POWER OF THE WORLD TO COME

Lk.5:22-25 – But Jesus, aware of their thoughts, responded and said to them, “Why are you thinking this way in your hearts? Which is easier, to say: ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins,” He said to the man who was paralyzed, “I say to you, get up, and pick up your stretcher, and go home.” And immediately he got up before them, and picked up what he had been lying on, and went home glorifying God.

The miracles of Jesus were a taste of the world to come. The atmosphere of our eternal dwelling will be the Holy Spirit where sickness and suffering will be no more. We will live in Him and He in us. When we are immersed into the Holy Spirit in this life we begin to experience a foretaste of kingdom come. When the Spirit is poured out now we taste the kingdom of heaven with the demonstration of signs, wonders, and miracles. In today’s passage we see one of the miracles from the ministry of Jesus. This is a beautiful foretaste of the world to come, we enter by the forgiveness of sin and then we step into the world of signs, wonders, and miracles. Here is how Ambrose describes this.

“But the Lord, wanting to save sinners, shows himself to be God both by his knowledge of secrets and by the wonder of his actions. He adds, “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven you,’ or to say, ‘Rise and walk?’ ” In this passage he shows the full likeness of the resurrection. Alongside of healing the wounds of body and mind, he also forgives the sins of the spirits, removes the weakness of the flesh, and thus heals the whole person. It is a great thing to forgive people’s sins—who can forgive sins, but God alone? For God also forgives through those to whom he has given the power of forgiveness. Yet it is far more divine to give resurrection to bodies, since the Lord himself is the resurrection.”

The forgiveness of sin and the healing power of God are closely connected. Jesus took our sins in His body on the cross, He then conquered death at the resurrection. The resurrection of the body of Jesus stands as the promise to all of us, death has been defeated and eternal life with Jesus is our inheritance. In this life healing miracles stand out as a proclamation that sickness and disease were conquered by the death of Christ.