impotent man who was first healed, and at a later period bidden to sin no more. (John v. 14.) But here the remission of sin takes the precedence; the reason no doubt being, that in the sufferer's own conviction there was so close a connexion between his sin and his plague, that the outer healing would have been scarcely intelligible to him, would have scarcely carried to his mind the sense of a benefit, unless his conscience had been also set free; perhaps he was incapable even of receiving it, till there had been spoken peace to his spirit. James v. 14, 15, supplies an interesting parallel, in the connexion which exists there also between the raising of the sick and the forgiving of his sin. The others, alluded to above, who had a much slighter sense of the relations between sin and suffering, were not first forgiven and then healed; but their thankfulness for their bodily healing was used to make them receptive of that better blessing which Christ had in store for them.

*

The absolving words "Thy sins be forgiven thee," are not to be taken as optative merely, as a desire that it might be so, but as declaratory of a fact. They are the justification of the sinner; and, as declaratory of that which takes place in the purposes of God, so also effectual, shedding abroad the sense of forgiveness and reconciliation in the sinner's heart. For God's justification of a sinner is not merely a word spoken about a man, but a word spoken to him and in him; not an act of God's, immanent in himself, but transitive upon the sinner. In it there is the love of God, and so the consciousness of that love, shed abroad in his heart † on whose

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'Apéwvrat. (Cf. Luke vii. 48; 1 John ii. 12.) The old grammarians are not at one in the explanation of this form. Some make it ap@vtal, 2 aor. conj., as in Homer apén for dpy. Thus Eustathius; but others more rightly explain it as the præter. indic. pass., ἄφεῖνται, though of these again some find in it an Attic, others, more correctly, a Doric form. Cf. HEROD., 1. 2, c. 165, dvéwvтai. This perfect passive will then stand in connexion with the perfect active a‹piwka for døpeîka. (WINER'S Grammatik, p. 77.)

It will be seen above that I have used Rom. v. 5 in a different sense

behalf the absolving decree has been uttered.-The murmurers and cavillers understood rightly that Christ, so speaking, did not merely wish and desire that this man's sins might be forgiven him; and that he did not, as does now the Church, in the name of another and wielding a delegated power, but in his own name, forgive the man his sins. They had also a right insight into the meaning of the forgiveness of sins itself, that it is a divine prerogative; that, as no man can remit a debt save he to whom the debt is due, so no one can forgive sin save he against whom all sin is committed, that is, God; and out of this feeling, true in itself,

from that in which it is far too often used. The history of the exposition of the verse is curious, and is not altogether foreign to the subject in hand. To Augustine's influence, no doubt, we mainly owe the loss for many centuries of its true interpretation, which Origen, Chrysostom, and Ambrose, men every one of them less penetrated with the spirit of St. Paul than he was, had yet rightly seized; but which, by his influence and frequent use of it in another sense, was so completely lost sight of, that it was not recovered anew till the time of the Reformation. He read in his Latin, Charitas Dei diffusa est in cordibus nostris per Spiritum Sanctum, qui datus est nobis. Had he read, as Ambrose reads it, (De Spir. Sanc., 1. 1, c. 8, § 88,) and as it should have been, effusa, (KKéXUтa is the original word,) it is probable he would have been saved from his mistake: for the comparison which would have been thus suggested with such passages as Acts ii. 17; Isai. xxxii. 15; Ezek. xxxvi. 25; Joel ii. 28, in all which God's large and free communication of himself to men is set forth under the image of a stream from heaven to earth, would have led him to see that this love of God which is poured out in our hearts, and is here declared to be our ground of confidence in him, is his love to us, and not ours to him that the verse is in fact to find its explanation from ver. 8, and affirms the same thing. The passage is of considerable dogmatic importance. The perverted interpretation became in after times one of the mainstays, indeed by far the chiefest one, of the Romish theory of an infused righteousness being the ground of our confidence toward God: which the true explanation excludes, yet at the same time affirms this great truth, that God's justification of the sinner is not, as the Romanists say we hold it, an act merely declaratory, leaving the sinner as to his real state where it found him, but a transitive act, being not alone negatively a forgiveness of sin, but positively an imparting of the spirit of adoption, with the sense of reconciliation, and all else into which God's love received and believed will unfold itself.

:

but most false in their present application of it, they said "This man blasphemeth."

It is well worth our while to note, as Olshausen here calls us to do, the deep insight into the relations of God and the creature, which is involved in the Scriptural use of the word blasphemy. Profane antiquity knew nothing like it; with it to blaspheme" meant only to speak something evil of a person*, (a use which indeed is not foreign to the Scripture,) and then, to speak something of an evil omen. Only the monotheistic religion included in blasphemy not merely outward words of cursing and outrage against the Name of God, but all snatchings on the part of the creature at honours which of right belonged only to the Creator. (Matt. xxvi. 65; John x. 36.) If he who thus spake had not been the onlybegotten Son of the Father, the sharer in all prerogatives of the Godhead, he would indeed have blasphemed, as they deemed, when he thus spake. Their sin was not that they accused him, a man, of blasphemy; but that their eyes were so blinded that they could not recognize any glory in him higher than man's; that the light shined in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not †.

