Ep. 27: The Centurion’s servant

CLICK HERE for the corresponding devotional in Yeshua Adored

MATTHEW 8:5-15, LUKE 7:1-10

We are once again in Capernaum. It is remarkable how much in the life and ministry of Jesus centres around that little fishing town. Here was the home of that believing Court official, whose child Jesus had healed. Here also was the household of Peter and here the paralytic had found forgiveness of his sins and health of his body. Here Matthew had heard and followed the call of Jesus and here the good Centurion had in stillness learned to love Israel and serve Israel’s King and built that splendid synagogue, which had been consecrated by the presence and teaching of Jesus.

And now, from the Mount of Beatitudes, Jesus returned again to his temporary home at Capernaum. Not that he received much rest, for many in the multitude had followed him. Soon came the summons of the pagan Centurion and the healing of his servant, which both Matthew and Luke record.

Yet there are minor differences in these two accounts. This is due to the peculiar standpoint of their narratives. If we keep in view the historical objective of Matthew as primarily addressing himself to Jewish readers, while Luke wrote more especially for Gentile readers, we arrive, at least, at one remarkable outcome of the variations in their narratives. Strange to say, the Jewish Gospel gives the pro-Gentile, the Gentile narrative the pro-Jewish, presentation of the event!

Thus, the Matthew account shows the direct dealing with the pagan Centurion on the part of Jesus, while in the Luke account the dealing with the heathen is indirect, focussing on the intervention of Jews and on the ground of the Centurion’s spiritual sympathy with Israel.

But the fundamental truth in both accounts is the same. It is not that the Gentiles are preferred before Israel. Their faith is only put on an equality with that of believing Israel. It is not Israel but Israel’s fleshly claims and unbelief that are rejected; and Gentile faith occupies not a new position outside the promises made to Israel but shares with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob the fulfilment of the promise made to their faith. Thus, we have here the widest Jewish universalism, the true interpretation of Israel’s hope.

The cure was the result of the Centurion’s faith and of that of his servant. The pagan Centurion is a real historical person. He was captain of the troop quartered in Capernaum and in the service of Herod Antipas. He was simply one who had learned to love Israel and to reverence Israel’s God, so much so that he had built that synagogue. There might have been something to incline him towards this love in his early upbringing, perhaps in Caesarea, or in his family relationships, perhaps in that obedient servant.

There is a heartfelt appeal for his sick, seemingly dying servant. Again, the Centurion in the fullest sense believes in the power of Jesus to heal, in the same manner as he knows his own commands as an officer would be implicitly obeyed. His question was not whether Jesus could heal his servant, but rather would he heal him. He was on firm ground here, Jesus never disappointed acts of pure faith. The fact that Jesus contrasted the faith of this Gentile with that of Israel, indicates that his heart was in the right place. His self-acknowledged ‘unfitness’ betrayed the real ‘fitness’ of this good soldier for membership with the true Israel, and his deep-felt ‘unworthiness’ the real ‘worthiness’ for The Kingdom and its blessings.

There is a good reason for the inclusion of this story in the New Testament. It was that the blessings of the Kingdom are not connected with our outward deeds or inward thought but are rather granted by the King to that simple faith in him, regardless of your ethnic origins.

The words of Jesus to the believing Centurion were in total contrast to Jewish teaching. They were certain that the Gentiles could not possibly share in the feast of the Messiah of Israel. To use Rabbinic terms, Gentiles were ‘children of Gehinnom’ but Israel ‘children of the Kingdom’, ‘children of the upper chamber’ and ‘of the world to come.’ In fact, in their view, God had first sat down on his throne as King when the hymn of deliverance (Exodus 15:1) was raised by Israel - the people who took upon itself that yoke of the Law which all other nations of the world had rejected. What a shock it must have been when he turned their cherished beliefs on their heads!

And so the story of the believing Centurion is another application of the ‘Sermon on the Mount’. Negatively, it differentiated the Kingdom from Israel; while, positively, it placed the hope of Israel and fellowship with its promises within reach of both Jew and Gentile.

Edersheim states the truth plainly:

‘He who taught such new and strange truth could never be called a mere reformer of Judaism. There cannot be ‘reform’ where all the fundamental principles are different. Surely he was the Son of God, the Messiah of men, who, in such surrounding, could so speak to Jew and Gentile of God and his Kingdom.’

This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)