CHAPTER XVII. THE CALL OF MATTHEW - THE SAVIOUR'S WELCOME TO SINNERS - RABBINIC THEOLOGY AS REGARDS THE DOCTRINE OF FORGIVENESS IN CONTRAST TO THE GOSPEL OF CHRIST - THE CALL OF THE TWELVE APOSTLES.
(St. Matt. ix. 9-13; St. Mark ii. 13-17; St. Luke v. 27-32; St. Matt. x. 2-4;St. Mark iii. 13-19; St. Luke vi. 12-19.)
In two things chiefly does the fundamental difference appear between Christianity and all other religious systems, notably Rabbinism. And in these two things, therefore, lies the main characteristic of Christ's work; or, taking a wider view, the fundamental idea of all religions. Subjectively, they concern sin and the sinner; or, to put it objectively, the forgiveness of sin and the welcome to the sinner. But Rabbinism, and every other system down to modern humanitarianism - if it rises so high in its idea of God as to reach that of sin, which is its shadow - can only generally point to God for the forgiveness of sin. What here is merely an abstraction, has become a concrete reality in Christ. He speaks forgiveness on earth, because He is its embodiment. As regards the second idea, that of the sinner, all other systems know of no welcome to him till, by some means (inward or outward), he have ceased to be a sinner and become a penitent. They would first make him a penitent, and then bid him welcome to God; Christ first welcomes him to God, and so makes him a penitent. The one demands, the other imparts life. And so Christ is the Physician Whom they that are in health need not, but they that are sick. And so Christ came not to call the righteous but sinners - not to repentance, as our common text erroneously puts it in St. Matthew ix. 13, and St. Mark ii. 17, [2391] but to Himself, to the Kingdom; and this is the beginning of repentance.
Thus it is that Jesus, when His teaching becomes distinctive from that of Judaism, puts these two points in the foreground: the one at the cure of the paralytic, the other in the call of Levi-Matthew. And this, also, further explains His miracles of healing as for the higher presentation of Himself as the Great Physician, while it gives some insight into the nexus of these two events, and explains their chronological succession. [2392] It was fitting that at the very outset, when Rabbinism followed and challenged Jesus with hostile intent, these two spiritual facts should be brought out, and that, not in a controversial, but in a positive and practical manner. For, as these two questions of sin and of the possible relation of the sinner to God are the great burden of the soul in its upward striving after God, so the answer to them forms the substance of all religions. Indeed, all the cumbrous observances of Rabbinism - its whole law - were only an attempted answer to the question: How can a man be just with God?
But, as Rabbinism stood self-confessedly silent and powerless as regarded the forgiveness of sins, so it had emphatically no word of welcome or help for the sinner. The very term Pharisee,' or separated one,' implied the exclusion of sinners. With this the whole character of Pharisaism accorded; perhaps, we should have said, that of Rabbinism, since the Sadducean would here agree with the Pharisaic Rabbi. The contempt and avoidance of the unlearned, which was so characteristic of the system, arose not from mere pride of knowledge, but from the thought that, as the Law' was the glory and privilege of Israel - indeed, the object for which the world was created and preserved - ignorance of it was culpable. Thus, the unlearned blasphemed his Creator, and missed or perverted his own destiny. It was a principle, that the ignorant cannot be pious.' On the principles of Rabbinism, there was logic in all this, and reason also, though sadly perverted. The yoke of the Kingdom of God' was the high destiny of every true Israelite. Only, to them it lay in external, not internal conformity to the Law of God: in meat and drink,' not in righteousness, peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.' True, they also perceived, that sins of thought' and purpose, though uncommitted, were more grievous than even sins of outward deed;' [2393] but only in this sense, that each outward sin was traceable to inward dereliction or denial of the Law - no man sinneth, unless the spirit of error has first entered into him.' [2394] On this ground the punishment of infidelity or apostasy in the next world was endless, while that of actual transgressions was limited in duration. [2395] [2396]