Contents
• Jesus heals a man with Leprosy
• The jealousy of the Pharisees
• Our need to rely upon Jesus
• A scribe that wants to follow Jesus wherever He goes
• Demons and a herd of pigs

Before reading this commentary, I encourage you to first read the text of Matthew chapter eight.

Verses 1-3

A man with leprosy knelt before Jesus and asked to be healed. Jesus touched him and immediately the leper was healed. Think about what this implies at the cellular scale. Leprosy is a skin disease caused by a bacteria. In today’s modern medicine, a person with leprosy would take antibiotics over a period of time, which would kill the bacteria. Then the skin would have to heal itself over time, likely leaving behind scars. But Jesus healed the leper instantly. The implication is that God is able to act outside the laws of our physical world.

Isaac Newton’s first law of motion states that an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external force. But when God instantly healed the leper, how were the bacteria removed from the man’s body? How were the cells of his skin instantly made new without the cells having to regrow?

Furthermore, in some cases, untreated leprosy can cause an individual to lose extremities such as fingers, toes or their ears. If this particular person who came to Jesus had missing fingers due to his leprosy, God, in healing him, instantly made matter out of nothing, and then made that matter living tissue and seamlessly reconnected it to his hand so that he had all of his fingers back again.

The point that I want you to come away with, is that nothing is impossible for God. He can even operate outside the laws of physics. He can create anything, out of nothing. He can make life from nothing; at any time he chooses. Knowing this then, can you believe that God is able to help you with your problems?

But what if God doesn’t help me? Then can you believe that God has a greater plan for you?

Verse 4

Then Jesus instructed him, “See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift prescribed by Moses, as a testimony to them.”

The priest Jesus is referring to would have been a pharisee. We know that the pharisees did not like Jesus. Therefore, we can assume that if the leper went around telling everyone that it was Jesus who had healed him, by the time he arrived at the priest’s door, that pharisee might have been disinclined to pronounce the man clean because doing so would be a type of acknowledgement and endorsement of Jesus.

Verses 5-13

Again, as stated before, this demonstrates that nothing is impossible for God. Jesus didn’t even need to go there. He didn’t need to touch the person in order for them to be healed. God is omnipresent. God can do a work in your life no matter where you are.

Verses 14-17

Peter’s mother-in-law had a fever and was lying in bed. Jesus arrived and healed her. He took on our infirmities and carried our diseases. Learn to rely upon Jesus for healing and health, even when such healings come to you by means of doctors. Was it not Jesus who put into that person’s heart the desire to become a doctor? And was it not Jesus who carried them through the rigors of medical school? Yes, it was.

When our daughter was sick, we asked a relative to pray for her. This person responded “Well if she’s that sick you better take her to the hospital”. In other words, this person believed that there’s no need to pray until the situation is dire. That is not the relationship that Jesus wants to have with us.

Rejoice at all times. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in every circumstance, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Verse 18

Jesus is trying to get away from the crowds, probably to get some rest or to be able to speak with his disciples.

Verses 19-20

First of all, congratulations to this scribe for going out and finding Jesus and telling him he would follow him anywhere. The scribes and the pharisees were notoriously opposed to Jesus. This particular scribe was willing to reject the position of all his colleagues and apparently wasn’t concerned with how it would affect his career. Jesus lets him know that the journey may not be comfortable for him.

He is one of those persons from the Bible that I would very much like to know more about. When I get to heaven, one of the things I would like to do is to ask around and see if I can locate this scribe. And if I find him, I’m going to sit down and ask him to tell me his story.

Verses 21-22

I recall first reading this verse as a teenager and thinking Jesus was unkind to deny this man the time to attend his father’s funeral. However, somewhere along the way (I think in my early 30’s) I heard a pastor’s sermon in which the pastor concluded that this disciple’s father was not yet dead. That this individual was telling Jesus he would follow him a few years from then, after his elderly father eventually passes away.

I feel this is probably the better interpretation. And Jesus responds by telling the disciple to come follow him now.

