Chapter 17. By Forgiving Sins Committed against God, Christ Proved Himself to Be God’s Son.
Chapter 17
1. The Creator is the one who in respect to love is the Father, in respect to power the Lord, and in respect to wisdom our Maker and Fashioner. It was his commandment that we transgressed and became his enemies. For this reason, in the last times the Lord restored us to friendship through his incarnation, having been made Mediator between God and man. On our behalf he appeased the Father against whom we had sinned; and he came to the aid of disobedience by his obedience, granting us the gift of living with our Maker and of being subject to him. That is why he taught us to say in prayer, and forgive us our transgressions; certainly, because this is our Father, whose debtors we were because we had transgressed his commandment. But who is this? Is it some unknowable Father who never gives a commandment to anyone? Or is it the God who is preached by the Prophets and whose debtors we were because we transgressed his commandment? The commandment was given to man by the Word. For Adam, Scripture says, heard the Voice of the Lord God. Correctly, then, does his Word say to man, Your sins are forgiven. It is the same one against whom we had sinned in the beginning who grants us remission of sins in the end. Now, if we transgressed the commandment of someone else than the one who said, Your sins are forgiven, such a one is not good or truthful or just. Really, how is he good if he does not give of his own things? Or how is he just if he steals what does not belong to him? And how are the sins truly forgiven unless the very one against whom we have sinned grants remission through the heart of our God’s mercy, by which he visited us through his Son?
2. In keeping with this, when the paralytic had been cured, it [Scripture] says, When they saw it they glorified God, who had given such authority to men. Now which God did the people who were standing around glorify? Was it the unknown Father who was thought up by the heretics? Then, how did they glorify him who was totally unknown by them? So it is manifest that the Israelites glorified him who was preached as God by the Law and the Prophets, who is also the Father of Our Lord. That is why he taught men by their senses through the signs he worked, to give glory to God. But if he had come from one Father, and the men who saw his power glorified another Father, he would have made them ungrateful toward that Father who had sent the cure. But since it is from the Father who is God that the Only-begotten Son came for the salvation of men, he invited unbelievers, by the signs he worked, to give glory to God. On the other hand, he said to the Pharisees who did receive the coming of his Son, and so did not believe in the remission of sins through him, That you may know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins. And when he had said this, he ordered the paralytic to take up his bed on which he had been lying and go to his house. By this action he confounded the unbelievers and pointed out that he is the voice of God, through which man on earth received the commandments that he transgressed and by which he became a sinner; for paralysis was a consequence of sin.
3. By remitting sins, then, he cured the man and clearly manifested who he himself is. In fact, no one can forgive sins except God alone. And if the Lord used to forgive them and heal men, it is evident that he was the Word of God who became the Son of Man and had received authority from the Father to forgive sins, since he was both man and God. Thus as Man he suffered with us, and as God he had mercy on us and forgave us our debts, which we owed God our Creator. That is why David foretold, Blessed are they whose transgressions are forgiven, and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord imputes no iniquity. Thus he manifested in advance the forgiveness [that would be given] through his coming, by which he cancelled the bond of our debt and nailed it to the cross, so that, just as through a tree we had become debtors to God, so through a tree we might receive forgiveness of our debt.
4. This fact has been strikingly manifested by many other examples, especially by the Prophet Elisha. When his companion Prophets were cutting down trees for making a tent, the iron shook off the axe and fell into the Jordan and could not be retrieved by them. When Elisha learned about the accident, he came to the place and threw a piece of wood into the water. When he had done this, the iron of the axe floated to the top, and they who had lost it picked it up from the surface of the water. By this action the Prophet showed that God’s firm Word, which we had lost through the tree because of neglect, and which we could not find, we would receive again through the economy of the tree. Now, since God’s Word is like an axe, John the Baptist says of it, The axe is already laid to the root of the trees. Jeremiah expressed himself in the same manner, The word of the Lord cleaves the rock like a two-edged sword. So, as we have said, the tree of the economy manifested this word which was hidden from us. Since we lost it through a tree, it was again made manifest to all by a tree, which shows in itself the height, the length, the breadth, and—as one of the presbyters said—by stretching out the arms it gathered the two peoples to the one God. There were two arms, because the two peoples had been scattered to the ends of the earth; but one head in the center, because there is one God who is above all, and through all, and in us all.