Last week, we saw how Jesus had the authority and power to forgive sins, as shown in Matthew 9:1-8, where he forgave the sins of the paralyzed man. Now, the question arises: how much sin can he forgive? How big of a sinner can he forgive? Who can he forgive? This passage about Matthew provides the answer. It shows that there is no limit to his forgiveness. He can forgive the greatest and most vile sin in every generation.
We have been reading so much from Matthew, but here, in chapter 9, we are introduced to the author himself. Matthew provides a short autobiography in verse 9. I can imagine him, with his pen in hand, writing the rest of this Gospel and then pausing at this very personal passage, perhaps laying the pen down for a minute and wiping his eyes. He was coming to a most memorable and emotional incident in his own life, and he recorded it with a humble emotion.
Matthew 9:9: “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ So he arose and followed Him.”
Over 1,071 verses, and just one verse about his following Christ. When people write their testimonies, they often say, “I was like this and that; I did all these bad sins, as if to be proud of them. Then, I accepted Christ and sacrificed all that to follow him. I had so many problems following Christ and so much opposition and loss.” They might then add, “I came to Christ, and he blessed me with a big house and made me a rich man.” Hearing this, you might think, “Oh, such a saint.” Some church groups always make everyone give a testimony. They prepare their story and emotionally tell it everywhere for 30 minutes, like a sermon. It’s sad that many, instead of teaching God’s verses, spend a long time talking about themselves. Sometimes we doubt if they are truly disciples because the first step of discipleship is to deny oneself, yet their testimony is filled with pride. It’s not wrong to have a testimony, but sometimes you feel like saying, “Sir, sit down! Shut down and give us the story in this style: ‘As Jesus passed forth from there, He saw a man named Matthew.’ That is about as much as we care to know.”
A true disciple of Christ has no “I” or “me.” Matthew’s account is so short, and he writes about himself in the third person, not even using “I.” He was truly humble. He reduces his whole conversion to one verse and says absolutely nothing about himself, hiding himself and glorifying Christ. He followed the principle, “He must increase, but I must decrease.” How beautiful. Let us look at this verse. Though it is short, it is very powerful and weighty.
This is the calling of Matthew. Every Christian is called by God. Let us understand the glory of our calling from Matthew’s call. The calling of Matthew has five aspects:
- A Miraculous Call
- An Accidental Call
- A Gracious Call
- A Sovereign Call
- A Powerfully Effectual Call
Let us look at so many beautiful things in that one verse. There is so much in this one verse. Let the Holy Spirit speak to us through it.
A Miraculous Call
Please notice where Matthew has put this story. He could have put it in many places. It is not chronologically arranged; he focused on the effect rather than the chronology. Sometimes, the Evangelists seem to overlook the chronological position and put things out of their proper place for the purpose of their writing. Christ would have called him a long time before, but Matthew could have had many reasons for this. The first reason is to show that Jesus Christ can forgive sins. But to what extent can he forgive? He can forgive even the worst sinner, even a publican. We will see what a publican is.
It is a miraculous call. It is placed immediately after a miracle. “There,” he said, “I will tell them one miracle about the Savior having made the palsied man take up his bed and walk, and then I will tell them of another miracle—a greater miracle, still—how there was another man who was more than palsied, chained to his covetousness.” All that his eyes saw, his ears heard, his mouth spoke, his hands worked, and his feet ran was only for covetousness. He was a man fully palsied by greed, yet at the command of Christ, he quit that occupation and all his gains to follow his Divine Master. There is nothing that paralyzes a man toward spiritual things like covetousness. When a man is engaged in oppression, gain, and covetousness, as the publicans were, his conscience becomes seared as with a hot iron, and he is not likely to feel or desire that which is right or wrong. Yet here was a man, up to his neck palsied by covetousness, which led him to an evil occupation, who at the divine call, was delivered from all that. He got up and followed Christ. It was a greater miracle than the raising of the palsied man who took up his bed and walked! The reality that a tax collector in first-century Palestine would follow Jesus Christ was nothing short of radical and miraculous. Let us understand more of this miracle.
