Can men receive the power to forgive sin?
Everyone who witnessed the miracle understood the point, and rejoiced at it – even though many heretics deny the doctrine today.
Everyone who witnessed the miracle understood the point, and rejoiced at it – even though many heretics deny the doctrine today.
Editor’s Notes
In this part, Fr Coleridge shows us…
How the miracle proved not just Christ’s divinity, but the new power given to man.
That Christ was not just claiming and exercising the authority to forgive sins, but showing that this power could be given to men.
Why the crowd’s reaction shows their grasp of the doctrine—and hints at the Church’s future role.
He shows us that the healing of the paralytic was a visible sign of an invisible gift—proof that the Incarnation brought to earth not only mercy, but the power to dispense it.
For more context on this chapter, see Part I.
The Healing of the Paralytic
The Training of the Apostles, Part I
Chapter IV
St. Matt. ix. 1–9; St. Mark ii. 1–14; St. Luke v. 17–29
Story of the Gospels, § 139
Burns and Oates, London, 1884
Why Jesus’ timing in healing and forgiving the Paralytic was important
Who was in the crowd of religious leaders when Jesus healed and forgave the Paralytic?
Why Jesus said ‘Thy sins are forgiven’ before healing the Paralytic
Force of the argument
‘But that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins (He saith to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house. And immediately rising up before them, he took up the bed or pallet on which he lay, and he went away to his own house, glorifying God.’
The words of our Lord seem to have been chosen for the purpose of counteracting the false judgment which they had formed, not merely as to His supposed blasphemy, but as to the truths in which the doctrine of the forgiveness of sins consisted. That is, they had considered that the power of the forgiveness of sins was not only essentially and exclusively inherent in God Himself, but that it could not be communicated, as those other Divine powers of miracles, prophecy and the like, were communicated by God to man as He chose.
This was false, and although this communication had never before been made, yet it was not only possible that it might be made, but also actually true that it had now been made. Our Lord was Himself God, but He was also Man, and in His Human Nature, as the Son of Man, He exercised this power on earth as He exercised it as God in Heaven. This was one of the great boons which earth had gained by the Incarnation.
The forgiveness of all sins was to be abundantly purchased by His Passion, and the fruits of His Passion in this respect were not to be stored up in His own Sacred Humanity alone, but were to spring from it for ever for the benefit of the whole human race, and to be administered, according to the ordinance and decree of God, by His Church after Him. He was to communicate this power of His Sacred Humanity in the most solemn way to His Apostles and the Church in them after His Passion and Resurrection were accomplished.
No doubt, this was to be something new, of which these Scribes and Pharisees had never heard, and for this very reason, perhaps, it was that He took this first occasion of claiming the possession of this power at a time when so many of the teachers of the Synagogue were present, and of proving it by one of His most signal miracles in a manner which could not be gainsayed.
The miracle proving the doctrine
This great miracle, therefore, was far more than a simple act of compassion on the bodily sufferings of the palsied man.
It was, in a most pointed and determinate manner, the proof of a great doctrine relating to the Sacred Humanity of our Lord. His words show that He did not so much set forth His Divine Nature by the miracle, and the argument which He founded on it. For He did not say that God could forgive sins on earth as well as in Heaven, but that the Son of Man had power on earth to forgive sins.
It is clear also that He might have proved the possession of this power by any other external miracle, if He had chosen, such as might have had no relation or resemblance in any way to the internal miracle, as it may be called, in which the forgiveness of sin consists. But He chose to do this by means of a miracle which represented the act of spiritual mercy in proof of which it was wrought.
For until sins are forgiven, the soul is either dead in the sight of God or palsied, unable to move or act in any healthful way towards salvation. But when the decree of pardon is given forth, and the precious Blood has been applied to it, the soul is full of life and strength, as the man who could at once take up his bed and go to his own house. Thus the internal cure of the soul was represented and evidenced by the new health conferred upon the body.
Connection of the miracles
Something has already been said as to the connection of this miracle with that on the leper, which had preceded it at some little interval of time. If leprosy had been so especially marked, and, as it were, branded, by God, as the physical evil which most closely pictured the spiritual evil of the soul, in its loathsomeness, its incurable character, the sort of excommunication which it involved, and the like, it was natural that when our Lord had filled men’s minds with the exhibition of His marvellous power in cleansing their physical corruption, He should go on to declare to the world the power of the Son of Man to forgive the far greater evil of sin.
