Law & Grace - Matthew 9:1-17 Forgiving sins
Matthew 9:1-17 · Vern Peterman · Oct 23, 2011
Law & Grace, No. 41
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://www.hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/4926251143463

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

As we've been proceeding through Matthew, one of the things that you may have observed is chapters 8 and 9 are both about Jesus' miracles. And why would that be? The miracles are validating Jesus' message of the Gospel of the Kingdom and His claim to be the King. You have on your handout there several different references. We've noted these previously.

We've added to it Jeremiah 30.17. These are passages in the Old Testament that say that the Messiah would be one who would perform miracles and carry out healings. Why? As a vindication and indication that He is in fact the Messiah.

Not wanting to read all of them, but here's a sample, Isaiah 35, 5 and 6. It says, then the eyes of the blind will be opened, and the ears of the deaf will be unstopped. Then the lame will leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute will shout for joy. It's an indication of the kind of passages that you'll find throughout Isaiah, and as we give reference here, Jeremiah as well.

These miracles will validate that Jesus was, in fact, the long promised King of Israel, promised for centuries. the Messiah, the one who would reign over Israel, the one that they were hoping for daily. He would be the prophesied descendant of David, prophesied a thousand years before, descendant of Judah, the Lion of Judah, as Revelation calls him. He'd be the one whose kingdom will never end, a kingdom of righteousness, a kingdom of God, a kingdom of heaven. He would indeed be the Lion of Judah.

So, in verse 1, as Brad read for us here, Matthew 9.1, Jesus went by boat back to his own city, Capernaum. Remember earlier we made the point that Jesus, though he had been born in Bethlehem, brought up in Nazareth, and up to his moving to Capernaum, had spent his time in Nazareth, he was now making Capernaum his ministry headquarters.

This was also an area from which he had selected many of his disciples, and we'll see that here shortly. So here is an aerial shot of Capernaum. In kind of the middle of that area is where the city of Capernaum was located. Off to the east of that was where the Roman garrison was located.

And so as we go into verses two through eight, Jesus begins to perform a miracle, but the scribes think Jesus is blaspheming for forgiving sins. What is blasphemy? This blaspheming is speaking in ways that are claiming to be God or are against God. In this case, they are thinking that he's falsely claiming to be God. And that's the way they spell it out here.

We'll soon see that this point of tension between Jesus and the scribes comes from the law of Moses itself. You're violating the law they're accusing Jesus of. While Jesus did not get any opposition from the scribes and Pharisees in chapter 8 when he did the miracles that we saw previously, we'll find that this is the first of three instances in this passage First of three instances of opposition. He's going to get opposition and sometimes we might even be surprised where the opposition comes from. Two of the issues we'll find in this passage are not from miracles. But are there questions that come up?

Those are these. The first one in verses 9 through 13, Jesus calls Matthew, the tax collector, to be one of his disciples. The Pharisees question his disciples about eating with the tax collectors and sinners. Heavens, they're not even IRS agents, right?

Okay. And then verses 14 through 17, disciples of John the Baptist then come to Jesus and ask why it is that they and the disciples fast, but they don't see Jesus' disciples fasting according to the traditions of the Jews. Why not? Well, we'll take a look at that here.

In Matthew 9-2, Jesus does something that startles those who are listening, and at first, at first, their objections are kept to themselves. Powerful objections, yes, but they're kept to themselves. Though others had brought the man who was paralyzed to Jesus. Of course, the man who was paralyzed couldn't bring himself, right? So others had brought this paralyzed man to Jesus. Jesus speaks to the man directly. Isn't that interesting? He looks at this man. The man is not, at least up to this point, able to respond. He's unable to bring himself there. But Jesus doesn't just start talking to the guys that brought him. He looks directly and focuses directly on this man who is paralyzed and speaks to him.

He begins by encouraging him and saying that his sins are, and get this, right now forgiven. He didn't say, they were forgiven sometime in the past, or they will eventually be forgiven, Jesus speaks directly to him and says, your sins are right now, this moment, being forgiven.

The curses that came with breaking the law of Moses in Deuteronomy 28, as it spells out, the curses, do imply that the man is sick because of his sins. Several different verses in Deuteronomy 28 say that one of the things that will be the consequence of them breaking the law of Moses, the definition of sin, breaking the law of Moses, will be that they will get diseases.

