Big Idea: In contrast to the crowds, the leaders begin to oppose Jesus’s ministry because he ignores the requirements of their oral tradition. Jesus, however, conducts his ministry not to satisfy rules but to bring sinners to forgiveness. His authority to forgive sins is proof of his divine sonship.
Understanding the Text
Jesus’s authority continues from Mark 1, but now with a polar opposite reaction: rejection rather than wonder. This begins five episodes (2:1–12, 13–17, 18–22, 23–28; 3:1–6) that center on the leaders; in each one Jesus’s opponents make disparaging comments and ask him challenging questions regarding his deliberate ignoring of the law. He responds with dominical sayings and aphorisms that highlight his authority. In 1:21–45 Jesus’s popularity with the crowds grew exponentially; in 2:1–3:6 his opposition grows even more powerfully. In 1:45 he attracted so many people that he could no longer enter the towns. In 3:6 the leaders are already plotting his death. They can not accept the new economy, the new covenant that he is in the process of establishing with his kingdom teaching (2:21–22).
Interpretive Insights
2:2 They gathered in such large numbers that there was no room left. After the Galilean ministry of 1:38–45, Jesus returns “home” to Capernaum (2:1), which he has made his headquarters (1:21; Matt. 4:13). Probably this is Peter’s home, where Jesus stays when in Capernaum (see on 1:29). He apparently slips in secretly, but his renown continues unabated from 1:33, 37, 45, as the crowds come anyway from all around and fill every corner of the house and possibly the immediate neighborhood as well. As in 1:21–22, Jesus begins by “preaching the word” of the gospel (1:15) to them. The message takes precedence over the action.
2:3 bringing to him a paralyzed man, carried by four of them. The man is completely disabled, with “paralysis,” a general term that could indicate any number of diseases or accidents that make a person unable to walk. The fact that four of his friends carry him (on a mat or poor man’s bedroll [cf. Matt. 9:2]) shows that they share his faith in Jesus’s ability to heal.
2:4 they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat. When the crippled man and his friends arrive, they find that the huge crowd at Simon’s house makes it impossible to get the man to Jesus in the normal way. However, their solution is not as difficult as it sounds in this modern age of sloping, multilayered roofs. They simply go around back, carry the man up the rear staircase (the only way to get to the roof), and dig through the roof. Galilean homes were small, one-room structures with flat roofs made out of tree limbs for a base, then mud and clay packed with thatch over it (people would entertain friends and often eat meals on the roof). It would be simple to dig through the mud, remove a few branches, and lower the man to Jesus.
2:5 Jesus saw their faith . . . “Son, your sins are forgiven.” This “faith” (see also 5:34, 36; 9:23–24; 10:52) in Jesus characterizes the paralytic and his friends. So Jesus’s statement to the man most likely involves all of them. There is double meaning in “faith” (though they intended only the first): first is the power of Jesus to miraculously heal, and then (implicit in Jesus’s statement) a faith in God’s ability to bring spiritual healing. The Baptist in 1:4 preached “a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” so Jesus’s proclamation continues that theme, the heart of the “gospel” message (1:15). Still, this seems a strange response when they have brought the man to be healed. The key is the connection between sin and disease in the ancient world. In “your sins are forgiven” there is both physical and spiritual healing taking place. It is common to think “are forgiven” is a divine passive (i.e., God has forgiven them). But in the context it is better to call this a “performance utterance,” meaning that Jesus himself is proclaiming the forgiveness.1That certainly is how the scribes take it in the next verse. The new covenant salvation of Jeremiah 31:34 has arrived (“I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more”).
2:7 He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone? The “teachers of the law” (see on 1:22) are scandalized by the authority behind Jesus’s proclamation. Mark describes them “thinking to themselves,” meaning mental deliberation on the point. The “blasphemy” (or “slander”) means not that Jesus is calling himself God but that he is acting in a way only God could act (see Exod. 34:7; 2 Sam. 12:13; Isa. 6:7; 43:25). The priests, for instance, only pronounced a person ritually clean. “But God alone” (ei m? heis ho theos, “except one, God”) probably points to the Shema, the core Jewish prayer that begins, “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Deut. 6:4). The Jews defined blasphemy as pronouncing the divine name in a sacrilegious way (m. Sanh.7:5). Jesus does not quite do that, but he does utter something that only God has the right to say, so it constitutes blasphemy in a broad sense.2Later, this is the charge that leads to his condemnation before the Sanhedrin (14:63–64).
2:8 Jesus knew in his spirit that this is what they were thinking in their hearts. Jesus is able to exercise omniscience on occasion, to know what people are thinking or who they are (5:30; 12:15b; 14:18; John 1:42, 47; 4:17–18). God’s knowledge of the heart and mind of people is seen in 1 Samuel 16:7; 1 Chronicles 28:9; Jeremiah 17:9–10.
2:9 Which is easier: to say to this paralyzed man, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up, take your mat and walk”? Jesus uses an a fortiori argument (Jewish qal wahomer argument, “from the lesser to the greater”). In the religious scope of things it takes a great deal more authority to forgive sins (an eternal decree) than to heal someone (an earthly, temporary act). But Jesus is speaking from a human point of view, where it is harder to heal than to forgive. Also, Jesus centers on which is easier to say rather than to do, and one can demonstrate forgiveness much more easily than healing.
