Lange Commentary - Mark 2:1

Lange Commentary - Mark 2:1 - 2:12

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Lange Commentary - Mark 2:1 - 2:12

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FOURTH SECTION

ATTRACTING AND REPELLING INFLUENCE OF THE LORD. THE ENTHUSIASTIC MULTITUDE AND THE OFFENCED TRADITIONALISTS. MORTAL HATRED OF THE HOSTILE PARTY, AND WITHDRAWAL OF JESUS INTO A SHIP. THE PREACHING IN SYNAGOGUES GIVES PLACE TO PREACHING ON THE SEA-SIDE

Mar_2:1 to Mar_3:12

________

First Conflict.—The Paralytic, and the Power to forgive Sins. Mar_2:1-12

(Parallels: Mat_9:1-8; Luk_5:17-26.)

¹And again he entered into Capernaum after some days; and it was noised that he was in the house. ²And straightway many were gathered together, insomuch that there was no room to receive them, no, not so much as about the door: and he preached the word unto them. ³And they come unto him, bringing one sick of the palsy, which was borne of four. ⁴And when they could not come nigh unto him for the press, they uncovered the roof where he was: and when they had broken it up, they let down the bed wherein the sick of the palsy lay. ⁵When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. ⁶But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, ⁷Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? ⁸ who can forgive sins but God only? And immediately, when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, Why reason ye these things in your hearts? ⁹Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk? ¹⁰But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins, (he saith to the sick ofthe palsy,) ¹¹I say unto thee, Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thinehouse. ¹²And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, We never saw it on this fashion.

EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL

See the exposition on Matthew, and on Luke. Mark introduces the conflicts of the Lord with traditionalism earlier than Matthew; hence the earlier position of this narrative. Matthew, indeed, represents the chronological order, according to which the paralytic was healed after the journey to Gadara. The conclusion in Mark itself intimates that this must have been one of the later miracles.

Mar_2:1. That He was in the house, åἰò ïἶêüí ἐóôé .—This means the house which Jesus occupied with His mother and His brethren, after His settlement there, Mar_3:31. His adopted sisters probably remained, as married, in Nazareth (see Mar_6:8), when the family of Joseph passed over with Him to Capernaum.

Mar_2:3. Bringing one sick of the palsy.—See on Mat_8:6. ÊñÜââáôïò , a portable bed, used for mid-day sleep, and for the service of the sick.—Borne of four.—Pictorial definiteness. So also the vivid description of the uncovering of the roof, or the breaking of a large opening through it. Luke tells us how they did it: “ I through the tiling;” thus they must have taken away the tilings themselves. Meyer:—We must suppose Jesus to have been in the upper room, ὑðåñῷïí where the Rabbis frequently taught: Lightfoot, in loc.; Vitringa, Syn. 145. Meyer rightly rejects the view of Faber, Jahn, and others, that Jesus was in the court, and that nothing more is meant than a breaking up of the roof-awning. Certainly it is not improbable that the roof and the upper room were connected by a door; at least, the not improbable supposition of steps leading from the street to the roof suits that view. It is not at variance with the text to assume, with Lightfoot and Olshausen, an extension of the door-opening already there. Uncovering the roof can mean nothing else than actual uncovering, whether or not by means of an already existing opening. Strauss, after Wetstein, remarks, that the proceeding would have been too dangerous for those below. But see Hug’s Gutachten, ii. p. 21. Moreover, a little danger would better suit the heroism of the act. It takes for granted the Oriental house with a flat roof, to which men might gain access either through the neighboring house, or by the steps on the outside.

Mar_2:6. Certain of the scribes.—According to Meyer, who cites Mar_2:16, Luke (Mar_2:17) introduces the Pharisees too soon at this place. But why may not the scribes have been mainly of the pharisaic party? These were so manifestly.—The scribes:—See on Mat_2:4, and the article in Winer.

Mar_2:7. Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies?—That is, such a man (scornfully), such things (such great words as are fit only for God, or for the priests in His name). Meyer rightly: “This man in this wise: emphatic juxtaposition.” The idea of blasphemy, as expressed by Mark and Luke, is shown to be direct blasphemy: they cast that upon Him, because He was thought to have wickedly intruded into the rights of the Divine Majesty.

