So difficult
Literally, verse 8 says: After seeing this, the crowds feared and glorified God, who had given men such power. The crowds are amazed and astonished, but they do not recognize Jesus as God, rather as a man to whom God had given supernatural powers.
This passage of the Gospel contains the greatest of man's spiritual and mental challenges and, at the same time, the easiest of temptations and the greatest deception of all human history. It is impossible not to recognize that Jesus, His words and miracles have a supernatural origin, an extraordinary power and allurement never heard or seen before. Even His worst enemies and opponents are often taken by awe and wonder, surprise, and even an ill-concealed sense of nostalgia and admiration for Him. But the real spiritual and mental difficulty is that of accepting what Jesus is, what He does and says because He is God, the Son of God, and not just because He is a man invested with divine might and power.
It is precisely this difficulty that made the scholars of that time express the ultimate blasphemy, that is affirming that Jesus was blaspheming when he revealed that He is God. It is precisely that difficulty that still produces errors, misunderstandings, and tricky interpretations even in translating the Gospel text. One example is line 6. This verse begins with the Greek preposition ìna - usually translated as "so that, in order to" - followed by a subjunctive form of the verb, leaving the sentence suspended. The Greek text presents a verse which is literally unfinished, as it begins with "so that" but there is no main clause as its reference. It reads in fact as: So that you may know that [in Greek: ìna dè èidete hòti] the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins. Then he said to the paralytic [...].
The translators have tried to the best of their ability to make up for the unfinished Greek verse in order to provide continuity with the next one, translating it as: "But that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins" - he then said to the paralytic, "Rise, pick up your stretcher, and go home." But this is neither a correct interpretation nor a literal translation; it is instead an adjustment that provides, among other things, a verb turned from present into past (he then says to the paralytic, becomes: he then said to the paralytic). The translation, moreoever, inserts "but" which is not present in the Greek text: "But that you may know that [...]" so that the sentence can stand.
The Greek of the New Testament, also called Hellenistic Greek or koiné, used ìna joined to the subjunctive not to express a subordinate clause, but an independent one, with the sense of a prayer, and, moreoever, with a sense of desire or decision, a meaning that was already present in Ancient Greek and documented by dictionaries, but it started to be commonly used only since the first century BC. The correct translation of verse 6, introduced by the preposition ìna - literally "so, then" – becomes: So, know that the Son of Man has authority to forgive sins on earth. It is an independent and complete clause. It testifies that Jesus does not speak of Himself as a prophet who announces God's forgiveness, but as the Son of God and, being God, He has the authority and power to forgive sins and the world's sin. The scholars, the biblical experts, the people's leaders deny Jesus' power, they do not accept His authority and the fact that He is God, and Jesus answers them by healing the paralytic.
Not just the scholars of that time found it difficult to recognize and accept Jesus, as it is a difficulty shared by many hearts and minds who have met Him throughout history. It is the difficulty experienced by those whose hearts are in conflict and in rebellion, even if unconsciously, with God Himself. How can a man be misled about the Son, when he intimately loves, knows and worships the Father? Only if the mental processes are focused on thinking ill of God the Father and on doubting His love and loving presence does it become difficult, very difficult, to recognize and accept Jesus as the Son of the Father and not simply as a man with supernatural powers. The priests of the temple, the scribes and biblical experts of the Word of God, without even being aware of it, have moved far away from God the Father, have placed themselves in a state of challenge and rebellion against Him, and they have built another god for themselves, to their own image and likeness. That is why it was so very difficult for them to recognize Jesus as the Son of God.
It is what Jesus sees in the mind of every man - the text literally says seeing and knowing their thoughts -, Jesus instantly sees the effort, the difficulty to recognize Him as the true God and true man. It is beyond any religious confession or membership, any ritual, social class, theological knowledge; it does not depend on a lack of faith, nor it is only the result of bias, but it is generated by the uprising and mental challenge developed for any reason against God Himself.