Mark 5

Chapter 5. The Master Workman in Relation to SinI have not come to call the righteous, but sinners. (Mark 2:17)Our attention has been directed already to the attitude of the Lord Jesus towards sickness. In the beginning of His ministry He simply dealt with sickness from the standpoint of compassion, emphasizing no moral idea and requiring no moral conditions. His object appeared to be, first of all, to impress upon the minds and hearts of the people His power over physical suffering and His willingness to help and heal. But we soon find Him pressing closer to the heart of things and bringing to the consciousness and consciences of men the deeper causes that lie back of physical suffering. One of these causes, Satanic power, had already been hinted at when, in healing Simon’s wife’s mother, He rebuked the fever and so cast out the demon spirit which caused it. In the next case of healing there was implied, if not expressed, a still closer connection between sin and sickness. Leprosy was the especial brand of sin upon the body, and, above all other diseases, marked the intimate connection between a corrupt nature and a corrupting body. The cleansing of the leper in the Old Testament was a significant type of the cleansing of the soul from sin, and the very word used by the sufferer in this case to express his idea of healing implies his need of cleansing, “if you are willing, you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40). It is not, however, until the next miracle of healing, the paralytic (Mark 2:1-12), that the Master brings out explicitly and emphatically the doctrine of sin and its relation not only to healing but to His whole work and ministry. This object lesson of the paralytic is followed immediately by His calling as one of His disciples and apostles a man who was notoriously identified with publicans and sinners, Levi, and His allowing Himself to be associated with these classes openly and notoriously at the feast which Levi gave to the Master and his own associates. Finally, the Lord followed His remarkable action by the statement of our text which was intended to be His official and emphatic pronouncement of His attitude henceforth and forever toward lost and sinful men, “I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). The Story of the Paralytic and Its Lesson About Sin The first thing we learn from this story is that the question of sin is fundamental in all Christian ministry. Any gospel that begins and ends with mere physical healing, social reform or human philanthropy falls short of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The radical need of our fallen race is far deeper than all the apparent conditions of ignorance, misery and disease. The poison of sin is the fountain of all woes. If we would give real and lasting hope to our fellow men we must start there. There is no use trying to get people healed when the canker of evil is festering in their spiritual and moral nature. The new Immanuelism merely mocks the awful condition of our sin-cursed race. Its fatal defect is the attempt to encourage people to obtain healing from the Lord without any radical rectifying of their hearts and lives. When the heart is wrong, there can be no possible contact with the healing life of the holy Christ; and it is doubtful if mere healing would be a blessing if it only strengthened and encouraged men and women to go still deeper into sin. The Lord lets sickness come, no doubt, in many instances, to restrain people from greater wrong doing, and He is not likely to take it away until the moral cause is honestly met. This man was brought by his friends to Christ for healing, and most people seem to have concluded that the Lord healed him because of their faith. The fact is the Lord paid no attention at first to his physical need, but immediately pressed home His heart-searching probe to the moral center of his being, and insisted on beginning with the question of sin. No doubt He saw in the paralyzed and powerless condition of this body the perfect type of the diseased and helpless soul behind it, and at once prescribed the supreme remedy of forgiveness and salvation. “Son,” He exclaimed, “your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). The wise worker will always start where Christ did and aim to get people right before he tries to get them well. Next we see God’s remedy for sin, divine forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ. Here for the first time the Master claims the right and power to forgive sins. It was this that shocked the Scribes who were looking on and made them question, “Why does this fellow talk like that? He’s blaspheming! Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7). We need not wonder at their startled questionings. Their reasoning was correct, but their conclusion was wrong. They were justified in saying “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” (Mark 2:7) but they failed to finish the argument, “therefore this must be God.” It was indeed a bold and startling announcement, and He was not slow to follow it up with the explicit statement, “The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” (Mark 2:10). The time had not yet come to unfold that wondrous plan of redemption through which this power was gained, the blood of Calvary and the great redemption. It was enough at present to announce the fact, and in this fact sin meets its remedy and love finds its message of glad tidings for a lost and ruined world. Christ has power to forgive sins. Christ has power on earth to forgive sins. We need not wait till the answer comes back from heaven to know whether we may be forgiven, but the throne of grace is ever open, and no soul can be too lost and no sin can be too great for us to say to discouraged and perishing men, “He is able to save completely” (Hebrews 7:25). But we have not yet grasped the full meaning of this gospel until we note one point more, that the proclamation it makes to sinful men is not merely that they may be forgiven, but that the forgiveness is already actually provided, purchased, pronounced and laid at their feet waiting their immediate acceptance. Christ did not say to this man, “You may be forgiven,” but “your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). The very word brought actual forgiveness and all that the sinner needed was to consent, and it became an everlasting and unchangeable fact. The gospel we preach to men is not a piece of information we are reporting, as a journalist might relate the latest news. It is an official and authoritative message from the throne, carrying with it an actual change of condition the moment it is received and accepted. It is like the verdict of the jury or the sentence of the judge, not merely a matter of words, but words that mean deeds and decide conditions for weal or woe with the force of an authoritative decree. This was what the apostle meant when he declared, “I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God for the salvation of everyone who believes” (Romans 1:16). Brethren, do we realize as Christian workers and ministers of the gospel that we have the God-given right to go to men and carry to them not only some words of encouragement and hope about their future life if they will try to do better, but an actual and authoritative message of immediate and eternal salvation this very moment, and that all that is necessary to make it final is their endorsement, their acceptance, their confession of Christ as their Savior? Not only has the purchase been completed on Calvary, but the papers have been completed at the throne, and the title deeds are here ready for your name to be inserted, only you must write and endorse it with your own hand. In this double sense it is indeed a finished salvation and this moment I have the right to offer to every man and woman to whom this message comes instant and eternal salvation through the simple fact of your turning from sin and accepting the gift of God, eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. This was what the apostle meant when he dared to utter that bold announcement, “If you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you confess and are saved” (Romans 10:9-10). This is Christ’s message about sin. This is our gospel to sinful men. This is the finished work not only of man’s salvation, but, my brother or sister, of your salvation. All that is needed is that you shall ratify it. We must not fail to notice the immediate effect of forgiveness in raising this poor, helpless sinner to a new place in the scale of being and the family of God. All the words of Jesus are tried words, and there is not a monosyllable that we can afford to miss. Have you noticed the way in which He addressed this poor sinner? “Son,” He says, “your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). What a transformation! A moment ago a sinner, a sufferer, a sick and sinking soul, now a son of God, a child of heaven, an heir of glory. Salvation brings us into a new circle and a heavenly standing, and henceforth there is nothing too hard or too high for us to ask of Him whom we have learned to call Abba, Father. Now we see the connection, the bearing of all this on the healing of this man. Before this transformation he had no claim on Christ for healing or anything. But now he is a child of God, and his healing is a birthright blessing which he may boldly claim. He has been raised to a plane where he no longer needs four men to carry him, but he can rise up with his own faith, and carry himself and his bed, too. And so the Lord adds, as though it were a matter of course involving little effort now, “Which is easier: to say to a paralytic, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up, take your mat and walk’” (Mark 2:9). After forgiveness everything else is easy. And so He turns to the sufferer with a second command, “Get up, take your mat and go home” (Mark 2:11). Forgiveness brings faith, and faith brings both spiritual and physical strength. Instead of trying to get people helped through our hypnotic power, how much better to help them get in personal touch with the power of Jesus, and then all the resources of His power and grace are at their command. There is a further suggestion here that the modern ministry would do well to heed. “‘That you may know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins….’ He said to the paralytic, ‘I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home’” (Mark 2:10-11). How is the world to know in this age what it needed to know in the first age of Christianity, that we have in our midst a supernatural and almighty Christ whose hands are able to control our eternal destinies; how can it be made convincing and convicting to men without the continued manifestation of the healing power of that Christ who is the same yesterday, and today and forever? It is all very well to say the evidences of Christianity have been already settled, and the story can be read in the pages of Church history. But what does the blind and ignorant pagan know about the pages of Church history? Why should we deny him the evidence which the Lord gave in the first ages of Christianity? There is no doubt that the supernatural operations of the Holy Spirit were intended for the very thing the apostle himself declares in Hebrews 2:4, “God also testified to it by signs, wonders and various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit distributed according to his will.” Nothing but unbelief can hinder us from claiming and proclaiming our full heritage of power and blessing. The Calling of Levi The Lord chooses His workers on the principle of adaptation. Sinners must be reached through saved sinners. A man who never has had much experience or contact with sin loses to that degree contact with the men that need salvation. And so the Lord called Levi that through Levi He might reach Levi’s friends, that large and outcast class known in the Master’s lifetime as publicans and sinners. Levi was an official of the hated Roman government, and his business was to collect tribute from the Jews. It was difficult even for an honest man to hold the respect of the community in such a position, and a bad name is very likely to lead to a bad life. Publicans or tax collectors, therefore, as a rule, had about the same reputation as Tammany officials and ward politicians, and it is probable that most of them lived up to their reputation, or lived down to it. They