The Desire of Ages
by Ellen G. White
Chapter 32: The Centurion
This chapter is based on Matt. 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-17.
Christ had said to the nobleman whose son He healed,
"Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe." John 4:48. He
was grieved that His own nation should require these outward signs of His
Messiahship. Again and again He had marveled at their unbelief. But He marveled
at the faith of the centurion who came to Him. The centurion did not question
the Saviour's power. He did not even ask Him to come in person to perform the
miracle. "Speak the word only," he said, "and my servant shall
be healed." {DA
315.1}
The centurion's servant had been stricken with palsy, and
lay at the point of death. Among the Romans the servants were slaves, bought
and sold in the market places, and treated with abuse and cruelty; but the
centurion was tenderly attached to his servant, and greatly desired his
recovery. He believed that Jesus could heal him. He had not seen the Saviour,
but the reports he heard had inspired him with faith. Notwithstanding the
formalism of the Jews, this Roman was convinced that their religion was
superior to his own. Already he had broken through the barriers of national
prejudice and hatred that separated the conquerors from the conquered people.
He had manifested respect for the service of God, and had shown kindness to the
Jews as His worshipers. In the teaching of Christ, as it had been reported to
him, he found that which met the need of the soul. All that was spiritual
within him responded to the Saviour's words. But he felt unworthy to come into
the presence of Jesus, and he appealed to the Jewish elders to make request for
the healing of his servant. They were acquainted with the [316] Great
Teacher, and would, he thought, know how to approach Him so as to win His
favor. {DA 315.2}
As Jesus entered Capernaum, He was met by a delegation of
the elders, who told Him of the centurion's desire. They urged "that he
was worthy for whom He should do this: for he loveth our nation, and he hath
built us a synagogue." {DA
316.1}
Jesus immediately set out for the officer's home; but,
pressed by the multitude, He advanced slowly. The news of His coming preceded
Him, and the centurion, in his self-distrust, sent Him the message, "Lord,
trouble not Thyself: for I am not worthy that Thou shouldest enter under my
roof." But the Saviour kept on His way, and the centurion, venturing at
last to approach Him, completed the message, saying, "Neither thought I
myself worthy to come unto Thee;" "but speak the word only, and my
servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under
me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he
cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it." As I represent the
power of Rome, and my soldiers recognize my authority as supreme, so dost Thou
represent the power of the Infinite God, and all created things obey Thy word. Thou
canst command the disease to depart, and it shall obey Thee. Thou canst summon
Thy heavenly messengers, and they shall impart healing virtue. Speak but the
word, and my servant shall be healed. {DA 316.2}
"When Jesus heard these things, He marveled at him, and
turned Him about, and said unto the people that followed Him, I say unto you, I
have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel." And to the centurion He
said, "As thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was
healed in the selfsame hour." {DA 316.3}
The Jewish elders who recommended the centurion to Christ
had [317]
shown how far they were from possessing the spirit of the gospel. They did not
recognize that our great need is our only claim on God's mercy. In their
self-righteousness they commended the centurion because of the favor he had
shown to "our nation." But the centurion said of himself, "I am
not worthy." His heart had been touched by the grace of Christ. He saw his
own unworthiness; yet he feared not to ask help. He trusted not to his own
goodness; his argument was his great need. His faith took hold upon Christ in
His true character. He did not believe in Him merely as a worker of miracles,
but as the friend and Saviour of mankind. {DA 316.4}
It is thus that every sinner may come to Christ. "Not
by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He
saved us." Titus 3:5. When Satan tells you that you are a sinner, and
cannot hope to receive blessing from God, tell him that Christ came into the
world to save sinners. We have nothing to recommend us to God; but the plea
that we may urge now and ever is our utterly helpless condition that makes His
redeeming power a necessity. Renouncing all self-dependence, we may look to the
cross of Calvary and say,—
"In my hand no price I bring;
Simply to Thy cross I cling." {DA 317.1}
The Jews had been instructed from childhood concerning the
work of the Messiah. The inspired utterances of patriarchs and prophets and the
symbolic teaching of the sacrificial service had been theirs. But they had
disregarded the light; and now they saw in Jesus nothing to be desired. But the
centurion, born in heathenism, educated in the idolatry of imperial Rome,
trained as a soldier, seemingly cut off from spiritual life by his education
and surroundings, and still further shut out by the bigotry of the Jews, and by
the contempt of his own countrymen for the people of Israel,—this man
perceived the truth to which the children of Abraham were blinded. He did not
wait to see whether the Jews themselves would receive the One who claimed to be
their Messiah. As the "light, which lighteth every man that cometh into
the world" (John 1:9) had shone upon him, he had, though afar off,
discerned the glory of the Son of God. {DA 317.2}
To Jesus this was an earnest of the work which the gospel
was to accomplish among the Gentiles. With joy He looked forward to the
gathering of souls from all nations to His kingdom. With deep sadness He
pictured to the Jews the result of their rejection of His grace: "I [318]
say unto you, That many shall come from the east and west, and shall sit down
with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven. But the children
of the kingdom shall be cast out into outer darkness: there shall be weeping
and gnashing of teeth." Alas, how many are still preparing for the same
fatal disappointment! While souls in heathen darkness accept His grace, how
many there are in Christian lands upon whom the light shines only to be
disregarded. {DA 317.3}
More than twenty miles from Capernaum, on a tableland
overlooking the wide, beautiful plain of Esdraelon, lay the village of Nain,
and thither Jesus next bent His steps. Many of His disciples and others were
with Him, and all along the way the people came, longing for His words of love
and pity, bringing their sick for His healing, and ever with the hope that He
who wielded such wondrous power would make Himself known as the King of Israel.
