This is amazing: while our Lord was calling Himself Son of Man, His enemies had unwittingly made Him God, the forgiver of sins! Thinking they had trapped Him with their strategy, it was He Who had confused them with their own strategy. And by confusing them with their own strategy, He made them testify to His truth. Their evil thinking was their bitter bondage, and to make sure that they would not escape their bondage, our Lord strengthened it for them by strengthening the paralytic and saying: ‘Get up; take your stretcher and go home.’ It would be impossible for them to retract their testimony that He is God, because He had in fact forgiven sins. Nor could it be proved that He had not forgiven sins, because He had in fact restored limbs.
St. Ephrem the Syrian, Homily on Our Lord in Selected Prose Works.