Jesus: The One who can forgive sin

Luke 5:17-32 – Jesus: The One who can forgive sins

Introduction

What is humanity's biggest problem? And what is the solution? A study at the University of Oxford says that it is the climate, poverty, food insecurity, and terrorism. This same study argues that cooperation and collective action on a global scale is the solution. Many people would agree with such a statement, but to God, humanity's biggest problem is sin.

I don’t want to use a term like sin unless I make sure that everybody understands what it is and why it is so bad. First, sin is not doing things that God has told us to do and doing things that God has told us not to do. Basically, sin is disobeying God. Second, sin is bad because it is cosmic treason. It is rebelling against humanity’s lawful authority, the Maker of the universe. We wouldn’t accept this from a citizen of a country; why would it be acceptable to God?

The bottom line is that sin is an assault against God. At the beginning of creation, he told his creatures that rebellion against him would result in death. This death worked its way into us and our world. But God didn’t leave us in death. Today’s story is a continuation of God’s rescue of us from death.

Background

Jesus is the Savior who brings salvation to the poor, captives, blind, and oppressed. He came to earth to bring the Lord's favor to those who trust in him. Before the advent of his public ministry, he lived a perfect and sinless life, so much so that God the Father declared that he was well-pleased with Jesus. He then withstood temptation, proving that he would continue to live in sinlessness throughout his ministry. Then, empowered by the Spirit, he healed the sick, cast out demons, communed with God, preached the Good News of the kingdom of God, called a group of men to be a part of his mission, who left everything behind and followed him as he has been traveling to the cities around the Sea of Galilee. The last thing we see is that he healed a leper in one of those cities with his incredible power.

Luke 5:1-32 all aim at this one idea, the forgiveness of sin. The story of Jesus calling the fishermen introduces the topic of sin, that Jesus is God and he has no sin, but people do. Luke 5:12-16 shows how Jesus has the desire and authority to remove the effects of sin in the bodies of his creatures. And now, in these next two stories, we see that Jesus not only has the authority to forgive sinners, but he came to earth to forgive notorious sinners and restore them to God.

Exposition

Now, after some time, Jesus returns to Capernaum to the place where he stayed while he was there. A bunch of Pharisees and teachers of the law from all around gathered. Why? More than likely they wanted to find a reason to put him to death because of what he was claiming. In fact, John 5 tells us that he was “calling God his own Father, making himself equal with God.” To the Pharisees and teachers of the law, a man had no right to make these claims; they were blasphemy.

Though the Pharisees and teachers of the law wanted him dead, this didn’t stop the crowds from thronging around him, listening to him preach the word (according to Mark) and trying to be healed or take their loved ones to Jesus so he could heal them (Luke’s focus). Why? Verse 17 says that “…the power of the Lord was with him to heal.”

Now, let’s dig into today’s passage in two points: Jesus’ authority to forgive sin in verses 18-26 and Jesus’ mission to forgive sinners in verses 27-32.

Let’s look at our first point, Jesus’ authority to forgive sin in verses 17-26. Here, we see two things. First, Jesus forgives a man’s sin (vv. 17-20). Second, Jesus proves he has the authority to forgive sinners (vv. 21-26).

In verses 17-20, we see that Jesus forgives the paralytic’s sin. Jesus declares what only God can declare, a man's sin is forgiven.

The house where Jesus was preaching at was packed…no one could get to Jesus. But a paralytic and some of his friends, knowing Jesus’ ability to heal tried anyway. They removed part of the ceiling and lowered the paralytic through the roof, right in front of Jesus which caused him to stop teaching. He saw the faith and said something no one expected, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.”

The Pharisees and teachers of the law were shocked. More than likely the paralytic knew he needed to be healed so he could walk, but he knew, more than this, that he needed his sins forgiven. Jesus knew his deepest need was God to forgive his sins.

When Jesus said this, he was really saying, “Your sins have been against me.” The only person who could say this was the Creator. Jesus Christ, by forgiving the man, is claiming to be God Almighty. Jesus forgives the man of his sin as the Creator God, the Lord, Yahweh.

In verses 21-26, we see Jesus proves his authority to forgive sin. Jesus proves he is God who alone has the authority to forgive sin.

The scribes and Pharisees knew exactly what Jesus was saying and so thought to themselves and/or murmured among themselves, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” They are right on one count: only God can forgive sins; but they are wrong on the other: Jesus is not blaspheming. He is God, and he can forgive sins and make us right with God.

