So That You May Know

Introduction:

One thing that interests me very much is the business of faith, knowledge, uncertainty and a whole package of things related to those. That is why Mark chapter 2 is one of those "great moments" in the Bible. How did Jesus approach those who didn’t believe, who doubted? Did He tell them to wait for God to cause them to believe? Did He tell them that faith was a mysterious something that you can never know anything about? Let’s find out.

The Setting

Jesus has come to the town of Capernaum. It was Jesus’ HQ when He was in the northern part of the territory where He did His teaching. He is probably at the house of Peter and Andrew. Jesus couldn’t be very long in a place before people started to gather to hear what He had to say, and this was not exception.

So this family-sized house is full of people, so full that no one else can get inside. To this scene come four men carrying a fifth man. The fifth man is paralyzed and he and his friends seem to be hoping Jesus will heal this man.

To understand what happens next, you need to know how houses were usually put together in that time and place. They usually had a flat roof. An outside stairway led to the roof. The roof itself was usually made of wooden beams with thatch and compacted earth in order to shed the rain. Sometimes tiles were laid between the beams and the thatch and earth placed over them.

What Happened

From the description of these houses, you can see why the Bible says of these four men, "Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on." (Mark 2:4)

At this point, Jesus does something that no one expected. He tells the paralyzed man, "My child, your sins are forgiven." This is odd for a couple of reasons:

From every indication here, these men brought their paralyzed friend to Jesus because he couldn’t walk, NOT because they were thinking about anyone’s sins. It was almost like going to the doctor and having him ignore your pain or illness and instead say, "Be happy!"

It’s also very strange for Jesus to tell someone, "Your sins are forgiven." Perhaps if you have done something wrong to me, I might forgive you for doing that. But how could I ever forgive you for all the wrong things you have done? Who could do something like that? And that’s exactly what some other people wondered.

The Big Debate

Some people were present who are called "teachers of the law." They are sometimes called "scribes" which might make you think that they just wrote things down. Because they did write things down, and not everyone could do this, they became experts in the Old Testament and the whole theology of the Pharisees, with whom they were associated.

These people began to think to themselves - and that is an important point here - "This fellow Jesus has gone too far, because only God can forgive sins." They have at least part of a good point. They have this idea in mind - it’s their premise or their assumption - that God is the only one who can forgive sins. They have also assumed that Jesus is a man, not God, and that He should not claim to forgive sins.

Another point to notice is this - someone’s sins being forgiven is not something we, at least, can see. Anyone could say, "Your sins are forgiven." That doesn’t mean that they really are, of course. Jesus is aware of this, because we are told that He knew what they were thinking. That is an interesting point in itself, but we will continue.

Jesus’ Response

What Jesus does in response to this is astounding because it goes against the grain of almost everything we - including many Christians - think about matters like faith. Here’s what the Gospel of Mark says about this:

Which is easier: to say to the paralytic, "Your sins are forgiven," or to say, "Get up, take your mat and walk"? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins . . . ." He said to the paralytic, "I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home." He got up, took his mat and walked out in full view of them all. (Mark 2:9-11)

In one sense it is much easier to say, "Your sins are forgiven" because, as we said before, there is nothing to see there. Nothing is demonstrated by that. Jesus did not leave things at that. He performed the demonstration. And when He was finished, it says "This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!"" (Mark 2:12)

What It All Means

There is a myth in the modern world about religion, especially Christianity. It goes something like this: anything dealing with religion is "just a matter of faith" which means that it is somehow at least a little unreasonable, and certainly never possible to prove.

As one seminary textbook states is, "Faith is different from reason. Faith implies that there is an element that is not totally certain. . . If faith were totally reasonable, it would no longer be faith."

Several years ago (1997) a young lady was writing in The Northerner about that suicide cult connected to the Hale-Bop comet. She was trying to say that even though what they believed was weird, you can’t really come to any solid conclusions about beliefs. She said

For part of March and April of every year, I honor a God who I believe came to Earth in the form of a man and rose from the dead. Stated like that, some people might say that belief was a little, well, weird. However, most Christians will tell you it’s simply a matter of faith.

Everything Jesus said and did at Capernaum that day goes against the idea that faith is blind or unreasonable.

Notice that Jesus does not tell the doubters in the crowd to "just believe." He says, rather, "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins."

Notice also how Jesus used a train of reasoning to help the doubters present reach this conclusion. The teachers of the law were correct in thinking that only God can forgive sins, so Jesus begins there. To prove that He can forgive sins, He needs to prove that He is God. He does that by performing the healing of the paralyzed man. With that, according to Jesus, you can know that He has the authority to forgive sins, and from that you know He is God.

There is no need to doubt, uncertainty, or a redefinition of "faith" to mean something that is unreasonable. You can know.

It’s not just here that this kind of thing is said in the Bible.

The legend that faith means "believing what you know ain’t so" is false, at least according to Jesus and the Christian faith.