We know Jesus changed the lives of everyone He healed, but He especially changed the lives of paralyzed people through healing. I will take a closer look at how He changed their lives.

In my last post, I talked about how Jesus healed the servant of a centurion with great faith. In this post, I’m looking at the places in the New Testament where Jesus healed paralyzed people.

Jesus healed all kinds of illnesses and disabilities throughout His ministry. Of particular interest to me personally was when He healed paralyzed people. These were people who were paraplegics because there was no technology around to maintain a quadriplegic.

But that doesn’t stop my faith from being increased every time I read these accounts. I want to take a closer look at Jesus healing paralyzed people and how He changed their lives forever. This will be a two-part post because I got so excited about these accounts.

Jesus cares about our physical bodies and the illnesses we get. But His healing entails more than just physical restoration. It becomes a restoration of the entire life of a person. This is a study near and dear to my heart. I am still believing in Jesus from my total healing from paralysis.

How Jesus Changed the Lives of Paralyzed People

We have already seen that Jesus healed the centurion’s servant who was paralyzed (Matthew 8:5-13; Luke 7:1-10). Right off the bat, that servant would be able to serve his centurion master again. But Jesus did more than just restore a person’s physical abilities.

I’ll be talking about Jesus healing the lame in other places in this series. In first century Jewish culture, paralysis was much more debilitating than it is today. Our modern technology and rehabilitation efforts have gone a long way in providing helps and independence. But in those days, technology was not available to paralytics.

A paralyzed person would have to rely on family and friends to carry him around. There was no opportunity for employment. His only recourse was to beg in the streets, marketplace, and outside the Temple. He could not enter the Temple for worship like everyone else in Israel because he had a defect. It was truly a lonely and disabled life.

When Jesus healed paralytics, He changed the life of a paralyzed person forever. They could do for themselves without other people’s help. They can worship in the temple and be close to God. They can provide for themselves and their families through gainful employment. They were not pitied by passersby. It was truly a restored and happy life.

Jesus Changed the Life of a Paralyzed Man

The first account I want to share with you of Jesus healing a paralyzed man is found in Matthew 9:1-8, Mark 2:1-12, and Luke 5:17-26. It is the same account in all three synoptic Gospels. All we know about this paralyzed man is that he has for wonderful friends to take him to Jesus.

Jesus changed the life of this paralyzed man by giving him much more than a healed body. Jesus does this miracle in His own city, Capernaum. Mark and Luke tell us Jesus was teaching and there was such a great crowd that the four friends could not get there paralyzed friend close enough to Jesus.

But that did not stop these faith-filled friends. They refused to be deterred. They climbed up on the roof and took off some of the tiles, and lowered the man in front of Jesus. It makes me wonder how many paralyzed people are so determined for their healing and have so much faith that they were doing to get before Jesus and lay themselves at His feet.

I love what Jesus does to the Pharisees during this healing. I think it is more about them than it was about this paralyzed man. Don’t get me wrong. Jesus cares about our afflictions and wants to heal us. But in this case, He used this healing to teach about His total abilities.

When the man drops before Him in the middle of His teaching, Jesus stops and forgives the man’s sins! He can walk, but Jesus is concerned for his soul. I explain elsewhere how sins and sickness are connected, but it seems Jesus cares more about that. He cares about both

Jesus is giving a lesson to the Pharisees, proving He is God by forgiving the man’s sins. Only Jesus would know about his sins. Jesus understands His paralysis also. He gets into a theological debate about whether He should forgive sins or heal a person.

Jesus can do both. He is God, and He does a complete and total healing of the whole person. He heals you body, soul, and spirit. That’s the point Jesus made with this healing. He cares about the whole person. He cared about forgiving the man’s sins and healing his broken body.

I am fascinated that Jesus did not say, “Your body is healed.” He simply told the man to get up and walk as if nothing was ever wrong with him. Jesus so completely restored whatever was wrong with his body that it was in good working order even if the man did not believe it or trust it.

I want to make one other point about this man and his healing. Jesus almost always heals because of faith. People trust in His ability and in Him as Creator so implicitly that He simply does for them out of who He is. The Gospels say that Jesus healed the man because of “their” faith. It refers to the faith of his four friends. It doesn’t say anything about his faith personally.

The person who needs healing is not always the one who has the faith to see it become reality. I will have a post on this later, but Word of Faith preachers have a habit of telling sick people they don’t have the faith for you to be healed. Perhaps it is the Word of Faith preachers who don’t have the faith for their healing.

Praying for Your Healing

Mighty Lord Jesus, I ask for my brother and sister that You would heal them and me from this paralysis. You know the difficulties of disability and unemployment, the suffering that goes way beyond just the paralysis of their body. I pray for Your full restoration of our bodies and health right now in Your blessed and powerful name, amen.

Up Next

We’ve only begun to look at how Jesus changed the lives of paralyzed people in the New Testament. We will continue with Part 2 because there is so much to unpack.

Image by Gregory Akinlotan from Pixabay