The Lord is awe-inspiring, fearsome, fascinating, intriguing, majestic, and full of splendor: breathtaking! Here is what I saw of him and what came to my mind and heart in Luke 5:31-32,
"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
For all groups that claim to base their theology on the teachings of Jesus Christ and yet discount the need for proper medical treatment, this comment of Jesus is problematic. Where some groups pretend not to get sick and others teach repentance and faith is all that is needed for recovery from an illness, Jesus says here the sick need a doctor.
Of course, it is not about doctors, patients and illness that Jesus is discussing here. The malady folks need treatment for and that he has come as a healer of, is not medical but spiritual in nature. Sinners need a Savior and he has come to call folks to repentance. Just as the sick need a doctor, so sinners need the Savior. I'm hard-pressed to accept that Jesus would resort to a falsehood as a comparison to proclaim his purpose here in this life. How about you? While we all need repentance and faith, Jesus simply draws an analogy: as the sick need a doctor, so the sinner needs a Savior. He has come to call them to repentance.
The beautiful message of this statement is not that I have a better theology than anyone else on the need for medical treatment. It is simply that Jesus Christ came, not for "good" folks, but for folks like me! No question about it - I'm a sinner. If the Lord had come to only find the good people who deserved a spot in the family of God I'd be in a real pickle! I could never make that list!
How wonderful the Lord came for folks just like me! People who have disappointed God, others, themselves with the things they have thought, said and done. How is it the Lord holds people like me in his heart is a great mystery to me. All I can do is accept it, celebrate it and worship him for it!
It is just the kind of Savior Jesus Christ is!
Anything of the Lord capture your heart from Scripture today? Share your thoughts of worship with us from your Bible reading today. We'd love to hear from you!
Trevor Fisk
trevor.fisk@gmail.com
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