When we label people as sinners, they feel insulted. We’re calling them a dirty name. Why do we do it? Typically it’s because we want them to feel guilty, so we can offer them forgiveness. Is that good news? Or is it trading in guilt? What did Jesus do?
Let’s find out. There are only 7 or 8 occasions where Jesus used the word sinner. A survey of when and how he used this label is very revealing.
- Matthew 9:13 || Mark 2:17 || Luke 5:32
After Jesus healed the paralytic, Pharisees criticised him for eating with sinners. Jesus responds by picking up their word: the people they reject as “sinners” (i.e. disreputable and unclean) are his friends. He sends the Pharisees away from his presence, to learn how to treat these people with empathy rather than exclusion. - Matthew 11:19 || Luke 7:34
Jesus is accused of being “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” Once again, Jesus is not the one giving this label. It might look like he’s not following the wisdom literature of the Old Testament (such as Psalm 1), but he is operating with a different kind of wisdom that doesn’t label and exclude. - Luke 6:32-34
Jesus calls Israel to a radical kind of love that goes beyond reciprocity, because even sinners love those who love them. Once again, it’s not Jesus’ label; he’s applying a category his audience uses. - Luke 13:2
Jesus undermines the belief that bad things happen to people because they are worse sinners than everyone else. Once again, he’s correcting a mislabelling. - Luke 15:7, 10
Responding to the Pharisees’ complaint that he accepts sinners (15:1), Jesus tells three stories to show that it should be party time when “a sinner” comes back to join in again. Again, it is the Pharisees’ category that Jesus is responding to, not a label he chooses to place on people. - Luke 18:13
Jesus tells a parable of two men praying within earshot of each other. The Pharisee congratulates himself that he isn’t “like other men, extortionists, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.” Instead of fleeing from this tirade, the tax collector accepts the Pharisee’s labelling him a sinner, cries out to God, and finds acceptance. Once again the labelling comes from the Pharisee, not from Jesus. Luke is quite explicit that this parable is about labelling people “with contempt” (18:9 ESV). - Matthew 26:45 || Mark 14:41
At last we find a case where Jesus used the word sinner without reflecting back someone else’s label. The only people to whom Jesus intentionally applied the label sinners were the high priests and rulers of Jerusalem! - Luke 24:7 (?)
At the empty tomb, angels reported Jesus saying, “The son of man must be delivered over into the hands of sinners …” If you take this as a quotation of Jesus (as the NIV does), this is a second case where Jesus labelled the Sanhedrin and chief priests as sinners (compare Luke 9:22).
Can you even begin to grasp how shocking this accusation was to Jesus’ hearers? If anybody was ritually pure, it was the rulers who had access to the temple’s cleansing routines. Why would Jesus say such a thing?
The sin Jesus referred to was their unwillingness to submit to God’s kingdom rule. They refused to acknowledge God’s anointed ruler (Christ). In fact, they planned to kill him, so they could keep their power.
And that’s the essence of sin: grasping power that ought to be in God’s hands. They were rebels against God’s authority, refusing God’s governance, colluding with the enemy to kill the King of the Jews.
So if Jesus were to point an accusing finger at anyone and label them sinners today, it would be leaders who resist his authority to protect their own power. He levels no such accusation against those whom respectable people consider disreputable, unclean, and worth excluding.
Is it worth reconsidering the way evangelists today label people as sinners? Are we following Jesus when we do that? Or are we following the Pharisees?
What others are saying
On Luke 15: Darrell L. Bock, Luke: 9:51–24:53, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 1996), 1298:
Sinners were perceived as forfeiting their relationship to God because of a lifestyle unfaithful to God’s law. The tax collector also was not respected … It was these “reprobates” who were drawing near to Jesus. Jesus’ popularity is highlighted by the exaggerated note that “all” (πάντες, pantes) the tax collectors and sinners are drawing near to him.
On Luke 18:9: John Nolland, Luke 9:21–18:34, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, 1998), 875:
The despising of all others is a fair enough summary of the outlook of the Pharisee of the parable.
On Matthew 26:45: R. T. France, The Gospel of Matthew, New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 1008 footnote 26:
Previously in this gospel “sinners” has referred to those who were the objects of Jesus’ concern (9:10–13; 11:19), but here its negative tone is unrelieved.
[previous: What’s with tax collectors?]
[next: On gospel and guilt]
Seeking the kingdom 
Oh I’m going to have so much fun with this.
Absolutely fabulous Allen.
Thank you for another well considered insight into the character of God
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Love it Allen! Definitely something that needs to be heard at the moment
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Well Said my brother!
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How do we then understand what Paul means when he refers to all of us as “sinners” when he wrote “This saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” — and I am the worst of them.”
(1 Timothy 1:15 CSB)
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That’s a good question, Shon.
Christ did indeed come to rescue the world that was in rebellion against divine authority, and Paul (assuming he wrote 1 Timothy) self-identified as “the worst of them.”
But that’s now how Paul thought of himself before he met the Lord. He actually thought of himself as faultless: “a Hebrew of the Hebrews, … blameless” (Philippians 3:5-6).
What saved him was not a revelation of guilt, but a revelation of Jesus (Acts 9). We don’t preach guilt and condemnation, but Jesus Christ as Lord. That’s the good news. That’s the revelation that saves (Matthew 16:16; Romans 10:9 etc).
After meeting Jesus, Paul looked back at his previous life and asked himself “What was I doing? God had raised up Jesus from the dead to the throne, and I was opposing his followers to stop them proclaiming this good news (the gospel). That makes me one of the most anti-God people on earth.”
When we recognize Jesus as Lord, we also become aware of how we have dishonoured him and opposed his authority. But that’s the consequence of seeing Jesus with his authority; not the means for trying to manipulate people into recognizing their need. The gospel response is not, “I am a bad person.” It’s “Jesus Christ is Lord.” He is the good news we proclaim.
Hoping that make sense for you.
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I like what you wrote as most Christians think they are God’s special ones, because they aren’t sinners like others or aren’t as bad. However, I think that their sins are the same as the Pharisees. They hoard riches in the last days, refuse to fulfill their obligations to God and charity is done for their own righteousness. My example is… does a mother change the baby’s diaper because she is righteous or because she is kind. No. She changes the diaper because it is an obligation because she loves the child. I believe that is what the Cain and Abel story is about. Cain giving out of his righteousness and Abel giving out of obligation. Now, some people can do the same miracles, healings and exorcisms as Jesus and his apostles and we see the Christians losing sight of Christ. Sometimes, I will go to a church and see the sick and wonder why the Christians don’t heal him/her. If I try to do the healing the Christians prevent it because of their unbelief. They don’t believe that in some of us the Christ has be awaken and that we won’t die. That we have connected back to God. However, and this is the truth… the minute we truly understand we won’t die, we ask God to let us die for the sinners, for those that don’t understand that we are new creations born into the eternal. That man only dies because life, the universe of the ultimate construction or God’s creation will not continue in sin. That this is the love that is found in Christ… the redemption and regeneration of not only mankind, but God’s creation becoming whole again. Amen.
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Thanks for your comment, Geno.
Love your conclusion: it’s all about God’s creation becoming whole again.
Along the way, the temptation is for us to feel judgemental of each other, where we might be better to leave the judgement up to God. I hope you experience God’s love from his people.
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Praise God to do exactly what Jesus did. Completely empty yourself of this life , and allow your new identity from the Father to be revealed. Then we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us, and as it’s being revealed we get to give away the kingdom of God. Be truly blessed as we yield, and get to know our Heavenly Father more and more every day
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