When he entered again into Capernaum after some days, it was heard that he was in the house. Immediately many were gathered together, so that there was no more room, not even around the door; and he spoke the word to them. Four people came, carrying a paralytic to him. When they could not come near to him for the crowd, they removed the roof where he was. When they had broken it up, they let down the mat that the paralytic was lying on. Jesus, seeing their faith, said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven you.”
But there were some of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, “Why does this man speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”
Immediately Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, said to them, “Why do you reason these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to tell the paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven;’ or to say, ‘Arise, and take up your bed, and walk?’ But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic— “I tell you, arise, take up your mat, and go to your house.”
He arose, and immediately took up the mat, and went out in front of them all; so that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, “We never saw anything like this!”
He went out again by the seaside. All the multitude came to him, and he taught them. As he passed by, he saw Levi, the son of Alphaeus, sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he arose and followed him.
He was reclining at the table in his house, and many tax collectors and sinners sat down with Jesus and his disciples, for there were many, and they followed him. The scribes and the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with the sinners and tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
When Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don’t fast?”
Jesus said to them, “Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can’t fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the patch shrinks and the new tears away from the old, and a worse hole is made. No one puts new wine into old wineskins, or else the new wine will burst the skins, and the wine pours out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins.”
He was going on the Sabbath day through the grain fields, and his disciples began, as they went, to pluck the ears of grain. The Pharisees said to him, “Behold, why do they do that which is not lawful on the Sabbath day?”
He said to them, “Did you never read what David did, when he had need, and was hungry—he, and those who were with him? How he entered into God’s house at the time of Abiathar the high priest, and ate the show bread, which is not lawful to eat except for the priests, and gave also to those who were with him?” He said to them, “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Therefore the Son of Man is lord even of the Sabbath.”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, 18, 23, 26, 28 In the house where he used to remain, for…
In the house where he used to remain, for he chose Capernaum to dwell in, and left Nazareth.
Christ showeth by healing this man, which was sick of the palsy, that men recover in him through faith only, all their strength which they have lost.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–28 1 And again he entered into Capernaum after some…
1 And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house.
Ver. 1. And it was noised] The Son of righteousness could as little lie hidden as the sun in heaven.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 14, 18, 23 We read the history of this miracle in Matthew…
We read the history of this miracle in Matthew nine. See Poole on "Mat 9:1", and following verses to Mat 9:8, having there taken in those passages in this evangelist’s relation which Matthew had not, I shall only take notice of some few things not there touched upon.
He preached the word unto them; the word of God, the gospel. There are other words, but that is the word, Mat 13:20; Mar 8:32; Mar 16:20; Luk 1:2; Act 17:11; the most excellent word, and the only word to be preached.
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Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God? So as it was on all hands then received, that none but the creditor could discharge the debt, none but God could forgive sins. But how spite cankers things! Our Saviour did not say till afterward that he forgave him his sins. What blasphemy was there in this saying, Thy sins be forgiven thee? But what if none but God could forgive sins? Could also any but God tell unto men their thoughts? 1Sa 16:7; 1Ch 28:9; 2Ch 6:30; Psa 7:9; Jer 17:10. That Christ could tell their thoughts was matter of demonstration to them, Mar 2:6,8; why might they not also have allowed him a power to forgive sins? But they could not for this charge him with blasphemy, which was their malicious design.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
William Burkitt 1703 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 13, 18, 23 In the last verse of the foregoing chapter we…
In the last verse of the foregoing chapter we find how industriously our blessed Saviour withdrew himself from the concourse and throng of people which flocked after him from every quarter; and to show how little he affected the applause and commendation of the multitude, he left the cities and was without in desert places. Hereby giving his ministers an instructive example to decline vain-glory, and to shun popular applause. But now the words before us show that our Saviour having entered (privately, as is probable) into the city of Capernaum, it is presently, noised and reported that he was in the house, and a mighty concourse and throng of people are after him; insomuch that neither the house, nor hardly the streets, could contain them.
Thence learn, That such as least seek after honour and applause from men, are oft-times most famous and renowned. Our Saviour was so far from seeking the people’s praise and commendation, that he came into Capernaum without observation, and betook himself to his dwelling-house there; but the more he sought to lie hid, the more he was taken notice of.
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Honour flies from them that pursue it, and pursues those that fly from it. The way to be honoured, is to be humble. God seldom honours a proud man, by making him either eminently serviceable or successful.
Observe farther, The people being come together, our Saviour takes the opportunity to preach; And he preached the word unto them. Teaching his ministers by his example, to embrace all opportunities, in season and out of season, on the Lord’s day and on the week day, to edify our people by our ministry, by our public exhortations, by our private instructions, prudent admonitions, and holy examples.
William Burkitt's Expository Notes on the New Testament (1700–1703) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 18 Christ, having been for some time preaching about in…
Christ, having been for some time preaching about in the country, here returns to Capernaum his head-quarters, and makes his appearance there, in hopes that by this time the talk and crowd would be somewhat abated. Now observe,
I. The great resort there was to him. Though he was in the house, wither Peter's house, or some lodgings of his own which he had taken, yet people came to him as soon as it was noised that he was in town; they did not stay till he appeared in the synagogue, which they might be sure he would do on the sabbath day, but straightway many were gathered together to him. Where the king is, there is the court; where Shiloh is, there shall the gathering of the people be. In improving opportunities for our souls, we must take care not to lose time. One invited another (Come, let us go see Jesus), so that his house could not contain his visitants. There was no room to receive them, they were so numerous, no not so much as about the door. A blessed sight, to see people thus flying like a cloud to Christ's house, though it was but a poor one, and as the doves to their windows!
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II. The good entertainment Christ gave them, the best his house would afford, and better than any other could; he preached the word unto them, Mar 2:2. Many of them perhaps came only for cures, and many perhaps only for curiosity, to get a sight of him; but when he had them together he preached to them. Though the synagogue-door was open to him at proper times, he thought it not at all amiss to preach in a house, on a week day; though some might reckon it both an improper place and an improper time. Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, Isa 32:20.
III. The presenting of a poor cripple to him, to be helped by him. The patient was one sick of the palsy, it should seem not as that, Mat 8:6, grievously tormented, but perfectly disabled, so that he was borne of four, was carried upon a bed, as if he had been upon a bier, by four persons. It was his misery, that he needed to be so carried, and bespeaks the calamitous state of human life; it was their charity, who did so carry him, and bespeaks the compassion that it is justly expected should be in the children of men toward their fellow-creatures in distress, because we know not how soon the distress may be our own. These kind relations or neighbours thought, if they could but carry this poor man once to Christ, they should not need to carry him any more; and therefore made hard shift to get him to him; and when they could not otherwise get to him, they uncovered the roof where he was, Mar 2:4. I see no necessity to conclude that Christ was preaching in an upper room, though in such the Jews that had stately houses, had their oratories; for then to what purpose should the crowd stand before the door, as wisdom's clients used to do? Pro 8:34. But I rather conjecture that the house he was in, was so little and mean (agreeable to his present state), that it had no upper room, but the ground-floor was open to the roof: and these petitioners for the poor paralytic, resolving not to be disappointed, when they could not get through the crowd at the door, got their friend by some means or other to the roof of the house, took off some of the tiles, and so let him down upon his bed with cords into the house where Christ was preaching. This bespoke both their faith and their fervency in this address to Christ. Hereby it appeared that they were in earnest, and would not go away, nor let Christ go without a blessing. Gen 32:26.
IV. The kind word Christ said to this poor patient; He saw their faith; perhaps not so much his, for his distemper hindered him from the exercise of faith, but theirs that brought him. In curing the centurion's servant, Christ took notice of it as an instance of his faith, that he did not bring him to Christ, but believed he could cure him at a distance; here he commended their faith, because they did bring their friend through so much difficulty. Note, True faith and strong faith may work variously, conquering sometimes the objections of reason, sometimes those of sense; but, however manifested, it shall be accepted and approved by Jesus Christ. Christ said, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. The compellation is very tender-Son; intimating a fatherly care of him and concern for him. Christ owns true believers as his sons: a son, and yet sick of the palsy. Herein God deals with you as with sons. The cordial is very rich; Thy sins are forgiven thee. Note, 1. Sin is the procuring cause of all our pains and sicknesses. The word of Christ was to take his thoughts off from the disease, which was the effect, and to lead them to the sin, the cause, that he might be more concerned about that, to get that pardoned. 2. God doth then graciously take away the sting and malignity of sickness, when he forgives sin; recovery from sickness is then a mercy indeed, when way is made for it by the pardon of sin. See Isa 38:17; Psa 103:3. The way to remove the effect, is, to take away the cause. Pardon of sin strikes at the root of all diseases, and either cures them, or alters their property.
V. The cavil of the scribes at that which Christ said, and a demonstration of the unreasonableness of their cavil. They were expositors of the law, and their doctrine was true - that it is blasphemy for any creature to undertake the pardon of sin, and that it is God's prerogative, Isa 43:25. But, as is usual with such teachers, their application was false, and was the effect of their ignorance and enmity to Christ. It is true, None can forgive sins but God only; but it is false that therefore Christ cannot, who had abundantly proved himself to have a divine power. But Christ perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves; this proves him to be God, and therefore confirmed what was to be proved, that he had authority to forgive sins; for he searched the heart, and knew what was in man, Rev 2:23. God's royalties are inseparable, and he that could know thoughts, could forgive sins. This magnifies the grace of Christ, in pardoning sin, that he knew men's thoughts, and therefore knows more than any other can know, both of the sinfulness of their sins and the particulars of them, and yet is ready to pardon. Now he proves his power to forgive sin, by demonstrating his power to cure the man sick of the palsy, Mar 2:9-11. He would not have pretended to do the one, if he could not have done the other; that ye may know that the Son of man, the Messiah, has power on earth to forgive sin, that I have that power, Thou that art sick of the palsy, arise, take up thy bed. Now, 1. This was a suitable argument in itself. He could not have cured the disease, which was the effect, if he could not have taken away the sin, which was the cause. And besides, his curing diseases was a figure of his pardoning sin, for sin is the disease of the soul; when it is pardoned, it is healed. He that could by a word accomplish the sign, could doubtless perform the thing signified, 2. It was suited to them. These carnal scribes would be more affected with such a suitable effect of a pardon as the cure of the disease, and be sooner convinced by it, than by any other more spiritual consequences; therefore it was proper enough to appeal, whether it is easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee, or to say, Arise, and walk? The removing of the punishment as such, was the remitting of the sin; he that could go so far in the cure, no doubt could perfect it. See Isa 33:24.
VI. The cure of the sick man, and the impression it made upon the people, Mar 2:12. He not only arise out of his bed, perfectly well, but, to show that he had perfect strength restored to him, he took up his bed, because it lay in the way, and went forth before them all; and they were all amazed, as well they might, and glorified God, as indeed they ought; saying, "We never saw it on this fashion; never were such wonders as these done before in our time." Note, Christ's works were without precedent. When we see what he does in healing souls, we must own that we never saw the like.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv2–27 And they came unto him,.... A considerable body of…
And they came unto him,.... A considerable body of people, townsmen, friends, and relations of the person after mentioned:
bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four; carried by four men upon their shoulders, as if he was a dead carcass; so weak and enfeebled was he by his disease, that he could not walk, or be otherwise brought; or rather upon a bed, which four men, at the four comers of it, carried in their hands; and so the Ethiopic version renders it, "four men carried him on a bed"; and certain it is, by what follows, that he was brought upon a bed. This man's case appears to be a very bad one, and what seems to be incurable by the art of medicine: it was not a slight touch of the palsy, but a general one, which had deprived him of motion and sensation. The palsy is a disease, whereby the body, or some of its parts, lose their motion, and sometimes their sensation or feeling: the causes of it are an impeded influx of the nervous spirits into the villi, or the muscles, or of the arterious blood into their vessels; which may happen from some fault either in the brain, the nerves, muscles, or their vessels. The palsy is said to be "perfect", or complete, when there is a privation of motion and sensation at the same time; "imperfect", when one of the two is destroyed, the other remaining. The palsy again is either "universal, lateral", or "partial". The "universal" palsy, called also "paraplegia", or "paraplexia", is a general immobility of all the muscles that receive nerves from the cerebrum, or cerebellum, except those of the head--its cause is usually supposed to reside in the ventricles of the brain, or in the root of the spinal marrow.--The "lateral" palsy, called also "hemiplegia", is the same disease with the "paraplegia", only that it affects but one side of the body. Its cause is the same, only restrained to one side of the brain, or spinal marrow. The "partial" palsy is where some particular part, or member, alone is affected; as, for instance, where the motion of the arm, or leg, is destroyed (z). Now this man's disease seems to be the perfect and general palsy, which affects the whole body, or the "paraplegia", which reaches every part but the head; whereby all sense, as well as motion, are destroyed, and sometimes only one of them: but in this case it seems as if both of them were lost: that he was motionless, is clear from his being carried by four persons; and it looks as if he had lost his feeling, since he is not said to be grievously tormented, as the centurion's servant is said to be, Mat 8:6, whose disease seems to have been of the partial or imperfect kind; or however, though it deprived him of motion, yet not of sensation; his might be a kind of scorbutic palsy. This man is an emblem of a sinner in a state of nature, who is insensible of his condition, of the exceeding sinfulness of sin, of his danger and misery to which he is exposed, of his lost and undone state, of the necessity of the new birth, and of the need of salvation by Jesus Christ; and who, as he is destitute of spiritual life, can have no spiritual motion to come to Christ for life and salvation, or any spiritual strength and activity to move in, or perform any thing that is spiritually good: and as the friends of this man took him, and brought him to Christ, and laid him down before him, hoping he might receive a cure from him, though from what appears, it was unasked by him, as he did; so it becomes the friends and relations of unregenerate persons, who have received the grace of God themselves, and are in a sound and safe estate, to be concerned for them; to bring them under the means of grace, where they may be brought to a sense of their sins, and to a comfortable view of the free and full forgiveness of them, as this man: and this should be done, even though there may be difficulties in the accomplishment of it, as there were in this case, as is manifest from what follows.
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(z) Chambers's Cyclopaedia, in the word "palsy".
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 23, 26, 27, 28 And again - After having been in desert places…
And again - After having been in desert places for some time, he returned privately to the city. In the house - In Peter's house.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 12, 14, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28 Christ preaches in Capernaum, 1, 2.
CHAPTER II.
Christ preaches in Capernaum, 1, 2.
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A paralytic person is brought to him, whose sins are pronounced
forgiven, 3-5.
The scribes accuse him of blasphemy, 6, 7.
He vindicates himself, and proves his power to forgive sins, by
healing the man's disease, 8-11.
The people are astonished and edified, 12.
He calls Levi from the receipt of custom, 13, 14.
Eats in his house with publicans and sinners, at which the
Pharisees murmur, 15, 16.
He vindicates his conduct, 17.
Vindicates his disciples, who are accused of not fasting, 18-22;
and for plucking the ears of corn on the Sabbath day, 23-26;
and teaches the right use of the Sabbath, 27, 28.
NOTES ON CHAP. II.
Verse 1. In the house.] The house of Peter, with whom Christ lodged when at Capernaum. See the notes on Mark 4:13; Mark 8:13.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 5, 13, 18, 23 Mar 2:1-2. And again — After having been in…
Mar 2:1-2. And again — After having been in desert places for same time, he returned privately to Capernaum. It was noised that he was in the house — The rumour immediately spread, that he was come to the city, and was in Peter’s house. And straightway many were gathered together — His arrival was no sooner known than such a multitude was gathered together that the house could not contain them; nor even the court before the door. Hitherto the general impression on their hearts continued. Hitherto, even at Capernaum, most of those who heard, received the word with joy. And he preached the word unto them — He preached to as many as could hear him; and among the rest, as we learn, Luk 5:17, to many Pharisees and teachers of the law, who on the report of his miracles were come from all quarters to see his works, and judge of his pretensions.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 23 Into Capernaum - See the notes at Mat 4:13.
Into Capernaum - See the notes at Mat 4:13.
After some days - The number of days is not known. Jesus probably remained long enough in the desert to heal the sick who were brought to him, and to give instructions to the multitudes who attended his preaching. Capernaum was not “the city” mentioned in Mar 1:45, and it is probable that there was no difficulty in his remaining there and preaching.
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And it was noised ... - He entered the city, doubtless, privately; but his being there was soon known, and so great had his popularity become that multitudes pressed to hear him.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 10, 12, 14, 17, 18, 20, 25, 26, 28 Some Greek and Latin copies have, after eight days.
Some Greek and Latin copies have, after eight days.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
John Nelson Darby 1862 · Public Domain On v1 Mark Chapter 2
Mark Chapter 2
Afterwards (chap. 2) He goes again into the city, and immediately the multitude gather together. What a living picture of the Lord’s life of service! He preaches to them. This was His object and His service (see Mar 1:38). But again, in devoting Himself to the humble accomplishment of it as committed to Him, His service itself, His love-for who serves like God when He deigns to do it?-bring out His divine rights. He knew the real source of all these evils, and He could bring in its remedy. "Thy sins," said He to the poor paralytic man, who was brought to Him with a faith that overcame difficulties, persevering in spite of them-that perseverance of faith which is fed by the sense of want, and certainty that power is to be found in Him who is sought-"thy sins are forgiven thee." To the reasoning of the scribes He gives an answer that silenced every gainsayer. He exercises the power that authorised Him to pronounce the pardon of the poor sufferer. [3]
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The murmuring of the scribes brought out doctrinally who was there; as the verdict of the priests, who pronounce the leper clean, put the seal of their authority upon the truth that Jehovah, the healer of Israel, was there. That which Jesus carries on is His work, His testimony. The effect is to make it manifest that Jehovah is there, and has visited His people. It is Psa 103:1-22 which is fulfilled, with respect to the rights and the revelation of the Person of Him who wrought.
Jesus leaves the city; the people flock around Him; and again He teaches them. The call of Levi gives occasion for a new development of His ministry. He was come to call sinners, and not the righteous. After this He tells them that He could not put the new divine energy, unfolded in Himself, into the old forms of Pharisaism. And there was another reason for it -the presence of the Bridegroom. How could the children of the bridechamber fast while the Bridegroom was with them? He should be taken from them, and then would be the time to fast. He proceeds to insist on the incompatibility between the old Jewish vessels and the power of the gospel. The latter would but subvert Judaism, to which they sought to attach it. That which took place when the disciples went through the cornfields confirms this doctrine.
Ordinances lost their authority in the presence of the King ordained of God, rejected and a pilgrim on the earth. Moreover the sabbath-a sign of the covenant between God and the Jews-was made for man, and not man for the sabbath; therefore He, the Son of man, was Lord of the sabbath. As Son of David rejected, the ordinances lost their force, and were subordinate to Him. As Son of man possessor (in the sight of God) of all the rights which God had bestowed on man, He was Lord of the sabbath, which was made for man. In principle the old things were passed away. But this was not all. It was in fact the new things of grace and power, which did not admit of the old order of things. But the question was, whether God could act in grace, and bestow blessing, in sovereignty, on His people-whether He must submit to the authority of men availing themselves of His ordinances against His goodness, or do good according to His own power and love as being above all. Was man to limit the operation of God’s goodness? And this, in truth, was the new wine which the Lord brought to man.
