14

CHAPTER 14.

CONTINUATION OF OUR LORD'S MINISTRY IN GALILEE.


A LEPER MADE CLEAN.

Early in the morning following that eventful Sabbath in Capernaum, our
Lord arose "a great while before day" and went in quest of seclusion
beyond the town. In a solitary place He gave Himself to prayer, thus
demonstrating the fact that, Messiah though He was, He was profoundly
conscious of His dependence upon the Father, whose work He had come to
do. Simon Peter and other disciples found the place of His retirement,
and told Him of the eager crowds who sought Him. Soon the people
gathered about Him, and urged that He remain with them; but "he said
unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for
therefore am I sent."[405] And to the disciples He said: "Let us go into
the next towns, that I may preach there also: for therefore came I
forth."[406] Thence He departed, accompanied by the few whom He had
already closely associated with Himself, and ministered in many towns of
Galilee, preaching in the synagogs, healing the sick, and casting out
devils.

Among the afflicted seeking the aid that He alone could give came a
leper,[407] who knelt before Him, or bowed with his face to the ground,
and humbly professed his faith, saying: "If thou wilt, thou canst make
me clean." The petition implied in the words of this poor creature was
pathetic; the confidence he expressed is inspiring. The question in his
mind was not--Can Jesus heal me? but--Will He heal me? In compassionate
mercy Jesus laid His hand upon the sufferer, unclean though he was, both
ceremonially and physically, for leprosy is a loathsome affliction, and
we know that this man was far advanced in the disease since we are told
that he was "full of leprosy." Then the Lord said: "I will: be thou
clean." The leper was immediately healed. Jesus instructed him to show
himself to the priest, and make the offerings prescribed in the law of
Moses for such cases as his.[408]

In this instruction we see that Christ had not come to destroy the law,
but, as He affirmed at another time, to fulfil it;[409] and at this
stage of His work the fulfilment was incomplete. Moreover, had the legal
requirements been disregarded in as serious a matter as that of
restoring an outcast leper to the society of the community from which he
had been debarred, priestly opposition, already waxing strong and
threatening against Jesus, would have been augmented, and further
hindrance to the Lord's work might have resulted. There was to be no
delay in the man's compliance with the Master's instruction; Jesus
"straitly charged him, and forthwith sent him away." Furthermore He
explicitly directed the man to tell nobody of the manner of his healing.
There was perhaps good reason for this injunction of silence, aside from
the very general course of our Lord in discountenancing undesirable
notoriety; for, had word of the miracle preceded the man's appearing
before the priest, obstacles might have been thrown in the way of his
Levitical recognition as one who was clean. The man, however, could not
keep the good word to himself, but went about "and began to publish it
much, and to blaze abroad the matter, insomuch that Jesus could no more
openly enter into the city, but was without in desert places: and they
came to him from every quarter."[410]


A PALSIED MAN HEALED AND FORGIVEN.

It must be borne in mind that no one of the evangelists attempts to give
a detailed history of all the doings of Jesus, nor do all follow the
same order in relating the incidents with which they associate the great
lessons of the Master's teachings. There is much uncertainty as to the
actual sequence of events.

"Some days" after the healing of the leper, Jesus was again in
Capernaum. The details of His employment during the interval are not
specified; but, we may be sure that His work continued, for His
characteristic occupation was that of going about doing good.[411] His
place of abode in Capernaum was well known, and word was soon noised
about that He was in the house.[412] A great throng gathered, so that
there was no room to receive them; even the doorway was crowded, and
later comers could not get near the Master. To all who were within
hearing Jesus preached the gospel. A little party of four approached the
house bearing a litter or pallet on which lay a man afflicted with
palsy, a species of paralysis which deprived the subject of the power of
voluntary motion and usually of speech; the man was helpless. His
friends, disappointed at finding themselves unable to reach Jesus
because of the press, resorted to an unusual expedient, which exhibited
in an unmistakable way their faith in the Lord as One who could rebuke
and stay disease, and their determination to seek the desired blessing
at His hands.

By some means they carried the afflicted man to the flat roof of the
house, probably by an outside stairway or by the use of a ladder,
possibly by entering an adjoining house, ascending the stairs to its
roof and crossing therefrom to the house within which Jesus was
teaching. They broke away part of the roof, making an opening, or
enlarging that of the trapdoor such as the houses of that place and time
were usually provided with; and, to the surprize of the assembled crowd,
they then let down through the tiling the portable couch upon which the
palsied sufferer lay. Jesus was deeply impressed by the faith and
works[413] of those who had thus labored to place a helpless paralytic
before Him; doubtless, too, He knew of the trusting faith in the heart
of the sufferer; and, looking compassionately upon the man, He said:
"Son, thy sins be forgiven thee."

