But when thou makest a feast, call poor, crippled, lame, blind
Jesus is eating in the house of a leading Pharisee. He turns from advising the guests to advising His host. His question is uncomfortable: when we do good, do we expect something back?
The earlier verses dealt with where a guest should sit. Now the Lord turns to the host and asks what drives the invitation itself.
In the three verses which follow we find the Lord instructing not the guest but the host. He too is to act in the spirit which suits grace. Human nature is selfish even in its kindnesses, and will issue its invitations with a view to future profit.
Jesus names four groups who have nothing to pay their host back with. Love that expects no return is what marks a witness.
God looks for love in this world, and this, too, apart from nature. His love is not for one's friends or family alone; it is not on this principle at all... A witness for Christ is marked by what is supernatural. Merely natural kindness or family affection is no testimony to His name. But where there is love without a human motive or any hope of return, there is a testimony to Him. It is exactly what God is doing now in the gospel, and we are called to be imitators of God. It is not meant to be only in making a feast or a supper. Grace should stamp its character on all our Christian life.
The same pattern shapes how God deals with us. These verses describe the gospel itself, not just hospitality.
Verses 12, 13, 14 show the unique character of the gospel. They stamp the proclamation clearly as coming from God. God does not need repayment. His grace comes out to those who are not only unable to earn it but quite unable to give anything to secure it.
Each term in the list marks a different inability, and together they describe every one of us.
The poor cannot pay, the maimed cannot work, the lame must be brought, and the blind are helpless without a guide. Not one of them is self-sufficient; they are dependent people. Every man and woman on earth comes into this category. The difference is that some have not discovered it, and others are too proud to own it.
So the guest list is not about income. It names the kind of person grace reaches.
Grace has no attraction for those who are rich in their own imagined spiritual wealth. It has no concern with them either, we may add. It is only for wretched, helpless, and needy souls. For grace, itself a gift, delights to give, to make the poor rich, the helpless strong and the empty full.
The Pharisee's table had the wrong names on it. The One sitting at it works on the opposite principle.
The Pharisee did not ask the poor, the maimed, the lame, and the blind to his feast. His rich neighbours sat on his right hand and on his left. Here the heart of Christ tells itself out in calling those who cannot repay Him... If Christ could have found sympathy with man's world as pictured here, you and I would never have been saved.
The reward is real. But it does not come in this life.
He takes them all out of the world again, to the time when they will meet God, and makes it a present guide for action. They must not act on the principle of getting reward here. They must wait for the time when they are to meet the Lord. The servants do not receive their wages until the Master of the house returns. This is not a question of salvation, but of reward for service.
That resurrection is not for everyone.
Our text speaks of the resurrection of life. None can share in it but those who are just by the grace of God — justified, no doubt, but also just... It is clear too that only the resurrection of the just allows for reward. For the unjust there can only be righteous retribution.
The crown has its place, but not at the start.
The service of love is never influenced by reward. Reward is not set before the soul as the motive for doing anything. But when we find difficulties in the path of service, then the crown is set before us to encourage us to go on.
- Host, not guest — the Lord turns from where guests sit to who gets invited. Kindness aimed at future profit is still selfishness.
- Grace — inviting those who cannot pay you back is God's own method in the gospel. It should mark all of Christian life, not just meals.
- Reach — poor, crippled, lame, blind: cannot pay, cannot work, cannot walk, cannot see. The list covers everyone who has stopped pretending otherwise.
- Christ — He lived this out, calling those who could bring Him nothing. If He had preferred the rich table, none of us would be saved.
- Result — God settles the account at the resurrection of the just. That is reward for service, not salvation. The crown steadies the servant; it is not his motive.
and thou shalt be blessed; for they have not [the means] to recompense thee; for it shall be recompensed thee in the resurrection of the just.
The words come at a dinner table. Jesus has just told His host whom to invite next time: not friends and rich neighbours who can return the favour, but people with nothing to give back. His promise reaches past this life, to a resurrection He calls "of the just."
Jesus is speaking to the man who invited Him, and the instruction exposes how ordinary generosity works.
Here we find the Lord instructing not the guest but the host. He too is to act in the spirit which suits grace. Human nature is selfish even in its giving, and will issue its invitations with a view to future profit. If, under the influence of grace, we think of those who have nothing to offer us, we aim at no earthly repayment.
The One who gave the rule had already lived by it. He could find nothing to approve in the room He sat in.
Now He looked at the host, but there was no relief for Him there. Selfishness in another form shows itself to Him. The Pharisee did not ask the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind to his feast. His rich neighbours sat on his right hand and on his left. Here the heart of Christ tells itself out in calling those who cannot repay Him. It is a very happy thing that your world cannot please Christ. What would your Lord Jesus be to you if He could put up with such a world? If Christ could have found sympathy with man's world as pictured here, you and I would never have been saved. He acted on directly opposite principles.
The guests' inability to repay is not a drawback. It secures the blessing, because it moves the settling of accounts out of this world.
He takes them all out of the world again, to the time when they will meet God, and makes it a present guide for action. They must not act on the principle of getting reward here. They must wait for the time when they are to meet the Lord. The servants do not receive their wages until the Master of the house returns. This is not a question of salvation, but of reward for service.
Jesus does not say "at the resurrection." He narrows it, and the wording carries weight.
The Lord speaks here of a special resurrection, in which the unjust have no part. Not that these too do not come out from their graves; for indeed they must rise for judgment. But our text speaks of the resurrection of life. Only those who are just by the grace of God can share in it — justified, no doubt, but also just... Other Scriptures prove that these two resurrections differ in time as clearly as they differ in character. More than a thousand years separate the one from the other... It is clear also that only the resurrection of the just allows of recompense. For the unjust there can be only righteous retribution.
Scripture elsewhere speaks of both groups rising. Here Jesus names only one.
There is a resurrection of the unjust. When the Apostle Paul spoke before Felix in Acts 24, he said he believed in the resurrection of both the just and the unjust. But the Lord Jesus was lifting the consciences of His disciples to what was good and of value before God. So He spoke of the resurrection of the just alone.
Living this way costs a person standing. The promise answers that cost — and it fit the Speaker's own position that week.
Such a walk was His own, and it stands against the spirit of the world. Anyone who walked that way would lose his place in the world, and the give-and-take of society would end. But another hour was beginning to dawn through His rejection... the resurrection of the just. Cast out by the world from its bosom, they would have their place apart in what the power of God would bring about... We see the force with which this points to the Lord's position at that moment, ready to be put to death in this world.
The behaviour Jesus describes does more than earn a reward. It shows where a person already belongs.
How often do we think of inviting to our homes those who are in deeply trying circumstances? The Lord will not fail to reward such kindness shown even in a natural way... Such care, in unselfish honesty, would show that a person is truly born again. Only believers will have part in "the resurrection of life."
- Invite — the rule speaks to the host, not the guest: choose people who have nothing to hand back.
- Empty-handed — guests who cannot repay leave the account open with God instead of settling it at the door.
- Deferred — the wages come when the Master returns. The question is reward for service, not salvation.
- Just — Jesus names one resurrection, because only that one allows reward. The unjust rise to judgment.
- Evidence — unselfish kindness shows that a person already belongs to the resurrection of life.