CRITICAL NOTES
Matthew 9:1. Ship.—Boat (R.V.). His own city.—Capernaum (see Matthew 4:13; Mark 2:1).
Matthew 9:2. Palsy.—Suffering apparently from a less severe type of paralysis than the centurion’s servant (Matthew 8:6). Their faith.—The faith of the sick man and of his friends who brought him (Morison). Son.—A young man apparently. It would scarcely be too strong to translate it thus: “My dear child, be of good cheer; thy sins are forgiven” (Gibson). Thy sins be forgiven thee.—This forgiveness was doubtless the very boon which, above all others, the young man needed and desired. Jesus was reading his heart. Possibly, too, there may have been in this case a peculiar connection between the youth’s sins and his sickness (Morison).
Matthew 9:4. Knowing.—Or seeing.
Matthew 9:6. Take up thy bed.—The Oriental frequently spreads a mat upon the ground and sleeps in the open air; in the morning he rolls up his mat and carries it away (Carr).
Matthew 9:8. Marvelled.—Were afraid (R.V.). Unto men.—This power, which hitherto had been enthroned in the most holy place as the prerogative of Jehovah, now stood embodied before them, as it were, an incarnate Shechinah. Hence their joyous expression, He has given it to the Son of man, and therefore to men (Lange).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Matthew 9:1-8
The pardon of sin.—The miracles of the Saviour had both a temporal and a spiritual side. The multitudes mentioned in Matthew 8:18 appear to have thought too much of the former. Therefore it was that He went away to the other side of the lake; and so, as it were, for a season, cut off the supply. Now, it appears, in coming back, that He has the same error in view, but desires to treat it (if we judge Him rightly) in a different way, viz. in the way of rather fixing attention on the spiritual side of His works. The probable evidences of this will be found:
1. In the claim with which He begins.
2. In the proof with which He concludes.
I. The original claim.—This was remarkable, first, in its general scope. It was a tacit claim to a right to speak on the most momentous of topics, viz. on the “forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 9:2). No topic reaches so far as this does both towards God and towards men. It affects the Ruler because it affects the equity and so the continuance of His rule. It affects the offender because it affects the continuance of his life. It was doing not a little to undertake to speak at all on such a matter. Remarkable, next, because of its special manner and tone. On this highest of topics He claimed the right to speak in the highest possible way. It is both as a Father and as a King; and as both these in such a way that His word may be trusted to the full, the Saviour speaks in this case. “Son, be of good cheer, thy sins are forgiven” (R.V.). In other words—“The cause is over, the question settled; I pronounce thee forgiven.” Equally remarkable was the claim made in regard to the effect it produced. This was of a twofold description. On the one hand it produced in those who stood by and heard it a certain feeling—in all probability partly real and partly also affected—of horror. It seemed to them, and they were men who professed to be both diligent students and special teachers of truth, that there was nothing less than absolute blasphemy in the words they had heard. At the same time it is observable that they do not seem to have dared to put this thought of theirs into words; not, at any rate, to Himself. Only “in themselves”—to their own hearts—do they whisper their thought. Any way, this silence itself may seem to show the more what they thought of His claim, viz., as one involving that which it was hardly befitting to speak of out loud. Finally, the claim is remarkable as being one which we have never heard from Him before. So far as we can judge there had been other occasions for it quite as fitting as this. The case of the leper (Matthew 8:1-4); the case of the centurion’s servant, a case of palsy (Matthew 8:6); the case of “Peter’s wife’s mother” (Matthew 8:14-15) (to say nothing of the unnumbered cases of bodily healing that are referred to, in the mass, without being severally described in Matthew 8:16-17)—are all cases in which, if this claim had to be made, it would have been in its place. Why, then, was it deferred until now? Apparently, because the Saviour, as we saw before, had a special object in view, the object, viz., of drawing special attention to the spiritual side of His works. Therefore it was, in this case of healing, that He begins with this claim.
II. The subsequent proof.—Having made such a claim He could hardly leave it unsupported by proof. Having Himself provoked such thoughts, and knowing He had (Matthew 9:4), He could hardly leave them alone. At any rate, He did not. On the contrary He proceeds to give good evidence that He could really do as He said; and that, in drawing attention in this way to the spiritual side of His work, He was not only declaring what was transcendantly important but absolutely indisputable as well. The evidence in question was two-fold in character. It proved, on the one hand, that He had the requisite knowledge. He who would pardon sin rightly must be acquainted with “all about” it, of course. What the sinner has done. Why he did it. How much he was tempted. What he thought to do more (Acts 8:22). In other words, any one who would be beyond the reach of mistake on this matter must be a judge of the heart. Such accordingly, in this case, by the language He uses, the Saviour proves that He is. He “sees”—so some copies—in the case before Him, the hidden thoughts of the heart; and He proves Himself thereby to be fully competent—if we may so express ourselves—to “try” the question in hand. Why should He not be, indeed, if He is seen, in this way, to have all the requisite “data” on hand? There is evidence also, in the next place, that He has the requisite power. Witness the “order” He gives. Speaking Himself to the man who is sick—who is so sick as to be unable to move of Himself (Matthew 9:2), and had been brought there in pity by others—He bids him go back of himself. “Arise, and take up thy bed”—the previous sign of his feebleness to be thus the sign of his recovery—“and go unto thy house.” No challenge could be bolder—no token clearer—no issue more sure. If he can do as I tell him, it is with him as I say. Witness, next, the results of that order. The first result, on the sick man himself. The paralytic does as he is told to do. He took up “that whereon he lay” (Luke 5:25). He did so “before them all” (Mark 2:12). Witness the second result on all that stood by. They see at once what it means. Things are, indeed, as Jesus has said. What He has claimed He possesses. Let God be praised that He does. However marvellous, it is strictly true. The thesis propounded has been proved to the full. “The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.”
