“I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:32)
The Great Physician came into the world that he might save such as we are, sick and broken with sin. For a sinner cannot enter the kingdom of heaven apart from the cleansing, healing power of Christ, the Great Physician and master surgeon of the heart.
This is why neither the depth nor the number of your sins should make you despair of salvation or fear damnation. For if you had never sinned, you would not fear damnation. And yet, for one whose sins are forgiven, it is as if their sins are not, nor ever were. For Scripture says the believer’s sins are blotted out of God’s remembrance. “I, even I am he,” (God says), “that blots out your transgressions for my name’s sake and will not remember your sins.” And Micah 7:19 adds that he casts all our sins “into the bottom of the sea.”
When a debt is paid by the Surety, it so frees the principal from that debt to the degree that it is as if it never existed in the first place. This is what is represented by the truth that God finds no guilt in those whose sins are pardoned in Jesus Christ. “In those days, and at that time, saith the Lord, the iniquity of Israel shall be sought for, and there shall be none; and the sins of Judah, and they shall not be found.” How is this? He gives the reason, “for I will pardon them whom I reserve.” And “there is therefore no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus,” (Rom. 8:1).
Henry Scudder said, “If you believe that God can pardon any sin, even the least, you have reason to believe that God can pardon all, even the greatest sins. For if God can do anything, he can do everything, because he is infinite.”
As Matthew 9:5 states, the Great Physician can as easily say “your sins are forgiven you,” as to say, “rise and walk.” He can as well save one that has been long dead in his sin as one newly fallen into sin. He can as readily pronounce, “Lazarus come forth,” as to declare, “Damsel, I say to thee arise,” because he is the Great Physician. “Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return to the LORD, and he will have mercy upon him, for he will abundantly pardon.”
Contemplations:
- I often doubt, Lord, that my sins are really forgiven because I have a weak faith. Saving faith in many Christians is oftentimes so weak that if they should examine their faith only by their sins, they would be apt to question the truth of it all and wonder whether the Great Physician has actually healed them. But I know that Christ, by his Spirit through the ministry of the Word, awakens a man’s conscience and makes him see his many sins so he may be moved to look to the Lord Jesus for pardon.
- What is the work of the Great Physician in healing my soul? I am well aware of my wretched, miserable condition and the grief and sorrow that accompanies it. All men are not afflicted with a sense of their sinful state in the same way (for some are affected much more deeply than others), yet very few pass through the pangs of their new birth without some grief and sorrow for their sins. Neither can I understand how any should close with Jesus Christ as their Savior until they have been made sick of their sins, realizing their dire need of this Great Physician.
- Help me Lord, so that I may more willingly seek to be clothed in your righteousness. For so long as a man is full of himself, he will never be looking to the Great Physician for life and salvation. For our Savior says, “The whole do not need a physician.” In other words, they are not even aware of how desperately they need his medicine for their sick soul.
- Those poor sinners ready to forsake their sinful ways are invited to come to you as noted in Isaiah, “Ho, every one that thirsts come to the waters, he that has no money,” (i.e. no goodness nor righteousness of his own), “let him come.” And as the Great Physician says in Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”
Further References for Luke 5:32:
Luke 15:7; Acts 5:31; Isa. 57:15; Matt. 18:11
