Why did Jesus say, "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance" (Matthew 9:13)?

It was in his house that Jesus sat at meat with publicans and sinners and His disciples; so now he was disbursing money instead of receiving it. The other evangelists tell us this, though Matthew, with becoming modesty, does not mention it. The whole proceeding outraged the Pharisees, but this gave occasion for the concise statement as to His mission. The Pharisees had overlooked the word of the Lord through Hosea, that He preferred the exercise of mercy to the offering of ceremonial sacrifices — a word which many a modern Pharisee overlooks — and they were ignorant of His mission to the spiritually sick, in calling sinners to repentance. Had He come to call "the righteous," the Pharisees no doubt would have come forward in crowds; only to be rejected to a man, since "the righteous" according to the Divine standard do not exist.

The Lord answered them in such a way that ought to have made them ashamed of themselves, as well as to have caused them concern about their own sinful condition. Those who are well, He says, have no need of a physician, but those who are sick (vs.31-32). He was Himself the divine Physician, come in grace, to meet the need of those sick because of sin -- not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance (v.32). How could they criticize a mission so gracious as this? Why did they not see themselves in their true light as sinners in need of repentance and of the grace of the Lord Jesus?

Man, however, objects. "Their scribes and the Pharisees murmured at his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with the tax-gatherers and sinners?" They had not the honesty to complain to Jesus, but vented their spleen against His disciples. But the Lord answers for His people. "Jesus answering said to them, They that are in sound health have not need of a physician; but those that are ill" — a simple but most satisfactory and impressive answer. Grace always enables even a man, a believer, to speak the whole truth; it is the only thing that does. How much more did He, Who was full of grace, speak in the power of truth! Granted that they were sick; they were just the persons for the physician. It is not even said that they were conscious of their sickness. At least God knows the need, and God seeks the needy, and Jesus was God Himself as man presented in grace. As He said, "I am not come to call righteous [persons], but sinful ones to repentance."130 It is instructive to observe that in the parallel passage of Matthew and of Mark the best authorities omit "to repentance." How far from the truth is it that repentance is a Jewish thing! Luke, according to the deep moral design of his Gospel, has these words.

But the Pharisees and scribes find fault with this laxity, as they conceive it. "Why is it," they ask, "that He eateth and drinketh with tax-gatherers and sinners?" His answer is conclusive: He is the Physician of souls: will He surround Himself, then. with the healthy or diseased? He does not come on the vain quest for righteousness, which the law had already proved vain: then indeed He would have been; as they thought Him, in a wrong place; but He had made no such mistake. Were they making none? "I came not to call the righteous but sinners." And sinners are they who have always heard that call.

64 "Levi made him a great feast in his own house, and there was a great company of publicans and of others that sat down with them; but their scribes and Pharisees murmured." It was a terrible sight and blow to such. But Jesus answers, "They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." They mistook the Lord altogether: He came to shew how grace could deal with those who had no righteousness.

243 That which follows in our history makes us understand clearly the mission and the ministry of Jesus. He calls Matthew who was sitting at the receipt of custom. The tax was hateful to the Jews, not only because they had to pay it against their will, but much more because it was the proof of their being in slavery to the Gentiles. They had lost their privileges as the free people of God; and when their fellow-countrymen took this office, as they were wont to do, under the Roman knights, their bitterness was very great, and the man who took such a situation became hated as a perfidious traitor of the religion and the nation. Thus these tax-gatherers were despised and detested. Now Matthew invites the Lord, and many other publicans were at table with Jesus and with His disciples.

The scribes and Pharisees raise the question as to how it could be possible that a righteous teacher should sit and eat with unclean men and sinners. Jesus hears this, and answers with divine wisdom. The simplicity of the answer equals its force. "They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." Here it is grace that is working; and the work of Jesus presents a 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. Here we have grace; as to divine righteousness, it should be fully revealed when Christ should have accomplished His work upon the cross: truth as important as it is precious!

Matthew himself then reports only that Jesus sat at meat in the house. Mark tells us that it was his (Matthew's) house, while Luke says that "Levi made Him a great feast in his own house," where he invited many tax gatherers and sinners to hear the Word of God. God considered it a great feast, though Matthew himself did not think of it in this way. The scribes and Pharisees give no credit to Matthew whatever for this unusual kindness, but are ready to strongly criticize the Lord of glory Himself for eating with tax gatherers (whom they considered unfaithful to their own nation because they collected taxes for the Romans) and others who were manifestly sinners. The self-righteous pride of scribes and Pharisees was certainly most serious sin, but religious zealots are commonly blind to their own sinful condition.

