God saves so that we can serve him

Read Matthew 8:14–17

Jesus healed. This act emphasised that God had sent him. God wanted Jesus to deal with the punishment for sin.

Matthew believed that Jesus’ miracles also showed God’s truths.

• Matthew 8:1–4 show that Jesus came to heal sinners.
• Matthew 8:5–13 show that the kingdom of God is for all sinners. But they must be humble. They must come to Jesus and ask him for help.
• Now, in Matthew 8:14–17, Matthew used events that happened in Jesus’ work. Jesus healed. Then, Matthew taught how Jesus can save sinners. (Matthew 1:21.)

First, Jesus healed the mother of Peter’s wife (Matthew 8:14–15). Peter probably came from Bethsaida. But he had a home in Capernaum. (Read Mark 1:29.) He was married (1 Corinthians 9:5). Perhaps Peter’s wife was from Capernaum. It seems that both families lived in one house. He and his brother Andrew shared a business. They caught and sold fish (Mark 1:6).

Nobody asked Jesus to heal this lady. He just did it. This was the only time that this happened in the book of Matthew. Perhaps Matthew saw something that was important here. As soon as Jesus healed her, this woman served him. So, all those whom Jesus saves should serve him too. (Read Colossians 3:24.)

Jesus healed her on the Sabbath. (Read Luke 4:31.) In fact, he healed many people on this special day. God gave it to the Jews as a day for rest. But they added many extra rules. The day started and ended when the sun went down. So, the Sabbath was from Friday evening to Saturday evening. The people came to Jesus when the Sabbath ended.

The NT says that some illnesses are the result of the devil’s work. This was true in Matthew 8:16 here. But, we must be careful. Many illnesses are not the result of the devil’s activity. The last part of verse 16 shows this. But no illness is impossible for Jesus to heal. Matthew made this clear. Jesus healed ‘all the sick’ people. He healed those whom nobody else could heal. He healed those who were close to death too.

But demons (evil spirits) do cause some illnesses. Matthew wanted to show something about them. Jesus healed these people by his word. Jesus was showing his authority even over the devil. (Compare Matthew 12:29; Luke 10:17 and Revelation 20:2–3.)

The OT taught that all illness was the result of man’s sin. (Read Genesis 3.) This did not mean that particular illnesses were the result of particular sins. But it did mean that all people were sinners.

Note about the word sin. It is when someone does not reach God’s standards. It is when someone does not obey God’s rules. The word can speak about a state. (Read Genesis 3 and Romans 3:23; Romans 5:12–17.) It can also be an act. So the word can be a noun or a verb.

In the OT, we read about a time when there would be no more illness. And so, there would be no more sin. God would make a new world. In Isaiah 53, the ‘servant’, (Matthew 8:11), would make all these things happen. His method would be to take away sin by his death. (Read Isaiah 53:11–12.) It would be something that he chose to do. He would suffer the punishment for sin (Isaiah 53:10). He would do this in the place of other people (Isaiah 53:5). To Matthew, Jesus was this ‘servant’. Matthew showed more clearly how Jesus did this. Later in his Gospel, he described how Jesus did take away sin.

Questions

• Do you know that Jesus has taken away your sin? If so, how do you show it by what you do for him?
• How should the church help those who are sick? Should medical people and people in the church work together? If so, how can they do this?
• Why does God allow illness to be in the world? How can we explain this to non-Christians?

Important truths

Some people say that Christians should not suffer.

Some people use passages like this one. They teach that real disciples should never be ill. But a disciple may be ill. Then these people say that he or she does not trust God enough.

This idea is wrong. First, it does not agree with other passages that are in the Bible. Several things are the result of man’s sin. There is pain when a woman gives birth. Also, there are weeds. (Read Genesis 3:16-18.) People may say that Christians should never be ill. But they are forgetting certain things They do not say that these people should not have weeds in their gardens. They never say something else. It is this. Christian women should not have pain when they give birth. So, God has not yet dealt with all the results of sin. This is clear.

There is something else. We must understand what the Bible teaches about salvation. In the NT, the work of salvation is not complete. It is waiting for the time when God’s kingdom has come. Until then, everything that God created suffers. This includes disciples. (Read Romans 8:18–23.) So, all men and women still suffer illness. This is true in the Bible too. Even those who healed other people were sometimes ill themselves. Or their friends were ill.

(Compare 2 Kings 13:14 and 20:1; Acts 9:36–37; Galatians 4:13; Philippians 2:25–27; 1 Timothy 5:23 and 2 Timothy 4:20.)

But, there is another most important fact. In the Bible, God encourages us to pray that he will heal us. (Read James 5:14–15.)