Verses 23-27

The fact that the winds and the seas obey Jesus’s commands, fully demonstrates that Jesus is not just a good teacher, a wonderful prophet, or merely a nice man. Jesus Christ is God.

Verses 28-34

Just taking a cursory read of these verses, several things stand out to me:
1. The demons instantly recognized that Jesus was the Son of God.
2. The demons incorrectly assume Jesus was there to torture them.
3. The demon possessed men were so violent that no one could pass that way, yet when Jesus is passing that way, these ultra-violent demons are begging Jesus. Therefore, it would appear that they are totally powerless against Jesus and they are fully aware of their powerlessness before Him.
4. The demons know there is an appointed time for them to be tortured (i.e. cast into the lake of fire).
5. The demons also know that this particular day is “before” the appointed time.
6. The demons had to ask to be sent into the herd of pigs. Is the implication that they couldn’t go into the pigs on their own?
7. Why did they want to go into the pigs?
8. The entire herd of pigs drowned in the water and died. So what then happened to the demons? Did the demons not consider that the pigs might do this? Were the demons unable to control or manipulate the pigs’s behavior? (i.e. were the demons unable to prevent the pigs from drowning themselves?)
9. The town’s people beg Jesus to leave. Why? Are they scared of him? If the pigs were their livelihood, perhaps they feared additional loss if Jesus remained in their town.

The fact that the demons recognize who Jesus is, but wrongly assume he’s there to torture them demonstrates that even demonic forces don’t fully understand the will of God. Probably from the time they got kicked out of heaven, they haven’t understood the will of God and while in heaven, being led by Satan, wanted to exalt themselves above God.

What they do understand, however, is the power that God has and that they are powerless before Him. Probably the lessen they learned after getting themselves kicked out of heaven. This is a valuable lesson for us to understand also. Satan and his demonic forces have zero power over you, if, like Jesus, you are filled with the Holy Spirit. Light and darkness can not abide together in the same place. Light always pushes darkness away. Just this past week, I was at a church building on a weekday. I had not been in this building before. The church secretary told me I needed to go to the end of the hallway and turn left. When I got to the end of that hallway and looked to my left, it was absolutely pitch black. I couldn’t tell if I was about to walk into a wall or hit my face on a closed door. It was pitch black. I felt along the wall and found the light switch. When I flipped the switch, the darkness instantly vanished and I could see every detail of what was before me in the hallway. When you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you are filled with light. The powers of darkness no longer have any hold over you.

The Bible says: No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father (Matthew 24:36). Yet these demons know that this particular day was “before” the appointed time. How do they know this?

Now learn this lesson from the fig tree: As soon as its branches become tender and sprout leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see all these things, you will know that He is near, right at the door (Matthew 24:32-33)

So we can conclude that the demons, although they don’t know the day or the hour, they do, however, know the signs of the times and they were aware that this particular day was not the day of the Lord.

Why did the demons ask for the pigs and why did they need to ask at all? I suspect that the very reason they were begging was because they knew Jesus had the power to bind them into hell. Elsewhere in the Bible it describes some demons who are prisoners in hell and do not have the freedom to move about the earth.

And the angels who did not stay within their own domain but abandoned their proper dwelling—these He has kept in eternal chains under darkness, bound for judgment on that great day. (Jude 1:6)

I suspect that these demons believed Jesus was going to bind them in hell, so they begged for an alternative. The closest thing to them was the herd of pigs, so they begged for that and Jesus agreed. However, the pigs immediately drowned themselves. By the way, did you know that pigs are excellent swimmers? Why did the pigs drown? I think Jesus intended to bind these demons into hell no matter what. He gave them permission to enter the pigs but then immediately killed the pigs. I am assuming after the pigs died, the demons were then bound in hell until the day of judgement. But then why did God kill all the pigs? My hunch is that there was a greater work which Jesus wanted to do in the people of the Gadarenes. Yes, they came out and asked him to leave, but he’s going to come back to them later.