The Life Of Jesus Christ In Its Historical Connexion

The attack made upon Christ at Jerusalem involved, as we have seen, two charges, viz., that he violated the law, and that he assumed a power and dignity to which no man could have a right. The Pharisees continued their persecutions, on the same grounds, in Galilee also, where his labours offered them many points of assault. But against all such attacks his Divine greatness only displayed itself the more conspicuously.

On one occasion he returned to Capernaum from one of his preaching tours, and when his arrival was known many gathered around him. Some sought him to hear the words of life from his lips; to obtain help for their bodies or their souls; others, doubtless, with hostile intent, to put captious questions, and act as spies upon his words and actions; and curiosity, too, had done its part; so that the door of the house was beset with people. The Saviour was interrupted in his teaching by a great noise without. A man palsied in all his limbs, tormented by pain of body and anguish of heart, had caused himself to be carried thither. His disease may have been caused by sinful excesses; or it may have so awakened his sense of guilt as that he felt it to be a punishment for his sins; but, be this as it may, the disease of his body and the distress of his soul seem to have been closely connected, and to have reacted upon each other. [447] Both required to be healed, in order to a radical cure. Though the bodily ailment was a real one, and not due to a psychical cause, still, such was the reciprocal action of spirit and body, that the spiritual anguish had first to be remedied. And, on the other hand, as the disease seemed to be a punishment for sin, he needed, for the healing of his soul, a sensible pledge of the pardon of his sins; and such a pledge he was to find in the cure of his palsy.

Four men carried the couch on which the sick man lay; but the throng was so great that they could not make their way through. The palsied man was anxious to see the Saviour, by whom he hoped to be relieved. Entrance by the door was impossible; but the Oriental mode of building afforded a means of access, to which they at once had recourse. Passing up the stairs, which led from the outside to the flat roof of the house, [448] they made an opening by removing part of the tiles, and let the couch down into an upper chamber.

Christ's first words to the sick man, addressed to his longing and faith, were, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee;" and this balm, poured into the wounded spirit, prepared the way for the healing of his corporeal malady.

The Pharisees, always on the watch, seized upon this opportunity to renew their accusations; he had claimed a fulness of power which belonged to God alone; the power, namely, to forgive sins. Perceiving their irritation, he appealed to a fact which could not be denied, as proof that he claimed no power which he could not fully exercise. ["Whether is it easier to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and walk? But that ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins [449] (then saith he to the sick of the palsy), Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thy house. And he arose, and departed to his house."] " It is easy to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; for if these words really produce any result, it could not be perceptible to the senses, and, for that reason, the lack of the result could not convict an impostor; [450] but he who says Arise and walk must really possess the power which his words claim, or his untruth will be immediately exposed."

And the fact that the Divine power of his words revivified the dead limbs of the paralytic proved that he had the power, by granting forgiveness of sins, to awaken the dead soul to a new spiritual life. In this case the two were bound together.