Matthew 8:8,9 - Coke's Commentary on the Holy Bible

Lord, I am not worthy, &c.— The centurion with great humility answers our Lord, that he means he should not take the trouble of going to his house, as he was a Gentile; but only that he would be so good as to command his servant's cure, though at a distance; for he knew his power equal to that effect; diseases and even devils of all kinds being as much subject to Christ's commands, as his soldiers were to him. He knew that he himself was only an inferior officer; for the Roman centurions were subject to the command of their respective tribunes, as our captains are to that of their colonels. "I am only an inferior officer," says he, "and yet, what I command is done even in my absence; how much more what thou commandest, who art Lord of all!" Some of the heathens formed very grand ideas of the divine power: thus Cicero says, Nihil est quad Deus efficere non posset, et quidem sine labore ullo. Ut enim hominum membra nulla contentione mente ipsa ac voluntate moveantur, sic numine Deorum omnia regi, moveri, mutarique possent. See Nat. Deor. lib. 3. "There is nothing which God cannot effect, and that without any labour; for as the members ofmen are moved without any difficulty by the mere act of their will, so can the Deity direct and govern all things." But the excellency and the peculiarity of the centurion's faith consisted in his applying this sublime idea to Jesus, who by outward appearance was only a Man. His faith seems to have taken rise, as was above hinted, from the miraculous cure performed some time before on a nobleman's son at Capernaum; for as the centurion dwelt there, he might know that at the time of the cure Jesus was not in Capernaum, but at Cana, at the distance of a day's journey from the sick, when he performed it; but this faith could have been only speculative and inefficacious, if the centurion had not already yielded to and experienced a measure of the power of divine grace.