Trinity 19: Jesus Heals a Paralytic

October 6, 2024

by Joseph D. Klotz

The Hodgkins Lutheran>

Jesus stepped into a boat, crossed over and came to his own town. Some men brought to him a paralytic, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” Then he said to the paralytic, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” And the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God who had given such authority to men. (Matthew 9:1-8)

Introduction

St. Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians, encourages his readers to be renewed in the spirit of their minds; to put off the old man; to put on the new. He calls and encourages us to act according to the new creation that God has made us into in Christ. He’s telling the Ephesians, and us, what is truly important. And the important thing is not trying to gratify the desires of our flesh, and running after the things of this world. The things we are to focus on and purse are of eternal significance: eternal life and the forgiveness of sins that comes by the person and work of Jesus Christ. This is what Jesus demonstrates in this Gospel reading.

St. Matthew records in chapter nine of his Gospel the healing of a paralyzed man. Jesus goes back to His hometown. He is apparently teaching there when some men bring to Jesus their paralyzed friend. The reason that they bring this guy to Jesus is obvious: he doesn’t want to be paralyzed anymore. He’s looking for physical healing. Matthew doesn’t mention the details of how his friends got him in front of Jesus, but St. Mark does. He records that his friends cut a hole in the roof and lowered the man through it to get access to Jesus (see Mark 2:3-12). And we might expect Jesus to just zap this guy with a healing miracle right away, but He doesn’t. He tells the man that his sins are forgiven, and it looks like that is all that is going to happen. Why does Jesus do this?

Eventually, after some mind reading and rebuking of the Pharisees who were present, Jesus physically heals the paralyzed man, and the crowd is filled with awe. But, to better understand what is happening here, we’re going to consider miracles and healing in general, and Jesus and His work in particular.

A Brief Discussion of Miracles, and Their Purpose

The editors of the Lutheran Study Bible wrote in one of their study notes that, in times of crisis, like those in which we now live, people look for guidance and hope anywhere they think they can find it. Men instinctively know that, as we experience wars and rumors of wars, famines and plagues - the birth pains that precede the end of the world - we need spiritual aid (Englebrecht, 2009). A big problem is the place that we often try to get that aid. Most people don’t go to where God has promised to be. They like to stay in the comfort of their own homes. They look for spiritual comfort and guidance from frauds and heretics who claim all manner of spiritual gifts and powers to work miracles. To look to the TV preachers who put on stage shows "healing" the sick, or rebuking natural disasters and plagues. All you have to do is have enough faith. If you just believe hard enough, Jesus will give you what you pray for. Usually, you also have to demonstrate that faith by “stepping out in faith” and “sowing a seed” into the TV preacher’s ministry. For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, it means giving him a lot of money.

But these are false prophets and antichrists. This isn’t what Jesus did or taught. The paralyzed man and his friends knew where to go for aid, because they had heard Jesus’ words and believed in Him.

Our Pentecostal friends claim great success when it comes to miraculous healing. In his two-volume work on miracles, Craig Keener writes that in the Pentecostal magazine, "The Evangel," where miraculous healings are reported, problems ranging from sciatic nerve pain, to ulcers, to blindness, and even death have been claimed to have been healed.

And, of course, there has been mainstream media attention on healing and the "power of prayer" in recent years. Surveys of doctors and patients alike show an overwhelmingly positive attitude toward intercessory prayer to help patients recover from illnesses and manage pain. But prayer to whom? Prayer, like faith must have an object; someone or something to whom or which you pray. It is not a magic that can be used like a healing spell.

In both the Old and New Testaments miracles serve to verify claims and communications (Harrison, Bromiley, and Henry, 1960). The miraculous acts themselves demonstrate God's divine and omnipotent power.

Francis Pieper writes, matter-of-factly, that God accomplishes His purpose in two ways: either through means, or directly without means. An easy example of working through means would be God sustaining a man's life.

He can do it through the ordinary means of food and drink, as He does for us every day. He may also do it directly, and spiritually, as He did for Moses and Jesus in the desert. God absolutely can do immediately (that is, without means) what He ordinarily does through means (Pieper, 1950). When God works this way, we normally call it a miracle. And these miraculous acts are so out-of-the-ordinary that they compel the attention of the witnesses, while at the same time not compelling belief.

But simply performing a miracle is not the only stamp of authenticity to validate that a prophet, or a miracle worker was indeed sent by God. After all, Pharaoh’s magicians were also able to do things that looked like miracles in response to Moses. Even the devil and his demons can perform, what to human eyes, look like miraculous signs and wonders. No, the prophet’s message must also conform to God's revealed word. We must always test what men claim God has said to them, with what we know God has said to His Church.

