Welcome to The MHB Podcast. This is Michael Baun. And welcome to my 206th episode. In this episode we’re going to continue our study in the book of Matthew. We are in chapter 9. I love this chapter because it provides a survey of Christ’s power to save and His willingness to do so. This chapter covers a series of miraculous healings and the first one is a paralytic. He also raises to life the daughter of a synagogue official. This is the chapter where the woman who long dealt with an issue of blood was healed merely by touching the edge of Christ’s cloak. We’ll see him forgive sins, give sight to two blind men, exorcise a demon out of another, and effortlessly heal every kind of sickness and disease.
This is also the chapter where Jesus calls Matthew to follow Him. Matthew was a tax collector so selecting him to be a disciple was unusual. Tax collectors were often categorized with sinners because of how rampant fraudulent collections were. The Pharisees were offended that Jesus would dare to sit down and dine with tax collectors and sinners. In this chapter Jesus preaches to the multitude and also provides them with preachers. This is the origin passage of the famous saying, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few” The stories presented in Matthew 9 give a thorough illustration of Christ’s office as the Great Physician. Jesus is skillful to heal both body and soul — so we should apply ourselves to Him in both domains. We should endeavor to glorify God with our bodies as well as with our spirits as both belong to Him. Let’s begin by reading verses 1-8:
Mat 9:1-8
1 Getting into a boat, Jesus crossed over the sea and came to His own city.
2 And they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed. Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralytic, “Take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.”
3 And some of the scribes said to themselves, “This fellow blasphemes.”
4 And Jesus knowing their thoughts said, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?
5 “Which is easier, to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, and walk’?
6 “But so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins”—then He *said to the paralytic, “Get up, pick up your bed and go home.”
7 And he got up and went home.
8 But when the crowds saw this, they were awestruck, and glorified God, who had given such authority to men.
You’ll remember in the previous chapter we saw Jesus heal the demoniac and cast the demons into the herd of swine. This upset the Gadarenes because the swine ran down a cliff into the sea and perished — causing a steep financial loss. When they heard about this, the entire city came out to meet Jesus and implore that He leave their region. They wanted rid of Him. The first verses in this chapter pick up with Jesus getting into a boat and crossing over the sea to His own city. They wanted Jesus to leave and so Jesus left — and we never read that He entered their region again.
God does not linger with those who want no part in Him. He forsakes those places and those people in righteous judgment and instead abides with those who seek Him. After David sinned with Bathsheba one of his chief petitions to God is that God’s Holy Spirit not depart from him. He was afraid of being without the presence of God, but the Gadarenes demanded it — and so Jesus left. In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians he tells them, “If the unbelieving one leaves, let him leave; the brother or the sister is not under bondage in such cases, but God has called us to peace.” You can’t force people to be faithful. You can’t force them to worship or to honor God. If they choose to walk away from Jesus they do so at their own peril.
Jesus showed compassion and patience with the Gadarenes when they demanded that He leave. He would have been justified to destroy them or punish them — but God gives grace to those who don’t deserve it. It would have been no issue at all for Jesus to send all the villagers down the cliff after their swine and their unrepentant sin would have warranted it. But Jesus didn’t even rebuke them. He just quietly entered into a ship and left them to their own depravity. This is something to keep in mind as a Christian today. If you reject God and embrace a life of sin you should expect God to hand you over to a spirit of evil. The sin will corrupt and possess you until you don’t even know you who you are anymore.
Like the Gadarenes, we live during the dispensation of God’s patience. This is the era of His mercy and His compassion — He did not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them. He did not come to kill but to cure. There is a judgment day coming when all things will be set right and evil will receive God’s mercy no longer. That is a day of justice and of vengeance. A dark and terrible day for those who are in rebellion to King Jesus. Just because we live during the age of gospel mercy does not mean we’ll always get away with the sins we commit. Not many years after this event with the Gadarenes, the Romans waged a bloody war against the Jews. Some historians surmise the first town they besieged was that of the Gadarenes. So we should remember that rejecting God means inviting evil and misery onto ourselves. You cannot do one without the other. David understood this which is why he was so desperate for the Spirit of the Lord to stay with him. We should understand it and cling to God with similar tenacity.
After leaving the Gadarenes Jesus returned to His principal place of residence during this time which was a city called Capernaum. Where one city wanted nothing to do with Him, another city welcomed Him in. If some refuse to glorify God, others will do it in their place. Even the rocks themselves will glorify God if no one else will. Although Capernaum took Him in, there was probably enough familiarity that they didn’t hold Him in any special regard. Jesus Himself said that a prophet is least honored in his own country or his own city. But during His ministry that didn’t stop Him from visiting His home territory or places where people knew Him.
