revenues which Rome derived from conquered nations consisted of tolls, tithes, harbor duties, taxes for use of public pasture lands, and duties for the use of mines and salt works], and he saith { csaid unto him, Follow me. 28 And he forsook all, And he arose crose up and followed [190] him. [Such obedience was not, of course, performed in ignorance; it indicates that Matthew was already a disciple, as were the four fisherman when they also received a like call. Matthew was now called to become a personal attendant of Jesus, preparatory to being chosen an apostle. Nor are we to conclude from the abruptness of his movements that he went off without settling accounts with the head of his office. Though it may be more dramatic to thus picture him as departing at once, yet the settlement of accounts was indispensable to his good name in the future, and in no way diminishes the reality and beauty of his sacrifice--a beauty which Matthew himself forbears to mention, as became him ( Pro_27:2). But Matthew certainly neither delayed nor sought counsel ( Gal_1:15, Gal_1:16). By thus calling a publican, Jesus reproved the religious narrowness of his times.] [191]
[FFG 189-191]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv5, 6, 11, 13 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23")
sins
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv6, 8, 9, 10, 12 The argument in deed:
The argument in deed:
v. 6. But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith He to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
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v. 7. And he arose and departed to his house.
Far from admitting a pretension on His part which would amount to a blasphemy, He, the Son of Man, deliberately assumes a divine prerogative also in healing the body. The greater includes the smaller: the right and the authority to pardon sins implies the power and the ability to heal mere bodily ailments. If He had been guilty of blasphemy, He could not have had the authority to cure the sick man by a peremptory command. He, the true human being, is nevertheless not a mere man, but can command the sickness and restore the sick to complete health by a word of His almighty power. The man that had been chained to his cot in utter helplessness could now shoulder this same cot and walk out in the fullness of perfect vitality.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv7, 10, 12 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
This concludes the account of Jesus healing a paralyzed man. Jesus then calls a tax collector to be one of his disciples.
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who had given
"because he had given"
such authority
This refers to the authority to declare sins forgiven.
As Jesus passed by from there
This phrase marks the beginning of a new part of the story. If your language has a way for doing this, you could consider using it here.
passed by
"was leaving" or "was going"
Matthew ... him ... He
Church tradition says that this Matthew is the author of this Gospel, but the text gives no reason to change the pronouns from "him" and "He" to "me" and "I."
He said to him
"Jesus said to Matthew"
He got up and followed him
"Matthew got up and followed Jesus." This means Matthew became Jesus' disciple.
translationWords
amazed
praise
God
authority
Jesus
Matthew
tax
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv5, 6, 8, 9, 10, 13 9:5 It is easier for Jesus to pronounce forgiveness,…
9:5 It is easier for Jesus to pronounce forgiveness, since that might have no verifiable effects; it is harder to enable a paralytic to walk. The miracle, visible to all, corroborates Jesus’ authority to forgive sins and forces all who witness it to decide about Jesus.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.