Or, The Doctor and His Disciples
Scripture: Luke 5:27-32
Date: September 6, 2026
Speaker: Sean Higgins
We’ve come to the second controversy story in a row. Jesus just pronounced forgiveness, a thing only God could do. Now Jesus is eating and drinking with sinners, a thing God would never do, at least in the eyes of some.
Jesus has also recently healed a leper. What was worse than being a leper? If you really had leprosy, then you were cast out of the community, physically unwell and socially unwelcome. Now Jesus makes a disciple from one who is a social outcast by choice. His neighbors resented him as he made his living from a system they resented. Maybe you could have sympathy for the leper, but even a tax collector’s mother might have struggled to love her son.
But God! God saves sinners. That’s the good news in three words, though I think I’d want to add one more little phrase. God saves sinners unto glory. This is the thing that is controversial. This is what makes the Pharisees and their scribes so irritated, even if they don’t say it so clearly. They had their own scorecard for glory, and Jesus turned their card upside down.
But this tax-collector was clearly predestined, called, justified, and promised glory (the grace-chain in Romans 8:30). God calls sinners unto repentance, unto table-fellowship, unto an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Corinthians 4:17).
There are two different scenes in these verses. First, Jesus targets a particular tax collector as a disciple, and second, Jesus defends His mission to make disciples of guys who need to repent like this tax collector. Luke 5:27-32 shows that Jesus is God who calls sinners through repentance unto glory.
Jesus went out and saw this guy, and took the initiative. Luke records no request from the man, there’s no introduction or background as there had been before Jesus called Peter. All signs point to unconditional election at work.
A tax collector was an employee, unlike Zacchaeus who was a “chief tax collector,” nearer to the top of the chain. Jesus went up to the tax booth (or “tax office” LSB). Since this booth was near the sea (Mark 2:13), it may have been a taxes on fishermen, or it could have been on a route to tax goods moving through Capernaum.
The man’s name was Levi. Mark also has the name Levi (Mark 2:14) but the same story in Matthew 9:9 has a different name: Matthew. In the list of disciples in Luke 6:14-16 there is a Matthew and not a Levi, and in the list of disciples in Matthew 10:3 Matthew is the only disciple called “a tax-collector.” Either he was known by two names, similar to Simon Peter, or Levi is similar to Matthew as a tax-collector and follower of Jesus, but not the same guy.
Matthew, Mark and Luke all put this call immediately after the healing of the paralytic and the religious leaders questioning Jesus’ authority to forgive sins. Now Jesus calls an obvious sinner to follow Him.
If there was other conversation, Luke didn’t think we needed to hear it. Jesus said, ”Follow me” and Levi did, leaving everything. The paralytic rose from his bed in proof of his healing; the tax collector left his post in proof of his new way of living.
Jesus called this sinner to a new life. The word “call” is used in verse 32, and Levi is the human object lesson. Theologically we distinguish between the external call and the effectual call, or inward call. When Jesus said, “Follow me,” anyone could hear it. When Levi followed, that was God’s grace working in his will.
Rather than be humbled and excited that grace was available to one such as Levi, the “righteous” were proud and irritated.
Some time later Levi made Him a great feast. Apparently some readers have wondered how Levi could afford a party when he’d just quit his job. But one commentator I read said, “There is no rule that says a tax collector must be a financial fool with his earnings” (Bock). In other words, he hadn’t drained his savings yet.
There was a large company, and some of them were work buddies, fellow tax collectors. Luke says there were others, and this was a nice way to say sinners (as the Pharisees make explicit in verse 30). They were all reclining at table. We’re upright sitters, straight-back chair people. The custom for them was a type of couch, perhaps encouraging a longer meal and more fellowship.
Sometime after that the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at his disciples. As is true of a lot of fussers, they don’t criticize Jesus to His face but complain to His guys.
It’s worth mentioning that the word grumbled sounds like what it’s doing (onomatopoeia). The Greek word works the same way: gogguzo (γογγύζω), grumble, a guttural mumble. It’s the word used in the Greek version of the Old Testament for when the Israelites grumbled at God in the desert and the Lord judged them with forty years of wandering (Numbers 14). They grumbled themselves out of the promised land, the Pharisees grumbled themselves out of the party.
“Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” (Luke 5:30)
They wouldn’t have been caught dead at the feast, they were too pure for that. But they’d been tracking Jesus, or at least had heard about this feast, and this company of sinners compromised Jesus’ holiness. The Pharisees were separatists. They had rules for this. The way to be holy was to avoid contact, avoid association. “Consequently, they believed in ‘salvation by segregation’ versus ‘salvation by association’ to fend off the heathens at the gate” (Garland).
Jesus answers not just with a metaphor, but with a mission statement:
“Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.” (Luke 5:31-32 ESV)
Jesus is like a doctor who goes to the sick to make them well.
Jesus isn’t excusing sin as an unfortunate medical condition. The analogy is about who needs help. The well or “healthy” man just keeps going. Call the doctor when there’s a problem. Sin is like incurable leprosy, and Jesus’ touch immediately cleanses. Sin is like irrecoverable social damage, and Jesus’ call bridges the chasm. Sin is like being dead, and the Physician gives new life.
The analogy is also not saying that there are really, spiritually healthy people who don’t need salvation. That Jesus did not come to call the righteous does not mean that there are actually righteous men. There are some who think they are righteous. The Pharisees and the scribes thought they had the grades that meant glory.
The parable in Luke 18:9-14 has a Pharisee and a tax collector, one who justified himself and the other who pleaded for mercy. Only one went home truly justified.
Also, while Jesus was a friend of sinners, He called them to repentance. He called, and still calls, men to follow Him as they leave their sin.
How many of the “others” followed Jesus that day? What were the conversations like between Jesus and the thugs around the table? It is strange that Luke doesn’t say whether or not there was a revival among the Israeli IRS and others of lower morals. He does say that the Israeli Society of the Pure and Spotless grumbled at the company Jesus kept.
The Pharisees could see what was wrong with Levi and the people at Levi’s table. They couldn’t see what was wrong with their own hearts. It is possible to be very discerning about other people’s sins and very defensive about your own.
Jeremiah asks whether a leopard can change its spots, then asks whether people accustomed to evil can do good (Jeremiah 13:23). We need sovereign grace that changes what we cannot change ourselves. We need God’s effectual call.
The effectual call works with the external call. The found don’t stand at the door deciding which sinners Jesus ought to call. The found make room at the table and tell others about the Physician. Levi got up from his booth. He opened his house. What would faithful obedience look like for you this week?
If you can’t associate with someone who needs to repent, why? If you associate with someone who needs to repent but you never bring it up, why?
Jesus calls sinners to repentance. He gives the undeserving forgiveness, He brings the outcast into fellowship, and He a provides a new future. God saves sinners unto glory.
God is saving you unto glory. He is proving your faith, He is showing your faith to be more precious than gold tested by fire. The result will be praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. So Christian, rejoice until you obtain the outcome of your faith: glory!
Grace, mercy, and peace will be with us, from God the Father and from Jesus Christ the Father’s Son, in truth and love. (2 John 1:3 ESV)