Jesus is teaching one day inside a house. His audience includes Pharisees and others who teach the Jewish religious law.
While Jesus is teaching, some guys take the roof off the house to lower their paralyzed friend down in front of Jesus to be healed.
Instead of healing him, Jesus says, “Friend, your sins are forgiven.” This causes an uproar because everyone there knows only God can forgive sins.
Jesus responds to what everyone is thinking and says, “…that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…” and then heals the paralytic. (Luke 5:17-26).
The problem the Pharisees and law teachers had was that Jesus was asking them to believe He had authority to forgive sins. Authority is not something that can be seen. So, instead Jesus gave them something they could see as an evidence of his authority: a healing. (“But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins…”). (Luke 5:24).
One of the things I love about Christianity is it is firmly rooted in the tangible and touchable of history. Jesus knows you cannot see His authority. He doesn’t ask you to believe blindly. He provided evidence, and the greatest evidence is the historical fact of His resurrection. GS