Matthew 9:1-17

I have heard it said as well as you, if you aim at nothing you are likely to hit it. People without goals or a clear purpose, tend to drift from experience to experience, even from crisis to crisis. Their aimless life is easily dissipated in fruitless or even harmful directions, since they have no goals that establish priorities that could keep them out of trouble.

A mission or goals provide aim, incentive, and a set of criteria by which to measure performance. In some measure these relations between goals and performance hold true even in the spiritual arena. Because of relationships between goals and performance, when someone wants to take over or redirect a movement or even an individual career, one of the first things they must do is to meddle with the goals of that movement or career.

The same kind of manipulation of goals was present in the life of Jesus. Some of Jesus’ hearers intended to appoint Jesus king by force. If they could force his hand by appointing him king, even without his formal approval, their agenda would necessarily become his.

Satan himself attempted to co-opt Jesus by offering him the kingdoms of the world without the pain of the cross. Peter, in reality did the same thing, and Jesus said he was just like Satan with that intention. You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men” (Matthew 16:23). The attempt was to push on Jesus a modified set of goals, a revised mission that eliminated suffering and the cross.

There have always been attempted takeovers of Christianity. Marxists have been known to appeal to Acts 2 to show that Christianity is really about is communal sharing. Marxism is therefore tied to Christianity. However, they failed to mention that the sharing of Acts 2 was achieved by the power of transformed lives, and that power was generated by the atonement of Christ and the Spirit he gave. The communal sharing the Marxist offer is controlled not by transformed lives but what comes out of the end of a machine gun.

More recently, liberation theology appeals to the exodus as the basis for their gospel. For them, the freeing of slaves, and Jesus’ concern for the poor, tell us what the Bible is really about. You can’t help wonder why the exodus is chosen. Why not Jeremiah’s insistence that the remnant should not rebel against the Babylonian empire? Jesus displays immense compassion on the poor and the downtrodden, but it is remarkable that poverty is never for him the decisive division between those who are accepted and those who are not, concerning salvation.

So it becomes extremely important for us to listen to Scripture and to try to articulate the gospel as accurately as possible, to articulate the mission of Jesus. If we succeed in listening to the Scripture on these points, we shall be preserved from the vagaries of every passing theology; more, we shall better grasp the very heart of the faith we profess.

Why Did Jesus Come? What was his mission?

Jesus came to forgive sin and transform sinners.

The context of Matthew 9 is, Jesus left Gadara and crossed over Galilee, and came to his own town, Capernaum.

Jesus’ Mission is Most Often Misunderstood

Friends brought a man with palsy to Jesus to be healed. Jesus “saw” their faith, he saw their actions in bringing the victim to him, and their actions testified to their faith.

To the surprise of the onlookers, and probably of the paralytic and his friends, Jesus says, “Take heart, son; your sins are forgiven.” These words were unexpected. The man wants to be healed and Jesus is talking about sin. Jesus perceives there are at least two ailments that need attention: the paralysis and the sin. Jesus judges the sin issue more important. Sickness is the consequence of sin, sometimes directly, more commonly indirectly. That is why Jesus’ healing ministry pointed to the cross, which deals with sin supremely.

The words of Jesus strongly suggests a high probability that this man’s paralysis was the direct result of a specific sin. If that was not the case, “Take heart, son, Your sins are forgiven,” would have been cruel for Jesus to say.

If the man knew is sin guilt, then Jesus’ opening words offered a great hope. These words showed Jesus really understood the man’s condition, and was dealing with his greatest need.

Mere Religion Usually Judges Incorrectly

The religious authorities mutter to themselves and entertain dark thoughts about blasphemy. Some leaders in Jesus’ day thought blasphemy could by claiming to do what God alone can do. Jesus is boldly saying “your sins are forgiven,” though in the eyes of his critics he is certainly not a priest giving absolution and even more certainly not God himself.

Jesus knew their thoughts and ask them why do you have evil thoughts Jesus asks them the question that they should have asked themselves: “Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?”
To a modern skeptic, it is easier to say, “Your sins are forgiven” than to say, “Get up and walk”; for the results of the former cannot be tested, whereas the results of the latter will be plain to all. To a contemporary skeptic, talk is cheap. Anyone can absolve another from sin: it is all meaningless. But to command a paralytic to walk again offers the prospect of empirical results to authenticate the potency of the words. The teachers of the law in Jesus’ day, however, saw it differently.

By the rhetorical question Jesus asks, he is claiming to do the more difficult thing, the thing that only God can do. He turns to them and says, so that you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins, he heals the paralytic. The healing was not only a wonderful relief to the paralytic, but also a confirming sign that his sins had indeed been forgiven.

