Spitting Jesus

Before anyone gets too invested, if we really stayed on topic, all we could ever do is speculate.  Still, I'd like to hear your conjecture because I really have no idea.

In Mark 7:33, Mark 8:23 and John 9:6, Jesus heals 2 blind dudes and 1 deaf dude with his saliva.  The other miracles documented throughout the Bible are basically "with or without touch".  What's the significance to using spit for eye and ear "miracles"?  Why not touch or not touch and they could be healed?

I've found some information regarding "cultural acceptance" in the ancient world to using spit for problems like that...  but why would Jesus even go there?  Seems to me any Doubting Thomas (heh) would think it was the spit that worked, sans any miracle.

Thoughts?

It's a bit weird indeed. But well, if Jesus simply touched the man it would have been the "touch that worked". Let's not fall into the trap of thinking that bodily fluids, even Jesus's, are miraculous per se (like a certain religion of peace thought of its founder)

Personally I think that the way the Jesus healed people (especially the man in Mark 7) was at least partly decided based on what the impaired person would understand best. And of course, these persons also belonged to a certain culture. So I'd say there are personal and cultural reasons for it that are a bit difficult to put your finger on.

It's definitely an interesting topic. I think that it was for a sign to the man. Everyone is different, what works for you to get you saved might not work with me. That goes for our spiritual walk with Christ as well, we may have the same sin, (lust, greed, cussing, etc.), but the means Christ uses to get us away from those sins may different. 1 Corinthians 10:13 says: "There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man: but God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape, that ye may be able to bear it." That way of escape is different for each of us. Anyway, I like what Matthew Poole said about this verse:



Ver. 22-26. This miracle is only mentioned by Mark particularly, possibly because of two singularities in it:

1. With reference to the signs he used.

2. With reference to the gradual cure.

Our Saviour sometimes used some signs in his miraculous operations, sometimes he used none, but by the word of his power alone healed them; in the signs he used, to let the people understand there was nothing in them, he often varied; sometimes he laid his hands upon them, sometimes he took them by the hand, sometimes he used one sign, sometimes another. Here:

1. He takes the blind man by the hand.

2. He leads him out of the town, the inhabitants being not worthy to see a miracle: it was one of the cities upbraided by our Saviour for their impenitency and unbelief; Matthew 11:21.

3. He spit on his eyes: so Mark 7:33.

4. Then he twice put his hands on him.

Christ was wont to heal at once; here he healeth by degrees; so as the healing of this blind man was a true pattern of his healing spiritual blindness, which usually is done gradually, but perfected at last as this bodily cure was.



Also, Barnes' Notes On The Bible says this which I found interesting:



Spit on his eyes - Why this was done is not known. It was evidently not intended to perform the cure by any natural effect of the spittle. It was to the man a "sign," an evidence that it was the power of Jesus. The eyes were probably closed. They were perhaps "gummed" or united together by a secretion that had become hard. To apply spittle to them - to wet them - would be a "sign," a natural expression of removing the obstruction and opening them. The power was not in the spittle, but it attended the application of it.


Sorry to throw in such a long post but your question got me thinking and I just had to do some research into it! (I guess that's part of being a Christian, the whole studying of the word and all.)

Fearless For The King is also fearless with his answers.
Well done. ...and good points made.

I thank you sir!

I once heard a pastor draw a parallel between Jesus' use of "unclean" bodily fluids (remember that there are whole slew of Laws regarding bodily fluids in the OT) and the healing of Naaman in whichever Kings where the prophet (Elisha I think) told him to dip seven times in the muddy ol' Jordan River to be healed.  In both cases, they were examples of how God can heal using any means God chose, even the most unlikely ones.