“When Jesus heard it, he saith unto them, They that are whole have no need of the physician, but they that are sick: I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”
On hearing this, Jesus said to them, it is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners — the medical analogy is both self-evident and subversive. A doctor who refuses contact with the sick in order to maintain personal health has misunderstood the doctor's vocation. Jesus is the physician of Israel, and the sick are precisely his practice. The second statement — I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners — contains an irony: the righteous may refer to those who consider themselves righteous (the Pharisees) rather than those who genuinely are. Jesus is not conceding that the Pharisees have no need; he is diagnosing the condition that makes them unavailable to the physician: they do not know they are ill.
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