Diseases like the rest of the world has. Horrible diseases. Other passages also imply this. Everyone from Exodus 15-26, Psalm 103-3, which we'll take a look at shortly, and Isaiah 33-24. Those passages connect sin with physical illness or sickness for the Jews.

Here is Jesus speaking to a Jew here. But the scribes are thinking He is committing blasphemy. How can anyone forgive sin unless they're God himself? And so they don't express it, but they're thinking only God can forgive sins, therefore this Jesus is most certainly sinning. Blasphemy as a matter of fact. Jesus knows what they're thinking and the Bible doesn't say how he knows.

It may be something as simple as looking at the smirk on their face. and looking at those eyes of condemnation. Maybe they're muttering under their breath. But, it may also be that he had divine insight into their hearts. And perhaps both were evident. Either way, he knows what they're thinking.

And notice, his question is not that they're thinking that he is evil or doing evil, but he says their thinking is evil. Isn't that interesting? Their accusation of blasphemy, you who are accusing me of blasphemy are the ones doing the evil. Why are you thinking evil? See? Which might have shocked them. So, Jesus responds, which is easier? And of course he's not really thinking of like a hammock in the Bahamas, right? He's not asking that question. Why is he asking it? By asking the question this way, he's saying this is equivalent to that.

Forgiving is the same as healing. I could come up to this man and say you're healed, or I could come up to this man and say your sins are forgiven, and it means the same thing. Among the Israelites, that's exactly what it means. Precisely the same thing. And we could say why? It's because of this.

Because of the sin and sickness connection, In the Law of Moses, for God to forgive sins is to lift the consequences of the curse for sins and so to heal. Here in Psalm 103, 2 and 3, just to give it context, we made reference to it before. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of his benefits, the Lord who pardons all your iniquities and who heals all your diseases. In the Jewish understanding of things, one is equivalent to the other. He says, which is easier? They're the same thing. Both are required. Together. But we've still got a question this doesn't answer.

Why is it that God could possibly forgive sins? Is it that God gets to a place where he just kind of says, oh well, I don't care so much about sin. Sin doesn't matter so much to me. Is that why God can forgive sin? Is God thinking, well, in my old age, I just kind of figure out what matters and what doesn't, and it's really not that big a deal to me. I'm just not so uptight about it as I once was. Is that what it is? Is that why God can forgive sin?

No. It's because Christ would pay the price for every single sin on the planet. Yours and mine, and this guy's too. As a matter of fact, the one who is forgiving sin is the one who's paying the price, isn't he? Christ is the one who's forgiving sin. And how would he know to be able to forgive this man's sin?

Not because God or Christ doesn't care about sin anymore. but because he himself would be the one who would pay the price in just a few years. Healing under the law of Moses meant to forgive the sins behind the sickness. Key principle. Healing under the law of Moses meant to forgive the sins behind the sickness. That was understood in what was said there.

Now, I've got a Texasism here, right? But so that all y'all may know, right? Going through school, it was really something to, you know, learn Greek in Texan, you know, agape, lagos, you know, things like that, right? So you learn your Greek that way, and it's a little strange, you know. How do you say Greek with a southern drawl? That's how it goes. Did the Greeks have Southerners? I guess they did. Okay.

Jesus referred to himself as the Son of Man about 75 times in the four Gospels. Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. About 75 times. Verse 6 here in this passage included. He called himself the Son of Man. Why? Jesus was fully God and fully man. And this is one you can take to the bank or take all the way to heaven if you like. A son of, or a daughter of, or a child of in scripture, Old Testament and New, means to be like in character and close in relationship to. Like in character and close in relationship to. Was Jesus fully manned? Yes. Born of Mary. Was he fully God? Yes. Like in character and close in relationship to.

So He was the Son of Man. But beyond that, the Son of Man is a term from the book of Daniel, chapter 7, verses 13 and 14, and it means that He, the Messiah, will come in power and glory. So when He says Son of Man, it's not simply stating that He is fully man, although that is true. It is likewise making the statement, I am the Messiah. Being the Messiah, the Son of God, like in character and close in relationship to man, and Son of God and Son of Man, He showed His power to heal and forgive sins. It fits the Isaiah passages, and as we saw, the one in Jeremiah as well, that we listed earlier.

