Marcos 2

3 Then four men came, carrying a paralytic to Him. 4 And not being able to get near Him because of the crowd, they removed the roof where He was;*The roof was presumably flat, with an outside staircase leading up to it. I suppose damaging someone else’s roof could be considered a crime, but they were determined. If Jesus was in His own house, there would be no problem. upon breaking through they lowered the pallet on which the paralytic was lying. 5 So seeing their faith Jesus says to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven you."

6 Now some of the scribes were sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts: 7 "Why does this guy speak blasphemies like that? Who can forgive sins but God alone?" 8 Immediately Jesus perceived in His spirit what they were reasoning within themselves*Time and again the Inspired Record will point out that Jesus could read people’s thoughts. and said to them: "Why are you reasoning these things in your hearts? 9 Which is easier:*I suppose the point to be that the first is easier to say, because no one can see whether it happened or not. But if you tell a paralytic to get up and he doesn’t, you get egg on the face. The Lord did it that way to help them believe that He could really forgive sin. There was nothing wrong with the scribes' inference; indeed only God can forgive sin, so in fact Jesus was claiming to be God! to say to the paralytic, ‘Your sins have been forgiven’, or to say, ‘Get up, pick up your pallet and start walking!’? 10 But so that you may know that the Son of the Man*That is what the Text says, "the Son of the Man", which appears to be a phrase coined by the Lord Jesus to refer to Himself. The phrase does not make very good sense in English, at first glance, but if "the man" refers to pristine Adam and "the son" to an only pristine descendant, it makes great sense. It seems to indicate a perfect human prototype, like Adam was before the fall—the human side of the God-man. has authority on the earth to forgive sins"—He says to the paralytic: 11 "To you I say, get up, pick up your pallet and go to your house!" 12 So forthwith he got up, picked up his pallet and went out in front of them all; so that all were amazed and glorified God, saying, "We never saw anything like this!"*Quite right; they never had!