1:1 Luke saw the whole of the Old Testament as having its fulfilment in the story of Jesus. He introduces his Gospel record as an account “of those matters which have been fulfilled” (Lk. 1:1 RV). And “those matters” he defines in Lk. 1:2 as the things of “the word”. The RV especially shows his stress on the theme of fulfilment (Lk. 1:20, 23, 37, 45, 54, 55, 57, 70). In essence he is introducing his Gospel just as John does.

1:2 Luke saw the link between the Lord’s death and His whole life when he says that they had been “eyewitnesses" of the Lord’s ministry, using the Greek word for autopsy- Luke saw his record of the Lord’s life as being an autopsy of His death (Lk. 1:2).

1:2,3 Luke’s inspired Gospel was compiled from the testimonies of “those who from the beginning were eye-witnesses and servants of the word” (Lk. 1:2,3). Some of the events he records could only have been told him by women; and so the Spirit accepted their witness, and encouraged them to make it because God accepted their witness. Only women were witnesses of the Lord's burial- yet belief in His burial is listed by Paul as an essential part of the faith. Yet the only reason the early believers had  to believe this was the testimony of women.

1:3 Luke's Gospel was written for the purpose of preaching to Theophilus, who had already been 'catechized', taught by rote, one of the Gospels (probably Mark), but who wanted to have a more detailed and factual account (Lk. 1:3,4). Luke later describes his Gospel as his logos , his 'word' about all Jesus did (Acts 1:1 Gk.). The Lord seems to have foreseen this when He spoke of how "Wheresoever this Gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, which this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her" (Mt. 26:13). There is evident connection with Christ's prophecy of how the Gospel would be preached in all the world (Mt. 24:14; Mk. 16:15). He seems to have seen the 'Gospel' that would be preached as a re-telling of His life and incidents in it, such as the woman's anointing of Him. It is significant that her anointing is mentioned in all four Gospel records. In Mk. 14:9 we read that wherever the gospel was to be preached, what she had done would be narrated in memory of her. So ‘preaching the Gospel’ is defined there as a narration of the events and sayings of the Lord Jesus in His ministry. Luke's address to "Most Excellent Theophilus" may be a reference to the Roman-imposed High Priest of Israel between AD 37 and AD 41, Theophilus ben Ananus.

1:4 Lk. 1:4 mentions that the history of Jesus was something in which a new convert was “instructed” or [Gk.] catechized, as if the Gospel record was learnt by repetition. Luke as a serious historian mentions his sources, describing them as "eyewitnesses and ministers of the word". The Greek hyperetes which translates "ministers" is the Greek form of the Hebrew hazzan. The word recurs in Lk. 4:20, about the "minister of the synagogue". The task of the minister was to look after the scrolls- "the chest with the books was brought in to the synagogue when required from an adjoining room and brought back there afterwards". Luke's idea is that instead of humping a bunch of scrolls around, the 'ministers' were the eyewitnesses who recited what they had heard of Jesus. But because they would die out, there was a need for people like Luke to compose documents which recorded their testimony.

1:6 Lk. 1:6 = Phil. 2:15; 1 Thess. 3:13. We are to have the serene spirituality, all down the years, of Zacharias and Elizabeth.

Zacharias was "blameless" in God's sight, even though in this very period of his life he was in some ways lacking faith that his prayers would be answered (Lk. 1:6).

1:8 The very process of service and obedience leads to greater faith in practice. It was whilst Zacharias went about his service to the Lord that we was given the news that he would finally have a son (Lk. 1:8). And we all find this true. As we enter more deeply and more passionately into the things of the Lord, so He leads us further into new understandings and fresh areas of endeavour.

1:10 There is a triple emphasis on Israel praying to God in the lead up to Christ's birth (Luke 1:10,13;  2:37). We have seen from Joel 2:17 and many other passages that the remnant will likewise devote themselves to prayer in the last days, as will spiritual Israel.

1:10,11 In Luke 1:10,11 we see the priest's offering of incense paralleled with the prayer of the people, and in reply to these prayers and those of Zacharias an Angel comes and stands at the right hand of the altar of incense to announce the granting of the peoples' request (for forgiveness), and Zacharias' request for a child, in the form of the birth of John and his ministry of reconciliation with God. The incense altar represented the offering of prayer- the Angel coming to stand at the right side of the altar indicates answered prayer. The command from the altar (of incense?) in Rev. 9:14 to the sixth Angel telling Him to loose other Angels was maybe from this same Angel of answered prayer. All these suggestions need very careful development, especially guarding against making the  Angels rather than Jesus our mediator. There is only one mediator (1 Tim. 2:5).

1:13 Because God responds to our spirit, our overall situation, sometimes He does things which seem to be an answer of prayers which were not properly believed in by the person who prayed. Examples include: Gen. 30:16,17; Ex. 14:10,11 cp. Neh. 9:9; Ps. 31:22; Lk. 1:13. Belief and unbelief can quite comfortably co-exist in a man (Mk. 9:24; Jn. 12:39-43). These prayers were answered because God saw the overall situation, He read the spirit of those who prayed and responded appropriately, even if their faith in their specific, vocalized prayers was weak. Perhaps in similar vein, James 4:6 appears to teach that God will hear the prayers of the humble man when a proud man is praying at the same time; faith is not mentioned here.

1:14 God seems to have recognized with pleasure the degree to which Paul modelled his life on John, in that Paul's experiences of life were over-ruled to have connections with those of John. These connections simply could not have been engineered by Paul;  e.g. the way in which they both died in prison at the behest of a crazy, woman-influenced despot. The Spirit also seems to make connections between John and Paul in the manner in which it describes them (e.g. Lk. 1:14 = Acts 15:13; 13:52; Lk. 1:15 = Acts 9:17; 13:9; Lk. 3:18 = Acts 13:15-19; Jn. 1:7,8,15 = Acts 23:11; 26:22; Jn. 3:27 = 1 Cor. 2:8-16). And the Spirit in Acts 19:18 seems to portray Paul in the language of John: " they came (to Paul) and confessed, and shewed their deeds" - just as men had to John.

1:15 Paul seems to have admired the humility John the Baptist manifested in his preaching. He knew he had been chosen from the womb for his mission, as John had been (Gal. 1:15 =  Lk. 1:15).

1:15 Paul was keen for others to copy John the baptist, to find in him the inspiration which he too had found. So he encourages his Ephesians not to drink wine but instead be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18)- the very language of John (Lk. 1:15). In other words, 'Be like that Spirit-filled zealot John rather than enjoying the sloppy pleasures of this life!'.

1:16 “Many” – relatively- would be converted to the true ways of God by the work of John the Baptist (Lk. 1:16), whilst numerically the majority of those who heard John’s message eventually turned away from it, culminating in their crucifixion of the Messiah. See on Mt. 20:16. Or it could mean that many potentially could have been converted. Or many were converted- but fell away.

1:17 Lk. 1:17 gives the Spirit's commentary upon Elijah's achievement. The "spirit and power" of Elijah had been to turn "the disobedient to the wisdom of the just" and to "make ready a people prepared for the Lord". And yet Elijah felt his ministry had been a failure; that nobody had responded. And yet his achievement is used as a prototype for the later achievement of both John the Baptist and the latter day Elijah prophet. There's a great encouragement for us here. We may feel our witness, our ministry, even our life's work- be it in formal preaching, in raising children, in seeking to be the salt of the earth- has been without fruit. But actually, according to the pattern of Elijah, we may achieve far more ultimately than we realize, even if the fruits are seen after our death. What's important, as it was in Elijah's life, is the spirit and power we personally develop and set as an example; even if concretely and materially we don't achieve what we aim to in the lives of others. It was in this sense that God used Elijah, and uses us.

Latter day Israel will turn to the Lord their God, and part-and-parcel of this process will be the turning of the hearts of the fathers to the children (Lk. 1:16,17). When Israel earlier played traitor to their brethren, by doing so they broke their marriage covenant with God (Mal. 2:10); their attitude to their brethren was essentially their attitude to their Heavenly Father. Our God and our brethren simply can't be separated. Asa’s broken relationship with God resulted in him ‘crushing’ the people at the same time (2 Chron. 16:10 AVmg.).   See on Jn. 8:42.

1:18- see on Lk. 22:45.

1:18-22 At the shores of the Red Sea, it seems Moses' faith wavered, and he prayed something at best inappropriate. All we read is God's response: "Wherefore criest thou unto me? speak unto the children of Israel, that they go forward" (Ex. 14:15). It seems that Moses' 'cry' isn't recorded- by grace. Likewise it seems Zacharias probably said far more than "Whereby shall I know this?" when Gabriel told him he would soon have a son. It would seem the conversation went on for so long that the people outside wondered why he was staying so long. Presumably he remonstrated with the Angel with other, graciously unrecorded words, and thereby earnt the punishment of dumbness (Lk. 1:18-22).

1:19- see on 3 Jn. 11.

1:19 Luke 1:19 exemplifies how Angels are used in answering prayer. The Angelic context is set by v. 65 saying that Zacharias and Elisabeth "were both righteous before God"- recalling the language of the Law, where coming before God was coming into the presence of the Angel in the tabernacle. In God's sight no man is justified (i. e. counted to be righteous)- Ps. 143:2, although men may be justified in the view of His Angels. The people praying outside made a fitting parallel with the incense being offered in the temple. Seeing it was the day of Atonement, the prayers were fundamentally for forgiveness of sins which the animal sacrifices of the past year had not properly atoned for. The answer came in the form of an Angel standing on the right side (implying acceptance) of the incense altar, and giving news of the coming ministry of Jesus, the true means of Atonement. Gabriel says that He had been sent in answer to this prayer (v. 19)-  He was therefore the  Angel that appeared to Zacharias. See on Is. 6:7.

1:27 Jesus was the word of God shown in a real, live person. All the principles which Old Testament history had taught, the symbology of the law, the outworking of the types of history, all this was now living and speaking in a person. Luke’s Gospel makes the same point as John’s but in a different way. Over 90% of Luke’s Greek is taken from the Septuagint. All the time he is consciously and unconsciously alluding to the Old Testament as having its fulfilment in the things of Jesus. As an example of unconscious allusion, consider Lk. 1:27: “A virgin betrothed to a man”. This is right out of Dt. 22:23 LXX “If there be a virgin betrothed to a man…”. The context is quite different, but the wording is the same. And in many other cases, Luke picks up phraseology from the LXX apparently without attention to the context.

1:28- see on Lk. 1:38.

Mary is set up as the representative and epitome of all Israel / the people of God should have been. She was the seed of David, the daughter of Zion from whom Messiah came. The “highly favoured… blessed” woman (Lk. 1:28) is the daughter of Zion of Joel 2:21-27; Zeph. 3:14-17; Zech. 2:14,15; 9:9. She “rejoiced” as the daughter of Zion was to rejoice at the coming of her king. She was the “servant Israel”, the “handmaiden” (the female form of “servant”) who was now “holpen” by God (Lk. 1:54). “Blessed be the fruit (LXX offspring) of your womb” (Dt. 28:1,4) was the promise made to Israel- and these words are applied to Mary in Lk. 1:42. See on Rev. 12:5; Mt. 5:6.

Mary was “highly favoured” (Lk. 1:28); yet the only other place the word occurs is in Eph. 1:6, where we are told that “He has made us accepted [highly favoured] in Christ”. Thus in the thinking of Paul and the Spirit, Mary is to represent all of us.  

Hannah’s song was clearly a major influence in the mind of Mary. But there are some background similarities as well as the verbal ones. The LXX of 1 Sam. 1:18 [not the Hebrew text] speaks of Elkanah and Hannah staying in a katalyma on their journey to Shiloh- the very word used of the “inn” in whose stable Mary had to stay. If we ask why Mary based her song so heavily on that of Hannah, we find a clue in considering how she was greeted by the Angel as “favoured” (Lk. 1:28). The Greek kecharitomene virtually translates the Hebrew name ‘Hannah’. The record is written in Greek, but Mary was a Jewess and spoke Aramaic and Hebrew; and probably the Angel spoke to her in those languages. So the link would have been all the stronger- ‘Hail, Hannah-like one’. And this set the mind of Mary thinking about Hannah, and in the days between hearing these words and meeting Elisabeth, Mary had perceived the similarities between her position and that of Hannah. She allowed the spirit of Hannah to genuinely become hers, in perceptive obedience to the Angel’s bidding. She came to share God’s perception of her as a woman like Hannah. ‘Hannah’ comes from the Hebrew root hnn – favour. Mary is told that she has been favoured / ‘Hannah-ed’ by God (Lk. 1:30)- as if to lead her to see the similarities between her and Hannah. And she responds magnificently, by alluding to Hannah’s song so closely. Tragically as we shall see, she later came to be more influenced by the world’s perception of both herself and her Son. The theme of joy is very great in her song- again, because she was obedient to the greeting “Hail!”, literally, ‘rejoice!’. The points of connection between the songs of Hannah and Mary's Magnificat are really quite detailed: 

1 Samuel     Luke / Magnificat

1:3           1:7

1:18         :38

“              :30

2:1           :46

1:11         :48

2:2           :49

2:4           :51

:3             :51

:4             :52

:8             :52

:5             :53

:10           :69

:26           2:52

:10 anointed LXX “His Christ”- the first occurrence of ‘Messiah’ in the O.T. 

And there are plenty of allusions in the Magnificat to other parts of Scripture and well known Apocryphal writings, especially the Psalms, which Mary evidently had committed to memory: 

My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, and my spirit has found gladness in God my Saviour;

Ps 35:9 Then my soul will find gladness in the Lord; It will take pleasure in His salvation. 

I Sam 2: 1-2 (Hannah’s hymn): My heart is strengthened in the Lord; My horn is exalted in my God…I delight in your salvation. 

Hab. 3: 18 (Habakkauk’s hymn): I shall find gladness in the Lord; I shall rejoice in God my Savior.

Because He has regarded the low estate of His handmaid-

I Sam 1:11 (Hannah praying for a child): O Lord of Hosts, if you will look on the low estate of your handmaid,

Gen 29:32 (Leah after childbirth): Because the Lord has regarded my low estate.

4 Ezra 9:45 (Zion speaking as a barren woman): God heard you’re your handmaid and regarded my low estate, And considered my distress and gave me a son.

For behold, henceforth all generation will call me fortunate-

Gen 30:13 (Leah after childbirth): Fortunate am I, for all women call me fortunate.

Because He who is mighty has done great things for me.

Deut. 10:21 (Moses to Israel): He is your God who has done great things in you.

Zeph. 3:17: The Lord your God is in you, A Mighty One will save you.

And holy is His Name,

Ps. 111:9: Holy and awesome is His name.

And His mercy is from generation to generation on those who fear Him.

Ps 103:17:

But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting upon those who fear Him.

Psalms of Solomon 13:11: His mercy upon those who fear Him.

He his shown His strength with His arm; He has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. He has put down the mighty from their thrones

and has exalted those of low degree. He has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich He has sent away empty.

I Sam 2:7-8 (Hannah’s hymn): The Lord makes poor and makes rich: He reduces to lowliness and he lifts up. He lifts the needy from the earth, and from the dung heap He raises up the poor to seat them with the mighty, making them inherit a throne of glory.

Ps. 89:11(10- a hymn praising God’s action for the Davidic king): You have reduced the proud to lowliness like a wounded thing: And by your powerful arm you have scattered your enemies.

Sirach 10:14: He has put down the thrones of princes and has seated the humble before them.

Job 12:19: He has overthrown the mighty.

1QM xiv 10-11: You have raised the fallen by your strength, and have cut down the high and mighty.

Ezek 21:31 LXX (26 Heb.): Having reduced the proud to lowliness, and having exalted the man of low degree.

Ps 107:9: He has filled the soul of the hungry with good things.

He has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy, as He spoke unto our fathers, to Abraham and his posterity forever.

Isa. 41:8-9: You, O Israel, My servant Jacob whom I chose, seed of Abraham whom I loved, whom I have helped from the ends of the earth.

Ps. 98:3: He has remembered His mercy to Jacob and His goodness to the House of Israel.

Psalms of Solomon 10:4: And the Lord will remember His servants in mercy.

Micah 7:20: You will give truth to Jacob and mercy to Israel, as you have sworn to our fathers from days of old.

2 Sam. 22:51 (David’s hymn at the end of his life) Showing mercy to His anointed one, to David and his posterity forever.

And a few more:   

Luke

1:47 = Gen. 21:6

1:48 = Ps. 138:6 LXX; Gen. 30:13

1:49 = Ps. 126:2,3; 111:9

1:50 = Gen. 17:7

1:51 = Ps. 118:14,15

1:28-31 When the LXX and Hebrew readings are combined, it becomes evident that the Angel is inviting Mary to see herself as the “daughter of Zion”: 

Zeph. 3	Luke 1:28-31
Rejoice [LXX chaire], daughter of Zion (Zeph. 3)	Rejoice [chaire]…[Mary]Notice how chaire is also addressed to the Daughter of Zion in Zech. 9:9, a passage also applied to Jesus in Mt. 21:5; Jn. 12:14,15.
The King of Israel, the Lord, is in the midst of you [en meso sou] (Zeph. 3)	The Lord is with you [meta sou]. “The king of Israel” was a well known Messianic title. He was in the midst of Mary in the sense that He was now in her womb.
Do not be afraid, Zion (Zeph. 3)	Do not be afraid, Mary
The Lord your God is with / in you (Zeph. 3)- the Hebrew can imply ‘in your interior parts’, cp. the womb	You have found favour with God.  We can perceive a double meaning now in Zephaniah’s words- the Lord God was with Mary, but was also within her manifest in His Son.
The mighty one will save you (Zeph. 3)	“God my Saviour”- as if Mary picked up the allusions and responded to them.

1:30 Lk. 1:30 = Heb. 4:16. When you ask for forgiveness, be like Mary in her spiritual ambition in asking to be the mother of Messiah.

1:33 Jesus will have a Kingdom, the house of Jacob, which shall have no end (Lk.1:33). We know that "of the increase" of His Kingdom there will be no end; surely meaning that Christ's domination of the believers' minds will grow and grow; our relationship with Christ will grow progressively deeper. Likewise the grip which He has on the lives of the mortal believers will also increase. "Wisdom and knowledge shall be the stability of thy times", and therefore as those things progressively increase, so will the peace and stability of the physical and spiritual environment in which the mortal believers live.

1:34 So great is the depth of Mary’s perception that I am led to make the suggestion that she may have actually comprehended that Isaiah 7:14 required a virgin to be made pregnant by God, and she was anticipating this happening. I am led to this possibility by musing upon her question in Lk. 1:34: “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?”. She had been told that she was to bear the Son of God, Messiah, but initially she is not told that this would be due to the Holy Spirit coming upon her. Her response is to ask how this will be possible, seeing she doesn’t know a man. Yet she was engaged to a man, and engagements in Galilee rarely lasted longer than a year. The obvious deduction for her would have been to think that when her and Joseph married, their child would be Messiah. So why does she ask how it can be, seeing she doesn’t know a man sexually? Is there not here the implication that she had picked up on the Angel’s allusion to Isaiah 7:14 and realized that it required a virgin to conceive in order to make the Messiah both Son of God and son of David through a woman? And so she asks how actually this is going to come about; as if to say ‘OK I understand it requires a virgin conception, but how physically is it going to work out?’. Most marriages were arranged marriages; she had been betrothed to Joseph, but was earnestly praying to be mother of Messiah, and yet she realized that it required a virgin conception. And yet soon, she would be married. She must have feared that her life was going to become just like that of any other woman. But now with ecstatic joy she realized that God had heard her, and intervened. She was to have a virgin conception before she got married to Joseph! It must have all seemed too wonderful to be true, and yet she believed. One can only be impressed at the speed and depth of her response to the Angel. The Lord’s same ability was surely at least partly inherited from His mother.

1:35 The Holy Spirit came upon her, and so Mary’s spirit was full of gladness (Lk. 1:35,47). She walked in step with the spirit (Gal. 5:25 NIV). Because she believed that really the child she would bear would be “holy”, she can extol God as “holy” (1:35,49). She says that God “Hath done to me great things”- she believed that what was promised would actually happen, to the point she felt it had already happened. Now this surely is the essence of faith.

Jesus will be given the restored kingdom of David (Lk.1:35); therefore David's kingdom also prefigures that of Jesus. One of the emphasized features of David's Kingdom is the system of hierarchy around which the administration was organized: there were chief rulers, and then "Ezer the first, Obadiah the second, Eliab the third..." (1 Chron.12). The subdivisions of the mighty men of David is another example. Again we see the theme of a variation in rank among the saints in the Millennium. We will rule over different things, and with varying degrees of power. Christ will rule the world "by the rod of his mouth" , i.e. by his word. Those who reign over ten cities will be able to speak forth this word with more power than those who rule over only two cities, for example. Our love of the wisdom of God in this life will therefore be proportional to the extent to which we use it in the ages of eternity.

1:35 The Angel’s description of Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary (Lk. 1:35) could have sent her mind back to how the Spirit-Cherubim and the cloud of Spirit glory overshadowed the ark (Ex. 25:20; 1 Chron. 28:18). The LXX uses the word for “overshadow” about the cloud of glory overshadowing the ark in the wilderness (Ex. 40:35; Num. 9:18,22). If Mary’s mind had been alerted to this possibility, she would have seen the relevance of Elizabeth’s words: “Who am I, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” (Lk. 1:43). For they are remarkably similar to the LXX of 2 Sam. 6:9, where David asks “How can the ark of the Lord come to me?”. As a result of this question of David’s, the ark remained three months in the house of Obed-Edom (2 Sam. 6:11). And was this why Mary, seeing herself as the ark, remained for three months in the house of Elisabeth straight after hearing this same question asked (Lk. 1:56)? There are further links, between the gladness of Lk. 1:44 and the joy of 2 Sam. 6:12; and the loud cry of Lk. 1:42 and that of 2 Sam. 6:15. If one combines Lk. 1:31 and Jn. 1:14 we have the word of God becoming flesh and “tabernacling” among us in the womb and faith of Mary. If these connections are valid, then Mary would have felt that within her was He who would be the covenant of the Lord, the stones of the word of God made flesh in a little boy. This was perception indeed.

1:38 The Lord had called His mother “Woman…” in Cana. She had also said and later sung to Him perhaps: “Be it unto me according to thy word” (Lk. 1:38). In Mt. 15:28 we have the Lord addressing the Canaanite woman: “Woman….be it unto thee even as thou wilt”. That woman restimulated memories of His dear mother. 

1:38 Yet not only did Mary see herself as representative of Israel [see on Lk. 1:28]; she also felt a strong connection between herself and her Messiah Son. Any woman would feel this connection and identity with her child; but in Mary’s case, her child was the Son of God, Messiah of Israel. And she had the spiritual ambition to see herself in some way, thereby, as Messiah. Consider the evidence: 

- Lk. 1:38 “the handmaid of the Lord” uses the Greek female form for “servant of the Lord”, a clear title of Messiah.

- She appropriates words spoken in the spirit of Christ to herself: “You have reduced the proud to lowliness like a wounded thing: and by your powerful arm you have scattered your enemies” (Ps. 89:10 cp. Lk. 1:51-53).

- She refers to herself in saying that God has helped His servant Israel in remembrance of His mercy; yet His Servant was Messiah, according to Isaiah’s servant songs (Lk. 1:54,55).

- Lk. 1:28,42 “blessed among women” alludes to Jud. 5:24, as if Mary was already as Jael who had killed Sisera, an incident typical of the Lord's destruction of sin with the hammer of God's word. Mary is tied up with her son's victory- for He was part of her.  There is a parallel between Mary and the " fruit of thy womb" , they were both to be blessed together (:42), as if God recognized this link between the mother and Son. The fact He ‘allowed’ this, rather than just using a cold ‘channel’ for His purpose, is simply surpassing in its wonder.

- Her words of Lk. 1:47 “my spirit shall rejoice in God” allude to Ps. 63:11: “But the king shall rejoice in God; every one that sweareth by him shall glory: but the mouth of them that speak lies shall be stopped”.  Mary parallels herself with “the King”, seeing herself as connected with Messiah.

- “The servant of the Lord" would rejoice in God: “I will greatly rejoice in the LORD, my soul shall be joyful in my God" (Is. 61:10), and yet Mary as the female " servant of the Lord" also rejoices, sharing the joy of her Son.

- Lk. 1:48 has Mary rejoicing: “All generations shall call me blessed”, alluding to how in Ps. 72:17 “all nations shall call him [Messiah] blessed”. Mary is equated with her son, Messiah, and she recognized this. He was part of her.

- Mary understood that through her conception, God had put down the mighty from their thrones and exalted them of low degree (Lk. 1:52). This clearly alludes to Ez. 21:26, where the princes are to be put down and him that is low is to be exalted, i.e. Messiah. But Mary felt that she had been exalted; thus she shared Messiah’s exaltation because He was in her and she in Him. We too are in Him, and we should feel something of the pride and joy, along with the suffering, that comes from that identification. She parallels her low estate with them of low degree (Lk. 1:48,52)- perhaps referring to her and Jesus?

- She appropriated the promises to Abraham’s seed [which according to Galatians 3:16 is one man, Jesus] to her personally (Lk. 1:55). 

1:39- see on Lk. 2:19.

One is hard pushed to find women-only scenes in contemporary literature written during Biblical times. The women are presented in terms of the men with whom they inter-relate. Yet Elizabeth and Mary are recorded as having a conversation with no male present (Lk. 1:39-45); and there are other such passages in Scripture (Gen. 19:32,34; 30:14,15; Ex. 2:1-10; Jud. 5:28-30; Ruth 1:6-2:2; 3:16-18; 4:14-17; 2 Kings 5:2,3). The narrative of the women at the tomb and the resurrection is another example (Lk. 23:55-24:4). In all these passages, the reader is invited to share the woman’s perspective.

1:40 The usual girlie teenage thing would have been to go talk to her contemporaries about it. But not Mary. She went on probably the longest journey she had ever made, and alone, to see Elisabeth. She describes herself as the lowly, the hungry, who had been exalted and fed… whereas the proud and haughty had been disregarded. These words, and the evident allusions she makes back to Hannah’s song, could be read as reflecting what had actually been wrought in Mary’s own person and experience by some kind of persecution in her childhood. And it drove her within herself. It seems that she had been deeply humbled in order for her to be highly exalted. One wonders if she had been sexually abused. If Joseph was indeed much older than her, then we can understand how it happened that this girl, mature as she was beyond her years, got attracted to an older and spiritual man. Her spirituality and intelligence [for her allusions to Scripture indicate a fine appreciation of so much] would have been enough to spark plenty of village jealousy. Jn. 2:11,12 speak of three groups- the disciples, who believed, the brothers of Jesus who didn’t  (Jn. 7:5), and Mary, whose level of faith isn’t commented upon. She stands alone. Recognizing this tendency to isolationism within her [see on Lk. 2:19], the Father seems to have encouraged Mary to open herself up to Elisabeth, encouraging her that her relative was in a somewhat similar position, having been barren for a lifetime and now expecting a child. Although Elisabeth was somewhat distant from Mary- for Mary hadn’t heard the wonderful news that this elderly, barren relative was six months pregnant- Mary immediately goes to see her, following the prompting of the Lord. The record is styled to show the experiences of the two pregnancies as parallel:

- “The virgin’s name was Mary” (1:27) = “her name was Elisabeth” (1:5).

- Both were startled at the Angelic appearances (1:12,29), and were comforted not to be afraid.

- “You will call his name John… you will call his name Jesus”.

- “He will be great… he will be great”.

- “How am I to know this?”, and the Angel responded; “How shall this be?”, and likewise the Angel responded.

- Both were given signs- the dumbness of Zacharias, and the pregnancy of Elisabeth.

- Both John and Jesus are described as growing up and becoming strong (Lk. 1:80; 2:40).  

This is not the only time when we see circumstances repeating between Bible characters. The similarities were to direct them back to former and contemporary examples, to find strength. And this is one of the basic reasons for Christian fellowship amongst believers. Yet it would seem that as time went on, Mary became more introverted, she stored up “all these things” in her heart and couldn’t share them with others. Whilst due to her unique path this is understandable, it may be related to the loss of spiritual perception and activity which it seems set in after she gave birth to Jesus. 

1:42- see on Lk. 1:28.

1:45- see on Lk. 1:53.

Mary was an inspiration to Paul in his trial (Lk. 1:45 = Acts 27:25).

Believers worked for the fulfilment of their prophecies. Thus Mary was blessed for believing, because therefore and thereby there would be a fulfilment of the things spoken to her (Lk. 1:45 RV). Without her faith, would those things have been fulfilled? She had to do her bit. And this is why she was called blessed. The Lord basically told the disciples to go into the world and preach in order that the prophesies of repentance being preached among all nations would come true (Lk. 24:48). Paul’s preaching to the whole world was likewise driven by a desire to fulfil the prophecy that Christ would be a light to the Gentiles (Acts 13:47).  

Lk. 1:45 records Elisabeth’s comment on Mary: “Blessed is she that believed”. In Jn. 20:29, Jesus unconsciously alludes to His mother's blessedness even after His glorification. Mary must have many times recounted the story of Elisabeth to Jesus, and His memory of it influenced His sentence construction even after His glorification. This gives a window into the extent to which we will be still who we are now in the Kingdom. Divine nature won't totally change who we are nor the influence of our parents upon us. This is a great encouragement to parents- who they influence their children to be, will be what they eternally will be. For Jesus alluded to the memory of His mother even in Divine nature.  

1:46 “My soul doth magnify the Lord” (Lk. 1:46) is alluded to by Paul, when he uses the same Greek word in Phil. 1:2: “Christ shall be magnified in my body / soul”. If this is a valid allusion, then "the Lord" is a reference to Jesus. In Lk. 1:43 Elisabeth had just described Jesus as "my Lord" . And then Mary in v. 46 parallels "the Lord" with "God my saviour / my Jesus" . She understood how God was to be manifest in Jesus, as she parallels “my soul" with "my spirit" . It's amazing that an illiterate teenager should have risen to such heights of understanding, probably without learning much at all from the local synagogue.

1:47- see on Lk. 1:38.

Lk. 1:47 rang in Paul’s mind (1 Tim. 1:1; 2:3; Tit. 1:3).

Mary’s words of Lk. 1:47 “my spirit hath rejoiced” are alluded to by Jesus unconsciously in Lk. 10:21 [the only time the Greek phrase "spirit... rejoices” is used]. “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit" and thanked God that the humble not the wise had been chosen- showing exactly the spirit of Mary's words of Lk. 1:52,53, the words she had probably sung to Him around the house as a child. Unconsciously [?] Jesus was alluding to Mary His mother's attitude. Such was the Jesus-Mary relationship. Luke brings this out in his record in the connections he makes. Mary had an influence even on the Son of God- quite some encouragement to all parents and those who spend time with children as to the influence they have.

The Spiritual Ambition Of Mary

It seems to me that Mary had prayed to be mother of Messiah, thus showing the ultimate level of spiritual ambition. Consider the evidence:

- In Lk. 1:48 Mary exalts:  “He hath looked upon…" (ASV). Mary is reflecting how God "looked upon" Elisabeth and also gave her conception- ‘looking upon’ is an idiom for answered prayer or God's response to human request (Gen. 6:12; 29:32; Ex. 2:25; Dt. 26:7; Jud. 6:14). All this implies that Mary like Elisabeth had requested to have this child- to bear Messiah. She sees what God has done as “His mercy” to her (1:50), as if a request had been granted.

- She was “graciously accepted” (Lk. 1:28 AVmg.); she “found favour” with God (1:30), using the same word as in Heb. 4:16 about us finding answers to prayer.

- Lk. 1:42 “blessed be the fruit of thy womb” alludes to Dt. 7:13, where the fruit of the womb was blessed if Israel kept the words of God's covenant. For Mary to have the fruit of her womb blessed therefore implied that she was being rewarded for her obedience. She was not just a channel for the fulfilment of God’s purpose to the extent that any womb or woman could have been used.

- “Hail!” is translated by e.g. the LNT as “Congratulations!”, as if a request had been heard, and an honour striven for.

- Hannah’s prayer of thanks is clearly the basis for Mary’s emotions; and Hannah had prayed for a child, and received it. As Hannah described herself as “thine handmaid” (1 Sam. 1:18), so now did Mary too (Lk. 1:38). God remembered His mercy in making Mary conceive (Lk. 1:54), just as God had remembered Hannah in answering her prayer (1 Sam. 1:19). And just as Hannah “rose up” and went to Ramah, so Mary “rose up” and went to Judea (Lk. 1:39). Yet there is reason to think that Hannah too desired to bear Messiah. She speaks of how her “horn” has been exalted in the same way as Yahweh’s horn has been (1 Sam. 2:1,10); and the language of a horn being exalted was understood to be referring to Messiah (Ps. 89:24).

- Gabriel appeared to her; yet Gabriel in the OT is nearly always the Angel associated with answered prayer.

- To me the clearest indication that she had prayed for Messiah to be her baby is in her joyful reaction to the Angel’s message. She was engaged, and then suddenly she is told that she will soon be pregnant, before she marries, but not from any human being. On a worldly level, her life had just been messed up. There would have been major doubts in her mind as to whether Joseph would ever believe her story. And her parents…her brothers…the villagers… But amazingly enough, she is ecstatically joyful (Lk. 1:47). This would be psychologically unlikely, unless she had specifically requested this honour. She'd have been hopelessly confused and worried and upset that her planned marriage would likely founder because she had been made pregnant. The fact Mary so rejoices, and joy is a major theme both of her words and of the OT allusions she makes, is to me the greatest proof that she had requested to be the mother of Messiah, and now this was being granted.

- She knew that Joseph her boyfriend was the rightful king of Israel, according to the genealogies presented in Matthew 1 and Luke 3. Yet for the promise to David to be fulfilled, that of the fruit of his body according to the flesh there would come Messiah, Mary must have been also in the direct line of David. Jesus was “born of the seed of David” (Rom. 1:3)- this passage surely implies that Mary was also “of the seed of David”. Likewise Heb. 7:14 says that Jesus “sprang out of Juda”, which could only have been true if Mary was of this tribe too. Mary had to go to Bethlehem to be taxed presumably because she was from Judah. The Old Syriac [Sinaiticus] text of Luke 2:4 says that Joseph and Mary went “to the city of David because both were [AV “he was”] of the house and lineage of David”. Yet her cousin Elisabeth was from Levi. Mary would have perceived that she was in an ideal position to give birth to a king-priest, which various OT prophecies implied Messiah would be. She therefore would have thought that the offspring of Joseph and herself would be ideally suited to be Messiah. Hence her confusion when she was told that her child would be produced without intercourse with Joseph. It has been suggested that the fact Luke makes no reference to the parents paying five shekels to by back the child (required for non-Levites under Num. 18:15,16) is because Luke frames Jesus as a Levite who would remain in the Lord’s service.

- The Angel repeats the words of 1:28 in v. 30: “Thou that art highly favoured… Fear not Mary, for thou hast found favour with God”. She had some understandable tendency to self-doubt. After all, could it really be that she alone was to be pregnant without any man’s intervention…? It must have all sounded like a fairy tale or pagan myth, or maybe a hallucination. No wonder she ran off to see Elisabeth and see whether these strange pregnancies really were possible in reality; whether prayer really was heard in the way it seemed hers had been. ‘Finding favour’ is an idiom for prayer / request being heard. She is being comforted that yes, her prayers really had been heard. We too can struggle in just the same ways- for the Gospel is often too good news for us. That we, the nothing and nobodies, really are the highly favoured ones.

- She comes to see the solid truth of it all when she exalts in Lk. 1:48 that God ‘took notice of me’, another idiom for prayer being answered.

- Jn. 1:13 in some texts reads: " Who [i.e. Jesus] was born not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man [Joseph], but of God [through the Holy Spirit]. And the word was made flesh..." . This was John's account of the virgin birth. My point is that the Lord was born not of the will of the flesh- but of the spiritual will of a woman. 

For all these reasons, she was motivated to ask to be the mother of Messiah. And yet when the Angel appeared and told her that it had all been heard and arranged, she was scared. Initially she was scared, and then becomes ecstatically joyful that her dream is coming true. This has the ring of truth and likelihood about it. We can pray for something and yet when it comes true, disbelieve it. Consider how when a prayer meeting was called by the early brethren for Peter’s release, they considered any such possibility that he had actually been released, i.e. that their prayers had been heard, as being absurd. Zacharias and Elisabeth had prayed all their lives for a child but when it was announced as coming true, Zacharias just didn’t believe it. And so we must be the more careful what we ask for, and live in the real expectation it will come true. Jeremiah prayed for hard things to come upon the men and women of Jerusalem; and then spends the whole of Lamentations praying for God to lift the effects of his earlier prayers.  

Mary And Ambition

All this reflects the level of spiritual ambition to which Mary attained. Her self-perception went beyond that of Leah to whose words she alludes (“all women call me fortunate”, Gen. 30:13 LXX). Elisabeth had said the same: “Blessed are you among women” (Lk. 1:42). But Mary perceives that all generations, not just all contemporary women, would call her blessed. Yet she was the most humble woman- who was the most highly exalted. In this she not only lived out the pattern of her dear Son, setting Him an example, but she showed us a lesson: that humility does not mean that we do not have a high self-perception. She saw her strength, i.e. her humility, and perceived the high status of her place in God’s plan without being proud. It seems to me that our view of human nature has resulted in our feeling we are lumps of sin walking around on this earth who can never please God. But we are made in His image, we may be animals in the way that we die,  but we are still wonderfully highly perceived by our maker if we are in Christ. We can only love our neighbour if we first of all love / respect ourselves. This is a fundamental truth we do well to reflect upon more deeply. Lake of self respect means we will not truly respect or care for anyone else either. We are seen by Him as His beloved Son. And this is the essence of being brethren in Christ.  

The fact we have the opportunity to be spiritually ambitious raises the question of whether God has a predetermined plan that He forces men and women to fulfill. We would rightly reject this view of predestination; rather, we have total and real freewill to chose to serve God. Mary could have declined to be the mother of God’s Son; she could have simply focused on her boyfriend and upcoming marriage, and never given a thought to daring to wish to be the virgin of Is. 7:14. But she rose up to this height. She says that “nothing said by God can be impossible” (Lk. 1:38), as if to imply that although God is almighty, there is an element of possibility and conditionality in His promises. Nothing He says need be impossible; but it can be impossible if we refuse to do our part. And she continues: “May it be to me as you have said” (NIV), as if her agreement was required for God’s wondrous plan to be realized. Hence the comment: “Blessed is she that believed, that there may be a performance of those things which were told her” (Lk. 1:45- same construction Acts 27:25). Thus the wonderful promise that she would have a child that would be God’s Son was all conditional upon her faith and agreement and participation, even though that condition isn’t directly stated.  

In Lk. 1:49 Mary speaks of “He that is mighty”. The Greek word dunatos is translated "possible" 13 times, "able" 10 times, "mighty" 6 times. She speaks of the possibilities of God in that she knew that it was due to her prayers, her spiritual ambition, that she was to be the mother of Jesus. God's mightiness is His possibility, which we limit. All things are possible to God, and all things are possible to the believer (Mk. 10:27; 9:23)- in that we limit what God can do. All the dunamos family of words carry not only the idea of naked power, but more of possibility. This means that God's power is under various possibilities of directing it. Recall how the man asked whether, if Jesus could do anything, He would. And the Lord replied by putting it the other way: If you can believe, all things are possible to him that believes. The believer limits the Lord’s ability; He Himself has boundless possibility. Mary believed so that there was a performance of what God had promised (AVmg.). Without her faith, God’s promise would not have been fulfilled, just as her dear Son was to have the same struggle later on. Only by His obedience would the Scriptures be fulfilled; but there was the real possibility that He could have failed.

1:48- see on Lk. 1:38.

low estate Mary’s quotations and allusions to the OT are nearly all from the LXX, and it is almost certain that she would have been familiar with some of the Apocryphal books bound up with the LXX at that time. Consider the words of 4 Ezra 9:45, where Zion speaks as a barren woman: “God heard your handmaid and regarded my low estate, and considered my distress and gave me a son”. Clearly she saw herself as the representative of Zion. Moses told Israel that God “has done great things in you” [cp. In her womb?] (Dt. 10:21). She felt that God had helped her “His servant Israel”- alluding to Ps. 98:3 LXX “He has remembered His mercy to Jacob”. Unto us, Israel, a son was to be given (Is. 9:6 cp. Lk. 2:11), but it was actually given to Mary.  See on Lk. 1:28.

God recognized her “low estate” [humility] and exalted her above all women (Lk. 1:48), just as He would His Son among men. The same Greek word is used in Acts 8:33: “In his humiliation [‘low estate’] his judgment was taken away”. It occurs too in  Phil. 2:8: “He humbled himself”. In the cross, indeed throughout the seven stage self-humiliation of the Lord which Phil. 2 speaks of, He was living out the spirit of his mother. She taught him the life and the way of the cross. Hence the way she insisted on being there at the end, and the comfort she would have given Him, and the love He showed by asking for the only one who really understood Him to be taken away, for her sake as well as His own. The Lord directly alluded to His mother’s pattern of humiliation and exaltation by using the same word again in Mt. 23:12: “Whosever shall exalt himself shall be abased; and he that shall humble himself [s.w. be abased- we must either humble ourselves or be humbled, it’s such a powerful logic] shall be exalted”. Thus Jesus alludes to His mother's words in order to set her up as our pattern [“whosoever”]. And yet He Himself showed the ultimate obedience to her pattern in the death of the cross. For this and many other reasons,  the Lord’s mind was upon His mother in His time of dying. And according to the Messianic Psalms, He even asks God to have mercy upon Him for Mary’s sake (Ps. 86:16; 116:16).

1:48 When Mary spoke of all generations calling her blessed, her mind was in  Gen. 30:13: " the daughters [i.e. future generations of them] shall call me blessed" , and yet at the same time on Zilpah the servant maid [cp. Mary the handmaiden] bearing Asher [happy]. These women were seen by Mary as representatives of her. She was so humble to compare herself with the servant girl. Yet she also had in mind Prov. 31:28 , where the virtuous woman is blessed by all. She saw herself as the virtuous woman who excelled all- yet she was so humble. She was the most highly favoured woman, but was so humble. It’s hard to know your true value without being proud about it. It seems to me that we must learn to value ourselves far more, to love our neighbour AS we do really love / respect ourselves, without being proud. The ability to see your own worth and value in God’s purpose is crucial;  we tend to be either proud, or too negative about ourselves. Mary was so spiritually ambitious to want to be the mother of Messiah, understanding He would be God manifest.  

Mary realized that her great honour was being given in response to her humility- God had regarded her “low estate (Lk. 1:48) , her humility. She was humble enough to know God had noticed her humility- and still not be proud about it. She had enough self knowledge to perceive this. It’s as if she is saying ‘'Thank you for taking note of my humility'. This is really a deep essay in humility-  to recognize she was humble without being proud about it. And to be able to say it sincerely. Mary’s humility was programmatic for Jesus on the cross; for there He humbled Himself that He might be exalted. This was the theme that, according to Phil. 2, was ever in His mind. 

Later Scripture seems to allude to Mary’s words of praise in Lk. 1 and set her up as a representative of us all. She speaks in Lk. 1:49 of her “low estate”, alluding to  Ps. 136:23, which describes us all in this way.

1:49 The Magnificat shows that Mary had a fair appreciation of God’s Names, in that she refers to Him as “He that is mighty”, interpreting for us the Old Testament idea of El Shaddai, the God of fruitfulness [Heb. shad = ‘breast’]. Note how neither Mary nor the NT writers transfer the OT Hebrew titles of God, e.g. ‘Yahweh’, rather they interpret them. She sees her conception of the Son of God as an example of how “holy is His Name” (Lk. 1:49). The Lord Himself understood that “Hallowed be Thy Name” is to be paralleled with the Father’s will being done. The Name of God speaks of His actions; because He is who He is, He will articulate this in how He acts. This is why all His actions are understandable and broadly predictable in terms of the basic characteristics that comprise His Name. The Name is not just a word, a lexical item. And Mary perceived all this- that the Holy Name of Jehovah was to be manifested ultimately and supremely in the Son she would bear. For this is the climax of God manifestation. Because “Holy is His Name”, she would bear a “holy thing” that manifested that Name. There is in Hebrew an ‘intensive plural’, whereby the plural form is used to reflect the greatness of a singular thing. Thus ‘Jehovah Elohim’, Jehovah who will be mighty ones, can be read as a specific prophecy of His definitive revelation in the ‘mighty one’ of His Son. And could it be that Mary grasped all this? I for one think she did.  

1:51 Through Christ, God "scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts" (Lk. 1:51). This is quoting from Gen. 6:5 LXX concerning the wicked imagination of man's heart at the flood. This is even more evidence that we can read the events of the flood as typical of two things; our salvation from the judgment upon sin, and also of the events of the last days, when that salvation will be physically manifested. We are in Noah's position; we can see clearly the judgments which must come upon sin.

1:51-53 Such a Bible minded woman inevitably had faith. For faith comes by hearing the word of God. Mary believed the Angel’s words fully- hence her rejoicing. The aorist tenses of Lk. 1:51-53 seem the equivalent of prophetic perfect tenses in Hebrew- Mary firmly believes that what is still future is as good as happened. She had the faith that considers what has been promised to have actually happened. At that moment it was as if God had scattered the proud, the rulers and the princes- even though this would only be achieved by the Lord’s life, death and glorification (Acts 2:33; 4:24-27; 5:31).

1:52- see on Lk. 1:38; 23:31.

Despite all the undoubted spiritual perception in the Magnificat, she didn’t have totally pure understanding. It seems that her allusion in Lk. 1:52 to Ez. 21:26 [the mighty being put down from their thrones and the humble one exalted] that she thought that Ezekiel’s prophesy about Messiah’s restoration of the Kingdom had already been fulfilled in her conception of Jesus. It could be that she was so sure that her child would one day do this that she saw the time of the coming of “Him whose right it is” as being right there and then; and yet we know that it is in fact still future. Likewise “How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?” may imply [although not necessarily- see later] that she hadn’t grasped the implications that Messiah must be the result of a virgin birth, as per Is. 7:14. Yet for all this, she still had acceptability before God, and the required spiritual ambition to be Messiah’s mother. 

Mary perceived the importance of humility. Her song of rejoicing is a consciously arranged poem by her. It is in two strophes, each climaxing with the themes of lowliness / exaltation. She saw humility as the true exaltation, and the structure of her little song reflects this. She perhaps prepared the song in her mind as she walked down from Nazareth to the Judaean hills to meet Elisabeth; there is a rhyme established by the last  words of the four lines in Lk. 1:52,53: thronon with agathon, and tapeinous with kenous. In all this she reached a new paradigm for humility was a concept foreign to the first century mind. Strength, wealth and ability were to be demonstrated; to show strength by being humble was just unheard of. Only those who were forced into humble submission by the stronger were ‘humble’. To clean the toilets when nobody else notices, and the host of other such opportunities for service in ecclesia life... this is the true humility, the real strength and exaltation before God. 

1:53 Not only was the Lord Himself influenced by His mother. Paul and Peter allude to Mary and her words in their writings. The hymn to Jesus which Paul wrote in Phil. 2 is full of themes taken from Mary’s song- the same themes of God’s manifestation in His Son, humiliation and exaltation, occur there. There are several connections between the accounts of the early preaching of the Gospel in Acts, and Mary’s song of praise. Her words came to influence the brethren who stood up there and preached. Perhaps Mary, who was meeting with them (Acts 1:14), sung the words to them and they all memorized it. Raymond Brown claims there are 18 words or items shared by the preaching of Peter (Acts 3:12-26) and the Magnificat [Mary’s song of praise] (The Birth Of The Messiah, New York: Doubleday, 1993 p. 354). Mary had quoted Ps. 107:9 about how she had been filled with good things; but Zacharias quoted the next verse, Ps. 107:10, shortly afterwards (Lk. 1:79). Surely Mary had gotten him thinking in the same paths as she did. And she should likewise influence us.

Mary felt that through her being granted the honour of bearing Jesus, the hungry had been filled (Lk. 1:53). The Lord in Lk. 6:21 alludes to all this. He speaks of how blessed [=Mary] are the hungry who will be filled, using the same three words as in Lk. 1- blessed was Mary, the hungry, who was filled in her stomach.  He states that there is a blessedness upon all of us who believe (Jn. 20:29)- just as His mother was proclaimed blessed for her belief (Lk. 1:45).  Mary had felt that God had “Filled the hungry [i.e. their stomach, cp. the womb of Mary] with the good thing [Gk.]”- Jesus (Lk. 1:53). He calls Himself this good thing, using the very same Greek word in Mt. 20:15: " I am the good one" ; Jn. 1:46; 7:12 [where the " good thing" is Messiah]. Her perception of Him became His. And so with us; if we perceive our children as future brethren, so, hopefully and prayerfully, they will be. Jesus could have sinned; He could have failed. But Mary right from His babyhood believed that He wouldn’t. She believed in Him and in His succesful completion of His destiny from when she first conceived Him. And surely this is a pattern for Christian mothers too.

1:54- see on Lk. 1:28,38.

1:55- see on Lk. 1:38.

She speaks in Lk. 1:55 Gk. of “the seed of him”- she understood the seed of Abraham to be Messiah, her son, and makes many references and allusions to the promises to Abraham. She had clearly reflected upon her ‘first principles’.  

1:68 - see on Ex. 3:7.

1:69 “Salvation is of the Jews” (Jn. 4:22) in the sense that the promises concerning salvation were made only to Abraham and his seed. We can only have those promises made to us if we become in the seed, by being baptised into Christ (Gal. 3:22-29). Then, all that is true of the Lord Jesus becomes true of us. Thus Zecharias quoted prophecies about the seed of Abraham and David as applying to all believers (Lk. 1:69,73,74).

1:71- see on Lk. 7:19.

Clearly he understood Messiah as the One who would bring immediate relief from the Roman occupation. He'd misread, as many Jews do today, the Old Testament prophecies and types which involve two comings of Messiah, and the need for Him to firstly die the death of rejection. But all the same, we find no hint of condemnation, but rather of commendation, for this Godly man.

1:76 John the Baptist was to “prepare” the way for the Lord’s coming- evidently a process- in reflection of how God had been working a long time to “prepare” [same Greek word] the way for His Son’s coming (Lk. 1:76; Lk. 2:31; Lk. 3:4). We likewise, in our preaching work in these last days, are working in tandem and in step with God. The idea of God 'preparing' implies that there is therefore a gap between the plan being made, and it being executed- hence “The Lord has both planned and done what He spoke concerning the inhabitants of Babylon” (Jer. 51:12; Jer. 4:28; Lam. 2:17; Is. 22:11; Is. 37:26; Zech. 1:6; Zech. 8:14). See on Mt. 20:23.

1:77 - see on Mt. 3:11. Paul was to bring others to the light just as John had (Lk. 1:77,79 =  Acts 13:47; 26:18,23).

Luke is the only evangelist to continue the quotation of Is. 40 to include the words “all mankind will see God’s salvation”. And he focuses especially upon the wonder of forgiveness (Lk. 1:77; 7:48; Acts 13:38). Only he records the parable of the prodigal (Lk. 15:11-32), and only he describes the great preaching commission as relating to “repentance and remission of sins” (Lk. 24:47).

The principles God will use in the final judgment are manifested now, and have been reflected in His previous judgments of men. In our very personal lives, there are foretastes of that future judgment. When we receive forgiveness. This gives a knowledge of the future salvation (Lk. 1:77). Indeed, whenever man meets with God, whenever His ways have contact with those of men (which so often happens in the life of the believer) there is a judgment experience; His holiness, His demands, the imperatives which lay within His very being, reveal quite naturally our failures. The Hebrew word used to describe God’s ‘meeting’ with men is also used in the senses of ‘summoning’ or gathering to a trial (Ex. 30:6). And positively, the degree to which we have responded to Him will be revealed by our meeting with Him.

1:78 John’s father had prophesied that John would “give knowledge of salvation unto his people by the remission of their sins, because of the heart of mercy of our God” (Lk. 1:77,78 RVmg.). The fact that God has a “heart of mercy”- a lovely phrase- is His glory. It leads Him to glory in overlooking sin. And on this basis John appealed to people to repent and claim that forgiveness, thus allowing God to glory. In the light of all this, one wonders in what tone of voice John spoke. The cold printed words in our Bibles can lead us to imagine him speaking in a gruff, austere manner.

"The sunrising (AVmg.) from on high hath visited us" (Lk.1:78) through Christ's mission, fulfilling the prophecy of Mal.4:2 about Christ as the sun of righteousness in the first century, although it clearly has reference also to the greater dawning yet to come.

1:78

THE FIRST  COMING  OF JESUS AS A TYPE OF HIS SECOND COMING

Many of the incidents in the first coming of the Lord Jesus are intended to point us forward to events which will happen at the his second coming. Thus Zech. 9:9-11 speaks of the Lord Jesus coming to Zion with salvation, establishing his Kingdom and resurrecting the dead. This is all about his second coming, but the idea of him coming into Jerusalem with salvation is obviously applicable to his triumphant entry in the last week of his ministry (Mt. 21:5). There is clear indication in the records of Luke 1 and 2 that there were a faithful remnant in Jerusalem at the time of our Lord's birth, whose attitude points forward to that of the latter-day remnant at the time of His second coming.   Whilst only Zacharias, Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna are mentioned, we can be sure that there were others in this group - Anna "spake of him to all them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38);  "many" rejoiced even at the birth of John, on the understanding that he was Christ's forerunner (Luke 1:14 - unless the "many" refers to Angels).   It is possible that the shepherds, too, were in this group, which would confirm the impression that the 'remnant' were in the lower ranks of society - Zacharias a superannuated priest, Anna a servant of the temple (Luke 2:37) - the equivalent of a modern office cleaner.   This connects with the 'remnant' left in the land by Nebuchadnezzar being the poorest of the poor (2 Kings 24:15 cp. 25:11,12), and suggests a working-class Jewish 'remnant' in the last days.

There is much language used concerning the birth of Jesus which is easily applicable to His second coming.   This in itself encourages us to see the record of those awaiting His first coming as typical of the last days.   The birth of John and Jesus is described as God 'visiting and redeeming his people' (Luke 1:68);  what better way of describing God's latter-day intervention?   "The sunrising from on high hath visited us" (Luke 1:78 A.V. mg.) was Zacharias' comment upon God's purpose in John and Jesus, making an unmistakeable allusion to Mal. 4:2 concerning Christ's second coming being like the rising sun.   Note how this sun rising is upon the righteous remnant of the last days (Mal. 4:12) - identifying Zacharias with them.

The Angels rejoiced that through Christ's birth there was "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men" (Luke 2:14), although this will only be fully done in the Kingdom.   Simeon spoke of the baby Jesus as "a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel" (Luke 2:32), although this will only be fully true after the second coming (Isa. 42:6;  49:6). The remnant "looked for redemption (to appear) in Jerusalem" (Luke 2:38);  they could only have figured this out from realizing that the Old Testament 'kingdom' prophecies concerning Jerusalem, which we normally associate with the second coming, had a primary fulfilment in the birth of Christ.

John the Baptist commented that he preached repentance and baptized in Israel, so that the Messiah might be manifest to Israel (Jn. 1:31). His work was a pattern for the Elijah ministry of the last days. It could be argued that Messiah was only manifest in the first century because of the success of John's work- for large numbers were baptized of him. Could it be that the timing of the final revelation of Messiah likewise depends upon the success of the Elijah ministry in leading Israel to repentance? And what implications are there in this, if actually we are the voice of that ministry...

We can now scan the record for more detailed latter-day typology:-

-  The remnant were in or around Jerusalem - as it seems the latter-day faithful will also be.   They looked for Messiah to appear in Jerusalem (Luke 2:38).   If latter-day Jewry are persecuted to the extent that the only Jews left alive in the land are in Jerusalem (see previous studies, especially Chapter 8), then they, too, will expect Messiah to come to them in that same city. Note that the woman whose intense pleadings represent the prayers of the latter day remnant (Lk.18:2-8) "was in a city" - Jerusalem?

-  They eagerly looked for the Lord's birth as a fulfilment of the Abrahamic promises, that through his seed "we being delivered out of the hand of our enemies might serve (God) without fear" (Luke 1:74).   Likewise the latter-day remnant will meditate how the Abrahamic promises concerning freedom from their (Arab) enemies are so relevant to them - perhaps due to the Elijah ministry turning their hearts to the Jewish "fathers", a phrase often used about the patriarchs who received the promises (Mal. 4:6).

-  Israel in the first century were under the domination of Rome, the fourth beast of Dan. 7:23.   In the latter-day application of this, necessitated by the image upon which the beasts are based standing complete in the last days, the fourth beast with its horns corresponds to the Arab coalition which will then dominate Israel.

-  Some of the remnant had the Spirit gift of prophecy (Luke 1:41,67;  2:26,36).   The latter-day remnant may also experience this - their old men (cp. Zacharias and Simeon) and young people (cp. Mary), may have the gift of prophecy around the time of the Lord's return - "before the great and terrible day of the Lord come" (Joel 2:28-31).

-  The shepherds watching at night while the Lord was born (Luke 2:8) echoes the Passover.   There is good reason to think that the second coming may be associated with Passover time.   The vision of Angels which they saw may correspond to the remnant in Jerusalem seeing a literal "sign of the (coming of the) son of man in (literal) heaven" (Matt. 24:30), composed of the Angel-cherubim.   This "sign of the son of man in heaven" must be alluding back to the literal portent which the shepherds saw in the sky, pointing to the Lord's first coming. Thus there will be no need to say "See here; or see there", because the Lord's return will be so evidently public (Lk. 17:23).

-  Zacharias and Elisabeth "were both righteous before God" (Luke 1:6) amidst a corrupt Jewish world that refused to prepare itself for God's manifestation in Christ, despite the availability to them of God's Word, which clearly prophesied it.   This recalls the description of Noah as being "righteous before God" (Gen. 7:1) in the context of the flood coming upon the world.   We have earlier shown this to be full of reference to the last days.

-  There is a triple emphasis on Israel praying to God in the lead up to Christ's birth (Luke 1:10,13; 2:37). We know from Joel 2:17 and many other passages that the remnant will likewise devote themselves to prayer in the last days, as will spiritual Israel.

-  The appearance of Angels before Christ's birth (Luke 1:12,26) is similar to their visiting Israel under persecution during the times of the Judges, bringing the news of deliverance from their Arab enemies through a 'saviour' ('Jesus').

-  The conception of John (the Elijah prophet of the first century) preceded that of Christ - he was Christ's forerunner - there is therefore a necessity for this type to be fulfilled in the literal coming of the latter-day Elijah as a prelude to Christ's manifestation to Israel.

-  The "joy and gladness" (Luke 1:14) of the remnant at Christ's birth will be but a dim foretaste of the ecstasy which the embattled remnant of the last days will experience at their Lord's return.

2:2 Maybe Mary grasped the relevance of Ps. 87:6 LXX to the fact she gave birth to Messiah during a census: “In the census of the peoples, this one [Messiah] will be born there”. The relevance of this verse to the Lord’s birth may explain why Luke says that the census of Quirinius  was part of a census of the whole world, which wasn’t strictly true.

