25 Jesus: The Divine Deliverer (Luke 4:38–44)

Then He got up and left the synagogue, and entered Simon’s home. Now Simon’s mother-in-law was suffering from a high fever, and they asked Him to help her. And standing over her, He rebuked the fever, and it left her; and she immediately got up and waited on them. While the sun was setting, all those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Him; and laying His hands on each one of them, He was healing them. Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ. When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place; and the crowds were searching for Him, and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them. But He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” So He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (4:38–44)

The historical records of the life and ministry of Jesus Christ in the Gospels contain all that God has revealed about Him. Each of the four gospel writers wrote from his own unique perspective and for a distinct audience. Matthew wrote primarily to a Jewish audience, presenting Jesus as Israel’s Messiah and rightful king. Thus, while Luke recorded Mary’s genealogy to show Jesus’ physical descent, Matthew gave Joseph’s genealogy, since the royal line came through him. Matthew frequently cited the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy in Jesus’ life and ministry. He also referred to Jesus by the Jewish messianic title “Son of David.” Sensitive to his readers’ reverence for and reluctance to use the name of God, Matthew alone of the gospel writers substitutes the phrase “kingdom of heaven” instead of “kingdom of God.”

Mark addressed his gospel to Gentiles, particularly the Romans. Thus he was careful to translate Aramaic words (e.g., 3:17; 5:41; 7:11, 34; 14:36; 15:22, 34) for his readers, and to explain Jewish customs with which they would not have been familiar (7:3–4). His fast-paced account, marked by the frequent use of the term “immediately” (more than forty times), would appeal to the practical, action-oriented Romans. Mark presented Jesus as the Servant, who came “to give His life a ransom for many” (10:45).

Luke presented a carefully researched, historically accurate account of the life of Jesus Christ. He addressed a broader Gentile audience than Mark, and presented Jesus as the Son of Man (a phrase he used more than two dozen times), the answer to mankind’s needs and hopes.

John was written much later than the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) to supplement and complement them. Its supreme, overarching purpose, as stated by John himself, is to present Jesus Christ as God, and to encourage its readers to come to faith in Him: “These have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name” (20:31). The same purpose could be given for the other three Gospels.

Yet despite their different emphases, all the Gospels present the revelation of Jesus Christ as God in human flesh. They reveal Him to have been born of a virgin, lived a sinless life, died as a substitute for believing sinners, and to have risen from the dead three days later, forever conquering death for all the redeemed. Repentance from sin and faith in Christ and His work bring complete forgiveness of sin and eternal life. The divine truths, spiritual realities, singular accomplishments, and glorious promises they record as part of the life and ministry of the Lord Jesus demand that the Gospels be studied carefully.

Along with the claims Jesus Christ made, the gospel writers also present convincing evidence for the validity of His assertions. To that end, Luke marshals the historical evidence to make an extensive, irrefutable case that Jesus is the God-man, Messiah, and only Savior. Luke’s concern (like the other gospel writers), then, is not primarily with the historical details of Jesus’ life and ministry, but rather with what those accurately recorded details incontrovertibly prove about Him.

This closing section of chapter 4 might appear at first glance to be a series of brief, disconnected comments that sum up a certain period in Jesus’ life. But they are in reality very carefully connected. The Jewish people wanted to see signs to prove that Jesus was the Messiah (cf. 11:16; Matt. 12:38; 16:1; 1 Cor. 1:22), and in this brief passage Luke provided some for them. He revealed Jesus’ divine power over three realms: the natural realm, the supernatural realm, and the eternal realm.

JESUS’ POWER OVER THE NATURAL REALM

The physical effects of the fall are universal and devastating. Birth is the first step toward death. Deformity, illness, weakness, injury, disease, and death form the universal biography of mankind. If He is to be the Savior of His people and take them to the perfections of eternal heaven, the Messiah must have the power to reverse all these natural effects of the fall. This passage provides both a specific illustration of and a general reference to Jesus’ power over the natural realm.

After preaching in the Capernaum synagogue and casting a demon out of a man in the audience (vv. 31–37), Jesus got up and left the synagogue, and entered Simon’s home. The Sabbath service in the synagogue usually ended around noon and was followed by the main meal of the day. This is the second Sabbath mentioned in Luke’s gospel (cf. 4:16–30), and both of them featured hostility (either human or demonic) to Jesus (cf. 6:6–11; 13:10–17).

