Jesus scandalized the Pharisees by offering forgiveness to sinners, both because of the types of people he forgave (sinners) and the fact that only God was authorized to forgive sins.
Jesus is God, but he was a flesh-and-blood man when he forgave the paralytic of his sins. He had not yet defeated death.
How could Jesus say “your sins are forgiven” before he died on the cross? Here are two episodes that help answer this question.
Jesus and the Paralytic
Matthew 9 tells the story of how a paralytic was forgiven of his sins and then healed. A huge crowd had gathered to hear Jesus speak, filling the house and spilling out the door.
The friends of a paralyzed man climbed onto the roof of the house and made a hole so they could lower their friend down.
David Platt noted the confident faith of the paralytic man’s friends. “These men believed Jesus could help their friend. There’s no way they would have gone to this extreme if they didn’t.”
Jesus already possessed an authority, which was different from that of the religious leaders, and which Jesus used mercifully in contrast to their merciless legalism. “A bruised reed he will not break, and a faintly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice” (Isaiah 42:3).
Jesus and the Thief on the Cross
“‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise”’ (Luke 23:42-43). Jesus gave a confident promise in response to the penitent man’s faith.
This particular act of forgiveness poignantly defies our ideas of what power and authority should look like. A man who chose not to sin while everyone around him succumbed to one temptation or another could have become self-righteous, but Jesus was merciful, humble, and consistent:
1. Jesus did not offer to save the thief and himself from physical agony or, ultimately, to prevent their death. He made himself weak in order to fulfill his role as “the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” (John 1:29).
2. Jesus was not making an exchange the way an earthly person would: give me your allegiance and I will say a good word for you in Heaven. Instead, he died as he lived, offering mercy and love while receiving nothing. He died while we continued to sin (Romans 5:8).
3. The thief’s hope was restored by the mercy of Jesus.
Jesus revealed his power by becoming weak and the thief recognized Jesus’ real identity by the grace he offered while he suffered.
Whereas the Pharisees keenly promoted the law, Jesus taught that the law without love is worthless. “If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not loved, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:3).
Forgiving Sinners
When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?” On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:16-17).
He came to heal. Healing the body is a short-term stand-in for eternal spiritual healing, like a physical parable; a biblical truth reduced to a manageable size. “For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” (Matthew 9:5).
The people might have understood a different question better: where did this man think he got the authority to do what only God can do?
But we know that healing the paralytic was easier; forgiving him would lead to the cross. “God has done what the law, weakened by the flesh, could not do. By sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, he condemned sin in the flesh” (Romans 8:3).
Jesus was sent in the flesh to fulfill the law and bring redemption as promised (Isaiah 44:22). His gifts of healing were illustrations of the healing nature of forgiveness. He was not only able to forgive; this is what he came for.
All Authority in Heaven and on Earth
As for his authority, Jesus was One with God, fully man and fully God, even before his death. As Creator and redeemer with the Father, Jesus always possessed the Father’s authority. He said, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
In the story of the man in the graveyard possessed by Legion, the demons recognized his authority. “What do you want with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? In God’s name don’t torture me!” (Mark 5:7).
Jesus was not bestowed with authority at the start of his ministry; he possessed total authority to forgive sins from the start.
Demons knew Jesus, but he also knew them. He could pinpoint sin and brokenness at its root. Jesus saw through shadows covering the Image of God within each person.
When the woman with the 12-year bleed touched his garment, Jesus responded by naming her “daughter” because her greatest need was belonging. She had been unclean every day for 12 years — he publicly restored her place as part of a community.
Jesus told the Samaritan woman the truth about her situation and offered her what she had sought — Living Water to replace the love she had been fruitlessly searching for.
Jesus deals with brokenness at its core while we often only see its consequences. Bodies and minds break down because of sin done to us, by us, or both.
Jesus connected the healing of illness and injury with our greatest affliction: the sin which separates us from God. He did so by confronting sin.
The Pharisees could point to a law in Scripture describing the nature of a sin and the proper response, but they could not confront sin itself.
Only God, the Creator, could do this just as only the name of Jesus could heal a person possessed by demons. “For Jesus the forgiving of sins and the healing of diseases are two sides of His mission, with the forgiveness of sins being the most important.”
The fact that he forgave us while he was a man reassures us that he knew what we face, for he was also tempted in every way (Hebrews 4:15).
Only Through Christ
1. What: We are confident that Christ had authority to forgive sins because he offered forgiveness. He is the “way, the truth, and the life.” No one gets to God except through Jesus (John 14:6).
He came to Earth with the express purpose of leading people to the Father, whom they can only approach because of forgiveness paid for by Christ in the flesh. One cannot separate Christ-as-man from Christ-as-Redeemer.
2. Why: He was sent to “bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners” (Isaiah 61:1).
He died as the only acceptable offering to free us from bondage to sin. He offered forgiveness for sins, but was his offer accepted? Romans 5:8 says Jesus died while we were still sinners.
3. Who: “Only God can bestow absolute pardon[...]. The Lord did not grant that right to the apostles or anyone else.” Jesus’ direct access to the Almighty was not common to man, but he always has been one with God (John 1:1).
It is consistent with his character that Jesus would intercede for us with the Father as he continues to do. “Christ Jesus is the one who died — more than that, who was raised — who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us” (Romans 8:34).
Jesus was perfect. He did not blaspheme or lie, and why would he? If he had only been a man, there was nothing to gain from a life of healing and teaching since this led him to the cross.
His ministry did not make him rich in any earthly sense; his popularity lasted as long as the bread did; and offering forgiveness made him a lot of enemies, especially among powerful people.
Forgiveness and Christ
What is forgiveness before God? When a person comes to Jesus, his relationship with the Lord is resurrected from the dead. That was true during his ministry, before his death, just as it is true now that we can meet with God only through Jesus.
This is an example of “the primacy and power of Jesus’ word. [...] Jesus speaks and death itself obeys. Jesus has authority to heal our sicknesses. None of those things are sovereign.
Disease is not sovereign. Demons are not sovereign. Death is not sovereign. Jesus is sovereign.” The power that calmed the ocean and raised the dead was also the power to forgive.
For further reading:
Why Did Jesus Say, ‘Father, Forgive Them’?
How Can We ‘God and Sin No More’?
What Is the Significance of the Cross?
Where Was Jesus During the Three Days Before His Resurrection?
How and to Whom Did Jesus Pay Our Ransom
What Does it Mean That Jesus Is Our Mediator
Does God Really Forgive Our Sins?
Photo Credit: ©iStock/Getty Images Plus/Tinnakorn Jorruang
