Befriending Sinners for Their Salvation | Mark 2:15–17
15 And as he reclined at table in his house, many
tax collectors and sinners were reclining with Jesus and his disciples, for
there were many who followed him. 16 And
the scribes of the Pharisees, when they saw that he was eating with sinners and
tax collectors, said to his disciples, “Why does he eat with tax collectors and
sinners?” 17 And
when Jesus heard it, he said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a
physician, but those who are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but
sinners.”
A friend of tax-collectors and sinners! This is the accusation the self-righteous
would hurl at Jesus (Mt 11:19). It may
not make sense to us, but you must consider the world in which the Jews had
been living.
After the Greeks had swept through the world and imported
new temptations to sin, the faithful successfully fought for the cause of righteousness.
That priestly class came to be the
Pharisees, and they became the standard of righteousness for the people. Their traditions became as important as the
Law of Moses, and they stated that no one should fellowship with compromised people. And Jesus ate with them.
Sinners are Christ’s
mission. He’s not offended by the
title, “friend of sinners,” because He’ll call all who come to Him to
repentance (Lk 5:32). The Great Physician
treats the sick, and back in 1:15, we saw His mission was preaching repentance. The irony is that, if these present scribes cared
for the people of Israel as they claimed to be, they would be doing exactly
what Jesus is doing. Sadly, that’s not
the only irony here.
People are not as righteous
as they think themselves to be. They
may have been professionally righteous, but they were not positionally
righteous before God. Jesus isn’t
affirming their righteousness over the tax-collectors (though they may think so
in their pride—cf. Lk 18:14). They aren’t
righteous enough, and we all need a personal righteousness that surpasses theirs
(Mt 5:20).
We all practice self-righteousness, not realizing we have much
need of repentance. We even need to
repent of our repentance—but Jesus will have fellowship with those seeking Him
(Js 4:6). Indeed, God grants us
righteousness through faith in Jesus Christ (Rm 3:22). Praise God for unmerited grace in Christ, and
by it, be a friend of sinners who also want to learn repentance.
