Matthew 9:1-8: The Greater Sickness

If you have your Bible turn to Matthew chapter 9. If you don’t have your bible with you feel free to grab one of the bibles from the seat in front of you.

Almost exactly ten years ago today I literally passed out from the worst migraines I have ever experienced. I initially just thought it was a bad headache so I took pain medication and tried to address the problem. It did not help. For the next three days I slept about 20 hours a day and kept taking pain meds. I thought that the most important thing was removing the pain, of getting rid of the headache, but what I didn’t know is that there was a greater sickness that was threatening my life. My brain was bleeding, slowly filling my skull with blood and it was only a matter of time before it would kill me.

I regret to inform you that it killed me. (Just kidding. I’m just checking to see if you’re listening). After nearly two weeks, the doctors found the brain bleed and performed surgery that day. They weren’t very concerned with pain management, to be honest they literally cut my head open and when I woke up I was in the most pain I had ever felt in my life. But they were able to find the greater sickness in me and bring life and healing.

Our text for this morning speaks to a time when Jesus, faced with an obvious sickness in front of him, chose to address the greater sickness first. Let’s read this morning’s passage together.

Matthew 9:1–8 ESV

1 And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. 2 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed. And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.” 3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’? 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” 7 And he rose and went home. 8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

While this is the beginning of a new chapter according to our chapter and verse numbers, this passage is really the closing of a small trilogy of miracle stories that are geared toward unequivocally showing that Jesus is Lord over everything!

In the first story, Jesus and his disciples get in a boat to cross the sea to a gentile city on the other side. While they are crossing the sea we’re shown how Jesus is Lord over even the elements of nature as a raging storm bows down before His command! His disciples respond by asking what kind of man is Jesus?! They’ve never seen a storm bow down before a man!

In the second story, they’ve made it to the other side and we are shown how Jesus is Lord over even the forces of darkness! We see demons bow down before before Him and fear His power over them! The disciples asked what kind of man Jesus was and the demons answered the question as they recognized and named Jesus as the Son of God!

Now, we finish this trilogy with Jesus and his disciples coming back across the sea to Capernaum, the city Jesus claimed as his own, and through a story that is beloved in churches all over the world, shows how even sickness bows before this man who is the Son of God. But more importantly than the sickness of the body being healed by Jesus, He shows that even the great sickness of the heart, sin, is able to be healed in Him.

Matthew 9:1–2 “1 And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city. 2 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed.”

After a brief mission venture in gentile lands, Jesus returns to Jewish Capernaum with his disciples. This was the place Jesus had made his home since chapter 4 and in Mark 2 we are told that after a few days being home people came to his house to hear him teach. Mark also tells us that there were so many people that they filled the house and were gathered out the door! This place was packed!

In Matthew we are only told that some people brought a paralyzed man before Jesus, but Mark gives more details. He says that these men could not get through the crowd, so they climbed up onto the roof with him, opened up the ceiling above Jesus, and lowered their paralyzed friend down before the Son of God! Jesus’ response to this is fascinating!

It says, “when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.””

To this man, laying on the floor in front of Him, whose body is so twisted that it is obvious he needs healing! Jesus does not tell him “you are healed”. That’s what the man needs isn’t it?! Isn’t his greatest need to be made physically whole? Isn’t his greatest need for the great healer Jesus to work his miraculous power to straighten out his twisted limbs?! Surely Jesus has compassion here and wants to see him healed. Instead, Jesus, the one who has already healed many people, the one before whom demons bow, the one to whom the very elements of nature obey, turns to the paralytic and tells him, “Take heart! Your sins are forgiven!”

Why would Jesus say this? Because Jesus knew that while the man’s physical sickness was great, there was a much greater sickness that he needed healing from, a spiritual sickness, a sickness of the heart.

Sin. Jesus knew that the man needed delivered from that great sickness that has held every single human captive since our first father and mother, Adam and Eve. Sickness and Sin have always been interwoven and sickness will only be gone forever when sin is gone forever

And how could He possibly know that the man’s sins have been forgiven?!

In understanding this we need to look at what caused Jesus to respond this way. What does this verse say? It says that upon seeing THEIR FAITH, The faith of the friends and the man laying before him, Jesus forgave his sins.

This is a vital piece of understanding what it means to be saved, even for us! It is faith that leads to forgiveness! It isn’t any sort of action on our behalf, it isn’t because we follow the instructions of a priest to pray specific prayers and follow specific church laws, and it isn’t because we simply say the words of a prayer of belief but then nothing in our lives back up our prayer.