Jesus wasn’t on earth to seek His own honor. He came to earth in a state of humiliation and He was content to be despised by the people because His mission was to save them. While His miracles brought Him some fame, His public ministry as well as the conditions leading up to His death are all best described as those of a suffering servant. Even today we should be willing to suffer and be humiliated for the sake of the gospel. And when our motivation shifts to bringing glory to ourselves — we simultaneously forfeit our ability to effect change in the kingdom of God.
Let’s look at the first miraculous healing Christ performed in this chapter — healing the paralytic. Something we immediately notice is the faith of the paralyzed man’s friends in bringing him to Jesus. Their faith draws the attention of Jesus as well. This was an extraordinary act of kindness and it shows us we can bring people who are in dire straits to the Lord and He will not reject them. This man was actually paralyzed so he truly could not carry himself to Jesus, but we can make a far less severe analogy which is practical for Christians today.
You probably have a person in your life who would say something like, “I can’t go to church. If I walk into the building it’ll catch fire and fall down around me because of my sins.” This person could be your version of the paralytic. Get them into church with all the repeated encouragement, invitations, and reassurance that you can. Once they encounter the forgiveness of Christ everything about them will transform. To have such weight lifted off one’s shoulders changes your entire life for the better. It’s like a paralytic being set free to pick up his mat and walk.
Jesus was pleased with the faith of the man’s friends who brought him, and with the faith of the paralyzed man himself. God understands that each of us has some kind of infirmity that prevents us from loving and honoring Him as much as we’d like to. As we see in this passage, Jesus is forgiving of such infirmities and He extends grace in the sight of them. The friends went to great difficulty to bring the paralyzed man and present him publicly to Jesus. They had a strong faith that Christ both could and would heal him.
There was also an inspiring element of humility to their faith. Both the paralyzed man and his friends had a legitimate excuse for not seeking the presence of Jesus. How am I supposed to go to Him if I can’t even walk? But instead of waiting around for Jesus to come to them, or worse, becoming bitter and resentful about their poor lot in life — they humbled themselves and worked very hard to bring their friend into His midst.
Jesus is a compassionate Healer but He’s also a Sovereign King, and so it’s more fitting that we should wait on Him than He should wait on us. People get this backwards all the time and that’s part of the reason why they fall away from the faith or never come to it. They feel entitled to some kind of miraculous sign or proof of God’s existence and His love for humanity. They think Jesus should come to them and heal them even if they’re not making any show of faith themselves. As Christians we should desire an active faith. We should believe so strongly in Christ’s power and goodness that we don’t hesitate to seek Him first — we take the initiative even if we think God’s been unfair with us. Not only should our trust make us quick to approach Him, but we should be willing to work and overcome obstacles if that’s what it takes to stand in the presence of God and be healed. There is a universe of difference between the person who will push through challenges to be with God and the person who has the misapprehension that God should be the one who comes to us.
The first thing we see Jesus say to the paralytic is, “take courage, son; your sins are forgiven.” No doubt this brought some ease to the sick man’s plight. Through this entire moment we don’t see the paralytic say anything back to Jesus. It’s possible his sickness prevented him from being able to speak. His friends who brought him didn’t speak on his behalf, rather they just placed him before Christ and counted that action as enough. It’s okay to bring your misery into the presence of God. In fact I would argue there’s no better place for it. Throughout scripture we see this idea of the people’s sin crying out to Heaven and God hearing it. But it’s also the case that despair cries out to God and that He draws near to the brokenhearted. God is faster to respond to despair with mercy than He is to respond to sin with justice, although both cry out to Him. This is simply because He is a gracious God who is slow to anger.
When a person is under some kind of affliction that is a disciplinary response from the Lord, such a person is handled by God as a son or daughter. Proverbs says, “For whom the Lord loves He reproves, Even as a father corrects the son in whom he delights.” It’s not certain whether the man’s paralysis was the consequence of his sins, but it’s likely he was afraid when he was thrust into the presence of Jesus. He probably knew about his own sins and was self-conscious the way you would be when standing in the presence of a judge. It’s also the case that the immediacy of his delivery may have made him feel as if he was being a bit rude. There were no ceremonies or pleasantries as they just laid him before God.
But Jesus welcomes the man with encouragement and heals him. Jesus wants us to be cheerful in seeking Him and in trusting Him. Yes we need to remember He is the sovereign King of kings, but He is also our heavenly Father and we can be of good courage as we go into His presence. The paralytic had good reason to feel this courage because Christ told him his sins are forgiven. Jesus forgiving the man’s sins in this moment can be understood in different ways. One way is to suggest the forgiveness of sins was the beginning of his bodily ailments being cured. Not all sickness is a direct consequence to one’s own sin, but some sicknesses absolutely are. The body and the spirit suffer and deteriorate when you abuse them by living in sin.