Those who saw were filled with fear and rightly so. They were right to be afraid: we ought to fear the one who has the authority to forgive sins. So Jesus did not come simply to heal, or to reign, or to raise people from the dead. He came to forgive sin, and to transform sinners.

Jesus the One True Radical

During the “radical sixties,” Western universities were filled with many groups of “radicals” most of whom have now become yuppies, who were telling the world how to sort out all its problems. Truly radical solutions must go to the root of the problem. Most attempts of political and economic reforms, are for the most part, temporary, superficial, and just cosmetic. For example, the Marxist revolution in China has doubtless succeeded in eliminating many of the immense disparities between the haves and the have-nots; but in the process, a new and totalitarian government by a few has been formed that has been responsible for the death of millions. No political or economic order can wipe out corruption: what is required is a moral transformation so that society at large judges corruption to be a hideous evil.

Jesus the purest radical, goes to the root of the problem. He came to forgive sin, and transform sinners. Where he does his work in abundance, there society is largely transformed. The most radical transformations in society take place where Jesus does his pardoning and transforming work.

Jesus Came for the Rough Society

Matthew sat at the “tax collector’s booth” which was probably a customs and excise booth at the border between the territories. The tax-farming system meant corruption was widespread; and to many politically conservative Jews, tax collectors were almost traitors since they were serving the ends of the overlords, not the Jewish people themselves. When Jesus went to the house of Matthew many different people were the, disreputable people, harlots, shysters, and renegades on the outskirts of Jewish life. They are all lumped together in the mind of the Pharisees, who are deeply offended that Jesus and his disciples should actually be eating with them.

Jesus’ response was, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick”, and he tells them to check it out.

Jesus’ opponents, who prided themselves in their knowledge of Scripture and their own conformity to it, needed to “go and learn” what it meant. The quotation itself is from Hosea 6:6: “I desire mercy, not sacrifice.” In the context of Hosea’s day, God was telling the religious leaders and nobles through his prophet that although they continued the temple ritual at full tilt they had lost the center and heart of their God-given religion.

Jesus is saying that the Pharisees are like the apostates of ancient Israel. Jesus made it clear earlier in the sermon on the mount that the righteousness of the Pharisees was not adequate for them to ender heaven, Jesus insists that to enter the kingdom one must possess righteousness that exceeds that of the Pharisees and teachers of the law (Matthew 5:20).

The point is they could not change the Messiah’s mission and replace it with theirs. His mission was characterized by grace, by a pursuit of the lost. The people who think they are worthy of Messiah’s attention are no more worthy than the socially repulsive people whom they dismiss.

Lessons for Christians to remember

Christians must learn profound gratitude for the salvation that has won them. Contrary to popular opinion, genuine Christians do not think of themselves as better than other people. Our growing awareness of the magnitude of our sin can only result in growing thankfulness for the richness of the pardon we have received.

Christians can not develop a posture of self-righteousness toward those whom society dismisses; for we know that Jesus came to call the despised and disgusting elements of society.

There is immense hope in this passage for the person who would like to follow Christ, but who does not feel good enough. How ironic, if you feel good enough for Jesus he does not want you.

Jesus mission includes setting up a new structure

Jesus’ answer to some of John’s disciples reveals how the mission depends on who Jesus is. How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast.

According to the fourth Gospel, John the Baptist had applied the same metaphor to Jesus: John himself was the best man, while Jesus was the bridegroom (John 3:29). But the roots of the metaphor go back to the Old Testament. Commonly it is applied to God himself, in his relationship with his covenant people: “For your Maker is your husband—the LORD Almighty is his name—the Holy One of Israel is your Redeemer; he is called the God of all the earth” Isaiah 54:5;

Jews in Jesus’ day sometimes applied the metaphor to the long-awaited Messiah; and the messianic banquet that marked the full coming of the messianic age was this bridegroom’s wedding feast. The language Jesus uses probably was not fully understood even by those close to him until after the resurrection. He was claiming to be the Messiah, and that his presence marked the dawning of the messianic age. That reason was enough why his disciples should not fast.

Jesus says that the time will come when he will be taken away; and then it will be appropriate for his disciples to fast. Of course, this side of the cross and the resurrection, we understand what he meant. Jesus’ saying recorded in this verse must have been almost incomprehensible. Just when even the opponents might suspect that Jesus was making a messianic claim, he spoke of being taken away, and causing his disciples grief. What Jesus said was cast in somewhat veiled terms that would be fully explained only after the cross and resurrection had become history.

