Biblion Bible Commentary
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Your Sins Are Forgiven
Mark 2:1-17
1 When he entered again into Capernaum after some days, it was heard that he was at home. · WEB
A hole in a roof, a word only God may say, and a dinner party of the wrong people — the physician announces whom he came for.
When they could not come near to him for the crowd, they removed the roof where he was Mark 2:4.
Four friends, one paralyzed man, and a demolition. Mark's comment on it is the sentence to keep: Jesus, seeing their faith Mark 2:5 — faith here is visible, and it is corporate. Nothing is said of the paralytic's own believing; he is carried by other people's, which is one of Scripture's quiet consolations for everyone who has ever prayed someone else through a roof.
"Son, your sins are forgiven you."
The man came for legs and is given absolution first — an ordering that offends modern instincts and answered the scribes' theology exactly: who can forgive sins but God alone? Mark 2:7. Their premise is correct; only the conclusion fails. A man may forgive wrongs done to himself; this paralytic has done nothing to Jesus, and forgiveness pronounced over a stranger's whole account is God's prerogative or blasphemy — the two verdicts between which this book allows no third Isaiah 43:25.
"Which is easier...? But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" — he said to the paralytic — "I tell you, arise" Mark 2:9–11.
The logic is public and fair: forgiveness is invisible, walking is not, so the checkable miracle is staged as evidence for the uncheckable one. The man walks out in front of them all Mark 2:12, and the title makes its debut — the Son of Man, Daniel's figure with dominion Daniel 7:13–14, exercising heaven's authority on earth.
He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. He said to him, "Follow me." And he arose and followed him Mark 2:14.
The next call goes to the least callable man in Capernaum. A tax collector was a collaborator grown rich on his neighbors — and unlike the fishermen, Levi cannot go back; abandoned nets wait, an abandoned tax franchise does not. His response is a dinner: many tax collectors and sinners sat down with Jesus Mark 2:15 — the new disciple's first act of witness is a guest list.
"Those who are healthy have no need for a physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" Mark 2:17.
The scribes' question — why is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners? Mark 2:16 — receives the book's mission statement. Table fellowship in that world meant acceptance, which is precisely why he was there and precisely their scandal. The physician sentence cuts both ways: it defends the company he keeps, and it quietly diagnoses the questioners — the only people beyond this doctor's reach are those convinced they are well Luke 18:11–14.
settled What this mark means