Footnotes on Mark Chapter 2
3: We must distinguish between governmental forgiveness, and absolute pardon of sins. Only, such as man is, there could not have been the former without the latter. But till Christ was rejected and had died this was not fully brought out.
John Nelson Darby — Synopsis of the Books of the Bible: the New Testament (c. 1857–1862) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 18, 23 Mar_2:1 to Mar_3:12
FOURTH SECTION
ATTRACTING AND REPELLING INFLUENCE OF THE LORD. THE ENTHUSIASTIC MULTITUDE AND THE OFFENCED TRADITIONALISTS. MORTAL HATRED OF THE HOSTILE PARTY, AND WITHDRAWAL OF JESUS INTO A SHIP. THE PREACHING IN SYNAGOGUES GIVES PLACE TO PREACHING ON THE SEA-SIDE
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Mar_2:1 to Mar_3:12
________
First Conflict.—The Paralytic, and the Power to forgive Sins. Mar_2:1-12
(Parallels: Mat_9:1-8; Luk_5:17-26.)
1And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house.1 2And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. 3And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. 4And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. 5When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins2 be forgiven thee. 6But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, 7Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies?3 8 who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately, when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they4 so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? 9Whether is it 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? 10But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins,5 (he saith to the sick ofthe palsy,) 11I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thinehouse. 12And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.6
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
See the exposition on Matthew, and on Luke. Mark introduces the conflicts of the Lord with traditionalism earlier than Matthew; hence the earlier position of this narrative. Matthew, indeed, represents the chronological order, according to which the paralytic was healed after the journey to Gadara. The conclusion in Mark itself intimates that this must have been one of the later miracles.
Mar_2:1. That He was in the house, εἰς οἶκόν ἐστι.—This means the house which Jesus occupied with His mother and His brethren, after His settlement there, Mar_3:31. His adopted sisters probably remained, as married, in Nazareth (see Mar_6:8), when the family of Joseph passed over with Him to Capernaum.
Mar_2:3. Bringing one sick of the palsy.—See on Mat_8:6. Κράββατος, a portable bed, used for mid-day sleep, and for the service of the sick.7—Borne of four.—Pictorial definiteness. So also the vivid description of the uncovering of the roof, or the breaking of a large opening through it. Luke tells us how they did it: “ I through the tiling;” thus they must have taken away the tilings themselves. Meyer:—We must suppose Jesus to have been in the upper room, ὑπερῷον where the Rabbis frequently taught: Lightfoot, in loc.; Vitringa, Syn. 145. Meyer rightly rejects the view of Faber, Jahn, and others, that Jesus was in the court, and that nothing more is meant than a breaking up of the roof-awning. Certainly it is not improbable that the roof and the upper room were connected by a door; at least, the not improbable supposition of steps leading from the street to the roof suits that view. It is not at variance with the text to assume, with Lightfoot and Olshausen, an extension of the door-opening already there. Uncovering the roof can mean nothing else than actual uncovering, whether or not by means of an already existing opening. Strauss, after Wetstein, remarks, that the proceeding would have been too dangerous for those below. But see Hug’s Gutachten, ii. p. 21. Moreover, a little danger would better suit the heroism of the act. It takes for granted the Oriental house with a flat roof, to which men might gain access either through the neighboring house, or by the steps on the outside.
Mar_2:6. Certain of the scribes.—According to Meyer, who cites Mar_2:16, Luke (Mar_2:17) introduces the Pharisees too soon at this place. But why may not the scribes have been mainly of the pharisaic party? These were so manifestly.—The scribes:—See on Mat_2:4, and the article in Winer.
Mar_2:7. Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies?—That is, such a man (scornfully), such things (such great words as are fit only for God, or for the priests in His name). Meyer rightly: “This man in this wise: emphatic juxtaposition.” The idea of blasphemy, as expressed by Mark and Luke, is shown to be direct blasphemy: they cast that upon Him, because He was thought to have wickedly intruded into the rights of the Divine Majesty.
Mar_2:8. And immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit.—The Searcher of hearts. In this lay already the proof that He could forgive sins. Matthew (Mat_9:4) here takes as it were the place of Mark: 8 Jesus seeing (ἰδὼν) their thoughts.
Mar_2:10. The Son of man hath power.—Dan_7:13; comp. Lange’s Leben Jesu, 2:1, 235. Meyer asserts, without reason, against Ritzschl, that Christ by this expression declared undoubtedly, and even technically, His Messiahship. Certainly Daniel’s Son of Man signified Christ; but the correct understanding of this expression does not seem to have been current in the Jewish schools at this time. Hence the choice of the expression here. They should know Him to be the Messiah, not according to their false Messiah-notions, but according to His true demonstrations of Messiahship; and the expression was meant to lead them to this.
Mar_2:12. We never saw it on this fashion.—We must assume in εἴδομεν an object seen; and that can be no other than the essential phenomenon which corresponds to essential seeing, viz.: the appearance of the kingdom of God. But it is also included, that the omnipotent working of miracles had never been so manifest in Jesus before.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. See on the parallels in Matthew and Luke. Quickly as the glory of Christ was manifested in His first works, so quickly did the contradiction of the pharisaic worldly mind develop itself. It is most significant that the evangelical forgiveness of sins was the first stumbling-block.
2. The healing of the palsied man gives us, in a certain sense, the key to all the miraculous works of our Lord; inasmuch, that is, as the healing of the members is here definitely based upon the healing of the heart, the forgiveness of sins, awakening and regeneration. Because Christ Himself was the new birth of man from heaven, He was the principle of regeneration to sinful man. That is, in other words, because He Himself was the absolute miracle—the new principle of life breaking into and through the old—therefore the miraculous energies for the renewal of life issued from Him as sudden and great vivifications, which, proceeding from the heart of the renewed, pervaded their whole life. The quickening of the heart was, therefore, always the soul of light in the miracle; the external miracle was its dawning manifestation, though not all such quickenings resulted in permanent bodily healing. Therefore, also, the kernel of the miracle has remained in the Church, and becomes more and more prominent, that is, regeneration. The dawn has retreated and vanished, since this sun of the inner life has come forth. Yet the dynamic unfolding of the heart’s renewal in the renewal of the bodily members has in reality remained; only, now that Christianity has been incorporated with human nature, it develops itself only in gradual effect, until its full manifestation in the day of resurrection. The regenerating principle works in the regenerate gradually, and in almost invisible, leaven-like influence and transformation. But, as certainly as the regeneration of the heart is effected, so certainly is the germ of the renewal of the whole life present. Our scholastic notions have too carefully separated the external miracle from the internal, making it almost of itself a higher class of miracle. Luther, however, recognized regeneration as the great and abiding miracle, and had some feeling of its connection with the resurrection, as symbolized in the Supper of the Lord.—The power of Christ over the whole life, a demonstration of His power over the centre of life, the heart.
3. Christ the Searcher of the heart, knowing all things. In His messianic vocation, in His concrete sphere of life, He proved His Divine omniscience, and that too in the personal unity of the God-man. This concrete Divine-human knowledge He Himself distinguished from the universal omniscience of the Father. Starke:—“Christ knoweth all things even according to His human nature; not, however, through the human, tanquam per principium quo, but through the divine.” In a certain sense, also, through the human; through human sensibility to hostile dispositions, which assuredly had its source in the Divine nature.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
See on the parallels of Matthew and Luke.—How the Lord’s redeeming power, breaking in, awakens the daring courage of faith.—Christ the restorer of victorious courage on earth.—Man inventive, above all in his faith.—The inventions of faith.—The boldness of faith, which leaps out of the anguish of a believing spirit.—How the miracle of Christ is appended to the word of Christ.—The miracle not without the previous word.—The return of Christ to His town; or, Christ does not willingly leave the place in which He has once settled.—And it was noised abroad that He was in the house,—when Christ is in a church, or in a house, it cannot be hid.—The courage of faith by which they uncovered the roof, in connection with the Divine courage in which Christ uncovered their hearts.—Great faith discovers and adopts wonderful plans.—Christ the Searcher of hearts: 1. This has a many-sided confirmation, 2. is full of comfort, 3. and full of terror.—The power of the forgiveness of sins a free and legitimate prerogative of Christ’s rule: 1. A free exercise of His love; 2. a legitimate administration between free grace and free faith; 3. therefore the free prerogative of Christ.—The Divine love will not be restrained by man’s narrow-heartedness.—God’s grace is not bound to the ordinances of man.—The Gospel makes the Church, not the Church the Gospel.—The ordinance of absolution no monopoly of absolution.—The glorious and boundless blessings which result from the forgiveness of sins.—The paralytic more troubled about his sins than about his bodily suffering.—Christ the fundamental Healer.—As the paralytic had a new power of moving, so the witnesses had a new power of seeing.—Only he who has seen Christ has learned rightly to see.—Christ’s miracles of grace always preachers of salvation, which prepare for new miracles.—All awakenings in order to regeneration are miracles of Christ, the subsequent influences of which must be manifest in the bodily life, though, it may be, in a very gradual manner.—The harder and the easier miracle: 1. The internal miracle was, in the Lord’s judgment, greater and harder, inasmuch as it was the condition of the external. 2. The external miracle was greater and harder in the judgment of His opponents, as something impossible to the absolving priests. 3. Both were equally hard, in as far as both were impossible to man; and hence the external miracle was Christ’s authentication in opposition to His enemies.—The limited blessing of healing a witness for the unlimited blessing of forgiveness of sins.
Starke:—Moving to the house of God with the crowds.—The sick should come to Christ, the true Physician.—Benevolence, and still more, Christian love, demands that we should serve and help the sick in every possible manner.—He who would be a true Christian must strive to bring to Christ others who are weak and sinful, by prayer and all good offices, Jam_5:16.—Canstein:—We must somehow come to Christ, whether through the door or through the roof; that is, either in an ordinary or an extraordinary way.—True faith, working by love, breaks through all impediments.—Love makes all things good and decorous, though they may not externally seem so.—Those who are troubled we should not trouble more, but comfort, Psa_32:1; Isa_61:2.—The ungodly change the best medicines into poison, and pervert the holiest truths.—Majus:—The slanderer’s manner is, not to try to seek what meaning the speaker has, but to pervert at once and wrest his words.—That which is visible and before the eyes seems to men harder than the invisible; and they prefer what is bodily to what is spiritual.—Quesnel:—Christ by His visible miracles taught men to understand His invisible miracles.—The priceless benefit of the forgiveness of sins worthy of all praise and thanksgiving.
Schleiermacher:—We have two things to mark in this whole narrative: first, that which passed between the Redeemer and this sufferer; and then, what referred to the thoughts of the scribes congregated around Him.—As sure as we are that the Redeemer knew what was in man, we must assume that the sufferer thought most of the spiritual gift of Christ, and its importance to himself.—The more powerful the might of love is, as being the energy of faith, the sooner vanish all lesser evils, losing their sting, which is the consciousness of sin.—Thus we see in miniature, in this history, the whole history of the kingdom of God upon earth.—Bauer:—We can thus, by our faith and our intercession, be helpful to the good of others.
Footnotes:
[1]Mar_2:1.—Lachmann reads ἐν οἴκῳ, after B., D., L.,—a gloss, says Meyer.
[2]Mar_2:5.—Elzevir, Scholz, Lachmann read σοι αἱ ἁμαρτίαι; Griesbach, Fritzsche, Tischendorf, B., D., G. read σου αι ἁμαρτίαι. Lachmann, after B., reads ἀφίενται for ἀφέωνται.
[3]Mar_2:7.—Lachmann and Tischendorf read λαλεῖ; βλασφημεῖ, after B., D., L., Vulgata.
[4]Mar_2:8—Αὐτοί before διαλογίζονται, after A., C., E., F., Syr. (utr.), Goth., Slav., Bengel, Matth., Griesbach, Fritzsche, Scholz, Tischendorf; οὕτως erased by Lachmann after B.
[5]Mar_2:10.—Various order of the words: The ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς ἀφ. ἁμ. is given by Griesbach and Lachmann, after C., D., L., and others.
[6]Mar_2:12.—Tischendorf reads οὕτως οὐδέποτε, after B., D., and L., &c.
[7]Oftentimes, however, the bed was a simple mattress or sheepskin.—Ed.
[8]In picturesque descriptiveness, i.e.—Ed.
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–12 And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there…
And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door--This is one of Mark's graphic touches. No doubt in this case, as the scene occurred at his informant's own door, these details are the vivid recollections of that honored disciple.
and he preached the word unto them--that is, indoors; but in the hearing, doubtless, of the multitude that pressed around. Had He gone forth, as He naturally would, the paralytic's faith would have had no such opportunity to display itself. Luke (Luk 5:17) furnishes an additional and very important incident in the scene--as follows: "And it came to pass on a certain day, as He was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town," or village, "of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem." This was the highest testimony yet borne to our Lord's growing influence, and the necessity increasingly felt by the ecclesiastics throughout the country of coming to some definite judgment regarding Him. "And the power of the Lord was [present] to heal them"--or, "was [efficacious] to heal them," that is, the sick that were brought before Him. So that the miracle that is now to be described was among the most glorious and worthy to be recorded of many then performed; and what made it so was doubtless the faith which was manifested in connection with it, and the proclamation of the forgiveness of the patient's sins that immediately preceded it.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 8, 13, 14, 15, 23, 26, 27 § 30. — CURING OF THE PALSIED MAN, Mar_2:1-12.
§ 30. — CURING OF THE PALSIED MAN, Mar_2:1-12.
(See notes on Mat_9:2-8.)
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1. Again he entered into Capernaum — After leaving Capernaum, as mentioned in the last chapter, on account of the crowds.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26 Ch. Mar_2:1-12. The Paralytic and the Power to forgive…
Ch. Mar_2:1-12. The Paralytic and the Power to forgive Sins
1. he entered] after the subsidence of the late excitement.
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the house] Either His own house, which He occupied with His mother and His brethren (Mar_3:21), or possibly that of St Peter.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8, 12, 14, 17, 18, 23, 26 (1) And again he entered into Capernaum.—See Notes on…
II.
(1) And again he entered into Capernaum.—See Notes on Mat_9:1-8. St. Mark alone names Capernaum, St. Matthew describing it as “His own city.” The house may have been Peter’s, as before in Mar_1:29.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 8, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28 The first sentence of this verse is better rendered…
The first sentence of this verse is better rendered thus: And when he entered again (eiselywn palin) into Capernaum after some days; literally, after days (di hmerwn). It is probable that a considerable interval had taken place since the events recorded in the former chapter. It was noised that he was in the house (oti eiv oikon esti); or, if the oti be regarded as recitative, it was noised, He is in the house, at home, in his usual place of residence at Capernaum.
Vers. 1-12. Christ"s authority to pardon.
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Our Lord"s miracles of healing were, upon the surface and obviously, designed to relieve from suffering and to restore to health. They, at the same time, directed the attention of both those benefited, and of spectators, to the supernatural power and to the benevolence of the Divine Physician. But no Christian can fail to see in them a moral significance. Disorders of the body were symbolical of spiritual disease. And the great Healer, who pitied and relieved physical suffering, nevertheless had regard to the more serious affections of the soul, and designed by his works of healing to direct attention to himself, to excite faith in himself, as able and willing to save sinners. It was in the miracle recorded in the passage before us that the Saviour first openly avowed the spiritual purpose of his ministry and the spiritual authority he possessed to pardon and to save.
I THE CASE IN WHICH THIS AUTHORITY WAS EXERCISED. A paralytic is in a condition both helpless and hopeless. Deprived by the disease of the command of his limbs, his case is one beyond the power of medical skill to deal with. This palsy may, therefore, be regarded as symbolical of the sinner"s pitiable condition and gloomy prospects. With regard to the paralytic"s state of mind, we are to presume that he was sensible of his sinfulness and of his need of pardon and acceptance; otherwise our Lord could never have treated him as he did. To the sufferer, his bodily malady was indeed afflictive; but he must have had such a "conscience of sin" as to regard his spiritual disorder as more oppressive and more pitiable still. The case, then, in which the Lord Jesus will exercise his prerogative of pardon, is the case of the sinner whose sin is a felt burden, and who brings that burden to the Divine Saviour.
II THE CONDITIONS PRESENT WHEN CHRIST THUS EXERCISED HIS AUTHORITY TO PARDON. There was a general interest and appreciation in the community; multitudes crowded to hear the Master"s words, and many applicants were urgently seeking his healing mercy. There were sentiments of pity and kindliness on the part of the sufferer"s friends, leading to practical interposition on his behalf. What these friends could do, they did; they brought the sufferer to Christ. There was faith, both in the paralytic and in his friends faith, which took a practical form in the approach to Jesus, in the conjoined effort to bring the sufferer beneath the notice of the Healer, and especially in the perseverance so ingeniously and strikingly displayed. All these were conditions which the Saviour evidently regarded as peculiarly favorable to the public exercise of his prerogative to pardon.
III THE AUTHORITATIVE MANNER AND LANGUAGE IN WHICH THE ASSURANCE OF PARDON WAS GIVEN. There was no inquiry into the state of the paralytic"s mind; for Jesus knew what was in man, and needed not to be told. There was no assertion of a delegated power; for the Son of man had authority on earth to forgive sins. There was no hesitation, or delay, or qualification. Nor was Christ"s language a mere statement that the sins of the paralytic were forgiven; it was an actual pardon and absolution nothing less. When Christ forgives, he forgives freely, fully, absolutely. He came to "save his people from their sins." He retains the same power still, and exercises it from the throne of his glory.
IV THE SUPPORT AND VINDICATION OF SPIRITUAL BY MIRACULOUS AUTHORITY. We can hardly wonder at the captious spirit in which Christ"s claim was received, at the cavillings of unbelief. Unless they believed the speaker to be more than a prophet, more than human, they must have stumbled at his words. Their general principle as correct and sound: "Who can forgive sins, but God only?" What was passing in their minds was, in the circumstances, natural enough. "It is easy to say, "Thy sins are forgiven;" but what assurance have we that the words are anything beyond words? This is ground upon which the speaker cannot be refuted, and yet upon which the hearers cannot be convinced." These reflections, which were passing in the minds of the scribes, were known to Christ. There was only one way of meeting the objection, of overcoming the difficulty. Jesus must descend to common ground, and appeal to the senses and the understanding of the bystanders. He accordingly wrought a miracle in support of his claims. In doing this, he both relieved the sufferer and vindicated his own authority in the spiritual realm. He bade the paralytic arise, take up his couch, and return home, sound and well.
V THE EFFECT PRODUCED BY THIS TWOFOLD EXERCISE OF POWER. The patient was at once pardoned and cured. With rejoicing heart, with restored powers of limb, he arose and departed to his house, free from burden of guilt, and free from the pains and infirmities of disease. The scribes were silenced; some may have been convinced, and few could have been unimpressed. The witnesses of the miracle were amazed at this exhibition of twofold authority by the Lord of nature and of spirits. They are recorded to have received the lessons aright; for they glorified God as the Author of healing and salvation in the person of his Son, and they recognized the unique authority entrusted to One human in form, in feeling, and in voice, but of authority supernatural, beneficent, Divine!
