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There is an intriguing aspect of this healing that Mark also highlighted. Jesus noticed the faith of the group, then told the patient that his sins were forgiven. There's no indication that the man was unable to think for himself, but the faith of his friends was a key element. His faith was obviously genuine, but apparently maintained to some extent by his friends.
People with such socially-oriented faith may well have been the norm in God's original plan. The way Adam and Eve fell is consistent with that idea: Eve was away from Adam when she was tricked; Adam failed to withstand when Eve was leading him astray. In a sinless world, without deception and where everyone was guided by God, there would be no need for the ability to resist temptation from one's friends, or to discern subtle doctrinal deviation. Maintaining a completely independent faith would be an unnecessary and expensive exercise, which would reduce one's ability to function in society.
In the Western tradition with our emphasis on the individual, we tend to think that a faith supported by one's friends is unsound, awaiting the trial of the loss of their support to show its true colours. However, here Jesus declares someone apparently of this sort to be forgiven. Even in this fallen world our faith is expected to be open to others.
An example of individualistic faith being gently rebuked is the story of Thomas in . Jesus ends by saying to him: “Because you have seen me you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”, i.e. their faith borrows from the faith and experience of others. Jesus Himself wanted companions when He faced His trial in Gethsemane. (Jewish New Testament) “My heart is so filled with sadness that I could die! Remain here and stay awake with me”.
Without being asked, Jesus pronounces the man forgiven. That shows that there are no tests or rituals required for forgiveness, just an attitude of faith. The man clearly had come to be healed, since he was confined to a stretcher, yet Jesus addressed his spiritual need first, his need of connection with God. It also indicates that Jesus was a keen observer of people. He perceived their spiritual condition, and gave that the attention appropriate to it. He was not distracted by the noise and activity of the crowd. He looked for what was really important for the individual He was dealing with.
The thinking of the day was that physical affliction implied a judgment from God. Earlier in his life the Pharisees may well have convinced the man that God was displeased with him. Yet the reputation of Jesus gave him hope. Hearing of someone who was healing so many people, of all classes, including pagans, may well have led him to question the prevailing view of God as primarily exacting in His attitude toward people. He was presumably full of anticipation about how Jesus would react, hoping for a good response, but fearing the possibility that the Pharisees were right, and that God would only bless the conspicuously righteous. Jesus would have seen the anxiety and put the man's fears to rest, connecting with his tentative faith: “Take heart, son! Your sins are forgiven”, you are accepted by God.
The thinking of the scribes (grammateu,j; “Torah-teachers”: Jewish New Testament) on seeing Jesus declare the man forgiven seems reasonable: it would not be acceptable for ordinary people to declare sins forgiven. So it is interesting that Jesus reacted severely to them, accusing them of “evil thoughts” (JNT). Did Jesus expect them to recognize Him as God? Is He giving license to people to say anything to make others feel better?
Their reaction contrasts strongly with the perceptiveness of Jesus. Whereas Jesus was alert to how He could help people, spiritually and physically, the religious experts were alert to how they could identify error. Jesus had noticed the spiritual anxiety that the man communicated. For Jesus, the main concern at the time was to find a way to give the man a sense of peace with God. Since Jesus' words were in the indicative mood, and as such can be understood as a statement of fact, they could be interpreted as the assumption that the man had been forgiven by God independently of the statement, words as innocent as if a fellow believer were to assert comfortingly “God has forgiven your sins”.
There is a textual divergence in the verb “are forgiven” in both v 2 and v 5. The Majority Text prefers avfe,wntai while the UBS critical text has avfi,entai. (Note: The UBS text ignores this divergence in its textual apparatus but includes it in Mark and Luke, where for Luke it favours avfe,wntai).The Majority form is a perfect indicative middle: your sins have [already] been forgiven, the UBS word is present indicative middle: your sins are [now] being forgiven.
Thus the scribes' interpretation is the sternest view of the case. Rather than being keen to see how this anxious man could be helped in his most important relationship, they were looking for possible error in Jesus' words, presumably because His teaching undermined their authority. In other words, they seem prepared to ignore someone's concerns about his eternal life while working out how to defend their own reputations. That seems to be why Jesus saw their response as “evil thoughts”.
The scribes' likely reaction to this question was to think that Jesus didn't care about standards, that He put people - even this paralytic, in their eyes being punished for his sins - before God, in violation of the Torah, so He couldn't possibly be working with God. He must have appeared almost flippant in dealing with holy matters. I expect they felt a sense of outrage coupled with a shot of victory that they had some ammunition against Him: “We would never stoop to making such blasphemous claims to win favour with the common people”.
