Another text commonly used to prove the Trinity is
Matthew 9:2-8,
2 And, behold, they brought to him a man sick of the palsy,
lying on a bed: and Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy;
Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee.
3 And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves,
This man blasphemeth.
4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye
evil in your hearts?
5 For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or
to say, Arise, and walk?
6 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth
to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise, take up thy
bed, and go unto thine house.
7 And he arose, and departed to his house.
8 But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and
glorified God, which had given such power unto men.
This particular text can have many ramifications, if Jesus is not God,
which are way beyond the scope of this work.
So, let us just look at a couple of facts and ask a question.
The first fact is that it is the scribes who claim that only God can
forgive sins. Jesus doesn’t claim or
confirm this. He only asserts that he
has the right to tell the man that his sins are forgiven.
The second fact is
John 20:21-23,
"Then
said Jesus to them again, Peace be unto you: as my Father hath sent me, even so
send I you. And when he had said this,
he breathed on them, and saith unto them, Receive ye the Holy Ghost: Whose
soever sins ye remit, they are remitted unto them; and whose soever sins ye
retain, they are retained."
When we examine the scriptures, are they necessarily saying that Jesus
is God simply because he tells a man that his sins are forgiven? If that is so, then, logically, wouldn’t that
make the disciples gods, according to John 20: 21-23?
And lastly, pay close attention to verses 6- 8 of Matthew 9.
6 But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power
on earth to forgive sins, (then saith he to the sick of the palsy,) Arise,
take up thy bed, and go unto thine house.
7 And he arose, and departed to his house.
8 But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and
glorified God, which had given such power unto men.
It says in verse 8 that God had given men (meaning Jesus) this
power. It specifically calls Jesus a man
and says that he had this power because God had given it to him. How much clearer can the Bible be? Yet, Trinitarians insist on stating that
Jesus had to be God in order to have this power. The entire point of the story, according to the Bible, is to prove that God gave this power to men. Trinitarians say the Bible is wrong and claim the point of the story is to prove that Jesus is God.
Note, I am NOT saying that humans have, through their own power,
to say that someone’s sins are forgiven.
The source of the power is still God.
Matthew 9:8 makes it clear that Jesus received this power from God. And John 20:21-23 makes it clear that Jesus
passed this power to the disciples. It
is still God who does the actual forgiving.
This is a topic that needs to be fleshed out at another time and
place. The point is that Jesus’s words
in Matthew 9 and John 20 show that he disagreed with the Pharisees’ assertion
about the forgiveness of sins. The
Pharisees were wrong, but the Trinitarians continue to repeat what the
Pharisees said.