Simon Peter had not yet been officially called to be a disciple (cf. 5:1–10; Matthew 4:18–22 and Mark 1:16–20 refer to a preliminary, temporary call; Luke to the final, permanent call to follow the Lord) or an apostle (6:13–14). Luke did not need to introduce him to his readers, because by the time he wrote his gospel, Peter was known to all of them. At this point in the narrative, however, he was still a member of the synagogue at Capernaum. Peter had been introduced to Jesus by his brother Andrew (John 1:35–42). On that occasion Jesus changed his name to “Peter” (Greek) or “Cephas” (Aramaic) to indicate his future role as part of the foundation of the church (Matt. 16:16–18). Peter was originally from nearby Bethsaida (John 1:44) and now operated a fishing business in Capernaum with his brother Andrew (Matt. 4:18) and their partners, James and John (Luke 5:10), also recently called to follow Jesus (Mark 1:16–20). Having been present in the synagogue to hear Jesus’ unparalleled exposition of the Word of God and witness the amazing display of His power over the demonic realm, Peter invited Him to his house for the Sabbath meal, along with Peter’s brother Andrew, James, and John (Mark 1:29).

But Peter had more in mind than a meal, since upon arrival Jesus was confronted by a family crisis. Simon’s mother-in-law (1 Cor. 9:5 refers to Peter’s wife) was seriously ill, suffering from an infection and a resulting high fever. (Only Luke the physician specifies that it was a high [Gk., mega; lit. “large” or “great”] fever; Matthew [8:14] and Mark [1:30] merely refer to it as a fever.) Fully aware of Jesus’ power to heal (cf. 4:14, 23), they asked Him to help her. The Lord immediately responded and standing over her, He took her by the hand in a gesture of tender compassion (Matt. 8:15; Mark 1:31), rebuked the fever, and it left her. Rebuked translates a form of the verb epitímaō, which is used almost exclusively in the New Testament to speak of rebuking people or demons (the only other instances of it being used to rebuke an inanimate object are in the accounts of Jesus’ calming the sea [Mark 4:39; Luke 8:24]). Its use here demonstrates that Jesus has authority and power over the forces that debilitate the natural body. At Christ’s word, the fever instantaneously left her. There was no lingering weakness, no recovery period; all her symptoms disappeared at once. Completely healed and needing no recovery of strength lost in the battle with the infection, she immediately got up and waited on them, preparing and serving the Sabbath meal to the many family members and guests.

The Lord’s healing ministry set the pattern for the true biblical gift of healing. Six features characterized His healing ministry and set it apart from those of the fake “faith healers,” who have paraded themselves before the church with their deceptive and abusive false promises.

First, Jesus healed with a word, as He did in the case of the centurion’s servant (Matt. 8:5–13) or, as here with Peter’s mother-in-law, a touch (cf. Mark 3:10; 5:25–34).

Second, Jesus healed instantly. There were no progressive healings; the people He cured did not gradually get better. As noted above, Peter’s mother-in-law’s symptoms vanished at once, and she was fully restored to health. Similarly, the centurion’s servant “was healed that very moment” (Matt. 8:13); the woman with the hemorrhage was healed “immediately” (Mark 5:29); the ten lepers were cleansed of their disease as soon as they left to show themselves to the priests (Luke 17:14); after Jesus “stretched out His hand and touched [another leper] … immediately the leprosy left him” (Luke 5:13); when Jesus commanded the crippled man at the pool of Bethesda, “‘Get up, pick up your pallet and walk,’ immediately the man became well, and picked up his pallet and began to walk” (John 5:8–9). Some offer the Lord’s healing of the blind man in Bethsaida (Mark 8:22–25) as an example of a progressive healing. But the man’s statement, “I see men, for I see them like trees, walking around” (v. 24) merely defined his preexisting condition of blindness. The actual healing was instantaneous (v. 25). Had Jesus’ healings not been instantaneous, they would not have demonstrated His supernatural power over disease. His critics could have claimed that the people were better as a result of natural processes.

Third, Jesus healed totally. Peter’s mother-in-law was cured of all her symptoms and went at once from being bedridden to serving a meal. When Jesus healed a man “covered with leprosy” (Luke 5:12), “the leprosy left him” (v. 13). It was the same with all of Jesus’ healings; “the blind receive[d] sight and the lame walk[ed], the lepers [were] cleansed and the deaf hear[d]” (Matt. 11:5).

Fourth, as verse 40 notes, Jesus healed everyone. He did not leave behind long lines of disappointed, distraught people who were not healed, like modern faith healers do. Matthew 4:24 says that “the news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.” According to Matthew 12:15, “Many followed Him, and He healed them all,” while Luke 6:19 notes that “all the people were trying to touch Him, for power was coming from Him and healing them all.” So widespread was Jesus’ healing that He, in effect, banished disease from Israel during the three years of His ministry.

