The Centurion - Authority
Matthew 8:5-13
And when He had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to Him, entreating Him, [6] and saying, "Lord, my servant is lying paralyzed at home, suffering great pain." [7] And He said to him, "I will come and heal him." [8] But the centurion answered and said, "Lord, I am not worthy for You to come under my roof, but just say the word, and my servant will be healed. [9] "For I, too, am a man under authority, with soldiers under me; and I say to this one, 'Go!' and he goes, and to another, 'Come!' and he comes, and to my slave, 'Do this!' and he does it." [10] Now when Jesus heard this, He marveled, and said to those who were following, "Truly I say to you, I have not found such great faith with anyone in Israel. [11] "And I say to you, that many shall come from east and west, and recline at the table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven; [12] but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; in that place there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth." [13] And Jesus said to the centurion, "Go your way; let it be done to you as you have believed." And the servant was healed that very hour.
Who was this man? A centurion, from Latin: centurio; and in the Greek: hekatontarchos, was a professional officer of the Roman army. In the Roman infantry, centurions commanded a centuria (century) of between 60 and 160 men, depending on force strength and whether or not the unit was part of the First Cohort. They took their title from the fact that they commanded a 100 man century, but centurions eventually changed to 80 men (80 men times 60 centuries = 4,800 men in a full-strength Imperial legion). In comparison to a modern military organization, they would be roughly equivalent to an Infantry company commander, with the army rank of Captain, with senior centurions roughly equivalent to Majors.
The Roman centurion was distinguished by his uniform: his armor was silvered, he wore his sword on his left side rather than his right, he wore greaves on his legs, and the crest of his helmet may have been turned perpendicular to the front. It is believed that he also wore his decorations and awards prominantly on his torso in battle, to show his bravery to friend and foe alike. He also carried a short staff - usually a vine stave, called Vitis - as a symbol of his authority. Centurions had the privilege of riding on horseback during marches and, if they had been given permission to marry, to live with their family while in garrison.
Centurions often suffered heavy casualties in battle, generally fighting alongside the legionaries they commanded. They usually led from the front, occupying a position at the front right of the century formation. They led and inspired their men by example. They also sought to display the skill and courage that got them to their rank in the first place. It's for these reasons that they often suffered a disproportionate number of casualties.
Centurions were also tasked with the training of the legionaries. They could often be merciless in their handling of this task, and were known for dealing out brutal punishments. While the Roman army was known for these harsh conditions, it paid off during battle when strict order and discipline could decide the outcome. This often allowed the Legions to succeed in battles where they faced a numerically superior army.
Roman military personnel were stationed at Capernaum under the command of a centurion. Recent excavations indicate that a military garrison was quartered east of the town. These mercenary troops enjoyed a complete bath installation and other excellent facilities. This would have been the residence of the centurion who built the synagogue in which Jesus taught (Matt 8:1-13; Luke 7:1-10). This garrison served Herod Antipas, the governor of Galilee, under Roman authority.
The above description may give us a clue as to why this centurion was in Judea. Though Capernaum was not as harsh a place as some other outposts were, it was certainly not a place where there was much fame or glory. It was hot in the summer months and bitter cold in the winter. Whatever the conditions, Judea, in general, was considered to be “an outter reaches outpost” of Rome. It was considered either a place of light judicial punishment (a place of attitude adjustment), a place for hardening and training (for those who have lost their fervor), a place of training and experience for a step up in promotion (if you could be successful there, you could have probably been successful anywhere), or a place of last resort (when you have basically lost favor with Rome). Aparently, Pilot fell into the last category, because there is not much heard from him after the biblical account. The Roman soldiers in The Passion, were probably well typified as they were there to shape them up.
The centurion in our account today seems to be out of the mold of the second scenario. He is presented to us as a complex man. He was compassionate; he befriended those to whom he had been sent to treat without regard to their personal needs or wishes. How could he encourage those in his command to be strong and vigilant toward the “Jewish pigs” if he wasn’t? He could have been considered treasonistic in his high regard for the Jewish religion, and especially so if he had become a believer.
It is not outside the scope of possibility that he was married to a woman who was the “product” of a racial mix, a Roman father and a Jewish mother. It could have been this conflict in his family lineage that brought about the disfavor with Rome that he finds himself in Judea. It would lend to his “sensitivity” to the Jews. There is a wide aray of things upon which we could speculate. Suffice it to say, he was not your common, run-of-the-mill centurion. Luke’s account of the encounter gives us deeper insight into who this man was.
And when they had come to Jesus, they earnestly entreated Him, saying, "He is worthy for You to grant this to him; [5] for he loves our nation, and it was he who built us our synagogue." Luke 7:4-5
The Luke passage presents another quandry. He was either rich, or he was an architect by trade, or he used the emperor’s men to build the synagoge. One of the important things to remember is that authority and faith are not necessarily mutulally exclusive. Faith is not a sign of weakness. Authority does not preclude a person from exercising faith.
Even before the cross, we see that the work of God’s redemption was not just that of the Hebrews. Jesus’s parable of the “Good Samaritan”, is another sample of that. Though it was a parable, Jesus was teaching His listeners that the Kingdom of Heaven would not just be a Jewish “neighborhood.” His calling people extends to every tongue and nation.
Authority, what is it? Power, influence, control? The word authority derives from the Latin word "auctoritas", a word which is used in Roman law as a sign of “validation” rather than the Latin word “potestas”, which implies “power through constraint”, or “coersion.” The definition revers to a “power which is recognised as legitimate and justified by both the powerful and the powerless.” And in the realm of legitimate and justified power are two different classes that might apply here. They are:
§ Traditional authority which simply derives from long-established habits and social structures. The right of hereditary monarchs to rule furnishes an obvious example.
§ Rational-legal authority depends for its legitimacy on formal rules, usually written down, and often very complex. Modern societies depend on legal-rational authority.
The centurion completely understood authority. Whether his understanding was framed by either traditional or legal authority, he recognized in Jesus an authority far and away more stronger and broader than his own authority. In his own right, he could command some one to go to a certain place and do a certain thing and it would be done. But, he had no power, control or influence when it came to healing another person. He did not have the power to free his servant from the pain he was experiencing. How demoralizing it is when a human comes to realize that he can’t control the really important things in life, like life, death, illness, etc. By some means, God had prepared his heart to live in a realm other than the physical, that reached beyond what he could see and manipulate. He stepped into the arena of faith. It was not faith in the sense of conjuring up a belief so that he believed in his ability to reach out. Rather, it was faith in who this person named Jesus was. In fact, he goes to the point of saying that he is not worthy to even have Jesus come under his roof. He sees that there is a world of difference in his authority and the authority of Jesus. To say that he believed that Jesus had all the power of the universe would not be understating the truth.
Jesus declared that of all those who lived at that time had never demonstrated the faith in Him as did this Gentile. Jesus marveled at His faith (marveling for Jesus is more of His amazement that He came to His own and His own did not recognize His authority and believe in Him.)
What we can take away from this: