Luke 5:20. And when He saw their faith, He said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.
“The works of the Lord are great,” says the Psalmist, “sought out of all them that have pleasure therein.” The statement is equally applicable to the works of God in creation and in redemption. Those whose eyes have been opened by the Spirit behold the glory of redemption as wrought out and applied by the Son of God – not merely in the more prominent events of His history, at, for example, the stable at Bethlehem, the summit of Tabor, Olivet, or Calvary, the throne of glory to which He is now exalted, or the judgement seat on which He shall be enthroned on that “great and dreadful day” when all nations shall be assembled before Him.
They see the Redeemer’s glory in every event of His private life and public ministry, in every word that He uttered, and every miracle that He wrought; there the man who really loves God’s law finds a subject of profitable study and devout meditation. On every trace of his great Master’s footsteps, the genuine disciple loves to linger, because they are the footsteps of Immanuel, God in our nature – incarnate wisdom, holiness and love. In recording the personal beauty of Absalom, the Scriptures tell us that “from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head, there was no blemish in him”; and in a far higher sense it is recorded of Christ that He is “fairer than the children of men” – to the eyes of His people He is “altogether lovely”. “All His garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia out of the ivory palaces.”
The incident to which the text refers is recorded with so much simplicity, yet with such minuteness of detail and distinctness of outline, that we may see the whole incident almost as vividly as if it was happening before our eyes at this moment. It is in Capernaum, a town on the north-west shore of the Lake of Gennesaret, where Christ spent the greater part of the three years of His public ministry, and on this account Matthew calls it “His own city”. Here He had already performed many wonderful works, and had often taught in their synagogues, so that He must have been well known here.
On the present occasion, He has just returned from the wilderness, where He had retired for prayer, and has been seen entering a house. The report goes abroad. Multitudes flock from all quarters of the town to hear Him, and among them a deputation of Pharisees and doctors of the law, who had come out of every village of Galilee and Judea, and from Jerusalem itself. They have come to sit in judgement on Him of whose sayings and doings they have heard so much, who claims to be “the Messiah promised to the fathers”. Jesus has seized the favourable opportunity and begun to teach, and the house is crowded with a multitude of eager listeners drawn together by a great variety of motives.
Coming down the street, and slowly approaching the house where Jesus is, are four men carrying on a bed a man who has been “taken with a palsy”, that is, one who is paralysed. It is obvious that it is no idle curiosity that has attracted him to the spot, but that under the sore pressure of disease which no earthly physician can cure, he is seeking the help of the Almighty Physician. After many an ineffectual effort to pass through the crowd, they go round to the back of the house; they ascend the outer stair to the flat roof of the dwelling; they remove some of the tiles to make an opening large enough for the couch; and by the help of cords they lower the bed into the midst before Jesus. The helpless sufferer is unable to plead his own cause, probably unable to utter a single word about the sufferings of his body or what he desired Jesus to do for him.
Jesus’ omniscient eye sees before Him, not only a diseased body, but a soul oppressed with apprehensions of guilt and powerless to relieve it. With calm but compassionate majesty, He says to the paralytic: “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”. The spectators are astonished. When they saw the sick man let down before Jesus, they probably expected that He would heal him. Already, in this very town, Christ had given many proofs of His miraculous power. He had healed Peter’s wife’s mother by a touch of His hand. He had healed the centurion’s servant by a word of His mouth. Had He healed this man only of his bodily disease, it would in all probability have been but what they expected. But when, without taking any notice of his bodily disease, He begins by saying, “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee”, they are not only astonished but shocked. Though they do not speak their thoughts, each says secretly in his heart, “Who is this which speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
But when Jesus perceived their thoughts, He said to them: “What reason ye in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?” As if He had said, He that in his own name and authority can do the latter can do the former also; He that can by miracle counteract the effects of sin in the disease that afflicts the body can also put away sin itself, in its guilt and pollution, from the soul. He then applies this principle to the case in hand, by accompanying His power to pardon with His power to heal: “But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power upon earth to forgive sins, (He said unto the sick of the palsy,) I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, and go unto thine house”. At once strength is restored to his withered frame; he stands up and, in the presence of them all, takes that bed on which he was borne and departs to his own house glorifying God. Amazement pervades the assembled multitude. Their objections are overborne by a force of evidence which they feel to be irresistible. They too begin to glorify God, and return to their respective homes, saying, “We have seen strange things today”.
