And Jesus said to him, To-day salvation is come to this house, inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham;
Jericho's chief tax collector was rich, and his neighbours despised his trade. When Jesus walked into his house, He did not say "well done" — He said "salvation," and He called this man a son of Abraham.
Nothing inside that house brought salvation to it. One writer points to the Person who stepped through the door.
But why and how had salvation come there? It was because He, the Saviour, had come. Salvation is in Him. He is it. Having Him, we have salvation and every other priceless blessing God can give. He does not send salvation, He brings it; and where He is welcomed, He stays, saying, "I will never leave you nor forsake you" (Heb. 13:5). It is as though He said, "I have sought you so long, and love you so well, that never again will I allow you out of my company and care!" This is salvation — blessed, present, every-day, all-the-way salvation. It means being protected, cared for and held up by the ever-present and infinitely tender Saviour. He suffered for our sins. He bore all our judgment. He broke the devil's power. And He lives — yes, LIVES — as the Victor over death, for those who trust in Him.
Zacchaeus had just listed what he gave and what he restored. Commentators read this as a report on his life so far, not a promise about his future. One writer hears an unspoken question behind it.
People have completely misread this scene. They imagine that Zacchaeus was showing the Lord the effect the word had on him. I believe he was simply telling the Lord what his life had been up till then. He was saying, in effect, "This is what I am — will that not do?" Christ replies, "Today salvation has come to this house."
The Lord already knew that record. And the date He gave for salvation does not match it.
Yet he did not have to tell the Lord about his good works: the Lord knew every detail of them. What is more, his works had nothing to do with his salvation, for the Lord said salvation had come to his house that very day, not when he was doing his good works (v.9).
Zacchaeus' trade put him in a false position among his own people. One commentator asks what it would mean for everyone else if that position had disqualified him.
In Jericho (Luke 19) He shows grace, despite the spirit of the Pharisees. Still, it is as a son of Abraham that He points out Zacchaeus. His work did put him in a false position. Yet by grace he had a tender conscience and a generous heart. In the eyes of Jesus his position did not remove from him the character of son of Abraham. If it had, who could ever have been blessed? And it did not bar the way to the salvation that had come to save the lost.
Others tie the phrase to faith. One writer says, "For Him 'a son of Abraham' certainly meant a child of faith (compare John 8:39)" (Numerical Bible Notes). Commentators also differ about his background. Some early writers took him for a Gentile. One commentator calls that reading "manifestly unsound and inconsistent, even with the letter here" (William Kelly).
Commentators differ over whether Zacchaeus already feared God. One writer answers by separating salvation from a stirred conscience.
Some claim that Zacchaeus had no fear of God and was unconverted. Others compare him with Simeon in the temple. We should not forget that salvation is more than new birth. Only the Messiah could pronounce it then. Now it is proclaimed far and wide, on the ground of redemption, through faith in His name. It is the primary Christian blessing that a soul needs and receives in a dead and risen Christ. But never confuse it with the awakening that comes with the Spirit's giving of life.
One writer turns the word "today" on the reader, and names three things this salvation is.
The moment the will bends to Jesus, the moment the sinner's heart bows at the Saviour's feet, this word comes to the conscience: "Today salvation has come to this house." It is a present salvation, because it is God's salvation wrapped up in the Person of Jesus... It is a present salvation; a perfect salvation; a personal salvation... and the moment you receive Jesus, you are a saved person.
- Come. Salvation entered because the Saviour entered. He does not send it; He brings it, and He is it.
- Not earned. Zacchaeus had been giving and repaying for years. The Lord still dated salvation "today," not back at his good works.
- Not disqualified. His despised trade did not cancel his place as a son of Abraham. If it could, no one could ever be blessed.
- Not just stirred. A working conscience is real. But salvation is more than that awakening.
- Not delayed. What came to that house is present, perfect and personal. And the Saviour who brings it stays: "I will never leave you nor forsake you."
for the Son of man has come to seek and to save that which is lost.
Jericho is the last stop before Jerusalem, and there a rich tax collector climbs a tree just to catch sight of Jesus. The visit ends with the Lord saying in one sentence why He came at all, and His words raise two questions: what does it mean to be lost, and what did the finding cost?
These words are placed where they are on purpose. One writer reads the run of stories before them — the Pharisee and the tax collector, the infants, the rich ruler, the blind man — as a set of illustrations of this single sentence:
Can we not take these last words as the keynote of the whole group of stories we have just read?… In the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector you have a lost one sought, found, and saved. In the case of the little children you have lost ones received and blessed. He had come to save even them. And in the case of the young man, the ruler, you have one who refuses to accept God's estimate of what he was. He refuses to take the place of being lost. He is the one who goes away empty and sorrowful.
The verse names who Christ came for, and that decides who has good news and who does not.
He treats everyone as lost who is not already saved by faith in Him. This is the point from which I look at the Gospel. I am lost; but Jesus came to seek and to save the lost; therefore He came to seek and to save me… And where is the spot where you may meet Jesus, the Saviour? That spot, my dear friend, is the small circle of the consciously lost; for He came for the lost and only for the lost. Reader, if you are not lost, I have no Gospel for you.
Two verbs stand side by side here, and they are not the same act:
The Lord did not accuse, and speaks of nothing but the salvation which had come to the house that day… He gave what Zacchaeus had little thought of. He was come to meet the need He had created. He was come to seek, that is, to produce the desire; and to save, that is, to meet the desire.
The seeking also goes beyond what was accomplished at the cross:
He was not content with the work of the cross—mighty though that was—a work that in righteousness opens the way to heaven to the vilest who comes through Christ, but He SEEKS as well as saves—blessed be His name.
Zacchaeus had just told the Lord what he did. The Lord's answer leaves that list out completely.
Would Zacchaeus justify himself by setting out what he did? As one of the lost the Lord came to seek him and to save him. All his doings had not saved him, nor could they. Never until then had salvation entered his door. The Lord brought it that day.
One writer asks what actually came into Zacchaeus's house that day:
But why and how had salvation come there? It was because He, the Saviour, had come. Jesus Himself was salvation. If you have Him, the Saviour, then you have salvation. He does not send salvation, He brings it; and when He brings it, He comes to stay: "I will never leave you nor forsake you." We have the blessing, but we have the Blesser too.
The title the Lord uses here reaches past Israel:
As Son of Man — the title that ties Him to the whole human race — He cannot be limited to Israel; and as we have seen, Israel must still learn His wider interests. The title itself takes in people in general. And what He came to secure — the rich blessings in His generous hands — is open to all.
The second verb in the verse rests on the cross.
How does He save? He saves by His death; He saves by the work He accomplished for us on the cross. The only way we can be saved is through the death of the Saviour. Sin is on us; we have all sinned, and our sins must bring us into judgment. But what has taken place? The blessed Lord Jesus Christ has gone to the cross. There He bore our sins, and the judgment of God against sin, so that He may bring us to God.
The sentence describes God's method, and one writer turns it into a rule for how a wronged believer treats the person who wronged him.
When you were ruined and far from God, what met your case? Did God wait until you put away your sin? It never would have been done at all. God sent His own Son to seek you, to save you… That is the principle for you to act upon.
- Lost — the word sets the only ground on which anyone meets Christ; the man who refuses that place walks away empty.
- Sought — He does not wait to be wanted; He creates the desire He then satisfies.
- Saved — the cost of the seeking is the cross, where He bore our sins and the judgment.
- Settled — salvation entered Zacchaeus's house with the Saviour Himself, not with anything Zacchaeus had done.
- Sent — the way He dealt with us becomes the rule for how we go after others.