My Favorite Verses - Vol V (Feb 17 to Jun 17)

Luke 5:24 … The authority to Forgive
(05/27/2017)
“The Son of Man has authority on Earth to forgive sins”
~ Jesus (Luke 5:24)
First & foremost, it is extremely important for all earnest students of the
Scriptures to realize that Jesus was almost never referring to himself alone
whenever he mentioned “the Son of Man.” In other words, he is certainly not
telling his listeners here that he alone “has the authority on Earth to forgive sins.”
Indeed, to do so would not only have dramatically diminished the ultimate
authority he openly & vehemently vested in his heavenly Father (see Mark 10:18 &
John 8:50-54 et al), but it would have also been the epitome of arrogance (see also
Matthew 26:64, Mark 14:62, Luke 22:69) -- and this when humility was for Jesus the
most staunchly encouraged of all virtues (see Matthew 8:20, Matthew 18:3-4,
Matthew 23:12 et al); which would have made him a blatant hypocrite – when
hypocrisy he clearly abhorred over all other human failings (see Matthew 6:5,
Matthew 7:1-5, Matthew 7:15, Matthew 7:21-23, Matthew 23, Luke 6:46, Luke 12:2,
Luke 16:15, Luke 20:46-47, John 8:4-9 et al). No, when Jesus used the term “the Son
of Man” he was almost always referring to all of his listeners – and indeed, to all
of us as well. In truth, how else could he be taken seriously when he said “Truly I
tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death before they see the
Son of Man coming in his kingdom” (Matthew 16:28), for if Jesus was speaking of
himself as “the Son of Man” at this time, then he quite obviously misspoke
(something a true Messiah would never do). And yet that is not who he spoke of
when using this term, and he even came right out and said as much to his disciples
a few verses prior (“Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he
asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” And they said, “Some
say John the Baptist, but others Elijah, and still others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.”
And so he asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” And Simon Peter answered,
“You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.” at which point Jesus seemed to
congratulate Peter for noting that Jesus was indeed an embodiment of “the living God” a
la John 14:20-26, and yet immediately thereafter he “sternly ordered the disciples not to
tell anyone that he was the Messiah” ~ Matthew 16:13-20).
Just as importantly, this interpretation (namely, reading “the Son of Man” as
relating to all of humanity, not only to Jesus Christ) happens to reconcile dozens of
other seeming contradictions and apparent theological inconsistencies in the
Scriptures as well – for one, how Jesus could tell us all to forgive everyone (the
“seventy” of Matthew 18:21-22, referencing the 70 nations of humanity found in Genesis
10) without limit and without exception (the “times seven” of that same passage,
referencing the “completeness” with which we are to forgive them all) while seemingly
claiming in Luke 5 that he alone had the ability to do the same.
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