Mark 2:13-17
Jesus Came for Sinners
13 Once again Jesus went out beside the lake. A large crowd came to him, and he began to teach them. 14 As he walked along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax collector’s booth. “Follow me,” Jesus told him, and Levi got up and followed him.
15 While Jesus was having dinner at Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were eating with him and his disciples, for there were many who followed him. 16 When the teachers of the law who were Pharisees saw him eating with the sinners and tax collectors, they asked his disciples: “Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
17 On hearing this, Jesus said to them, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Romans 7:7-25
Our Struggles With Sin and Our Sinful Nature
7 What shall we say, then? Is the law sinful? Certainly not! Nevertheless, I would not have known what sin was had it not been for the law. For I would not have known what coveting really was if the law had not said, “You shall not covet.” 8 But sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, produced in me every kind of coveting. For apart from the law, sin was dead. 9 Once I was alive apart from the law; but when the commandment came, sin sprang to life and I died. 10 I found that the very commandment that was intended to bring life actually brought death. 11 For sin, seizing the opportunity afforded by the commandment, deceived me, and through the commandment put me to death. 12 So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.
13 Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means! Nevertheless, in order that sin might be recognized as sin, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.
14 We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. 15 I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.16 And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17 As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18 For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19 For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. 20 Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
21 So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me.22 For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; 23 but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. 24 What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? 25 Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!
So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.
Acts 4:12
Salvation is Through Jesus
12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.
Jesus said He came for sinners...So, He certainly knows that we sin and we need His help...He is our Savior...And He also knows how we struggle with sinning and our sinful nature...And we also know that is the most just Man to ever walk the earth, and is so completely full of righteousness...However, man is not that way, and it brings up the subject of sin and the justice, and how they are reconciled...
C. S. Lewis in his book Till We Have Faces looks at this justice and sin in man...The main character in Till We Have Faces is Orual...Orual is a queen...She is said to be ugly...Orual has a sister Psyche who supposedly lives with a god and lives in a great mansion and place...Psyche is beautiful...And Psyche can see her home and her husband, but Orual cannot see this great place or the one her sister is married to...Orual sees nothing, no home and no god husband...Since Orual cannot see what her sister sees, Orual meanly and selfishly convinces Psyche to do what she has been told by her husband god not to do...She was not to look upon the god of the Mountain by lamplight at night...Orual tells Psyche that the god of the mountain must be a monster...Why would he hide his face from his wife or from anybody?....She helps Psyche with a way to see him, and threatens and persuades her sister to do her plan...Ultimately and reluctantly, Psyche agrees out of pity and love for her sister to do what her god husband has told her not to do...After Psyche follows Orual's idea, the god of the mountain must banish her from the mountain...He said he would and he does...With Psyche now banned from her beautiful home, Psyche becomes a vagabond...Orual suffers with the knowledge that she destroyed her sister's home, her happiness and marriage, through her own misapplied love and jealousy...Orual feels all her life that she has been wronged by the gods...So she goes about over the years documenting a case against the gods of her world...In her documentation, against the gods, she details their different injustices that have been towards her in this world...When Orual finally gets to present her case before the gods, she reads her book to the gods and what she has written down her entire life...Orual demands justice against the gods...After reading her complaint to the gods and listening to what she has said, she realizes their is little substance in all that she has documented and written...Her story is actually not much of a story...
But now after the gods have listened to her complaint, it is the gods turn for Orual to listen to the them..."My judges?" she asks her best friend, as she is now stunned that they will be judging her..."Why, yes, my child...The gods have been accused by you...Now its their turn."..."I cannot hope for mercy", she laments to the one beside her..."Infinite hopes-and fears-may both be yours," her friend replies..."Be sure that, whatever else you get, you will not get justice."..."Are the gods not just?" Orual asks..."Oh no, child...What would become of us if they were?"...
What would become of us in eternity, if God were just...Sinners get mercy and grace...Lewis is telling us that in a way our LORD cannot be just...How can He?...We are sinners, and we have a sinful nature...What would become of us if He judged us properly?...How could anyone stand before Him?...We would have no eternal life with Him, our Creator, our Father, and His Son...Jesus came and is our Mediator, our Redeemer, our Savior...Salvation is found in no one else...We all know that we do not deserve that we should get to go to heaven...We fear death, because justice must be done...We are afraid of death, because we are guilty...We need a Redeemer...Thank God for sending His Son, who came for us...