2:5 Taxed – Gk. ‘enrolled’, numbered in a census. It could be that this is recorded as a fulfillment of how Is. 53:12 had predicted that Jesus would be “numbered with the transgressors”.

2:7 Jer. 14:8 was addressed to the Lord and Saviour of Israel, Jesus-Messiah: “Why are you like an alien in the land, like a traveller who stays in lodgings?”. If Mary had made all these connections, the hurt of being told there was no room in the lodging, and having to give birth in a stable, laying her dear child in a cattle manger… would have been far less felt by her. These things would have thrilled and rejoiced her heart rather than hurt her, just as we can joyfully perceive how present sufferings are working out so analogous to a Biblical verse or character. 

The whimpering, vulnerable Son of God was laid down in a cattle stall (Luke, the doctor who appreciated the need for hygiene, so emphasizes this: Lk. 2:7,12,16), because the other guests in that cheap hotel couldn't make space for a heavily pregnant woman (again, Luke the sometime-gyn doctor would've sensed the shame of it). 

No room in the inn- This can also be translated "The inn was not the place for them" (Lucien Deiss, Joseph, Mary, Jesus (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1996) p. 28). It had to be this way- the way of rejection, of poverty. God's children ultimately know no other way in this life.

2:8 It has been observed that the choice to reveal the good news of Christ to the shepherds first of all was surprising; for these too were the poorest of the poor, deprived [along with tax collectors] of Jewish rights. They belonged to the "most despised" of all social groups. See Joachim Jeremias, Jerusalem In The Time Of Jesus  (London: S.C.M., 1969) p. 304; Richard Horsley, The Liberation Of Christmas: The Infancy Narratives In Social Context (New York: Crossroad, 1989) pp. 102-106.

2:11 Did she see the link between her giving birth in a stable and laying Jesus down in a “manger” (Gk. phatne), perhaps with oxen and donkeys onlooking, and Is. 1:3 LXX: “The ox knows its owner, and the donkey knows the phatne (“manger’) of its Lord (kyrios as in Lk. 2:11), but Israel has not known me”.

2:12- see on Mt. 18:4.

2:13 It's important to realize that praise isn't just singing or using musical instruments. In Hebrew the same word means both 'worship' and 'service' (`abodah). The supposition that praise = music is deeply ingrained in many minds. Thus there is the common assumption that the Angels sang to the shepherds; but in fact they spoke their praise (Lk. 2:13).

2:14 A major result of the existence of Jesus was unity amongst God’s people. Thus the Angels sang: “…on earth peace among men in whom He is well pleased” (Lk. 2:14 RV). If we are not at peace amongst ourselves, then God is not well pleased.

2:15- see on Acts 8:4.

2:19 When the shepherds came to worship, Mary pondered within herself what it all meant, as if she was now rather lacking in comprehension (Lk. 2:19). [Consider in passing the fact that Luke describes his Gospel as a compilation of eyewitness accounts. Where did he get the material from about Mary pondering things in her heart [2:19,51]? Was it from interviewing her himself? Or was her inward meditation and frozenness evident to others who on this basis told Luke?]. 

2:19 In Lk. 2:19 we read that Mary “kept” God’s words in her, yet the Lord in one of His allusions to His dear mother says in Lk. 5:38 that we must preserve or “keep” [s.w.] the new wine of the Gospel in us. The Lord saw His mother as a pattern for us all. When He heard the comment “Blessed are the breasts which you sucked!”, His comment is to draw attention rather to the spiritual side of Mary: “Blessed are they [like My dear mother] who hear the word of God and keep it”. Thus He held her up as an example to them all; she shouldn’t be marvelled at just because of the fact she carried the Son of God (Catholics take note) but rather because of her reflective and tenacious attitude to the word of God. Mary’s song has so many Biblical allusions in it. Mary’s Bible minded-ness was really quite something. The Greek word translated “ponder” (Lk. 2:19) comes from syn, “with”, and ballein , “to throw”, as if she combined Scripture with her experience of life, seeking to find her place in the mass of OT allusion and teaching which she was being presented with. Her every phrase has multiple allusions to Scripture, which in itself indicates a fair level of intelligence to think on so many levels simultaneously.

The descriptions of Mary as keeping things in her heart (Lk. 2:19,52), and the way it seems she didn’t tell Joseph about the Angel’s visit, but instead immediately went down to Elisabeth for three months… all these are indications that Mary, like many sensitive people, was a very closed woman. Only when Mary was “found” pregnant by Joseph (Mt. 1:18- s.w. to see, perceive, be obvious) was the situation explained to him by an Angel. It seems His move to divorce her was based on his noticing she was pregnant, and she hadn’t given any explanation to him. She “arose” after perhaps being face down on the ground as the Angel spoke with her, and went immediately off to Elisabeth. And then, after three months she returns evidently pregnant (Lk. 1:39). Mary is portrayed as somehow separate from the other ministering women. It would have been psychologically impossible, or at best very hard, for the mother of the Lord to hang around with them. The group dynamics would have been impossible. Likewise in Acts 1:14 we have “the women, and Mary the mother of Jesus”, as if she is separate from them. She followed Him to Cana, uninvited, and also to Capernaum. Next she is at the cross risking her life, but she isn't among the women who went to the grave. Why not? It was surely natural that she would go there, and that the other women would go with her to comfort her. But she was a loner; either she went alone, as I think I would have tried to, or she just couldn’t face contact with the others and simply hid away. And could it be that Jesus, in recognition of her unique perception of Him, appeared to her first privately, in a rightfully unrecorded meeting? But by Acts 1:14, she was in the upper room, as if His death led her to be more reconciled to her brethren, to seek to get along with them.. although by nature, in her heart and soul, she was a loner, maybe almost reclusive. A struggler to understand. A meditator, a reflector, who just wanted to be alone, one of those who take their energy from themselves rather than from other people.  

2:25 Simeon waited for "the consolation (comfort) of Israel" (Lk.2:25), referring to the Kingdom prophecy of Is.40:1,2- and saw it have a fulfilment in the first coming of the Lord.

2:29 Joseph is simply one of the clearest types of Christ. There are many echoes of Christ which seem to have no specific purpose apart from to confirm us in our enthusiasm to constantly see the spirit of Christ in this record (e.g. Gen. 46:30 = Lk. 2:29,30).

2:33 There must have been certain similarities of personality type between the Lord and His mother. Thus in Lk. 2:33 Mary “marvelled”, and the same word is used about Jesus in Mt. 8:10 and Mk. 6:6.

"The men marvelled" at Joseph’s discernment. Ditto for Christ- it is emphasized (Mt. 8:27; 9:8,33; 21:20, 42; 22:22; 27:14; Lk. 2:33; Jn. 4:27; 7:15).

2:35 Mary’s lack of perception caused her great pain. The way the Lord refers to her as “Woman” both in Cana was, apparently, an unusually cold way for a man to refer to his mother. He effectively rebuffed her in Cana for her lack of perception; He responds to the woman who tells Him how blessed His mother is by saying that all who hear the word of God and keep it are equally blessed. And when His mother wants to speak to Him, He says in front of the whole crowd that His mothers are all who do God’s will. And the final pain must have been at the cross, where in His dying words He tells her that she is no longer His mother, but she must now be the mother of John. Simeon’s prophecy that a sword would pierce her soul (Lk. 2:35- the Syriac text has ‘a spear’) may refer to her feelings on beholding the literal piercing of her son’s side- remembering that He was pierced with “the staff of a spear” (2 Sam. 23:7), it went in so deep. The fact water as well as blood came out is further evidence that the spear penetrated deeply. Yet there is an allusion surely to Is. 49:1,2, where Messiah’s mouth is likened to a sharp, piercing sword. Note how the passage has reference to Mary: “The LORD hath called me from the womb; from the bowels of my mother hath he made mention of my name. And he hath made my mouth like a sharp sword”. Could it not be that Simeon foresaw how the Lord’s words would pierce Mary to the quick? For in all the incidents above, she must have thought with a lump in her throat: ‘But come on Jesus… I’m your mum… the one who knitted and mended your clothes as a child… how can you speak to me like that…?’. And as a sensitive, reflective soul she would have reflected and hurt deeply at these words.

The sword / spear that pierced the Lord pierced her heart, “that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed”. The cross is therefore the ultimate source of self-examination. The Greek for “thoughts” means “inmost thoughts”, and all 13 uses of dialogismos in the NT are negative- bad thoughts, vain thoughts, doubting thoughts. The five other references in Luke are all very pointedly like this (Lk. 5:22; 6:8; 9:46,47; 24:38). We all find self-understanding and self-examination difficult; and we find it hard to feel our sinfulness as we should. Yet the cross is the ultimate stimulus to self-examination, to conviction of sin, and then of salvation and the reality of grace and God’s love. This same process happened for Mary “also”. Over the years she had perhaps lost something of her initial humility, feeling that her exalted place in God’s plan was due to some personal righteousness, and therefore the cross experience had to pierce her too, so that she too had the inmost thoughts of her heart revealed to herself. We have shown earlier how Mary so identified herself with her dearest Son that she felt in some way part of Messiah. Yet over the years of repetitive domestic life in Nazareth, the height of the call to be “in Christ”, really part of Him and His work, must have been ground away. Yet at the cross, her soul was as it were pierced with the same sword / spear that pierced her Son. Ps. 22:20 prophesied how the Lord would suffer “the sword” on the cross, and 2 Sam. 24 had spoken of Him being filled with a spear. “A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also” meant that as Mary was part of Jesus, so she must also share in His sufferings too. The proud and happy mother as she stood before Simeon was so thrilled to be as it were “In Christ”, connected with Messiah. But she had to be reminded that to share in His life is to share in His death- and it was only the actual experience of the cross which brought this home to her. And so with us, brethren in Christ, and rightfully proud of the high calling and association with Him which we have… there is a darker side to our being in Christ. It involves sharing in His death, that we might share in His life. Mary’s achievement of this is perhaps reflected in the way the mother of the man child [Jesus] in Rev. 12 is persecuted after the pattern of her Son Jesus, and yet survives. 

As Simeon held the baby Jesus in his arms, he saw in that beautiful little boy something terrible; for he looked ahead to how His soul would one day be pierced in crucifixion, “that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed" (Lk. 2:35). The same word is used for how thoughts will be revealed at the judgment (Mt. 10:26; 1 Cor. 3:13; 4:5). In the piercing of the Son of God, the thoughts of hearts would be revealed. But the question arises: revealed to whom? We may (rightly) assume: to ourselves. But Luke’s Gospel emphasises the ability of the Lord Jesus to know human hearts (5:22; 6:8; 9:2,6,47; 24:38). Could it not be that the cross is used by the Father and Son to know the minds of men? They see in our response to it the real you and the real me. See on 1 Cor. 11:32.

The cross leads to thoughts being revealed (Lk. 2:35); and the judgment process likewise will lead to thoughts being revealed (s.w. in Mt. 10:26; 1 Cor. 3:13; 4:5). The Lord’s death is described as His washing “his garments in wine, and his vesture in the blood of grapes" (Gen. 49:11 RV). Treading out the grapes is a Hebraism for judgment, and yet it is used here and in Is. 63:1-3 regarding the Lord’s treading of the winepress alone in His death. Indeed, the Isaiah passage is clearly applicable to both the crucifixion and the final judgment of the Lord Jesus. The reason being, that in His death was the judgment of this world.

2:36 Hannah’s example not only influenced Mary, but also Anna’s. ‘Anna’ is an unusual first century name; “of the 247 Jewish women in Palestine from the period 330 BCE -  200 CE whose names are known, Anna [in Luke 2] is the only one who bears this name” (Tal Ilan, ‘Notes of the distribution of Jewish women’s names in Palestine’, Journal of Jewish Studies Vol. 40 (1989) pp. 186,193). She therefore named herself this after Hannah, the Hebrew equivalent of Anna; she was inspired by Hannah’s example of waiting and praying in the sanctuary for a child. For Anna, the coming of Messiah was equivalent to having her own child. Her hope for Messiah’s coming was something which she felt personally. We too are awaiting the Lord’s coming- but with anything of her intensity and feeling? She looked for redemption to appear in Jerusalem (Lk. 2:25,38), clearly alluding to the LXX of Is. 52:9: “The Lord has comforted his people, he has redeemed Jerusalem”. She saw the coming of that little baby as the redemption of God’s people; she had the faith to see things yet unseen. The Hebrew for ‘redemption’ can imply ‘with blood’- is it going too far to suggest that she perceived the need for that little baby to grow up and then shed His blood for Israel’s redemption? Her father’s name, Phanuel, is the Hebrew ‘Peniel’, meaning ‘the face of God’. And ‘Hannah’ means ‘God’s grace’. Straight away we see a link to Num. 6:25: “The Lord make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious unto you”. The connection implies God’s passionate joy at her attitude and existence. Her remaining in the temple was perhaps inspired by passages like Ps. 27:4, where David spoke of his desire to dwell in the temple all the days of his life in order to see God’s beauty- which she understood in terms of His Son. And especially, Mal. 3:1, which speaks of the Lord’s coming to His temple. We must ask ourselves what our Bible study and knowledge actually leads to. A study of Romans 6 may lead to baptism; but all God’s word demands of us an actual and concrete response in the things of real life. She allowed the example of another woman, Hannah, to influence her, perhaps even to the point of changing her name; what of us?

2:37 Men like David, Hezekiah and Daniel appreciated that God knew already. In a sense, all that will happen has happened; so prayer is an opening up of ourselves to God, a service of God (Dan. 6:16; Lk. 2:37), for His glory and for our benefit, rather than a means of communicating information to Him. Therefore they opened themselves up to Him, expressing their understanding that He knew the situation, and didn't present a long list of concrete requests to Him. Their relationship with Him went far beyond that kind of surface level. What of ours?

2:38- see on Lk. 2:36.

The loyal band of Bible students in the temple expected redemption to appear in Jerusalem (Lk.2:38), presumably because of the Old Testament prophecies like Joel 2 concerning Christ being manifested in Jerusalem at His second coming and Kingdom. But their first century application of these was not wrong.

2:39 Mary “performed [fulfilled] all things according to the law” in her dedication of Jesus (Lk. 2:39). In doing this, she anticipated the spirit of the cross and whole ministry of Jesus, where He performed [s.w. fulfilled] all things of the law- Lk. 18:31; Jn. 19:28; 30; Acts 13:29. These passages each use the same three words for all things, law, and fulfilled. She brought the Lord up in the way of the cross; and He continued in that path.  

2:40 Hebrews always speaks of Him as “perfected”, as a verb (Heb. 2:10; 5:9; 7:28)- never with the adjective ‘perfect’. Apart from being a major problem for Trinitarian views, this simple fact sets Him up as our pattern, whom the Father seeks like wise ‘to perfect’. Yet the path the Lord had to take to achieve this was hard indeed. Not only did it culminate in the cross, but His growth as a young man is described by the word prokoptein (Lk. 2:40,52), defined by Karl Barth [Church Dogmatics I 2, p. 158] as meaning ‘to extend by blows, as a smith stretches metal by hammering’. Through childhood crises and the turmoil of adolescence, this is what He went through, to lead Him to the final ‘perfection’ of being able to say “I am”. Because Jesus was always showing His essential self- and this is in some ways an exhausting and almost unbearable way to live- He tended to connect easier to the real selves in His hearers. It may seem strange on first reflection to realize that the peerless Son of God could connect so easily with the hardest of sinners. Whenever we try to be righteous, we often alienate ordinary, sinful people. Yet why, then, did Jesus connect with them by being righteous? Surely because it was somehow so evident that He was no acting out a persona; He was being absolutely Himself, not acting out a part, with no hidden agendas. This was the beauty of His character; just as nature is beautiful because it simply is what it is. So self-evidently, who He was within, was who He showed Himself to be. The more we are ‘ourselves’, the more likely it is that we will connect with our contacts. People who only live out their personas create an impersonal atmosphere around them, whereas the person who lives and shows their real self encourages those around him or her to also feel themselves to be persons. I would go even further and suggest that the more we live as who we are, God Himself will become more personal to us.

2:47- see on Acts 2:7.

2:48 Mary sought Jesus “sorrowing”, using a word elsewhere used about despair and anguish for the loss of life (Lk. 16:24,25; Acts 20:38). She feared He was dead. But where, then, was her faith in the promise that He would have an eternal Kingdom…? The distraction of poverty, the demands of the other children, perhaps an unsupportive partner, self-doubt… all these ground away at her earlier spirituality and faith, just as happens to so many of us after baptism too. “Why have you done this to us?” is a rebuke- as if she implied that Jesus had sinned / done wrong by what He had done? Surely her faith in a sinless Messiah was now put to a brutal test by a domestic upset; just as, in barest essence, ours is too by such things. Yet notice that she frames those words in the LXX language of Gen. 3:14; 4:10; 1 Sam. 13:11. Those allusions would imply that she felt Jesus had sinned; and yet at the same time as revealing that gross lack of perception, another part of her mind is still back in Scripture. Unlike 12 years previously, she is now using Scripture without correct context; but she has far from totally lost her spirituality.

Mary and Joseph were “amazed” (Lk. 2:48). She shared Joseph's amazement; and the word is only used of the amazement / incomprehension of the crowds- Mt. 7:28; 13:54; 19:25; 22:33; Mk. 10:26. Slowly she became influenced by the world's view of her son- not totally, but partially, to the extent that she lost that keen perception and height of spiritual ambition which she had earlier had. And so it can be for so many of us; the world comes to influence our view not only of our own children, but of all things in spiritual life.

Rebuked- a Joseph allusion (Gen. 37:10).

Mary scolds Him that his father [Joseph] and her have been seeking for Him. The surrounding world perceived Him as the carpenter’s son (Mt. 13:55), the son of Joseph (Jn. 6:42). He was “as was supposed” [‘reckoned legally’?] the son of Joseph” (Lk. 3:23). Even Philip perceived Messiah to be “the son of Joseph” even after he had accepted Him (Jn. 1:45). Hence Jesus gently rebuked her that He was about His true Father’s business, in His true Father’s house. Her description of Joseph as “thy father” is surely worthy of the Lord’s rebuke. She had allowed the views of the world to influence her view of the Lord. “Is not this the son of Mary?” (Mk. 6:3) is paralleled in Mt. 13:55 by “the carpenter's son”, and in Lk. 4:22 Joseph's son; everyone assumed they were His natural parents, the son of Mary & Joseph, and this came to influence her. Jesus told them that they should have sought Him in His true Father’s house- and this may not only be a reference to the temple, but to the way in which they had assumed He was somewhere with the house / family of Joseph in the convoy; and perhaps they had gone round Joseph’s relatives in Jerusalem hunting for Him.  

2:49 There are Biblical examples of refusing to take guilt when others feel that it should be taken. Recall how the Lord’s own parents blamed Him for ‘making them anxious’ by ‘irresponsibly’ remaining behind in the temple. The Lord refused to take any guilt, didn’t apologize, and even gently rebuked them (Lk. 2:42-51). In similar vein, Paul wrote to the Corinthians: “Even if I made you sorry with a letter, I do not regret it” (2 Cor. 7:8). He would not take guilt for their being upset with him. Likewise Absalom comforted his raped sister not to ‘take it to heart’, not to feel guilty about it, as it seems she was feeling that way, taking false guilt upon her (2 Sam. 13:20).

A window into the Lord's self-perception is given in the record of His behaviour in the temple at age 12. Within the psychological matrix in which the young Jesus existed, as well as within the cultural norms of first century Palestine, it was rude for a 12 year old to retort to his mother: "Didn't you know I would be about my father's business?". It appears insolent towards Joseph too. But that statement, in the Lord's case, was not a sin, nor a typically precocious childish comment- although it would've been on the lips of any other 12 year old. Instead it reflects an abnormal degree of detachment from His mother and step-father, and a remarkable statement as to how much He was Himself, how mature and strong was His sense of identity as the uniquely begotten Son of God.

A sense of compulsion was found in the Lord’s whole life of service, leading up to the cross as it did (see on Mk. 14:49):

“Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" (Luke 2:49)

“And he said unto them, I must preach the kingdom of God to other cities also: for therefore am I sent" (Luke 4:43)

“He left Judaea, and departed again into Galilee. And he must needs go through Samaria" (John 4:3-4). This is significant, as this was not from geographical necessity. The Lord was in the Jordan valley (Jn. 3:22) and could easily have taken the valley road north through Bethshan into Galilee, avoiding Samaria entirely.

“I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work" (John 9:4).

2:50 Lk. 2:50 records that “she understood not”, using the same phrase as is on the lips of the Lord in Mt. 13:13, speaking of those without who " hear not neither do they understand”; and ominously, Mary stood without and asked to see Jesus, only to be told that His real mothers were those women sitting around Him listening to His words. In passing, note how the disciples also often "understood not" (Mt. 16:12; Mk. 6:52; 8:17,21; Lk. 18:34). And yet the Lord counted them as more understanding than they were. As with Mary.  She “understood not” (Lk. 2:50) the clear enough statement that He was in His Father’s house. And the Lord rebuked her for spending so long, three days, looking elsewhere when she should have perceived quicker that He was going to be in the house of His true Father. I take His words not as a sharp rebuff but rather more of grief, that Mary had known him so poorly, sad at her loss of perception.

2:51 In Lk. 2:51 it is recorded that she “kept these sayings”. It could be that she had pondered from the LXX of Gen. 37:11 how Jacob “observed” (s.w.) the saying of Joseph / Jesus, and therefore felt that she too must meditate on all the words associated with her Son.

The Lord at 12 years old displayed such piercing knowledge and spirituality, but it seems He returned to Nazareth and suppressed the expression of it (Lk. 2:51). This is why the villagers were so amazed when He stood up in the Nazareth synagogue and on the basis of Old Testament exposition, indirectly declared Himself the Messiah. He must have stored up so much knowledge and spirituality within Him, but hid it from the eyes of men. This was quite an achievement- to be perfect, and yet not to be noticed as somehow other-worldly.

subject unto The Lord was “subject unto” Mary (Lk. 2:51)- to train Him for the time when we would be subject to Him as we are now (1 Cor. 15:27,28; Eph. 1:22; 5:24; ), and all the world subject unto Him (1 Pet. 3:22; Heb. 2:8). And so, wondrous thought that it is, the training of His mother has effect even now; with literally all subject to Him, He was prepared for this by having been subject unto His mother. 

“Observed” is a Joseph allusion (Gen. 37:11).

2:52- see on Mk. 6:2; Lk. 2:19.

A Joseph allusion: "The Lord... gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison" (Gen. 39:21).

3:4 Just as the preaching of the Gospel was to make straight paths for the Messiah to come (Lk. 3:4), so we are to make our paths straight (Heb. 12:13)- as if somehow we are the Lord Jesus; His revelation to this world at the second coming will in a sense be our revelation. Hence the final visions of Revelation speak of the Lord's second coming in terms which are applicable to the community of those in Him [e.g. a city of people coming down from Heaven to earth]. John’s preaching was in order to make [s.w. ‘to bring forth fruit’] His [the Lord’s] paths straight- but the ways of the Lord are “right” [s.w. “straight”] anyway (Acts 13:10). So how could John’s preaching make the Lord’s ways straight / right, when they already are? God is so associated with His people that their straightness or crookedness reflects upon Him; for they are His witnesses in this world. His ways are their ways. This is the N.T. equivalent of the O.T. concept of keeping / walking in the way of the Lord (Gen. 18:19; 2 Kings 21:22). Perhaps this is the thought behind the exhortation of Heb. 12:13 to make straight paths for our own feet. We are to bring our ways into harmony with the Lord’s ways; for He is to be us, His ways our ways. Thus Is. 40:3, which is being quoted in Lk. 3:4, speaks of “Prepare ye the way of the Lord”, whereas Is. 62:10 speaks of “Prepare ye the way of the people”. Yet tragically, the way / path of Israel was not the way / path of the Lord (Ez. 18:25).

There was an intensity and critical urgency about John and his message. John urged people to make their path “straight”- using a Greek word elsewhere translated “immediately”, “forthwith” (Lk. 3:4 s.w. Mk. 1:12,28 and often). Getting things straight in our lives is a question of immediate response. He warns people to “flee from the wrath to come” (Lk. 3:7). This was what their changed lives and baptisms were to be about- a fleeing from the wrath to come. He speaks as if that “wrath to come” is just about to come, it’s staring them in the face like a wall of forest fire, and they are to flee away from it. And yet Paul (in one of his many allusions to John’s message, which perhaps he had heard himself ‘live’) speaks of “the wrath to come” as being the wrath of the final judgment (1 Thess. 1:10), or possibly that of AD70 (1 Thess. 2:16). But both those events would not have come upon the majority of John’s audience. And the day of ‘wrath to come’ is clearly ultimately to be at the Lord’s return (Rev. 6:17; 11:18). Yet John zooms his hearers forward in time, to perceive that they face condemnation and judgment day right now, as they hear the call of the Gospel. This was a feature of John; he had the faith which sees things which are not as though they already are. Thus he looked at Jesus walking towards him and commented that here was the “Lamb of God”, a phrase the Jews would’ve understood as referring to the lamb which was about to be sacrificed on Passover (Jn. 1:29). John presumably was referencing the description of the crucified Jesus in Is. 53:7; for John, he foresaw it all, it was as if he saw Jesus as already being led out to die, even though that event was over three years distant. And so he could appeal to his audience to face judgment day as if they were standing there already. We need to have the same perspective.

3:5 John the Baptist's ministry was so that the 'crooked' nation of Israel should be 'made straight' and ready to accept Jesus as Messiah (Lk. 3:5). God's enabling power was present so that this might have happened; but the same word is used in Acts 2:40 and Phil. 2:15 to describe Israel as still being a 'crooked' nation. John's preaching, like ours, was potentially able to bring about the conversion of an entire nation. So instead of being discouraged by the lack of response to our witness, let's remember the enormous potential power which there is behind it. Every word, witness of any kind, tract left lying on a seat... has such huge potential conversion power lodged within it, a power from God Himself.

John's mission was to prepare Israel for Christ, to figuratively 'bring low' the hills and mountains, the proud Jews of first century Israel, and raise the valleys, i.e. inspire the humble with the real possibility of salvation in Christ (Lk. 3:5). Paul uses the same Greek word for "bring low" no fewer than three times, concerning how the Gospel has humbled him (Acts 20:19; 2 Cor. 11:7; Phil. 4:12). It's as if he's saying: 'John's preaching did finally have its’ effect upon me; it did finally make me humble enough for the Lord Jesus'. And as John made straight paths for men's feet that they might come unto Christ (Mt. 3:3), so did Paul (Heb. 12:13). 

3:6 There was another reason behind John’s appeal for repentance. It was that he perceived how eager God is to forgive, and how our acceptance of that forgiveness is His glory and His salvation. John says, quoting Is. 40:5, that if men repent and ready themselves for the Lord’s coming, then “all flesh shall see the salvation of God”. But he is changing the quotation- Isaiah said that all flesh shall see the glory of God. But saving men and women is the thing God glories in.

3:7 The ideas of fleeing wrath and preparing a way are surely based upon the Law’s command in Dt. 19:3 that a way or road should be prepared to the city of refuge (symbolic of Christ- Heb. 6:18), along which the person under the death sentence for manslaughter could flee for refuge. John was preparing that way or road to Christ, and urging ordinary people to flee along it. They didn’t like to think they were under a death sentence for murder. They were just ordinary folk like the soldiers who grumbled about their wages, and the publicans who were a bit less than honest at work. But they had to flee. But they wouldn’t be alone in that. If a man prepares his way after God’s principles (2 Chron. 27:6; Prov. 4:26), then God will ‘prepare’ that man’s way too (Ps. 37:23; 119:5), confirming him in the way of escape.

This intense, urgent presentation of the ultimate issues of life and death, acceptance and rejection, brought forth a massive response. People lined up for baptism. And John was hardly polite. He called his baptismal candidates a “generation of vipers”, alluding obviously to the seed of the serpent in Gen. 3:15. Yet his tough line with them, his convicting them of sin, led them to ask what precisely they must do, in order to be baptized. They didn’t turn away in offence. They somehow sensed he was for real, and the message he preached couldn’t be ignored or shrugged off as the ravings of a fanatic. Time and again we see the same- the very height of the demand of Christ of itself convicts men and women of Him. And it’s for this reason that it seems almost ‘easier’ to convict people of Christ and the need for baptism into Him in societies [e.g. radical Moslem ones] where the price for conversion to Him is death or serious persecution… than in the easy going Western countries where being ‘Christian’ is the normal cultural thing to do.

The Gospel was presented in different forms by the early preachers, according to their audience. John the baptist set the pattern in this. Having quoted the prophecy about the need for the rough to be made smooth and the proud to be humbled in order for them to accept Jesus, John “said therefore to the multitude… ye offspring of vipers” (Lk. 3:7 RV). He used tough and startling language because that was what the audience required. He had set his aims- to humble the proud. And so he used “therefore” appropriate approaches. The early preachers as Paul became all things to all men, so that they might win some. They therefore consciously matched their presentation and how they articulated the same basic truths to their audience.

But perhaps even his comment “Generation of vipers” was said with a heart of love and appeal, reflecting the “heart of mercy” which he had come to know in the Father. He was “the friend of the bridegroom” (Jn. 3:29)- the one who introduced the groom to the bride and arranged the marriage and then the wedding. John’s “Generation of vipers” stuff was all part of his attempt to persuade the bride, Israel, to accept the groom, the Lord Jesus. He wasn’t angrily moralizing, lashing out at society as many a dysfunctional preacher does today, working out his own anger by criticizing and condemning society in the name of God. No, John was appealing. He had an agenda and an aim- to bring Israel and the Son of God together in marriage.

When asked who he was, John’s reply was simply: “a voice”. He was nothing; his message about Jesus was everything. In all this there is a far cry from the self-confident, self-projecting speaking off the podium which characterizes so much of our ‘preaching’ today. So John’s appeal to repentance was shot through with a recognition of his own humanity. It wasn’t mere moralizing. We likely don’t preach as John did because we fear that confronting people with their sins is inappropriate for us to do, because we too are sinners. But with recognition of our own humanity, we build a bridge between our audience and ourselves. In this context it's worth reconsidering Lk. 3:7: "Who has warned you to flee from the wrath to come?". John said these words to those who were coming to him wishing to be baptized by him- exactly because he had warned them of the wrath to come. It's possible that John meant this as a rhetorical reflection, thus enabling us to paraphrase him something like this: 'And what kind of man am I, who am I, just another sinful guy like you, who has warned you to flee? I'm nothing- don't get baptized because of me, but because you repent and are committed to bringing forth the fruits of repentance". And it’s worth meditating that if Israel had responded to his preaching, then the glorious salvation of God might have even then been revealed in the form of the Kingdom coming on earth, even then. But instead of heeding John’s message, Israel in the end crucified their King, necessitating a latter day John the Baptist mission (Mt. 11:13,14; 17:11,12). And it’s not going too far to suggest that our latter day witness to Israel and indeed to the world is to conducted in the spirit of John’s preaching; hence the crucial importance of understanding the spirit and content of his witness.

3:8 The eagerness of the Lord for the inculcation of faith is seen in the way He foresees the likely thought processes within men. “Begin not to say within yourselves....” (Lk. 3:8), He told a generation of vipers; and He eagerly strengthened the centurion’s faith when it was announced that faith was pointless, because his daughter had died.

3:9- see on Lk. 13:8; Col. 3:13.

3:11 In order to prepare the way of the Lord, to make a level passage for Him, the man with two coats should give to him who had none, and likewise share his food (Lk. 3:11). So the ‘equality’ and levelling was to be one of practical care for others. We have to ask, how often we have shared our food, clothing or money with those who don’t have… for this is all part of preparing for the Lord’s coming. It could even be that when there is more of what Paul calls “an equality” amongst the community of believers, that then the way of the Lord will have been prepared. And He will then return.

3:12 Lk. 3:12 records how there "came also publicans to be baptized, and said unto him, Master, what shall we do?". There is a parallel between desiring baptism and realizing that they must do something concretely in their lives. The baptism process brings us into the realm of God's gracious forgiveness and redemption, and into living contact with the real Christ. There is no way we can be passive to this and do nothing about it.

3:13 John the Baptist showed a spirit of concession to human weakness in his preaching. He told the publicans: “Extort no more than that which is appointed you” (Lk. 3:13 RV). He tacitly accepted that these men would be into extortion. But within limits, he let it go. Likewise he told soldiers to be content with their wages- not to quit the job.

3:14 The nature of how demanding John was is reflected in his response to the soldiers and publicans. He didn’t tell them to quit their jobs, but to live with integrity within those jobs. He told the soldiers to be content with their wages- implying he expected them to not throw in their job. This is juxtaposed with the command for them to do no violence. But not grumbling about wages was as fundamental an issue for John as not doing physical violence to people. To have as Paul put it “Godliness with contentment” [another of his allusions to John’s preaching?] is as important as not doing violence. And yet our tendency is to think that moaning about our wages is a perfectly normal and acceptable thing to do, whereas violence is of an altogether different order. It’s like Paul hitting the Corinthians for their divisiveness, when if we’d been writing to them we would likely have focused upon their immorality and false doctrine. John would have been far less demanding had he simply told the publicans and soldiers to quit their jobs. By asking them to continue, and yet to live out their lives within those jobs with Godly principles, He was being far more demanding.

John places complaining about wages [a common human fault] in juxtaposition with doing violence to others (Lk. 3:14)- to show that in his serious call to a devout and holy life, there are no such things as little sins. Ez. 16:49,50 defines the sins of Sodom as including “pride, fullness of bread, and abundance of idleness, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor… they were haughty, and committed abomination”. The abomination of their sexual perversion is placed last in the list, as if to emphasize that all the other sins were just as much sin. Likewise Paul writes to the Corinthians about their failures, but he doesn’t start where I would have started- with their drunkenness at the memorial meeting. Instead he starts off with their disunity. Those things which we may consider as lesser sins, the Bible continually lists together with those things we have been conditioned into thinking are the greater sins. Clearest of all is the way Paul lists schism and hatred in his lists of sins that will exclude from the Kingdom. The Anglo-Saxon worldview has taught that sexual sin is so infinitely far worse than a bit of argument within a church. But is this really right…?

3:17 John says that the axe is laid to the root of the trees; his hearers were about to be cut down and thrown into the fire of condemnation. And He says that the Jesus whom he heralds is about to come and divide the wheat from the chaff in judgment, gathering in the wheat, and burning the chaff with “unquenchable fire” (Lk. 3:17). But the ‘fire’ of condemnation and the division of wheat and chaff is to be done ultimately at the Lord’s second coming (Mt. 13:30; Mk. 9:48). But for John, the moment his audience met Jesus, they were standing before the Lord of judgment, the Judge of all the earth. In their response to Him, they were living out the final judgment. And this is just as true of us, both as preachers and hearers of the Gospel.

3:18 The message that the Lord will "burn with unquenchable fire" those who reject Him is described as Jesus preaching "good tidings unto the people" (Lk. 3:18 RV). Likewise the stark teaching about the mortality of man in Is. 40 is quoted in 1 Pet. as being the Gospel. The harder side of God is in fact the good news for those who reflect deeply upon the essential message and nature of the Almighty. In Jer. 26:2, Jeremiah is warned to “diminish not a word, if so be…” Israel may repent. His temptation of course was to water down the message which he had to deliver. But only the harder, more demanding side of God might elicit response in them. By making the message less demanding, it wouldn’t have any chance of eliciting a response.

3:20 Even with very sinful men, their continual sins still register in the feelings of God. The way God progressively senses the weight of accumulated sin is reflected in His description of the Amorites' iniquity filling up (Gen. 15:16); or Israel marrying Gentiles “to increase the trespass of Israel" (Ezra 10:10). “The iniquity of Israel is bound up, his sin is kept in store” (Hos. 13:12). God sees some wicked men as more wicked than others; for He is sensitive to every one of their sins (e.g. 2 Kings 17:2). "For three transgressions and for four" of Israel or the Gentiles, God would still punish Jew and Gentile alike (Am. 1,2)- i.e. He still feels the fourth sin, He doesn't become insensitive after the third sin. And this doesn't only apply to His people; but to all sin, committed by anyone, anywhere. Thus Herod "added yet this above all" when he imprisoned John after also sinning with another man's wife (Lk. 3:20). We have an uncanny ability to become numb to sin the more we see or do it. But not so Almighty, all righteous God. This is a feature of His nature that needs meditation.

3:23- see on Lk. 2:49.

The genealogies do prove that Joseph was a descendant of David, indeed the rightful king of Israel had there been a monarchy at the time of Jesus. Jesus was his adopted son; he was "as was supposed", or 'as was reckoned by law', the son of Joseph (Luke 3:23). The record in Luke appears to be that of Mary; Joseph being "the son of Heli" was probably by reason of marrying Mary, the daughter of Heli (Lk.3:23); the Talmud speaks with gross vitriolic about Mary the daughter of Heli going to hell for her blasphemy, referring to Mary the mother of Jesus. This shows that the Jews accept that Mary was the daughter of Heli. Heli's father was Matthat, who can be equated with Matthan the grandfather of Joseph. Thus Mary and Joseph were cousins (hinting at an arranged marriage?), and therefore Jesus was a son of David through both his mother and father by adoption. In the light of this it is evident that the question mark over the validity of a genealogy through Joseph is an irrelevancy, seeing that Joseph and Mary had a common grandfather. The point has to be made that a humanly fabricated genealogy would be sure to make some glaring errors, especially if it was produced by simple, uneducated men as the Jews claim the New Testament was. The wonder of the New Testament genealogies is that closer study reveals ever more intricate internal evidence for their truth and reliability, rather than exposing more problems.

3:27 Lk. 3:27 describes Zerubbabel as the head / chief / leader. The term Rhesa is incorrectly rendered in many versions as a name. Perhaps Luke’s point was that the Lord Jesus was the final Messiah, after the failure of so many potential ones beforehand. ‘Zerubbabel the chief’ would then be a similar rubric to “David the king” in Matthew’s genealogy (Mt. 1:16).

3:38 The Roman emperors and Greek heroes sometimes traced their pedigree back to a god- and therefore the genealogies of Jesus we find in Matthew and Luke were quite radical in this regard. For they traced the pedigree of Jesus back to God- as if He were the emperor.

4:3 The first temptation- to turn stones into bread- would not in itself have been a sin if He had agreed to it. But it would have been choosing a lower level, by breaking His fast. But the next temptations were to actually sin. If He had agreed to the first suggestion, obedience to the next ones would have been harder. It could even be argued that to put the Lord to the test was permissible on a lower level- for passages like Ps. 34:8 and Mal. 3:10 almost encourage it for those with a weak faith. Gideon likewise put the Lord to the test and was answered. But the Lord chose the higher level: and He knew Scripture which could support it. But the fact He chose the highest level first of all, meant that He was better able to take the higher level again, and to finally overcome the third temptation, which was definitely a clear choice between right and wrong. More than this, anything other than a desire to make the highest maximum commitment can lead to failure. “The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left” (Ecc. 10:2 NIV) has been understood as referring not so much to right and wrong, good and evil, as to the highest good and lesser good (cp. how the left hand can stand for simply lesser blessing rather than outright evil, e.g. Gen. 48:13-20). The fool inclines to lower commitment. The wise will always incline to the maximum, wholehearted level.

4:8 The record of the Lord’s wilderness temptations is almost certainly a reflection of His self-perception; He spoke to the ‘devil’ / personification of sin which was within Him, He saw Himself as two people, and His spiritual man triumphed gloriously against the man of the flesh. Lk. 4:8 records how “Jesus answered and said unto him, Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve”. He understood that we can only serve two masters: God or the flesh (“mammon” is another personification of the flesh, similar to ‘satan’). He saw His own flesh, His own internal thoughts, as a master begging to be served which He must totally reject. His words are a quotation from Dt. 6:13, which warns Israel to serve Yahweh alone and not idols. He perceived His own natural mind and desire as an idol calling to be served. When the Lord explained what had happened in the wilderness to the disciples and thereby to the Gospel writers, He opened His heart to them. He gave us all a window on how He perceived Himself, as He sought to explain to men the internal struggles of the Son of God. Bringing it all back home, I must ask firstly how much we even struggle with temptation? And as and when we do, would we not be helped by the Lord’s example of talking to ourselves, and personalising Scripture as He did? ‘You don’t want to do that! Give up your place in the Kingdom, for that...drug, that girl, that job? Of course not! Come on. There is a way of escape; Paul told me God won’t try me beyond my strength, He will make me a way of escape’.

4:10 The Angels were given “charge concerning thee” (Jesus)- in the court of Heaven, God’s purpose was declared and His charge made clear concerning His Son (Lk. 4:10 RVmg.)

4:11 Luke 4:11 records how Jesus was reminded that the Angels would "bear (Him) up". Presumably this was to be taken literally- the Angels physically with Him would have literally held Him under the arms if He jumped from the temple. So we see the literal physical presence of the Angels in our lives. The eyes of God, an evident reference to the Angels, are associated with the temple (1 Kings 8:29; Ps. 11:4; Ps. 5:6-8). The implication surely is that the Angel[s] specifically functioned in the temple / sanctuary. It seems that great stress is placed in Scripture on the Angels physically moving through space, both on the earth and between Heaven and earth, in order to fulfil their tasks, rather than being static in Heaven or earth and bringing things about by just willing them to happen. See on Gen. 18:10.

4:16-21- see on Mk. 1:15.

4:18 Christ means 'Messiah', the  anointed one. He was anointed in order "to preach the Gospel" (Lk. 4:18); and we too have been anointed insofar as we are in Christ, the anointed one (2 Cor. 1:21). Therefore as He was ordained a preacher of the Gospel to the world, we too share that honour (as we do all His honours, to some extent). He was anointed (‘oiled’) by God in order to give the oil of joy to His people; He shared His experience of anointing with us, and we must go out and do likewise (Is. 61:1,2 cp. Lk. 4:18).

4:21 Some prophecies are fulfilled according to the acceptance of their fulfillment by believers, and therefore have their fulfilments in different ways at different times. Thus for those who received it, Malachi’s ‘Elijah’ prophecies were fulfilled in John the Baptist, for those who accepted him (Mt. 11:14). The implication is that for those who didn’t, those prophecies weren’t fulfilled. When the Lord stood up and read from Isaiah, He commented that “this day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears” (Lk. 4:21). He didn’t mean that His reading those words in a synagogue had fulfilled them. He speaks of “your ears” as standing for ‘your correct perception / understanding’ in Mt. 13:16. What He was surely saying was that for those of them who perceived who He was, Isaiah’s words were ringing true. For those who rejected Him, of course, they weren’t fulfilled, and therefore their complete, universal acceptance  / fulfilment would be delayed until a future day; just as it was with the ‘Elijah’ prophecy.  

4:22 Because of the gracious words and manner of speaking of Jesus, therefore God so highly exalted Him (Ps. 45:2). The Father was so impressed with the words of His Son. Lk. 4:22 records how people were amazed at the gracious words He spoke; there was something very unusual in His manner of speaking. Evidently there must have been something totally outstanding about His use of language. God highly exalted Him because He so loved righteousness and hated wickedness (Ps. 45:7), and yet also because of His manner of speaking (Ps. 45:2); so this love of righteousness and hatred of evil was what made His words so special.  

4:25,26- see on James 5:16-18.

4:29 Jephthah had been "despised and rejected of men" during the time of Israel's suffering.  In this and many other ways he is a clear type of Christ. Jephthah reminded the "elders of Gilead" who were now seeking his help, "Did not ye hate me, and expel me out of my father's house?" (Jud. 11:7).  The Hebrew for "expel" is also translated 'thrust out'; Jesus was 'thrust out' from his native town (Lk. 4:29) as Jephthah was from Gilead.   It was "the elders" who were also responsible for Christ's rejection. He was despised as "the son of a strange woman" (Jud. 11:2) as Jesus was accused of being born out of wedlock (Jn. 8:41).

4:43- see on Acts 8:12.

The preaching of the Kingdom is made parallel to preaching the time of acceptance with God and forgiveness of sins now (Lk. 4:43 cp. 19, 2 Cor. 6:2); Rom. 14:17, which seems to teach that the Kingdom of God is more about "peace and joy in the Holy Spirit", both now and eternally, than physical, tangible things. Christ's parables about the Kingdom don't speak of a political Kingdom, but rather about the relationship between God and the believer in the here and now.

5:5- see on Jn. 21:7.

Despite having toiled all night and caught nothing, Peter was able to subdue his natural wisdom, his sense of futility, and the sense of irritation and superiority which exists in the experienced working man: "Nevertheless (how much that hides!) at thy word  I will let down the net" (Lk. 5:5). It would seem that the parallel record of this is found in Mt. 4:18, which describes the call of the disciples soon after Christ's triumphant emergence from the wilderness temptations. We learn from Jn. 1:41,42 that it was Peter's brother, Andrew, who first told Peter about Jesus, and who brought him to meet Jesus first of all. The point is that at the time of Peter's call as he was fishing, he had probably heard very few of Christ's words personally. He had heard about Him, and listened to His words for perhaps a few hours at different times in the past. So where did he get this tremendous respect for the word of Christ from, which he demonstrated when Christ called him? The answer must be that he meditated deeply on those words that he had heard and understood, and came to appreciate that the man saying them was worth giving all for. Our far easier access to God's word does not seem to make us more meditative as individuals. We have access to hearing God's word which previous generations never had. We can listen to it on a Walkman, have tapes of well read Scripture playing at home, analyze it by computer, hear it sung to us according to our taste in music, read it from pocket Bibles as we work and travel... we can  and could  do all these things. My sense is that we just don't make use of our opportunities as we should. Why has God given our generation these special opportunities to be ultra-familiar with His word? Surely it is because our age contains temptations which are simply more powerful than those of former years. So it is vital, vital for our eternal destiny, that we do make as much use as possible of all these opportunities. We should be cramming,  yes cramming, our hearts and brains with the words of God. I certainly get the feeling that Peter would have listened to a tape of Isaiah on his Walkman if he had one, as he went out fishing; that he'd have had tapes of the Psalms going all evening long in his little fisherman's cottage, wife and kids caught up in his enthusiasm too (Mk. 10:10,15 suggests that the incident with the little children occurred in Peter's house). There are a handful of Christian homes where this spirit is truly seen.  

It seems to me that the Lord asks each of us to do that which is essentially difficult for us personally, something against the grain of our very nature and personal understanding of and position in life. This may explain why sometimes He asked those He cured to spread the message (perhaps the introverts, or those whose past lives had been notorious?), whilst others (perhaps the extroverts?) He asked to remain silent about what He had done. When the Lord asked Peter to go out fishing, for example, this was totally and exactly against every grain of Peter's natural self. He was a fisherman, he'd been fishing all night, he knew it was absolutely pointless to try again. He knew that a carpenter didn't know what a fisherman did. The Lord's request was a blow at the justifiable pride in his specialism which every working man has. If the Lord Jesus had asked let's say Paul to go out fishing, well, I guess he'd have obeyed with no real difficulty. But He asked Peter to do that, at that very moment, because it was a real cross for Peter to pick up. Likewise it would have seemed logical for Paul to preach to the Jews, and Peter to the Gentiles (note how the Gentiles approached Philip, from semi-Gentile Galilee, in Jn. 12:20,21). Yet in fact the Lord God used those men in the very opposite way, right against the grain of their natural abilities. He asked goldsmiths to do the manual work of building the wall of Jerusalem, bruising their sensitive fingers against lumps of rock (Neh. 3:8,31); and Barak’s victorious warriors were civil servants and writers (Jud. 5:14), not military men. Paul was sent to the Gentiles and Peter to the Jews, when we’d have thought that naturally speaking, they would have been far more comfortable in the reverse roles. Judas was put in charge of the money amongst the twelve; when Matthew the tax collector would presumably have been the obvious man for the job. Naaman wanted to do some great act, but was asked to do the hardest thing for him- to dip in Jordan. And Abraham was asked to do what was so evidently the hardest thing- to offer up his only, specially beloved son.

5:6- see on Acts 2:6.

5:7 It would seem that Peter as a working man had a love of his job. He left his fishing in Mark 1 to follow the Lord, but returned to it by Luke 5. Then he left it, and returned to it in the post-resurrection crisis. The Lord’s provision of fish on the shore was simply saying: ‘You don’t need to fish any more’. He asked them to drag the nets to land, which would usually have broken them, but they didn’t break. Likewise He had earlier told fisherman Peter to cast the net on the other side, when Peter knew full well which side of the boat there were likely to be fish. And a whirlwind storm had come upon Galilee which would have drowned fisherman and sailor Peter were it not for the Lord’s presence. In all these things, Peter was being taught to quit the life that he loved. “Lovest thou me more than these?” was asked with the huge catch of fish lying there on the shore- a fisherman’s dream. It could be that the question referred to them. ‘Go and feed my sheep rather than worry about your fish’. When earlier the boats had begun to sink with too many fish, the word used for ‘sinking’ occurs in 1 Tim. 6:9, about believers being drowned in materialism and thereby condemning themselves (Lk. 5:7). Whether it’s a career that we love, a livelihood that we simply trust as a sure means of human survival, or the spiritual pride that we love the Lord more than our brethren, all these things are demanded of us by the demanding Lord, as we seek to follow Him to the cross. 

5:8- see on Jn. 21:7.

The Father seems to have wanted Peter to make the connection between preaching and recognition of personal sinfulness quite early on. “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord” (Lk. 5:8) was followed by a commission to go preach the Gospel to Israel, just as Isaiah had been brought to the same point and then been sent on a like mission. The picture of the condemned is presented in Scripture in some detail. We are all condemned men and women before the light of the glory of Jesus Christ. If we are to be saved in that future day, we must judge / condemn ourselves now in our self-examination (1 Cor. 11:31). This means that we ought to have their feelings in some respects; as they will have no desire to go on living in the flesh, as they will so earnestly desire entry into the Kingdom, as they will then desperately not want to go back into the world... so we should feel now, grateful that for us there is entry into the Kingdom made possible. Thus Peter asked the Lord to depart from him (Lk. 5:8), with the very same words the Lord used about what He will say to the rejected (Lk. 13:27).

Capturing the spirit of Isaiah, Peter fell down at Christ's feet: "Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord" . But the Lord responded: "Fear not; from henceforth thou shalt catch men" (Lk. 5:8-10). So Peter's deep recognition of his sinfulness resulted in him being given a preaching commission. And in similar vein, Peter was given another commission to teach the word the first time he met Christ after his denials (Jn. 21:15-17). In response to this he stood up and preached that forgiveness of sins was possible to all those that are afar off from God (Acts 2:39). As he did so, consciously or unconsciously, part of his mind must have been back in the way that on that shameful night he followed the Lord “afar off”, and far off from Him, denied Him (Mk. 14:54). Peter’s vision of the unclean animals in the net taught him that those people whom he considered unclean, he was to “eat”, i.e. preach to and fellowship with. When he recounts the vision, he comments [in an account that is strictly factual in all other regards and without any embellishment]: “It [the sheet with the animals] came even to me” (Acts 11:5). He is expressing his unworthiness at being called to the task of preaching, just as Paul likewise expressed his inadequacy.

5:10- see on Lk. 9:59; Jn. 21:2.

5:11 Peter on the shore doesn’t say to the Lord that he had ‘made a mistake’ or cast the net on the wrong side etc.- he confesses that he is a “sinful man” altogether (Lk. 5:11). Jesus taught that sin was no longer to be seen as a list of specific actions which must be avoided in order to have a good conscience before God. The conviction of sin as God intends is far deeper than this. As the Lord makes clear, it’s all about motives, what is inside the cup rather than what appears on the outside (Lk. 11:39).

5:17 The power of the Lord was present to heal the Pharisees- but they would not make use of what was potentially made available (Lk. 5:17).

5:21 The miracles of Jesus exposed the error of local views, e.g. of demons, without correcting them in so many words. Thus in Lk. 5:21 the Jews made two false statements: that Jesus was a blasphemer, and that God alone could forgive sins. Jesus did not verbally correct them; instead he did a miracle which proved the falsity of those statements. It was clearly the belief of Jesus that actions speak louder than words. He rarely denounced false ideas directly, thus he did not denounce the Mosaic law as being unable to offer salvation, but He showed by His actions, e.g. healing on the Sabbath, what the truth was.

5:24 The Jews got caught up on the issue of whether Christ's forgiveness of others made Him God or not- just as some folk do today. His response was to refocus them on the fact that He wanted you to know that He had real power to forgive their sins (Lk. 5:24). I spend a lot of time arguing against the trinity and the 'Jesus = God' mentality. But the essence is, do we know on a personal level that the Lord Jesus really has the power to forgive our sins?

5:25 The disciples observed as Jesus made a lame man arise, take up his bed, and follow Him (Lk. 5:25). But in Acts 9:34, we find Peter doing just the same to Aeneas, even taking him by the hand as he had seen Jesus do to Jairus’ daughter. What Peter had seen and learnt of the Lord Jesus, he was now called to do. Not for nothing did he tell Aeneas that “Jesus Christ maketh thee whole”, thereby recognizing the connection between him and his Lord.

5:30- see on Lk. 7:39.

The disciples were from very varied backgrounds; and Lk. 5:30 RVmg. describes how publicans and sinners had Pharisees and Scribes among them as they all sat at the same table gathered around Jesus. There was something in His person and teaching which welded people together. 

5:31 Of course we must use our freewill and repent, but the Lord in the parables of the lost coin and sheep likens us to things which cannot repent and are not repentant, and yet all the same are brought back by the Lord's endless searching and pastoral care. By all means compare this with Peter's comment that the Lord's exaltation was in order to give repentance, not just forgiveness, to God's people (Acts 5:31; 11:18 cp. 2 Tim. 2:25). This is the extent of His atonement for men; not only to enable forgiveness, but to show His matchless grace yet further in even granting repentance to men. In the light of this it remains open to question how much credit we can personally take for our repentance. Not all lost sinners will come back, but the Lord speaks as if He will search always, in every case, until they do. These hyperboles are all to teach the vast extent of His desire to win back the lost. In the light of this, who are we to start questioning whether or not a brother has actually repented, if he says he has and shows this to some extent?

Christ was once asked why He ate with sinners. He replied: “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick. I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Lk. 5:31–32). Christ is referring to the wicked Pharisees here as “the righteous… they that are whole”. Yet they were not righteous. Christ was speaking of them according to how they saw themselves.

5:32 Luke 5:32 records Jesus saying to the wicked Jews: “I came not to call the righteous…”. He was implying, ‘I came not to call those who believe they are righteous’. But Jesus spoke to them on their own terms, even though, technically, He was using language which was untrue. See on Lk. 19:23.

Consider how He asks Zacchaeus to eat with Him- a public sign of religious fellowship in first century Palestine. This acceptance of the man for who and where he was, inspired Zacchaeus to then start changing his life in practice- he then offered to give back what he had stolen. When quizzed as to why He ate / fellowshipped with sinners, the Lord replied that He had come to call sinners to repentance (Lk. 5:32). Think through the implications of this. He fellowshipped with those who were so weak within the ecclesia of Israel so as to bring them to repentance; His eating with them was like a doctor making a home visit. The religious attitude of the Pharisees was that one only fellowshipped someone who was repentant; whereas the Lord said that He fellowshipped with people to bring them to repentance. Note how in Lk. 19:1-10, the Lord offered salvation to sinners before they had repented. It’s the same idea.

5:33,34 The Lord defended the non-observant Judaism of the twelve as being due to their joy that He, the bridegroom, was with them (Lk. 5:33,34). When they ‘ground corn’ on the Sabbath, the Lord defended them to their critics by saying that they were like David’s men eating the shewbread. Those guys were just walking through a cornfield rubbing ears together as their manner was, as they had done on many a sabbath day, but not realizing that this time there was some Scribe out with his binocular vision scrutinizing them. They surely weren’t doing it because their minds were on the incident of David’s men eating the shewbread. The Lord had asked them to obey the Scribes, who sat in Moses’ seat, over this kind of trivia. But He doesn’t rebuke them. Rather, He defends them to others, imputing far more spiritual perception to them than they had (Lk. 6:1-4).  

5:34 He spoke of how that band of rough, mixed up men were filled with the joy of little bridesmaids because He was among them (Lk. 5:34). Now this is an essay in imputed righteousness. The Lord saw the zeal of the uncertain, misunderstanding disciples as storm troopers taking the city of the Kingdom of God by force- knowing exactly where they were coming from and where they were going (Mt. 11:12). And even after reprimanding them for their slowness of heart to believe, the record graciously says that they “believed not for joy”- although joy can never hinder faith.

5:36 Jesus told this parable in the context of His eating with sinners- clothing and wine were part of the 'eating out' scene; He took whatever was around Him and made spiritual lessons out of it.

To get a piece out of a new garment, that new garment would be spoiled; and the old one likewise would be rent further (Mt., Mk.). "New" cloth refers to cloth which hasn't yet been washed; on first washing of the new garment, it would shrink, and thus make a tear. The tragic waste envisioned here is like the new wine running away on the ground from the burst old bottles. Likewise the old wine skins would've had to have the old wine poured out from them to have this new wine put into them. Mixing the old life and the new covenant, a bit of the one here and a bit of the other there, results in this tragic wastage all around. The parables make it seem so obvious that this isn't the way to go; but in reality, we find it hard to be so complete in our devotion to the new covenant.

The unrent garment is that of Christ- the same Greek words are used about the fact that His garment was not rent at His death (Jn. 19:24). Division both within ourselves and within the community is caused by partial response to the new covenant; mixing grace with legalism; it is a rending of Christ's garment, cutting out just a part of it and mixing it with the old way. An old garment that is torn can't be mended by anything new- it must be thrown out and a new garment accepted. The Mosaic system is described as an old garment in Heb. 1:11; it "shall perish" uses the same Greek word as in 5:37, where the bottles "perish". The new garment of Christ is unrent. We are each clothed with the white garment of Christ's imputed righteousness (Rev. 19:8; Mt. 22:11); by dividing with each other we are seeking to rend and thereby destroy that covering. "New" translates a different Greek word than that which in the parallel Mt. 9:16 and Mk. 2:21 is translated "new". The word there means something which has not been carded. "Agnaphos is a combination of the negative article a, with knapto, meaning, "to card".  It is sometimes translated undressed, uncombed or, as above, unfinished, and refers to wool or cotton cloth that has not been carded or combed so that the fibers are aligned, giving it both strength and a smoother, more finished appearance".  This suggests that the New Covenant is an unfinished work, God's work in us is ongoing and may take apparently unstable turns and changes- e.g. prophecy is often conditional, the intended timing of Christ's return has and may yet still change, dependent upon factors like the freewill repentance of Israel; God may plan one line of possibility for someone or a whole nation, e.g. Nineveh or Israel at the time of Moses- but change His stated intention in response to human prayer and repentance. This open-ended approach simply can't be squared with the "old" set-in-stone approach of the Old Covenant. The same message is taught by the next parable- new wineskins are required, because the New Covenant wine is fermenting, they need to be soft and flexible enough to change; if they are old and set, they will burst because of the movement and dynamism of the new wine. The wine of the Lord Jesus is therefore not about tradition, about a set pattern; but is rather a call to constant change and evolution. Yet paradoxically, religious people become set in their ways more than any, and seek stability in those traditions; whereas the activity of the Lord Jesus is the very opposite.

