In another sense, also, there was a higher need be' for the word which brought forgiveness, before that which gave healing. Although it is not for a moment to be supposed, that, in what Jesus did, He had primary intention in regard to the Scribes, yet here also, as in all Divine acts, the undesigned adaptation and the undesigned sequences are as fitting as what we call the designed. For, with God there is neither past nor future; neither immediate nor mediate; but all is one, the eternally and God-pervaded Present. Let us recall, that Jesus was in the presence of those in whom the Scribes would feign have wrought disbelief, not of His power to cure disease - which was patent to all - but in His Person and authority; that, perhaps, such doubts had already been excited. And here it deserves special notice, that, by first speaking forgiveness, Christ not only presented the deeper moral aspect of His miracles, as against their ascription to magic or Satanic agency, but also established that very claim, as regarded His Person and authority, which it was sought to invalidate. In this forgiveness of sins He presented His Person and authority as Divine, and He proved it such by the miracle of healing which immediately followed. Had the two been inverted, there would have been evidence, indeed, of His power, but not of His Divine Personality, nor of His having authority to forgive sins; and this, not the doing of miracles, was the object of His Teaching and Mission, of which the miracles were only secondary evidence.
Thus the inward reasoning of the Scribes, [2388] which was open and known to Him Who readeth all thoughts, [2389] issued in quite the opposite of what they could have expected. Most unwarranted, indeed, was the feeling of contempt which we trace in their unspoken words, whether we read them: Why doth this one thus speak blasphemies?' or, according to a more correct transcript of them: Why doth this one speak thus? He blasphemeth!' Yet from their point of view they were right, for God alone can forgive sins; nor has that power ever been given or delegated to man. But was He a mere man, like even the most honoured of God's servants? Man, indeed; but the Son of Man' [2390] in the emphatic and well-understood sense of being the Representative Man, who was to bring a new life to humanity; the Second Adam, the Lord from Heaven. It seemed easy to say: Thy sins have been forgiven.' But to Him, Who had authority' to do so on earth, it was neither more easy nor more difficult than to say: Rise, take up thy bed, and walk.' Yet this latter, assuredly, proved the former, and gave it in the sight of all men unquestioned reality. And so it was the thoughts of these Scribes, which, as applied to Christ, were evil' - since they imputed to Him blasphemy - that gave occasion for offering real evidence of what they would have impugned and denied. In no other manner could the object alike of miracles and of this special miracle have been so attained as by the evil thoughts' of these Scribes, when, miraculously brought to light, they spoke out the inmost possible doubt, and pointed to the highest of all questions concerning the Christ. And so it was once more the wrath of man which praised Him!
And the remainder of wrath did he restrain.' As the healed man slowly rose, and, still silent, rolled up his pallet, a way was made for him between this multitude which followed him with wondering eyes. Then, as first mingled wonderment and fear fell on Israel on Mount Carmel, when the fire had leaped from heaven, devoured the sacrifice, licked up the water in the trench, and even consumed the stones of the altar, and then all fell prostrate, and the shout rose to heaven: Jehovah, He is the Elohim!' so now, in view of this manifestation of the Divine Presence among them. The amazement of fear fell on them in this Presence, and they glorified God, and they said: We have never seen it on this wise!' __________________________________________________________________