Besides this most vital of truths, we may learn, from the passage thus analysed, two others of hardly less, if of any less weight.
1. How all important is this question of the forgiveness of sin.—What our Saviour put first from His point of view we may well put first from our own. What the Saviour begins with we should begin with as well. What other advantage, indeed, is worthy of mention along side of this? It is like a ship at sea which has sprung a leak, which, if not “stopped,” will infallibly sink it. What other things are worth striving for—what other things are worth seeking for—what other things are worth thinking of, until this is done?
2. How utterly impossible it is for us to obtain this blessing except in the way presented here.—Who else has the requisite knowledge? Who else has the requisite power? Who else can give the requisite proof? Our Saviour, when challenged, gave proof of His claim. Is it too much to ask as much in all similar claims?
HOMILIES ON THE VERSES
Matthew 9:1-8. The great Healer.—
I. The diseased man.—Paralysed. The result of sin. His friends brought him “on a bed,” i.e. on a mat, or cushion, which could easily be thrown over one’s arm (Matthew 9:6).
1. There are many who from spiritual disease cannot come to Jesus and have to be brought.
2. Faith is necessary to the overcoming of the great difficulties and obstacles that beset the way.
II. The great Physician.—Jesus saw their “faith” and honoured it. How tender His first word “Son”! Then He proceeded to encourage him, “Be of good cheer. Cheer up!” Then the Saviour exceeds all their wishes, “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” He forgave the sins first and healed his body afterwards to show:
1. His sovereignty.
2. That the taking away of the guilt of the soul was vastly more important.
3. To try the disposition of the company, and to bring out as they were able to bear it, His true character.
III. The cavillers.—The accusation they made was right from one standpoint, and it was wrong from another.
1. They were right in asserting that God alone can forgive sins.
2. It was wrong inasmuch as they counted Jesus a mere man.
IV. The effects.—The cure was:
1. Immediate.
2. In sight of them all.
3. Complete.
4. Perfect.
5. Glorifying to God. So in spiritual healing.—The Study.
The Peace-bringer in the world of conscience.—
I. The apparently irrelevant answer which Christ gives to the unspoken petition of the paralytic and his friends. “Thy sins be forgiven thee.” It was far from their wish, but yet the shortest road to it. Probably the palsy was the result of fast living—“a sin of the flesh, avenged in kind.” Perhaps, too, whatever his friends may have wanted for him, the poor man himself dimly knew that forgiveness was his most pressing want. Christ would not thus abruptly have offered the pearl of pardon to an altogether unprepared heart. The gospel cures sorrow second and sin first.
II. Forgiveness is an exclusively Divine act.—The same deed may be a sin, a vice, and a crime, according as we regard its aspect towards God, towards morals, or towards law. As sin God can forgive it; as a breach of ethical law there is no forgiveness, for ethics cannot pardon; as a breach of the law of the land, the supreme power may remit penalties. God’s pardon often leaves some of the natural consequences, which are the penalties of our sins, in order that we may hate and avoid the evil; but it brings the assurance that there is nothing in God’s heart towards the sinner but pure and perfect love.
III. Jesus Christ claims and exercises this Divine prerogative of pardon.—His claims to Divinity were urged in such a fashion that, if they are denied, it is impossible to save the beauty and lowliness of His character.
IV. Christ brings visible facts into the witness-box, in attestation of His invisible powers.—We may make a more general application of this principle of the visible evidences of invisible powers. Are not the results of every earnest effort to carry the message of forgiveness to men—in homes made Bethels, passions tamed, and lives elevated—witnesses of the reality of Christ’s claim to exercise the Divine prerogative of forgiveness? All the difference between Christendom and heathendom attests Him as the Fountain of the invisible good which has passed into visibility in the secondary results of the gospel, which the blindest can see and the least spiritual can appraise.—A. Maclaren, D.D.
The Gospel of forgiveness.—Many truths are here presented to us, e.g.
1. A strong faith will overcome difficulties.
2. The readiness of our Lord to welcome the needy, and to reward faith.
3. The enmity and opposition of the human heart.
4. The superiority of spiritual to temporal blessings.
5. Testimony given to the Divinity of Christ by His,
(1) forgiving sins;
(2) searching the heart;
(3) healing the body. But the central truth of the passage appears to be the gospel of forgiveness preached to the poor. The gospel of communism sends the weakest to the wall; the gospel of modern science, with its doctrine of natural selection, destroys the feeble. It was the glory of Christ’s mission that He stooped to the poorest and the lowest, and brought the message of life and hope within the reach of all. View this miracle, then, as proclaiming the gospel of forgiveness.
I. The need it meets.—The figure presented to us—a paralysed man, helpless, incurable, a mere wreck. Three things combined in him.
1. Disease.—Perhaps the consequence of sinful indulgence; certainly to be traced to sin. The parable of sin.
2. Poverty.—The “bed” a mere couch or mat.
3. Poverty of spirit.—Our Lord’s words imply this.
II. The hope it awakens.—The hope of good.
III. The blessing it bestows.
1. Forgiveness.
2. Manner of bestowment.—
(1) Immediate;
(2) free;
(3) complete;
(4) authoritative;
(5) effectual.
IV. The opposition it excites.—The spirit of opposition to grace always the same—the form differs. Man will be saved, but not on God’s terms.
V. The vindication it receives.—Christ proves His power to forgive, confutes His adversaries, saves the man. The gospel may appeal to results. Application to:—
1. The careless.—Many went away unsaved. “Will ye also go away?”
2. The anxious.—No rest except in Christ. Never rest until you have found Him.
3. The healed.—Go sin no more.
Walk in newness of life—in the power which Christ imparts.—Sir E. Bayley, Bart, B.D.