APPLICATION.
1. The sinner may learn from this narrative in what manner, and in what spirit, to come to Jesus.
2. And he may be encouraged by the representation here given of Christ"s willingness and authority to save.
HOMILIES BY A.F. MUIR Vers. 1-12. Cure of the paralytic.
I DIFFICULTIES ARE READILY OVERCOME WHERE THERE IS FAITH. The house was probably a poor one, roofed with mud and shingle. It would be easy, therefore, to dig a hole and obtain entrance in that way. But doing it required a certain amount of ingenuity and effort, which proved that the man and his friends were resolved to get to Jesus and obtain the cure. All this trouble and thoughtfulness was the outcome of faith in Christ. Their boldness was the confidence of faith. Where the heart is right, difficulties in the way of seeking or following the Saviour will only call forth keener ingenuity and higher resolution.
II FAITH EVER SECURES THE SYMPATHY AND ENCOURAGEMENT OF CHRIST. Christ"s first words were not chiding, but a welcome. He said, "Son child, thy sins are forgiven." There would be tenderness and sympathy in the tone as well as in the words. He spoke as a father or an elder brother. The sick man may have been young. But in the midst of all the kindness the guilty past of the man is not forgotten. He had been a sinner, and probably his malady was but the fruit of his misdoing. A thrill of wonder and fear, mingled with more hopeful feelings, would pervade him as he listened. Here was one who knew all about him, and yet had compassion on him! The faith of the patient and his bearers (possibly relatives) was thus rewarded beyond their hopes. A greater boon was conferred than they sought. Christ is never satisfied with half measures. He goes at once to the root of the evil, and seeks to save a man altogether, in soul as well as in body and fortune.
III IN SHOWING MERCY CHRIST ASSUMES THE HIGHEST AUTHORITY. Whilst the nature of the case before him demanded that the cure should be thus radical, the mere utterance of the words, "Thy sins are forgiven," involved a claim which those looking on were not ready to acknowledge.
1. Faith in being taxed is rewarded. The believing men were required to believe more, and more definitely, than they had already done. And to him chiefly concerned there were already inward witnesses in favor of the new claim. That Christ should have divined the secret source of the bodily weakness and mental unrest was a presumption that he was what he professed implicitly to be. Doubtless, with the rising of his spirit to the new duty of recognizing the authority of Jesus, the sick man"s conscience would receive sudden and unlooked-for relief. The tide of life would turn again in the glad flush of peace and happiness. Christ"s demands upon men to believe more than they already do are intended as conditions of his bestowing greater blessings.
2. In order to do all that he was sent to do, Christ required to be Divine. The argument was perfectly sound, which the scribes carried on "in their hearts." Only God can, in the ultimate, forgive sins. Yet his power is sometimes delegated according to fixed principles and appointments. But probably they included in their reasoning the unspoken evidence given in Christ"s manner, that he forgave out of and from himself. The entire circumstances of the case show that he must have done this. And so ever, when men come to him, it is that he may exercise this authority and power. What they did not think of was the possibility of him whom they accused being "very God of very God.
IV DIFFICULTIES ARE CREATED WHERE FAITH IS ABSENT. The simple soul of the paralytic grasped the secret of Divinity which escaped the subtlety of the scribes. Their very knowledge stood in their way, because it was not spiritually acquired and employed.
V THE POWER OF CHRIST IS A PRACTICAL DEMONSTRATION OF HIS AUTHORITY.
1. Strictly speaking, healing the paralysis of the man was not, when taken by itself, on the same level with the forgiveness of his sins; but the two actions are distinctly declared to be in connection with one another. They both appealed to the same Divine power. If, therefore, the pretension to this power made in the former utterance was blasphemous, the ability to perform the consequent miracle would not have been forthcoming. It is also possible that the visible fact of the cure may have been meant as a making good of the invisible transaction declared in the first words. They were shown thereby not to be mere words.
2. And similarly, but even more cogently, is the proof of our Lord"s divinity furnished by the spiritual experience of those whom he redeems. That they are forgiven is witnessed to in the subsequent power given to live righteously, and to continue in fellowship with a reconciled God. To those who are conscious of this inward result ("kept by the power of God through faith, unto salvation") there is no other evidence so conclusive. M.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-12. The paralytic.
I THE PARALYTIC A TYPE OF HELPLESSNESS IN GENERAL. In this case both physical and moral. No malady is serious but that which attacks the freedom of the soul in its seat.
II DIFFICULTIES ARE FOR THE TRIAL OF FAITH. The physical difficulty of getting to Christ"s presence we may view as a parable or allegory of deeper moral difficulties. How hard to be a Christian to reach the truth and live in the light of it! Argument breaks down; many gaps in our reasoning it is not easy to get over. But"What if the breaks themselves should prove at last The most consummate of contrivances To train a man"s eye, teach him what is faith?
III THE SEAT OF HEALTH OFTEN LIES IN THE IMAGINATION. A man has a dark picture of himself, his sin, his doom, etc., constantly before him. He cannot be well or happy. Reverse this picture, and the whole nature, physical and moral, recovers its healthy working. Christ will not suffer men to despond or despair of themselves. Believe yourself condemned, a life-failure, and you remain a paralytic. Believe in your Divine possibility and future; you can rise and walk. When the gospel is truly preached, men are not crushed, but uplifted; not discouraged, but heartened about themselves.
IV THE GIFT OF SYMPATHY AND OF POWER. Here was a signal example of the diagnosis of Jesus. He saw, as we say, what was the matter. He spoke to the point; and his word was an idea and a power. Never is true sympathy disjoined from power. To love our fellows is to enjoy the noblest power. J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-12. The sick of the palsy: the spiritual and physical healing.
The excitement having subsided, Jesus enters again into Capernaum. He, in the house, was teaching, "Pharisees and doctors of the Law sitting by," from all parts. The mighty "power of the Lord was with him to heal," as was made evident before, or as was to be proved by this event. It being "noised that he was in the house, many were gathered together," crowding "about the door." But attention is arrested by the bold deed of four men, who, carrying one sick of the palsy, and finding it impossible to get into the presence of Jesus, ascend to the low flat roof, "and let down the bed whereon the sick of the palsy lay," as men are wont to let down straw and other things to-day in similar houses. Instantly the whole event assumes a spiritual character, and Jesus, for all time, gives the spiritual its preeminence: "Jesus, seeing their faith." The spiritual must take precedence, the material must follow.
I IN ORDER TO SPIRITUAL HEALING A SUITABLE CONDITION IS NEEDFUL. Here and elsewhere that condition is expressed by the one word faith. Faith, though a simple act or condition of mind, is the result of many consciousness of need, desire of relief, self-distrust, some knowledge of Christ, appreciative confidence leading to assured persuasion. In faith the soul is already at one with the Saviour; it has come to him; it is united to him. The faith of others besides that of the sick is a favorable condition. Here it first arrests attention: "Jesus, seeing their faith." How many are dependent for their salvation upon the faith and effort of others! By their deed they declared their faith. It said, "Thou canst;" if not also," Thou wilt." Through their faith must be seen, however, that of the sufferer shining. For who urged them on to do even this for him? Would he have undergone the pain of this treatment had he not had faith? It is saying, as said another, "If I do but touch his garment, I shall be made whole." With the desire of the sufferer for relief the charity of his helpers mingled. Their acts of faith were so interwoven that they became one faith, it was this that Jesus saw.
II WHERE THE SUITABLE SPIRITUAL CONDITION IS FOUND THE HEALING INEVITABLY TAKES PLACE. Yea, though the word declaring it be not uttered; and even when it is uttered, men, "reasoning in their hearts," believe not. Where Jesus to-day sees faith and he is always on the look-out for it there he heals. The faith of sufferers and helpers must have respect to his promise and his power to heal, and not busy itself so much with listening for the word which declares the healing to be done. "Jesus, seeing their faith," and knowing there was the suitable condition for the reception of spiritual blessing, even above and beyond that for which they asked, "saith, Son, thy sins are forgiven." So is faith rewarded; so are spirituals put in their rightful place before temporals; not really to hinder the temporal, but the better to prepare for it.
III THE OPPOSITION OF ANTAGONISTS IS USED BY CHRIST FOR THE GREATER CONFIRMATION OF THE BELIEVING ONES; and, in mercy, also to awaken conviction in the unbelieving heart. "Perceiving in his own spirit that they so reasoned" within the dark chambers of their hearts, he graciously condescended to reason with them. "If I can do the harder of two works, surely I can the easier. That ye will not doubt. But "whether is easier" in your view, to say, "Thy sins are forgiven;" or to say, "Arise, take up thy bed and walk"? This must not only be said; to prove itself a real word of power, it must be done. Of this ye can be judges. But that ye even ye reasoning and unbelieving ones may know the unlimited power of the Son of man in the spiritual realm, behold a proof of his power in the material! A word declares it. "I say unto thee, arise. A word of power indeed; for "he arose and took up the bed, and went forth before them all a visible, undeniable testimony that the true kingdom of God had come, that the true King was amongst them; and they also were not only amazed, but "they glorified God," and confessed, "We never saw it on this fashion." So he who maketh "the wrath of man to praise him," maketh the thought of evil to turn to the greater good of them whom he would bless.
IV THE WONDERFUL POWER FOR THE GOOD OF ALL THAT FAITH IN THE SON OF MAN CALLS INTO PLAY. Therefore let every one who has faith use it: in faith bringing the sin-stricken to Jesus; with strong faith encouraging all to seek him, to yield to him, to follow, and to trust in him. And let every worker work in faith; for the faith of the bearer of the sick is regarded. Let parents bring their children to Jesus in faith; and pastors bring their flocks before him in faith; and friends, friends; and lovers of men lay the world at his feet in lowly, loving, believing prayer. Unbelief stays the strong arm of Christ, because it presents the unsuitable conditions before him who always acts according to the "laws" of his own kingdom. Faith is not strength, but acknowledged feebleness. We can aid the consciously feeble, but the presumptuously strong put themselves beyond the power of men and the will of the Lord. G.
HOMILIES BY J.J. GIVEN Vers. 1-12. Parallel passages: Mat_9:2-8 Luk_5:17-26. The cure of the paralytic.
I THE POPULARITY OF OUR LORD. After the cure of the leper, recorded at the close of the preceding chapter, our Lord, to avoid tumult or undue excitement on the part of the people, or an unseasonable precipitation of his plans, retired to and remained some short time in unfrequented places; but the crowds kept resorting (hrconto , imperfect) to him from all directions. After an interval of some days (di hmerwn) it was reported that he was back in Capernaum that, having previously arrived (eiv), he was now in the house. But what house? Some say Peter"s; others, as Euthymius, that it was simply a house (eiv oikon tina); better perhaps understand it indefinitely of a house which he used as an inn or place of temporary abode, or to which as a sort of home he usually resorted. The expression may thus, in a certain sense, be equivalent to the German zu Hause.
II STRANGE METHOD OF APPROACH, Again multitudes flocked to him; the humble dwelling was soon filled to overflowing, and still the crowd pressed on towards the door even the parts next to it became so thronged that they could no longer contain or afford them room. As was his wont, he was speaking, perhaps conversationally (elalei) the word, that is, of the kingdom or of his doctrine unto them. Just then a novel and curious incident added a new feature to the scene. On the outskirt of the crowd four men appeared, bearing a pallet between them, as St. Mark informs us one at each corner probably; and on it lay a helpless invalid. But so intently were all eyes fixed on, or all necks stretched out towards, the great Teacher that the crowd paid no attention to the invalid and his bearers, or at least showed no disposition to make way for them. But, wherever there is a strong will, there is sure to be a way. They were not to be deterred from their purpose, nor to be kept back from him whose presence they sought. They mount the fiat roof of the house, whether by steps outside or otherwise. They remove a sufficient portion of the roof, or, as it is literally, they unroof the roof, digging out the tiling overlaid with earth, and so let down the couch on which the sick of the palsy lay, "into the midst before Jesus," as we learn from St. Luke.
III ITS FEASIBILITY. The objections of infidel writers, who have shown much ignorance and wasted much strength in attacking the plan resorted to in bringing the paralytic into the presence of the Saviour, are sufficiently and satisfactorily refuted by the following plain statements of facts in "The Land and the Book": (houses) of Capernaum, as is evident from the ruins, were, like those of modern villages in the same region, low, very low, with fiat roofs, reached by a stairway from the yard or court... Those who carried the paralytic... ascended to the roof, removed so much of it as was necessary, and let down their patient through the aperture. Examine one of these houses, and you will see at once that the thing is natural, and easy to be accomplished. The roof is only a few feet high, and by stooping down, and holding the comers of the couch merely a thickly padded quilt, as at present in this region they could let down the sick man without any apparatus of ropes or cords to assist them... The whole affair was the extemporaneous device of plain peasants, accustomed to open their roofs, and let down grain, straw, and other articles, as they still do in this country... The materials now employed are beams about three feet apart, across which short sticks are arranged close together, and covered with the thickly matted thorn bush called bellan. Over this is spread a coat of stiff mortar, and then comes the marl or earth that makes the roof. Now, it is easy to remove any part of this without injuring the rest They had merely to scrape back the earth from a portion of the roof over the lewan, take up the thorns and the short sticks, and let down the couch between the beams at the very feet of Jesus. The end achieved, they could speedily restore the roof as it was before. I have the impression, however," Dr. Thomson goes on to say, "that the covering at least of the lewan was not made of earth, but of materials more easily taken up. It may have been merely of coarse matting, like the walls and roofs of Turkman huts; or it may have been made of boards, or even stone slabs (and such I have seen), that could be quickly removed. All that is necessary, however, for us to know is, that the roof was fiat, low, easily reached, and easily opened, so as to let down the couch of the sick man; and all these points are rendered intelligible by an acquaintance with modern houses in the villages of Palestine." The frequency and force with which this portion of the miracle has been assailed must be our apology for quoting the above somewhat long extract.
IV THE EVIDENCE OF THEIR FAITH. The evangelist Matthew informs us that Jesus saw their faith, but makes no mention of the circumstances just referred to, which arc so fully related by St. Luke, and with such particularity and minuteness of detail by St. Mark. The singularity of the effort which they made to reach the Saviour afforded ocular demonstration of their belief in his power to help and heal. The faith thus manifested was not restricted to the invalid, nor to those that bore him. It was shared by both alike. They would not have engaged in the friendly office unless they had had faith in the probable result, nor would they have undertaken it against the will or wish of the invalid; neither would he have consented to allow himself to be conveyed, as he did, without believing in the power of him from whom he hoped relief.
V NATURE OF FAITH, AS SEEN IN THIS TRANSACTION, Two things, the exact counterpart of each other, are the love of the Saviour and the faith of the sinner; they exactly and mutually correspond; the latter is the cheerful response to the former. The Saviour is waiting to be gracious; the sinner, in the exercise of faith, is ready to accept that grace. The Saviour offers the much-needed forgiveness; the sinner, by faith, stretches out his hand to receive the boon. The true nature of faith, moreover, is taught us here; it is not merely belief in a dogma, it is dependence on a person; it is not merely belief in a doctrine, it is reliance on a living Saviour; it is thus not only assent to a Divine testimony, it is trust in a Divine person. Accordingly, it is sometimes represented in Scripture as a coming to Christ; sometimes it is the receiving of Christ; again, it is a looking to Christ; also a fleeing to him for refuge. It is exhibited by other figures all of which imply not only implicit belief in what the Scriptures report of Christ, but actual trust in him as being all that Scripture represents him, and willing to do all that Scripture declares him to be able and willing to do.
VI THE DISEASE AND ITS REMEDY. The sufferer was a paralytic, or rather, as St. Luke with his usual professional accuracy characterizes him more strictly, paralyzed or palsy-stricken (paralelumenov). This disease, which assumed a very aggravated form in the East, was attended with great suffering, besides leaving its victim altogether helpless. If leprosy was typical of pollution, and demoniac possession of passion, this form of disease was a type of utter prostration. The mode of cure adopted by our Lord in this case was somewhat unusual. Generally he administered relief to the body before restoring health to the soul; in the case of the paralytic the process is just the converse of this. Whether it was that sinful indulgence or evil excesses of some kind had weakened the nervous system of this man, and left him in this state of pain and prostration; or whether he felt with peculiar keenness the burden of sin pressing on his conscience or whether some expression of penitence, though unrecorded, had escaped his lips; or whether it was only deep contrition of spirit of which our Lord alone was cognizant of whichever of these it was, he first removed the soul disease. The expression, as recorded by St. Luke, is merely "man;" but both St. Matthew and St. Mark report the tenderer word of address, "son" or child," more on the ground of affection than because of the youth of the sufferer; while St. Matthew alone adds the word of cheering, (yarsei), "Be of good cheer an expression so calculated to relieve the burthened spirit and ease the aching heart.
VII GROUND OF ENCOURAGEMENT. But the ground of this encouragement is.in the words, "Thy sins are forgiven thee; "not, observe, "be forgiven thee," for afwntai is not for afewntai , the aorist subjunctive in a precative sense, but for afeintai , perfect indicative in an affirmative sense have been forgiven thee. The deed, in fact, was done, the blessing was bestowed, the sins of the man were, as the word implies, dismissed sent away like the sins of Israel on the head of the scapegoat "into a land uninhabited," never again to return or be remembered.
VIII HOSTILE ON-LOOKERS. In that surging crowd were some cold, unsympathetic hearts; there sat or stood there men who had come, if not as spies, yet through curiosity of a calculating, critical, sceptical kind. Not only had Galilee sent its contingent of such men from every village, but; several had come all the way from the southern province, and even from its capital an indirect evidence, by the way, of what is directly recorded by St. John of ministerial work carried on in these parts, and of attention roused by it. In the parallel portion of St. Luke where we read that "the power of the Lord was present to heal them (autouv) that is, of course, those who sought or needed healing there is a tolerably well-supported variant which reads the pronoun in the singular auton after a, B, L, X; the meaning in this case is, "the power of the Lord was in the direction of his healing," or more freely, "the power of the Lord Jehovah was present for his work of healing.
IX A SECT AND A PROFESSION. St. Matthew and St. Mark both notice the presence of certain of the scribes. These were originally copyists, but afterwards textual critics, and subsequently expositors of the Law in fact, the theologians of the nation. St. Luke, however, gives us the additional information that "there were Pharisees and doctors of the Law sitting by." The latter had to do with the Law of the Old Testament, just as the scribes, but in the capacity of jurists. Hence the lawyers and scribes commonly thought to have been identical. No doubt the same person might be both a theologian and a jurist or ecclesiastical lawyer; while the Pharisees were the formalists the religious sect that set such store by form and ceremony. The name is derived from p arash, to separate, and thus signifies separatists. Now, these parties reasoned the matter out in their own minds (dialogizomenoi), and were not long in coming to a conclusion that Jesus was guilty of a blasphemous assumption of an exclusively Divine attribute.
X THE INTERPRETATION OF THEIR THOUGHTS. It was, "Why does this fellow thus speak blasphemies?" The "this" is contemptuous, and the" thus" implies" wickedly," or" as we have heard." If, however, we accept the text of the critical editors, Lachmann, Tischendorf, Tregelles, as well as that followed by the Revisers, it reads thus: "Why does this man thus speak? he blasphemeth." In the received text the plural denotes intensity, and is equivalent to "all this blasphemy;" or it refers to different expressions which they looked upon as blasphemous. It must be here observed that in Scripture language the word passes from the classical sense of speaking evil of or slandering a fellow-creature to the Hellenistic meaning of speaking impiously of God, or laying claim to a Divine attribute.