Jesus was, I think, trying to burst their bubble, to expose to them the inconsistency of their position, the extent to which their thinking was self-centred and out of touch with the message of the Scriptures they were supposed to be experts in. He was hoping for this to serve as a wake-up call to make them more teachable and more distrustful of self, and thus to learn from the true Source of the Scriptures.
The answer could be either way. I'm inclined to the second idea. In the sentence where Jesus addresses the scribes, after the words “He said” Mark adds “to them” with the simple auvtoij, but Luke uses the more emphatic pro.j auvtou,j. Since it's in the middle of Jesus' interaction with the paralytic, it's easy to imagine what He says to the scribes as softly spoken asides, which only the inner circle would be able to hear.
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This story occurs after the healing of the paralytic in all 3 Synoptics, so it's reasonable to assume the 2 events occurred in close succession.
There is an interesting difference in the way he is first mentioned in the different Gospels. Mark says “He saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth”, Luke says “He watched (evqea,sato) a tax-collector by the name of Levi sitting at tax booth”. Matthew, apparently writing autobiographically, says “He saw a man (a;nqrwpon) sitting at the tax-booth, called Matthew”. In Luke, Jesus sees a tax collector, in Matthew Jesus sees a human being.
Because they were working for the Romans against the Jews, tax collectors were obviously regarded as having denied basic human values, and were not treated as moral equals in Jewish society. The nation of Israel had a sense of their special calling by God, and as such loyalty to the nation was equivalent to loyalty to the divine ideals they had been called to represent to the other nations. To support the enemy was to abandon what Israel stood for, what gave them a sense that they had something to contribute to the world.
It seems that Jesus disapproved of tax collecting. It showed a lack of faith in the role of Israel. It had been predicted that Israel would suffer if they didn't follow God's requirements in , but God was always ready to accept their repentance.
In fact, in the sermon on the mount, in Jesus had said “Don't even the tax-collectors [love those who love them]?”. In Luke's version of that passage, in , it is sinners - a`martwloi, - who are compared with the ideal. Tax collectors are paired with sinners or harlots in around half of the verses where they are mentioned. Similarly in , where Jesus says how to regard persistent offenders, tax-collectors are paired with heathen.
Yet in this traitor to the cause Jesus perceived a disciple. On Jesus' invitation Matthew apparently joins Jesus immediately. There was obviously something going on under the surface in Matthew that Jesus observed and that indicated a desire to be involved in a more spiritual activity.
I think Matthew had arrived at this paradoxical situation this way: Since he was able to leave his lucrative job to become a disciple of Jesus, an itinerant preacher, he presumably had above average spiritual sensitivity. There was more to him than met the eye. As he was growing up with this same spiritual awareness, he must have hoped to find in his nation a worthy vehicle for the high ideals of the Bible. However, as he came to see the narrowness and self-interest of the spiritual leaders, he would have experienced a profound disillusionment that soured his mind toward Israel. He perhaps thought that God had chosen the Romans, pagan though they were, to carry the mantle of social progress. Thus, joining the tax collectors was not necessarily entirely treacherous to the ideals of Israel. He was doing what seemed best in the circumstances. He would rather work with the Romans, who were doing something and making a difference, than the Jews, among whom religion had largely ceased to be a practical force for good. But it was always a second best. He must have longed for a more complete approach, and resented the polytheistic ways and rough justice of the Romans.
So when he started to hear about Jesus, his long-suppressed desires for his nation and religion must have revived. Jesus' practical approach to ministry, the miracles He was performing and His demonstration of a commitment to God's way above social position and wealth must have struck a chord in Matthew. When confronted with the reality of an invitiation by the Man Himself it must have become very clear to him that that was what he really wanted. The contrast between the compromises he was making as a tax-collector and the purity of Jesus' way must have made him glad to get out of his work for the Romans.
At this point Luke says ( Jewish New Testament) “L'vi gave a banquet at his house in Yeshua's honor”. In the Greek, “banquet” there is doch.n mega,lhn a large reception (cp KJV “great feast”, NIV “great banquet”). Even though the choice to do something as unpopular as tax-collecting might suggest that Matthew was an independent loner, after being recruited by Jesus he wanted every-one to know and to share his joy. His time as a tax-collector had left him with friends among the outcasts of Israel. The fact that he accepted them all - especially at a large, conspicuous, banquet - shows that his conversion was not motivated by a desire to restore his social status. His rejection of the values of the religious élite of the day continued. His concern for the disadvantaged people seems to be genuine. That so many people apparently came shows further that Matthew had an accepting and sociable nature, and was not bitter and isolated in his rejection of what Israel had become.
