Matthew 9:9-13

⁹ As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him. ¹⁰ Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples. ¹¹ And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” ¹² When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Commentary

Vs. 9 “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.”

Clearly the Lord Jesus knew the heart of Matthew when He called him, for when He called him, Matthew without hesitation left his tax collecting “career” forever, leaving behind what was for him only an ostracized occupation amongst his fellow Jews for a eternal future and glory with the Lord Jesus Christ. Though that would’ve been still unknown to Matthew at that time, nonetheless when a person’s soul is hungering and thirsting and they encounter the Living Bread and Water they without hesitation eat and drink deeply! Now the effect of Matthews answering yes to Christ’s call will also have great ripple effects amongst Matthews’s social sphere of influence.

Vs.10 “Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many

          tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.”

Having received the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew gives a great feast for Him in his own house, too which he invites his friends and fellow tax collectors (Luke 5:29). Now the guests who attend Matthews feast are those whom he himself obviously knows; both his fellow tax collectors and as Matthew himself says here sinners, people who like himself (for whatever reasons) who had also been ostracized from their own communities. Something which we will see the Lord Jesus Christ and His disciples with Him do not shy away from. While the Pharisees who also observe all these things will only take issue with Jesus doing so.

Vs. 11 “And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, “Why does your

          Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”

Now the Pharisees who themselves bore religious rule over the people when they see the Lord Jesus and His disciples willingly going to Matthew’s celebratory feast where there are many other tax collectors and known sinners gathered together they take strong issue with Jesus and His disciples doing so, but they do not approach Jesus, rather they only sternly question His disciples as why they are associating with such people.

Vs. 12-13 ¹² When Jesus heard that, He said to them, “Those who are well have no

need of a physician, but those who are sick. ¹³ But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

The Lord Jesus then hearing the Pharisees question His disciples now intercedes for them and says, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick”… rebuking first then the Pharisees religious arrogance through which they were only being blinded to their own diseased state, and thus their own need for healing and salvation from Him. Having then rebuked their arrogance the Lord Jesus now exposes their own callousness saying, “But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Quoting from Hosea 6:6 the Lord Jesus quotes only the first half of the verse. For clearly the Pharisees had knowledge of God, (which is a part of the passage the Lord knowingly left out), for they did not lack that, but they lacked the mercy of God which is born out of having and believing all true Scriptural knowledge of God. And so in their having knowledge of God they only turned it into a means by which they could justify themselves, making themselves into the exclusive heirs of God’s promises, while denying the same to anyone not like them, something which is not unique to them.

And so the Lord Jesus says to them, ‘I desire mercy and not sacrifice.’ For the Pharisees were experts at “sacrifice”. For everything about their persons and religious practices was “sacrifice”, but not sacrifice in good sense, in a Godly sense, that seeks God’s service and honor and another’s well being by sacrificially serving Him, but sacrifice for the sake of their own gain, to gain for themselves a name and reputation amongst their own, and ultimately a position of prestige and privilege over the people by which they could bear rule and authority over them. And so to the Pharisees who were strict letter of Law people (especially in regards to their own interpretations of it), mercy, especially mercy towards sinners was not a something they themselves would ever consider being Godly or righteous (for an antitheses of that theology see James 2:13), because they themselves would never see themselves as being sinners in the sight of God, and thus they themselves would never see themselves in need of mercies from God or anyone else (consider Luke 18:9-14); a grave pitfall that is not unique to them, but can infect anyone who trusts in their own works, goodness, and or righteousness.

Scripture Quotations

The New King James Version. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1982.