Jesus, knowing their thoughts, asks them a straightforward question, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk’?” The answer is that it is easier to say that the man’s sins are forgiven because you can’t disprove it in the moment. But proclaiming a man healed can easily be disproved. It would happen or not.

Jesus tells them why he is healing the paralytic, so that they “…may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” Jesus calls himself “the” Son of Man who has authority to forgive sins. Why? The “Son of Man” was prophesied in Daniel 7:13-14, “…behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed.” Jesus is God, the Lord, the forever king. He has the authority to forgive sin because he is God.

The underlying thought is that God would not allow someone claiming to be God to heal the paralytic. And so, Jesus proves he has everlasting dominion, as the Son of Man, by saying, “I say to you, rise, pick up your bed and go home.” Here, Jesus proves his authority as God and King of all by personally telling the lame man to walk in no one’s name but his.

The paralytic obeys Jesus immediately. He got up, picked up his bed, and went home, glorifying God as he went. But what does “glorify” mean? Why is this important? Glory carries two meanings: weight and fame. Glorifying something means to give the proper weight to it that belongs to it, and faming is to make it famous. Thus, to glorify God is to give to God in our thoughts, actions and words the proper value that belongs to him, and living and speaking as if God is important to us.

Think of your favorite sports team. Do you talk them up when they win? Do you know how successful they are, and tell others about them? God as the Maker not only deserves this from us, but if he has forgiven our sin, wouldn’t we make sure he is given his proper weight and fame, telling everyone about him and what he did? This only makes sense.

Finally, let’s look at point 2, Jesus’ mission to forgive notorious sinners in verses 27-32. Here we are going to see two things. First, Jesus calls and restores a notorious sinner (vv. 27-28). Second, Jesus declares his mission is to restore sinners (vv. 29-32). Sometimes we can think that we need to be whole before we can come to Jesus, but this is not true. Jesus’ mission is to call notorious sinners before they are whole and restore them to wholeness and purpose.

In verses 27-28 Jesus calls and restores a notorious sinner. Jesus calls a person to be with him and join his mission who is despised.

What type of person would you expect God to choose to follow him and spread his message after he returned to heaven? A person who was disrespected, hated and loathed by the masses, or one who was well-respected? Depends on the mission, right? If you wanted to reach the upright, moral, and clean, you would choose those who were well-respected. But, if your mission was to reach into the masses of hurting and broken people, you might choose differently. Here we see Jesus choose a despised man to become a part of his mission.

Jesus, as he is walking beside the Sea of Galilee, sees Levi (Matthew) the Son of Alphaeus in his tax office. He was probably a customs agent. He would charge import and export duties on things brought in from trade routes for the Roman government. A Jew who did this may have also been known as a “publican” and would to the Jews be associated with oppression, injustice, and treachery against Israel.

The religious leaders expected Jesus to associate with them and their cause rather than “sinners”. But Jesus calls this notorious sinner to join him as a disciple. When Jesus calls him to follow him, he does not tell him what he must do, per say, but calls him to relationship with him. Jesus makes a personal call to Levi to come after him. Jesus draws the sinner to himself before the sinner changes.

Jesus will remake this man into one who reveals his glory and will write one of the Gospels. Jesus takes a broken, sinful, and unrighteous man, joins him to himself, and makes him the righteousness of God (Rom. 1:16-17). Jesus came to earth to remake his creation and his creatures into the place and people he wants them to be.

Jesus calls Levi to join his band of followers to show the religious and non-religious that the only hope for mankind is to receive the righteousness of Christ. Levi quits his job and follows Jesus.

As Jesus calls Levi, we see that Levi’s choice is not because of his ability to turn and run from his sin, but in Christ’s will to draw him to himself. Jesus calls those who are not right with God to union with himself and gives them a righteousness that they do not have. He calls sinners because he has the authority to forgive their sins. Yet, Judaism could not forgive sins, and so could not welcome, nor help the sinner! Even the term Pharisee, or separated one, excluded sinners at the outset.

Finally, in verses 29-32 Jesus declares his mission to restore sinners. Jesus came for those who need him and so draws those who are sinful and needy to himself.

Levi heads home and makes a great banquet for Jesus and his friends. The guest list is a who’s who of the notorious and despised. In Jesus’ culture, dinner together meant intimate relationship for those who shared it. Thus, as Jesus was having dinner with them, he was essentially inviting these despised and rejected people into friendship and relationship with him. As we will see later, apparently, as Jesus was preaching the Gospel of the Kingdom of God, he was drawing to himself a crowd of “untouchables”. This in itself wasn’t a problem for the Pharisees, but, Jesus wasn’t simply drawing them to himself as a crowd to listen to him, repent and change before he accepted them, but he was welcoming them to himself right away, even eating with them and treating them as friends. Perhaps even before they changed. To the Pharisees, Jesus was welcoming those who must repent first.

