Biblical commentary on the New Testament - The Christian ...

840 Matthew VIII. 2, 3.
in the understandiiig {vov^). Faith is also capable of inward gradation,
according to the degree in which the divine is revealed. Par-
ticularly in the cures, where faith is made the negative requisite,
which determines the ability to receive the Spirit's powers emanating
from Christ, the faith demanded or exercised is not the holding
certain doctrinal positions, but a susceptibility, both spiritual and
bodily, to the Saviour's agency. This was, doubtless, uniformly
accompanied by the belief that Christ was the Messiah, and that,
as Messiah, he could work miracles. But w^e might also conceive
these ideas as existing apart from that fundamental disposition,
which we have designated as susceptibility of the heart, and of the
whole nature to the divine : and thus separated they would not
satisfy any condition of miraculous healing,* This is the view suggested
by the description of all the cures wrought by Jesus. In no
case does he ask after definite doctrines as objects of ftiith. In no
case does he mention them as a necessary quality of faith. The
Saviour leaves the mere profession of faith to speak for its quality,
because demeanour and language at once proclaimed tlie general
disposition of the soul, as being either open or closed to divine in-
fluences. Hence it is evident also, that the outward bodily healing
was only a symbol of the inivard spiritual healing which was pro-
perly intended. (See note on John vii. 23.) For those same vital
powers, which removed the bodily disorganization, exercised an in-
fluence, in conformity with their nature, on the spiritual character
of the person cured. They brought him into a real connexion with
the world of good in general, and took possession of him on the
position to which he had just attained, in order to raise him still
higher.
Yer. 3.—At the sick man's request, our Lord lays his hand upon
him, and heals him. In most cures wrought by Jesus there was a
similar immediate touching ; and there can be no hesitation in acknowledging
a conducting medium of healing power (only not a
necessary one) in the putting forth of the hand, just as in blessing
with the solemn laying on of hands (imdsotg tuv xstpojv). The analogy
of animal magnetism suggests itself, and it is certainly not acci-
dental ;
only, as was hinted above, it must never be forgotten, that
the power of Jesus Christ was divine, and magnetism, therefore,
can be referred to, only to indicate a power presenting similar phenomena
in an inferior region of existence. (Kadapi^eiv = nntj may
signify " to pronounce clean," inasmuch as the priest who pronounced
the diseased man clean, restored him to society from whicL
he had been cut off. [See Lev. xiii. 13, 17, in the LXX. transla-
* The profound mystic Gerhard Tersieegen calls faith, very appropriately, " the in-
wardly hungering desire of the spirit, which lays hold of not only the form, but also the
essence of what is divine." {Weg der Wahrheit, S. 366.)