Matthew 9:5 Mark 2:9 Luke 5:23 (Combined) For whether is 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?To convince the scribe in this story that his theory on identifying Messiah may be flawed, Jesus offered a question, “Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?”The answer to this question is difficult for we know He is not speaking of merely saying either of the choices given, but is asking, which is easier to do. For with Jesus, to say or to do was the same thing. (It should be that way for us as well.) In this case however, the question was, “If I am who I claim to be, I can forgive sin. If I am who I say I am, I can heal diseases as well.” To which the scribe, as a scholar of the Old Testament, must attest. It was clear in the Scriptures that Messiah would be able to do these things. Then Jesus says,“But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy) I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy couch bed, and go unto thine house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and went forth before them all and departed to his own house glorifying God. And they were all amazed, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, “We never saw it on this fashion. We have seen strange things to day.” (Matthew 9:6-7 - Mark 2:10-12 - Luke 5:24-26 Combined)Now what will the poor scribe do? The man has just seen Messiah’s prophecies come to pass before his own eyes and he is left with no other alternative but to believe. The record here says they glorified God and were filled with fear. This was a reaction any of us would have had.Messiah came with a long and detailed list of prophecies that he would fulfill. These prophecies were misunderstood and misapplied and caused nearly a whole nation to miss the Messiah. Jesus was not averse to proclaiming his familiarity with these prophecies and attaching His life and works as fulfillment. Read this story recorded in Luke 4:16-22,“And he came to Nazareth, where he had been brought up: and, as his custom was, he went into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up for to read. And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written, The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach the acceptable year of the Lord. And he closed the book, and he gave it again to the minister, and sat down. And the eyes of all them that were in the synagogue were fastened on him. And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears. And all bare him witness, and wondered at the gracious words which proceeded out of his mouth. And they said, ‘Is not this Joseph's son?’”[1]As He traveled, He never missed genuine opportunity to use this anointing. Through this He was seen by those of open heart as the Messiah and to those of closed mind as a blasphemer, lawbreaker, a man gluttonous and drunken. The honest folk received him gladly under this premise: “…When Christ cometh, will he do more miracles than these which this man hath done?” (John 7:31) The miracles showed them (and us) that His power exceeded the norm, but what is that to us today? Today Jesus, the Messiah, is still the ONLY healer and He is the only one who forgives sin. When Jesus asked the question, “Whether is easier, to say arise and walk or thy sins be forgiven thee?” we can see His objective was to demonstrate His authority to do either or both at will.True GraceThere is more to glean from this question of Jesus. What we must draw from this story is that the one who has power to heal, has power to save. What we can draw from His question is that one will be as easy to accomplish as the other. Jesus is uniquely qualified to effect conversion of the soul, proven by His ability to heal. It is He alone who has this power and the sovereign will to use it on our behalf. We are to learn that we are desperately helpless in both of these situations. We can save our soul from destruction as easily as we can make a lame man walk again. Both of these are so far from our level of ability it is ludicrous to attempt either one.Today, it is commonly taught to play games of forgiveness in our mind. It is not uncommon to hear that we can make ourselves better through “inner healing” or by “forgiving” ourselves, unfortunately, neither is possible. Our guilty conscience before God does indeed wreak havoc with our health and well-being, but forgiveness and healing are gifts from God given to those who seek forgiveness from Him. It is, after all, His Law that is broken. It ...
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