But sometimes a person just gets sick and it’s for no cause of their own. Many times unrepentant sinners will recover from sickness and the forgiven faithful will not. So there is an arbitrary element to it and I don’t think we have enough biblical evidence to conclusively assume the paralytic was sick because of his sins. Regardless of the cause or outcome of sickness, all of us should be able to take heart when our sins are forgiven. The grace and mercy found in the gospel of Jesus should comfort us whether we are in sickness or in health. So had Jesus chosen not to heal this man of paralysis, he could say beyond the shadow of a doubt that his visit to the Savior had not been in vain.
When the scribes saw Jesus forgive the paralytic of his sins, they accused Him of blasphemy. This accusation is illustrative of how our entire perception of all things hinges upon belief in Jesus as the eternal Son of God. These scribes watched — with their own eyes — Jesus miraculously heal a paralyzed man while forgiving him of his sins. This direct forgiveness and restoration could not have been a plainer revelation of God’s character and demonstration of His power. And their reaction to it was to accuse Christ of being the worst kind of enemy of God. Lack of faith results in a deceived heart, warping your perception so much that you can look directly at God and see your enemy. And it’s no surprise the scribes reacted this way — because if a person who is not the Lamb of the God pretends to be able to forgive sins on his own authority this is in fact blasphemy.
Even though the scribes made this accusation under their breath or to themselves, Jesus knew their thoughts and charged them with it. God has perfect knowledge of all that we say within ourselves. Every passing thought we have and every secret we hold is laid open before God. Hebrews says, “For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And there is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.”
The question Jesus asks them is one which reveals His omniscience, “Why are you thinking evil in your hearts?” As Christians we need to understand that sinful thoughts are truly evil thoughts. I think many times we make the category error of assuming some sins are not evil and some sins are. It’s certainly the case that some sins aremore heinous than others — but all sin comes from a spirit of evil. Jesus is the sovereign Creator of the human heart and so when we allow sinful thoughts to dominate it, we’re allowing these thoughts to usurp what belongs to Him. This usurpation causes great offense to the Lord and that’s why He takes notice of sinful thoughts and is much displeased with them. Sinful thoughts are also the root of bitterness. Absent sanctification from the Spirit of God we descend into such a wicked condition that the character of our thoughts are only evil all the time. We should caution ourselves to remember sins which begin and end in the heart are just as dangerous as sins which we act out.
Next we see Jesus assert His authority in the kingdom of grace by telling the scribes He has authority on earth to forgive sins. God the Father has committed all judgment to the Son and has given Him this authority because He is the Son of man. Humanity needs a divine Mediator who is both fully God and fully human — and this is who we have in Jesus Christ. Scripture says Jesus has the power to give eternal life which means He must also have the power to forgive sins because unrepentant sin bars us from entry to heaven.
Understanding the forgiveness of Christ is imperative to developing a functional worldview which is stable across time. It’s no accident that idolatrous perspectives foreclose on forgiveness and institute absurd blasphemy laws. We saw this most recently with Woke idolatry and its proclivity to “cancel” people. Part of the biblical encouragement that, “The truth sets you free.” is that we find freedom in knowing we have a Savior who forgives us when we fall. Scripture says, “He (Jesus) is the one whom God exalted to His right hand as a Prince and a Savior, to grant repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins.”
Not only does Jesus assert His authority to the scribes, but He also proves it to them with a miracle. He demonstrates His authority over the kingdom of nature by showing them that He is able to cure diseases. He asked them whether it was easier to forgive sins or to tell a paralytic to get up and walk. And then He instantly healed the paralytic and the man got up and walked home. Throughout scripture Jesus used His miracles to confirm what he said of Himself — principally that He is the Son of God. His miraculous healings proved two things: first was that He had divine power and was sent from God. Second was that His purpose on earth is to heal and save. The healings show us Christ’s power and also His compassion.
During this time there was a general belief that paralysis was linked to sin as a form of punishment. So sin was the underlying disease and paralysis was merely a symptom of that disease. To fully cure a man of paralysis meant to expunge him of the sins which caused the paralysis. For the scribes this would have been a plain, miraculous demonstration of Christ forgiving sins. The principal difference between the religious elite whom Christ condemned and the faithful whom Christ approved is that of self-righteousness. The scribes and Pharisees believed their own legal righteousness was sufficient to warrant them access to heaven. This perspective caused them to reject forgiveness both for themselves and for others. If you believe you don’t need forgiven for your sins, why should you forgive anyone else for their sins? This kind of moral elitism born of self-righteousness lies at the core of virtually every idolatrous worldview. That’s why idolatry so frequently culminates in tyranny.