Now there is an element in this transaction which distinguishes it from other instances of Christ’s healing power, and that element is forgiveness. A special aspect of the Redeemer’s character is here unfolded. We see Him exercising His prerogative to pardon. “Man,” He says, “thy sins are forgiven thee.” This is manifestly the leading truth which the passage is designed to illustrate, and let us for a little concentrate our attention on it. May “the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, give unto [us] the Spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of [our] understanding being enlightened,” while we speak, first, of the Author and Bestower of forgiveness; second, of its nature; third, of the channel through which it is conveyed and appropriated; and, fourth, of the evidence by which it is accompanied and followed.
1. The Author and Bestower of forgiveness.
I need not remind you that it is Christ who speaks these gracious words. But it is a specially-important aspect of His character that is here set before us; and it is well for us to be reminded that, if such a gracious assurance is ever to be granted to us, that assurance must come from the same Person, not another. The forgiveness of sins is one of the inalienable prerogatives of Christ as mediator, yet this is a part of Christ’s mediatorial character which we are too prone to overlook.
We tend to contemplate Christ exclusively in other aspects of His character, as purchasing forgiveness by His obedience and sufferings in the place of His people, and so laying a sure foundation on which forgiveness may be bestowed consistently with the claims of God’s justice and the honour of His law; or as pleading for their forgiveness by His all-prevailing intercession at the right hand of the Father, on the ground of the full satisfaction He has made for their sins; or as giving authority to His ambassadors to preach forgiveness in His name among all nations. We are apt to forget that Christ does more than this. He not only purchases forgiveness, but He bestows it. He not only pleads for forgiveness, but He confers it. He not only commissions His ministers to preach the doctrine of remission in His name, but He applies it to the conscience and seals it upon the heart of all that believe; and He tenderly invites all who hear the gospel to come to Himself that they may enjoy the inestimable boon of forgiveness.
Without this any view of Christ’s character is defective – to such an extent that is derogatory to the Redeemer’s glory and injurious to the best interests of His people; for it is just this view of Christ – as actually bestowing forgiveness upon all who come to Him – that renders His character so perfectly suited to the real necessities of man. What is it that the awakened sinner seeks to obtain? What is it that his troubled conscience so clamorously demands? Is it merely to know that there is a Saviour, and to become acquainted with the way of forgiveness?
This might have satisfied the Pharisees and doctors of the law who were “sitting by”, as it may still satisfy the mere speculator about divine things. But it could never have satisfied the man who, under the pressure of guilt and disease, sought unto Christ that he might be pardoned and healed. Nor will it satisfy any sinner who feels that he is poor and perishing, and earnestly desires to be saved. Sin has deeply wounded his conscience; every recollection causes him a fresh pang; and nothing but the healing balm applied by the Great Physician can give him relief. His soul is bowed down by the heavy burden of guilt, and nothing but its removal can give him deliverance. Now none but Christ can satisfy this longing of the awakened soul. He did so effectually when He said to the paralytic, “Thy sins are forgiven thee”, and He is still just as able and willing to do so to every sinner who comes to Him by faith.
Jesus Himself said to the Jews: “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgement unto the Son, that all men should honour the Son even as they honour the Father . . . and hath given Him authority to execute judgement also, because He is the Son of man” (John 5:22,23,27). And as it is Christ that shall hereafter sit on the throne of judgement, so it is He that now receives the penitent sinner at a throne of grace. Thus Peter testifies, “The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins” (Acts 5:30). “This is the record,” says John, “that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.” To bestow pardon, as well as every other blessing pertaining to salvation, belongs to Christ in virtue of His office, and He does not transfer it to any other.
When He sent His disciples forth to preach, “He breathed on them and said, Receive ye the Holy Ghost; whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them, and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained” (John 20:22). But in order to be rightly understood, this must be coupled with His other statement: “All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth: go ye therefore and teach all nations . . . and lo, I am with you alway, even unto the end of the world” (Mt 28:18-20). From this it is plain that the power of the Lord’s apostles to forgive sins was not authoritative, but only declarative. So the High Priest under the law had no power to cleanse the leper, but merely to declare him cleansed after the due observance of the prescribed rites. And it is the same with the ministers of Christ still. We are commissioned to publish the glad tidings of remission of sins through the blood of Christ, even to the chief of sinners.
