Luke 5:23

“It came to pass on a certain day” is Luke’s way of opening a new event. The verb gínomai means to become or to come into being, and used this way it simply marks what happened next. Jesus has just healed a leper (Luke 5:12–16), and before that he taught in Capernaum and cast out a demon there (Luke 4:31–37). Here he is teaching again. Teaching ran through all his work, and the healing that follows comes in the middle of it.

Among his hearers were Pharisees and doctors of the law. The Pharisees were a movement known for strict keeping of the law of Moses, along with a large body of oral tradition. “Doctors of the law” translates nomodidáskalos, a compound meaning “law-teacher”. These were the experts who explained and taught the law, also called scribes, and they were often aligned with the Pharisees. Luke says they had come “out of every town of Galilee, and Judaea, and Jerusalem”, a sweeping phrase for how far the news of Jesus had spread. Jerusalem was the religious heart of the nation, so his teaching had reached its leading teachers.

They were “sitting by”, there to watch and weigh what he said and did, and their presence prepares for the question they raise in verse 21. The tension grows through the rest of the chapter, when Pharisees and scribes object to Jesus eating with sinners and ask why his disciples do not fast (Luke 5:29–39).

Luke then names what made that day different: “the power of the Lord was present to heal them.” The word for power, dýnamis, means might or ability, the strength to get something done, and English has taken “dynamic” from it. The Lord here is God, and his power to heal was at work in Jesus. The word “present” was supplied by the KJV translators to complete the sense, and it gives the meaning well, because the power was there and active that day. Peter later sums up Jesus’ ministry in the same terms: “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him” (Acts 10:38). Matthew says that when Jesus healed the sick he fulfilled Isaiah’s word, “Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses” (Matthew 8:16–17).

“And, behold” (idoú) calls us to look. Men (anḗr) came carrying a man on a bed (klínē), “a man which was taken with a palsy.” The verb behind “taken with a palsy”, paralýō, is built from words meaning “to loosen beside”, and it describes a body that is enfeebled or paralysed. This man had to be carried everywhere. In that day paralysis was incurable, and it left a man wholly dependent on others, often poor and cut off from ordinary life. Luke speaks simply of “men”, and Mark’s account tells us there were four of them (Mark 2:3–4).

“They sought means to bring him in, and to lay him before him.” The verb zētéō is the ordinary word for seeking, and Luke’s form of it pictures them trying one way after another. Eisphérō, “to bring in”, means to carry into. They meant to carry him right inside and lay him “before” Jesus, enṓpion, in his presence and in his sight. Their aim was to put their friend where Jesus would see him.

Mark explains what stood in the way. The house was so full that “there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door” (Mark 2:2). The reports of Jesus’ teaching and healing had drawn a crowd, and the crowd now blocked the one man who most needed healing.

“And when he saw their faith”. Eídō is the ordinary verb for seeing, used of the eyes and of the mind. Jesus saw the opened roof and the man on his couch, and in them he saw faith. Pístis, faith, is trust and firm conviction, a reliance on Jesus that here took the form of hard work. Luke says “their faith”, which takes in the men who carried him and can include the paralysed man as well. Jesus answered it by speaking to the man himself. Mark and Matthew tell the same moment (Mark 2:5, Matthew 9:2).

“Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Jesus calls him “Man” (ánthrōpos), a plain and direct way to address someone. Then he says what everyone in the room least expected. The men had come for healing, and the first thing Jesus gives is forgiveness. Hamartía means sin, and the verb “forgiven”, aphíēmi, means to send away, let go or release. It is used of remitting a debt, and with sins it means releasing a person from their guilt and its penalty. Jesus states it as done: the man’s sins are sent away from him by Jesus’ word.

The scribes, grammateús, were scholars of the law of Moses who copied, interpreted and taught it. The Pharisees, Pharisaîos, were the strict party described above. Both held great authority among the people. They “began to reason”, dialogízomai, which means to think a matter through, reason it out or discuss it. Verse 22 shows that they did this in their hearts, keeping their thoughts to themselves.

Their first question was “Who is this which speaketh blasphemies?” Blasphēmía is speech that slanders or reviles, above all against God. To them a man who claimed to forgive sins was taking for himself what belongs to God alone. The law of Moses punished blasphemy with death (Leviticus 24:16), so this was the gravest of charges.

Their second question states a truth: “Who can forgive sins, but God alone?” Sin is an offence against God, and so the right to remit it is his. The Scriptures they knew say so. God says through Isaiah, “I, even I, am he that blotteth out thy transgressions for mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25), and David blesses the LORD, “Who forgiveth all thine iniquities” (Psalm 103:3). Mark records the same objection (Mark 2:7).

