Luke 5:22-24

The Miracle. The miraculous work which is to follow is for a moment deferred. Jesus, without having heard the words of those about Him, understands their murmurs. His mind is, as it were, the mirror of their thoughts. The form of His reply is so striking, that the tradition has preserved it to the very letter; hence it is found in identical terms in all three narratives. The proposition, that ye may know, depends on the following command: I say to thee...The principal and subordinate clauses having been separated by a moment of solemn silence, the three accounts fill up this interval with the parenthesis: He saith to the paralytic. This original and identical form must necessarily proceed from a common source, oral or written. It is no easier, certainly, to pardon than to heal; but it is much easier to convict a man of imposture who falsely claims the power to heal, than him who falsely arrogates authority to pardon. There is a slight irony in the way in which Jesus gives expression to this thought. “You think these are empty words that I utter when I say, Thy sins are forgiven thee. See, then, whether the command which I am about to give is an empty word.” The miracle thus announced acquires the value of an imposing demonstration. It will be seen whether Jesus is not really what He claims to be, the Ambassador of God on earth to forgive sins. Earth, where the pardon is granted, is opposed to heaven, where He dwells from whom it proceeds.

It is generally acknowledged at the present day, that the title Son of man, by which Jesus preferred to designate Himself, is not simply an allusion to the symbolical name in Daniel 7, but that it sprang spontaneously from the depths of Jesus' own consciousness. Just as, in His title of Son of God, Jesus included whatever He was conscious of being for God, so in that of Son of man He comprehended all He felt He was for men. The term Son of man is generic, and denotes each representative of the human race (Psalms 8:5; Ezekiel 37:3; Ezekiel 37:9; Eze 37:11). With the art. (the Son of man), this expression contains the notion of a superiority in the equality. It designates Jesus not simply as man, but as the normal man, the perfect representative of the race. If this title alludes to any passage of the O. T., it must be to the ancient prophecy, “ The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head” (Gen 3:15). There is a tone of triumph in this expression, Luke 5:25: He took up that whereon he lay. The astonishment of the people, Luke 5:26, is expressed differently in the three narratives: We never saw it on this fashion (Mark); They glorified God, which had given such power unto men (Matthew). This remarkable expression, to men, is doubtless connected with Son of man. Whatever is given to the normal man, is in Him given to all. Matthew did not certainly add this expression on his own authority, any more than the others arbitrarily omitted it. Their sources were different.

Παράδοξα, strange things, in Luke, is found in Josephus' account of Jesus. By the term to-day the multitude allude not only to the miracle, they had seen others as astounding on previous days, but more particularly to the divine prerogative of pardon, so magnificently demonstrated by this miracle with which Jesus had just connected it. The different expressions by which the crowd give utterance to their surprise in the three Syn. might really have been on the lips of different witnesses of this scene.

Keim, applying here the method indicated, pp. 253-4, thinks that the paralysis was overcome by the moral excitement which the sick man underwent. Examples are given of impotent persons whose power of movement has been restored by a mighty internal shock. Therefore it is just possible that the physical fact might be explained in this way. But the moral fact, the absolute assurance of Jesus, the challenge implied in this address, “In order that ye may know,...arise and walk!” a speech the authenticity of which is so completely guaranteed by the three narratives and by its evident originality, how is this to be explained from Keim's standpoint? Why, Jesus, in announcing so positively a success so problematical, would have laid Himself open to be palpably contradicted by the fact! At the commencement of His ministry He would have based His title to be the Son of man, His authority to forgive sins, His mission as the Saviour, His entire spiritual work, on the needle's point of this hazardous experiment!

If this were the case, instead of a divine demonstration (and this is the meaning which Jesus attaches to the miracle), there would be nothing more in the fact than a fortunate coincidence.