Still, the forgiveness we preach is not absolute but conditional. While, by Christ’s authority, we declare that “all who believe are justified from all things”, there remains the all-important question for the conscience of each to settle for himself: whether with the heart he has believed unto righteousness. The anxious sinner may still be left in doubt and would wish to have his doubts removed. Where shall he then go? Shall he have recourse to the sacraments, and hope to find in them that sense of forgiveness which he seeks? Alas, this would avail him nothing.
Sacraments, like all the other ordinances of God’s house, are precious only as means of grace. When they are observed according to the purpose for which they were instituted, as channels through which Christ conveys His blessing to the souls of His people, they serve a most important end. But whenever they are regarded as substitutes for Christ Himself, they become a delusion and a snare, alike derogatory to the Redeemer’s glory and opposed to the good of those who misuse them. Those who labour under this delusion may run from sacrament to sacrament, like an unblessed spirit walking through dry places, seeking rest and finding none. But a felt need will remain unsupplied in the soul, and the most urgent demands of the awakened conscience will still continue unsatisfied.
The Church of Rome has dexterously availed herself of this craving in the awakened soul, in such a way as to exalt herself and her priesthood. Instead of directing the soul to Christ, she has arrogated to her priests what she calls the power of absolution – the power, not of pointing out the way of forgiveness, or declaring the blessed truth that all are forgiven who cherish repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus Christ, but the power of actually pronouncing sentence of acquittal from sin. In the language of her great ecclesiastical council, this power is thus defined: “Our sins are forgiven us by the absolution of the priest. The voice of the priest, who is legitimately constituted a minister for the remission of sins, is to be heard as that of Christ Himself, who said to the lame man, ‘Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven thee’.”
What is this, but for a poor sinful creature, who stands himself as much in need of pardon as the person whom he misleads, to assume an authority which no being in the universe but One can assume lawfully? It is to usurp one of the most glorious prerogatives of “God our Saviour”. “To the Lord our God belong mercies and forgivenesses.” “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins.” So exclusively is this the prerogative of God, and so clearly is it shown to be such by man’s natural conscience as well as the Bible, that the scribes and Pharisees were shocked at the idea of even Jesus exercising it. “They began to reason, saying, Who is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?”
They were right in the general truth, for unquestionably no one can forgive sins but God only. He it is against whom we have sinned, and it therefore belongs to Him, not only to say whether sin is to be forgiven at all and on what terms, but also to dispense forgiveness. But while the scribes were right in the general truth, they were wrong in their application of it to Christ. They did not know that He was Immanuel – God in our nature. It is on this that the whole question hinges. It is against God that I have sinned. It is His forgiveness that I need. Condemnation or acquittal by any third party, whether man or angel, is of small consequence indeed. If God justify, who can condemn? But if God condemn, who then can justify? This shuts me up to transact with God Himself in this, the highest of all my interests.
But how can I transact with God? The Bible and my own conscience both tell me that God is “a consuming fire”. For a sinful creature to approach God directly is to rush into the midst of a consuming fire. But see here the merciful and marvellous provision of the gospel. It reveals a mediator in the person of Immanuel, who unites in Himself all the power of God with all the tender sympathies of man. By a life of unsinning obedience, followed by a death of atoning power, He has in our nature made reconciliation for iniquity in the place of sinners. With the one hand He upholds the pillars of immutable justice, while with the other He sets open the gate of everlasting mercy. Not only so, but He stands at that gate to take the sinner in. None can dispute His power to pardon, for He is not only God equal to the Father, but all power has been given to Him in heaven and in earth. None can doubt His willingness, for He died to redeem.
If there is anyone here sorely pressed with sin, the cry of whose soul is, What must I do to be saved? We point that sinner to Christ, and our answer to him is the same as that which the King of Israel gave when he passed by upon the wall and heard the cry of the woman at the siege of Samaria, saying, “Help, my lord, O king!” He said, “If the Lord do not help thee, whence shall I help thee? Out of the barnfloor, or out of the winepress?”
