Mark 2:1-12 – Pleasing God with Faith

All the miracles of Jesus narrated by Mark serve to indicate the authority that Jesus has. But this account of the healing of the paralytic in Mark 2:1-12 takes us even further concerning His authority, i.e. He has the authority to forgive sins. From Mark 2:1-3:6, we will see five controversies that Jesus had with the religious leaders. This account will show us the first of the five controversies. Here we see the authority of Jesus to forgive sins being challenged.

Again a large crowd gathered to listen to the Lord’s teaching when he returned to Capernaum. Mark tells us that four men carried a paralyzed friend to the meeting but could not get through the crowd to Jesus. All four of them, including the paralyzed friend, believed that the Lord has the ability to heal. Otherwise they would not had gone through all the trouble to try to get the paralytic to Jesus.

Unable to reach Jesus because of the great crowd, the four friends took the paralytic up to the roof, created an opening and lowered him in a pallet down to where Jesus was standing. And to everyone’s amazement, instead of healing him first, Jesus declared the sins of the paralyzed man forgiven. The scribes present could see that Jesus was claiming to have a unique relationship with God. They then accused Him of blasphemy because He did something that only God could do. Jesus did it this way because He wanted to use the healing to verify that He could forgive sin because He is God. He knew that in healing the paralytic, His claim to be able to forgive sin would then be taken seriously. 

From the scribes’ objection to Jesus’ pronouncement of forgiveness of sin on that paralytic, we could see that they had correctly deduced that only God could forgive sin. But they however, stubbornly refused to accept the conclusion that Jesus is God. Then in verse 10, Jesus explicitly told them the purpose in healing the paralytic was to show them that He, the Son of Man, had the authority on earth to forgive sins.

In Mark’s Gospel we also see the importance of faith as an appropriate response to the authority of Jesus. So besides showing us the extent of Jesus’ authority, this miracle also shows that faith is an important element in the program of discipleship. The four friends’ resourcefulness of ensuring that the paralytic landed before the feet of Jesus demonstrated their great faith in the Lord.

We all talk about IQ – intelligence quotient, EQ – emotion quotient, AQ – adversity quotient. What about our FQ – faith quotient? Our faith level in the Lord and His Word will determine our willingness to act and live as we ought to. Let’s remember Hebrews 11:6. It says, “And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is the rewarder of those who seek Him.”