Here is Daniel chapter 7 verses 13 and 14. Here's Daniel saying, 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, four times in that one chapter. is referring to God himself, and was presented before him, before God. And to him, the Son of Man, was given dominion, glory, and a kingdom, that all the peoples, nations, of men, in every language, might serve him. His dominion is an everlasting kingdom, which will not pass away, and his kingdom as one would not be destroyed.

You see, the people who were thinking evil of Christ were thinking, this is just a man, he's just a What's he doing forgiving sins? That's wrong! And Jesus says, no, so that you might know the Son of Man, the One who will come in power and glory, the One who has stood before God Himself, has the power to forgive sins.

I'm going to forgive this man's sins and heal him. So he says, go pick up your bed and go home. And I don't think he meant that as unfriendly. As a matter of fact, I don't think that the lame man took it as unfriendly. Jesus could have just told the man that his sins were forgiven. That would have been enough. Then he would have been healed, right? The curse was lifted.

He could have just told the man that is now healed and he could go pick up his bed and go home. Go home without any help. Imagine before, going home wasn't possible. Getting there wasn't possible. Now he could tell the man, pick up your bed, which you haven't done in a long time, if ever, and take that bed and go home, which you haven't done in a long time, if ever.

Forgiving is the same as healing. To make it clear, Jesus does both, doesn't he? Your sins are forgiven. Now pick up your bed and go home. You're healed. He validates his place as God's holy Messiah by both forgiving sins and doing healing, saying that he is the Son of Man from Daniel's prophecy.

Now, here's the question, verses 7 and 8. After making this statement, does the crowd get it? Do they understand? Let's find out. The man is healed, he gets up, he picks up his bed and walks home just as Jesus told him to do. Now that would be impressive. Likely this man had been in or around Capernaum for quite some time and a lot of people, if they didn't know him, had seen him and maybe seen his friends carrying him around. Everything that Jesus does and says in these verses declares who he was and now is he is the Holy Messiah.

He says, I'm the Son of Man. I forgive sins. I heal. I can do all these things. And so do you get it. Now the crowd is amazed. Doesn't that sound good? Sounds like a good thing, right? The crowd's amazed. They even glorify God. Well, that sounds even better. They got some kind of spiritual insight here.

So did they get it? No. They do not come to recognize Jesus as the Holy Messiah of God. They don't get it. They don't understand that this is the long-promised King of Israel. Now come here. For centuries, the promise had been right there. They didn't see it. They don't get it. Now, we mentioned earlier there are two issues not from miracles.

It's on page one here, that slide. We won't go through those details, but let's take a look at those now. The next part, the middle of this passage, is Matthew's calling to be a disciple. Here's Matthew, the author of this book that we're now studying. We're now about a third of the way through it by chapter count. Matthew was a tax collector for the Roman government. Tax collectors for the Romans were deeply despised among the Jews and the loathing was growing. There had been tax revolts, I mean armed tax revolts, in the area of Galilee since a few years before Jesus was born, about the time he was born, and a few years afterwards. There had already been tax revolts here.

And you can understand why. Why was that? The Roman tax collection system was infamous for its sword-enforced corruption. It was very lucrative. Here's the way the tax system worked. Someone who was a chief tax collector, like Zacchaeus, someone who's a chief tax collector would give the Romans a bid.

I can get this much money for you out of this area. Whatever they got above that, which was sword enforced, was theirs to keep. And was there a limit on what they got above that? No. So the Romans maximized their take, but it was quite possible for a tax collector to get several times himself what he'd promised to the Romans.

And whatever someone didn't want to pay, well, that's just fine. You're going to get a sword between your ribs. It doesn't matter how difficult it is for you. It doesn't matter if you can't feed your family. You're going to get a sword between your ribs if you don't pay the tax collector what he says you owe.

Who is very lucrative. Matthew seems to have had a toll booth tax collecting role. Capernaum was on a major trade route. And so all the trade from distant areas went through Capernaum, and Matthew was the one on the take. He could get lots of money from this very lucrative position. The taxes were enforced by the Roman garrison who only lived just a little bit to the east.

