Objection: The Greek Word Used in Matthew 8:17 for “Took” Is Lambano, Which Never Means to Remove in a Mediatorial Sense
The objector is correct that out of the MANY times the word Greek word lambano (used in Matthew 8:17 for “took”) appears, it NEVER has any connotation of a mediatorial removal anywhere else. It simply means to receive or take. It is never used elsewhere to describe Jesus’ sin-bearing on our behalf.
So I would seem hard-pressed to defend the argument that Matthew meant something mediatorial when there is no other verse in the Bible that uses lambano that way. Yet that is exactly what I am going to do!
Let’s assume for now that the objector is right, and lambano in Matthew 8:17 means what it means elsewhere. In the general sense of “taking” something, what happens? Something that is someone else’s becomes yours and is no longer the other person’s. So if Isaiah meant that Jesus “took” (in the normal sense) sicknesses in Capernaum, it would mean that the sicknesses would no longer be on the other people, but they would be on Jesus. But clearly that did NOT happen at Capernaum. He bore our sicknesses at Calvary, not Capernaum. He did indeed take away sicknesses from people, but He did not go around the Sea of Galilee sick after He did it. So clearly the normally-expected use of lambano could not apply here unless you want to maintain that Jesus took all kinds of diseases upon Himself that evening, an idea for which you would find zero support in the Bible. So the objector’s position that lambano would imply a non-mediatorial taking in Matthew 8:17 is even harder to justify than my position!
Matthew quotes Isaiah, where the meaning of Christ’s taking of our sicknesses and pains is PLAINLY mediatorial. The Bible can’t contradict itself. It could not say that Jesus did something mediatorial in Isaiah and something non-mediatorial in Matthew when the same prophecy is involved.
Because Isaiah prophesied that Jesus took OUR sicknesses, not just THEIR sicknesses, this “taking” could not have been fulfilled in Capernaum – we weren’t even born yet. Isaiah’s prophecy was unmistakably about the future punishment Jesus was to endure at the end of His ministry. (For convincing proofs of this, click here.)
How could Matthew be correct in using the word lambano, then? I think it’s actually quite clear that lambano is a good word to use in that context. Matthew describes a situation where Jesus “took” sicknesses but did not get sick Himself AT THAT TIME. He did not bear sicknesses in a mediatorial sense at Capernaum that night – He would had to have been flogged and crucified on the spot to bear them in the mediatorial sense that night. The transfer of their sicknesses was from them that night into the future when Jesus DID bear them in a mediatorial sense to redeem everyone from them. (How God could allow this is covered in the reply to a question along that line; it would be helpful for you to read that if you haven’t done so already.)
The context of Isaiah’s prophecy in the very same verse shows that the fulfillment had to be during Christ’s punishment: “Surely he hath borne our sicknesses and carried our pains, yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God and afflicted.” Did anyone at Capernaum that night consider Jesus to be stricken, smitten of God and afflicted? NO! So that prophecy could not have been “fulfilled” at Capernaum, and Matthew didn’t say that it was. He used the phrase, “That it might be fulfilled” as opposed to “Then it was fulfilled.” The context is without question Christ’s suffering for our sins!
Now for the clincher. When you consider what the word lambano means (“take” or “receive”), it clearly HAS to be mediatorial in Matthew 8:17! Suppose that you had cancer and you decided to go the doctor, and you underwent chemotherapy, radiation and surgery. After that, the doctor pronounced you cancer-free. Now suppose that you told your friends, “That doctor received my cancer! He took it from me! Now it’s his!” Wouldn’t they think that you were a little strange? The doctor does not receive illnesses from his patients when they are cured. We would agree that the treatments healed the cancer, but not that they transferred the cancer. If Matthew stopped with the statement that Jesus healed ALL who were sick, we would have no problem going along with the objector that Jesus simply healed people instead of doing something as their Substitute. However, Isaiah did NOT say, “Surely He HEALED our sicknesses and HEALED our pains.” That seems to be how the objector is reading it, but that isn’t what Isaiah actually said. Jesus did not just heal our diseases; His way of securing healing was to take and bear our sicknesses when He was punished for our sins. He BORE them in our place, and the language in Isaiah 53:4 is clear about that. He received them in His own body. That is what Peter talked about in 1 Peter 2:24 when he says that Jesus Himself bore our sins in His BODY on the tree. (Another objector claimed that Jesus was always holy and therefore He could never take sins into His body, but the verse just cited destroys that argument.)
So the use of lambano in Matthew 8:17 actually reinforces the idea that the removal of sickness was based on a substitutional bearing of them rather than simply healing them!