Luke 5:12-26

Butler's Comments

SECTION 2

Cleansing Men (Luke 5:12-26)

12 While he was in one of the cities, there came a man full of leprosy; and when he saw Jesus, he fell on his face and besought him, Lord, if you will, you can make me clean. 13 And he stretched out his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be clean. And immediately the leprosy left him. 14And he charged him to tell no one; but go and show yourself to the priest, and make an offering for your cleansing, as Moses commanded, for a proof to the people, 15But so much the more the report went abroad concerning him; and great multitudes gathered to hear and to be healed of their infirmities. 16But he withdrew to the wilderness and prayed.

17 On one of those days, as he was teaching, there were Pharisees, and teachers of the law sitting by, who had come from every village of Galilee and Judea and from Jerusalem; and the power of the Lord was with him to heal. 18And behold, men were bringing on a bed a man who was paralyzed, and they sought to bring him in and lay him before Jesus; 19but finding no way to bring him in, because of the crowd, they went up on the roof and let him down with his bed through the tiles into the midst before Jesus. 20And when he saw their faith he said, Man, your sins are forgiven you. 21And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, Who is this that speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only? 22When Jesus perceived their questionings, he answered them, Why do you question in your hearts? 23Which is easier, to say, -Your sins are forgiven you,-' or to say, -Rise and walk-'? 24But that you may know that the Son of man has authority on earth to forgive sinshe said to the man who was paralyzedI say to you, rise, take up your bed and go home. 25And immediately he rose before them, and took up that on which he lay, and went home, glorifying God. 26 And amazement seized them all, and they glorified God and were filled with awe, saying, We have seen strange things today.

Luke 5:12-16 The Defiled: ... there came to him a man full of leprosy. Lepers were some of the most pathetic people of that era. It was not the physical but the social consequences of their malady that made their situation so extreme. Leviticus Chapter s 13 and 14 give scrupulous directions for the ostracism of lepers. They were cast out of towns and villages and had to live far away from healthy people. Often they lived in caves or tombs. They were not allowed to come within one hundred feet of a well person. When anyone approached, the leper was required to cry out concerning himself, Unclean, unclean! Often people who were well threw stones at lepers (even rabbis). No one was allowed to touch a leper. Lepers were deprived of all religious contact. They were considered outcasts from the camp of Israel. They were forbidden access to the Temple and its services. It was the social, religious and psychological deprivation that made the lepers such pitiful cases then.

Note the desperation in the leper's plea: he fell on his face and besought him, Lord if you will, you can make me clean. The Greek word translated besought might more literally be translated, begged. It is interesting that the leper asked for cleansing (Gr. katharisai) and not healing. The leper expressed humility, absolute faith in Jesus-' ability, and acquiescence to whatever Jesus willed to do. This is the kind of attitude Jesus always honors (cf. 1 John 5:14-15). With this kind of total commitment, Jesus was able to do the impossible. He could do for this defiled untouchable what no one else could doHe could cleanse! It is the Lord's will to cleanse the defiled. So, Luke records, He touched the leper and said, I am willing, be cleansed (Gr. katharistheti).

No one was supposed to touch a leper lest they too be defiled. Jesus-' act declares: (a) I have authority to fulfill and supercede the LawI am the Lawgiver; (b) I have power to take away the penalty that keeps man from God; (c) Love fulfills the Law! Jesus did not fulfill the Law and take away the penalty in fact, however, until He died on the cross and rose from the dead. This incident was simply a typical prediction of what He was going to do. Although Jesus fulfilled and superceded certain aspects of the Mosaic Law in order to show their true meaning, He never ignored the authority of that Law so long as it was in effect. Therefore, He ordered the leper to go to the priest, make the required sacrifices, and receive official cleansing before re-entering society.

To keep from enlarging the great throngs seeking Him merely for healing and to keep from increasing the agitation against Him already at work among the Jewish religious leaders, Jesus told the man to say nothing to anyone about his healing. Mark tells us that the man went out and began to spread the news so widely that Jesus could no longer openly enter a town because of the great multitudes which gathered to be healed of their infirmities, (Mark 1:45), so Jesus had to stay out in the country. Luke notes that He withdrew into the wilderness (uninhabited areas) to pray. If these multitudes had sought Jesus to learn of the will of God for their spiritual lives and to commit themselves to Him for atonement and regeneration, He would not have withdrawn. Their primary concern, however, appears to have been physical and not spiritual.

