The raising of the dead may be regarded as the culminating point of
the series; yet there is a special value in the two that follow in
close succession before the series is complete. We have seen already
that, occurring, as they do, immediately after, they show that His
power is not at all exhausted--a token this of the exhaustlessness of
the Divine love and helpfulness. But, besides this, are they not
resurrections too--the raising again of faculties that had long been
dead? Vision is a large part of our natural life; and to lose it is to
descend, so far, into the darkness of death. And as the eye is to
impression, so is the tongue to expression. The one is the crown of
life on its receptive side, the other on its communicative side (cf.
Psalm lvii. 8; cviii. 1, 2). The eye, then, may well represent life on
the one side of it and the tongue on the other; while the two together
represent it as completely as it is possible to do. Thus these two
cases really come nearer to the idea of spiritual resurrection than
even the raising of the dead damsel. In the case of the daughter of
Jairus there was no part left alive to make its appeal to the
Lifegiver on behalf of the rest; but with the others it was different:
the blind men, for example, were able to cry for mercy (ver. 27); and
it was possible for the Saviour to say to them, as He touched their
eyes, "According to your faith be it unto you" (ver. 29), which He
could not have said to the damsel.
Had the series ended with the raising of the daughter of Jairus, it
had been made sufficiently apparent that Christ was able and willing
to raise the dead; but it had still remained unrevealed by what means
a man spiritually dead could secure for himself the resurrection of
his lost spiritual powers. Now it is clear. The death of the spirit is
parallel, not to the total death of the damsel, but to the partial
death of the blind; for though the spirit of a man be dead, his mind
remains alive, his heart too, his conscience even, and his body of
course; there remains enough of him, so to speak, to imitate the
example of these two blind men, to ask the Son of David for mercy, to
follow Him till he finds it, to allow Him first to draw out the
dormant faculty of faith, and then, having prepared him for the mighty
boon, to pour celestial light upon his soul, bestowing on him a life
so new and fresh and blessed, that it will seem to him as if it were,
and it will in point of spiritual fact really be, life from the dead.
It seems more than likely that it was because He wished to subordinate
the physical to the spiritual that He strictly charged them, saying,
"See that no man know it." If the main thing had been the restoration
of bodily sight, the more who heard of it the better. But His great
purpose was far higher,--even to put an end to spiritual blindness and
death; therefore He must limit His dealings with natural blindness to
those who were prepared to receive the lower blessing without injuring
them in their higher nature; and to make known such a case in the way
of advertisement through the country-side would have been to descend
from His lofty position as Saviour of men and Herald of the kingdom of
heaven to that of oculist for the neighbourhood. But, though we can
readily see why the Saviour should forbid the publication of the
cure, it was natural enough that the men should disobey the order.
They probably attributed His injunction to modesty, and thought they
were showing a proper appreciation of what had been done for them by
publishing it abroad. Blameworthy they certainly were; but not
inexcusable.
The other case--the cure of the dumb demoniac--comes, if possible,
still closer to the spiritual condition with which it was the work of
the Saviour especially to deal. Like the former, it was the loss of a
faculty; but, unlike it, it was not the natural loss of it, but the
eclipsing of it by the malign presence of a spirit of evil. How
closely parallel is this to the case of the spiritually dead. What is
it that has destroyed the great faculty by which God is known and
worshipped? Is it not sin? Let that demon be cast out, and not only
will the eye see, but the tongue will speak; there will be a new song
in the mouth, even praise to the Most High.
Furthermore, as the cure of the blind men brought into prominence the
power of faith, this brings into prominence the power of Christ to
save to the uttermost. For what more helpless case could there be? He
could not cry, for he was dumb. He could not follow Christ as the
blind men had done, for he had not control of himself; so he must be
brought by others. Yet for him, as well as for them, there is full
salvation, as soon as he comes into the presence of the Lord of life.
No wonder the multitudes marvelled, and said, "It was never so seen in
Israel"! and no wonder that the Pharisees, unable in any other way to
evade the force of such a succession of manifest signs of the kingdom
of heaven, should be driven to the contradictory and blasphemous
suggestion, "He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils"
(ver. 34).
The series is now complete; and, long as it has been, we could not
dispense with a single case. There has been no repetition. Each case
reported in detail has had its own special and peculiar value: the
leper, the centurion's servant, the mother-in-law of Peter, the
dealings with the impulsive scribe and the hesitating disciple, the
stilling of the storm and mastery of the unseen legions of evil, the
forgiving of sin, and welcoming of repentant sinners, the healing of
the chronic invalid by the way, the raising of the dead damsel, and
the restoring of sight to the blind and speech to the dumb,--all
different, all most precious, all needed to bring out some aspect of
the truth concerning Jesus as the Saviour of mankind, all together
giving us a most comprehensive presentation of the signs of the
kingdom of heaven. And now that the nature of His work has been so
fully set forth in its two great departments of teaching and of
healing, the rest is left unrecorded, except in the general statement
that "Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their
synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every
sickness and every disease among the people" (ver. 35).
[8] The order is different in the second and third Gospels; but here
only is the order of events noted: "And He saith unto them, Why
are ye fearful, O ye of little faith? _Then_ He arose."