Fifth, Jesus healed organic disease. He did not heal vague, ambiguous, invisible ailments such as lower back pain, heart palpitations, or headaches. On the contrary, He restored full mobility to paralyzed limbs, full sight to blind eyes, full hearing to deaf ears, and fully cleansed leprous skin. Jesus healed “every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people” (Matt. 4:23; cf. 9:35). All of Jesus’ healings were undeniable, miraculous signs, as even His most bitter enemies admitted (John 11:47).

Finally, Jesus raised the dead—not those who were in a temporary coma, or whose vital signs fluctuated during surgery, but a young man in his casket on his way to the graveyard (Luke 7:11–15), a young girl whose death was apparent to all (Mark 5:22–24, 35–43), and a man who had been dead for four days (John 11:14–44).

Unlike modern faith healers, Jesus performed His healings in public before huge crowds in various locations—not in the carefully orchestrated and highly controlled surroundings of modern healing venues or television studios. Nor were His healings contingent on the faith of the one being healed; most of those He healed were unbelievers, and hence unable to make a “positive confession” and claim their healing. So unprecedented was Christ’s healing ministry that people exclaimed, “We have never seen anything like this” (Mark 2:12; cf. John 9:32).

The apostles (Luke 9:1), the seventy (Luke 10:1–9), and a few close associates of the apostles (Barnabas [Acts 15:12], Philip [Acts 8:6–7], and Stephen [Acts 6:8]) were also granted the gift of healing to authenticate them as the preachers of God’s truth. Their healing was characterized by the same features that marked Christ’s healing.

The apostles healed with a word or a touch. Peter merely said to Aeneas, “Jesus Christ heals you” and he was immediately healed (Acts 9:34). On the island of Malta after being shipwrecked, “Paul went in to see [the father of Publius, who was gravely ill with dysentery] and after he had prayed, he laid his hands on him and healed him” (Acts 28:8).

The apostles healed instantly. As already noted, Aeneas was made well immediately. When Peter and John healed a man “who had been lame from his mother’s womb” (Acts 3:2), “immediately his feet and his ankles were strengthened. With a leap he stood upright and began to walk; and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God” (vv. 7–8).

The apostles healed totally. “Aeneas, who had been bedridden eight years, for he was paralyzed…. Immediately … got up;” his paralysis was gone (Acts 9:33–34). Paul encountered a man at Lystra who “had no strength in his feet, [was] lame from his mother’s womb, [and] had never walked” (Acts 14:8). But when Paul “said with a loud voice, ‘Stand upright on your feet’” the man “leaped up and began to walk” (v. 10).

The apostles were able to heal anyone of anything. Acts 5:16 records that “the people from the cities in the vicinity of Jerusalem were coming together, bringing people who were sick or afflicted with unclean spirits, and they were all being healed.” After Paul healed Publius’s father, “the rest of the people on the island who had diseases were coming to him and getting cured” (Acts 28:9).

The apostles healed organic conditions, such as lameness (Acts 3:2–8), paralysis (Acts 9:33–34), and dysentery (Acts 28:8).

Finally, the apostles raised the dead. God used Peter to bring Dorcas back to life, and Paul to bring Eutychus back to life after he fell to his death from a third-story window (Acts 20:9–12. As a physician Luke, who was present [v. 8], was certainly qualified to determine whether a person was dead.).

The gift of healing in the New Testament was not given to keep believers healthy, but as a sign to unbelievers verifying the truthfulness of the gospel and the authenticity of its preachers. To claim that healing is the norm in the church undermines its unique role in authenticating Jesus and the apostles as revealers of divine truth. In keeping with that purpose, healings faded from the scene as the apostolic era drew to a close. Paul (Gal. 4:13–15), Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25–27), Timothy (1 Tim. 5:23), and Trophimus (2 Tim. 4:20) were all recorded to have been sick. None of them were healed. Nor do the New Testament Epistles, which define the life and theology of the church, refer to a ministry of healing. There is no evidence that the kind of healings seen in the era of Jesus and the apostles was to continue beyond them (cf. 2 Cor. 12:12). Nor were such healings a regular part of the purpose of God before them. They are extremely rare in the Old Testament; for example, none are recorded for the 750 years from Isaiah to Jesus Christ. God may choose to heal through the prayers of His people, but not through miracle working men as in the case of our Lord and His associates. (For an explanation of James 5:14–16, see James, the MacArthur New Testament Commentary [Chicago: Moody, 1998], 276–81.)

