Let us read Mark 2:3-4:
And they came, bringing to Him a paralytic, carried by four men. Being unable to get to Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof above Him; and when they had dug an opening, they let down the pallet on which the paralytic was lying.
That was unexpected! Here we have four men and a paralytic. Seeing that they could not enter the room, these four men did something unusual that could only be driven by great faith in God. They went to the roof and made a hole there by removing a good number of tiles. Somehow, they managed to lower the paralytic’s pallet right to where Yeshua was. Picture the scene. They must have made a lot of noise from that rooftop while Jesus was teaching. But what might have been the reaction from the crowds watching all of this? They surely got more than they expected. As the bed reached the floor, and seeing the faith of these 5 individuals, Yeshua comes out with an explosive statement.
Son, your sins are forgiven. v.5
Because of the earlier miraculous healing of the leper, the priesthood in Jerusalem had sent their men to investigate Jesus’ claims. Right away, He tells them who He is – the Messiah of Israel who is the divine incarnation; the Son; the child whose name, as Isaiah 9:6 foretold, is El Gibbor, the Mighty God. Here is that individual, the Son who is named Everlasting Father, from whom forgiveness for sins is clearly offered.
In the New Testament and also in the Hebrew Scriptures we see divine attributes which are possessed by both God and the Messiah, both these personalities united by a single nature and purpose. This is something quite difficult to explain since it must be grasped by faith. In terms of forgiving, see what God says of Himself: “I, even I, am the one who wipes out your transgressions for My own sake, And I will not remember your sins. Isaiah 43:25
Just before, in 43:11 He said, “I, even I, am the LORD, And there is no savior besides Me. Yet here, Yeshua the Savior declared the sins of this child to be forgiven! This is the wonder of the person of the Messiah of Israel.
The Paralytic Revealed
The whole scene becomes even more touching when one realizes that the paralytic may very well have been a child, a son. The Greek word for “child”, used here in this passage is teknon. Out of the 99 times this Greek word is used, 92 times it is translated into English as child, and when it is translated as son, it refers to a son in relationship to his father, and never as a general expression of affection. Only here we see the translation of teknon, as son or child having the idea of one who is not related as a blood son, but a general expression of mankind. If the paralytic was a child, perhaps one of these four men was the father of that child. So here is a father bringing his son to the Son of God for healing. It is like many other scenarios we have seen in Scripture. We remember the widow who cried to Yeshua for her son who had died and who Yeshua then resurrected. There was the son of the royal official who Jesus healed from a distance. We think of Jairus and his daughter, who was just 12 years of age. It is a beautiful and touching picture of family commitment and ties.
The Omniscience of Yeshua
See what happens next. Yeshua affirms and further confirms His divinity. After He declared this child’s sins to be forgiven, He then turns to the scribes and says to them:
“Why are you reasoning about these things in your hearts? v.8b Let us remember that in v.6 we were told that they were not conversing, but they were reasoning these things in their hearts. Just then, Yeshua turns to them and says, “Why are you thinking this way?” That is another confirmation of His deity because God alone can forgive sins, and God alone can read people’s thoughts. They must have been familiar with the passage from Amos 4:13a: For behold, He who forms mountains and creates the wind and declares to man what are His thoughts,
And here He was among them, reading their unspoken thoughts. Perhaps it was at this moment when they slowly began to realize the true power within this Man. They came to investigate Him but instead, had their own thoughts exposed. Who is the Son of Man?
Yeshua then went on to issue yet another very explosive statement to confirm His divine nature. Look at vv.10-11: “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” [He says to the paralytic] “I say to you, get up, pick up your pallet and go home.” With this statement, the healing is performed. The young man got up, took his bed, and began to walk home. That must have been such a scene of great joy. But what makes this statement so explosive is the title that Jesus attributed to Himself: The Son of Man.
The most frequently used title in the four Gospels for Jesus is not the Son of God, but the Son of Man. Son of God is found 27 times. Son of Man is found 84 times, so it is one we ought to investigate. What is behind the title and how does it point to the divinity of the Messiah? Let us go to the origin of the title, which is an important one in the Gospels. It is found in the powerful prophecy of Daniel 7:13 when the prophet witnessed the moments preceding the Second Coming. “I kept looking in the night visions, And behold, with the clouds of heaven One like a Son of Man was coming, And He came up to the Ancient of Days And was presented before Him. That was a very well-known Messianic passage. The Talmud (San. 98a), the Targum (Aramaic translation) of Psalm 80, many midrashim (commentaries), and the Zohar (1:45b) affirm that this individual who is like a Son of Man is the Messiah. Note that Daniel sees One Like a Son of Man. This is not a title, but a description. The title came later and takes its origin from the description of an individual in heaven who is like a man but is not a man. So who could it be? The next verse tells us that this one who looks like a man could not be an angel but is God Himself. There we read: “And to Him was given dominion, Glory and a kingdom, That all the peoples, nations and men of every language Might serve Him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion Which will not pass away; And His kingdom is one Which will not be destroyed. Daniel 7:14
This is the Messiah who will rule the world at His second coming. Notice the word serve. It is found nine times in Aramaic in the Book of Daniel, and it is always used in relation to serving and worshipping God. It is a prophecy in which the nations will serve the Son of Man and to Him will be given dominion, glory, and an everlasting kingship.
So, this individual who is in heaven and who looks like a man was understood to be the divine Messiah.