An Accidental Call
This verse reads so tenderly. Try to enter Matthew’s feelings as he wrote this with tears in his eyes. He has done it so beautifully, for it is so full of everything that is touching, emotional, humble, brokenhearted, tender, graceful, powerful, and timid. The whole Beatitudes are in this verse. Matthew shares his testimony. “As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ So he arose and followed Him.”
Some testimonies are so arrogant and filled with pride and self. “Jesus came down from heaven, came to my house, spoke to me, and sat with me all night. Then he took me to heaven. ‘I am calling you as a minister. I have anointed you for the nations,’ he told me. ‘You should change the nation. The future of this nation depends on me.’ Jesus pleaded with me to do this and that.” What blasphemy. Look at the way Matthew describes his heavenly calling as “accidental” and “unlikely.” “As Jesus passed forth from there,” just as he was going about some important work or other, perhaps going away from Capernaum or merely going down one of its streets, it was as he “passed forth” that this event happened. Matthew felt he did not deserve for Jesus to come and see him. He felt that as the majestic Son of God was going on some other great work, he looked at this beggar on the way, gave him alms of grace, and called him. Do you see his modesty? That man wrote the first Gospel. Although some say Mark was first, the New Testament starts with his book. See his testimony. “As he passed, ‘He saw a man named Matthew.'” That is the way we talk when we speak of things that, as we say, “happen,” we scarcely know why. Humanly, what seems like “accidents” are all intentional. The glances of his eyes are all ordained from eternity! And when he looks upon anyone, he does it according to the everlasting purpose and foreknowledge of God!
A Gracious Call
“As Jesus passed forth from there, He saw a man named Matthew, sitting at the receipt of custom: and He said to him, ‘Follow Me.'” How gracious is this call! Our first question was, “Christ forgives sins, but just how far does this forgiveness go? I mean, what kind of people can Jesus really forgive?” And so Matthew says, in effect, in verse 9, “He forgave me.” So what? It may surprise you, but Matthew was categorically the vilest person in Capernaum. By all the standards of the time, Matthew was the most wretched sinner in town. That’s why he used himself as an illustration. How far does this forgiveness go? It goes to the highest and worst extremity. Matthew calls himself here what Paul tried to take as his title, “the chief of sinners.”
It says that he was sitting at a tax office. We may think of a modern income tax office, but this was different. Let me tell you a little bit about Matthew and why he’s a classic illustration of the Lord’s power to forgive sin. Matthew was a publican, a breed of people who served Rome. It is important to understand who they were if you want to understand the New Testament background. When Rome moved in and took over Palestine, the free-born sons of Abraham found the Roman yoke detestable. They could not bear the fact that the Roman, an idolater, would rule over them in the Holy Land, the Promised Land. There were two things they hated about the Romans: the tax system and their soldiers who enforced their laws.
The Romans’ tax system was a very difficult and dirty job, so they used local people. They would allow people living in Palestine to buy authority or franchises from the Roman government, which gave them the right to operate the taxation system in a certain district or a certain town. No proper Jew would do this. To work for the oppressive conqueror who had your people in his grasp would be inconceivable to a Jewish mind. Any Jew who did this work would be the worst kind of man, a traitor, so filled with love of money and covetousness that he had lost all care for public reputation! They were esteemed as being the very off-scouring and outcasts of their race. Matthew had taken this job and bought the rights for the town of Capernaum. He was a traitor to the cause of Israel. In the mind of a Jew, nothing was as heinous as being anti-nationalistic, anti-Jewish. A tax collector in Jesus’s day was a Jewish man who collected taxes from his own Jewish kinsmen on behalf of the Gentile Roman government.
The Roman system then required that he collect a certain amount of taxes. Anything he could get over that amount he could keep. The Roman government, in order to keep him happy and on their side, would support him in his excesses and abuses. When he did overcharge and extort the people, he had the Romans behind him. They would get the support of the soldiers standing next to the tax collectors. Such people were abhorrent to the Jews. And so there was gross oppression and abuse. He just had to pay Rome a certain amount, and everything else he could get was his own.