Also notice how Jesus doesn’t allow His dispute with the scribes to get in the way of His healing work for the paralytic. Yes He used the healing to demonstrate His divine authority, but He likely was going to heal the man regardless of His argument with the scribes. As Christians we must be careful to resist the temptation to allow conflict to get in the way of our good works. Nehemiah didn’t allow his conflict with Tobiah and Sanballat to distract him from his mission to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. There’s always going to be drama and backbiting in any organization where there are humans — so as a Christian you must train yourself to be productive despite these things and in the presence of them.
I would be remiss if I didn’t emphasize the immediate and comprehensive nature of Christ’s miraculous healing. I am a cessationist which means I believe the Spirit of God can miraculously heal an individual if He sees fit — but I do not believe any Christians in this dispensation have the gift of healing. So I don’t believe there are people walking around who can miraculously heal others at will the way Jesus and the apostles could. I do believe we should pray for healing because I do believe God is able to miraculously heal. I would advise the listener to use caution against anyone who claims to have the gift of healing yet is unable to immediately, comprehensively, and permanently heal incurable disorders like paralysis.
Jesus fully restored the paralytic and there was no more reason for him to be carried on his bed by his friends. He now had the ability to move and the strength to do so. Also notice how Jesus sent the man home instead of asking him to follow along on the ministry. Perhaps for this man’s entire life he had been a burden on his family. Now, because of the power and compassion of Christ, he finally had the opportunity to go home and be a blessing. Jesus did not seek the praise and the honor of men. If He did it would have made more sense to bring the restored paralytic along with Him and parade him for all to see.
When the attending crowds saw the paralytic be restored, they were awestruck and glorified God. As human beings we have this faculty for feeling a sense of awe. This worshipful admiration should be reserved for enlarging our hearts toward God because God alone does marvelous things. It’s true that human beings and elements within the creation do impressive things as well — but the difference between a thing being impressive and marvelous is idolatry. The crowds marveled because of the divine mercy Jesus extended to the poor paralytic. And while many of them stood awestruck, only a few were sufficiently convinced to believe in Jesus Christ and to follow Him. They didn’t believe Jesus was actually God or the Son of God, rather they thought He was simply a man to whom God had given power.
As Christians today we should accept the mercy of others with praise and thanksgiving to God. When a person does a good thing for us, we should be uplifted by the goodness of God working through that person. It’s important for us to remember that human beings are not capable of good works apart from God. He is the Source of all good works. He is the Fountain, and human beings are naught but reservoirs. When a person extends authentic, biblical love towards you — understand that is the Spirit of God working through them. And so you can receive it as if it is from God and praise God for it. Let’s continue with verses 9-13:
Mat 9:9-13
9 As Jesus went on from there, He saw a man called Matthew, sitting in the tax collector’s booth; and He *said to him, “Follow Me!” And he got up and followed Him.
10 Then it happened that as Jesus was reclining at the table in the house, behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and were dining with Jesus and His disciples.
11 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to His disciples, “Why is your Teacher eating with the tax collectors and sinners?”
12 But when Jesus heard this, He said, “It is not those who are healthy who need a physician, but those who are sick.
13 “But go and learn what this means: ‘I DESIRE COMPASSION, AND NOT SACRIFICE,’ for I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
This passage shows us the grace and compassion Christ extended to the tax collectors and especially to Matthew. Matthew was also known by the name Levi. It wasn’t uncommon for biblical characters to have new names, and we see other instances of God renaming individuals once they convert and are born again. Levi was probably Matthew’s birth name. We can surmise he changed it to Matthew in order to do his services as tax collector under a more humble name. It’s also possible Jesus renamed him Matthew when He called him to become His follower. We already know Christ gave Simon the surname Peter. The name Matthew means “the gift of God” so it makes sense a penman of one of the gospels would be named such. A faithful minister is God’s gift to the Church just as much as the minister’s abilities and the ministry itself are gifts to that pastor.
Matthew was a custom-house officer at the port of Capernaum. Part of his responsibilities included collecting the land-tax. It’s interesting to note how Matthew was on the job when Christ came along and called him. The same was true of Simon and Peter who were commercial fishing at the time Jesus found them. You’ve probably heard the saying, “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” This saying is not found in any reputable translations — but the principle is not entirely untrue. Scripture indicates idleness can lead to gossip and other sins. So it appears just as Satan comes to tempt those who wallow away in idleness, Christ comes to call those who are diligently employed.
Tax collectors were unpopular because fraud was common. Corruption was so tempting in part because there was little anyone could do to stop it. Very few in the tax collecting business were honest men. Matthew himself repents of his behavior as a tax collector and how he acted before his conversion. Paul expressed a similar repentance when he called himself a blasphemer, persecutor, and violent aggressor.
