A paralytic forgiven before he is healed, a tax collector called mid-transaction, a ruler’s dead daughter and a woman who had spent twelve years and everything she owned trying to be well — and running underneath every single story, the same question the Pharisees keep asking out loud: why does this man keep company with people like this?
A study in Matthew 9 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 31 min read
Thy Sins Be Forgiven Thee
“And he entered into a ship, and passed over, and came into his own city. 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.”
Matthew 9:1-2
“His own city” is Capernaum, and the fuller account (Mark 2:1-4; Luke 5:18-19) fills in what Matthew compresses into “they brought to him”: four friends carrying a paralyzed man, unable to reach Jesus through the crowded house, who climbed to the roof and broke through it to lower him down at Jesus’s own feet. “Seeing their faith” credits the bearers’ persistence as much as the paralyzed man’s own trust — a rare moment where someone else’s faith is explicitly what moves Christ to act.
“The burden of despair rolls from the sick man’s soul; the peace of forgiveness rests upon his spirit, and shines out upon his countenance. His physical pain is gone, and his whole being is transformed. The helpless paralytic is healed! the guilty sinner is pardoned!”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 268
White reads the man’s paralysis as bound up with a wasted, sinful past, and his deepest longing, before any request for healing, as simply the assurance that God had not abandoned him — which is exactly, and only, what Jesus offers first.
“And, behold, certain of the scribes said within themselves, This man blasphemeth. And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, Wherefore think ye evil in your hearts? For whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise, and walk? 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. And he arose, and departed to his house. But when the multitudes saw it, they marvelled, and glorified God, which had given such power unto men.”
Matthew 9:3-8
The scribes’ logic was sound as far as it went — only God can forgive sins — which is precisely the point Jesus’s answer exploits. Anyone can claim to forgive sins with no way to prove or disprove it; healing a lifelong paralytic on the spot is instantly, publicly verifiable. The visible miracle becomes evidence for the invisible one.
“There are today thousands suffering from physical disease, who, like the paralytic, are longing for the message, ‘Thy sins are forgiven.’ The burden of sin, with its unrest and unsatisfied desires, is the foundation of their maladies. They can find no relief until they come to the Healer of the soul. The peace which He alone can give, would impart vigor to the mind, and health to the body.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 270
Not every illness in this Gospel is traced to personal sin — the man born blind in John 9 is explicitly cleared of that assumption — but White reads this particular case as a genuine pattern worth naming: physical and spiritual healing, offered together, in that order, because they were never really two separate needs in this man to begin with.
They That Be Whole Need Not A Physician
“And as Jesus passed forth from thence, he saw a man, named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and he saith unto him, Follow me. And he arose, and followed him.”
Matthew 9:9
The Gospel’s own author names himself here in the plainest possible way, without embellishment — Mark and Luke both call him “Levi,” and this is likely the same tax booth where the parallel accounts place the call. Tax collectors working for Rome were despised as collaborators and, given the well-documented practice of skimming above the required amount, usually as extortioners besides.
“Matthew ‘left all, rose up, and followed Him.’ There was no hesitation, no questioning, no thought of the lucrative business to be exchanged for poverty and hardship. It was enough for him that he was to be with Jesus, that he might listen to His words, and unite with Him in His work.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 273
Peter and Andrew, called earlier from their nets, left comparatively little; Matthew, called from what was likely the most profitable job available to a Jew in Capernaum, left a career he could never safely return to once he walked away from it mid-transaction.
“And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his disciples. And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?”
Matthew 9:10-11
Matthew’s own first act as a disciple is to throw a party and invite his old colleagues to meet Jesus — the newly forgiven immediately becoming an evangelist to the still-despised, exactly the pattern this site’s own Gospel studies will keep tracing.
