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LUKE: GOSPEL OF CERTIFYING THE CHRISTIAN FAITH
Part XVIII: Certifying Christ's OWN, CLEAR Claim To Be God Come In The Flesh
(Luke 5:17-26)
  1. Introduction
    1. Some who deny the deity of Christ claim that the belief that Jesus was God come in the flesh was not His idea at all. Rather, it is thought that the idea was developed by Jesus' followers, for He Himself allegedly never claimed such an identity. It is thus felt that Jesus considered Himself to be just a godly man!
    2. The healing of the paralytic demonstrates what Jesus thought of His identity regarding the Incarnation.
  2. Certifying Christ's OWN, CLEAR Claim To Be God Come In The Flesh, Luke 5:17-26.
    1. Luke had written His Gospel so that Theophilus would know the certainty of the things he had been instructed concerning Christ and the Gospel, Luke 1:4.
    2. In the event of the healing of the paralytic, Jesus Himself was recorded as indicating what He felt concerning His identity as it related to deity and the Incarnation as follows:
      1. Luke records that Israel's religious leaders from Galilee, Judea and Jerusalem were present, watching Him in an apparent effort to find fault, Luke 5:17 with Geldenhuys, The Gospel of Luke, p. 188.
      2. Unable to get the paralytic into the house to see Jesus because of the crowds (5:19), the paralytic's friends took his couch up to the roof, removed its tiles, and let him down from above, Lk. 5:18-19.
      3. Seeing their faith, and being aware that sin was behind this particular infirmity, Jesus went to the heart of the man's condition, addressing his sin to announce that his sins were forgiven him, Lk. 5:20, Ibid.
      4. Christ's statement on forgiving sins was taken by the onlooking Law experts to be blasphemy, for they knew that only God could forgive sins, Luke 5:21.
      5. Being aware of their concerns, Jesus responded, revealing how He felt about His identity, Lk. 5:22-25:
        1. Knowing that His assertion about forgiving the man's sins had caused a stir, Jesus commented that from the human perspective, it was far easier to say one's sins had been forgiven him that to tell such a paralytic to rise up and walk, Luke 5:22-23. This was because claiming one's sins had been forgiven could be spoken with no visible proof that such had actually happened, where ordering the latter to occur would require a humanly verifiable miracle.
        2. Well, to verify that the man's sins had indeed been forgiven, and that He was indeed God come in the flesh while on the earth, Jesus told the paralytic, who had been carried in from the roof, to rise up, take up his bed and carry it off to his house. The man who had come in from the roof on a bed then rose up, took up his couch and carried it off to his home, undeniably, visibly showing that Jesus was indeed God who could forgive sins while in His earthly body on the earth, Lk. 5:24-25.
    3. The onlooking crowd was amazed, and they glorified God with a sense of awe, Luke 5:26. This response by the crowd showed that the religious critics of Jesus had lost the round on His credibility, for the people could clearly see that He had evidently backed up His claim to be able to forgive sins.
Lesson: (1) Since Jesus KNEW that the onlooking religious leaders felt He had blasphemed in announcing that He could forgive the paralytic's sins, His RESPONSE to this concern gives evidence of what He felt about the idea. (2) That response of (a) His INITIATING the effort (b) before a HOSTILE and (c) very Biblically knowledgeable group (d) to PROVE that He COULD forgive sins on the earth (e) by an overwhelmingly verifiable miraculous healing, (f) and that with his additional VERBAL CLAIM of t he Incarnation in connnection with the miracle ALL testify that Jesus asserted He was God come in the flesh! (3) Also, for OUR benefit, since Luke is written for the expressed purpose of supplying certainties of the Christian faith to a reader, this event acts a witness to US that Jesus went out of His way to promote the idea that He was God Incarnate!

Application: If we encounter one who doubts that Jesus believed He was God come in the flesh, that He claimed to be only a godly man, we may point to this passage, noting the purpose of Luke in 1:4 to give CERTAIN evidence that Jesus STRONGLY CLAIM ED to be God Incarnate!