So the scribes reasoned correctly from a true premise, and everything turned on the question they asked first: “Who is this?” If Jesus were only a man, their charge would stand. He is the Son of God, who said, “I and my Father are one” (John 10:30), and in forgiving the man he did what God does, because he is God. They held fast to the truth that only God forgives, and they missed that God the Son was the one forgiving.

The charge of blasphemy followed him to the end. Later some took up stones against him “because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God” (John 10:33), and at his trial the high priest said that he had spoken blasphemy (Matthew 26:65). Opposition of this kind meets Jesus again and again in his public ministry, which opens in Luke 4.

“But when Jesus perceived their thoughts”. The “But” is dé, a common connecting word that can mean “and”, “now” or “but”. The verb epiginṓskō means to recognise or to come to know fully, and dialogismós is the inner reasoning and debate going on in their minds. They kept it to themselves, and Jesus knew it all. Matthew puts it plainly: “Jesus knowing their thoughts said” (Matthew 9:4).

“He answering said unto them” uses apokrínomai, to answer, a verb that in “answered and said” often simply introduces what someone says. Here Jesus does give an answer, to thoughts that were kept silent. “What reason ye in your hearts?” uses the same verb, dialogízomai, that verse 21 used for their reasoning. The heart, kardía, is in Scripture the centre of a person, the mind and will as well as the feelings, and that is where their objection lived.

Scripture gives the knowledge of hearts to God. Solomon prays, “thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men” (1 Kings 8:39). The LORD told Samuel that he “looketh on the heart” (1 Samuel 16:7), David told Solomon that the LORD searches all hearts (1 Chronicles 28:9), the LORD says through Jeremiah that he searches the heart (Jeremiah 17:10), and Hebrews says that all things are naked and opened to his eyes (Hebrews 4:13). John says that Jesus knew all men and knew what was in man (John 2:24–25). So at the very moment they accused him of claiming what belongs to God, Jesus showed them a second thing that belongs to God.

This knowledge is bound up with his authority to forgive. Jesus taught that evil thoughts and every other sin come “from within, out of the heart of men” (Mark 7:21–23), so the one who sees the heart fully is the one who can forgive it fully. He is also the Lord who will come as judge and “bring to light the hidden things of darkness, and will make manifest the counsels of the hearts” (1 Corinthians 4:5). The same knowledge is a comfort to us, because our High Priest is touched with the feeling of our infirmities, and we may come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain mercy (Hebrews 4:15–16).

“Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?” “Whether” here means “which of the two”. The word for easier, eukopṓteros, is built from “good” and “toil”, and it means what takes less labour. Jesus asks the question to bring their silent reasoning into the open and to lead them to the conclusion.

To say “Thy sins be forgiven thee” is easier in one sense, because anyone could say the words and their truth is hidden from the eye. To say “Rise up and walk” to a paralysed man is a claim anyone can test, because either he stands or he stays on his bed. Only God can truly forgive, and only the power of God can make the man walk. So Jesus will do the thing everyone can see, to show that he has done the thing hidden from sight. The command “Rise up” is egeírō, to wake, rouse or raise, used for getting up from sleep or from a bed, and for being raised from the dead.

The question also shows how forgiveness and healing belong together in Jesus’ work. He deals with sin, the root of human brokenness, and with its effects in the body, and he has authority over both.

“But that ye may know” gives the purpose of what follows. The healing is for the man, and it is also for the doubters, so that they may know.

“The Son of man” (huiós, son, with ánthrōpos, man) is the name Jesus uses most often for himself. In Aramaic the phrase, bar nasha, could simply mean a human being, and Jesus is truly a man. The name also takes us to Daniel’s vision, where “one like the Son of man came with the clouds of heaven” and was given dominion, glory and a kingdom, an everlasting dominion (Daniel 7:13–14). As he claims the authority to forgive, Jesus calls himself by the name that joins his real humanity to that dominion given by God.

“Hath power” uses the word exousía, authority or right, the freedom and competence to act, and it can also mean plain power or ability. It is a different word from the dýnamis of verse 17, though the KJV says “power” for both. Verse 17 tells us that the power to heal was present, and verse 24 tells us that Jesus has the right to forgive. “Upon earth” is epí, upon, with gē, earth or land, the earth’s surface as set against the heavens above. Forgiveness belongs to God in heaven, and here the one who holds it stands in a house in Galilee. After his resurrection Jesus said, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew 28:18). John speaks of the power Christ gives to those who receive him, to become the sons of God (John 1:12).

