Preached at Welsh Hampton, 19th Sunday after Trinity, September 28, 1856.
“That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power upon earth to forgive sins: then saith He to the sick of the palsy, Arise, take up thy bed, and go to thine house.”—St. Matthew ix. 6.
You know to whom these words were spoken, and who spoke them. In the town of Capernaum there was a man whose limbs were palsied. He could not go himself to see if there was any one who could cure him. He was fixed to his bed. But his friends heard that Jesus, who had been absent, had returned to this town, and that He had healed many people who were sick of different diseases. They thought He would do something for this poor man, who belonged to His own neighbourhood. Four of them brought him on his bed. St. Luke says that there was such a crowd about the house that they could not come through the door, and therefore they let him down by the roof. They must have had great trust in the power of Jesus to do that. They must have had great trust that He was willing to use His power for the good of a suffering man.
At first it appeared as if they had not gained their end. Jesus saw the bed. He took notice of the man who was stretched upon it. He spoke to him in a kindly affectionate voice. He called him “Son.” But He said nothing about the palsy. He must have seen that the man could not move; that he was in pain; that he had no use of his limbs. Instead of setting this right, He said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.”
The friends who had brought him must have been surprised. That was not at all what they had looked for. There were some present—learned men who had come from the city of Jerusalem—who were not only surprised but shocked. This, they said, is a strange power, indeed, for a man to take to himself! Sins are offences against God. He only can forgive them and put them away. For any one who has a mortal body, who speaks with a human voice, to do that is blasphemy.
Well, this was the judgment of the bystanders. But what do you think the poor man felt about it himself? I suppose he wanted to recover his strength, and to be able to do as he had been used to do, as much as his friends. Do you think, then, he was disappointed, as most likely they were? No; he found that this person who spoke to him knew thoroughly what was the matter with him; that He saw into the very heart of him. There was something in him which he could not tell any one of; which he could not explain to any doctor. There was a palsy upon him, upon his own very self, which was harder to bear than the palsy upon his limbs. He could not have described it, I am sure; he had felt it, but perhaps he had never thought about it till then. But Jesus had discovered it. He understood the man better than he understood himself. And when He said to him, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” the man became a free man. A secret chain which had been binding him was taken off from him; he could look up into the face of Jesus and be certain that He was the Deliverer.
But he lay on his bed still, apparently he was as helpless as before. But when the learned men from Jerusalem began to murmur that Jesus had taken God’s power to Himself, Jesus spoke again. He said, “That ye may know that the Son of Man hath power on earth to forgive sins, I say unto thee, Arise, take up thy bed and walk.” And the man found that the Deliverer had not done a half work. He had had power over him altogether. The palsy was gone from his limbs as well as from his heart. He could do what he was bidden. He rose up in the presence of them all. And the people marvelled that God had given such power to a man.
And that is the point I want to speak to you of. We have gone through the story. Now let us consider the reason that Jesus gives us for what He did. I will take each part of it separately, for it is the way to understand His words.
1st. You see He says that He healed the man “That you may know.” It was not done only for his sake, though it was done for his sake. It was done for those who were sitting around, for those who were believing in Him, and for those who were disbelieving. All of them wanted to know whether the Son of Man had this power or no; whether He was a blasphemer, as the Scribes said, or whether he was speaking truth and acting truth. It was even for our sakes who are reading it here in this church to-day. You and I now just as much want to know whether the Son of Man has this power, as this palsied man did, or his friends, or the Scribes, or the people generally. If He had it not then He has it not now. If He had it then, He has it now. If they wanted that He should use it for them, we want that He should use it for us. So let us give heed.
He speaks of Himself, you see, as the Son of Man. What does that mean? Jesus was actually standing in that room in Capernaum in a body such as the people about Him had; He spoke with such a voice as theirs. He looked in all respects like them. He was verily and indeed a man. And He showed that He was by knowing what was in man. He felt for this particular man. He understood what was going on in him. He knew the sin that was in him.
