And passing by, he saw Levi the [son] of Alphaeus sitting at the tax-office, and says to him, Follow me. And he rose up and followed him.
Jesus stops at a roadside tax booth and calls the man working there. Mark sets this call right after the scribes and Pharisees have turned against Him. The man He picks belongs to the one trade no respectable teacher would touch.
What did a tax collector mean to a Jew? Far more than an unpopular job.
The tax was hateful to the Jews. They had to pay it against their will. But much more, it was the proof that they were slaves to the Gentiles. They had lost their privileges as the free people of God. Some of their own countrymen took this office, as they often did, under the Roman knights. Their bitterness was very great, and the man who took such a position became hated as a treacherous betrayer of the religion and the nation.
Mark does not tell this story at random. The call follows the refusal of the scribes and Pharisees. The favoured nation below is Israel.
When the kind grace of God is met by the rude resistance of man it seeks to extend its limits. The Saviour came bringing grace and truth to the favoured nation. But the scribes and Pharisees would not have His gift. So He would show what this grace was like: it took in not only the despised Galilean, but the still more despised tax collector.
One writer sees the choice as a line drawn between Christianity and the law.
Levi was a tax collector. That sets out the great characteristic of Christianity in contrast to the law. In the eyes of a Jew, no occupation was more degraded and scandalous. Such a man made his living by extorting tribute for the hated Roman. That the Lord should call such a man was great grace. That grace lifts a man from the lowest place of degradation as a sinner into the highest place of service to the Lord as an apostle.
The words sound casual. One writer reads them the other way.
Nothing in the pathway of the Lord Jesus — the heavenly stranger — was a matter of chance. Every part of His mission here had a clear purpose: what He did, when He did it, why He did it and how He did it. So it was part of the divine plan to meet Levi that very day at the tax-office.
And He saw more than a man at a desk.
But the Searcher of hearts was passing by. He who knew the empty thoughts of the scribes and Pharisees knew also the timid desires of the tax collector. He who saw Nathanael under the fig-tree had seen Levi at the toll-booth.
It is natural to praise Levi for his quick obedience. One writer refuses to.
Jesus passed by and called him. What a comfort that is to our hearts, to think that Jesus Christ calls disreputable people. Disreputable characters, people with no name at all, are welcome to Him! And not only that, He calls them… Do you think I thank that man for going after Him? I do not. Do you think I admire Levi for responding to that call? No. What I admire is the grace that called him, the kindness that could look on him and say, He is not too bad for Me.
The timing of Levi's decision is part of its force.
The call did not come at an evening service, with all the gold gathered in and locked away. It came during business hours, as he collected and counted the coveted coins. That is where he made his decision. Then the voice of the Lord reached him. The chains that had held him fell away. New life woke his dead soul. He left all, rose up and followed Jesus… The gold had lost its hold on him. He left the old life once and for all, and the tax collector's revenue went to whoever cared to claim it.
Here he is called Levi. In his own Gospel he uses another name, and he does not hide his old trade.
Who tells the shame of Matthew but his own mouth? Matthew the Evangelist tells us of Matthew the tax collector. His fellows call him Levi, unwilling to lay a finger on the stain of his unpleasant profession. He himself will not hide it or cover it over at all. He publishes it to all the world, thankfully recognising the mercy that called him.
- Despised. Levi's job made him a traitor in his nation's eyes — the living proof that Israel was under Rome.
- Sought. Jesus did not stumble on him; He passed that way to find him, and read the quiet longing behind the toll-booth.
- Called. Two words moved him from the most scandalous trade in Israel to a place among the apostles. Grace reached lower once the religious leaders refused it.
- Risen. The call came during business hours, with the coins still on the table. Levi walked away from the money.
- Named. Ever after, Matthew told the story against himself, so the mercy that called him would get the credit.
And it came to pass as he lay at table in his house, that many tax-gatherers and sinners lay at table with Jesus and his disciples; for they were many, and they followed him.
Levi has just left the tax booth at a word from Jesus. The first thing he does is open his own house. He fills it with people no respectable teacher would eat beside. Mark tells us who was at that table, and the guest list raises the question: why does Jesus eat with tax collectors and sinners, and why were so many of them already following Him?
The meal is Levi's own idea. We treat a guest according to what we know of him, and the guests Levi picks show what he knew of Jesus.
A little while later we find Him sitting down in company with tax collectors and sinners. I do not know anything sweeter than the combination set out here. On one side is the grace of Christ, which would accept hospitality in such a company as that. On the other is the knowledge this Roman tax gatherer must have had of Jesus Christ, for he entertained Him in a way that suited that knowledge... So Levi says, in effect: I could not gather a better company to entertain this blessed Master. Nothing would suit His own heart more than the very lowest class of society, the tax collectors and sinners. How it speaks of His grace! And how well that man read the heart of Jesus Christ, and how he had profited by all the grace that shone in Him.
Older Bibles call these men "publicans." The name covered a real job, and a hated one.