“But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Matthew 9:12-13
“Jesus did not wait for His disciples to answer the charge, but Himself replied: ‘They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.’ The Pharisees claimed to be spiritually whole, and therefore in no need of a physician, while they regarded the publicans and Gentiles as perishing from diseases of the soul. Then was it not His work, as a physician, to go to the very class that needed His help?”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 275
The quotation is Hosea 6:6, thrown back at scribes who had made an art of tithing garden herbs while missing the actual weight of the law — the same charge Jesus will bring again in Matthew 23:23. “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” does not abolish sacrifice; it ranks it, and the Pharisees, expert in the ritual, had failed the ranking entirely.
New Wine Into New Bottles
“Then came to him the disciples of John, saying, Why do we and the Pharisees fast oft, but thy disciples fast not? And Jesus said unto them, Can the children of the bridechamber mourn, as long as the bridegroom is with them? but the days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken from them, and then shall they fast.”
Matthew 9:14-15
John’s own disciples ask this while John himself sits in Herod’s prison — their fasting is at least partly genuine grief, not empty ritual, which is why Jesus’s answer is gentle rather than corrective. “Children of the bridechamber” were the wedding guests, whose entire role during the celebration itself was to rejoice; fasting belongs to a different season, one Jesus says plainly is coming, but has not arrived yet.
“No man putteth a piece of new cloth unto an old garment, for that which is put in to fill it up taketh from the garment, and the rent is made worse. Neither do men put new wine into old bottles: else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish: but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved.”
Matthew 9:16-17
“Bottles” are wineskins, not glass — still-fermenting new wine expands and needs a skin with elasticity left in it; an old skin, already stretched and dried out, will simply split.
“In this familiar illustration Jesus presented the condition of the Jewish leaders. Priests and scribes and rulers were fixed in a rut of ceremonies and traditions. Their hearts had become contracted, like the dried-up wine skins to which He had compared them. While they remained satisfied with a legal religion, it was impossible for them to become the depositaries of the living truth of heaven.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 278
The point is not that Christ’s gospel cannot coexist with any structure at all — it is that a heart already hardened into fixed forms cannot hold something still alive and still growing. New wine needs new capacity, not merely a new label pasted onto the old container.
Thy Faith Hath Made Thee Whole
“While he spake these things unto them, behold, there came a certain ruler, and worshipped him, saying, My daughter is even now dead: but come and lay thy hand upon her, and she shall live. And Jesus arose, and followed him, and so did his disciples.”
Matthew 9:18-19
The fuller narrative (Mark 5:22; Luke 8:41) names the ruler Jairus, an official of the local synagogue — exactly the class of leader this whole chapter’s own conflict has been running against, now the one asking for a miracle rather than disputing one.
“And, behold, a woman, which was diseased with an issue of blood twelve years, came behind him, and touched the hem of his garment: For she said within herself, If I may but touch his garment, I shall be whole. But Jesus turned him about, and when he saw her, he said, Daughter, be of good comfort; thy faith hath made thee whole. And the woman was made whole from that hour.”
Matthew 9:20-22
A chronic issue of blood carried the same ceremonial uncleanness as leprosy (Leviticus 15:25) — twelve years of being unable to worship in the temple, touch another person, or be touched, on top of whatever the disease itself had already cost her. She reaches for the very edge of His garment specifically to avoid being noticed.
“The Saviour could distinguish the touch of faith from the casual contact of the careless throng. Such trust should not be passed without comment. He would speak to the humble woman words of comfort that would be to her a wellspring of joy,—words that would be a blessing to His followers to the close of time.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 344
Jesus stops the crowd and insists on finding her, even though the healing has already occurred and He owed her nothing further — not to expose her, but because a silent, secret cure would have left her still officially unclean and still cut off from worship and community until someone in authority acknowledged what had happened.
“He gave no opportunity for superstition to claim healing virtue for the mere act of touching His garments. It was not through the outward contact with Him, but through the faith which took hold on His divine power, that the cure was wrought.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 344
White draws a sharp line the story itself could easily be misread past: the cloth was never the mechanism. “Thy faith hath made thee whole” credits the same thing the leper, the centurion, and the paralytic’s bearers were already shown to have — not a magic object, but trust that reached past the object to the Person behind it.
