Matthew 9:1-8
Jesus Forgives a Paralyzed Man
1 Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town.2 Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”
3 At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!”
4 Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? 5 Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? 6 But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” 7 Then the man got up and went home. 8 When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.
Among the many strange-divine things that Jesus did, one was that He often forgave people...This forgiving of sins is really most shocking...And He forgave people quickly and right out of the blue...And His forgiveness was focused on their sins...He would just calmly say, I forgive you of your sins...He did this very thing one day, when He just exited a boat...Some men one day as He left a boat were with a paralyzed man, who was lying on a mat...When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralyzed man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.”...Jesus knowing the importance of being right with God and the importance of repenting and being forgiven of sins, just quickly, commonly, and quite frankly forgave the paralyzed man of his sins...And most people who read the Bible read fight through these words and believe Him (or at least I do)...Jesus has this right and God's authority to forgive others...It is a natural thing for Him to do and we maybe just assume He has this right...If not, why do we quickly read and believe that He can forgive people of sins...
Forgiveness is this very deep subject, especially when we talk about the forgiveness of sins...And forgiveness is a very difficult thing to do...To forgive one or ones who have harmed you or the ones you love...I find that in my own personal experiences I must think through (and in detail for me to be able to forgive)...This forgiveness for me is more of a process...But Jesus does not have this problem...He has the ability to forgive immediately...
One of the favorite things written about forgiveness of sins are in the book, Mere Christianity...I like to re-read is this passage by C. S. Lewis...Lewis wrote this in Mere Christianity, "Among these Jews there suddenly turns up a Man who goes about talking as if He was God...He claims to forgive sins...He says He has always existed...He says He is coming to judge the world at the end of time...Now let us get this clear...Among Pantheists, like the Indians, anyone might say that he was a part of God, or one with God: there would be nothing very odd about it...But this Man, since He was a Jew, could not mean that kind of God...God, in their language, meant the Being outside the world, who had made it and was infinitely different from anything else...And when you have grasped that, you will see that what this Man said was, quite simply, the most shocking thing that has ever been uttered by human lips...One part of the claim tends to slip past us unnoticed because we have heard it so often that we no longer see what it amounts to...I mean the claim to forgive sins: any sins...Now unless the speaker is God, this is really so preposterous as to be comic...We can all understand how a man forgives offences against himself...You tread on my toes and I forgive you, you steal my money and I forgive you...But what should we make of a man, himself unrobbed and untrodden on, who announced that He forgave you for treading on other men’s toes and stealing other men’s money?..Asinine fatuity is the kindest description we should give of his conduct...Yet this is what Jesus did...He told people that their sins were forgiven, and never waited to consult all the other people whom their sins had undoubtedly injured...He unhesitatingly behaved as if He was the party chiefly concerned, the person chiefly offended in all offences...This makes sense only if He really was the God whose laws are broken and whose LOVE is wounded in every sin...In the mouth of any speaker who is not God, these words would imply what I can only regard as a silliness and conceit unrivalled by any other character in history...Yet (and this is the strange, significant thing) even His enemies, when they read the Gospels, do not usually get the impression of silliness and conceit...Still less do unprejudiced readers...Christ says that He is “humble and meek” and we believe Him; not noticing that, if He were merely a man, humility and meekness are the very last characteristics we could attribute to some of His sayings...I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: “I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great Moral Teacher, but I don’t accept His claim to be God.” That is the one thing we must not say...A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher...He would either be a lunatic—on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg—or else he would be the Devil of Hell...You must make your choice...Either this Man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a Madman or something worse...You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God...But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great Human Teacher...He has not left that open to us...He did not intend to."...
Jesus is a Great Healer, a Great Teacher, and One who can forgive us of our sins...When Jesus knew the thoughts of the teachers of the law, He said this to them, "Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?...But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins."...So He said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.”...Then the now healed man got up and went home...When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man...By Jesus healing this paralyzed man, only after He has forgiven him of his sins, we see that He has the authority to forgive us of our sins...This miracle healing shows us authority...And by Jesus forgiven the paralyzed man first of his sins, and then second healing him -we see the need of forgiveness more than we need the physical healing...
And as Lewis writes what can we make of a Man who does think He can forgive any stranger of their sins...Forgiving those we have never met of their sins makes sense only if He really is the God whose moral laws are broken and whose LOVE is wounded in every sin that we do...In the mouth of any other speaker who is not God, these words would imply what we can only regard as a silliness and conceit that is unrivalled by any other man in the history of the world...But that silliness or conceit does not come through anywhere in the four gospels, or the whole New Testament Book...Let us praise God, as many actually did that day, that He has given this authority to His Son...