Four friends brought another friend to Jesus for healing. Instead of just healing his physical condition, Jesus also healed his spiritual condition. This daily devotional looks at faith and God’s forgiveness.
Nuggets
- Jesus has the power to heal us, but it takes faith.
- Illness entered the world as the result of sin, making sin the underlying cause for illness.
Devotions in the Faith and Forgiveness series
One of the most well-known of Jesus’ miracles is the four friends bringing another to Jesus for healing. Luke’s diagnosis – as was Jesus’ – was that there was something more important that needed healing.
Let’s dig into it to see what we can see. This is going to take two devotions. We’ll keep the connections and application until the next devotion.
Accessing the Jesus’ Power
“On one of those days while he was teaching, Pharisees and teachers of the law were sitting there who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea, and also from Jerusalem. And the Lord’s power to heal was in him. Just then some men came, carrying on a stretcher a man who was paralyzed. They tried to bring him in and set him down before him. Since they could not find a way to bring him in because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and lowered him on the stretcher through the roof tiles into the middle of the crowd before Jesus” (Lk. 5: 17-19 CSB)
Jesus has the power to heal us, but it takes faith.
It was an ordinary day for Jesus. He had been gaining in popularity, if not for His teaching for His healing. “But now even more the report about him went abroad, and great crowds gathered to hear him and to be healed of their infirmities” (Lk. 5: 15 CSB). The Pharisees and teachers also came from all over.
It seems like it was a common occurrence for the Pharisees and teachers to be in the audience. I wonder if Jesus ever got tired of the scrutiny. It had to be wearing to be under the spotlight so they could dissect everything He said and did.
We like to think Jesus was out there preaching every day. We know He was later in Luke. “Each day Jesus was teaching at the temple …” (Lk. 21: 37 NIV). Did He ever get burned out? He would have to if He was going to feel everything we feel.
Jesus’ Power to Heal
Spurgeon explained Jesus’ power to heal. In the gospels when Jesus’ power is displayed, it is usually in the act of healing. Yes, He calmed the sea, but most of the time it was healing sickness and driving out demons.
I have to think about the reasoning Spurgeon gave as to why Jesus could heal. I always knew it was because Jesus was Divine. However, Spurgeon contended that “although our Lord Jesus healed as Divine, remember that He also possessed power to heal because of His being human. He used no other remedy in healing our sin-sickness but that of taking our sicknesses and infirmities upon Himself.”
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I don’t know if I buy that. What I hear Spurgeon saying was, because He was human, Jesus could heal others of their illnesses. But He didn’t give them aspirin, stitch up their cuts, and operate on them in the field.
Generally, Jesus healed people with His touch and words (Mt. 9: 27-30; Mk. 10: 46-52). Sometimes, He used props (Mk. 8: 22-26; Lk. 9: 1-6). That takes more than human abilities. It takes Divine.
I have the biggest issue thinking that “He used no other remedy in healing our sin-sickness but that of taking our sicknesses and infirmities upon Himself.”
Yes, Jesus took our sins upon Himself. But it wasn’t just because He was human.
Don’t get me wrong. If Jesus hadn’t been part human, His taking our sins upon Himself wouldn’t have the same effect on us. He had to be one of us to make the healing applicable to us.
That is the only way Jesus’ humanness heals our sin-sickness. Most importantly, we can be healed because He is Divine and did not sin. If He would have been 100% human only, He would not have been eligible to be the Sacrifice because He would only have sinful nature in Him and would have sinned. God would not accept a blemished sacrifice.
It really intrigued me when Luke wrote, “… And the Lord’s power to heal was in him” (Lk. 5: 17 CSB).
What? Did that mean Jesus could only heal on certain days?
Spurgeon gave us his take on that, too. He wrote, “The verse before us says that on a certain day the power of the Lord was present to heal, by which I understand, not that Christ is not always God, not that He was ever unable to heal, but this — that there were certain periods when He pleased to put forth His Divine energy in the way of healing to an unusual degree.” I read that to mean that He was healing for a higher reason than just curing ails.
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If I were to hazard a guess as to why Jesus had the power this day, I would say it was more that He was going to get to make the connection between forgiveness and healing.
Okay, it may have been as Spurgeon mentioned. Jesus had just been on a retreat. “Yet he often withdrew to deserted places and prayed” (Lk. 5: 16 CSB).
But Jesus was in daily contact with His Father. He was Divine. I don’t think He needed to be prayed up to get His power. Davies wrote Jesus had infinite power.