Among the people there assembled were scribes, Pharisees, and doctors of
the law, not only representatives of the local synagog but some who had
come from distant towns in Galilee, and some from Judea, and even from
Jerusalem. The official class had opposed our Lord and His works on
earlier occasions, and their presence in the house at this time boded
further unfriendly criticism and possible obstruction. They heard the
words spoken to the paralytic, and were angered thereat. In their hearts
they accused Jesus of the awful offense of blasphemy, which consists
essentially in claiming for human or demon power the prerogatives of
God, or in dishonoring God by ascribing to Him attributes short of
perfection.[414] These unbelieving scholars, who incessantly wrote and
talked of the coming of the Messiah, yet rejected Him when He was there
present, murmured in silence, saying to themselves: "Who can forgive
sins but God only?" Jesus knew their inmost thoughts,[415] and made
reply thereto, saying: "Why reason ye these things in your hearts?
Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be
forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?" And
then to emphasize, and to put beyond question His possession of divine
authority, He added: "But that ye may know that the Son of man hath
power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) I
say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine
house." The man arose, fully restored; and, taking up the mattress upon
which he had been brought, walked out before them. The amazement of the
people was mingled with reverence, and many glorified God, of whose
power they were witnesses.

The incident demands our further study. According to one of the
accounts, the Lord's first words to the afflicted one were: "Son, be of
good cheer;" followed directly by the comforting and authoritative
assurance: "Thy sins be given thee."[416] The man was probably in a
state of fear; he may have known that his ailment was the result of
wicked indulgences; nevertheless, though he may have considered the
possibility of hearing only condemnation for his transgression, he had
faith to be brought. In this man's condition there was plainly a close
connection between his past sins and his present affliction; and in this
particular his case is not unique, for we read that Christ admonished
another, whom He healed, to sin no more lest a worse thing befall
him.[417] We are not warranted, however, in assuming that all bodily
ills are the result of culpable sin; and against such a conception
stands the Lord's combined instruction and rebuke to those who, in the
case of a man born blind, asked who had sinned, the man or his parents
to bring so grievous an affliction upon him, to which inquiry our Lord
replied that the man's blindness was due neither to his own sin nor to
that of his parents.[418]

In many instances, however, disease is the direct result of individual
sin. Whatever may have been the measure of past offense on the part of
the man suffering from palsy, Christ recognized his repentance together
with the faith that accompanied it, and it was the Lord's rightful
prerogative to decide upon the man's fitness to receive remission of his
sins and relief from his bodily affliction. The interrogative response
of Jesus to the muttered criticism of the scribes, Pharisees, and
doctors, has been interpreted in many ways. He inquired which was
easier, to say, "Thy sins be forgiven thee," or to say, "Arise, and take
up thy bed, and walk." Is it not a rational explanation that, when
spoken authoritatively by Him, the two expressions were of allied
meaning? The circumstance should have been a sufficient demonstration to
all who heard, that He, the Son of Man, claimed and possessed the right
and the power to remit both physical and spiritual penalties, to heal
the body of visible disease, and to purge the spirit of the no less real
malady of sin. In the presence of people of all classes Jesus thus
openly asserted His divinity, and affirmed the same by a miraculous
manifestation of power.

The charge of blasphemy, which the rabbinical critics formulated in
their minds against the Christ, was not to end as a mental conception of
theirs, nor to be nullified by our Lord's later remarks. It was through
perjured testimony that He finally received unrighteous condemnation and
was sent to His death.[419] Already, in that house at Capernaum, the
shadow of the cross had fallen athwart the course of His life.


PUBLICANS AND SINNERS.

From the house Jesus repaired to the seaside, whither the people
followed Him; there He taught them again. At the close of His discourse
He walked farther and saw a man named Levi, one of the publicans[420] or
official collectors of taxes, sitting at the custom-house where the
tariff levied under Roman law had to be paid. This man was known also as
Matthew, a name less distinctively Jewish than is Levi.[421] He
afterward became one of the Twelve and the author of the first of the
evangelical Gospels. To him Jesus said, "Follow me." Matthew left his
place and followed the Lord. Some time later the new disciple provided a
great feast at his house, in honor of the Master; and other disciples
were present. So obnoxious to the Jews was the power of Rome to which
they were subject, that they regarded with aversion all officials in
Roman employ. Particularly humiliating to them was the system of
compulsory taxation, by which they, the people of Israel, had to pay
tribute to an alien nation, which in their estimation was wholly pagan
and heathen.