5:37 Wine skins were made of goat skin. The goats speak of the rejected, the sinners, in the parable of the sheep and goats. The wine skins may therefore speak of our flesh of sin. It's no sin to be a human being and have human flesh, but because of the nature of the new wine, we must become wholly new- or we will be destroyed. The new wine fermented powerfully- similar to the Lord describing His Gospel as yeast which works through flour (Lk. 13:21). The new covenant will work powerfully in us if we let it, and our skins, the life structure we have, must be prepared to accept that. Each wineskin expanded slightly differently in response to the fermenting of the new wine poured into it; no two wineskins expanded to an identical shape or form. We too will individually and uniquely respond to the new wine.

Spilled- s.w. Lk. 20:20 about the blood of the new covenant being "shed". We can crucify Christ afresh (Heb. 6:6), His death can be "in vain" for us (Gal. 2:21)- if we refuse to respond and be renewed, or trust in our own works.

5:38 Preserved- Gk. preserved from loss / ruin. There is a very real sense of loss to Jesus if His blood (the new wine) is as it were poured out in vain. There will be tragic loss both to Him and to the person who refuses to be wholly renewed.

5:39 The Lord here recognizes the basic conservatism of human nature; even those who consider themselves "liberal" are often only so in comparison to others, in relative terms- we are all in fact basically conservative. We stick with what we know and don't easily go outside our comfort zone of the old and familiar. We all find change hard; new wineskins are able to be stretched. He was perhaps, in the context, making some apology for John's disciples, who still couldn't fully allow themselves to be filled with the new covenant wine. The Gospel of Jesus is all about change and being stretched; and He recognizes that we find this so very difficult. People do not immediately / quickly respond to the new wine of the new covenant because, the Lord piercingly observed, they think the old was better (Lk. 5:39). He perceived, with His amazing penetration of the human psyche, that there is a conservatism deep within us all that militates against the immediate response to Him and the new wine of His blood / sacrifice which He so seeks. Yet once we have made this immediate response in a few things, it becomes easier to get into an upward spiral of response to Him. We become truly a new creation in Him, breaking constantly with factor after factor in our past, which has previously defined us as persons. Quite simply, we become new persons, with all the rejection of the ‘old’ ways which this requires.

The parable of the sower shows how the Lord foresaw that the majority who responded to His word would not hold on; He knew that men would not immediately appreciate the blood of His cross, but would prefer the old wine of the old covenant (Lk. 5:39). He saw that our spiritual growth would be an agonizingly slow business; as slow as a tiny mustard seed growing into a tree, as slow as a man digging a foundation in rock, or a seed growing and bringing forth fruit. Such growth is very slow from a human perspective.  

The parable of the wine exactly predicted the attitude of people to Christ's work in taking the Old Covenant out of the way. The Lord is surely saying: 'I know you won't immediately want the blood of my new covenant. I understand your nature, by nature you'll prefer what you are familiar with, the Old Covenant; you won't "straightway" desire the new wine, but (by implication) you will, after a while' (Lk. 5:39). He foresaw how the implication of the blood of His sacrifice wouldn't be accepted by His people first of all. It would be a process, of coming to accept how radical the gift of His blood is. As we weekly take the cup of His covenant, we come to see more and more the excellency of that blood, and its supremacy over all else. Christ recognized that conservatism in human nature which will naturally shy away from the marvellous implications of what He achieved for us. And true enough, whenever we talk about the present aspect of the Kingdom of God, our present blessings of redemption in Christ, the sense in which we have already been saved...there is a desire to shy away from it all.  And true enough, the early Christian believers desperately clung on to the Mosaic food laws, circumcision and synagogue attendance as far as they could; the command to witness to the Gentiles was likewise not taken seriously for some time. It must have been painful for the Lord to know this and to see it, recognizing in it a lack of appreciation of His life and final sacrifice, a desire to reconcile with God without totally committing oneself to His work. He saw the possibility of His blood being wasted if men didn't change from old to new wineskins. The slowness of the changeover in attitudes amongst the early believers must have been a great pain to Him; as if His blood was being poured out again. The implication is that we shed His blood afresh if we won't change, if we allow the conservatism of our natures to have an iron grip upon us we not only destroy ourselves, but waste the blood of the Son of God. The picture of the new wine being "spilled" uses the same word as in Mt. 26:28 concerning the 'shedding' of Christ's blood. Again, how utterly, painfully accurate. This is the danger of the conservatism that is in our natures; it was this which led men to shed the Lord's blood, and it is this same element within us which He foresaw would lead us to crucify Him afresh. How many times has this conservatism been mistaken as true spirituality! How careful we must be, therefore, not to adopt any attitude which glorifies that conservatism and masks it as the hallmark of a stable believer. The sensitivity of Jesus to the value of the human person was the very opposite of this.

6:1- see on Mt. 26:11.

6:7 The Jewish scribes and Pharisees tried hard “that they might find an accusation against” the Lord Jesus (Lk. 6:7); their false accusation of Him was especially seen at His trials. Pilate’s question to them “What accusation do you bring against this man?” (Jn. 18:29) shows the Jews as the ultimate false accusers of God’s Son. For it was because of their playing the ultimate role of the Devil, the false accuser, that the Son of God was slain. No wonder the ideas of ‘Devil’ and ‘Satan’ are often associated with the Jewish system’s opposition of Christ and His people. The same Greek word for ‘accuser’ is five times used about Jewish false accusation of Paul in an attempt to hinder His work for Christ (Acts 23:30,35; 24:8; 25:16,18).

6:9- see on Lk. 9:54,55.

The Lord said that to refrain from saving a man when it was in your power to do so was effectively “to do evil… to destroy” (Lk. 6:9). This is how the Lord looks at our laziness and passivity- as active wrongdoing.

6:10 The Lord maintained eye-contact with His listeners: Mt. 19:26; Mk. 3:5,34; 5:32; 8:33; 10:21, 23,27; Lk. 6:10; 20:17; 22:61; Jn. 1:42. These are all separate occurrences; the fact is really being emphasized. This paying appropriate attention with eye contact is also a good strategy for matching the silences that occur from time to time in any serious conversation.  Most of us can tell when another is thinking by observing the eyes, and when they are not their eyes will tell you.

6:19- see on Lk. 16:1.

It seems that the apostles were filled with the Spirit in order to do certain acts, and after doing them they were as it were 'drained' of the Spirit, and had to be filled up again. Thus the Lord Jesus felt that something had gone out of Him after performing miracles (Lk. 6:19; 8:46). The non-miraculous work of God through His Spirit would seem to follow a similar pattern. We are "strengthened with might by his spirit in the inner man", "strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering" (Eph. 3:16; Col. 1:11). God strengthens us deep inside to have that hupomonè, that patient endurance, that energy to keep on keeping on. But this strengthening is according to our effort in the appropriate spiritual exercises, and the strength given is not ultimately permanent unless we continue responding to it. and it isn't only a N.T. phenomena; even in earlier times, they that waited on the Lord had their strength renewed, they mounted up on eagle wings, they were made to walk and not faint in God's ways (Is. 40:31). As God doesn’t faint or weary, so somehow those who identify their lives with His will also keep on keeping on- even now (Is. 40:31 cp. 29). David felt that his youth was renewed like the eagle's in his repeated experience of God's grace (Ps. 103:5), that his soul was restored (Ps. 23:5), and that a right spirit could be renewed by God within him (Ps. 51:10). 

6:20 The way the Lord Jesus had of lifting up His eyes was something which evidently struck the Gospel writers (Lk. 6:20; Jn. 6:5; 11:41; 17:1 cp. the emphasis upon the eyes of the risen Lord in Rev. 1:14; 2:18; 5:6; 19:12). See on Gen. 13:10.

May I place two well known Scriptures together in your minds. “Thine [God’s] is the Kingdom”. And “Blessed are you poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God” (Lk. 6:20). The Lord assures us that the Father wants to give His Kingdom to those who are poor in spirit, to the broken, to the self-doubters, the uncertain, those uncomfortable with themselves, the unbearably and desperately lonely, the awkwardly spoken… the poor in spirit. Those who would be the very last to believe that God would give them what is evidently His Kingdom. But not only will the Father do this, but Jesus stresses that it is ours right now. The certainty of the glory that will be revealed for us means that we cope better with suffering; as Paul writes, they “are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us” (Rom.8:18).

6:21 - see on Lk. 1:53.

6:24 Is the "woe!" in Lk. 6:24-26; 11:42-52 an imprecation ['woe to'] or a lament ['alas!']?

6:25 Either we will mourn now in repentance (Lk. 6:25; the Greek for "mourn" is often in a repentance context), or we will mourn at the judgment (Mt. 8:12 etc.). Having foretold the inevitable coming of judgment day, Yahweh Himself pleads with Israel: "Therefore also now... turn ye even to me... with weeping, and with mourning" (Joel 2:12). See on Mt. 3:11.

6:29 Time and again the Sermon on the Mount / Plain seems to take a broad sweep in its record of the Lord’s teaching to us all; and then He suddenly focuses in on the individual. The AV brings this out well through the use of “you” (plural) and “thee” (singular): “Blessed are you poor… love your enemies… to him who strikes thee on the cheek…”. Note how many times there is this change of pronoun in Luke 6. Clearly the Lord wants us to see our collective standing before Him, and yet not to overlook the purely personal nature of His appeal to us individually.

6:32 Taking responsibility for others is often thankless. Our human dysfunction cries out for affirmation, and we tend not to do those things for which we are not thanked. This is one of the most radical aspects of our calling as followers of Christ- to serve without being thanked. Belief in God’s judgment helps us with this. For all our works will be rewarded in some sense by Him at the last day. If we love those that love us, we have no “thank” (Lk. 6:32)- but we will have “thank”, or “praise of God” ultimately. And this is what ultimately matters.

Lk.6:32 speaks of receiving "thank" for making the conscious effort to love the unlovable. The Greek for "thank" is 'charis', normally translated "grace", and often connected with the help of the Spirit which is given to us in response to our own efforts.

6:35- see on Mt. 5:45.

The Lord sort to inculcate in His followers His same positive spirit. We must love our enemies “and lend [in whatever way] never despairing” (Lk. 6:35 RV). To never give up with people, for all the losses, the casualties, the hurt… never despairing of humanity. This was and is the spirit of Jesus.

6:36 Quite simply, who God is should inspire us to be like Him; to copy His characteristics [the things of His Name] in our personalities. We must be "perfect" as our Father is; "be ye holy", because He is holy (1 Pet. 1:14-16); "kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God forgave… be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children" (Eph. 4:32; 5:1);" merciful, as your Father also is merciful" (Lk. 6:36). Prov. 19:11RV uses language frequently applied to Yahweh Himself and applies it to the wise man: "The discretion of a man maketh him slow to anger; and it is his glory to pass over a transgression". And thus Phinehas was commended for being "jealous with my jealousy" (Num. 25:11 RV)- his emotion at that time was a mirror of that of God Himself.

Not only was language re-interpreted by the Christians. Whole concepts were reoriented. Holiness in the sense of separation from the unclean had been a major theme in the Mosaic Law, and it figured largely in the theology of the Pharisees. But the Lord quoted “Be holy because I, Yahweh your God am holy” (Lev. 19:2) as “Be ye therefore merciful, even as your father in heaven is merciful” (Lk. 6:36). To be merciful to those who sin is now the true holiness- not merely separation from them and condemnation of their ways. Note, too, how He invites us to interpret the Yahweh as “father”, rather than transliterating the Name.

6:38 As men gather in a net and sort out the fish, so the angels will at judgment day (Mt. 13:47-50). "Men (angels) gather (the branches), and cast them into the fire, and they are burned" (Jn. 15:6). This same equation of men and angels is seen in Lk. 6:38, this time concerning how the angels will mete out rewards as well as punishment at the judgment: "Give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, and shaken together... shall men (angels) give into your bosom (at the judgment; ordinary men certainly don't do so in this life!). For with the same measure that ye mete withal it shall be measured to you again"- very much the language of judgment to come (Lk. 6:38 cp. Mt. 7:1,2). This association of "men" (angels) with the judgment is fitting, seeing that our guardian angel will have been with us through every up and down of life. See on Lk. 12:48.

The Lord taught that we should “give, and it shall be given unto you; good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall they give into your bosom. For with what measure ye mete it shall be measured to you again” (Lk. 6:38). We might have expected Him to say: ‘Give generously, with a good, running over measure, and this is what you will receive in return’. But He doesn’t. He says simply “Give”; and then we will be given to in a generous measure, because with what measure we use in our giving, we will receive. Thinking it through, He means surely that “giving”, by His definition, means a generous, well packed, abundant giving; for that is Christian giving. And note that the context of Lk. 6:38 is the Lord talking about not being critical and judgmental of others, but rather forgiving and accepting them. It is our 'giving' in this sense which is to be so full and generous. Only God’s grace / giving can inspire this attitude within us, as we live hemmed in by the people of a materialistic, mean world, where nobody takes up a cross for anyone else. This is why Paul makes a play on the word ‘grace’ when writing to the Corinthians about giving; for charis, “grace”, means ‘giving’. He urges them to not receive God’s grace in vain, but rather, motivated by it, to give grace to others (2 Cor. 6:1; 8:6,7,19).

6:40 Today, students are 'trained' to think for themselves, be creative, develop their own opinions, push forward their own independent research, using question / problem-based learning as a paradigm for their education. 'Education' in the first century wasn't like that at all. The idea was that "every one when he is fully taught will be like his teacher" (Lk. 6:40). The idea was that a person born into a certain social situation was trained to take their place in society, given that 'station and place' into which they had been born. Initiative in that sense was not encouraged; it was all about training up a person to correctly fulfil societies' expectation of them. The idea of being personally taught by the invisible Master / teacher Jesus, becoming like Him rather than like the person whom society expected, being given talents by Him which we are to trade and multiply at our initiative (Mt. 25:15-28)... this was all totally counter-cultural stuff. What was so vital in the Mediterranean world was that a person achieved conformity to accepted values. Cicero advised that in any good presentation of a legal case or encomium, emotions and passions shouldn't be referred to. Individualism was seen as a threat to tradition and the collective society. The huge New Testament emphasis on becoming disciples, learners, of an invisible Lord, Master and teacher located in Heaven, serving Him alone, worried about His standards, perceptions and judgment of us- that was and is so totally opposite to the expectations of society. People were educated to be embedded in society, rather than to come out of their world and live in the new world in which Christ was the light, and all things were made new in a new creation, a new set of values.

6:41 The Lord foresaw the problems we would have within our community; from the schisms of the first century to the struggles of latter day believers. Consider the story He told of the carpenter with a beam in his own eye who is so keen to extract the splinter from the eye of his fellow worker (note how he almost forces himself upon his brother to do this!). There is something grotesque, absurd, over the top in this story. In this story of the two carpenters there is something not only unreal, but almost cartoon-like. We read it and think 'The Lord's obviously exaggerating, nobody would really be so foolish'. But that's exactly how He knew we would think! Our attempts to sort out our brother really are that absurd! Christ is effectively saying: 'Now, I know you'll think I'm exaggerating- but I'm not' (Lk. 6:41,42). Often it seems the Lord intends us to think His parables through to their end, imagining the necessary details. A splinter will come out of the eye naturally, its presence will provoke tears which ultimately will wash it out. 'The grief of life will work on your brother to solve his problem, there are some spiritual weaknesses which time and the experience of life will heal; but I know you people will want to rush in and speed up the spiritual growth of your brother. But you can't do it!'. Christ even foresaw how we will stress the fact that our fellow believer is our "brother" as we try to do this; as if we'll try to be so righteous in the very moment when in God's eyes we do something grotesquely foolish. Doubtless the Lord's carpenter years were the time when He formulated this story of the two carpenters. Significantly they both had wood in their eye- as if a brother will tend to seek to correct another brother who has in essence the same weaknesses, but the ‘helping’ brother considers that the other brother’s is so much greater than his. Perhaps the Lord intends us to take it further, and pick up the implication that these two carpenters couldn't help each other; but there's another one who can...

6:42 If we condemn ourselves in our self-examination, we will not be condemned (1 Cor. 11:31). We are to most importantly [Gk. proton] “cast out” the beam from our own eye (Lk. 6:42)- and the Lord uses the same word about the ‘casting forth’ of the rejected at the last day. We are to judge our own weaknesses as worthy of condemnation. See on Lk. 18:10.

Consider how He spoke of the man with the splinter in His eye trying to cast the beam out of his brother's eye. He prefaces this mini-parable by saying that the blind can't lead the blind. For Him, a man with even slightly impaired vision was effectively blind. In this very context He speaks of the need to be "perfect... as his master". Only the perfect, by implication, can criticize their brethren. And the final reason He gives for not attempting to cast out the plank from our brother's eye is that "For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit" . This is rather hard to understand in the context. But on reflection, it seems that He is teaching that if we are good trees, we will have no corrupt fruit, no splinters in our eye- and because none of us are like this, there is corrupt fruit on each of us, we aren't perfect as our Master, therefore we shouldn't think of trying to cast out the plank from our brother's eye (Lk. 6:39-43). And of course He bids us to be perfect as our Father is. These high standards of demand were mixed with an incredible grace. Only a man who was evidently perfect could speak like this with any realness or credibility. Otherwise His words would just have been seen as the ravings of a weirdo. But there was a realness to His perfection that made and makes His demands so piercingly appropriate to us. The way He handled His perfection is a wonderful insight into His character. He knew that He was without sin; and He knew that the life He lived moment by moment was to be the pattern for all God’s people. Yet somehow, He handled this in a manner which was never arrogant, never proud, and never offputting to sinners; but rather, actually inviting to them.

6:43 We take a third road of indifferent tolerance to far too many. We don't sort out the issues we perceive to be between us. We let the separation and cold contact drift on. Straight after teaching His men to pray, the Lord immediately added a comment about the need to forgive our brother. It's as if He was saying: 'OK, I know that part of the prayer will be hard for you. But you've got to do it'. Having spoken of the need to tolerate our brother, the Lord Jesus repeated His common theme: that there is no third road: "Why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye...? For a good tree bringeth not forth corrupt fruit; neither doth a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit" (Lk. 6:41-43). There's no third position. Either we love our brother, and bring forth good fruit; or we don't get down to it, and bring forth bad fruit. We can't sometimes bring forth good, sometimes bad. At heart, we are either loving or selfishly hateful. Anything less than following Yahweh with all our heart is seen as doing evil in His eyes (1 Kings 11:6).

6:44 The Lord puts Mt. 12:33 [see note there] another way in Lk. 6:44 when He says that men don't "gather" good fruit from a corrupt tree. The language of gathering is very much that of judgment to come; and yet the fruit is produced and gathered now, in the words / fruit that comes out of our mouth. This is why right now we can judge a false teacher, by his corrupt words [this is one of the contexts of the Lord's words about corrupt trees and fruit- we see the fruit now]. The corrupt man will speak villainy (Is. 32:6). But corrupt words don't just mean expletives- the false teacher would be too smart to use them. He comes in sheep's clothing. But Lk. 6:41-44 gives us an example of "corrupt" words; words which create a corrupting spiritual influence in a man or in a community. One may say to his brother that he must cast out the splinter from his eye, although he has a plank in his own. And the Lord goes on to say that a good tree doesn't bring forth corrupt fruit. The corrupt fruit, as in the above passages, means 'corrupt words'. And in Lk. 6:45 the Lord concludes by saying that "for of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh". The corrupt fruit are the corrupt words of Lk. 6:42- saying, 'My brother, I'm very sorry, but I just have to correct you, you are so obviously wrong and stupid to walk round with a splinter in your eye, I can correct your spiritual vision, because I see perfectly. At the moment your spiritual perception ['eye] is just hopeless'. The Lord understood 'the eye' as ones' spiritual vision (Mt. 6:22,23). These kind of words, in essence, are the real leaven; they corrupt / pull apart over time communities as well as individual faith. These criticisms work away within a brother or sister, deaffirming them as believers, deaffirming them for who they are, raising doubt and not hope, humiliating them that they haven't made the grade… until they are corrupted. We have a specific example of a man being punished in judgment for his words, and it may well be the basis for the Lord's teaching here: "When the Lord hath performed his whole work upon mount Zion and on Jerusalem, I will punish the fruit of the stout heart of the king of Assyria, and the glory of his high looks. For he saith, By the strength of my hand I have done this…" (Is. 10:11,12). And there follows a long quotation of his words. These words were the 'fruit of his heart'- out of the abundance of his heart his mouth had spoken. And these words were almost cited back to him at the time of his condemnation. We know, however, that it is quite possible for human actions and words to not reflect the heart. Consider how Sennacherib invaded Judah but in his heart "he meaneth not so, neither doth his heart think so" (Is. 10:7). This is why the Lord clearly condemns the thought as being as bad as the action, even if the action isn't actually committed. Ps. 55:21 laments how words can not reflect the true state of a man's heart: "The words of his mouth were smoother than butter, but war was in his heart: his words were softer than oil, yet were they drawn swords". So why, then, is there so much emphasis on spoken words as the basis for judgment to come? Surely it is that although thoughts will also be judged, and the hypocrites revealed for who they are, it doesn't follow that a good man sometimes uses 'corrupt speech'. It's impossible. A good man cannot bring forth bad words. But a bad man can sometimes bring forth words which seem good on the surface, but which are in fact counterfeit. But it can't happen another way- a good man's words aren't just his surface level sin. And I for one flinch at this; because when I have to own up to having said inappropriate words, my flesh wants me to think that in my heart, I didn't mean them. And yet, ruthlessly, I must press the point: bad words reflect a bad heart. We can't justify them. We must repent of them, and by the influence of knowing God, through and in His Son and His word, we must change the state of mind that leads to them. And we should be, on one hand, simply worried: that bad words came out of a bad heart. And a good man cannot bring forth such corrupt fruit. There is with some especially the problem of temper, saying things well beyond what they really mean in hot blood. But here again, the words of hot blood do reflect something of the real man or woman. The tongue is a fire that can lead to condemnation, whatever and however we justify its' words as a relatively harmless outcome of our personality type. This may be true, but it isn't harmless.

6:46 As with many aspects of doctrine, it is often difficult for us to appreciate how radically revolutionary they were in the first century context; and in essence they should lose none of their radicalness with us. David Bosch observes: “Christians confessed Jesus as Lord of all lords- the most revolutionary political demonstration imagineable in the Roman Empire". Philip Yancey likewise: “As the church spread throughout the Roman empire, its followers took up the slogan “Christ is Lord", a direct affront to Roman authorities who required all citizens to take the oath ‘Caesar [the state] is Lord’" (The Jesus I Never Knew, p. 246). It hurt, it cost, to recognize Him as Lord. And so it should with us. Men and women died for this; and we likewise give our lives in response to that very same knowledge. There is a tendency, which the Lord Himself brought to our attention, of calling Him Lord but not doing what He says. To know Him as Lord in truth is axiomatically to be obedient to Him (Lk. 6:46).

The attitude which we have to the Lord Jesus now will be the attitude we have to Him at the day of judgment (Mt. 7:23 cp. Lk. 6:46).

The sensation of working for the Lord can be so self-deceptive. He draws the difference between doing many wonderful works in His name, saying “Lord, Lord”; and really doing the will of the Father (Mt. 7:21,22). The parallel Lk. 6:46 has that men will say “Lord, Lord” but not really hear His words. To hear them is to do the will of the Father. Putting all this together, it is perfectly possible to bear His Name, call Him Lord, work hard for Him- and yet never really hear His words, and thereby never really know the will of our Father. From this parallel we can conclude that our attitude to Christ in this life (e.g. "Lord, Lord!") will be our attitude to Him at the judgment seat. If we think He is a hard, unreasonable Lord: that is how He will be. To the froward (in this life), He will shew Himself froward. Straight away we are met head on with a major challenge: Our attitude to Christ in this life will be our attitude to Him at the judgment seat. John's letters reason down the same line: “If (in this life) our heart condemn us not, then have we confidence (now) toward God... this is the confidence that we have in him... abide in him; that, when he shall appear, we may have confidence... before him (at the judgment) at His coming" (1 Jn. 3:21; 5:14; 2:28). The confidence we have towards Christ now will be the confidence we have at judgment day. This fact should pull us up out of the spiritual indifference which characterizes so much of our lives. If we see Christ as an abstract theological necessity, a black box in our brain called 'Christ'; if we don't have a dynamic, two‑ way relationship with Him now‑ then this too is how we will regard Him then.

6:47 Luke seems to translate the Palestinian style of things into terms which were understandable by a Roman audience. Thus Lk. 6:47; 11:33 speak of houses with cellars, which were uncommon in Palestine; and in Lk. 8:16; 11:33 of houses with an entrance passage from which the light shines out. The synagogue official of Mt. 5:25 becomes the "bailiff" in Lk. 12:58. In Palestine, the cultivation of mustard in garden beds was forbidden, whereas Lk. 13:19 speaks of mustard sown in a garden, which would have been understandable only to a Roman audience. It seems in these cases that inspiration caused Luke to dynamically translate the essence of the Lord's teaching into terms understandable to a non-Palestinian audience. Even in Mt. 5:25 we read of going to prison for non-payment of debts, which was not the standard Jewish practice. Imprisonment was unknown in Jewish law. The point of all this is to show that we must match our terms and language to our audience. See on Mk. 13:35.

6:48 To get down to the rock, the man who truly heard Christ had to dig through the earth which the foolish man also dug into. Hearing Christ's words is likened to digging into that earth. Doing and understanding them is likened to then digging into the bed‑ rock. The foolish man did allow the word to go into him‑ skin deep. We need to ask ourselves how often these days the word really goes right through our skin, and forces us to hack into the bed‑ rock. Are we truly building our house on a rock? The force of Mk. 16:16, for example, went more than skin deep just before our baptism. We read it, thought about it, and did it. But now. Are we old and brave, thick skinned, hardened by the humdrum of repetition, no longer building a house on a rock? My sense is that many of us are. Let's be aware that Heb. 6:1,2 defines "the foundation" as "repentance", and an awareness of the reality of the resurrection and coming judgment. In some ways, the longer we are in Christ, the more likely it is that we will not reach down to the bedrock of these things as we ought to. I mean, how often these days do we really repent of something? How often does the reality of the judgment seat truly come home to us? The poetry of the Bible's language, especially if we read the same version, makes God's word glide over us. Exhortations, even the recollection of Golgotha's tragic scene, the final, friendless end... can all slip so easily over our heads. We rest on the laurels of past spiritual victories. Nothing really shakes us up, reaching right down to the bedrock. Surely each of us should be sensing a surge of spiritual urgency when we look at ourselves like this. Yet God will help us; it is He Himself who will "settle" us, or 'make a foundation for' us, as the Greek can mean (1 Pet. 5:10). 

The rock which our response to the word must reach down to is that of the crucified Christ. That rock represents Christ and Him crucified, according to Paul (1 Cor. 10:4 and 3:11 cp. 2:2). The Lord's parable of building on the rock was surely quarried from His understanding of Is. 28:16,17: “I lay in Zion for a foundation a stone... a precious cornerstone. The hail shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and the waters shall overflow the hiding place". Truly doing God's word will always lead us back to the spirit of the suffering Christ on Calvary. If it does not, our building, our apparent development within the much-vaunted biblicism of our faith, is just a "refuge of lies". All our spiritual effort and suffering finds its ultimate summation in Christ's crucifixion. His suffering there is the quintessence of all spiritual struggle.  It is quite possible that as we break bread weekly, we are merely digging a little deeper than usual in the earth, yet still not reaching down to the real meaning of building on the example of Christ's death. The wise man's house was "founded upon a rock". The same Greek word occurs in Col. 2:7, describing how we are "rooted and built up in him". The parallel Eph. 3:17 expands this to mean that if Christ dwells in our hearts, we are "rooted and grounded in love... able to comprehend... and to know the love of Christ", which was supremely shown in His death. Col. 1:23 associates this being "grounded and settled" with not being "moved away from the hope of the Gospel, which ye have heard". If the word really sinks down deep within us, it will reveal to us the love of Christ on the cross, it will result in true love, and all this will be the outworking of the basic doctrines of the Truth which we understood at baptism. Thus the hacking away at the rock is not only hard, grim work against human nature. It reveals the wondrous love of Christ. The implication is that we can only really understand this love, that passes human knowledge, if we are really sweating away to obey Christ's words, to build our house on a rock.

6:49 The collapse of time around the events of the judgment would explain this equation between the gathering and the judgment. The wicked will "immediately" feel that the house of their pseudo-spirituality has totally collapsed, as soon as the rain of judgment comes down (Lk. 6:49). The 'rain' will be a symbol of blessing for the righteous, and of judgment for the wicked. Likewise the cup of wine is another double symbol- of blessing, and of condemnation. Yet we know that there will be a process of condemnation- they will argue back with their Lord, expecting a reward for their good works… but underneath, "immediately" from their first knowledge of the Lord's return, there will be this sense of total collapse within them. The judgment passages which speak of the rejected apparently confidently demanding a place in the Kingdom in reward for their good works must be read with this fact as background.

The man who hears and does not appears to be building- he has the sensation of going some place in his spiritual life. He did dig a foundation- in sand, where it is easy to dig. But the Lord said that he built “without a foundation” (Lk. 6:49). Are we really hearing and doing- or just going through the motion of it, experiencing the sensation of appearing to do it?

In the parable, the flood which came was like the day of judgment. This fits in exactly with the way Christ used the figure of the flood to describe His second coming in Mt. 24. Peter does the same in 2 Pet. 3. The beating of the stream upon the house on a rock (v.49) is a truly apposite figure for the day of judgment. It certainly implies a process of judgment, in which the unworthy will experience a gradual collapse of their spirituality. For the man with the firm foundation, the flood of the parable would have been a worrying experience. Would the house stand up to it? In many of the parables, we can profitably speculate as to likely details of the story. The wise man would have remembered his hard work on the foundation, not with any sense of pride or self‑ gratitude. But he would nevertheless have been aware of it. Our real spiritual effort will be so valuable in that day. Only then will we realize the extent of the fact that there can be no short cut to true spiritual development. A man cannot be crowned, unless he strive lawfully.  The Lord's parable was no doubt partly based on Is. 28:17, which speaks of the day of judgment being like hail which "shall sweep away the refuge of lies, and waters (which) shall overflow". The spiritual house of the foolish builder was a lie, effectively; an appearance of real development which deceived men. For externally, men cannot know anything about the different foundations of houses built side by side. We are left to imagine the details of the parable. The foolish man would have run outside and watched his house being beaten down and washed away. He would have thought of trying to do something to stop the destruction, but then given up, realizing it was too late. The foolish girls saw that "our oil is running out" (Gk.). The unworthy will have that terrible sense of their opportunity and spirituality ebbing away from them. The impression is given in the parable that the two houses were next door to each other; again confirming our feeling that this parable is about different attitudes to the word within the ecclesia. 

7:6- see on Jn. 4:53.

7:8 Like any good teacher, the Lord repeated His lessons. The disciples heard His commendation of the Centurion, who believed that just as he had men under his control, so Jesus had the whole cosmos under His control (Lk. 7:8-10); and they learnt that lesson again as they sat awestruck in the boat soon afterwards: "What manner of man is this! For he commands even the winds and water, and they obey him" (Lk. 8:25).

7:9- see on Mt. 8:10.

The Gospel records, Luke especially, often record how the Lord turned and spoke to His followers- as if He was in the habit of walking ahead of them, with them following (Lk. 7:9,44,55; 10:23; 14:25; 23:28; Mt. 9:22; Jn. 1:38). Peter thought that following the Lord was not so hard, because he was literally following Jesus around first century Israel, and identifying himself with His cause. But he simply failed to make the connection between following and cross carrying. And we too can agree to follow the Lord without realizing that it means laying down our lives.  

7:14 The Lord spoke to the corpse of the widow’s dead son as if it were already restored to life: “Young man, I say unto thee, arise” (Lk. 7:14). See on Mk. 5:41.

7:16- see on Mk. 1:2.

Juxtaposition of the Lord’s humanity and His exaltation is found all through Bible teaching about His death. He touched the coffin- so that the crowd would have gasped at how unclean Jesus was, and how He had identified Himself with the unclean to the point of Himself appearing unclean. It was surely shock that made the pallbearers stop in their tracks. But then the Lord raised the dead man- and the people perceived His greatness, convinced that in the person of Jesus “God hath visited His people” (Lk. 7:14-16). His humanity and yet His greatness, His Divinity if you like, were artlessly juxtaposed together. Hence prophetic visions of the exalted Jesus in Daniel call Him “the Son of man”.

7:19 Even John the Baptist, whose teaching had prepared most of the twelve to accept Jesus, seems to have not been altogether clear about what we might consider fundamental things. He speaks of Jesus as “the one to come”, a commonly understood description of the Elijah prophet, based on the phrase being used about him in Mal. 3:1- and not of Messiah Himself. Thus John the Baptist anticipated that this “one to come”, his cousin Jesus, would be a refining fire (Mt. 3:12)- which is exactly Malachi’s language about the Elijah prophet (Mal. 3:2; 4:1). This would explain why John the Baptist had apparent ‘doubts’ whilst in prison as to whether Jesus really was the Messiah. And it would also explain why the disciples expected Jesus to act like Elijah in Lk. 9:52-56. It was not until the baptism of Jesus that John the Baptist came to understand Jesus as the “one to come”; so the preparatory work which he had done with the disciples must have had what we would call a flimsy doctrinal basis. When Jesus called them to follow Him, and they so quickly obeyed, it is often assumed that John the Baptist had prepared them for this. But that preparation must at best have been very shallow and incomplete, given John’s own admission that he did not recognize Jesus for who He was until His baptism. Why, however, was John’s misunderstanding recorded in the Gospel records? Or the misunderstanding of his father Zacharias, that John was in fact the promised Messiah, “the prophet”, the one would bring forgiveness of sins and freedom from the Romans (Lk. 1:71-79)? Perhaps for the same reason as the language of demons is used, especially to describe the miracles at the beginning of the Lord’s ministry. He didn’t correct this. But over time it became evident that the sheer power of the Son of God meant that in practice, demons didn’t exist. Likewise, as the ministry of Jesus unfolds to us in the Gospel records, it becomes apparent that He was Son of God, the Messiah- and not merely an Elijah prophet. 

7:22- see on Mk. 6:3; Lk. 15:7.

7:24- see on Lk. 7:41.

All those who preach Him are like a city that cannot be hidden (Mt. 5:14); just as He likewise “could not be hid” in His preaching (Lk. 7:24).

7:29 The mother of a sick girl got healing for her daughter: “For this saying [of faith and understanding] go thy way; the devil is gone out of thy daughter” (Mk. 7:29). Many weren’t healed by the disciples because they lacked the level of prayer and faith required (Mk. 9:29).

7:30 God will fulfill His purpose for us- if we align ourselves with it, and thus see in everything that happens in our lives His will being forwarded. We can choose to not align ourselves with His will. The Pharisees rejected the purpose of God against themselves by not being baptized by John (Lk. 7:30 ESV). His will is not that we should sit around doing Sudoku, watching movies, bantering on the internet, trying to get as much money as possible to finance our nice meals, expensive coffees and designer clothes. His will, as expressed in His very Name, is that He ‘will be’ grace, love, care, justice, salvation, righteousness, all over the world and to every man and woman. If these things are our focus, our mission, our purpose, our passion, our underlying heartthrob, if His will is behind our will… then everything somehow comes together for us in a dynamic and fulfilling existence, both in this world and in the life eternal.

7:32- see on Mt. 21:32; Mk. 1:4.

Christ’s enthusiasm for Israel's response to the Gospel comes out again when the grace of Jesus likens Himself to a street kid in the market who really wanted to get a game going with the other kids. He offered to play funerals with them (through His appeal through John the Baptist), but they refused. He then offered to play weddings (through His Gospel of grace, joy and peace), but still they refused (Lk. 7:32). By all means connect this with another market place parable, where Christ (the servant) comes there to try to recruit labourers, on almost unbelievably good rates.

7:34- see on Mt. 11:19.

7:39 When Mary Magdalene touched Jesus in Lk. 7:39, people reasoned that Jesus wasn’t Messiah because He appeared not to know that He was being touched by a sinner. Yet this incident prepared the Lord for the time when He would be smitten and demanded to prophesy who smote Him, if He was the Christ (Lk. 22:64). At that moment, perhaps He thought back to Mary. He would have realized that that incident with her had been a living out of the spirit of the cross, and it prepared Him for the final agony.  

The Lord's response to Simon was not self-justification, but rather an enquiry as to how much Simon loved the Lord in response to the forgiveness of his sins (Lk. 7:39-48). And when the Pharisees criticized the disciples for mixing with sinners, the Lord's response was to appeal to them personally to repent (Lk. 5:30-32). And He went further in justifying His disciples, by answering another criticism of them by the Jews with the comment that unless they changed, they would be like old bottles broken by His new wine. They personally had to change- and they needed to focus upon that rather than criticizing others for their possible guilt by association.

Knowing the Lord Jesus as a person will excite real passion and feeling in response. Our reactions to the tragedy of the way He was rejected, and is rejected and mocked to this day, will be like those of the woman who was a sinner whom Luke records in Lk. 7. The Lord was invited to the home of a Pharisee, who clearly had only invited Him to insult and mock Him. For the Pharisee hadn't kissed Him, nor arranged for His feet to be washed- things which simply have to be done to an invited guest. And so that woman becomes passionate. She feels anger and hurt for the insult and rejection made against Jesus. She does what Simon the Pharisee didn't do- kissing Him, washing His feet. Having no towel to dry His feet, she let down her hair to use as a towel- and a woman could be divorced for letting down her hair in front of men. She touches the Lord's body- something deeply despised, for the Greek and Hebrew idea of 'touching' has sexual overtones (Gen. 20:6; Prov. 6:29; 1 Cor. 7:1), the Greek word 'to touch' also meaning 'to light a fire'. The ointment she carried between her breasts denoted her as a prostitute- but she breaks it open and pours it on the Lord in repentance. Her attitude was surely: 'Yeah I'm a whore, you all know that. And yes, you're all gonna misunderstand me and think I am just madly coming on at this Jesus. OK, misunderstand me as you will, I don't care, I truly love Him as my Saviour, and there, I'm pouring out my ointment, I'm through with this broadway life, I'm repenting, in the abandon of freedom from sin I now feel, I'm giving myself wholly to Him and His cause, mock me, be shocked and disgusted in your middle class way all you like, but this is for real'. And this, it seems to me, is the response of everyone who truly comes to the Lord Jesus as a person, and feels for Him as a real person whom we have met in a real, valid encounter. The Lord responded to that woman by doing something which may not seem a big deal to us, but which was radical in 1st century culture. He criticized strongly the hospitality of His host. This just wasn't done, and still isn't. He was angry- because despite the woman's sincerity, they still labelled her as a 'sinner' (Lk. 7:39). He rebuked Simon through the parable of the two debtors, who owed 500 pence and 50 pence. As that woman went away "in peace", with her Lord passionately behind her and on her side, defending her to the world, so we too walk away from our encounters with Him.

7:40 Like David, the Lord Jesus saw through peoples’ actions to the self-talk behind it. He observed the body language of the Pharisee, despising the repentant woman; Lk. 7:39 records that the man “said within himself... ‘She is a sinner!’”, but “Jesus answering said unto him...” (Lk. 7:40). The Lord perceived the man’s self-talk, and responded to it. For Him, the Pharisee’s unspoken words were loud and clear, and Jesus acted as if He was in a conversation with the man. He correctly read the man’s silent disapproval as actually saying something, and responded to it as if in conversation. Of course we could argue that the Lord was empowered by a flash of Holy Spirit illumination to be able to read the Pharisee’s mind; but it seems to me altogether more likely that it was His own sensitivity, His own perception of the other’s self-talk, that enabled Him to know what was being silently said within the man’s mind.

The parables of Lk. 7 and 14 were told during a meal- perhaps many of the others were, too. The Lord would have been a brilliant conversationalist, drawing out unexpected challenges and lessons from what appeared to be everyday facts. The implications of the parables are not pleasant- they would have soured some of His table conversations if they were properly perceived. And likewise with us as we read them in this age; these stories are indeed profoundly disturbing if understood properly and allowed to take their effect upon us. Yet for all their challenge, the parables of Jesus reveal how deeply familiar He was with human life in all its daily issues and complexities. He artlessly revealed how He had meditated deeply upon the issues involved in farming, the problem of weeds, how much poor men were paid for a day’s work, the desperation of the beggar Lazarus, problems faced by builders when laying foundations… He was and is truly sensitive and understanding of the everyday issues of our lives, and yet draws out of them something deeply challenging and radical. In this was and is His surpassing, magnetic brilliance. But the unanswered questions in the parables aren't all there is to them.

7:41 He saw the hypocritical Pharisee Simon as being a man forgiven 50 pence, who therefore loved Him (Lk. 7:41).This shows the generous way in which the Lord reads people. In the same chapter, the Lord recognised that John the Baptist had suffered a crisis of faith. But He tells the crowd that John wasn’t a reed shaken with the wind, an unstable believer (Lk. 7:24 cp. Is. 7:2), but the greatest of God’s servants; He overlooked the temporary failure, and judged the overall spirit of John.

7:42- see on Lk. 7:47.

7:44 He saw Simon the proud Pharisee as having been forgiven a little, and as loving Him a little (Lk. 7:44-48). This isn’t how we would have seen that man. This is surely something more than generosity of spirit, even though the Lord certainly had this. His attitude reflects a hopefulness for Simon, an earnest desire for his salvation that only saw and imagined the best.

7:45 The Lord saw a connection between the way the sinful woman kissed Him much, and the way she “loved much” (Lk. 7:45,47 RVmg.). He then told a parable about her and Simon the Pharisee. His point was that they both owed Him money and He had forgiven the debt, but He was looking for an appropriate response from them. Yet there is no evidence that Simon had repented before receiving that forgiveness.

7:46 The Lord makes a clear allusion to Ps. 23 in saying that Mary had anointed His head with oil, and His feet with ointment (Lk. 7:46). There, it is God who is said to have anointed David's head, and prepared a feast in the presence of his enemies (Ps. 23:5). The historical background for this Psalm is when David fled from Absalom,  and God manifested in Barzillai prepared an unexpected feast for him, just the other side of the valley from where his enemies were. Perhaps  Barzillai also anointed David's head with oil at the time. It seems the Lord saw God as now manifest in Mary-He, through her, anointed His head with oil. And she did it at a time when the Lord was sitting at a great feast. It could logically follow that it was likewise Mary who had prepared the feast for Him. And if, as we have suggested, Simon the Pharisee was her brother or father or relative, then this would make sense. The whole thing surely has the ring of truth about it. Thus the Lord saw God as personally manifested through ex-hooker Mary. This should quieten all our doubts as to whether God really could be manifested through such as us. And note that Mary would have been the one who did the cooking.  

7:47 Paul seems to have seen Mary as one of his patterns when he speaks of how he laboured more abundantly than anyone, because of the depth of grace he had known (1 Tim. 1:14,15)- for Mary “loved much” because she had been forgiven much (Lk. 7:47). In passing, was the Lord’s comment “she loved much” an indication that He thereby knew how much she had sinned, without having the knowledge beamed into Him, because He observed how much she now loved Him? In the parable which the Lord told comparing Simon and Mary, He made the comment that it was only “When they [realized that] they had nothing wherewith to pay” (Lk. 7:42 RV) that they were forgiven. He perceived how Mary had come to that point, at His feet, weeping, of knowing that she had nothing to pay. And Paul, and us, must reach that point if we are to find the motivation to “love much” in response.  

He who is forgiven much, the same will love much (Lk. 7:41-50). The purpose of the Lord's mini-parable was not that the druggies, the hookers, the murderers will love Christ more than you or me. It was to teach that according to a man's perception of his sin, so he will love his Lord. All too often we serve Him because we have a conscience that we should do so; and yet the service He requires is service, even the senseless service of that forgiven woman with her precious ointment, simply because we love Him. And that overwhelming, overflowing love will only come from a true sense of our desperation. By knowing our desperation, we will know the Lord, we will know the grace and fathomless mercy which is so essentially Him: "Ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. And ye shall know that I am the Lord, when I have wrought with you... not according to your wicked ways" (Ez. 20:43,44).

7:49 Those who observed Mary’s first anointing of the Lord’s feet began to say within themselves “Who is this that forgiveth sins also?” (Lk. 7:49). But, presumably, they didn’t verbalize it, when they easily could have done. Why not? Was it not that Mary’s anointing was an unspoken testimony that indeed, Jesus had forgiven her sins?  

8:1 The synoptic Gospels use the same words for the activities of both Jesus and the disciples in respect of preaching, teaching, healing etc. Theirs was a shared ministry. Thus Jesus is recorded as “showing the glad tidings of the Kingdom” (Lk. 8:1), but in the same context He asks  a new convert to go home “and shew how great things God hath done” (8:39), as if he were to continue the ‘showing’ of Jesus.

We can too easily assume that the purpose of the Bible, or the teaching of Jesus, the doctrine of Christ, is merely and solely to impart information. We can underestimate the degree to which the immediate intention of doctrine, of Jesus, was the transformation of human life. Many of us have been educated in an environment where the aim of teaching is to bring people to know things that have no practical effect upon their lives; yet this is most decidedly not how we should approach the words of the Gospel. Our model of learning has been 'from jug to mug', i.e. there is the assumption that the teacher simply pours out their knowledge into the student's passive mental space. And then the student is tested as to the degree of retention of that knowledge. But as disciples, students, of the Lord Jesus, we are about something different. If the Lord were scheduled to give a class in one of our ecclesial halls, my sense is we would turn up with our video cameras, tape recorders, note books, pens and pencils. But when in reality He delivered the 'sermon on the mount', His listeners simply beheld a life lived, the reflection of His words in practice, "the word made flesh". He both preached and shewed the Gospel- in His life as well as His doctrinal teaching (Lk. 8:1). And so it should be with our teaching of others.

8:2 Mary Magdalene was perhaps named after the town of Magdala. But named Magdalene may mean the Lord gave her that Name just as He gave names to His other disciples. The name derives from the Hebrew migdol, ‘tower’.  So the repeated description of her as the Magdalene could be implying: Mary the tower- Magdalene. Just as the shaky Simon was described as ‘the rock’, Simon-the-rock, so the shady Mary was surnamed ‘Mary-the-tower’. It was common for Jewish rabbis to give their followers names, and it seems the Lord did this too- but the names He gave reflected the potential which He saw in His men and women. And the name He gives us likewise is a reflection of the potential we can live up to.  

Mary Magdalene is the most frequently named person in the passion narratives. Clearly the Gospel writers, under inspiration, perceived her as the central figure amongst those who were witnesses of it all. In doing so they turned on its head the prevailing idea that the witness of a woman was worthless. They saw her as the main witness. The Gospel writers clearly see Mary Magdalene as of prime importance amongst the women who followed the Lord. Luke twice places her first in his lists of the ministering women (Lk. 8:2; 24:10). Matthew likewise focuses on how she was at Calvary, at the burial and at the empty tomb (Mt. 27:56, 61; 28:1,9). She clearly captured the attention of the gospel writers.

8:2

Joanna: A Character Study

The teaching of Jesus for today is a radical call to live and think and feel in a way that is counter-cultural; i.e., that radically contradicts the prevailing culture within which we live. The lives we are to live are, however, a continuation of the spirit of those men and women who followed Him around Palestine 2000 years ago. They, too, were counter-cultural in their following of Him; they too walked out against the wind of prevailing wisdom and the expectations of those around them.

An Inversion Of Values

When we turn to study Joanna, we find ourselves right up against an example of this. Lk. 8:3 implies that the women who followed Jesus, and Joanna is named as one of these, basically supplied the funds and material backing for His mission. Male disciples had left their homes and families to manage economically without them, whilst they followed the Lord around Palestine. They evidently were generally poor. Yet their expenses were being met by a few wealthy women. Generally, the man was seen as the economic supporter of the woman, and this situation turned all that on its head. It must have been hard for those men to accept the ministrations of Joanna for them. It was almost a sociological impossibility that wealthy women should support illiterate men in such an itinerant lifestyle. But this was just the kind of inversion of values which Jesus sought to inculcate in the new community which He forged. Further, the wealthy simply didn’t mix with the lower classes; it was unthinkable for a woman to go travelling around with a group of lower class men ⁽¹⁾, and women such as former prostitutes. It could only have been the compelling personality of Jesus which led Joanna to do something as scandalous as she did.

Joanna is introduced as “the wife of Herod’s steward Chuza” (Lk. 8:3). Yet as a married woman the right to dispose of her goods lay not with her but with her husband; and it’s unlikely that a man of such great social rank as Chuza would have allowed his wife to use his wealth like this. Thus if Joanna was married at this time, she “braved public condemnation by leaving [her] husband to follow Jesus” ⁽²⁾. The call of Christ is no less radical in our day, even if the scandal of it is articulated differently. Younger women who had wealthy families were still under the authority of their families, especially their father or uncles, until such time as they married. It is hard to understand, therefore, how Joanna got the right to use wealth in the way that she did. Perhaps she simply left her husband and insisted on taking some of their wealth with her. Perhaps he was supportive; but at such an early stage in the Lord’s ministry, this seems to me unlikely. And it’s equally unlikely that Herod’s right hand man would have allowed his wife to go wandering around the country with a crowd of working men. And it would have been a most a-typical 1^st century marriage if the wife was allowed to spend the husband’s money like this at her own initiative. So I discount this possibility. Even if a woman made money from her own business, the money would be under the control of her husband. So we are left with the question, from where did Joanna get her money?

Joanna’s Marriage

The more likely option comes from an awareness of the practice of ketubba. This was a sum of money promised by the husband to the wife in case of divorce; it was part of the marriage contract ⁽³⁾. With this money she could attract a second partner if the husband divorced her ⁽⁴⁾. And this, I submit, is what happened with Joanna. Perhaps for the cause of Christ, her husband divorced her; and instead of using her money to attract a second partner, she instead spent it on the true passion of her life- the cause of Jesus and His men. There is evidence that if her husband died, she still was not free to use the money that might come to her independently; his family and her male relatives had a major say in the matter ⁽⁵⁾. The Mishnah says that a wife cannot inherit anything from her husband, since otherwise his ‘property’ in any sense might be alienated from the man’s family (B. Bat. 8.1). So it would seem that the only way a woman had large funds at her disposal would be if she were married to a wealthy man, who divorced her and gave her the ketubbah. Hence the significance of the way Lk. 8:3 introduces her as having been the wife of a wealthy man, and yet also in a position to financially support the ministry of Jesus.

Joanna had once been married to Herod’s “steward”. She would have lived with her husband in Herod’s court in Tiberias, not far from Nazareth. She would have heard of Jesus right at the start of His ministry; Lk. 8:2 comments how the Lord healed women of ‘demons’, and the possibility is that Joanna was one of those people, and perhaps her illness was another reason why Chuza divorced her. When Herod invited his “courtiers and officers and chief men of Galilee” to the birthday party at which he beheaded John (Mk. 6:21), this would almost certainly have included Chuza. Manaen was a suntrofos of Herod- a courtier (Acts 13:1), and he later became a disciple too. And one wonders about the ‘Herodion’ of Rom. 16:11- was he another of Herod’s courtiers, also from the palace in Tiberias? We can only speculate as to whether Joanna converted these two. And then there was the “royal official” of Capernaum who was converted by the Lord’s healing (Jn. 4:46-53); he too would have been one of Herod’s courtiers. There, in the heart of the despised court at Tiberias, an ecclesia developed! This was the very group known as the “Herodians” who so persecuted the Lord (Mk. 3:6; 12:13; Mt. 22:16). It’s rather like a Christian church developing in the drug dens of New York or cities controlled by Moslem fanatics such as Mecca or Kandahar. The point is, all things are possible. The personality of Jesus as portrayed in the Gospel can penetrate anything. And further, one marvels at the wide range of people welded together by allegiance to the Lord. Their differences were significant and major. Only the power of His personality and the Truth that is in Him overcame them.

The Bond Of Fellowship

Being associated with Chuza and Herod’s court would have placed Joanna in a category of people that were very unpopular to ordinary Jews- for she would have been allied to the ruling class who so cruelly taxed and impoverished the ordinary people. Herod’s “steward” was basically the chief thug who made sure that the heavy taxations were paid by the populace. The disciples were thus being supported by a woman from the class they had naturally hated. It must also be recognized that Tiberias was a new city, built by Herod on a Jewish cemetery despite their protests. It had only been built about 10 years at the time of Jesus’ ministry. Tiberias was one of the “aggressive acts of Romanization by Antipas” ⁽⁶⁾; the result was that the people of Galilee hated those who lived there, especially the courtiers. Yet one of those women courtiers was to travel with those Galilean fishermen and give up her financial security to support them! The city had been built from funds raised by years of excessive taxation of the people who lived around it. “The décor on the Herodian palace in Tiberias [which included depictions of animals despite the Torah’s prohibitions] symbolized the alien culture that had suddenly intruded upon the Galilean landscape along with the “in-your-face” city built so visibly from revenues regularly taken from the threshing floors and olive presses of Galilean villages by officers [e.g. Chuza- D.H.] who lived lavishly near the palace” ⁽⁷⁾.

Worse still, Joanna is a strong Jewish name; she had as it were betrayed her people by siding with the Gentile conquerors, and had perhaps married one of them. The band of people around Jesus were thus as diverse as could possibly be. They had every possible tension and background difference and resentment between them, just as the present ecclesia does. Men like Simon the Zealot had been fighting this very class, probably trying to assassinate Joanna’s [former?] husband. And we pause to reflect upon the composition of our ecclesias and community. Our extreme diversity matches the diversity of those whom Jesus gathered around Him when He first began to build His ecclesia. The Lord came to save all [types of] people; and hence there is this strange and compelling diversity and unity, so extraordinary, so unusual, that the Lord said that it alone had the power to convert the world.

Reversal Of Status

And so Joanna stepped out from Herod’s court, over to the ranks of the Galilean poor. For her, conversion was radical. Not only did she give up her financial security, she gave up her social standing, and walked out so totally against the wind, like Moses walking out of Pharaoh’s court to suffer affliction with God’s people. Like him, she likely had to do it alone. In this, she is our pattern. Not only for those who feel they are all too caught up in the courts of Herod, but for those who find a true unity with their brethren almost impossible. She would have eagerly memorized the Lord’s parables, and have perhaps nervously joined in the Lord’s display of solidarity with the poorest of the poor in village after village which He visited. And there is no reason to think that the 70 who were sent out in pairs were all male; Luke’s account of this in Lk. 10 has been prefaced by the explanation in Lk. 8:2,3 that the Lord had many female disciples too. In any case, Joanna would have spoken to the women they met at wells, retold the parables of the Lord to groups of women in the villages in which they stayed. And she would have known the pain of rejection, the hurt of being rejected for who you once were rather than being accepted for who you now are.

We read that Joanna “provided for them out of [her] own resources” (Lk. 8:3). ‘Provided’ translates the Greek diakoneo. It has been commented that the word “refers almost exclusively to the menial labour of women and slaves, performed for the people of higher rank on whom they were economically dependent” ⁽⁸⁾. And now you see the wonder of it all. The others were economically dependent upon Joanna; but she served them as if she was the one dependent upon them. She would’ve been used to Galileans serving her; but now she served them. She perhaps more than most had heard and learnt and obeyed in hard, concrete reality the Lord’s teaching: “The kings of the Gentiles have lordship over them; and they that have authority over them are called Benefactors. But ye shall not be so: but he that is the greater among you, let him become as the younger; and he that is chief, as he that doth serve. For which is greater, he that sitteth at meat, or he that serveth? is not he that sitteth at meat? But I am in the midst of you as he that serveth” (Lk. 22:25-27). The radicality of the Lord’s teaching about the utter reversal of status for those in Him had been mastered and practiced by this extraordinary woman. When Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, He made the very actions which were understood as the duty of women and slaves to be emblematic of the leaders in His community. It was through this utter reversal of status that the Lord removed the distinctions between slaves and free, male and female, rich and poor within His community. And if we are truly His people, we will seriously and practically aspire to this spirit. Joanna crossed the huge gulf between aristocratic lady and humble serving woman, inspired surely by the example of the Lord with whom she walked. Her example leaves us a piercing challenge to follow.

Joanna In Later Life

But Joanna’s story doesn’t end here. Her name occurs again in the form of ‘Junia’ in Rom. 16:7: “Greet Andronicus and Junia, my relatives [i.e. fellow Jews] and fellow prisoners, who are prominent among the apostles and were in Christ before me”. The AV’s “Junias” seems to be rooted in a desire not to have a woman seen as an apostle. Junia was a common Roman woman’s name, the equivalent of the Hebrew ‘Joanna’. The Latin pronunciation of ‘Junia’ and the Hebrew ‘Yohannah’ would have been very close indeed. It would seem, therefore, that Joanna moved to Rome, changed her name to a Latin form, and married Andronicus, a Jewish apostle, who like her was an early convert- “in Christ” before Paul’s conversion ⁽⁹⁾. Given her background in the Roman court at Tiberias, Joanna would have been an ideal missionary to Rome; and thus she went, and was imprisoned. It could well be that ‘Junia’ was the Latin name by which she would have been known even in Tiberias. Note how there were other missionaries who changed their Hebrew names into the Latin forms when they went on mission work into the Roman world: Silas became Silvanus, Saul became Paulus, Joseph Barsabbas became Justus (Acts 1:23); and hence we read of “John, whose other [Latin] name was Mark” (Acts 12:12,25).

The Prominence Of Joanna

The Greek translated “prominent” means ‘marked out, distinguished, outstanding, prominent’. She was all of those words; there really was something exceptional about this sister. And we need not be phased by her being called an “apostle”, for Paul uses the word in a nontechnical sense to refer simply to a messenger of the ecclesias (2 Cor. 8:23; Phil. 2:25). The prominence of Joanna is perhaps reflected in the chiastic structure of Lk. 24:9,10. Notice how the first three lines each have a parallel in the last three lines- e.g. a) = a1). But the centerpiece is Joanna. Why, unless she was worthy of special mention? Work it out for yourself:

“a) They told all these things to the eleven [‘the apostles’],

b) and to all the rest [‘others’].

c) Now they were Mary Magdalene,

d) and Joanna,

c1) and Mary the mother of James:

b1) and the other women with them

a1) told these things unto the apostles”.