Then the sentence breaks off, and Luke adds, “(he said unto the sick of the palsy,)”. Jesus began by speaking to the scribes and finishes by speaking to the man, who is described with the same word, paralýō, as in verse 18. “I say unto thee” rests the command on his own word. “Arise” (egeírō), “and take up” (aírō, to lift up or carry) “thy couch” (klinídion), “and go” (poreúomai, to go or travel) “into thine house” (eis, into, with oîkos, house). Each command was something the man could do only if he had been healed, and everyone in the room would see whether he did. Matthew and Mark give the same words (Matthew 9:6–8, Mark 2:10–12).

“And immediately he rose up before them”. Parachrēma means at once, on the spot. The man was healed completely and stood up straight away. Luke’s verb for rising here is anístēmi, to stand up, a different word from the egeírō of Jesus’ command, and its meaning is plain: he got to his feet. He did it “before them”, in front of everyone, the doubting scribes and Pharisees included.

“And took up that whereon he lay” uses the same verb, aírō, that Jesus used. The bed that had carried him he now carried himself, and everyone could see it. “And departed to his own house”: he went home on his own feet, back to ordinary life, just as Jesus had told him.

“Glorifying God” is doxázō, to give glory, to honour and magnify. The man gave the credit for his healing to God. Others whom Jesus healed did the same. A blind man who received his sight “followed him, glorifying God” (Luke 18:43), and a lame man healed in Jesus’ name went “walking, and leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8).

“And they were all amazed”. The word is ékstasis, from which English gets “ecstasy”, and it means a mind thrown out of its usual place: bewilderment and astonishment. Everyone there, the crowd and the watching teachers alike, was overwhelmed by what they had seen.

“And they glorified God” uses the same verb, doxázō, as verse 25, so the man’s praise spread through the whole house. They saw that this power came from God, and they gave him the honour.

“And were filled with fear”. This fear, phóbos, is reverent awe, the fear that comes on people when God shows his power and holiness, and it leads to worship. When Israel saw what the LORD did at the Red Sea, the people feared the LORD and believed him (Exodus 14:31), and in the first days of the church fear came upon every soul as the apostles did many wonders and signs (Acts 2:43).

“Saying, We have seen strange things to day.” Parádoxos, the source of English “paradox”, means contrary to expectation, extraordinary. They had seen sins forgiven by a word and a paralysed man walk out carrying his bed, and both lay wholly outside their experience. God had promised through Isaiah that he would do a new thing (Isaiah 43:19), and here was something new indeed. Matthew and Mark close the account with the same wonder and praise (Matthew 9:6–8, Mark 2:10–12).

The forgiveness Jesus spoke in that house was a first sight of what he came to do: “For the Son of man is come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He was on his way to the cross, where as “the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29) he would bear the cost of the forgiveness he gave. Scripture says that “without shedding of blood is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22), and in Christ we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:13–14). Through him God has reconciled all things to himself, having made peace through the blood of his cross (Colossians 1:19–20), and he has forgiven us all trespasses, blotting out the handwriting that was against us and nailing it to the cross (Colossians 2:13–14). Jesus was delivered for our offences and raised again for our justification (Romans 4:25).

Isaiah foretold that the Servant would bear our griefs and carry our sorrows, and be wounded for our transgressions (Isaiah 53:4–5), and Peter writes, “by whose stripes ye were healed” (1 Peter 2:24). The man in this house received forgiveness and healing on the same day. For all who believe, forgiveness is given now, and the body’s full healing waits for the day when Christ will change our lowly body to be like his glorious body (Philippians 3:21). His resurrection is his victory over sin and death: “Christ being raised from the dead dieth no more; death hath no more dominion over him” (Romans 6:9–11). Paul thanks God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:54–57), and he calls the gospel “the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth” (Romans 1:16).

The man rose and walked, and those whom Christ forgives are raised with him, so that “we also should walk in newness of life” (Romans 6:4). In Jesus, the Word made flesh, God’s glory was seen (John 1:14), and all creation will one day say, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain” (Revelation 5:12–13).

In this one house we see who Jesus is. He sees faith, he knows the heart, and he speaks a word that sends sins away with the authority of God himself. That authority is still his, for “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever” (Hebrews 13:8). The promise stands for us as surely as Jesus’ word stood for this man: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). He lives to make intercession for those who come to God by him (Hebrews 7:25, Romans 8:34).

The passage also gives us men who carried a helpless friend to Jesus and kept going until he lay at Jesus’ feet, and it shows that Jesus saw their faith and answered it. The Lord who raised that helpless man is the one who told Paul, “my strength is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). When God works like this, the answer the whole house gave is the right one: amazement, reverent fear, and glory to God.