A Brief Study of Biblical Leprosy:

1.

The word lepra in pre-biblical Greek meant psoriasis or scaly. Translators of the Latin Vulgate took this Greek word and rendered it into the Latin as leprosas, and it was from the Latin that our first English transliteration (not translation) leprosy came! Had the Greek word been translated it would have appeared as scaly. Even the Latin leprosus means a scaling or peeling condition and the Latin word liber (book or parchment or leaves) is of the same derivation as leprosus.

2.

The Hebrew word tzara-ath is from a root word meaning to cast down, to defile. In Leviticus 13:1-59; Leviticus 14:1-57, even garments and walls of houses could have tzara-ath. This Hebrew word is translated in the English Bible as leprosy.

3.

Priests of the Old Testament were given only a few days to diagnose tzara-ath. It is medically impossible to diagnose modern Hansen's disease (modern leprosy) in such a short time. This suggets that the leprosy of the Bible was not the Hansen's disease (leprosy) we know today.

4.

The Hebrew tzara-ath and the Greek lepra, lepros apparently denoted numerous skin conditions which were pronounced unclean for religious and social reasons but which were curable. These skin conditions served the same purpose as other conditions which incurred defilementto show the absoluteness of man's estrangement from God because of sin.

5.

It is significant that the only leper healed in the New Testament was one of the 10 Samaritan lepers. All other lepers were cleansed. Apparently the Samaritan was simply healed since he could not be sent to a Jewish priest to be cleansed.

6.

It is also significant that there is no mention of leprosy (defilement) after the death and resurrection of Christ. The Law was nailed to the cross and fulfilled; there was no more ceremonial defilement. So, while the apostles healed the sick, cast out demons, raised the dead, caused the blind to see, the lame to walk, the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, they never cleansed a leper!

7.

Modern doctors have shown that the symptoms related in Leviticus chapter 13 have no connection with the disease we call leprosy (mycrobacterium leprae) which is really Hansen's disease. Hansen's disease is an uncurable disease mainly affecting the nervous system.

Luke 5:16-26 The Defeated: Luke mentions for the first time in his gospel the presence of Pharisees. The religious sect known as the Pharisees probably originated in the days of the Seleucid-Jewish struggles from a group of Jews who called themselves the chasidim. The Hebrew word chasidim means, the pious ones and they resisted to the death any encroachments of Hellinistic paganism upon their Jewish culture. This took place about 300-200 B.C. This group gained the favor of the majority of the common people and were able, by the time of Jesus, to exert tremendous influence upon society.

The Hebrew word pharashim (Pharisee) means, distinctly divided or separated and the Pharisees were extreme separatists. They were promoters of a traditional, exclusivistic Judaism. They numbered about 6000 in Jesus-' time. They were contemptuous of all who did not follow their traditions. The fundamental feature of Pharisaism was extreme legalism. In their zeal for the preservation of Jewish culture they devised thousands of traditions and rules about the Scriptures in order to protect the Law from being violated. They cared more for their rules than they did either the Law or men (cf. Matthew 12:1-8; Mark 2:23-28; Luke 6:1-5; Matthew 15:1-20; Mark 7:1-13, etc.). They did believe in divine providence, the free will of man, resurrection from the dead and final judgment, and a coming Messiah. They placed great store in history and the traditional culture of the Jewish race but were interested in politics only when politics interfered with their cultural and religious traditions. They were outwardly, very religious, and were the recognized (even by Jesus, Matthew 23:1) repositories of religious instruction. They were, however, for the most part hypocritical in their relationship toward God (cf. Matthew 23:1 ff). See the following chart, The Religious/Political Frame of First Century Judaism, for the origins of Jewish sects.

THE RELIGIOUS/POLITICAL FRAME OF FIRST CENTURY JUDAISM

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Not all priests were Sadducees.

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Not all rabbis were Pharisees.

