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Matthew: From Tax Collector to Apostle
161
Attempt to Alienate Disciples
The rabbis seized the opportunity of accusing Jesus, but chose to
work through the disciples. By arousing their prejudices they hoped
to alienate them from their Master. “Why eateth your Master with
publicans and sinners?” they questioned.
Jesus did not wait for the disciples to answer, but Himself replied:
“They that be whole have no need of a physician, but they that
are sick; ... I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to
repentance.” The Pharisees claimed to be spiritually whole, and
therefore in no need of a physician, but they regarded the publicans
and Gentiles as perishing from diseases of the soul. Then was it not
His work, as a physician, to go to the very class that needed His
help?
Jesus said to the rabbis, “Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I
will have mercy, and not sacrifice.” They claimed to expound the
Word of God, but they were wholly ignorant of its spirit.
The Pharisees, silenced for the time but more determined in their
enmity, next tried to set the disciples of John the Baptist against
the Saviour. These Pharisees had pointed in scorn to the Baptist’s
simple habits and coarse garments and had declared him a fanatic.
They had tried to stir up the people against him. The Spirit of God
had moved upon the hearts of these scorners, convicting them of sin,
but they had declared that John was possessed by a devil.
Now when Jesus came mingling with the people, eating and
drinking at their tables, they accused Him of being a glutton and
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a winebibber. They would not consider that Jesus was eating with
sinners in order to bring the light of heaven to those who sat in
darkness. They would not consider that every word dropped by the
divine Teacher was living seed that would germinate and bear fruit
to the glory of God. They had determined not to accept the light, and
although they had opposed the mission of the Baptist, they were now
ready to court the friendship of his disciples, hoping to secure their
cooperation against Jesus. They represented that Jesus was setting at
nought the ancient traditions, and they contrasted the austere piety
of the Baptist with Jesus’ feasting with publicans and sinners.
The disciples of John were at this time in great sorrow. With
their beloved teacher in prison, they passed their days in mourning.