While the sun was setting, signifying the end of the Sabbath and its restrictions on travel and work, all (Mark 1:33 notes that “the whole city had gathered at the door”) those who had any who were sick with various diseases brought them to Jesus. Word travelled fast and when the Sabbath ended, people could do what they were not permitted to do during the Sabbath—bring their needy friends and family to the house in hope of healing. They were not disappointed. In keeping with His compassion and power to heal anyone of any disease or condition, He was laying His hands on each one of them and was healing them. No one was excluded. The display of healing on that one day may have exceeded all the recorded healings in the entire Old Testament, and Jesus did such things over the three years of His ministry.

JESUS’ POWER OVER THE SUPERNATURAL REALM

Demons also were coming out of many, shouting, “You are the Son of God!” But rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ. (4:41)

As noted in the previous chapter of this volume, if Jesus is to free those held captive in Satan’s kingdom of darkness, He must have power over him and his demon hosts. As he did earlier in the synagogue (4:33–35), Jesus demonstrated that power so that demons also were coming out of many. Like the demon Christ cast out in the synagogue, these were terrified of Him. They knew His true identity, that He was God the Son, the second person of the Trinity incarnate, with absolute authority to send them into eternal torment. Confronted with the second member of the Trinity, in terror they were shouting or screaming, “You are the Son of God!” as they left their victims.

But Jesus did not want their testimony, so rebuking them, He would not allow them to speak, because they knew Him to be the Christ. Jesus not only had the power to cast them out, but also to silence them. To have demons affirming His identity would only create confusion. “It was altogether inappropriate that Jesus’ Messiahship should be proclaimed by representatives of the evil one. Had He allowed this by not silencing the demons, He would have given grounds for a charge brought against him later by the Pharisees, that of being Satan’s ally (Matt. 12:24; Mark 3:22)” (Robert L. Thomas and Stanley N. Gundry, A Harmony of the Gospels [Chicago: Moody, 1978], 50). Paul similarly rejected demonic testimony from a possessed slave girl in Philippi (Acts 16:16–18).

Jesus’ authority over the demons revealed His power to deliver sinners whose minds have been blinded by the god of this world (2 Cor. 4:4) and his demon hosts. Believers even now have renewed minds (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23), and one day will have minds completely free from the effects of demonic deception. The Savior of souls, the one who will rescue sinners from Satan’s power (Eph. 2:1–3) and the kingdom of darkness (Col. 1:13–16), must demonstrate that He has absolute power over the demon captors.

JESUS’ POWER OVER THE ETERNAL REALM

When day came, Jesus left and went to a secluded place; and the crowds were searching for Him, and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them. But He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” So He kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea. (4:42–44)

When day came on Sunday after a Sabbath in which He demonstrated massive power over the natural and supernatural realms, Jesus left Peter’s house just before daybreak while it was still dark (Mark 1:35) and went to a secluded place. Mark reveals that His purpose in doing so was to pray (v. 35). But before long the crowds were searching for Him, and came to Him and tried to keep Him from going away from them. Awed by His power to deliver them from disease and demons, they understandably did not want Jesus to leave them. The Lord did not rebuke their interest in the miraculous signs He had performed. But those signs were not an end in themselves, but rather a means to an end. Jesus was not primarily a miracle worker, but a preacher of the gospel. Therefore, He said to them, “I must preach the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for I was sent for this purpose.” Jesus repeatedly affirmed that the Father had sent Him (Matt. 10:40; Mark 9:37; Luke 10:16; John 4:34; 5:24, 30, 36, 37; 6:38, 39, 44, 57; 7:16, 28, 29, 33; 8:16, 18, 26, 29, 42; 9:4; 11:42; 12:44, 45, 49; 13:20; 14:24; 15:21; 16:5; 17:8, 18, 21, 23, 25; 20:21). He came not merely to demonstrate His power over the effects of sin in the body by physical healing and the mind by overcoming demonic influence, but most importantly His power to overcome sin’s eternal consequences. For that to happen required repentance and faith in the gospel preached (cf. Rom. 10:13–17). Only by faith in the truth preached could sinners be rescued from Satan’s kingdom of darkness and enter into the kingdom of God. This is the first of thirty-two uses of this important theological term in Luke’s gospel (he used it six more times in Acts). The kingdom of God is the sphere or realm of salvation that those who respond in repentant faith to the preaching of the gospel enter, so in keeping with His kingdom mission, Jesus kept on preaching in the synagogues of Judea, which here is a generic term for the entire nation of Israel including Galilee (Mark 1:39), not merely the southern part.

The power the Lord displayed over the natural, supernatural, and eternal realms authenticated Him as the Son of God, sent by the Father to preach the saving gospel of salvation to lost sinners.