So That You May Know My Authority

While Jesus is teaching and several Pharisees and teachers of the law are present, a group of men bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus, lowering him down through the roof. When Jesus sees the faith of these friends, he heals this man of his greatest infirmity - his sin! The teachers of the law are indignant, thinking to themselves that no one but God alone has this authority. And Jesus, continuing to demonstrate his authority over even their thoughts, perceives what is in their hearts and replies to them. In order to demonstrate that he is God, he also heals the man of his paralysis - driving home the point that he does indeed have the power to forgive sins!

From the beginning of his gospel, Luke has been making Jesus' divine Sonship unmistakably clear. And this theme continues to develop here. The Son of God in fact is God and has all the authority and power of God - even over sin. Throughout chapters 4 and 5, Jesus has been healing and freeing men and women from all the effects of the curse - sickness and disease and death and enmity with the serpent and his unclean spirits. And now Jesus demonstrates that he doesn't only have authority over the effects of the fall but actually over the very source and cause of the fall to begin with - man's sin.

The clash of the Kingdoms is coming to a head. We're now getting to the root. This is what the Son has come for - to deal with the problem of the sin of man. This is the good news of the Kingdom of God. But the kingdom of the world (and the devil) stand in opposition.