Jesus’ power over sin
Published by Stanley Pouw in 2012 · 8 July 2012
We come this evening to Matthew 9:1-8: You'll notice there's a phrase at the end of verse 2, that I would just draw to your attention as a beginning point. The Lord speaks and says, "Your sins are forgiven you." The theme of this particular record is Jesus' power over sin.
The most distinctive thing that Christianity has to proclaim is the reality that sin can be forgiven. That is the heart and the very lifeblood of the Christian message and that is exactly the message of this miracle tonight.
Now Matthew has been focusing on various miracles of our Lord not just to prove that He is God, it is that He gives us specific miracles designed to attach to very specific Messianic kingdom prophecies so that Israel will know that He is the one to fulfill the role of Messiah and introduce into the world the kingdom of God.
Now there is climatic kind of arrangement on Matthew's part also. We've already gone through the five of the nine miracles that are in these two chapters. And now He goes even beyond that in ascending of the drama of the miracles and He shows that He has power over the root of all man's misery, which is sin. He deals with human guilt and the evil that separates man from his maker.
He can bring to the human soul the thing that it needs the most, the forgiveness of sin. This is another mark of the authority of Jesus Christ. I would call it His redemptive authority; He has the authority to forgive sin. And so there's an ascending reality to the power of Christ and we see even in the future of Chapter 9 when we see His authority over death itself.
Now that is essential because the Old Testament prophesies that when Messiah comes He will set up a kingdom and He will overpower the curse in the physical world. For example, in Isaiah 30, it talks about how there will be an abundance of rain and crops will flourish in ways never known since before the Fall. In Isaiah 35, it talks about the desert blossoming like a rose.
Those animals, which have been natural enemies will no longer be natural enemies. The earth will flourish. Life will lengthen in a physical sense. And then the Old Testament tells us also that the kingdom will be marked by forgiveness. And here we find that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to forgive sin, thus is fit not only to be God, but to be the Messiah to establish the kingdom of God on earth forever.
Well with that in mind let's look at the third miracle in Matthew 9. It begins in verse 1, “So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.” Now you might think that Nazareth was His city, and it was at one time, but in Matthew 4:13 it says, "And leaving Nazareth He came and dwelt in Capernaum. He was a prophet without honor in His own country. It is also very likely that He had taken up residence in the house of Peter and so He has a temporary place in Capernaum. And as he comes back to Peter's house another monstrous crowd is following him.
Now we fill in some of the details as we put Mark 2 and Luke 5:17-26 together with this so we can see the whole picture. He went into the house and probably went upstairs. It was common to build a two story house and on the second floor was typically a large room where social gatherings occurred.
And every home had an outside staircase going up the side to the roof. Well, on this occasion the Lord is in the house and people are literally jammed in that house. And then all of a sudden a marvelous thing takes place and that's what we see beginning in verse 2.
Now I want to give you six key words that unlock the meaning of this passage. Word number one is faith. Verse 2, “Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer.”
First of all notice they brought to Him a man. Who is they? In Mark and Luke and we find out that “they” refers to four friends or four relatives who cared about this man. They have all heard that Jesus is in town and they desire their friend who was paralyzed to come to Jesus. It may well have been that he was quadriplegic.
At least we know that he was flat on his back unable to move himself or even to assist those who moved him so that it took four men to carry him. It's possible that he was lying on a padded quilt on a slight wood frame that had ropes to suspend that little pallet.
Now in those times it was doubly difficult to be paralyzed. There was no one to assist; there was no medical knowledge and no one to care for his basic necessities of life. But there must have been something else in this man's heart and that is the sense that he was sick because he was sinful.
That was the common feeling of the time, that his disease and his illness was the result of his sin. You remember there was a blind man and his disciples asked Jesus, "Master, who did sin, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" Now the disciples were right in the sense that all sickness is linked to sin, because if there was no sin there would be no sickness.
But they were wrong and they were reflecting the feeling of the day that you're sick because you're sinful. You go all the way back to the book of Job, and that is exactly what Job's friends told him, “you've got problems because you're sinful, and there is a direct connection here.”
And so the man not only suffered from the disease, but in his situation he was also a walking illustration of his own personal sin in the eyes of everybody else. But this man wanted to come to Jesus, and the real reason he wanted to come was because of his sin, not his sickness. And that's why Jesus said to him, "Son don’t be afraid, your sins are forgiven," because Jesus knew that the despair of his life was not that he was physically ill, but that he was sinful.
