Jesus had called Matthew away from the receipt of custom. Matthew then opened his home, and many publicans and sinners came to sit with Jesus and His disciples. The Pharisees saw the gathering and immediately questioned why any respectable religious teacher would associate with people like that.

In Matthew 9:12, Jesus answered them with the picture of a physician: “They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick.” That illustration explained why He was among sinners. Matthew 9:13 goes further. Jesus now turns from the sickroom to the Scriptures. He doesn’t merely defend His actions. He exposes the Pharisees’ failure to understand the Word of God they claimed to honor.

“But go ye and learn what that meaneth.”

These words carry a firm rebuke. The Pharisees regarded themselves as qualified to judge Jesus, Matthew, and everyone seated at the table. Yet Jesus told these Bible experts that they still had something basic to learn. They knew the words of Scripture, but they had missed their meaning.

There’s a difference between being familiar with the Bible and being formed by the Bible. A person may recognize passages, defend doctrines, and discuss fine points of interpretation while remaining proud, harsh, and untouched by the truth being discussed. Scripture was never given merely to fill the mind with religious information. God’s Word reveals His character, exposes our sin, directs our obedience, and draws us into fellowship with Him.

The Pharisees didn’t need another clever argument. They needed to return to Scripture with humble hearts. In effect, Jesus sent the Bible experts back to their homework.

Mercy Was Always at the Heart of God’s Law

Jesus quoted Hosea 6:6: “For I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.”

Hosea spoke to people who continued performing religious ceremonies while living in spiritual unfaithfulness. They brought offerings, but their devotion to God disappeared as quickly as the morning mist. Their worship looked respectable from a distance, yet their hearts were far from the Lord.

When God said that He desired mercy and not sacrifice, He wasn’t condemning every sacrifice. God Himself had commanded Israel’s sacrifices. He wouldn’t condemn faithful obedience to commands He had given.

The contrast concerns priority and sincerity. Sacrifice without mercy was empty ceremony. Outward worship couldn’t replace a heart that knew God and reflected His character. The people were trying to maintain the appearance of covenant faithfulness while neglecting the love, loyalty, justice, and compassion that should have flowed from knowing the Lord.

This truth appears throughout Scripture. Samuel told Saul: “Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams” (1 Samuel 15:22). David wrote: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise” (Psalm 51:17). Micah declared: “He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?” (Micah 6:8).

God has never been impressed by religious activity that covers an unrepentant heart. Attendance, offerings, songs, prayers, fasting, and biblical learning are good when offered to God in faith and obedience. None of them can serve as a substitute for knowing Him.

The Pharisees had preserved religious practices while neglecting the mercy those practices should have encouraged. They cared greatly about who was sitting at the table but showed little concern for whether those people might be brought to repentance and restored to God.

Mercy Doesn’t Mean Making Peace With Sin

Modern readers sometimes treat the statement “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice” as though Jesus were setting compassion against truth, doctrine, holiness, or moral accountability. Under that interpretation, mercy means accepting people without confronting anything in their lives.

The final words of the verse rule out that reading: “I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

Jesus called them sinners. He didn’t rename their sin, excuse their guilt, or pretend their choices didn’t matter. His mercy was real precisely because their condition was serious.

Mercy doesn’t say that sin is harmless. Mercy sees sin truthfully and moves toward the sinner with the hope of forgiveness and restoration. It refuses both cruel rejection and dishonest approval.

The Pharisees leaned toward rejection. They identified sinners mainly so they could keep their distance and guard their own reputation. Much of the modern world leans toward approval. It insists that love must never question a person’s beliefs, desires, or conduct. Jesus followed neither path.

He drew near without compromising holiness. He spoke truth without withholding compassion. He welcomed sinners, but He welcomed them in order to call them out of sin and into fellowship with God.

The church must preserve that same balance. Truth without mercy becomes cold and self-righteous. Mercy without truth becomes sentimental and powerless. Biblical mercy doesn’t leave people comfortably separated from God. It brings them the message that reconciliation is possible through Christ.

The Righteous Who Didn’t Know They Were Sinners

Jesus said, “I am not come to call the righteous.”

He wasn’t teaching that some people are naturally righteous and therefore have no need of Him. The wider testimony of Scripture is unmistakable: “There is none righteous, no, not one” (Romans 3:10). “For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23).

In the immediate context, “the righteous” refers to those who regarded themselves as righteous. The publicans knew that respectable society considered them sinners. The Pharisees, however, were confident in their religious standing. One group carried visible shame. The other concealed its guilt beneath religious confidence.

That made the Pharisees’ condition especially dangerous. A person who knows they’re sick may seek help. A person who refuses the diagnosis sees no reason to receive treatment. Likewise, someone who recognizes their sin may cry out for mercy, while someone convinced of their own goodness may stand near Christ and never admit their need.

Self-righteousness doesn’t always sound boastful. It may appear as comparison:

“I’m not perfect, but I’m better than most.”

