Bearing Our Sicknesses
Matthew 8:14-17
In Matthew 8 and 9, we are in the section of Matthew’s Gospel where he is emphasizing the great authority and power of Jesus. Remember that Matthew, rather than following a strictly chronological order, arranged his gospel to highlight certain themes. In these chapters, Matthew brings together many of the miracles of Jesus to highlight His authority. We will see that Jesus has power over sickness, over demons, over nature, over sin, and over death. Already in the first part of Matthew 8, we have seen Jesus perform two miraculous healings. He touched a pathetic, helpless leper and cleansed him completely (Matthew 8:1-4). Then in Capernaum, He merely spoke a word from a distance and instantly healed a centurion’s servant! (Matt. 8:5-13). They were both extraordinary displays of His divine authority and power.
This morning we see a third healing miracle of Jesus. Not only will Jesus heal Peter’s mother-in-law, but also all the sick and demon-possessed in the crowd that soon flocked to the house. And Matthew closes these three healing miracles by giving us the point of it all. Matthew wants us to know that Jesus is Christ, the King (Matt. 1:1). He is the Messiah King who was promised (Matt. 2:6). He is the Lord who will save His people from their sins (Matt. 1:21). He is the suffering Servant Who “Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses.” (Matt. 8:17).
We are going to look at Matthew 8:14-17 in three sections today: 1) Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law. 2) Jesus heals many. And 3) Jesus heals in fulfillment of prophecy. I want us to understand how Jesus’ authority in healing shows us Who Jesus is.
1. Jesus heals Peter’s mother-in-law (Matt. 8:14-15)
Matthew 8:14 begins, “Now when Jesus had come into Peter’s house…” Peter and his brother Andrew had already begun to follow Jesus, along with their fishing partners James and John (Matt. 4:18-22). Remember from Matthew 4:13, that Jesus had left His hometown of Nazareth and was living in Capernaum. Apparently, Jesus and His small band of disciples were able to make themselves at home in Peter’s house. And there, inside the house, Matthew tells us “He saw his wife’s mother lying sick with a fever.” (Matt. 8:14).
The word that is used to describe her situation (ballõ) means that she was “cast” upon a sick-bed. Her fever forced her to be bedridden. And when Luke told this story, he said Peter’s mother-in-law was sick with “a high fever” (Luke 4:38). It may be that her situation was, in fact, very grave. But look! Matthew says that Jesus “saw” her. The word that is used is more than a passing glance. The word means not only did He physically see her, He perceived or understood her condition. Isn’t that a wonderful thing about our Lord Jesus? When one of His beloved ones is in need, He sees it. He sees it in such a way that He knows, and deeply understands, and intensely feels the need in a personal way.
What did Jesus do when He saw her suffering? “So He touched her hand, and the fever left her. And she arose and served them.” (Matt. 8:15).
Notice that Jesus “ touched her hand“. Mark tells us that He actually “came and took her by the hand and lifted her up” (Mark 1:31). Just prior to this, we were told of how Jesus healed the centurion’s servant with a word from a distance. But we also read of how this same Jesus was willing to “touch” the unclean leper who came to Him. Jesus certainly didn’t have to touch Jesus’ mother-in-law. But He did. It is a very personal and practical display of His compassion.
Jesus healed her immediately! She had been sick, apparently very sick with a high fever. But when Jesus healed her, the “fever left her” immediately. He met her need completely! We saw the same result with the leper, Matthew 8:3 said that “immediately his leprosy was cleansed“. And when Jesus spoke the word to heal the centurion’s servant, we’re told that “his servant was healed that same hour” (Matt. 8:13). Jesus has the power to heal immediately and completely. We know the healing was complete because it says, “And she arose and served them.” She didn’t need time to rest and recover. She wasn’t drained and weakened. She got up and began to serve. There is obvious gratitude here, and anyone who has received the touch of Jesus should be moved to serve Him and worship Him.
What kind of a man can actually drive a fever away? Jesus could. Why wouldn’t you want to come to a Savior like Jesus who shows such tender compassion and care, and such power and authority? As the writer of Hebrews says, because “we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weakness” (Heb. 4:15) we should continually “come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Heb. 4:16).
So first, Jesus personally heals Peter’s mother-in-law. Then second,
2. Jesus heals many (Matt. 8:16)
Look at Matthew 8:16, “When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick.”
Mark lets us know that it was on the Sabbath day that all this had happened. Earlier in the day, Jesus and His disciples had been at the synagogue in Capernaum where He cast a demon out of a man. Immediately after they left the synagogue, they went to Peter’s house (Mark. 1:29) and healed his mother-in-law as we just saw. But this information helps us to see why the people waited until “evening had come” to bring the sick and demon-possessed to the house where Jesus was. The Sabbath day ended at sunset and they were then free from their traditions to come and carry the sick to Jesus. Mark tells us that, by the end of the day, “the whole city was gathered together at the door” (Mark 1:33).