Note that the great commission to preach is given to “the eleven and those with him” (Lk. 24:33) ⁽¹⁰⁾, i.e. the women, including Joanna. Acts 1:13,14 speaks of “the eleven and the women”- the same two groups. She would have known that she as a woman had no credibility as a witness in her society; and yet she was bidden go witness. And she did, it seems, as far as Rome- to the ends of her world. This surely is an inspiring challenge to all who feel hopelessly unqualified to witness; it is our very lack of qualification which seems to make the Lord chose us. To have accompanied the eleven throughout the Lord’s ministry was a qualification to be His authoritative witness (Acts 1:21,22); and Joanna fulfilled that requirement, having been with the Lord from the beginning (Lk. 8:3) right up to the crucifixion (Lk. 24:9,10). Note how Paul argues that he is an apostle because he has seen Jesus the Lord; yet his words clearly allude to the way Mary simply said: “I have seen the Lord” (1 Cor. 9:1; Jn. 20:18). It is worth putting together two passages, both from Luke: “The women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after…” (Lk. 23:55); and Acts 13:30,31: “God raised him from the dead and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses”. Surely Paul and Luke have in mind here the ministering women. They had followed from Galilee to Jerusalem, the risen Lord had appeared to a woman first of all, and now those women were witnessing to the people. Perhaps 1 Cor. 15:3-7 is relevant here, where we read that the Lord appeared after His resurrection to the twelve, and yet on another occasion to “all the apostles”- perhaps referring to the group that included the women.

One evident reason for Joanna’s prominence was that when the male disciples fled, it was Joanna and Mary who stood by the Lord during His crucifixion, knowing full well that they faced death by crucifixion for showing such solidarity with the victim. The importance of Joanna and the other women as witnesses lies in the fact that it was they who had seen Jesus buried, and therefore could vouch for the fact that the empty tomb was in fact the very tomb in which Jesus had been buried. This piece of evidence becomes more crucial the more one reflects upon it. An empty tomb was no proof that Jesus of Nazareth had risen- unless there were witnesses there present at that empty tomb who could testify also that it was in that very tomb that Jesus had been laid. And only women, not men, were witnesses of this. The Greek world placed great emphasis upon sight- “Eyes are surer witnesses than ears”, Heraclitus said. They related to the past visually; for a group of people to be eyewitnesses was considered conclusive. Hence the enormous significance of the way in which the Gospels repeatedly make the women the subjects of verbs of seeing (Mt. 27:55; Mk. 15:40; Lk. 23:49,55). They were the eyewitnesses.

Compelling Witnesses

The choice of women as the witnesses was made of course by God Almighty. Yet at that time, women were considered to be gullible in religious matters and especially prone to superstitious fantasy in religious matters. Celsus, a pagan despiser of Christianity, commented in mockery: “After death he rose again…But who saw this? A hysterical female…deluded by the same sorcery”⁽¹¹⁾. Yet it was females who were chosen by God as the primary witnesses; for He wanted to confirm His Son’s desire to turn human society upside down through the body of His Son. The servant was to become the leader; the marginalized at the centre of things from God’s perspective. And so it is today. A toothless old sister who doesn’t know English converts hundreds in Kazakhstan; the divorced and remarried ‘loser’ is seen as great in God’s eyes; the obscure old brother in isolation touches the mind of Christ as few have ever done. And of course, some men didn’t believe the women. The disciples didn’t; Peter has to go to the tomb to see for himself, after dismissing the women’s testimony as madness. In doing so, he was running parallel with Manoah, who according to a widely known Jewish midrash on the Judges record, wouldn’t believe his wife’s relaying of the message from the Angel because it was from a woman. The parallel is so exact! Surely Peter later reflected upon it.

The travelers on the road to Emmaus reported to the Lord what the women had told them about the empty tomb. They basically told Him that the women were right about the empty tomb, but were wrong in thinking Jesus had risen- because the men hadn’t seen Him. And what is the Lord’s response? He could have said ‘O foolish men for not believing all that the women told you!”. But instead He says: “O how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have told you!” (Lk. 24:22-25). The Lord cleverly parallels the women with the revered male prophets of Israel. He is teaching that in His new community, the witness of the women, the disbelieved, the marginalized, the ignored, the insignificant…was going to be as earth shattering as the word of God Himself. In writing this, I am not a raving feminist. I am seeking to inspire all of us who struggle with our dysfunction and inadequacies, to realize that we too can rise up and witness as the Lord intended; and it is through us that the Lord delights to work! So, let us rise up…

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Notes

(1) J.M. Arlandson, Women, Class and Society in Early Christianity (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1997) p. 130.

(2) J.B. Green, The Gospel of Luke (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997) pp. 318,319.

(3) Tal Ilan, Mine and Yours Are Hers: Retrieving Women’s History From Rabbinic Literature (Leiden: Brill, 1997) pp. 144-146.

(4) S.J.D. Cohen, The Jewish Family In Antiquity (Atlanta: Scholar’s Press, 1993) pp. 133-151.

(5) N. Lewis, The Documents From The Bar Kochba Period In The Cave Of Letters (Jerusalem: Israel Exploration Society, 1989) p.80.

(6) Sean Freyne, Galilee, Jesus and the Gospels (Philadelphia: Fortress, 1988) p. 147.

(7) R.A. Horsley, Archaeology, History and Society in Galilee (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Press, 1996) p. 57.

(8) L. Schotroff, Lydia’s Impatient Sisters (London: S.C.M., 1995) p. 205.

(9) This kind of speculation is foreign to some Bible readers. Yet the Biblical records are highly abbreviated, reduced to essentials, leaving the inessentials to be supplied by the reader / hearer. Ancient peoples were well used to doing this; modern readers are accustomed to novels or accounts which supply every detail, or to films whose visuality fills in such gaps. But, to me at least, the very nature of the Biblical narratives is different; they invite interpretation and ‘filling in the gaps’.

(10) Note how these references to Joanna, and the central placement given to her in the passage in Lk. 24:9,10, all occur within Luke’s writings. It would seem that Luke had an especial interest in chronicling the women who went with Jesus- his material accounts for two of the four parables that feature women (Lk. 15:8-10; 18:1-14), and he has seven passages / incidents where women are central (Lk. 7:11-17, 36-50; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 11:27,28; 13:10-17; 23:27-31). And it is Luke alone who gives the impression that the Lord was not followed around Palestine by twelve men alone, but by a further group of ministering women.

(11) Quoted in H. Chadwick, Origen: Contra Celsum (Cambridge: C.U.P., 1965) p. 109.

8:3 It is worth noting, though, that the NT does reflect the fact that a number of wealthy individuals came to the Truth too; and that these were bound together in fellowship with the poor. There were wealthy women amongst the earliest followers of Jesus (Lk. 8:3); and James and John came from a family who owned their own fishing boat and could employ servants (Mk. 1:19,20). Zacchaeus was wealthy- and note that he wasn't commanded to divest himself of all that wealth (Lk. 19:1-10). Consider the Philippi ecclesia- the wealthy lady from Lydia, the homeless slave girl, the middle class, respectable jailer, and the slaves of his and Lydia’s household. There was nowhere else in the ancient world that all these classes could come together in such unity. Paul himself was not poor- “to be a citizen of Tarsus one had to pass the means test of owning property worth at least 500 drachmae”. He was thought wealthy enough to be able to give a bribe (Acts 24:26). He assured Philemon that he personally would meet any debts arising from the situation with Onesimus. Consider the other wealthy converts: the Proconsul of Cyprus (Acts 13:12), Lydia, Jason who was wealthy enough to put down security for Paul, assisted by prominent women (Acts 17:4,9), Greek women of high standing at Berea (Acts 17:12), Dionysius and Damaris in Athens (Acts 17:16-34), Crispus the ruler of the Corinth synagogue (Acts 18:8 cp. 1 Cor. 1:14), Erastus the city treasurer (Rom. 16:23). Marta Sordi quotes evidence for there being Christians amongst the Roman aristocracy even during the first half of the first century. These few wealthy converts would have bonded together with the mass of poor and slaves who had also come to Christ. It was a unique unity.

8:5 The reason for the way side growth being so short lived was that the seed was "trodden down" (Lk. 8:5). This is a Biblical idiom for disdain and contempt (Jud. 5:21; Is. 14:19; 18:7; 28:3; Dan. 8:13; Mic. 7:10). A half hearted response to the word, is effectively to tread it down in contempt. Yet such is the word's power that even a partial response to it results in some growth- although in the final analysis, even this is unacceptable.

Our witness must fundamentally, therefore, be Christ-centred. The same Greek words are used about treading underfoot the seed of the Gospel, and treading underfoot the Son of God (Lk. 8:5; Heb. 10:29). Our knowledge of Him and living in Him are the essence of our witness. He is essentially our witness.

The fowls taking away the unfruitful plant is the first of a number of connections with the true vine parable of Jn.15, where the ideas of Divine husbandry, fruitfulness due to the word and purging recur. In Jn.15:2 the fruitless branch is taken away by God; in the sower parable, the birds remove the fruitless plant. The conclusion is that God sends 'birds' of various kinds to remove the spiritual deadwood from His ecclesia. It is in this sense that false teaching (e.g. the Judaist "fowls" of the first century) is allowed by God. Thus Lk.8:5 literally translated speaks of "birds of Heaven".

8:8 The Lord so wanted their response. "As he said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Lk. 8:8 RV; Jn. 7:37). The very muscles of the Lords face, His body language, would have reflected an earnest, burning care and compassion. The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost; He put His whole personality into the task. And we beseech men “in the face of Christ" (2 Cor. 2:10 RV). We are to be His face to this world and to our brethren. With raised eyebrows, lines showing in our forehead, one eye half closed… our body language should reflect the depth of our concern for others.

Having spoken of how our attitudes to God's word will elicit from Him varying responses, the Lord cried, loudly, "he that hath ears to hear, let him hear" (Lk. 8:8). There is then the sickening anticlimax of v. 9, where the disciples ask Him whatever His parable meant.  One senses a moment of silence in which the Lord composed Himself and camouflaged the pain of His disappointment; and then His essential hopefulness returns in v. 10: "Unto you it is given (potentially, anyway) to know (understand) the mysteries (parables) of the Kingdom of God".

There is a fine point of translation in Lk. 8:8 which needs to be appreciated: “As he said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear” (ASV and Greek). It seems that the Lord was ‘throwing out’ this challenge several times, as He spoke the parable. As the sower sows seed, so the Lord was challenging His hearers to decide what type of ground they were, as they heard the parable.

8:8,9 Our Lord's enthusiasm for us to interpret the sower parable for ourselves comes out well in Lk.8:8: "When he had said these things (the parable with the interpretation), he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear". The disciples' response "What might (indicating intellectual desperation?) this parable be?" (Lk.8:9) would have been a cutting anti-climax for the Lord after his impassioned plea.

8:11 "The seed is the word of God" (Lk.8:11), i.e. the word of the Gospel of the Kingdom (Mt.13:19). The parable gives the impression that the ground was in a certain condition when the seed was first sown; there seems no hint at the possibility of changing the ground, although we will see later that there is a sense in which this is possible. The stony ground, for example, is in that state as soon as the seed lands upon it. It seems that Jesus is showing us how God looks down upon the preaching of the Gospel to various people, seeing that He speaks about things which are future as if they are already (Rom.4:17). He knows the type of ground which each of us will ultimately be. Therefore, as far as God is concerned, we are good ground, or whatever, at the time of our first encounter with the Gospel, even if we are initially stony or thistle-filled.

The seed is the word (Lk. 8:11); and "the word" doesn't necessarily mean the whole Bible (although the whole Bible is of course inspired). The phrase specifically means the word of the power of the Gospel, by which we were ushered into spiritual being. And this is what brings forth fruit, through our 'patient' and continued response to it. We were born again, "not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the word of God... and this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you" (1 Pet. 1:23,25). Time and again the New Testament uses "the word of God" or "the word of the Lord (Jesus)" as shorthand for the preaching of the basic Gospel. This is the seed, this is the source of new life, this is what can lead to new character and behaviour in us. James speaks of being "doers of the word" (1:22,25), using the same word as in the parable of the sower, there translated 'to bring forth fruit'. Note that "the word of God" in the NT often refers specifically to the Gospel. James foresaw the possibility of hearing the word of the Gospel but not doing it, not bringing forth what those basic doctrines imply. He foresees how we can admire it as a vain man seeing his reflection in a mirror. We are not to be "forgetful hearers" of the word of the basics, the "implanted word" (1:21 RV- another reference to the sower parable). We aren't to learn the Gospel and then forget those doctrines. We are to be doers of them.

8:12 The parable of the sower connects the Devil with the fowls which take away the Word from potential converts, stopping their spiritual growth. This would aptly fit the Judaizers who were leading the young ecclesias away from the word, and the Jews who “shut up the Kingdom of Heaven against men... neither suffer ye them that are entering (young converts) to go in” (Mt. 23:13). The Devil takes away the word of the Kingdom, “lest they should believe and be saved” (Lk. 8:12).

8:14- see on Lk. 15:31.

The word becoming unfruitful in Mt. 13:22 is matched by it yielding "no fruit" (Mk. 4:7) and no fruit being perfected in Lk. 8:14. The conclusion from this is that spiritual fruit which is developed but does not remain is not really fruit at all. There is the constant temptation for us to recognize just a bit of apparent 'growth' within us, and feel satisfied with it- rather than taking on board the concept of the word having a fulness of effect upon every part of our lives. Given the lesson of the thorns, there is no doubt that one must watch their friends even within the ecclesia. "Thorns and snares are in the way of the forward: he that doth keep (the Hebrew for "keep" is often used in Proverbs about keeping the word) his soul shall be far from them" (Prov. 22:5). The language of thorns must connect with the curse upon Eden; the ecclesia, the paradise of God, must always have its thorns in order to spiritually exercise Adam, the spiritual gardener. As our brother's keeper, we need to be aware that after conversion, a whole gamut of new temptations face the convert. After he has heard the word, he is choked with the cares, riches and pleasures (Lk. 8:14). Yet these things existed before he heard the word; the point is that they became new temptations after his response to the word. A concerted effort to understand, with Biblical guidance, the pressures upon new converts might help save a few more of the many which are being lost.

The parable of the sower can be interpreted as fulfilling every time we hear the word sown in us. Thus some seed is "choked with cares" (Lk. 8:14)- exactly the same words used about Martha being "cumbered" with her domestic duties so that she didn't hear the Lord's word at that time (Lk. 10:40). We bring various attitudes of mind- stony, receptive, cumbered etc.- to the word each time we hear it. And it is our attitude to it which determines our response to it.

8:15- see on Lk. 10:37.

Paul tells the Hebrews and Romans to have the patient, fruit-bearing characteristics of the good ground (Lk. 8:15 = Rom. 2:7; Heb. 10:36).

The word/ seed which fell into good ground produced fruit. Thus connects with Jn. 15:5,7, which says that the branches of the vine bring forth fruit through the word abiding in them. Likewise the good ground keeps the word and continually brings forth fruit (Lk. 8:15). It is common for us to learn something from the word, apply it for a few days, and then forget it. Yet surely the implication is that if our hearts are truly open to the word, it will have permanent effects upon us, if the word abides in us. For this reason it is necessary to pray at least daily for our minds to be good ground for the word, and to retain what we already comprehend. Those on the good ground who hear and understand in Mt. 13:23 are described as those who hear and keep the word (Lk. 8:16). True understanding of the word's teaching is therefore related to an ongoing practical application of it. We may read a human book and understand it at the moment of reading; understanding God's word is quite a different concept. Truly understanding it means keeping it in our heart and therefore in our lives. The seed fell on good ground, "sprang up, and bare fruit"; indeed, it kept on bearing fruit (Lk. 8:8,15). The plant being sown was therefore a repeating crop. True response to the word will lead to wave after wave of spiritual progression. Again, we see that the sower parable is describing an ongoing response to the word- it keeps on being sown by the believer keeping the word, and fruit is continuously brought forth.

8:16- see on Lk. 6:47.

We are compared to a candle that is lit (cp. our baptism) so that it may give light to others (Lk. 8:16; 11:33); the woman (the Lord Jesus) lights a candle (He uses believers) to find his lost coin (through our efforts) (Lk. 15:8; this must be seen in the context of the other two references in Luke to lighting a candle). If we don't give light (God's word, Ps. 119:105) to others, we are a candle under a bucket, and therefore we will lose our faith, the flame will go out. So it's hard not to conclude that if we don't naturally give the light to others, we don't believe. The very nature of a lit candle is that it gives light; all candles do this, not just some. The Lord wants to use us as His candle, and He will arrange situations in life to enable this.

8:17 Nothing is done secretly that will not then come to the light (Lk. 8:17 RV)- and therefore we should come to the light right now, living life in God’s light and before His judgment (Jn. 3:20,21). This not only means we should not sin ‘in secret’, but more positively, we should feel and realize His constant affirmation of us for thoughts and actions which are invisible to others or for which we do not receive any thank.

The Lord taught that either the 'devil' will "take away" the word from the rejected, or He will "take away" what He has given them at the last day (Lk. 8:12,17). In this sense, the word "abiding" in us is a foretaste of the day of judgment- if we don't let it abide, and the 'devil' of the world or our own humanity takes it away from us, then effectively such people are living out the condemnation process even in this life.

8:18- see on Lk. 13:28.

8:21 “My mother and my brethren are these which hear the word of God and do it" (Lk. 8:21), refers back to His recent parable of the good seed that “did” the word which they heard (8:15). But surely that group of fascinated, surface-interested onlookers didn’t all come into the good seed category, who held the word to the end, all their lives? He was so positive about others’ faith.

8:25- see on Lk. 7:8.

They so often feared (Lk. 8:25; 9:34,45; Mk. 4:40; 6:50; 10:32); despite the Lord repeatedly telling them not to be afraid (Lk. 12:4,32; Jn. 14:27).

The Gospel writers use their records to bring out their own fickleness. After having been awed by the Lord’s stilling of the storm, they are soon almost mocking Him for asking who had touched Him, when hundreds of the jostling crowd had touched Him (Lk. 8:25 cp. 45).

8:27 There are many incidents where evidently the disciples were with Jesus, yet the focus of the record is entirely upon Him, so awed were they by the magnitude of His personality, and so selfless were they (Lk. 8:27; 10:38-41; Jn. 11:15,20-57). They are appealing for others to believe on the basis that they are recounting the story of how they heard Jesus, and eventually, very slowly and falteringly, had also come to believe.

8:29 Legion believed he was demon possessed. But the Lord didn’t correct him regarding this before healing him; indeed, one assumes the man probably had some faith for the miracle to be performed (Mt. 13:58). Lk. 8:29 says that Legion “was driven of the devil into the wilderness”, in the same way as the Lord had been driven into the wilderness by the spirit (Mk. 1:12) and yet overcame the ‘devil’ in whatever form at this time. The man was surely intended to reflect on these more subtle things and see that whatever he had once believed in was immaterial and irrelevant compared to the Spirit power of the Lord. And yet the Lord ‘went along’ with his request for the demons he thought were within him to be cast into ‘the deep’, thoroughly rooted as it was in misunderstanding of demons and sinners being thrown into the abyss. This was in keeping with the kind of healing styles people were used to at the time – e.g. Josephus records how Eleazar cast demons out of people and placed a cup of water nearby, which was then [supposedly] tipped over by the demons as they left the sick person [Antiquities of the Jews 8.46–48]. It seems to me that the Lord ‘went along with’ that kind of need for reassurance, and so He made the pigs stampede over the cliff to symbolize to the healed man how his disease had really left him.

8:31- see on Acts 16:16.

8:39 Mary’s praise that “He hath done to me great things” is surely behind her Son’s words in Lk. 8:39, where He bids a man go home" and shew how great things God hath done unto thee". 

There are some things in Scripture which are recorded in such a way as to promote meditation, and therefore they will always be ambiguous in terms of the actual interpretation which is sustainable. We can't always say "This word means X, this phrase means Y, therefore this verse means interpretation Z; and if you don't agree with that, you don't really accept the Bible". Because it is possible to say that about the interpretation of basic doctrine doesn't mean that we can adopt this attitude to the interpretation of every Bible passage. The record of the crucifixion is a good example of this. Or consider how it is recorded that some of those healed by the Lord didn't afterwards do what He said: one preached to his whole city rather than to his family (Lk. 8:39); another didn't obey the Lord's plea to not tell anyone else (Mk. 1:45). How are we to read these responses? Rank disobedience? Misguided zeal? Zeal in doing over and above what they were asked? You may have your ideas, and it is right that we should meditate upon these things and discuss them. But I suggest that ultimately they are left 'hanging' for the very purpose of promoting meditation and personal application, rather than being statements which shout for an obvious interpretation.

8:42- see on Lk. 15:31.

The Lord’s rush to heal her was interrupted by a woman, whom He addressed [unusually] as “daughter”. She had been sick for 12 years. And she was healed because of her faith. To the unspiritual man, this would have been nothing but an irritating interruption, to be sworn about under the breath. But to the spiritual man, there was ample encouragement here for faith; for another beloved daughter lay sick, and she was 12 years old, and she likewise could be healed by faith... The Lord’s question: “Who touched me?” was therefore also a rhetorical device to spur faith in Jairus and his family. Who? Another “daughter”, 12 years afflicted... It is only by our spiritual laziness in not providing that freewill input, that desire to understand, that crying for the knowledge of God which is in His word (Prov. 2:3-5), that this marvellous equation will fail. What greater motivation could each of us want in inspiring us to a total commitment to the word, rising early and staying up late to find that knowledge of God to overcome the sin which we hate? If we can only continue to desire to make the effort, to bruise the flesh more through that glorious word of God, then this spiral of growth will catch us up with ever increasing speed.

8:48 The Centurion’s servant was healed for the sake of his faith; Jairus’ daughter was healed because of his faith (Mk. 5:36). Hence the Lord told them to believe and stop wavering, so that she would be made whole, or “saved” (Lk. 8:50). This comes straight after the Lord’s commendation of the woman with “an issue of blood”: “Thy faith hath made thee whole [or, saved]” (Lk. 8:48). It’s as if the two healings are similar in their result- being made whole, or saved- and both required faith. But the woman’s own personal faith which led to her healing is paralleled with the faith of the family of the girl who was resurrected.

8:49 When we read that “there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead, trouble not the Master” (Lk. 8:49), we naturally ask: who was this “one” who came with this message? In the Gospels, it is often the disciples who term Jesus “the Master”. The implication is that it was they who thought that Jesus wouldn’t have the power to raise the dead, perhaps connecting with their own studied lack of faith in His resurrection later.

8:50 Do not fear but believe (Lk. 8:50) shows the power of fear- it is fear which stops faith, fear is the opposite of faith. If we know the love that casts out fear, then a whole new style of relationships becomes possible. In so many relationships there is a balance of power which is more realistically a balance of fear- a fear of losing, of being made to look small, a fighting back with self-affirmation against the fear of being subsumed by the other. Be it parents and kids, teachers and students, pastor and flock, so often both sides fear the other. Yet if we are truly affirmed in Christ, no longer seeking victory because we have found victory in Him, His victories become ours… then our whole positioning in relationships becomes so different. For example, our fear of rejection becomes less significant if we believe firmly in our acceptance in the eyes of the Lord, the only one whose judgment has ultimate value. If we can say with Paul that for us the judgment of others has very little value, because we only have one judge… then we will no longer worrying about acting in such a way as to impress others. No longer will it be so important to not express our inner thoughts about people or situations for fear of not using the constant ‘nicespeak’ which results in judgment from others unless it’s used. There will be a congruence between what we feel and think within us, and what we actually show. And thus we will avoid the dysfunction which is so apparent in so many, as they forever struggle to control their outward expressions, hiding their real self, with the real self and the external self struggling against each other in a painful dis-ease.

8:51 Luke records how Peter, James, John and the parents of the dead girl entered the house where she was alone; and then "they" laughed Jesus to scorn when He proclaimed she was merely asleep (Lk. 8:51,53). It's psychologically unlikely that the distraught, desparately hopeful parents would've ridiculed Jesus like this at that time. The reference is surely to the three disciples doing this. This is a profound recognition of the disciples' weakness- there, alone with Jesus and the distraught parents, they mocked Jesus' ability to resurrect the girl. And they have the profound humility to tell the world about that in their record of the Gospel.

8:55 The way the Lord healed people reflects His sensitivity- He commanded food to be brought for a girl who had been dead and was therefore hungry (Lk. 8:55).

8:56- see on Lk. 9:44.

The Lord Jesus, in His ministry, had forbidden the extroverts from publicly preaching about Him, as they naturally wanted to (e.g. Mk. 8:26). To keep silent was an act of the will for them, something against the grain. It is hard to find any other explanation for why He told Jairus not to tell anyone that He had raised his daughter (Lk. 8:56)- for it would have been obvious, surely. For they knew she had died (8:53). By contrast, those who would naturally have preferred to stay quiet were told to go and preach (e.g. Mk. 5:19). Perhaps Paul was in this category.

9:4 The Lord at least twice stressed to His disciples that they were not to go preaching from house to house, but rather focus upon one house in a village and make that the centre of their work (Lk. 9:4; 10:7). Clearly His intention was that they built up house groups rather than scattered converts. Perhaps this was alluded to by Paul when he criticized sisters who went spreading gossip “from house to house” (1 Tim. 5:13). He surely had house churches in mind.

9:11 The Lord cured “them that had need of healing” (Lk. 9:11), possibly implying that some posed as being sick, and yet the Lord could discern whose need was genuine. How hard His life must have been, in that hard land. And how hard it is for Him, in this hard world.

To not offend others we must “receive” them (Mt. 18:5). It is written of Jesus that when crowds of materialistic, fascinated people followed Him, “He received them, and spake unto them of the Kingdom” (Lk. 9:11). He didn’t just turn round and read them a lecture about the Kingdom. “He received them”. Presumably Luke means to reflect how he perceived something in the Lord’s body language that was receiving of that crowd of peasants- whom we would likely have written off as just dumb groupies with no more than surface level interest. And we too must receive one another, even as the Lord has received us (Rom. 15:7)- and this includes receiving him who is even weak in the faith (Rom. 14:1). We should be looking for every reason to receive and fellowship our brethren, rather than reasons not to.

9:20 In Lk. 9:18-20, the Lord Jesus asks His men: “Whom say the people that I am?”. Why did He ask this? Surely, with His sensitivity and insight into people and society, He knew full well the various theories that first Century Palestine entertained about Him. It seems to me that He asked this question for the disciples’ sake; He wanted them to reflect upon the wide range of wrong theories which there were concerning His identification. And this led on to His next question: “But whom say ye that I am? Peter answering said, The Christ of God”. Surely the Lord Jesus knew what they thought of Him, without needing to ask them. Philip and Nathanael had earlier revealed that they considered Jesus of Nazareth to be the Messiah and “the Son of God” (Jn. 1:45,49). So, why did the Lord ask this question? Again, it was surely to focus His disciples upon the reality of the fact that despite all the various wrong theories, they actually knew the truth about Him. But the Lord then goes on to His essential point: “Tell no man that thing; saying, The Son of man must suffer many things…and be slain, and be raised…If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me… For what is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world, and lose himself, or be cast away?” (Lk. 9:21-25). The Lord told the disciples to “Tell no man” by saying that “The Son of man must suffer…”. I submit that “Tell no man…” is almost hyperbole; surely He means ‘For now, focus more on the fact of my forthcoming death and your response to it, than telling others. If you gain the whole world for me in your preaching but lose your own salvation, what are you advantaged?’. After His resurrection they were to tell others; as the great commission made plain. And there is a powerful message to us all here, especially to those who concern themselves with large amounts of preaching. We should not be so caught up in listing the errors of others that we fail to appreciate the huge personal import of the truth that we do surely know. Indeed, the Lord sought to focus His men upon the Truth they knew by asking them firstly to consider all the wrong theories about Him. He then went on to bring home to them the radical, transforming impact of that Truth if it is properly believed and acted upon. Luke seems to draw attention to this theme again in Lk. 10:20, where the disciples return from a successful preaching mission to be told to focus their elation instead upon the reality of their own personal salvation: “Rejoice not [i.e. not so much] that the spirits are subject unto you: but rather rejoice, because your names are written in heaven”. We are not to turn a blind eye to others' misunderstandings; the tragedy of the errors of Islam, Judaism, Hinduism etc. should not pass us by. But neither are we to remain obsessed with them. We are to be led by such reflection to rejoice in the basic truth of Jesus which we have been blessed with.

9:23- see on Mt. 10:38.

In the context of telling His followers to witness to Him, the Lord equates this with taking up their cross daily (Lk. 9:23,26). To not bear that cross is to deny the knowledge of Him before men. To live the crucifixion life is the essential witness. Every act of grace, every evident sign of self-control, every statement of forgiveness towards misunderstanding and unrepentant men... all this is showing something of the cross. And in this, painful and difficult as it is, demanding and driving-to-the-limit as it must be, lies the essence of our being the Lord’s witnesses. To witness Christ is not to just painlessly distribute a few tracts. It is to live out the dying of the cross.

Take up the cross, and follow me" is inviting us to carry Christ's cross with Him - He speaks of "the cross" rather than 'a cross'. The Greek translated "take up" is that translated 'to take away' in the context of Christ taking away our sins. Strong says that it implies "expiation" (of sins). This connection, between our taking away / up the cross, and Christ's taking away our sins, suggests that the efficacy of His cross for us depends upon our daily 'taking up the cross'. It is vital therefore that we "take up the cross" if our sins are to be taken away by Him. But our taking up of the cross is a response to the taking away / up of our sins.

We all know from experience that how we start each day is important. Indeed, how we start any enterprise is crucial- hence the need for a sound understanding of the basic Gospel before we're baptized. We so often meet the phrase "rose early in the morning" in the Hebrew Bible. Strong defines the Hebrew shawkam translated "rose early" as essentially meaning "to incline the shoulder to a burden... literally to load up on the back of man". In this we see an evident connection with the Lord's thought about taking up the cross daily, for that surely implies we are to take it up each morning (Lk. 9:23). Men and women had arisen each morning for 4000 years and inclined their shoulders to the burden of the day, loaded themselves with it onto their back. And the Lord now took humanity further, in redefining that "load", that burden, as His cross. Practically, does this not mean that we are to reflect as we come to consciousness each morning that we are to load ourselves with His cross? This thought need not necessarily lead to an image of having to burden ourselves with an impossible, awful weight. For again in allusion to this idea of loading oneself up each morning, the Lord spoke of how His burden is light! Here perhaps is one of the finest paradoxes of the spiritual life- that His cross, the life of self-sacrifice and self-giving unto the very end, is indeed heavy and demanding... yet in another sense it is "light", far lighter than the burdens of legalism which Pharisaic religion bound [and binds] upon people.

Lk. 9:23,24 describes cross carrying as a rejection of saving our life, of making our present life as rich and fulfilled as possible; and instead concentrating on giving up our lives. William Barclay comments on this passage: “A man must spend his life, not hoard it... the Christian must realize that he is given life, not to keep it for himself, but to spend it for others; not to husband its flame, but to burn himself out for Christ and for men... the questions are not ‘How much can I get?’, but, ‘How much can I give?’. Not ‘What is the safe thing to do?’, but ‘What is the right thing to do?”.

9:23-25 The threat of Lk. 9:23-25 rung in Paul’s mind (in 1 Cor. 3:15; 2 Cor. 7:9; Phil. 3:8): If a man gains the world for Christ but does not take up the cross, or is ashamed of Christ's words and principles in this world, he will be cast away. Especially does Paul allude to these words in 1 Cor. 9:27: "Lest, when I have preached to others, I myself should be a castaway". Paul recognized his temptation: to think that his zeal for preaching excused him from taking up the cross. In essence, we must all see our own likely temptations: to focus on one area of spirituality, with the hope that it will excuse us from the cross. 

9:24,25- see on Lk. 9:54,55.

9:25 Jesus speaks of how a person can lose their place in the Kingdom as a person losing or forfeiting their own self; He was thereby teaching that a place in the Kingdom was possessing one’s own real self (Lk. 9:25 RV).

The Greek text in Mt. 16:25,26 and Lk. 9:25 can bear a re-translation and re-punctuation which quite alters the sense as found in the English translations. It shows the Lord emphasizing the evident and compelling logic of losing our lives for His sake: "Whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. For how much a man is profited if he shall gain the whole world (in the Kingdom) and lose his own soul (now, as I asked you to do, to lose your soul for me)!... for the Son of man shall come... and then he shall reward every man according to his works", i.e. the losing of our soul is through our everyday works. Lk. 9:25 makes the same point: 'How is a man advantaged if he gain the whole world (the Kingdom) and lose himself (now)!: or - be cast away, be condemned at the judgment, because he tried to keep his soul, he didn't see the logic of all this!'. The point is, a man at the day of judgment will be willing to give up everything, even the whole world if he possesses it in order that he may find acceptance. But then it will be too late. Now is the time to resign all for the sake of that blessed acceptance.

9:26- see on Rev. 19:10.

If we are now ashamed of our Lord before men, we will be in the condemnation process (Lk. 9:26 cp. 1 Jn. 2:28).

9:31- see on 2 Pet. 1:15.

9:32 The disciples’ eyes were heavy and they fell asleep at the critical moment. But ealier, “having remained awake”, the same disciples were blessed with a vision of the Lord’s glory (Lk. 9:32 RVmg.). If they had remained awake in the garden, they would have seen the Lord being glorified by Angelic visitation. But they didn't perceive how the circumstances were repeating, and thus didn’t find the strength and inspiration which was potentially prepared for them through the similarity of circumstance. 

9:34 Having warned against materialism, the Lord bids His men to “rather seek ye the Kingdom of God... it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom” (Lk. 9:31,32) in the place of seeking for material things. The more we grasp that it really is God’s will that we will be there, the more strength we will have to resist seeking for material things in this life. By being sure that we will be there, the Kingdom becomes our treasure, where our heart is, rather than any material treasure in this life (Lk. 9:34). See on Mt. 6:9.

9:40,41 When Jesus returned from the Mount of Transfiguration, He found that the disciples had failed to do a cure because of their lack of faith. He describes them as [part of] a “faithless generation” (Lk. 9:40,41), again indicating how the disciples were all too influenced by Judaism, the “generation” or world around them. The disciples and Judaism / the Jewish world are paralleled in Jn. 7:3,4: “Let your disciples see your work… shew yourself to the world”.  See on Jn. 7:33.

9:44 It is helpful to consider in more detail the Lord's prophecies of this moment of handing over. He said that He would be, in the future, delivered up (Lk. 9:44); but the parallel Mk. 9:31 records Him saying: "I am delivered up". And Lk. 24:7 says that at this time, He told them that He must be delivered up. It is possible that He said all three things in one sentence, such was His emphasis: "I must be delivered up, I will be delivered up, in fact I am now being delivered up". He saw the future experience of the cross as being fulfilled in His daily experience of life.

The parallel between the Lord’s words and works is brought out in Lk. 9:43,44: “They wondered at all things which Jesus did…He said…let these sayings sink down into your ears”. There are no distinct ‘sayings’ of Jesus in this context; He wanted them to see that His works were His words. There was perfect congruence between what He said and what He did. Perhaps this was why He told the parents of the girl whom He resurrected “to tell no man what was done” (Lk. 8:56), even though it was so obvious; He wanted His self-evident works to speak for themselves, without the need for human words. For His works were essentially His message. See on Jn. 8:28.

9:45 The Lord’s teaching about the cross was “hid from them” (Lk. 9:45), much to the Lord’s distress. And yet in prayer to the Father, He rejoices that these things are not hid from them (Lk. 10:21,23). This is a picture of the Lord’s present mediation for us in prayer- speaking of us as far better than we are.

The message of Christ crucified was “hid” from them (Lk. 9:45; 18:34)- and Paul surely alludes to this when he says that this message is hid by the veil of Judaism from those who are lost (2 Cor. 4:3).

9:48- see on Mt. 18:4.

9:51 The Lord "set his face" to go up to Jerusalem and die there (Lk. 9:51), but in doing so the record alludes to the way Hazael set his face to go up against Jerusalem in judgment (2 Kings 12:17). The Lord's death was effectively Israel's judgment.

He set His face to go to Jerusalem, and the final sacrifice which would be there (Lk. 9:51). He hardened His face like a rock (Is. 50:7); and yet the wicked similarly harden their faces like a rock to go in the way of the flesh (Jer. 5:3). We are hardened in our path, one way or the other. Jeremiah had his face hardened in response to his own hardening of face (Jer. 1:17; 5:3), and the wicked in Israel likewise were hardened (Jer. 3:3; 4:30).

9:54 Time and again, the Lord responded to requests for Him to do something by reminding those who asked of their responsibilities- e.g. 'Bring fire down on these guys! You have the Spirit, go on, do it, you surely can!' was responded to with a reminder that you don't appreciate what Spirit you have (Lk. 9:54,55). 'Send the people away... No, you feed them' (Lk. 9:12,13). 'Save us from this storm, Jesus, you miracle man!... Where is your faith?' (Lk. 8:24,25).

9:54,55 The incident in  2 Kings 1:10 of calling fire down from Heaven is specifically rebuked by the Lord Jesus as not being of His Spirit (Lk. 9:54,55). And He rebukes His followers for assuming that their natural prejudice against others can be justified by an appeal to Elijah’s example. The Lord’s comment that He had not come to destroy men’s lives but to save them (Lk. 9:56) must surely be connected with what He has just said: Whosoever will save his life shall lose [s.w. destroy] it and vice versa (Lk. 9:24,25). The three words save, life, lose / destroy are all the same. There is surely a connection of thought here. But what is the Lord saying through it? The disciples like Elijah would have had their prayers heard- the fire of destruction could have come. But the Lord says that they don’t know the type of spirit they are of. His Spirit is one of saving and not destruction. Men destroy themselves by seeking to save themselves without Him. This is why the Lord could say that He Himself judged / condemned no man- each rejected man will have condemned himself. The same point is actually made within the Elijah story too. In 1 Kings 18:28 the prophets of Baal worshipped after their manner- a Hebrew word normally translated 296 times ”judgment”; they judged / condemned themselves, rather than needing Elijah to do so. And the word translated ”cut” essentially means to gather. They gathered themselves together to condemnation and poured out their own blood. “Knives and lancets” is a phrase normally translated “swords and spears”. They lived out judgment upon themselves rather than Elijah needing to condemn them.  Elijah like the disciples thought that he was the judge on God’s behalf, and that he was justified in calling down fire, evocative as that was of the way God Himself judges sinners. But Jesus puts it all another way- our focus, if we have His spirit, should be on saving people by getting them to destroy / lose their own fleshly lives through following Him. Jn. 12:25,26 makes the same point- he who loves his life loses / destroys it, but he who picks up the cross and follows Jesus will save it. Our absolute focus must be on the salvation of others through helping them condemn / destroy / lose themselves for the Lord’s sake; and we achieve this by following Jesus in the life of the cross, not by destroying others ourselves. The Lord came to save not destroy; to save the lost / destroyed (Lk. 6:9; 19:10- the same words are used; note how this theme is developed specifically by Luke). But He did this through getting people to destroy their lives. And He begged- and begs- His followers to have His spirit / attitude in all this. And His point was that Elijah didn’t have His Spirit. Note that God worked with Elijah- He heard his prayers. Elijah like the disciples had the Spirit, the power that God was willing to let them have; and yet the Spirit of Jesus is more than raw power. And so it could be said of us, that we so often know not what manner of spirit we are of. We may be correctly reflecting the judgment of God, we may have Biblical justification for the hard line we adopt; but this doesn’t mean that we fully have the spirit of Christ. Yet as with Elijah, the fact our prayers are heard, that Scripture appears to back us, can make us blind to such  major insufficiencies in our spirituality. We have a choice in how we respond to others’ weakness; there are different levels of response. If thy brother sin against thee, the Lord said- we can ultimately take others with us and then treat him as a Gentile or tax collector. But He continues- if our brother sin against us, we should forgive to an unlimited extent. This is the higher level of response to your brother’s weakness. Elijah and the disciples took the first of those options, as many of us do; but in doing so we so easily forget what manner of spirit we are of; for we are to be of the spirit of Christ, not Elijah. And His attitude / spirit was most definitely to save rather than to destroy, to share table fellowship rather than disassociate... See on Lk. 12:49-54.

9:58 When the Lord spoke of the Son of man having nowhere to lay His head (Lk. 9:58), He surely had His mind upon how His dear mother had told Him that when He was born, there was no place to lay Him, and His dear head had to be laid in an animal’s feeding trough.  

The Lord used language which challenged people. He could be seen as a demanding Lord. The Lord Jesus said many "hard sayings" which dissuaded people from seriously following Him. He kept speaking about a condemned criminal's last walk to his cross, and telling people they had to do this. He told them, amidst wondrous stories of flowers and birds, to rip out their eyes, cut off their limbs- and if they didn't, He didn't think they were serious and would put a stone round their neck and hurl them into the sea (Mk. 9:42-48). He healed a leper, and then spoke sternly to Him (Mk. 1:43 AV mg.). All three synoptics record how He summarily ordered His weary disciples to feed a crowd numbering thousands in a desert, when they had no food (Mt. 14:16; Mk. 6:37; Lk. 9:13). He criticises the man who earnestly wished to follow Him, but first had to attend his father's funeral. "Let the dead bury their dead" (Mt. 8:22) was a shocking, even coarse figure to use- 'let the dead bodies drag one more dead body into their grave'. And then He went on to speak and show His matchless, endless love. Mark 5 records three prayers to Jesus: "the devils besought him", and "Jesus gave them leave" (vv. 12,13); the Gadarenes " began to pray him to depart out of their coasts" (v. 17); and He obliged. And yet when the cured, earnestly zealous man "prayed him that he might be with him... Jesus suffered him not" (vv. 18,19). He expressed Himself to the Jews in ways which were almost provocative (consider His Sabbath day miracles, and invitation to drink His blood). He intended to shake them. He seems to have used hyperbole in order to make the point concerning the high standard of commitment He expects. Thus He spoke of cutting off the limbs that offend. He told those who were interested in following Him that He had nowhere to lay His head (Lk. 9:58). That may have been true that night, but the ministering women surely saw to it that this was not the case with Him most nights.

He expressed Himself to the Jews in ways which were almost provocative (consider His Sabbath day miracles). He intended to shake them. He seems to have used hyperbole in order to make the point concerning the high standard of commitment He expects. Thus He spoke of cutting off the limbs that offend. He told those who were interested in following Him that He had nowhere to lay His head (Lk. 9:58). That may have been true that night, but the ministering women surely saw to it that this was not the case with Him most nights. The man who wanted to first attend his father's funeral was told that this wasn't good enough; although Abraham and Joseph did this. The man who wanted to go and say farewell to his family was told the same; although Elisha did this (Lk. 9:60,61). The Lord is surely saying that the commitment of such Old Testament giants was to be less than what He expected of those for whom He was to give His all. It isn't that He won't save a man who (in the parable) puts his father's funeral before the Lord's demands. But He expects the ultimate level of commitment from us. Likewise His Father had asked Abraham to offer his dearest: Isaac. This is the Father and Son with whom we have to do. His parables of Mt. 25 make the point that the rejected will be surprised at how hard He turns out to be: they didn't expect Him to judge sins of omission so seriously. Likewise the man who held on to his talent of the Truth seemed surprised when the Lord said that He expected more. The foolish virgins were likewise shocked to be told that actually they didn't know their Lord at all.  

9:59 Following Christ, which is to carry His cross, is paralleled by Him with preaching His Kingdom (Lk. 9:59,60). To live out the essence of the cross, in daily self-control, unconditional kindness and forgiveness, patience with those who provoke us… this is the real witness (Lk. 9:23-26). If we don’t preach, we aren’t following Him. And if we do follow Him, it’s axiomatic that we therefore preach Him. “From henceforth thou shalt catch men. And... they forsook all, and followed him” (Lk. 5:10,11) definitely parallels preaching with  following the Lord. Following after Him is the way to be fishers of men (Mk. 1:17), and yet following Jesus is so often understood by Him as a call to carrying the cross. A focus on Him and the life of His cross leads to a catching of men for Him in a quite natural way.

Once the Lord asked a man on the way to his father’s funeral to immediately follow Him, and quit going to the funeral as he intended (Lk. 9:59). And He criticized the man for not doing this. Another who wanted to first “bid farewell” to his family was likewise criticized (Lk. 9:61). Even Elisha bid farewell to his family before following Elijah, and Elijah allowed him to do this (1 Kings 19:20)- but the Lord Jesus was more demanding. He described the disciples as a “perverse generation” because they didn’t have enough faith to work a miracle (Lk. 9:41).

9:60 “Leave the dead to bury their dead; but as for you, go and proclaim the Kingdom” (Lk. 9:60) would have been more shocking to first century ears than it is even to ours. For to bury his father was the most elemental duty of a Jewish son- “in Jewish custom it came before other fundamental religious responsibilities like reciting the Shema”. And the urgency about the preacher was to elicit a like urgency in the response of their hearers.

The principle of Nazariteship (explained in Num. 6) encouraged the average Israelite, regardless of his tribe, to in some way aspire to the High Priesthood. He could grow his hair long to imitate the High Priestly mitre, and he could chose to have the same commands concerning defilement by the dead and eating vine-products apply to him, as applied to the High Priest. The Lord applied this to all His followers, when He told the man who wished to bury his father to not do so, but engage instead in His work (Lk. 9:59,60). This would have sent the Jewish mind back to Lev. 21:1-11, where the High Priest could not be distracted from his service even by the death of his father.

9:61 The urgency of the call to preach is taught by the way that the Lord called men to go preaching at the most inconvenient times for them. The Lord even insisted that a man not fulfil his most basic Jewish duty- to bury his father (Lk. 9:61)- but rather go and preach the Gospel immediately. The poignancy of all this becomes the deeper when we realize that in first century Palestine, burial took place on the day of death. The son had just that day lost his father, and was willing to miss the traditional six days of mourning to go preach for the Lord. But no, the Lord wanted him to go there and then, immediately. No delay for anything was possible in the light of the knife-edge urgency of sharing Christ with others.

9:62 It is amazing that with the clear command echoing in his ears, "neither stay thou in all the plain; escape to the mountain, lest thou be consumed" (Gen.19:17), Lot could ask leave to live in Zoar, a small city of the plain, and not go to the mountain. He clearly failed to appreciate the reality and seriousness of the Angel's coming- and this will certainly be a temptation to us in that moment when the typology of Lot is fulfilled in us. The only way to guard against this is by consciously living our lives now in awareness of the fact that now we have been called to leave the world and its ways, and therefore our whole life now should have the spirit which we will have when we leave this world when the Angel comes. This is confirmed by an oblique allusion which our Lord makes to this Angelic command "Look not behind thee", in Lk.9:62: "No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God". The context shows that starting to plough represents the start of our new life in response to the Gospel call- but the allusion to the Angel's words to Lot show that we should live our whole lives in response to that call as if we are on the way to the judgment, having been called away by the Angel.

The Lord spoke of following Him as being like a man ploughing by keeping his eye constantly and unswervingly on an end point- and that point is Him as a person (Lk. 9:61,62). The account of Peter starting to drown exemplifies all this- when he took his gaze off the Lord personally, in order to notice how the wind was so strongly blowing some object [perhaps back on the boat], then his walk to Jesus started to come to an end (Mt. 14:30).

All the Gospels present the crucifixion and resurrection as the climax of their presentation of the Gospel. Luke’s record is studded with references to the Lord’s progress on that final journey up to Jerusalem; events took place “as they went in the way" (Lk. 9:57-62), as if they were incidental to the main aim of the record, which was to describe the final coming of the Lord to Jerusalem and death (Lk. 13:22).

10:1 According to some texts, Luke records that the Lord sent out 72 preachers (Lk. 10:1). The Jews understood that there were 72 nations in the world, based on the LXX of Gen. 10. Surely Luke’s point is that they went only to the Jews, thus highlighting the gap between the disciples’ understanding at the time, and the Lord’s further reaching intention of a mission to the Gentiles.

The Lord sent out the 70 “before his face into every city whither he himself would come”. They were heralds of His presence; and He goes on in this context to tell them that they were “as lambs among wolves”- i.e. they were like Him, the lamb- and that therefore “he that rejecteth you rejecteth me” (Lk. 10:1,3,16 RV). Yet significantly, having told the 70 to proclaim His face to the cities where He would come, we find the comment: “Therefore said he unto them, The harvest truly is great, but the labourers are few [i.e. only 70]: pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest, that he would send forth labourers into his harvest. Go your ways…” (:2). Could this not mean that He would have travelled more extensively around Israel in His ministry than He did, but He was limited in the places He witnessed in by whether there were enough heralds to go there in advance and prepare the way? The dearth of workers meant that places He otherwise would have visited, He didn’t- for it seems that He had a policy of only Himself working in areas where His men had broken the ground. And is there not some worrying relevance of all this for our work in this day, in this hard land…?

10:2 The Lord had to comment that the harvest was great, but the labourers [i.e. the disciples] were few or weak [Lk. 10:2 Gk.]. And yet He delegated so much to them- authority, the power of miracles, the Gospel itself (Lk. 9:1-6), despite their weakness, and despite the fact much harvest was spoilt or not harvested by their weakness. They were His representatives to the world (Lk. 10:16)- and yet they still didn’t know how to pray (Lk. 11:1). We marvel at the way the Lord used them, and yet we end up realizing with a similar amazement that the same Lord has entrusted His Gospel to us, with all our weakness and dysfunction.

The Hebrew writer asked his brethren to pray for him “that I may be restored to you the sooner” (Heb. 13:19). The amount of prayer seems significant. The Lord Himself seems to have asked the disciples to add their prayers to His in asking the Father to send forth more labourers into the over-ripe, unharvested fields (Lk. 10:2), which, by implication, He alone couldn’t satisfactorily gather.

10:3 As He was the lamb of God sent forth for the salvation of men, so those in Him are sent forth with that same Gospel, as lambs (Lk. 10:3).

10:4 As we read the preaching of Jesus, one cannot but be impressed by the gravity of His message. He never spoke of His message, of His person and His Kingdom, in a take-it-or-leave-it way, as thought it didn’t matter how His hearers responded. And we ought to preach as He preached. He realized that how His hearers responded would determine the structure of their whole lives and what their eternal destiny would be. He urged His preachers to exchange no greetings on the road as they pressed on to take His Gospel to others (Lk. 10:4). This would have been seen as most unusual and even offensive in first century Palestine. The people would have had their attention arrested by this- these preachers of the man from Nazareth had an urgency about them, a sense of utmost priority in the work they were about. They were to be known as men in an urgent hurry. They were to go on their preaching mission without pausing to greet others, such was their haste (Lk. 10:4 cp. 2 Kings 4:29). The Greek word translated ‘greet’ also carries the idea of joining together with others. People rarely travelled alone unless they were in great haste, but rather moved in caravans. But for the Lord’s messengers, there was to be no loss of time. Every minute was to be precious. In a world full of time wasting distractions, information we don’t need to know… this is all so necessary. No wonder that when those men finally came to themselves, realized their calling, and hurled themselves in joy at this world after the Lord’s ascension… they preached repentance, immediate conversion and quick baptism, right up front.

10:5 He raised everything to an altogether higher level. It was, for example, customary for Semitic peoples to greet each other [as it is today] with the words 'shalom!' or 'salaam!' ['peace']. But there was little real meaning in those words. The Lord said that His peace, His 'shalom', He gives to us, not as the [Jewish] world gave it. Likewise He told His disciples to say "Peace be to this house" (Lk. 10:5) when they entered a home. Yet this was the standard greeting. What He surely meant was that they were to say it with meaning.  

10:7- see on Lk. 9:4.

Preaching is all about relationships. The Lord commanded to not go from house to house but rather build up a base in one home (Lk. 10:7). I take this to mean that He saw the importance of relationship building in preaching, rather than a surface level contact with many people of the type achieved in more public addresses.

Preaching is essentially about building relationships, not platform evangelism. The Lord taught that His preachers were not to go "from house to house" but rather to remain within an acceptive household and make that their base (Lk. 10:7). In modern terms, I think we could interpret this as meaning: 'Focus on building relationships; don't build up a shallow relationship with a lot of people, but rather try to get deep with one household'.

10:8- see on 1 Cor. 9:22; 10:27.

10:12 Jer.20:16 has a graphic description of the people of Sodom screaming out in anguish, both mental and physical, as the judgments of God fell upon them: "The cry in the morning (when the judgments began, Gen.19:23,24), and the shouting at noontide". This is in reality a picture of the rejected in the last days.

10:13- see on Lk. 19:42.

10:14 The Lord taught His preachers that if people rejected their message, in that day when they did this, “it shall be more tolerable in that day for Sodom than for that city”. But He repeats Himself later on: “It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you” (Lk. 10:12,14 RV). “In that day” clearly refers to the day on which the preacher’s message was rejected. But that day was effectively their judgment day.

10:15 As He sent the 70 away on their preaching mission, the Lord commented that Capernaum was exalted to heaven, and yet at the judgment would be thrust down to hell; and yet when they returned, He said that He had seen Satan falling from heaven to earth (Lk. 10:15,18), in anticipation of how it will at judgment day (Rev. 12). The connection is not co-incidental. He was countering the disciples' joy at the superficial response by saying that He has seen it another way; He had seen the Satan of the Jewish system already condemned, hurled from heaven to earth, by their rejection of the Gospel preached.

10:18

Satan as Lightning

Comments

1. We have shown that no sinful being can be tolerated in God’s presence in Heaven (Mt. 6:10; Ps. 5:4–5; Hab. 1:13)

2. Jesus is using parabolic language – “as lightning fall from heaven”, so this “Satan” fell. Lightning comes from heaven in the sense of the sky, not as in the dwelling place of God.

3. Any attempt to link this with the prince of this world being cast out is difficult, because that happened at Christ’s death (N.B. “now” in Jn.12:31), whereas this falling of Satan occurred during His ministry.

4. According to popular thought, “Satan” is supposed to have fallen from heaven in Eden, so that he was on the earth at Job’s time, yet Jesus is described as seeing this occurring at His time. Weymouth adds a marginal note on Lk. 10:18 in his translation of the Bible: “The thought is not that of Milton’s rebel angel banished for ever from the abode of bliss”.

5. If an evil being and his host of followers fell down on to earth literally, why did only Jesus see it and not the disciples? Why is there no other record of this strange event?

6. Falling from heaven is figurative of losing authority, e.g. it is used about the demise of the king of Babylon in Isaiah 14. See also Lamentations 2:1 and Jeremiah 51:53.

Suggested Explanations

1. The apostles had just cured many people (Lk. 10:17) and were blinded by their great physical power over disease (v. 20). The real cause of illness and disease is our sin prone nature. That sin is the ultimate reason for illness is stressed in Matthew 9:12 and 12:11, where a sheep gone astray, a clear symbol of a sinner (Mt. 18:13), is equated with a sick man. The principle is summed up in Matthew 9:5 “Whether is easier, to say, Thy sins be forgiven thee; or to say, Arise and walk?”. Thus Jesus said, “I beheld Satan fall”, i.e. “In My view the great thing was that the power of sin was being overcome”.

2. There must be a connection with v. 15: “And thou, Capernaum, which art exalted to heaven, shalt be thrust down to hell”. Is Jesus implying that “Satan”, the ways of the flesh, which were so well exemplified in Capernaum, were being overcome? Notice that Capernaum was “exalted” in Jewish eyes. “Satan” often referring to the Jewish, maybe Jesus is equating Capernaum with “Satan” and commenting how the sin which was at the basis of this system was being overcome by the preaching of the Gospel.

10:19- see on Mk. 16:18; Jn. 8:44.

10:20 Lk. 10:20 implies that their elation at being able to pull off miracles was wrong, or at best immature; rather should they have rejoiced that their names were written in Heaven.

10:21- see on Lk.1:47; 9:45.

10:23- see on Lk. 7:9.

10:25 When the lawyer asked Jesus what he must “do to inherit eternal life”, the Lord could have lectured him on salvation being by grace rather than works (Lk. 10:25). But He doesn’t; instead He tells the parable of the good Samaritan, running with the lawyer’s misunderstanding for a while [as His gracious manner was]. The essential basis of inheriting eternal life is of course faith, but the Lord’s answer to the question shows that we can safely conclude: ‘Faith must be shown in our care for the salvation of this world if it is real faith’.

10:25-27 In Lk. 10:25-27, the Lord recited some simple, well known facts of Biblical history: it was to a Gentile, not to anybody in Israel, that Elisha was sent to cure leprosy. But the Lord’s doing so raised such a howl of protest that the people thrust Him out of the city and tried to do the Son of God to death there and then. The point is, meditating upon well known facts can really cut us to the quick, and powerfully motivate us. Yet like those people until that moment, we can know these facts and do nothing about them, not feeling anything.

10:28 We have eternal life insofar as the life that Jesus lived and lives, He will eternally live. If we live that life, we are living the essence of the life which we will eternally live. The lawyer asked the Lord what good thing he must do “to inherit eternal life”. The Lord replied that he must properly love his God and his neighbour: “this do, and thou shalt live”. By living a life based on this, he would be living the life which he would eternally live (Lk. 10:25,28). And thus the Lord responds to the query about inheriting eternal life by changing the emphasis of the question- He replies by speaking of the life we should be living now.

That God is one is not just a numerical description. If there is only one God, He therefore demands our all. Because He is the One God, He demands all our worship; and because He is One, He therefore treats all His people the same, regardless, e.g., of their nationality (Rom. 3:30). All true worshippers of the one God, whether Jew or Gentile, are united in that the one God offers salvation to them on the same basis. The fact there is only one Lord Jesus implies the same for Him (Rom. 10:12). Paul saw these implications in the doctrine of the unity of God. But that doctrine needs reflecting on before we come to grasp these conclusions. Christ taught that the command that God was one and therefore we must love God included the second command: to love our neighbour as ourselves. The first and second commands were in fact one command; they were inseparably part of the first commandment (Mk. 12:29-31). This is why the 'two' commandments, to love God and neighbour, are spoken of in the singular in Lk. 10:27,28: "this do…". If God is one, then our brother bears the one Name of God, and so to love God is to love our brother (cp. 1 Jn. 4:21). And because there is only one God, this demands all our spiritual energy. There is only one, the one God, who seeks glory for men and judges them (Jn. 8:50)- therefore the unity of God should mean we do not seek glory of men, neither do we judge our brother.

10:30

The Good Samaritan

Salvation in prospect

We've read how the lawyer asked Jesus what he should do "to inherit eternal life" (Lk.10:25), and in a sense we ask the same question. But we mustn't be quite like him, in thinking that if we physically do  certain things, then we will at some future point be given eternal life as a kind of payment; and nor should we think that the eternity of the Kingdom life is the most important aspect of our salvation. Let's look over to Lk.18:18, where "A certain ruler asked him" the very same question: What he should do to inherit eternal life. Christ's response was that if he kept the commandments in the right spirit, he would "have treasure in heaven". When the man found this impossible, Christ commented how hard it was for the rich to "enter into the kingdom of God" (Lk.18:24). So there is a parallel here between inheriting eternal life, having treasure in heaven, and entering the Kingdom. We are told that now is the time, in this life, for us to lay up treasure in Heaven (Mt.6:20). So here and now it is possible to have treasure in Heaven, to have eternal life in prospect. In a sense we now have eternal life (1 Jn.5:11,13), in a sense we are now in the process of entering into the Kingdom. We have been translated, here and now, into the Kingdom (Col.1:13). The very same Greek construction used in Col.1:13 occurs in Acts 14:22, where Paul says that through much tribulation we enter into the Kingdom; in other words, entry into the Kingdom is an ongoing process, and we experience this on account of the effect of our trials. Entering the Kingdom is used to describe our response to the Gospel in Lk.16:16: "The kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it". Unless we receive the Gospel of the kingdom as a child, we will not enter it; i.e. respond fully to that Gospel (Lk.18:17).

