READ: Luke 5:17-26: … Who can forgive sins but God alone? …
Once again, in His journeys from place to place, Jesus makes known who He is, for what purpose and for whom He has come to earth, and what His work is. His teaching is directed toward this, but so are His miracles and His answers to the questions put to Him. Again and again He wants His people to realize and accept that He is the Saviour promised and given by God.
His miracles are in keeping with His teaching. They show that, as Redeemer, He has not only come to remove the miserable consequences of their sins, but also the guilt of their commission or omission. His miracles, together with His words, also indicate that as Saviour and Mediator He is both man and God. Who can still deny His divine power?
At the same time, His words and miracles draw great crowds who want to meet Jesus. No one in Israel will fail to hear about Him! In this way everyone is confronted with a choice: to accept Him in faith or reject Him in unbelief.
There is also a repeated confrontation between Jesus, with His teaching and miracles, and the Pharisees and scribes, who are intent on having the people obey, honour, and praise them. They consider themselves better than the people who do not know the law. They also compel them to observe human commandments that they impose upon the people. Thus they increasingly prove to be—for the most part—opponents of Jesus, envious of Him because of His popularity and critical of His words and miracles.
They too have now come to Jesus from the surrounding region. Jesus sees that a paralytic man who is lowered through the roof sincerely believes in Him, and He openly declares to him that his sins are forgiven. But the Pharisees and scribes regard this as an expression of blasphemy, for how can a man forgive sins? But Jesus directly addresses them, saying that as the Son of Man He has been given this authority. To confirm this, He then makes the paralytic completely well. The man, who gets up and walks away, glorifies God because of this miracle of grace. The crowd also now glorifies God.
Why would Jesus not have healed him immediately?
Sing: Ps. 38:3,5,10