Questions for Jesus | Can You Really Forgive Me?
About this series:
In each of the gospels we find Jesus asking questions of his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. And we also find Jesus being asked questions - by his disciples, the crowds and his opponents. Here, we will take 10 questions people asked of Jesus, the first from Luke’s gospel to set up the series and then the rest from Matthew’s gospel.
As well as working through the specific passages, we will aim to encourage people to consider what questions they would like to ask Jesus. The hope is that by looking at Matthew’s gospel in this way, we will see more clearly who Jesus is, be inspired to follow him and learn to be honest about our own questions as we grow to become more like him.
About this talk:
Chapter 9 follows a series of remarkable healings, culminating with the healing of two demon-possessed men. From there Jesus crosses the Sea of Galilee and returns to Capernaum, which he has made his home town (see 4:13). The story in 9:1-8 appears to be the same one recorded in Mark 2:3-12 and Luke 5:18-26. There we are told that the men who brought the paralysed man lowered him through the roof because there were so many people present that they could not get him to Jesus (Luke 5:18-19).
We’re not told whether these men are his friends or not (they are simply described as “some men”). Maybe they simply knew about him, felt for him, had witnessed some of what Jesus was doing and in a moment of possibility thought Jesus might heal him. Neither do we know whether he had asked to be taken to Jesus. Either way, their determination to help this man get to Jesus is admirable. And in the end he gets a whole load more than even he or his courageous friends had hoped for.
Matthew records the teachers of the law saying to each other, “This fellow is blaspheming!” while Mark and Luke state the exact reason for why they believed Jesus to be blaspheming: “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7; Luke 5:21). We should appreciate that their horror at what Jesus said to the paralysed man was completely understandable to those who were zealous to maintain purity among the people and to protect the honour of God’s name - there are some things that only God can do! In response to Jesus saying to the (still) paralysed man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven,” the teachers of the law are outraged. Their theology is correct: “Who can forgive sins but God alone.” Sure, we can forgive someone for what they have done to us, but no one other than God can forgive someone for what they have done more generally.
We are not told whether Jesus intended to heal the paralysed man or not, but the way the narrative reads appears to suggest that his act of healing was in response to the objections of the teachers of the law. Either way, Jesus backs up his authority to forgive with a demonstration of his power to heal, with the result that “When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God.” And thus the words of the teachers of the law against him into a statement about him: that he is indeed God who alone can forgive sins. This short, dramatic story, is part of the picture Matthew is building to show who Jesus is and why it is right to believe that Jesus is, in fact, God incarnate.
But in the end, the question about whether Jesus is God who can forgive sins becomes a question about whether he can forgive my sin. Which provides the perfect opportunity to explain who he is, what he came to do, why he would want to have a relationship with you and me, why forgiveness is so important in enabling that relationship and how he made that forgiveness possible.
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