In prospect we have been saved, we are now in Christ, and therefore the great salvation which he was given is therefore counted to all those who are in him. We shy away from the positive promises that we really can start to enter the Kingdom now, that we do now have eternal life in prospect. But this shying away is surely an indication of our lack of faith; our desperate unwillingness to believe so fully and deeply that our salvation really is so wonderfully assured (1). That eternal life dwells in us insofar as the eternal spirit of Christ is in us (2). And so as we face up to the sureness of these promises, we earnestly want to know what we must do  to inherit this eternal life, to have this great treasure of assured salvation laid up for us now in Heaven. Of course we are saved by our faith, not our works (Tit.3:5-7); yet our faith, if it is real, will inevitably be shown in practical ways. So with all this in mind, we can come down to that parable of the good Samaritan. That parable is the Lord's answer to this vital question.

The preface to the good Samaritan parable is there in v.27: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all thy mind: and thy neighbour as thyself... this do, and thou shalt live  (eternally)" (Lk.10:27,28). To define this statement more closely, Christ told the good Samaritan parable. He concludes it by saying: "Go and do  thou likewise" (Lk.10:37); he is referring back to v.28, where Christ commands the man "this do", i.e. loving God with all the heart, soul etc. So the example of the good Samaritan is a practical epitome of loving God with all the heart, soul etc. To love our neighbour as ourself is to love God with all the heart and soul and strength and mind. Therefore the good Samaritan needs to represent us.

Samaritan Saviour

And yet when we analyze this good Samaritan parable, it becomes clear that we are also aptly represented by the wounded man; it is the Lord Jesus who is the good Samaritan. The Law of Moses, symbolized by the priest and Levite, came near to man's stricken condition, and had a close look at it. Lk.10:32 (Young's Literal) brings this out: "Having been about the place, having come and seen...", the Levite passed on by. The Jews regarded Christ as a Samaritan, so they would have immediately understood the Samaritan of the parable to represent Jesus (Jn.8:48). The good Samaritan having compassion on the man and being moved to do something about him has echoes of the Lord's compassion on the multitudes (v.33). His promise to come again after two days (he gave two pence, and a penny a day was a fair rate, Mt.20:2) is a clear connection with the Lord's promise to come again (after 2000 years from his departure?).

Until the good Samaritan's return, the man was kept in the inn, with everything that was needed lavishly provided. Surely the inn is symbolic of the ecclesia (3); in the ecclesia there should be a common sense of spiritual improvement, of growing in health, of remembering our extraordinary deliverance, realizing our weakness, looking forward to seeing the Samaritan again to praise him for the wonder of it all. This ought to characterize our gathering this morning, not just partially, but very very fully .

He "bound up his wounds", alluding to the manner in which Christ was to bind up the broken hearted (Is.61:1). He cured those mental wounds by pouring in oil and wine, symbols of his word and his blood respectively. So the brutal beating up of that man, leaving him half dead, refers to the broken-heartedness which the sin of this world and our own natures inflicts upon us. Picture the scene on that Jericho road, the body covered in blood and dust, massive bruises swelling up, flies buzzing around on the congealed blood, face in the dust, frightened donkey neighing among the scrub somewhere. That is the very picture of our broken heartedness, the broken heartedness which Christ came to heal. The physical grossness of those wounds is a picture of our mental state. Yet the flesh deceives us that there is nothing really that wrong with our minds, with our natures. Yet there is, and we need to come to terms with it more and more completely, to realize our deep mental need for Christ's healing. Once we do this, we will be able to see the need, the urgent need, for his healing of our minds  through his spirit, his  perfect, clean mind, being in us. And how were those wounds healed? How are our mental wounds healed? By the Son of God tearing up his own garments to bandage up the wounds (how else did he do it?), and healing us with his blood and his word.

The description of the stricken man being "stripped" of his clothing uses the very same word, rarely used in the NT, to describe the 'stripping' of the Lord Jesus at the time of His death (Mt. 27:28,21; Mk. 15:20). Likewise the robbers 'left him' (Lk. 10:30), in the same as the Lord was 'left' alone by the disciples to face the end alone (Mk. 14:50 s.w.). The robbers "wounded him" (Lk. 10:30), a phrase which translates two Greek words, 'to lay upon' and 'stripes'. The cross was 'laid upon' Jesus (Lk. 23:26 s.w.); and we are familiar with the idea of the Lord being 'wounded' and receiving 'stripes' in His final sufferings (Is. 53:5). The connection is surely that in the process of His death, the Lord came to know the feelings of the stripped and stricken people whom He came to save. No wonder He can powerfully "have compassion" upon us. And it’s been pointed out elsewhere that the ‘two pennies’ paid by the Samaritan are the equivalent of the half shekel atonement money under the Mosaic Law, whereby a man could be redeemed. Our redeemer is of course the Lord Jesus. The redemption was ‘paid’ in His blood- which implies His putting us on His beast of burden and carrying us to the inn, where He paid the money, is a picture of His final sufferings which lead up to the actual shedding of His blood.

"He brought him to the inn" can also be translated "He led it [the donkey] to the inn". In this case, the Samaritan is acting as a servant, for it is the master who rides on the donkey and the servant who walks on foot, leading it there. Remember how Haman has to lead the horse on which Mordecai rides (Esther 6:7-11). All this speaks of how the Lord took upon Himself the form of a servant in order to lead us to salvation- when at the time we could do nothing, and had no awareness of the huge grace being shown to us. The Samaritan was of course making himself vulnerable to attack by robbers by doing this. But think through it some more. There was an eye-for-eye vengeance syndrome alive and well at that time. If a Samaritan turned up with a wounded Jew, it would look for all the world like he was responsible for the damage. It would be the first time a Samaritan was known to have done such an act of kindness. And he risks himself all the more, by staying at the inn, leaving, and then returning there, thus willing to face the inevitable suspicion that he had attacked the man, or was somehow involved in the incident. This risking of His own salvation was what the cross was all about. The parable gives a rare window into the Lord's self-perception on this point. And so for us- we may stay up all night serving someone's need, only to make ourselves irritable and impatient and more prone to sin ourselves the next day. And in any case, it's my experience that no good deed goes unpunished; we have to pay various prices for it in this life. In all these things we are living out the spirit of the Samaritan saviour.

"Do likewise..."

So there's ample evidence that the despised Samaritan of this parable refers to the Lord Jesus. He was 'neighbour' to stricken humanity, he came near to us, binding up our broken hearts, and carried us to the haven of the ecclesia. "Go thou and do likewise" is therefore a real challenge to us: to have the same dedication for others' salvation as Christ had. His zeal to achieve God's plan of redemption should be ours. Remember how the good Samaritan parable is an exposition of how to love God with all our heart, soul, strength and mind (v.27). Every fibre of the Lord's mind and body was bent for us , for bringing about God's plan of redemption. He loved us, his neighbour, as himself. Because of this it is impossible to separate Christ from the work He came to do, i.e. our redemption (4). The point of the good Samaritan parable is to teach us that his same devotion to the work of conquering sin should be seen in us; our concern for the salvation of others should be as great as that for our own. We need to be totally filled with the idea of bringing about God's glory, of seeing the conquest of sin achieved through Christ. So all our strength, our mind, will be given over to the conquest of sin in ourselves, to the spreading of the Gospel to others, and to the binding up of the broken hearts of our brethren.

One of the many Old Testament quarries for this good Samaritan parable is found in 2 Chron.28:15 (5). Here we read how Israel attacked Judah whilst Judah were apostate, and took them captives. But then they realized their own shortcomings, and the fact that Judah really were their brethren; then they "clothed all that were naked among (he captives taken from Judah), and arrayed them, and shod them, and gave them to eat and to drink, and anointed them, and carried all the feeble of them upon asses, and brought them to Jericho...to their brethren". Now there is allusion after allusion to this scene in the Samaritan parable. Surely our Lord had his eye on this incident as he devised that parable. The point he was making as surely this: 'In trying to follow my example of total love for your brethren, your spiritual neighbours, remember your own shortcomings, and what the Lord has done for you by His grace; and then go and reflect this to your brethren'.

The opportunities in our days for expressing this love of our brethren, with all our mind and strength, are just so numerous. Letter writing, preaching, organizing meetings, visits, above all fervent prayer for their salvation. If we are really pouring out all our heart and soul into the salvation of our brethren, after the pattern of Christ on the cross, our worldly careers will mean so little, our every practical decision will be coloured by our commitments to the body of Christ; where and how we live, what hours we work, hobbies (if any!), holidays (if any!)... our very soul, every aspect of our life, must be affected by our loving our neighbour, and thereby our God, with our whole soul and mind and physical strength.

As we behold the agony of our Lord Jesus, we really see our example. We see a man driven to the physical limits of his humanity, not in striving to achieve salvation by works, but in ministering God's wondrous grace to others. 'Gethsemane, can we forget?' we sing, as if it was so unthinkable that we should. But of course we do, hour by hour, day by day even. We really need to seriously get down to remembering his agony, the intensity of his struggle, more frequently and more deeply. This is surely what we need exhortation about. We are bound together by the fact that we all fail to do this as we should. I tend to visualize him with stooping shoulders, graying hair, hair line well receded, lined forehead reflecting that tremendous mental torture he experienced, quietly spoken, and with eyes which spoke a message of commitment which we have never seen in any other. Of course, we don't know exactly, neither is it ultimately significant. But if we love  the Lord Jesus, if we truly have a relationship  with him, if we really focus on his example of sacrifice on the cross, that sacrifice of body and mind which went on throughout his life, then surely it's inevitable that we start to think of him physically, as a friend, a reality, a glorious example. So I've opened my heart to you there, that's how I see him in his life and in his agony, as the moonlight reveals him to us, kneeling in Gethsemane.

Total empathy

But outside the reverie, we are walking on down that Jericho road, Christ's example really is ours. "Be going on, and do likewise" Christ concluded (v.37 YLT). Verse 38 appropriately continues: "Now it came to pass, as they went" , in the same way as the Samaritan Saviour "as he journeyed" (v.33) showed such energetic compassion , with all his heart and strength, to the stricken man. We must be able to use our own realization of our own desperate need for Christ's grace to motivate us to zealously devote ourselves to ministering to others. Our lack of zeal in this is largely due to our own failure to appreciate our own need, and the degree to which this has been satisfied by Christ. Christ knew (and knows) the feelings of the stricken man. As the man was stripped and wounded, so identical language is used about the sufferings of Christ on the cross (Mt.27:28,29; Lk.20:12; Zech.13:6). As his would-be neighbours passed him by on the other side, so the neighbours of Christ stood aloof from his stricken body on the cross (Ps.38:11 AVmg.). Through this he can fully enter into our broken hearts, into our intense spiritual loneliness without him (if only we would realize it) and therefore he will come alongside us with a heart of true compassion. So because of his sufferings which we now behold, he can so truly, so truly and exactly, empathize with our spiritual state.

So here we are as it were in the inn, thinking back to our salvation by that suffering Samaritan, the strangeness and yet the glorious wonder  of it all. I'm sure Christ meant us to fill in the unspoken details in his parable. Of course the saved man would have re-lived time and again his wondrous salvation, how he had come to with the eyes of that man peering earnestly into his, the laying on the ass, and the slow journey to the inn. As Israel remembered their Passover deliverance through the Passover feast, so we lie here on our sickbed in the inn, as it were, and remember our great salvation.

All Of Us

The wounded man is all of us- "a certain man" (Lk. 10:30) is a phrase more usually translated 'any man', 'whomsoever' etc. The idea of journeying downwards from Jerusalem to Jericho has some definite OT connections, not least with wicked King Zedekiah, who ignored repeated prophetic please to repent and fled from Jerusalem to Jericho, only to be overtaken on the way by the Babylonians and sent to Babylon to condemnation (2 Kings 25:4). ‘You’re every one a Zedekiah’, is the implication- but we’ve been saved from out of that condemnation by the Samaritan’s grace. Another allusion is to the incident in 2 Chron. 28:15, where the captured enemies of Israel are marched from Jerusalem to Jericho, and yet by grace they are given clothes, food and water. In all these allusions, Jesus is radically reversing all the roles. The true people of God are the repentant enemies of the people of God, the “thieves” who spoil the people of God are the Jewish elders (Hos. 6:1,29), the Divine Saviour is not a Jew but a Samaritan etc.

The helplessness of the injured man is a fine picture of our weakness. We can only accept salvation; there is nothing we can do to earn it. Hence the Lord warned those who seek to save their own lives (Lk. 17:33)- He uses the same two words to explain how He is the one who seeks and saves (Lk. 19:10). Acceptance of salvation is perhaps what faith is all about in its barest essence.

It's easy to think that the focus of the parable is upon being like the good Samaritan; but the focus equally is upon seeing ourselves in the wounded man. The Lord's answers to questions nearly always seem to provide a simple answer to them, and yet more subtly turn them upon their head, and redefine the terms. The parable was told in response to the question "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?". One answer appears to be: 'Recognize you're the injured man. Accept the Good Samaritan's salvation; for the Law which you so love can't save you'. Indeed if read the other way around, the Lord's answer would appear to be 'If you want eternal life, you must do lots of good works, after the pattern of the good Samaritan'. But this would contradict the whole message of salvation by pure grace which was central to the Lord's teaching. It seems to me that the parable is often interpreted that way- and it’s actually the very opposite of how the Lord wished us to read it. No matter how much good we do to people along the way, this cannot give us the life eternal.

Who is my neighbour?

The Samaritan parable appears to be an example of the way the Lord left His parables open to multiple interpretations and reflections, all of which express aspects of the many truths He was expressing to us. We need to reflect who the ‘neighbour’ actually is. The parable is told in extension of the Lord’s approval of the statement that to love God is to love our neighbour, and vice versa (Lk. 10:27). The Lord was explaining that what we have to ‘do’ to get eternal life is to perceive that God is our neighbour. This is and was a challenging idea. As challenging and provocative as when a black sister in southern USA said to me once ‘Ya know, God’s ma nigger’. She meant, ‘God’s my buddy, my close one’. The turning point of the parable is in it’s end stress [as so often in these stories of the Lord]: “Which of these three… was neighbour unto him that fell among thieves?” (Lk. 10:36). Obviously, the neighbour was the Samaritan, whom we have shown to be symbolic of God and His Son. This is the answer to the question of the lawyer: ‘And who is my neighbour?’. Answer: God / Jesus. The lawyer was wondering to whom he should do his good deeds. So he asks ‘Who is my neighbour?’. He misunderstood the whole thing, as people do today. The Lord was turning the question around. Who is your neighbour? God / Jesus is your neighbour. You are lying there stricken. Your fellow lawyers and legalists / Priests / Levites can’t help you. To receive eternal life, you must let God be your neighbour. This is the work of God, to believe on the one whom He sent (Jn. 6:29). This was the Lord’s response to a similar question about what good works ought to be done. And the Samaritans were despised and rejected… yet the Lord chose them as a symbol of Himself. It's easy to under-estimate just how much the Jews despised Samaritans- "The Samaritans were publically cursed in the synagogues; and a petition was daily offered up praying God that the Samaritans might not be partakers of eternal life"(6). We see the sheer bravery of the Lord in framing the parable as He did. He doesn't chose to speak of a good Jew helping a stricken Samaritan; it's the other way around. The watchful student will find up to 12 allusions in the Good Samaritan parable back to Hosea 6:1-10- which portray the Jews as the robbers, and God as the Samaritan saviour. It is none less than Yahweh Himself who "will bind us up... revive us... raise us up... come to us"- all the very things which the Samaritan did. In all this was a huge challenge to the Lord's audience- as to whether they would accept His grace. "Oil and wine are forbidden objects if they emanate from a Samaritan"(7)- hence the challenge to the Jews in accepting the Lord's teaching. We in our turn struggle with the extent and purity of His grace.

But of course, we are intended to be the Good Samaritan too- in that we are to manifest and replicate the saving work of Jesus in our lives and in our interactions with people. There are details in the parables that need to be thought about, the story reconstructed. The Samaritan ‘happened’ to have “oil and wine” with him, i.e. medicaments for a wounded man (the wine would have been an antiseptic). And he was travelling alone, when people usually travelled in convoys. And the Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans, they wouldn’t even talk with them on the street (Jn. 4:9). So perhaps the Lord intended us to figure that the Samaritan was actually going to help one of his fellow Samaritans who needed attention, but on the way, he met one of another race in even greater need, and changed his plans in order to save him. In all this we have an exquisite example of the self-revelation of Jesus in His own parables- for He saw Himself as the Samaritan. And for us too, the call to save often comes when we are on our way to do something else, at the most inconvenient moment, to people we would never have considered would need nor accept our help towards salvation.

Notes

(1) See "The Problem Of Certainty" in Beyond Bible Basics  for a discussion of this.

(2) See "The Promise Of The Spirit".

(3) But in this case, who is the inn-keeper? Ecclesial eldership? The 'Comforter' Angel which super-intends the body of Christ? Or just an irrelevant part of the story? All of these solutions have their problems!

(4) This is a point frequently made by Robert Roberts in his debate with J.J.Andrew and in his book The Blood Of Christ .

(5) Another will be found in Hos. 6:1,2,9, which seems to equate the Jewish priesthood with the thieves which attacked the man. This was also Christ's estimation of them (Mt.21:13; Jn.10:1). This allusion would have been especially relevant in the first century context. Another connection will be found in 2 Kings 25:4.

(6) W.O.E. Oesterley, The Gospel Parables In The Light Of Their Jewish Background (London: SPCK, 1936) p. 102.

(7) J.D.M. Derrett, Law In The New Testament (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1970) p. 220.

10:30 The parable of the good Samaritan features Jesus as the Samaritan helping the stricken man, representative of us all. However, the parable is followed immediately by the account of the Lord visiting the Bethany home of Martha and Mary. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho went via Bethany. The home where the sick man was taken was surely intended to be understood as that of Martha and Mary. The attacked man is called “a certain man”, and then we read straight on that the Lord was entertained by “a certain woman”, Martha (Lk. 10:30,38). The Samaritan “as he journeyed” came to the stricken man; and yet “as they went on their way, he entered into a certain village…” (Lk. 10:33,38). The Samaritan Jesus ‘cared for him’; and yet Martha unkindly challenges the Lord ‘Don’t you care…?’ (Lk. 10:35,40). The similarities aren’t just co-incidence. Surely the Lord is teaching that whether or not Martha perceives it, she and Mary are actually the wounded man of the parable, and He is taking care of them, not vice versa as Martha thought, in the teaching He was giving them in their home. He was spiritually pouring in oil and wine. And yet Martha and Mary, especially in Martha’s incomprehension of the Lord’s spiritual and saving care for her, are set up as types of all of us who are saved and cared for in Christ.

10:32 The radical nature of the Lord Jesus is reflected in His teaching style. His parables work around what I have elsewhere called "elements of unreality". They involve a clash of the familiar, the comfortable, the normal, with the strange and unreal and radical. The parables are now so well known that their radical nature has been almost buried under the avalanche of familiarity. The parables begin by getting the hearers sympathetic and onboard with the story line- and then, in a flick of the tail, the whole punch line is turned round against their expectations, with radical demands. Take the good Samaritan. The story of a man travelling the Jerusalem-Jericho road alone would've elicited sympathy and identity with the hearers- yes, that road is awfully dangerous. And then the priest and Levite pass by and don't help. That was realistic-"priests and levites were known to have quarters in the Jordan valley near Jericho where they retreated from the beehive of activity surrounding the temple". The common people were anticlerical, and yes, they could just imagine the priest and Levite passing by. "Typical!" would've been their comment. They're all set up to expect the Messianic Jewish working class hero to stride in to the rescue. But... it's a despised Samaritan who stops and gives saving help. They had expected a Jewish Saviour- and Jesus, the teller of the parable, claimed to be just that. But... in the story, He's represented by a Samaritan. Remember that Samaritans and Jews had no dealings, and people were amazed that Jesus would even speak with the Samaritan woman at the well. Even in desperation, a Jew wouldn't have wanted to be helped by a Samaritan. You had to be utterly desperate to accept such help. Moments earlier, the audience had been identifying with the injured Jewish man. But... were they really that desperate, did they appreciate their desperation to that extent, to keep "in" the story, and accept that that desperate man was really them? They wanted to be able to identify with the hero. But no, they had to first of all identify with the wounded, dying, desperate Jew. And only then were they bidden "Go and do likewise"- 'be like the Samaritan'. The Lord's initial audience would have been left with knitted eyebrows and deep introspection at the end of it. The whole thing was too challenging for many. They quit the parable, quit identifying with the story... just as we can when it gets too demanding. It's a tragedy that this amazing story, crafted in such a radically demanding way, has been reduced to merely 'Be a good neighbour to the guy next door, so long as it doesn't demand too much of you'- which is what the story has come to mean for the majority of professed Christians today. That of itself indicates a discomfort with the radical nature of the demands.

It's the same with Nathan's parable to David. It elicited David's sympathy- and then it was turned back on David: "You are the man!". But he didn't quit the parable. He acted on it, as we have to. The parable of the self-righteous older son is just the same. The parable's story line leads us to expect that the wayward son repents and is accepted back by his father. But then right at the end, the whole thing takes a biting twist. We suddenly realize that the prodigal son and the need to forgive your wayward son isn't the point of the story- for that's something which comes naturally to any father and family. The whole point is that the son who played safe, who stayed home and behaved himself... he is the one who ends up outside of the family's joy because of his self-righteousness. He ends up the villain, the lost son. Again, there'd have been knotted brows and an exit from identity with the story line. And the way generations of Christians have described the story as "the parable of the lost / prodigal son" shows how they [we] too have so often missed the essentially radical point of the story.

10:33 The Samaritan "was moved with compassion" by the man's (spiritual) state (Lk. 10:33 R.V.). This is the same phrase as used concerning how Christ "was moved with compassion" by the multitudes. The connection with the good Samaritan parable would invite us to read the Lord's compassion as fundamentally spiritual. The reason for the miracles was to confirm the spoken word (Mk. 16:20), to lead men to see the wisdom of the message they were validating (Mk. 6:2). Are there any examples of Christ doing miracles for reasons unconnected with preaching? They often (always?) had symbolic meaning; and were designed to inculcate faith (Jn. 20:31) and repentance (Mt. 11:21). And in any case, His miracles were largely to benefit the Covenant people, or those closely associated with them. The apostles didn't do mass benefit miracles (e.g. feeding thousands of people) to back up their preaching in the Gentile world; even though they had the power to do "greater works" than did the Lord (Jn. 14:12). 'Charitable' giving ought to be associated with preaching, surely, if we are to follow the example of Christ's compassion with the multitudes.  In practice, the work of providing welfare and conducting fresh preaching is done by the same brethren in the mission field.

The Lord Jesus "knew what was in man", not only by direct revelation from the Father and the Old Testament word, but also from His own observation of our own nature, both in Himself and the surrounding world. The sensitivity of Jesus is reflected in this realization which He reflects. As the Samaritan came near to the wounded man (the ecclesia), realized the extent of his problem (the ravages of sin) and was thereby moved with compassion, so Christ was motivated by His consideration of our position (Lk. 10:33,34); the Lord realized His humanity more and more, and progressively humbled Himself, achieving a progressively fuller identity with us by so doing, until He crowned it all by His death (Phil. 2:6-8). The main lying helpless on the Jerusalem - Jericho road was surely modelled on Zedekiah being overtaken there by his enemies (Jer. 39:5). See on Lk. 14:9.

10:34 The parables, especially those which Luke records, appear to end leaving us with unanswered questions. Does the wounded traveller survive and get better? When does the Samaritan return? How much does it cost him? Was the beaten man happy to see the Samaritan when he returned? Who inherits the property of the rich fool? Does the barren fig tree produce a crop in the end? Does the elder brother finally join in the party? Does the unjust steward succeed in getting himself out of his problems after his dismissal? What happens to the rich man’s five brothers, seeing Lazarus isn’t allowed to go and warn them? Do they hear Moses and the prophets? Do the riff raff come in from the lanes to the Great Supper? Does the unjust judge actually resolve the widow’s complaints? How does the rich merchant survive, after having sold all he has for the one pearl, thus discarding his entire past, his life’s work…? And what does he do with the pearl? He, presumably, sits and treasures it, but can do nothing with it in order to prosper materially… And yet we are left to reflect upon this. See on Mt. 13:44; Lk. 14:32.

10:35 The parable of the good Samaritan explains how Christ took compassion on the stricken spiritual state of us His people, picked us up, made Himself vulnerable to attack by placing the man on His donkey, and caused us to be fully healed. The Samaritan was less vulnerable than the robbed man, on account of having a donkey. But he made himself even more vulnerable than the robbed man had been, in order to take him to the inn. The picture of the wounded man straddled over the donkey and the Samaritan walking patiently alongside shows what easy prey they would have been. The whole process of the man's redemption by this Samaritan is an account of the cross of Christ (not least the pouring in of wine and oil). The implication is that through seeking to save us, Christ made Himself more vulnerable than He would have been if He sought only His own salvation. And the Samaritan's speed of progress was more than halved; he had to walk rather than ride, keeping the wounded man balanced on the donkey. This parable seems to reveal that Christ realized at least in some abstract sense that His concern for us in some ways made it more difficult for Him; although the reality was that the motivation for His victory was largely due to His sense of responsibility for us. The idea of him taking care for the man is expressed in the language of Ex. 21:19, which says that if a man wounds another, "he shall pay... and shall cause him to be thoroughly healed". This somewhat odd allusion (at first sight) surely indicates that the Lord took upon Himself the full blame for our stricken condition, presumably in the sense that as the second Adam He took upon Himself the guilt of Adam. This is why there are so many connections between His death and the effects of Adam's sin (e.g. the crown of thorns, the Garden etc.). The way Christ compared Himself to a Samaritan, half Jew and half Gentile, shows that especially on the cross, this is how He felt. He was mindful of both Jewish and Gentile aspects of His future body as He died. The Jews (and His own brothers, Ps. 69:8) treated Him as half Gentile (from a Roman soldier, the Midrash claims).

10:36 The parable of the good Samaritan needs careful reflection before we see in it a command to concentrate on giving to the world.  It is used as Biblical evidence for a social gospel. The Samaritan was "neighbour unto him that fell among thieves" (Lk. 10:36)- i.e. the story shows how he fulfilled the command to love our neighbour. We have shown above that this command refers to love for those related to the Covenant. The Samaritan represented Christ. The mugged man was those He came to save; not the world generally, for they have not all accepted His healing. We must go and do likewise; in showing the love of Christ to the world. But we have earlier defined that love as being paramountly spiritual, and relating to the work of the cross. The parable was teaching the inability of the Law to save man spiritually, not materially. 

10:37 Like most Jews, He would have prayed the shema ("The Lord our God is one") upon rising and going to bed- just as He had a garment like that of the Pharisees, with the traditional tassles hanging from its edge (Mt. 9:20; 23:5). Yet He thought about what He prayed. When asked which was the greatest of the commandments, He replied that it was the fact that God is one. He saw the unity of God as a commandment that elicited action; and He says [note His grammar] that this plus the command to love our neighbour is the [singular] great commandment (Mk. 12:31). And He again combines these two commandments in Lk. 10:27,37, saying that to love God with all our heart is parallel with loving our neighbour and showing mercy to him. He quoted two commandments as one, so deeply had He perceived that we can't claim to love God without loving our brother. How had He worked that out? Perhaps by daily reflecting upon what to many was merely a ritual saying of words. And we too read and have pass our lips, ideas which can work radical transformation in us if only we will put meaning into the words and reflect upon them. He speaks of giving His shalom [peace] to us, not as the [Jewish] world gives it; each time He called out shalom  across the street or to the guys at work each morning, He meant it. And He perceived that it would take His death on the cross to really achieve what He was giving to them in His words.  

A feature we need to bear in mind is the almost constant stress on the end of the story as the part which makes the main point which the Lord is seeking to get over. Likewise the emphasis is often upon the last person mentioned in the story, the last action, the last words. Think of the parable of the prodigal; or how the Samaritan, the last man on the scene, is the example for us. “Go and do likewise” (Lk. 10:37) invites us to go forth and be like the Lord Jesus in bringing salvation to others. Or the man who buried his talent and did nothing with it; the crux of the story is that indifference to our potential is so awful. The parable of the sower focuses in the end on the good seed which brings a great harvest. The fact so much of the seed is lost is in itself an element of unreality- but the focus is on the fact that some seed brings forth wonderfully. And isn’t this just the encouragement every preacher needs? That despite all the hard hearts, the initial responses that come to nothing, all is worth it because someone responds truly.

10:38 The disciples literally did give up most of what they had and follow the Lord. And yet there were evidently others who responded to His teaching without doing this- Peter’s family (Mk. 1:29); Mary and Martha (Lk. 10:38); Simon the leper Mk. 14:3). They made use of the Lord's concessions to human weakness.

10:38-41- see on Lk. 8:27.

10:40- see on Lk. 8:14.

10:42 Martha was “anxious and troubled about many things” (Lk. 10:42 RV), but the Lord perceived that Mary was anxious and troubled about the “one thing” that was “needful”- and the context demands we understand this “one thing” as hearing the Lord’s words. For her, as she sat there at His feet, it was an anxious and troubling experience. To hear the Lord’s words is in this sense a troubling experience. Whilst we are saved by grace, the extent of the imperative within the Lord’s teaching is without doubt ‘troubling’ to the sensitive believer in Him. For we cannot hear Him without perceiving the enormous imperative which there is within those words for the transformation of our human lives in practice.  See on Phil. 4:6. The one thing that was needful is surely to be connected by the incident, also recorded by Luke, where the Lord tells the rich young man that he lacks “the one thing” (Lk. 18:22)- which in his case, was to give his wealth away. Yet Mary did this, when she poured out her life savings on the Lord’s feet. Sitting at His feet, hearing His words, led her to anoint those feet. She chose “the one thing”, of anxiously hearing His words, the lines in her forehead showing in intense concentration. And yet that learning of Him issued in something practical- she gave her life to Him in practice, by giving all she had to those feet. The rich young man lacked the one thing- for he was not then ready to give his life’s wealth to the Lord. Moving the spotlight onto ourselves, we can hear, and yet do nothing. We can read our Bibles without the intensity of devotion which Mary had, and without there being any direct translation of what we hear and read into practice. We can be as the rich young man, intellectually impressed, and yet totally failing to accept the tremendous practical demands behind the most simple, basic teachings of the Lord.  

Local Jewish culture stressed that the place of the woman was about domestic matters rather than spiritual ones. Yet in the incident of Martha and Mary, Christ commended Mary for neglecting her domestic duties in order to concern herself with spiritual development (Lk.10:38-42). She sat at his feet, as if a student at the feet of a rabbi. When we read that Mary sat at the Lord’s feet (Lk. 10:39), it’s easy to forget that to sit at the feet of a Rabbi [and the Lord was called ‘Rabbi’] meant to be a disciple of that Rabbi. And women… couldn’t be disciples of a Rabbi. It was all radical stuff.

11:2 The model prayer begins with the words "Our Father". Straight away we are bidden remember that no man is an island; the Lord intended us to be aware of the entire community of believers in our private prayers. "Give us this day our daily bread" may appear hard for comfortably off Christians to pray- until they grasp that they are praying for "our" daily bread, not "my" daily bread. There are so many in the brotherhood for whom having daily bread is indeed a constantly uncertain question. We should be aware of the whole brotherhood; and pray that "we" will be given our bread for today.

It has been pointed out that "Thy Kingdom come!" was violently in conflict with the Roman view that the lives of a subject people like Israel belonged to Caesar's kingdom. "'Your kingdom come!' is therefore a word of defiance; to pray it is a subversive activity. This is also how the authorities understand the ministry of Jesus: it is subversive and not to be tolerated". And so with us, the seeking of the future Kingdom is a radical denial of the spirit of our age, which seeks its Kingdom now; it demands a separation from the world around us. The well known description of the Kingdom in Is. 2:1-4 is in the context of appealing to Israel to change their ways. Because they would then walk in the ways of the Lord, therefore "O house of Israel [therefore] Come ye [now] and walk in the ways of the Lord" (2:5). The hope of Israel ought to motivate Israel to live the Kingdom life here and now.

His teaching about our having a Heavenly Father may appear quite painless to accept; but it was radical, demanding stuff in the first century. The family then was “the centrally located institution maintaining societal existence… it [was] the primary focus of personal loyalty and it [held] supreme sway over individual life”. “Our father, who is in Heaven” was a prayer hard to pray if one really accepted the full import of the words; every bit as much as it is today. The idea of belonging to another family, of which the invisible Lord Jesus in Heaven was the head, belonging to a new society of world-wide brothers and sisters, where the Lord from Heaven held “supreme sway over individual life”, was radical indeed. It took huge commitment and a deep faith in this invisible head of the new family to step out from ones existing family. And the call of Christ is no less radical today. The social circle at uni, the guys at work, our unbelieving  family members… now all take a radical second place to our precious family in Christ. And yet we so easily abuse or disregard the importance of our spiritual family; we too easily exclude them, won’t meet with them, can’t be bothered about them.  

11:4 Those “indebted” to us [Lk. 11:4] are those who have a debt to us. But Biblically, who are those who are ‘indebted’? The same Greek word occurs often in the New Testament. Mt. 18:30 explains that there is a debt to us if we have been sinned against and it’s not been reconciled. The debt our brethren have to us, and we to them, is to love one another, to lay our lives down for each other, to entertain and receive each other at home (s.w. 3 Jn. 8; 1 Jn. 3:16; 4:11). A wife has her husband in her debt if he doesn’t love her with the love of Christ (Eph. 5:28); our brethren are in debt to us if they don’t give us material help when we truly need it (Rom. 15:27); or if they don’t wash our feet (Jn. 13:14). A debt implies that it’s not been paid; and so I come to the conclusion that the forgiveness of our debtors is forgiving our brethren when they don’t love us as they should, don’t care for us… and never apologize or rectify it. The debt is outstanding; they’ve not cleared it. But we are to forgive it; we are to forgive unconditionally, without demanding restoration or grovelling repentance before us. This is the challenge of that phrase in the Lord’s prayer. For we ask for “our sins” in general to be likewise forgiven; and they surely include many ‘secret sins’ which we don’t even perceive or haven’t repented of. And further. “As we also forgive every one that is indebted to us” (Lk. 11:4) can actually be read as a word of command, a statement that is actually a request. The request is that the sins of those who’ve sinned against us be forgiven- in this sense, “whosesoever sins ye remit [s.w. forgive] they are remitted unto them” (Jn. 20:23). That’s another challenging thought. If they’re impenitent, how can they be forgiven? But if we forgive them, perhaps we are to understand that God is happy to forgive them. If we feel, as I do, that we’ve been sinned against so much… then we have a wonderful opportunity to gain our own forgiveness and even that of those people… by forgiving them. The more I hurt at how others have treated me, the more I realize my own desperate need for forgiveness. The two things, as the Lord foresaw in His model prayer, dovetail seamlessly together.

Further evidence that Jesus prayed in Aramaic is found by comparing the two records of the Lord's prayer; Matthew has "forgive us our debts", whilst Luke has "forgive us our sins". The Aramaic word hobha means both 'sin' and 'debt'. The conclusion is therefore that Jesus taught the disciples to pray in their native Aramaic dialect rather than in Hebrew or Greek. Further, the Lord's prayer has many links to the Kaddish, an ancient Aramaic prayer which included phrases like "Exalted and hallowed be his great name... may he let his kingdom rule... speedily and soon". See on Mt. 27:46.

11:5 Lk. 11:5,6 presents a telling parable. A man finds a friend comes to him at midnight, wanting food. So he goes to his friend, notwithstanding the inconvenient hour, and asks for some loaves, but actually he's given whatever he wants. His want, his will, was to find sustenance for his friend / brother. And therefore his friend gives abundantly above all he asks or thinks, indeed, whatever he wants is provided. The promise of boundless response to prayer is therefore true, in the context of seeking to help others. This parable comes straight after 'the Lord's prayer'. In the parallel record, the prayer is followed by a reminder that we must forgive our brother, if we are to be forgiven (Mt. 6:14,15). So perhaps the friend coming to the man at midnight starving hungry, represents a brother sinning against us. Our response must be to go to the Father in prayer and seek forgiveness / spiritual food for our brother. And in that context, we will be given whatever we desire. Note that banging on the shut door is elsewhere a symbol of asking for forgiveness (Lk. 13:24,25; Mt. 25:10).

The parable of the man coming to his friend at midnight and asking for loaves (Lk. 11:5-13) occurred in the context of the Lord's teaching about forgiveness (see the parallel Gospels). Yet the terms of the parable are replete with reference to the Lord's return and judgment:

11:5 At midnight- Christ comes "at midnight" in other parables (cp. Mk. 13:35)

11:7 Door now shut- the door is shut on those rejected, never to be opened (Mt. 25:10; Lk. 13:25)

11:9 Knocking on the door in prayer, and the door is opened- the rejected knock on the door but it isn't opened.

Now, in this life, we knock on the door, knowing we are condemned, needing forgiveness, living out the situation of the rejected at the last day. But now, the door is opened. We are granted as much forgiveness as we need, which we accept shamefacedly and awkwardly, as the man receiving loaves at midnight for the visitor [note how Nathan describes David's lust for Bathsheba as a visitor arriving needing feeding].

The parable of the friend at midnight uses an element of unreality, but in a reverse way. The Lord paints the picture of a guest coming to a person who has no bread, and so they go and disturb their neighbour at midnight, asking for bread (Lk. 11:5-8). The Middle Eastern peasant who appreciated the huge burden of responsibility to give food to a visitor would say that no, he couldn't possibly imagine that the person who was asked for food would say 'No'. He would not only give bread, but whatever was needed. And so it is with God. It's unthinkable, as unthinkable as it is in a Palestinian village to not be hospitable, that our Father will not answer a prayer for resources with which to help others. This has been my own experience time and again. And further, the villager would respond not just because it is his neighbour asking him, but because he realizes that the responsibility to entertain the needy person actually falls upon the whole community. And God too sees our requests for others as partly His personal and communal responsibility. However let it be noted that the poor neighbour asks only for bread- for the very bare minimum with which to provide for the need of another. And the richer neighbour responds with far more. Again, a pattern for our own prayers for resources with which to help others.

11:6

The Parable of The Three Friends

The Lord told a parable about three friends. One friend, presumably very poor, arrives at midnight at the doorstep of friend number two. Perhaps those not from an Eastern background can never understand the pressing urgency of the hospitality culture; you must feed the visitor. It just has to be done. But he is poor, and he doesn’t have any bread. So, he goes to his richer friend, friend number three, and wakes him up, disturbing the whole household, to ask him to give him some bread with which to entertain the first friend. Because of his "importunity", the rich friend gave to him. The Greek translated "importunity" means lack of shamefacedness, lack of reverence. The Greek word is an-aideia: without aidos. What does aidos mean? It is used twice in the New Testament: in 1 Tim. 2:9 "shamefacedness", and in Heb. 12:28 "serve God acceptably with reverence". The man (who the Lord invites us to see as representing us) comes to the rich friend (cp. God) wit out this reverence. Now of course we should serve our God with appropriate reverence. But there ought to be times when we as it were rush to God, because He is our father and our friend, without that formality which our worship of Him might more usually include. Contrary to the ideas of popular religion, God is not merely something to be worshipped; He is Father and friend, the one to run to in time of urgent need when that need arises from the requirements of His people and His work.  

The Lord will one day come to us at midnight, and the unworthy will not open to Him (Song 5). And He right now stands at the door and knocks (Rev. 3:20). The rejected will know what it is like to stand knocking at the Lords shut door and be unanswered (Mt. 25:10; Lk. 13:25). He surely intended us to make such links within His teachings. The message is quite clear- those who cant be bothered to respond to the knocking of others, who refuse to feel for others in their desperation… these are the ones who will then come to know just how that feels, as in ultimate spiritual desperation they hammer at the Lords door. From this it surely follows that in our response to the desperation of others, we are working out our own eternal destiny. We are deciding whether or not the Lord will respond to us, as we lay there prostrate before Him at judgment, knowing our desperation whilst at the same time believing and hoping in His love and response. When we see others in their needs, the sister who cant get to meeting because nobody will baby-sit for her once in a while, the brother who just needs someone to talk to, someone to listen, an evening of someone’s time, the man over there who is so lost in his Catholicism, that guy so addicted to his dreams of personal wealth, the woman back there hooked on dope, the single father with two spastic children, the grandmother left to bring up three children on a tiny pension in one room with broken windows and severe winters, the refugees streaming over that border day after day… we are confronted with these pictures daily.

They are knocking at our door, at midnight. And we would rather not be disturbed. We would rather acknowledge their status as our friends, our brothers and sisters, but make excuses as to why here and now we cant respond. To tell the friend that, well, give him bread tomorrow…this was quite inappropriate. It could have been argued that they didn’t need bread right then. They could wait till morning. But the friend appreciated the shame and the awkwardness of his friend…his heart felt for him, and he responded. It isn’t just dire material need we should feel for, therefore; but feel for others in the sheer humanity of their life situations, and have a heart willing to try to give them all they need in them.

Paul’s writings are packed with allusions back to the Lords parables. In his reference to the tale of the three friends, Paul seems to have understood just as we have done. Rom. 16:1,2 comments that the ecclesia should welcome "Phoebe our sister receive her in the Lord, as becometh saints, and that ye assist her in whatsoever business she hath need of you: for she hath been a succourer of many" . "Hath need" is the same Greek word as in Lk. 11:8- the friend gave whatever was needed to the friend who arrived from his journey. And Paul says this should be done for Phoebe because she lived a life of giving out to others needs.

The friend who came on his journey with "nothing" (Lk. 11:6) is intended by the Lord to be understood primarily as referring to the disciples whom He had sent out on their journey with nothing ("take nothing for your journey", Lk. 9:3). When He told them to "eat such things as are set before you" (Lk. 10:8), He didn’t just mean ‘Don’t be picky about your food’. He used the same word in Lk. 11:6 to describe how the faithful friend "set [food] before" his visitor. As they travelled around, the disciples were to be received in the way He was describing. Those in that early brotherhood of believers who received and supported them were to do so knowing that these brethren were in their turn responding to human need, and they could be fellow-helpers in the Gospel’s work by showing hospitality. John says just the same: "Because that for his names sake they went forth [alluding to the great commission to go into all the world], taking nothing of the Gentiles [i.e. the unbelievers]. We therefore ought to help receive such, that we might be fellow-helpers to the truth" (3 Jn. 7,8).

The knocking on the door is specifically a symbol of prayer. If we see our brothers need, even if we can do nothing physically to help (and so often, we cant); we will pray earnestly for them. If we truly feel for them, we will pray for them. The friend troubles his friend for help (Lk. 18:7), just as in another parable about prayer the desperate widow "troubles" the judge for a response (Lk. 18:5). "From within" (11:7) is always used in the Bible about the inner man, rather than meaning indoors. The Greek word occurs twice in the same context: "your inward part… that which is within" (11:39,40). Inside himself, he spoke to his friend: "Trouble me not". Yet that satan within him, that desire to be selfish, was overcome by his realization of his friends need, and why it had arisen. And if we have this same emboldened conscience to overcome our innate selfishness and ask of our Father for the sake of others, then we will s the work of the ministry will be provided by Him- that is His sober promise. Jn. 15:16 is one of John’s versions of the great preaching commission: " I chose you and appointed you, that ye should go and bear fruit…whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you" . The promise of support and help and answered prayer is again held out- in the context of preaching and ministering to the Gospel.

11:6 Does the 'traveller' needing sustenance of Lk. 11:6 refer to our sinful tendencies, in the light of 2 Sam. 12:4?

Heb. 5:2 describes those in sin whom the Lord saved as “out of the way”. The same idea is found in Lk. 11:6 AVmg., where the man “out of his way” comes knocking on the Lord’s door. The image of the shut door is that of rejection; but here the door is opened, and the man given “as much as he needs” of forgiveness and acceptance. 

11:7,8 Luke 11:7,8 gives further insight into how prayer is heard- the householder, God, is in His house (Heaven) with the door shut and his children with him in bed, and in order to get up- corresponding to God answering our prayer in the parable- the whole household, the children of God (a description of the Angels- Luke 20:35,36 etc. ), have to be roused. Thus all the Angels are conscious of one specific action on our behalf. See on Lk. 15:6.

The man who knocks is answered, the Lord taught (Lk. 11:7-9). He may have meant that all true prayer is answered in its essence, rather than its particularities. But for our purposes we note that the first knocks weren’t heard. Only by continual knocking was the request responded to. And so “knock, and it shall be opened” doesn’t just mean ‘ask for something and you’ll get it’. The first knocks produced nothing. It surely means ‘Keep on and on knocking, driven to your utmost desperation and intreaty; this is what I call knocking’. 

11:8 The poor neighbour asks with "importunity" (Lk. 11:8)- with shamelessness. He is confident of being heard and has no shame or hesitation to his request because he knows he really does have nothing to give the visitor. This is of course the prerequisite for prayer which will be heard. The Lord drives the point home that whoever asks in this way, receives. And yet the Lord addresses this comment to those who although "evil", knew how to give gifts to their kids. Surely the Lord was speaking to the Pharisees present, who prayed regularly. Perhaps He is saying that they had never really prayed the prayer of earnest desire, motivated by others' needs.

11:9 Jesus likens requesting things from God to a man asking a favour of his friend at midnight (Lk. 11:5,9). We are to see God as our friend to whom like Abraham, we respectfully and rather awkwardly present ourselves. And He sees us as His friends. There's a wonderful mutuality between a man and his God.

11:10 Passages like Lk. 11:10 teach that every one who seeks in prayer, receives. This just isn't true in terms of the words of our actual requests being answered. But once we understand that God sees the spirit behind our words and answers this rather than the specific request, then these promises become more realistically believable.

11:13- see on Mt. 7:11.

11:13 Quite simply, we have to believe that prayer changes things. God can change the course of a nation's destiny, or even in a sense the whole course of the universe, because some finite, ignorant, sinful human being has the neck to fervently ask Him to. We are encouraged by the Lord to persist in prayer (Lk. 11:5-13). Elijah had to pray for rain seven times before the cloud came. Daniel prayed 21 days before an answer came. Why doesn't God answer immediately? Is it not simply because He sees it is for our good to develop this habit of knocking on Heaven's door with the same request?

11:17 A divided house is the characteristic of Satan’s house or kingdom, and it will fall- just as the house built on sand fell at the day of judgment (Lk. 11:17,18).

11:18 We are familiar with the personification of sin as a man called 'Satan', the enemy. This symbolic man is in fact the antithesis of the Lord Jesus Christ. As we follow this theme through Scripture, it becomes apparent that we are just at the tip of an iceberg. This symbolic man has a kingdom and almost every attribute of the Lord Jesus and His Divine Kingdom of righteousness. Consider the similarities:

Satan has a Kingdom (Lk. 11:18)

The power and glory of which have been delivered to him by God, and which he can give to whomsoever he will (Lk. 4:6)

Angels (Mt. 25:41; 2 Cor. 12:7 Gk.)

The power of death (Heb. 2:14 cp. Hos. 13:14; Rev. 1:18; 20:6)

Power to condemn men (1 Tim. 3:6)

A judgment seat and system of rewards based on that of Christ (Mt. 6:1 cp. 2,16)

Condemned sinners are invited to the 'feast' of God's judgments and given suitable wedding clothes (Zeph. 1:7,8) in parody of the Kingdom (Mt. 22:2,3)

Is a father (Jn. 8:44)

Has children (Acts 13:10; 1 Jn. 3:10 cp. Heb. 2:13)

And a wisdom that is opposed to God's wisdom (James 3:15-17)

Armour (Lk. 11:22)

Power (Acts 26:18)

Spiritual "depths" (Rev. 2:24, s.w. Rom. 11:33; 1 Cor. 2:10; Eph. 3:18)

Seed which he sows (Mt. 13:39)

A throne (Rev. 2:13; 2 Thess. 2:4)

A mystery (2 Thess. 2:7; Rev. 2:24)

"Power... signs and... wonders" (2 Thess. 2:9; Rev. 13:13)

Stands at the right hand of men (Ps. 109:6 cp. 109:31; 16:8; 110:1)

Is likened to lightening (Lk. 10:18 cp. 17:24)

Puts things in men's' hearts (Jn. 13:2 cp. 2 Cor. 8:16)

He is a son who will be "revealed" (2 Thess. 2:4), as Christ will be (Lk. 17:30, same Gk.)

He is "he that cometh" (2 Cor. 11:4), a phrase so often used about the Lord Jesus (Lk. 7:19,20; Jn. 7:27,31)

He will be "revealed in his time" (2 Thess. 2:6), as Christ will be (Lk. 17:24)

"The god of this world" who emits a bright light into the hearts of men (2 Cor. 4:4 cp. 6)

Enthroned in God's temple (2 Thess. 2:4)

He has "works" (1 Jn. 3:8)

Figuratively comes down from heaven to earth in the last days (Rev. 12:12)

Has bread and wine of wickedness (Prov. 4:17)

His followers "hold" Christ, as the true disciples do (same words in Col. 2:9; Mt. 28:19 cp. Mt. 26:4,48,50,55,57)

Will be 'apocalypsed' as Christ will be (2 Thess. 2:8).

11:19- see on Rev. 16:15.

“By whom do your sons cast them [demons] out?” (Lk. 11:19) shows the Lord assuming for a moment that there were demons, and that the Jews could cast them out. He doesn’t directly challenge them on their false miracles, their exaggerated reports of healings, nor on the non-existence of demons. He takes them from where they are and seeks to lead them to truth.

11:20 A comparison of Mt. 12:28 and Lk. 11:20 shows that “the finger of God” and “the spirit of God” are parallel - God in action is His spirit. “By the word of the Lord were the heavens made; and all the host of them by the breath of His mouth” (Ps. 33:6).

11:21 The strength of sin, and thereby the extent of the Lord’s victory, is brought out by another unreal element in the Lord’s picture of “a strong man fully armed [guarding] his own court” (Lk. 11:21 RV). This householder is fanatic; he wanders around fully armed to protect his own courtyard and his goods, rather than getting servants or guards to do it. The Lord being “stronger than he” through the cross was therefore indeed strong. See on Lk. 13:9.

11:22 The idea of Christ binding satan (the "strong man"), stealing his goods and sharing them with His followers is a picture of His victory on the cross. It is full of allusion to Is. 53:12, which says that on account of the fact that Christ would pour out His soul unto death and bear our sins, "he shall divide the spoil with the strong (Heb: 'those that are bound')”. With the same thought in mind, Paul spoke of how through the cross, Christ "spoiled principalities and powers" (Col. 2:15). It may be that this is one of many examples of the New Testament writers thinking in a Hebrew way, despite writing in Greek. "Principalities and powers" is perhaps an intensive plural, referring to the great principality and power, i.e. Satan. The way He 'triumphed over them in himself' (Gk. + AVmg.) would certainly make more sense if they referred to the Biblical devil / satan which was overcome within Christ (cp. the language of Heb. 2:14-18; 1 Pet. 2:24). Eph. 2:15,16 appears to be parallel to Col. 2:15. It speaks of how Christ "abolished in his flesh the enmity, even the law of commandments... for to make in himself of twain one new man, so making peace; and that He might reconcile both unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby". Col. 2:15 speaks of the Lord on the cross as the victorious champion, killing "principalities and powers" and then triumphing over them by sharing their spoils with his soldiers. Eph. 2:15 speaks of Christ on the cross "slaying the enmity" (the Biblical Devil) and achieving peace and reconciliation for all those within His body. Yet in the immediate context, the Lord is offering an explanation of why His miracles proved He was the Messiah. He hadn't yet died on the cross; but He was doing the works which were possible as a result of the binding of Satan which He would then achieve. This is yet another example of the Lord's confidence that He would overcome, and God going along with Him in this. The Lord's miracles were a physical foretaste of the great spiritual blessings which would be made available as a result of the binding of Satan by Christ's death and resurrection.

The "spoils" of Satan are those things which he has taken away; surely the spoils taken from Satan by Christ refer to the righteousness which our nature takes away from us. Lk. 11:22 adds another detail to the story. The "armour" of Satan which he depends upon is taken away by Christ on the cross, and then Satan is bound, and his spoils shared out. The armour of Satan is the antithesis of the armour of righteousness (Eph. 6:11,13). As the Kingdom of God has a God who dwells in darkness, a Prince, an armour, a Christ, a dominion, a will and spirit, fruits, rewards etc., so does the kingdom of (the personified) Satan. The armour of righteousness is the fruit of the Spirit, the righteous characteristics of the Spirit. The armour of Satan is the fruits of the flesh nature. These have been taken away by Christ, He has bound Satan, and therefore what Satan has robbed us of, the fruits of righteousness, his spoils, can be taken at will by the Lord Jesus. We have shown that Christ was alluding to Is. 53:12, which says that through the cross, Christ divides the spoil with the bound ones, i.e. us. In this lies a paradox. Binding is associated with sin (Ps. 68:6; Is. 61:1; Lam. 1:14; Lk. 13:16). We are bound, in many ways, intrinsically limited by our own natures. Only at the second coming will Satan be bound, i.e. the Lord's personal achievement will be physically shared with the world (Rev. 20:2). Yet we, the bound ones, are given the goods which the Lord personally took away from the bound Satan. Those goods are the righteous attributes which our natures stop us possessing as we should. The dividing of the spoils to us by the victorious Lord (Lk. 11:22; Is. 53:12) recalls how the Lord divided all His goods between His servants (Mt. 25:14), the dividing of all the Father's goods between the sons (representing the good and bad believers, Lk. 15:12). We have elsewhere shown that these goods refer to the various aspects of the supreme righteousness of Christ which are divided between the body of Christ. The spoils divided to us by the Lord are the various aspects of righteousness which He took for Himself from Satan. The picture of a bound strong man having his house ransacked before his eyes carries with it the idea of suspense, of daring, of doing something absolutely impossible. And so the idea of Christ really taking the righteousness which the Satan of our very natures denies us, and giving these things to us, is almost too much to believe.

It is normally the fellow-soldiers who share the spoils (cp. Heb. 7:4). But we didn't even fight; the spoils are divided amongst the bound ones (Is. 53:12 Heb.). Satan in general is still unbound (cp. Rev. 20:2). Christ bound the Satan within Himself personally, and took the spoils of victory for Himself. Col. 2:15 says that Christ "spoiled" as a result of His victory on the cross; and the Greek specifically means 'to completely divest for oneself'. He is being painted as the lone hero who took it all for Himself; of the people there was none with Him in His great battle on the cross (Is. 63:3). And indeed, He was the lone hero. But the point is that He has shared with us the spoils of righteousness which He took for Himself as a result, even though we are not worthy to receive them. Seeing the teaching of the Lord is just outline principle, it is evident that through His death He gained possession of absolute righteousness, and then shared this with us. In the first century, the outward demonstration of this was in the miraculous gifts of the Spirit. "He led captivity captive (more language of the heroic victor), and gave gifts unto men", the miraculous gifts, in the first century context (Eph. 4:8,11). But what was taken away from Satan was not only power over illness. If this was the main meaning of Satan being bound and his spoils shared with us, then it would follow that the effect of Christ's binding of Satan was only in the first century; for those miraculous gifts of the Spirit are no longer available; illness still triumphs over God's people. The spoils of Satan refer to the righteousness which Satan limits and denies. It is this which has been taken from him, and divided to us all as a result of the cross. The miracles of the first century were a physical reflection of this, just as the rending of the temple veil and resurrection of some dead saints was a physical foretaste of the spiritual possibilities opened up by the Lord's death.

There are many references to the spiritual blessings which are even now mediated to us (as the whole body of Christ) on account of the Lord's death; we (as a community) are given peace and "eternal life" (Jn. 14:27; 17:2; 1 Jn. 5:11), knowledge (2 Cor. 4:6), wisdom (Eph. 1:17; James 1:15), peace (2 Thess. 3:16), understanding (1 Cor. 2:12; 2 Tim. 2:7), love in our hearts (Rom. 5:5), grace (Eph. 4:7), comfort (2 Thess. 2:16), righteousness (Rom. 5:16,17), confidence (2 Tim. 1:7), sexual self restraint (1 Cor. 7:7). All the different aspects of the 100% righteousness of our Lord, all His goods, the spoils He personally took from Satan, are divided up amongst ourselves, some having spiritual possibilities in one area, others in another. As a community we are counted as if we have overcome the world, overcome Satan, as Christ did, although on a human level we are still bound (Jn. 16:33 cp. 1 Jn. 2:13,14; 5:4). Only at the day of judgment will we have overcome all (Rev. 21:7 cp. Lk. 11:22 s.w.), but we are treated as if we have already done so.

Grasping this extensive theme helps explain the deep sense of paradox which is central to all serious self-examination. We are counted righteous, we are given spiritual gifts of righteousness now, and our self-examination reveals this to us; but we are expected to develop them (according to the parable of the pounds). Yet we also see that we are pathetically bound by our Satan, somehow held back from that life of righteousness which we would fain achieve. All these things were deeply foreseen and appreciated by the Lord when He constructed this parable of binding Satan. Christ in His own life has overcome Satan, and has graciously shared the various aspects of righteousness with the whole of His body. This is the very idea of the body of Christ; between us, over time, we will approximate to the perfect reflection of our Lord. We have each been given different aspects to develop, different parts of His personality. This explains the difference in emphasis which can be observed within the different parts of the present body, and also in the history of the body over time.

When we as a community finally grow up into Him, "unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph. 4:13), the whole process of Christ-manifestation (and thereby God manifestation) will be complete. This means that the speed of spiritual development in the latter day body of Christ will determine the exact date of the Lord's return. We are (hopefully and prayerfully) just adding the final touches to the full reflection of the Lord's body. The aspects of Christ which we as a community need to develop in these last days are presumably aspects which earlier generations were unable or not called to achieve. For example, it was simply impossible for earlier generations to do much to achieve the unity of the body. Now, with the possibility of the whole world-wide family being in close contact with each other, with the breakdown of distance and language barriers, it is a real possibility that the body should be one in a manner which was simply impossible to previous generations.

11:23 The moment of conversion is the beginning of the gathering to judgment (Lk. 11:23; Jn. 4:36). The one talent man didn't appreciate this; he objected to the Lord reaping and gathering him (Mt. 25:24). But whatever human objections, the responsible from all nations will be gathered to judgment (Mt. 25:32). The servants are called to receive their talents, and then called again to account (Lk. 19;13,15); there is something in common between the calling to know the Gospel, and the calling to judgment.