There are a couple reasons why God might have chosen men like these to lead the advancement of His kingdom and the foundation of His Church. The first is that it magnifies the glory of God to demonstrate His unfathomable power to redeem. Paul was a great persecutor of the Church, and so for him to be so radically transformed to become the chief penman of the New Testament is revelatory of God’s supernatural power to convert and restore souls. Second is that it leaves all of us without excuse. The fact that God chooses His remnant among such a diversity of sinners requires us to face the reality that we are not excused from accountability simply because we’ve had a hard lot in life. There is no occupation too sinful to be saved from, and there is no occupation so righteous that the work itself saves you.
Also notice the prevenient quality to Christ’s call of Matthew. What I mean is, Matthew wasn’t seeking Jesus out. Jesus found Matthew first and called Matthew first. Scripture doesn’t show us that Matthew had any inclination whatsoever to follow Jesus before Jesus called him to. I always tell you to seek Jesus, and I maintain this is what you should be doing. But human beings start out totally depraved and there is no part of us that has any interest in obeying God. Jesus is the one who speaks to us first and converts our souls. The conversion occurs just the same as Christ healing the paralytic. The paralytic is equally helpless to walk as a totally depraved sinner is helpless to follow Jesus. But when Christ speaks to the paralytic and the divine power of His word heals him, the paralytic is free to stand up and walk home. This is the same process which occurs for redeemed sinners. You did not find Jesus first, He found you and He chose you and He converted you.
The means in which Jesus converts a soul in through the scripture. Romans says the gospel is the power of God unto salvation to everyone who believes. It’s also remarkable how effectual the call of Christ was unto to Matthew. Matthew immediately stood up and followed Jesus. He didn’t deny Jesus nor did he defer obedience to Him. Sometimes you’ll see people who express interest in becoming Christians but want to spend some time sewing their wild oats first. I would argue these people have not yet been converted and called by God. If they had been, they would respond with the same kind of immediate submission that Matthew and the other disciples did.
Matthew did not consult with flesh and blood, which means he didn’t take into account worldly concerns as inhibitions to following Christ. Paul said the same thing of himself in Galatians. Matthew disregarded his position as tax collector along with all the comforts and provisions of it. He walked faithfully into an unknown future and he was only able to do so because Jesus called him. We see the other disciples abandon their careers in similar fashion. It’s true we see them take up occasional fishing later in the ministry — but we never see Matthew return to the tax collector’s booth again.
The call to Matthew allowed Jesus to form acquaintances with others in the tax collector community. Shortly after this introduction we see Jesus reclining at the table in Matthew’s house dining with publicans and sinners. We know Matthew made a great feast and the fishermen, being from a lower class, could not afford to go. But when Matthew himself speaks of this event he doesn’t mention any opulence and he doesn’t even mention the dinner was held at his own house. Matthew skips over these details likely out of humility. He wanted to emphasize Christ’s generosity toward tax collectors and sinners in dining with them rather than his own generosity toward Christ. As Christians today we should perform our good deeds with this kind of quiet humility unless we draw attention towards them in order to glorify God.
When Matthew invited Jesus to dinner he also invited Jesus’s disciples to come along with Him. We should treat those who belong to God with the same kind of hospitality today. If we welcome Jesus Christ, we should also welcome those who belong to Him and make room for them in our hearts. Matthew readily invited many tax collectors and sinners to attend the feast and dine with Jesus. He wasn’t worried about their sinful, broken condition. Matthew knew by experience the grace of Jesus and that His grace was sufficient for them.
His desire to introduce his associates to Jesus is an early example of what the gospel should do for us today. By the grace of God Matthew was forgiven much, and this forgiveness sparked an urge in him to see his associates forgiven as well. When we experience the goodness of God through the gospel of Jesus Christ, we should want others to experience that as well as we should work to contribute to it. When you’re advancing the kingdom of God, it’s okay for people to follow you as you follow Christ — at least in the beginning as their faith is developing.
When the Pharisees saw Jesus dining with tax collectors and sinners, they reacted with much displeasure. They quarreled with Jesus on this matter, but facing accusations from the religious elite that He affirms sinners was the least of His sufferings. Jesus was and is quarreled with more than any man who has ever lived. And it’s no surprise considering He is the One who came to earth in order to take up the quarrel between God and men. It’s a sad reality that the Great Intercessor is hated by so much of the world He came to save. Take a moment to appreciate the position Christ was in. His entire incarnate life He never once uttered a word in error or stepped into a sin. Everything He thought, did, and said was true and correct — and yet the people still found fault with almost everything He did. He gives us Himself as an example when He disciplines us to expect reproach and to bear it patiently.
