They Were Correct

There is an interesting story in Mark 2:1-12 that I would like to share with you. If I may, I'm going to edit the story into my own words simply because the twelve verses in the old K.J.V. is a little lengthy. Please feel free to read the original version for yourself … in fact anyone who takes the liberty I am taking to transpose Scripture into their own words … you should always confirm what they say with the Word of God.

"When Jesus returned to Capernaum, and the news was spread around that He was in this one particular house, it then filled so full of people wanting to hear the Words of Jesus that even the door was blocked from anyone else trying to enter."

Mark doesn't say that Jesus was preaching or even just teaching, but I assume He was when …

"A man sick of the palsy, carried by four men was brought to Jesus for healing. But because of the large crowd of people in the house; being unable to enter, they decided to gain access to Jesus another way."

Most homes usually had stairs or some other type of access to the normally flat roof that was used for cool sleeping in the hot summer nights. Again I believe this was the case here.

"These four men carry the sick man to the roof and tear a hole in it large enough to lower this man and the pallet or bed he was on down to Jesus."

I can just imagine the noise and debris from the roof falling into the house and stopping Jesus in the middle of His teaching or whatever He was doing at the time. The Scripture goes on and says …

"When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the sick man … 'Your sins are forgiven'. But there were some Scribes there and after hearing what Jesus said … reasoned in their hearts, 'only God can forgive sins.' Jesus knowing their thoughts asked them this question …

Why do you think these things? Is it easier to say … 'Thy sins be forgiven' or 'take up thy bed, and walk.'

And then Jesus says to the Scribes … But so you will know that I have the power to forgive sin … (Jesus then says to the sick man) Arise, take your bed and go home. And immediately he did just that."

Mark ends this story with … "They were all amazed, and glorified God."

Notice Mark says … "When Jesus saw their faith." How do you see faith? Through action taken. When these four men couldn't get the sick man to Jesus through the door; no problem … they just tore open the roof. These men were so confident in believing that the sick man would be healed if they could get him to Jesus, took action and put their faith to work.

This tells me … that there are times when we can spiritually carry (through prayer) a weakened believer; whether weak in spirit or flesh … makes no difference. If we can get them to Jesus … just as these four men carried this man … Jesus can touch them.

Jesus said to the sick man, "thy sins be forgiven thee" pointing perhaps to the root of all sickness in the world … sin.

Jesus said in Mark 2:17 … "They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."

Sin is the greatest sickness that man has. Man in his fallen state of sin has been the cause of all the natural evil in the world which includes sickness and death. Jesus goes right to the source of all sickness, treating the original cause of sickness … sin in the world; giving the sick man first … the healing of his soul and secondly healing for his body.

I am not saying that if you are sick you have sin in your life. I am only saying that the sickness that surrounds us in the world is the result of the fallen moral state of man that began with Adam and Eve choosing sin. Sickness is just one result, one part of God's judgment pronounced upon the sinful world as a whole.

It was a Jewish belief that no sick or diseased person could be healed until all their sin was first blotted out. Jesus forgives the sin first, and then heals the body of this sick man. This belief appears to have been founded on Psalm 103:3 …"Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases …"

Pardon in this case … proceeded … healing.

This Jewish belief is also aligned with the instruction in James 5:14-15 … "Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him."

Is James saying … forgiveness first, healing second? Which is the most important?

Here in this setting in Mark, Jesus had been talking to the Scribes who mistakenly thought He was a mere man. They were partly right; for although He was a man, He was God as well as man. Jesus did not cease to be God by becoming a man; nor did He lose any of His power as God while in the flesh as a man … including the power to forgive sin and to heal the sick.

One could question why, since the sick man came only to be healed, that Jesus first declared … "Thy sins be forgiven thee."

One reason may be … Jesus used this occasion to show the Scribes that He, as God had the power to forgive sins. Had he stated … "Thy sins be forgiven thee" … without the proof of this miracle, the Jews would not have believed it. With the proof of the healing of palsy, no one could doubt that He also had the power to forgive sin. The pardon of sin and the healing was for the sick man; but the fact that he was healed in front of the Scribes was for their benefit since they had been reasoning in their hearts as to whether or not … Jesus was God.

One other observation in this story; Mark states that … "they were all amazed, and glorified God." Some people say the word "all" does not include the Scribes, but rather only the common people that followed Jesus. I'm not too sure of that.

The Bible states they were … "all" … amazed. This could also include the Scribes because this was early in the ministry of Jesus. The Scribes hadn't made up their minds about Him yet; they were just getting to know Him; they were trying to figure out this man Jesus who claims to forgive sins. They said … "Only God can do that."

They were correct.


Comments welcome.