The Pharisees thought that Jesus was blaspheming against God. Why? Because Jesus had told a man that his sins were forgiven.
They weren’t wrong. Who is it that can forgive sins? As the Pharisees stood there watching the scene, they knew that it was God alone who could forgive sins. Yes, those Pharisees would go to the teple to perform the sacrifices prescribed for the forgiveness of sins, but in the end, it was only God who could actually forgive sins.
There was a man who was lame, unable to walk, whose friends had gone to the trouble of carrying him up onto the roof, digging a hole through the roof, and then letting the lame man down on his mat through the hole to come to rest in front of Jesus. After all of that, Jesus responds to his man and his friends and gets himself in trouble:
When Jesus saw their faith, he said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.”
The Pharisees and the teachers of the law began thinking to themselves, “Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Luke 5:20-21
Jesus was really just “baiting the hook”, setting up the Pharisees to ask the right questions: Who is this fellow who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?
Those were exactly the questions that Jesus wanted them to be asking because he responded back to the Pharisees:
“Why are you thinking these things in your hearts? 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, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.”
Luke 5:22-24
Here is a video retelling of the story:
If we truly want to know Jesus, we have to start with the right questions. For example: Why would God come earth in the form of a man? Why was Jesus loved by the everyday people and so hated by the religious people of his time? Why do I need to have my sins forgiven, and why would Jesus act as if he has the authority to forgive sins? There are just a few questions that we might ask. There are many, many more, but we must ask them and be truly curious about the meaning of their answers if we want to know Christ and if we truly want to know God as well as his character, his nature, or if we want to understand the meaning for each of us.
It is difficult to know whether or not these Pharisees who were there that day would have believed as it seems that they came with their own presumptions, their own pre-formed conclusions about who Jesus is prior to actually learning from him. So, unlike what the Pharisees did that day, it is important that we simply listen to what Jesus is telling us. Like these religious leaders, we often come to God with our own presuppositions, our own ideas about who Jesus is and what he wants us to do, but if we listen to him so as to hear him carefully and clearly, without our own ideas and filters about who he is and what he wants to tell us, he will explain himself quite well.
In this particular case, Jesus explained to the Pharisees:
I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.
What is Jesus saying? How can we align these two facts, that only God can forgive sins, and that the Son of Man – Jesus himself – has authority to forgive sins?
It is clear what Jesus is saying. He is God who has come to earth in the form of a man, in the person of Jesus, and he has the authority to forgive sins.
Jesus calls each of us to humble ourselves, to repent from our sins, and to believe. He calls us to believe what he tells us and is showing us. He, in fact, doesn’t leave us without proof. He doesn’t call us to believe blindly. There in front of them, he told the man who was lame to stand up and walk, and he did! You cannot see that someone’s sins are forgiven, but it is easy to see that someone who could not walk, who had been brought before Jesus by a group of his friends, now suddenly can walk and has done so just at the word of Jesus. The Pharisees had the proof. If a lame man can be made to walk by just hearing a word spoken by someone, then the same person who gave that word can also declare another to be forgiven of their sins! As the Pharisees correctly pointed out, only God can forgive sins.
Thinking of us, we are called to believe. Believe that Jesus is God. Believe in the fact that he is the king in the kingdom of God. Believe in the fact that he is with us and calls us to walk with him, bringing him glory each day of our lives. Doing these things, we show our belief by walking it out, demonstrating our belief every day.