A multitude thronged His steps, and it was a glad, expectant company that
followed Him up the rocky path toward the gate of the mountain village. {DA 318.1}
As they draw near, a funeral train is seen coming from the
gates. With slow, sad steps it is proceeding to the place of burial. On an open
bier carried in front is the body of the dead, and about it are the mourners,
filling the air with their wailing cries. All the people of the town seem to
have gathered to show their respect for the dead and their sympathy with the
bereaved. {DA 318.2}
It was a sight to awaken sympathy. The deceased was the only
son of his mother, and she a widow. The lonely mourner was following to the
grave her sole earthly support and comfort. "When the Lord saw her, He had
compassion on her." As she moved on blindly, weeping, noting not His
presence, He came close beside her, and gently said, "Weep not."
Jesus was about to change her grief to joy, yet He could not forbear this
expression of tender sympathy. {DA 318.3}
"He came and touched the bier;" to Him even
contact with death could impart no defilement. The bearers stood still, and the
lamentations of the mourners ceased. The two companies gathered about the bier,
hoping against hope. One was present who had banished disease and vanquished
demons; was death also subject to His power? {DA 318.4}
In clear, authoritative voice the words are spoken,
"Young man, I say unto thee, Arise." That voice pierces the ears of
the dead. The young man opens his eyes. Jesus takes him by the hand, and lifts
him up. His gaze falls upon her who has been weeping beside him, and mother and
son unite in a long, clinging, joyous embrace. The multitude [319]
look on in silence, as if spellbound. "There came a fear on all."
Hushed and reverent they stood for a little time, as if in the very presence of
God. Then they "glorified God, saying, That a great prophet is risen up
among us; and, That God hath visited His people." The funeral train
returned to Nain as a triumphal procession. "And this rumor of Him went
forth throughout all Judea, and throughout all the region round about." {DA 318.5}
He who stood beside the sorrowing mother at the gate of
Nain, watches with every mourning one beside the bier. He is touched with
sympathy for our grief. His heart, that loved and pitied, is a heart of
unchangeable tenderness. His word, that called the dead to life, is no less
efficacious now than when spoken to the young man of Nain. He says, "All
power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth." Matthew 28:18. That power
is not diminished by the lapse of years, nor exhausted by the ceaseless
activity of His overflowing grace. To all who believe on Him He is still a
living Saviour. [320] {DA 319.1}
Jesus changed the mother's grief to joy when He gave back
her son; yet the youth was but called forth to this earthly life, to endure its
sorrows, its toils, and its perils, and to pass again under the power of death.
But Jesus comforts our sorrow for the dead with a message of infinite hope:
"I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore,
. . . and have the keys of hell and of death." "Forasmuch
then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise
took part of the same; that through death He might destroy him that had the
power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who through fear of death
were all their lifetime subject to bondage." Revelation 1:18; Hebrews
2:14, 15. {DA 320.1}
Satan cannot hold the dead in his grasp when the Son of God
bids them live. He cannot hold in spiritual death one soul who in faith
receives Christ's word of power. God is saying to all who are dead in sin,
"Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead." Ephesians 5:14.
That word is eternal life. As the word of God which bade the first man live,
still gives us life; as Christ's word, "Young man, I say unto thee,
Arise," gave life to the youth of Nain, so that word, "Arise from the
dead," is life to the soul that receives it. God "hath delivered us
from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear
Son." Colossians 1:13. It is all offered us in His word. If we receive the
word, we have the deliverance. {DA 320.2}
And "if the Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the
dead dwell in you, He that raised up Christ from the dead shall also quicken
your mortal bodies by His Spirit that dwelleth in you." "For the Lord
Himself shall descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the
Archangel, and with the trump of God: and the dead in Christ shall rise first:
then we which are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the
clouds, to meet the Lord in the air: and so shall we ever be with the
Lord." Romans 8:11; 1 Thessalonians 4:16, 17. This is the word of comfort
wherewith He bids us comfort one another. {DA 320.3}
Click here to read the next chapter:
"Who Are My Brethren?"
|