If Jesus is the Messiah, what difference would it make so far as fasting and other Jewish religious practices are concerned. It would make a personal difference, a cause for joy and a suspension of some religious practices of a mournful nature. In addition to these personal diferences there will also be large structural differences introduced to the practice of religion.

Jesus illustrates this in two parables. The first takes place in the sewing room, No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. To repair a large tear in an old and well-shrunk cloth, it is necessary to use a patch that is similarly well-shrunk. The two parts must be compatible.

The second parable takes place concerning wine. Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.

Skin bottles for carrying different fluids were normally made by killing and skinning an animal, sewing it up fur side out. Eventually such a skin bottle became brittle and if new wine, still fermenting, were stored there, the fermentation gases could easily exert enough pressure to split the bottle. New wine was therefore placed in new wineskins, if at all possible, because they would still be pliable and somewhat elastic, and therefore less likely to split open.

This means that the new wine Jesus is introducing simply cannot be stored in the old wineskins of the structures of Judaism. The old structures could not stand the pressure. New structures would have to be used in conjunction with this new wine.

Jesus is proposing to overturn the prevailing structures of Jewish religion, on the ground that they are inadequate to contain the new revelation and the new situation he himself is introducing.

The contents of the new revelation are not here spelled out; but they are not hard to deduce, partly from the rest of this Gospel, and partly from the way other New Testament writers have fleshed out the skeleton.
Matthew’s Gospel has already shown that Jesus and the kingdom he is introducing are the fulfillment of Old Testament expectations, promises, and structures. We are told that Jeremiah promises a new covenant, (Jeremiah 31:31ff. so it appears that even some Old Testament writers recognized the future obsolete principals of the Mosaic covenant (Hebrews 8:13). If the Psalms promise a new priest who does not spring from the tribe of Levi, but who is a messianic figure serving in the order of Melchizedek (Psalms 110:4), then necessarily there is envisaged an overthrow of the Mosaic legislation as it then stood; for the Levitical priesthood is so interwoven with that legislation, its tabernacle (later temple) rites, its sacrificial system and feasts, that a new priesthood unavoidably means a new covenant (Hebrews 7).

Paul insists that in any case the gospel he preaches is in direct line with and fulfillment of the covenant with Abraham, a covenant that was not overturned when the Mosaic law was introduced centuries later. The Mosaic covenant was in certain respects a training period until the promised Redeemer arrived (Romans 4: Galatians 3). Acts 2 insists that Pentecost is the fulfillment of Joel’s prophecies about the universal distribution of the Spirit; and this expectation, both in Joel and elsewhere ( Ezekiel 36), marks the end of the tribal, representative nature of the old covenant, and the beginning of a new age and arrangement between God and his people. Jesus himself elsewhere insists that the time was at hand when the focal point for worship would no longer be Jerusalem (John 4); and if not Jerusalem, then not the temple; and if not the temple, then not the sacrificial system. Without the sacrificial system, the Mosaic covenant is necessarily transmuted into something unrecognizable. Indeed, Jesus insists that he is the temple, the new and real meeting place between God and man (John 2:19–22; cf. Matt. 26:61).

When Jesus instituted what we call the Lord’s Supper he spoke of the blood of the new covenant. He repeatedly claimed, sometimes with greater and sometimes with lesser clarity, to be the promised Son of man, the predicted Messiah, the fulfillment of prophetic hopes and expectations. And though he himself was born under the written law and took pains to obey it, he often spoke in ways that anticipated it would become outdated.

Jesus came to bring revelation and introduce a situation so new that the very structures of antecedent revealed religion would change. Jesus is not simply another Abraham or Moses, another Elijah or Jeremiah. Jesus is the focus of all prior to him, and he operated out of a profound self-awareness that he understood his own authority to be nothing less than divine. He understood his own mission to be the finish product of centuries of revealed preparation.

Unless we see him in this light, obey him and worship him as he is presented to us in Scripture, we shall be guilty of manufacturing a false Jesus, a Jesus with different goals and purposes from the ones the authentic Jesus actually held and exemplified.

What was Jesus’ mission?

Why did he come?

He came to save his people from their sin; he came to transform sinners. He did not come to call the righteous, but sinners.

Jesus came to forgive sin and transform sinners; he founded the church as the ongoing display of his covenant people and the agent to proclaim his truth and manifest his power; and he will come again to bring his sin-cleansing, life-transforming work to completion. That is God’s plan; that is the mission of Jesus.