You will say, ‘But was not He a man in some other way than we are men?’ If you mean were there not some things which belong to man that He had not, were there not some things in men which He did not enter into? I answer, no; absolutely, no. He has everything which belongs to a man. He enters into everything which there is in every man. And that is the reason He is called the Son of Man. He is The Man; the Head Man, the King of Men. But if you go on to say, ‘What! was there, indeed, sin in Him, then?’ I answer, no, verily; for He would not have been able to understand every man, He would not be truly and perfectly a man if there had been. Sin is what separates us from each other. Sin is what prevents us from understanding each other. Sin is what every man hugs in himself, and which keeps him away from other people. The Son of Man had no sin, and therefore He felt for all, and cared for all. The Son of Man has no sin, therefore he feels for all and cares for all. But, as you see by the story I have read to you, the Son of Man can feel for men that have sin in them, all the more because He is without it; He knows what a burden it is, as we that have so much of it do not know. He cares to set men free from it, as we do not care.
Now, brethren, the great and blessed thing of all is to know and believe assuredly that He is such a Son of Man as this.
That was the message which Jesus brought to the poor people of Galilee and Judea, to the fishermen and the Publicans. He made them feel and understand that there was a King of Men, a Lord of Men, who cared for them, for every one of them; who loved them, every one of them; who would deliver them, every one of them, from that which was separating him from his neighbour, and making him at war with himself. The Scribes and learned men did not believe this. They could not make it out. They had a notion of a God, a Being very far off from man, who punished their offences against Him, and sometimes, perhaps, might be persuaded to forgive them. But they did not know what was meant by a Son of Man. They did not think there was such a person. What was the consequence? They knew nothing of God, though they talked of Him and pretended to fear Him; they merely dreamed of Him; they made a God out of their own dark fancies and wicked thoughts. Jesus, the Son of Man, came to show us who the true God is. He came, as He said from God to do the works of God. He said that God was not a tyrant, but a Father; and that in Him they might see the Father. And it is in Him, brethren, that you and I must see the Father, and only in Him. If we try to think of God without thinking of the Son of Man, we shall get all astray, and suppose Him to be another Being altogether from what He is. But if we think what this Jesus, the Son of Man and the Son of God was, if we think that He is now what He was always, then we shall begin to know what God is; then we shall begin to know something of His goodness, and truth, and love; then we shall desire to be like Him, and we shall believe that He would have us be like Him. So take in well this thought of Jesus the Son of Man, and feed upon it, then you will understand what follows.
2. The Son of Man has power even to forgive sins. What power that must be! Think how it worked with this poor palsied man. He had been out, I dare say, in great storms. He had seen the lightning and heard the thunder. Was not there power there? Yes, but it had never come nigh to him. He had never felt that the thunder or the lightning were his lords, or that they could make him another man. But this Son of Man said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee,” and these words went down into the very heart of him. He was sure These do come from my Lord and Master. He has found me. He is speaking to me now. And remember, dear brethren, that is the power we need for ourselves. It is a power that can speak to us; that can get the mastery over our own selves. No other will do for us. And remember there is such a power near you and near me at every moment; it is the power of this Son of Man. It is the power of Him who is the true Lord of each one of us. The Son of Man did not exercise power over the palsied man by looking at him or touching him; He spoke to the heart within him. And every time that there comes any twinge in our consciences, every time that any one of us wakes up and says, ‘I have been doing wrong,’ His voice has been speaking to us; and every time that any of us has said, ‘I will try to be a better and truer man,’ His power has been used over us.
3. He goes on, “The Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins.” The Scribes thought that perhaps God would forgive men’s sins after they left the earth, if they tried to please Him and make up with Him here. Many of us thus think. But our Lord speaks a different language; He does not speak of what is to be done hereafter, but of what is to be done here. It is on earth that our sins plague us and torment us, and plague and torment our neighbours; it is on earth we want to get quit of them. And, therefore, Christ’s first word to this palsied man was “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee now.” And that is a sign and pledge of what He had power to do, and will to do, for those who were on earth then, and for those who are on earth now.
4. But, then, mind what this word Forgive means.
Does it mean less than the Scribes thought it meant? Less than men commonly think it means? No, verily, but a great deal more. The Scribes thought that if a man had committed a great many sins, God would perhaps pass them by, and not punish them, if certain sacrifices and offerings were made to Him. People now often say, ‘Well, I am a little given to drinking; I am a little more covetous than I ought to be; I am not quite just and fair in all my dealings, but I do hope God will forgive me.’ Yes! He is ready to do that. The Son of Man came from His Father to tell us so. But He is not so hard and cruel a King and Friend as to forgive a man for being a drunkard, and to leave him a drunkard; to forgive a man for being covetous, and to leave him covetous. Why, is not a sot the most miserable wretch and slave? Is not his drink his lord and master? Does it not make him into the vilest thing? Is not the covetous man sold to his money? Does it not hold him in prison and put him to tortures every day? Do you think the Son of Man would leave us in such accursed bondage as that? No, to forgive means to send away. Sometimes we talk, you know, of remission of sins; that is just the same, is used in the same sense.
