Mark 2:13–17 (NKJV): 13 Then He went out again by the sea; and all the multitude came to Him, and He taught them. 14 As He passed by, He saw Levi the son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, “Follow Me.” So he arose and followed Him.
15 Now it happened, as He was dining in Levi’s house, that many tax collectors and sinners also sat together with Jesus and His disciples; for there were many, and they followed Him. 16 And when the scribes and Pharisees saw Him eating with the tax collectors and sinners, they said to His disciples, “How is it that He eats and drinks with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 When Jesus heard it, He said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
It never ceases to amaze me how the religious people of Jesus’ time always judged those who were following Jesus. Nothing has changed! It’s the same today. People who think they are better because of an exterior façade of morality, look down on those who are perceptively deficient in morals. But the truth is far from this commonly accepted position. For those without Christ in this world, morality adds nothing to one’s spiritual condition, for the moralist and the non-moralist are categorically both sinners by birth. Depravity knows no moral bounds, “for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). For those in Christ in this world, morality is a virtue of obedience to the law of Christ. It is measured by God and not man, for the person in Christ (who walks by faith not by sight), is growing in the grace of God through his relationship in Christ. But when any person begins judging his brother because of perceptive lack of morality, he boasts of his own stand in Christ which he himself never attained. This boasting is sin and morally deficient, and he that does so, becomes a religious person as were the scribes and Pharisees. We should rather come along side those that are following Jesus and help hold them up when the burdens of this world weigh them down (Gal. 6:2). We should also seek to restore those that go astray, considering ourselves lest we be tempted (temptation to boast and lord over another as I take this to mean) (Gal 6:1). If we could simply see people the way Jesus does, sick and in need of the great physician, we would have compassion on them and not judge them as the moralist still do.