11:28 Paul Wyns has spotted the following connections: 

REVELATION 1	LUKE 11
Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things that are written therein. (v.3)	Blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep it. (v.28)
Seven spirits (angels) before the throne. (v.4)	Contrast – seven unclean spirits invited into the house. (v.24-26)
The resurrected Christ – I was dead, and behold I am alive for evermore. (v.12-19)	The sign of Jonah the prophet. (v.29-32)
The seven golden candlesticks. (v.12,13,20)	The parable of the lighted candlestick. (v.33-36)

The lesson for us is that the Lord even in His Heavenly glory alluded to his dear mother’s attitude, and held her up as the pattern for all His people. She had an eternal influence upon Him. Even in His Heavenly glory, the incidents of that day in Lk. 11, and the example of His mother, remained with Him. This is surely a tremendous incentive to parents- their influence on their children may be a factor in how their children will eternally be. The Lord was alluding to how His mother had “kept” God’s word in her heart in devout meditation (Lk. 2:51). He didn’t say ‘Blessed is she because she heard the word and kept it’. Rather, “blessed are they”. He was surely saying: ‘Don’t just dumbly admire my mother, with some kind of distant, spectator admiration; she is the pattern for all of you. Follow her, make her the pattern of your life with respect to God’s word, rather than just gasp at her example’.

11:32 The truly righteous among the remnant "shall tread down the wicked... (as) ashes under the soles of your feet" (Malachi 4:3).   "The wicked" are those of Malachi 3:18 and 4:1 - the unspiritual element amongst the latter-day Jewish 'remnant' in Jerusalem.   This implies that in some way the spiritual Jews acceptable to Jesus will mete out judgment on the rejected ones.   Perhaps in similar fashion the men of Nineveh will condemn the first century Jews at the judgment (Luke 11:32), and we will judge Angels (1 Cor. 6:3).   In this way the righteous remnant shall " discern (judge) between the righteous and the wicked" (Malachi 3:18).

11:33- see on Lk. 8:16.

11:35- see on 1 Cor. 4:4.

11:36 The Lord Jesus likens Himself to a candle that has been lit and displayed publicly, giving light to us. He then continues that imagery in some rather difficult words. He says that in our lives, the eye is "the light of the body"- a good eye lets light and vision in, thus totally and fundamentally affecting how we are inside us, as persons. But if the eye is faulty, then there is darkness within. But when the eye is good and functioning, the whole person is "full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle gives you light" (Lk. 11:33-36). But earlier, He's defined Himself as the candle which gives light. He seems to be saying that our "eye", our perception of Him, is vital. And this is exactly the context of this passage- He's been lamenting how Israel haven't perceived Him for who He is. If we perceive Him rightly, if our "eye" is good, then our whole body will be filled with the light which comes from Him. But it all depends upon our image / perception of / eye for Jesus. Hence the vital and ultimate importance of understanding and perceiving Him correctly. The subject we're now studying actually couldn't be more important; for the correct perception of Him will fill our whole lives with light, totally affect our internal world-views, granting us an ability to understand and make sense of all around us and within us in the light of the person of Jesus. And if we don't perceive Him aright, our inner lives will be dark and formless, whatever external trappings of culture and knowledge we may have.

11:41 In Lk. 16:9, the Lord is saying that the use of our material possessions is so important that it's almost as if (in the hyperbole) we can buy our way into the Kingdom. He made the point in so many words in Lk. 11:41: "Give alms of such things as ye have (i.e. regardless of how small); and, behold, all things are clean unto you". Paul seems to have these words in mind when says that to the pure, all things are pure (Tit. 1:15)- as if he saw the epitome of purity as being in giving what we have. “The ransom of a man’s life are his riches” (Prov. 13:8) likewise suggests that our attitude to riches is one of the things that decides our eternal destiny.

12:1 The disciples were overly influenced by the Pharisees. They were worried that the Pharisees were not happy with the Lord’s teaching (Mt. 15:12). He had to warn them above all of the danger of the influence [yeast] of the Pharisees (Lk. 12:1). And yet they still misunderstood Him- they thought He was talking about literal bread (Mk. 8:15,16).

And He encouraged others to likewise 'be themselves'. He spoke much of not being a hupokrites, an actor. Those who follow Him are not to act a part before others, as if all the world's a stage, being what others want in the audience of the world of eyes that surround us, acting as an actor does, merely to please others. He continued the image when He warned of not doing things "to be seen [Gk. theathenai]of men". Don't let them be a mere theatre audience to you- be yourself, living life in the constant presence of God's eyes, not man's. This was a major theme with the Lord. Paul likewise teaches us that every man should “be as he is” (1 Cor. 7:26 RV). Jesus taught His men "first of all", i.e. most importantly, to beware of hypocrisy (Lk. 12:1). This was a cardinal point in Christ's manifesto. We must ask whether it has this place in our discipleship. It can be that the ecclesial audience is a kind of theatre, showing gratitude for the pleasing entertainment of the speakers. Yet the opposite should be true- God is the audience, we are living bared lives before His gaze.

The Lord taught that hypocrisy was like leaven- once it begins in a community of believers, it so easily spreads and engulfs all (Lk. 12:1-3). In this context He went on to say that “there is nothing covered that shall not be revealed... whatsoever ye have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light”. It is so easy, and we have all done this, to say something about somebody, and ask our hearer not to repeat it. But even in this life, as well as at judgment day, what is spoken in the ear comes out on the housetops. In discussion about fellowship matters, divorce etc. we can so easily say one thing to one group of brethren and something quite different to another. But this, the Lord taught, is hypocrisy. Let us decide our principles and live and speak by them, in humility and sensitivity and simplicity. Because all will be revealed, both in this life and in the coming day of judgment, we ought to be without such hypocrisy.

The Lord taught His followers “first”, or ‘most of all’, to beware of hypocrisy (Lk. 12:1). For us, all the world is not to be a stage, and we are not to be merely actors upon that stage. Hypocrisy is that living out of a persona, acting, rather than being the person God created us to be. In the Lord Jesus men saw the word made flesh (Jn. 1:14). There was perfect congruence between the person He presented Himself as, and the person He essentially was. This was why He could so easily touch the true person in others. And I think this is the meaning of the otherwise enigmatic insistence that the Cherubim’s faces, their appearances, and ‘themselves’ were all one (Ez. 10:22). The Russian [Synodal] version translates this: ‘Their view, was who they themselves were’. So often in our encounters with others there is no real dialogue, rather a conflict of monologues. This is why so many a debate between a Christian and a Mormon, e.g., has come to nothing; for perhaps both of them are merely showing one of their personas.

12:2- see on Mt. 10:27.

Whatever we have spoken in darkness will be revealed for all to hear and know (Lk. 12:2,3)- our words will as it were be cited back to us before others in that day. The Lord says this in the context of warning us not to have the leaven of hypocrisy in the matter of our words- there's no point in saying one thing to one person and something different to someone else, because our words will be gone through at the judgment and will be open for everyone to hear. We should live, He implies, as if we are now before the judgment; speaking things we wouldn't be ashamed for anyone to hear. Note in passing how he says that hypocrisy in our words is like leaven, that corrupts and spreads within an individual and a community. Once somebody starts being hypocritical with their words, someone else does. Even every word of murmuring against each other will be judged; and hence, James points out, it is bizarre that we should be doing this with the judge standing before the door (James 5:9).

12:3 The Lord said that whatever we say “in the ear in closets will be proclaimed upon the housetops” (Lk. 12:3). The reference to “closets” takes us back to Mt. 6:6, where He uses the same word to speak of how we should pray in closets and then we will be openly rewarded by the Father. The ‘open reward’ is clearly in the Kingdom (Mt. 6:4,18; Lk. 8:17; 1 Cor. 3:13). Could this not be saying, then, that in the Kingdom, the answers to the prayers we are now making will be openly proclaimed to all from the housetops? Hence there is an awesome connection between our feeble words of prayer now, and the nature of our eternal existence in the Kingdom.

"God shall judge the righteous and the wicked (at the second coming): for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work... for God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good or bad" (Ecc. 3:17; 12:14). Note the emphasis on "every". Even what we have spoken in the ear will be shouted out (Lk. 12:3) -implying others will somehow observe our judgment, cp. Mt. 12:41. If the judgment is merely a yes/no statement which has been worked out taking our whole life into consideration, then this emphasis on every work having a time for consideration and judgment "there" is pointless. However, these verses must be considered in conjunction with those which speak of God's 'forgetting' of bad deeds on account of how people later chose to live. However, this need not mean that they are erased from God's infinite knowledge; all too often we perceive God's memory as a vast memory bank which can have our sins erased from it. But His knowledge knows no such bounds of human perception; yet He is willing not to hold those things against us, and to therefore count us as having never committed them.

Ultimately, nothing remains secret; at the day of judgment, what we spoke in darkness (i.e. In our own minds) will be heard in the light of God’s Kingdom (Lk. 12:3). Note how Paul read the Lord’s words here in this way – for he surely alludes here when he speaks of how “the hidden things of darkness” are “the counsels of the hearts” which will be revealed at His return (1 Cor. 4:5). The implications of this are awesome. The thoughts and intents of our hearts in this life will be eternally open and manifest in the eternal light of God’s Kingdom. In that day, our brethren will see every one of our hidden thoughts. To live now according to the principle ‘I can think what I like, but I won’t act like it, for the sake of appearances to others’ is therefore foolish. Who we are now in our hearts is whom we shall ultimately be revealed to be. So we may as well get on and act according to how we really think; for throughout eternity, what we think now will be manifest to everyone, seeing that a man is as he thinks in his heart.

12:6- see on Mt. 10:29.

The sparrows are represented in the presence of God (Lk. 12:6 Gk.); even animals have their representative Angels there. This is ‘how’ in one sense a personal God sees and knows all things; because His Spirit / Angels are in His presence reporting all things to Him. At least this is how we are invited to perceive it. The sparrows aren’t forgotten in the presence of God, and we are of more value than many sparrows (Lk. 12:6,7); Matthew has: ‘Your Father feeds the sparrows; are you not of more value [same Greek as in Luke] than many sparrows?’ ; ‘no sparrow falls to the ground  without your Father knowing... you are of more value than many sparrows” (Mt. 6:26; 10:29,31). The sparrows being in God’s presence is paralleled with His feeding them [Gk. ‘to bring them up’] and being aware of what is happening to them on earth. God feeds / raises the sparrows through His Angelic messengers.

12:8- see on Mt. 10:32; Lk. 13:8; 1 Tim. 5:21.

So close are Christ and the Angels and such His respect and love for them, that it seems that Jesus will even feel ashamed or embarrassed before them when He comes to consider one of the unworthy at the day of judgement- Luke 12:8 implies that the same feeling of embarrassment and shame which the unworthy have now when backing out of preaching will be felt by Jesus when He looks on them at the judgement. And it is quite possible that one of the things which motivated our Lord to continue hanging on the cross was the thought of praising God in the midst of the Angels at His ascension: "My praise shall be of Thee in the great congregation (of Angels?): I will pay my vows before them that fear Him".

12:8 But in the same way as the Angels minister condemnation, they also joyfully  give  eternal  life to their faithful charges, on Christ's command at the judgement- "him shall the Son of man also confess before the Angels of God" (Luke 12:8). This is perhaps the fact alluded to in 2 Cor. 10:18: "not he that commendeth himself is approved, but whom the Lord commendeth (at the judgement)". To be commended implies to be commended to somebody- the Angels?

12:9 The Lord Jesus in the last day will confess, or witness to in a legal sense, for His people "before the angels of God" (Lk. 12:8,9); and yet He uses the same language to describe how right now, He confesses us in Heaven in the presence of His Father (Mt. 10:32). Thus when we witness- or don't witness- to our relationship with Him, the Lord Jesus either confesses or denies knowledge of us before His Father. Right now. And this, therefore, is a foretaste of the final judgment. And we face these foretastes day by day in human life, as we encounter the choices of confessing or denying our Lord.

Lk. 12:9 says that whoever denies the Lord before men will be denied before the Angels. Two words are used here, the first weaker than the second. If we deny Jesus, He will utterly deny us before the Angels- what we do now on earth is even more strongly reflected in Heaven and at judgment day. The Heavenly response to our words and actions is out of proportion to our words. This surely inspires us in our daily words and decisions.

12:13 Lk. 12:13-21 records how a man asks Jesus to tell his brother to divide the inheritance with him more fairly. The Lord replies by asking the man to think again about who had given Jesus authority- for if indeed God really had given Jesus authority, then the man ought himself to fear the judgment of Jesus- for as the Lord goes on to show in the parable of the rich fool, He has the power to reject those who are materialistic, exactly because He has such authority from God. The Lord is pushing the man to look at himself and think of himself at the end of his life and before the final day of judgment; and to cease paying a mere lipservice respect to the authority of Jesus, but to take this for real, realizing what it means for his own personal responsibility.

12:13-21 Have a Kingdom perspective. In Lk. 12:13-21 we encounter the Lord being asked to get involved in a conflict between two brothers over an inheritance. The Lord’s response was to tell the parable of the rich fool- a parable which ought to be seriously worrying for every one of us, rich or poor. He put the immediate argument between the brothers in the perspective of eternity; the eternity we may miss because we got too distracted with the immediate argument of the moment. And the Lord’s basic message in this case was: “Be rich toward God. Give Him whatever you have”. This cut right across the issues of life’s unfairness, missing out on wealth, not getting our share of respect... to the essential question which should have made both brothers feel uncomfortable. Had they, have we, given all they had to the Lord’s cause? We may lack the quick thinking or penetrating analysis required to make this kind of fast response when confronted by others’ conflicts. But we can surely analyze our own conflicts, at our own pace, in the light of eternity; and regain perspective, even if our opponent fails to do this. We need to cut to the essence of why we are feeling as we are; pray for God to help you in this, for accurate self-examination is so hard. If we don’t connect and engage with the core issues, then even if the immediate problem [e.g. the argument about the inheritance] is resolved, then other issues will still then arise.  It will only be a matter of time. The more we focus on resolving just one conflict, the more we will realize that in fact we are dealing with a tangled web of multiple conflicts. We cannot change others, but we can come to understand ourselves, and to define and engage with the essential issues which we personally face in the whole conflict.

12:15- see on Lk. 17:32.

12:16 The aorist could imply that the ground was about to bring forth plentifully. The way the man talks about building bigger barns in order to store his "goods" suggests he is fantasizing about wealth, about actually getting a large harvest and turning it into goods; to spend time and labour demolishing existing barns and building greater when the intensity of harvest is upon him is foolish, and suggests an unreal fantasy about wealth rather than reality. Likewise his assumption that his harvest would be so huge that he could live from it for the rest of his life.

12:17 Jesus pinpointed the crucial importance of self-talk in His parable of the rich fool, who said to himself that he had many goods, and discussed with his own “soul” the need for greater barns etc. (Lk. 12:17–19). If we at least realize that our self-talk is potentially our greatest adversary [‘Satan’], then we will find the strength to move towards genuine spiritual mindedness, bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ.

12:18 The Greek phrase for bestowing / gathering into barns is to be found in Mt. 3:12; 13:30; Lk. 3:17- every time in the context of gathering God's people into God's Kingdom. This is what he should have been doing with his time and wealth. The barn represents the Kingdom. The man should've sought the things of God's Kingdom or barn, rather than his own, trying to build his own fake Kingdom here on earth (: 31).

Solomon's obsession with building the temple and his own houses shows a massive attraction towards material things. Ecc. 2 chronicles how he crazily tried to accumulate every branch of material possession. Solomon figuratively chastised the people with whips in the form of the excessive tax he raised in order to build store cities (1 Kings 9:15,19), in which to store all his accumulation. Surely this is behind the Lord's parable of the rich fool, devoid of wisdom in practice, who built ever bigger barns because of his lack of understanding about the future Kingdom. The Hebrew for "store cities" (2 Chron.8:6) is also translated "to heap up", strengthening the connection with the rich fool (Lk. 12:15-28). That parable stresses the self-centredness of the fool- just circle all the occurrences of the word "I". A similar over-use of personal pronouns in Ecc.2:4-8 makes the same point. Ecc.2:26 records how Solomon reflected that the sinner "heaped up" treasures- using the same word as for his "store cities". He saw his error, but wasn't bothered to do anything about it. 

The rich fool reasoned that because he had had a big harvest, he would build bigger barns and relax, because he had enough to last him “many years” (Lk. 12:18,19). The unreal element here is that a harvest doesn’t last many years, especially in a Middle Eastern climate with no way of effectively preserving it. And the lesson, on reflection, is obvious. Riches don’t last for ever, he who earns big wages puts them into a bag with holes in… and yet there is the genuine conviction that they will last much longer than they do. Another unreal element here is that the rich man is described as speaking with himself. It's hard for some cultures to appreciate how Middle Eastern culture is a collective affair. Decisions are taken through much discussion with other people. Likewise, the rich man plans out how to enjoy his wealth alone. There is no speech to his family; he invites himself to rejoice with himself. But all these unreal elements about this man signpost to us the loneliness, insulation and selfishness which is brought about by excess wealth and the increase of investments. It's so relevant to the 21st century. By the way, there's a word play going on here. The man whose land brings forth many things (eu-phoreo) and therefore wants to be merry (eu-phraino) is actually a fool- aphron- an a-phron person, a person without those things. All those things were "required" of him, as a loan is required. They weren't really his. And as so often, the parable is left hanging, with no actual response from the man. We have to imagine where the man's mind turned, what he thought... and take the lesson.

12:19- see on 1 Cor. 15:32.

For each aspect of true spirituality, there is a fake counterpart; an appearance of peace when a man has no peace with God; a semblance of prayer and Bible study when actually these are performed as exercises devoid of meaning. The pseudo-believer takes “ease” (Lk. 12:19) in his materialism; and yet this is the same word used about the true “rest” which the Lord gives in His ecclesia (Mt. 11:28). If we allow ourselves to be caught up in this, then we are effectively having our part in the spirit of antiChrist. There will not only be a fake Jesus, but there is already within our natures a shadow spirituality, which apes the real thing, and thereby seeks to persuade us that we can take the crown without the cross. In this lies the colossal practical relevance of this theme to the serious believer.

12:20- Gk. / RVmg. "They shall require of thee"- i.e. the Angels, to whom we shall give account at the day of judgment (:9). A similar, related Greek word is in :48- as God has given much to us, so "they"- the Angels- will require of us during the judgment process. But the exact same Greek word translated "required" occurs only in Lk. 6:30- we should give to others and not 'ask again' of them. The connection teaches that insofar as we 'require' of others, so it will be 'required' of us. If we forgive freely without demanding repentance, so God will treat us; if we 'require again' of others in this life, so God will of us. In a sense our lives are required of us when we die in that our next conscious moment will be the judgment.

12:20 Provided- s.w. "prepared" in v. 47. We must prepare ourselves, our character and personality; we provide or prepare by being generous to others, v. 33.

Because we do not have an immortal soul that is somehow recycled into us through reincarnation, our soul / life is given to us by God. In the parable of the rich fool, the Lord says that in the day of his death, his soul was “required” of him (Lk. 12:20). The Greek word for ‘required’ means ‘to ask back, to request to be given again’. The fact we have life [a ‘soul’] makes us responsible to God; and at the judgment we will be asked to give that life back to Him with an account. And, as the parable shows, this utterly precludes a focus upon material acquisition. The Lord goes on to say that therefore we should take no anxious thought about what our soul will eat or wear- because our soul / life is in fact God’s soul / life, and He will care for it until He takes it back to Himself (Lk. 12:22). The soul is greater than food and clothes (Lk. 12:23 Gk.). The wonder that we are alive, with God’s life in us, should be far greater to us than what we feed or clothe it with. Because we can’t take that life out of ourselves until God does, nor can we give it to another person, nor can we make our body / soul grow taller, therefore we should not take anxious thought for the material things related to it, which are all peripheral compared to the wonder of the fact that we have life from God: “why take ye thought for the rest [Gk. ‘the things that are left over / extraneous’]?” (Lk. 12:26). And to drive the point home, we are bidden “consider” (s.w. ‘discover’) the birds and plants, who are simply content with the life God has given them. This was the Lord’s way of doing what Solomon did in Ecc. 3:17-20- showing that man and plants and animals are all possessed of the same God-given spirit / life. As Gen. 2:7; Ecc. 12:7 make clear, the spirit / life is given by God to our bodies; it doesn’t come from anywhere else. There is no reincarnation. And this is no painless Bible fact; it demands that we live lives that are His, and not lived out as if our spirit / life / soul is ours. The fact that God “holdeth our soul in life”, a reference to Gen. 2:7, means that David wanted to “make the voice of his praise to be heard” (Ps. 66:8,9). This was the meaning of the basic facts of creation for David!

The man who built greater barns realized on the night of his death that all his laid up treasures could not be his after his death (Lk. 12:20). And yet this is couched in the very language of Ecclesiastes. We can come to that attitude and understanding right now; and if we don’t, we will come to it on our deathbeds or at judgment day. The parable of the pounds may be intended to describe our dealing with wealth. This is how it would have appeared to the Lord’s first hearers.

12:21 Without in any way seeking to teach justification by works, it is also true that there are Bible passages which imply that there will be a reckoning up of a man’s good works at the last day. The rich fool should have been “rich toward God” (Lk. 12:21); he should have hoarded up spiritual wealth and fruit against his last day rather than material things. Yet this of course will not have been consciously done; yet the judgment process will reveal the good works of the righteous to them and others.

12:22 The disciples were told to sell what they had (Lk. 12:22,32,33); but it seems they kept their fishing business. After having asked them this, the Lord again had to speak to them about forsaking all that they had (Lk. 14:33). Their claim to have left literally all and followed Him (Lk. 18:28) appears somewhat exaggerated. To follow Him meant taking up a cross (Lk. 14:27).

12:23 When the Lord taught that “the life is more than the food” which we worry about today (Lk. 12:23 RV), and “the body [which we shall receive] is more than the raiment”, He surely means that our hope of eternal life, the life, the only real and ultimate life worth having, should eclipse our worries about today’s problems of survival. Not worrying about food, drink and clothing, which God will provide, is likely an allusion to His provision for Israel during their wilderness journey to the promised land. And in this context the Lord encourage us: “Seek ye the Kingdom of God, and all these things shall be added unto you… fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom” (Lk. 12:31,32). If it is God’s pleasure to give us the Kingdom, then surely He will give us all basic necessities until that time comes. Our certainty of being there thus greatly relieves us from earthly cares, compared to the person who has no such hope.

12:28 The Lord tells the disciples that they are “of little faith” if they don’t perceive and live by what He is teaching about God’s care for the flowers. The ‘faith’ is surely faith in the simple fact that God lavishes His loving care upon us, just because, like a flower, we are here as His creation, in His eternal purpose.

All flesh is as grass, and yet the Lord speaks as if God treats us as better than the grass “which is today in the field and tomorrow is cast into the oven” (Lk. 12:28).

12:32- see on 2 Cor. 8:9.

The pleasure or will of our loving Father is that we should share His Kingdom (Lk. 12:32), and that pleasure / will prospered through the cross of Jesus (Is. 53:10). God isn’t indifferent. He wants us to be there. That’s why He gave His Son to die. It’s as simple as that. The deepest longings we feel in our earthly lives, as parents, as lovers, are mere flickers of the hungering desire God feels for us. It is a desire that cost Him His very own crucified son.

The Lord Himself knew our basic tendency to disbelieve the certainty of our salvation when He comforted us: “Fear not little flock, it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom”.

He spoke of us all as a little flock, fearing it is not the Father's pleasure / will to give us the Kingdom (Lk. 12:32). In doing so, He was as ever drawing on the language of the OT. Joshua-Jesus encouraged Israel that Yahweh delighted / willed that they should enter the land (Num. 14:8); but instead, they were too caught up with doubts... doubt about salvation, about what they could eat and drink day by day, and the giants in the land. This is the very context in which the Lord was speaking- fearing “the nations of the world”, doubting where food and clothes would come from, just as Israel did (Lk. 12:22-29). Yet the pleasure / will of Yahweh is that we should share His Kingdom, and that pleasure / will prospered through the cross (Is. 53:10). 

Lk. 12:32 teaches that we should not fear or worry about our lack of material things, because God is eager to give us His Kingdom. The certainty of salvation which we may have ought to mean that worry about all human things of this life becomes irrelevant.

12:33 He warns the crowd not to everlastingly worry about where the next meal was coming from; and then in that very context, tells them to sell what they have (Lk. 12:29-33). He wasn't just talking to the rich. He was telling the desperately poor to forsake what little they had, so as to seek His Kingdom. He probably didn't mean them to take His words dead literally (cp. cutting off the offending hand or foot); what He surely meant was: 'Resign, in your mind, the possession of everything you have, concern yourselves rather with the needs of others and entering my Kingdom'. No wonder those crowds turned round and soon bayed for His blood. See on Mt. 6:19.

12:35-39 Luke 12:35-39 speaks of the Master coming at night and then sharing the Passover meal with those who are "watching".  Israel were told to 'watch' throughout that first Passover night (Ex. 12:42 RV mg.), eating the meal with loins girded. Our Lord matches this with "let your loins be girded about, and your lights burning" (v. 35), referring to the virgins parable.   Israel eating that meal together, huddled around the slain lamb, the oil burning lamps revealing their tense faces, is therefore a picture of what the new Israel should be like just prior to their deliverance.

12:36- see on Lk. 17:31.

How we respond to Jesus now is how we will respond at His return. Those who open to Him immediately will be saved (Lk. 12:36). The wise virgins go immediately and are thereby accepted, whereas the foolish delay their response. The implication is surely that those who are ready to drop all and go when He knocks, will be saved. Our reaction in that split second of knowing ‘He’s back!’ will determine our eternal destiny; it will effectively be our self-judgment. And yet in this life too, the figure of the Lord knocking at our door is used to describe our response to Jesus in this life (Rev. 3:20). If there is no immediacy of response now, there will not be then.

The faithful watching for Christ's return are described as men waiting for their master to return from a wedding (Lk. 12:36). But Christ's coming is also described as His coming to the wedding to marry the faithful.  Why “return from”?

12:37 Passover night was to be "a night of watching" (Ex. 12:42 RV mg.), strongly suggesting watching in prayer" (Eph. 6:18;  1 Pet. 4:7;  2 Cor. 11:27?). Similarly those who are found "watching" at the Lord's midnight coming (cp. that of the Passover angel) will be found acceptable (Lk. 12:37). The picture of Israel in their family units huddled together around the Lamb, desperately focusing their attention on that saving blood, watching and praying, examining themselves- this is us, right now. For there can be no serious doubt that the second coming is almost upon our generation.

The Lord’s self-crucifixion spirit was seen not only in His life and then finally in His death and subsequent life; but who He was in His mortal life, He will eternally be. He is the same yesterday as today and as for ever. He will dress Himself to serve us, as a servant, in His future Kingdom (Lk. 12:37 NIV), reminiscent of how at the last supper and on the cross He in principle did the same (Phil. 2:7). Thus the spirit of the cross must be a way of life, and this feature of our characters will be seen in the Kingdom too.

The Lord’s exalted view of the disciples is reflected in how He washed their feet. To wash the feet of guests was more menial than we might imagine. It was normal to provide water for the guest to wash his own feet. The Midrash Mekilta on Ex. 21:2 taught that a Jewish slave should never be required to wash his Master’s feet. But as a sign of extreme devotion and respect, some disciples of the most respected rabbis would wash their feet. Yet the Lord Jesus, having reminded them that He was indeed their Lord and Master, does this to them. And according to Lk. 12:37, He will do this again to us in His Kingdom, in that He will then tie a cloth around Him and come forth and serve us. It would seem the Lord was referring back to this prophecy when He tied a cloth around Him and washed the disciples’ feet. This was how highly He thought of them; and that incident was an enacted prophecy of the attitude He will have to us, whom the 12 symbolize, even in the glory of His Kingdom. He surely totally redefined the nature of Lordship and respect.  

The Master is so delighted that his servants are watching for Him that He immediately sits down and gets a meal ready for them, doing the serving Himself (Lk. 12:37). There is an arresting element of unreality here. Would a Master really do this, at such an unlikely time at night, would he really serve himself, and would he really be so glad that the servants were waiting up for him? But these elements of unreality serve to teach the lessons: that the Lord will have unspeakable joy at His return because of our expectancy of the second coming, and He will surprise us by His glee and enthusiasm for us. See on 2 Tim. 4:8.

The master makes the servants "recline at table" (Lk. 12:35-38); they are made to feel like the Master, by the Master Himself! This is what it means to be "in Christ". There's a kind of out of scale inappropriacy about the idea that if the Master comes and finds the servants awake, then He will gird Himself and serve them. Of course they ought to be awake! But it's as if He is so especially impressed by this fact. And we who live awaiting His return need to take note. And the idea of the master serving is of course the idea behind the description of the cross in Phil. 2:6,7. We should have the same awkward sense of wonder at the cross as we have when we recline at the breaking of bread. This implies that those who serve the emblems are in fact manifesting the Lord Jesus, and are actually of far greater significance than the president or the speaker. See on Lk. 13:7.

Our attitude to the second coming decides whether we will be in the Kingdom. In this sense we are judging ourselves, right now; we are formulating the outcome of the judgment seat by our attitude now towards the second coming.  The proof for this lies in a group of passages which suggest that everyone who truly loves the return of his Lord will be in the Kingdom. Of course, a true love of His coming is only possible if we hold correct doctrine, and if our faith and behaviour is mature enough to be able to look with quiet joy and confidence towards that day. Thus our Lord said that all those whom He finds watching will be welcomed into the marriage feast (Lk. 12:37). And 2 Tim. 4:8 is plain enough: "All them also that love his appearing" will be rewarded along with Paul. Paul's own confidence in salvation was because he knew the earnestness of his desire to be "present with the Lord" Jesus (2 Cor. 5:8), such was the closeness of his relationship with Him. Is this really our attitude too? Can we feel like Simeon, that we are quite happy to die after we have just seen our Lord with our own eyes (Lk. 2:29)? Is there really much love between us and our Lord?

The foolish virgins knock on the door, i.e. ask for acceptance. At the second coming, the Lord knocked on their door, and they didn't answer immediately (Lk. 12:37). They had decided their own fate by their dillatory response.

Ps. 36:8 says that God will "make us" partake of the blessings of the Kingdom of God. It reminds us of how the Lord Jesus said that in his Kingdom, he will "make us" sit down at a table, and he will come and serve us (Lk. 12:37), knowing full well that he who sits at meat is greater than he who serves (Lk. 22:27). It isn't so difficult to imagine this scene: the Lord of glory wanting us to sit down to a meal, and then He comes and serves us. He will have to "make us" sit down and let ourselves be served. Perhaps "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the Kingdom" (Mt. 25:34) likewise suggests a hesitancy of the faithful to enter the Kingdom. And perhaps the way the Lord had to 'make' the healed blind man look up and use his new sight was some kind of foretaste of this. There is even the suggestion in Rev. 7:15 that after the judgment process, the Lord will come down off His throne and mix with us, after the pattern of Joseph. See on Lk. 18:17.

The Lord Jesus is the same yesterday, today and forever. It is wrong to think that the Lord was only humble in His ministry, but will return with almost bitter indignation. This is not so. He girded Himself and served His men in the days of His flesh (Jn. 13:4); and He will do exactly the same again, in the glory of His Kingdom (Lk. 12:37). That same essential humility of God and Jesus will be with Him; He won't have changed. It is His fundamental, eternal characteristic. The fear of God lest Israel would not attain the promised land ("lest peradventure...", Ex. 13:17) shows His humility, in being so concerned for the salvation of petty man; and that characteristic likewise will be His, right up to and through and beyond the day of judgment. 

The Lord who will judge us knows us each individually. The question arises, ‘Why would all the servants stay awake in order to open the door (Lk. 12:37)? Why not just the night watchman? The answer is that there is a totally unique and special personal relationship between this Master and all His servants.

12:38 We must speak the word as others are able to hear it, expressing the Truths of Christ in language and terms which will reach them. There are some differences within the Gospels in the records of the parables. It could be that the different writers, under inspiration, were rendering the Lord's Aramaic words into Greek in different styles of translation. Also, we must bear in mind the different audiences. Mark speaks of the four watches of the night which would have been familiar to Romans (Mk. 13:35 cp. 6:48), whereas Lk. 12:38 speaks of the Jewish division of the night into three watches (cp. Jud. 7:19). Yet Luke seems to translate the Palestinian style of things into terms which were understandable by a Roman audience.

12:41- see on Mk. 13:34; Lk. 13:1.

12:42- see on 1 Tim. 3:15.

Our Lord uttered a difficult saying in Lk.12:42: "Who then is that faithful and wise steward, whom his Lord shall make ruler over his household... he will make him ruler over all that he hath". We each individually have this promise of being made ruler over all that Jesus has. The "all things" refers to the believers; a concordance study of these two words gives fair testimony to this. The ecclesia is the body of Christ, "the fulness of him that filleth all in all" (Eph.1:22,23). Let us pause to exult in this fact; that Jesus exists for no one else except the believers. Each of us is promised by Him that He will make us ruler over "all that he hath", i.e. all the saints. We will each rule over each other because we will each be so closely identified with the Lord Jesus; yet in another sense there will be a hierarchy of spiritual glory in the Kingdom.

12:42 “Let patience have her perfect work... let brotherly love continue" sound as if we must allow the process of righteousness inspired by spiritual acts of love and patience. We can obstruct that process (James 1:4; Heb. 13:1). One aspect of spirituality leads to another. Thus the Lord commends the one who is watching for His coming, and then speaks of how those who are to be accepted at His coming are those busy preparing spiritual food for their brethren (Lk. 12:39,42). The implication is that he who is watching, truly watching, for the return will be busy about the brotherhood’s needs.

12:46 Christ "will appoint (the wicked servant) his portion with the unbelievers" (Lk. 12:46), his portion with the hypocrites (Mt. 24:51), reminiscent of a "goat" in the later parable  being told to go to the group of goats at the left hand side- "the unbelievers", i.e. those responsible but lacking in real faith (the word is used concerning this group in Jn. 20:27; Mt. 17:20; Rom. 11:20; Heb. 3:12; Tit. 1:15; Rev. 21:8).

The Lord’s self-indulgent servant will be cut asunder at judgment day- revealed for who he really is- and then be appointed his portion with the [other] hypocrites (Mt. 24:41). The Lord used almost identical words earlier in His ministry, but with the conclusion that such a servant would be appointed his portion with the unbelievers (Lk. 12:46). The rejected servants, who appeared to believe but who only play-acted, are in fact unbelievers. They have as little faith as the unbelieving world, although they think they believe and serve the Lord.

12:48- see on Dt. 29:21.

"A fool's mouth is [will be] his destruction, and his mouth calleth for strokes [i.e. condemnation at the judgment, Lk. 12:47,48]" (Prov. 18:6). By our words we may be shouting out for condemnation.

Lk. 12:49 speaks of how the Lord wished that the fire He came to kindle had already been kindled. This may be an allusion to a common Latin saying at the time: Nemo accendit nisi ipse ardet, 'No one can kindle another unless he himself burns'. In this case Jesus is likening Himself to a fire which ignites others; and yet He so wished that someone else had earlier come and been Messiah. Some of the Messianic passages describe Him being amazed that there had been no man, and He Himself therefore dressed for action and did the Messianic duty. It is an essay in His humility that He should have held such a view. It also reflects how there had been previous opportunities for Messiah to come.

The Gehenna fire of condemnation of the wicked is "already kindled" by men's attitude now (Lk. 12:49). The tree that will not bring forth good fruit "is hewn down, and cast into the fire" (Mt. 7:19)- alluding to the figure of Gehenna, into which the rejected will be 'thrown'. The ungodly are already like the chaff that will be blown away after the Lord's return (Ps. 1:4,5; 35:5; Job 21:18-20 cp. Is. 5:24; 17:13; 29:5; Dan. 2:35; Lk. 3:17). Those who lose their first love are now condemned (1 Tim. 3:6; 5:12). The Lord Jesus stands with the sword of judgment now going out of His mouth (Rev. 1:16), as it will do at the final judgment (Is. 11:4).

12:48 Speaking of the principle of responsibility upon which our judgment will be conducted, the Lord hints at Angelic involvement in the judgment: "to whom men (our guardian angels?) have committed much, of him they will ask the more" (Lk. 12:48). See on Lk. 6:38.

12:49,50 The disciples wanted to bring fire down as Elijah had done, to consume their opponents. The Lord replies that His spirit is different; they didn’t know His Spirit, without which, Paul says, “we are none of his”. And yet still He patiently bore with them. However, He also says that He has come to send fire on the earth at the last day (Lk. 12:49)- an evident reference to Elijah. We could read the Lord’s treatment of the disciples’ request as saying ‘The time to act like Elijah will come- but it’s not now’. Likewise His comment that He came to bring division rather than peace: “Think ye that I am come to give peace in the earth? I tell you, Nay; but rather division” (Lk. 12:51). Elijah was renowned as the prophet who would turn the fathers to the children and bring peace in the land (Mal. 4:6; Ecclus. 48:10). The Lord may be saying: ‘You think, like some of the Jews, that I am a re-incarnation of John the Baptist, the Elijah prophet. I’m not. I’m the Messiah Himself. My spirit is different’. In that very context, the Lord stressed that He had a baptism to undergo, rather than to dispense to others as had John (Lk. 12:50). Perhaps the immaturity of the disciples was so great that they, former disciples of John, somehow believed that Jesus had turned into a re-incarnation of John. In this case, they would have been caught up in the surrounding world’s view of Jesus- for there was much speculation that Jesus was John the Baptist redivivus. The way John in his gospel labours the point that John the Baptist “was not that light”, i.e. Messiah (Jn. 1:8), perhaps is John’s recognition that finally, they got it right. You can imagine him preaching in those early days: ‘After John’s death we thought at times that Jesus was some sort of reincarnation of John. But Peter got it right, and now, I’m just making it clear also what the truth was. He wasn’t John the Baptist redivivus as so many thought. We were caught up a bit in that thinking; but we were wrong’.

12:49-54 The idea of fire from Heaven in Lk. 12:49-54 is associated by the Lord with division in the brotherhood. And the Lord went on to say that the Pharisees could interpret a cloud arising in the West as a sign that rain was coming, but they could not forgive their brethren, which was what was essential (Lk. 12:54). This just has to be a reference to Elijah, who saw a cloud arising from the West as a sign of rain. The Lord is, it seems, sadly associating Elijah with the Pharisees. And yet... despite all this, Jesus likens Himself to Elijah. Jesus sent fire on earth as Elijah did (Lk. 12:49). And the context of the Lk. 9:54 reference to Elijah is that the Lord’s time had come that he should be received up, and he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). This is all very much the language of Elijah (2 Kings 2:1). And elsewhere Jesus quotes Elijah’s words “Thy son liveth” (1 Kings 17:23 = Jn. 4:50-53). What this shows is that the Lord saw what was good in Elijah, and He didn’t separate Himself from someone who didn’t have His Spirit. He simply wanted His followers to learn better from him.

The Lord Jesus spoke of how “I am come to send fire on earth [after the pattern of Elisha against apostate Israel]... I am come to give... division” (Lk. 12:49,51). He parallels the fire of condemnation with division. And yet He says that this figurative fire is “already kindled”. If we are divided willingly, of our creation, then we stand self-condemned. This is how serious this matter is. I fear, really fear, that in the day of final account it may be that a brother or sister has lived separately from the world, believed all the right things, and yet his or her divisiveness means that they are condemned together with the immoral and the worldly.

12:49 The Lord Jesus speaks of how He personally will send fire on the land of Israel (Lk. 12:49), and yet in Revelation it is the Angels who pour out fire upon the land- He is directly manifested through their work.

12:50 The cross was to Christ a baptism He was being baptized with, it was only accomplished in His physical death; the process was ongoing (Lk. 12:50). He saw His death as the baptism with which He must be baptized (Lk. 12:50 cp. Rom. 6:3,4; Col. 2:10-12, His 'baptism-unto-death' Gk.); and yet He spoke of the baptism with which He was being baptized in an ongoing sense (Mt. 20:22).

The Lord's fear of death was, it seems to me, to a far greater extent than what even we experience- doubtless because He knew all that was tied up with His death and how much depended upon it. He spoke of how "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!" (Lk. 12:50). See on Heb. 5:7.

12:51 The Lord taught that an inevitable by-product of His Gospel was that He would send division, often within families (Lk. 12:51-53). To be unwillingly caught up in a divided house / family is not, therefore, a sin or a sign of our personal condemnation. There must be schisms amongst us, that they might make manifest who the faithful are, by their attitude to them.

12:52 Salvation, as Robert Roberts so frequently said, is an individual matter. It is not a collective affair. Compare two passages within the Lord’s teaching, which each use the same Greek words: “I am come to give… division. From henceforth there shall be five in one house divided, three against two, and two against three [i.e. sometimes they would be 2:3 and other times 3:2- there would be a series of disagreements over various issues]... a house divided against a house falleth” (Lk. 12:52,52 cp. Lk. 11:17). What are we to make of this? Every divided house or Kingdom will “fall”, i.e. be condemned at judgment day (s.w. Mt. 7:27; Rom. 14:4; 1 Cor. 10:12; Heb. 4:11; James 5:12). And yet Jesus inevitably divides ‘houses’. Surely the Lord is teaching that every Kingdom and family will fall, because it will be divided, and therefore the only hope of salvation is purely individual. This was radical thinking in first century Palestine, where the destiny of the extended family was held to be uniform; i.e., you would end up in the last day wherever your extended family did. But the Lord is cutting through all this, and teaching that salvation is a personal matter. No single extended family will, as a unit, avoid being divided by the result of the judgment. The Lord’s teaching surely has some relevance to some Christian cultures which can likewise give the impression that large, well established Christian families will almost automatically all be saved.

12:54 The Lord taught that our focus upon Him and His return should affect how we feel about others, even our enemies. Lk. 12:54-59 continues a theme of living appropriately to a belief that we shall all appear before the judgment seat of Christ. The Lord pictures us as walking to meet our judge, along with our adversary. And His parable assumes that we will automatically be found in the wrong, the case will go against us; and so therefore we better make peace with our adversary and drop the case. We are walking towards the day of judgment, our meeting with our Judge. The bottom line is that we should not be walking to judgment day carrying with us a case against our brother. Drop it, whatever it is. At least, in our hearts. It's simply impossible to live at peace with all- Paul spoke from much personal experience of living at peace with others insomuch as it depends upon us: "If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men" (Rom. 12:18). Again, this doesn't mean that abuse shouldn't be challenged and exposed. It should be. But we as sinners shouldn't be walking to judgment day carrying with us the weight of a case against our brother.

12:57 The Lord warned the Jews that they were not discerning the signs of their times as they ought to- i.e. they were not paying heed to the imminence of the day of the Lord which was to come in AD70, and neither were they perceiving that Israel's king was in fact amongst them. He went straight on to tell them a parable about the need to agree with our brother, because they were on their way to judgment. He links these two themes, of their not discerning the signs of the times and their disagreement with their brother, with the question: "And why even of yourselves judge ye not what is right?" (Lk. 12:56-59). He seems to be saying that their discernment of the signs of the times was to be connected with their discernment of the need for love and forgiveness of their brother. The same basic link is found in Heb. 10:25, where we are exhorted to meet together and encourage one another "and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching". See on Mt. 5:25.

12:58 - see on Lk. 6:47.

The Christian life is likened to a man on his way to his judge along with his adversary (Lk. 12:58); and evidently, he ought to settle his differences with his brother before he arrives, for this judge will be extremely hard upon those who cannot be reconciled to their brethren. This would suggest that the Lord foresaw that getting along with our brethren would be a major part in the development process of His people; and as they draw closer to the day of meeting with Him, the more urgent is the need to settle their disputes, as He will be unsympathetic towards them. The Lord prefaces this parable by appealing for His people to ‘judge righteously’ because His judgment is about to come (Lk. 12:57 Gk.). By forgiving our brother and reconciling with him, we are judging righteously; we are in essence deciding our own judgment which is to be revealed at the Lord’s return- see on Mt. 13:47.

13:1 In Lk. 13:1-10 the people tell Jesus how terrible is Pilate for killing some Galileans, and how judged those individuals were by God. He answers that all humanity are under danger of eternal judgment and they needed to start worrying about themselves rather than worrying about God's justice [or otherwise] with those Galileans. And the Lord follows this up with the parable of the unfruitful tree which by rights should be cut down, but He was urgently pleading for more time in order that it might bring forth fruit. In other words, the Lord's audience were to realize the intense urgency of their position rather than worrying about the justice of others' judgment. Their personal situation was so urgent, they really were to worry about bringing forth fruit, rather than being sidetracked by the issues connected with the suffering and possible judgment of others. It's not that these matters don't have importance; it was simply that those asking those questions of Jesus were in such a personally urgent position that they just had to get that right. And this seems to me most relevant to those who will not get personally themselves right with God because of their complaint about His justice with others. And Luke's record develops the theme yet further. In Lk. 13:23 we read of Him being asked the perennial question- why will only few be saved? His answer is simply to speak of the utter horror of personal rejection by the Lord Jesus at the day of judgment- knocking on the door, thinking this is your old friend's house, to be told "I never knew you". The idea is clearly to worry about the future which we may personally miss rather than debating the unsearchable issues of why, apparently, few will be saved. Same again with Peter's question as to whether the Lord's predictions of condemnation refer to the disciples or to the unbelieving world (Lk. 12:41)- the Lord's response was simply to speak about the need to personally be always prepared for the Lord's coming. And so it is with us- don't worry about who may be condemned, worry about your own personal readiness and how you will respond in that split second moment when we know for sure 'He's back!'.

13:1-5 Urgent response in view of coming judgment is a repeated theme in the teaching of Jesus. His servants are to wait in hourly anticipation of His return (Mk. 13:34-36; Lk. 12:36-38); the day of reckoning is even now at hand, all our guilt will be uncovered, and we should act now before it is too late (Lk. 16:1-8). We are as a guilty man about to be hauled to court, whose only way out is to make peace with his offended brother (Mt. 5:25,26). Unless we repent, a great tower is about to fall upon us (Lk. 13:1-5). Jesus saw Divine judgment as something imminent, something which is essentially happening now, and therefore day by day we need to live accordingly. He insisted that any supposition that life will simply carry on as it is… was a fatal delusion. He piercingly dismantles our natural human assumption that life can be broadly maintained as it is or simply adapted a little. There is an urgent need to change and to keep on being transformed in the new life in Him. So the urgency of response is because the Lord is coming back soon, but also because He is right now our constant and insistent judge. Our generation particularly ought to have a sense of urgency. For I will go on record as saying that I do truly believe the Lord may very well come in our time. He is near, even at the doors. Written in our lives, as a neon sign in the black of our human lives, should be the simple reality: Jesus Is Coming.

13:7 The relationship between servants and master in the parables is also at times somewhat unreal. It’s hard for us to imagine how slaves belonged to their masters and had to do their will and not their own. Yet in the parable of Lk. 13:7,8, the servant is commanded by his master to cut down the fig tree. Not only does the servant take a lot of initiative in saying that no, he will dig around it and try desperately to get it to give fruit; but, he says, if even that fails, then you, the Master, will have to cut it down… when he, the servant, had been ordered to do it by his master! This servant [the Lord Jesus] obviously has a most unusual relationship with the Master. He suggests things on his own initiative, and even passes the job of cutting off Israel back to God, as if He would rather not do it. And it’s in a way the same with us. See on Lk. 12:37; 14:22.

Lk. 13:7,8 teaches that after the three years of His ministry, during Christ's final six months, God suggested to Christ that the nation of Israel be cut down (this is but one example of the private intercourses between Father and Son). The Lord knew when He must die soon; He had already steadfastly set His face to go to die at Jerusalem (Lk. 9:51). It seems to me that He knew He would be killed by the Jews in a few months time. But He asks the Father to spare Israel for at least another year- as if to show that He knew they wouldn't accept Him even after His death, but He's saying to God: 'Give them a chance even after they kill me'. Those who think further along the lines suggested by the parable will see that in reality, Israel were not cut down by God for another 37 years. The implication is that this was due to Christ's pleading with God during those  years for patience to be shown to the nation who rejected and  crucified Him. The element of unreality in the story reflects the grace of Jesus- for it was unthinkable for a servant to argue back with his master, asking not to do what he had been ordered to do.  

13:8 Lk. 13:8 records how Christ of His own volition asked the Father not to destroy Israel at the time He planned, but to give them longer to repent. This was exactly the spirit of Moses' pleas for Israel. But this is not the same as 'relaying' the words of human prayers to God. This is undoubtedly how many of us conceive of Christ's intercessory role for us; but is this actually what Scripture teaches? Many of the relevant Scriptures which speak of Christ's activity for us before the Lord God are not in this context; they suggest that He of His own will prays to the Father on our behalf concerning things which are on His agenda for us, not ours. If we confess Christ before men, i.e. reveal Him to them, He will confess us, reveal us favourably, in the court of Heaven, before the Father and the Angels (Lk. 12:8).

Lk. 13:8 could suggest that Christ's attitude to Israel was even more patient than that of God Himself; yet because their feelings to Israel are identical, the implication is perhaps that the Son enables and thereby persuades the Father to be even more patient with us than He would naturally be!

So often, the parables [as well as the Lord's teaching generally] appear to be Him almost talking to Himself. The Lord spoke of how it was His Father's plan to cut down the Jewish fig tree; but He asked His Father if it could remain for another year, until He had dug around it and spread dung by it (Lk. 13:8)- and then it could be destroyed, if there was still no fruit. The Lord Jesus was thinking here of His crucifixion- for this was the reason for the final cutting down of the Jewish fig tree. To dig was the work of a slave- recall how the disgraced steward felt ashamed to dig (Lk. 16:3). And to spread dung was the work of the very lowest slave. And yet this was how the Lord foresaw His death- becoming as the lowest slave. Yet His hope in doing this was that Israel would bear spiritual fruit. This, then, is to be the motivational effect upon us of meditating upon the Lord's ultimate servanthood in His death- spiritual fruit in our lives just has to be elicited by it, lest we too will be cut down.

He sent His servants the prophets to find the fruit- but they were beaten and murdered. He finally sent His Son, reasoning that "surely they will reverence my son" (Mt. 21:37). But they murdered Him. I have suggested elsewhere that this language can only suggest that God in some sense limited His omniscience and omnipotence in order to fully enter into our dimensions; and hence His experience of dashed hope and deep disappointment. Amazing as the Father's hopefulness was, His Son's was even greater. This Father who had had all this experience of simply not getting any fruit, asked His vinedresser (the Lord Jesus) to cut down the tree of Israel, as for the three years of Christ's ministry He had sought fruit from them and not found any; and further, this tree was 'cumbering the ground', taking away nutrients which He could have given to another (Gentile) tree. But His servant argues back with Him; the servant asks to be allowed to dig and dung around the tree; and then, he says, 'You can cut it down, although you asked me to do this job'. This was quite unusual for a servant to talk like this; but it's an insight into the way the Lord Jesus was even more hopeful than His longsuffering Father. The Lord was prepared to dig around the tree- and digging was the lowest, most shameful occupation (Lk. 16:3). Further, He would shovel dung, making Him unclean and despised of men. He so wanted fruit on Israel. This describes the intense effort of the Lord Jesus during the last six months of His ministry. His attitude was summarized when shortly before He died, He came hungry to a fig tree, expecting to find just the immature beginnings of fruit there, which He would gladly have eaten. But that particular tree had nothing on it. His deep hunger and willingness to eat anything reflected His willingness to find some spirituality from Israel. But He "found none", just as there was "not found" any of those Jews He healed who would glorify God (Lk. 17:18 s.w. Lk. 13:6). This longsuffering, patient, passionate desire for spiritual fruit in the Lord Jesus is presented as being even stronger than it was in His Father. No wonder John the Baptist misunderstood the extent of Christ's grace- he proclaimed that Jesus already had the axe aimed at the bottom of the trees (Mt. 3:10; Lk. 3:9), and was about to fell them. The situation truly demanded this- but actually the Lord Jesus waited three years for fruit, and when it didn't come, even then He pleaded with the Father not to fell the tree but let Him dig and dung it... We must factor all this into our understanding of Mt. 7:19, where the Lord apparently in a bland, matter-of-fact manner teaches that the tree that doesn't bear good fruit will be hewn down and burnt. This burning is ultimately at the judgment day; but all our lives He is earnestly seeking to develop spiritual fruit upon us; as in the parable of the sower, only those who produce totally nothing will be rejected. Of course our fruit must be the fruit that abides- the changes in personality which are permanent, the converts who remain, the forgiveness which is maintained on a felt level, the generosity never later regretted... But if there's even something of this, then it seems this is what the Lord is so eagerly seeking. Earlier, Israel were the vine and the Lord Jesus the vinedresser (Lk. 13:7). But now we are the vine, and God Himself the vinedresser (Jn. 15:1). We are in good hands; and the Father and Son who through Biblical history showed themselves so sensitive to spiritual fruit are the very same ones who will meet us in the last day.

13:9 In the parable of Lk. 13:8,9, the Lord portrays Himself as even reasoning with God, who had decreed the Jewish tree be cut down in the third year of His ministry. He as it were persuades God to allow His efforts to continue for another six months, in desperate hope against hope that there would be some fruit of repentance. We, to a man and to a woman, would have given up on Israel, and would have somehow been gratified that the Father wanted to treat them like this. I would have turned to the Gentiles a long time before the Lord and Paul did.

The amazing extent and power of the Lord Jesus is further brought out in the story of the worker in the vineyard who can almost direct His boss- the Father- not to cut down the barren fig tree of Israel until it has more chance to bear spiritual fruit- “if not, then after that thou shalt cut it down” (Lk. 13:9). Speaking to crowds of day labourers and farm workers, this would have struck them as strange- that this worker had such power over his boss. See on Lk. 11:21.

13:11 Bullinger has some interesting comments upon the woman with an unclean “spirit of infirmity” (Lk. 13:11) that resulted in her being unable to lift herself up straight. “The negative is me, not ou; and is therefore subjective. She felt as if she could not do so… it appears, therefore, to have been a nervous disorder; and had to do with her pneuma” or mind. And yet she is described as having been ‘bound by Satan’. The ‘Satan’ or adversary to her standing upright was her own mindset. And it was this spirit or mindset “of infirmity” from which the Lord released her. Here we clearly see the connection between ‘spirits’ and mental disorder or dysfunction; for ‘spirit’ in Scripture so often refers to the psychological mindset of a person.

13:15 The Lord described His healing of her as losing her from a bond in order to lead her away to the water of life (Lk. 13:15)- this is the very cameo of all the redeemed in Rev. 7:17.

13:18 The small seed of the Gospel of the Kingdom can produce a mighty tree in the Kingdom (Lk. 13:18,19). It is easy to under-estimate the power of that seed- the Lord's parable seems to be making that point. I would seriously suggest that all of us ought to regularly study the basic doctrines of our One Faith for ourselves, personally. The writer told the Hebrews that he would have to lay again the foundation teachings of the Gospel, in order to renew them again unto repentance (Heb. 6:1-4).

Jesus was highly sensitive to the gender division. He did not just ignore it. The parable of the mustard seed which a man planted is followed by that of the leaven which a woman hid in the meal (Lk.13:18-21). Likewise in Lk.15:3-10 Jesus speaks firstly of the joy of a man finding a lost sheep, and then of the joy of a woman on finding a lost dowry coin. He spoke of the lilies of the field which do not physically exert themselves in labour, as men must do, but also who do not spin (women’s work). Christ spoke of the second coming as finding two men in the field and two women grinding at the mill. This parallelism of attention between men and women can be profitably followed through the Gospel records: Lk. 8:14,15 cp. Lk. 8:16,17; Lk. 11:5-8 cp. 18:1-8; Lk. 4:24-27; Mt. 24:43-51 cp. 25:1-13; 24:40,41; Mt. 13:31-33 cp. Lk. 13:18-21. This approach contrasts sharply with the male-centred teaching approach of the contemporary rabbis and other religious leaders. Thus his parables were consciously designed to appeal to both men and women. Luke particularly seems to rejoice in observing how the Lord treated men and women in parallel. Both Martha and the male ruler lack one thing (Lk. 10:41,42 cp. 18:22); there are two parables on answered prayer for men and women (Lk. 11:5-8 cp. 18:1-8); the men of Nineveh and the queen of the South are paired (Lk. 11:29-32); justice is for both male and female servants (Lk. 12:45,46); both men and women would be divided (Lk. 12:51-53); a woman and a man are both healed on the Sabbath (Lk. 13:10-16; 14:1-6); a ‘daughter of Abraham’ and a ‘son of Abraham’ are healed (Lk. 13:16; 19:9); the woman loses a coin, a man loses a sheep (Lk. 15:4-10). Indeed, a profitable study could be made of how the Old Testament prophets liken God to both male and female figures in tandem- e.g. “The Lord goes forth as a mighty man… I will cry out like a woman in travail” (Is. 42:13,14).

13:19- see on Lk. 6:47.

The parables reveal how the Lord was so sensitive to us. He realized that his audience thought in pictures; and so He turned concepts and ideas into imaginable pictures in a truly masterful way. He wanted to radically change people; and He realized that the way to do this was not by a catechism, not by pages or hours of intellectual, abstract droning, but by helping them to relate real, imaginable life to the things of His Kingdom. Truly did W.H. Auden reflect: " You cannot tell people what to do, you can only tell them parables; and that is what art really is, particular stories of particular people and experiences". The way the Lord Jesus constructed and taught His parables was indeed an art form, of exquisite beauty. He took ordinary, homely stories and introduced into them the elements of unreality which we will explore in this study. By being so normal, He created the possibility of participation in the minds of His hearers; because they could relate to the very normalcy of the stories. And so when the unreal elements are perceived- e.g. the mustard seed becomes not just a bush but a huge tree- there is an element of surprise and joy. Out of, and indeed right within, the most ordinary things of life, there await for the believer the surprise and joy of  'the Gospel of the Kingdom' intersecting with their ordinary lives. 

13:20 The good news of God's Kingdom, in both it's present and future aspects, is like yeast which works away from the inside of a man and inevitably, by its very nature makes a fundamental change (Lk. 13:20,21). Because whoever really believes the doctrines of the One Faith and lives the life which they naturally bring forth, really will be saved. Therefore we will have a sense of true unity with our brethren who believe as we do, whatever human barriers there may be between us. Therefore "the Faith" is linked with unity between believers (Eph. 4:13; Phil. 1:27).

13:23- see on Lk. 13:1.

Those who "are first" in their own eyes, those who think for sure they will be in the Kingdom, will seek to enter the Kingdom at the day of judgment, but be unable. Those who strive to enter the Kingdom now are “last" in their own spiritual assessment; and the first will be made last in the sense that they won't be in the Kingdom.  Thus when those who will enter the Kingdom are described as thinking of themselves as "last", this must mean that they think of themselves now as being unworthy of the Kingdom, but as "striving" to be there now, in their minds (Lk. 13:23,24). The likes of Samson died with a confession of unworthiness on their lips- in his case, that he deserved to die the death of a Philistine (Jud. 16:30)- but he will actually be in the Kingdom (Heb. 11:32).

13:24 The idea of striving to enter the Kingdom, the need for such agonizing effort (Lk. 13:24), meant an awful lot to Paul (1 Cor. 9:25; Col. 1:29; 1 Tim. 6:12; 2 Tim. 4:7). It's fashionable these days to focus upon the certainty of our redemption in Christ and to ignore the warnings about apostasy. In Paul we see a brother who brought these two strands together; because his mind was so Christ and Gospels-centred. He personalized those Gospels, he must have kept thinking to himself  'Now this applies to me... it really does...'. What a brother. What an active mind, a mind which he knew had Christ living in it.

