Christ, the History: Fool, Liar, or Lord?

What options has he left us? What options did he intend to?

This is part three in a series of reaction posts to Tom Holland and Dom Sandbrook’s recent podcast on the historical Jesus. Read part one here, which is free, and read the subscriber-exclusive part two here, in which I promised I was going to send part three yesterday. Yes, I know. I lied. Sorry. Please enjoy this anyway if you’ve subscribed, and if you haven’t done so yet, well, why not? Ridiculous year-end discount still applies. You know what to do. Merry Christmas.

Competition for the best healing miracle in the gospels is stiff. But I’ve had a favorite for some time. It’s the healing of the paralytic, preserved in all three of the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke). Though cursed with illness, this man is blessed with good stubborn friends who stop at nothing to rush their pal to the front of the healing line. After they have dramatically lowered him down through the roof, Jesus does something extraordinary. He does not immediately heal the man. Instead, he looks at the man and says, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”

As Jesus’ words so often did, these words create confusion, and in some quarters, outrage. The scribes and Pharisees burn with righteous indignation. Who is this man, that he would claim the power which by rights is God’s alone? Not to heal, for prophets have healed in God’s name before, but that other, greater power: the power to forgive sin.

Before they have even voiced this indignation out loud, Jesus reads their thoughts, and instantly he puts a question to them: Which is easier? To say to the crippled man “Thy sins be forgiven,” or to say to him, “Arise, take up thy bed and walk”?

The first is easier to say, surely. After all, if the man’s sins weren’t forgiven, who would know?

But which is easier? The question hangs in the air—disarming, presumptuous, unsettling.

And then, the master stroke. “But that you may know the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins…” Then he turns away from the crowd, speaking to the man again: “Arise.”