Jesus calls Matthew to be his disciple. Now let me ask you, is that going to be as lucrative? No. Do you have sword and forest collections? No. What's he doing saying yes to Jesus? He knows exactly what the issues are, doesn't he? He knows exactly what the issues are. He says yes to Jesus and bye-bye to all the lucrative money. Why? This is the Messiah. This man speaks the truth. I'll take that over the dirty money. To be his disciple, to be a disciple, in the first century Israel was to follow your rabbi with devotion to your rabbi's every word.

We live in a culture where memorizing things is something we try to avoid doing. Oh, there'll be a few things we memorize, but why should I memorize stuff I can just punch it into my cell phone? Why should I memorize stuff with my hard drive cam, right? So we don't tend to memorize things.

But in first century Israel, a person would memorize what the rabbi said, and they would in fact drill one another on what the rabbi said. You can imagine them getting up before breakfast and walking along the lake shore, and one is following and another is following alongside them, and one is saying it and the other one is checking him on his words. and going through the passage that they're working on, and going through the sayings of the rabbi, and the words would have to come out correctly, right? And if a person was wrong with one word, you'd catch it. If I were to say something, you know, because we don't memorize very many things.

In fact, in school, I don't know, do they do Pledge of Allegiance anymore? I wonder. So if I say, I pledge allegiance to the flag, of the United States of North America. Did you catch me doing something wrong? Yes you did. And why? I was only one word off.

But that would be the sort of thing that they would do with their sayings. They would memorize the sayings of the rabbi. And it would be the same with Jesus. So here's Matthew. He's giving up getting this lucrative tax business. And he's saying, no, I will memorize the sayings of this rabbi.

Listening carefully and memorizing all the sayings of the rabbi. There were even rules about what the rabbi could and couldn't ask the disciples to do. One of them, it might strike you as familiar, was a rabbi could not ask his disciples to wash his feet. So what does Jesus do? He says, I won't break the rules. I'll wash yours instead, because there's no rule against that.

So there were even rules about how a rabbi should behave towards his disciples. But even with many of the advance notices, where they're listening carefully to what the rabbi said, the disciples would not begin to know for a few years that their rabbi would die for their sins.

Oh, no, you can't die for me. I'll die for you. But the reverse is just wrong. No, no, no, no, no. You can't do that. But he says, I'm going to die, and I'm going to be buried, and I'll be raised again. They didn't know that. They said, no, I don't want to hear it. I don't believe it. That's just not possible. They didn't know that there would be apostles that as apostles for the church body. They didn't know that. What the church, right? The apostles didn't know that they were going to die for the message. Here's Matthew. Jesus says, come and be my disciple.

And he thought he was just saying goodbye to all the lucrative collections. He didn't know all that was out there. And that he would one day die for the testimony that he was given. Matter of fact, you ask the question, whatever happened to Matthew? I mean, years later, whatever happened to this guy? He walked away from a lucrative tax position on a main travel route. Walked away from that and said, yeah, you're a disciple. You'd ask, whatever happened to that guy? The guy who wrote this book. The guy who said bye-bye to all his lucrative tax income. Matthew, the author of this gospel, also called in Mark and in Luke, Levi, is recorded to have preached the gospel in Parthia.

That was the empire just to the east of the Roman Empire. One reason why that would be a good thing to do, and matter of fact, several of the apostles did go to Parthia, is one of the languages commonly spoken around Galilee was Aramaic. And guess where a large collection of Aramaic-speaking Jews lived? Right in the middle of Parthia. That was the old Babylonian Empire. So they could go over to Parthia and spread the gospel. But Matthew didn't stop there. I'll tell you where he stopped. In Ethiopia.

He was said, according to the writings, to have been killed with wooden stakes in Ethiopia. The account says that they were driving wooden stakes through his body as he was calling out the gospel. This guy who said bye-bye to the lucrative tax income, where if it got tough, it's not a problem. You just call a Roman soldier. He said bye-bye to that. And he ended up dying in Ethiopia. calling out the gospel while they drove wooden stakes to his body. That's this guy. That's this Matthew guy. The one who just said, yes, I'll be your disciple, not knowing quite what it meant.

