LESSON III.--OCTOBER 16.

POWER TO FORGIVE SINS.--MATT. 9:1-8.

      GOLDEN TEXT.--The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.--MATT. 9:6.
      TIME.--A. D. 28. Probably May or June.
      PLACE.-At Capernaum.
      HELPFUL READINGS.--Matt 8:28-34; Mark 2:1-17; Luke 5:17-32.
      LESSON ANALYSIS.--1. Sins Forgiven; 2. Blasphemy; 3. Power of the Son of Man.

INTRODUCTION.

      Some place the feast of Matthew immediately after his call (Tischendorf, Stier). But Andrews and Robinson place it several weeks later, and all the events recorded in Mark 2:18-5:21 intervene between verses 14 and 15. In this interval are included the cure of the withered hand (Matt. 12:9-14), the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 5, 6, 7), many parables by the sea-shore (Matt. 13:1-52; Mark 4:1-34), the stilling of the tempest, and the healing the Gergesene demoniac (Matt. 8:28-34).

      I. SINS FORGIVEN.--1. He entered into a ship. The last chapter left the Savior in the country of the Gadarenes on the eastern side of the lake. He now returns to Capernaum. Came into his own city. Capernaum, so called because after leaving Nazareth he made Capernaum his Galilean home. He came again into Capernaum, as his headquarters or the center of his operations, to which he constantly returned from his itinerant labors throughout Galilee. [283]

      2. They brought to him a man sick of the palsy. As a demonstration of Christ's divine power, he was pleased to single out the palsy and leprosy, incurable diseases, to work a cure upon such as were afflicted with them.--Burkitt. Mark informs us that there was such a crowd that the palsied man had to be let down through the roof. Seeing their faith. The four bearers of the helpless man and the man himself. The sick man and his friends showed their faith by overcoming great obstacles in order to come to Christ for help; and this showed their confidence, both in his willingness and his ability to help. Observe the illustration of true faith,--not a strong conviction of any doctrine about Christ, but a strong trust and confidence in Christ. Observe, too, that, apparently, Christ answers the prayer before it is presented. They say nothing: he speaks to the silent prayer of their actions.--Abbott. Saith to the sick of the palsy. Palsy is a contraction of the word paralysis. A disease which deprives the part affected of sensation or the power of motion, or both, according as the sensory or the motor nerves, or both, are attacked. As the term is used in the New Testament, it imports apoplexy, or paralysis of the whole system. A fearful form of this disease is known in Eastern countries. The limbs remain immovably fixed in the position in which they were at the time of the attack, and the suffering is so exquisitely severe that death is often occasioned in a few days (Matt. 8:6).--Schaff's Bible Dictionary. Son, be of good cheer. Literally, "child," a word of tender affection. The encouragement of good cheer came before the bodily healing, because a still greater blessing had been bestowed, on account of his and their active faith. Thy sins be forgiven thee. The Revision says, "Thy sins are forgiven." The Greek is in the past tense. Possibly he had brought his sickness upon himself by means of his sins; but was now penitent, and a believer in the Messiah. He saw into the moral condition of the sick man, and knew how it came that this paralysis was really the punishment of his special sins (probably of sensuality). Accordingly he first of all promises forgiveness as being the moral condition necessary to the healing of the body; and then having by forgiveness removed the hindrance, he proceeds to impart that healing itself by an exercise of his supernatural power.--Meyer. Jesus saw that the assurance of forgiveness was what he most needed, whether because his conscience was oppressed with a sense of guilt, or that he must be brought to think more of the sin than of the suffering.--MacDonald. It would seem that the man's conscience had been quickened through his sickness.--Riddle.

      II. BLASPHEMY.--3. Certain of the scribes said within themselves. They had [284] scented heresy from afar, and had come to pry censoriously and inquisitorially into the teaching of the wonderful upstart rabbi. (See Luke 5:17.)--Morison. The scribes, or rabbis, were the heads of the nation in the widest sense; for the religion of the people was also their politics. They were the theologians, the jurists, the legislators, the politicians, and, indeed, the soul of Israel.--Geikie. They had apparently come to see how the new teacher who had so startled them at Jerusalem was carrying on his work in Galilee, and as far as they could to hinder it.--Ellicott. The Lord saw the reasonings of the scribes, just as he had seen the faith of the bearers, and the penitence of him whom they bore.--Stier. This man blasphemeth. "Blasphemy," says Sir John Mackenzie, in his Laws and Customs of Scotland in Matters Criminal (Tit. iii., ¶ 1), "is called in law, divine lese majesty or treason; and it is committed either (1) by denying that of God which belongs to him as one of his attributes, or (2) by attributing to him that which is absurd, and inconsistent with his divine nature," or, as it may be added (3), by assuming to one's self, or ascribing to others, what is an incommunicable property or prerogative of God. It is with a reference to this third form of the crime that the word is used in the passage before us.--Morison. If Christ were but a man, as they imagined, the scribes would have been right. And yet so far he had not said that he forgave the sins, but merely declared them forgiven. Christ says nothing more than the prophets frequently say when they announce the 'grace of God (Calvin). But he does now assume the power which they have denied him, and this without calling in question their principle, that only God can forgive sins.--Abbott. It was the turning-point in the life of Jesus, for the accusation of blasphemy, muttered in the hearts of the rabbis present, was the beginning of the process which ended, after a time, on Calvary, and he knew it.--Geikie.

