The Authority Of The Son Of Man
THE AUTHORITY OF THE SON OF MAN
MATTHEW 9:1-8
Imagine you’re in the scene of this reading. Where are you? One of the paralytic’s friends? One of the teachers of the law? In the crowd? The paralytic himself?
Matthew’s account of Jesus’ healing of the paralytic of Capernaum (here called “his own city,” ie the city which he now made his headquarters; cf. Mark 2:1) is greatly compressed in comparison with those of the two other Synoptists (nothing is said here of the man’s being let down through the roof), but the essential lessons are retained. This is not only a miracle story but a “pronouncement story,” one which is told for the sake of the dictum to which it leads up—in this case: “the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (9:6). It is as easy to say “Your sins are forgiven” as to say “Rise and walk”; but the spectators could immediately see the effectiveness of the latter command, whereas the validity of the former utterance belonged to the inward and spiritual realm.
The scribes were justified in thinking that Jesus was exercising a prerogative of God; but some of God’s prerogatives can be delegated if he pleases. So in Daniel 7:13f. his prerogatives of dominion and judgment are delegated to “one like a son of man” (cf. John 5:22-27), and it is as this Son of Man that Jesus now speaks. Yet, as the sovereign interpreter of the will of God, he claims for the Son of Man the authority not to judge sins but to forgive sins (cf. John 3:17; 12:47b). He to whom God has delegated the judgment of the world can exercise that authority by pronouncing acquittal as well as by sentence of condemnation, and such is the good pleasure of the Son of Man. Not only so, but Matthew envisages this authority as shared in some sense with others, unless we are to treat the plural “men” at the end of 9:8 as purely a generalizing plural.
Here we have biblical precedent for the familiar assurance that God “hath given power, and commandment, to his Ministers, to declare and pronounce to his people, being penitent, the Absolution and Remission of their sins”; it is theirs to proclaim the forgiveness which the Son of Man has procured.