2:10 know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. “That you might know” may be language borrowed from Moses’s confrontation of Pharaoh on behalf of God (Exod. 7:17; 8:10, 12; 10:2), especially Exodus 9:14, where Pharaoh is to know “that there is none like me [the Lord] in all the earth.”3The teachers of the law, like Pharaoh, are at war with God and soon will learn who he (and his Son) really is in essence. “Authority to forgive” does not mean just the right to declare a person forgiven, for the priests had the capability to declare forgiveness on those who had performed the sacrifices; rather, it denotes that Jesus himself possessed God’s authority to forgive.
2:12 He got up . . . and walked out in full view of them all. “Got up” in the Greek is “was raised”; his limbs in effect came back to life. The public nature of the miracle is emphasized. God’s presence and power in Jesus are clear to all there, so the physical miracle is an active demonstration of his spiritual authority to forgive sins. Unlike what happens in 1:44, Jesus does not order the man to tell no one; this event is obvious for all to see.
We have never seen anything like this! Once again (see 1:22, 27) everyone is “amazed,” and they “praise God” (or “give glory to God”). It is difficult to know whether the “everyone” includes the hostile scribes from 2:6–7. On the surface it seems so, but in the rest of 2:13–3:6 the leaders remain opposed to Jesus, and in 3:22 the scribes accuse him of being possessed by Beelzebul. It seems best to think that “everyone” means “all the crowds” and is in contrast with the hostile leaders. Either way, the story ends on a note of astonishment, at both the miracles and Jesus’s authority to forgive sins. Never before have any of the onlookers seen such a glorious act of power. Jesus truly is unique.
Theological Insights
From the success of Jesus’s inaugural ministry with the crowds, Mark now turns to the rejection and opposition coming from the leaders of Israel. Darkness will always hate light (John 3:19–20), and Christians should never be surprised by opposition to their ministry. At the same time, the power of God at work in Jesus was so visible that even his opponents had to marvel in amazement. God’s mercy and forgiveness are evident and must be noticed. Our God is a healing God, and the authority of Jesus over physical and spiritual illness can be seen in the church as well.
Teaching the Text
1. Jesus has the authority to heal and forgive sins. Throughout the miracle stories of Mark Jesus’s authority over human ailments, natural forces, and the cosmic powers is depicted. The apex of this authority is the dominical saying here that Jesus is the Son of Man, who has “authority to forgive sins,” for the greatest power of all inheres in the one who can bring salvation to humankind. Jesus has the power to bring both physical and spiritual healing, so the time-honored traditional title of Jesus as “the Great Physician” is wondrously portrayed in this story.
2. There is a connection between physical and spiritual healing. In Mark 1 we noted that Jesus’s baptism introduces the new age of the Spirit, and his coming is the entrance of God’s final kingdom into this world, constituting a new creation. Here the implications of this are traced, as the kingdom reality means that physical and spiritual healing are available to those who open themselves up to Jesus. The coming of God’s salvation means not only the bringing of people to God but also the restoration of the fallen creation. In Mark and Matthew this is connected to the issue of “faith” (Mark 2:5; 5:34, 36; 10:52; Matt. 9:2, 22, 29; 15:28), for faith depicts the participation of the recipients in the healing process and is connected to the experience of spiritual as well as physical healing. Jesus is involved in healing the whole person, the physical as well as the spiritual aspects of fallen humankind.
Illustrating the Text
The authority of Jesus to heal
Comparison: The U.S. Army Board Study Guide includes a section titled “Authority.” The guide defines authority as “the right to direct soldiers to do certain things. Authority is the legitimate power of leaders to direct soldiers or to take action within the scope of their position.”4In the Army, authority simply means that a commanding officer can issue an order that is binding on those under his or her command. In the same way, Jesus has authority over all of creation. When Jesus ordered demons to leave a human body, they had to obey. When Jesus ordered a body to be healed, it had to obey.
And just as a soldier is to carry out the purpose given him or her by the commanding officer, so Jesus, in his healing ministry, was carrying out the purpose of his heavenly Father. The desire of Jesus to heal was a reflection of the compassionate heart of God. In John 14:11–14 and Matthew 28:18–20 we see evidence of Jesus giving his followers authority to continue his ministry in this world.
The transforming power of forgiveness
Human Experience: When Jesus healed the paralytic and proclaimed, “Son, your sins are forgiven,” he was indicating the connection between the disease (felt need) and the deeper sickness (guilt and shame that require forgiveness). To heal the body without dealing with the underlying spiritual issue of forgiveness would have left the paralytic still in need of healing. Imagine that you have a daughter who is running a high fever. She complains of chills, so you cover her with blankets until she feels warm. If you ignore the cause of the fever, have you really helped her? Jesus understood that the man’s deepest need was spiritual, and he responded to both the physical and the spiritual need. Ask your listeners this important question: “Have you received the forgiveness of God that comes through faith in Jesus Christ?”
The compassion and power of the healer
Scenario: Imagine that you and a friend decide to go on a day hike. Expecting to be gone just a few hours, you bring only a few bottles of water, two bags of trail mix, and your cell phone. The scenery and weather are so great that you lose track of time, and before you know it, the sun starts to set. Moments later, disaster strikes. Your friend falls down a steep hill and breaks his leg. You are a long way from your car, almost out of water, and your cell phone is not getting a signal. What would you do?
Chances are you would do everything you could to help and save your friend. The friends of the paralytic did everything they could to bring their friend to Jesus, even digging a hole in the roof of the house to lower him to the Lord. They believed that Jesus could heal him. If we really believe that Jesus is compassionate and has the power to heal (physically and spiritually), why would we not do everything we can to bring others to Jesus through prayer, friendship, and sharing the gospel?