The traditional Yahwist, and later Jewish, understanding of sin and its consequences was fairly strict, even severe. One could be cleansed only from a sin committed unintentionally - from weakness, for example, from ignorance or...
The traditional Yahwist, and later Jewish, understanding of sin and its consequences was fairly strict, even severe. One could be cleansed only from a sin committed unintentionally - from weakness, for example, from ignorance or carelessness. Cleansing was not identical with repentance. Repentance meant that a person recognized sin as such, precisely as sin, turned to God, felt remorse, and inwardly renounced what had been done. It was understood that God in any case forgives the one who sincerely repents, but forgiveness did not yet mean cleansing. Cleansing meant the possibility of being freed from the consequences of the sin that had been committed. If no cleansing took place, those consequences continued to weigh on a person, hindering normal communion with God and depriving the person of the prospect of entering the Kingdom of the Messiah, or, as it was also called in those days, the Kingdom of the age to come.
Such strictness was not, of course, the result of some special vindictiveness or formalism among believers. It only reflected the realities of the fallen world with the overpowering rule of evil and sin. Once a person had voluntarily handed himself over to the power of sin, he later found himself powerless before it; he could no longer break free from that power. Tax collectors, that is, collectors of tribute who worked for the Roman administration, were considered precisely voluntary sinners. No one had forced them to do what they were doing, and from the very beginning they knew what they were undertaking. They also knew that there would be no road back for them, since it was impossible to be cleansed from the consequences of a consciously committed sin.
One can imagine what these people must have felt when they learned that they too had the possibility of becoming part of the people of God again, of being cleansed and receiving a chance to begin everything with a clean slate. Many of them had no doubt later repented and regretted the choice they had once made, but there was nowhere for them to go. And then suddenly there appears the One who promises the possibility of what had previously been impossible. No wonder the tax collectors and others of the same sort, people who had once consciously sinned and had now repented, follow Jesus: He is their only hope.
For the devout Pharisees, however, proud of their religious purity, this turn of events is more a cause for irritation than for joy. What meaning do all their efforts to keep themselves pure have now, if those who did nothing of the kind are being given the same possibilities they have? The first reaction of religious consciousness to this situation is: we tried in vain; all our efforts have turned out to be useless.
Jesus speaks directly: He came to call to repentance those to whom it had previously been closed, real sinners and not formally righteous people. What matters to Him is to save everyone who can be saved, not to flatter the religious vanity of those who take pride in their imagined righteousness.