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Faith of the Friends
It wasn’t just the means of getting the paralytic to Jesus that He gained His approval. Jesus rewarded their faith. Faith is the conviction that the doctrines revealed in God’s Word are true, even if we do not understand all aspects of them, a belief which impacts our lives.
Jesus may have had the power this day because the paralytic and the four friends had faith. They didn’t show up just for the man to be healed. They showed up for the Messiah to heal him. They knew without a shadow of a doubt that Jesus could and would heal him.
Verse 18 says the friends tried to bring him in the normal way — through the front door. But Jesus always drew a crowd, and there are only so many people that can fit into a building.
I wonder if the friends planned it out before they got there. “Now, there is going to be a crowd. What if we can’t get in the front door? How are we going to get him to the Master’s feet? Hey, we should be able to access the roof. It will be really easy to take up some of the tiles and lower him down. So, we need to take some rope with us.”
Or were they really quick thinking on their feet? However much preparation they had, they had persistence. They didn’t give up until they got their friend where he needed to be — at the feet of Jesus.
What if they had given up even before they got to where Jesus was? “Oh, the crowd will be too big. We won’t even get near Jesus, so we had better stay home.” What if they would have gotten there, then turned around?
Nothing the friends did saved the paralytic. But everything they did got him to the point where he could be saved. Pentecost wrote, “It is only men of faith who can truly do good to others.”
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Bruce extended that to say healing came because of the intercessory prayer of the friends. God wants us to pray for ourselves, but He also wants us to pray for others.
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We have to do all within our power to get people to the point where they can be saved — and leave the rest to Jesus.
Jesus’ Business Is to Forgive Sins
“Seeing their faith he said, ‘Friend, your sins are forgiven.’ Then the scribes and the Pharisees began to think to themselves, ‘Who is this man who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?’” (Lk. 5: 20-21 CSB)
Illness entered the world as the result of sin, making sin the underlying cause for illness.
Forgiveness is Based on Faith
Jesus’ focus is always on saving us from our sins. Healing the man from paralysis was secondary.
That is why Jesus started out with “… Friend, your sins are forgiven” (Lk. 5: 20 CSB). Sins are actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings. Forgiveness is, when we ask, God pardons us because we have broken His laws and commandments and restores our relationship with Him.
Luke didn’t record any words passed between the five men and Jesus. Jesus was gauging their faith on what was in their hearts.
Bacon called it an unspoken prayer. It is probably a safe bet to say the man and his friends had prayed for healing in the past.
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No, Jesus didn’t make the paralytic say the words, “Will You please heal me?” They had put feet to their prayers.
To read a related devotion, click the button below.
Bacon made another interesting observation. Have you caught that many of healings Jesus performed were for the blind and the paraplegic? Those showcase the helplessness and the need of the person — that which only Jesus can meet.
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That spiritual healing was not expected was of no consequence to Jesus. God will look at the overall picture — our overall plan — and answer our prayers accordingly. He will answer them in the best way for us.
Reactions
I wonder how everyone responded to Jesus’ statement. We know the Pharisees and the teachers took issue with it. They didn’t see Jesus as the Messiah. They definitely didn’t see Him as God’s Son.
The Pharisees thought Jesus had committed blasphemy because they believed only God could forgive sins. They were correct isn’t thinking that no mere human can forgive sins.
They were incorrect because Jesus was no mere human. He was Divine. He is One with God, so He can forgive sins.
What did the friends think at first? They had carried him all that way and gone to extraordinary levels to get him at Jesus’ feet.
And Jesus didn’t immediately heal him??? What was He thinking?
I wonder what that paralytic himself thought. There had to be some expectation that built while they were bringing him to Jesus. And then nothing.
I wonder how the crowd responded. Smyth pointed out that, at this point, it would have looked to the crowd, too, as a failure. We judge success by what we see. Jesus doesn’t.
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In reality, there are many times when God responds differently than we ask. He hijacks our prayers to answer them in the way we most need, rather than the way we think we want.
Foote made an interesting observation. Were they there for the preaching or the healing? We may be in the sanctuary and listening to the preaching, but are we getting what we really need to be getting?
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It could mean that we are focusing on the wrong thing. That means we need to submit our focus to God. We limit what He can do in our lives by the choices we make.
Father God. We come to You in faith. We ask Your forgiveness of our sins. Our spiritual condition is much more important than our physical condition. Help us to always put that and You as our priority. Amen.
What do you think?
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