XI DRIFT OF THEIR REASONING. "Who can forgive sins but one, that is, God, or God alone?" Such was the gist of their reasoning; the natural answer, of course, was that, unless in the exercise of delegated authority, or in a declarative sense, the thing transcended human power. God reserves to himself the power of pardon; Jesus, in his own name and by his own authority, claims to bestow forgiveness; therefore he blasphemeth, thus making himself equal to God. Both their premisses were correct and strictly logical; but the conclusion drawn from them was altogether erroneous the very reverse of the fact. It should rather have been, not "he blasphemeth," arrogating to himself a Divine attribute, but, on the contrary, "he is truly Divine," really possessing Divine power.
XII HELPS THEM TO THE RIGHT CONCLUSION. Our Lord knew at once and well (epignouv) in his spirit their secret reasonings; for, though his soul was human, his spirit was Divine; while to the query latent in their minds, he accommodates the question which he addresses to them, as though he said," Ye ask, What right have I to speak thus? I reply, What right have ye to reason thus? Which claim is easier to make that of forgiving sins, or that of curing palsy?" But the nature of proof in each of the two cases is widely different: in the one case it is obvious, in the other it is obscure; in the one it is patent, in the other latent. But our Lord proceeds to put them in the position of coming to a correct conclusion. He gives them sufficient data to guide them: of what is cognizable by the senses he gives sensible proof; what is spiritual he leaves them to infer. "Up," he says to the paralytic, if we adopt the reading egeire , approved of by Lachmann and Tischendorf, and to be taken as a particle of excitement, like age or ana , or auf in German, rather than with seauton understood; or "Arise," if we read egeirou , with Tregelles; or "Arise at once," if we adhere to egeirai of the received text, though Fritzsehe affirms that the middle voice signifies "to arouse or raise some one for one"s self," while the passive is "to be aroused, raised up," and so "rise." Our Lord then adds, "Take up thy bed" (krabbaton , equivalent to the Latin gr abatum, and equivalent to St. Luke"s klinidion , little bed, or mattress or pallet every way appropriate, as well in sense as because the latter evangelist wrote for the Greeks, as St. Mark for the Romans, at least in the first instance), "and go into thy house.
XIII STRANGE CONTRAST. Immediately the command was obeyed, and the man, who was carried on a bed by four into the Saviour"s presence was now raised up and carried his bed on his back in presence of them all. As Bengel has finely expressed it, "Sweet saying! the bed hath borne the man: now the man bore the bed.
XIV POWER OF FORGIVENESS. Thus our Lord, by this visible, palpable, and undeniable exercise of Divine power in relieving the body, proved that he possessed the power, and not only the power but the legitimate authority ( exousian), to restore the soul from the disease of sin.
XV THIS POWER POSSESSED ON EARTH. Of himself he speaks as the "Son of man." This designation he applies no less than eighty times to himself; but it is only twice or thrice so applied by others, and in each instance of such application his exaltation is implied. He affirms that on earth the Son of man has power to forgive sins, how much more in heaven? In his humiliation, how much more in his exaltation? In his humiliation on earth, how much more in his glorification in heaven?
XVI GOD GLORIFIED. NO wonder the man himself, as St. Luke tells us, glorified God! And no wonder that the multitude (oi ocloi according to St. Matthew, according to St. Mark) all likewise united with him in giving glory to God; while all, at the same time that they glorified God, expressed their own amazement in one way or other some (as in St. Matthew) in reference to such power given unto men; others (according to St. Luke) because of the strange things things beyond expectation (paradoxa) they had just seen; and some (as we read in St. Mark) because they had never seen it on this fashion. J.J.G.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 18, 21, 23, 25, 27 And again He entered into Capernaum.
Mar_2:1-12
And again He entered into Capernaum.
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The general ministry of Christ
Christs apparent delays are only the maturings of time-the ripenings of opportunity. He will come, not when impatient men think best, but when His wisdom determines: neither too soon nor too late.
I. Where Christ is desired Christ comes. He visits with equal readiness every willing heart. In penitent and submissive natures He finds His favourite haunts.
II. Christs presence in the house cannot be concealed. Holy influences emanate from Him, freely as light from the sun.
III. Christ binds together all classes.
IV. Human limits are too narrow for Christs kingdom. Gods plans are expansive; let us beware of trying to contract them. We must enlarge our ideas, until they are commensurate with Gods truth; we must enlarge our sympathies until they embrace every human need.
V. Christ improves every occasion. Whatever is needed, He is ready to supply. Each individual in that crowd had some special want, but not one was making special application. But Christ could not be idle. His business was to minister. If they did not want a word of healing, they all wanted a word of instruction. (D. Davies, M. A.)
It was noised that He was in the house
I. Houses where Christ will dwell.
1. The human heart.
2. The Christian family.
3. A spiritual Church.
II. The chief glory of a Christian Church-not the building, nor the form of service, nor the social position of its members, nor the eloquence of the preacher, nor its past history-but the Christ who dwells within it.
III. The self-manifesting nature of true religion. If Christ be within the heart, the family, or the Church-the fact will be known abroad. Though the rose is not seen its fragrance is perceived. Its glitter betrays the presence of gold. Clouds cannot conceal the sun, for the daylight declares its ascendency.
IV. The chief drawing power of Christianity. If we would draw the multitude we must do it, not so much by eccentricities-advertisements, as by obtaining the presence of Jesus Christ. He will draw all men unto Him. Christ within will attract the multitude without. (L. Palmer.)
The king and his Court
Where the king is there is his Court. (Anon.)
A happy town
Happy town in such an inhabitant, and in this respect lifted up to heaven. Indeed, in this, heaven came down to Capernaum. (Trapp.)
Shiloh
Where Shiloh is there shall the gathering of the people be. (M. Henry.)
Christ in the house
I. When Christ may be said to be in the house.
1. When the Bible is there.
2. When a good man enters it and carries with him the savour of Christ.
3. When He dwells in the heart of anyone in the family-parent, child, servant, etc.
4. Into whatever house a Christian family enters, Christ enters with it, etc.
II. Some of the advantages of having Christ in the house.
1. If it be noised that Christ is in the house, good men will be drawn to it and bad men will keep away.
2. There will be a witness for God there.
3. There is a direct communication between it and the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.
4. That house is under the peculiar protection of Divine Providence.
5. The sympathies of good men are drawn towards it. Conclusion: We should seek Christ on our own account; and we should seek Him on account of others. (G. Rogers.)
Jesus in the house: piety at home
How many are longing for grand spheres in which to serve God. They admire heroic men and women who have been bold for the truth, and wish they had some daring opportunity in which to exhibit Christian heroism and endurance. St. Paul says to such persons (1Ti_5:4), I will tell you of a place where you can show forth all that is beautiful and glorious in the Christian character, and that place is the domestic circle; Let them first learn to show piety at home. Indeed, if a man does not serve God on a small scale, he never will serve Him on a large one. (J. N. Natron.)
How Christ enters the house
Christ Jesus gains admission to the house in various ways. Sometimes it is through the sweet influence of a little child, who has heard of Him in the Sunday school. Sometimes Jesus finds His way into the house through the agency of a good book or a tract. Sometimes He leaves the fragrance of His example behind Him, after the visit of a friend. Jesus may only be present in the house in the person of the humblest servant, and yet the influence of that servant will be felt. (J. N. Natron.)
Family worship
Bishop Coxe, in the preface to his Covenant Prayer, gives this interesting narrative. A few years ago I visited an old feudal castle in England. One of its towers dates from King Johns time; its outer walls bear marks of siege and damage from the guns of Cromwell. The young owner, lately married, was beginning his housekeeping aright, and when I came down into the old hall to breakfast, his servants were all assembled for prayers with the family. Though I was asked to officiate, I reminded my kind host that every man is a priest in his own household, and I begged him to officiate as he was used to do. So he read prayers and Holy Scripture, with due solemnity, and we all kneeled down. Happening to lift my eyes, I observed over his head, upon a massive oaken beam that spanned the hall, an inscription in old English:
That house shall be preserved, and never shall decay,
Where the Almighty God is worshipped, day by day. A.D. 1558.
(J. N. Natron.)
Piety in the house proved by virtue in the children
If I am told in general terms of a mother, that she has gone to the studio of a photographic artist to obtain a portrait of herself, and if the question afterwards arise, did she sit alone, or did she group the children round her feet, and hold the infant on her knee? I do not know, for I was not there; but show me the glass which the artist has just taken out from a vessel of liquid in a dark room, and is holding up to the light. What figures are those that are gradually forming upon its surface? In that glass rises the outline of that maternal form; and the forms of the children come gradually in, variously grouped around her. Ah! I know now that this mother sat not alone when the sun in the heavens painted her picture in that glass. The character and condition of children, through all their after life, tell plainly who were closest to her heart, and whose names were oftenest on her lips, when the mother held communion with Jesus in the house. (Arnot.)
Christly influence in the home
Travelling on the Lake Lugano, one morning, we heard the swell of the song of the nightingale, and the oars were stilled on the blue lake as we listened to the silver sounds. We could not see a single bird, nor do I know that we wished to see-we were so content with the sweetness of the music: even so it is with our Lord; we may enter a house where He is loved, and we may hear nothing concerning Christ, and yet we may perceive clearly enough that He is there, a holy influence streaming through their actions pervades the household; so that if Jesus be unseen, it is clear that He is not unknown. Go anywhere where Jesus is, and though you do not actually hear His name, yet the sweet influence which flows from His love will be plainly enough discernible. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Christ in the house
I. That Christ in the house is an attraction-Many were gathered together.
II. That Christ in the house is an instruction-He preached the word unto them.
III. That Christ in the house is a benediction.
1. A benediction of healing.
2. A benediction of pardon.
1. That Christ is willing to dwell in the homes of men.
2. That when Christ dwells in the home it is visible to the world that He does so.
3. That the home life should be a perpetual but silent sermon. (J. S. Exell, M. A.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 10, 13, 18, 23 Chapter 2
Chapter 2
CHAPTER 2:1-12 (Mar_2:1-12)
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THE SICK OF THE PALSY
"And when He entered again into Capernaum after some days, it was noised that He was in the house." Mar_2:1 (R.V.) [And when He had come back to Capernaum several day s afterward, it was heard that He was at home. And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room, even near the door; and He was speaking the word to them. And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. And being unable to get to Him on account of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. And Jesus seeing their faith said to the paralytic, "My son, your sins are forgiven." But there were some of the scribes sitting there and reasoning in their hearts, "Why does this man speak that way? He is blaspheming; who can forgive sins but God alone?" And immediately Jesus, perceiving in His spirit that they were reasoning that way within themselves, said to them, "Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? Which is easier, to say to the paralytic, Your sins are forgiven;' or to say, Arise, and take up your pallet and walk'? But in order that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" --He said to the paralytic, "I say to you, rise, take up your pallet and go home." And he rose and immediately took up the pallet and went out in the sight of all; so that they were all amazed and were glorifying God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this." Mar_2:1-12 NASB]
JESUS returns to Capernaum, and an eager crowd blocks even the approaches to the house where He is known to be. St. Mark, as we should expect, relates the course of events, the multitudes, the ingenious device by which a miracle is obtained, the claim which Jesus advances to yet greater authority than heretofore, and the impression produced. But St. Luke explains that there were "sitting by," having obtained the foremost places which they loved, Pharisees and doctors of the law from every village of Galilee and Judea, and from Jerusalem itself. And this concourse, evidently preconcerted and unfriendly, explains the first murmurs of opposition recorded by St. Mark. It was the jealousy of rival teachers which so readily pronounced Him a blasphemer.
The crowds besieged the very passages, there was no room, no, not around the door, and even if one might struggle forward, four men bearing a litter might well despair. But with palsied paralysis at stake, they would not be repulsed. They gained the roof by an outer staircase, such as the fugitives from Jerusalem should hereafter use, not going through the house. Then they uncovered and broke up the roof, by which strong phrases St. Mark means that they first lifted the tiles which lay in a bed of mortar or mud, broke through this, and then tore up the poles and light rafters by which all this covering was supported. Then they lowered the sick man upon his pallet, in front of the Master as He taught.
It was an unceremonious act. However carefully performed, the audience below must have been not only disturbed but inconvenienced, and doubtless among the precise and unmerciful personages in the chief seats there was many an angry glance, many a murmur, many a conjecture of rebukes presently to be inflicted on the intruders.
But Jesus never in any circumstances rebuked for intrusion any suppliant. And now He discerned the central spiritual impulse of these men, which was not obtrusiveness nor disrespect. They believed that neither din while He preached, nor rubbish falling among His audience, nor the strange interruption of a patient and a litter intruded upon His discourse, could weigh as much with Jesus as the appeal on a sick man's face. And this was faith. These peasants may have been far enough from intellectual discernment of Christ's Personality and the scheme of salvation. They had however a strong and practical conviction that He would make whole their palsied friend.
Now the preaching of faith is suspected of endangering good works. But was this persuasion likely to make these men torpid? Is it not plain that all spiritual apathy comes not from over-trust but from unbelief, either doubting that sin is present death, or else that holiness is life, and that Jesus has a gift to bestow, not in heaven, but promptly, which is better to gain than all the world? Therefore salvation is linked with faith, which earns nothing but elicits all, like the touch that evokes electricity, but which no man supposes to have made it.
Because they knew the curse of palsy, and believed in a present remedy, these men broke up the roof to come where Jesus was. They won their blessing, but not the less it was His free gift.
Jesus saw and rewarded the faith of all the group. The principle of mutual support and cooperation is the basis alike of the family, the nation, and the Church. Thus the great Apostle desired obscure and long-forgotten men and women to help together with him in their prayers. And He who visits the sins of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation, shows mercy unto many more, unto thousands, in them that love Him. What a rebuke is all this to men who think it enough that they should do no harm, and live inoffensive lives. Jesus now bestowed such a blessing as awoke strange misgivings among the bystanders. He divined the true burden of that afflicted heart, the dreary memories and worse fears which haunted that sick bed, -- and how many are even now preparing such remorse and gloom for a bed of pain hereafter! -- and perhaps He discerned the consciousness of some guilty origin of the disease. Certainly He saw there one whose thoughts went beyond his malady, a yearning soul, with hope glowing like red sparks amid the ashes of his self-reproach, that a teacher so gracious as men reported Jesus, might bring with Him a gospel indeed. We know that he felt thus, for Jesus made him of good cheer by pardon rather than by healing, and spoke of the cure itself as wrought less for his sake than as evidence.
Surely that was a great moment when the wistful gaze of eyes which disease had dimmed, met the eyes which were as a flame of fire, and knew that all its sullied past was at once comprehended and forgiven.
Jesus said to him, "Son, thy sins are forgiven thee." The term of endearment was new to his lips, and very emphatic; the same which Mary used when she found Him in the temple, the same as when He argued that even evil men give good gifts unto their children. Such a relation towards Himself He recognized in this afflicted penitent. On the other hand, the dry argumentative temper of the critics is well expressed by the short crackling unemotional utterances of their orthodoxy: "Why doth this man thus speak? He blasphemeth. Who can forgive sins but one, God." There is no zeal in it, no passion for God's honor, no spiritual insight, it is as heartless as a syllogism. And in what follows a fine contrast is implied between their perplexed orthodoxy, and Christ's profound discernment. For as He had just read the sick man's heart, so He "perceived in His spirit that they so reasoned within themselves." And He asks them the searching question, "Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk?" Now which is really easier? It is not enough to lay all the emphasis upon "to say," as if with Jesus the ease of an utterance depended on the difficulty of testing it. There is indeed a certain irony in the question. They doubtless imagined that Jesus was evading their scrutiny by only bestowing what they could not test. To them forgiveness seemed more easily offered than a cure. To the Christian, it is less to heal disease, which is a mere consequence, than sin, which is the source of all our woes. To the power of Jesus they were alike, and connected with each other as the symptom and the true disease. In truth, all the compassion which blesses our daily life is a pledge of grace; and He Who healeth all our diseases forgiveth also all our iniquities. But since healing was the severer test in their reckoning, Jesus does not evade it. He restored the palsied man to health, that they might know that the Son of man hath authority on earth to forgive sins. So then, pardon does not lie concealed and doubtful in the councils of an unknown world. It is pronounced on earth. The Son of man, wearing our nature and touched with our infirmities, bestows it still, in the Scriptures, in the Sacraments, in the ministration of His servants. Wherever He discerns faith, He responds with assurance of the absolution and remission of sins.
He claims to do this, as men had so lately observed that He both taught and worked miracles, "with authority." We then saw that this word expressed the direct and personal mastery with which He wrought, and which the apostles never claimed for themselves.
Therefore this text cannot be quoted in defense of priestly absolutions, as long as these are hypothetical, and depend on the recipient's earnestness, or on any supposition, any uncertainty whatever. Christ did not utter a hypothesis.
Fortunately, too, the argument that men, priestly men, must have authority on earth to forgive sins, because the Son of man has such authority, can be brought to an easy test. There is a passage elsewhere, which asserts His authority, and upon which the claim to share it can be tried. The words are, "The Father gave Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man," and they are immediately followed by an announcement of the resurrection to judgment (Joh_5:27; Joh_5:29). Is any one prepared to contend that such authority as that is vested on other sons of men? And if not that, why this?
But if priestly absolutions are not here, there remains the certainty that Jesus brought to earth, to man, the gift of prompt effective pardon, to be realized by faith.
The sick man is ordered to depart at once. Further discourse might perhaps be reserved for others, but he may not linger, having received his own bodily and spiritual medicine. The teaching of Christ is not for curiosity. It is good for the greatly blessed to be alone. And it is sometimes dangerous for obscure people to be thrust into the center of attention.
Hereupon, another touch of nature discovers itself in the narrative, for it is now easy to pass through the crowd. Men who would not in their selfishness give place for palsied misery, readily make room for the distinguished person who has received a miraculous blessing.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
B. W. Johnson 1891 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 14, 15, 18, 21, 23, 26, 27, 28 1. Again he entered Capernaum. After his first missionary…
1. Again he entered Capernaum. After his first missionary circuit of Galilee.
B. W. Johnson's The People's New Testament with Notes (1889–1891) — public domain. Electronic text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library (CCEL) ThML edition.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 18, 23 Mar_2:1. It was noised.—It was heard, He is in…
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
Mar_2:1. It was noised.—It was heard, He is in the house, or at home. Perhaps the house already mentioned, viz. Simon’s (Mar_1:29); but more probably His own homestead.
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Mar_2:4. Come nigh unto Him.—Bring (him) to Him.
Mar_2:5. Thy sins be.—Have been forgiven thee. Doubtless the man himself was more anxious about his state in the sight of God than about his bodily ailments.
Mar_2:7. Blasphemies.—Why doth this man talk thus? He blasphemeth! They had yet to learn the truth revealed in Joh_5:19.