Tax collectors took bribes from the rich and extorted from the middle class and the poor. They became hated and despised for their lack of nationalism, for being traitors of the worst kind. They had entered into the service of their country’s conqueror and were amassing fortunes at the expense of their own oppressed country. On top of this, most of the Jews believed it was wrong anyway to pay taxes to a foreign government. They felt that only God should receive their money. That’s why the question that the Pharisees asked our Lord about whether to pay taxes was so tricky. If he said anything wrong, the government would arrest him, but if he said it was correct, he would have gone against everything the Jews believed. Living under the Roman government and paying taxes to Rome struck a raw nerve in every zealous Jew; it was a burning issue.
Tax collectors were considered by the ancient Jewish people to be both “legal robbers” and “covenant breakers.” They were the “looters” of their day. They were classified as among the very worst of sinners, considered to be in the same category as harlots, gamblers, and thieves. According to rabbinical teaching, a tax collector was to be excluded from any religious fellowship. They hated taxes and tax collectors so much. If you were a tax collector, you could not attend the synagogue. You were barred from the place. That is why in the parable of the Pharisee and the Publican, the publican stands outside the temple. You were listed in a category with unclean beasts from the Old Testament. You were like a swine. Any money that came from him was considered “defiled.” He was not permitted to serve as a witness in a court of law because they could not be believed. They were known as flagrant liars. They would not even allow their testimony. They were classified with robbers and murderers. He was to be considered a moral “leper”—an “untouchable.” From a strictly human standpoint, there was no hope for a tax collector to ever find favor with God. He was not only a sinner, but he was a particularly accursed sinner, standing in a category all his own, which is why the Bible often quotes the phrase “tax collectors and sinners” or “harlots.”
On top of this, see how lowly Matthew was. There were two categories of tax collectors. Category number one were the general tax collectors, and their job was to collect regular taxes. There were three of these: the land tax (like property tax), income tax on salary and business income, and poll taxes. The land tax was one-tenth of your grain and one-fifth of your fruit and wine. Income tax was one percent of your money earned. Now the general tax collector, whose title in Hebrew was gabbai, would take those basic regular taxes and then add surcharges to make his own fortune. This was bearable, as any government may do this to run. But they hated this also.
But there was another kind of tax collector. This one dealt in taxes other than these very regular taxes. His job was to collect duty on everything else, just like GST. I think we can understand their feeling with our latest GST taxes. Anything we buy has a tax. That was their situation; they hated it. Apart from income and property taxes, this was a tax on what you buy, on the food you eat, a tax you pay every 25 km on the highway, a tax on all items you buy—rice, oil, TV, computer, soap, shaving cream, baby diapers, medicines, whatever, whatever, whatever. GST is not new; even the Romans had it. That comes under the second category.
The gabbai had a decent job (land and income). Now, these duties to collect other taxes like GST were given to a different man who was called a mokhes. He was able to collect tax on all imports, all exports, everything bought, everything sold, every road, every bridge, every harbor, every town, every everything. And Ettershime says they could invent taxes on anything they wanted. They actually had no limit to the types of things they could tax. They would tax the boat used for fishing, the fish caught, and the use of the harbor for unloading the boat. They would tax the axles on wagons, the animals pulling the wagons, and the goods on the wagons. They would even open packages and letters, rifling through them to see if there was anything taxable. Travelers passing through their toll booths would have to unload all their goods, facing the humiliation of the tax collector sifting through all he had and adding a tax to his liking. They had taxes on two-wheel carts, four-wheel carts, animals, and pedestrians. It cost you money to cross a certain road, across a certain bridge, highway taxes, road taxes—this is all called a mokhes tax. In other words, if you’re alive, you have to pay a tax just for being alive. If you’re dead, you don’t have to pay, so die soon. It was unlimited.
You know who the Capernaum mokhes was? Our Matthew. The gabbai were despised, but the mokhes were even more despised. No one was a more unlikely disciple of Christ among the Twelve than Matthew the mokhes. Matthew would have been sitting on a big trade route, a strategic point by the north port of the Sea of Galilee, on the road from Damascus and the Orient to the west. He probably taxed everybody going by, east and west, so he had one of the really wealthy tax franchises that the Romans had let out. It was a big trade route, and the custom officers were very busy.
