Forgiveness and healing

A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. 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. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

Now some teachers of the law were sitting there, thinking to themselves, "Why does this fellow talk like that? He's blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?" Immediately Jesus knew in his spirit that this was what they were thinking in their hearts, and he said to them, "Why are you thinking these things? 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. This amazed everyone and they praised God, saying, "We have never seen anything like this!" (Mark 2:1-12)

Imagine the scene: a house crowded by people, eager to hear every word that the new teacher Jesus has to say. Then, a surprising intrusion: four men tear an opening in the mud-thatch ceiling, and lower their sick friend down right in front of Jesus. Jesus is known as a powerful healer—everyone eagerly watches to see if Jesus will heal this man as well. And then Jesus does a most surprising thing: He says, "Son, your sins are forgiven."

If you were in the crowd that day, you might have been confused. Your sins are forgiven? What does THAT have to do with anything? Didn’t the four friends bring this man to be healed?
Then, to stir things up even more, Jesus confronts those in the crowd who did not believe that He had the right to tell anyone "Your sins are forgiven." To prove that He has just performed an invisible miracle, Jesus next performs a visible one—He orders the man to get up and walk, and the paralytic man does so, showing that he is completely healed! But the question might linger in your head—why did Jesus first forgive the man his sins, and only after that restore him to health?

To understand why Jesus acted as He did, we must first understand the nature of sin. When we think of sin, we tend to think of doing or saying something that makes God angry—but that is too simple an answer. God is perfect, and everything that is in heaven with Him is perfect. When God created our world, it was perfect, and when He created Adam and Eve, they were perfect too. Try to imagine being perfect. Never making an error in judgment. Never overestimating or underestimating your capabilities. Never saying a cross word or wasting money on a foolish purchase. Never having an indecent thought as an attractive man or woman walks past you on the street. Never becoming impatient, never cheating or bending the rules even a little bit. Always being respectful of others, always being willing to lend your time or your money. And this is only a small part of being perfect.

Sin is when you stop being perfect. Sin is something that affects your entire life, because God expects you to be perfect from the moment that He created you in the womb. Only one sin is needed to make an entire life imperfect. Since God is perfect, and everything that lives in His presence is perfect, sin removes us from God’s presence. God permits no imperfect thing to live with Him. Imperfect things are separated from God, separated by their sin. Sin is being imperfect, and a sinner is someone whose life is characterized by imperfection and separation from God.

Our world depends on the sun for life. Light makes plants grow; light provides warmth to live in. In winter, our part of the earth is tilted farther away from the sun, and so days and nights are colder; at night, when our part of the earth faces away from the sun, darkness causes plants to shut down. Imagine what would happen if the sun stopped shining. Without its light, plants would not grow; without its heat, the cold would end all life. This is what happens to the soul when sin separates us from God. God is the source of life and the source of love; without the light of His life and the warmth of His love, every human being must gradually wither and die, as would the plants and animals of a sunless earth. Sin brings death, because it separates us from the source of life.

Make no mistake—every bit of suffering in this world is the result of the separation brought about by sin. When Adam and Eve made themselves imperfect, God could have destroyed them on the spot—but instead, He showed them mercy and placed His curse upon the earth instead. Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat of it all the days of your life. It will produce thorns and thistles for you (Genesis 3:17-18). No longer could mankind simply walk through a grove and pick their meal ripe from tree and vine; now food must be worked for, and things like thorns, thistles, drought, storms and insects would make good harvests hard to come by.

But Adam and Eve did not escape being directly hurt by sin; being perfect, God always keeps His promises, and He had promised: you must not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, for when you eat of it you will surely die (Genesis 2:17). And when the first couple ate in disobedience to God, He told them dust you are and to dust you will return (Genesis 3:19). Because they chose imperfection, our first parents brought death to us all, along with everything that leads to death—sickness, birth defects, the loss of health as one ages.

