What is the message of Matthew 9:5?

He's saying they are the same. That illness is psychosomatic, emotional, and contextual. Sins represent the man's relationship to his social world, that directly or indirectly produces his illness.

That we are interdependent and relationships determine individuals.

It's rooted in the idea that the man's affliction was a result of a past sin. Exactly what or why, we aren't told. But when people questioned Jesus for presuming to forgive the man's sin (which only God has the authority to do, and they weren't convinced of his divinity,) he pointed out that it's just as easy to say "your sins are forgiven" (thus implying that the punishment is rescinded) as to say "get up and walk," and that the two are basically equivalent.

Praise the Lord!

Dear Brothers and Sisters, I was meditating on this portion and some of the posts helped me to think. I am a pentecostal believer attending a full gospel church. Lets read verses Psalm 41:4 and 103:3 These verses show that sin came first and then forgiveness from God brought forth healing. Healing is a result and forgiveness is the step.

Jesus was saying is it easier to jump to the result, or climb the step at a time?

Most definitely, climbing the step and not leaping to the result.

Acts 3:6 proves this again.

Hope it helps.

God bless

If I knew I was going to die on the cross for your sins than forgiveness of sins would be the most difficult. The Question posed to the Pharisees is postured in a way that they should be the ones to understand that the forgiveness of sins is from God alone and that Jesus is the Messiah. The Pharisees are the ones who know everything about the Messiah and fail to recognize that He IS. Jesus is once again proving His Diety to the ones who should know Him best but they have there spiritual eyes closed. This is not an exercise in futility this is for the purpose of showing the world that He is the One for whom God is well pleased. Are you?

I can't tell if this answer is too late or not, but.

I've always read this verse and wonderes why it was necessary to show that the Son of Man has power to forgive sins "on earth", specifically. He wasn't showing them that he had the power to forgive sins, but to forgive sins specifically on earth.

This never made sense to me until I read Zechariah 3, where the angel of YHWH forgives Zechariah's sins in heaven. Note, in heaven. That unlocked the meaning of the passage for me. Yeshua wasn't just declaring that he was YHWH in this scene, but that he was the angel of YHWH, specifically. (Note that the angel of YHWH is called "YHWH of hosts" in Hosea, for example: that's his name.)

So Yeshua is asking a very interesting question when he asks "which is easier to say". Note, that they accuse him of blasphemy for the first thing he said. That was done on purpose. The man isn't healed until Yeshua says "get up and walk", so the first act was meant to set up the line about the Son of Man's authority on earth. It allows him to teach the point before he does the healing. In which case, I disagree with claims that the person's ailment wasn't connected to his sin. That seems to be heavily implied. It doesn't mean that all ailments are caused by sin, which is what people are trying to avoid. This particular person's sin lead to his ailment. It's as simple as leaving it at that and letting the text say what it says, particularly given that there's evidence elsewhere that you can use to refute anyone who would try to derive a general principle about illness from this particular instance.

Getting back to the point. What Yeshua is saying, then, when he asks "which is easier", has to do with the manner in which he's revealing his deity to them. You can say that this is the first event that sets off the enmity between him and the Pharisees etc, which sparks their desire to murder him for blasphemy. Yet none of the "regular" people around him seem to recognize the fullness of what he did and said. It seems like only the teachers of the law got it. I think that was intentional. We are not only supposed to understand the revealing of deity, but also why he did it in the way that he did it.

Remember, the Disciples never understood that Yeshua had to die until after the resurrection when he opened their eyes/minds to the text and they became Apostles, and so they likely didn't understand that he was YHWH either. But they wrote these things so that we could read them basically from the Holy Spirit's perspective, knowing who Yeshua is + the fundamental "why" of what he was doing, and of why he's doing it the way he's doing it.

It is vitally important that you look at the previous few verses in order to get context. Let's take the whole passage in the NIV:

Some men brought to him a paralyzed man, lying on a mat. When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the man, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” At this, some of the teachers of the law said to themselves, “This fellow is blaspheming!” Knowing their thoughts, Jesus said, “Why do you entertain evil thoughts in your hearts? Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’? But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “Get up, take your mat and go home.” Then the man got up and went home. When the crowd saw this, they were filled with awe; and they praised God, who had given such authority to man.

Jesus has pronounced forgiveness of the man's sins. The Pharisees object, saying that "only God can forgive sins". The Pharisees would agree that forgiving sins is easier than having the man walk again, so Jesus makes him walk again as a clear demonstration that he has the power to do both.

It has nothing to do with the sickness being caused by sin. Jesus clearly breaks that connection elsewhere.

Christ is using his ability to perform miracles as evidence that he is God, and therefore has the right and the ability to forgive sins.

He is saying, anyone can say "Your sins are forgiven," without any evidence that they have the authority to do so. But only God can heal a paralytic. So by performing such a miracle, Christ is proving that he has the authority of God both to heal and to forgive sin.