Soap Box Jesus

By Andy Sayers

The Calling of Saint Matthew - Caravaggio 

*When I  say unrepentant sinner in this blog, I mean a person who does not want to repent or does not feel the need to do so. This categorisation is one I have borrowed from E.P. Sanders. The unrepentant sinners, were a group of people who were by choice separate from the rest of the community by their decision not to repent. Everyone else, would still sin of course but would in due course make peace offerings or other sacrifices in the temple to cleanse themselves. For example, the adulteress in Jn 8:11 has sinned, but she is not an unrepentant sinner. Whereas, the group referred to in Mk 2:16f is an example of a group of unrepentant sinners. Known by the Jewish community of the time as the ‘amme ha-arets.

I think Jesus does weird stuff sometimes and this is one of the weirder things I have noticed.

Culturally Uncouth

Pretty much every Historical Jesus scholar agrees that, out of everything Jesus is said to have done here on earth, having table fellowship with unrepentant sinners is one thing that is undeniable. The controversy it sparked (Mk 2:16f) was primarily a crime of association and, to the onlookers, he might as well have just said he was one of them. We can take from this right away, that not only was this action paramount for what Jesus wanted to achieve but also that it was a massive deal for someone to associate with sinners in this environment. 

Methodologically Mysterious

We know it was an important decision for Jesus to take this approach but what is more interesting is Jesus’ method in dealing with sinners.

There may have been what we could regard as a sort of standard structure of repentance at the time. This was the structure that John the Baptist had laid down and used (Mk 1:4). Simply put: Repent and you will receive forgiveness.

The problem with Jesus is that when it comes to these unrepentant sinners, he never actually asks any of them to repent. 

Now, you could say that when Jesus approached an unrepentant sinner he reversed the standard structure of repentance to: Receive forgiveness (and then repent later). You could technically argue that what I have placed in brackets is true but unfortunately there is no evidence that directly supports it. Jesus never, ever requests repentance of an unrepentant sinner. From what we can read in the Bible Jesus promotes the first half of this reversed structure … but not the second half. I will say it again: He never, ever asks any unrepentant sinner to repent.

I expect three different reactions to this. I’m sure some of you will be thinking, ‘Oh that’s nice, Jesus forgave the sinners, it just goes to show that he loved everyone no matter if they repented or not.’ Others of you are probably outraged, ‘How could he just forgive those people when they haven’t even realised what they do is against God!‘ Others of you probably just downright do not believe me that the Bible never shows Jesus asking for repentance from these people. Let me know if you find anything that contradicts this but as far as I can see Jesus never asks an unrepentant sinner to repent.

The obvious dilemma here then is whether all people actually have to repent to be forgiven. We are specifically talking here about individuals who do not want to repent. Therefore we must limit the definition of repentance to turning around. That is realising that the way you were going was wrong and changing direction, not the more trivial, day-to-day, doing something wrong every now and again and saying sorry for it.

When Jesus was speaking to everyone else, repentance was clearly part of his teaching. On one hand, using hyperbole, we see him instructing relatively righteous people to use extreme tactics to avoid sin (e.g. ‘if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away’ Mt 5:30). On the other hand, we do not see him talking to unrepentant sinners about avoiding sin. So you can argue well enough that repentance was part of Jesus’ general message but you cannot argue a very strong case that he taught the unrepentant that they had to repent.

As I said, Jesus does weird stuff but there are a few clues that let us see what Jesus was up to. The first is that, in Lk 5:32 Jesus himself says that he has ‘not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance.’ Even though we do not see Jesus doing this, we can see that it was part of his grand scheme.

The second is that one of Jesus’ disciples was a tax collector (tax collectors being consistently considered one and the same as the unrepentant sinners in the gospels) and Jesus definitely would have required a rigorous morality from his own disciples (Mt. 5:19).

The third is found in Luke’s gospel again. A lot of scholars believe that the story of Zacchaeus has been made up by Luke. However, made up or not, Luke’s intention was to show us what Jesus was really like as best as he could. In the story we eventually see Zacchaeus seeking repentance (and restitution), not by request of Jesus, but of his own accord. Ironically, it actually makes the point much stronger if Luke did design this story, because it shows again that Jesus did not ask for repentance from an unrepentant sinner but with Luke filling in the gaps we see that, in the end, the formerly unrepentant sinner Zacchaeus decided to repent anyhow.

Repentance was most likely always a part of what Jesus’ teaching, no matter who he was talking to, but whether or not he mentioned it was entirely dependent on his listeners. In the same way, I think we too can and should find ways to apply the approach Jesus took to sharing the gospel with those who do not want to or do not feel the need to repent. 

Surely more effective than if he had just taken out his soap box to have a dig at them.


Sources:

Jeremias did some work which related to Jesus' interactions with this group of people which I have been referring to as unrepentant sinners. I am of the conviction that what he argued about who this group of people were was wrong. His work threw a lot of people off track.

-Jeremias, J.,The Proclamation of Jesus, New Testament Theology; London: SCM Press, 1971.

If you would like to see why he was wrong you can read this article by Powell. Powell's article is actually very helpful. If you were going to read one thing to find out more, you should read this.

-Powell, M.A., ‘Was Jesus a Friend of Unrepentant Sinners? A Fresh Appraisal of Sanders’s Controversial Proposal,’ Journal for the Study of the Historical Jesus, 7 (2009) 286–310.

Not long after this Sanders produced a, at the time, very controversial book called Jesus and Judaism. It was controversial because it challenged so much historical Jesus research that had preceded it and there was no simple answer to much of what he brought to the table. His chapter on the sinners is incredible. In fact I found everything I read in his book incredible. There are a few responses to his chapter on the sinners but they hardly make a dent in it. Read this book if you are a bit of a nerd.

-Sanders E.P., Jesus and Judaism, London: SCM Press, 1985.

The two responses to Sanders chapter on the sinners were written by Allison and another by Chilton. They are helpful for putting Sanders' chapter in perspective.
-Allison, D.C., ‘Jesus and the Covenant: A response to E.P. Sanders,’ Journal for the Study of the New Testament, 29 (1987) 57-78.
-Chilton, B.D., ‘Jesus and the Repentance of E. P. Sanders,’ Tyndale Bulletin, 39 (1988) 1-18. 

You could also read the synoptic gospels.