If we allow for the possibility of the enthusiastic theological idea that God speaks and interacts with men directly and without means, we enter dangerous territory. Satan, who is the father of lies, masquerades as an angel of light; he creates false signs and wonders to deceive. What is it to Satan if he makes it look like your child was physically healed from a deadly disease, but separates you from God's word and sacraments, which are the places where God has explicitly promised to give the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation? What better way for Satan to drive a wedge between a man and his faith in Christ than to perform for him counterfeit healing miracles through the agency (or means, if you like) of a heretical teacher? He will get the healing he desires and, if he isn't careful, he may take the healing as validation that the healer's words, his doctrine, is given by God. Satan can only fool him if our hypothetical man does not heed Christ's warning in Matthew 24.

In that discourse, Jesus warns His disciples about this very thing. He tells us that later, during the End Times, signs and miracles will not serve the purpose of confirming the authority and veracity of the one performing them. Instead, Jesus says that signs and miracles will be performed by false Christs and false prophets to deceive:

"At that time if anyone says to you, 'Look, here is the Christ!' or, 'There he is!' do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect - if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time" (Matt. 24:23-25).

The miracles recorded for us in the New Testament serve the purpose of validation for Jesus and His Apostles. Jesus and the disciples knew each other before He called them as disciples. This shouldn't surprise us. We know already that Jesus and John the Baptist are cousins according to the flesh. Victor Prange suggests that it isn't unreasonable to think these men, who were all living in the same relatively small community, wouldn't have become acquainted (Prange, 1988). In this case, a sign to accompany Jesus' authoritative teaching would be necessary, since Jesus Himself declares that a prophet is not received in his hometown. We see Jesus vindicated in that saying when those who hear Jesus declare the scriptures fulfilled in their hearing and claim the title of Messiah, try to throw Him off a cliff.

Finally, the miraculous accounts given us in the Bible are not prescriptive texts, but descriptive. In other words, they describe things that happen. They don’t prescribe things for us to do, as the prosperity gospel preachers often twist them. The account of Jesus' interaction with the paralytic is such a descriptive text. It describes a thing that happened. It isn't a prescription for people to follow. It does not give us a promise that God is required to heal our physical infirmities if we have the proper amount of a substance called faith. Jesus healed the paralyzed man because He is merciful, because it was His will, and because He had the power to do so. This brings us to another important part of this text. By this healing miracle Jesus is announcing that He is God in human flesh.

Jesus Declares that He is God by His Healing of the Paralyzed Man

Like His Transfiguration, Jesus’ healing of the paralyzed man is a partial revealing of Jesus' divine glory. When He came into the flesh to bear our sin and be our savior, St. Paul explains that Jesus voluntarily set aside His divine attributes. Scripture says that Jesus:

“…who though he existed in the form of God did not regard equality with God as something to be grasped, but emptied himself by taking on the form of a slave, by looking like other men, and by sharing in human nature. He humbled himself, by becoming obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross! As a result God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow – in heaven and on earth and under the earth – and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:6-11, NET).

Another thing that He demonstrates in His healing of the paralytic is His authority. Elsewhere in the Gospels we are told that the people marveled because Jesus didn’t speak and teach like other rabbis. Jesus taught with authority. He didn't cite other teachers to support the things He said. He did not say, "thus saith the LORD" like a prophet speaking on God's behalf. Jesus taught as though He Himself were the authority. It’s like the difference between a physics teacher teaching about Einstein's Theory of Relativity, versus Einstein himself teaching the class himself.

Jesus says that all the prophecies about the Messiah refer to Him (see Luke 24:27; John 5:39). He is the God who created the universe and set up the plan of salvation for mankind (Colossians 1:15-20). Jesus is saying He is the one who told Adam and Eve the first Gospel. He directed and inspired the prophets. Now He was here in the world in the flesh. (Englebrecht, et. al., 2009) He came to be a ransom for many; to die for the sins of the world; to heal all our infirmities. And now, in this instance of this Gospel account, Jesus would give the people a little foretaste of the true healing that He was to accomplish on the cross.

The Church is built on the divinity of Christ. Pieper says that the confession of Christ's divinity is the rock upon which the Church is founded, because it is the confession that gives eternal life. (Pieper, 1951)

Rationalists, on the other hand, deny the true deity of Christ. Some claim only a figurative deity of Christ. Jesus is God, they argue, only in the sense that the Father's will was active in Him. Worship of Jesus as God, the rationalists argue, comes from "pious sentiment" rather than the scriptures, since Jesus didn't really claim to be God or command worship. (Pieper, 1951)

Rationalists, which seem to be most people in America today when it comes to Christianity, object to the literal deity of Christ. They do not accept any of the miracles recorded in the Bible. And if the deity of Christ is figurative, then we don't have to accept the miracle of the God-man.