      4. Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? The fault was not in him, but in themselves who thus presumed to sit in judgment on him.

      5. Whether is easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee. To say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," was easy, for no visible result could test the saying. To say, "Take up thy bed and walk," was not apparently so easy, for failure would cover with confusion. He said the last, leaving the inference--If I can do the most difficult, then, of course, I can do the easier. Here we have the true character of a miracle; it is the outward manifestation of the power of God, in order that we may believe in the power of God in things that are invisible.--F. W. Robertson. As much as the soul excels the body does the forgiveness of sin rise above the cure of bodily sickness. But Christ adapts his mode of speech to their capacities, who in their carnal minds felt more [285] influenced by outward signs than by the whole putting forth of his spiritual power as availing to eternal life.--Calvin.

      III. THE POWER OF THE SON OF MAN.--6. But that ye may know. By doing that which is capable of being put to the proof, I will vindicate my right and power to do that which in its very nature is incapable of being proved. By these visible tides of God's grace I will give you to know in what direction the great under-currents of his love are setting, and that both are obedient to my word.--Alford. The Son of man cannot simply mean a man, or a mere man, for this would be untrue in fact, since the powers in question do not belong to men as such; nor could any reason be assigned for this circuitous expression of so simple an idea. The true sense is determined by Daniel 7:13, where the phrase is confessedly applied to the Messiah, as a partaker of our mature, a description which itself implies a higher nature, or, in other words, that he is called the Son of man because he is the Son of God. This official application of the term accounts for the remarkable and interesting fact that it is never used of any other person in the gospel, nor of Christ by any but himself.--Alexander. Hath power on earth to forgive sins. "Authority" is a better rendering than "power," and it is so given by the Am. Revision Committee. He had "authority" from the Father who had sent him, and who had committed judgment to his hands on earth. Not merely authority while on the earth to forgive sins, nor authority to forgive sins committed on the earth, but authority to exercise the function of forgiveness of sins upon the earth; that is, that ye may know that this is the Messiah's earthly mission.--L. Abbott. Bengel finely remarks, "This saying savors of heavenly origin." The Son of man, as God manifest in man's flesh, has on man's earth that power which in its fountain and essence belongs to God in heaven.--Alford. Sins are against God, and therefore only God can forgive them; for in the nature of things only he can forgive against whom the offence has been committed. I can forgive the evil done to myself, but I cannot forgive the evil done to my neighbor. He only can forgive that. So that the reasoning of the scribes was right: "only God can forgive sins." Jesus, forgiving sin, either blasphemed or was divine. He goes on to prove that be was divine.--P. Arise. The forgiveness of Christ did not remove the palsy; that was the result of a separate, distinct act of Christ. It is quite conceivable that it might never have been removed at all, that he might have been forgiven, and the palsy suffered to remain. God might have dealt with him as he did in David's case; on his repentance there came to him the declaration of God's pardon, his person was accepted, the moral consequences were removed, but the natural consequences remained. "The Lord hath put away thy sin; [286] nevertheless the child which is born to thee shall die." Consider, too, that without a miracle they must have remained in this man's case. It is so in every-day life. If the intemperate man repents he will receive forgiveness; but will that penitence give him back the steady hand of youth?--Robertson. Take up thy bed. A light mattress. Other men brought him on the bed; he can now carry himself away, bed and all.--Whedon. Christ's argument here affords a fair test of all priestly claims to absolve from sin. If the

ROLLING UP A BED

priest has power to remit the eternal punishment of sin, he should be able, certainly, to remit the physical and temporal punishment of sin. This Christ did; this the priest does not, and cannot do.--Abbott. Any popish priest can say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, and the credulous may believe that a miracle of pardon is performed; but it is not quite so easy to perform the bodily miracle. The Papist may claim that He performs a miracle in transforming the sacramental elements into real flesh and blood, and his followers may believe him; but it always takes a sensible and material miracle, attested beyond rational doubt, to make the moral miracle credible. When a man does heal the sick and raise the dead at will, we may then begin to believe that he has authority to forgive the sins by which disease and death are produced.--Whedon.