He was the more hated of the two, oppressive and unjust, extorting and robbing people, taxing for everything. Even if you just walked, he could catch you. And he had the Romans behind him, so the intimidation of the threat was there, with 10 Roman soldiers with you. He was the most hated of the worst. Even among the mokhes, there were two types. Big mokhes would hire somebody to sit at the table with their money and stay behind the scenes because they wanted to keep their hands clean on the outside. They wanted to have a good reputation. And then there were what the Hebrews called the small mokhes. They did it themselves. They actually sat at the table themselves, too greedy to pay somebody else and too unconcerned to care about their reputation to care what anybody thought. They did it themselves. It was one thing to be a publican. It was worse to be a mokhes, but far worse to be a small mokhes. You know what Matthew was? Matthew was the small mokhes of Capernaum, the worst man in the city.
Matthew’s conversion story is a powerful testament to the sovereign and gracious call of Jesus Christ. As a tax collector, or “publican,” Matthew was considered one of the most hated and wretched individuals in his society—a traitor to his people and a collaborator with the Roman occupiers.
The Sovereign and Gracious Call
While Matthew was “sitting at the receipt of custom,” a job that symbolized his sinful, worldly life, Jesus came to him. This was not a random encounter. Jesus looked directly at Matthew, seeing not just his outward wretchedness but also the inner struggles and the deep yearning for forgiveness that the man likely felt. This look of divine love and knowledge was a shock to Matthew, who was used to being scorned and avoided. Then, Jesus gave a simple, powerful command: “Follow Me.”
This was a sovereign call, not a suggestion. It was the voice of a king who had the authority to command. Matthew’s immediate response was a profound act of grace. Unlike others, who might have asked for time or made excuses, Matthew “arose and followed Him.” He left everything behind—his lucrative career, his financial security, and his entire way of life. Luke notes that “he left all,” a detail Matthew was too humble to include himself. This was a decisive, irrevocable decision. A tax collector couldn’t simply return to his job the next day. This act showed that he valued Jesus and the forgiveness He offered more than all his worldly possessions.
The True Mark of Conversion
Matthew’s story illustrates the true nature of a miraculous conversion.
- A Miraculous Call: True conversion is not an accident or a coincidence. It is an intentional, personal, and powerful call from Jesus to you. It’s a divine act that changes you from a child of the devil to a child of God, no less miraculous than healing the paralyzed or casting out demons.
- An Effectual Call: This call is not an invitation you can easily ignore. It has the same power as the voice that created the universe. When Jesus says, “Follow Me,” and His Spirit works in your heart, you are compelled to leave your old life and obey.
- A Call with a Cost: Matthew’s conversion wasn’t without sacrifice. He left his worldly life for an unknown spiritual adventure. Similarly, a true call to Christ involves leaving behind your sins, your worldly desires, and your self-righteousness. It means turning away from the things that were once most important to you and following Jesus completely.
The Call for Us Today
Matthew’s life was completely transformed. The same hand that once wrote down accounts to exploit people later wrote the life-giving Gospel of Matthew, which has brought countless people to Christ. The man who was once despised by his own people became the one who wrote the Gospel specifically for the Jews. His name, which could have been erased in history, is now immortalized in the New Testament.
So, how are you responding to Jesus’s call today? Are you still clinging to the “pigs” of this world, or have you, like Matthew, decisively left everything to follow Him? The call to follow Jesus is not just a past event; it is a daily, continuous commitment.
Have you heard the gospel and understood the immense cost of Jesus’s sacrifice for your sin? If so, why are you still hesitating?
- Do you still doubt that Jesus has the power to forgive your sins completely?
- Do you think that you are so unworthy that His grace cannot reach you?
The call is “Follow Me.” Let Matthew’s story be a reminder that if Jesus could call and transform a wretched sinner like him, He can do the same for you.
Grace Reformed Baptist Church, Bangalore 