Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit · Sermon No. 2484
“A friend of publicans and sinners.” Luke 7:34.
THIS title was given to our Divine Lord and Master by those who were disposed to quibble at Him and were unwilling to be convinced that He was the Messiah. John the Baptist’s self-denial was pushed much too far for them. They could not understand a man wearing a garment of camel’s hair, with a leather belt about his loins and whose food was locusts and wild honey. The man was either too good for this world, or he was not in his right mind. “He has a devil,” they said, as they turned away from him. But they could not say this of the Savior, for He ate and drank as others ate and drank, and made no difficulty at all about meats and drinks—so they said of Him—“He is a gluttonous Man and a winebib-ber—a friend of publicans and sinners.” Thus our text comes to us as the language of certain gentry who said, even of the Savior, that they could not listen to Him because He seemed to be a Man who went in and out with ordinary people and did not distinguish Himself by being an ascetic.
I also heard a man say, some time ago, that he could not listen to a certain preacher because, unhappily for him, he happened to be very stout—he could profit by the ministry of a man who was very thin, for the objector thought he looked more saintly! Well, it may be so with some people, but, for my part, if anybody can do me good, whether he is stout or thin, I shall make no question about that matter! Whether he is an inch or two shorter or taller will not be a question for me to consider. I think that I should never refrain from consulting with an eminent physician because he happened to have black hair, or light hair, or any peculiarity of that kind! Yet people are often so indifferent about their soul affairs that the littlest trifle in a service, the tiniest accidental thing will often keep them from listening to the most weighty Truths of God that concern their immortal interests!
Now let us come to this title of our Master. They called Him, “a friend of publicans and sinners.” It is somewhat noticeable that He quotes this saying Himself. Probably neither Matthew, nor Mark, nor Luke, nor John would have told us that they called Jesus, “a friend of publicans and sinners” if He had not repeated it, Himself. It is clear from this fact that He was not in the least ashamed of the title! He repeats it almost as if He enjoyed it, as if He took the title home to Himself and wore it as some distinction which He was glad to have! He, Himself, says it and He takes care to say it again and to bid both Matthew and Luke record it, that He was called, “a friend of publicans and sinners.” What He was not ashamed to repeat, we are not ashamed to think of at this service! So, first of all, let us notice that this saying, in the sense in which they meant it, was not true. But, secondly, in a higher and better sense than they understood it, it was true. When we have thought over these two points, we will, in the third place, ask one another, “Since it is true that Christ is a friend of publicans and sinners, what then?”
I. First, then, IN THE SENSE IN WHICH THEY MEANT IT, THIS SAYING WAS NOT TRUE.
The Lord Jesus Christ was not “a friend of publicans and sinners” in the sense of being in the least like them. Our proverb says, “A man is known by the company he keeps,” but you could not have known the Lord Jesus Christ by the company He kept. It would be strictly true to say of Him that He was “holy, harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners”—that even when He was present with them and received them, and ate with them—yet still there was a grave distinction between Him and them so that you could never consider Him to be of the same class with them. No, Brothers and Sisters, His bitterest enemies could not truly lay any sin to His charge! They had to hire false witnesses to make up an accusation against Him and when they had made it up, there was really nothing in it. The quick-eyed prince of this world, Satan, himself, could find nothing sinful in Him. And the princes of this world, whose eyes, through their malice, had become like the eyes of lynxes, yet could not discover anything for which they could blame Him. He was not like they were. He was not like any sinner, He was not like the drunkard, He was not like the adulterer, He was not like the thief, nor was He in the least like the hypocritical Pharisee who, with all his attempts to appear righteous, was not really like the Savior. So, Christ was not”a friend of publicans and sinners” in the sense of being like they were.
And, in the second place, He was not “a friend of publicans and sinners” in the sense of aiding or abetting them in evil He never said a single word that could encourage any man to sin. He never did a single act by which any man would have said that he was helped to be a transgressor. I do not suppose that any other man ever lived who could be truthfully said to be harmless, for all of us do some harm, even if unconsciously. Our example, either in its defects or in its excesses, must be injurious to somebody. Even those who endeavor to keep their example as pure, clean and worthy of imitation as possible, yet, perhaps, sometimes lose their temper, or occasionally speak unadvisedly with their lips, or, now and then forget what they ought to have remembered and thus incidentally do harm. But our Lord Jesus Christ never did. No one among us here was ever led by the example of Christ to do harm. His example is matchless in this respect that if we copied it as far as it is imitable, we would only have copied perfection and followed on after the highest virtue! There may be some who join with publicans and sinners, so eating and drinking with them as to encourage gluttony and drunkenness—so singing and laughing with them as to multiply wantonness and uncleanness—but this could never be said of the Savior. He was not like they were nor did He aid them, so He was not, in that sense, a “friend of publicans and sinners.”