Luke 5:23

23 Whether is easyar to saye thy synnes are forgeve the or to saye: rise and walke?

Luke 5:23 Meaning and Commentary

Luke 5:23

Whether is it easier to say
Mark adds, "to the sick of the palsy"; to whom Christ had said that his sins were forgiven him, which had given offence to the Scribes and Pharisees, imagining that he had assumed too much to himself: wherefore he proposes the following case to them, which they thought was most easy for man, or more proper and peculiar to God to say,

thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, rise up and walk?
Neither of them could be said by a mere man, with effect, so as that sins would be really remitted on so saying; or that a man sick of a palsy, by such a word speaking, would be able to stand upon his feet and walk; but both of them were equally easy to him, that is truly God; and he that could say the one effectually, could also say the other: or in other words, he that could cure a man of a palsy with a word speaking, ought not to be charged with blasphemy, for taking upon him to forgive sin: our Lord meant, by putting this question, and acting upon it, to prove himself to be God, and to remove the imputation of blasphemy from him; (See Gill on Matthew 9:5). (See Gill on Mark 2:9).

Luke 5:23 In-Context

21 And the Scribes and the Parises begane to thinke sayinge: What felow is this which speaketh blasphemy? Who can forgeve synnes but God only?
22 When Iesus perceaved their thoughtes he answered and sayde vnto them: What thinke ye in youre hertes?
23 Whether is easyar to saye thy synnes are forgeve the or to saye: rise and walke?
24 But that ye maye knowe that the sonne of ma hath power to forgeve synnes on erth he sayde vnto ye sicke of the palsie: I saye to the aryse take vp thy beed and go home to thy housse.
25 And immediatly he rose vp before them and toke vp his beed where on he laye and departed to his awne housse praysinge God.
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