Mar_2:10. Power.—Authority, i.e. a moral right. The use of the term “Son of Man” implies a claim on the part of our Lord to forgive sins rather in His mediatorial than in His Divine capacity. And as the Father sent Him vested with this authority, so does He in due time hand it on to His earthly representatives and vicegerents (Joh_20:21-23).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.—Mar_2:1-12
(PARALLELS: Mat_9:1-8; Luk_5:17-26.)
The paralytic borne of four.—What, it has been asked, was the real purpose of Christ, in those mighty works of healing which consumed so much of His time and strength on earth? What was their relation to His great plan for the world’s redemption? Evidently they were not intended to reduce, by direct interference, the sum-total of the world’s suffering. Had that been their object, we should have been forced to admit they have quite failed to attain it, for the difference they have made in the amount of human woe is infinitesimal. Moreover, we can see for ourselves that that would not have been a worthy object. Pain and misery are not here for nothing; they are sent here by God Himself, to accomplish a definite work in the world—a good, merciful, and Divine work; and they cannot be spared until that work is completed. We must therefore look elsewhere for the key to our Lord’s ministry of healing. And we find it in the incident now before us. “That ye may know that the Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins”—for this purpose it is that Jesus saith to the paralytic, “Arise and walk.” Possessing this key to the meaning of Christ’s works of mercy, we can follow Him through the long succession of them, as He goes about doing good and healing all that are oppressed of the devil, and can find in them all, not only the sign and proof of His power to save from sin, but the example and illustration of His way of saving. Here we see the two antagonists confronted. In Jesus Christ we see God manifest in the flesh; and in the maladies and visible infirmities of men we see sin manifest in the flesh. In the infinite diversity of these—palsies, blindness, leprosies, epileptic convulsions, demoniac madness—we have set before us, in no dark parable, the Protean phases of human sin. We hear the authoritative word of absolution, cleansing, healing; we witness the act of faith by which he who asks receives. These mighty works are a continual parable, in which the whole life of Christ sets before us the kingdom of heaven in its infinite mercy and all-victorious power.
I. The faith exhibited by the paralytic’s friends.—It was quite a common occurrence for sick persons seeking help from Christ to be brought into His presence by those who had the care of them (Mat_4:24; Mat_9:32; Mat_14:35-36; Mat_15:30; Mat_17:14-18); and after His ascension the same thing was experienced by the apostles (Act_5:16). In the present instance the sick man was so utterly helpless that he could only be moved by four persons carrying him on his pallet. But when they reached the house where Jesus was a new difficulty arose, the crowd before the door being too great to admit of their entrance. What was to be done? An ordinary degree of faith would have given up the attempt, and the mournful procession would have returned home as it came. But these men were not so easily daunted. They had the faith which can “remove mountains”; and a mountain of difficulties and discouragements it did indeed remove. “When they could not come nigh unto Him for the press,” they went up on the housetop, carrying their burden with them; and being come just over the place where Jesus was, they actually stripped off the roof, perhaps at the risk of causing danger or inconvenience to those below, and let the paralytic down with his pallet into the midst before Jesus. They adopted an expedient which few would have thought of, and still fewer attempted, so earnest was their desire for their friend’s recovery, and so strong their confidence in Christ’s power and willingness to satisfy that desire. Unbelief would have raised countless objections. “What is there peculiar in your case, that you should take such an extraordinary method of making it known? Others, besides you, have suffering friends. Wait, and take your turn with the rest. Have patience till the crowd disperses, and Jesus is free to attend to you. Or go home now, and return to-morrow. Such behaviour as this makes you look more like housebreakers than humble petitioners. What will the owner of the house say to such wanton destruction of his property? What will the Lord Himself say to this forcible intrusion into His presence?” To every objection urged these men turned a deaf ear; and at length they received their reward for thus taking the kingdom of heaven (as it were) by storm. Jesus recognised in their action, not an outrage upon decency and propriety, but an exceptional expedient to meet exceptional difficulties; not presumptuous forwardness requiring to be checked, but energetic perseverance deserving every encouragement. “Seeing their faith, He said”—what? nothing to them, they needed no commendation, they were sufficiently rewarded by hearing His gracious words addressed to their friend; and to him Jesus said, not, “Son, thou art healed of thine infirmity,” but, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.”
II. The power claimed by the Divine Physician.—To cleanse the soul as well as to heal the body. It was in the latter capacity only—as the Healer of physical maladies—that Jesus was usually resorted to. There is but one instance on record of His being sought exclusively for the pardon of sins (Luk_7:37-50). So corrupt had the whole nation of the Jews become, so self-satisfied and unspiritual, that it was the rarest thing possible for any of them to realise that the true mission of Jesus was not to restore the body, but the soul—to save His people from their sins. Now what could bring this truth before them more emphatically than the course He pursued with respect to this paralytic? To another impotent person, whom He had restored, He said, “Sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee” (Joh_5:14)—implying that his affliction was the result of his sin. Here the same truth—that spiritual disorders lie at the root of bodily ones—is not only declared, but proved; for instead of saying, “Son, thou art loosed from thine infirmity,” Jesus says, “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” As much as to say,—What you really want is not so much bodily health as spiritual soundness. The faculties of your soul are in direr need than the limbs of your body. It would be of little use for Me to raise your physical frame from that pallet, unless I were at the same time to free your higher nature from the bonds that hold it down. The true physician is he who goes to the root of the disorder, who renovates the constitution and makes the patient a new man. That is what I profess to do. You come to me, craving health, and I offer you in addition salvation: “Son, thy sins are forgiven thee.” So spake the Saviour, and doubtless no sooner had He spoken than the plague of the man’s heart was healed. Still no visible effect followed. There he lay, stretched on his pallet, while the scribes were reasoning among themselves upon the astounding claim implied in the words Jesus had just used. But the matter was not to end there. As far as the efficacy of the word spoken was concerned, it was immaterial whether Christ adopted the form, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” or, “Arise and walk.” If He intended to bestow health of body as well as forgiveness of sins, then both would certainly accrue in any case. But it was not immaterial whether the truth expressed in the words, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” should be only taught, or proved as well as taught. It was of the most supreme importance that all men should know that “the Son of Man hath authority on earth to forgive sins,” and not merely to remit the punishment of them. Turning, therefore, again to the paralytic, but intending His words more for the objectors than for him, Jesus said, “Arise, and take up thy pallet, and go thy way into thy house.” In these words the Saviour deliberately staked His claim to forgive sins, which the scribes could not test, upon His ability to heal, which they could test. The bodily disorder obeyed the mandate as promptly as the spiritual malady had already done (Mar_2:12). Thus was manifested, in the most striking manner, the close connection between sin and suffering; and thus was proved the supreme authority of Jesus Christ, not only in the world of nature, but also in the realm of grace.
III. The parabolic teaching of this miracle.—While the restoration of fallen humanity must be at the outset an inward and a spiritual thing, it is not complete until the entire man has been renewed by the power of the Incarnate God, who shall transfigure even our body of humiliation unto conformity with His body of glory (Php_3:21).
The penances of life.—Penance is the necessary consequence, the inseparable accompaniment of sin; and though God’s mercy may pardon and absolve the penitent from the guilt of sin, and so remit its eternal punishment, yet there is a temporal punishment which remains, and must remain, as a witness to the essential evil of sin. When we gaze upon the Cross we see there, in the Passion of Jesus, the great penance of sin which He bore for us; but He has left us a cross to bear, He has called us, as members of His body, to share in His work: and in nothing is this more manifest than in the penance which follows forgiven sin.
I. We have to bear as a penance the consequences of the sins of the Church (Col_1:24).—
1. In the sorrows which come to us from the lack of zeal, and therefore lack of power in the Church. 2. In the difficulties with which the Church has to contend in restoring primitive doctrine and practice.
3. In the poverty of the sacramental and spiritual life of the Church in so many of our parishes.
II. We must expect penance to follow even on forgiven sins.—
1. The penitent drunkard or roué, who has injured his health by dissipation, has still to bear the consequences of his sins in this life, in physical weakness and disability.
2. The gambler or spendthrift, who has squandered his patrimony in pleasure and excess, has to endure poverty.
3. The criminal, who has lost his character and reputation by legal exposure, though the guilt of his sin be pardoned, has to satisfy the law’s demands, and even after that to put up with many a humiliation as the fruit of his sin.
III. This law holds good in every class of sin—that which is known only to God, as well as that which is manifest also before man. And part of our repentance must consist in our willingness, lovingly, cheerfully, and patiently, to bear the penance of forgiven sin. When our Lord absolved this man, He imposed a penance: “Take up thy bed, and go unto thy house”—possibly bringing on him (as it did on another, Joh_5:10) the criticism and condemnation of his neighbours for his apparent violation of the Sabbath. So with us; when sin is absolved, its temporal results are often left as a penance.
1. In moral weakness, and therefore the necessary surrender of much that is lawful, but for us not expedient, in the avoidance of occasions of temptation, in the giving up of dangerous companions.
2. In the return of the old temptations to worry and distress us, but by God’s grace to develop in us the opposite virtue.
3. In having to bear the immediate consequences of our sin, perhaps in poverty, pain, or humiliation.—A. G. Mortimer, D. D.
OUTLINES AND COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
Mar_2:1. When Christ is in the house—
1. Good men will be attracted to it;
2. Bad men will be benefited in it;
3. Divine benediction will rest upon it;
4. Beneficent ministries will flow from it. Those who have Christ in their home do not act like other people; their motives are purer, their charities more disinterested; they carry with them a radiance which tells of an unworldly source of joy, and proclaims the blessedness of dwelling under the shadow of the Almighty.
Fragrant flowers cannot be concealed, and there is a fragrance about Jesus that always reveals His presence. Light cannot be hidden, and there is so much light in Him that it shines out at every window and through every chink and crevice of the house where He abides. Love itself is invisible, but wherever it dwells it produces such effects that its presence soon becomes known. It makes people gentle, kindly, thoughtful, unselfish, and fills them with new desires to do good, and to serve and bless others.—J. R. Miller, D. D.
Mar_2:3-12. Palsy is not so painful as cancer, nor so loathsome as leprosy, nor so fatal as cholera; but it is a disease which renders the patient eminently helpless. There are persons affected with spiritual palsy who never fall into glaring sins, and yet remain inert and without the power of religious decision. It is vain to expect such people to “turn to Christ.” It is the mission of the Church to bring to Christ those who are too helpless in spiritual indifference to seek Him of their own accord (Luk_14:21-23).—W. F. Adeney.
Mystical sense of the incident.—In one of the allegories attributed to Hugo de S. Victor the following view is given of the whole history: “The house in which Jesus was entertained stands for the Holy Scripture. The crowd who would not let the paralytic be introduced sets forth the multitude of empty thoughts which hide the sight of God from the sinful soul. The roof is uncovered when the sublime and mystical sense of Scripture is laid open. Here the paralytic is brought into the presence of Jesus: there his sin is forgiven him, he is called son, and commanded to take up his bed and walk; for when a man truly comes to the knowledge of God, God heals him by His grace from all that he has done amiss, and calls him a son by adoption, and commands him to take up his bed by subduing the flesh, and to walk by means of good works.”
Lessons.—
1. Those who would be healed by Christ must come to Him. It is not enough either
(1) to hear much of Christ, or
(2) to seek help of those who are near Christ.
2. There are some who could never reach Christ unless helped by others.
3. The selfishness of some who are enjoying Christian privileges is one of the greatest impediments to the spread of the blessings of the gospel among those who are as yet without them.
(1) There are some so eager to seek consolation and peace for their own souls, that they leave no room for such as are palsied and blind and leprous with sin to receive needful care and help.
(2) The sinners and the sick, not the whole and the righteous, have the first claim on Christ’s care. The Church should be more solicitous for the salvation of the world, and less absorbed with the desire for her own comfort.
4. Earnest perseverance in seeking Christ will overcome the greatest difficulties.
(1) We must expect difficulties—(a) In bringing others to Christ. (b) Possibly in coming to Christ ourselves.
(2) Difficulties are sent—(a) To test our earnestness. (b) To awaken our intelligence. (c) To arouse our energy.
(3) Christ is always accessible, though not always with ease.
Mar_2:5. Soul-healing first.—Here we notice a remarkable advance on the teaching accompanying the miracles hitherto recorded by St. Mark 1. The Saviour, before giving relief to the body, attends to the needs of the soul. We cannot doubt that this paralytic was a conscience-stricken man—that he knew his sufferings were owing to his own misconduct—his loss of vital energy having been brought about by a course of enfeebling self-indulgence. The Saviour read the mute confession of his penitent heart, and hastened to assure him of its acceptance in the sight of Him who pardoneth and absolveth all them that truly repent and unfeignedly believe. We are not told what amount of faith he possessed; but however undefined it may have been, it would at any rate include some real conviction of Christ’s right to speak in the name of God.
2. The faith of the four bearers is specially emphasised. It is, as Dean Luckock says, a fact full of mystery, but full also of consolation, that not a few of the gifts of healing and restoration were obtained through the faith and prayers, not so much of the sick and afflicted themselves, as of their relations and friends. See Mat_8:13; Mat_15:28; Mar_5:36; Joh_4:50. Surely this dependence of man upon his fellow-creatures was intended to foreshadow the great mystery of redemption through Another’s blood. And what can be more encouraging for us to know than this: that whenever we bring others to the feet of Jesus to be healed of their soul-sickness—whenever we offer up “the prayer of faith” which we are assured “shall save the sick,” we are associating ourselves in deeds of mercy and acts of intercession with the Great High Priest? Dr. Edersheim well draws attention to the fact, that by first speaking forgiveness Christ not only presented the deeper moral aspect of His miracles, as against their ascription to magic or Satanic agency, but also established that very claim, as regarded His person and authority, which it was sought to invalidate. In this forgiveness of sins He presented His person and authority as Divine, and He proved it such by the miracle of healing which immediately followed. Had the two been inverted, there would have been evidence, indeed, of His power, but not of His Divine personality, nor of His having authority to forgive sins; and this, not the doing of miracles, was the real object of His mission.
The soul’s need met by Christ.—For most of us the wounds of life are seldom wholly clean. Evermore the self-reproach or the inevitable self-accusation mingles with our trouble. There is poison in most of the wounds from which we suffer. We cannot always tell others of the poison which yet we know is lodged in the wound; and yet here we need, perhaps, the greatest sympathy; and here we lie outside our brother’s reach. But here the Divine wisdom meets our needs: “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” It is like a healing touch, cleaning the edges of the wound.—Bishop Boyd Carpenter.
Mar_2:7. Forgiveness of sin.—
1. The fact that God forgives sin.
(1) Stated (Exo_34:6-7; 2Ch_7:14; Psa_86:5; Psa_130:4).
(2) Illustrated (Psa_32:5; Mat_9:2; Luk_7:48).
2. The meritorious ground on which God forgives.
(1) Christ Jesus (Col_1:14; 1Jn_2:12; Act_10:43; Rom_3:24-25).
(2) What has Christ done that God forgives for His sake? (Heb_9:22-26; 1Pe_3:18; Isa_53:5-6).
3. The conditions in us necessary to forgiveness.
(1) Faith (Act_13:38).
(2) Repentance (Act_3:19).
(3) Confession (1Jn_1:9).
(4) Forsaking sin (Pro_28:13).
4. The perfection of this forgiveness of God.
(1) Sins are blotted out (Isa_43:25).
(2) Totally removed from sight (Isa_1:18).
(3) Forgotten for ever (Jer_31:34; Heb_10:17).
5. The consequences of forgiveness. We have—
(1) Life (Col_2:13).
(2) Blessedness in the soul (Psa_32:1-2; 1Jn_5:10).
(3) Praise in the heart (Isa_12:1).
(4) The fear of God (Psa_130:4; Jer_33:8-9).
(5) Reconciliation with God (Luk_15:12; Luk_15:32).
(6) Peace with God and joy in the hope of the glory of God (Rom_5:1-2).—J. A. R. Dickson.
The ungodly change the best medicines into poison, and pervert the holiest truths.
The slanderer’s custom is, not to try to ascertain the speaker’s meaning, but by some means to pervert and wrest his words.
Mar_2:8. The scribes had accepted the dogma that access to other men’s thoughts was a mark of the Messiah. This sign the Saviour will supply by disclosing to them their unfriendly suspicions. In this way their unbelief and malice were left without excuse. An auspicious opportunity now opened, by which they might enter the realm of truth, but they missed it. At least one sign of the Messiah Jesus had; but they muzzled reason, that she should not speak—they blindfolded understanding, that she might not see. A door of escape from perplexing doubt was opened, but they would rather dwell among the tangled thorns than enter the Eden of light and rest.—J. T. Davies.
Christ’s delicate sensibility.—This fine quality of mind, this delicacy, this sensitiveness which unconsciously photographs character with a look, usually belongs to the more subtile minds of women. It is a Divine quality. Some men have it to a high degree. The Saviour had it to an unspeakable degree. His delicate sensibility, His perfectly sympathetic heart and mind, are as impressive as the conscious quicksilver to catch a faultless image of our life, our troubles, our fears and doubts. His being in heaven does not impair His power to know us and sympathise with us. Therefore He is the true father confessor, the great priest, to whom we can go with assurance.—R. S. Barrett.
Mar_2:10. Present pardon for sin taught by Christ.—
1. Christ here enforces a doctrine that had been lost sight of by the Jews—the doctrine of present pardon for sin. They relegated forgiveness to the next world and the day of judgment: He insists that it may be enjoyed now, even while the chastisement is in progress; nay, the chastisement itself may be the means of preparing the heart to receive it.
2. This grace of pardon is dispensed by Jesus Christ as the Son of Man—as the Head of the new creation of redeemed humanity. It is the virtue that necessarily flows from Him, to all His members, cleansing the soul, instilling peace, and establishing fellowship with God.
3. The ordinary channels for the conveyance of this Divine gift are the ministry and the sacraments of the Church “which is His body.” See Joh_20:22-23; 1Co_5:3-5; 2Co_2:10-11.
Mar_2:11. Christ’s message to sick souls.—To every sick soul, whose cure He undertakes, He says, Surge, tolle, ambula. Our beds are our natural affections. These He does not bid us cast away, nor burn, nor destroy. Since Christ vouchsafed induere hominem, we must not exuere hominem. Since Christ invested the nature of man and became man, we must not pretend to divest it and become angels, or flatter ourselves in the merit of mortifications, not enjoined, or of a retiredness, and departing out of the world, in the world, by the withdrawing of ourselves from the offices of mutual society, or an extinguishing of natural affections. But “Surge,” says our Saviour—Arise from this bed, sleep not lazily in an over-indulgence to these affections; but “Ambula”—Walk sincerely in thy calling, and thou shalt hear thy Saviour say, “Non est infirmitas hæc ad mortem”; these affections—nay, these concupiscences—shall not destroy thee (Mat_21:8; Tit_2:14).—John Donne, D. D.
