HG046 Mark 2:1-12, Matthew 9:1-8, Luke 5:17-26
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And again He entered Capernaum after some days, and it was heard that He was in the house. Immediately many gathered together, so that there was no longer room to receive them, not even near the door. And He preached the word to them. Then they came to Him, bringing a paralytic who was carried by four men. And when they could not come near Him because of the crowd, they uncovered the roof where He was. So when they had broken through, they let down the bed on which the paralytic was lying.
When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
And some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this Man speak blasphemies like this? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit that they reasoned thus within themselves, He said to them, “Why do you reason about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise, take up your bed and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the paralytic, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went out in the presence of them all, so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city. Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.”
And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, “This Man blasphemes!”
But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” And he arose and departed to his house.
Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.
Now it happened on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come out of every town of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. And the power of the Lord was present to heal them. Then behold, men brought on a bed a man who was paralyzed, whom they sought to bring in and lay before Him. And when they could not find how they might bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the housetop and let him down with his bed through the tiling into the midst before Jesus.
When He saw their faith, He said to him, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”
And the scribes and the Pharisees began to reason, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He answered and said to them, “Why are you reasoning in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise up and walk’? But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.”
Immediately he rose up before them, took up what he had been lying on, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God and were filled with fear, saying, “We have seen strange things today!”
Last week we found that Jesus went to the desert to be alone and pray but because of the disobedience of the leprous man who was healed Jesus had go out to the desert for people to come to Him - the desert was no longer a place to meet with God but with people. Today we find that Jesus returns to His home base of Capernaum and no sooner has He arrived that people start to crowd the house both inside and outside. It makes me wonder just how big this house is! Remember that this house is not owned by Jesus but by Andrew and Peter.
Now in this crowd are not only fans of Jesus but critics too. They are all curious about this man from Galilee in their midst. Most, I would hazard a guess, were there because they really wanted to see Him as well for Him to perform a miracle. I wonder if they felt their hopes were being dashed when Jesus, we are told. was teaching them instead. People no doubt had come for healing but they were hearing a message instead. We know that the content of His Word would have been to “repent and believe for the kingdom of God is near”. There would have been much more substance to what He was saying, the kind of thing we will discover in the Sermon on the Mount, which we will start to look at, God willing, next month.
I am sure there were many who needed healing that particular day but because of the size of the crowd they could not get near. Then there were these five men who turned up because they had heard that Jesus was there and that He had the ability to heal. One of the men was on a bed and paralysed and four of the men were carrying him. As soon as they saw the crowd they knew that there was no way of getting in through the door, let alone actually finding it!
We’ve all been to visit places on the tourist trail and come across queues where the entrance was not even visible. Hopefully there would be some sign saying how long the wait is going to be though oftentimes there’s not. And isn’t it annoying when people jump the queue? It makes my blood boil. It’s bad enough that they will make me wait longer but also all those who are behind me. My sense of justice rises and often, as Irena will attest to, I cannot help myself saying something to them. It is a very British thing to queue. You know which countries Britain had some influence over in the past for they would still have some semblance of queuing! But where we have had no influence people know they should queue but it is a free for all.
In Macedonia they do not queue in traffic at the traffic lights for someone from the back of the queue will drive around and edge in front of you at the white line. Maddening! And when one does it suddenly there are five cars in front of you where you think that there was not even space for five cars…
A friend of Irena’s from Macedonia was here and Irena said to her, in giving directions at the airport, “follow the queue”. Well in the airport she looked for this queue high and low and did not find it - the queue she was looking for was the letter ‘Q’! Queues do not exist in Macedonia! The whole concept of queuing is foreign to them! Patience is learned the hard way here or not at all! And this is not something I find easy to deal with!
Well, the point of all this was; here were some queue jumpers. “Wait. No. we’re not going to wait! The queue to the door is massive and who knows whether we’d get in before Jesus leaves. I know! Let’s go up the roof and see if there is a way in that way!”