“And when Jesus came into the ruler’s house, and saw the minstrels and the people making a noise, He said unto them, Give place: for the maid is not dead, but sleepeth. And they laughed him to scorn. But when the people were put forth, he went in, and took her by the hand, and the maid arose. And the fame hereof went abroad into all that land.”
Matthew 9:23-26
Hired mourners and flute players were customary at a Jewish death, even for the poor — a household of any standing was expected to provide them, which means this noisy scene was already in motion by the time Jesus and Jairus arrived. “Sleepeth” is not a denial that she had died; it is the same word the New Testament regularly uses for death precisely because, from the standpoint of resurrection power, the distinction between the two states was smaller than the mourners’ own scorn assumed.
He Casteth Out Devils Through The Prince Of The Devils
“And when Jesus departed thence, two blind men followed him, crying, and saying, Thou Son of David, have mercy on us. And when he was come into the house, the blind men came to him: and Jesus saith unto them, Believe ye that I am able to do this? They said unto him, Yea, Lord. Then touched he their eyes, saying, According to your faith be it unto you. And their eyes were opened; and Jesus straitly charged them, saying, See that no man know it. But they, when they were departed, spread abroad his fame in all that country.”
Matthew 9:27-31
“Thou Son of David” is the first time in this Gospel that title is addressed to Jesus directly, in prayer, by name — a messianic claim two blind beggars make out loud in public, before most of Israel’s own leaders would say the same. Like the leper of chapter 8, they receive a direct instruction to silence, and like his, it goes unheeded.
“As they went out, behold, they brought to him a dumb man possessed with a devil. And when the devil was cast out, the dumb spake: and the multitudes marvelled, saying, It was never so seen in Israel. But the Pharisees said, He casteth out devils through the prince of the devils.”
Matthew 9:32-34
This is the first appearance in Matthew of the accusation that will return, in a fuller and more consequential form, in chapter 12 — White’s own comment on the later, repeated instance of this same charge belongs here too, since it explains exactly what was actually at stake the first time it was spoken:
“Christ told them plainly that in attributing the work of the Holy Spirit to Satan, they were cutting themselves off from the fountain of blessing.… Whatever the sin, if the soul repents and believes, the guilt is washed away in the blood of Christ; but he who rejects the work of the Holy Spirit is placing himself where repentance and faith cannot come to him. It is by the Spirit that God works upon the heart; when men willfully reject the Spirit, and declare It to be from Satan, they cut off the channel by which God can communicate with them.”
Ellen G. White · The Desire of Ages, p. 321
The Pharisees are not condemned here for being wrong about a debatable point; they are condemned for looking directly at the Spirit’s own work and calling it Satan’s, on purpose, because the alternative — that the man in front of them really was who He claimed to be — was a conclusion they had already decided in advance not to reach.
The Harvest Truly Is Plenteous
“And Jesus went about all the cities and villages, teaching in their synagogues, and preaching the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every sickness and every disease among the people. But when he saw the multitudes, he was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd. Then saith he unto his disciples, The harvest truly is plenteous, but the labourers are few; Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he will send forth labourers into his harvest.”
Matthew 9:35-38
“Sheep having no shepherd” is a direct echo of Israel’s own history under its worst kings (1 Kings 22:17; Ezekiel 34), a whole nation nominally led yet functionally abandoned by the very leaders this chapter has spent thirty-four verses in conflict with.
“Christ saw the sickness, the sorrow, the want and degradation of the multitudes that thronged His steps. To Him were presented the needs and woes of humanity throughout the world. Among the high and the low, the most honored and the most degraded, He beheld souls who were longing for the very blessings He had come to bring, souls who needed only a knowledge of His grace to become subjects of His kingdom.… Today the same needs exist. The world is in need of workers who will labor as Christ did for the suffering and the sinful.”
Ellen G. White · Testimonies for the Church, vol. 6, p. 254
A chapter that opened with one paralyzed man being carried through a broken roof closes with an entire multitude in the same essential condition, and the same instruction given to nine chapters’ worth of disciples who have, by now, watched every kind of impossible need answered: not to do the work alone, but to ask the Lord of the harvest for more hands to do it.