Jesus's choice to come with His disciples to such a party and stay after the arrival of the dubious guests contradicts at first glance such admonition as : “If any man obey not our word by this epistle... have no company with him”; and “Don't be fooled. 'Bad company ruins good character'” (Jewish New Testament). Paul advised the Romans to avoid people “who cause divisions and put snares alongside the teaching in which you have been trained” ( JNT). Jesus himself said in Matt 18:17 that if a sinner did not repent at the pleas of the church for him to change his behaviour then he was to treated “as an heathen man and a publican”.
The explanation is suggested by , where Paul reminds the recipients of his epistle “not to company with fornicators”, then explains that his counsel doesn't apply to sinners “of this world”, otherwise they would have to leave the world altogether, but to avoid “any man that is called a brother” who is “a fornicator, or covetous, idolater, railer, drunkard or extortioner”. Likewise, the person Jesus was talking about in was introduced in verse 15 as thy brother.
If someone has taken the name of the Lord, then his conduct represents God. Hypocrisy - espousing the ideal but living without regard to it - is more destructive than the offences themselves, in discouraging people from following God whole heartedly. Paul concludes in verse 13 “Therefore put away from youselves that wicked person”, using an expression that appears several times in Deuteronomy, referring to the execution of sinners by stoning. In New Testament times is has the sense “Don't let the people of God be seen to accept such things in Christ's name”.
So Matthew's guests are perhaps to be regarded as being “of the world”. They are not claiming to follow God's word.
The Pharisees' disapproval of the types of people Jesus was associating with is perhaps an extension of the idea of cutting sinners off from the people. Their attitude even anticipates the counsel above expressed by the New Testament authors (, , etc). It could well seem to be the right thing to do, to refuse to associate with Jews who commit certain sins.
But Jesus sees the spiritual side of the situation, especially the underlying motivations involved. The people who came, like Matthew, were presumably also disappointed with Israel, and had rejected the spritual élite and with them any pretensions of representing God's word. So, associating with such people did not necessarily undermine the value of Israel's ideals. But the Pharisees were more concerned with social standing based on apparent piety and thus not inclined to err on the side of the people and look for ways to help the spiritually offensive.
Jesus explains his attention to the “sinners” with the analogy of the sick needing a doctor. The pharisees must have smugly identified themselves as the “healthy” and the other guests as the “sick”. Their first impression of Jesus as He gave this explanation, was, I expect, similar to the previous story: that He was soft and put people before personal holiness, which in their minds seems to matter most.
As in the last story, Jesus seems to be priming His detractors for something that will challenge them. At first He seems to be accepting their view that the guests are sinners while the Pharisees are more righteous. But then, in place of a spectacular healing, He quotes , which favours mercy (ds,x, “lovingkindness”) over sacrifice and burnt offerings (hl'A[) a symbol of commitment. In other words concern for fellow man rather than the tokens of devotion. The expression in parallel with lovingkindness is the knowledge of God, which expresses an essentially twofold nature of religion: personal holiness and love of others.
Jesus said that the Golden Rule, the command to be considerate to others, “sums up the teaching of the Torah and the Prophets” ( JNT), and He later linked both aspects when asked to identify the greatest commandment in and also in (Love God supremely and fellow man unselfishly). Similarly, says that pure religion is twofold: “to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world”.
In fact, I believe, the practice of holiness is largely aimed at making us better able to relate to and serve others. Commitment to the interests of people we may not have any immediate reason to care about requires mental discipline, constant reminding that there is more to life than what we see, that there really is a bigger picture that God sees and cares about, and we are to become more like Him in character.
In Jesus had said “Unless your righteousness is far greater than that of the Torah-teachers and P'rushim, you will certainly not enter the Kingdom of Heaven” JNT. (Compare .) Thus, Jesus was not actually calling the Pharisees righteous here. Rather, He was talking in terms of their self-perception to gain their attention, so they would hear the message of Hosea 6:6, and learn to more correctly value other people. Religion without concern for everyone else is of no value. Here the religious people have lost that love of people.
In this case Jesus addresses the Pharisees after overhearing a conversation He was not involved in. In the previous story He spoke to them after they apparently just thought ill of Jesus ( JNT: “[They] thought to themselves, ‘How can this fellow say such a thing' ”). He must have considered the problem of the religious leaders important enough to be always alert for opportunities to engage them and confront them with the nature of their error.
I imagine that Jesus spoke His reply softly to the Pharisees, since He would have wanted to avoid offending some of the guests if they overheard Him referring to them as unhealthy and sinners. He also would have wanted to avoid embarassing the Pharisees if He wanted to win their trust.