Well, getting to the roof of this Galilean house was no easy task - there were no steps, no ladder so it required some adept climbing - no wonder no one was trying to do this! When they go to the roof, which like all houses in that area was flat, they found no way in but did that stop them! No! They removed the tiles and then dug through the rest of the building material of clay, straw and mud to break through it completely and make a gaping hole. Goodness knows how much noise they were making whilst they were doing all this.
Did I say that this house did not belong to Jesus but to Peter and Andrew? Yes! Well, this house did not belong to these five men either. Is anything made of this? Did anyone say anything? You know, something like, ‘What do you think you are doing!’ or ‘You’ll pay for the damage!’ Curiously nothing is said at all. At least not what we are told. I don’t know that I could have stopped myself and so it is even more surprising for someone as impetuous as Peter to keep quiet. Peter could of asked Andrew ‘did we order a sun lounge for the front room?’ But perhaps Jesus shook His head and gave some eye contact to Peter to keep schtum.
This was very bold of these men as well as very desperate and compassionate for their friend.
What would we do for our friends? Would we go to these kind of lengths?
A man who has friends must himself be friendly,
But there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother.
What kind of friend are we to those whom we call friends? We have an example of really good friendship in this passage - I am not suggesting we should cause criminal damage but to what lengths do we show our loyalty? These friends really showed themselves to be friends for nothing was going to stop them from helping him.
From the roof they let him down in front of Jesus.
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What did the friends want Jesus to do? Heal their friend, right? Yes. So, it was a bit of surprise after all the hard work they had put in, to place the man in front of Jesus that He said: “Your sins are forgiven you”. This was the reward of trusting Jesus to heal their friend. I don’t know about you but I think I might have been aggrieved. Jesus saw their faith so it had not gone unnoticed, as if that was possible to do. But, they thought, we brought him here to be healed.
Jesus knew better. The one thing that someone needs above all other things is to be forgiven; to have peace in one’s own heart. Is Jesus saying he is sick because of sin? No. Many commentators think this but surely if that was the case as soon as he was forgiven he would have got up. The sickness of his heart and soul needed to be dealt with first for it is more important than physical healing and this is true of every person on the planet. Jesus dealt with the spiritual condition of the man first for, after all, with physical healing you still have to die one day. Healing does not mean that you will live forever. Spiritual healing, though, is forever; there is no end, no further death. The man may not have realised his need necessarily, as most don’t today, but as soon as we realise that it is God we offend with our sinning above all then our need to be cleansed rises to the top of things to be sorted - and it needs to be on everyone’s bucket list.
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
Were the scribes right when they thought that only God who can forgive? They were definitely right. And this is what we find in Scripture:
But then it is only God who can forgive.
I acknowledged my sin to You,
And my iniquity I have not hidden.
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
And You forgave the iniquity of my sin.
Selah
“I, even I, am He who blots out your transgressions for My own sake;
And I will not remember your sins.
Isa 43
Fantastic promises give by God to His people. But who is this man Jesus to forgive?
It was understandable that the Scribes thought that this was blasphemy for who was Jesus to forgive anyone? There can only be one of two answers: Either Jesus is self-deceived and thinks He is God or Jesus really IS God! It may not have been immediately obvious to those who were there but here Jesus is revealing who He is. The divinity of Jesus is constantly under debate but as a Christian it is heretical to suggest that Jesus was not both fully man and fully God at the same time. This passage is one of the key ones among so many others to show that Jesus is God. He forgave sins. Who can forgive someone else’s sins? Only God. Therefore Jesus is God. Can we forgive sins committed against someone else? We cannot forgive crimes that were not committed against us. A judge cannot say, I forgive you for burgling my neighbour’s house. I think the neighbour would have something to say about that! He is blaspheming his neighbour’s name. But I can forgive someone who burgles my own house. The Scribes understood this well: they knew Jesus was claiming to be God by forgiving sins for He is saying that you are sinning and offending me when you sin. And that is also true today: when we sin we sin against Jesus because He is God.