It wasn’t unusual for the Pharisees to take umbrage with what Christ did and said. They were a proud generation of men, conceited with themselves and censorious of others. Most of them were highly educated so there was no doubt an intellectual arrogance at play. Part of what fueled their self-righteousness was an a priori disbelief that anyone could have a more truthful understanding than themselves. The Pharisees believed themselves to be holier than the common person, and they were proud of their heritage as well.
These religious elite were strict in avoiding sinners, but they didn’t practice the same strictness in avoiding sin. They were passionate to take on a form of godliness but pertinacious enemies of the power thereof. This means they held fast to the legalities of Judaism (and when they didn’t they still forced others to) yet they rejected Jesus and the Spirit of God Himself. The Pharisees had a way of replicating themselves into future generations because they were careful to uphold the traditions of the elders and these traditions fueled their sense of self-righteousness.
A modern analogue might be Christian legalism. Legalist Christians will put a great emphasis on secondary issues like unbroken church attendance and dress codes. They may react more readily to correct profane words than they do to feed starving children. These kinds of people go to great lengths to make themselves appear holy on the outside — but on the inside they remain unsanctified. In the dark recesses of their lives where they mistakenly believe no one is watching, these people commit all manner of heinous sins. These are like modern-day Pharisees. Christ called them whitewashed tombs — beautiful on the outside but on the inside filled with dead men’s bones.
Also notice how the Pharisees wouldn’t bring their complaints directly to Jesus, but instead they confronted His disciples. It would have demonstrated more courage had they gone straight to Christ Himself. The disciples dined with sinners because Jesus did, but they probably wouldn’t have if Christ had not led the way. The Pharisees also reacted with unique animosity for Jesus because they considered Him a prophet while they knew the disciples were not. They believed themselves to be too dignified to dine with sinners and so they failed to understand it when Jesus did. Critics of the faith today will take a similar approach as the Pharisees. If they dislike the doctrine of Christ, they’ll confront those who follow it. As Christians we should be always be ready to give an answer, with meekness and respect, to those who ask us for the reason of the hope that we hold in Jesus. Christ is our advocate in heaven, and so we should be advocates for Him on earth — both because the lost need to hear the gospel and because offenses toward God should offend us as well.
Part of the reason the Pharisees took umbrage with Christ dining in the company of sinners was because the law of God actually forbade it. Scripture says, “Depart from me, ye evildoers: for I will keep the commandments of my God.” And it also says, “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, nor sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” We know the Pharisees traveled land and sea in their efforts to make proselytes, so it’s possible they hoped pointing out this supposed legal violation would draw the disciples away from Christ and into their own tutelage. The tradition of the elders prohibited close association with tax collectors and so Christ ministering to publicans was a heinous sin in the sight of the Pharisees.
It wasn’t simply a misreading of the text that led the Pharisees to criticize Jesus. They started off wishing evil on Him and seeking for opportunities to misrepresent Him. Even if we express the most altruistic of pursuits it remains easy for detractors to paint us in a bad light. Taking words and actions out of context in an effort to change the meaning is a favorite tactic of Satan and his emissaries. The religious elite also wished evil on tax collectors and sinners. They refused to give them any quarter for repentance and they became envious when Jesus did. There is often a reliable correlation between those who lack the grace of God in their own lives and those who seek to deny it in the lives of others. Cancel culture was a great society-wide example of this. We should understand that none of us deserve grace and so none of us are qualified to say who deserves it and who doesn’t. Only God’s judgment as instantiated in the scriptures has the authority to decide who is a repentant recipient of grace and who is not.
In this instance the disciples, not yet being mature in their faith, turned to Jesus for His defense of Himself and of them. It’s possible they just didn’t have an answer to rebuke the Pharisees or it’s possible Jesus simply overheard them making the accusations. Either way Christ was readily able to vindicate Himself and His disciples. He did so by reminding the Pharisees of the publicans’ desperate condition of being poor, lost sinners. Such a condition that calls out to Jesus for help. It is this same category of people that brought Christ from the purity of heaven down into the impurity of the world — it was done for the purpose of salvation. There was nothing wrong with Christ conversing with the publicans for their own good.
Jesus said, “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” The tax collectors and sinners were sick with sin and they needed the Great Physician to come and heal them. The Pharisees, primarily because of their own self-righteousness, didn’t believe these sinners needed healing at all. Jesus implies that sin is a sickness of the soul and sinners are spiritually sick. Original sin, also known as the fallen nature, is the underlying disease from which these sicknesses emerge. Actual transgressions are like wounds and fevers brought forward by the disease. Sin deforms us, weakens us, disquiets us, causes us to waste away, and ultimately kills us. But praise be to God this condition is not incurable, and curing it is exactly what Jesus intends to do.
