Mark 2:13-17
When Jesus said, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” he wasn’t paying a backhanded compliment to the Pharisees. The Pharisees were just as equally wicked (if not more) than the people Jesus ate with and invited to follow him. Instead, Jesus was making a profound point about salvation and faith. Sick people seek a physician when they realize that their illness is beyond their control and when they begin to worry about it. Here a Jewish tax collector understood something of his illness. He received Jesus’ call and followed him. He felt a need to be healed by the Great Physician who holds the power to remove the eternal effects of sin and the judgment of hell that hangs over our souls.
Inversely, the Pharisees stood at a distance ridiculing Jesus for showing compassion to the moral outcasts of the day. Completely oblivious to their own helplessness and need, they were furious that Jesus even thought that the tax collectors and prostitutes were worth trying to save. They were jealous of the attention Jesus lauded on them and for thinking that they could ever be worthy of the Kingdom of God. But worthy they were! And not because they thought themselves worthy, or had a mountain of good works to rest upon. They were worthy because they heard Jesus’ words and listened to him. They were worthy because they believed in him and had faith.
In the presence of Jesus these sinners became humble and even more aware of their sin. The tax collectors and prostitutes who followed Jesus understood the need to repent of their sin. They recognized that they could not rely on any good works in themselves and that only Jesus could save them from themselves. But the Pharisees stood accusing Jesus from a distance. They were completely unable to sense their sin and eternal need because their hearts had no compassion for the lost – those whom God is always ready to save.
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