NOTES for Mat 9:9-13
What exactly so outraged the Pharisees when they saw Jesus beside a tax collector? Association with a sinner? But the Torah too knows conversion and repentance. More than that, it even knows special purification rituals performed by repentant sinners to be cleansed from the impurity caused by that sin. In essence, nothing more was required of the sinner: he had only to repent of it, then perform a purifying washing and bring a purification sacrifice, otherwise called a sin offering or guilt offering. At the same time, however, one indispensable condition had to be observed: it could concern only a sin committed involuntarily, through ignorance or weakness. If the sin had been committed consciously and voluntarily, no purification at all could be in question, even if the sinner repented of his sin deeply and sincerely. God, as was believed, could of course forgive a person even such a sin, but it was impossible to be freed from the consequences of a deliberate sin; they weighed on the person his whole life.
The tax collector's sin was exactly such a sin: everyone who took up this work entered into conscious cooperation with the Roman authorities, and not forced cooperation but voluntary cooperation. In the synagogue environment this was considered betrayal, a terrible and unforgivable sin, so that the one who committed it was forever cut off from his people, losing everything he could count on as a representative of his people, including the covenant and all the promises connected with it. Jesus, meanwhile, considers that even such a sinner, if he repents and turns, can be saved.
So what, then: was the pre-Christian approach too rigorist and completely without mercy? Hardly. Rather, one can think that with the coming of Christ the spiritual situation in the world in general, and among the people of God in particular, changed radically. Previously the inner intention with which an action was performed completely determined its consequences, and a conscious sin committed once, or rather its consequences, truly weighed on a person for his whole life, so that even God could not change it: for then, in essence, the world would have had to be created anew. But in the Kingdom one can begin with a clean slate, even one who has sinned consciously and voluntarily: repentance for what has been done is enough. And not because the world has become different, but because the laws of the Kingdom entering the world differ from the laws of this untransformed world. And the chance for salvation is now given to everyone who wants to be saved.