Having covered Christ’s person in the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and in the fulfillment of the types and figures of the Old Testament, we come in this message to another classification concerning Christ—Christ’s person in the parables of the New Testament.
In recommending Christ John the Baptist said that His “winnowing fork is in His hand, and He will thoroughly cleanse His threshing floor and will gather His wheat into His barn, but He will burn the chaff with unquenchable fire” (Matt. 3:12). Here Christ is presented as the Winnower on the threshing floor. Because He is such a Winnower, we all need to be serious with Him.
Those signified by the wheat have life within. The Lord will baptize them in the Holy Spirit (v. 11) and gather them into His “barn” in heaven by rapture. Those signified by the chaff, like the tares in Matthew 13:24-30, are without life. The Lord will baptize them in fire, putting them into the lake of fire. This is related to His being the Judge of the living at His throne of glory after His coming back (Matt. 25:31-46) and of the dead at the great white throne after the millennium (Rev. 20:11-15). Chaff in Matthew 3:12 refers to unrepentant Jews, whereas the tares in chapter thirteen refer to nominal Christians. The eternal destiny of both will be the same—perdition in the lake of fire (Matt. 13:40-42).
We should not be like the chaff, and we should not be tares. Rather, we should be wheat, the living children of God. In order to be children of God we need to be born anew (John 3:3), born of water and of the Spirit (John 3:5). All those who repent and believe in the Lord will be baptized by Him in the Holy Spirit that they may have eternal life. Those who do not repent and believe will be baptized by Him, the Winnower, in fire; they will be put into the lake of fire for eternal perdition. Therefore, the Lord’s baptism is either for eternal life in the Holy Spirit or for eternal perdition in fire.
In Matthew 8:19 a scribe said to the Lord Jesus, “Teacher, I will follow You wherever You go.” This scribe, who was accustomed to living comfortably, saw crowds being attracted to the Lord and wanted to follow Him out of curiosity, without counting the cost. The Lord answered Him in a way to cause him to consider the cost: “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have roosts, but the Son of Man has nowhere that He may lay His head” (v. 20). The Lord compared His situation to that of foxes and birds. Unlike foxes and birds, the Son of Man had nowhere to rest, although crowds were drawn to Him. He did not even have a resting place, as foxes and birds do. His human life was a life of suffering. At His birth there was no room in the inn (Luke 2:7). In His marvelous ministry there was likewise no place for Him to rest.
While the Lord Jesus was enjoying a feast with tax collectors and sinners, the Pharisees criticized and condemned Him, and they asked the disciples why their teacher ate with such people (Matt. 9:10-11). The Lord took the opportunity provided by the Pharisees’ question to give a very pleasant revelation of Himself as the Physician: “Those who are strong have no need of a physician, but those who are ill” (v. 12). The Lord was telling the Pharisees that the tax collectors and sinners were “patients,” sick ones, and that to them He was not a judge but a physician, a healer. In calling people to follow Him the Lord ministered as a physician, not as a judge. The judgment of a judge is according to righteousness, whereas the healing of a physician is according to mercy and grace. Those whom the Lord made people of His heavenly kingdom were lepers (Matt. 8:2-4), paralytics (8:5-13; 9:2-8), the fever-ridden (8:14-15), the demon-possessed (8:16, 28-32), those sick of all kinds of illnesses (8:16), the despised tax collectors, and sinners (9:9-11). Had the Lord Jesus visited these pitiful people as a judge, all would have been condemned and rejected, and none would have been qualified, selected, and called to be His followers. He came to minister as a physician, to heal, recover, enliven, and save them so that they might be reconstituted to be citizens of the kingdom of the heavens. The Lord’s word in Matthew 9:12 implies that the self-righteous Pharisees did not recognize their need of Him as the Physician. They regarded themselves as strong; hence, blinded by their self-righteousness, they did not know that they were ill.
The Lord Jesus did not simply tell His disciples that He came not as a judge but as a physician; that would have been mere doctrine. As the Lord was feasting with those who were spiritually sick, He revealed Himself as the Physician and healed them. As the Physician He can heal only those who are sick. He came to call the sinners, the sick ones, not the righteous, the whole ones (Matt. 9:13). If we feel that we are not ill, He cannot heal us. But if we take the standing that we are sinners, we shall experience Him as our Physician. If we see that Christ is our Physician, we shall have faith in Him as the One who can heal us.
As our Physician Christ has healing authority. His healing is not simply a matter of power but also of authority. There is no need for Him to touch us directly in order to heal us. He needs only to speak a word, and His authority comes with His word to heal us (Matt. 8:8). Our Physician heals us with His authority.