This morning in our RMM readings we ran across a classic Sunday School story; the story of Jesus and his visit with Zacchaeus. If you are my age or older, just hearing those words makes you want to burst out in song: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man and a wee little man was he! He climbed up into a sycamore tree for the Lord he wanted to see.” I love this story and I can still see in my mind’s eye little wee Zacchaeus climbing the tree on the flannelboard in old Mrs. Peck’s Sunday School but I must be careful not to get so lost in the childhood memories that I fail to notice the very important contribution this story makes to my understanding of the Christian faith. This story is important largely because it ends with a fairly significant pronouncement from Jesus:
9 And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, since he also is a son of Abraham. 10 For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:9–10 ESV)
Whatever happened in those previous 8 verses, it was enough to convince Jesus that Zacchaeus was truly saved. That’s important because Jesus himself said that not everyone who makes a profession of faith really is. He said in Matthew 7:
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’ (Matthew 7:21–23 ESV)
Not everyone who professes faith in Jesus is truly saved, but Zacchaeus is; that makes this story very important. This story serves as a picture of real repentance. While we of course would want to consult with other texts, this story gets us started on our understanding of what real, authentic Christian conversion and repentance looks like. The following characteristics seem to be foremost in Luke’s mind as he offers us this portrait:
1. Real repentance looks like it has been initiated by God.
Jesus said: “It is NECESSARY for me to come to your house” Zacchaeus. This is an appointment that has been assigned me by ALMIGHTY GOD! He even says in verse 10 that appointments such as these were the reason for his coming:
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” (Luke 19:10 ESV)
In fact, as you read the narrative of Jesus’ travels, as Luke presents them, you get the idea that Jesus was thinking about this event long before it actually happened. In the previous chapter Jesus told a parable about a despised tax collector who humbled himself, repented and was justified before God:
9 He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt: 10 “Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11 The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. 12 I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ 13 But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ 14 I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 18:9–14 ESV)
Coincidence? I don’t think so. It sure looks like God was making plans long before Zaccaeus climbed his tree.
2. A truly repentant person goes public with their new profession
The text says:
8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’
That is a difficult bit to translate into English because it is an idiom and it has no direct equivalent in our language. It means that he took a stand. This is a public proclamation of faith and with it Zaccaeus immediately identifies with Jesus Christ. You can see that in his concern to defend and protect the name of Jesus from suffering because of his own sinful reputation. The concern of Zacchaeus, once identified with Christ is to protect publicly the NAME OF JESUS. A sure proof of repentance is that we stop trying to protect ourselves through self justification and truth shading and we immediately shift to protecting the name of Christ through confession and appropriate self disclosure.
3. A truly repentant person shows gratitude through sacrificial worship
In verse 8 he says:
8Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, ‘Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor; and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’
In those days the law proscribed a variety of tithes. There was the 10% temple tax to maintain the worship of God’s house, there was the 10% Levitical tax to maintain the priesthood and then there was a 10% tax collected every other year for the relief of the poor. So religious giving in those days was set at about 25% and then you had to pay your taxes on top of that and the Roman tax rate was about 23% so these folks were living on about 50% of their gross income. But here Zacchaeus says that he will gladly double the normal standard of giving and give half of his income to the poor. It’s unclear whether this would mean that he would give 10% to the temple tax, 10% to the Levitical tax and 50% to the poor tax or whether it means simply that he will double the going rate, I’m not sure and it probably isn’t the point. The point is that ANOTHER fruit of faith, another piece of evidence that Zacchaeus’s repentance faith is genuine is that it immediately results in a strong impulse towards generous and worshipful giving. That is the normative progression of the Gospel in a human heart and mind. With God’s help and through the work of the Holy Spirit our eyes become open to the truth of God’s holiness and His Sovereign rights as our Creator (G1); we are then made terribly aware of our own sinfulness and guilt (G2). We are then touched by the grace of God in Jesus Christ (G3) and that immediately manifests in gratitude and costly service (G4) which resound to the glory of God and the good of other people (G5). The proof that Zacchaeus has been touched by God’s grace is the immediate impulse towards gratitude and costly worship! Generosity doesn’t “make us saved” but it very often “shows us saved”.
4. Truly repentant people are concerned for issues of justice and restitution
Notice how he says:
and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.’
The “if I” in Greek does not communicate uncertainty here, it means rather “as many as I have defrauded I will payback four times as much”. The normal requirement for repayment of stolen goods was the full amount plus 1/5 as a penalty. That is from Leviticus 6:1-5:
2When any of you sin and commit a trespass against the Lord by deceiving a neighbour in a matter of a deposit or a pledge, or by robbery, or if you have defrauded a neighbour, 3or have found something lost and lied about it—if you swear falsely regarding any of the various things that one may do and sin thereby— 4when you have sinned and realize your guilt, and would restore what you took by robbery or by fraud or the deposit that was committed to you, or the lost thing that you found, 5or anything else about which you have sworn falsely, you shall repay the principal amount and shall add one-fifth to it. You shall pay it to its owner when you realize your guilt. (Leviticus 6:2-5. NRSV)
That would be the law that would seem to most apply here, but Zacchaeus is not interested in doing the least he is required to do and nor is he all that interested in pressing his innocence on any count. Rather he judges himself according to Exodus 22:1:
When someone steals an ox or a sheep, and slaughters it or sells it, the thief shall pay five oxen for an ox, and four sheep for a sheep. (Exodus 22:1. NRSV)
The law had a lesser penalty for people who under conviction came forward with the stolen item: the whole amount plus a penalty of 1/5. If you sold the item and profited from the sale then the penalty was much higher. Now a good lawyer could have got Zacchaeus off with the full amount plus 1/5 amount. After all he was coming forward voluntarily under conviction and was willing to return that which was taken. But Zacchaeus is like the tax collector in the parable. He hates the sin he sees in his heart and wants no defence before God. He knows that he has profited from the stolen items, even if he has not technically “sold them”. He makes no argument and he owns 100% of his guilt.
No wonder Jesus immediately identified his repentance as authentic and saving – it had all the normal marks of an authentic work of God.
I recently heard a pastor trainer (Mark Dever) say that false conversion is the suicide of the modern day Evangelical church. The tendancy of Evangelicals today to so water down the Gospel (no mention of sin, no mention of repentance, no mention of God’s prior work) leads to all manner of people who think they have converted when in fact they have clearly not. This is literally KILLING US! Our churches are filled with unsaved members and the churches themselves soon hire unsaved ministers and the entire work is lost, apart from a miraculous work of God to save and renew. Let’s not depend on that! Let’s also attend to the teaching we received in Luke 19 about the ten talents. That parable seems to be suggesting that we need to be good stewards of what is entrusted to us. Let’s steward the Gospel! Let’s steward this picture of true repentance as an antidote to the determined self murder of the Evangelical church!
Let me put it to you straight: a real Christian who has been legitimately converted will do the following:
1. He will get baptised and make a public profession. No private Christians.
2. She will immediately begin to understand that her life has to change lest Jesus be mocked and blasphemed.
3. He will immediately begin to bring his life into alignment with the teaching of the Bible.
4. She will immediately begin to change her financial habits so that she can give generously and sacrificially.
5. He will immediately desire to own his sin and to make good the damage he has done to other people wherever humanly possible, by God’s grace.
If that doesn’t happen, you have no basis for having any confidence that such a person is truly saved. If that does happen, then salvation has come to that house and that man or that woman is truly a child of Abraham. The Spirit has done a miracle of regeneration in that heart and a sinner has been born again! Let’s celebrate that – alongside the angels of heaven – and give thanks to God for his work among men.
SDG
Paul Carter