That ye may know that the Son of man hath power. — Better, authority, as in John 5:27. The two passages are so closely parallel that we can hardly be wrong in thinking that the words now spoken were meant to recall those which some, at least, of those who listened had heard before. This view, at any rate, brings out the fulness of their meaning. As they stand here, they seem to include both the two hypotheses mentioned in the Note on Matthew 9:3. The Father had given Him authority to “forgive sins” and to “execute judgment” because He was the Son of Man, the representative of mankind, and as such was exercising a delegated power. But then, that discourse in John 5 showed that He also spoke of Himself as the Son of God as well as the Son of Man (John 5:25), and as such claimed an honour equal to that which was rightly paid to the Father (John 5:23). Ultimately, therefore, our Lord’s answer rests on the higher, and not the lower, of the two grounds on which the objectors might have been met.
Arise, take up thy bed. — As St. Mark gives the words we have the very syllables that had been spoken to the “impotent man” at Bethesda (John 5:8), and in any case words identical in meaning; and the natural inference is that our Lord meant to recall what the scribes from Jerusalem had then seen and heard.