“I’ve never done what those people have done.”

“I attend church, live responsibly, and try to treat people well.”

Those things may describe real moral distinctions, but they can’t erase guilt before a holy God. The standard isn’t whether we’ve sinned less publicly than someone else. The standard is the perfect righteousness of God.

The Pharisees measured themselves against the people at Matthew’s table and felt clean. They should have measured themselves against God’s Word and asked for mercy.

The Call of Christ Has a Direction

Jesus came to call sinners “to repentance.”

Repentance isn’t simply a religious word added to an otherwise unchanged life. It means turning from sin toward God. It includes a changed judgment about sin, a humbled heart before God, and a new direction of life.

Repentance doesn’t purchase forgiveness. No amount of sorrow, reform, restitution, or religious effort can pay the debt of sin. Repentance isn’t a work by which sinners make themselves worthy of grace. It’s simply the proper response of a person who has stopped defending their rebellion and has turned to receive the mercy offered in Christ.

Nor is repentance sinless perfection. A repentant person may still struggle, stumble, and require correction. The difference is that they no longer makes peace with sin as their rightful master. They agree with God, turn toward Christ, and begin walking in obedience.

Jesus didn’t come merely to improve the social reputation of publicans and sinners. He came to call them into a new life. Matthew himself illustrates that call. Christ said, “Follow me,” and Matthew arose and followed Him. Grace met him at the receipt of custom, but grace didn’t leave him there.

The same pattern remains. Christ receives sinners as they come to Him, but His purpose isn’t to preserve us unchanged. He forgives, cleanses, teaches, corrects, and transforms. He calls us away from the rule of sin and into joyful submission to Himself.

A Warning Matthew’s Gospel Repeats

Matthew records Jesus quoting Hosea 6:6 again in Matthew 12:7. The Pharisees had condemned His disciples for plucking and eating grain on the sabbath. Jesus told them: “But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless.”

The repetition is sobering. In Matthew 9, Jesus told them to go and learn what the verse meant. By Matthew 12, their conduct showed that they still hadn’t learned it.

They continued to use religious standards as tools of condemnation while failing to recognize the purpose and character of God’s law. Their problem wasn’t a lack of access to Scripture. Their problem was an unwillingness to let Scripture correct their pride.

This warns us against hearing biblical truth without responding to it. God may place the same lesson before us repeatedly because we’ve acknowledged it without obeying it. We may underline the verse, agree with the sermon, and still react with the same impatience, contempt, or self-righteousness the next time someone inconveniences us.

Knowledge that never reaches conduct hasn’t completed its work. Jesus didn’t say, “Go and memorize the words.” They likely knew the words already. He said, “Go ye and learn what that meaneth.”

Real learning includes submission.

Scripture’s Mercy Is Neither Contradictory nor Careless

Some critics claim that Hosea 6:6 contradicts the portions of the Old Testament that command sacrifice. The supposed contradiction disappears when the passage is read honestly. Hosea wasn’t abolishing the sacrificial system. He was condemning people who tried to use sacrifice as a cover for covenant unfaithfulness.

The Bible consistently rejects the idea that external ceremony can compensate for inward rebellion. There’s no contradiction between commanding sincere worship and condemning hypocritical worship.

Others use this verse to portray Jesus as a teacher of general kindness who was unconcerned with sin, judgment, or repentance. That interpretation requires stopping before the sentence is finished. Jesus speaks of mercy, identifies sinners as sinners, and calls them to repentance. His compassion is morally serious.

The Gospel accounts are also consistent concerning this moment. Matthew, Mark, and Luke all record Jesus’ declaration that He came to call sinners. Matthew places particular emphasis on Hosea’s prophecy, fitting his repeated demonstration that Jesus’ ministry fulfills and properly explains the Old Testament Scriptures. The accounts differ in the details each writer emphasizes, but they proclaim the same Christ and the same mission.

Matthew 9:13 doesn’t reveal a conflict between the God of the Old Testament and Jesus in the New Testament. Jesus appeals to Hosea because Hosea reveals the very heart of God. The Lord who desired mercy in Hosea is the Lord whose mercy now stands at Matthew’s table calling sinners to repentance.

Becoming a Church That Understands Mercy

This verse asks the church to examine more than its public teaching. It asks us to consider the spirit in which we live, worship, serve, correct, and proclaim the gospel.

A church may defend sound doctrine while quietly developing a culture in which broken people are afraid to admit they’re broken. Members may know the approved vocabulary, wear the expected expression, and learn how to hide their struggles. When appearances become more valuable than honesty, religious sacrifice has begun to crowd out mercy.

Biblical mercy makes room for truthful confession. It doesn’t excuse sin, but it makes repentance possible without turning every failure into public entertainment. When a believer confesses sin, the first response shouldn’t be gossip, disgust, or a private sense of superiority. There may need to be correction, accountability, restitution, or church discipline, depending on the circumstances. Yet even discipline must seek repentance and restoration rather than humiliation.

