Luke 17:15

“And it came to pass” is Luke’s familiar way of moving his account on to a new event. The verb is gínomai, “to become” or “to happen”, and the phrase comes back in verse 14 at the moment the lepers are cleansed. Luke then reminds us where Jesus is going. Ever since Luke 9:51, where “he stedfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem”, the Gospel has been moving toward the city where he will suffer, die and rise again. This is the road of the Servant in Isaiah, who set his face “like a flint” (Isaiah 50:7) and who suffers for the sins of others (Isaiah 53:4–6).

Luke alone records this healing. He places it after Jesus’ teaching on forgiveness, faith and service earlier in the chapter, and just before his teaching on the coming of the kingdom of God.

The route is given with care. “Passed through” is diérchomai, to go through or traverse, and “the midst” is the word mésos, “middle”, joined to the preposition diá, “through”. The phrase they form, dia mesou, can mean that Jesus went through the middle of the two regions or that he travelled between them, along the border where they met. On either reading he is in country where Jews and Samaritans both lived, and that explains how a Samaritan comes to be among the ten.

Jesus is entering a village (kṓmē, a hamlet or small town) when the ten come to meet him. The verb is apantáō, to meet or encounter. They had clearly heard of him, and they came in hope.

Luke calls them leprós, lepers. In Scripture “leprosy” (Hebrew tzara’at) is a broad term covering various severe and lasting skin conditions, Hansen’s disease among them. What mattered most was what the law said about it. A person with such a disease was declared unclean under the law of Leviticus 13. He had to wear torn clothes, cry “Unclean, unclean” to warn others, and live alone outside the camp (Leviticus 13:45–46). So a leper lost his home, his community and his place in the worship of the temple all at once.

That is why the ten “stood afar off”. The word is pórrhōthen, “from far” or “at a distance”, and it describes men keeping the distance the law required of them. Healing from leprosy was regarded as something only God could do. When Naaman was sent to the king of Israel to be cured, the king protested that such power belonged to God alone (2 Kings 5:7), and a leper’s recovery was often spoken of as on a level with raising the dead.

The number ten, déka, tells us that these men had banded together. The law kept lepers from the clean and left them free to keep company with one another, so they shared their exile. Their affliction had also done what little else could do at that time, since it joined Jews and a Samaritan in one group. The number prepares us for what follows, when ten are cleansed and one comes back.

The ten “lifted up their voices”. The verb aírō means to lift or raise, and here it is used of raising the voice. They call out together, loudly enough to carry across the distance between them and Jesus.

They address him by name, which shows that his reputation had reached them. Then they call him “Master”. The Greek word is epistátēs, one who stands over others, a commander or overseer. Luke alone among the Gospel writers uses it of Jesus, seven times in all. It differs from the usual words for “Teacher” (didaskalos) and “Lord” (kyrios) in stressing authority to give orders, and that suits men who believed Jesus could command their disease to leave.

“Have mercy” is eleéō, to show compassion by word or deed. The ten are asking for mercy that acts, the kind that would give them back their health and their place among their people. Two blind men cried to Jesus for mercy in the same way (Matthew 9:27). David cried to the LORD and was healed (Psalm 30:2), and we are told to come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy (Hebrews 4:16). The lepers show how such a prayer is made. They are honest about their need, they know who they are speaking to, and they ask.

Jesus sends them because the law of Moses required a priest to examine a healed leper and pronounce him clean, and because the command called for trust in his word.

“When he saw them” comes first. Jesus looks at the men everyone else avoided and answers their cry at once. This time he heals by his word alone, from where he stands, where earlier he had put out his hand and touched a leper (Matthew 8:2–3, Luke 5:12–13). A word from him is enough, as it was on the evening he healed all who were brought to him (Matthew 8:16).

“Shew” is epideíknymi, to show or exhibit. The law said that a leper who had recovered must be brought to the priest (Leviticus 14:2), who would inspect him and oversee the ritual of purification. The priest’s verdict was what reopened a man’s home, his village and the temple to him. By sending the ten this way Jesus honours the law, which he came to fulfil and never to destroy (Matthew 5:17). The inspection also meant that the healing would be confirmed by the proper authority, and that the priests themselves would have the evidence of his power in front of them.

The command was a test of faith as well. The ten were still lepers when Jesus spoke, and a visit to the priest was for a man already healed. They had only his word to go on, and all ten set out. Luke says the cleansing happened “as they went” (en tō hypágein), on the road, while they were doing what he had told them. “Cleansed” is katharízō, to cleanse, make clean or purify. Here it covers both the disease leaving their bodies and the ceremonial cleanness that would let them return to the life of God’s people. This is the faith that is the conviction of things still unseen (Hebrews 11:1), and it shows itself in what it does, for faith that has no works is dead (James 2:17).

One of the ten “saw that he was healed”. The verb for seeing is eídō, and “healed” is iáomai, to cure or make whole. He looks at his own skin and knows what has been done for him. Then he “turned back”, hypostréphō, the ordinary word for returning. His path to the priests could wait, because the one who had healed him was behind him on the road.

He comes back “with a loud voice”, phōnē megalē. The voice he had lifted with the others to ask for mercy he now lifts by himself to give praise. “Glorified” is doxázō, to honour, magnify or hold as glorious. His praise is public, and it names God as the source of his healing.

Then he “fell down on his face at his feet”. Píptō is the common verb “to fall”, and prósōpon is the face, so the picture is of a man stretched on the ground with his face to the earth. In Scripture this is the posture of deep reverence and worship, as when Joshua “fell on his face to the earth, and did worship”. To lie at someone’s feet is to own that person’s greatness, and this man does it before Jesus.