We are forgiven of our sins only when we have faith that Jesus is the Son of God and recognizing him as the final authority in our lives, and that he can heal us of this great sickness, that our sins are forgiven. We are not justified, We are not made right before God, our sin is not forgiven by any works other than what Christ has already done. We must simply believe and submit to Christ and he grants us that forgiveness of sins.

The apostle Paul makes this abundantly clear in Romans 4 in arguing against those who would claim Jewish superiority based on their lineage from Abraham as the chosen nation of God. Paul’s whole argument is based around recognizing that even Abraham was justified by God before the Law was given and he was justified because he believed God. “He believed God and it was counted to him as righteousness.”

Faith leads to forgiveness.

So then, even the great patriarch over Israel had no ability to boast in his works, because it was only through faith that he was forgiven. Why then should anyone else think they could boast, either in word or action saying that they were able to do anything to save themselves?

This paralyzed man laying before Jesus was more likely to get up and walk out of there than for his or anyone else’s sins to be forgiven.

And yet, Jesus said to the man, “Take heart my son, your sins are forgiven”.

The response of the scribes is another indicator of how outrageous Jesus’ statement is. They think to themselves “The man is blaspheming”

In case you don’t know what blasphemy is, it is to speak of God, or for God, in such a way that is irreverent or untrue.

Let me give you a couple examples:

False prophets who claim to be proclaiming the word of God but really are speaking from their own inclinations are blaspheming God by abusing His name to prop themselves up

A Pastor who stands before the congregation and does not preach the Word of God, but rather spends all his time proclaiming to you his thoughts and opinions on politics or religion or the economy or in making proclamations of when the end of the world is coming or in placing burdens and rules on people that the Bible does not place!, is blaspheming God by nature of the position of a pastor. A pastor is often viewed as a sort of prophet speaking for God and when he takes all his time to teach things that God has not given him to teach (meaning the revealed word of God, the Bible!), he is blaspheming God and starving the flock of Christ of the nourishment they truly need.

A final example is someone who claims the name of Christ by calling themselves a “Christian”, but through their actions it is clear that they only want the title and not the responsibilities of being a follower of Christ. They’re not addressing the pride in their life, they run to the arms of lust instead of turning to Christ, they are constantly trying to get ahead in life, they’ll put anything in the position that only Christ should hold whether it’s their family, their job, money, their nation, their religion of works, whatever! Anyone who claims to represent God, whether the Father, the Son, or the Holy Spirit, and is wrong in that is blaspheming God! They are disrespecting and misrepresenting Him!

In most religions, blasphemy equals the death penalty. In Judaism this was also the case. So the Jewish scholars, the scribes, were accusing Jesus of speaking for God when he had no authority to do so! “The man is blaspheming!” because ONLY GOD CAN FORGIVE SINS BECAUSE IT IS GOD WHO IS SINNED AGAINST

But this isn’t some ordinary man who has said this! The Son of God knows their thoughts and responds: “Why do you think evil in your hearts? "For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?”

I am going to be speaking in purely human terms here, but Jesus is getting sassy! Jesus knows their thoughts and calls them on them! “What you are thinking is evil. What you are accusing me of is a wicked accusation!”

Now to any normal man, their accusation would have some weight and accuracy! What man can honestly say “your sins are forgiven” and not be presuming on the will of God?

I mean, think about the assurance of pardon I proclaim after our prayer of confession. I’m very intentional to root it in the scriptures and to put the caveat that our pardon is assured only on the basis of our faith that leads us to repentance! If I was to root that in my own proclamation of your pardon, I could be rightly accused of blasphemy myself!

But Jesus isn’t some ordinary man! And to prove it, he asks them “What is easier to say? ‘your sins are forgiven’ or get up and walk?’”

In an earthly sense, it’s easy to say “your sins are forgiven” and hard to prove. The forgiveness of sins happens spiritually, it’s not immediately noticeably physical. It is much more difficult to say ‘get up and walk’ but much more easy to prove if it is true. If he got up and walked then it was true, and Jesus had more proof that he was who he said he was. If the man tried to get up and fell back down, then Jesus was proven to be a fake. Jesus knew that the Scribes, like Thomas after Jesus’ resurrection, wanted to see physical proof.

But Jesus doesn’t leave it there, he continued speaking to the scribes, “But so you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he turned and said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.”

Here it is, the moment of truth! Jesus, in trying to make it clear that He has the authority to say “your sins are forgiven”, has turned to the man who was paralyzed, had to be carried to Jesus on a mat, and was laying on the floor in front of Jesus and told him to get up and walk.

Matthew 9:7–8 “7 And he rose and went home. 8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”

Two Points:

Main Point: The Greater Sickness: Not Sickness of the Body but Sickness of the Heart

The cross is the final solution

Secondary point: Sometimes we need some friends to help bring us before Jesus for repentance, forgiveness, and healing