We have already seen Jesus’ compassion and power on an individual basis—to the leper, the centurion, and Peter’s mother-in-law. But Matthew now tells us that “many” came to Jesus with a variety of very serious needs. And whatever the need was, He met it completely. Luke tells us that “He laid hands on every one of them and healed them” (Luke 4:40).
If anyone came to Him who had a demon, He cast it out. If they had a fever, He lifted the fever from them. If they were paralyzed, He took their paralysis away. If they were blind, He gave them sight. If they were deaf, they went away hearing. If they were leprous, He sent them away clean. He laid hands on each one, and He met each one’s need perfectly. Matthew wants us to see that Jesus is the Messiah King, and so when Jesus came the kingdom came with Him. Jesus preached the good news of the kingdom, and He demonstrated the truth and reality of that kingdom by healing every disease and sickness among the people. Healing is a sign of God’s kingdom.[1]
Jesus not only showed personal compassion to each individual, He also displayed sufficient power to meet every single affliction that they brought to Him. Think about that! Do you believe that Jesus had the mercy and authority to cast out any demon? Then don’t you also think His mercy and power is sufficient to help you through any personal spiritual affliction? Do you believe that Jesus had the mercy and power to completely heal anyone of their sickness? Then don’t you also think that He is sufficient for your every ailment? He is sufficiently great in His mercy and power to help every single person who comes to Him.
3. Jesus heals in fulfillment of prophecy (Matt. 8:17)
Matthew tells us why it is that Jesus healed all these people. He says that it was “. . . that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses’” (Matt. 8:17).
Here, Matthew quotes from a passage that would have been well-known to his Jewish readers as an Old Testament prophecy about the Messiah. It comes from Isaiah 53:4. And Matthew says that Jesus’ healing ministry was a fulfillment of this prophecy. When the New Testament writers quote a brief Old Testament passage, they usually refer implicitly to the entire context of the quotation.[2] We read the whole passage at the beginning of our worship service today. Let me to read again a portion of Isaiah 53:
4 Surely He has borne our griefs
And carried our sorrows;
Yet we esteemed Him stricken,
Smitten by God, and afflicted.
5 But He was wounded for our transgressions,
He was bruised for our iniquities;
The chastisement for our peace was upon Him,
And by His stripes we are healed.
6 All we like sheep have gone astray;
We have turned, every one, to his own way;
And the LORD has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (Isa. 53:4-6).
It is clear from the context in Isaiah that the focus of Isaiah’s words about Jesus ‘taking our infirmities and bearing our sicknesses’ was clearly spiritual in nature—that is, that Jesus suffered and died for our sins. Isaiah prophesied about the atoning sacrifice of God’s Servant, the Messiah who would take away our sins by bearing them on the cross.
But when Matthew quotes this verse, he seems to see it as a prophecy that was fulfilled in the earthly healing ministry of Jesus. So, which is it? Is it a prophecy about Jesus’ healing ministry, or is it a promise of His saving ministry? I suggest to you that it is both!
Contrary to what some commentators think, Matthew wasn’t being unfaithful to the intent of Isaiah’s prophecy. The original language of Isaiah 53:4 carried with them the idea of ‘healing’. What Isaiah said can be legitimately translated as, “Surely He has born our sicknesses and carried our pains”; because the Hebrew word for “griefs” (hõlî) really does mean “sicknesses”, and the word for “sorrows” (kã’ab) really does mean “pains”. Isaiah spoke in the language of physical illness and physical suffering to describe the grievous consequences of sin that Jesus delivers us from.
The Bible is clear that sickness, pain, and death were all introduced into the human family as a result of the sin of our first parents in the Garden of Eden. When Adam and Eve sinned, they brought the curse of death upon all of their offspring. As the federal head of the human race, when Adam sinned, we all sinned. As a result, all of us suffer the “pains” and “sicknesses” that are the consequences of being sinners who live in a sinful world. These consequences are not only spiritual but also physical.
According to Isaiah 53, Jesus came specifically to take away our sins, but by extension, He also takes away those things that accompanied sin, that is, the consequences of our sins – sickness, sadness, suffering, and death. Isaiah prophesied that Jesus would suffer and die to ‘take’ the ‘infirmities’ of our sins away from us, and to ‘bear’ the ‘sicknesses’ of our sins on our behalf. The visible proof that Jesus was a merciful Savior, who was going to completely take away the moral and spiritual consequences of Adam’s sin, was seen in the way that He was able to completely take away even the physical consequences Adam’s of sin.
It’s important for us to understand that when Matthew quotes this passage and says that Jesus “took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses,” he is not saying that Jesus healed people by taking their sicknesses on Himself, so that Jesus became sick instead of them. When Jesus healed the leper, Jesus didn’t get leprosy. When Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law, he didn’t get her fever.
