But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—
Parallel Translations
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But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he said to the paralytic—
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That ye maye knowe that the sonne of man hath power in erth to forgeve synnes he spake vnto ye sicke of the palsie:
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But that ye may knowe, that the Sonne of man hath authoritie in earth to forgiue sinnes, (he sayde vnto the sicke of the palsie.)
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Cross-references (6)
Passages linked to Mark 2:10 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Daniel 7:13-14 “I saw in the night visions, and behold, there came with the clouds of the sky one like a son of man, and he came even to the ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. Dominion was given him, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion, which will not pass away, and his kingdom that which will not be destroyed.
- Matthew 9:6-8 But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins-” (then he said to the paralytic), “Get up, and take up your mat, and go to your house.” He arose and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
- Acts 5:31 God exalted him with his right hand to be a Prince and a Savior, to give repentance to Israel, and remission of sins.
- John 5:20-27 For the Father has affection for the Son, and shows him all things that he himself does. He will show him greater works than these, that you may marvel. For as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, even so the Son also gives life to whom he desires. For the Father judges no one, but he has given all judgment to the Son, that all may honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. He who doesn’t honor the Son doesn’t honor the Father who sent him. “Most certainly I tell you, he who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and doesn’t come into judgment, but has passed out of death into life. Most certainly I tell you, the hour comes, and now is, when the dead will hear the Son of God’s voice; and those who hear will live. For as the Father has life in himself, even so he gave to the Son also to have life in himself. He also gave him authority to execute judgment, because he is a son of man.
- Matthew 16:13 Now when Jesus came into the parts of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, saying, “Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?”
- 1 Timothy 1:13-16 although I used to be a blasphemer, a persecutor, and insolent. However, I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief. The grace of our Lord abounded exceedingly with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus. The saying is faithful and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief. However, for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first, Jesus Christ might display all his patience for an example of those who were going to believe in him for eternal life.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (8 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain 10 But that ye may know that the Son…
10 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick of the palsy,)
Ver. 10. Hath power on earth] Christus iure divino omnia faciebat, non iniusta aliqua virtute ac tyrannica. Christ did all in his Father’s right, and not of necessity.
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.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain I say unto thee, arise, and take up thy…
I say unto thee, arise, and take up thy bed,.... He bid him, in an authoritative way to arise from his bed, in which he was brought, and on which he lay before him, and take it up upon his shoulders, directly, and in the face of all the people, carry it away:
and go thy way into thine house; to show himself whole to his family and friends, and go about his business; See Gill on Mat 9:6,
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain The Son of man. Jesus Christ here proveth that…
The Son of man. Jesus Christ here proveth that himself as man, and not as God only, hath power to forgive sins; by this, that he was able to do miracles, and make the sick man suddenly rise; so the apostles and their successors, though they be not God, may in like manner have authority from God to remit sins, not as God, but as God’s ministers, and acting in his name, and vested with his delegated authority. --- On earth. This power which the Son of man hath to remit sins on earth, was never taken from him, but is perpetuated in his sacraments and ministers, by whom he still remitteth sins in the Church, and not in heaven only. Relative to sin, there is one court of conscience on earth, and another in heaven, and the judgment of heaven followeth and approveth this on earth; as is plain by the words of our Saviour, to Peter first, and then to all the apostles: Whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall by bound also in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. See Matthew xvi. 19. and xviii. 18. Whereupon St. Jerome sayeth: that priests having the keys of the kingdom of heaven, judge in some manner before the day of judgment. (Ep. v. ad Heliod; and St. John Chrysostom, more at large, lib. iii. de Sacerd.)
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).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain But that ye may know that the Son of…
But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins--that forgiving power dwells in the Person of this Man, and is exercised by Him while on this earth and going out and in with you.
(he saith to the sick of the palsy),
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain 10. that ye may know] “By doing that which…
10. that ye may know] “By doing that which is capable of being put to the proof, I will vindicate My right and power to do that which, in its very nature, is incapable of being proved.”
the Son of man] This is the first time this title occurs in St Mark, where we find it 14 times. This title is never applied by the writers of the Gospels themselves to the Eternal Son of God. Whenever it occurs, it is so applied by our Lord, and no other. There are only three exceptions to this rule, (1) where the title is used by Stephen (Act_7:56), and (2) by St John (Rev_1:13; Rev_14:14). During, however, the period of His sojourn here on earth, there was no title our Lord was pleased so often and so constantly to apply to Himself. Son of a man He was not. Son of Man he was. The word used in the original for “man” implies human being, and the expression denotes that He who was the Son of God from all Eternity became the “Son of Man” in time, the second Adam, the second Head of our race, the crown of our humanity. For the expression in the O.T. see Dan_7:13.
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on earth] This power is not exercised, as ye think, only in heaven by God, but also by the Son of Man on earth.
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.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain CHAPTER 2:10 (Mar_2:10)
CHAPTER 2:10 (Mar_2:10)
THE SON OF MAN
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"The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins." Mar_2:10 (R.V.)
WHEN asserting His power to forgive sins, Jesus, for the first time in our Gospel, called Himself the Son of man.
It is a remarkable phrase. The profound reverence which He from the first inspired, restrained all other lips from using it, save only when the first martyr felt such a rush of sympathy from above poured into his soul, that the thought of Christ's humanity was more moving than that of His deity. So too it is then alone that He is said to be not enthroned in heaven, but standing, "the Son of man, standing on the right hand of God" (Act_7:56). [3]
What then does this title imply? Beyond doubt it is derived from Daniel's vision: "Behold there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto a Son of man, and He came even to the Ancient of Days" (Dan_7:13). And it was by the bold and unequivocal appropriation of this verse that Jesus brought upon Himself the judgment of the council (Mat_26:64; Mar_14:62).
