Matthew 9:1

1. To his own city His own by residence, Capernaum. See note on Matthew 4:13.

This verse properly closes the narrative of our Lord’s excursion across Gennesaret and his return. What follows occurred at Capernaum some time previous, and before his Sermon on the Mount.

§ 30. SIXTH MIRACLE THE PALSY CURED, Matthew 9:2-8 .

The main points in this miracle are these: 1. Such is the true faith of the man himself, beheld by our Lord’s discerning spirit, that he pardons his sins before he heals his palsy. It is first soul, and then body. So when the wreck made by sin in our entire nature is repaired, man will become physically perfect. 2. Our Lord is a perfect logician. He places here the miracle as proof, in close succession after his claim of forgiving power as the thing to be proved. No geometrician could ever bring preposition and demonstration into closer contact. “Thy sins be forgiven thee,” is, first, the proposition, and then the miracle is the proof. His miracles demonstrate that he is connected and clothed with the divine power by which he forgives the penitent. Miracles are therefore intended to be a demonstration of divine authority. 3. Our Lord reads the conscious thoughts of men. He gave the blaspheming scribes a proof to their inward consciousness that he knew their hearts. See note on Matthew 5:4.