Mark 2:5
Mark 2:55When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, “Son, your sins are forgiven.”
The Watchtower reads Jesus's pronouncement of forgiveness as an exercise of delegated authority. Jehovah granted Jesus the right to declare forgiveness on God's behalf; Jesus speaks as Jehovah's appointed agent rather than as God himself. The verse is read as evidence of Jesus's high authority and special standing — but not as evidence of divine identity.
Pair with vv. 6-12 as a single unit. Jesus says directly to the paralytic "your sins are forgiven" — first person, his own authority, no "by Jehovah's authority" qualifier. The scribes immediately recognise the theological category Jesus has placed himself in (v. 7: "Who can forgive sins except one, God?"). Jesus does not correct their theology — he proves the claim by knowing their thoughts (omniscience) and healing the paralytic with a word (divine power). Pair with (Jesus directly forgives the sinful woman) and (Stephen asks Jesus to forgive his killers) for the consistent New Testament pattern: Jesus exercises divine forgiveness, and the apostolic church understood him to be the one to whom such requests are addressed.