Today's reading offers us two accounts linked by a single theme: religion and Revelation. The first describes Jesus healing a man whom...
Today's reading offers us two accounts linked by a single theme: religion and Revelation. The first describes Jesus healing a man whom Luke calls a “paralytic” (vv. 17-26). Jesus heals him by saying, “Thy sins are forgiven thee,” thereby displeasing the Pharisees present, who are absolutely certain that only God can forgive sins. In their view Jesus' words were therefore tantamount to blasphemy: by saying what He did, He placed Himself in God's position in their eyes (v. 21). In response Jesus reminded them of a generally accepted belief of the time: the Messiah, the “Son of Man,” has authority from God to forgive sins, for the messianic Kingdom comes into the world with the Messiah and the day of Judgment arrives. He immediately proved by His action that His words were not mere theory and that He truly had authority from God to forgive sins. The man He healed really did rise and walk, and Jesus had connected this healing precisely with the forgiveness of sins (vv. 22-25).
It is no wonder that everything that happened made such a strong impression on those around Him. They understood that before them stood no ordinary teacher, of whom there were many at the time, nor even a prophet, but perhaps the Messiah Himself, although He did not speak directly of His messiahship (v. 26). But such a Messiah did not fit the Pharisees' theological theories. They saw in Him only a man who did not heal by revealing the fullness of the Kingdom but cured the sick as others cured them, sometimes likewise resorting to the power of prayer or possessing a special gift of healing from God. A cure, even a supernatural or miraculous one, did not go beyond the boundaries of religion; those boundaries had no room for the Kingdom.
We see the same thing in the account of the events that took place in Levi's house (vv. 27-39). For a religious person, fellowship with a sinner is not merely unpleasant but dangerous: sin defiles, while religion presupposes the mandatory observance of the norms and rules of ritual purity. But Jesus had no intention of creating a new religion. He brought the Kingdom into the world in order to give everyone a chance at a new life in that Kingdom. So He asks an entirely natural question: who needs a physician, the healthy or the sick (vv. 31-32)?
The question is rhetorical, but within the framework of religion it has no solution. Even a religious person can essentially do nothing to help a sinner beyond calling him to repentance and conversion. Religion has no power to heal or renew a person by changing his sinful nature. The most it can give him is the possibility of temporary cleansing from the consequences of a particular sin, and even that is not always possible. A religious person really has nothing to do among sinners; he cannot help them in any way. But Jesus is not the founder of a new religion. He is the Messiah who brought the Kingdom into the world. He can heal and cleanse. And in His disciples He sees servants of the Kingdom who can help everyone who wants to enter it.
5
5:1 Our earthly house - Which is only a tabernacle, or tent, not designed for a lasting habitation.
5:2 Desiring to be clothed upon - This body, which is now covered with flesh and blood, with the glorious house which is from heaven. Instead of flesh and blood, which cannot enter heaven, the rising body will be clothed or covered with what is analogous thereto, but incorruptible and immortal.Macarius speaks largely of this.
5:3 If being clothed - That is, with the image of God, while we are in the body. We shall not be found naked - Of the wedding garment.
5:4 We groan being burdened - The apostle speaks with exact propriety. A burden naturally expresses groans.And we are here burdened with numberless afflictions, infirmities, temptations. Not that we would be unclothed - Not that we desire to remain without a body. Faith does not understand that philosophical contempt of what the wise Creator has given. But clothed upon - With the glorious, immortal, incorruptible, spiritual body. That what is mortal - This present mortal body. May be swallowed up of life - Coveredwith that which lives for ever.
5:5 Now he that hath wrought us to this very thing - This longing for immortality. Is God - For none but God, none less than the Almighty, could have wrought this in us.
5:6 Therefore we behave undauntedly - But most of all when we have death in view; knowing that our greatest happiness lies beyond the grave.
5:7 For we cannot clearly see him in this life, wherein we walk by faith only: an evidence, indeed, that necessarily implies a kind of "seeing him who is invisible;" yet as far beneath what we shall have in eternity, as it is above that of bare, unassisted reason.
5:8 Present with the Lord - This demonstrates that the happiness of the saints is not deferred till the resurrection.
5:9 Therefore we are ambitious - The only ambition which has place in a Christian. Whether present - In the body.Or absent - From it.
5:10 For we all - Apostles as well as other men, whether now present in the body, or absent from it. Must appear - Openly, without covering, where all hidden things will be revealed; probably the sins, even of the faithful, which were forgiven long before. For many of their good works, as their repentance, their revenge against sin, cannot other wise appear. But this will be done at their own desire, without grief, and without shame. According to what he hath done in the body, whether good or evil - In the body he did either good or evil; in the body he is recompensed accordingly.