Teks -- Matthew 9:12 (NET)

9:12 When Jesus heard this he said, “Those who are healthy don’t need a physician, but those who are sick do.

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Robertson: Mat 9:12 - But they that are sick

But they that are sick ( alla hoi kakōs echontes ).

Probably a current proverb about the physician. As a physician of body and soul Jesus was bound to come in close touch with the social outcasts.

JFB: Mat 9:12 - But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them

To the Pharisees and scribes; addressing Himself to them, though they had shrunk from addressing Him.

JFB: Mat 9:12 - They that be whole need not a physician, but they that are sick

That is, "Ye deem yourselves whole; My mission, therefore, is not to you: The physician's business is with the sick; therefore eat I with publicans and sinners." Oh, what myriads of broken hearts, of sin-sick souls, have been bound up by this matchless saying!

Clarke: Mat 9:12 - They that be whole need not a physician

They that be whole need not a physician - A common proverb, which none could either misunderstand or misapply. Of it the reader may make the following use: -

1.    Jesus Christ represents himself here as the sovereign Physician of souls

2.    That all stand in need of his healing power

3.    That men must acknowledge their spiritual maladies, and the need they have of his mercy, in order to be healed by him

4.    That it is the most inveterate and dangerous disease the soul can be afflicted with to imagine itself whole, when the sting of death, which is sin, has pierced it through in every part, infusing its poison every where.

Calvin: Mat 9:12 - Not they who are in health need a physician

12.Not they who are in health need a physician It is evident from Christ’s reply that the scribes erred in two ways: they did not take into account the office of Christ; and, while they spared their own vices, they proudly despised all others. This deserves our particular attention, for it is a disease which has been always very general. Hypocrites, being satisfied and intoxicated with a foolish confidence in their own righteousness, do not consider the purpose for which Christ was sent into the world, and do not acknowledge the depth of evils in which the human race is plunged, or the dreadful wrath and curse of God which lies on all, or the accumulated load of vices which weighs them down.

The consequence is, that they are too stupid to feel the miseries of men, or to think of a remedy. While they flatter themselves, they cannot endure to be placed in their own rank, and think that injustice is done them, when they are classed with transgressors. Our Lord glances at this second error by replying, that they who are in health have no need of a physician It is an ironical admission, ⁵²⁰ and is intended to show that they are offended when they see sinners, because they claim righteousness for themselves. Because you are in health, (he says,) you despise the sick, are offended at them, and cannot endure the sight of them: but a physician ought to be affected in a very different manner. He afterwards points out that he must discharge the duties of a physician, because he has been sent by the Father to call sinners

Though Christ begins with reproof, yet if we desire to make progress in his doctrine, what he has put in the second place must receive our first consideration. He came to quicken the dead, to justify the guilty and condemned, to wash those who were polluted and full of uncleanness, to rescue the lost from hell, to clothe with his glory those who were covered with shame, to renew to a blessed immortality those who were debased by disgusting vices. If we consider that this was his office and the end of his coming, — if we remember that this was the reason why he took upon him our flesh, why he shed his blood, why he offered the sacrifice of his death, why he descended even to hell, we will never think it strange that he should gather to salvation those who have been the worst of men, and who have been covered with a mass of crimes.

He whom you detest appears to you to be unworthy of the grace of Christ. Why then was Christ himself made a sacrifice and a curse, but that he might stretch out his hand to accursed sinners? Now, if we feel disgust at being associated by Baptism and the Lord’s Supper with vile men, and regard our connection with them as a sort of stain upon us, we ought immediately to descend into ourselves, and to search without flattery our own evils. Such an examination will make us willingly allow ourselves to be washed in the same fountain with the most impure, and will hinder us from rejecting the righteousness which he offers indiscriminately to all the ungodly, the life which he offers to the dead, and the salvation which he offers to the lost.

TSK: Mat 9:12 - They that be whole

They that be whole : Psa 6:2, Psa 41:4, Psa 147:3; Jer 17:14, Jer 30:17, Jer 33:6; Hos 14:4; Mar 2:17; Luk 5:31; Luk 8:43, Luk 9:11, Luk 18:11-13; Rom. 7:9-24; Rev 3:17, Rev 3:18

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Poole: Mat 9:12-13 - For I am not come to call the righteous

Ver. 12,13. Mark and Luke, in the places before mentioned, have the same answer, only leaving out these words, Go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, quoted from Hos 6:6 . Our Saviour’ s reply to the Pharisees, to him that duly considers it, will appear very smart.