The Lord answers the question “Are there few that be saved?” by insisting that we personally strive to enter by the narrow door (Lk. 13:23,24).

“Many" of those who call Christ their Lord and who regularly break bread in his presence, where two or three others are gathered believing they are in his name, will find they are rejected, and they just won't be able to understand why on earth they were rejected (Lk. 13:24-27 cp. Mt. 18:20). Anyone who thinks the majority of believers must surely make it through to salvation needs to think again. Please God, we will- but "many" (the Greek can mean, but not always, 'the majority') will be in for this inexplicable (to them) rejection, when they were sure they'd lived a good Christian life.

Those with spiritual problems are prone to reason that when judgment day comes, they will be able to just shrug their shoulders and walk away from their Lord to eventual death. However, there is every reason to think that the rejected will come to their spiritual senses then, and plead to be allowed to enter the Kingdom. Many will seek to enter into the Kingdom at the judgment but will not be able; and so we should strive now to enter into it (Lk. 13:24). The implication is that if we strive to enter in now, we will enter in then. Everyone will so earnestly seek to enter the Kingdom in the last day, and the urgency of that coming day should be ours today. Ezekiel's prophecies so often make the point that experiencing God's judgments leads men to know Him; thus at the day of judgment, the rejected will knock at the door of the Kingdom, knowing that they know Christ- to be told that although they may now know him, he doesn't know them. Thus the pain of rejection will be acutely mental rather than physical. Ezekiel is told to judge Israel, i.e. "cause them to know the abominations of their fathers" (Ez. 20:4). This is what condemnation will result in- a recognition of sin for what it is. "According to thy ways, and according to thy doings, shall they [the ways and doings] judge thee" (Ez. 24:14). It will be self-condemnation, but they will then realize this in terrible detail.

13:25 We are Christ to our brethren. The “master of the house” is representative of Jesus in Lk. 13:25; and yet we are to be the “master of the house” in spiritually feeding our brethren (Mt. 24:43,45 RV). It is through us that He ministers to His household.

13:27- see on Mt. 25:36.

The rejected will be told: "Depart from me" (Lk. 13:27); and yet in their lives, they will have already departed themselves. In time of temptation some fall away (s.w. "depart from"; Lk. 8:13). Some depart (s.w.) from the faith (1 Tim. 4:1; Heb. 3:12). Demas departed (2 Tim. 4:10), as the rejected will depart (s.w. Mt. 25:41). The same word is used about how the seed sown among thorns goes forth, it departs (Lk. 8:14) to condemnation. The foolish virgins go, or depart, to buy oil- using the same word with which they are told by their Lord to depart from Him (Mt. 25:9,41). They departed, and so He tells them to depart. Now they willingly absent themselves from the Lord, but then they will not want to depart from Him. God will gather up the nations to thresh them, but they gather themselves to Him (Mic. 4:11,12).

13:28 The rejected will see themselves thrust out of the Kingdom (Lk. 13:28); as if somehow they see themselves from outside of themselves. What spirituality they thought they had they will see as it were taken away from them (Lk. 8:18 AV mg.). This will be the result of the judgment process. They will be convinced by the judgment process of all the ungodly deeds which they had not previously been convicted of, e.g. their hard words against their brethren (Jude 15). 1 Cor. 11:32 may also be a reference to the educative effect of judgment: "When we are judged, we are chastened of the Lord, that we should not be condemned with the world". The world's condemnation will be at the second coming; the judgment and chastening to which Paul refers must therefore be that of the last day. However, in the context he is making the point that our self-examination at the memorial meeting and our response to the chastening hand of God in our present life is in fact a foretaste of that final judgment experience.

The Pharisees will be thrust out of the Kingdom at judgment (Lk.13:28), implying that in a sense they were part of it before its establishment.

13:34 “The Lord doth build up Jerusalem: he gathereth together the outcasts of Israel” (Ps. 147:2) is alluded to by the Lord in Lk. 13:34, where He how He would fain have gathered together the children of Jerusalem, “but ye would not”. The words of the Psalm speak as if this is what the Lord God is going to do. But Jesus understood it as being impossible of fulfilment if the outcast children would not allow themselves to be gathered. Likewise the statement that the Lord will build up Jerusalem was made in a restoration context; but again, it was dependent upon the Jews’ obedience for its fulfilment. God was and is potentially ready to work with us.  

The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ is perhaps most clearly seen in His attitude to Israel. So many of the parables refer in some way to the love of God and Christ for Israel; and their love for rebellious, indifferent Israel is the supreme example of pure grace. He felt towards them as a hen for her chicks (Lk. 13:34). Here again is an element of unreality; a hen whose very own chicks won't be gathered under her wings. This seems to go right against nature; the pain of the rejected parent was there in the experience of the Lord. He wasn't just passively enduring the polemics of the Pharisees; they were His chicks, He really wanted them under His wings (cp. Israel dwelling under the wings of the cherubim). We must ever remember this when we read the records of Him arguing with them and exposing their hypocrisy. He wasn't just throwing back their questions, playing the game and winning, just surviving from day to day with them. He was trying to gather them, and their rejection of His words really hurt Him. Their reproach broke His heart; He didn't just brazenly endure it as we might the ravings of a drunken man (Ps. 69:20).  

13:35 At the day of judgment, nobody will be passive and indifferent. Everyone will want to be accepted. All of us who come there will see there is only one way we want. Self-examination will be the order of the day. The virgins will knock on the door and plead for it to be opened. The first century Jews will say "Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord" (Lk. 13:35). They will want to be on Messiah's side then. None of us will be vacillating between total commitment and the lazy drifting of our human nature. And our judgment seat is going on now, today. “This splitting of the decision between only two alternatives may seem an over-simplification: we fondly think of ourselves as faced with a continuous range of possibility over which to decide, but in the ultimate that range may be broken down into a number of discrete two-way choices, each one a decision between good and evil” (Ralph Lovelock).

14:5 God Himself has an urgency for human salvation; the Lord drew a parallel between the man who rushed out to save his animal on the Sabbath, and His waiving of the Sabbath in order to save others. Indeed, the way He did His miracles on the Sabbath rather than waiting shows His sense of urgency; not a day could be wasted for the sake of human scruples. “Which of you shall have a son fallen into a well, and will not straightway draw him up?" (Lk. 14:5 RV). Wells weren’t that wide. Only a small child would fall down one. We can imagine the tragic situation in the home. "Benny’s fallen down the well!". And everyone would go running. They wouldn’t wait until the Saturday evening. Nor would they worry the slightest about infringing the letter of the law. And so, the Lord explained, that little boy was like the sick men and women, sick both physically and spiritually, whom He saw around Him. There was an urgency which He felt about them. And so there should be with us too. We can realize that this world is evil and vain; and yet we can still fail t perceive the tragedy of it all, and the urgency of our task to save at least some. The Father of the prodigal told the servants: "Bring forth quickly the best robe" (Lk. 15:22 RV). The indebted man was told to sit down quickly and have his debt reduced (Lk. 16:6). There is an urgency in the mediation of mercy towards others.

The Lord's enthusiasm for the salvation of first century Israel (and us too) comes out in Lk. 14:5 RSV, where He likens the urgency of His mission to that of a man whose son has fallen down a well. He simply must get there, regardless of the Sabbath rules. And this, says the Lord, is His all out urgency to save men. We have all fallen down the pit from whence we must be rescued (Zech. 9:11). As we distribute leaflets, place our adverts, talk to our contacts, strive in our own character development towards salvation; this is the verve of the Lord Jesus to save us. It is only the hardness of the human heart that can stand in the way of the mighty enthusiasm of the Son of God for our redemption. Hence the sense of hurt, sadness and frustration to the Master when men refuse His efforts, as typified in the story of the wonderful banquet that was inexplicably spurned by the intended guests (Lk. 14:16). In passing, note the connection of pulling a man out of a pit with Joseph and Jeremiah, types of the Lord's resurrection (cp. Ps. 40:2). When a man is pulled out of the pit at baptism, he is sharing the experience of the resurrected Lord. And the Lord is naturally so urgent that men should share that experience which He suffered so much for.

14:8,9 The Lord teaches that if we're invited to a feast, we should take the lowest place, genuinely assuming the others present are more honourable than us; and we take our place at that table awaiting the coming of the host (Lk. 14:8). Our attitudes to the seating and behaviour on entry to the feast will affect our eternal destiny- for when the Lord comes, He will make the arrogant man suffer "shame", which is a commonly used descriptor of the rejected at judgment day (Lk. 14:9). The Lord goes on in that same discourse to explain what our attitude should be- He tells the parable of the great supper, to which those who were invited didn't pitch, and there was a desperate, last minute compelling of smelly street people to come in and eat the grand meal. "When you are bidden of any man to a meal" (Lk. 14:8) is clearly meant to connect with "A certain man made a great supper, and bade (s.w.) many" (Lk. 14:16). Evidently the idea of eating with the Lord at His table connects with the breaking of bread. Our attitude at that memorial supper is in essence our attitude at the greater supper of the last day. We sit there with our Lord and with our brethren. We will sit there at the last day with the deep feeling, like the handicapped beggars had in the parable: "I should not be here. What am I, me, me with all my weakness, doing here?". If we sit likewise at the breaking of bread with that spirit, we will not even consider grabbing the best seat for ourselves; nor would it cross our mind to say to someone else sitting there "Hey you, what are you doing here? If you're here, I'm gone! Don't you dare take that bread and wine, you're not in fellowship!". Yet this is precisely the attitude of those who exclude their brethren from participation at the Lord's table; for the breaking of bread is a foretaste of the feast to come, and the Lord is teaching that our attitude to our brethren at it is in fact going to be reflected in how He deals with us at the latter day marriage supper. It seems so many of our exclusivist brethren are voting themselves out of their place at the Kingdom; although I believe God's grace is such that He has a place even for them.

14:9- see on Mt. 20:11.

The public nature of the judgment experience is hinted at throughout the Lord's parables. The other guests at the Lord's table will see the man who took the highest place in the ecclesia taking now the lowest place- he has "shame" before their eyes, and likewise the believer who took the lowest place in this life will have praise for that humility from the other guests, as the Lord exalts him or her higher (Lk. 14:9,10). In this context the Lord proceeded to warn His followers not to be like the man who sets out to build a tower, but can't complete it- and therefore he has shame from those who behold it (Lk. 14:29). This is just another way of saying the same thing. There will be believers who grandly showed themselves to their brethren to be building something which actually they couldn't complete; and they will have shame before their brethren when the day of judgment reveals who they really are. All this, of course, has massive practical implications. If all will be ultimately revealed before our brethren in the last day, why try to act before them as someone we're not?

The Lord told a parable about how the man who takes the highest room in the feast [= the ecclesia in this life] will be rebuked at the coming of the Master and “with shame take the lowest room" (Lk. 14:9). The idea of the Lord Jesus returning and one of His guests having “shame" must surely refer, in line with other Biblical passages, to the shame of condemnation. ‘And so therefore’, the Lord continues, ‘take that lowest place at the feast right now’. When the Lord spoke of how we must come down from our good seats at the feast and take the lowest seat, He's actually referring to condemned King Zedekiah, who likewise had to come down from his throne and take a lowly seat (Jer. 13:18). If the “lowest room" is seen as the place of the shame filled condemned… then surely He’s saying that we should consider ourselves as “condemned" now as we sit at the feast. And what feast does the Lord have in mind? Is He perhaps referring on some level to the breaking of bread, which is the Lord’s supper / feast where we now each take our place? Should we not, therefore, be sitting there feeling [although this is only part of the story] condemned, and the lowest of all? Is that not one [and only one, be it noted] of the emotions elicited in us by the cross? The “feast" of the breaking of bread is clearly meant to be understood by us as a foretaste of the Messianic “feast" of the future Kingdom. And if we genuinely feel we should have the least place there, we will reflect that in our taking the lowest place at the memorial meeting. In our hearts, we will sit there knowing we ought to be condemned.

The main lying helpless on the Jerusalem - Jericho road was surely modelled on Zedekiah being overtaken there by his enemies (Jer. 39:5). When the Lord spoke of how we must come down from our good seats at the feast and take the lowest seat (Lk. 14:9), He's actually again referring to Zedekiah, who likewise had to come down from his throne and take a lowly seat (Jer. 13:18). That weak, vacillating man basically loved God's word, he wanted to be obedient, but just couldn't bring himself to do it. And so he was, quite justly, condemned. It's as if the Lord saw in that wretched, pathetic man a type of all those He came to save. And even in this wretched position, the Lord will pick us up and carry us home. This gives a fine, fine insight into His sensitivity to us. Indeed, several times the Spirit in the NT uses OT pictures of unworthy believers as the basis of a description of the faithful. See on Lk. 10:33,34.

There is even the possible implication that some who will be accepted by the Lord who even at the judgment have wrong attitudes towards their brethren. Thus before the Lord of the harvest, those who thought they had worked hardest complained that those they thought had done less, were still getting a penny. They were rebuked, but they still had their penny (cp. salvation; Mt. 20:11). The subsequent comment that the first shall be last might imply that they will be in the Kingdom,  but in the least place. Likewise the brother who takes the highest place in the ecclesia will be made with shame to take the lower place- yet still within the family of God (Lk. 14:9).

14:10 The Lord clearly taught the continuity between the breaking of bread and the future marriage supper by observing that He would not again drink the cup until He drinks it anew with us at the marriage supper (Mt. 26:29). The parables of how the Gospel invites people as it were to a meal are suggesting that we should see the Kingdom as a meal, a supper, of which our memorial service is but a foretaste. We are commanded to enter the supper and take the lowest seat (Lk. 14:10), strongly aware that others are present more honourable than ourselves. Those with this spirit are simply never going to dream of telling another guest 'Leave! Don't partake of the meal!'. But this is the spirit of those who are exclusive and who use the Lord's table as a weapon in their hands to wage their petty church wars. The very early church didn't behave like this, but instead sought to incarnate and continue the pattern of the meals of the Lord Jesus during His ministry. And this is one major reason why their unity drew such attention, and they grew. To exclude someone from the Lord’s table is to judge them as excluded from the Kingdom banquet. And those who make such judgment will themselves be rejected from it.

We are come to "God the judge of all"- even now (Heb. 12:23). He is right now enthroned as judge of our lives (Mt. 5:34; Ps. 93:2). We are now in God's presence, and can't escape from it (Ps. 139:2); and the presence of God is judgment language (Acts 3:19; 2 Thess. 1:9; 2:19; Jude 24; Rev. 14:10). "God is the judge: he putteth down one, and setteth up another" in His mind (Ps. 75:7)- although the final putting down and setting up will be at the judgment seat (the basis for the parable of the man being asked to go up higher, Lk. 14:10). This same parable is also rooted in Prov. 25:7: "Put not forth thyself in the presence of the king, for better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither: than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince". We are in the King's presence both in this life- when we chose where to sit- just as much as when He returns and re-arranges the seating. The day of the Lord is coming, but it is even now (Mic. 7:4 Heb.).

The parable about taking the lowest seat sounds obvious to us. If a poor nobody is invited to the King’s feast, he would naturally take the lowest place, with feelings of wonderment, awe, embarrassment, joy, quiet honour, excitement that he’d been invited, that he was somewhere too good for him, by grace. The element of unreality in the story is that the man arrogantly takes a high place, and has to be demoted at the coming of the King. There’s something unreal about this. But there’s the rub. This is exactly how we are behaving when we jockey for status and ‘power’ in the ecclesia [in whatever form], when we fail to consider each man better than ourselves to be. This is how absurd we’re being. The Lord’s parable was evidently based upon Prov. 25:6,7: “Put not forth thyself in the presence of the king, and stand not in the place of great men”. The way the Lord applies this to His church implies that we should consider each of the other invited guests as “great men” of nobility. This is the level of respect which He intends there to be amongst us for our fellow brethren. The parables of judgment truly touch the very core of our spiritual being.

14:11- see on Acts 5:31; 2 Cor. 11:7.

So how, then, can we ‘humble ourselves’? When Israel was a child... she was humble, as we should be after our spiritual rebirth at baptism. It is evidently not something natural; for it is a fruit of the spirit we must develop. It isn’t a natural timidity or nervousness or shyness. By realising our own sinfulness, we will realise our condemnation, and thereby be ‘brought down’. For we are condemned for our behaviour, but saved out of that condemnation. The exact, vast debt is reckoned up- before we are forgiven (Mt. 18). We have been invited through the Gospel to sit down in the Kingdom: “But when thou art bidden, go and sit down in the lowest room; that when he that bade thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher: then shalt thou have worship in the presence of them that sit at meat with thee. For whosoever exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 14:10-11). Humbling ourselves is therefore sitting down in the lowest place- not just a low place. Strictly, the Greek means ‘the farthest’ away from the Lord Jesus, who sits at the head of the table. Like Paul we must somehow get that deep and genuine apprehension that we are “chief of sinners”- and sit in the lowest, farthest place. This would mean that we ‘each esteemed our brother better than ourselves to be’, not in any naïve, meaningless way; not seeing strengths where they simply don’t exist; but seeing him [or her] that way simply in comparison to our own lowness. Seeing others as higher than ourselves is a sure remedy for every case of ecclesial friction and division. So often pride develops from a worry about what others will think of us, a desire to be seen as acceptable and not unusual. It leads to a hyper-sensitivity regarding what others may be implying about us [I am verily guilty of this]. The humbled mind will not see things in these terms. If only we would each, personally, learn this lesson, or at least grasp the truth and beauty and power of it. The publican was so worried about his own position before God that he paid no attention, so we sense, to the hypocritical brother next to him: “The publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote upon his breast, saying, God be merciful to me a sinner… this man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for … he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (Luke 18:13-14). That sin-conscious man is an essay in self-humbling. This is why David sometimes parallels “the meek” and the repentant sinner (e.g. Ps. 25:8,9). See on Mt. 18:4.

14:12 The Lord gave His parable about how He has invited us, through the call of the Gospel, to a great supper. He then went on to say: “When thou makest a dinner, or a supper…” we ought to invite those who can’t recompense us (Lk. 14:12). Quite simply, the very experience and wonder of having been invited to the Kingdom should lead us to likewise invite others. But further. If we have truly understood the implications of the Lord’s gracious calling, if we have truly perceived our desperation, we will take the lowest place, considering ourselves the lowest and least worthy. And we will therefore go out and invite others of the same class to which we perceive ourselves to belong- the poor, the maimed and blind.

Our attitude to others will be reflective of our perception of God's grace in calling us- as we were invited by such grace, so we will invite others to our table who likewise cannot recompense us (Lk. 14:12). If we are the blind and maimed invited to the Lord's table, we will invite the blind and maimed to our table. The extent of God's grace to us really needs to sink in. When was the last time you did an act of pure grace to others like this...? The servant seems surprised that after the crippled and blind beggars have been drafted in to the opulence of the feast, "yet there is room" (Lk. 14:22). Quite simply, there are more places in the feast of the Kingdom than there are people willing to fill them! How encouraging is that thought! The same Greek word for "place" recurs in Jn. 14:2,3, where the Lord Jesus taught that He was going to die on the cross in order to prepare a place for us in His Father's palatial mansion. The effort made in preparing the feast therefore speaks of Christ's life, death and resurrection for us. And it's so tragic that most people don't want to know. So in a sense, "all you gotta do is say yes". Just accept the invitation; take the messengers for real. Although perhaps we are left to read in the detail to the story, that many a desperate beggar just couldn't grasp that the messenger was for real, and preferred to stay put. Maybe only the truly desperate thought 'Maybe there's some truth in it... I've nothing to lose". The many places in God's Kingdom... are only for those who desperately want them. Those who make meaningless excuses about how busy they are, those who can't believe that really God could be true to His word and really give us beggars a place in His wonderful Kingdom... will by their own decision not be there.

14:12-24 Jesus described those who responded to the Kingdom Gospel as entering into a marriage supper (Mk. 2:18,19; Lk. 14:12-24), which was a well known figure for the future Messianic Kingdom (Is. 25:6-9). By eating / fellowshipping with Him in faith, His followers were in prospect enjoying the Kingdom life. To exclude people from His table is to seek to exclude people from His Kingdom.

14:13 There is a connection between Lk. 14:13 and 21. “When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind… for they cannot recompense thee”. Yet this is exactly what the parable of v. 21 teaches that God does: “Bring in hither the poor, and the maimed, and the halt, and the blind”. The basis of God’s calling of us must be the basis upon which we relate to others. We cannot recompense Him, yet He shows us His gracious invitation. So we too must share ourselves with those who cannot give us anything. In this sense, we like our Father, serve for nothing in the sense of no personal, concrete gain. We must be gracious by nature, and just be as He is.

14:13-21 Having spoken of how we are bidden by God to the ‘feast’ of the Kingdom, lived out by us in prospect and symbol at the breaking of bread, the Lord goes on to say: “When thou makest a feast, call the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind: and thou shalt be blessed; for they cannot recompense thee: for thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection” (Lk. 14:13,14). This inevitably is to be connected with how the Lord went on to say that we are the poor, blind, lame etc. who have been invited to the feast (Lk. 14:21). The point being, that if we perceive our own desperation and inappropriacy to be called to the Kingdom feast, then we will likewise invite others who are perceived by us as the lowest of the low, and otherwise unsuitable for a king’s banquet table. So we are to reflect God’s calling of us, the desperate, the down and outs, in our calling of others. A person who feels they are somehow a nice guy and worthy of invitation will be the one who tends to consider others as unworthy of invitation to the Kingdom. He or she who perceives their own desperation will eagerly invite even those they consider to be in the very pits of human society. The lame, blind etc. were not allowed to serve God under the law (Lev. 21:18), nor be offered as sacrifices (Dt. 15:21), nor come within the holy city (2 Sam. 5:6-8). The Lord purposefully healed multitudes of lame and blind (Mt. 15:30), and allowed them to come to Him in the temple (Mt. 21:14). His acted out message was clearly that those who were despised as unfit for God’s service were now being welcomed by Him into that service. The lame and blind were despised because they couldn’t work. They had to rely on the grace of others. Here again is a crucial teaching: those called are those who can’t do the works, but depend upon grace. We need to appreciate too that in Palestine, to refuse an invitation to a feast was a major insult to the person who gave it. That the majority of people refused it would’ve been so hurtful to the host. And in this we see a picture of the pain of God, that the majority refuse His invitation. Therefore He is so happy when anyone does respond, even if they’re down and out. And we should hold in our heart the tragedy of God, the pain of God, that so many have refused Him; and therefore never judge anyone as unsuitable who may respond to the invitation. We’re making the invitations for His sake, not our own. And on this basis we ‘bring in’ those desperate types to the Lord’s feast (Lk. 14:21). The same word is used about Barnabas ‘bringing’ the unlikely convert Paul to the apostles (Acts 9:27), and later ‘bringing’ or introducing him to the Antioch ecclesia (Acts 11:26), the “other sheep” being ‘brought’ into the fold (Jn. 10:16), the blind man whom people thought was no good for Jesus being ‘brought’ unto Him (Lk. 18:40), the Samaritan ‘bringing’ the good-as-dead wounded man to the inn / the ecclesia (Lk. 10:34), all reflecting how the goodness of God leads / brings [s.w.] desperate sinners to repentance (Rom. 2:4). In our ‘bringing in’ of desperate people to the Lord’s feast, we are vehicles for that grace of God which ‘brings in’ men and women to Him. Notice in passing that we invite people to the Kingdom feast without seeking a recompense from them- i.e. we should not expect anything from them, be it personal loyalty, money, respect etc. And if we don’t get it from them, only then will we be rewarded / recompensed for our preaching at the last day. So it should be no surprise to us if as with Paul our converts turn against us and in no form ‘recompense’ us for calling them. Actually we should take comfort from this, as it is an encouragement that we will have our recompense at the last day.

14:15 The parable of the great supper chronicles the preaching of the Gospel over time. There were three stages of appeal: "To them that were bidden" (the Jews in Israel), to those in the streets and lanes of the city (the Jewish Diaspora), and finally, in a spirit of urgency, the preachers are commanded: "Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Lk. 14:16-23; the same spirit of urgency in witness is to be found in the Lord’s command to His preachers to cut the courtesy of prolonged greetings). Once the required number are in God's spiritual house, the feast will begin- and that feast represents eating bread in the Kingdom, at the second coming (Lk. 14:15). The language of 'going out' should be connected to the command to 'go and teach all nations'. The parable concerns the master of the house (God) commanding His servant (Christ); yet the connection with the preaching commission indicates that the commission given to Christ He fulfils through us, as demonstrated earlier in this study. The ever increasing sense of urgency in the appeal to 'come in' ought to be reflected in our preaching in these last days.

We mustn't just like the idea of being in the Kingdom. We must seek it above all. The Lord told a parable about people invited to the Kingdom who all came up with different excuses as to why they couldn't come. This was in response to somebody remarking: "Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God!" - 'how great it would be to be in the Kingdom!' (Lk. 14:15). And the Lord is replying 'Many of those given the real opportunity to be there actually don't want it that much at all. Don't just like the idea of being in my Kingdom, but make it the driving passion in your daily life, for which you'll sacrifice all'.

In Lk. 14:15, the Lord continues to turn the questions / comments back on themselves. A man comments how blessed will be the person to eat bread in the Kingdom of God; and Jesus responds by telling the parable about how in fact the majority of those who receive invitations to eat break in the Kingdom actually turn it down because of worldly distractions. Again the message is clear. 'Take your focus off the blessedness of others in the future Messianic Kingdom; but concern yourself with the very real possibility that you yes you yourself may actually turn down the invitation to be there because you're too caught up with the things of this world'. See on Lk. 14:25.

Time and again His parables sought to justify His association with outcasts (Lk. 14:15-24; 15:1-32; Mt. 18:23-25; 20:1-15; 21:28-32). When the nobleman came to ask Jesus to cure his son, Jesus agreed; and the man went home. But it was only on the way home that he really believed. He came to faith spontaneously, and not because Jesus insisted on it. Or remember the woman who had had five men in her life, and presumably a number of children to go with each of them. Her face and body would have reflected the story of her life. She was living with someone not her husband. Jesus didn't tell her to break up with the guy. He knew full well that if a woman left her man, she had nowhere to go. Here was a woman who had been 'married' five times. Who would want her? There were children involved. Probably even her family had rejected her. Jesus accepted the real life situation, and human failure to rise up to higher standards. One wonders whether the very lack of specific demand from Jesus maybe motivated her to somehow normalize her life. The gentle way Jesus treated these cases shows not so much approval, but an understanding of the frailty of human nature. And this is what enabled Jesus to be so unwaveringly committed to His own perfect standards, and yet be so natural and at ease with the lowest of the low.

14:16- see on Lk. 14:8,9.

14:17 - see on Mt. 24:48.

Israel had consented to be “bidden” to the feast; and according to Oriental practice, to accept an initial invitation to a feast was to commit oneself to respond to the final notice of it. But “they would not come”, and yet despite this insult, their divine host had sent forth yet more servants to beg them to come. The Lord puts behind Him the insult of our rejections, and graciously pleads with us- even God pleading with men. The whole history of Israel is eloquent proof of this grace of God.

In the parable of the great supper, which is similar but not necessarily the same as that of the marriage feast, the servants going forth "at supper time" (Lk. 14:17) fits more naturally into the context of a preaching appeal just prior to the second coming than to the first century.   The "supper", i.e. the Kingdom (Lk. 14:15; Mt. 22:2), is prepared, and at "supper time" - 'Kingdom time' - the appeal is made.   "All things are now ready" (Lk. 14:17) explains the unmistakeable sense of urgency in the commissions given to the servants to preach.   This again indicates reference to an eleventh hour preaching campaign just prior to the second coming.   The 'decorum of the symbol' suggests that the animals being killed for the meal would necessitate a brief period of invitation immediately prior to the feast, rather than them being on the table for 2,000 years. See on Mt. 24:14.

14:18- see on Lk. 14:33.

There was a harder side to Christ. He was a demanding Lord. He told His disciples to forsake what they had and follow Him. They did. And apparently with no prefatory praise or introduction, He called them "ye of little faith... fools... slow of heart to believe". Of course, He may have prefaced these criticisms with something softer (cp. His letters to the churches); but the Spirit has preferred not to record it. Often His parables warn that those who think He will understand their weakness, those who are too familiar with His softer side. The parable of the great supper records men explaining to Christ why they can't immediately respond to Him, although they want to when it's more convenient: "I have bought a piece of ground, and must needs go and see it... I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them... I have married a wife, therefore I cannot come" (Lk. 14:18-20). The implication is that they assumed that the servant calling them to the wedding (i.e. Christ) would understand that their excuses were quite reasonable; the man who pleaded marriage as his excuse would have been alluding to the Law's provision to have time off from the Lord's duties on account of marriage (Dt. 24:5). All these reasons were assumed to be quite reasonable, and the men sound as if they were confident that of course Christ would understand. The parable of the King's son records excuses which are more evidently unreasonable; some said they were going to work on their farm, when actually the banquet was going to be held in the evening (Mt. 22:5). There is a connection with the parable of Lk. 14, where the excuses seem more reasonable. But the similarity shows that as far as the Lord is concerned, any excuse, evidently irrelevant or apparently reasonable, is just not acceptable to Him. But the point of the parables is that as far as Christ is concerned, these were all just empty excuses, even the excuse that appeared to be based on a past concession to weakness. He's saying that the invitation to His Kingdom, to His very own wedding, must take priority over all the everyday things of human experience which we assume are so justified, and which we assume He will quite understand if we put in front of Him and His call. Every reader ought to feel uncomfortable on considering this. It's this category of Christian who will be so surprised when they are rejected: "Lord, Lord, open to us... When saw we thee hungry...?" (Mt. 25:11,44). They thought they knew Him, but He has never known them (Mt. 7:23). This idea of surprise at rejection is to be connected with that of brethren thinking (mistakenly) that of course the Lord understands their putting His call into second place. He is a Lord they hardly know in this life, despite what they think, and He will be the same at judgment day. There's a point to be made from the way they are so confident they know Christ, but He says He has never known them. They didn't live up to the demanding Lord they served. The idea of a two-way relationship with Him was evidently foreign to them. They thought their theoretical knowledge and outward works meant that Christ knew them. The worrying thing is, how many of us feel we have a two-way relationship with the Lord? 

That all the girls should fall asleep whilst awaiting the bridegroom (Mt. 25:5) is unusual- they must have been a pretty lazy, switched off bunch. And yet immediately we are led by the Lord to pass judgment upon ourselves- which is quite a feature of the parables, e.g. Mt. 21:31; Lk. 7:43 [as it is elsewhere- consider 2 Sam. 12:5; 14:8; 1 Kings 20:40). Note how there is surely an element of unreality in the Lord’s description of all those invited to the dinner refusing the invitation (Lk. 14:18,24). Would really nobody respond to such a gracious invitation? This was the obvious question that He begged in the minds of His hearers. The intention being that each hearer would reflect: “Is it I…?”… maybe at least I could respond to the call of the Gospel… The parable of the wedding feast has an inappropriacy in that for 'merely' rejecting the invitation to the feast and beating the messengers, the King despatches an army to attack them- whilst the meal is as it were hot on the table ready to be eaten (Mt. 22:3-7). The point is that every rejection of the invitation, every mockery of the preacher, elicits an amazing anger in God.

Christ's low expectations of us are clearly demonstrated when He told the parables of the weddings. When you put them together, you get this picture: God made the wedding between Christ and us. The invited guests didn't bother coming, for very trivial, mundane reasons that they put in front of the honour of being invited to His wedding. Only tramps and beggars come to it, motivated selfishly by the thought of a free meal (cp. a penny for the day). But we, the bride, aren't ready (although Christ graciously doesn't mention that in the parable), and so He delays to come to the wedding. Back home, His most trusted household servants realize that He's delaying His return, and start to get drunk and beat each other. The excited young bridesmaids lose their enthusiasm and go to sleep. Eventually, the wedding happens, but some of the guests don't bother to turn up in a wedding garment, just in their filthy rags. The impression is clearly this: the whole thing's a mess! Yet this is the marriage of the Son of God to His dearly purchased bride, for whom He died, and lived a life of total self-control. Yet He knew the whole thing would be such a mess. See on Mt. 13:25.

As we would expect from the fact that Jerusalem is finally captured and burnt, the work of 'Elijah' will initially be unsuccessful - only a minority of Israel will respond.   "They all with one consent (s.w. 'agreement') began to make excuse" (s.w. 'reject') sounds like a conscious, national rejection of the message (Luke 14:18).

The Jews will be judged by the word at the second coming (Jn. 12:48); but they were 'accused' (judgment seat language) by their rejection of God's word in the Old Testament during their lifetime (Jn. 5:45). The Jews in the parable "began to make excuse (saying)... I pray thee have me excused" (Lk. 14:18). The Greek word for "excuse" here is also translated "reject"- by excusing themselves from the requirements of God's word in this life, they were effectively rejecting themselves, as they will be at judgment. So as we read the word, we show our judgment. It could be that the reluctance of some to get down to reading the word is not simply because they lack time, but more subtly because they realize they are faced with God's judgments in it.

14:21 The tragedy of the fact that the Jews by and large rejected the invitation of God meant that the servants are asked to “Go out quickly into the streets and lanes… and bring in [any who will respond]” (Lk. 14:21). The ‘quickness’ of the preachers is matched by the ‘quickness’ of the response of those who heard them in the first century. Now what this means is that if we as preachers have an urgency about our approach and our presentation of the message, then people will respond quickly. If we present the urgent good news as a set of academic propositions to be studied at length in the comfort of an untroubled conscience, then those who respond [if they do at all] will do so with the same laid back, cool, calculating attitude. Peter preached on Pentecost with a fire and passion which came from realizing the urgency of human need and Christ’s salvation. And this is why, it seems to me, the people responded so quickly. They were baptized in a matter of hours after hearing the Gospel preached from his lips.

We in these last days are "the poor and the maimed and the halt and the blind" who lay in the city streets (Lk. 14:21). Yet we are invited and led (the blind) or dragged / carried (the lame) into the great supper. For those who deeply meditated, the lame at the great man's table would have taken them back to lame Mephibosheth at David's table. His response to the invitation was to bow; think of a lame man bowing. How awkward it must have been, and how awkward he must have felt. "I'm a dead dog, from a family who cruelly hated you; why, why me?" was his response. And this ought to be ours. The awkward bow of that lame man, however embarrassing it was to watch for David in his glory, is a superb type of our attempts to respond to the inexplicable grace we have received from the Lord. He knows our weakness. Even though He taught plainly that 'the majority' (Gk; AV "many") of those He called would not be chosen, His parables often use percentages which imply that two thirds (parable of the pounds) or half (parable of the virgins) will respond. This shows the love that hopes, in the face of the finest knowledge and foreknowledge of human nature which any man has ever had. 

The usual excuse for not reading Scripture daily, or remembering the Lord Jesus in the breaking of bread as He asked, or meeting with brethren and sisters etc. normally goes along these lines: 'I've nothing against these things. But after all, we're only human beings, Christ understands that, He knows we have to get on with the things of this life'. To which so many passages in the Gospels reply: 'Yes, the Lord does know exactly what everyday human life is all about; and He expects you, in these daily things, to make decisions which consciously sacrifice what you could get for yourselves in life'. And to which Paul replies: "The love of Christ constrains us". Consider the parable of the great supper (the Kingdom). The servant goes out and invites people to the supper. They each make excuses which on a human level seem perfectly reasonable. One man was on his way to inspect some land he had just bought; another man was on his way (Gk.) to prove his new oxen; if they were no good, he had the right to get his money back. It seems, humanly, a bit unreasonable to go up to a person right in the middle of doing something important in daily life, and say  'Now stop that, come to a supper'. The third man assumed Christ would understand why he couldn't respond: "I have married a wife, and therefore (of course, as you'll appreciate) I cannot come". After all, even the Law said that a man was free from military obligations after his marriage. But "the master" was "angry" with those men (Lk. 14:21). What Moses' law conceded to men, the Lord Jesus wasn't necessarily ready to concede (and his attitude to divorce was similar).

In the invitation to the Kingdom, "the poor, and the maimed, and the halt and the blind" (Lk. 14:21) are invited; with the implication that Christ will be "recompensed at the resurrection of the just". We don't recompense Him now by our works; we are lost sheep causing Him needless work and worry, wasting His goods and needing to get ourselves out of the problem (Lk. 16:1), needing His frank forgiveness for our huge debts (Mt. 18:24). As Job recognized, if we are righteous, we give nothing to God (Job 35:7). Our unrighteousness commends God's righteousness (Rom. 3:5). All things come out of God: "Who hath first given to him? ...for of him, and through him, and to him, are all things" (Rom. 11:35,36); it's give, give, give with God. We are the poor beggars sitting down at the great supper, unable to recompense. Of course, it depends where we put the emphasis. The parable which relates how Christ desires fruit from us is followed by that of the marriage supper, where it seems we are just asked to accept an invitation with humility (Mt. 21:34; 22:3). The point surely is that we are invited, for no reason, to the Kingdom, and we must accept with the humility that will accompany a recognition of such grace (Lk. 14:9). But our experience of this grace will inevitably bring forth some spiritual fruit. Again, it seems we are intended to follow the story through, and visualize the inappropriate, uncultured conduct of these beggars at the table, causing so much unspoken embarrassment and pain to the generous rich man. The link with Is. 55:1-3 would suggest that we can interpret the call to the supper as the call of the Gospel, and the hungry people sitting down to a fine meal as our ecclesial experience now (although this isn't to say that we can't read it as concerning the future Kingdom too). The preceding Lk. 14:8-11 describe us as sitting down at the feast in this life, until the host walks in and starts re-arranging the seating order (cp. the coming of Christ in judgment on His household). We are left to imagine the grabbing for food, the greedy, selfish eyeing up of the plates, the grasping, the lack of social skills, the lack of good conversation between each other, the occasional cursing under the breath, perhaps even throwing of food, the eager desire for wine, the lack of restraint. All in the company of the Master (God) and His servants (Christ and the Angels). And this, it seems to me, was the Lord's imagination of His immature ecclesia, feasting on the good things He has prepared for us. Can we not begin to enter just a little into the pain and acute embarrassment and sadness we cause to our gracious Host by the self-centredness of our natures, manifest as it is in spiritual terms so often? It's quite possible to become so spiritually selfish, so bent on our own salvation, that the whole spirit of the supper is lost. After all, the idea of a large supper is to inculcate a social spirit rather than just to provide individual feeding to each of the guests. How many times has it been reasoned in these last days: 'Sorry, I have to work out my own salvation, I just can't spare time and can't risk association with my weaker brethren...'. And the Lord Jesus, in His perfect way, saw this coming as in sunny Galilee He formulated His parables of grace.  

14:22- see on Lk. 14:12.

In the parable of Lk. 14:22, the servant reports to the master that the invited guests wouldn’t come to the supper [cp. God’s Kingdom]. The master tells the slave to go out into the streets and invite the poor. And then we’re hit with an incredible unreality, especially to 1st century ears: “The servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room”. No slave would take it upon himself to draw up the invitation list, or take the initiative to invite poor beggars into his master’s supper. But this servant did! He not only had the unusual relationship with his master that allowed this huge exercise of his own initiative- but he somehow knew his master so well that he guessed in advance what the master would say, and he went and did it without being asked. In all this we have a wonderful insight into the relationship possible between us and our Lord, especially in the area of preaching / inviting people to His supper. The initiative is in our hands, and as we come to know Him better, we come to know His mind, and to sense how He would react. We have His aims and desires as ours, and we are in harmony with Him without having to be told things in so many words. And of course for a master to serve his servants was unheard of (Lk. 12:35-38). But this of course was the wonder of what the Lord did for us, "as one who serves" (Lk. 22:27), defining for us our attitude to each other at the memorial table and in all aspects of our lives and relationships. See on Lk. 13:7.

In the parable of Lk. 14:22, the servant [= Jesus] reports to the master [= God] that the invited guests wouldn’t come to the supper [cp. God’s Kingdom]. The master tells the slave to go out into the streets and invite the poor. And then we’re hit with an incredible unreality, especially to 1st century ears: “The servant said, Lord, it is done as thou hast commanded, and yet there is room”. No slave would take it upon himself to draw up the invitation list, or take the initiative to invite poor beggars into his master’s supper. But this servant did! He not only had the unusual relationship with his master that allowed this huge exercise of his own initiative- but he somehow knew his master so well that he guessed in advance what the master would say, and he went and did it without being asked. In all this we have a wonderful insight into the relationship between the Father and Son, especially in the area of inviting people to His supper [cp. salvation]. The point of all this is to demonstrate how the Lord Jesus has His influence upon the Father, and can at times change His stated purpose [e.g. with regard to the rejection of Israel- just as Moses did]. And this is the same Father and Son with whom we have to do, and whose matchless relationship is the basis and reason of our salvation.

14:23- see on 1 Cor. 9:13.

This shows the blessing which will go behind the efforts to spread the Gospel to all the world in the last days. There is a fervent, urgent desire of the Lord for this, and so His blessing will surely be with all who catch the same spirit of urgency. According to the parable, the quality of converts is sacrificed (by the Lord, not us) for the sake of numbers- which connects with the idea that the coming of Christ is to some degree dependent upon the full number of the Gentiles being converted (Rom. 11:25). Likewise the drag net was brought to land once it was full of fish (Mt. 13:48). The Lord speaks of how “few" (the Greek implies physically weak, cp. the unwanted labourers in the market place) the labourers are (Mt. 9:37), and therefore more (numerically) are needed. Any lamentation about the weakness of the latter day ecclesia must be seen in this context; the Lord is desperate for the places at the supper to be filled, although woe to those who come in without a wedding garment (Mt. 22:12).  

Noah's ark is a well known type of the salvation which humanity can find in Christ; and yet close analysis of the Genesis record reveals that there were some animals whom Noah had to bring into the ark and take them with him (Gen. 6:19; 7:2); and others who came to Noah and entered into the ark of their own volition (Gen. 6:20; 7:9,15,16). The same Hebrew is found in Gen. 8:9, about how the dove came to Noah of its own volition, and Noah welcomed her and took her into the ark. Putting all this together, we are to compel men to come in (Lk. 14:23); and yet we are also to be there to welcome in the seekers who seek of their own volition. It's easier to do the latter; to put up a website, waiting there for some eager seeker to come and find. But we are also to compel people in, and to also bear in mind that there are some who will be attracted to the Gospel from selfish reasons, as the man who buys the field thinking that he can exploit it for his own benefit. These too we are to take on board and not turn away. Whilst people, with all their wonderful uniqueness, should never be pigeon-holed nor over-categorized... all the same, we need to consider the type of person we're dealing with as we plan out our approach. For if we seek them, we will consider who they are, and how appropriately we can engage them.

The eagerness of the Lord to accept us, to find in us spiritual fruit, is perhaps reflected in the way that He begins inviting people of 'His' level to the feast of the Kingdom, but ends up lowering the bar as time goes on, to try by all means to get at least somebody in there (Lk. 14:21-23). This theme of lowering the bar is perhaps continued in that same passage by the way the Lord says that His disciples must forsake / 'bid goodbye to' all that they had (Lk. 14:33). This is the same word found earlier in Lk. 9:61, where some time before, a potential disciple who first wished to go and "bid goodbye to" his family was judged as not suitably committed to the urgency of the task. But now, the Lord says that this is acceptable in His definition of discipleship. This Lord is our Lord.

14:24 There may be the implication that the three people said "I cannot come" with the implication 'I can't come right now, but later'; and the Greek could bear such an interpretation. The master's comment at the end suggests that he knew these people would later turn up at the supper, but he would refuse them entry: "For I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper" (Lk. 14:24). There are often connections within the Lord's parables; in this case, the men who were so busy with daily life that they turned up at the wedding later would connect with the story of the other wedding guests who didn't have enough oil, and who later turned up at the wedding feast- again, only to be barred entry.

14:25- see on Lk. 7:9.

Lk. 14:25 records the people eagerly following Jesus, and then He turns and tells them that actually God is coming after them with 20,000 men and they have only 10,000, and they on a personal level urgently therefore need to make peace with Him- because every minute now counts. Time and again, the Lord is urging people to look at themselves and their own position, not follow Him because they're part of a crowd who does, not hesitate from personal commitment because of never-never questions about cosmic ethics and Divine justice which are well beyond us... He forces the spotlight back on us, me myself and I, time and again. And His audience squirmed, just as they do today.

14:26 The Lord himself spoke of how He expected this of us; and He put it in language which He surely knew would arrest attention: "If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters... he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:26). He's a demanding Lord- and reflection on His life and death for us shows that He has every right to be so. Notice how the Lord Jesus uses the figure of polysyndeton- i.e. repeating the word "and" when there's no grammatical need to, in order to build up the impression of how many different people we must be prepared to break with. His message is plain: the Lord Jesus must come in front of every human relationship, or else we are not His disciples. And it isn't just human relationships that must be sacrificed; it's "houses... lands" (careers, cars, we might say) as well (Mt. 19:29). It has to be seriously asked whether our community, especially the younger generation, are prepared to be the Lord's disciples; whether they have given up these kind of things for His sake. He must be the Lord of our lives, the master passion and controller. Christ's love constrains us. These sort of demanding words are so common in the Gospels that they almost slip our notice. There can be no serious doubt what He's saying: He has no room for passengers or part-timers. As far as He is concerned, it can't be a hobby.

14:27 ` He taught that unless a man was willing to carry his cross and forsake all that he had, he couldn’t be His disciple (Lk. 14:27). And He called them His disciples, even though they clearly didn’t perceive the real nature of the cross, nor did they actually leave all that they had but retained some things. The disciples were told to sell what they had (Lk. 12:22,32,33); but it seems they kept their fishing business. After having asked them this, the Lord again had to speak to them about forsaking all that they had (Lk. 14:33). Their claim to have left literally all (Lk. 18:28) appears somewhat exaggerated. Indeed, the parable of the unjust steward being specifically directed at the disciples (Lk. 15:1 cp. 16:1,9), it could appear that they had a special problem with lower-middle-class petty materialism (Lk. 16:9). Likewise Lk. 6 is spoken specially to the disciples, and it has much to say about materialism. The Lord was and is very generous to our weak efforts to rise up to His high standards.

Reflect on a Gospel parallel to see the huge importance of being a disciple of Jesus. In Mt. 10:38 the Lord says that whoever doesn’t take up his cross and follow after Him, “is not worthy of me”. In Lk. 14:27 we have the same words, but concluded with “… the same cannot be my disciple”. To be a disciple of the Lord is to be worthy of Him. To seek to walk as He walked, to follow behind Him, is to be worthy of Him. The important thing is to follow, for all our stumblings, but at least to be in the way behind Him.

Of course we cannot literally take up the Lord's cross. Taking up the cross must therefore refer to an attitude of mind; it is paralleled with forsaking all that we have (Lk. 14:27,33), which is surely a command to be obeyed in our attitudes.

14:28 “How shall they hear without a preacher?”  It’s impossible to hear without a preacher. Of course, God could beam the message into men some other way. But normally He chooses to work through human preachers. The preachers in the parable of the great supper are bidden "Compel them to come in, that my house may be filled" (Lk. 14:28). The house of God's Kingdom is filled with people as a result of enthusiastic preaching.

14:29- see on Rev. 16:15.

The man who starts building his spirituality but can't finish is to be "mocked" by those who behold him (Lk. 14:29)- and yet the world rather commends those who renege on their commitment to Christ. Surely this refers to walking naked at the day of judgment, and his shame being seen openly? "Everlasting contempt" suggests that the failure of the rejected and God's condemnation of their sin will be permanently in the consciousness of the faithful throughout the Millennium, or even the entire ages of eternity (cp. Is. 66:23,24). Perhaps it is in this sense that "we shall judge angels" (1 Cor. 6:3)- rejected ecclesial elders, cp. the angels of the churches in Rev. 2,3?

14:31 The parables contain elements of unreality in order to make a point. Lk. 14:31 speaks of a King coming in judgment upon another King who only has half the army which he has. The more powerful King is of course God. But we are likened to a “king” also, on His level in that sense, who has only half His strength. This is altogether such an under estimate of the Father’s physical and moral superiority to us! 

14:32- see on Rom. 14:19.

Does the man with 10,000 men faced with the oncoming army of God with 20,000 men just recklessly go ahead, or does he seek reconciliation? There was surely an intended connection within the Lord's teaching concerning how the loving Father saw the prodigal son "afar off" in his sin and separation; and how the King [God] coming against man with 20,000 men in battle needs to be reconciled with whilst He is still "afar off" (Lk. 14:32; 15:20). God is both coming towards us in judgment; and yet also sees us 'from afar' in untold grace and desire to save. It is this wondrous paradox which makes the ultimate meeting of God and man so intense and wonderful. The 'harder side of God', the King coming in overpowering judgment against sinful man, is what gives power and poignancy to His final meeting with man as the Father meets the prodigal. See on Lk. 10:34.

14:33- see on Lk. 12:22; 14:23; 21:3.

The weak king who sends ambassadors asking for conditions of peace is understood by the Lord as the man who forsakes all he has in order for peace with God. This is the importance of forsaking wealth  (Lk. 14:33), as the merchant did (Mt. 13:44-46), as the blind man left his garment (Mk. 10:50), as the widow threw in her two mites, rejecting the temptation to be 'prudent' and keep one for herself to use as capital for the future  (Lk. 21:2), as Matthew "left all, rose up and followed" (Lk. 5:28), and as the disciples in that beauteous childlike innocence could say " Lo, we have left all...?" (Mk. 10:28). What this surely means is that in our attitudes we must be as if we possessed nothing, as if we have in our heart of hearts resigned everything, even the very concept of personal 'possession'. See on 2 Cor. 6:10.

Let's not under-estimate the struggle which there is to believe the simple fact that there are more places in the Kingdom than people willing to fill them; that really God is begging us to come in to the place prepared for us through the death of His Son. When we read of the Master telling the servant to "compel" the beggars to come in to the feast, it's the same Greek word as we find used in one of the excuses given for not going in to the feast: "I must needs go and see" (the field the man had supposedly bought that evening without ever seeing it) (Lk. 14:18,23). Just as our loving God, with all the power of His most earnest desire, can seek to compel us to accept His offer, so the power of our own flesh compels us the other way. The petty human issues had become so large in the minds of the people concerned that they ended up telling obvious untruths or giving very poor excuses to get out of attending; life had gotten on top of them and that was it. The story seems so bizarre; the refusal of such a wonderful invitation would've been the element of unreality which struck the first hearers.The point is that petty human issues, coupled with our lack of appreciation that we are down and out beggars, really will lead people to lose out on eternity. The other such element of unreality would've been the persistence of the host to fill the places with anyone, literally anyone, willing to come on in. It's not so much a question of 'Will we be there?' but rather 'Do we really want to be there?'. Because if we do, we shall be.

when He speaks of leaving all and following after Him (Lk. 14:33), He surely had in mind the well known story of Mattathias, who began the Maccabean revolt by saying: “Let every one who is zealous for the Law and supports the covenant follow after me… and they left their possessions behind in the town” (1 Macc. 2:27). And again the Lord seems to have had this in mind when He says that when He comes, His true people are to flee Jerusalem and not worry that their ‘stuff is in the house’ (Lk. 17:31). For an itinerant teacher like Jesus of Nazareth to offer his ideas and his interpretation of the Old Testament, and then have men following Him, was not out of place in first century Palestine. But the Lord twists the whole figure of ‘follow me’. Unlike the other teachers, his teaching didn’t lead to taking arms and fighting Rome. His men are to follow Him in wilfully taking up and carrying a cross, imitating His supreme human bravery in both His life and above all in His death, a bravery which He showed in facing sin in the eye and conquering every temptation, whatever the cost, whatever the human implication.  

The Lord followed right on from the supper parable with the demand to hate one's own life, pick up their cross and follow Him, without which we cannot be His disciple. He also told the parable of God coming with a huge army to meet us who are far weaker- and our need to make peace with Him and forsake all that we have in order to follow Christ (Lk. 14:25-33). These radical demands of Jesus are in fact a development of His parable about the supper. For amongst some Middle Eastern peoples to this day, refusing the invitation to enter the banquet for such a meal- especially after having signalled your earlier acceptance of the invitation- was "equivalent to a declaration of war". And so the parable of us as the man going out to war against a far superior army suddenly falls into place in this context. "So likewise, whosoever he be of you that doesn't renounce all that he has, he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:33). The renouncing or forsaking of all we have refers to the man with 10,000 soldiers renouncing what human strength he had in the face of realizing he was advancing against a force of 20,000. The picking up of the cross, the 'hating' of our own lives, the renouncing all we have... obviously refers to doing something very hard for us. But the context is the parable of the supper, where the 'hard' thing to understand is why people refused the invitation, why they just couldn't believe it was real and for them; or why they just let petty human issues become so large in their minds that they just couldn't be bothered with it. Simply believing that we will be there, that in all sober reality we have been invited to a place in the Kingdom, that God is compelling / persuading / pressurizing us to be there... this is the hard thing. This is the hating of our lives, picking up our cross, forsaking our human strength and surrendering to God.

“Whoever of you does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple”. Renouncing is something we do in our hearts and deepest feelings and attitudes. Have we truly renounced it all? Even if there are still bank balances and pension plans and property deeds and cars and treasured possessions… made out in our name. Have we in our hearts renounced them? That they aren’t really mine. I have no personal long term security from them, because they’re not mine. I’m just holding in stewardship what God gave me. And not D.H. but the Lord Himself drives the point home- if we have any other attitude to these wretched things, these almost-nooses around our necks, then we are not His disciples. It’s one of the scariest thoughts for 21^st century Christianity. The fearless, gripped-by-Jesus approach to life which we see in the early church is the very opposite of the passivity of our post-modern world. We are called to a passionate, emotional life; a life where we each have someone to save, someone to die for, to live for, to sacrifice our self for. And this approach to life will naturally take care of how we use ‘our’ money. It is the passion-less life which results in a mean, careful approach to the spending of ‘our’ resources for others. See on Acts 4:32.

In Lk. 14:33, the Lord appears to make discipleship dependent upon giving up our possessions and forsaking all we have. But it’s quite apparent that His disciples didn’t literally do that. Zacchaeus only gave away half of his possessions (Lk. 19:8); and other disciples of Jesus clearly retained their homes and some possessions. The Lord must therefore mean that He expects us to in our minds resign all personal ownership of absolutely everything which we have- even if those things remain, to human appearance, ‘ours’. This is really a challenging thing, in this world of savings and acquisition.

The merchant man for the sheer joy of finding the beautiful pearl sells all he has, for the pure excellency of possessing just that one pearl (Mt. 13:44-46). And that man is to symbolize every one of us who would fain attain the Kingdom; "whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath , he cannot be my disciple" (Lk. 14:33). The Lord had recently taught that to him who overcomes, He will give all that He has (Lk. 12:44). This is yet one more example of the wondrous mutuality between a man and his Lord; we sacrifice all that we have for Him, and He will give us all that He has. The very height and wonder of all this motivates me at least to want to lay absolutely all before Him, to make Him the One to whom I can say I have committed all. Not just so that according to the covenant I'll therefore get all He has; but just from realizing the sheer wondrous grace of it all.

14:34 The fact there is no middle road is the most powerful imperative to total devotion. The Lord foresaw that it would be possible for His men to be as salt which had lost it’s savour; to appear as His, but for this to have no practical effect at all; and such salt is to be “cast out” in the end (Lk. 14:34,35). We must have influence upon others, or we aren’t salt.

The command to take up the cross daily is amplified by three small parables, one of which says that the believer is like salt, but salt is no good if it has lost its saltiness (Lk. 14:27,34). What to us is the great height of carrying Christ's cross is seen by Him as being as usual and expected as salt being salty.  

15:1-7 The Lord's amazing parable of the good shepherd (Lk. 15:1-7) brings together Ps. 23 and also the restoration passages of Jer. 23:1-8 and Ez. 34:1-31, which speak of the flock of Israel going astray due to bad shepherds, being saved by the good shepherd, being delivered / gathered, and then returning to the land. The sheep is found, and accepts being found- there is no actual mention of repentance. Thus the 'return' of Judah to their land was intended as a work of God- He would make them return, He would give them repentance [note how Acts 11:18 speaks of God granting men repentance]. This is all such wonderful grace. The even more incredible thing, though, is that Judah refused to accept this grace; they didn't 'return' to the land because they saw no need to 'return' to God. They willingly forgot that they were only in Babylon because of their sins; to 'return' to the land was a 'return' to God, which He had enabled. But they were like the lost sheep refusing to sit on the shepherd's shoulders, preferring to sit in a hole and die... and this is the warning to us. For truly, absolutely all things have been prepared for us to enter the Kingdom. It's only those who don't want to be there who won't be.

15:2 The Lord was criticized for “receiving sinners” and eating with them (Lk. 15:2). Instead of the usual and expected Greek word dechomai, we find here the Greek prosdechomai- He welcomed them into fellowship, symbolizing this by eating with them. This was an act which had religious overtones in 1^st century Palestine. Notice that prosdechomai  is used by Paul to describe welcoming a brother / sister in spiritual fellowship (Rom. 16:2; Phil. 2:29). The Lord fellowshipped people in the belief that this would lead them to repentance, following His Father’s pattern of using grace in order to lead people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). He didn’t wait for people to get everything right and repented of and only then fellowship them, as a sign that they were up to His standards.  

The theme of eating continues after Luke 14- for Luke 15 contains parables told by the Lord in answer to the criticism that He ate with sinners (Lk. 15:2). He explained that He had come to seek and save the lost, and that was why He ate with them (Lk. 15:4 cp. Lk. 19:10, where He justifies eating with Zacchaeus for the same reason). Note how in the case of Zacchaeus, the man only stated his repentance after he had 'received' Jesus into his house and eaten with Him. This exemplifies how the Lord turned upside down the table practice of the Jews- He didn't eat with people once they had repented, but so that His gracious fellowship of them might lead them to repentance. The parables of Lk. 15 speak about eating in order to express joy that a person had repented and been saved- the eating was to celebrate finding the lost sheep, coin and son. But the Lord was saying that this justified His eating with not yet repentant sinners. Thinking this through, we find an insight into the hopefulness of Jesus for human repentance- He fellowshipped with them and treated them as if He were celebrating their repentance; for He saw eating with them in this life as a foretaste of His eating with them in His future Kingdom. He invited them to a foretaste of the future banquet. His fellowship policy was therefore to encourage repentance; and seeing He wished all to be saved, He didn't exclude any from His table.

The Lord was criticized for “receiving sinners” and eating with them (Lk. 15:2). Instead of the usual and expected Greek word dechomai, we find here the Greek prosdechomai – He welcomed them into fellowship, symbolizing this by eating with them. This was an act which had religious overtones in 1st century Palestine. Notice that prosdechomai is used by Paul to describe welcoming a brother / sister in spiritual fellowship (Rom. 16:2; Phil. 2:29). The Lord fellowshipped people in the belief that this would lead them to repentance, following His Father’s pattern of using grace in order to lead people to repentance (Rom. 2:4). He didn’t wait for people to get everything right and repented of and only then fellowship them, as a sign that they were up to His standards.