Mar_2:12. A new experience.—That argument was perfectly logical; it was an induction, yet it led them to a result curiously the reverse of theirs who reject miracles for being contrary to experience. “Yes,” they said, “we appeal to experience, but the conclusion is that good deeds which it cannot parallel must come directly from the Giver of all good.” Such good deeds continue. The creed of Christ has reformed Europe, is awakening Asia, has transformed morality, and imposed new virtues on the conscience. It is the one religion for the masses, the lapsed, and indeed the sick in body as truly as in soul; for while science discourses with enthusiasm upon progress by the rejection of the less fit, our faith cherishes these in hospitals, asylums, and retreats, and prospers by lavishing care upon the outcast and rejected of the world. Now this transcends experience: we never saw it on this fashion; it is supernatural.—Dean Chadwick.
ILLUSTRATIONS TO CHAPTER 2
Mar_2:1. Christ’s presence cannot be kept secret.—We cannot give lodging and entertainment to such a personage as He is without it being seen of others. He is not an ordinary visitor; and though no state ceremonies accompany Him, there is that about His whole customs which arrests attention. We may have occasional visitors whose amiable dispositions and influences refine and improve us; but they cannot do for us what a visit from Christ does. They cannot, by their own strength and love, confer on us spiritual blessings. His company is the best; it not only makes time pass pleasantly, but it makes us ready for eternity. His songs not only make the heart merry, but they make it new. Now this cannot be, and nothing of it be seen or known outside. We soon tell upon ourselves; we soon let out the secret; and it is then “noised abroad” that we have Him beneath our roof-tree. Oh, happy is that house in which He lodges!—John Macfarlane, LL.D.
Christ’s presence manifest.—“Travelling on the Lake Lugano,” says one, “we heard one morning the swell of the nightingale’s song, and the oars were stilled on the blue lake as we listened to the silver sounds. We could not see a single bird, nor do I know that we wished to see—we were so content with the sweetness of the music.” Even so it is with our Lord; we may enter a house where He is loved, and we may hear nothing concerning Christ, and yet we may perceive clearly enough that He is there; a holy influence streaming through their actions pervades the household, so that if Jesus be unseen, it is clear that He is not unknown. So anywhere that Jesus is, and though you do not actually hear His name, yet the sweet influence which flows from His love will be plainly enough discernible.
Mar_2:3. Moral paralysis.—In one of our city hospitals a young woman of beautiful face and form had lain motionless for many months. Except for the brightness of her face and the action of the hands, her body was apparently dead. Yet she spoke with great confidence of her restoration to health at some future time, and was enthusiastic in planning good works then to be executed. A physician remarked that it was the saddest case he had ever witnessed. It was a paralysis, not of the flesh, but of the mind: it was a moral paralysis. The will itself had lost its power, of action. She could plan for the future, but not mill anything at the present moment. After a few months the inactivity bred fatal disorder, and she passed away. This a picture of the moral paralysis of many.
Man’s helplessness.—How helpless man is to save himself from the disease of sin may be illustrated by Æschylus’ Prometheus Bound; by Virgil’s Laocoön with his sons in the coils of the great serpent; by the young man in Paris, who was examining a guillotine, and, from curiosity, lay down on the plank under the knife, and found himself fastened there, unable to escape without aid from others.
Mar_2:4. Eastern roofs.—“When I lived at Ægina,” says Hartley, in his Travels, “I used to look up not infrequently at the roof above my head, and contemplate how easily the whole transaction of the paralytic might take place. The roof was made in the following manner:—A layer of reeds, of a large species, was placed upon the rafters; on these a quantity of heather was strewed; on the heather earth was deposited, and beaten down into a solid mass. Now what difficulty would there be in removing first the earth, next the heather, and then the reeds? Nor would the difficulty be increased if the earth had a pavement of tiling laid upon it. No inconvenience could result to the persons in the house from the removal of the tiles and earth; for the heather and reeds would stop anything that might otherwise fall down, and would be removed last of all.”
The power of faith.—Faith can make a passage through the sea, level martial ramparts, make iron swim, trample on fire unhurt. It will find a key to open every lock, a saw that can cut through every iron bar. As water will, in some way, find its proper level, so true faith will find its way to its source—even to Christ.
Mar_2:5. Progression in Christ’s miracles.—The day begins softly, beautifully, progressively. In the early morn it peeps from behind the hills, tinges the sky and the sea with its rosy colours, and advances until there is cloudless splendour, so that the day, when at its meridian, may be said to be perfect. Thus softly, beautifully, and progressively rose the Sun of Righteousness on the dark world of humanity. His first miracle was one of quiet and gentle beneficence: He turned water into wine; and thus He brightened domestic joys before He went forth to mitigate human sorrows. After this He went about all Galilee, healing all manner of bodily disease among the people. Then He rose higher in miracle-working—He re-throned prostrated reason, and set demoniacs in their right mind. At last He manifested forth His glory as God by pardoning the soul. Indeed, just as every human disease was a symbol of the moral condition of the soul, so every miracle He wrought on the body was a token of what He would do for the soul, and what, in fact, He did in the majority of instances: hence His miracles were double—body and soul were healed at the same time, as in this case.
The good news of pardon.—When Bishop Patteson was quite young, he used to say that he wished to be ordained, because he longed to say the Absolution, and thus “make people so happy.” The son of one, and the nephew of another, of England’s most eminent judges, he knew well what a verdict of “not guilty” implied to a prisoner on his trial; and this knowledge he had been taught to apply to spiritual matters.
Mar_2:10-11.—Christ the Pardoner.—One of our modern novelists has written the story of a man who was haunted with remorse for a particular sin; and though sometimes weeks would pass without the thought of it, yet every now and then the ghost of the old transgression would rise before him to his infinite discomfort. It is the story of almost every human life. Sin is not something which a man commits and has done with it. It becomes a part of his being. His moral fibre is changed; his moral stamina is weakened. A traveller soon drives through the malarious air of the Roman Campagna, and is out of the poisonous atmosphere; but during his brief transit disease has found its way into his blood; and even though he sits under the cool shadow of the Alps, or on the shore of the blue Mediterranean, the inward fever rages and burns. A man sins, and in sinning introduces disease into his moral nature; and even though he abandons his evil courses the old malady works on. The forgiveness of sin which is so thorough and central that it rids a man of the power and guilt of sin—who is competent to give us that? No specific of man’s devising, no course of moral treatment, can effect that. There is only One, Jesus Christ, who has power on earth to forgive sin in that complete and efficient fashion. And that is His chief glory, and constitutes His principal claim upon us.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
William B. Godbey 1900 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 15, 23 Mat 9:2-8; Mar 2:1-12; & Luk 5:17-26. Mark: “And…
HE HEALS A PARALYTIC
Mat 9:2-8; Mar 2:1-12; & Luk 5:17-26. Mark: “And again He came into Capernaum during those days, and it was heard that He is at home. And immediately the multitudes came together, so that there was no room, not even at the door; and He continued to speak the word to them.” Luke says: “The Pharisees and teachers of the law, who had come out of every village of Galilee and Judea and Jerusalem, were sitting around.” In that day they had no newspapers, steam-engines, telegraphs, nor telephones, the news only going on the back of a camel, a fleet horse, or a swift pedestrian; yet, to our inextricable puzzle, the tidings flew everywhere with astounding velocity, notifying the people, as here Luke says, not only in the cities, but all the villages, that Jesus has come back from His retirement Into Capernaum, His headquarters, and is again preaching to the multitudes, healing the sick and casting out demons.
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“They come to Him, carrying a paralyzed man, borne by four. Not being able to reach Him, on account of the crowd, they took up the roof where He was, and lifting it out, let down the bed on which the paralyzed man was lying down.” Luke says: “Mounting up on top of the house, they let him down through the tiles, along with the bed, in the midst, in the presence of Jesus.” The houses in that country have flat roofs, covered with stone, with stairways ascending up, and tiling arranged for removal at their option, when they wish to go out on the roof. The first time I ever entered Jerusalem, my guide escorted me through a lofty mansion by internal stairways, leading up through the roof, giving me a grand view of the city, which was impossible from the streets. As there is no doubt but this was Peter’s house in Capernaum, and the home of Jesus, the presumption is, it was not very high, the multitude being outside. These importunate friends of the paralytic, pressing their way through the crowd, use a ladder to climb the house from the outside, reaching the solid stone roof, cemented together so that it looked like a single great limestone rock covering the house, as I have so often seen and walked over them; coming to this movable door, take up the tiles, and let the man down, lying on his bed, lowering him to the very presence of Jesus, in the midst of His sermon.
“And Jesus, seeing their faith, says to the paralytic, Child, thy sins are forgiven.” Here we have a wonderful demonstration of prevailing faith.
There is no doubt but the paralytic had faith in Jesus to heal him, as these four friends, all round him during the long journey while carrying him on his bed, heaving like volcanoes, had inundated him with an atmosphere red- hot and electrified with indefatigable faith, so that, if he didn’t have it before, he certainly had imbibed it from his company by the time he reached the feet of Jesus; yet we have no allusion whatever to the faith of the patient, but it is unequivocally certified that the healing resulted from the faith of his four friends, who certainly abundantly proved their faith by their works in thus bringing him to the presence of Jesus, despite every conceivable difficulty. O that the perishing myriads all round us could only have friends enough to carry them to Jesus on the pinions of a faith that will take no denial! What a transcendent inspiration to all Christian workers, this notable case, where Jesus healed the man responsive to the faith of his friends!
Luk 5:21. “And the scribes and Pharisees began to reason, saying, Who is this One who speaketh blasphemies? Who is able to forgive sins except God alone? And Jesus, knowing their thoughts, responding, said to them, Why do you reason in your hearts? Why is it easier to say, Thy sins are forgiven, than to say, Arise and walk? But in order that you may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, He said to the paralyzed man, I say unto thee, Arise, and taking up thy bed, go to thy home. And immediately arising in presence of them, taking up that on which he was lying down, he departed to his own home, glorifying God. And ecstasy seized all, and they continued to glorify God; and they were filled with fear, saying, That we have seen paradoxical things this day.” While the Jewish Church was awfully unspiritual, and the preachers, as a rule, without an experimental knowledge of God, they held pertinaciously to the cardinal truths of the Bible, one of which here very lucidly crops out; i.e., that none but God can forgive sins. Many modern Churches, who are depending on priestly absolution, water baptism, sacraments, and good works, to take away their sins, would do well to heed this fundamental truth, here enunciated by the fallen clergy of apostate Judaism; i.e., that none but God alone can forgive sins. Therefore we must all pass by our own works, Church rites, water baptism, clerical intercession, and everything else, and go to God alone, on our knees, and stay till He, for Christ’s sake, forgives all our sins, and witnesses to the same by His blessed Holy Spirit. In this case, Jesus avails Himself of the smaller work — i.e., bodily healing — which was visible to mortal eyes, and incontestably demonstrated by the uprising of the patient, and the carrying of his bed away to his home, in order to illustrate the greater work — i.e., the forgiving of his sins — which either directly or indirectly had brought on him the paralysis, which is not hereditary, like leprosy, which typifies inbred sin; and consequently, as it originates from violation of the hygienical laws, represents actual sins, which must be removed by pardon, while original sin can only be expurgated by the cleansing blood of Jesus and the refining fire of the Holy Ghost. It is highly probable that this paralytic was a very bad case, of long standing, and extensively known by those people. Hence, his sudden and perfect healing, so clearly demonstrated, produced an intense excitement, not only filling the people with delight to see the mighty work, but Overawing them with profoundest reverence in the realization of the Divine presence.
William B. Godbey, Commentary on the New Testament (1896–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 Mar 2:1-12
Mar 2:1-12
Note here:—
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I. The helplessness of some men. All helplessness traceable to sin.
II. The social usefulness of some other men. We can all carry sufferers to Christ, even when we cannot heal them ourselves. To point a sinner to Christ is a good work; to carry a little child to the Saviour is to execute a most blessed mission.
III. The possibilities of earnestness. These men uncovered the roof in their determination to approach the Healer.
IV. The vigilance of Jesus Christ over human action. He knew the meaning of the extraordinary movement that was taking place, and the reward which He gave to the earnest men was great.
V. The censorious spirits of technical observers.
Parker, City Temple, 1871, p. 45.
References: Mar 2:1-12.—J. S. Exell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 229. Mar 2:3, Mar 2:4.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 542. Mar 2:3, Mar 2:12.—Ibid., vol. vi., p. 9. Mar 2:4.—Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 251; Parker, Christian Commonwealth, vol. vii., p. 407. Mar 2:5.—W. F. Hook, Sermons on the Miracles, vol. i., p. 104; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 409.
Mar 2:8
The text shows—
I. An important aspect of human power. Secrecy; having two lives. These considerations make us mysteries to one another.
II. A startling instance of Divine insight.
III. A splendid manifestation of Christ’s fearlessness.
IV. A solemn example of the confusion which will fall upon all Christ’s objectors.
Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 303.
References: Mar 2:8.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 561. Mar 2:9.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. iv., p. 112. Mar 2:10.—Ibid., vol. iii., p. 50; R. E. Wallis, Expositor, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 106. Mar 2:12.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxi., No. 1269. Mar 2:13.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 253. Mar 2:13-15.—Ibid., vol. vi., p. 11. Mar 2:13-17.—H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 267; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 43. Mar 2:14.—J. S. Exell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 181. Mar 2:14, Mar 2:15.—Preacher’s Monthly, vol. ii., p. 462. Mar 2:15-17.—Ibid., p. 108; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 20. Mar 2:15-22.—W. Hanna, Our Lord’s Life on Earth, p. 154.
Mar 2:16
I. The question which was asked by the scribes and Pharisees is very instructive, for the answer to it illustrates the glory of our Lord Jesus Christ in His work and person. Why was He at all at the feast of Matthew? Because He was and is the Friend of sinners. Here we have one of the most glorious titles of our Lord and Saviour; not merely because, being such as we are, we naturally fix our eyes upon those qualities in Him which meet most directly and consolingly the case of our fallen and wounded nature; not chiefly because, in ancient language, our wants are the real measure of our enthusiasms; but because God’s condescensions reveal His glory even more completely than it is revealed by His magnificence. The magnificence of God is altogether beyond us. By His condescension He places Himself within our powers of, in some degree, understanding Him. His condescension is the visible measure of His love. And thus the glory of His work depends upon and illustrates another glory—the glory of His character. He could—He can—afford to be the Friend of sinners. Purity is fearless where mere respectability is timid; where it is frightened at the whisperings of evil tongues; where it is frightened at the consciousness of inward weakness, if indeed it be only weakness. It was the glory of Christ, as the sinless Friend of sinners, which made Him eat and drink as He did, to the scandal of the Pharisees, in the house of Levi.
II. And the answer to the question of the scribes and Pharisees is a comment on the action and history of the Church of Christ. Of her, too, the complaint has been made, age after age, by contemporary Pharisees, sometimes in ignorance, sometimes in malice—"How is it that she eateth and drinketh with publicans and sinners." Like her Lord, the Church has entered into the life of sinful humanity. The idea of a hermit Church—of a Church made up of recluses, such as Donatists—such as some Puritans have imagined, involves nothing less than a sacrifice of the whole plan of Jesus Christ for the regeneration of the world. Still must the Church do what she may for the blessing and improvement of all departments of activity and life. Duty is not less duty because it is dangerous. Precautions and safeguards are near at hand, but she may not cease to eat and drink with publicans and sinners.
III. These words are not without suggestiveness as to the duty and conduct of private Christians. On what terms ought a Christian to consort with those who openly deny the truth of religion, or who live in flagrant violation of its precepts? Here there are two dangers to guard against. (1) On the one hand, we must beware of Pharisaism; that rank weed which so soon springs up in the souls of those who are trying to serve God. (2) On the other hand, we must guard against an appearance or affectation of indifference to the known will of God, whether in matters of faith or conduct.
H. P. Liddon, Penny Pulpit, No. 898.
References: Mar 2:16, Mar 2:17.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. vi., p. 12. Mar 2:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxiii., No. 1345; D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 106.
Mar 2:18-20
A Word from Jesus on Fasting.
Fasting, in its essence, is the restraint of self in respect of lower appetite, with special reference to abstinence from that which nourishes the body. Its advantages Jesus Christ never denied; indeed He availed Himself of them for forty days in the wilderness. Even the Pagans understood something of them. For example, the third day in the festival of the Eleusinian mysteries was a fast-day, and every supplicant at the oracle of Trophonius fasted twenty-four hours before he was prepared to receive the answer. During our Lord’s days fasts were numerous, every Monday and Thursday being observed by the Essenes and the stricter Pharisees. He did not approve them, nor disapprove them, by any distinct declaration, but He very decidedly protested against the enforcement of them by any extraneous authority. He ordained, in short, that none were to regulate the piety of others by the rules which they might fairly make for themselves. It is to be feared that in this respect His law has often been violated. Coming now to a more close exposition of the text, we discern in it the four following truths:—
I. Hypocrisy is here condemned. We do not mean that John’s disciples were guilty of this sin. Our Lord did not, for a moment, imply that they were hypocrites; but He did imply that His own disciples would be if they joined outwardly in a fast which was untrue to their own feeling. Hopeful and jubilant in the presence of their Lord, they could not fast, for the Bridegroom was with them.
II. Ritualism is here rebuked. By ritualism we mean putting external religious ceremonies in the place of spiritual acts of worship. During our Lord’s ministry ritualism was rife. Customary observances had gradually usurped the place of vital religion with multitudes. Sacrifices were offered with no sense of guilt; washings were frequent even to absurdity, but they did not express conscious uncleanness of soul; alms were profusely given, yet without any stirring of generosity or pity; and fasts were observed without any humiliation of soul before God. It is in accordance with the whole doctrine of Christ that He declares here that fasting is not a rite of any value in itself.
III. Freedom is here proclaimed. The law you have no right to impose on others; you may be called upon to make a rule for yourself.
IV. Joyousness is here inculcated as the prevailing characteristic of the Christian life. It is not a joy which arises from the pleasant circumstances of life, or from a happy and equable disposition, but from the assurance that Christ as your Saviour died for you.
A. Rowland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 121.
References: Mar 2:18.—G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Marlborough College, p. 57. Mar 2:18-20.—J. S. Exell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 207; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. vi., p. 13.
Mar 2:18-22
I. There should be differences between Jesus Christ’s disciples and the disciples of all other men. It is noticeable how soon these differences were detected by the critics of the day. The differences should be as broadly marked now as they were in the days of Jesus Christ’s visible ministry.
II. These differences should find their explanation in Jesus Christ, not in the expression of the disciples themselves. Jesus Christ takes upon Himself the responsibility of determining the public attitude of His disciples.
III. The illustration about pieces of cloth and the different wines shows the perfect uniqueness of Christianity. There is to be no patching, there is to be no compromising; Christianity is to have a distinctiveness and speciality of its own.
Parker, City Temple, 1871, p. 59.
References: Mar 2:18-22.—A. B. Bruce, Parabolic Teaching of Christ, p. 295; Ibid., The Training of the Twelve, p. 69; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 47.
Mar 2:19
The Secret of Gladness.
There are three subjects for consideration arising from the words of my text: The Bridegroom; the Presence of the Bridegroom; the Joy of the Bridegroom’s Presence.