Men also reject the teaching of the literal deity of Christ, Pieper explains, because the concept of the God-man makes it impossible for us to earn our own salvation by our own good works. If salvation can only be obtained by God taking on human flesh to be the propitiation for the sins of the world as scripture says (1 John 2:2; 4:10), that only shows how utterly worthless our own efforts to earn God's favor are. If, however, Jesus is only a man, He then becomes our moral example. His life and death on the cross are a morality play telling us to try to please God by being good. To be sure, Jesus is the Christian’s guide when it comes to morality. But Jesus did the work of pleasing God in His life and death on the cross. The good works we do are not done to earn God’s forgiveness, but because we are forgiven by God, and the Holy Spirit now lives within us.

It is true that Jesus does not overtly use the words, "I am God", or something similar. Scripture does, however, assign to Jesus divine attributes. Jesus Himself also claims literal union with God the Father, a union of essence, or nature. Jesus says that He and Father are made of the same material. (Pieper, 1951)

But not only does He share the same nature as God the Father, Christ also shares divine characteristics with the Father. This could only be true if Jesus were divine. Some of the most important of these characteristics are that Jesus is before all things. Jesus is the creator of all things. Jesus is worshipped as God, and He does not correct or rebuke those who worship Him. Jesus thought He was God, and accepted worship as God, because, Pieper confidently asserts from Scripture, Jesus is God. (Pieper, 1951)

As we confess in the Creed, Christ is true God, begotten of the Father from eternity; He is also true man, born of the Virgin Mary. In the first sense He is equal to the Father. In the second, in His state of humiliation, as He is incarnate to be the sacrifice for sin, the Father is superior to Him. (Pieper, 1951)

Jesus Tells Us What is Really Important

So, what are we to make of all this?

We are to understand that the miracles that Jesus and the Apostles performed as proof of their authority, and proof that their words were God's words, remain valid for us today. That is why they were written down and preserved for us through the Church. We don't need new signs and wonders, or personal revelations to believe in Jesus. We have Jesus' words and the record of the miracles He performed. Scripture is a trustworthy record. We hear Jesus' message along with all those in Nazareth and Capernaum. We can rejoice that in Jesus God's promises are fulfilled, our sins are forgiven, and creation is restored.

Signs, wonders, and prophecies have ceased. That isn't to say that God cannot perform miraculous signs, or reveal prophecies to people. He chooses not to do so. Those who acknowledge this are not putting God "in a box" so to speak. They are simply acknowledging the box into which God has placed Himself. God has chosen to work, ordinarily, through means.

As Christians we do not abandon reason when reading scripture. We do not, however, place reason in a position over God's word. That is to say, Christians make use of their reason when reading and interpreting scripture, but we do not judge scripture by our natural reason. Rather, everything, including our reason, should be subject to God's word. Those mysteries and miracles that reason cannot explain or understand must be accepted and acknowledged as beyond our current understanding.

We are also to learn the lesson Jesus teaches us here about what is important. Our existence is more important that mere physical comfort. What good is it, after all, if a man should gain the whole world and lose his soul? Jesus tells us in another place, talking about persecution, that we should not be afraid of those who can kill the body; instead, we should fear the One who can kill both body and soul in hell, meaning God. This was true for the paralytic, which is why Jesus told him that, because of the man’s faith in Jesus, that man’s sins were forgiven.

All that is true for us today too. We have the same faith. But that doesn’t mean that it is wrong to ask for healing. God wants us to bring all our prayers and petitions to Him. When we do, we can be confident that, because of Christ, we are heard. And think what an amazing thing that is: we have access to God Almighty, because we have been baptized into Jesus Christ, the God-man, and into His death and resurrection.

So, we pray for healing, understanding that God hears our prayer and will answer it according to His will. But, there will come a time when God won't heal us physically. (Koester, 2022) We will die, unless Jesus returns before we do. God cares for us and hears our prayers. The balm and healing for which we pray is ours and will come to us at the resurrection. The Christian still has life even when his body is decaying in the grave. The Christian's body and soul will be reunited perfectly forever because of Jesus' death and resurrection. This is the true healing that Jesus promises us, and that He has accomplished for us. He gives it to us in His word, and in His word connected to the waters of baptism, and in His body and blood in the Lord's Supper. The gifts of eternal life and forgiveness of sins are ours now, and they will be ours into eternity when we are raised to life on the Last Day. ###

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