As if all this was not enough, we in our sinful condition continue to heap even more misery upon ourselves and the lives of others--Jesus gives us a partial list in Matthew 15 verses 19 and 20: out of the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, sexual immorality, theft, false testimony, slander. These are what make a man `unclean'. Our own sinful choices increase suffering even more when we refuse to lend to a man whose farm is failing, when we commit adultery and spread venereal disease, when we drive drunk and kill a pedestrian. All suffering in this world is the result of sin; without sin there would never have been any suffering.

Since all suffering is the result of sin cutting us off from God’s life and light, there can only be one way to put an end to suffering: we must become reconnected to God. And since the reason that we are cut off from God is that we are imperfect, our only hope of getting reconnected to Him is by becoming perfect once more. But there lies a seemingly impossible problem: God expects your entire life to be perfect; however, you cannot undo the mistakes of the past. For that matter, you and I are incapable of being perfect for just today, let alone for the rest of our lives. It would seem as if we are doomed to unending suffering.

But Jesus tells us, "What is impossible with men is possible with God" (Luke 18:27). Jesus is God’s love itself come to us to end the separation brought about by sin. We can only live with God if we are sinless, perfect. Jesus came to take our sins upon Himself, leaving us without any imperfection in God’s eyes; Paul tells us, God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Psalm 103:12 says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. Micah 7:19 says, you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. God reassures in Isaiah 43:25 that I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more.

This is all made possible by Jesus’ great sacrifice that He made for us. The perfect Son of God accepted the responsibility for all our imperfections, and suffered all of His heavenly Father’s anger at our sins. Jesus experienced separation from the love of God when He cried out on the cross, My God, my God, why have You forsaken me? (Matthew 27:46) Jesus suffered separation so that Paul could write, I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).

This tremendous gift—the gift of reconciliation with God—makes it just as if we had never sinned, never been imperfect for even a moment. Paul writes, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ (2 Corinthians 5:17-18). Because of Jesus we can live in the light of God’s life and love; He regards us as perfect on account of what Jesus has done for us. All we need do is reject our love of sin and instead embrace the offer of forgiveness that Jesus holds before us. As soon as we live in Jesus, we live in God, and God lives in us because Jesus is the Son of God.

Does this mean that by becoming a Christian, one becomes immune to suffering? No. The earth remains cursed to produce thorns and thistles and living by the sweat of one’s brow. We remain surrounded by people who revel in their sin and in making other peoples’ lives miserable. And we are still subject to physical death and the things that lead to death—sickness, weakness, loss of vitality. But physical dying contains a blessing: it is the only way to be rid of the sin that we inherited from our first parents. Only by dying could Jesus leave sin defeated; only by your death can you join Jesus in life beyond the grave, free from sin and suffering forever. Scripture says, anyone who has died has been freed from sin (Romans 6:7).

Why did Jesus first forgive the paralytic man, and only after that heal him? Because forgiveness and reconciliation with God were the man’s most pressing need. The body only lives for a number of decades; the soul exists forever. Jesus’ first priority is always the human soul. We see this pattern in the Old Testament as well. Psalm 103 says, Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits--who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. In fact, healing is sometimes synonymous with forgiveness, as when David prays, "O LORD, have mercy on me; heal me, for I have sinned against you" (Psalm 41:4). True healing begins by healing the relationship with God that was broken by sin. There is great truth in the old saying, "prayer is the best medicine."

We all hate suffering, but sometimes suffering does us spiritual good. Isaiah wrote, Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back (Isaiah 38:17). Isaiah recognized that in times of suffering, we are more inclined to turn to God for healing of the soul and body than when we are feeling well and are distracted by the pleasures of life. Would the paralytic man and his friends have made such a tremendous effort to get past the crowd to see Jesus if the man had been in perfect health? Perhaps not. And will Jesus free us from all our physical suffering upon demand? Not necessarily. But we can rely on this: when we come before Jesus, confident that He can heal us, we know that He will certainly say to us, "your sins are forgiven." And that is the best gift of healing that anyone could ever receive.