represented, perhaps, the most hopeless form of vice and sin, not the grosser indulgences so much as the hard spirit of graft and avarice. Nothing so closes the human soul to everything divine as the love of money. We find the Lord reaching some men of this class of whom Zacchaeus was the most prominent type in the Gospels. And the Lord wanted a representative of this class in the apostolic company, and how well His choice met expectation needs no other proof than the simple fact that this converted publican became the writer of the first Gospel, and the leading messenger of Christ to the ages to come. We find, therefore, that the Lord has been pleased to call many of His choicest workers from the lowest depths and slums of sin. John Newton, Jerry McAuley, John Bunyan, Gipsy Smith—these are some of the honored followers of Levi, the son of Alphaeus, in the ranks of soul-winners. If it has been your sad lot to deeply fall and greatly sin, at least you may have this compensation, that it opens to you a ministry and gives to you a touch with your fellow men which no one else could have. May it be your glorious recompense to be avenged, like Samson on the Philistines, by turning the weapons that Satan used so well against you for the rescue of others and the defeat of him who once defeated you. And, oh, if this appeal might reach someone who is still in the ranks of sin, what nobler motive could appeal to you than the thought that the Lord needs you far more than some of His less erring children, and that your very shame and wrong may become elements of influence and power when turned to account through a transformed life for the service of God and the help of your fellow men. Oh, that you, like Levi, would not only turn at His call and follow the Master, but bring with you as he did a great circle of publicans and sinners! Does it not seem very strange that Levi should so promptly respond to the Master’s call, and give up his alluring gains to follow in the path of self-denial, poverty and loss in which the Master led the way? Does it not seem strange that Levi’s associates and friends should be willing to meet such an One as Jesus of Nazareth, the prophet of Galilee, and spend an evening with Him around the social table? Would such people be likely to invite one of our starched modern preachers to a social function? How are we to explain it? Well, first of all, we little understand the human heart if we imagine there is not some lingering chord, in the most lost and hopeless men and women, that is quick to respond to the voice of God and the love of heaven. The Lord had no harsh word for publicans and sinners, but the very lightnings of His displeasure blazed upon the heads of self-righteous, hard-hearted scribes and Pharisees. Many and many a time the prodigal would gladly return if there was but a voice to call and a hand held out to help him to his Father’s feet. The most cheering fields of Christian work, the soil that renders quickest returns and largest harvests is not found in Fifth Avenue’s fashionable churches but in Water Street and Mulberry Bend. But there was another reason. The Christ who went to that supper in the house of Levi was not one of your conventional preachers, but a simple, unconventional, unaffected Man whose very presence and manner drew the little children to His arms and led the sin-stained woman to creep through the crowd and pour her tears of contrition on His blessed feet. Oh, to have that simplicity and approachableness which will win the world for Jesus! Much of the Lord’s work was unconventional. He did not save men through great sermons and in crowded congregations. The woman of Samaria met Him at the countryside on a tiresome journey and through asking for a cup of water. Zacchaeus was saved up a sycamore tree. The dying thief found a way to heaven from a malefactor’s cross. The woman found mercy at the dinner table of Simon the Pharisee. Oh, that we might be always on duty for Christ and in touch with men and women for His work. Christ’s Attitude Toward Sinners The incident in the house of Levi led to a bitter controversy and the harsh criticism of the scribes and Pharisees. They said “Why does he eat with tax collectors and ‘sinners’?” (Mark 2:16). As the stroke of Moses’ rod brought out the waters from the rock, so the sharp blow of human hate always met some revelation of the Master’s love and grace. We thank the Pharisees for giving occasion for this immortal sentence, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners” (Mark 2:17). What an awful gulf this word creates between human self-righteousness, self-complacency and pride, and the Lord Jesus Christ and His gospel! The story is told in an ancient Hebrew legend, as an addition to the parable of the Pharisee and publican, that the Pharisee also prayed. “Lord grant that in the day of judgment I shall be far removed from this publican.” The following night an angel stood beside his bed and announced, “Thy prayer is heard. In the day of judgment this publican shall stand by the Master’s side, and thou shalt stand afar off.” We can choose our place. If we are self-satisfied, the Lord will let us alone to await the issue of the testing day. He can do without you if you have no need of Him. But if you are a poor, erring, helpless, discouraged soul, to you is the word of this salvation sent. This Christ is your Christ. This gospel is your charter of deliverance, liberty and salvation. Perhaps no better definition was ever given of the best way to come to Christ than this: simply take the sinner’s place and claim the sinner’s salvation. Oh, men and women who are far from God, from happiness, from hope, from satisfying even your own standards and ambitions, listen to this gentle voice, listen to this heavenly call. This is your Friend, your Deliverer, your Christ. He has come all the way to you. He takes His stand on your level. He “who had no sin” has been “made… to be sin” for you (2 Corinthians 5:21). He asks no question about your past. He will never upbraid you with your sin. All He asks is that you leave it and leave it to Him to settle for you and that you let Him love you, forgive you, cleanse you, keep you and help you to do to others as He has done to you.