      7. And he arose, and departed to his own house. It may be regarded as an enacted parable of sin and redemption. The paralytic typifies the sinner, by his original helplessness, (Isaiah 40:30; John 6:44; 15:5;) faith, by his earnestness to come to Christ in spite of obstacle, (Psalms 25:15; 86:2, 7;) a common Christian experience, by the delay be suffers between his repentance and faith, and his cure, (James 5:7, 8;) and the power of divine grace, in the ability to obey Christ's command, received in the very attempt to comply with it. Phil. 4:13.--Abbott. [287]

      8. The multitude . . . marvelled. Three emotions are mentioned on the part of the multitude: (1) wonder, (2) gratitude, which is the sense of Glorified God, (3) reverent fear (mentioned by Matthew).--Prof. Riddle. On all occasions of very great intensity of feeling, the spirit of man instinctively opens into the presence of the Infinite Spirit.--Morison.

PRACTICAL AND SUGGESTIVE.

      The forgiveness of sins is a universal need. There may have been but one sick man in that crowd thronging around Christ, but there were as many sinners as individuals.

      The forgiveness of sins is a more urgent need than the healing of bodily infirmity, yet we do not find that men were as eager to reach Christ for the cure of their souls as of their bodies.

      PARALYSIS.--Bodily diseases, as they were introduced by sin, so they are pictures and representations of corresponding disorders produced by the same sin in our souls, which thereby become subject to the fever of anger, the dropsy of covetousness, the leprosy of uncleanness, the lunacy of ambition, and, among other maladies, to the palsy of spiritual sloth and listlessness in things pertaining to the work of our salvation. This is the last of those called "the seven deadly sins;" and when it seizes upon a man, it takes away the use of his powers and faculties in spiritual, exactly as the palsy does in matters temporal.--Bishop Horne.

      FAITH.--Faith is not idle. It worketh and is forcible; it breaketh out like fire; it is always fruitful through love.--Bishop Jewel. Christ forgives and saves only on condition of faith and repentance; for the faith that loves and chooses God is the beginning of heavenly life in the soul. It is useless to forgive those who immediately plunge into sin again.

      MORAL PARALYSIS.--In one of our city hospitals a young woman of beautiful face and form had lain motionless for many months. Except for the brightness of her face, and the action of the hands, her body was apparently dead. Yet she spoke with great confidence of her restoration to health at some future time, and was enthusiastically planning good works then to be executed. A physician remarked that it was the saddest case he had ever witnessed. It was a paralysis, not of the flesh, but of the mind: it was a moral paralysis. The will itself had lost its power of action. She could plan for the future, but not will anything at the present moment. After a few months the inactivity bred fatal disorder, and she passed away. This is a picture of the moral paralysis of many. They mean to be Christians at some time: they do not determine to do it now.--Anon. [288]

POINTS FOR TEACHERS.

      1. Consider Christ's return, from whence, and to what place and how received. 2. Note the evidences of strong faith in the palsied man and his bearers. 3. Bring out the circumstances; Christ teaching in a house, crowds around, no way to reach him, the palsied man, helpless brought on a couch by four men, no other way and they open the flat roof and let the sick man down to Christ. 4. Observe the language of Christ, the complaint of the scribes, and the answer of Christ. 5. Consider who forgives sins, blasphemy for a man to make such a claim, why Christ had power. 6. Point out how he demonstrated his power, as no pope or priest ever does. 7. Observe that we have in this lesson an "ENACTED PARABLE OF SIN AND REDEMPTION," together with Christ's example in dealing with sinners. (1) The paralytic--a type of sinners (Mark 2:1-3). (2) He is brought to Christ (vers. 3, 4), as we must bring sinners by our labors and our prayers. (3) He comes in faith and finds forgiveness (ver. 5). (4) Forgiveness is proved and followed by healing (vers. 6-12), as renewed lives follow and prove the forgiveness of our sins. (5) Then sinners, even of the worst class, are called to be the disciples of Christ (vers. 13, 14), and may make excellent Christians. (6) Jesus Christ goes among sinners in order to save them (vers. 15-17),--an example to us.

Source: Barton Warren Johnson. The Christian International Lesson Commentary for 1887. Des Moines, IA: