Jesus Over Sin: The Power of the Kingdom
Matthew: The King and His Kingdom • Sermon • Submitted • Presented • 41:10
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· 15 viewsJesus alone has the authority to forgive sin, therefore you must come to Him in faith despite any obstacles.
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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.
Jesus was begged to leave from the region He just healed the two demon possessed men.
34 And behold, all the city came out to meet Jesus, and when they saw him, they begged him to leave their region.
The progression for Matthew has moved from leprosy to disease to nature to the spiritual realm, and now the mother of all transgression.
Sin and death have been in collusion against humanity from the beginning of time.
Sin bringing forth death.
And now Jesus is gonna show us that he has the power even over sin.
In chapter 9, especially, Matthew begins to describe the opposition from the religious leaders.
The religious leaders hated Jesus.
Matthew 9 will lay out several concerns that these religious leaders will have toward Him.
Blasphemy – (Matthew 9:3) “This man is blaspheming.”
Reckless living with sinners – (Matthew 9:11) “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Impiety – (Matthew 9:14) “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
In Matthew, the conflict between the religious leaders, and Jesus becomes even more intense.
But here we see that conflict begin to escalate.
1 And getting into a boat he crossed over and came to his own city.
Jesus came into Capernaum.
This would have been his home place within Galilee.
It was his primary place to stay.
These people knew Him better than anyone.
So it would make sense that they expected Him to do many mighty works in this place.
The town was buzzing.
Jesus was in a house and it was so crowded that nobody could come in. (Mark 2:2)
Jesus was preaching the Word.
Everybody wanted to be near Him.
2 And behold, some people brought to him a paralytic, lying on a bed.
The Paralyzed Come to Jesus in Faith.
The Paralyzed Come to Jesus in Faith.
A group of men were carrying their paralytic friend.
Now you can imagine their disappointment when they showed up to the house that Jesus was in and saw it so crowded that they couldn’t even get near Jesus.
They couldn’t touch Him.
They couldn’t get their friend to Him.
The disappointment when they realized there would be no help for their friend who couldn’t walk.
Houses had flat roofs.
Typically, they would have a staircase leading up the outside of the house to the roof.
Both Mark and Luke describe what these men did next…
3 And they came, bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.
4 And when they could not get near him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above him, and when they had made an opening, they let down the bed on which the paralytic lay.
Matthew excludes this detail because he has a more narrowed focus than the other gospel writers.
You can picture the house filled to the brim.
Silence because Jesus is teaching.
And all of a sudden, banging from the roof.
These men were bound and determined to get their friend before Jesus.
Their friend has been a paralytic for a long time.
He was dependent on others to carry him.
“Carry me to Jesus!”
“Get me too Him!”
“Whatever it costs!”
These men love their friend so much that they were willing to commit destruction of property to get him into Jesus.
And when Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”
But these men, and likely this man himself trusted that Jesus could heal him.
Notice that Jesus is described to have seen their faith.
It wasn’t merely this one man’s faith but these men’s faith in knowing that Jesus could heal their friend.
“Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”
The paralytic receives forgiveness of sin through faith.
The paralytic receives forgiveness of sin through faith.
Jesus tells this man to “be encouraged” or to “be enheartened.”
You can imagine the estate of a man bound to a mat for the entirety of his life to this point.
Discouraged.
Disheartened.
Yet Jesus lifts his face.
This man should be encouraged but not because of why people remember this story.
Jesus doesn’t merely tell him to get up and walk.
He says, “Your sins have been forgiven.”
This man ought to take courage because his sins have been pardoned.
His sins have been acquitted.
Sickness is connected to our sin in a fallen world.
Sickness is connected to our sin in a fallen world.
Does this mean this man’s sickness is a result of sin?
Much like our culture, pagan people reason,
“If you’re sick, then you must have done something wrong to deserve it.”
The religious leaders asked Jesus a very similar question in John nine when he answered…
2 And his disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?”
3 Jesus answered, “It was not that this man sinned, or his parents, but that the works of God might be displayed in him.
Matthew doesn’t give us any clues in regard to this.
We should not think that sickness is always directly related to sin.
But we do know that all sickness is a result, ultimately of living in a sinful and fallen world.
Gospel Centrality & Healing
Healing is grounded in the gospel.
If we begin to think that healing is somehow disassociated from the gospel, we end up with a very weird system of speaking sickness.
It becomes a “try harder” and “do better” mentality.
Gospel centrality helps us grow all the benefits of Christ in its proper place.
Healing is grounded but not guaranteed in atonement.
Healing is grounded but not guaranteed in atonement.
Does forgiveness in this life always tie directly for healing?
“Jesus has forgiven you, so you should never have any health issues in this life.”
“Jesus has forgiven you, so our physical bodies also must be healed in this life!”
You see where this logic takes you.
Any remaining sickness leads to a sense of guilt because you don’t have enough faith to be healed.
This is not the logic of heaven.
It is true that Jesus forgives this man of his sin, and then proves to the people in the room that he is speaking on behalf of God because of the healing.
God with Us: Themes from Matthew Jesus’ Authority in His Miracles
[T]he fundamental means God has graciously provided for removing our sin is the sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection of Jesus; and therefore the fundamental means God has provided for removing our sickness is the sacrificial death and triumphant resurrection of Jesus.
God with Us: Themes from Matthew Jesus’ Authority in His Miracles
It is therefore quite correct to say, for instance, that there is healing in the atonement—a slogan in many Christian circles. But in the same sense, there is also a resurrection body and a new heaven and a new earth in the atonement. All these benefits have been secured for believers by the atonement. That does not mean I can expect to claim my resurrection body now, simply because it has been paid for. Though secured by Christ’s cross and resurrection, our resurrection bodies come to us, according to the New Testament, only when Christ returns. And the same may be true, in many instances, of healing. God may bestow healing now, but He has certainly not pledged Himself to do so. But one day, all true believers will be perfectly healed.
This is one of the reasons when we pray for healing here at this church corporately.
We do it after the reality that we have been forgiven.
Any healing you and I ever receive this side of heaven is grounded in the atonement of Christ.
Any healing is grounded in the forgiveness that Jesus has purchased on the cross.
“Take heart, my son; your sins are forgiven.”
Jesus’ authority to forgive sin.
Jesus’ authority to forgive sin.
Now notice how the religious leaders respond to this…
3 And behold, some of the scribes said to themselves, “This man is blaspheming.”
Notice the comparison that Matthew keeps showing us of Jesus’s self description versus others description of him.
The disciples wonder, “Who is this man?”
The Demons declare, “What have you to do with us Jesus Son of God?”
And here’s the religious leaders, declaring “This man is blaspheming!”
The Scribes fully understand what Jesus is saying here.
They are not confused by what Jesus is claiming here.
They know exactly the weighty statement that He is making.
This accusation may not feel earth-shattering to us because our irreverent society dulls its impact.
It does not shock us to hear people take god’s name in vain.
It does not shock us to hear people curse and utter all kinds of blasphemy.
“Blasphemy” is to speak irreverently about God.
It can also mean in certain contexts to slander other people.
Now how could Jesus saying to another man that his sins have been forgiven been accused of blasphemy?
Why blasphemy?
They could’ve called him a liar.
They could’ve called him a fraud.
They could’ve called him a lunatic.
But a blasphemer?
The scribes call Jesus a blasphemer because they recognize His claim:
Forgiving sins is God’s prerogative alone.
By stepping into this role, Jesus declares His deity—a claim they reject, but which He proves through the healing.
Forgiving sin was something that God alone does.
His authority to forgive sin is a claim to deity.
His authority to forgive sin is a claim to deity.
To say that a person sins are forgiven is to imply that the offense was against them.
“What was in dispute was not the obligation of men to forgive each other for wrongs done to each other—every devout Jew was aware of that obligation.
Even a child understands this.
When a child wrongs a sibling, they have to apologize and say, “can you forgive me?”
It’s a recognition that the wrong done was against the other person.
But from what this narrative tells us, Jesus has never met this man before.
But Jesus’s claim underneath His declaration is that your sin has been against me.
3 For I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me.
Our sin is always and primarily against God and God alone.
Even when we’ve wronged one another person.
The Bible tells us that the bigger offense is because we ourselves have wronged God.
This makes what Jesus says here to this man as offensive as it is received.
“My son, your sin has been against Me and I forgive you.”
“My son, you have actually been wronging Me, but I will atone for it!”
Jesus steps into the prerogative of God alone.
Jesus steps into the place of something only God does.
4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts?
Jesus sees the men bringing their friend on the mat.
He sees the response of faith.
But at the exact same time He sees the response of unbelief and sin from the religious leaders…
Notice the strange statement about the the “their thoughts”…
4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts…
Jesus describing this as thinking within their hearts.
For the biblical writers, the heart was the very center of a persons being.
A person feels in their heart.
They also think within their heart.
They also act from their heart.
19 For out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false witness, slander.
The heart is where we think within ourselves.
It’s where we ponder the future.
It’s where we dwell upon the past.
It’s where we stew upon the present.
These religious leaders saw what Jesus did, and they perceived what it meant, and believed in their heart which requires thinking in their mind.
Now their thoughts were evil because their thoughts hinged upon Jesus taking the prerogative of God alone.
So He asks them, “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.
His authority to forgive sin as the Son of Man.
His authority to forgive sin as the Son of Man.
But Matthew continues to record that Jesus says that he is the Son of Man.
The Son of Man as we saw is the human description of the Messianic figure prophesied in the Old Testament.
We saw the other week from Psalm 8 that the son of man has dominion over the natural world.
But there’s another portrait in the Old Testament of the Son of Man from the prophecies of Daniel.
In Daniel, a dream of a statue—gold head, silver body, iron legs, and feet of iron and clay—symbolizes earthly kingdoms and God’s ultimate reign.
His dream represents the way God’s kingdom will come to earth.
If you remember in that dream, the statue that Daniel sees is of statue that represents the kingdoms of the earth.
The head being gold, the body silver, the legs iron, and finally the feet partly iron and partly clay.
A final kingdom will be set up…
44 And in the days of those kings the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that shall never be destroyed, nor shall the kingdom be left to another people. It shall break in pieces all these kingdoms and bring them to an end, and it shall stand forever,
45 just as you saw that a stone was cut from a mountain by no human hand, and that it broke in pieces the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver, and the gold. A great God has made known to the king what shall be after this. The dream is certain, and its interpretation sure.”
Now in Daniel 7, an angel comes to Daniel and gives him visions to explain the dream (Daniel 7:1) which is the Apocalyptic vision that corresponds to Daniel 2.
The NIV Grace and Truth Study Bible Chapter 7
Each of the four beasts represented a kingdom in historical succession: Babylonia, Medo-Persia, Greece, and Rome.
Daniel describes a figure that looks like a man, and yet who God vestiges all authority in heaven and on earth.
13 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.
14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed.
This backdrop informs what Jesus says again of His status as the Son of Man.
In Daniel, the ‘Son of Man’ is a divine figure who receives authority from God (Daniel 7:13-14).
When Jesus calls Himself the Son of Man, He’s claiming that cosmic power—power over sin, sickness, and even death.
The Son of Man even has authority to forgive sins.
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.”
Some translations even go as far to say…
“But to prove to you that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” (Matthew 9:6, JB)
“I will prove to you…” (Matthew 9:6, GNB)
We know how the story goes.
But if Jesus was not able to make this man rise up and walk, He would be a fraud.
Just merely declaring someone forgiven of sin doesn’t make it so.
There must be proof.
7 And he rose and went home.
His authority to forgive sin is validated in healing.
His authority to forgive sin is validated in healing.
Jesus doesn’t answer their question.
He asks, “Is it easier to forgive sins?” or “Is it easier to say rise get up and walk?”
It may be hard to tell a person to get up and walk and heal them, but it’s even harder to forgive sins.
Jesus’s answer boils down to…
“I’ll do the easier thing to prove to you that the harder thing can be done.”
“If I’m blaspheming, then how could God listen to me as I heal this man?”
31 We know that God does not listen to sinners, but if anyone is a worshiper of God and does his will, God listens to him.
Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sin, therefore you must come to Him in faith despite any obstacles.
Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sin, therefore you must come to Him in faith despite any obstacles.
Thirdly, I want us to consider three responses we see in this narrative.
The responses to the authority of the Son of Man.
The responses to the authority of the Son of Man.
The responses serve as a paradigm for us to consider our own interaction with the Lord Jesus.
The paralytic and his friend’s faith in Jesus despite obstacles.
The paralytic and his friend’s faith in Jesus despite obstacles.
Genuine faith is a faith that fights through barriers.
We often have a view of life that only looks for open doors.
But the example of these men stands as evidence of looking with the eyes of faith.
They have no open doors to Jesus.
They had no access to Him.
Yet they were willing to expand themselves because they trusted with the eyes of faith.
Much like the woman that came to Jesus with bleeding for 12 years, had to push her way through the crowd.
“If I touch even his garments, I will be made well.”
The crowd did not keep her from coming.
The distance did not keep her away.
Much like the woman that Jesus initially told to go away because he had come to the house of Israel.
“Yes, Lord; yet even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”
Her perseverance is commended by our Lord
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?
The religious leader’s rejection of His kingship.
The religious leader’s rejection of His kingship.
Matthew doesn’t tell us how the religious leaders respond.
All we see is silence.
But the silence speaks extremely loud throughout Matthews gospel.
The hostility in the tension continue to grow.
Matthew, Volumes 1 & 2 Gauging the Responses to Jesus
Would they accept the evidence of Jesus’ deity?
Would they follow their own reasoning to its conclusion, repent of their skepticism, and believe in Jesus?
It’s not enough to see Christ and do nothing.
It’s not enough to know that sin is a problem in our lives, and remain neutral.
8 When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
The crowd’s amazement of His authority.
The crowd’s amazement of His authority.
The crowd is a little more complicated.
They are excited that God has given “authority to men”
But they still miss the reality right in front of them.
They’re amazed at the signs.
But they still keep Jesus at a distance.
They’re awe is good but it’s still deficient. (D. Doriani)
Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sin, therefore you must come to Him in faith despite any obstacles.
Jesus alone has the authority to forgive sin, therefore you must come to Him in faith despite any obstacles.