Let no sinner imagine that, because Christ is no longer personally present on earth, He is not still accessible to sinners. “Say not in thine heart, Who shall ascend into heaven? (that is to bring Christ down from above;) . . . The word is nigh thee, even in thy mouth, and in thy heart; that is, the word of faith which we preach.” Let us remember the cure of the centurion’s servant (Mt 8:5-13), which was effected without Christ’s personal presence. When the centurion came to Jesus, saying, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of a palsy, grievously tormented; Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that Thou shouldest come under my roof but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way, and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee. And his servant was healed in the selfsame hour.”
Though Jesus is now exalted, His very exaltation is in order to forgiveness. “Him hath God exalted . . . to give repentance . . . and remission of sins”. He is not only represented as waiting to be gracious, but as coming out of His place, walking among the seven golden candlesticks, and through His Word and His appointed ordinances, knocking for admittance at the door of the sinner’s heart. He says to everyone whose desire is towards the remembrance of His name, as He did to the blind man who sat by the wayside begging, “What wilt thou that I should do unto thee?” “Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy.”
2. The nature of forgiveness
as dispensed by Christ to the paralytic. We will see how suited it is to the needs and desires of the awakened soul.
(1.) It is a great forgiveness, commensurate with the full extent of his guilt. We are not told the number or the aggravations of the sins with which the paralytic was chargeable. But they were all well known to Christ and, when He says, “Thy sins are forgiven thee”, He shows him that all his sins – original and actual, of omission and commission – were without exception blotted out of the book of God’s remembrance and could never rise up in judgement against him any more. And so it is in the case of every penitent sinner who comes to Christ for pardon. The forgiveness is not partial but complete. Not some of his sins only, but all his sins, are blotted out.
This is a point of vast practical importance to the anxious sinner. From the moment that he is truly convinced of sin, he feels that he is a great sinner. His sins appear to him more in number than the hairs of his head, and the provocations he has offered to the Holy One greater than the mountains. If you were to suggest to him now that, although he is a sinner, he is no worse than others – for all have sinned – he would at once feel that you were trifling with his soul. And he would tell you that what is pressing him down to the very gates of hell is not that he is a sinner in common with others, but that his sins have been so many, so long-continued and so aggravated that he is reduced to the very borders of despair; that he fears there is something special in his case that places him almost beyond the reach of God’s mercy.
Now the forgiveness that Christ dispenses meets the needs of such a case, for it covers “all trespasses”. Besides the example in our text, other instances of forgiveness are recorded, such as Zaccheus the publican, Saul the persecutor, the woman that was proverbially “a sinner”, and the malefactor who was crucified along with our Lord, together with the fearful falls of such men as David and Peter. These show that sins of every varying degree, whether committed before or after conversion, have been forgiven in the past. And these particular cases are accompanied by general invitations addressed to all: “Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord, though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool”. “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins”, and this is addressed to the betrayers and murderers of our Lord. And it is the express testimony of God Himself that “the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanseth us from all sin”, which intimates that as there is no sin, however small, that can be forgiven in any other way, so there is no sin, however great, which the blood of Christ cannot cleanse.
To despair of pardon on this ground is to limit the Holy One of Israel, for with Him there is plenteous redemption; if the sinner is justified at all, he is justified from all things. The deepest stains of guilt, as well as slighter spots of defilement, are indeed such as no fuller’s soap can purify, but they all disappear before the cleansing virtue of Christ’s blood. Those mountains of sin whose summits reach to heaven, as well as smaller hills, all vanish for ever when cast into the deep ocean of infinite love. And the sinner, freely forgiven all trespasses, can say exultingly with Paul, “Who shall lay anything to the charge of God’s elect?”
Art thou burdened with the power of sin? God hath promised relief: “Sin shall not have dominion over you” (Rom 6:14). Doth the guilt of sin trouble thee? See Isaiah 43:25, “I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins”. Doth the law threaten thee with death for sin? Remember the promise, “There is therefore no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit” (Rom 8:1). Doth the fear of being separated from communion with Christ trouble thee? See Revelation 3:20: “Behold, I stand at the door, and knock: if any man hear My voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with Me”. Art thou despised? Cast thy eye upon Micah 7:8-9: “Rejoice not against me, O mine enemy: when I fall, I shall arise; when I sit in darkness, the Lord shall be a light unto me”. Hast thou backslidden? There is a promise: “Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down, for the Lord upholdeth him with His hand”.
Andrew Gray