Naturally, the collectors of these taxes were abhorred; and they, known
as publicans, probably resented the discourteous treatment by
inconsiderate enforcement of the tax requirements, and, as affirmed by
historians, often inflicted unlawful extortion upon the people. If
publicans in general were detested, we can readily understand how bitter
would be the contempt in which the Jews would hold one of their own
nation who had accepted appointment as such an official. In this
unenviable status was Matthew when Jesus called him. The publicans
formed a distinct social class, for from the community in general they
were practically ostracized. All who associated with them were made to
share in the popular odium, and "publicans and sinners" became a common
designation for the degraded caste. To Matthew's feast many of his
friends and some of his fellow officials were invited, so that the
gathering was largely made up of these despized "publicans and sinners."
And to such an assemblage went Jesus with His disciples.

The scribes and Pharisees could not let pass such an opportunity for
faultfinding and caustic criticism. They hesitated to address themselves
directly to Jesus, but of the disciples they asked in disdain: "Why
eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?" The Master heard, and
replied with edifying incisiveness mingled with splendid irony. Citing
one of the common aphorisms of the day, He said: "They that be whole
need not a physician, but they that are sick." To this He added: "I am
not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." The
hypercritical Pharisees were left to make their own application of the
rejoinder, which some may have understood to mean that their
self-righteousness was arraigned and their claims to superiority
derided. Aside from the veiled sarcasm in the Master's words, they ought
to have perceived the wisdom enshrined in His answer and to have
profited thereby. Is not the physician's place among the afflicted ones?
Would he be justified in keeping aloof from the sick and the suffering?
His profession is that of combating disease, preventing when possible,
curing when necessary, to the full extent of his ability. If the festive
assembly at Matthew's house really did comprize a number of sinners, was
not the occasion one of rare opportunity for the ministrations of the
Physician of Souls? The righteous need no call to repentance; but are
the sinners to be left in sin, because those who profess to be spiritual
teachers will not condescend to extend a helping hand?


THE OLD AND THE NEW.

Shortly after the entertainment provided by Matthew, the Pharisees were
ready with another criticism, and in this they were associated with some
of the Baptist's adherents. John was in prison; but many of those who
had been drawn to his baptism, and had professed discipleship to him,
still clung to his teachings, and failed to see that the Greater One of
whom he had testified was then ministering amongst them. The Baptist had
been a scrupulous observer of the law; his strict asceticism vied with
the rigor of Pharisaic profession. His non-progressive disciples, now
left without a leader, naturally fell in with the Pharisees. Some of
John's disciples came to Jesus, and questioned Him concerning His
seeming indifference in the matter of fasting. They propounded a plain
question: "Why do the disciples of John and of the Pharisees fast, but
thy disciples fast not?"[422] To the friends of the now imprisoned
Baptist our Lord's reply must have brought memories of their beloved
leader's words, when he had compared himself to the Bridegroom's friend,
and had plainly told them who was the real Bridegroom.[423] "Jesus said
unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber fast, while the
bridegroom is with them? as long as they have the bridegroom with them,
they cannot fast. But the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be
taken away from them, and then shall they fast in those days."[424]

If the questioners were able to comprehend the true import of this
reply, they could not fail to find therein an implied abrogation of
purely ceremonial observances comprized in the code of rabbinical rules
and the numerous traditions associated with the law. But to make the
subject clearer to their biased minds, Jesus gave them illustrations,
which may be classed as parabolic. "No man also," said He, "seweth a
piece of new cloth on an old garment: else the new piece that filled it
up taketh away from the old, and the rent is made worse. And no man
putteth new wine into old bottles: else the new wine doth burst the
bottles, and the wine is spilled, and the bottles will be marred: but
new wine must be put into new bottles."[425]

In such wise did our Lord proclaim the newness and completeness of His
gospel. It was in no sense a patching up of Judaism. He had not come to
mend old and torn garments; the cloth He provided was new, and to sew it
on the old would be but to tear afresh the threadbare fabric and leave a
more unsightly rent than at first. Or to change the figure, new wine
could not safely be entrusted to old bottles. The bottles here referred
to were really bags, made of the skins of animals, and of course they
deteriorated with age. Just as old leather splits or tears under even
slight strain, so the old bottle-skins would burst from the pressure of
fermenting juice, and the good wine would be lost. The gospel taught by
Christ was a new revelation, superseding the past, and marking the
fulfilment of the law; it was no mere addendum, nor was it a reenactment
of past requirements; it embodied a new and an everlasting covenant.
Attempts to patch the Judaistic robe of traditionalism with the new
fabric of the covenant could result in nothing more sightly than a
rending of the fabric. The new wine of the gospel could not be held in
the old time-worn containers of Mosaic libations. Judaism would be
belittled and Christianity perverted by any such incongruous
association.[426]


FISHERS OF MEN.