It is not for nothing that it is said that Jesus perceived "in his Spirit" that such thoughts were stirring in their hearts. (Mark ii. 8.) These words, "in his Spirit" are not superfluous, but his knowing faculty, that whereby he saw through the thoughts and counsels of hearts, and knew what was in man, is here attributed to his divine Spirit. And these counsels he revealed to them; and in this way first he gave them to understand that he was more than they

Βλασφημεῖν as opposed to εύφημεῖν.

Augustine (Enarr. 3a in Ps. xxxvi. 25): Quis potest dimittere peccata [iniquiunt] nisi solus Deus? Et quia ille erat Deus, talia cogitantes audiebat. Hoc verum de Deo cogitabant, sed Deum præsentem non videbant. Fecit ergo... quod viderent, et dedit quod crederent.

Grotius: Non ut Prophetæ per afflatum, sed suo Spiritu.

esteemed*, since thoughts of hearts were open and manifest to him, while yet it is God only who searches hearts, (1 Sam. xvi. 7; 1 Chron. xxviii. 9; 2 Chron. vi. 30; Jer. xvii. 10,) it is only the divine Word of whom it can be said, that "he is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart." (Heb. iv. 12.)

Nor is it merely generally that he lays bare their thoughts of him, as being hard and evil, but he indicates the exact line which those thoughts were taking; for the charge which they made against him in their hearts, was not merely that he took to himself divine attributes, but that, doing so, he at the same time kept on the safe side as regarded detection,. taking those wherein, by the very nature of things, it was not possible to prove him a false claimant. They were murmuring, no doubt, within themselves, "These honours are easily snatched; any man may go about the world claiming this power, and saying to men, 'Your sins are forgiven you;' but where is the evidence that this word is allowed and ratified in heaven; that what is thus spoken on earth is sealed in heaven? In the very nature of the power which this man claims, he is secure from detection; for this releasing of a man from the condemnation of his sin is an act wrought in the inner spiritual world, attested by no outer and visible sign; therefore it is easily claimed, since it cannot be disproved." And our Lord's answer, meeting this evil thought in their hearts, is in fact this: "You accuse me that I am claiming a safe power, since, in the very nature of the benefit bestowed, no sign follows, nothing to bear witness whether I have challenged it rightfully or not; but now I will put myself to a more decisive proof. I will speak a word, I will claim a power, which if I claim falsely, I shall be convinced upon the instant to be an impostor and a deceiver. I will say to this sick man, Rise up and walk;' by the effects, as they follow or

• Gerhard (Harm Evang., c. 43): Jesus igitur exponens Pharisæis quid taciti apud se in intimis cordium recessibus cogitabant, ostendit se plus esse quàm hominem; et eâdem potestate, divinâ scilicet, quâ secreta cordium videat, se etiam peccata remittere posse.

do not follow, you may judge whether I have a right to say

to him, Thy sins be forgiven thee*.""

In our Lord's argument it must be carefully noted that he does not ask, Which is easiest, to forgive sins or to raise a sick man? for it could not be affirmed that that of forgiving was easier than this of healing; but, "Which is easiest, to claim this power or to claim that; to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee, or to say, Arise and walk? That is easiest, and I will now prove my right to say it, by saying with effect and with an outward consequence setting its seal to my truth, the harder word, Arise and walk. By doing that, which is capable of being put to the proof, I will vindicate my right and power to do that which, in its very nature, is incapable of being proved. By these visible tides of God's grace I will give you to know in what direction the great under currents of his love are setting, and that both are obedient to my word. From this which I will now do openly and before you all, you may conclude that it is no "robbery. (Phil. ii. 6,) upon my part to claim also the power of forgiving men their sinst." Thus, to use a familiar illustration

• Corn. à Lapide: Qui dicit, Remitto tibi peccata, mendacii argui non potest, sive ea reverâ remittit, sive non, quia nec peccatum nec peccati remissio oculis videri potest; qui autem dicit paralytico, Surge et ambula, se et famam suam evidenti falsitatis periculo exponit; re ipsâ enim si paralyticus non surgat, falsitatis, imposturæ et mendacii ab omnibus arguetur et convincetur... Unde signanter Christus non ait, Quid est facilius, remittere peccata, an sanare paralyticum, sed dicere, Dimittuntur tibi peccata, an dicere, Surge et ambula? Jerome (Comm. in Matth., in loc.): Utrùm sint paralytico peccata dimissa, solus noverat, qui dimittebat. Surge autem et ambula, tam ille qui consurgebat, quàm hi qui consurgentem videbant approbare poterant. Fit igitur carnale signum, ut probetur spirituale. Bernard (De Divers., Serm. 25): Blasphemare me blasphematis, et quasi ad excusandum visibilis curationis virtutem, me invisibilem dicitis usurpare. Sed ego vos potius blasphemos esse convinco, signo probans visibili invisibilem potestatem.

+ Maldonatus, with his usual straightforward meeting of a difficulty, observes here, Poterit autem aliquis meritò dubitare, quomodo Christus quod probandum erat, concludat. Nam si remittere peccata erat re verâ difficilius, dum experientia curati paralytici docet se quod re ipsâ facilius est, posse facere: non benè probat posse et se peccata remittere, quod erat difficilius,