The Pharisees, charged with the responsibility of maintaining the purity of Judaism, were here in Galilee investigating the sudden popularity of the itinerant Galilean rabbi, Jesus. Very little was officially known about Jesus. He had not gone to rabbinical schools; He apparently had little respect for Judea (had not spent much time there) which was the capital of conservative Judaism; it was being rumored that He took a very liberal view toward the traditions of the Pharisees. Jesus was teaching and preaching the word (cf. Mark 2:1-2) and they wanted to know where He stood doctrinally. They were concerned as to whether Jesus of Nazareth based His teaching on traditional rabbinical authority or not. They soon found out!

Four friends with a frantic faith brought a man afflicted with paralysis to be healed by Jesus. The Greek word for bed is klines and denotes a couch for reclining at meals, in distinction from a krabbatos which in Greek would mean, pallet or mattress. They could not get this couch through the door since people were jammed into the house and out around the door (cf. Mark 2:1-2). They carried the couch to the roof-top of the house, took away some of the tiles of the roof, and let the man and his couch down through the roof into the room. The Greek word describing the man's affliction is paralelumenos. It is a perfect participle which means he had been paralyzed in the past and continued to be so. The word literally means, loosed from something that is consistently fixed, Part of the man's body had been loosed from its normal consistency to the rest of the body. We know today that paralysis has something to do with the malfunction of the nerves of portions of the body in their connections to the brain. Brain damage (through stroke or accident) is usually what causes paralysis. Paralysis is almost totally incurable by medical technology.

Jesus surprised everyone with His first action toward the man. He said, Man, your sins are forgiven you! Matthew (Matthew 9:2) notes Jesus said, Be of good cheer. your sins are forgiven. Why did Jesus say this first and leave the more serious problem of the man's paralysis for later? Because the paralysis was not the more serious problem! Jesus is forcing the more serious issues first: (a) the man needs forgiveness even if he never receives healing; (b) most serious of all, the issue of His deityHis divine authoritymust be declared in uncertain terms. The Pharisees recognized immediately the seriousness of Jesus-' initial statement. They recognized that such a claim (to be able to forgive sins) was, if false, blasphemy. What they reasoned within themselves was true! Only God can forgive sins! The problem was the Pharisees refused to accept the idea (taught in the Old Testament, Isaiah 7:14; Micah 5:2) that God could reside in a human body (become incarnate).

Jesus, by supernatural knowledge, knew what they were reasoning within their minds. He proceeds to present incontrovertible proof of His authority. They cannot test the invisible power to forgive sins, but they can test His visible power to heal a paralytic. The healing proves the other. God would not grant such power to a liar and fraud. It is easy to say, Your sins are forgiven you, and no external evidence will be available to verify its factuality. But to say to a paralyzed man, Rise, take up your bed and go home is not easy for it can be subjected to external verification! The following chart, somewhat appropriated from The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. II, pgs. 139-142, by Harold Fowler, pub. College Press, demonstrates the logical defense Jesus made against the charge of blasphemy.

Notice, Jesus did not say, By the power of God, rise. but, I say to you, rise. Eventually the Jews crucified Jesus on the charge of blasphemy. Jesus was not guilty of blasphemy because He proved that He possessed the absolute power of God and thus rightfully claimed the prerogatives of Almighty God.

The reactions of the multitudes are interesting: (a) they were afraid (Matthew 9:8; Luke 5:26) (Gr. ephobethesan from phobia); (b) they were amazed (Mark 2:12; Luke 5:26) (Gr. ekstasis; they were ecstatic); (c) they glorified God (Matthew 9:8; Mark 2:12; Luke 5:26)the word glorified in the O.T. comes from kavod which means weight and apparently derives from the idea of a person's wealth or worth; (d) they said, We have seen strange (Gr. paradoxa from which we get paradoxical) thingsthe word paradox means, that which is contrary to the norm. They certainly did see strange and wonderful things from Jesus. No one had ever manifested such divine powerno one in their right mind had ever made such astounding claims. But perhaps the most paradoxical thing they saw that day was the refusal of the Pharisees to accept what they had seen with their own eyes verified to be true!