Luke 19:1-10 NKJV
Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho.

Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich.

And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature.

So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way.

And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.”

So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. 

But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”

Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”

And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham;

for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

The amazing thing I realized this week was that Jesus was not just forgiving zeccheus. Zeccheus, when he met Jesus, INSTANTLY decided that relationship with Christ was more important than his riches and way of living and he immediately had a change of heart, surrendering to God’s ways.

In addition to this, Jesus not only said he was saved, but that Zeccheus was a child of Abraham. The significance of this is that, according to Jewish rabbinical code, since the occupation in Babylon tax collectors were considered not to be children of Abraham. Jesus was telling him he was indeed a child of God’s people. Relationship with Jesus brings salvation and restoration. The following are the rabbinical codes concerned:

-The Babylonian Talmud placed tax collectors alongside “murderers and robbers” (Baba Qama 113a; Nedarim 3.4).

-The rabbis taught that tax collectors were disqualified witnesses in court, societal outcasts, and utter disgraces to their own family (see Sanhedrin, 25b).

-The rabbis excommunicated tax collectors from the synagogue ( Nedarim 3.4).

-Tax collectors weren’t allowed to exchange their money at the Temple treasury ( Baba Qamma 10.1).

-The rabbis even considered it lawful to lie in almost any conceivable way to avoid paying tax collectors ( Nedarim 27, 28a)