Only God Can Forgive Sins
by D. G. Miles McKee
“Who can forgive sins, but God alone?”
-Luke 5:21 [KJV]
One
of the remarkable things about Jesus is that He was always going around
forgiving sins. However, to forgive sins is exclusively the divine
prerogative and Jesus, if He is not God, has no business meddling in
such affairs. If he’s not God, he’s a fraud! C.S. Lewis says of Christ’s
forgiving sins,
“This
is so preposterous as to be comic. We can all understand how a man
forgives offences against himself. You tread on my toe and I forgive
you---but what should we make of a man, himself un-trodden on, who
announces that he forgave you for treading on other men’s toes? Asinine
fatuity is the kindest description we should give this conduct.”
-C.S. Lewis: Mere Christianity
Indeed, Jesus was asinine (silly and stupid)
if He was, in fact, not God. What is more, that is what you are calling
Him if you do not believe He is God? You say He has forgiven your
sins, but that He is not the Mighty God. He is, you say, a god or the
Son of God, but not the Almighty, eternal Yahweh made flesh. How then
have your sins been forgiven? Only God can forgive sins (Luke 5:21)!
Men cannot forgive sins against God nor can the angels. Even holy men of
God have no power to dispense forgiveness of sin against the offended Majesty on High!
If
Christ Jesus was merely a good man or a prophet, He could not have
forgiven sin. But He was more than a man; He was the Redeemer, the
God/Man. And as bishop Moule said, “A Savior not quite God is a bridge
broken at the farther end.”
There
should be no surprise, therefore, to discover that Jesus can and does
forgive sins. He would be a very inept redeemer if He could not forgive
those whom He has purchased with His blood (Acts 20:28).
When
we discover Jesus in Luke ch. 5, the religious leaders were exceedingly
upset at Him. Christ has just declared forgiveness of sins to a
paralyzed man. Of course, the Pharisees were furious for they rightly
reasoned among themselves that only God could forgive sins. We must
thank them for their accurate analysis of the situation. Being trained
in the Old Testament scriptures, they would perhaps have thought of
Yahweh’s great promise,
“I, even I, am He that blotteth out thy transgressions for Mine own sake, and will not remember thy sins” (Isaiah 43:25).
They
quite rightly recognized that Jesus, by forgiving sins, was claiming to
be Yahweh. For the Pharisees, Jesus was involved in more than a serious
error. He was guilty of nothing short of blasphemy. One definition of
blasphemy is to assume for oneself the attributes of God, and this is
exactly what Jesus did. It’s no wonder then that the Pharisees were
enraged. They recognized what so many today fail to admit or grasp, and
that is that Jesus claimed to be God. Jesus, knowing their thoughts,
then could have said, and I paraphrase, “OK fellas, I know that it’s no
big deal to say the words ‘your sins are forgiven.’ The question is,
have I the power to forgive this man all his sins? Is what I’ve said no
more than words? After all, anyone can say ‘your sins are
forgiven!’ But, as you know, only God can forgive sins. Now then, just
so that you understand that I actually have the power to forgive sins,
I’m going to heal this man. After all, if I tell him his sins are
forgiven this may just be words. So, watch this one: just so that you’ll
know that I genuinely am God, I’m going to tell this poor paralyzed man
to arise and walk.” And that is exactly what Christ did. And the man,
what did he do? Why, he got up and walked thus demonstrating that Jesus
Christ was God in human flesh.
And that´s the Gospel Truth! ‘Til He Comes...
Comments