"Jesus ate with sinners"

Answering a common twist of Scripture

Once “The Bible says don’t judge” fell out of favor as an argument against Biblical truth (largely because of it’s inherent absurdities), it was only a matter of time before another twisting of Scripture took its place.

Lo and behold, “Jesus ate with sinners” has filled the void nicely. Any time a Christian calls a sin a sin, stands against the degeneracy of our day, or holds a consistent standard for behavior from other Christians, you can be sure the counterpoint will follow shortly. “Jesus ate with sinners,” someone will say, as if that means we have no business recognizing that the people in question are, in fact, sinners.

The first and easiest response is to say that Jesus did not ever excuse the sins of His dinner companions. “Go and sin no more” was His commandment.

But when we see this argumentation, we have to ask why it’s being used. What are they getting at?

Reading further into the argumentation around the “Jesus ate with sinners” claim, I believe people take this approach for two reasons:

First, we know people like their sins, so we try to let them keep their sins and still get Jesus.

It is mean and unloving to call people to a higher standard, the thinking goes. They’re broken, we’re broken, everybody’s broken, so who are we to tell them they are in sin?

This is the crux of Jesus’ entire dispute with the Pharisees and law experts—the standard they were placing on people was mean and unloving. They set a high standard, but Jesus Himself called it an impossible burden. He also called them out for the hypocrisy of guilting people over a standard they themselves didn’t keep (Luke 11:46).

Then Jesus went on to say things like “take up your cross” (Luke 9:23) and “go and sin no more” (John 8:11) and “if you love Me, you will keep My commandments” (John 14:15). This shows us He was not the sin-excusing softie He’s often portrayed to be.

It also shows the clear distinction between a hypocritical standard and a high standard. Jesus was no Pharisee, but neither was His approach to live and let live. He sets the highest of standards for any who would follow Him.

Second, we have rejected the biblical ideals of holiness and obedience because the god of our day is the individual, who is inherently unholy and disobedient.

We end up looking like the god/God we serve, and when we serve the fallen, sinful self, we just spiral further into our selfishness. And, we find religious sounding ways to justify it, like “Jesus ate with sinners.”

Using the phrase to excuse sin is to make Jesus bow at the altar of self. True Christianity, on the other hand, starts with the claim “Christ is Lord,” and every other step in the Christian life flows from that.

It is a wonderful truth that Jesus ate with sinners, and it’s a wonderful truth that He didn’t sin with them or tell them their sin was just fine. In Christ, even the (supposedly) most unlikely person can become a beacon of holiness, because He makes all things new. This is the resurrection before the resurrection.

If He was content to leave us all as we are, how is the Gospel good news? Why go to the cross?

It was Jesus’ love that led Him to eat with sinners. And it was His love that led Him to diagnose sin for what it is. And it was His love that put Him on the cross, brought Him out of the grave, and sent forth the Spirit to justify and sanctify us so we don’t have to be enslaved to sin anymore.

Don’t turn the grace of God into an excuse to abound in sin (Romans 6:1-2).

With summer and fall schedules taking shape, I’m looking for a few congregations to visit and speak to. I’m going to be much more limited with my schedule this year, so if you’re interested in having me out to talk about Church Reset, Christianity and Culture, or any other of my favorite topics, please email jack@focuspress.org