Mar_2:8. And immediately, when Jesus perceived in His spirit.—The Searcher of hearts. In this lay already the proof that He could forgive sins. Matthew (Mat_9:4) here takes as it were the place of Mark: Jesus seeing ( ἰäὼí ) their thoughts.

Mar_2:10. The Son of man hath power.—Dan_7:13; comp. Lange’s Leben Jesu, 2:1, 235. Meyer asserts, without reason, against Ritzschl, that Christ by this expression declared undoubtedly, and even technically, His Messiahship. Certainly Daniel’s Son of Man signified Christ; but the correct understanding of this expression does not seem to have been current in the Jewish schools at this time. Hence the choice of the expression here. They should know Him to be the Messiah, not according to their false Messiah-notions, but according to His true demonstrations of Messiahship; and the expression was meant to lead them to this.

Mar_2:12. We never saw it on this fashion.—We must assume in åἴäïìåí an object seen; and that can be no other than the essential phenomenon which corresponds to essential seeing, viz.: the appearance of the kingdom of God. But it is also included, that the omnipotent working of miracles had never been so manifest in Jesus before.

DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL

1. See on the parallels in Matthew and Luke. Quickly as the glory of Christ was manifested in His first works, so quickly did the contradiction of the pharisaic worldly mind develop itself. It is most significant that the evangelical forgiveness of sins was the first stumbling-block.

2. The healing of the palsied man gives us, in a certain sense, the key to all the miraculous works of our Lord; inasmuch, that is, as the healing of the members is here definitely based upon the healing of the heart, the forgiveness of sins, awakening and regeneration. Because Christ Himself was the new birth of man from heaven, He was the principle of regeneration to sinful man. That is, in other words, because He Himself was the absolute miracle—the new principle of life breaking into and through the old—therefore the miraculous energies for the renewal of life issued from Him as sudden and great vivifications, which, proceeding from the heart of the renewed, pervaded their whole life. The quickening of the heart was, therefore, always the soul of light in the miracle; the external miracle was its dawning manifestation, though not all such quickenings resulted in permanent bodily healing. Therefore, also, the kernel of the miracle has remained in the Church, and becomes more and more prominent, that is, regeneration. The dawn has retreated and vanished, since this sun of the inner life has come forth. Yet the dynamic unfolding of the heart’s renewal in the renewal of the bodily members has in reality remained; only, now that Christianity has been incorporated with human nature, it develops itself only in gradual effect, until its full manifestation in the day of resurrection. The regenerating principle works in the regenerate gradually, and in almost invisible, leaven-like influence and transformation. But, as certainly as the regeneration of the heart is effected, so certainly is the germ of the renewal of the whole life present. Our scholastic notions have too carefully separated the external miracle from the internal, making it almost of itself a higher class of miracle. Luther, however, recognized regeneration as the great and abiding miracle, and had some feeling of its connection with the resurrection, as symbolized in the Supper of the Lord.—The power of Christ over the whole life, a demonstration of His power over the centre of life, the heart.

3. Christ the Searcher of the heart, knowing all things. In His messianic vocation, in His concrete sphere of life, He proved His Divine omniscience, and that too in the personal unity of the God-man. This concrete Divine-human knowledge He Himself distinguished from the universal omniscience of the Father. Starke:—“Christ knoweth all things even according to His human nature; not, however, through the human, tanquam per principium quo, but through the divine.” In a certain sense, also, through the human; through human sensibility to hostile dispositions, which assuredly had its source in the Divine nature.

HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL

See on the parallels of Matthew and Luke.—How the Lord’s redeeming power, breaking in, awakens the daring courage of faith.—Christ the restorer of victorious courage on earth.—Man inventive, above all in his faith.—The inventions of faith.—The boldness of faith, which leaps out of the anguish of a believing spirit.—How the miracle of Christ is appended to the word of Christ.—The miracle not without the previous word.—The return of Christ to His town; or, Christ does not willingly leave the place in which He has once settled.—And it was noised abroad that He was in the house,—when Christ is in a church, or in a house, it cannot be hid.—The courage of faith by which they uncovered the roof, in connection with the Divine courage in which Christ uncovered their hearts.—Great faith discovers and adopts wonderful plans.—Christ the Searcher of hearts: 1. This has a many-sided confirmation, 2. is full of comfort, 3. and full of terror.—The power of the forgiveness of sins a free and legitimate prerogative of Christ’s rule: 1. A free exercise of His love; 2. a legitimate administration between free grace and free faith; 3. therefore the free prerogative of Christ.—The Divine love will not be restrained by man’s narrow-heartedness.—God’s grace is not bound to the ordinances of man.—The Gospel makes the Church, not the Church the Gospel.—The ordinance of absolution no monopoly of absolution.—The glorious and boundless blessings which result from the forgiveness of sins.—The paralytic more troubled about his sins than about his bodily suffering.—Christ the fundamental Healer.—As the paralytic had a new power of moving, so the witnesses had a new power of seeing.—Only he who has seen Christ has learned rightly to see.—Christ’s miracles of grace always preachers of salvation, which prepare for new miracles.—All awakenings in order to regeneration are miracles of Christ, the subsequent influences of which must be manifest in the bodily life, though, it may be, in a very gradual manner.—The harder and the easier miracle: 1. The internal miracle was, in the Lord’s judgment, greater and harder, inasmuch as it was the condition of the external. 2. The external miracle was greater and harder in the judgment of His opponents, as something impossible to the absolving priests. 3. Both were equally hard, in as far as both were impossible to man; and hence the external miracle was Christ’s authentication in opposition to His enemies.—The limited blessing of healing a witness for the unlimited blessing of forgiveness of sins.

Starke:—Moving to the house of God with the crowds.—The sick should come to Christ, the true Physician.—Benevolence, and still more, Christian love, demands that we should serve and help the sick in every possible manner.—He who would be a true Christian must strive to bring to Christ others who are weak and sinful, by prayer and all good offices, Jam_5:16.—Canstein:—We must somehow come to Christ, whether through the door or through the roof; that is, either in an ordinary or an extraordinary way.—True faith, working by love, breaks through all impediments.—Love makes all things good and decorous, though they may not externally seem so.—Those who are troubled we should not trouble more, but comfort, Psa_32:1; Isa_61:2.—The ungodly change the best medicines into poison, and pervert the holiest truths.—Majus:—The slanderer’s manner is, not to try to seek what meaning the speaker has, but to pervert at once and wrest his words.—That which is visible and before the eyes seems to men harder than the invisible; and they prefer what is bodily to what is spiritual.—Quesnel:—Christ by His visible miracles taught men to understand His invisible miracles.—The priceless benefit of the forgiveness of sins worthy of all praise and thanksgiving.

Schleiermacher:—We have two things to mark in this whole narrative: first, that which passed between the Redeemer and this sufferer; and then, what referred to the thoughts of the scribes congregated around Him.—As sure as we are that the Redeemer knew what was in man, we must assume that the sufferer thought most of the spiritual gift of Christ, and its importance to himself.—The more powerful the might of love is, as being the energy of faith, the sooner vanish all lesser evils, losing their sting, which is the consciousness of sin.—Thus we see in miniature, in this history, the whole history of the kingdom of God upon earth.—Bauer:—We can thus, by our faith and our intercession, be helpful to the good of others.

Footnotes:

Mar_2:1.—Lachmann reads ἐí ïἴêῳ , after B., D., L.,—a gloss, says Meyer.

Mar_2:5.—Elzevir, Scholz, Lachmann read óïé áἱ ἁìáñôßáé ; Griesbach, Fritzsche, Tischendorf, B., D., G. read óïõ áé ἁìáñôßáé . Lachmann, after B., reads ἀößåíôáé for ἀöÝùíôáé .

Mar_2:7.—Lachmann and Tischendorf read ëáëåῖ ; âëáóöçìåῖ , after B., D., L., Vulgata.

Mar_2:8— Áὐôïß before äéáëïãßæïíôáé , after A., C., E., F., Syr. (utr.), Goth., Slav., Bengel, Matth., Griesbach, Fritzsche, Scholz, Tischendorf; ïὕôùò erased by Lachmann after B.

Mar_2:10.—Various order of the words: The ἐðὶ ôῆò ãῆò ἀö . ἁì . is given by Griesbach and Lachmann, after C., D., L., and others.

Mar_2:12.—Tischendorf reads ïὕôùò ïὐäÝðïôå , after B., D., and L., &c.

Oftentimes, however, the bed was a simple mattress or sheepskin.—Ed.

In picturesque descriptiveness, i.e.—Ed.