Now the first impression which the phrase in Daniel produces is that of strong and designed contrast between the Son of man and the Eternal God. We wonder at seeing man "brought nigh" to Deity. Nor may we suppose that to be "like unto a Son of man," implies only an appearance of manhood. In Daniel the Messiah can be cut off. When Jesus uses the epithet, and even when He quotes the prophecy, He not only resembles a Son of man, He is truly such; He is most frequently "the Son of man," the pre-eminent, perhaps the only one. [4]
But while the expression intimates a share in the lowliness of human nature, it does not imply a lowly rank among men.
Our Lord often suggested by its use the difference between His circumstances and His dignity. "The Son of man hath not where to lay His head:" "Betrayest thou the Son of man with a kiss," in each of these we feel that the title asserts a claim to different treatment. And in the great verse, God "hath given Him authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of man," we discern that although human hands are chosen as fittest to do judgment upon humanity, yet His extraordinary dignity is also taken into account. The title belongs to our Lord's humiliation, but is far from an additional abasement; it asserts His supremacy over those whom He is not ashamed to call brethren.
We all are sons of men; and Jesus used the phrase when He promised that all manner of sins and blasphemies shall be forgiven to us. But there is a higher sense in which, among thousands of the ignoble, we single out one "real man;" and in this sense, as fulfilling the idea, Jesus was the Second Man. What a difference exists between the loftiest sons of vulgar men, and the Son of our complete humanity, of the race, "of Man." The pre-eminence even of our best and greatest is fragmentary and incomplete. In their veins runs but a portion of the rich life-blood of the race: but a share of its energy throbs in the greatest bosom. We seldom find the typical thinker in the typical man of action. Originality of purpose and of means are not commonly united. To know all that holiness embraces, we must combine the energies of one saint with the gentler graces of a second and the spiritual insight of a third. There is no man of genius who fails to make himself the child of his nation and his age, so that Shakespeare would be impossible in France, Hugo in Germany, Goethe in England. Two great nations slay their kings and surrender their liberties to military dictators, but Napoleon would have been unendurable to us, and Cromwell ridiculous across the channel.
Large allowances are to be made for the Greek in Plato, the Roman in Epictetus, before we can learn of them. Each and all are the sons of their tribe and century, not of all mankind and all time. But who will point out the Jewish warp in any word or institution of Jesus? In the new man which is after His image there cannot be Greek and Jew, circumcision and uncircumcision, barbarian, Scythian, bondman, freeman, but Christ is all and in all, something of Him represented by each, all of them concentrated in Him. He alone speaks to all men without any foreign accent, and He alone is recognized and understood as widely as the voices of nature, as the sigh of waves and breezes, and the still endurance of the stars. Reading the Gospels, we become aware that four writers of widely different bias and temperament have all found an equally congenial subject, so that each has given a portrait harmonious with the others, and yet unique. It is because the sum total of humanity is in Christ, that no single writer could have told His story.
But now consider what this implies. It demands an example from which lonely women and heroic leaders of action should alike take fire. It demands that He should furnish meditation for sages in the closet, and should found a kingdom more brilliant than those of conquerors. It demands that He should strike out new paths towards new objects, and be supremely original without deviating from what is truly sane and human, for any selfish or cruel or unwholesome joy. It demands the gentleness of a sheep before her shearers, and such burning wrath as seven times over denounced against the hypocrites of Jerusalem woe and the damnation of hell. It demands the sensibilities which made Gethsemane dreadful, and the strength which made Calvary sublime. It demands that when we approach Him we should learn to feel the awe of others worlds, the nearness of God, the sinfulness of sin, the folly of laying up much goods for many years; that life should be made solemn and profound, but yet that it should not be darkened nor depressed unduly; that nature and man should be made dear to us, little children, and sinners who are scorned yet who love much, and lepers who stand afar off -- yes, and even the lilies of the field, and the fowls of the air; that He should not be unaware of the silent processes of nature which bears fruit of itself, of sunshine and rain, and the fury of storms and torrents, and the leap of the lightning across all the sky. Thus we can bring to Jesus every anxiety and every hope, for He, and only He, was tempted in all points like unto us. Universality of power, of sympathy, and of influence, is the import of this title which Jesus claims. And that demand Jesus only has satisfied, Who is the Master of Sages, the Friend of sinners, the Man of Sorrows, and the King of kings, the one perfect blossom on the tree of our humanity, the ideal of our nature incarnate, the Second Adam in Whom the fullness of the race is visible. The Second Man is the Lord from Heaven. And this strange and solitary grandeur He foretold, when He took to Himself this title, itself equally strange and solitary, the Son of man.
[3] The exceptions in the Revelation are only apparent. St. John does not call Jesus the Son of man (Joh_1:13), nor see Him, but only the type of Him, standing (Joh_1:6).
[4] And this proves beyond question that He did not merely follow Ezekiel in applying to himself the epithet as if it meant a son among many sons of men, but took the description in Daniel for His own. Ezekiel himself indeed never employs the phrase: he only records it.
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.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain Son of man
Son of man
(See Scofield "Mat 8:20")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 But in order that you may know
But in order that you may know
"But so that you may know." The word "you" refers to the scribes and the crowd.
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that the Son of Man has authority
Jesus refers to himself as the "Son of Man." AT: "that I am the Son of Man and I have authority" (See: First, Second, or Third Person)
in front of everyone
"while all the people there were watching"
translationWords
Son of Man
authority
forgive
sin
amazed
glory
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.