The miracle: V. 22. But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He, answering, said unto them, What reason ye in your hearts? V. 23. Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Else up and walk?
Jesus, in His omniscience, read their thoughts as easily as though they had spoken aloud, and answered in that sense, promptly calling them to account for their condemnation of His words.
He proposes a question to them as to what they believed to be easier, to say: Forgiven be your sins; or to say: Arise and walk.
The scribes and Pharisees naturally thought that the saying of the former would be the easier, since the fulfillment lay in the spiritual field and could therefore not be seen or controlled by men. That this miracle of mercy really happened at the word of Jesus they did not believe. The Lord therefore performed before their eyes what they considered the more difficult, for a testimony unto them, incidentally proving that His words to the sick man could not have been blasphemy.
r surely no one could forgive sins but God only. If Jesus were not God, He could not forgive sins in His own power; and His arrogating this authority to Himself would have been blasphemy against God, in the proper sense of the word. But that these scribes and Pharisees might have the fullest and most absolute proof of His divine power and Godhead, He now worked in their presence three miracles, all of which could be done only by an omniscient and omnipotent Being. These miracles were: the remission of the sick man's sins; the revelation of the secret thoughts of the scribes; the restoration of the paralytic in a moment to perfect health.
V. 24. But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (He said unto the sick of the palsy), I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go into thine house. V. 25. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God. V. 26.And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things today.
The fact that He, the Son of Man, actually possessed the power on earth to forgive sins, He demonstrated by saying to the paralytic: To thee I say, Arise, and pick up thy hammock, or couch, and go to thy house. And without delay, at once, the sick man got up before them all, took up the bed upon which he had been lying, and went to his home, full of praise toward God for the miracle of healing performed in his case. His faith and trust had been gloriously vindicated. Christ the Lord has power to forgive sins as the Son of Man. Had God not, in Christ, become man and reconciled the world to Himself, He would have the power to destroy the sinners, but not to save them, since His holiness must be preserved at all costs.
And Christ, the Head and Lord of His Church, has given the power to forgive sins to His Church on earth. This is the peculiar church power which Christ has given to His Church on earth, which His servants administer according to His command, John 20, 23. When the absolution is spoken by the minister of the church or by any Christian in comforting his neighbor, then we may gladly believe that such word of forgiveness is spoken down from heaven itself and is the merciful sentence of God upon us.
Of this fact the people had an inkling on that occasion in Capernaum. The greatest astonishment took hold of them all, even the Pharisees that hardened their hearts against Jesus feeling something of the power of God in the incident. The people in general glorified God, being filled also with reverential awe in the presence of such supernatural evidence. Their opinion was that they had seen strange things, such as appeared contrary to the common run and course of nature, wonders which human reason declares to be impossible.