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‘The Pharisees and scribes murmured.’
Luk_15:2
I. Exclusiveness or spiritual pride.—If there is one great practical lesson, before all others, running through the teaching of Christ, and imparting a principle of radical change into the scheme of life, it is summed in these words, ‘The last shall be first and the first last.’ This doctrine is the first step in the organisation, so to say, of the Kingdom of Heaven. This is the first in order of all those paradoxes which constitute the sum of Christianity. It was this which in the first centuries of its spread was such an outrage upon society at large, such an enigma to the dispassioned observer, and, as Gibbon has justly observed, was one great element of its triumph. The outcast was no longer an outcast. The despised and rejected of men has become the very pattern of the noblest life. And herein lay the essential antagonism to the spirit which possessed the Pharisee. Exclusion was his ideal. He clung to it as his heaven-conferred heritage. Christ broke down the walls of partition. The Kingdom of Heaven came, not to a favoured few, not to the elect or the predestinate, but to all.
II. Formalism.—Formalism may be explained as an exaggerated stress laid upon ceremonial, upon formularies and upon ordinances, as the elevation, in short, of the mechanism of life in comparison with the life itself. It is not to be supposed that all, or indeed the greater part of those in whom this tendency exists, are making an ostentatious display of righteousness, or are assuming a disguise to cloak their hidden propensities, nor yet that they are themselves conscious of the unsubstantial nature of the manifestations of their religious life. There are but few, I suppose, who do not at times succumb out of sheer weariness to the temptation to rest content with seeming instead of being, to substitute a mechanical goodness for genuineness of life, a conventional orthodoxy for the unquiet pursuit of reality. That there is a compatibility of genuine piety and the most narrow formalism, is a fact which meets us at every turn. But in proportion as knowledge becomes complete, as darkness melts into light, in such proportion are the means and outward expression of life lost sight of, swallowed up in the complete freedom of life itself. The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life—life and liberty, unity of life beneath the multiplicity of forms. And in the recognition of this lies the Christian brotherhood, the veritable communion of saints. If we learn to recognise that this communion is a unity underlying the fragments of Christendom, we shall have been purged of the leaven of the Pharisee, we shall have been made meet to sit down with Christ in the company of publicans and sinners.
—
Rev. Dr. C. H. O. Daniel.
‘This Man receiveth sinners.’
Luk_15:2
Let us consider some of those points of connection between the blessings of Holy Communion and the condition and needs of the penitent. That there is such a connection we all know. Our Prayer Book, our Communion Service, brings it into special prominence.
I. Who are they that are invited to Holy Communion?—‘Ye that do truly and earnestly repent you of your sins …’ This is its Invitation. And then, when we accept the Invitation and draw near to the Holy Mysteries, how, and in what words, do we accept it? We reply, ‘We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry,’ etc. So, then, the Invitation is sent forth to the penitent, and it is the penitent who accepts it. It is only as penitent men and women that we venture to accept it. There must, therefore, be some special connection between the Holy Communion and penitence. What follows then? Clearly this:—
II. That it is a tremendous mistake to imagine that Holy Communion is intended to be kept back as the peculiar privilege of the advanced Christian.
III. That it is intended for the comfort of the penitent.
IV. That none, not even the best of men, the purest and the holiest, can ever approach this Holy Feast except in the character of a penitent.—It is only those who in this life wear the robe of penitence who will wear the wedding garment of Christ’s righteousness at the marriage supper of the Lamb hereafter.
Thus, then, our Communion Service makes it clear and certain that Holy Communion is for the penitent, and the penitent for the Holy Communion. Here we have an application of our text, ‘This Man receiveth sinners.’
Illustration
‘Let me tell you how Charles Simeon lost the burden of his sin by casting it in faith on the Redeemer, and how he found, to his endless comfort, that Christ receives sinners. When he was a young man of about twenty, at Cambridge, he was for some months in great distress about his soul, which, as he says, might well have continued for years; but, as he tells us himself, “in Easter week, as I was reading Bishop Wilson on the Lord’s Supper, I met with an expression to this effect: ‘That the Jews knew what they did when they transferred their sin to the head of their offering.’ The thought rushed into my mind: What! May I transfer all my guilt to another? Has God provided an Offering for me, that I may lay my sins on His head? Then, God willing, I will not bear them on my own soul one moment longer. Accordingly I sought to lay my sins on the sacred head of Jesus; and on the Wednesday began to have a hope of mercy; on the Thursday that hope increased; on the Friday and Saturday it became more strong; and on the Sunday morning (Easter Day) I awoke early with these words upon my heart and lips, ‘Jesus Christ is risen to-day; Hallelujah! Hallelujah!’ From that hour peace flowed in rich abundance into my soul; and at the Lord’s Table in our chapel I had the sweetest access to God through my Blessed Saviour.” ’
CHRIST RECEIVETH SINFUL MEN
I. He receives them into His heart to be forgiven.—If you have read the Pilgrim’s Progress you will remember that when Christian got to the ‘wicket-gate’ he said, ‘Here is a poor burdened sinner. I am come from the City of Destruction, but am going to Mount Zion, that I may be delivered from the wrath to come. I would therefore, sir, since I am informed that by this gate is the way thither, know if you are willing to let me in?’ Then Christ answered, ‘I am willing with all My heart,’ and with that He opened the gate. Yes, indeed, with all His heart of untold love Jesus receives sinners. So willing is He that, as George Whitfield said, ‘He even receives the devil’s castaways!’
II. He receives them into His school to be trained.—He educates them, and teaches them by His Spirit. He opens their understanding to understand the Scriptures. He is so patient, so loving, so gentle.
III. He receives them into His home.—‘In My Father’s house are many mansions’ (many abiding-places). ‘I go to prepare a place for you’ (Joh_14:2). He knows how we shrink from death and the world beyond the grave; therefore He calls it home. His Apostle assures all believers when they are absent from the body they are ‘at home with the Lord’ (2Co_5:8, R.V.). No one fears going home. And every Christian may say, ‘I am going home; I am going home.’
—
Rev. F. Harper.
Illustration‘He will receive the rich—Joseph of Arimathea, an example.
He will receive the poor—Lazarus, the beggar, an example.
He will receive the learned—Dionysius, the Areopagite, an example.
He will receive physicians—Luke, an example.
He will receive soldiers—the Roman centurion, an example.
He will receive fishermen—Peter, etc., examples.
He will receive extortioners—Zacchæus, an example.
He will receive tax-gathers—publicans, examples.
He will receive thieves—the dying robber, an example.
He will receive harlots—the woman who was a sinner, an example.
He will receive adulterers—the woman of Samaria, an example.
He will receive persecutors and murderers—Saul, an example.
He will receive persons possessed of devils—many examples.
He will receive backsliders—Peter, an example.
He will receive persons in trade—Lydia, a seller of purple, an example.
He will receive statesmen and courtiers—the eunuch of Ethiopia, an example.
He will receive families—that of Bethany, an example.
He will receive whole multitudes—those at the day of Pentecost, an example.’