The leper had been forced by the Law to take a long journey to present himself to the Chief Priest in Jerusalem, and all along the road he must have declared the power of his benefactor. He had had to submit to a careful examination, and purifying rites and sacrifices, all of which required the intervention of the Levitical priesthood.
The new power of cleansing from sin was exercised at a moment and by a few simple words, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee,’ and the power of these words had been proved by the evident effects of other words quite as simple, ‘I say unto thee, arise, take up thy bed, and go into thy house.’ The first miracle had prepared for the second, and the second had shown the pre-eminent power and beauty and condescension and simplicity of the new kingdom of the Son of Man on earth.
Effect on the multitude
‘And the multitudes seeing it feared, and glorified God that gave such power to men.’ This is the manner in which St. Matthew speaks of the miracle, which, as we shall see, had so much connection with his own call to follow our Lord more closely. The other Evangelists use more general terms, ‘They wondered, and glorified God, saying, We have seen wonderful things to-day.’
We hear nothing at all of any more objections on the part of the Scribes.
The language of St. Mark and St. Luke might seem to leave it in doubt whether the fear and wonder which took possession of the multitude are to be attributed simply to the miracle which they had witnessed, which was great in its kind—though we can hardly suppose that our Lord had never before worked any so striking in that place—or whether we are to suppose that they took in the connection between the doctrine which our Lord had asserted as to His power on earth to forgive sins and the proof by which He had confirmed this assertion.
The miracle in itself was marvellous enough, but still more marvellous was the truth in evidence of which it had been so professedly worked. But the words of St. Matthew seem distinctly to refer to the point of doctrine, as proved by the miracle, as the subject matter of the wonder and joy of the crowd. For he says, ‘They glorified God, Who had given such power unto men,’—as if to refer to our Lord’s own words, ‘that you may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins.’
The same word, signifying power or authority, is used in each sentence. And it would seem also that the first Evangelist meant to point to the further doctrine, that the power and authority of the Son of Man passed on to the Church after Him, for he speaks of power given to men and not only to one man or the Son of Man.
Appreciation of the doctrine
Thus we have every reason for thinking that some at least of the audience to whom our Lord had been preaching, and some at least of the multitude who had gathered round the door when the time came for the sick to be brought to Him, were fully and deeply impressed with the great truth which had now been set forth.
There is nothing said about their not understanding our Lord. Indeed, mankind in general are quick enough in grasping the force of the argument from miracles in proof of doctrine. That argument is not, of course, direct—that is, an exhibition of Divine power does not directly prove that a certain statement is true, for the force of the inference rests upon the principle that God will not exercise miraculous power in support of a statement which is not true. This principle forms a part of every right conception as to God. But, notwithstanding the indirectness, so to speak, of the theological force of the argument, men at once, in general, apprehend it without hesitation.
This is the true reason for the hostility of all rationalists and Protestants, as well as of all infidels, against the miracles of the saints and especially of the modern Church. They know how unreasonable it is to deny the possibility of such miracles, and yet they will not look into the evidence on which each case in particular rests. They reject them at once as impossible, and deal with the particular evidence as proving nothing but fraud and delusion.
On the other hand, the children of the Church rejoice over miracles which are vouchsafed in their own time, after the evidence has been established as sufficient in any particular case, not merely for the proof which they afford of the goodness and mercy of God, of the power of our Blessed Lady or the Saints, but also because they show that He is still with the Church, and that He continually, generation after generation, furnishes her with fresh confirmation of the truth and holiness of her doctrine.
It is not wonderful, therefore, if this simple multitude in Galilee glorified God after this great miracle, not only because a wonderful act of mercy had been wrought, but because it had been proved in the sight of all that henceforth men might be endowed by Him with the power of forgiving sins.
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The Healing of the Paralytic
Why Jesus’ timing in healing and forgiving the Paralytic was important
Who was in the crowd of religious leaders when Jesus healed and forgave the Paralytic?
Why Jesus said ‘Thy sins are forgiven’ before healing the Paralytic
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