It is improbable that the disciples who followed Jesus in the early
months of His ministry had remained with Him continuously down to the
time now under consideration. We find that some of those who were later
called to the apostleship were following their vocation as fishermen
even while Jesus was actively engaged as a Teacher in their own
neighborhood. One day, as the Lord stood by the lake or sea of Galilee,
the people pressed about Him in great numbers, eager to hear more of the
wondrous words He was wont to speak.[427] Near the place were two
fishing boats drawn in upon the beach; the owners were close by, washing
and mending their nets. One of the boats belonged to Simon Peter, who
had already become identified with the Master's work; this boat Jesus
entered, and then asked Simon to thrust out a little from the land.
Seating Himself, as teachers of that time usually did in delivering
discourses, the Lord preached from this floating pulpit to the multitude
on shore. The subject of the address is not given us.

When the sermon was ended, Jesus directed Simon to launch out into deep
water and then let down the nets for a draught. Presumably Andrew was
with his brother and possibly other assistants were in the boat. Simon
replied to Jesus: "Master, we have toiled all the night, and have taken
nothing: nevertheless at thy word I will let down the net." It was soon
filled with fishes; so great was the haul that the net began to break,
and the busy fishermen signalled to those in the other boat to come to
their assistance. The catch filled both boats so that they appeared to
be in danger of sinking. Simon Peter was overcome with this new evidence
of the Master's power, and, falling at the feet of Jesus, he exclaimed:
"Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord." Jesus answered
graciously and with promise: "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch
men."[428] The occupants of the second boat were Zebedee and his two
sons James and John, the last named being he who with Andrew had left
the Baptist to follow Jesus at the Jordan.[429] Zebedee and his sons
were partners with Simon in the fishing business. When the two boats
were brought to land, the brothers Simon and Andrew, and Zebedee's two
sons James and John, left their boats and accompanied Jesus.

The foregoing treatment is based on Luke's record; the briefer and less
circumstantial accounts given by Matthew and Mark omit the incident of
the miraculous draught of fishes, and emphasize the calling of the
fishermen. To Simon and Andrew Jesus said: "Come ye after me, and I will
make you to become fishers of men." The contrast thus presented between
their former vocation and their new calling is strikingly forceful.
Theretofore they had caught fish, and the fate of the fish was death;
thereafter they were to draw men--to a life eternal. To James and John
the call was no less definite; and they too left their all to follow the
Master.


NOTES TO CHAPTER 14.

1. Leprosy.--In Biblical usage this name is applied to several diseases,
all, however having some symptoms in common, at least in the earlier
stages of the malady. The real leprosy is a scourge and a plague in many
oriental lands to-day. Zenos, in _Standard Bible Dict._, says: "True
leprosy, as known in modern times, is an affection characterized by the
appearance of nodules in the eye-brows, the cheeks, the nose, and the
lobes of the ears, also in the hands and feet, where the disease eats
into the joints, causing the falling off of fingers and toes. If nodules
do not appear, their place is taken by spots of blanched or discolored
skin (Mascular leprosy). Both forms are based upon a functional
degeneration of the nerves of the skin. Its cause was discovered by
Hansen in 1871 to be a specific bacillus. Defective diet, however, seems
to serve as a favorable condition for the culture of the bacillus.
Leprosy was one of the few abnormal conditions of the body which the
Levitical law declared unclean. Elaborate provision was therefore made
for testing its existence and for the purification of those who were
cured of it."

