Your Sins Are Forgiven

"Son, your sins are forgiven"(Mark 2:5)

In Mark 2:1-12 we see a powerful act of faith taking place in a private home. This time we see a powerful faith on the scene. What is striking is that it is faith on the part of the sick man’s friends, not on the sick man’s part. Again the Lord was “speaking the word to them."This was His primary ministry, the healings were a secondary, incidental act.

The sick man’s four friends had the kind of faith that mocks impossibilities and says, "It will be done."Jesus saw this faith. The Lord immediately dealt with the spiritual side of the matter, granting the paralytic man forgiveness of his sins. This was blasphemy in the logic of the scribes present. They were right in thinking that no one could forgive sins except God (v. 7), but they were completely wrong in not believing that God was present in their midst, speaking in the Son of Man.

The Son of Man was on earth, and on earth He had the authority to forgive sins. However, the forgiveness of sins is not something that can be seen by the eyes of men; it must be received by faith in God’s word. The immediate healing of a deteriorating state of human weakness, however, can be seen by the eyes of men, and the Lord performed this miracle. They could neither deliver the man from the grip of the disease, nor forgive his sins, but the Lord Jesus could do both.

He did both, using the miracle in the flesh as evidence of the completion of the miracle in the spirit. The spiritual miracle was the foundation, while the physical miracle was only secondary. Here the miracle was immediate and complete. The man who was completely unable to move “immediately rose up, took up the bed, and went out before them all, so that they were all amazed, and glorified God” (v. 12). The Lord had commanded, and the man could not help but obey, for power had gone out with the command.

By F. B. Hall