I. With regard to the first a few words will suffice. The first thing that strikes me is the singular appropriateness and the delicate pathetic beauty in the employment of this name by Christ in the existing circumstances. Who was it that had first said, "He that hath the bride is the bridegroom," etc.? Why, it was the master of these very men who were asking the question. John’s disciples came and said, "Why do not your disciples fast?" And our Lord reminded them of their own teacher’s words, when He said, "The friend of the bridegroom can only be glad." And so He would say to them, "In your master’s own conception of what I am, and of the joy that comes from My presence, he might have taught you who I am, and why it is that the men who stand around Me are glad."
II. A word as to the Presence of the Bridegroom. It might seem as if this text condemned us who love an unseen and absent Lord to exclusion from the joy which is made to depend on His presence. Are we in the dreary period when the bridegroom is taken away, and fasting appropriate? Surely not. The time of mourning for an absent Christ was only three days; the law for the years of the Church’s history between the moment when the uplifted eyes of the gazers lost Him in the symbolic cloud and the moment when He shall come again is, "Lo, I am with you always." The absent Christ is the present Christ. The presence which survives, which is true for us here today, may be a far better and more blessed and real thing than the presence of the mere bodily form in which He once dwelt.
III. The Joy of the Bridegroom’s Presence. What was it that made these rude lives so glad when Christ was with them, filling them with strange new sweetness and power? The charm of personal character; the charm of contact with one whose lips were bringing to them fresh revelations of truth, fresh visions of God; whose whole life was the exhibition of a nature, beautiful, and noble, and pure, and tender, and sweet, and loving, beyond anything that they had ever seen before.
A. Maclaren, A Year’s Ministry, 1st series, p. 137.
References: Mar 2:21.—J. S. Exell, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ix., p. 318. Mar 2:21, Mar 2:22.—D. Fraser, Metaphors of the Gospels, p. 106.
Mar 2:23
I. All positive laws must yield to man’s necessities. The law as a formal common element may be broken, yet its spirit may be honoured.
II. There is a relation of life to positive laws; there is a relation to moral law, which is higher and more exacting.
III. Christ shows that in all ages circumstances have arisen which have necessitated a violation of literal sabbatism. David ate the shew-bread, and the priests profaned the temple, and yet were guiltless.
Parker, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 120.
References: Mar 2:23.—G. S. Coster, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiv., p. 134. Mar 2:21, Mar 2:22.—D. Fraser, Metaphors in the Gospels, p. 106.
Mar 2:23-28
I. The Pharisees were a Class. They were not only Pharisees by name, but they were Pharisees by nature; that is, they were typical men; they were representative of a large fraction of the human race. One of the chief pharisaical characteristics was a love of form, of rule, of law, of custom; a love of the formalistic and the technical, as opposed to the spiritual and the natural. A Pharisee was a man and is a man who exaggerates the value of an ordinance, of a ceremony, of a ritualistic observance. A Pharisee was a man who loved and worshipped institutions as institutions, while he was thoughtless, perhaps, of the real spirit which they embodied. All men that exaggerate form, ceremony, ritualism; all men that live in the letter of the law while they ignore its spirit; all men that make the form of government, and that which is outward in institution, more valuable than the object of government, and that which vitalizes institutions, are Pharisees in blood and bone, by the ordainment of their nature. Such men are naturally tyrannical. Such men are naturally persecutors. Such men hinder beyond expression the true growth of the world.
II. Now Jesus, when He came to face these men, saw that He must teach them, and through them the world, a lesson. And the lesson which He taught them and the world was this: That man, in his rights, in his privileges, that are inalienable, is greater than any institution, nobler than any form of government, and more holy than any observance. There is no law that man cannot annul if it oppresses him; no government that he has not the Divine right to rebel against if it oppresses him; no custom or habit that he cannot tear in fragments and throw to the four winds, if it injuriously cramps his liberty, hinders his growth, or prevents his happiness. Christ declared that as a man He had rights which no ecclesiasticism could take from Him; had a liberty which no priestly council could rob Him of. He declared that the Sabbath was a day to be used; used, not according to the dictation of self-constituted guardians, but according to individual necessities, individual opportunities, and individual profit. In short, He placed the sovereignty of judgment in respect to it as an institution, and as an observance, in the hands of each individual man, saying, "Therefore the Son of Man is Lord also of the Sabbath."
W. H. Murray, The Fruits of the Spirit, p. 430.
I. In this interview it is made clear: (1) That all critical inquiries are not to be condemned; (2) the question on the part of the Pharisees was not at all unnatural.
II. The perfect and inalienable supremacy of Jesus Christ is asserted in the last verse; He proclaims Himself Lord over time, over institutions, and over human affairs.
Parker, City Temple, 1871, p. 60.
References: Mar 2:23-28.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. vi., p. 14; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve, p. 88; H. M. Luckock, Footprints of the Son of Man, p. 51.
Mar 2:27-28
During His public ministry our Lord was repeatedly accused of breaking the Sabbath; and on such occasions He vindicated Himself in one or other of two ways.
I. Sometimes He stood upon His rights as a Divine Being to work at any time for the welfare of men. That was the course which He adopted when, in answer to those who sought to slay Him because He had healed the impotent man on the Sabbath day, He said, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." A reply which not only made Himself equal with God, but cast a new light upon the meaning of the creation week. For it could have no pertinence to the case in dispute, unless its significance be something like this, "We are living now in the seventh day of the creation week. This is the time of Jehovah’s rest." We have now no work of creation going on; no special additions have been made to the various orders of animals on the surface of the earth since man appeared; and in that sense God has been resting. But though He has not called anything new into existence, He has been continually at work in upholding all that He has made, and He has put forth special remedial efforts for the restoration of man to the state in which he was formed at first, but from which he fell by his own sin. If therefore, during the Sabbath of creation’s week, and while God is resting, He can yet put forth special exertions for the redemption and education of man, I am only following on the same line when, on the Sabbath of an ordinary week, I put forth my energy in the restoration of the impotent man to health.
II. At other times the defence of the Lord was based on the nature of the works which He had performed. He held and taught that it was lawful to do good on the Sabbath day. Nay, He went further, and declared that there is a class of duties which we not only may, but must, perform on that day. It was ordained at first for the benefit of man, and therefore it was never intended that it should operate to his detriment; whenever, therefore, an injury would be inflicted on a fellowman by our refusing to labour for his assistance on the Sabbath, we are bound to exert ourselves, even on that day, for his relief. So by His sharp incisive logic our Lord cut away all the traditional ivy-growth which had so largely covered the primal ordinance of the Sabbath, and restored to it its own primal beauty and benevolence.
W. M. Taylor, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 103.
References: Mar 2:27.—C. Girdlestone, Twenty Parochial Sermons, p. 245; H. W. Beecher, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 228; vol. xxi., p. 92; G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines, p. 257; M. R. Vincent, Three Hundred Outlines on the New Testament, p. 32; see also American Pulpit of the Day, vol. i., p. 258. Mar 2:27, Mar 2:28.—A. Barry, Cheltenham College Sermons, p. 46; Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 103; Homiletic Magazine, vol. xi., p. 95; G. E. L. Cotton, Sermons and Addresses in Mar thorough College, p. 296.
Mar 2:28
(1) It was instituted by Him. (2) It is kept on a day which was fixed by His authority. (3) It is intended to commemorate His resurrection. (4) It ought to be observed with a special regard to His will, and word, and work.
G. Brooks, Five Hundred Outlines of Sermons, p. 257.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Alexander MacLaren 1905 · Public Domain On vv1, 13, 19, 20, 23 Mar 2:1 - Mar 2:12.
Mark
CHRIST’S AUTHORITY TO FORGIVE
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Mar 2:1 - Mar 2:12.
Mark alone gives Capernaum as the scene of this miracle. The excitement which had induced our Lord to leave that place had been allowed ‘some days’ to quiet down, ‘after’ which He ventures to return, but does not seem to have sought publicity, but to have remained in ‘the house’-probably Peter’s. There would be at least one woman’s heart there, which would love to lavish grateful service on Him. But ‘He could not be hid,’ and, however little genuine or deep the eagerness might be, He will not refuse to meet it. Mark paints vividly the crowd flocking to the humble home, overflowing its modest capacity, blocking the doorway, and clustering round it outside as far as they could hear Christ’s voice. ‘He was speaking the word to them,’ proclaiming His mission, as He had done in their synagogue, when He was interrupted by the events which follow, no doubt to the gratification of some of His hearers, who wanted something more exciting than ‘teaching.’
I. We note the eager group of interrupters.
Mark gives one of the minute touches which betray an eye-witness and a close observer when he tells us that the palsied man was carried by four friends-no doubt one at each corner of the bed, which would be some light framework, or even a mere quilt or mattress. The incident is told from the point of view of one sitting beside Jesus; they ‘come to Him,’ but ‘cannot come near.’ The accurate specification of the process of removing the roof, which Matthew omits altogether, and Luke tells much more vaguely, seems also to point to an eye-witness as the source of the narrative, who would, of course, be Peter, who well remembered all the steps of the unceremonious treatment of his property. His house was, probably, one of no great pretensions or size, but like hundreds of poor men’s houses in Palestine still-a one-storied building with a low, flat roof, mostly earthen, and easily reached from the ground by an outside stair. It would be somewhat difficult to get a sick man and his bed up there, however low, and somewhat free-and-easy dealing with another man’s house to burrow through the roof a hole wide enough for the purpose; but there is no impossibility, and the difficulty is part of the lesson of the incident, and is recognised expressly in the narrative by Christ’s notice of their ‘faith.’ We can fancy the blank looks of the four bearers, and the disappointment on the sick man’s thin face and weary eyes, as they got to the edge of the crowd, and saw that there was no hope of forcing a passage. Had they been less certain of a cure, and less eager, they would have shouldered their burden and carried him home again. They could well have pleaded sufficient reason for giving up the attempt. But ‘we cannot’ is the coward’s word. ‘We must’ is the earnest man’s. If we have any real consciousness of our need to get to Christ, and any real wish to do so, it is not a crowd round the door that will keep us back. Difficulties test, and therefore increase, faith. They develop a sanctified ingenuity in getting over them, and bring a rich harvest of satisfaction when at last conquered. These four eager faces looked down through the broken roof, when they had succeeded in dropping the bed right at Christ’s feet, with a far keener pleasure than if they had just carried him in by the door. No doubt their act was inconvenient; for, however light the roofing, some rubbish must have come down on the heads of some of the notabilities below. And, no doubt, it was interfering with property as well as with propriety. But here was a sick man, and there was his Healer; and it was their business to get the two together somehow. It was worth risking a good deal to accomplish. The rabbis sitting there might frown at rude intrusiveness; Peter might object to the damage to his roof; some of the listeners might dislike the interruption to His teaching; but Jesus read the action of the bearers and the consent of the motionless figure on the couch as the indication of ‘their faith,’ and His love and power responded to its call.
II. Note the unexpected gift with which Christ answers this faith.
Neither the bearers nor the paralytic speak a word throughout the whole incident. Their act and his condition spoke loudly enough. Obviously, all five must have had, at all events, so much ‘faith’ as went to the conviction that He could and would heal; and this faith is the occasion of Christ’s gift. The bearers had it, as is shown by their work. It was a visible faith, manifest by conduct. He can see the hidden heart; but here He looks upon conduct, and thence infers disposition. Faith, if worth anything, comes to the surface in act. Was it the faith of the bearers, or of the sick man, which Christ rewarded? Both. As Abraham’s intercession delivered Lot, as Paul in the shipwreck was the occasion of safety to all the crew, so one man’s faith may bring blessings on another. But if the sick man too had not had faith, he would not have let himself be brought at all, and would certainly not have consented to reach Christ’s presence by so strange and, to him, dangerous a way-being painfully hoisted up some narrow stair, and then perilously let down, at the risk of cords snapping, or hands letting go, or bed giving way. His faith, apparently, was deeper than theirs; for Christ’s answer, though it went far beyond his or their expectations, must have been moulded to meet his deepest sense of need. His heart speaks in the tender greeting ‘son,’ or, as the margin has it, ‘child’-possibly pointing to the man’s youth, but more probably an appellation revealing the mingled love and dignity of Jesus, and taking this man into the arms of His sympathy. The palsy may have been the consequence of ‘fast’ living; but, whether it were so or no, Christ saw that, in the dreary hours of solitary inaction to which it had condemned the sufferer, remorse had been busy gnawing at his heart, and that pain had done its best work by leading to penitence. Therefore He spoke to the conscience before He touched the bodily ailment, and met the sufferer’s deepest and most deeply felt disease first. He goes to the bottom of the malady with His cure. These great words are not only closely adapted to the one case before Him, but contain a general truth, worthy to be pondered by all philanthropists. It is of little use to cure symptoms unless you cure diseases. The tap-root of all misery is sin; and, until it is grubbed up, hacking at the branches is sad waste of time. Cure sin, and you make the heart a temple and the world a paradise. We Christians should hail all efforts of every sort for making men nobler, happier, better physically, morally, intellectually; but let us not forget that there is but one effectual cure for the world’s misery, and that it is wrought by Him who has borne the world’s sins.
III. Note the snarl of the scribes.
‘Certain of the scribes,’ says Mark-not being much impressed by their dignity, which, as Luke tells us, was considerable. He says that they were ‘Pharisees and doctors of the law . . . out of every village of Galilee and Judaea and Jerusalem itself, who had come on a formal errand of investigation. Their tempers would not be improved by the tearing up of the roof, nor sweetened by seeing the ‘popularity’ of this doubtful young Teacher, who showed that He had the secret, which they had not, of winning men’s hearts. Nobody came crowding to them, nor hung on their lips. Professional jealousy has often a great deal to do in helping zeal for truth to sniff out heresy. The whispered cavillings are graphically represented. The scribes would not speak out, like men, and call on Jesus to defend His words. If they had been sure of their ground, they should have boldly charged Him with blasphemy; but perhaps they were half suspicious that He could show good cause for His speech. Perhaps they were afraid to oppose the tide of enthusiasm for Him. So they content themselves with comparing notes among themselves, and wait for Him to entangle Himself a little more in their nets. They affect to despise Him, ‘This man’ is spoken in contempt. If He were so poor a creature, why were they there, all the way from Jerusalem, some of them? They overdo their part. The short, snarling sentences of their muttered objections, as given in the Revised Version, may be taken as shared among three speakers, each bringing his quota of bitterness. One says, ‘Why doth He thus speak?’ Another curtly answers, ‘He blasphemeth’; while a third formally states the great truth on which they rest their indictment. Their principle is impregnable. Forgiveness is a divine prerogative, to be shared by none, to be grasped by none, without, in the act, diminishing God’s glory. But it is not enough to have one premise of your syllogism right. Only God forgives sins; and if this man says that He does, He, no doubt, claims to be, in some sense, God. But whether He ‘blasphemeth’ or no depends on what the scribes do not stay to ask; namely, whether He has the right so to claim: and, if He has, it is they, not He, who are the blasphemers. We need not wonder that they recoiled from the right conclusion, which is-the divinity of Jesus. Their fault was not their jealousy for the divine honour, but their inattention to Christ’s evidence in support of His claims, which inattention had its roots in their moral condition, their self-sufficiency and absorption in trivialities of externalism. But we have to thank them for clearly discerning and bluntly stating what was involved in our Lord’s claims, and for thus bringing up the sharp issue-blasphemer, or ‘God manifest in the flesh.’
IV. Note our Lord’s answer to the cavils.
Mark would have us see something supernatural in the swiftness of Christ’s knowledge of the muttered criticisms. He perceived it ‘straightway’ and ‘in His spirit,’ which is tantamount to saying by divine discernment, and not by the medium of sense, as we do. His spirit was a mirror, in which looking He saw externals. In the most literal and deepest sense, He does ‘not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither reprove after the hearing of His ears.’
The absence from our Lord’s answer of any explanation that He was only declaring the divine forgiveness and not Himself exercising a divine prerogative, shuts us up to the conclusion that He desired to be understood as exercising it. Unless His pardon is something quite different from the ministerial announcement of forgiveness, which His servants are empowered to make to penitents, He wilfully led the cavillers into error. His answer starts with a counter-question- another ‘why?’ to meet their’ why?’ It then puts into words what they were thinking; namely, that it was easy to assume a power the reality of which could not be tested. To say, ‘Thy sins be forgiven,’ and to say, ‘Take up thy bed,’ are equally easy. To effect either is equally beyond man’s power; but the one can be verified and the other cannot, and, no doubt, some of the scribes were maliciously saying: ‘It is all very well to pretend to do what cannot be tested. Let Him come out into daylight, and do a miracle which we can see.’ He is quite willing to accept the challenge to test His power in the invisible realm of conscience by His power in the visible region. The remarkable construction of the long sentence in Mar 2:10 - Mar 2:11, which is almost verbally identical in the three Gospels, parenthesis and all, sets before us the suddenness of the turn from the scribes to the patient with dramatic force. Mark that our Lord claims ‘authority’ to forgive, the same word which had been twice in the people’s mouths in reference to His teaching and to His sway over demons. It implies not only power, but rightful power, and that authority which He wields as ‘Son of Man’ and ‘on earth.’ This is the first use of that title in Mark. It is Christ’s own designation of Himself, never found on other lips except the dying Stephen’s. It implies His Messianic office, and points back to Daniel’s great prophecy; but it also asserts His true manhood and His unique relation to humanity, as being Himself its sum and perfection-not a, but the Son of Man. Now the wonder which He would confirm by His miracle is that such a manhood, walking on earth, has lodged in it the divine prerogative. He who is the Son of Man must be something more than man, even the Son of God. His power to forgive is both derived and inherent, but, in either aspect, is entirely different from the human office of announcing God’s forgiveness.
For once, Christ seems to work a miracle in response to unbelief, rather than to faith. But the real occasion of it was not the cavils of the scribes, but the faith and need of the man and His friends; while the silencing of unbelief, and the enlightenment of honest doubt, were but collateral benefits.
V. Note the cure and its effect.
This is another of the miracles in which no vehicle of the healing power is employed. The word is enough; but here the word is spoken, not as if to the disease, but to the sufferer; and in His obedience he receives strength to obey. Tell a palsied man to rise and walk when his disease is that he cannot! But if he believes that Christ has power to heal, he will try to do as he is bid; and, as he tries, the paralysis steals out of the long-unused limbs. Jesus makes us able to do what He bids us do. The condition of healing is faith, and the test of faith is obedience. We do not get strength till we put ourselves into the attitude of obedience. The cure was immediate; and the cured man, who was ‘borne of four’ into the healing presence, walked away, with his bed under his arm, ‘before them all.’ They were ready enough to make way for him then. And what said the wise doctors to it all? We do not hear that any of them were convinced. And what said the people? They were ‘amazed,’ and they ‘glorified God,’ and recognised that they had seen something quite new. That was all. Their glorifying God cannot have been very deep-seated, or they would have better learned the lesson of the miracle. Amazement was but a poor result. No emotion is more transient or less fruitful than gaping astonishment; and that, with a little varnish of acknowledgment of God’s power, which led to nothing, was all the fruit of Christ’s mighty work. Let us hope that the healed man carried his unseen blessing in a faithful and grateful heart, and consecrated his restored strength to the Lord who healed him!
Alexander MacLaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture (1904–1910) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 The Sick of the Palsy
The Sick of the Palsy
1-12. Healing of the palsied man (Mat_9:9; Luk_5:27). See on Mt.