Based on their understanding of the law, the law of Moses, and some human logic and some assumptions, the rabbis developed a complex and at times conflicted set of traditions about eating, and who you eat with, and how you wash your hands, and all sorts of things. They argued over how you're supposed to not eat with this person, and wash your hands with this one, and not eat this food.

And there was all sorts of different groups. We'll talk about the Pharisees. There's seven groups within the Pharisees. And then there's the Sadducees, which is why they're Sadducee. And then there's the Essenes, another group that was a separatist group, and they all had different ideas about what you're supposed to eat and who you're supposed to eat with and who you're not supposed to eat with.

But among all those groups, though they loved to argue, one of the things they never argued about was, we all agree you should not eat with tax collectors and sinners. So here's Matthew. As a matter of fact, the other Gospels tell us He throws a party, and who does he invite? All of his tax collector and sinner friends.

Now there's one other piece of cultural information I have to tell you. In our culture, let's say Nancy and I invited someone over for lunch. In our culture, you would be irritated and may even call the police if people are looking in the window and coming up to the door and even walking in the door.

But in the culture of New Testament times, it was completely acceptable. to have, while you're eating, to have people peering in the window and commenting, oh that looks good. You shouldn't be eating that. What are you doing eating with that person over there? You didn't invite me. And so it was perfectly acceptable to stand around the windows and stand around the doorways and even come in the doorway and make comments about the food and the company. Isn't that amazing? Totally acceptable.

Which is why you would have these Pharisees in the background looking at Jesus eating with other people. There was complete disagreement about the details. They universally, among all these groups that squabbled and argued, universally believed that eating with the tax collectors and other sinners was just plain out of bounds. And didn't Jesus get it? No, he did not. Jesus said, You guys have your traditions. You've got your rules. I don't follow those.

So I'm going to eat with these people. Jesus uses rabbi talk. Go and learn is rabbi talk. When somebody needs to learn something, the rabbis would say, go and learn. And so what does he do? He gives them rabbi talk, uses their own language. So when the Pharisees see that Jesus is eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they may even have been standing over the table. They ask Jesus' disciples, why is he doing that? He ought to know better. Jesus hearing them, turns them and points them to Hosea 6.

It says that God desires hearts after him more than somebody who just goes through the motions. The external rituals are not enough. God wants hearts. Not just things you do, like you've always done. Go and learn, rabbis. Go and learn, rabbis. Jesus would minister to those who recognize their need for the Savior rather than those who would not see their need and reject the Savior. He says, I'll go to these who respond to what I'm saying and see their need more than you who feel like you're comfortable and competent in everything you know and do.

The questions aren't over though. And surprisingly, John the Baptist's disciples come and ask questions. That's the third part here, verses 14 through 17. Some of these disciples of John the Baptist, just downriver here, by the way, it was a walk up for them to come up to the Sea of Galilee, even though that was 700 feet below sea level. So they walk up the river.

Why is it that Jesus' disciples don't fast like they and the Pharisees do? Look, the Pharisees do it, and we do it. How come you don't do it? Right? The Law of Moses doesn't call for fasting. Jesus will talk about it later. He'll refer to it. But in fact, the Law of Moses says nothing about fasting, particularly, not directly.

Though the Jews had their traditions, many of them. There is a printed supplement on the cabinet to the right on fasting, if you'd like to take advantage of that. If those happen to be missing, there is a supplement available, the same one, on the website associated with this message. So you can download it and take a look at that. We won't go into all the details on that.

But what does Jesus answer? Jesus tells him that his attendance, as the bridegroom, his attendance would not mourn or fast while he's with them. John himself said Christ was the bridegroom and he is the friend, so he's using words that they would have heard.

Then he makes a comparison with old and new wineskins. Jesus says that the old, and I'm not talking about just sequentially old, the word means old and worn out. Wineskins are not filled with the new wine because the old wineskins will simply burst. What's he talking about? What they would do is they, oh here, there.

This is a goatskin by the way. It would take a goat skin and tie off the legs and the head and everything, and a new wine skin would have some stretch in it. But as the wine fermented inside the skin, it would give off gases and things of that sort, and then it would stretch out, but it would also tend to get more rigid. So all the stretch, as the wine skin got old, all the stretch was gone in the wine skin, and it would get more rigid. So you don't take new wine and put it in the wine skin. Why? You're going to waste it all because this already stretched, already rigid skin, when you put gases, have the gases in from the fermenting process, will just burst the goat skin altogether.