Now sickness may not always be related to sin. In other words, you may be ill because God has other purposes, not necessarily because you've sinned, maybe you don’t pay attention to Him at all. Not all sickness is a chastening, but all sickness is a graphic demonstration of the destructive power that's at work in the world because of sin, right?
It says, "And Jesus seeing their faith," well what do you mean? How do you know they had faith? Well, the men must have believed that Jesus could do something even though He perhaps had brought them to help Him prove His power over sin, and they must have believed that Jesus could heal him physically because Jesus saw that in their hearts.
Now let us see what they did. They came to the house, according to the Mark and Luke account, they couldn't get in. And it would have been tough to crawl around and try to work your way through the crowd when you are four guys carrying a bed, and so they decided there was only one way to get in and so they climbed that external staircase, went up on the rooftop and tile by tile they began to tear the roof apart.
Now they must have the right place on the roof to do that because when they got done they dropped him straight down at Jesus' feet. Can you imagine everybody inside having a discussion and all of a sudden tiles start disappearing from the ceiling. This is truly persistent faith.
And right at the feet of Jesus he's lying there and he probably couldn’t talk either because he never says a word. Nothing is said, he just puts himself at the feet of Jesus and I'm sure he was filled with fear. He knew Jesus was a healer of diseased bodies and he must have hoped He was also a healer of hearts full of sin.
He exposed his sinfulness; he exposed his infirmity to the whole crowd for the sake of being at the feet of Jesus. That's true humility. That's a seeking heart and it says Jesus seeing their faith, all five of them, that was not an ordinary faith. It was a strong faith and a persistent faith and Jesus saw it.
Now there were times when Jesus healed people with no faith and there were times when He healed people with little faith, but He was especially disposed to healing people with great faith. In fact, in Matthew 9:18 it says, "And he spoke these things, a ruler worshipped him and said, 'My daughter is even now dead, but come and lay your hand on her and she'll live.'" That is great faith and Jesus did it.
No one even speaks until the Lord speaks and He said this to the one who was paralyzed, "So, take courage." Here is a man who is overwrought with his sin, but he believes that this Man has the power of God, and he is taking a chance but he is afraid. That is why the Lord says to him, "Don't be afraid. Take courage." It simply means there's nothing to fear.
Now think for a moment about the statement Jesus makes, "Be of good cheer, or take courage." A Greek verb is tarseo, which refers to a courage that is subjective. Compare this with tolmao, which is another verb that is translated take courage but this kind of courage is objective. Tolmao is saying “hang in there.” Tarseo says there's nothing to fear and that's the word the Lord uses.
There was nothing to fear when this man came because he had a broken and a contrite heart. The Lord doesn't forgive the sins of people who don't. His heart was right. It is the one who feels guilty over his sin who has nothing to fear. He was overcome with fear and the Lord says to him, "Don’t worry."
He responded to his true faith, and that led to a second word, forgiveness. At the end of the verse 2 it says, “your sins are forgiven you.” That is a divine miracle that ranks with any other miracle, instantaneous forgiveness of sins. Remember now the man had never said a word. How did the Lord know that's what he wanted?
Because the Lord knows the heart of everyone! All through this whole incident He read the heart of the man who was sick, He read the hearts of those scribes. He knows the requests before it's ever asked; the giver of all good things gives before we even articulate it. And so He says, "Your sins are forgiven," before the man can even speak, if he could even speak.
Brothers, this is the remission of sins that the Bible talks about, this is salvation. This is forgiveness, full and complete, and sins are sent away. When the Lord sends our sins away He sends them as far as the east is from the west and the Bible says He remembers them no more.
You see that's our deepest need. When Jesus said, "You're sins are removed," he met that man's need in the deepest and most profound way. And that's the message of Christianity. People say, "Oh you shouldn't bring up sin, it's negative thinking." But this is the essence of Christianity.
The best news you could ever give anyone is that God can forgive sin and does forgive. And this man is living proof. And when Jesus said, "Your sins are forgiven you," Jesus knew that the only way He could forgive the man's sin was to bear the man's sin. And so He tasted the bitterness and the agony of the cross all through His life. Every time He forgave sin He knew full well He would bear the punishment that He had removed from that soul.
The third word is fury. Verse 3, “And at once some of the scribes said within them selves, “This Man blasphemes!” Luke tells us that the Pharisees from Jerusalem were there also, "thinking to themselves," and Mark says they said afterwards, “who can forgive sins but God only. This man blasphemes."
The first man, the paralyzed man wanted forgiveness. But all these other men only concluded that He was a blasphemer. What's the difference? Didn't they want forgiveness? No. Because they never really admitted they had a need and they wouldn't acknowledge it.
