God' Grace to Zacchaeus

Luke 19:2-10
A man was there by the name of Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was wealthy. He wanted to see who Jesus was, but being a short man he could not, because of the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree to see him, since Jesus was coming that way. When Jesus reached the spot, he looked up and said to him, "Zacchaeus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today." So he came down at once and welcomed him gladly. All the people saw this and began to mutter, "He has gone to be the guest of a `sinner.'" But Zacchaeus stood up and said to the Lord, "Look, Lord! Here and now I give half of my possessions to the poor, and if I have cheated anybody out of anything, I will pay back four times the amount." Jesus said to him, "Today salvation has come to this house, because this man, too, is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost."

Zacchaeus was not the kind of man that people looked up to as an example of a righteous man, but rather whom they looked down upon as a sinner, and rightly so. Jesus describes him as a man who was lost, without salvation. But that's the kind of person Jesus came to save.

However notice again that while Jesus gratiously takes initiative in calling on this man, the offer of salvation itself is not unconditional. It is contingent upon repentance - such as we see here with Zaccheus who took practical steps at making amends for sins of omission and sins of commission.

But notice also that Jesus declared him "saved" at the very declaration of his intention to repent, prior to its being carried out. When a person sincerely intends to repent of his sins and believe in Jesus, it is at that point they are saved. For a person is saved not by works of righteousness, but by faith. Though there is a correlation between the two.