Day 81
Luke 5:17-26
One day He was teaching, and there were some Pharisees and teachers of the Law sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea, and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing. And some men were carrying a man on a stretcher who was paralyzed; and they were trying to bring him in and to set him down in front of Him. But when they did not find any way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down through the tiles with his stretcher, into the middle of the crowd, in front of Jesus. And seeing their faith, He said, “Friend, your sins are forgiven you.” The scribes and the Pharisees began thinking of the implications, saying, “Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, except God alone?” But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, responded and said to them, “Why are you thinking this way in your hearts? Which is easier, to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher, and go home.” And immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God. And they were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God. They were also filled with fear, saying, “We have seen remarkable things today!” (NASB)
Once again in today’s passage we encounter the Pharisees. They were one of the two main Jewish sects that Jesus would have contact with during his earthly ministry. The Pharisees could trace their roots back to the second century BC—to the Hasdin. And they were characterized by these seven things.
- Along with the Torah, they accepted as equally inspired and authoritative, all materials contained with the oral tradition.
- On free will and determination, they held to meditating or middling view, that made it impossible for either free will or the sovereignty of God to cancel out the other.
- They accepted a rather developed hierarchy of angels and demons.
- They taught that there was a future for the dead.
- They believed in the immorality of the soul and in reward and retribution after death.
- They were champions of human equality.
- The emphasis of their teaching was ethical rather than theological.
The next thing we need to look at is the phrase “the power of the Lord was present for Him to perform healing.” The word translated here as “power,” “duramis” in Greek, means “might, power, or strength.” In the New Testament, it is most often used of God’s power. The plural, durameis, is used to describe Jesus’ miracles in the Gospels. The Holy Spirit gives powerful gifts and ministries in and through Christ’s followers. The (duramis) of God is directly related to the ongoing healing ministry of Jesus through his church.
And now we come to the heart of today’s passage, which is the fact that some friends of a paralyzed man knew that Jesus could heal their friend so they did everything possible to bring him to Jesus. In other words the friends of this paralyzed man had strong faith that Jesus could heal him and this was shown by their determination to bring him to Jesus. And we too must show the confidence that Christ can meet the needs of those we know by using every opportunity to introduce them to Jesus. If we truly desire to bring others to Christ, God’s spirit will provide many opportunities to do so. We should notice that it was the faith and determination of the friends that led to the man’s salvation and physical healing.
The scribes and the Pharisees responded to this miracle in this way: “The scribes and the Pharisees began thinking of the implications, saying, ‘Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, except God alone?’” (Luke 5:21 NASB) But Jesus responded in this way:
But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, responded and said to them, “Why are you thinking this way in your hearts? Which is easier, to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher, and go home.” And immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God. And they were all struck with astonishment and began glorifying God. They were also filled with fear, saying, “We have seen remarkable things today!”—Luke 5:22-26 (NASB)
The scribes and the Pharisees understood that Jesus was acting as if he were God when he claimed to forgive the sin of the paralyzed man. Not only did they not believe he was God, they viewed his claim as blasphemies. Jesus was perceiving their thoughts because he knew what is in the heart and minds of man. In Luke 5:23 Jesus expressed the heart of their doubt, when he said, “Which is easier, to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” It was much easier to just say your sins are forgiven than to heal a paralytic since there could be no visible proof of whether sin had been forgiven. And to demonstrate that he had the power to do the invisible miracle of forgiving sin, Jesus performed the visible miracle of healing the paralytic.
What we must remember our of this is that God knows our thoughts, desires and imagination. In fact when it comes to sinful thoughts, Jesus says that continuing to imagine ungodly things is the same as actually committing the sin. And the answer to this weakness is to become disciplined in our thinking by relying on God to renew our minds. And finally there was simply no denying the wonder of what Jesus had done, but submitting to Jesus and the far-reaching implications of his claim was and still is another thing altogether.
Tomorrow’s Bible Readings:
Number 36 and Deuteronomy 1, Luke 5:29-6:11, Psalm 66:1-20 and Proverbs 11:24-26