The Gospel Of Mark With Francis Chan: A Video Bible StudySample

One of Jesus’s most endearing traits was his willingness to get in trouble. Most often he’d expose the hypocrisy of the religious leaders, which would really make them mad. In today’s story, a paralyzed man is boldly presented to Jesus. His friends having cut through the roof of Jesus’s home in order to get through the crowd, believing that Jesus would heal him. When he saw their faith, Jesus told the man, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”

Imagine the man’s confusion. Wait. What? My sins? I’m here so you can fix my legs.

Here he comes to be healed, but Jesus says his sins are forgiven. The scene shifts to the onlookers: some in the crowd internally rebel. “He is blaspheming!” they think. “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (v. 7). These scribes of the Law understood that Jesus was claiming God-like powers, saying that he was God. Now, it’s not smart to question Jesus in your mind while in his presence, because he knows what you are thinking and will call you out. Just so in this case: “Why do you question these things in your heart?” he asked them.

Notice that he calls himself the Son of Man (v. 10). The title alludes to Daniel 7:13–14, in which a human being (son of man) rides the clouds to receive authority from the Ancient of Days. Only God rides the clouds, not humans. So the title “Son of Man” carries divine authority, and the religious leaders understood exactly what he was saying: Jesus claimed to be God himself.

Only then does Jesus tell the paralyzed man to pick up his bed and go home. He connects spiritual and physical healing: We can’t see sins being forgiven but we can see the man get up and walk. Jesus heals physically to show that he has the authority to heal spiritually.

The power he showed to that young man is the same power he wields in our lives today. First, the Son of God holds sway over our bodies—he formed us in the womb, watched over our births, has grown us, and heals us. He cares about our mortal bodies and the days on this earth he has numbered for us. Like the paralytic and his friends, we too can approach Jesus in faith that he will restore our strength, heal our flesh, make us physically whole. He is well pleased with our prayers.

Even more significantly, he can heal our souls. Through his sacrificial death on the cross, he paid the price for our sin, freeing us from condemnation and making a way for us to be reconciled to God. The Son of God calls us “friend” (John 15:15), and through him we are called children of God (1 John 3:1). In the same way he forgave the paralytic, he’s ready to forgive your sins and make you whole, spiritually. Have you asked?