The Son of Man has power on earth, power over our spirits to remit or send away the sins which have made us captive. That is what He did for the man sick of the palsy. That is why we call Him a Redeemer.
5. Once more; He has power on earth to forgive sins. What sins? I can give but one answer,—mine and yours. You do not know what evil habits I am most prone to, I do not know what you are most prone to. But whatever they are, the Son of Man has power on earth to break these habits in pieces—to send these sins away.
And, therefore, when it comes into the heart of any one of us to say,—‘Well, I daresay I am bad, but I do not lie as that man, or cheat as that man does,’ let us answer the devil who puts us upon that thought in this way:—‘this evil of mine is my enemy, my tyrant; so I will ask the Son of Man, who is near me at all times and all places, to set me free from that; then I will go and say to my neighbour, “Thou, too, hast a great Friend and Deliverer, who is able to send away thy sins from thee.” For He is the Son of Man, the common Lord and Saviour of us all; and He is also with each one of us, and can say to each one of us as He said to the sick of the palsy, “Son, thy sins be sent away from thee.”’
Perhaps you think, ‘But it came all at once to him, and for me to get rid of my bad habits is very slow work indeed.’ No, brethren, it did not come all at once to him in the way you fancy. The discovery that he had a Friend who cared for him, who wished to do him good, in whom he might trust, that did come to him with a wonderful joy, that was the greatest deliverance he had ever known, that took the palsy from his heart. But all the time he lived afterwards he will have had a battle to fight with his sins; much more of a battle than he had ever fought before, and oftentimes I dare say he lost the recollection of his Friend—it seemed as if the Son of Man were gone. Then his old sins would become his masters again; he would feel that they were always at hand to overawe him. Nevertheless, the thing was true and certain; the Son of Man had been with him before he knew Him, and was with him when he forgot Him. And so it is with us. We are members of Christ’s body. He is with every one of us. To believe that He is; to believe that we have Him as our Helper and Deliverer; to believe that He is stronger than all the enemies that are mightiest within us, this is infinite comfort and joy; this assures us that the sin which seems so near us is really divided from us; that it is not our master; that we shall be able to trample it under foot. But, with us as with the palsied man, it must be a daily, hourly fight, to remember that Christ, the Son of Man, is our Master, and that the world, and the flesh, and the devil, are not our masters.
You will say, perhaps, ‘But we have no tokens such as our Lord gave when He was on earth, that He forgives our sins.’ Yes, brethren, we have all these tokens and very many besides. We have all these tokens; for when you read to-day how Christ healed the sick of the palsy eighteen hundred years ago, you may say boldly, ‘That is a token to me of what He was, and is, and is to be always.’ If that showed that He had power to send away sins from the Galileans, it shows the same just as much for the people of Shropshire. But you have other tokens. Every one that gets rid of any disease in your parish is raised out of it by the Son of Man. Every such recovery is a token that He has the power to put away sins as well as to put away diseases. And remember the sins which each of us commits affect our parish and our whole nation. We speak of national sins because sins destroy the nation. Now does not Christ give us tokens that He has power to put them away? I have asked you to come and meet me here to-morrow to give thanks for the harvest. Do not you think that is such a token? Does it not say to us, ‘The Son of Man who makes the seed to grow, and bring forth, and bud, can make all good seed spring up and grow, and bring forth fruit in our hearts,—can destroy the weeds that choke and stifle them.’ Again, I have asked you to come next Sunday to receive the bread and the wine which Christ blesses and feeds us with. Is not that a token that the Son of Man is with us; each of us and all of us? What is that but the feast of Forgiveness; the feast when we come confessing our sins against each other and against God, asking Him that we may forgive each other as He in Christ forgives us? Does not the Son of Man say to each of us there, ‘These are the signs that I have power on earth to forgive sins. Go, therefore, in the strength of my body and blood which I have given for you, to serve with pure and humble hearts your Father and your brethren.’