Deems, _Light of the Nations_, p. 185, summing up the conditions
incident to the advanced stages of the dread disease, writes: "The
symptoms and the effects of this disease are very loathsome. There comes
a white swelling or scab, with a change of the color of the hair on the
part from its natural hue to yellow; then the appearance of a taint
going deeper than the skin, or raw flesh appearing in the swelling. Then
it spreads and attacks the cartilaginous portions of the body. The nails
loosen and drop off, the gums are absorbed, and the teeth decay and fall
out; the breath is a stench, the nose decays; fingers, hands, feet, may
be lost, or the eyes eaten out. The human beauty has gone into
corruption, and the patient feels that he is being eaten as by a fiend,
who consumes him slowly in a long remorseless meal that will not end
until he be destroyed. He is shut out from his fellows. As they approach
he must cry, 'Unclean! unclean!' that all humanity may be warned from
his precincts. He must abandon wife and child. He must go to live with
other lepers, in disheartening view of miseries similar to his own. He
must dwell in dismantled houses or in the tombs. He is, as Trench says,
a dreadful parable of death. By the laws of Moses (Lev. 13:45; Numb.
6:9; Ezek. 24:17) he was compelled, as if he were mourning for his own
decease, to bear about him the emblems of death, the rent garments; he
was to keep his head bare and his lip covered, as was the custom with
those who were in communion with the dead. When the Crusaders brought
the leprosy from the East, it was usual to clothe the leper in a shroud,
and to say for him the masses for the dead.... In all ages this
indescribably horrible malady has been considered incurable. The Jews
believed that it was inflicted by Jehovah directly, as a punishment for
some extraordinary perversity or some transcendent act of sinfulness,
and that only God could heal it. When Naaman was cured, and his flesh
came back like that of a little child, he said, 'Now I know that there
is no God in all the earth but in Israel,' (2 Kings 5:14, 15.)"

The fact that leprosy is not ordinarily communicable by mere outward
contact is accentuated by Trench, _Notes on the Miracles_, pp. 165-168,
and the isolation of lepers required by the Mosaic law is regarded by
him as an intended object lesson and figure to illustrate spiritual
uncleanness. He says: "I refer to the mistaken assumption that leprosy
was catching from one person to another; and that the lepers were so
carefully secluded from their fellowmen lest they might communicate the
disease to others, as in like manner that the torn garment, the covered
lip, the cry, 'Unclean, unclean' (Lev. 13:45) were warnings to all that
they should keep aloof, lest unawares touching a leper, or drawing unto
too great a nearness, they should become partakers of this disease. So
far from any danger of the kind existing, nearly all who have looked
closest into the matter agree that the sickness was incommunicable by
ordinary contact from one person to another. A leper might transmit it
to his children, or the mother of a leper's children might take it from
him; but it was by no ordinary contact communicable from one person to
another. All the notices in the Old Testament, as well as in other
Jewish books, confirm the statement that we have here something very
much higher than a mere sanitary regulation. Thus, when the law of Moses
was not observed, no such exclusion necessarily found place; Naaman the
leper commanded the armies of Syria (2 Kings 5:1); Gehazi, with his
leprosy that never should be cleansed, (2 Kings 5:27) talked familiarly
with the king of apostate Israel (2 Kings 8:5).... How, moreover, should
the Levitical priests, had the disease been this creeping infection,
have ever themselves escaped it, obliged as they were by their very
office to submit the leper to actual handling and closest
examination?... Leprosy was nothing short of a living death, a
corrupting of all the humors, a poisoning of the very springs, of life;
a dissolution, little by little, of the whole body, so that one limb
after another actually decayed and fell away. Aaron exactly describes
the appearance which the leper presented to the eyes of the beholders,
when, pleading for Miriam, he says, 'Let her not be as one dead, of whom
the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother's womb.'
(Numb. 12:12.) The disease, moreover, was incurable by the art and skill
of man; not that the leper might not return to health; for, however
rare, such cases are contemplated in the Levitical law.... The leper,
thus fearfully bearing about the body the outward and visible tokens of
sin in the soul, was treated throughout as a sinner, as one in whom sin
had reached its climax, as one dead in trespasses and sins. He was
himself a dreadful parable of death. He bore about him the emblems of
death (Lev. 13:45); the rent garments, mourning for himself as one dead;
the head bare as they were wont to have it who were defiled by communion
with the dead (Numb. 6:9; Ezek. 24:27); and the lip covered (Ezek.
24:17).... But the leper was as one dead, and as such was shut out of
the camp (Lev. 13:46; Numb. 5:2-4). and the city (2 Kings 7:3), this law
being so strictly enforced that even the sister of Moses might not be
exempted from it (Numb. 12:14, 15); and kings themselves, as Uzziah (2
Chron. 26:21; 2 Kings 15:5) must submit to it; men being by this
exclusion taught that what here took place in a figure, should take
place in the reality with every one who was found in the death of sin."