When people call Jesus the Great Physician they’re not only referring to His ability to heal our bodies. He is also the Great Physician of our souls. In fact his miraculous healing ministry on earth was merely symbolic of this greater ability to heal our souls. Jesus is a skillful, faithful, compassionate physician and His business is to heal the sick. When we think of Jesus as the Great Physician we think it’s impossible for us to share in this work unless we also have miraculous power. But that just isn’t so.
As faithful Christ-followers we should aspire to be as physicians to all those around us. Here’s what I mean: we should always conduct ourselves with the kindness and compassion characteristic of the finest bedside-manner. We don’t know what struggles each person is going through and so we need to carry ourselves with as much grace as possible. Much like a competent physician, we should also seek to solve problems and alleviate hurts in every room we’re in. We want others to be able to breathe easier because we have lived. We want our lives to be a net-positive on the world. That’s how we join with Jesus is His redemptive work on earth.
Now there are certain aspects to His redemptive work which He simply will not share with us. One such example is the healing of a person’s soul through sanctification. We ourselves should understand, and we should remind others as frequently as possible, that we are eternally undone without the saving grace of Jesus Christ. No man and no thing is able to heal us in the way He can. Our nature will not heal itself without His graceful intervention. Sensible sinners see their desperate need for Jesus and apply themselves accordingly. Most commonly this revelation occurs when a person hits rock-bottom in their life. When they have no where else to turn the ever-present reality of Jesus stands is starker contrast. We don’t need to wait for a rock-bottom experience to acknowledge the truth of the gospel, but doing so requires a child-like faith most people don’t have until they are reduced to the helplessness of a child.
The self-righteous are completely incapable of child-like faith. The number of people who don’t believe they need Jesus to heal their souls because they’re good enough the way they are is enormous. The Laodicean church in Revelation suffered from this problem. Jesus said to them, “Thou sayest, I am rich, and increased with goods, and have need of nothing; and knowest not that thou art wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked.” The Pharisees rejected Christ’s words and ways not because they had no need of Him, but because they thought they had no need of him.
Jesus pointing to the helpless condition of the tax collectors proved a necessity that sufficiently justified His conduct. Were there ways in which dining with sinners would have been itself sinful? Yes, of course. Many times worldly people will use the fact that Christ dined with sinners as an excuse to yoke themselves to sinful individuals or communities. They want to go hang out at the bars, drink themselves to drunkenness, and have casual sexual affairs — and they justify these appetites by saying something like, “Jesus wasn’t too good to hang out with sinners so why am I?” But they miss the entire purpose of Christ conversing with the publicans in this passage because from the beginning His aim was to bring them up out of their impurities. He dined with them to bring them the gospel so they might be healed, not to enter Himself into the sins which plagued them.
These sinners’ need for help turned Christ’s conversations with them into an act of love and charity. Love, as defined by scripture, should always be preferred over the formalities of religious dogma because Christian beneficence is always more Christlike than Christian magnificence. Here’s what I mean: The Pharisees magnified themselves through their strict adherence to the letter of the law. But they completely failed in the weightier matters of the law which included loving their neighbors. This is why Christ Himself was unrecognizable to them as their Messiah and why they couldn’t see the charity in His actions to associate with sinners. Jesus saving sinners represented the true substance of the heart of God, while the Pharisees condemning them and avoiding them was merely a show which had no substance.
The weightier concerns of God’s law such as loving God and loving your neighbor should be taking place at the core of a person’s mode-of-being. In addition to those core principles are the divine laws which are positive and ritualistic in nature. These concerns should always take precedent over traditions imposed by men and if the human traditions contradict these core, divine principles then the traditions should be discarded. The main problem with the Pharisees is that they clung to these human-imposed traditions as if they were superordinate to God’s law and as if the traditions themselves were able to save them. Often these traditions misread God’s law and made it stricter than it actually was. So the religious elite found themselves inappropriately condemning repentant sinners and doing so in the name of God. This satanic spiritual position of accusation is in part why Christ so roundly rejected the Pharisees and warned His disciples against their teaching.
