Matthew 15:24

15:21-28 The dark corners of the country, the most remote, shall share Christ's influences; afterwards the ends of the earth shall see his salvation. The distress and trouble of her family brought a woman to Christ; and though it is need that drives us to Christ, yet we shall not therefore be driven from him. She did not limit Christ to any particular instance of mercy, but mercy, mercy, is what she begged for: she pleads not merit, but depends upon mercy. It is the duty of parents to pray for their children, and to be earnest in prayer for them, especially for their souls. Have you a son, a daughter, grievously vexed with a proud devil, an unclean devil, a malicious devil, led captive by him at his will? this is a case more deplorable than that of bodily possession, and you must bring them by faith and prayer to Christ, who alone is able to heal them. Many methods of Christ's providence, especially of his grace, in dealing with his people, which are dark and perplexing, may be explained by this story, which teaches that there may be love in Christ's heart while there are frowns in his face; and it encourages us, though he seems ready to slay us, yet to trust in him. Those whom Christ intends most to honour, he humbles to feel their own unworthiness. A proud, unhumbled heart would not have borne this; but she turned it into an argument to support her request. The state of this woman is an emblem of the state of a sinner, deeply conscious of the misery of his soul.

The least of Christ is precious to a believer, even the very crumbs of the Bread of life. Of all graces, faith honours Christ most; therefore of all graces Christ honours faith most. He cured her daughter. He spake, and it was done. From hence let such as seek help from the Lord, and receive no gracious answer, learn to turn even their unworthiness and discouragements into pleas for mercy.

24 . I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel ] Jesus came to save all, but His personal ministry was confined, with few exceptions, to the Jews. The thought of Israel as a flock of sheep lost on the mountains is beautifully drawn out, Ezekiel 34; “My flock was scattered upon all the face of the earth, and none did search or seek after them,” ( Matthew 15:6 .) Read the whole chapter.

Matthew 15:24 . οὐκ ἀπεστάλην : Jesus is compelled to explain Himself, and His explanation is bonâ fide , and to be taken in earnest as meaning that He considered it His duty to restrict His ministry to Israel, to be a shepherd exclusively to the lost sheep of Israel ( τὰ πρόβατα τ . ἀ ., cf. Matthew 9:36 ), as He was wont to call them with affectionate pity. There was probably a mixture of feelings in Christ’s mind at this time; an aversion to recommence just then a healing ministry at all—a craving for rest and retirement; a disinclination to be drawn into a ministry among a heathen people, which would mar the unity of His career as a prophet of God to Israel (the drama of His life to serve its purpose must respect the limits of time and place); a secret inclination to do this woman a kindness if it could in any way be made exceptional; and last but not least, a feeling that her request was really not isolated but representative = the Gentile world in her inviting Him, a fugitive from His own land, to come over and help them, an omen of the transference of the kingdom from Jewish to Pagan soil.

(24) I am not sent (better, I was not sent ) but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel. —This, then, was what had restrained Him. Those wandering sheep, without a shepherd, were the appointed objects of His care. Were He to go beyond that limit in a single case, it might be followed by a thousand, and then, becoming, as it were, before the time, the Apostle of the Gentiles, He would cease to draw to Himself the hearts of Israel as their Redeemer. We call to mind the case of the centurion’s servant ( Matthew 8:10 ), and wonder that that was not decisive as a precedent in the supplicant’s favour. The two cases stood, however, on a very different footing. The centurion who had built a synagogue was practically, if not formally, a proselyte of the gate. As the elders of the synagogue pleaded for him as worthy, the work of healing wrought for him would not alienate them or their followers. The woman belonged, on the contrary, to the most scorned and hated of all heathen races, to the Canaan on which the primeval curse was held to rest ( Genesis 9:25 ), and had as yet done nothing to show that she was in any sense a convert to the faith of Israel.

Our Lord by these words doth not deny but that he was sent as a Redeemer to more, but not as a minister, or as an apostle, as he is called, Hebrews 3:1 . The apostle, Romans 15:8 , saith, that Jesus Christ was a minister of the circumcision for the truth of God to confirm the promises made unto the fathers. Our Lord’s ministry was confined to the Jews; so was the apostles’, Matthew 10:5 . Till some time after our Saviour’s ascension the gospel was not preached generally to the Gentiles, though some particular persons might and did, both in Christ’s time and in the time of the apostles, before they did go to the Gentiles, hear, receive and embrace the gospel, as we shall hear this woman did.

Matthew 15:24 . Those words are addressed to the disciples (comp. note on Matthew 10:6 ); the answer to the woman comes afterwards in Matthew 15:26 . It is usually supposed that what Jesus had in view was merely to put her confidence in Him to the test (Ebrard, Baur, Schenkel, Weiss); whilst Chrysostom, Theophylact, Euth. Zigabenus, Luther, Glöckler, assert that His aim was to furnish her with an opportunity for displaying her faith . But the moral sense protests against this apparent cruelty of playing the part of a dissembler with the very intention of tormenting; it rather prefers to recognise in our Lord’s demeanour a sincere disposition to repel , which, however, is subsequently conquered by the woman’s unshaken trust (Chrysostom: καλὴν ἀναισχυντίαν ). Ewald appropriately observes how, on this occasion, Jesus shows His greatness in a twofold way: first, in prudently and resolutely confining Himself to the sphere of His own country; and then in no less thoughtfully overstepping this limit whenever a higher reason rendered it proper to do so, and as if to foreshadow what was going to take place a little farther on in the future. It was not intended that Christ should come to the Gentiles in the days of His flesh, but that He should do so at a subsequent period ( Matthew 28:19 ), in the person of the Spirit acting through the medium of apostolic preaching ( John 10:16 ; Ephesians 2:17 ).

But the difficulty of reconciling this with Matthew 8:5 , Matthew 11:12 , on which Hilgenfeld lays some stress, as being in favour of our present narrative, is somewhat lessened by the fact that, according to Luke 7:2 ff., the centurion was living in the heart of the people, and might be said to be already pretty much identified with Judaism; whereas we have a complete stranger in the case of the woman, before whom Jesus sees Himself called upon, in consequence of their request, Matthew 15:23 , strictly to point out to His disciples that His mission, so far as its fundamental object was concerned, was to be confined exclusively to Israel. Volkmar, indeed, makes out that the words were never spoken at all; that their teaching is of a questionable nature; and that the whole thing is an imitation of the story of Elijah and the widow of Zarephath (1 Kings 17); while Scholten, p. 213, regards it merely as a symbolical representation of the relation of the Gentile world to the kingdom of God, and which had come to be treated as a fact .

But he answered and said, I am not sent ... - This answer was made to the woman, not to the disciples. The "lost sheep of the house of Israel" were the Jews. He came first to them. He came as their expected Messiah. He came to preach the gospel himself to the Jews only. Afterward it was preached to the Gentiles, but the ministry of Jesus was confined almost entirely to the Jews.