It reminds me of, Nancy and I knew a pastor, in Ukiah, California, and he had a kitchen with cabinets, and you know how there's space between the top of the cabinet and the ceiling? He had the whole area above all the cabinets filled with bottles to make root beer. But, just like we talked about here, the process makes gases, right? Builds up pressure, And those bottles, how well do they stretch? Not at all. So here, in the middle of everything, one of the bottles goes BOOM and puts root beer all over the walls, all over the cabinets, all over the floor, all over everything.

Well, that took a while to clean up. But guess what happened as soon as they got it cleaned up? There were other bottles, right? And that's the problem with putting the new wine in the old wineskins. A mess. You've got this stuff all over the place. We just wasted everything that's here, and this didn't work. So that's why he would give this example here.

And by the way, this has to be a goatskin. The Jews would never have invented football because the main objective is to move a pigskin down the field. Can you imagine that? So this is a goatskin, not a pigskin. So in saying this, Jesus is telling them what he's bringing and offering will not remain in the old, worn out traditions of Judaism.

Old and worn out. They're done. He's saying, we're done with those. I'm not going to submit to that. I'm not going to do that. Why? Because you're already all stretched out, already all worn out. There's no way that what I am going to do, which is new, is going to fit into your old wineskins. Not a chance. It's not going to make it.

So the disciples of John the Baptist would need to leave the ways of John and follow Jesus. John was just preparing the way. John was just preparing the way. And they didn't get it. The Pharisees did not recognize the need for the Savior. They believed their competence in the law of Moses and the traditions was totally adequate to meet their needs. So they rejected Christ. People will sometimes say, well, how come the Jews didn't accept Jesus? Why did they reject him?

Well, that's one reason right there. Here's the Pharisees thinking when the Messiah comes, he's just going to love us because we're doing all the right things. And Jesus comes, he's the Messiah, and he doesn't like very much of what they do. Right? It's kind of like, well, if you don't like us, we don't like you. Right? So it's kind of like that.

But they rejected Christ. We could ask, do we recognize our need for Christ? Do we recognize some of our need for Christ? Yeah. when we come to believe in his death, burial, resurrection, and each of us were saved. I'm assuming that's taken place in each heart here today. Do we recognize that much? Yeah. John the Baptist's disciples were all recognizing their need, at least to the point of being John's disciples.

They didn't see their need for the One to whom John was pointing. And you might be amazed, well, why didn't they get it? After all, John said things, pointed to Jesus. Behold the Lamb of God! Didn't that tell you something? Okay, that's cool. We'll keep following you, John. Well, how about when John says, He must increase and I must decrease. Is this some sort of a weight gain, weight loss program? Is that what's going on? Probably not. They didn't get it. They didn't get it. Do we recognize our need?

Even as we gather here this morning, do we do what we do because it's our tradition? Because it's a nice option at times? Oh, it's nice to go to church once in a while, when it works out. Or do we see our need to feed and grow on God's Word? to grow as individuals, individual believers, each one of us.

Paul wrote to the church of Colossae, in Colossians 1.28, he says, every single man, and he wrote anthropos, that means person, not just the males, everyone, each one, each one, each one, three times in the one verse, that they be taught and admonished so that they would grow, be complete in him.

To grow in our marriages, if that's where the Lord has us. To grow in our families. And I'm not just talking about having more kids, or the kids getting bigger. The getting bigger part is almost automatic. Or to grow as a church body. Do we see our need? It might be easy for us to look at the disciples of John the Baptist and to say, well, those guys should have gotten it. You know, he must increase, I must decrease. Behold the Lamb of God. I mean, come on, give me a break. Do we see our need? Good question for us to ask. Let's pray.

Lord, we thank you that you have revealed this passage here for us, for us to take a look at. And we thank you for the insights that we have from it. We pray that we, too, might be recognizing our need for you. And Lord, we pray that you would put your finger on those areas where we sense our own competence and adequacy and our own sufficiency. And pray that we would grow in our dependence upon you. We pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.