CALL TO REPENTANCE

Mrk. 2:17b ... "I came not to call the righteous, but sinners."

      Jesus in these few words states the purpose of His mission to earth.  He came to call sinners to repent of their sin so that He can save them.*  This purpose was later restated by an apostle who heard Jesus on this occasion:  "The Lord ... is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance," (II Pet. 3:9).  God, having created man in His own image, does not want anyone to be the object of the wrath He will pour out upon those who ignore His kind appeals and sober warnings.  Because He so loves His creatures, He sent His Son to live in a human body, suffer in the way we do, subject Himself to the range of temptation we face, and then be killed in total innocence to atone for our sins.  It is on the basis of this supreme sacrifice that Jesus made the appeal to sinners to repent.  It is a benevolent call, exhibiting infinite love; yet, it is a very serious call, since Jesus attaches to it this warning, "I tell you, unless you repent, you will all ... perish," (Luk. 13:3).  So, it ultimately comes down to this:  Repent and be saved; refuse to repent and perish when God pours out His wrath upon the earth.  

      When Jesus said He was not calling the "righteous," but "sinners" to repent, He was not saying that mankind is divided into two groups, the righteous whom He does not call and the sinners whom He does call.  In fact, the New Testament assures us that all people fit into the category of sinners.  We are frankly told that "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God," (Rom. 3:23).  Shortly thereafter it is added that "none is righteous, no, not one," (v.10).  In view of these declarations we must conclude that every one of us is the object of Jesus' call to repentance.  No one should be offended that Jesus identifies him as a sinner any more than when a physician tells him he is sick.  With few exceptions we appreciate the doctor's diagnosis, for we accept it as the first step toward being healed.  To accept Jesus' indictment that you are a sinner should also be the first step toward spiritual healing.  In fact, just previous to His statement in Mrk. 2:17 Jesus had said, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."  The sincere confession that you are a sinner points your conscience toward the need to have your sins removed.

      The remedy for sin is repentance and what repentance brings.  Repentance is a change of heart that produces a change in one's way of life.  It is not merely the miserable feeling of self-incrimination that awareness of sin stirs up in your heart.  Until continuance in sin finally sears the conscience to the point where it is insensitive to the presence of evil, a person usually experiences an awful psychological reaction after he has sinned.  But this inner experience alone is not repentance.  Paul calls it "worldly grief" and warns that it only "produces death," (II Cor. 7:10).  Because it does not effect a change in one's manner of life, it is nothing other than the humiliation and degradation concomitant with the downward spiral of sin into spiritual death.  Repentance likewise induces a bitter spirit in response to the fact that you have sinned and contaminated your soul with evil.  But it goes further and motivates you to abandon sinful behavior and seek the removal of its contamination.  When John the Baptist called upon the Jews to repent, he specified that they must "bear fruit in keeping with repentance," (Mat. 3:8).  That is, they had to show by changes in their external lives that in their hearts they were now loathing and repudiating sin.  In order to repent, a liar must quit lying and speak only the truth.  In order to repent, a thief must quit stealing and restore (if possible) what he has stolen.  In order to repent, a fornicator must quit the immoral activity and practice chastity.  It is only when we stop sinning that God will forgive the sin for which we are asking forgiveness.  That is the essence of repentance, and it is what Jesus came to call us to do.  He sacrificed Himself to atone for the sins of which we will repent, (Acts 2:38).

* In the oldest manuscripts of the New Testament the words "to repentance" are missing.  The KJV used later manuscripts, which contained them, and thus they appear in that well-known version.  In the parallel passage in Luk. 5:32 the words are used, and there none of the ancient manuscripts omit them.  There is therefore no doubt that Jesus did truly say that He was sent to call sinners "to repentance."