Authority Lent, Not Owned

Mark 2:5-7

Authority Lent, Not Owned

The doubters’ premise, undone by a Son who was given the right

Authority that must be given was never His by nature --- and He said His was given.

--- The Standing Stone ---

Behind “LORD” in your Bible lies a hidden name --- in the Hebrew it is Yahuah Psalm 83:18**; Yahuah is the Father** Isaiah 63:16**; Yahuah is the only God, beside Him there is no other** Isaiah 45:5**; therefore Yahuah the Father is the only true God, leaving no room for a second or third person** 1 Corinthians 8:6**.**

Part One

The Charge in the Scribes’ Hearts

Mark 2:5—7

When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, Son, thy sins be forgiven thee. But there were certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?

There is a popular argument that reads these three verses as a short proof that Yahushua is God. It runs like this. Only God can forgive sins. Yahushua forgave sins. Therefore Yahushua is God. It sounds tidy. It falls apart the moment you ask one question: who said “only God can forgive sins”?

The answer is right in the text. It was the scribes --- and Mark tells us what they were doing when they said it. They were “reasoning in their hearts.” They were the unbelievers in the room, the men who within a few verses are shown to be wrong. “Who can forgive sins but God only?” is not the verdict of Scripture. It is the objection of the doubters.

Here is the part that should stop a careful reader cold. The whole point of this account is that Yahushua proved the scribes wrong. So anyone who quotes their line as if it were settled truth has lined up with the very men Yahushua is about to refute. To stand on Mark 2:7 as a proof of deity is to stand with the scribes against the One they doubted.

One hidden step is doing all the work. It is the silent assumption that forgiveness is a right Yahuah could never hand to anyone else --- His alone, by nature, with no exception, ever. Watch how completely Yahushua takes that assumption apart.

Part Two

The Proof Yahushua Chose

Yahushua does not argue with them. He sets a test. He asks a question: which is easier --- to say, “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” or to say, “Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk” (Mark 2:9)?

Think about what that question exposes. Anyone can say the words “your sins are forgiven.” No one can see whether it happened. There is nothing to check. But “arise and walk” can be seen. If the man does not get up, the speaker is exposed as a fraud in front of the whole room. So Yahushua does the thing that can be tested, in order to prove the authority behind the thing that cannot be seen.

Mark 2:10

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins…

Hear the reason He gives. He heals the man “that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” That word power is the Greek word exousia.

ἐξουσία

Exousia

Delegated authority --- a right that has been handed over by a higher source. Strong’s G1849.

Exousia is not raw might. It is granted authority, a right handed down from someone higher. A governor has exousia over a province, but the power is the king’s --- it was given to him to use. So when Yahushua says the Son of man has exousia to forgive, He is telling us where that authority came from. It was given. And you are not given what you already own by nature.

Notice the title He uses, too. He calls Himself “the Son of man” --- not “God the Son.” In Hebrew that phrase simply means a human being; Ezekiel is addressed as “son of man” dozens of times. And in the vision of Daniel 7:13—14, it is the Son of man to whom dominion is given by the Ancient of days. Read it either way, the title points to a man who receives --- never to God who owns.

There is more. Even the healing --- the visible sign --- was not the man acting as God. It was Yahuah working through the man. Peter said so plainly on the day the assembly was born:

Acts 2:22

Jesus of Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by miracles and wonders and signs, which God did by him in the midst of you…

Read it slowly: a man approved of God, by miracles, which God did by him. The very sign that proved the authority was itself something Yahuah did through Yahushua. So the miracle does not point to a man who is God. It points to the Father working through the man He sent.

And the eyewitnesses understood it exactly that way. Watch the last line of the account in the parallel record.

Matthew 9:8

But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.

They glorified God --- not Yahushua --- and they praised Him because He “had given such power unto men.” Given. Power. Unto men, and men is plural. The inspired writer hands us the meaning of the whole scene, and it is the opposite of the proof the doubters wanted. The lesson the crowd drew was never “this man is God.” It was that the Father had given such authority to men.

Part Three

The Shadow Fulfilled --- Our High Priest

None of this was new. The truth that Yahuah forgives sins through a man He appoints is woven all through the Torah. The trouble is that most readers walk straight past it. They treat the Old Testament as a book of stories and miss the very thing the stories were drawn to show.

Look at the priesthood. Under the Law, when an Israelite sinned, he did not pronounce himself forgiven. He brought his offering to the priest, and the priest made atonement for him.

Leviticus 4:26

…and the priest shall make an atonement for him as concerning his sin, and it shall be forgiven him.

“The priest shall make an atonement for him… and it shall be forgiven him.” The forgiveness was Yahuah’s. The hand He worked through was an appointed man’s. For centuries before the scribes ever spoke, Yahuah had been forgiving sins through the priests He chose. Their whole premise --- none but God, ever, by any means --- was already false in the books of Moses they claimed to guard.

But the priesthood was never the real thing. It was a shadow cast ahead of it.

Hebrews 10:1

For the law having a shadow of good things to come, and not the very image of the things…

“A shadow of good things to come.” The whole system --- priest, blood, altar, atonement --- was a drawing pointing forward to its substance. And the substance is Yahushua. He is our great High Priest. Look closely at what kind of priest the Torah says a high priest must be.

Hebrews 5:1

For every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in things pertaining to God, that he may offer both gifts and sacrifices for sins:

“Every high priest taken from among men.” A high priest is, by definition, a man --- taken from among men, appointed for men, to offer for sins. Yahushua did not seize the office; the Father made Him a high priest. He stands in the very line the Torah foreshadowed, doing in full the work the Levites did in shadow.

But here the shadow gives way to something far greater. The earthly priest carried the blood of goats and calves into the holy place. Our High Priest carried His own.

Hebrews 9:12

…by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.

“By his own blood he entered in once.” The Levitical high priest was himself a sinner, who had to atone for his own sins first, year after year (Hebrews 7:27). Yahushua, the faultless one, needed no atonement for Himself. He offered Himself once, as a man, for His people --- and He has made that people a priesthood of their own (1 Peter 2:9). The shadow was the priest carrying the blood of beasts for Israel; the substance is our High Priest carrying His own blood for us.

So when the scribes demanded, “who can forgive sins but God only?” --- the answer was standing in front of them, and the Torah had been pointing to Him the whole time. Yahushua even handed a measure of that priestly work to His followers.

John 20:23

Whose soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye retain, they are retained.

If pronouncing forgiveness made a man God, the apostles would be God too. They were not. They were men, sent --- just as the Son of man was sent, and just as the priests of Israel were appointed long before them.

Conclusion

The Verdict

He gave forgiveness through His priests in shadow, through His Son in full, and onward through the apostles. So look once more at the Son forgiving in that crowded house --- and see not a second God stepping forward, but the Father’s own mercy, placed into human hands and poured out among men. A gift, after all, always remembers the hand that gave it.

Authority that has to be given was never yours by nature --- and Yahushua said His was given.