“Giving him thanks” is eucharistéō, to be grateful and to say so. It is the word from which the church takes the name Eucharist for the Lord’s Supper. The man glorifies God and thanks Jesus in a single act, because he has understood that the power of God reached him through Jesus. His worship at Jesus’ feet looks ahead to the day when every knee shall bow to him and every tongue confess that he is Lord (Philippians 2:9–11).

“Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” Jesus asks these questions in answer to the man lying at his feet, and he asks them to make us think, since he already knows the answer. The first affirms the miracle. All ten were cleansed, and the verb is again katharízō, the same one used in verse 14. God’s mercy was given to every one of them, whatever each did with it afterward. The numbers are the plain ones, déka for ten and ennéa for nine, and set side by side they show how rare thankfulness was that day. The second question is spoken in sorrow.

Verse 18 gives his verdict: “There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.” “Found” is heurískō, to find, and it tells us that Jesus looked for the others. “Glory” is dóxa, which comes from a word meaning “to seem, think” and is used for honour, praise and worship. It is the noun related to the verb doxázō in verse 15. Jesus describes the man’s return to him as giving glory to God, so thanking Jesus and glorifying God are one and the same act.

Scripture asks for this thankfulness everywhere. “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” opens a list of his mercies that includes healing (Psalm 103:2–5). Another psalm begins by calling us to give thanks to the LORD (Psalm 107:1) and goes on to long that men would praise him for his goodness (Psalm 107:8). James says that every good and perfect gift comes down from above (James 1:17). Paul writes, “In every thing give thanks” (1 Thessalonians 5:18), tells us to do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus while giving thanks to God the Father (Colossians 3:17), and joins thanksgiving to our requests (Philippians 4:6).

Luke holds this detail back until the man is at Jesus’ feet, and it changes how the whole scene reads. The one who came back was the one Jesus’ hearers would have expected least from. Jesus calls him “this stranger”, allogenḗs, a word built from állos, “other”, and génos, “race”, meaning foreign or of another race.

The other nine were most likely Jews, people who had the Scriptures and the temple, and the man who gave God glory came from a people they despised. Luke shows the same thing more than once. Jesus marvelled at the faith of a Roman centurion (Luke 7:1–10), and when he wanted to show what loving a neighbour means he told of a Samaritan (Luke 10:25–37). Faith and thankfulness mark out those who belong to God, and birth gives nobody a claim on him. In Christ there is neither Jew nor Greek (Galatians 3:28), and the living God is the Saviour of all men (1 Timothy 4:10). The Samaritan at Jesus’ feet is an early sight of the Gentiles coming in.

It means that this man received salvation as well as a healed body. “He said” is épō, the simple verb for speaking, and what Jesus says first is “Arise, go thy way”. The man who had lived outside the village is sent back into ordinary life, free to go wherever he likes.

“Faith” is pístis, from a verb meaning “to persuade”. It is conviction, trust and reliance, above all reliance on Christ. This man’s faith showed first when he set out for the priests on Jesus’ word, and then more fully when he came back to give thanks.

“Made thee whole” is sṓzō. The word means to save, deliver or protect, and it is also used for healing. Luke has used three different words in this passage. All ten were “cleansed”, this one saw that he was “healed”, and now he alone is told that he is “made whole”, which can equally be read “saved”. The nine trusted Jesus enough to start walking and received clean skin. The Samaritan’s faith brought him back to Jesus himself, and Jesus tells him that he has received the greater gift, a right standing with God along with his health.

Jesus says much the same to the woman who touched his garment (Luke 8:48, Mark 5:34). It fits what he says of his whole mission: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). The rest of the New Testament says plainly what is seen here in one man. We are saved by grace through faith, as God’s gift (Ephesians 2:8–9), we are justified by faith (Romans 5:1), and salvation is found in Christ alone (Acts 4:12).

Leprosy is Scripture’s clearest picture of what sin does. It defiles, and it separates a person from God’s people and from his worship. Under the old covenant a priest could only examine a leper and declare what God had already done. Jesus makes the unclean clean by his own word, and then sends them to the priests to have it confirmed.

He is the true high priest, merciful because he was made like his brethren and knows our weakness (Hebrews 2:17–18). He entered the holy place with his own blood, which purges the conscience as no sacrifice of animals could (Hebrews 9:11–14). He is the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29), and he bore our sins in his own body on the cross (1 Peter 2:24).

What the lepers received in their bodies, believers receive in full. Those who were once far off are made nigh by the blood of Christ (Ephesians 2:13). God has reconciled us to himself through the blood of the cross (Colossians 1:19–20), we are complete in Christ (Colossians 2:10) and a new creature in him (2 Corinthians 5:17), and he came so that we might have life abundantly (John 10:10).

This passage shows us a Saviour who hears a cry from far off. The ten had every reason to think themselves beyond help, and Jesus saw them and answered. However great the distance from God feels to us, we may call to him as they did.

It also shows that his blessing often meets us on the road of obedience. The lepers were cleansed as they went, with only his word in hand when they set out.

Most of all it shows what God looks for when he has given. Jesus noticed the one who came back, and he noticed the nine who stayed away. Our health, our daily bread, the people we love and above all our cleansing from sin come from his hand, and the right answer to each of them is the Samaritan’s. He turned around, said his thanks aloud, and gave himself at Jesus’ feet. That is the life the gospel leads to, one of looking to Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), and of offering ourselves to God as a living sacrifice (Romans 12:1).