In the midst of countless miraculous signs and wonders of physical healing, the Lord Jesus presents how He’s not only a physician for the outward, but the inward. Sure, He can heal a sick body, but He can do something far greater than that. We first see this in chapter nine with the calling of Matthew, the author of this Gospel, from his tax booth outside Capernaum. At that time tax collectors were incredibly hated as a group of people because they were prone to extortion.[1] No one likes taxes to begin with, right? Taxes were a big part of the spark for the American revolution and people today consistently complain about taxes. You pay taxes on your income, and then you use your taxed income to buy things that you pay taxes on. Furthermore, some things you pay taxes on indefinitely! You can own your house and not have a mortgage, but you still have to give the government some money on the house you’ve already paid for with money that’s already been taxed. It’s not fun, but at least the numbers are set. In the first-century, the tax collector might add to the amount you owed so that they could enjoy the surplus. You can imagine that this would lead to some corruption and disdain from the people!
So, if the Messiah is to be a righteous person, if He is to be God’s representative, if He’s the long-awaited deliverer, why is He hanging out with the riffraff? Why is He calling a corrupt tax collector to be one of His primary disciples? What sort of a rabbi is this that will use such fallen people? This is one of the things that sets the Lord apart from the rest of the religious establishment. They, in self-righteousness, cast aside anyone who they deemed unworthy. Yet, the Lord Jesus states so powerfully, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick” (Matt. 9:12). He didn’t come to call the righteous. He didn’t come to use the Pharisees in the kingdom who were convinced they were put-together and without blame. The Lord Jesus Christ came not only as a physician for the body but for the soul.
He came down for that very purpose. He came down not to elevate or applaud the well-to-do. He didn’t come to pat on the back. He came down to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10). He came down to take the sinner and make them a saint. He came down to take the sick and make them well. He came down to heal what no other physician could: the heart. He came to take out the heart of stone and to replace it with a heart of flesh (see Ez. 36:26).
He took a sinful fisherman, Peter, and made him a preacher. He took a crooked tax collector, Matthew, and made him an evangelist. He took a persecutor, Saul, and made him an apostle. He took the broken, rejected, and sin-stained from amongst the people and made them His own. That is the very nature of grace! He takes those who are unworthy, those who are unlovable, those whom everyone else might write off and He uses them in His Kingdom. This Kingdom will be filled with those whom the world rejected but He accepted. Those who aren’t especially wise or of noble background (see 1 Cor. 1:26). Those who are sinful and the furthest thing from significant in the world’s eyes. The Lord Jesus takes the hopeless sinner and makes them the object of His love and grace. This is why He came. He came to make a way for us to be redeemed, no matter our sins, our failures, our short-comings, or anything else. He came to forgive. He came to make us part of His family. All have fallen short and have sinned (Rom. 3:23) but none are too sick to not be healed, too broken to not be fixed, or too ruined to not be redeemed by the wonderful grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. If He won’t write us off, then we ought to be eternally grateful and we best be cautious not to write others off as well.
[1] Clinton E. Arnold, Zondervan Illustrated Bible Backgrounds Commentary: Matthew, Mark, Luke (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2002), 63.
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