Yet, Jesus was giving himself to the sinners and welcoming them to fellowship with him so that they would come to know and experience himself, and the righteousness that only he could give. This made the “righteous” people angry. They didn’t want to defile themselves by breaking their “rules” in eating with sinners and tax collectors. They were angry enough to complain to the disciples and ask them why they allowed such associations.

Jesus overheard them and told them that only the sick need a doctor. In saying this, Jesus declared himself to be the One with the power to solve the sin problem that the sinners and tax collectors had. This further cemented Jesus’ claim that he not only has the authority to forgive sin, but his mission was to restore sinners to God.

Jesus chooses to call unrighteous sinners to fellowship with him and join him on his mission to proclaim the Good News of the kingdom of God. The purpose of this mission was to bring the Good News to those who needed it. Jesus came to set at liberty those who were oppressed. So, why would he choose to bring an oppressor into the fold?

This was a sign of what was to come. Jesus would liberate both the oppressors and those oppressed from their bondage to sin. For oppressors, they are in bondage to the sin of harming others for their own gain, caught up in immorality and perhaps wild and loose living. For the oppressed, to save them from their own sin of ingratitude, anger, resentment, bitterness, and immorality and give them hope.

Jesus is not simply concerned with removing evil people from the world, but removing evil from the people in the world. His mission is to bring people back to living out their original design…loving God with all their being, and loving their neighbor as themselves. Jesus looks deep into the hearts of men and women and sees their unrighteousness. He calls them to himself by giving them a new heart and revealing to them how sinful they are and why they need him. He meets with tax collectors and sinners because they know the oppression and evil they do. They have no pretense about who they are. They desperately need Jesus, so he reaches down into their hearts and calls them to himself, showing them who they are, and who he is.

The religious leaders are, in their own eyes, the “healthy” ones. They do not need the work of Jesus…or so they think. Yet, the sinners and tax collectors do, and they know it. The religious leaders needed Jesus’ righteousness as much as the sinners did, but they don’t think they need it and they don’t want it.

In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector, found later in this book, Jesus shows that the Pharisee thinks he is righteous, but in God’s eyes he will not be justified. Yet, the tax collector who clings to the mercy of God will be justified before God. Forgiveness is given to those who desire it and not to those who think they do not need it.

The trouble here is that all men and women need forgiveness, and so all should seek it. But, forgiveness is only granted to those who are called, like Levi, to Jesus. Jesus calls those who are sinners, but not those who think they are righteous. Yet, we do not know we are sinners unless the Holy Spirit gives us new birth. Thus, it is all of grace. God grants the new birth that people need to see their need of him and come into union with Christ.

This is a great mystery, and should cause us all the more to be passionate about missions, outreach, and evangelism. We do not know who these people are that will eventually see themselves as sinners. We must simply go into all the world and preach the gospel.

The point then of Jesus’ ministry was to provide himself as a sacrifice to pay for sin, and to provide sinners with his righteousness by joining them to him. Jesus not only has the authority to forgive sinners but he came to earth to forgive notorious sinners and restore us to God and his mission of proclaiming Jesus’ rescue.

Application

First, Jesus has the authority to forgive sin because all sin is ultimately against him. His life and death on the cross make this forgiveness legit and not unjust. No matter what you have done, Jesus can forgive you. And, if you trust in him, he has the authority and will forgive you.

Second, how we view others is critical. The most unlikely of people could be the best disciple when and if Jesus calls them. We don’t know who these sinners are. Peter tells us in 2 Peter 3:8-10 that God continues to allow the world to spin because of his patience and mercy. He desires that all people would repent of their sins and be joined to Christ before judgment comes which could be at any time. We as people should not be any less compassionate and merciful than God is.

Third, Jesus welcomes sinners and untouchables to join him in table fellowship. How often do we do this, or even think of doing this? We should be welcoming the lost, the broken, the ruined into our lives. Sharing a meal, sharing the love of Christ, sharing the Gospel with them. If Jesus who is the one that they offend first and foremost welcomes them, shouldn’t we?

Fourth, religious people often do not see their own need for redemption. The gospel isn’t just for the wicked sinners, the irreligious, it is for the religious as well. Anyone who is not trusting in Jesus Christ for redemption is in desperate need of him. We should be quick to give the Gospel to those who don’t think they need it.