Biblion Bible Commentary
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Down Through the Tiles
Luke 5:17-26
17 On one of those days, he was teaching; and there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by who had come out of every village of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem. The power of the Lord was with him to heal them. · WEB
Four men take a roof apart, and the first thing their friend receives is not what they came for.
there were Pharisees and teachers of the law sitting by who had come out of every village of Galilee, Judea, and Jerusalem Luke 5:17.
This account alone notes how far they had come and how organized it was. The teaching has attracted formal attention, and men have traveled from the capital to sit in a Galilean house and listen. The opposition in this book begins as an inspection.
The scene is told in the earliest account Mark 2:1–17. They sought to bring him in to lay before Jesus. Not finding a way to bring him in because of the multitude, they went up to the housetop and let him down through the tiles Luke 5:18–19.
Four men carrying a paralyzed friend arrive at a house so packed they cannot get to the door, and they go up the outside stair, open the roof and lower him in. It is destructive, expensive and completely undeterred. Somebody's roof is coming down in the middle of a lecture attended by teachers from Jerusalem.
Seeing their faith, he said to him, "Man, your sins are forgiven you" Luke 5:20.
Two things in that verse. The faith he sees is theirs — the friends' — and the paralyzed man's own is not mentioned. And what he says is not what anyone in the room came for. A man is lowered through a ceiling to be healed and is told his sins are forgiven, and the account does not explain the substitution.
"Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins, but God alone?" Luke 5:21. The objection is correct. That is the striking thing about it: every step of their reasoning is sound. Sin is an offense against God, so only God can release it, so a man who does is claiming something no man may claim. They have understood him better than most of the crowd.
"Which is easier to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you;' or to say, 'Arise and walk'?" Luke 5:23.
The question is sharper than it looks. Saying the first is easier, because nothing visible follows it and no one can check. The second is verifiable in five seconds. So he does the checkable thing to certify the unverifiable one.
"But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" — and the sentence breaks off mid-address to turn to the man on the mat Luke 5:24. The demonstration is offered as evidence, deliberately, to the people who had objected.
Immediately he rose up before them, and took up that which he was laying on, and departed to his house, glorifying God Luke 5:25. He carries out the bed he was carried in on.
Amazement took hold on all... and they were filled with fear, saying, "We have seen strange things today" Luke 5:26. The last word is honest. Nobody in that room has a category for what just happened.
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