Matt. 9:8-25.
THERE is nothing which so offends the pride of the human heart as the freeness and sovereignty of the grace of God, until the heart is humbled by that grace. That God should take up a poor sinner, gain his ear and attract his heart, and AT ONCE and Forever connect him immediately with His richest purposes of grace in His own Son, is contrary to the ideas of the natural man.
Thank God, no one has a right to question His title to do this, nor the title of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sent One of the Father. When the disciples returned from buying food (John 4:27), and found the Lord talking to an outcast Samaritan woman, “they marveled,” yet who could question His title so to do? “None said, What seekest thou? or, Why talkest thou with her?” What he sought was a sinner. He talked with her that she might learn His grace to such an one as herself. He had the right at once, there and then, to satisfy a weary, sinful heart with Himself. Ah! man naturally does not understand this. He would reform the sinner, make him religious, and then hope for mercy at last. But Christ! All the fullness of grace is in Him for the vilest.
We hear nothing of Matthew, the tax-gatherer, until the moment brought before us in this chapter. He is not spoken of as one of John’s disciples. We are told of no preliminary work in his soul; not that we must think lightly of such a work; but the first notice of him in Scripture is, that the Lord saw him sitting in the tax-office as He passed by. At once He called him with the words, “Follow me.” His occupation— not a reputable one—did not hinder this immediate call. It was the command of Jesus to a sinner. There are no preliminaries to be observed— “He arose, and followed Him.” The mighty transaction is done. Love of gain, the great charmer of the ear of man, has to retire before the voice of the Lord. Jesus now has the ear of Matthew.
It is ever with the sinner whose ear is obedient as with the prodigal. The prodigal had nothing wherewith to go to his father but destitution and sin. Forgiveness, reconciliation, the kiss, the best robe, the fatted calf, and the joy of heaven were all with the Father. Was it not everything to turn to where these things were? It was true repentance. So with Matthew; to follow Jesus was to go after One in whom the fullness of grace is treasured for a sinner. He came to call such.
This is shown in the following verses. We learn from another gospel that it was in the house of Matthew himself that many publicans and sinners were assembled. He had invited them to meet the Saviour who had called him. How well he understood the grace of that blessed heart. The Pharisees objected to it; but Jesus and the Scripture also (Hos. 6:6) —the living Word and the written word—both say, in the face of all objectors, that Matthew had not misunderstood the grace of God. Reader, have you hitherto done so? Have you understood that it is not what man can render, but what God desires and gives, that entitles the sinner to the Saviour. Mercy, full and free, Jesus brought, and then sealed it with His blood; therefore He called sinners.
Further, we find in verses 14, 15 the happiness of those thus called into the company of Jesus. It may take some time—alas! that it should—to empty a heart of its suspicions and doubts, of its reluctance through guilty unbelief to trust itself with the grace of a Saviour; but only let the voice of Jesus reach that guilty soul, and a moment will suffice to light up the dark chambers of the heart with Himself. He is for sinners, and has done all the work of atonement for them by Himself. No one touched it but Himself, and it is finished. Those who have found the company of the Saviour have now a new joy. It is as the children of the bridechamber when the bridegroom is with them. Does the reader know anything of this joy? There is the daily toil and labor of this life, and many a thing to fret the spirit of the believer, who in such circumstances will need to fast; but he has a retreat, a place of calm and heavenly joy—the bridechamber—where he knows the presence of the Bridegroom, the Saviour who has called him.
It is impossible for the worn out garment of vaunted respectability and legal self-righteousness to be patched with the new cloth of the Saviour’s grace to sinners. There is no agreement between the two. The unholy attempt to combine Christianity, which is founded on the fullness of perfected and divine righteousness in Christ, with the unattainable human righteousness of Judaism, will bring about a worse rent than has taken place in the break-up of the Jewish system and nation. Woe awaits such an unholy combination. Nor can the new wine of the kingdom be put into old vessels, such as unrepentant, unconverted men. It is a new joy which gladdens the heart of one who has heard the Saviour’s call. The vessel is formed anew by the call. It is made to partake of the nature of Him who calls. His grace enters the soul. The vessel is thus new, for Christ is there the life of that soul, and the new joy in Christ agrees with the new vessel. If it be otherwise the wine is poured out and the vessels perish. So will it be with the huge system called Christendom. The true grace of God is lost to such as are only of it, and they themselves will perish. You cannot connect the true joy of saved sinners with the religion of unconverted men.
But is my reader willing to accept the true condition of man universally? Here it is (verse 18-25) “hopeless and helpless.” But for the grace that is in Jesus it must continue so. “While He spice these things” —those which we have just considered— “a ruler came to Him.” The ruler is a religious man, for we learn (Mark 5:22) that he was a ruler of the synagogue; but he has death in his house. There is the pressure of death in this world, and man is hopelessly under it. Who can relieve him? He betakes himself to Jesus— “Come and lay thy hands on her, and she shall live.” Is that so? It is, and Jesus goes with him. But as He goes a woman who had tried, but could derive no benefit from the help of man, touched the hem of His garment. We are told what passed in her mind. It was as if she had said within herself, “I am helpless, but there is virtue in Him.” Yes, it Is there, and the touch of faith drew it out for this helpless one. He comforted her, and told her the way that healing came—through the faith that touched Him. Dear reader, do you know the virtue in Jesus that meets the helplessness of man?
And now Jesus has come to the ruler’s house. Minstrels and noise are in the chamber of death; and such a certainty, though dreaded, is death to the mind of man, that the multitude deride Him when He says, “The maid is not dead, but sleepeth.” Death is hopeless for man, but the power of Christ can lift up from it, and turn death into sleep. Without Him, it is death indeed in all its overwhelming pressure. The deathbed of a believer is not really death, but life just going to be set free from all its power. The body Christ will raise. His own words assure the hearts of those who trust Him: “Because I live ye shall live also.” What a joy it is that Jesus came into this world of sin and death to call and to be found of sinners.
T.H.R.