Man’s Greatest Need

“When Jesus saw their faith, He said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” (Mark 2:5)

The story of the palsied man being brought to Jesus by his four friends seems to get turned upside down at this point. If we were telling the story we would have Jesus rushing out to heal the man or when the man’s friends finally got him to Jesus we would have told how Jesus laid His hands on the poor fellow, healing him. We might have had Jesus rebuking the disease.

It was when Jesus saw their faith that He spoke. He saw the faith of the four men.  A.T, Robertson in his “Word Pictures in the New Testament,” says there is no reason to exclude the sick man himself from “their” faith. Jesus addressed the paralyzed man’s greatest need when He said, “Son, thy sins be forgiven thee.” One can go to heaven with a diseased body, no money in the bank, nowhere to sleep, no car to drive, no friends and no family. But no one, not even the richest man in the world, can go to heaven without his sins first being forgiven. Having our sins forgiven is mankind’s greatest need. Take care of first things first.