The Pharisees believed their own righteousness emerged from their readiness to sacrifice. They thought keeping the legal principles in scripture absolved them from obeying God’s word in how they conducted themselves elsewhere. Essentially their mindset was, “It doesn’t matter how wicked I become so long as I’m making the appropriate sacrifices to atone for such wickedness.” They misunderstood the scriptures because the scriptures always called for obedience as more desirable than sacrifice. Jesus says to them at the end of this passage, “But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
Christ conversing with the publicans was an act of mercy, and the Pharisees refusing to do so was nothing near a proper sacrifice. So their accusations were false on two counts. Their abstinence from perceived sinners was not done in an effort to honor God — rather it was done in an effort to make themselves look more holy and to profit themselves more glory. Our own obedience of God’s word is more desirable than making sacrifices according to the parameters of God’s word in the wake of disobedience. The sacrificial system, and then the sacrifice of Christ Himself, is meant to atone for our original sin and the sin which we can’t help but stumble into as we carry our fragile frames through life. Neither were ever meant to grant us carte blanche to sin as much as we want. If obeying God for the good of ourselves is more desirable than sacrificial atonement, then how much more desirable is obeying God for the good of others? This was the principal question the Pharisees were never willing to answer.
Christ’s association with sinners in this passage is revealed as a great act of mercy. Promoting the conversion of souls is the greatest act of mercy imaginable. It is promoting the divine work which transforms a soul and saves it from death to life. Scripture says, “Let him know that he who turns a sinner from the error of his way will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” This doesn’t mean that we ourselves are able to convert souls — that is a work reserved exclusively for God through His Holy Ghost. It just means we can support that work by calling a person’s attention to the dangers of his or her sin. Perhaps more importantly it means being faithful to call into question the self-righteousness of others.
In His closing remarks to the Pharisees Jesus quotes the scripture and tells them to go and learn what it means. It’s not enough to be familiar with the letter of scripture — you also need to know what it means. Those who understand scripture the best are those who apply it as reproof to their own faults and a rule for their own practice. The scripture Jesus quotes for the Pharisees, “I desire compassion and not sacrifice.” Both vindicated His association with sinners as well as communicated the true meaning of religion. It was never about great displays of ritual observance. It was never about high-minded opinions or disputations concerning secondary theological doctrines. It was always about doing as much good as possible to the bodies and souls of others. True religion was always about righteousness and peace. It was always about visiting the fatherless and widows.
To place religion in ritual observance at the convenient expense of moral obedience is to commit the Pharisaical hypocrisy. Instead we must endeavor to participate in ritual observance in addition to our moral obedience and allow the rituals to become symbolic of the deeper truths which compose the moral universe. To espouse a form of godliness while denying the power thereof is to cling to the parts of religion which appeal to your own pride, covetousness, ambition, and malice while rejecting the parts that mortify those very same lusts. And if you think this issue was exclusive to ancient scholars of Judaism — take a walk through the modern American evangelical church and you’ll find plenty of it alive and well today.
Jesus reminds the Pharisees of the point and purpose of why He came to earth, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” Accomplishing this mission required conversing with tax collectors and others whom the Pharisees deemed undesirable. Notice how the core of His mission is to call sinners to repentance. This was the pre-text for His first sermons in public ministry, “Repent, for the kingdom of God is at hand.” Repentance was a topic which arose is all of His sermons from the beginning forward. The call to repentance is fundamentally a gospel-call. The premise of the gospel is that because of Christ’s atoning work on the cross, by the power of the Holy Spirit we can change our minds and change our ways.
Scripture calls Jesus the second Adam. This title is in reference to His work in saving humanity from their fallen condition. Had the first Adam (Adam who was with Eve in the garden) continued in his sinless righteousness then we would have never needed a Savior. In this passage Christ is not making a delineation between people who are inherently righteous and people who are inherently sinners — all of humanity has fallen short of the glory of God and all men have sinned. He’s pointing out there are some who believe themselves to be righteous and He’s also pointing out there are some in more desperate need than others.
There is no measure of sin short of blaspheming the Holy Spirit which the grace of Christ is not sufficient to redeem if the person is repentant. Jesus views those most broken by sin as in greatest need of healing — not most deserving of condemnation. The apostle Paul called himself the chief of sinners, the foremost of all sinners. Jesus was able to completely transform his spirit in a moment on the road to Damascus. We think of some sinners as so lost that they are beyond redemption — but this just isn’t the case.
The heartbroken and repentant are sick of their sins, while the arrogant and self-righteous are sick of their Savior. Jesus comes to those who welcome Him. The more humble and self-aware a sinner is, the more readily they will accept Christ and His gospel. As God leads you down the journey of your own sanctification, you’ll experience ups and downs in terms of freedom from your sins. Some days will be better than others, and in some moments you’ll wonder whether you are saved at all. But one quality of your experience which should consistently sharpen across time is your awareness of how much you need the blood of Jesus. You’ll become evermore thankful for the atoning sacrifice of Christ and your desire to praise Him will become increasingly palpable. This is the heart of worship — to understand that once we were lost and now we are found. Once we were sinners and in those dark moments Jesus died for us. And because of this we, too, can be resurrected into eternal life.
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