Luke 7:9-10

Jesus’ comment did not slander the faith of the Jews. One would expect them to have faith since they had the prophecies about Messiah in Scripture, but the Gentiles did not have that light. The centurion believed that Jesus could heal His servant, not that He would heal him. The only two instances of Jesus "marveling" at people are here, on account of faith, and at Nazareth, because of unbelief (Mark 6:6). The centurion’s belief in Jesus’ authority was unusual, apparently because it rested on reports, and perhaps personal observation, of Jesus’ previous ministry. Jesus rewarded his faith by healing his servant.

"Here was one, who was in the state described in the first clauses of the ’Beatitudes,’ and to whom came the promise of the second clauses; because Christ is the connecting link between the two, and because He consciously was such to the Centurion, and, indeed, the only possible connecting link between them." [Note: Edersheim, 1:549.]

Jesus did not limit His healing ministry to people who believed that He was the divine Son of God. He evidently healed some people who expressed no understanding of His true identity simply because He felt compassion for them and chose to bless them (cf. John 9:11; Acts 10:38). Even the Twelve did not understand that Jesus was both God and man until God revealed that to Peter at Caesarea Philippi (Matthew 16:16). It may therefore be incorrect to conclude that this centurion became a believer in Jesus’ deity here, though He may have. He did believe that Jesus was at least a prophet of God, and probably he believed that Jesus was the Jewish Messiah. Jesus rewarded his faith because he responded as he should have to the information about Jesus that he had. That is essentially what Jesus had been teaching his disciples to do in the Sermon on the Mount. That is what Luke wanted his readers to do too. [Note: See Zane C. Hodges, "The Centurion’s Faith in Matthew and Luke," Bibliotheca Sacra 121:484 (October-December 1964):321-32.]