So, he posed a question for them to think about: who can heal this man? Again the only answer can surely be: only God can.
No one can heal another person other than a doctor and there are things that doctors cannot do. They cannot heal someone who is paralysed, well not yet that can’t, but they will never be able to do so immediately with words alone. So, it begs the questions: who is able to heal a paralysed man? No one can except God; except Jesus. So that makes Jesus what? God. Only God could possibly heal a paralysed man and in today’s passage that is exactly what happened.
The proof I, Jesus, am able to forgive sins committed against God is in the fact I am able to heal this man. Get up and walk he said to the man. And before them all he got up whole, wholly forgiven and wholly healed. Whereas he was let down through the roof by his friends because they could not get in the door he got up and walked out of the door and through the crowds.
Well, I bet on your life that we would have been equally shocked and awed. They were amazed and glorified God. This is the result of miracles that are genuine. God gets the glory. So many miracles I have heard of that glorify the one who did the healing and that makes me think that these are not real but stories given to garner material support for their so-called ministries. Fake news; definitely fake miracles. Miracles done in the name of Jesus bring glory to God.
Forgiveness and healing do go together:
Who forgives all your iniquities,
Who heals all your diseases,
In Luke’s gospel in his account it says that they glorified God who had given such power to men. I think they missed the point. They glorified God but still they were blinded to who Jesus is: God Himself in the flesh.
The clue was in the Jesus saying He is the Son of Man which pointed to the Old Testament prophecies of the Messiah. We find one of these prophecies in:
“I was watching in the night visions,
And behold, One like the Son of Man,
Coming with the clouds of heaven!
He came to the Ancient of Days,
And they brought Him near before Him.
Then to Him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom,
That all peoples, nations, and languages should serve Him.
His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
Which shall not pass away,
And His kingdom the one
Which shall not be destroyed.
Only God comes on the clouds and therefore the Son of Man must also be God who is none other than Jesus.
The friends and the paralytic did not ask for forgiveness but for healing however Jesus gave them the best news first and then healed his physical body.
The Scribes who had front row seats to what had happened knew the Scriptures better than anybody - we are not told whether they received or rejected Jesus though we suspect the latter for at Jesus’ first so-called trials the first charge laid against Him was blasphemy.
Miracles can open hearts that is for sure but it can also harden them. Plainly Jesus was saying He is God through forgiving and healing but most, even when shown, refuse to repent and believe.
Plainly Jesus was saying He is God through forgiving and healing and showed them before their very eyes but most, even when shown, refuse to repent and believe.
We can only pray for such miracles to happen here that break open people’s hearts. The spiritual health of people, however, is what we should be most concerned about, for this goes beyond our mortal lives. And that is what we take away today: forgiveness is Manselton’s number one need.
This was not just available to the paralysed man but to all who were present including the Scribes who had front row seats here and would have known the Scriptures better than anybody - we are not told that they received or rejected Jesus afterwards but blasphemy was the first charge laid against Jesus at His many trials.
Let’s pray.
Benediction
Benediction
Now to Him who is able to keep you from stumbling,
And to present you faultless
Before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy,
To God our Savior,
Who alone is wise,
Be glory and majesty,
Dominion and power,
Both now and forever.
Amen.
Bibliography
Bibliography
Barry, J. D., Mangum, D., Brown, D. R., Heiser, M. S., Custis, M., Ritzema, E., … Bomar, D. (2012, 2016). Faithlife Study Bible. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Beitzel, B. J., & Lyle, K. A. (Eds.). (2016). Lexham Geographic Commentary on the Gospels. Bellingham, WA: Lexham Press.
Elwell, W. A. (1995). Evangelical Commentary on the Bible (Vol. 3). Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House.
Wiersbe, W. W. (1996). The Bible exposition commentary. Wheaton, IL: Victor Books.
Exported from Logos Bible Software, 08:47 08 October 2017.