Photo by Grant Whitty on Unsplash

Audio: iTunes | Spotify

“They glorified God who gave such authority to men.”

᛭ INI ᛭

Today’s text is in the context of Jesus’ early ministry. It sets the stage for what He’s all about. It tells us what we should seek from Jesus because it shows us what Jesus really came to do. It’s not healing or miracles, even though Jesus heals many and performed miracles—that’s Matthew 8. In Matthew 9 Jesus Himself turns our eyes and ears and hearts toward something else entirely and it’s not healing.

It’s forgiveness. Jesus heals only as a sign to show He has the authority to forgive sins. Our text today is that Jesus delivers the forgiveness of sins. He delivers forgiveness for your peace and salvation. He delivers forgiveness so that those who have reason to be dreary in a dark, dreadful, and depressing world might actually “be of good cheer.” Jesus doesn’t just deliver forgiveness of sins for your peace and salvation, though. Matthew 9 also shows us that for your peace and salvation:

THE LORD DELIVERS FORGIVENESS HIS WAY.

(I. First, the LORD earns forgiveness of sins.)

Yes, THE LORD DELIVERS FORGIVENESS HIS WAY, and the forgiveness He delivers is the forgiveness He’s purchased and secured for you. Buying something and delivering something are two different things. Buying things online today tells us that.

The LORD must purchase the forgiveness of sins He delivers. He is “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” These exact words historically have been sung 5 times in the Divine Service! (We can’t fully meditate on them!) Christ, God’s sinless, eternal Son, takes away our sins by bearing them Himself, claiming them as His own. Like the scape goat on the day of atonement had Israel’s sins placed on it, so Christ “bears our sins in His own body on the tree.” (1 Pet) He “becomes your sin.” (2 Cor)

Historically the liturgy sang these words five times throughout the service, driving us to meditate on the depths of it means that the Son of God is the Lamb of God. In modern times we keep reducing things, departing from exact words to meaning, but arrogantly thinking we know more and can learn in one pass what the Western Church for 1400 years confessed took more.

He sheds His blood to pay the penalty, to ransom you, to buy you back. “By His wounds you have been healed,” (1 Pet) forgiven. As Paul says, “in [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses.” (Eph 1) “The blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sins.” (1 Jn) “With His holy, precious blood and His innocent suffering and death, Christ purchased and won you from all sins.” (SC II)

(II. Second, the LORD delivers the forgiveness of sins.)

The Lord wins and purchases forgiveness with His blood, and now He must give it out. Forgiveness must be delivered otherwise you wouldn’t have it.

The work of redemption is done and accomplished [John 19:30]. Christ has acquired and gained the treasure for us by His suffering, death, resurrection, and so on [Colossians 2:3]. … So that this treasure might not stay buried, but be received and enjoyed, God has caused the Word to go forth and be proclaimed. (LC II)

There’s no mental gymnastics to put yourself back at Calvary, no emotions you have to drum up to connect yourself to Him, no works you have to do to imitate it. You weren’t there and can never be where they crucified your Lord.

Instead, the Lord delivers His forgiveness and He has instruments to do it. Today, our text highlights Absolution. “Be of good cheer,” Jesus says, “your sins are forgiven you.” Jesus absolves the paralytic. But we know Jesus’ authority to forgive sins isn’t limited to Absolution. There’s baptism. “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore, go and make disciples by baptizing them.” This baptism of Jesus delivers the forgiveness of sins. (Acts 2) There’s also communion, “This is My body, given for you; this is My blood shed for you for the forgiveness of sins.”

But the LORD isn’t done. And this is the part of the text that makes many modern Christians uncomfortable—the LORD uses men to deliver His forgiveness. Like I said, THE LORD DELIVERS FORGIVENESS HIS WAY. We like talking about baptism, or Absolution, or Communion as if these gifts just drop in our lap. But the Lord instituted a delivery service to make sure you have a hand and mouth to baptize you, and mouth to speak absolution into your ear, a mouth to bless the bread and cup and a hand to deliver it out. After all, “How can they hear without a preacher?” (Rom 10)

Many go “thank God I’ve got forgiveness” but don’t “glorify God who had given the authority to forgive sins to men.” Many grumble like the Scribes. They said, “Only God can forgive sins.” It also sounds like, “I don’t need a pastor to deliver forgiveness. I just ask God.” “I don’t need baptism or communion or sermons or the Bible or Absolution. God forgives my sins.” And yet Christ as Son of Man “has authority on earth to forgive sins,” and the crowds correctly understand then that “God has given this authority to men.” (As Jesus says clearly Mt 16 & 18 and John 20.) Sheriff Jesus deputizes (calls and ordains) His men, to speak forgiveness and also withhold forgiveness.

All the grumbles have a kernel of truth, which our flesh uses to run away in unbelief from the Lord’s Word and gifts. Unbelief changes or ignores His Word. Unbelief claims for oneself what He has not given. Adam and Eve did that in Eden. Unbelief sidesteps and avoids what Christ is clearly giving. The Lord doesn’t just give Baptism or Absolution or Communion, which somehow magically plop in your lap. No, the Lord gives pastors so you’d actually be baptized, so you’d actually hear with your own two ears either today or any other day you wanna track me down, “I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” The Lord has pastors so you’d actually commune, eat the body and drink the blood that the Lamb of God gave and shed for your forgiveness. After all, THE LORD DELIVERS FORGIVENESS HIS WAY, so that you’d actually be of good cheer in a miserable world.

(III. Finally, the LORD’s delivered forgiveness has its way with sinners.)

And finally, the LORD’s delivered forgiveness has its way with sinners who actually believe the words they’ve heard, who’ve heard and believed the “I forgive you” spoken by the pastor, as if its “from God Himself.

Christ’s forgiveness is only received by faith. Those who don’t have faith avoid the forgiveness of sins as He gives it. Matthew 9 shows that “when Jesus saw their faith,” He pronounces the Absolution. And those who trust that forgiveness live within that forgiveness, forsaking sin and not only trusting in God and Christ but also actually loving their neighbor in concrete ways like those described in Ephesians 4, today:

put off … the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts … [put] away lying … do not let the sun go down on your wrath, nor give place to the devil. Let him who stole steal no longer… (Eph 4)

But our flesh is “[like] a dog [that] returns to his own vomit,” daily and much, our foolish flesh “[repeats] its folly,” its sin. We are in constant need of forgiveness, not an idea but concretely delivered to us in the way Jesus delivers it. Because Jesus’ forgiveness received with the good intentions of faith will actually work within in us the avoiding of evil works and the doing of good works that God requires.

(Conclusion.)

The Lord earns forgiveness for you, but He also delivers it. In fact, THE LORD DELIVERS FORGIVENESS HIS WAY. Faith rejoices in this. As the crowds around Jesus did: “They glorified God who had given such authority to men.” Faith not only rejoices in that but is actually given and strengthened by it too. Jesus wants you to believe in Him and didn’t just institute Baptism or Absolution or Communion to do it. The Augsburg Confession puts it this way:

“So that we would obtain [saving] faith, the Office of Preaching the Gospel and Administering the Sacraments was instituted.” (AC V)

Not to glory in that but because it’s the way, the only way, that the LORD has commanded His Word and Sacraments to be given out, and it’s through them “that the Holy Spirit is given who works faith where and when it pleases God…” (AC V)

But who believes that? Well, the crowds did. They rejoiced and glorified God that He’d given that authority to men, that

THE LORD DELIVERS FORGIVENESS HIS WAY,

even through men, so that you’d really be forgiven.

᛭ INI ᛭