Luke 19:9

And Jesus said unto him, Today is salvation come to this house, forasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.

Jesus' singling out Zacchaeus as the only man with whom the Lord ever invited himself to lodge, and the further compliment here to the effect that Zacchaeus was a "son of Abraham," indentifies the chief tax collector as a part of the true Israel of God, "an Israelite indeed," as the Saviour said of Nathaniel (John 1:47), and, in such quality, contrasting dramatically with those who were sons of Abraham only by fleshly descent (as were the Pharisees), and further establishing the likelihood that Zacchaeus was a man of rugged honesty, piety, and devotion. It should be noted that Jesus did not say that "Today has this man become a son of Abraham!" He was already that, in the highest and truest sense of the words. He was like aged Simeon, and others who waited for the kingdom of God. "He was a son of Abraham, in spirit as well as by descent. The Jews denied the right of a publican to be considered a son of Abraham."[22]

Dean Plumptre has an interesting suggestion that Zacchaeus the publican was the same as the publican in the parable (Luke 18:10-14), who in the temple, smote upon his breast, saying, Lord be merciful to me a sinner. "Is it too bold a conjecture that he who saw Nathaniel under the fig tree had seen Zacchaeus in the temple, and that the figure in the parable is, in fact, a portrait?"[23]

Salvation has come to this house ... As Ryle expressed it, "Salvation comes to a house when the head and master of it is saved."[24]

To seek and save that which was lost ... Significantly, even so upright a person as the chief tax collector, a true spiritual seed of Abraham, was nevertheless "lost" until he should be saved by the Lord of life. All men are alike lost in sin, and without hope whatever, until they shall joyfully receive Jesus and love him. Barclay's insistence that "In the New Testament, this word `lost' does not mean DAMNED, or DOOMED," is obviously wrong. He said, "It simply means `in the wrong place.'"[25] Vine defined the meaning here as "spiritual destitution and alienation from God"; and in other New Testament passages, the word means, "the loss of eternal life."[26]

It was the great mission of the Redeemer to seek and save the lost; and that was to be done by the sacrifice of himself on Calvary; and there could be no other objective which would justify so great a sacrifice, except that of saving men from eternal damnation. Thus, in what it took to save the lost, one may read the pathetic nature of their state.

THE PARABLE OF THE POUNDS

The name of this parable is a little misleading (the name has been assigned by men), because there is much more in it than the analogy concerning the pounds.

[22] James William Russell, Compact Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1964), p. 187.

[23] H. D. M. Spence, op. cit., p. 136.

[24] J. C. Ryle, op. cit., p. 297.

[25] William Barclay, The Gospel of Luke (Philadelphia: The Westminster Press, 1956), p. 245.

[26] Vine's Greek Dictionary (Old Tappan, New Jersey: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1940), II, p. 18.