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13-17. Call of Levi (Mat_9:9; Luk_5:27). See on Mt.
16. The scribes and Pharisees] RV 'the scribes of the Pharisees': implying that some scribes were Sadducees, though this was rare.
18-22. The controversy on fasting (Mat_9:14; Luk_5:33). See on Mt.
21. New cloth] RV 'undressed cloth.' Else the new piece] RV 'else that which should fill it up, taketh from it, the new from the old, and a worse rent is made.'
22. Old bottles] RV 'old wine-skins.' And the wine is spilled] RV 'and the wine perisheth and the skins: but they put new wine into fresh wine-skins.'
23-28. Plucking the ears of corn on the sabbath (Mat_12:1; Luk_6:1). See on Mt.
26. In the days of Abiathar the high priest] RV 'when Abiathar was high priest.' A well-known difficulty, for Ahimelech seems to have been the high priest at this time. 'The whole expression, which occurs neither in Mt nor Lk, is omitted by a very important group of authorities, and may be an editorial note' (Swete). If it be retained, it is not to be regarded as a mere blunder, but as a deliberate inference from the somewhat conflicting data of the OT. For whereas in 1Sa_21:1; Ahimelech appears as high priest, and is shortly afterwards slain by Saul for his friendship with David (1Sa_22:16), in 2Sa_8:17; 1Ch_18:16; 1Ch_24:6 he appears long after his supposed death, officiating in the priesthood together with Zadok, and is represented as the son, not the father of Abiathar. St. Mark's expression is, therefore, quite in harmony with one of the two conflicting OT. accounts. Such confusions of proper names are not uncommon in the OT.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. W. McGarvey 1914 · Public Domain On vv1, 14, 15, 23 J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXXV. Heals a…
J. W. McGarvey's The Fourfold Gospel [XXXV. Heals a Paralytic].
XXXV. JESUS HEALS A PARALYTIC AT CAPERNAUM. aMATT. IX. 2-8; bMARK II. 1-12; cLUKE V. 17-26.
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c17 And it came to pass on one of those days, bwhen he entered again into Capernaum after some days, cthat he was teaching; bit was noised that he was in the house. [Luke uses the general expression [181] "those days," referring to the early portion of our Lord's ministry in Galilee. Mark says, "some days," which implies the lapse of a considerable interval. The healing of the leper created such excitement that for some time, several weeks, Jesus kept out of the cities. He now, after the excitement has subsided, quietly enters Capernaum, and probably goes to the house of Simon Peter, now looked upon as his head quarters in Capernaum ( Mar_1:29). His entrance into Capernaum marks the end of his first missionary tour through Galilee.] 2 And many were gathered together, so that there was no longer room i for them, no, not even about the door: and he spake the word unto them. [Oriental houses are one or two storied structures, built in the form of a square, or rectangle, with an open space in the center called the court. They have one door which opens from the street into an open space called the porch, and this porch in turn opens upon the court. In this porch there is usually a stairway leading to the roof. The roofs are invariably flat, and are surrounded by a breastwork or parapet to keep those on them from falling off. Roofs or housetops are used as we use yards, only they are somewhat private. Some think that this house was a two-storied structure, and that Jesus was teaching in the upper room or second story. If this were so, there would have been little profit to the people who clung about the street door, for they could neither see nor hear. Besides, a two-storied house would probably have been beyond the means of Simon Peter. It is more likely that Jesus was in the room opposite the porch across the court. If so, the crowd at the door might catch an occasional word, or by tiptoing obtain a momentary glance; and thus fan the hope of some ultimate satisfaction. The gospel is here called "the word," for it is the Word among words, as the Bible is the Book among books.] cand there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by [the fact that they were sitting, shows that they were honored above the rest: Jesus did not increase their ill-will by any needless disrespect], who were come out of every village of Galilee and Judaea and [182] Jerusalem [It is not likely that such a gathering came together by accident. Capernaum was known to be the headquarters of Jesus, and these leaders of the people had doubtless gathered there to wait for some opportunity to see or hear Jesus. They recognized the necessity of coming to some definite judgment regarding him. We shall see in this scene the beginning of their hostility to Jesus, which developed into four objections: 1. Alleged blasphemy; 2. Intercourse with publicans and sinners; 3. Supposed neglect of ascetic duties, such as washings, fastings, etc.; 4. Alleged violation of the sabbath]: and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. [That is to say, the power of God the Father was then working in Jesus to perform miracles ( Joh_14:10). Some take this as implying that other miracles had been wrought that day, before the arrival of the paralytic. But the words are more likely a preface for what follows; in which case the meaning is that the cold disbelief of the Pharisees did not prevent Jesus from working miracles, as disbelief usually did-- Mat_13:58, Mat_16:1-4.] 18 And behold, men bring { athey brought bthey come, bringing unto him a man sick of the palsy, cthat was palsied: alying on a bed: bborne of four [Palsy is an abbreviation of the word "paralysis." It is caused by a cessation of the nervous activities. See Act_8:22). So far as the church forgives sins ( Joh_20:23), it does it merely as the organ of God, and must do so according to the methods and ordinances laid down by God. Those who profess to forgive sin by word of mouth, should be able to make good their claim to this boasted power by healing diseases or otherwise removing the consequences of sin. Failing to do this, they must forever rest under justified suspicion that they are, wittingly or unwittingly, guilty of blasphemy.] b6 But there were certain of the scribes cand the Pharisees bsitting there, a3 And behold, [they] cbegan to reason, band reasoning in their hearts, asaid within themselves, csaying, aThis man blasphemeth. b7 Why doth this that man thus speak? [A scornful expression, shown by the repetition, houtos houtoo, which means, literally, "this one these things."] cWho is this that speaketh blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, bbut one, even God? calone? [In classic Greek to blaspheme means to speak evil or, or to slander a person, and it is used in this sense in the New Testament ( Tit_3:2, 2Pe_2:2, Jud_1:8). Its ordinary New Testament use, however, is quite different, since it is employed to designate something which reflects evil on the character and nature of God. This use is peculiar to monotheistic writers, and was unknown to the Greeks. Such blasphemies may be divided into three general heads, thus: 1. To attribute the unworthy to God. 2. To deny the worthy to God. 3. To arrogate or claim any attribute, power, authority, etc., which belongs to exclusively to God. It was under this third head that Jesus seemed to lay himself open to accusation--an accusation entirely just if he had not been the [185] Son of God. The Pharisees were not faulty in their logic, but were mistaken in their premises; hence Jesus does not deny their doctrine; he merely corrects their mistaken application of it to himself. As to this pronounced forgiveness of Jesus, two questions arise: 1. Why did he forgive the man's sins? The haste with which the man was brought to Jesus suggests that his condition was critical; in which case the torment of sin would be the greater. As a searcher of hearts, Jesus saw the unuttered desire of the sick man, and at once responded to it. If his words meant nothing to the conscience of the man, they were wasted; but Jesus knew what was in man. 2. Why did he pronounce the forgiveness so publicly? As the terms of pardon prescribed in the law were yet in full force, this open speech of Jesus was a surprising assertion of authority. In fact, such assertions were exceptional in his ministry; for only on three recorded occasions did he thus forgive sins ( Luk_7:48, Luk_23:43). Being the exceptional and not the established method of pardon, and being thus employed in the presence of so representative an audience, it was evidently used for a special purpose; and that purpose was to show that Jesus had such power, that men seeing this power might believe him to be the Son of God. He was vindicating an eternal law of the universe, in which all human beings throughout all generations would be interested; viz.: that humanity has a Ruler who can present it spotless before the throne of God ( Jud_1:24). Jesus propounded his law in the presence of those most interested in exposing it if false, and most able to explode it had it not been true. Whether his words were truth or blasphemy, was the controversy between Christ and the rulers from that day to the end of his ministry-- Mat_26:65.] b8 And straightway Jesus, perceiving in his spirit that they so reasoned ctheir reasonings, bwithin themselves, a4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts [Jesus read their thoughts by his divine insight, and not because of any recognized habit or tendency on their part to criticise him, for this is the first recorded indication of hostility on the part of the Pharisees, [186] though it is hinted at, at Joh_4:1. Such discernment of the thought was to be a characteristic mark of the expected Messiah ( Isa_11:2, Isa_11:3), and Jesus had it ( Joh_2:25). It also is an attribute peculiar to God-- 1Ch_28:9, Jer_17:10, Rom_8:27, Rev_2:23] canswered and said bsaith unto them, aWherefore think ye evil in your hearts? [Jesus could see invisible sin, and could forgive it or condemn it, as the conditions moved him. The powers of discernment, forgiveness and condemnation make him the perfect Judge.] bWhy reason ye in your hearts? a5 For which is easier, bto say to the sick of the palsy, cThy sins are forgiven thee; bor to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? [To understand this sentence we should place the emphasis upon the word "say," because the question at issue was the power or effect of his speech. The rabbis, after their first shock of surprise, thought that Jesus feared to attempt the fraud of a so-called miracle in the presence of learned men, lest he should be detected and exposed; and hence looked upon his present action as an attempt to bear himself safely off before the public, and to maintain his standing by the use of high-sounding words. They felt that he used words of unseen effect, because he dared not use those of seen effect. This was precisely the view that Jesus knew they would take, and that he wished them to take; for by showing his ability to work in the realms of sight that which is impossible; viz.: the healing of the sick man, he could place before them proof suited to their own reasoning that he had a like ability to work the impossible in the realms of the unseen; viz.: the forgiveness of the man's sins. By thus demonstrating his authority in the eternal and physical world, Jesus assures us of his dominion over the internal and spiritual.] 10 But that ye may know that the Son of man [Daniel's name for the Messiah-- Dan_7:10-13] hath authority on earth to forgive sins [The words "on earth" are taken by some to indicate the then existing contrast between Christ's present humiliation or ministry on earth, and his future glorification or enthronement in heaven; in which case they would [187] mean that Jesus could grant now that which some might think could only be exercised hereafter. Others take them to mean the same as if Jesus had said, "You think that forgiveness can only be granted by the Father in heaven, but it can also be granted by the Son upon earth. That which you have heretofore sought from the Father you may now seek from me." The latter is probably the correct view. As to the test of power or authority, the miracle of Jesus was very convincing; for in the popular opinion sin was a cause of which disease was the effect. We are told, on the authority of later rabbis, that it was a maxim among the Jews that no diseased person could be healed till his sins were blotted out. We also recognize a correlation between sins and diseases, which the Saviour's use of this miracle justifies. A mere miracle, such as swallowing fire or causing iron to float, would not prove his ability to forgive sins. The proof consisted in the relation which disease bears to sin, and the consequent relation which healing bears to forgiveness. The connection between disease and sin is a real and necessary one. The Jews were right in seeing this connection, but they erred in thinking that they were warranted in personally criminating every one whom they found afflicted, and in judging that the weight of the affliction indicated the quantity of the sin. The Book of Job should have corrected this error. Such unrighteous judgments are condemned by Christ ( Joh_9:3, Luk_13:2-5). Paralysis is, however, to-day looked upon as ordinarily the punishment of some personal sin, usually that of intemperance or sensuality], a(then saith he to the sick of the palsy), c(he said unto him that was palsied), I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy couch, bbed, cand go up unto thy house. [What command could be more pleasant than that which bade this sick man go home forgiven and healed?] 25 And immediately he rose up { aarose, cbefore them, band straightway took up the bed, cthat whereon he lay ["A sweet saying! The bed had borne the man; now the man bore the bed"--Bengel], band went forth before them all aand departed to his house. [188] cglorifying God. binsomuch that they were all amazed, 8 But when the multitudes saw it, they were afraid, c26 And amazement took hold on all, and they glorified God [The "all" of this passage hardly includes the scribes and Pharisees, or, if it does, their admiration of Jesus was but a momentary enthusiasm, which quickly passed away]; awho had given such authority unto men. [Some take the word "men" as the plural of category, and apply it to Christ. Others think that they regarded Jesus as a mere man among other men, and that they therefore looked upon his power as a gift given to men generally, and not as something peculiar to himself. If this latter view is correct, it is likely that they took the words "Son of man" as referring to men generally, and not as a reference to the Messiah, such as Jesus meant it to be.] bsaying, We never saw it on this fashion, cand they were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to-day. [Literally, seen paradoxes: things contrary to common thought and ordinary experience. They had seen a threefold miracle: sins forgiven, thoughts read and palsy healed.]
[FFG 181-189]
J. W. McGarvey (with Philip Y. Pendleton), Commentaries on the New Testament (The Fourfold Gospel, 1914; Acts; and the epistles) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv5, 9, 10, 15, 16, 22, 26 Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
sins
Sin. (See Scofield "Rom 3:23").
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 Chapter 2
Chapter 2
1. The Servant again in Capernaum. The healing of the Paralytic. (Mar 2:1-12. Mat 9:1-8; Luk 5:17-26.)
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2. Levi called. With the Publicans and Sinners. (Mar 2:13-17. Mat 9:9-13; Luk 5:27-32.)
3. The Question concerning Fasting. (Mar 2:18-22. Mat 9:14-15; Luk 5:33-39.)
4. The Question concerning the Sabbath. (Mar 2:23-28. Mat 12:1-8; Luk 6:1-5.)
1. The Servant again in Capernaum. The healing of the Paralytic. Mar 2:1-12.
His second visit to Capernaum brought out a large multitude. We see Him occupied with preaching the Word. He always preached the Word first, to make known the Truth; for this He had come (Mar 1:38). Then in the next place He confirmed His Word by His mighty works. The Paralytic tells of man’s impotence; leprosy is the type of Sin as a defiling, incurable disease, paralysis shows man’s helpless condition. The paralytic is likewise the picture of Israel. The helpless paralytic is brought into the presence of the Lord. Mark alone tells us that four carried him and describes fully the obstacles in the way. They had faith in His love and in His power. How it must have refreshed His heart! As His servants we can still bring sinners into His presence and honor Him by our confidence. “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” With this blessed Word He touches the root of all evil. To deal with it He had come. The proof that He is Jehovah and has power to forgive sins is the healing of the paralytic. Love and Power are here blessedly manifested. Love in forgiveness, power in healing and restoration. It is ever repeated in the case of every believing sinner. The two great elements of the Gospel are here. In some future day converted Israel will know this (Psa 103:1-3).
2. Levi called. With the Publicans and Sinners. Mar 2:13-17.
Levi, the son of Alphaeus, is Matthew, the writer of the first Gospel. He was a tax gatherer. As such he was despised by the nation Israel. Not alone were they considered thieves, but they were the miserable hirelings of the Romans and as such hated as Apostates. What Grace to call such an one to the office of an Apostle! And the feast which followed reveals both the loving condescension of the Servant-Son and His Grace to seek that which is lost. The Servant had taken a low place by associating with the tax-gatherers. In the eyes of the self-righteous Pharisees it was an abomination. God in the person of His Son had come in Love and Grace seeking man.
3. The Question concerning Fasting. Mar 2:18-22.
The disciples of John approach Him next with a question. The Servant’s ear was always ready to listen to the perplexities, difficulties and sorrows of others. He was always approachable. Under the Law they fasted. The Grace of God had now appeared and Grace was soon to take the place of the Law. He Himself is the Bridegroom. No need of fasting and mourning while He was with them. His rejection would come and with it their fasting. A significant parable follows. The old garment and the old wineskins are symbolic of Judaism with its laws and ceremonies. The new piece and the new wine stand for the Gospel. Law and Grace must not be mixed. If the Gospel of Grace, the new wine, is put into the old wineskins, Judaism with its laws, the wineskins go to pieces and the new wine is spilled. Much in Christendom today is neither Law nor Grace. The Servant announced a change of dispensations.
4. The Question concerning the Sabbath. Mar 2:23-28.
The question concerning the Sabbath is closely connected with the preceding parable. The Sabbath, not a seventh day, but the seventh day, was the day on which God rested in Creation. It was also the sign of His covenant with His people Israel. Plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath to eat them is nowhere forbidden in the Law. It was one of the hard and burdensome man-made traditional injunctions. The Lord cites David’s case. Mark adds that David was not alone hungry, but “he had need.” David, though anointed King, was despised and in need. His greater Son and His disciples were in the same condition. What is greater with God, the maintenance of an ordinance or the need of Man? Surely the latter. He, the humble Servant, was none other than the Lord of the Sabbath. He had rested in His Creation work and instituted the Sabbath for His people. He had become the Son of Man for the need of Man. As the Lord of the Sabbath He speaks, “The Sabbath was made for man and not man for the Sabbath.” On the ground of Grace the Sabbath no longer exists. We have the Lord’s day, the first day of the week to enjoy communion with our risen and glorified Lord, resting from our daily occupation. Blessed privilege to adore Him on that day and to follow His own example of doing good.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 6, 13, 15, 18, 21, 23 Healing the Palsied Man.
Healing the Palsied Man.
The return to Capernaum:
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v. 1. And again He entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that He was in the house.
v. 2. And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door; and He preached the Word unto them.
Mark here omits a large part of the gospel-story which the other evangelists relate, in harmony with his purpose to stress the miracles of Jesus and set forth His divine power. Jesus had, in the meantime, completed His first journey through Galilee, and had also been to the other side of the Sea of Galilee. Some of Christ’s most notable sermons, as the Sermon on the Mount, also belong into this interval. It was after some days, after quite a long while, that Jesus came again to Capernaum. As soon as He had arrived, however, this was heard; the rumor, the report of His having returned was spread. Soon the whole city knew that He was again at home. It was not long, either, before many people gathered, with the extraordinary incidents of some weeks or months ago still fresh in their memory. So eagerly they came flocking that not only as the house filled, but the space round about the door was crowded as well. Even there it was impossible to find any more room for additional visitors, much less on the inside. And He spoke unto them, not in a formal way, in a set speech, but in a more informal talk. It was the Word that He spoke, the Word of the Gospel, the Word of the Lord, that Word which alone is worthy of the name, just as at present the word "Bible," meaning "book," is used for the one and only book, whose contents place it in a class entirely by itself.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 3, 5, 8, 10, 13, 15, 17, 18, 20, 22, 23, 25, 27 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
After preaching and healing people throughout Galilee, Jesus returns to Capernaum where he heals and forgives the sin of a paralyzed man.
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it was heard that he was at home
This can be stated in active form. AT: "the people there heard that he was staying at his home" (See: Active or Passive)
So many gathered there
The word "there" refers to the house that Jesus stayed it in Capernaum. AT: "So many people gathered there" or "So many people came to the house" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
there was no more space
This refers to there being no space inside the house. AT: "there was no more room for them inside" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
Jesus spoke the word to them
"Jesus spoke his message to them"
translationWords
Capernaum
Jesus
word of God
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 5, 6, 9, 12, 13, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 23, 25, 27 2:1–3:6 Five controversy stories (2:1-12, 13-17, 18-22, 23-28; 3:1-6),…
2:1–3:6 Five controversy stories (2:1-12, 13-17, 18-22, 23-28; 3:1-6), grouped by their common theme, reveal Jesus’ great authority and the leaders’ hostility toward him.
2:1-12 This controversy story is also a miracle story, which links it to the previous collection (1:21-45).
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2:1 back home: See Matt 4:13. The crowd’s size shows Jesus’ popularity.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.