Authority, Forgiveness and Offense

Matthew 9:6-8

“But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—he then said to the paralytic—“Rise, pick up your bed and go home.” And he rose and went home. When the crowds saw it, they were afraid, and they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.

Tom Wright, Matthew for Everyone (Vol. 1)

“Authority” has had a bad press, in much of the world, for a hundred years and more now. . . . What “authority” really means in all these cases, of course, is “people who have the power to do what they want.” This usually means “people who have an army to back them.” Authority means power, which means force, which means violence. No wonder we’re suspicious of the very word “authority” itself.

Yet here it is again in the gospel story: Jesus has authority. You can’t miss it. Authority in his teaching. Authority over diseases at a distance. Authority over the storm, over the demons. Now, authority to do what normally only God does: to put away sin, to change a person’s life from the inside out, to free them from whatever was gripping them so tightly that they couldn’t move. . . . He uses the authority which God has invested in him, authority to forgive sins and so to bring new life (96-97).

“Get up!” he says, and the man got up, “arose.” When sin is dealt with, resurrection (at whatever level) can’t be far behind (98).

A. Orendorff

Here is an authority unlike any we have seen before. An authority that displays its power not simply by aiding the powerless and oppressed, but by ultimately becoming powerless and oppressed itself. Here is an authority used not to punish sin and exact justice but to forgive sin and yet honor justice. Here is an unruly authority that refuses, at great peril to itself, to stay in line and play by the rules of polite, civilized, religious society. Yet what a wondrous authority it is—“Your sins are forgiven.” What a staggering, humbling, life-giving authority—“Arise and go home.” Here is Jesus—Daniel’s towering “Son of Man”—at his most offensive—“only God can forgive sins”—and yet simultaneously at his most gracious—“they glorified God, who had given such authority to men.”