Sins Forgiven, Health Restored

I would like to begin our message this morning with a true story about a woman’s healing. A pastor named John Wimber says, “A woman in her late forties asked me to pray for her healing. She suffered from chronic stomach disorders and arthritis . . . I asked her if she was feeling hostility, anger, or bitterness toward someone; and . . . then she told me about how her sister, years ago, had married a man she loved, then later divorced him. ‘I cannot forgive my sister for that,’ she admitted. ‘If you don’t forgive her,’ I told her, ‘your [body] will waste away’ . . . When she heard my words, she relented. ‘What should I do?’ she asked. I told her to write her sister a letter forgiving her and asking to renew their relationship.”(1)

“She wrote the letter immediately, but she did not mail it for several weeks. During that time, she became more ill, until she thought she was going to die. Then she remembered the letter. Somehow, she summoned the strength to drive to the post office and mail it. The very moment she dropped the letter into the box, she experienced relief, and she was completely healed by the time she reached home.”(2) In our message today, as we look at how Jesus healed a paralytic, we are going to learn about the connection between sin and illness, and forgiveness and healing. So, let us stand at this time in honor of God’s Word, as we read Matthew 9:1-8:

1 So He got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city. 2 Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you.” 3 And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, “This Man blasphemes!” 4 But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, “Why do you think evil in your hearts? 5 For which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Arise and walk?’ 6 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins” – then He said to the paralytic, “Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house.” 7 And he arose and departed to his house. 8 Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.

The Connection Between Sin and Sickness (vv. 1-2)

Jesus had just crossed the sea of Galilee to test His disciples’ faith and to heal two demon-possessed men; and here, we find Him – no doubt accompanied by His disciples – recrossing the sea. Perhaps He left “the country of the Gergesenes” (Matthew 8:28), as the people had “begged Him to depart from their region” (Matthew 8:34). Whatever the reason, we see Jesus perform numerous miracles in chapter nine; not to mention, extend a call to Matthew, the tax collector. When Jesus crossed over, He “came to His own city” (v. 1), which is identified in Mark’s account as Capernaum (Mark 2:1). We learn from Luke, that Jesus “had been brought up” (or reared) in Nazareth (Luke 4:16); however, He was driven out by the religious officials, and Capernaum became His new base of operations (Luke 4:28-31) – it became “His own city.”

When we come to verse 2, we see something puzzling; something that troubled the scribes (v. 3). When the people brought a paralytic to Jesus, rather than saying, “Be healed,” He instead said, “Your sins are forgiven you.” Commentator David Garland says, “Most of us would be put off by any doctor who made this announcement to us when we came in for some medical treatment. We are accustomed to view disease as something caused by a virus, bacterium, or other pathogen and best remedied by medicine, not the forgiveness of sins.”(3) For example, when having prayer with someone in the hospital, it can be difficult to pray for divine healing, knowing that there are probably some skeptical people just outside the room listening. But can you imagine a nurse or doctor overhearing you tell someone they need to repent of their sins to be healed?

Garland continues to say that we are “uncomfortable with the worldview of the Bible that presupposes a direct connection between sin and sickness”(4) – but keep in mind that this was the worldview of the time. “In [ancient] Palestine it was a universal belief that all sickness was the result of sin, and that no sickness could ever be cured until sin was forgiven . . . Rabbi Chija Ben Abba [from the second century A.D.] said, ‘No sick person is cured from sickness, until all his sins are forgiven him.’ This unbreakable connection between suffering and sin was [also] part of the orthodox Jewish belief [during] the time of Jesus. For that reason, there is no doubt at all that this man could never have been cured until . . . his sins had been forgiven.”(5)