The first thing we get in these verses is the Leper, as typifying the uncleanness of sin, which none but Jehovah could remove. This poor leper was disheartened because no man could cleanse him; but he was now come into the presence of One who could deal in power with his loathsome condition. He comes to Jesus, therefore, and says, "Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean." He had confidence in the Lord's power, because he had witnessed the outward manifestation of it in others; but he had not confidence in His perfect grace, because His own misery had made him ignorant of love, as it too often does. But Jesus put forth His hand and touched him and said, "I will, be thou clean." Now no one has any title to say "I will" but Jehovah; and not only did He say "I will," but He put forth, His hand and touched him, because it was impossible that He could be contaminated by the pollution. Man could not do this, but the Lord, as man, came near enough to us to touch us in our very sins, that He might put them away. In this was manifested divine power with perfect grace. "And he charged him to tell no man;" that is, He put nothing between God and the leper's soul as to the matter of his cleansing. But He says, " Go and show thyself to the priest and offer for thy cleansing according as Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them." Christ was perfectly subject to the law, "made of a woman, made under the law;" and this very subjection to the law in this healing must turn to the priest for a testimony of God; for they must know that Jehovah had been there. The priest must acknowledge that none but Jehovah could cure the leper.
But after putting forth this power of Jehovah, we have Him immediately as the One who walked through the world as the dependent, praying man; "and he withdrew into the wilderness and prayed." How very carefully the Holy Ghost marks this, again and again. We can find nothing else like God displaying His power in a man, dwelling down here in dependence on God! How does the simple fact of the incarnation create our thoughts about itself!
The next thing we get is the man with the palsy, who was let down from the house-top. "And when he saw their faith, he said unto him, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee." For not merely is there the deliverance from the power of Satan, as in chap. 4:36, and the cleansing from the defilement of sin as in the leper; but there is also the pardon of the guilt of sin, as here, "thy sins be forgiven thee." For sin breaks our relationship with God in two ways. First, in its defilement; God being of purer eyes than to behold iniquity and, secondly, in its guilt, being committed against God. But all the grace of God being now come down on the earth amongst men, in the Son of man, who has power on earth to forgive sins, as He Himself says, "that ye may know that the Son of man hath power -upon earth to forgive sins, He said unto the sick of the palsy, I say unto thee, arise, and take up thy couch and go into thine house." Here, then, we get the simple, absolute, complete forgiveness of sins; for the man with the palsy was absolutely forgiven and delivered from sin, there and then. On the earth he was to know that his sins were gone; and he was then to know, in his relationship with God, that his guilt was gone. Thus likewise I am told in the word of God that there is now no guilt as regards the believer in the sight of God. Therefore I am entitled to assume that I am no longer on the ground of guilt at all, but on the ground of grace, which has put the guilt away. For Christ Himself has put my sin away, and I am not on the ground of a guilty being, but of one forgiven. Of course I have been guilty of the sin, or I should not need the forgiveness of it; but, as God cannot suffer the least defilement in His presence, Ile will have to chasten and discipline me as His child; though, at the same time, I am not on the ground of a guilty man at all, but of a pardoned one. In Psa. 103 we see that it is Jehovah who heals all Israel's diseases, "who forgiveth all, thine iniquities, who healeth all thy diseases." The Pharisees say, Who can forgive sins but Jehovah? He who can forgive can heal, and, therefore, Jesus says, " Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?"
The Son of man was making man's heart to feel that God is perfectly interested in man. "His delights are with the sons of men." Here is more than God looking down upon men in love and pity; for He came amongst them Himself as being one with them.
You doubt, perhaps, whether you can get this amazing boon, but I will show you that you can; for in this is the display of the Lord, as the Son of man, a divine, living, present person, acting in divine grace and power.
Jehovah (still man) is blessing in perfect grace. Well might they say, they had "seen strange things today." -But I would here remark that when the need is felt, and this perfect power is to be found nowhere else, faith will not be put off by difficulties. (See ver. 19, 20.) If God forgives us, then power comes in; and this to man's eye is the proof of God's power having been put forth. " He rose up before them, and took up that whereon he lay, and departed to his own house." The man who was the slave of sin is now seen walking in the power of God..Faith does not need to see itself walk, but it is a proof to others of its power.