Here stood the Government custom-house, where officials collected tolls and dues for Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee, or for the Romans. The men who collected these taxes were Jews, in many cases if not in all. For this reason, and because most men hate paying taxes at all, their own countrymen saw the "publicans" as a hateful and disgusting class. Their work gave them plenty of chance to bully and overcharge people, and to get rich by it. They were not all equally harsh, though.
The Pharisees were the strict religious teachers of the day. In their eyes, Jesus could not have gone further down.
As Jesus reclined at table in Levi's house, He went as low in familiar love as Pharisaic eyes could imagine. He could have gone lower only by turning outright to the Gentiles. Shepherds were not more disgusting to the Egyptians than tax collectors were to the scribes and Pharisees.
The same grace welcomed Levi himself. It took him out of that trade and put him into the Lord's service.
The word to Levi was, "Follow Me." And Levi was a publican, a tax gatherer. That marks the great difference between Christianity and the law. In the eyes of a Jew, no job was more degraded and scandalous. Such a man made his living by squeezing taxes out of his own people for the hated Roman. For the Lord to call such a man was great grace. It lifts a man from the lowest place of degradation as a sinner into the highest place in the Lord's service, as an apostle. At once Levi answers the call. He makes a feast in his house, and invites many tax collectors and sinners to meet the Saviour of sinners.
Mark notes how many guests came. One changed tax collector was enough to convince the rest that the door stood open.
Levi the tax collector could testify to the grace that called him to follow Jesus. So other tax collectors took this as enough ground to believe that if they came too, He would never turn them away. A large company answered Levi's invitation and came to eat and drink with Him... They found Him to be the "Friend of publicans and sinners," "a Friend who sticks closer than a brother." It is good to read that at the end of the feast "many followed Him."
- Called — grace lifts Levi from the most despised trade in Israel to the highest place of service, and he obeys at once.
- Celebrating — his first act is a feast, and his guest list shows he had read his Master's heart.
- Company — to the watching Pharisees, eating with tax collectors and sinners was as low as Jesus could go. Only turning to the Gentiles would have been lower.
- Contagious — one man's welcome convinced a whole class that Jesus would receive them too.
- Crowd — many of those guests followed Him, so the meal ended not in scandal but in a crowd of followers.
And the scribes and the Pharisees, seeing him eating with sinners and tax-gatherers, said to his disciples, Why [is it] that he eats and drinks with tax-gatherers and sinners?
The scene is a meal at the house of Levi, the tax collector Jesus had just called to follow Him. His table is full of men like himself. The religious teachers watching do not challenge Jesus. They turn to His followers with a question about the company He keeps.
To feel the force of the complaint, you have to know who tax collectors were in Israel.
They were, as you know, the collectors of the Roman tax. Their own people hated them, partly because they stood as the constant reminder that Israel was under the Roman yoke. Only the very outcasts among the Jews would hold such a position — men thought to have lost all sense of respect, both for themselves and for the dignity of the chosen nation.
So how could the sinless Lord sit at their table? One writer draws a careful line.
Strange company indeed! We say among men that "like draws to like," but here we find that rule contradicted. What greater opposites could there be than the sinless Saviour and tax collectors and sinners? Yet He saw fit to eat and drink with them. But in doing so He stooped down in grace: He did not associate Himself with them. Fellowship of that kind grows out of shared thinking or feeling, and it would have spoiled all testimony to holiness. That was far from His mind.
Notice who they question, and who they avoid.
Such a display of grace stirs up the opposition of those marked by the pride of intellect and the pride of religion. That grace deeply offended them. It passes them by, takes a sinner far beneath them in moral degradation, and lifts him into a place far above them in blessing and power. These opposers do not come to Christ, as a troubled soul would have done. They turn to the disciples instead. The Serpent tried to shake the woman's confidence in God by asking what seemed a very simple question. In the same way, these men try to shake the disciples' confidence in the Lord by asking what might seem to them a very reasonable question.
Their whole religion rested on keeping distance from people like these.
Of course this outraged the Pharisees. The very essence of their religion consisted in outward separation from sinners. That was the badge of their piety. Their motto was, "Stand by, for I am holier than you" (Isaiah 65:5); their self-satisfied language, "God, I thank you that I am not like other men" (Luke 18:11). Take these two elements away from their profession and you leave nothing but outward show. There was nothing divine or reasonable in their religion.
(The ESV renders Isaiah 65:5, "Keep to yourself, do not come near me, for I am too holy for you.")
The gap between the critics and the men they scorned was smaller than they thought.
They are both children of fallen Adam. The heart of each is "desperately wicked." One follows a course of open sin; the other indulges it in the dark. One is at least transparent in his folly; the other disguises it under a cloak of deceitful holiness.
The question was aimed at the disciples, but Jesus answered it Himself. One writer sees in that short reply the line between two systems.