The Bible teaches that Jesus bore our sins on the cross, not our sicknesses. This is how the apostle Peter understood Isaiah’s words when he quoted from this same passage. He said that Jesus “Himself bore our sins in His own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness – by whose stripes you were healed” (1 Peter 2:24; citing Isaiah 53:5). Peter speaks about healing here, but it is a healing from our sins. He says that Jesus bore our sins on the cross, not our sicknesses. The word Peter uses for Jesus bearing our sins in this verse is a word that means to “carry up” or to “offer up” as in a sacrifice. Matthew uses a different word for bearing our sicknesses than the word Peter uses for bearing sin. Rather than a word meaning to offer up as a sacrifice, Matthew uses a word that means “to carry a heavy load or burden.” It’s a beautiful word in its context. It’s as if Jesus says to us, “Here, that’s too heavy. Let me carry that for you.” So yes, Jesus carries our diseases but not in the same way that He bears our sins for us at the cross. Jesus bore our sins on the cross so that we could be forgiven.
Isaiah 53 makes it clear that Jesus’ healing ministry looks forward to the cross. The healing miracles are a sign of the kingdom. The reason Jesus healed was because he was going to the cross to take away our sins and eventually even remove all the consequences of sin like suffering, sorrow, and death.
When Jesus healed people of their sicknesses, it proved His power to take away the thing that caused all the sickness in the first place—the curse of Adam’s sin. His merciful acts of physical healing were His way of giving ‘advanced notice’ that He was going to perform the merciful act of healing our spirits by permanently taking away the guilt of our sin! And so, when we read what the Bible tells us about all of His saints finally glorified and in heaven with Him, when Jesus’ great work of salvation is finally completed, we read that “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).
What does the Bible teach about sickness and sin? Jesus bore our sins on the cross. Forgiveness of sins comes through His atoning death and resurrection. Physical healing is a benefit of the atonement. Forgiveness of sins comes immediately when we repent and believe in Jesus. John 3:18 says, “He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God.” Paul writes, “In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of His grace.” You don’t have to wait to be forgiven of your sins. You can have that today and forever when Jesus saves you.
What about sickness? The Bible teaches that for those who are in Christ, all sickness, suffering, sorrow and death will be done away with as well. But not always immediately in this life. We know that our bodies are subject to suffering and decay in this life, which is why we are told to wait patiently for the resurrection. As Paul says in Romans 8: “Not only that, but we also who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, eagerly waiting for the adoption, the redemption of our body. For we were saved in this hope, but hope that is seen is not hope; for why does one still hope for what he sees? But if we hope for what we do not see, we eagerly wait for it with perseverance.” (Roman 8:23-25).
Paul didn’t expect to be healed and delivered from all bodily weaknesses in this life. In fact, he writes instead about boasting in his weaknesses. In 2 Corinthians 12 Paul tells how Jesus said to him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My strength is made perfect in weakness.” In response, Paul writes: “Therefore most gladly I will rather boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.” (2 Cor. 12:9). The word that Paul used for “weaknesses” speaks of the weakness or frailty of our human bodies. And it is the exact same word Matthew uses when he says that Jesus “took our infirmities and bore our sicknesses” in Matthew 8:17. Matthew says that Jesus took up our infirmities or weaknesses, and Paul says he will boast about his infirmities or weaknesses. It’s the same word. And why does Paul boast about his continuing weakness and infirmity? So that Christ’s power may rest on him because Jesus’ power is made perfect in our weakness.
D.A. Carson points our that this verse “cannot be used to justify healing on demand. This text and others clearly teach that there is healing in the Atonement; but similarly there is the promise of a resurrection body in the Atonement, even if believers do not inherit it until the Parousia. From the perspective of the NT writers, the Cross is the basis for all the benefits that accrue to believers, but this does not mean that all such benefits can be secured at the present time on demand, any more than we have the right and power to demand our resurrection bodies.”[3]
Remember Jesus’ healing miracles were signs of the kingdom. The kingdom of God came when Jesus came, but it will not come in its fullness until Jesus returns. And so when it comes to healing as a result of Christ’s atoning death on the cross for sin, the question is not whether we will receive healing but rather when. We will all be healed, guaranteed, when Christ returns. When Christ returns all the results of sin will finally be taken away – all sickness, sadness, suffering and death. But in this life we still deal with the results of sin. Forgiveness is guaranteed now; healing is guaranteed later.[4] Jesus still does heal miraculously in answer to prayer today. Sometimes in this life, and always in the day of resurrection when He returns.
Jesus came to free us from sin and the consequences of sin. So cast your cares on Him, because he cares for you (1 Pet. 5:7). Give your burdens to Jesus, and let Him take them on His shoulders. Whatever your burden, whatever your trial, whatever your sickness, whatever your sin, Jesus says to you: “Here, that’s too heavy. Let me carry that for you.” And then He does.
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[1] Greg Allen, An Expanding View of Jesus’ Mercy. https://www.bethanybible.org/archive/2005/073105.htm#f1
[2] D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 205.
[3] D. A. Carson, “Matthew,” in The Expositor’s Bible Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke, ed. Frank E. Gaebelein, vol. 8 (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan Publishing House, 1984), 206–207.
[4] Ray Fowler, Carrying Our Diseases. https://www.rayfowler.org/sermons/matthew/carrying-our-diseases/