Mercy should also shape the people we’re willing to reach. It’s easy to speak warmly about evangelism in general while avoiding particular people whose history, appearance, politics, addictions, reputation, poverty, wealth, or social awkwardness make us uncomfortable. Jesus didn’t treat Matthew’s table as a threat to His holiness. His holiness entered that room as light.

That doesn’t mean believers should join others in sinful behavior or place themselves carelessly in situations of temptation. Jesus’ example isn’t permission for foolishness. It’s a rebuke to the habit of using personal comfort as though it were a biblical standard of separation. We’re called to be holy, but holiness isn’t the same as staying safely distant from every person who needs the gospel.

The verse also examines our worship. We can attend church faithfully, sing every hymn, give generously, and still speak harshly to our family on the way home. We can defend the authority of Scripture and refuse to forgive someone who has sincerely repented. We can pray for revival while showing no patience toward the very people we hope will be converted.

God’s not asking us to choose between worship and mercy. He’s calling us to worship that produces mercy because it brings us into the presence of the merciful God.

Our own experience of grace should make us patient with others. We don’t stand with Christ because we were the respectable people He found worthy of recruitment. We stand with Him because He showed mercy to sinners. Every believer entered the kingdom through the same door. Some came with a criminal record, some with a polished reputation, some with public shame, and some with carefully hidden pride. None came by personal merit.

Remembering that truth protects the unity of the church. It becomes harder to look down on another believer when we remember the pit from which grace lifted us. We may have different backgrounds, levels of maturity, personalities, responsibilities, and struggles, but we share one Savior and depend upon one mercy.

Matthew 9:13 should also influence the way we speak to unbelievers. The gospel must not be reduced to scolding people for failing to live like Christians before they know Christ. We should speak plainly about sin, but we should do so as sinners who have received mercy, not judges announcing our own superiority.

People need more than our disapproval. They need to hear that Jesus Christ calls sinners to repentance, offers full forgiveness, and gives new life. Our task isn’t to make sin appear small. It’s to show that Christ is greater.

Mercy for Those Who Have Nothing to Offer

Perhaps you recognize yourself more readily among the sinners at Matthew’s table than among the religious people standing outside. You may carry memories that still shame you, habits you’ve been unable to break, relationships you’ve damaged, or guilt that no amount of distraction has silenced.

Jesus’ words aren’t permission to ignore any of that. They’re something far better. They’re an invitation to stop hiding and come to the One who shows mercy to sinners.

Every one of us has sinned against God. We’ve failed to love Him with all our heart, obey His commands, speak truthfully, love others rightly, and live for His glory. Sin isn’t merely a collection of mistakes. It’s rebellion against our Creator, and its penalty is death and judgment.

“For the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23).

No religious ceremony, good deed, donation, promise, or personal reform can erase that guilt. We can’t offer God enough sacrifice to purchase our own pardon. That’s why Jesus Christ came.

The eternal Son of God took upon Himself true humanity. He lived the perfectly righteous life that we’ve failed to live. Though He had no sin of His own, He willingly died upon the cross in the place of sinners. He bore the judgment our sins deserved and shed His blood to provide forgiveness.

The mercy of God doesn’t pretend that justice doesn’t matter. At the cross, divine justice and divine mercy meet. Sin is judged, the penalty is paid, and mercy is freely offered because Christ has completed the work of redemption.

Jesus was buried, and on the third day He rose bodily from the grave. His resurrection declares His victory over sin, death, and the power of the grave. He lives, reigns, and is able to save completely all who come to God through Him.

Christ now calls sinners to repentance. Turn from the sin you’ve defended, trusted, excused, or hidden. Don’t wait until you believe that you’ve made yourself respectable. The call is for sinners, not for people who’ve successfully repaired themselves.

Trust in Jesus Christ alone. Believe that He died for sinners and rose again. Rest your hope in who He is and what He’s done, not in your own goodness. He promises forgiveness, reconciliation with God, new life, and eternal salvation to those who repent and believe.

The Pharisees remained outside criticizing the company Jesus kept. The sinners at the table were close enough to hear His call. You don’t need to remain at a distance. Come honestly, come humbly, and come trusting His mercy. Then rise, follow Him, and live for the glory of the Savior who welcomed you.

Reflection and Response

• Have I mistaken familiarity with Scripture for humble obedience to what Scripture teaches?
• Are there people I’m more inclined to condemn from a distance than to reach with truth, compassion, and the gospel?
• Do my worship, church involvement, and religious habits produce mercy, humility, and obedience in my daily relationships?
• Am I using God’s mercy as an excuse to tolerate sin, or am I receiving His mercy as a call to repentance and transformation?
• How can remembering the mercy Christ has shown me change the way I respond to another person’s weakness, failure, or sincere repentance?