And all the tax-gatherers and the sinners were coming near to him to hear him;
Luke 15 opens with a scene, not a sermon. The people everyone respectable avoided are crowding around Jesus. They come for one reason — to listen. The rest of the chapter is the Lord's answer to the complaint that scene provoked.
The stigma on that first group had specific causes.
The Jews had a special horror of tax-gatherers. They were their own countrymen. Yet they made themselves tools of their Gentile masters to collect the taxes. Their position gave them constant opportunity to misuse their authority. They could oppress the Jews and extort money on false pretences or beyond the lawful amount.
The wording points to something ongoing, not to one memorable day.
The older translation says, "Then drew near." But the words do not describe something that happened once, at one moment. They describe what kept on happening. We see that everywhere through the gospels. At least from the day He called Levi from the tax booth, and Levi made Him a feast in his own house, "tax collectors and sinners" flocked around the Lord. Before that they had gone out in large numbers to John's baptism. That call invited them through the gate of repentance to come and find forgiveness of their sins. Now grace sought them more openly. You would expect them, beyond others, to welcome it. And they did.
Luke 14 has just shown Jesus at a Pharisee's table and surrounded by crowds.
Let us give to Him in whatever shape or way we please, it will not do; we must receive from Him. The Pharisee gives Him a feast inside the house. The crowd give Him their respect and admiration outside. But He is either grieved, or at most unsatisfied. He passes on through all this until "tax collectors and sinners" draw near to hear Him. They do not come to give Him anything, but to get something from Him. Luke 15:1. Then He rejoiced in spirit; His heart tasted the fruit it had journeyed for, and was satisfied.
The pull was in what they heard. One writer sets His words against the day Israel heard God's voice at Mount Sinai.
How wonderful it is to see tax collectors and sinners drawing near to listen to His words. How different the words that came out of His mouth from the words spoken in the ears of the people from Mount Sinai. There the mountain burned with fire, in blackness, darkness and storm. There was the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words. Those who heard that voice begged it to say no more to them. They could not endure the command.
The same attraction sorted the crowd in two:
The light in which God has drawn near to man in Christ is attractive to the heart. It does not repel the poor sinner. It may be, and will be, hated by the proud and the self-righteous, but it is attractive to the wretched and the weak. We find the worst and lowest type of sinner drawing near to hear Jesus.
Those who complained were standing at a distance for a reason of their own.
Still, His words drew to Him the outcast and the degraded, too wretched not to feel and admit their need. The tax collectors and sinners were not pushed back. They were coming near, strongly attracted, to hear what they felt to be the truth. Their conscience bowed to it, though they had never heard it before... For the Pharisees and scribes had no thought of following Jesus, any more than of coming to Him. They made a god of self in the name of God... Grace goes down to the common level of ruin that sin has already made.
The complaint that follows in verse 2 becomes the doorway to the whole chapter.
The Pharisee had charged Him with receiving sinners, as though His ministry did not secure righteousness, but gave liberty to evil. Of course He might have offered various answers to this. He might have defended His grace to sinners on the ground of the necessity of the case, or on the ground of God's glory. But in this chapter, from beginning to end, He defends it in each of the lovely parables. His one ground is the joy that He, and the Father, and all heaven itself, were finding in it.
- Drawn. The people with the worst reputation in the nation kept coming near. Not once, but as a habit right through the gospels.
- To hear. They brought Him nothing and came for everything. The host and crowd of chapter 14 gave to Him. These came to receive, and that satisfied His heart.
- Because grace speaks differently. The voice at Sinai made hearers beg it would stop; the voice of Jesus made sinners move closer.
- The same light divides. What attracts the wretched repels the proud. The Pharisees stayed outside because self was their real religion.
- And joy answers the complaint. Their charge against Him opens the parables that follow. Each one defends His welcome of sinners by the joy God finds in it.
and the Pharisees and the scribes murmured, saying, This [man] receives sinners and eats with them.
Commentary for this verse has not been generated yet.
And he spoke to them this parable, saying,
In verse 2 the religious leaders grumble that this man receives sinners. Jesus answers them not with an argument but with a story — one parable, aimed at the very people who objected.
The complaint against Jesus was that grace makes room for evil. He could have replied in several ways, but the whole chapter takes one line only.
The Pharisee had accused Him of receiving sinners, as if His ministry did not secure righteousness but gave freedom to evil. He could have offered several answers to this. He could have defended His grace to sinners by pointing to the need of the case, or to God's glory. But in this chapter, from beginning to end, in each of these lovely parables, He defends it on one ground only: the joy that He, the Father, and all heaven itself were finding in it.
Another writer puts the reply in the Lord's own voice: "Yes, I receive sinners, but the reason is that God receives them. I am only showing among you the grace that is His!" (J. T. Mawson)
The Lord had just been in a Pharisee's house. The change of company changes everything.
The Lord holds Himself back in the Pharisee's house. He has gone through it and come out of it, and found nothing for His heart. Among tax collectors and sinners all reserve is dropped, and the grace of God... comes out in all its fullness, together with all that grace would bring in, seen in souls brought to God as a present reality. The murmuring of the religious leaders only served as the dark background that made this revelation stand out.
The critics had spoken. Now it is His turn, and He answers in a way anyone could follow.
Now He will speak, and open up something of the mind and heart of God. But He will do it in parables. In that way He brings home to everyone who listened, and to anyone who would read them with care, how natural it was for Him to act like this. He shows it with pictures from real life — from the life of a shepherd, of the home, and of the family.
The verse says "this parable" in the singular, though three stories follow. That one word holds the chapter together.
First of all we notice that the chapter contains just one parable. There are three parts to it, but it is one great lesson. The thread that runs through it is God seeking and finding lost and dead people and showing them grace.
The one parable still has three parts. A common reading finds each Person of the Godhead at work in rescuing one soul.
Notice that the whole chapter seems to be called one parable, although three distinct ones make it up. Each of them shows one of the persons of the Godhead seeking the lost.
Writers fill in that reading differently. One describes the second part as "the heart of the Spirit of God using a woman, a picture of the church" (Leslie M. Grant).
Preachers often take the last section on its own. One writer warns that this leaves the gospel unfinished.
Let me say here that only when we link the three parables in this way can we preach a full gospel from this chapter. If we preach from the last one only, someone may well ask, "On what basis can God, who is righteous, forgive the sinner?"
The word "them" points back to the objectors. The first part of the parable answers them.
When we study these parables we must not forget that the Lord first of all answers the murmuring Pharisees. This does not rule out the wider application to the gospel... In the parable of the Shepherd the ninety-nine do not stand for the unfallen angels, nor for people of other worlds, as some have suggested. They stand for the self-righteous Pharisees, who think they need no repentance. The one sheep, lost and helpless, pictures the tax collectors and sinners, who admitted they were lost.
- Charge. The accusation was that He welcomes sinners; the parable is His reply, and He never denies the charge.
- Defence. He does not argue from need or from God's glory. He points to the joy that He, the Father and all heaven find in receiving the lost.
- One. Luke calls the whole chapter one parable — one lesson, told in three scenes.
- Three. Many read the three parts as the Son, the Spirit and the Father, each seeking the same lost one. Keep them together, or the chapter no longer gives a full gospel.
- Them. Jesus spoke it to the murmurers first. The ninety-nine stand for those who think they need no repentance, and the one lost sheep for those who admit they are lost.