The targets of this story are not wayward sinners but religious people who do everything the Bible requires. Jesus is pleading not so much with immoral outsiders as with moral insiders. H wants to show them their blindness, narrowness, and self righteousness, and how these things are destroying both their own souls and the lives of the people around them.
Timothy KellerIf a person has grasped the meaning of God's grace in his heart, he will do justice. If he doesn't live justly, then he may say with his lips that he is grateful for God's grace, but in his heart he is far from him. If he doesn't care about the poor, it reveals that at best he doesn't understand the grace he has experienced, and at worst he has not really encountered the saving mercy of God. Grace should make you just.
Timothy KellerThe only love that wonโt disappoint you is one that canโt change, that canโt be lost, that is not based on the ups and downs of life or of how well you live. It is something that not even death can take away from you. Godโs love is the only thing like that.
Timothy KellerRepentance out of mere fear is really sorrow for the consequences of sin, sorrow over the danger of sin โ it bends the will away from sin, but the heart still clings. But repentance out of conviction over mercy is really sorrow over sin, sorrow over the grievousness of sin โ it melts the heart away from sin. It makes the sin itself disgusting to us, so it loses its attractive power over us. We say, โthis disgusting thing is an affront to the one who died for me. Iโm continuing to stab him with it!โ
Timothy Keller