the blessing of forgiveness, "Arise/* He says, "and take up thy couch, and go unto thine house/' First He assures him that his soul is healed. Then He tells him that his body is cured, and sends him away rejoicing.
Let us never forget this part of our Lord's character. Christ's loving kindness to His people never changes, and never fails. It is a deep well, of which no one ever found the bottom. It began from all eternity, before they were bom. It chose, called, and quickened them when they were dead in trespasses and sins. It drew them to God and chan- ged their character, and put a new will in their minds, and a new song in their mouths. It has borne with them in all their waywardness and shortcomings. It will never allow them to be separated from God. It will flow ever forward, like a mighty river, through the endless ages of eternity. Christ's love and mercy must be a sinner's plea when he first, begins his journey. Christ's love and mercy will be his only plea when he crosses the dark river and enters home. Let us seek to know this love by inward experi- ence, and prize it more. Let it constrain us more continually to live, not to ourselves, but to Him who died for us and rose again.
Let us mark, lastly, our Lord Jeam Christ's perfect knowledge of the thoughts of men. We read that when the Scribes and Pharisees began to reason secretly among them- selves, and privately charge our Lord with blasphemy. He knew what they were about and put them to an open shame. It is written, that "He perceived their thoughts."
It should be a daily and habitual reflection with us that we can keep nothing secret from Christ. To TTiwi apply the words of St. Paul, " all things are naked and
LUKS» CHAP. V. VBB, 17ri-26. 145
Opened to the eyes of him with whom we hare to do." (Heb. iv. 13.) To Him belong the solemn expressions of the 139th Psalm, — ^the Psalm which every Christian should often study. There is not a word in our mouths, nor an imagination in our hearts, but Jesus knows it altogether. (Psabn cxxxix. 4.)
How many searchings of heart this mighty truth ought to awaken within us ! Christ ever sees us I Christ always knows us! Christ daily reads and observes our acts, words, and thoughts ! — ^The recollection of this should alarm the wicked and drive them from their sins. Their wickedness is not hid, and will one day be fearfully exposed, except they repent! — ^It should frighten hypocrites out of their hypocrisy. They may deceive man, but they are not deceiving Christ ! — It should quicken and comfort all sincere believers. They should remember that a loving Master is looking at them, and should do all as in His sight. Above all, they should feel that, however mocked and slandered by the world, they are fairly and justly measured by their Saviour's eye. They can say, " Thou Lord who knowest all things, knowest that I love Thee." (John xxi. 17.)
N0TB8. LuxB V. 17—26,
17. — [To heai them.] We must not suppose that this means *' to heal the Pharisees." Mr. Burgon remarks : "To heal whom ? The Pharisees and doctors of the law ? Clearly not The truth is, the whole scene rose up before the Evangelist, while he wrote, so that he used the word ' them,' with reference to the many sick
, persons who had been brought to our Saviour on this occasion, and were waiting for |m opportunity of being healed."
19. — [Let him down through the tiUng.] In order to understand this we mnist remember the construction of houses in the countries where our Lord preached. It was, and is now, a common practice to oonstruot them with a flat roof, and a small square or oourt-
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146 EXFosrroRT thodohis.
yard in the midst of the huilding. Aooess was ohtained to the roof by a stair-case outside, so that a person might ascend to the roof without entering the house. Around the sides of the court- yard a shelter was provided, extending from the walls of the house towards the middle. Sometimes this shelter was made of canvass or cloth, sometimes of light tiling. The use of this shel- ter was to enable people to sit in the open air of the court-yard/ and at the same time to be protected against the rain or sun.
In the case before us, our Lord appears to have been preaching and teaching in the courtryard of the house, under cover of the tiling projecting from one of the sides. The friends of the para- lytic man being unable to make their way into the court-yard, because of the crowd, carried him up the stair-case outside the building, and so reached the flat roof of the house. They then removed that portion of the tiling which was above the place where our Lora was preaching, and let down their friend in his bed by ropes into the coiut-yard below.
Unless we entirely dismiss from our minds all conceptions of a house drawn from the construction of houses in England, the whole history of the circumstances of the miracle must be unin- telligible. Bearing in mind what Eastern houses both were and are, it becomes clear and plain.
26. — [They were all amazed.] The word so rendered might be more literally translated, "Amazement took them all." The word used for amazement is the same that is translated in three places as "a trance." (Acts x. 10. xi. 5. and xxii. 17.) Suicer quotes Epiphanius to show that it is the word used concerning ** the highest sort of admiration or wonder."
[Strange thinga.] The word so translated is only used in this place in the New Testament. It is literally " paradoxes," things contrary to all common opinion and ordinary experience.