They're not willing to accept forgiveness. And instead of saying, "Wow, He can forgive sin, oh the pressure of the guilt of my own heart, oh to know that forgiveness,” no not them. They say, "Only God can forgive sin. You see, to them the ultimate blasphemy would be to say you're God.
You know they're right about the first half; only God can forgive sin. They were right about that. But they were wrong about Christ because He was God. Notice verse 3: "They said within themselves," Mark says, "They thought it in their hearts." They didn't even speak but Jesus read their thoughts.
This is another mark of the omniscience of Christ. He knew what was in the heart of the sick man and in the mind and thinking of these others as well. When they said this man blasphemes this just started the hatred that ultimately led them to crucify Christ. And it culminated in verse 34, "The Pharisee said, 'He casts out demons through the prince of demons.'" He's satanic. Now their fury really begins to mount.
What a contrast. On the one hand the faith and the forgiveness; on the other hand the fury and Christ in the middle. And that's always the way. Christ comes with a message of love and grace and forgiveness and there are those who know it and receive it and rejoice in it and there are those who hate it and despise it and become infuriated by it.
Fourth word, argument. Jesus defends His action because it's an important truth. Matthew 9: 4 says, “But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?” Jesus knowing their thoughts, did you get that? People say, "Well Jesus isn't God." Well then I don't know how He knew their thoughts.
1 Samuel 16:7, says, “The Lord looks on the heart.” 1 Kings 8:39, says, "For You know the hearts of all men.” 1 Chronicles 28: 9, "for the LORD searches all hearts and understands all the intent of the thoughts.” And Ezekiel 11:5 says, "for I know the things that come into your mind.”
Jesus knew what they were thinking and He says, "Why are you thinking evil in your hearts." "Why do you want me dead?" And here He really reveals their intent. Watch verse 5. "For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk’? Well they're stuck. Notice they don't give any answer because neither is easier. Both are impossible to men, both are only possible to God.
Jesus can do either one with the same divine ease. For God nothing is impossible. Only God can heal and God can also forgive. So the Lord is saying, "Look, I can do them both, I'm not a blasphemer, I'm God." If Jesus puts away sickness, disease, and demons, disasters and death, He can certainly deal with sin.
So now look at Matthew 9: 6, "But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth." Why do they need to know that? Because earth is where the kingdom is going to eventually be.
“But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins”—then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” Why? Because if all he said was your sins are forgiven they wouldn’t know that He did it. But when He says rise up and walk and the guy has the power to do that, the only thing they can conclude then is that He must have forgiven his sins because the two in their mind are linked together.
It's the same as when he cast the demons out of the maniacs at Gadara He sent them into the pigs. Why? Because if He just said, "Demons leave," nobody would have known whether they left or where they went. But when they saw two thousand pigs take a dive off a cliff and drown in the sea they knew exactly that the demons had entered those pigs, which proved the point that He had cleansed those two men.
And so here is the same thing. Any pretender can come along and say, "Your sin is forgiven," in fact through the centuries many have tried to say that. Jesus wants to make sure that they're not just thinking He's saying it, so He proves it. By doing the visible He manifests the power to do the invisible. The man was only healed incidentally as a proof of Jesus' ability to forgive his sin.
That leads us to the fifth word, power. And verse 7 says, "And he arose and departed to his house.” Wow, can you imagine that? Here his four friends are watching and the people are listening. The Pharisees haven't said a word. Nobody has talked except Jesus.
This is a dramatic scene; the guy gets up without first any physical therapy, rolls up his little bed under his arm, picks up the little wood frame, and believe me an aisle was instantly created as that guy walked out of that place. And can you imagine the joy when his four buddies came running down the stairs on the outside? I mean, they must have had some kind of trip home.
What power! Jesus has the power to forgive your sin. That's far better than healing your disease, right? That leads to the last word fear. And this is the most important application. Verse 8 says, "Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.”
When the multitude saw it they were afraid. They knew God was there. They knew Jesus was a man, but they knew that God was in that man and they were afraid. Isn't that the same reaction we've seen all along? The meaning used most in the New Testament is the word for awe or reverence. It's the kind of fear that someone feels in the presence of one who is infinitely superior.
This reverential awe of God is the substance out of which all Christian behavior is to come. They glorify God and so should we, because they feared God, they were in awe of His presence. How do we respond to God every day? Are we in awe too?
I hope you have such awe of Christ. All I can say to you is I hope you've had that forgiveness. When the crowd was split there were those who were forgiven and those who were furious. Christ offers forgiveness, which washes away all sins, from the past, present and future. The greatest news you'll ever have and it is available to you. Let's pray.