Because healing as opposed to forgiveness is empirically verifiable, the teachers of the law would conclude that it is easier to say "Your sins are forgiven" (Meier 1980:91). By performing a sign that is empirically verifiable, however, Jesus argues that he is God's authorized agent and therefore has authority . . . to forgive sins. The reasoning runs something like a traditional Jewish qal wahomer ("how much more") argument: if God would authorize Jesus to visibly heal the effects of humanity's fallenness, would he not send him to combat that fallenness itself?

Although physical healing is secondary to forgiveness, such healing is often crucial not only for compassionately meeting some of our most pressing human needs (9:36) and empowering us for greater service to the Lord (20:34) but also for drawing attention to Jesus' power to do other works. People who reason today that Jesus can heal either physically or spiritually but not both are like the radical critics who debate whether Jesus was a wisdom teacher or a prophet, a messiah or a healer. The question is forced-choice logic; why can he not be both, as the text teaches us? Without guaranteeing that God always chooses to perform miracles we might desire, I have personally witnessed how nonbelievers healed in answer to prayer sometimes end up committing their lives to the Lord Jesus.