The scribes and Pharisees raise a question. How could a righteous teacher sit and eat with unclean men and sinners? Jesus hears this, and answers with divine wisdom. The simplicity of the answer equals its force... Here it is grace that is working; and the work of Jesus stands in full contrast to the law. The law demanded human justice from man. Christ and the gospel announce divine grace. That grace reigns and reveals God's righteousness.
There is one more turn, and it points back at the critics.
The gracious Lord stooped to eat with the sinner. Had He done otherwise, He would have cut off all ground of hope from the Pharisee. A Pharisee is, after all, a sinner, though he may despise the label, and the grace of Christ is his only hope. Yet sadly he must ask, "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Far better to adore the grace that led Him to do so.
- Company. Israel saw tax collectors as traitors working for Rome. Jesus sat at a table full of them.
- Grace. He stooped to them without joining them. Sitting at their table cost Him nothing of holiness.
- Offence. Pride drove the complaint. Religious men watched grace pass them by and lift a lower man higher than themselves.
- Mirror. Pharisee and tax collector are both children of fallen Adam. One sins openly; the other sins in the dark, under a cloak of holiness.
- Hope. A Pharisee is a sinner too. The very thing he criticised is his only hope, because the grace of Christ is all that is left for him.
And Jesus having heard [it] says to them, They that are strong have not need of a physician, but those who are ill. I have not come to call righteous [men], but sinners.
Jesus has just called Levi, a tax collector. Now He sits at a meal with a house full of people the religious leaders had written off. When the scribes object, He answers with a picture from the sickroom. He also states why He came at all. Both halves of His reply cut against the objectors, not the guests.
The scribes did not put their complaint to Jesus. They took it to His followers, and one commentator reads that as deliberate.
These wretched scribes and self-righteous Pharisees are proud sticklers for the law. Now they try in an underhand way to undermine the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ with His disciples... They come to the disciples and say, "How is it that he eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?" That is an insinuation. It is designed to cast a slur on the authority of Christ with His own disciples. His answer is perfectly lovely.
Jesus took the question on Himself.
The first half of His answer comes from ordinary life. It turns the accusation into nonsense.
Why was it that they failed to receive their Messiah? Because in their own estimation they did not need such a one as He. Why complain, then, that those who did feel their need of such a Saviour came to Him and were made welcome? What sort of physician is he who refuses to help anyone but the healthy and the strong?
The company at Levi's table did not prove Jesus was in the wrong place. It proved He knew His trade.
His answer is conclusive: He is the Physician of souls. Will He surround Himself, then, with the healthy or the diseased? He does not come on a useless search for righteousness. The law had already proved that search useless. If He had come for that, He really would have been in the wrong place, just as they supposed. But He had made no such mistake. Were they making none?
The picture does not require the sick to feel their sickness first.
Granted that they were sick — they were just the people for the physician. It is not even said that they were conscious of their sickness. God knows the need, and God seeks the needy.
The verse does not admit that a class of righteous people exists. It describes people who think they belong to one.
The Lord then announced plainly that He had come to call not the righteous but sinners. By "the righteous" He meant those who were righteous in their own eyes. Otherwise there is none righteous, no, not one. Those who responded would be washed, sanctified, justified, and made heirs of the kingdom of God (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). But those who trusted in themselves that they were righteous would certainly perish in their sins unless they repented.
Their problem was never that Jesus had nothing for them. It was that they would not take it.
Scribes and Pharisees needed Him as much as anyone else. But their pretended righteousness kept them from Him. They had no heart at all for repentance. They were like people with cancer who insist there is nothing wrong with them.
The word "call" carries weight. Jesus was not just keeping company with these people. He was calling them away from their old life.
They insinuated that the Lord was associating with sinners. His reply is that He was "calling" sinners out of their things to follow Him. Grace to the sinner does not mean indifference to his sins.
Two different ways of dealing with people meet at this table. The verse marks the line between them.
Here it is grace that is working, and the work of Jesus stands in full contrast to the law. The law demanded human justice from man. Christ and the gospel announce divine grace, which reigns and reveals God's righteousness.
Many older Bibles end the verse with "to repentance." Those words belong to Luke's account rather than Mark's. One writer warns against drawing a wrong conclusion from that.
It is worth noticing something in the parallel passages in Matthew and Mark. The best authorities leave out "to repentance." How far from the truth it is to say that repentance is a Jewish thing! Luke, in keeping with the deep moral design of his Gospel, has these words.
- Diagnosis — The verse divides people into those who admit they are ill and those who do not. "The righteous" means righteous in their own eyes, since otherwise no one is righteous.
- Physician — Christ answers the charge by naming His own trade. A doctor who avoided the sick would be no doctor at all, so the table full of sinners proves He is in the right place.
- Call — He does not just sit with sinners. He calls them out of their old life to follow Him, and grace toward the sinner is never indifference to the sin.
- Contrast — The law demanded justice from man. Christ announces grace that reigns and reveals God's righteousness.
- Warning — Pretended health is the one illness this Physician cannot treat, because it refuses the appointment. Those who owned their need found a welcome; those who trusted themselves stayed away.