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Luke 19:10
The Mission of Jesus
Luke 19:10
For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
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Why it is worth knowing
- “Seek” is active: Jesus pursues the lost, they do not first find him
- “Save” describes the complete rescue from sin and its consequences
- “That which was lost” encompasses everyone who is apart from God: the universal condition
- Jesus names his own mission in this one sentence
Where it sits: Luke 19:8-10
Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Behold, Lord, half of my goods I give to the poor. If I have wrongfully exacted anything of anyone, I restore four times as much.” Jesus said to him, “Today, salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.”
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Background
Jesus speaks this summary of his mission at the conclusion of his encounter with Zacchaeus: a tax collector considered a social and religious outcast. Zacchaeus had climbed a tree to see Jesus; Jesus looked up and invited himself to Zacchaeus’s house. When the crowd grumbled, Jesus defended his choice by pointing to Zacchaeus’s transformation and then articulating why he had come: to seek and save the lost. The Greek word “lost” (apolōlos) can also mean perished or destroyed: the rescue is from a genuinely dangerous condition, not merely inconvenience.