The scene immediately follows the calling of Matthew, where Jesus tells Matthew to "follow me." Jesus is eating at Matthew's house with the other disciples, and "many tax collectors and sinners". Apparently some Pharisees are with them, too. The Pharisees challenge Jesus for willingly keeping company with "tax collectors and sinners", two despised groups. Essentially, the Pharisees are accusing Jesus of opposing the will of God. Jesus tells the Pharisees that they are misinterpreting the will of God. He says that saving sinners is of primary importance. By saying that He "came not to call the righteous, but sinners", Jesus: declares that He is the Messiah: Jesus equates God's words to Israel in the book of Hosea ("I desire mercy, not sacrifice", Hos 6:6) with His own words ("For I came..."), and identifies His personal mission with the promised saving mission of the Messiah.
- Reminds the Pharisees that Israel's history is one of continually going astray (sinning), followed by God's saving action to restore her to righteousness (living in accord with the will & law of God).
- Accuses the Pharisees of being self-righteous, since they see themselves as righteous when in fact all are sinners before God.
Jesus claims the words of God as His own: "I desire mercy, and not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6). The Pharisees would have seen this as a clear and bold claim to be acting with the authority of God, and even to be God Himself.
Taking a few steps back - the earliest prophet to Israel, Amos, states the themes that recur throughout the prophets: condemnation of immorality, warning of coming judgement, and an appeal to turn back to God, and obtain mercy. God is both holy and loving. Amos was not a priest or a "professional" prophet, so brings a layman's objectivity and straightforwardness to his message.
Isaiah covers pretty much every topic in the Bible: God's holiness, warning of coming judgement, call to repentance, vision of future blessing, messianic predictions, the servant songs, and extraordinary poetry.
Micah predicts judgement on Judah not just because the people have turned away from God, but also because of moral consequences of that apostasy. Emphasises the need for ethical behaviour in secular life as well as religious purity.
Zephaniah is the first prophet in Judah after a gap of more than fifty years, and he warns of the coming Day of the Lord, emphasizing that Judah will not be exempt from the judgement due to the surrounding nations merely because of its history: God's people must seek Him for themselves, not rely on their ancestors' relationship with Him. Predicts the survival of a faithful remnant when God's judgement falls on Jerusalem.
The book of Habakkuk takes the form of a dialogue: Habakkuk asks God why He allows injustice to continue in Judah. When God replies that He will end it by means of the Babylonians, He asks God how He can use those even more unrighteous as agents of judgement. God replies that all wickedness will surely be judged at the proper time. Habakkuk concludes that he can rejoice in God whatever the circumstances.
Part of Ezekiel was written before the final destruction of Jerusalem: the theme of this part is that judgement will follow sin. The rest was written after this point, and the theme is that restoration will follow. The book is punctuated by complicated, confusing and occasionally terrifying visions, and by symbolic actions on the part of the author. The overriding theme is the glory of God.
So we see that the Day of the Lord, and the Day of Judgment were dealt with as the mission of the Messiah.
Surprising as this is, it is nevertheless exactly what Isaiah had declared earlier: "A voice of one calling: 'In the desert prepare the way for the LORD; Make straight in the wilderness a highway for our God' "(Isa. 40:3). It is what John the Baptist had in mind when he said, "After me will come one who is more powerful than I, whose sandals I am not fit to carry" (Matt. 3:11). When Jesus was revealed to John on the occasion of His baptism, John declared unequivocally, "This is the Son of God" (John 1:34).
The Lord Himself taught this when He eventually came--four hundred years after the age of Malachi. Jesus had returned to Nazareth after His baptism by John and His temptation by Satan, to begin His ministry, and He went into the synagogue of Nazareth on the Sabbath. He was asked to take part in the service and was given the scroll of Isaiah from which He was to read the day's lesson. He unrolled it, found the sixty-first chapter and read:
"The Spirit of the 'Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor" (Luke 4:18, 19; Isa. 61:1, 2).
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