In our study of Mark we are still in Mark 2:9; where Jesus forgave the paralytic's sins and the scribes questioned him in their thoughts and he answered their thought's by asking if it was easier to forgive sins or to heal.
We then took up a study of the doctrine of forgiveness where we saw that it was easier for Jesus to heal because for sins to be forgiven the justice of God demands that the righteousness of God be propitiated and that could only happen with Jesus Christ being judged for sins on the cross.
In our study we have seen that the moment we acknowledge our post salvation sins to God we have forgiveness and restoration to fellowship with God; we have recovery of the mentorship function of the Holy Spirit. God forgives both the sins of cognizance and the sins of ignorance.
No category of post salvation sinning, no matter how heinous, implies lost of eternal salvation. No sin, no denial, no renunciation or category of degeneracy can cancel what God does for every believer at the moment of salvation. Rom 11:29;
The source of personal sin is the volition. The old sin nature is a source of temptation. But human volition is the source of all personal sin because that is where the choice to sin is made.
Personal sins can be sins of cognizance, where volition recognizes temptation as a sin and then chooses to commit a known sin, or sins of ignorance, where the volition is not aware that the temptation is a sin, but chooses to do it in ignorance.
This means that believers must take the responsibility for their own decisions, including all sins of cognizance or ignorance. Without acknowledgement of sin as the basis for solving the problem of personal sin personal sin will destroy your spiritual life because of the emotional and arrogance sins that fragment the thinking and results in Christian degeneracy.
Taking personal responsibility and having a change of mind is the only way for the believer to begin to think properly, recover the spiritual life and begin to advance in doctrine under the mentorship of God the Holy Spirit.
The antithesis of acknowledgement is denial that becomes the gateway into the emotional and arrogance complex of sins. 1John 1:8-10; "If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.
v9 If we acknowledge our sins, He is faithful and righteous with the result that He forgives us our sins and to purify us from all wrongdoing.
v10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us."
To deny post salvation sin is to deny reality (truth) in the post salvation experience. When that happens believers are deceived by satan's propaganda, act just like unbelievers, and become agents of satan. 1Tim 1:19-20; John 8:44; This is the status of many believers in our country today.
This brings us back to our passage in Mark 2:9; Where Jesus is addressing the scribes evil thoughts regarding his statement of the forgiveness of the paralytic's sins.
Mark 2:10; "But so that you may know that the Son of Man keeps on having power on earth to forgive sins." He would perform a miracle to demonstrate His authority over sin and its consequences. Net note 19
Mark 2:11; He then turns to the paralytic and commands him to get up and carry his bed home. Jesus' command to the paralytic to get up is a test of his faith, take his mat, and go home ( is a demand of obedience).
Jesus immediately enabled him to do this in full view of everyone, including the scribes who were criticizing him in their thoughts but the man had to use his volition to comply.
He did, and all of the observers were forced to recognize that the paralytic had actually received God's forgiveness because his being healed and his choice to walk away with his bed demonstrated it.
Mark 2:12; Jesus demonstrated that he was the Saviour by healing the man who gets up and walks out in front of everyone and everyone including the scribes was amazed and astonished and they were all praising God because of Jesus' display of supernatural power saying that they had never seen anything like this before.
Mark 2:13; Jesus leaves Capernaum and returns to the relative quiet of shore of the sea of Galilee and He teaches the crowd that follows him. We will see that His leaving the crowds for quiet time is a recurring pattern.
Mark 2:14; Capernaum was a customs post on the trade route from Damascus to the Mediterranean Sea. Levi (surnamed Matthew Mark 3:18;) was a Jewish tax official in the service of Herod Antipas, the ruler of Galilee.
This taxation often involved fraud so the Jews despised these officials. Jesus must have seen Matthew's positive volition so he told him to follow Him and leave his work behind. Net note 25
The word translated "follow" is in the imperative mood so Jesus commanded him to follow and he used his positive volition to choose to immediately get up from the tax table and follow Jesus.
The tax collectors were among the outcasts of society. They worked for an oppressive government and often extorted more than was actually due for themselves.
Matthew was therefore an outcast from "genteel" society because respectable members of society especially the religious people did not associate with tax collectors.
Jesus was only interested in positive volition and He doesn't care what segment of society people came from or weather they were accepted or ostracized by society.
Jesus spent a great deal of time with these kinds of people. Mary Magdalene had been a demon possessed prostitute (Luke 8:2;) but after her conversion she was one of the greatest people of doctrine during the three years of our Lord's ministry.
In Scripture she is mentioned more than any other woman except Jesus' mother Mary. She was the only person to see the resurrected Christ in the garden where the tomb was before His ascension. John 20:17;
Jesus is only interested in positive volition. He isn't concerned about what kinds of sins people are involved in because He is the resolution of the sin problem for all mankind.
Matthew was ostracized by society but accepted by God so he throws a big party for his friends at his house because they would not be accepted anywhere else.