So at the end of the first year and a half, near his second passover, that event occurred which is recorded in the fifth chapter of Luke; it is also recorded in the second chapter of Mark; but Luke's record has a point or two in it that Mark's has not.
It was the time when he was in the house teaching. A great multitude had gathered about the house, and some men came bearing a man sick of the palsy. They could not get through the door for the press of the people, so they went up on the housetop, and took up the tiling and let the man down at Je- sus' feet, and Jesus said, "Your sins be forgiven you." Now the record is this:
"And it came to pass on a certain day, as he was teaching, that there were Pharisees and doctors of the law sitting by, which were come out of every town of Galilee, and Judea, and Jerusalem: and the power of the Lord was present to heal them." (Luke 5:17)
As Jesus said to the man sick of the palsy, "Your sins be forgiven you," these Pharisees and doctors of the law began to reason and murmur in their hearts,
"Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
And instead of following the logic of their own proposition,- that nobody could forgive sins but God alone, and here was one who was forgiving sins, and therefore he was God with them,-they took the other course, and said,
"This man is forgiving sins, and therefore he is a blasphemer."
But we read:
"That you may know that the Son of man has power upon earth to forgive sins (he said unto the sick of the palsy). I say unto you, Arise, and take up your couch, and go into your house. And immediately he rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house, glorifying God." (Luke 5:24-25)
They had heard his word, "Your sins be forgiven you," but as they could not see the power of his word in this, he said also to the man, "Arise, take up your couch and go into your house."
Then they saw that there was divine, even creative power in the word which he spoke. It followed from this that there was power to forgive sins in the word of forgiveness which he had spoken.
And as they themselves had said, "None can forgive sins but God," it followed from the evidences which he gave them, that upon their own proposition he was God. Yet their selfish hearts would not yield, and although Jesus had given them the proof upon their own proposition, that he was God with them, and God there present, they did not accept it, but went on with their reasonings about his being a blasphemer.
It is seen from this passage, how extended the attention was at this time among these classes,-the Pharisees, and the scribes, and the doctors of the law,-and the reasons of what followed. This verse shows plainly that Christ had by this time attracted the interested and selfish attention of this class of men all over the land, from Jerusalem as well as elsewhere.
And in nothing had the selfishness of the Pharisees and doctors of the law taken a more perverse turn than in the matter of the Sabbath and its true meaning and purpose. So far as the Lord's meaning and purpose in his Sabbath in concerned, they had utterly lost sight of it themselves, and by their traditions and exactions had completely hidden it from the minds and hearts of the people. This was the crowning re sult of their perverse-minded course.
And as Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath, and to bring to mind what he is to mankind being the true intent of the Sabbath,- in other words, he himself as he lived among them being the manifestation of the true intent of the Sabbath,-it is evident that in nothing could his course arouse more bitter antago nism from these men than in his words and actions with rela tion to the Sabbath.