Matthew 9:1,2 - Your sins are forgiven

9:1

This incident is recorded in Mark 2:3-12 and Luke 5:18-26. As with the previous one Matthew gives a much briefer account, not mentioning the breaking through the roof part. Why is this? Matthew seems to want to put more incidents in his gospel, and he is focusing on different aspects. One of the themes of the last chapter or so, which is continuing here, is that of authority. We have seen His authority in teaching (Matt 7:29), authority over sickness, over demons and over nature. Now we see His authority to forgive sins.

9:2

So the paralyzed man is brought to him by some friends of the man, no doubt with the intention of him being healed and able to walk again. Instead, the first thing Jesus says is “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven”. Why does He do this? Well, in Judaism there was a strong belief that there was a very close relationship between sin and sickness (or infirmities). So the man would be convinced that he had done something terrible in order to be in his condition. So Jesus calls him “son”, and then assures him that his sins have been forgiven. Now in our age we have virtually the complete opposite view, sin and sickness are totally unrelated. If we look at the Bible, both here and as a whole, we see that both views are complete nonsense. Sin and sickness are not always directly related in the sense that if a person is seriously ill or infirm then they must have committed some vile sin. Conversely, it is equal rubbish to say that sin and sickness are never related. Because of the fall sickness does reign in the world, so there is a relationship between sin and sickness. Sometimes there is an obvious direct relationship, eg if a person drinks too much, takes drugs, is sexually promiscuous etc, then there are direct health consequences. There are instances in the Bible where an illness is inflicted by God as judgement. So sometimes the two are related. But we are not to go around judging people on this basis! And note here that Jesus, confronted by a paralysed man, tells him his sins are forgiven. The issue is more complicated than either of the two simplistic approaches we tend to go with.