Thought from today’s Bible reading from Mark 2.
“When He had come back to Capernaum several days afterward, it was heard that He was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, not even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them. And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying” (Mark 2:1-4).
It became common for those with various ailments to be brought to Jesus to be healed of Him. At this time, four men brought a man who was a paralytic in hopes that Jesus would heal him. When the crowd prevented them from meeting the Lord, they did not allow that to deter them but went through the roof and lowered the man in his pallet down to Jesus. After seeing this, Jesus healed him.
“And Jesus, seeing their faith said to the paralytic, ‘Son, your sins are forgiven’” (Mark 2:5).
The healing that Jesus gave at first was not the healing that this man and his friends were necessarily expecting. Instead, Jesus healed him of the sickness that affects all men – sin. Some took exception to what Jesus did here in declaring forgiveness for this man.
“But some of the scribes were sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, ‘Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?’ Immediately Jesus, aware in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, ‘Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, “Your sins are forgiven”; or to say, “Get up, and pick up your pallet and walk”? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins‘—He said to the paralytic, ‘I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.’ And he got up and immediately picked up the pallet and went out in the sight of everyone, so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, ‘We have never seen anything like this’” (Mark 2:6-12).
Jesus’ point was that God can forgive sins and heal ailments. But it was important that Jesus did them in this order – declare forgiveness first and physical healing second. The scribes were correct that only God could grant forgiveness of sins to someone. Jesus granted forgiveness, thus declaring that He was God in the flesh. If He was not God in the flesh, but just a man who was committing blasphemy by making Himself out to be equal with God, then we could not expect that God would be with Him to allow the miracle to occur. Yet the man was healed miraculously, confirming what Jesus claimed – He was God in the flesh. We need to believe this today (John 8:24).
Tomorrow’s reading: John 5
[I’m using the Chronological reading plan on the Bible Gateway website if you’d like to follow along, too.]
Daily Notes & Observations contains all 365 articles from this series and is available in paperback from Gospel Armory.
