Luke 7:8 - Exposition

For I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. What the soldier really thought of Jesus is evident when we read between the lines of this saying of his: "If I, who am under many a superior—the chiliarch of my thousand, the tribunes of my legion, my emperor who commands at Rome—yet receive a ready and willing obedience from my soldiers, and have but to say to one, ' Go,' and he goeth, to another, 'Come,' and he cometh; how much more thou, who hast no one above thee, no superior, when thou commandest disease, one of thy ministers, will it not at once obey?" The same thought was in Archdeacon Farrar's mind when he wrote how the centurion inferred that Jesus, who had the power of healing at a distance, had at his command thousands of the "heavenly army" ( Luke 2:13 ; Matthew 26:53 ), who would

"At his bidding speed

"And post o'er land and ocean without rest."

(Milton.)