The answer of the Lord is clear and to the point: it is those who are sick who need a physician. Christ had come with the answer to the misery and sin of mankind, not calling the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Only the great grace and power of God can work this precious result. Scribes and Pharisees needed Him as much as any others, but their pretended righteousness kept them from Him. They had no heart whatever for repentance, just as some people, infected by cancer, strongly insist there is nothing wrong with them.

The Lord's Mission. — The feast went on, no seat apparently unoccupied, for there was a great company which sat down; the joy, too, that had reigned was still uninterrupted. But now the Pharisees and their scribes murmured against the disciples, saying, "Why do ye eat and drink with the publicans and sinners?" Or, as Matthew himself relates it (9:11), "Why eats your Master with the publicans and sinners?" Were these wretched cavillers to spoil the feast, and to damp the joy which the host surely proposed to himself, of letting all the invited guests hear words of power and blessing for their souls' profit? The Pharisees might look on and murmur. But in order that neither the disciples should be troubled by inability to answer the question, nor Matthew be disturbed by such an intrusion, the Lord at once took up the question, and closed the mouths of those murmurers. "They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance" (Luke 5:31-32). Sinners they had spoken of. It was sinners that the Lord came to call to repentance. Did they raise their objection in support of their own social rules? Nobody had asked them to break them. Would they contend for their observance, and desire the Lord and His disciples to conform to them? A new day had dawned. Those who thought themselves righteous (18:9) were like people in health, who did not need a physician. For such He had not come. No wonder they murmured! One must be a subject of grace to understand it. One must learn one's need of it to rejoice at it. Of all that they were ignorant. And they knew not the character of the times. God was calling sinners to repentance. Divine grace was at work. And Jehovah, the God of Israel, was there in the person of Jesus Christ. Humanly devised social rules may have to give way before the activity of grace. The Pharisees were silenced.

"A great feast" Matthew made the Lord. A greater the Lord made Matthew. Whatever might have been his feelings when he heard those wretched cavillers speak, how joy must have welled up from his heart when he heard such a gracious declaration uttered in the hearing of his friends and acquaintances. Publicans, aye and sinners, the Master did not turn from. Nay, He came to call such to repentance. He knew well their moral state yet their everlasting welfare was a concern to Him. Who declared that? One fitted to be classed with them? No. The very objection of the Pharisees was a confession that the Lord was morally above such people. His announcement showed He would not stand aloof from such. He would gather them in grace around Himself. The objection raised gave a fitting opportunity to declare His grace.

The word "Behold" introduces something significant in these narratives. What the Spirit attracts our attention to here is that many publicans and sinners came and reclined with Jesus and His disciples. We are not told they were invited. Publicans and sinners are often classed together — the tax-gatherers who farmed the Roman taxes, and the sinners. Tax-gatherers are generally disliked, and with a corrupt government the dislike was inveterate. Matthew was not the only one blessed, there was Zaccheus also, and there were others not mentioned by name.

"And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why eats your master with publicans and sinners?" (ver. 11). These religious men looked down with contempt on publicans and sinners. In the Gospel of Luke we see that publicans were permitted to go into the temple, but the Pharisee looked at himself as on a higher pedestal.

When the Pharisees saw this, they said to the disciples what was really a charge against the Lord "Why eats your master," etc. And when Jesus heard, He said unto them, "They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick." There you have two classes; those who trusted they were righteous did not realise their need of the physician, though really needing Him as much as any. It is a dangerous thing to attack the Lord's disciples. The Lord uses scripture more against the adversaries than against the disciples in ver. 13. "I am not come to call the righteous but sinners." This was the business of the Lord here. He came on behalf of poor sinners — "to seek and to save the lost." He is the One who wills, who shows mercy. If a soul is saved and blest, it is because God has had mercy. We all belong to one common lump, and those saved are vessels of mercy afore-prepared unto glory; while in the case of the lost, He endures "with much long-suffering the vessels of wrath fitted to destruction" — fitted not by God, but fitted by themselves to destruction.

But the Lord was watchful over His own. It was not yet the time to put words of wisdom into their mouths to speak for Him as His witnesses (Matt. 10:19). But He answered for them, confuting the sophistry of the scribes. "They that are whole have no need of a physician, but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners," It was in this manner that the two-edged sword of truth proceeded out of His mouth for their moral judgment. For why was it 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 a physician is he who refuses to minister to any but the hale and the hearty?