For the elaborate ceremonies incident to the cleansing of a recovered
leper see Lev. chap. 14.

2. Blasphemy.--The essence of the deep sin of blasphemy lies not, as
many suppose, in profanity alone, but as Dr. Kelso, _Stand. Bible
Dict._, summarizes: "Every improper use of the divine name (Lev. 24:11),
speech derogatory to the Majesty of God (Matt. 26:65), and sins with a
high hand--i.e. premeditated transgressions of the basal principles of
the theocracy (Numb. 9:13; 15:30; Exo. 31:14)--were regarded as
blasphemy; the penalty was death by stoning (Lev. 24:16)." _Smith's
Bible Dict._ states: "Blasphemy, in its technical English sense,
signifies the speaking evil of God, and in this sense it is found in
Psalm 74:18; Isa. 52:5; Rom. 2:24, etc.... On this charge both our Lord
and Stephen were condemned to death by the Jews. When a person heard
blasphemy he laid his hand on the head of the offender, to symbolize his
sole responsibility for the guilt, and rising on his feet, tore his
robe, which might never again be mended." (See Matt. 26:65.)

3. Publican.--"A word originally meaning a contractor for public works
or supplies, or a farmer of public lands, but later applied to Romans
who bought from the government the right to collect taxes in a given
territory. These buyers, always knights (senators were excluded by their
rank), became capitalists and formed powerful stock companies, whose
members received a percentage on the capital invested. Provincial
capitalists could not buy taxes, which were sold in Rome to the highest
bidders, who to recoup themselves sublet their territory (at a great
advance on the price paid the government) to the native (local)
publicans, who in their turn had to make a profit on their purchase
money, and being assessors of property as well as collectors of taxes,
had abundant opportunities for oppressing the people, who hated them
both for that reason and also because the tax itself was the mark of
their subjection to foreigners."--J. R. Sterrett in _Stand. Bible Dict._

4. Fishers of Men.--"Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men,"
said Jesus to fishermen who afterward became His apostles (Matt. 4:19).
Mark's version is nearly the same (1:17), while that of Luke (5:10)
reads: "From henceforth thou shalt catch men." The correct translation
is, as commentators practically agree, "From henceforth thou shalt take
men alive." This reading emphasizes the contrast given in the text--that
between capturing fish to kill them and winning men to save them.
Consider in this connection the Lord's prediction through Jeremiah
(16:16), that in reaching scattered Israel, "Behold, I will send for
many fishers, saith the Lord, and they shall fish them;" etc.

5. "Thy Sins Be Forgiven Thee."--The following commentary by Edersheim
(_Life and Times of Jesus the Messiah_, vol. i, pp. 505, 506) on the
incident under consideration is instructive: "In this forgiveness of
sins He presented His person and authority as divine, and He proved it
such by the miracle of healing which immediately followed. Had the two
been inverted, [i.e. had Christ first healed the man and afterward told
him that his sins were forgiven] there would have been evidence, indeed,
of His power, but not of His divine personality, nor of His having
authority to forgive sins; and this, not the doing of miracles, was the
object of His teaching and mission, of which the miracles were only
secondary evidence. Thus the inward reasoning of the scribes, which was
open and known to Him who readeth all thoughts, issued in quite the
opposite of what they could have expected. Most unwarranted, indeed, was
the feeling of contempt which we trace in their unspoken words, whether
we read them: 'Why does this one thus speak blasphemies?' or, according
to a more correct transcript of them: 'Why does this one speak thus? He
blasphemeth!' Yet from their point of view they were right, for God
alone can forgive sins; nor has that power ever been given or delegated
to man. But was He a mere man, like even the most honored of God's
servants? Man, indeed; but 'the Son of Man.' ... It seemed easy to say:
'Thy sins have been forgiven.' But to Him, who had authority to do so on
earth, it was neither more easy nor more difficult than to say: 'Rise,
take up thy bed, and walk.' Yet this latter, assuredly, proved the
former, and gave it in the sight of all men unquestioned reality. And so
it was the thoughts of these scribes, which, as applied to Christ, were
'evil'--since they imputed to Him blasphemy--that gave occasion for
offering real evidence of what they would have impugned and denied. In
no other manner could the object alike of miracles and of this special
miracle have been so attained as by the 'evil thoughts' of these
scribes, when, miraculously brought to light, they spoke out the inmost
possible doubt, and pointed to the highest of all questions concerning
the Christ. And so it was once more the wrath of man which praised Him."