1. They were a generation that laid all religion upon rituals, sacrifice, and traditions.

2. That justified themselves, Luk 16:15 , and thought they needed no repentance.

Saith our Saviour, I am the spiritual Physician. With him would they have the physician to converse, but with such as are sick? Those that are whole (as the Pharisees account themselves) think they have no need of my coming amongst them. By their peevishness at the acts of mercy which I do (and those of the highest mercy too, healing souls) they show that they do not understand what Hosea (a prophet acknowledged by themselves) long since taught them, that the Lord desired mercy before sacrifice; for that appeareth to be the sense of not sacrifice in that text, both by the next words, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings, and by the many precepts by which God declared that he did desire sacrifices.

For I am not come to call the righteous that is, those who are swelled in an opinion of their own righteousness but (sensible) sinners to repentance: first to repentance, then to the receiving remission of sins through me, and eternal life.

PBC: Mat 9:12

See Philpot: THE SIN-SICK SOUL AND THE GREAT PHYSICIAN

Haydock: Mat 9:12 - They that are in health

They that are in health. The explication of which is, I converse with sinners, that I may heal their souls from incredulity. (Menochius)

Gill: Mat 9:12 - But when Jesus heard that // he said unto them // they that be whole need not a physician // but they that are sick

But when Jesus heard that,.... The charge the Pharisees brought against him, and the insinuations they had made of him to his disciples; which he either overheard himself, or his disciples related to him,

he said unto them; the Pharisees, with an audible voice, not only to confute and convince them, but chiefly to establish his disciples, they were endeavouring to draw away from him:

they that be whole need not a physician; by which he would signify that he was a "physician": and so he is in a spiritual sense, and that a very skilful one: he knows the nature of all the diseases of the soul, without being told them by the patient; what are the true causes of them; what is proper to apply; when is the best time, and what the best manner: he is an universal one, with regard both to diseases and to persons, that apply to him; he heals all sorts of persons, and all sorts of diseases; such as are blind from their birth, are as deaf as the deaf adder, the halt, and the lame, such as have broken hearts, yea the plague in their hearts, and have stony ones, and all the relapses of his people; which he does by his stripes and wounds, by the application of his blood, by his word and Gospel, through sinners looking to him, and touching him: he is an infallible one, none ever went from him without a cure; none ever perished under his hands; the disease he heals never returns more to prevail, so as to bring on death and destruction; and he does all freely, without money, and without price. So Philo the Jew calls the Logos, or word, ιατρον κακων, "an healer of diseases" ^x, and God our legislator, των της ψυχης παθω ν αριστος ιατρος, "the best physician of the diseases of the soul" ^y. Now Christ argues from this his character, in vindication of himself; as that he was with these persons, not as a companion of their's, but as a physician to them; and as it is not unlawful, but highly proper and commendable, that a physician should be with the sick; so it was very lawful, fit, and proper, yea praiseworthy in him, to be among these publicans and sinners, for their spiritual good. He suggests indeed, that "they that be whole", in perfect health and strength, as the Pharisees thought themselves to be, even free from all the maladies and diseases of sin, were strong, robust, and able to do anything, and everything of themselves; these truly stood in no "need of" him, as a physician, in their own apprehension; they saw no need of him; in principle they had no need of him, and in practice did not make use of him; and therefore it was to no purpose to attend them, but converse with others, who had need of him:

but they that are sick; who are not only diseased and disordered in all the powers and faculties of their souls, as all Adam's posterity are, whether sensible of it or not; but who know themselves to be so, these see their need of Christ as a physician, apply to him as such, and to them he is exceeding precious, a physician of value; and such were these "publicans" and sinners. These words seem to be a proverbial expression, and there is something like it in the ^z Talmud, דכאיב ליה כאיבא אזיל לבי אסיא, "he that is afflicted with any pain goes", or "let him go to the physician's house"; that is, he that is attended with any sickness, or disease, does, or he ought to, consult a physician.