16-8. The Opening of the Eyes of Two Blind in the House
8. The Opening of the Eyes of Two Blind in the House
We have here the first of those healings of the blind whereof so many are recorded (Mat 12:22; Mat 20:30; Mat 21:14; John 9) or alluded to (Mat 11:5) in the Gospels.[1] Nor will this little history be found without one or two distinguishing features of its own. “And when Jesus departed thence”—from the house of Jairus, Jerome supposes; but too much stress must not be laid on the connexion in which St. Matthew sets the miracle, nor the conclusion certainly drawn that he intended to place it in such immediate relation of time and place with that other which he had just told—” two blind men followed Him, crying and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us.” Their faith appears to have been tried, though not so rudely as was that of the Syrophoenician woman at a later day. Not all at once did they obtain their petition; but the Lord seemed at first rather to withdraw Himself from them, suffering them to cry after Him, and for a while paying no regard to their cries. It was only “when He was come into the house,” and “the blind men came to Him” there, so testifying the earnestness of their desires and the faith of their hearts, that He yielded to them the blessing which they sought;[2] nor even then, until He has first obtained a confession of their faith from their own lips. “Believe ye that I am able to do this?” He asks; and only after they, by their “Yea, Lord,” have avouched that they had faith to be healed, do they obtain their boon. Then indeed “He touched their eyes,” and that simple touch was enough, unsealing as it did for them the closed organs of vision (cf. Mat 20:34). At other times He uses as conductors of his power, and helps to the faith of those who should be healed, some further means,—the clay mingled with spittle (John 9:6-7), or the moisture of his mouth alone (Mark 8:23). We nowhere read of his opening the blind eyes simply by his word, although this of course was equally competent to Him. The words which accompany the act of grace, “According to your faith be it unto you” are remarkable for the insight they give us into the relation of man’s faith and God’s gift. The faith, which in itself is nothing, is yet the organ of receiving everything. It is the conducting link between man’s emptiness and God’s fulness; and herein is all the value which it has. It is the bucket let down into the fountain of God’s grace, without which the man could never draw water of life from the wells of salvation; the purse, which not in itself making its owner rich, effectually enriches him by the treasure which it contains.[3]
“And Jesus straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it. But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country.” It is very characteristic, and rests on very deep differences, that of Romish interpreters almost all, indeed I know no exception, should rather applaud these men for not adhering strictly to Christ’s command, his earnest, almost threatening,[4] injunction of silence,—that the teachers in that Church of will-worship should see in their disobedience the irrepressible overflowings of grateful hearts, which, as such, were to be regarded not as a fault, but a merit. Some, alas! of the ancients, as Theophylact, go so far as to suppose that the men did not disobey at all in proclaiming the miracle; that Christ never intended them to observe his precept about silence, but gave it out of humility, being best pleased when it was not observed.[5] But among interpreters of the Reformed Church, whose first principle is to take God’s Word as absolute rule and law, and to worship God not with self-devised services, but after the pattern that He has shown them, all, so far as I know, stand fast to this, that obedience is better than sacrifice, though the sacrifice be intended for God’s special honour (1Sa 15:21). They see, therefore, in this publishing of the miracle, in the face of Christ’s prohibition, a blemish in the perfectness of their faith who thus disobeyed; a fault, which was still a fault, even though it might be one into which only grateful hearts could have fallen.
Footnotes
[1] Their frequent recurrence need not surprise us; for blindness throughout all the East is a far commoner calamity than with us. For this there are many causes. The dust and flying sand, pulverized and reduced to minutest particles, enters the eyes, causing inflammations which, being neglected, end frequently in total loss of sight. The sleeping in the open air, on the roofs of the houses, and the consequent exposure of the eyes to the noxious nightly dews, is another source of this malady. A modern traveller calculates that there are four thousand blind in Cairo alone; and another that you may reckon twenty such in every hundred persons. In Syria, it is true, the proportion of blind is not at all so great, yet there also the calamity is far commoner than in western lands; so that we find humane regulations concerning the blind, as concerning a class, in the Law (Lev 19:14; Deu 27:18).
[2] Calvin: Re igitur et verbis examinare voluit eorum fidem: suspensos enim tenens, imo praeteriens quasi non exaudiat, patientiae ipsorum experimentum capit, et qualem in ipsorum animis radicem egerit fides.
[3] Faith, the ὂργανον ληπτικόν, nothing in itself, yet everything because it places us in living connexion with Him in whom every good gift is stored. Thus on this passage Chemnitz (Harm. Evany. 68): Fides est instar haustri gratiæ cœlestis et salutis nostræ, quo ex inscrutabili et inexhausto divinæ misericordiæ et bonitatis fonte, ad quem aliter penetrare non possumus, haurimus et ad nos attrahimus quod nobis salutare est. Calvin (Inst. iii. 11, 7): Fides etiamsi nullius per se dignitatis sit, vel pretii, nos justificat, Christum afferendo, sicut olla pecuniis referta hominem locupletat.
[4] Ἐνεβριμήσατο αὐτοῖς. Suidas explains ἐμβριμᾶσθαι=μετὰ ἀπειλῆς ἐντέλλεσθαι‚ μετ’ αὐστηρότητος ἐπιτιμᾶν.
[5] Thus Aquinas (Summ. Theol. 2a 2ae, qu. 104, art. 4): Dominus caecis dixit ut miraculum occultarent, non quasi intendens eos per virtutem divini praecepti obligare; sed sicut Gregorius dicit 19 Moral., servis suis se sequentibus exeraplum dedit, ut ipsi quidem virtutes suas occultare desiderent, et tamen ut alii eorum exemplo proficiant, prodantur inviti. Cf. Maldonatus, in loc.