The parables of the lost coin and lost sheep invite the hearer to identify with the heart of the God who seeks His lost. But the final climax of this triad of parables is that of the lost sons. Here the audience has to place themselves in one of two camps- the self-righteous son who ends up not eating with the Father, or the prodigal who sins so awfully and then eats with the Father in the hushed humility which experience of His grace along can bring. The Jews were worried about whom they might eat / fellowship with, just as many in the body of Christ are today. But the Lord turned it all around- you are a serious sinner, you need to make that long walk home to the Father in your day by day repentance, and eat with Him by His grace. He is seeking you to eat with Him; the question of whom you eat with is utterly secondary to that.

15:4 The good shepherd searches for the sheep until He finds it. John 10 is full of reference to Ezekiel 34, which describes God’s people as perishing on the mountains, eaten by wolves. But the Lord Jesus set Himself to do that which was impossible- to search until He found, even though He knew that some were already lost. Our attitude to those lost from the ecclesia and to those yet out in the world must be similar. The Lord knew there would not be repentance by Israel. But He went to the fig tree seeking fruit, even though it wasn’t the time for fruit (Mk. 11:13). He saw the crowds who wanted only loaves and fishes as a great harvest (Mt. 9:37).

More than anything, preaching has taught me the immense value of the human person as an individual. The Lord’s parable of the strange shepherd who leaves the 99 and gives his all for the one- the foolish one, the lost one, the antisocial one- is programmatic for me. The need is the call. If one person needs fellowship, forgiveness, love, the teaching of the Gospel, baptism, encouragement, re-fellowship, support, money, whatever… the value of them as an individual must be paramount. No matter what it costs us, how far we have to travel [in whatever sense], how much ‘trouble’ we get into, how foolish we look, how out on a limb we put ourselves. The value and meaning of the individual person was paramount in the Lord’s teaching and example, and it must be in our worldviews too.

Although they have the appearance of simple stories, their essential meaning is only granted to the reflective and spiritually minded reader. Close analysis of the parables reveal that they often contain something in them that is arrestingly unreal; and in this is very often the crux of the message. Surface level reading and listening give the impression that they are simple, homely stories, obvious in their meaning. But they are not; otherwise all men would have understood them, and the Lord would not have spoken them so that Israel would hear but not perceive. The true meaning depends upon perceiving that there is an element of startling unreality within the story line, that flags attention to the real message. The parables therefore challenge our stereotypes and force us to re-examine cherished suppositions. Perhaps the most obvious signpost to this feature of elements of unreality in the parables is in that of the lost sheep: “What man of you…” would leave ninety and nine sheep in the wilderness and go searching for the one lost one? Answer: none of you would do that. And perhaps likewise, “What woman…” having lost just one piece of silver would be so obsessive about finding it, and so ecstatic with joy upon finding it (Lk. 15:4,8)? Perhaps the answer is also meant to be: “Not one of you”. Yet this is the Father’s passion for saving the lost, and rejoicing over them.

15:4-6 David leaving the sheep and going to fight Goliath recalls the parable of Christ as the good shepherd leaving the flock and going to save the lost sheep (Lk. 15:4-6). The shepherd goes alone at night up into the hills (cp. Isaac going to be sacrificed in the hills), and carries the lamb on his shoulder- as Christ carried the cross of our sins on his shoulder to redeem the lost sheep of mankind (Is.53:6). This lost sheep parable is also picked up in 1 Peter 2:25: "For ye were as sheep going astray; but are now returned unto the shepherd and bishop of your souls" (i.e. Christ the shepherd). But this in turn is quoting Is. 53:5,6: "All we like sheep have gone astray... but he was wounded (on the cross) for our transgressions", which is thus the parallel to the saving of the lost sheep. This interpretation of the lost sheep parable- i.e. that the shepherd going to save the sheep represents Christ going to die on the cross- was first prompted by David leaving the sheep with the keeper to go and fight Goliath, representing Christ's saving us from sin on the cross. The leaving of the sheep with the keeper perhaps looks forward to Christ's entrusting the disciples to the Father's care in those agonizing days while death parted him from them, as David's encounter with Goliath did. David's subsequent leaving of them altogether to go and live in the King's court clearly looks forward to our Lord's ascension to Heaven after his victory over the real Goliath. 

15:5 At the time of Jesus, it was taught (Mishnah Qidd 4.14) that “A man should not teach his son to be a herdsman…for their craft is the craft of robbers”. Shepherds weren’t seen as kindly old men. They were seen as crafty and thieves. But the Lord chose that figure to represent Himself and the Father- even though the Old Testament likens God to the shepherd of Israel. The startling, unsettling figure [for the first century Jewish mind] was to demonstrate how it is the Lord’s humanity that makes Him our saviour. Likewise, the likening of the Gospel to yeast would have been shocking; or to a mustard bush, which is a member of the cabbage family [rather, e.g., than to a fruitful vine or upright palm tree]. It is signalled to us that there is to be a strangeness to this new Kingdom about which Jesus spoke, a humanity and yet unusualness about it. It was hard for the Lord to explain to us the level of love for us which He would reach in the cross. So He told a story of a shepherd who so madly loves his sheep, whose life is so taken up by his job, that he would die to save one of them, and comes back triumphantly rejoicing when he has found the lost sheep (Lk. 15:5). The average shepherd would have surely accepted that some sheep are lost, it's the luck of the game. But this shepherd who dropped all and ran off after one lost sheep was no usual shepherd. And the element of unreality in the story brings out the Lord's grace towards us. Note in passing how the man : sheep relationship portrays that between us and Christ. As the sheep understood pathetically little about the shepherd's sacrifice to save it, so we too fail to appreciate the height of the fact that Christ died for us, as the shepherd for the sheep. We can be sure that the frightened sheep didn’t bob along on the shepherd’s shoulders, grinning all the way home. With his underside covered in faeces and mud, it would have struggled with the Saviour shepherd, fanatic almost in his passion to save the sheep. As he stumbled along the rocky paths, shoulders bowed down, hands against his chest clutching the animal’s paws, the shepherd would be the living imitation of the posture of the Lord as He carried the cross of our sins to Calvary. All this is a pattern of the almost fanatic effort we should expend to win back the lost. And of course the element of unreality is seen in the way the shepherd takes the sheep home and not back to the fold, inviting neighbours around to rejoice that his sheep had been found. The quite unusual joy and humanly inappropriate love of the shepherd for that sheep is of course there to signpost to us the "love beyond all reason" of the true shepherd for us. The way the lost sheep is brought home rather than returned to the fold was also perhaps some sort of allusion to the teaching of Dt. 22:1 that the lost sheep of your brother's must be returned to him. This would mean that our pastoral care should not simply be for our 'own' sheep, those for whom we have responsibility; but for the lost sheep of other 'pastors' who've not done their job. See on Jn. 10:12.

15:6 In respect of God's relationship with the Angels, it is interesting to note that there seems to be a theme in Scripture of all of the Angels being involved in each action one of them does, due to the perfect unity that exists between them and God (see on Lk. 11:7,8; 1 Kings 22:19-23; Ex. 12:41). Thus when one of the Angels acts in our lives, all the others are conscious of it too. Consider how Luke 15 describes the joy in Heaven when one sinner repents; the man who found the lost sheep "calleth together his friends and neighbours, saying unto them, Rejoice with me. . when she (the woman) hath found it (the lost coin) she calleth her friends and neighbours together, saying, Rejoice with me. . likewise I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the Angels of God over one sinner that repenteth". The man and the woman must therefore represent God manifested through our guardian Angel. The Angel physically leaves the presence of God in Heaven and then goes off to arrange circumstances to encourage the sinner to return. He then calls all the others together to rejoice "when He cometh home" (into Heaven, into the multitude around the throne of God from which Angels go and return in obeying God's Word). The whole Heavenly household (or just those other Angels which our guardian has used in arranging circumstances for us to repent?) then rejoice together. Thus we read in Hebrews 1:14 that all the Angels are "ministering spirits sent forth to minister for them who shall be heirs of salvation". All the Angels are involved together in this work. ALL things in Heaven (the Angels) and on earth (the things they arrange on earth) are for our sakes!

There is an element of unreality in the story of the lost sheep. And that unreality reflects the sensitivity of Jesus. The shepherd doesn’t return the sheep to the fold, but takes it home and calls his friends round to see the dumb animal and rejoice (Lk. 15:4-6). The Lord knew we would frown a bit at this. He foresaw how hard it would be for us to rejoice in the return of a difficult sheep to fellowship.

15:7 There can be no doubt that Jesus spoke the words of God, and therefore His sayings can be interpreted at the deepest possible level; and yet at the same time, they were so easy to understand. The sayings of Jesus have been translated back into Aramaic, the language of His day, by C.F. Burney. He was struck by the degree to which they had a rhythmic shape, like many of the prophetic sayings of the Old Testament. Thus a passage like Lk. 7:22 has six two-beat lines followed at the end by a three beat line; the commission to the disciples in Mt. 10:8 rhymes, both in Aramaic and in Greek. The Lord’s prayer is expressed in two-beat lines. The crunch point of the Lord’s forgiveness parable in Lk. 15:7, that there is joy in Heaven over one sinner that repents, uses the device of alliteration, i.e. similarly sounding words. He uses three words which feature the guttural ‘h’: joy = hedwa; one = hada; sinner = hateya. In passing, I find this kind of thing evidence that we do have in the Gospel records the actual words of Jesus, and not a rough summary of them interpreted by many others, as modern theologians wrongly suppose. Our view of inspiration enables us to return as it were to the actual, living voice of Jesus in confidence. If the record of His words is sure and true, then we can go on to guess in what tone of voice He would have spoken, and seek to define in our own minds ever more features of the Son of Man. This thought alone I find so immensely inspiring- for we hear the real Christ speaking to us down the centuries. The Lord’s teaching style thus reflected His recognition that He was speaking to the illiterate, and that many of those who followed Him would need to commit His words to memory; and so He spoke His words in a form which was memorable by them, as well as profitably dissectable by computer-aided intellectuals of the 21st century. In this alone is a marvelous insight into both His genius and also His sensitivity to His audiences, from which we can take a lesson. But on a practical level, it is apparent that He had carefully prepared His sayings in advance, perhaps during His years up to age 30. I don’t see His sayings as off the cuff bursts of wisdom, neither words merely flashed into His mouth by the Father. They were God’s words, but carefully prepared by Him. He sets a matchless example to any would-be teacher in His church. Jesus spoke to the hearts of the people. He didn’t use words like ‘sin’ very often. He uses hamartia [‘sin’] in the Synoptics only 8 times, compared to 64 times in Paul’s writings. Jesus wasn’t talking theology, He didn’t speak in abstract terms. Rather did He speak of evil fruit, lost sheep, lost coins, no good sons… because He was framing His message for the illiterate, who thought in images rather than abstractions.

15:8- see on Lk. 8:16.

Luke 15 contains two parables concerning repentance, where the restored sinner is in fact not repentant: the lost sheep and the lost coin. The Lord searches for them until He finds them; neither of them actually repent and seek to come back. Indeed, the coin is inanimate, it can't repent. It was actually the woman's fault that it got lost in the first place. Now all these are surely examples of hyperbole- a gross exaggeration to make a point. It isn't the Lord's fault that we stray. But He speaks as if it is in this parable, in order to make the point that He so strenuously seeks our return to Him. Likewise Yahweh likens Himself to a worthless husband who forsook His sweet wife of Israel in her youth (Is. 54:6).

God's need for man- as it were- is brought out by the parable of the lost coin. It's been suggested that the lost coin was one of the woman's dowry coins, and thus the story speaks of how every lost person is a personal and deeply felt loss to God. However, this view has been criticized in that a drachma, which had the same value as a silver denarius, was the wage paid to a worker for one day's field work (Mt. 20:1-16). It was far less than the dowry coins. It could be that instead we have here a reference to a desperately poor housewife- who certainly had no dowry money left. The poor were so poor in Palestine at the time of Christ that they were selling their land, and many had become landless labourers. They worked for money, with which they bought food. The husband went far and wide searching for work; the Lord's parable pictures labourers waiting around for work. It's been calculated that on the basis of one denarius / day as wage, even if the worker worked 300 days / year, and had four children and a wife plus himself to support, this income would only enable them to buy enough bread to provide 1400 calories / family member / day. This isn't enough to sustain a person's ability to do manual work. Therefore mothers and children faced malnutrition, and the women tried to grow crops on waste land and did anything for money in order to buy bread. The smiling, full cheeked, charming Mediterranean woman with dowry coins around her forehead (beloved of those Sunday School books about Bible background) just wasn't the scene that the Lord had grown up in. The woman who'd lost her coin was searching desperately for it, because that was what she'd buy the kids food with. No coin, no food, whiny, hungry, sick kids. She needed, desperately needed, that coin; so that she could feed the hungry kids whom she loved and be the de facto domestic head which she was. And this is all a picture of God's need for the lost, His need for us, because He knows the feeding which that lost one can uniquely provide to His beloved family. And one wonders of course whether the Lord's parable wasn't drawn from real life incidents in His own childhood with Mary.

The lighting of the candle is a symbol of our conversion (Mt. 25:1; Heb. 10:32). Our lamps were lit by the Lord Jesus (Lk. 8:16; Heb. 10:32) for the purpose of giving light to the house. The Lord lights a lamp in order to search for his lost coin, that weak brother or sister that means as much to him on a deep, indescribably personal level as a woman's dowry money in the Middle East (cp. a wedding ring; Lk. 15:8). But the lamp he lights is us. This is yet another example of his parables being intended to fit together. We must burn as a candle now, in shedding forth the light, or we will be burnt at the judgment (Mt. 5:15 and Jn. 15:6 use the same words).

15:10 The Lord Jesus purposefully inverted the common assumption that the duty of a righteous man was to condemn the sinners. When He said that there is much joy in Heaven over one sinner that repents (Lk. 15:10), the Lord was purposefully inverting the common contemporary Jewish saying that there was much joy in Heaven whenever one sinner is destroyed in judgment. His desire is to seek to save rather than to destroy.

15:11

The Parable Of The Prodigal (1)

Introduction

Forgiveness is something which man receives both in a one off sense at baptism, and also in an ongoing stream throughout daily life. Both these aspects of forgiveness are brought home to us in this parable of the prodigal. Because the wonder of forgiveness is so hard to fully appreciate, seeing that we experience so much of it so frequently, the parable of the prodigal son uses a variety of Biblical allusions to bring home the reality of forgiveness to us. The series of three 'forgiveness' parables which the prodigal concludes is set in the context of Lk.15:1: "Then drew near unto him all the publicans and sinners for to hear him", the double mention of "him" indicating the spiritual charisma which the Lord holds over those desperately seeking righteousness. These parables were therefore designed to motivate these sinners to repent, highlighting the joy which true repentance can give to our Father. If only we would realize the gravity of our every day sins, the parables of the prodigal should have a like effect on us.

Prodigal Israel

As with most of the parables, the prodigal has a primary reference to the nation of Israel. The many Old Testament allusions bring this home without doubt. In practice, this means that the intensity of repentance which Israel will eventually manifest should be seen in our contrition at sin. In this lies a real challenge. The following allusions demonstrate that our Lord clearly intended us to make a connection between the prodigal and apostate Israel- and therefore with ourselves:

- The father falling on the prodigal's neck and kissing him sends the mind back to Joseph weeping on Benjamin's neck (another younger brother), typical of Christ's receiving home of a repentant Israel in the last days. As Joseph commanded his servants " Bring these men home, and slay, and make ready" (Gen.43:16), so the father did likewise (Lk.15:23). Both repentances were celebrated with a meal of fellowship (cp. the breaking of bread). Both the prodigal and the sons humbled themselves to the position of servants. Like the prodigal, Israel were often brought back to their spiritual senses by famine (Ruth 1:1; 1 Kings 8:37; Lk.4:25 etc.). His realization that "I perish with hunger" (Lk.15:17) matches the description of Jacob in Canaan as "A Syrian ready to perish" (Dt.26:5), dwelling in a land that was 'perishing through the famine' (Gen.41:36). This affliction came upon natural Israel because of their 'murder' of Joseph / Jesus. The prodigal's profligacy is therefore to be seen as the crucifying of Christ afresh by the believer.

- The prodigal Israel went "into a far country" (Lk.15:13) - a phrase normally used in the Old Testament concerning the Gentile lands of Israel's dispersion (Dt.29:22; 1 Kings 8:41,46; 2 Kings 20:14; 2 Chron.6:32,36). In passing, the "far country" of Lk.19:12 and 20:9 should also refer to the lands of the Gentiles; this is where Christ has gone (as well as Heaven) , and will return to Israel when they desire him to. As with so many of the parables, this one is packed with allusions to the Proverbs. The "far country" recalls Prov.25:25: "As cold waters to a thirsty soul, so is good news from a far country". Like many Proverbs, this is alluding to the Law- concerning how Israel would return from the "far country" of their dispersion upon their repentance. The sense of refreshment and exhilaration which this gives God should surely motivate us to repent, and also to encourage others to do so. Yet we need to ask whether we feel this same exaltation of spirit as God does "over one sinner that repenteth". It requires selflessness, and a real desire to see glory given to our Father.

- Our association of the prodigal with Israel in dispersion is strengthened by the mention that the prodigal "wasted" the Father's riches, the Greek meaning 'to scatter abroad'- suggesting that as Israel had wastefully scattered God's riches in the Gospel, so they too were scattered. Note how the prodigal is pictured as ending up with the pigs- well known symbol of the Gentiles. As the Son's return to the Father was matched by His going out to meet the son, when Israel " return unto the Lord... then the Lord thy God will... return and gather thee from all the nations" (Dt.30:2,3).

- The book of Hosea frequently presents prodigal Israel as the one who went astray from God, her loving Father and husband, committing adultery with the surrounding countries, with the result that God cast her off, leaving her to suffer in those very lands whose idols she had worshipped. Her sense of shame and knowledge of God's constant love then brought her to her senses (Hos. 2; 5:11-15; 6:1; 7:8-10). There can be little doubt that our Lord had his eye on this symbology when framing the prodigal parable. Hos.2:7,8 is the clearest example: "She shall follow after her lovers... he shall seek them, but shall not find them: then shall she say, I will go and return to my first husband; for then was it better with me than now. For she did not know that I gave her corn, and wine, and oil, and multiplied her silver and gold (cp. the father giving the son his substance), which they prepared for Baal". These blessings of corn, wine and oil are referring to the blessings for obedience promised in Dt.28. The point is being made that these blessings were not immediately and totally removed once Israel started to go astray. This demonstrates how material 'blessings' are not necessarily an indication that we have favour with God. Consuming the Father's substance "with harlots" (Lk.15:30) is therefore parallel to giving it to idols. The spiritual riches of being in covenant with God, as well as our every material blessing from Him, were frittered away by Israel. Saying that doctrine doesn't matter, that other churches have fellowship with God, giving our time and money to the surrounding world, all this is flinging with whores and bowing before idols. There is a direct equivalence between these things, in God's sight. God's "hand" worked upon Israel to make them realize the seriousness of their ways (Hos.2:10). This fact starts to plumb the depth of God's love- that even with those who have broken His covenant, God's hand is still working to lead them to repentance.

- Jer.31:18-20 describe how Ephraim moans: "Thou hast chastised me...turn thou me, and I shall be turned...after that I was turned, I repented; and after that I was instructed... I was ashamed... because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son?... since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still... I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord". We must not think from this that God just chose to turn Israel (the prodigal) back to him at a certain moment. It was because God "spake against him", through which the prodigal was "instructed", that he turned back.

- There is reason to see the family portrayed in the parable as being a priestly family- thus representing prodigal Israel, "a Kingdom of priests". The son did not ask for his share of the inheritance, but of "the portion of goods" - remember that Levites did not own any land. There is surely an echo of the curse on Eli's priestly family in the prodigal parable: "Every one that is left in thine house shall come and crouch...for a piece of silver and a morsel of bread, and shall say, Put me, I pray thee, into one of the priests offices, that I may eat a piece of bread" (1 Sam.2:36). The Father had "hired servants", which takes us back to the reference in Lev.22:10 to the priests having "hired servants" in their household, who would have performed the mundane work for them (cp. the Gibeonites). The prodigal was therefore asking to be admitted back into God's service, resigning all the spiritual superiorities he could have enjoyed through being of the priestly line. Similarly latter day Israel will be willing to be accepted by God as Gentiles, having resigned their trust in their natural lineage. Our attitude on repentance ought to be similar- just wanting to quietly, humbly participate in God's family for the joy of being close to Him. Further indication that the hired servants represent the Gentiles is found in the fact that they had "bread enough" (Gk. 'an abundance of loaves'), connecting with the Gentiles of Mt.14:20 being "filled" (same word in Lk.15:16) with the abundance of loaves created by Christ.

- The parable of the lost son complements that of the lost sheep earlier in the same chapter. "My people hath been lost sheep", "the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Jer. 50:6; Mt.10:6; 15:24). A comparison of the parable with Hos.7:9,10 indicates that most of Israel remain as the prodigal in the pig country: "Strangers have devoured his strength (cp. "devoured thy substance"), and he knoweth it not... they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this". The illogicality of Israel remaining in their pathetic spiritual position is so apparent to us from this; yet we of the new Israel can also be crazy enough to go on living out of real fellowship with God.

The reason for presenting such a catalogue of evidence is to show that prodigal Israel's latter day repentance will be of a similar intensity of repentance to ours in this life. They will mourn and weep with a rare intensity of self-hate and self-knowledge- even as a father for his only son. Do we shed tears on repentance? Do we realize, as they will, how our sins brought about the crucifixion? Do we appreciate that our spiritual indifference and lack of perception means that we, like Israel, "did esteem him stricken", seeing no beauty in him (Is.53:2-5) as we march through our lives, unthinking as to the power and beauty of the cross?

The Spirit Of The Law

There are a number of other Old Testament bases for the prodigal parable. Significantly, several of these in the Proverbs portray the younger son's repentance as a model fulfillment of the spirit of the Mosaic law (upon which Proverbs is so often a commentary). For example, it is the wise son who is told: "Hear thou, my son, and be wise... be not among winebibbers... a whore is a deep ditch... the glutton shall come to poverty: and drowsiness shall clothe a man with rags. Hearken unto thy father... the father of the righteous shall greatly rejoice: and he that begetteth a wise child shall have joy of him" (Prov.23:19-26). There are evident connections here with the prodigal. God's rejoicing over his return was therefore on account of the son's wisdom through hearkening to the Father's word. Thus God's joy is not just in the emotional recognition of the fact that we are in bad con science with Him, and want to do something about it. True repentance is a result of really grasping the true wisdom of God, applying ourselves intellectually to it.

We are left to conclude that it was the son's reflection upon the Father's word which lead him to return to Him, as will be true of prodigal Israel in the last days. "Whoso loveth wisdom rejoiceth his father: but he that keepeth company with harlots spendeth his substance" (Prov.29:3) was clearly in the Lord's mind when constructing his parable. He evidently saw this proverb as applying to the same person in time of sin and repentance. Repenting and loving wisdom are therefore paralleled, showing again that repentance is not just a twinge of conscience, but involves coming to really know God. The prodigal wished to return home so that he could share in the loaves which the servants had "to spare", or (better), "had in abundance". This same word occurs in Jn.6:12 concerning the bread which "remained", i.e. was in abundance, after the feeding of the five thousand. In that acted parable, the bread represented the abundance of spiritual food which is in the spirit-words of Christ. It was this which the truly repentant sinner earnestly seeks, rather than a mere salving of conscience. "Whoso keepeth the law is a wise son: but he that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father" (Prov. 28:7) shows that such genuine repentance and knowing of God's wisdom is effectively reckoned as keeping the letter of the Law. "A wise servant shall have rule over a son that causeth shame, and shall have part of the inheritance" (Prov.17:2) seems to also connect with our parable; implying that the wise son who was willing to be a servant was ultimately greater than the son who appeared to be technically obedient to the letter of the law. Likewise, the son desiring to be fed with the husks of the pig food may connect with Lazarus desiring to be fed with the crumbs from the rich man's table (Lk.16:21). Yet Lazarus is representative of the repentant sinner who is ultimately justified. The degree to which God will so totally impute righteousness to us is indeed hard to come to terms with. But it is faith in this which will be our ultimate salvation.

The Prodigal's Repentance: Baptism?

This parable describes the general principle of repentance; yet we are repentant at many times and varying circumstances. Because of this, there are a number of well sustainable interpretations possible. There are a number of reasons for associating the prodigal's leaving the pigs of the Gentile world with baptism; after the pattern of Israel's exodus, we understand that our repentance and exit from the world and its thinking is symbolized by baptism (1 Cor.10:1). In this case, our whole life after baptism is like the journey home of the prodigal- with nervousness, growing confidence and bitter regret and realization of our sins, we are stumbling home, desperately willing for just the humblest place of acceptance in God's family. And every step of our difficult, hungry journey the Father is having compassion upon us, and running out to meet us, searching for the lost sheep. There are so many references to God seeking out His people, and also to our seeking God. All our lives this process is working out; we seek for God, as He seeks for the development of a true spirituality in us. "Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you" (James 4:8) is surely an allusion to the prodigal parable. Every day of our lives, as we struggle with our natural fear and faithlessness, this fact should gloriously motivate us in our spiritual strivings. The first thing which the prodigal says at his meeting with the Father is "Father, I have sinned" (Lk.15:21). Surely our first stammerings at judgment day may be similar? Think of it. As you behold the glory of the Father in the face of Jesus Christ, what will the first thoughts and words really be? Yet the overflowing love of the Father almost brushed all that aside in assuring that timid boy of his acceptance and vital place in the Father's mind. The Father's speed and zeal is captured by the repeated use of the conjunction "and": "His father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him". The son's careful preparation of his request for mercy was needful for him, but not for the Father. This is a precise allusion to the spirit of Is.65:24: "Before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear". This is primarily concerning God's relationship with men in the Millennium. Yet our daily experience of forgiveness now should give us a foretaste of the glorious sense of restoration with God which will be ours in the Kingdom.

The joyful homecoming and celebration feast after the prodigal's repentance then equates with the marriage feast which will begin the Millennium. The fatted calf which was killed therefore connects with the "fatlings" which were killed for the marriage supper of the Kingdom in Mt.22:4. And those Jews who refused the invitation to join in that feast easily equate with the elder brother. "Let us eat and be merry" (Lk.15:23) is alluded to by the Lord in his later description of the marriage supper: "Let us be glad and rejoice... for the marriage of the lamb is come" (Rev.19:7). "Enter thou into the joy of thy lord" (Mt.25:21) is the equivalent in the parable of the virgins. There is good reason to think that our Lord consciously designed his parables to allude to each other, and thus build up a more complete picture of his teaching.

Detailed Proof

Now for some more detailed proof of this powerful analogy of the prodigal's repentance:

- In the pig country, the son lived with "riotous living" (Lk.15:13). The same Greek word occurs in 1 Pet.4:4 concerning Gentiles (and also the latter day apostacy within the ecclesia?) living in "excess of riot".

- The context of the parable is set by Lk.15:2. It was in response to the Pharisees' criticism of Jesus that he received sinners and ate with them. Jesus is replying by showing that the meal he ate with them was in the spirit of the joyful feasting occasioned by the finding of the lost coin, and the return of the prodigal. The prodigal's repentance is thus likened to those who were responding to Christ's gospel.

- The prodigal "spent all" (Lk.15:14), just as the diseased woman had "spent all" her living (Mk.5:26), and now came to take hold of Christ's mantle of righteousness. This we do at baptism. Other similarities between the prodigal and that widow are to be found in 'Studies In The Gospels' by H.A.Whittaker.

- The prodigal's perishing with hunger and desperately needing bread suggests a connection with Jn.6:35: "I am the bread of life: he that cometh to me (cp. the prodigal's return) shall never hunger... him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (cp. the receiving back of the prodigal). This coming to Christ is both ongoing and also specifically at baptism.

- The son was attached to a "citizen of that country", perhaps a personification of the Biblical devil to which we are joined before conversion. He was made free from him the moment he started his journey back. He "was dead, and is alive again" is also baptism language (cp. Rom.6:3-5; Col.2:13). "He arose" from the pigs (Lk.15:20) certainly implies new life and resurrection.

The record of the prodigal's treatment at the homecoming suggests that we are to see in this the sharing of Christ's personal reward with repentant sinners. Removing his rags and clothing him with the best robe recalls Zech.3:4, concerning the very same thing happening to Christ at his glorification. Being given a robe, ring and shoes takes us back to Joseph/Jesus being similarly arrayed in the day of his glory (Gen.41:42). We earlier showed that this parable is rich in reference to the Joseph story, with Joseph's brothers typifying Israel and all sinners. But now there is a powerful twist in the imagery. The sinners (cp. the brothers) now share the reward of the saint (cp. Joseph). This is the very basis of the Gospel of justification in Christ, through having his righteousness imputed to us, so that we can share in his rewards. This will fully be realized at the marriage supper of the lamb, although it also occurs in a sense each time we repent, and live out the parable of the prodigal's repentance again.

Living Out The Parable

It must be evident that apart from at baptism, we each live out the experience of the prodigal in our daily lives, as we come to realize the extent and nature of our sins, and summon the faith in God's love to walk with quickening step back to Him. Association with harlots is a common Biblical symbol of committing sin (see James 1:13-15); all our sins are unfaithfulness against Christ our husband. They are not just passing adulteries; the Spirit uses the even more powerful figure of harlotries. There are quite a number of other references in James to this parable, which indicate that the prodigal's experience can apply in an ongoing sense to the believer after baptism. The son 'spending all' uses the same word which occurs in James 4:3 concerning the believer who 'asks amiss' (cp. the prodigal's request to his father), that he might "consume it (same word) upon (his) lusts". James 4:4 continues: "Ye adulterers... know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with God?". This is all prodigal language. The next verses then seem to go in their allusions, implying that the prodigal is ultimately far more acceptable than the elder brother in the ecclesia: "The spirit that dwelleth in us lusteth to envy (cp. the elder brother)... God... giveth grace (forgiveness?) unto the humble... draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you (cp. the prodigal's return being matched by the Father coming to meet him)... let your laughter (cp. the son's "riotous living") be turned to mourning... he that speaketh evil of his brother (is) not a doer of the law (as the elder brother thought he was), but a judge" (James 4:5-11).

The sense that the prodigal had of having come to a complete end, realizing the ultimate wretchedness of sin, should be ours when we repent. The prodigal's repentance is ours. The prodigal among the pigs, rising up to return, should be a cameo of our repentances throughout each day. The allusion to the Septuagint of Prov.29:21 shows how that despite having reached such an "end", there is still a way back: "He that lives wantonly from a child shall be a servant, and in the end shall grieve over himself". Yet we know that after that "end", the prodigal returned.

The son 'coming to himself' in the prodigal's repentance (Lk.15:17) implies that his life of sin was madness, lived in a haze of semi-consciousness of his real spiritual self. This spiritual anaesthesia is always present when we sin. Yet it does not mean that God sees and feels our sins as we do; He has a constancy of spiritual awareness. An appreciation of this may help us in our struggle to sense the true seriousness of sin.

The Parable Of The Prodigal (2)

Killing The Fatted Calf

"The fatted calf" of Christ is 'killed' by God on our repentance in the sense that He is aware once again of the death of Christ whenever we are granted forgiveness. The spirit of Christ groans for us when we sin, as he did on the cross and in Gethsemane (Rom.8:26). Thus God looks on the travail of Christ's soul when He bears our sins away from us (Is.53:11). To crucify Christ afresh as it were puts Christ through the process of death on behalf of sin once again, but because the believer does not 'resurrect' to newness of life in forsaking the sin, neither does God 'visualize' the Lord's triumph over the sufferings of sin in the resurrection. Such a person has left Christ suffering, travailing in soul, groaning with tears, without any triumph or resurrection.

The son admitted that he had sinned "in thy sight" (Lk.15:21), exactly as David confessed after his sin with Bathsheba (Ps.51:4). In the same way as David openly recognized that he deserved to die, so the prodigal wanted to be made a hireling. Yet in reality, God did not take David's life, the prodigal was not allowed to even get round to saying he wanted to be made a slave (Lk.15:21 cp. 19), shoes being immediately placed on his feet (Lk.15:22) to distinguish him from the barefoot slaves. As God took His repentant wife back to her former status, speaking of her once again as a virgin, so the Father emphasizes: "This my son was dead..." (Lk.15:24). The prodigal was dead, but then became alive (Lk.15:32), in the same way as baptism marks both a one-off coming alive with Christ, and also the start of a newness of life in which we are constantly dying to sin and coming alive to God's righteousness (Rom.6:13). Our repentance and subsequent acceptability with God at our baptisms should therefore be on a similar level to our confessions of sinfulness to God after specific sins in our daily lives, and also related to our doing this at the day of judgment.

Yet in the daily round of sin and failure, it is sometimes difficult to sense the degree to which God is actively seeking our return, and willing to slay the fatted calf. The earlier parables of the lost sheep and coin show God actively working to find us; whilst that of the prodigal implies that He is not doing anything physical. Yet the clear connections with the preceding parables show that the woman zealously turning the house upside down must therefore be a figure of the mental energy expended by the Almighty in seeking out our repentance. In our semi-aware spiritual days and hours, before we 'come to ourselves', the Father's active mind is urgently seeking us. Surely this should motivate us in our stronger moments to be aware of the need not to sleep into the sleepy madness of spiritual indifference and sin. This indifference is effectively spending our substance with whores and riotous living. We have mentioned that Prov. 29:3 is one of the root passages for the prodigal parable: "Whoso loveth wisdom rejoiceth his father: but he that keepeth company with harlots spendeth his substance". There is a parallel here between wisdom and the Father's substance; continuing a popular Biblical theme that God's spiritual riches are to be found in His words of wisdom. An indifference to the spiritual riches which we have been given in the word of Christ is therefore being likened to the prodigal squandering the Father's substance with whores.

It is hard to appreciate that this parable really is intended to be read as having some reference to our daily turning back from our sins- such is the emotional intensity of the story. Yet such is the seriousness of sin that we must see in it an ideal standard to aim for in this regard. The parable alludes to a passage in Job which helps us better appreciate this. The prodigal's confession "I have sinned... in thy sight", and his returning from spiritual death to life (Lk. 15:21,32) connect well with Job 33:24-30: "His flesh (of the forgiven sinner) shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth (cp. the prodigal): he shall pray unto God, and He will be favourable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy... if any say (like the prodigal), I have sinned... and it profited me not; He will deliver his soul from the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man". The prodigal's experience will often be worked out in our lives, the fatted calf slain time and again, and as such we will come to know and appreciate the Father's love even more.

The joyous feast around the fatted calf can therefore speak of the full fellowship with God which we enjoy each time we come to repentance. We saw that the return of Israel in Hos.2 was one of the source passages for the parable. The feast at their return is there described as a betrothal feast. This is obviously a one-off act. Yet such is the constant newness of life which we can experience through continued repentance, that the feasts of joy which we experience can all have the intensity of a betrothal feast. In like manner our relation with Christ in the Kingdom is likened to a consummation which lasts eternally.

The Elder Brother

In the same way as the Jews refused to appreciate the spirit in which Christ was feasting with the repentant sinners who responded to his message (Lk.15:2), so the elder brother refused to attend the celebrations. Thus he is set up as representative of hard hearted Israel; and all those in the new Israel who share his characteristics proclaim themselves to be aligned with the legalistic Pharisaism which failed to discern the real spirit of Christ when he was among them. A calf, dancing and music recall the scene on Moses' return from the mount (Ex.32:17-19); the elder brother's response as he returned from the field and beheld this sight may well have been rooted in his attempt to place himself in Moses' place. He zealously protested at what he liked to see as rank apostasy when it was actually the display of the real spirit of Christ, in receiving back a lost soul. For all this, the lesson is never learned. Schism after schism have been experienced over this very issue of having repentant brethren take their place at the memorial feast. The bad grace and bitterness of the elder brother as he stormed away from the happy feast is seen all too often amongst us.

The elder brother coming in from the field must be related to the parable about the servant coming home from the field in Lk.17:7-10. The servant should then have prepared the meal, on the master's command, and then admitted that despite having been perfectly obedient, he was still unprofitable. The prodigal parable points the great contrast. God, while having every right to order the servant/ elder brother to prepare the meal, is the one who has actually prepared it. God asks the elder son to come and eat immediately after returning from the field, rather than ordering him to prepare the meal, as He could so justly have done. Yet despite God's boundless love, the elder son refused to act and think in the spirit of the Father's love.

The corrective to the elder brothers' attitude is provided by the following parable of the unjust steward which comes straight afterwards in Lk.16. The steward was accused of 'wasting' his master's goods (Lk.16:1), using the same Greek word translated "substance" in Lk.15:13, concerning how the son wasted his father's substance. The steward forgave others, and therefore ultimately found a way of escape from his dilemma. The implication is that it was on account of the prodigal being willing to do this, not daring to point the finger at others in the Father's household because of his awareness of his own sins, that he was eventually saved. We can also infer that the elder brother walked out of the Father's fellowship because of his refusal to do this. Again we see how God works through our sins. Because of the prodigal's experience of sin and forgiveness, he was better able to show that vital love and tolerance towards others, without which we cannot receive God's ultimate acceptance. In a sense, it was much more difficult for the elder brother.

Our Elder Brother...

Which leads us to one final thought. It was so much harder for Christ to be as patient with sinners as he was, seeing that he himself never sinned and experienced God's forgiveness. There is good reason to think that Jesus was speaking about the elder brother partly to warn himself. He was the favoured son, having the right of the firstborn. He alone could say to God "neither transgressed I at any time thy commandment" (Lk.15:29). The Father's comment "All that I have is thine" (Lk.15:31) connects with the references to God giving all things into the hands of the Son. His constant abiding in the Father's house echoes Jn.8:35: "The servant abideth not in the house for ever: but the Son abideth ever". Our Lord seems to have been indirectly exhorting himself not to be like the elder brother, thereby setting us the example of framing necessary warning and rebuke of others in terms which are relevant to ourselves. If our perfect Master was so sensitive to his own possibility of failure, how much more should we be, ever analyzing our attitudes to our brethren, "considering (ourselves) lest we also be tempted".

The Parable Of The Prodigal (3):

The Unreality In Luke 15

The three parables of the lost which climax in the parable of the lost son all exemplify the principles we have spoken about throughout these studies. They all depend for their power upon the many elements of unreality found within them; and the lost son parable requires us to fill in many details, try to finish the story, and to take due note of the crescendo of ‘end stress’ which there is. To appreciate the full power and import of these parables, we need to try to read them through the eyes of the Palestinian peasants who first heard them. Correct understanding of Scripture requires us to read it and feel it within the context in which it was first given. Bombarded as we are by billions of pieces of information each day, especially from the internet, we only cope with it all by letting it all fit into the worldviews and assumptions which we’ve adopted. Words and information and ideas tend to only fit in to what we’ve already prepared to house them, rather than us seeing God’s word as something radically different, and allowing it to totally upset and change our cherished worldviews, constructs and approaches to life. God’s word is still words- although they are inspired words. The problem with words is that we read or hear them, and interpret them within our frames of reference and culture. Take an example: “She’s mad about her flat!”. An American takes this to mean that she’s angry and frustrated about the puncture / ‘flat tire’ which she has on her car. But in British English, the phrase would mean: ‘She’s really happy and enthusiastic about her apartment’. To understand what the speaker or writer means by those words, we have to understand their cultural background. And so it is with the Lord’s teaching, aimed as it was to first century peasants.  

The Thankless Sons

For those Palestinian peasants, politeness and respect to your father was paramount. Even if you didn’t obey your father, you had to be polite to him. Rudeness to your father or public disobedience to him was the worst thing you could do, and you shamed yourself. The Lord turned that understanding on its head in His parable of the two sons in Mt. 21:28-32. He taught that the better son was the one who rudely refused to do what his father asked, but later relented and did it. The Lord saw this son as better than the one who politely agreed, and yet never fulfilled his promise. Perhaps that parable needs reflection upon today, where ‘nicespeak’ has become paramount- so long as you say something nicely, what you actually are saying and what you do isn’t so important. How we speak is of course important; but it can be exalted to the point where words rather than real action become paramount. But that aside, the point is that both the sons were extremely rude to their Father. And he was the most loving, self-sacrificial dad that two kids ever could’ve had. We feel hurt for the lovely old boy. One element of unreality is that he only had two sons- a small family for those days. How tragic that both his sons went so wrong and rebelled against him. And we sense something of his hurt, our heart starts to bleed for him, and we think of our Heavenly Father’s hurt. And then the penny drops- those two boys are us.  

The younger son was more than rude in demanding his actual share of the inheritance immediately. He was effectively wishing that his father was dead. He had the neck to treat his lovely father as if he were already dead. There arose in Europe after the second world war the ‘Death of God’ philosophy and theology. We may distance ourselves from it in disgust, finding even the words grating and inappropriate, but let’s remember that the younger son ends up the son who is found in the end abiding in the Father’s house and joyful fellowship. This is how we have treated our wonderful Father. We know from the examples of Abraham (Gen. 25:5-8) and Jacob (Gen. 48-49) that the actual division of the inheritance was made by the father as his death approached. For the son to take the initiative was disgusting. Although the sons could have some legal right to what their father gave them before his death, they were strictly denied the right of actually having it in possession [i.e. the right of disposition](1). This awful son was therefore each of us. And the father responds with an unreal grace. He agrees. He did what he surely knew was not really for the spiritual good of the son. And according to Dt. 21:7, the younger son’s share was one third. But the father gives him half. The younger son turns it all into cash within a few days [the Greek for “gathered all” definitely means ‘to turn into cash’]. This would’ve meant selling the fields and property quickly- and the father would’ve had to give agreement for this and have been involved in the contracts. Buying and selling takes a long time in peasant culture- selling quickly would’ve meant selling very cheaply. It would’ve been the laughing stock of the whole area. The way the son sells the inheritance would've been a more awful and unreal thing in the ears of the Lord's first hearers than it is to us. Naboth would rather have died than sell his inheritance- even to the King (1 Kings 21:3). The lifetime’s hard work of the father and family was wasted. And the father went along with it all. This was more than unusual; it would’ve been outrageous in the ears of the Lord’s hearers. But this is the outrageous nature of God’s grace. He must be so torn by our prayers- as a loving Father, wanting to give us what we ask for materially, whilst knowing it’s not for our good… and sometimes doing so. The father made himself look a fool because of his enormous love for this obnoxious son who wished him dead, this young man who clearly thought solely in terms of ‘Gimme the money and I’m outta here for good’. And he thought this with no thought to the huge damage he was bringing upon the rest of the family. For they would’ve lost so much through losing half the property. We sense the pain of the father, of the family, and the selfishness of the son. And time and again we are breathless at the love and grace of the father.  

Significantly, the son asked for his share of the property- not his inheritance. To receive inheritance carried with it responsibility, of building the house of your father, upholding the family name etc. But this son didn’t want that. And the father could quite rightly have said ‘No, you get the inheritance when you take the responsibilities that come with it’. But no, this son wants to quit with his lovely father and the whole family name. In that culture, to cut your ties with your home family, your inheritance, your land… was almost unheard of. It was almost impossible to do. But that’s what this angry young man wanted. The incredible thing is, the father allowed him to do this! That element of unreality signposts the extent to which God allows us freewill, genuine freedom of determination- and how much it costs Him emotionally and as a person to do so. This is the frightening thing about freewill- how much it hurts and costs God to give it to us. This insight alone should lead to a far more careful and responsible use of our freewill. William Temple said somewhere, something to the effect that God gives us freedom even to reject His love. It’s no good reflecting on the younger son and thinking ‘But I’m not that kinda guy’. The whole point of the parable is that yes, we are. That’s us. We’re either like that son, or the self-righteous son who is left standing outside of the father’s fellowship. Clearly enough, the God whom Jesus was revealing was not based upon some village patriarch. Freud rightly observed that many people’s image of God is based upon their experience of human father figures. For the true believer however, the Lord Jesus is revealing a Father-figure radically different to anything they’ve ever met. 

Our Desperation

We don’t like to think of ourselves as that thankless young man; but even more do we revolt at the idea that we were and are at times out there feeding pigs. Anyone who’s travelled in the Middle East will know the annoyance of a beggar attaching themselves to you and just refusing to leave you. But watch how the locals deal with those types. They don’t shout at them, or chase them. They will ask them to do something which is beneath even their dignity as a beggar to do. And they walk away shamefaced. I knew a brother who was a schoolteacher. The boss wanted to fire him because of his Christianity. The boss didn’t say ‘You’re fired! Clear off!’. He simply transferred him to a remote village in the middle of nowhere. And so the brother did the only reasonable thing- he resigned. The young man ‘joining’ or ‘gluing’ himself to the rich Gentile citizen was like the beggar who glues himself to you, and you don’t know how to shake him off. The pig owner told him to go and feed his pigs- thinking that this would surely be beneath this once-wealthy Jew who was hassling him. But so desperate was the young man, that he had to swallow every drop of pride, national and personal- and go do it. And he felt like a pig- he was willing to eat what they ate. This is the picture of our desperation at every sin- but we need to feel it, if we are to experience the path back to the Father. In an age when sin is often more about the words you type on your keyboard than actual physical debauchery, this parable hits home hard. Of course it was pride which was in the way for the son, and it is swallowing pride which is the essence of repentance. And again, it was fear of shame that delayed the young man’s return- fear of having to go through the kezazah ceremony of being officially disowned, fear of how the mob of young kids which roam every village street would whistle and shout and sing insults at him. And we need to pause and reflect whether we contribute to this significant barrier which surely hinders so many from returning to the Father’s house.  

But the young man hadn’t quite learnt the lesson when he decided to return home. He decided to return and ask to be made “as one of your skilled craftsmen” (Lk. 15:19 Gk.- he uses misthios rather than doulos, the usual word for ‘slave’). Presumably he figured that he could work and pay off what he had wasted. His plan was to use the phrase “I have sinned against heaven and against you” (Lk. 15:18)- but this is almost quoting verbatim from Pharaoh’s words of insincere repentance in Ex. 10:16! He still failed to grasp that he was his father’s son- he didn’t ‘get it’, that this would be the basis of his salvation, rather than a master-servant relationship with his father based on hard work. It was the father’s amazing grace which swept him off his feet just along the street from his father’s home; it was the father’s unconditional acceptance of him which made him realize what sonship and repentance was really all about.  

The Older Son

To refuse a father’s invitation to a family celebration was seen as totally unacceptable, rude, and a rejection of one’s father. Hence the rudeness of the guests refusing the King’s invitations. The older brother would usually have played a prominent role in such feasts. But this son refuses to attend. This would’ve struck the Lord’s initial audience as incredibly rude. Remember how Vashti’s refusal to attend her husband’s feast resulted in her being rejected (Esther 1). What the older son did would’ve been seen as an insult to all the guests; and many fathers would simply have rejected and disowned their son for this, or at least, expressed significant disapproval. Indeed, this was expected of him by society and the other guests. But yet again, the father humiliates himself and breaks all Jewish norms and expectations of correctness and decency. He leaves the feast! For the host to walk out was yet again seen as totally rude to the other guests- it of course echoes the shepherd leaving the 99 sheep and going off after the one lost sheep.  The father doesn’t go out and giving the arrogant, unloving, disobedient son a good talking to, as the audience would expect. Again, as so often, the Lord’s parables set up an expectation- and then dash it. The father goes out into the darkness of the courtyard, and “entreats” his son (Lk. 15:28). The Greek parakaleo means literally to come alongside, as if the father is inviting the son to stand alongside him in his extension of grace. Perhaps Paul is making one of his many allusions to the Lord’s parables when he uses the same word to speak of how he ‘beseeches’ his legalistic brethren (2 Cor. 5:20).  

But all this grace is ignored by the elder son. He insults his father. It may not be so apparent to us, but it would’ve been picked up by the Lord’s first hearers. A son should always address his father in this context with the term “O Father”. But he doesn’t. He speaks of his brother as “Your son” rather than his brother. He speaks of how the prodigal “devoured your living”. And he speaks of how he has faithfully served his father as a servant- like his younger brother, he failed to perceive the wonder of sonship. His awful outburst is doing in essence what his younger brother had done some time before. He was saying that he didn’t want a part in his father’s family. The “living” or wealth of the family was no longer his. He wasn’t going to respect his father as his father any more. He didn’t want to be in the family, so he wouldn’t go to the family reunion. That poor, dear father. And what is the father’s response? He calls him his teknon, his dearly loved son. Notice how the more common huios is used for “son” throughout the story (Lk. 15:11,13,19,21,24,25,30). In the face of such awful rejection, he shows his special love. It’s like the Lord giving “the sop”, the sign of special love and favouritism, to Judas- as he betrays Him. There’s a powerful lesson here for those of us who find ourselves irked and angered by legalistic, arrogant brethren who refuse to fellowship with the rest of us. There was no anger and irksomeness in the father’s attitude. He was only deeply sorry, hurt, cut up… but he so loved that arrogant elder brother. He goes on to say that he gives that son all that he has. But he could only actually do that through being dead! The father is willing to die for that arrogant older brother, whose pride and anger stops him wanting anything to do with his father, whom he has just openly shamed and rejected. And the father wants to die for him. This is to be our attitude to the self-righteous, the divisive, those who reject their brethren.  

But of course, there’s a real and obvious warning not to be like the older brother. It worries me, it turns me, right in my very gut, when I see so many of our community refusing to fellowship with their brethren because ‘He’s in that ecclesia… they’ve had her back… she’s divorced and remarried… he’s never said sorry, his motives aren’t right, she only said those words…’. And those attitudes are made out to be expressions of righteousness. It is not for me to judge anyone; I seek to love those who act like this with the love and grief of the father for the elder son. But they must be gently warned as to the implications of their position. By refusing to fellowship with the rest of the family, by making such a fuss about the return of the prodigals, they fail to realize that they are in essence doing what the prodigals have done; and they are de facto signing themselves out of the Father’s family. The issues are that serious. The parable isn’t just a story with a possible interpretation which we can shrug our shoulders at and get on with life. The Lord’s teaching, His ‘doctrine’, was and is in these parables.  

The lost son story finishes, as do the other stories, with a banquet of rejoicing- rejoicing in the father’s love. But it’s no accident that Luke 15 is preceded by the parable of Lk. 14:15-24, where we have another great banquet- symbolic of our communion in the future Kingdom of God. The connection is clear. We will “eat bread in the Kingdom of God” if we eat bread with the Lord in the banquets of this life. And yet so, so often it is said amongst us: ‘I won’t break bread there. They have X or Z… who is divorced… who’s not repentant… they have Q from that fellowship attending there… I’m not going in there’. It is not for us to judge. And I do not do so in what I write here. But it is the fairly obvious teaching of the Lord here that if we won’t eat bread with Him in joy now, if we won’t celebrate His grace and love for the lost in this life, then we will not in the future banquet. His grace is likely large enough to cover even the self-righteous; but we need to realize the eternal gravity of our decisions and feelings about our brethren in this life. Especially must we come to see ourselves as the prodigal. If we plan on being in the Kingdom, we must identify ourselves with the prodigal, and not with the self-righteous elder son who is left outside of the Father’s fellowship, because he placed himself there. 

An Unreal Father

The father whom we meet in the lost son parable is prefigured by the shepherd and woman of the earlier parables. The three parables are described as one singular parable (Lk. 15:3).

Personal Passion

The man who owned 100 sheep was rich. Shepherds were the lowest of the low. If you owned 100 sheep, you employed a shepherd to look after them and take responsibility for chasing the lost. But there’s something unreal- the owner of the sheep is the one who is the shepherd. This actually is the point of the Ezekiel 34 passage upon which the Lord built the parable- having fired the unworthy shepherds of Israel, “Thus saith the Lord God: Behold, I myself, even I, will search for my sheep, and will seek them out. As a shepherd seeketh out his flock in the day that he is among his sheep that are scattered abroad, so will I seek out my sheep; and I will deliver them … I will bring them … I will feed them … I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep” (Ez. 34:11-15). The remarkable thing is that the owner of the sheep decides to become the personal shepherd, feeding, seeking, delivering, bringing the sheep himself personally. A Palestinian wealthy enough to own a whole flock of sheep simply wouldn’t do this. He always hired someone else to do this- because being a shepherd was so despised. Behold the humility of God. But see too His personal passion for us. Hence the Lord’s question: Which one of you would act like this? The Father and His Son take such passionate personal responsibility for us, that God was willing in Christ to shame and humiliate Himself in order to get us back into the fold.  

Personal Responsibility

There’s also something odd about the way the Lord speaks of the shepherd: “He has lost one of them”. Translations of the Bible into semitic languages, especially Arabic, tend to read: “If one of them is lost” (passive). In the language and concepts of the Middle East, a speaker never blames himself. As in Spanish, they would not say “I lost my book”- rather, “the book went from me”. Likewise “I missed the train” is expressed as “the train left me”. And I would even speculate that preaching Christ in Arabic and even Hispanic cultures comes up against the problem of people strongly disliking taking ultimate responsibility, or to own up to the personal guilt of sin; the shifting of blame away from oneself is reflected even in their languages. And so when the Lord puts words in the shepherd’s mouth whereby he takes direct responsibility for the loss of the sheep, this would’ve sounded strange even grammatically. Apparently to this day, it’s hard to translate that actual phrase into Arabic. Likewise with the idea of the woman saying that she had found the coin which she had lost. The Lord is labouring how God, and God in Christ, feel an extraordinary personal responsibility for the lost.  

If we imagine the woman who lost the coin, we sense something of her remorse and desperation as she searches the cracks in the floor for it. It could’ve been part of her dowry- all that she owned for herself, all that was her very own. Not even her body was hers- it was her husband’s, to do what he wished with. But the dowry coins were hers- her very own. If the allusion were to one of these coins, it would speak of how much we mean to the Lord… that I, one of 6 billion, actually mean everything to Him, for whom I am His very own. But the allusion may also be to coins which the peasant women would keep bound up in a rag, close to their body. With this money, the woman would’ve had to feed the family for the next week or so. But… she’d let the rag come loose, and a coin had slipped out. In either case, we are to imagine the woman searching for it with a sense of remorse, taking responsibility that she was accountable for the loss. And this, we are invited to understand, is how the Lord feels for those who are lost. Notice how the woman searches in the house- presumably, she’d not been out of the house since she last had the coin. By filling out this little detail, we perhaps have a picture of how the Lord took responsibility, or felt responsible, for the loss of those ‘within the house’ of Israel.  

The Joy Of The Lord

Hence the joy of the shepherd when the sheep is found- he lays it on his shoulders rejoicing. To carry a sheep on your shoulders, fighting and struggling with you, as you climb down a mountainside in the dark… isn’t something which is usually done rejoicing. But this is the unusual, humanly inexplicable, joy which there is in the Father and Son when day by day they‘find’ us and bring us back. And where would a shepherd usually take such a lost animal? Back to the flock, whom he’s left in the wilderness. But then comes another unreal element. The shepherd takes the sheep home to his very own house. This sheep had such extraordinary value to this wealthy man. He came back dirty and exhausted- he humiliated himself and made himself a fool in the eyes of the world, all because of this humanly senseless love and joy which he had over this lost sheep. And we have to fill in the details, answering the unasked but implied questions- what about the 99 left out in the wilderness? The story ends with them out of the house- paving the way for how the elder son is left standing outside of the house. Note how Lk. 15:3 speaks of the three parables as one, in the singular, “parable”.  

The Lord’s Grace

The shepherd-owner calls his “friends” together. This surely refers to the clubs the Pharisees formed in villages, called the Khaburim [‘friends’]. They ought to have rejoiced to be eating with sinners, as the Lord was- but they wouldn’t. The whole context of the three parables is the Lord justifying why he ate at home with sinners, thereby showing that He considered them as somehow ‘in fellowship’ with Him. The Pharisees wouldn’t do this unless those people repented and learnt Torah in great depth. But the Lord is surely saying that He sees those men who ate with Him as the sheep which has already been brought home. He reflected the gracious outlook with which He saw people; and His hopefulness that by treating a person as if they had ‘come home’, then they would indeed do so. Probing this line further, the Lord Jesus speaks of the found sheep as being symbolic of the repentant. But the sheep did nothing- it was simply acceptant of having been found. To accept being found is, therefore, seen by the Lord as what He calls ‘repentance’. Now surely that’s grace- salvation without works.  

Radical Acceptance

There was a Jewish custom called Kezazah, ‘the cutting off’. If a Jew lost the family fortune amongst Gentiles, he would be greeted at home by the whole family, who would break a pot and scream ‘XYZ is cut off from his people’(2). The family and community would have no more fellowship with the person(3). Moulton and Milligan describe the record of a public notice by which parents declare their dissociation from their son who had wasted their wealth(4). This is what the Lord’s Jewish audience would’ve expected to come next in the story, when the son returns. But no! There is the very opposite. Law and traditional expectation and even human perception of justice is thrown away, as the father races along the street towards his son and accepts him. For an elderly man to run publicly was yet again an unreal element in the story- mature men always walk, at a slow and dignified pace. Not gather up their robes and run, let alone publicly. Actually the Greek word translated “run” in Lk. 15:20 is that used about sprinting (1 Cor. 9:24,26; Gal. 2:2; 5:7; 2 Thess. 3:1; Heb. 12:1). Here again we see the self-humiliation of the father before men, as he expressed a radical acceptance. Even we from our distance expect there to be a ‘telling off’, a facing of the issues. But there isn’t. The grace of God which meets the returning sinner leads him to repentance. It of itself, by its sheer magnitude, elicits the state of contrition which is indeed vital; but this is inspired  by the huge initiative of the Father and Son.  

The father’s radical acceptance is the very basis of our salvation. It is challenging, supremely so. Perhaps we handle ‘classic’ repentance easier- someone does wrong, goes off for a long time, is out of sight and out of mind, comes back, asks for our forgiveness with tears and humility. It’s actually psychologically hard to say ‘No’. That kind of forgiveness is relatively easy. But what is so much harder is to show forgiveness and the nature of the father’s love and grace time and again in daily life; to keep looking and hoping for the one who has offended us, ruined us, destroyed us, used and abused us… to be coming home. Actually I know virtually none amongst us who rise up to the father’s love and grace in this. It remains a stark, sobering challenge to us all.  

It needs to be understood that the father had to act as the village expected him to. They expected him to enact the kezazah , to hand the son over to them in some form for judgment, to make an example of this awful man. No village member is an island, all have to act within the expectations of the group. But the father breaks through all that. He again humiliates himself before the villagers by doing what he did. He likely angers them- for anger so often comes as a result of being confronted by the grace shown by others. We see it so often in the life of our spiritual community. Indeed, the Lord got at this in another parable, where He speaks of how some were angry at the extreme grace shown by the generous vineyard owner (Mt. 20:1-16).  

The honour bestowed upon the son by the father is totally unreal. Without the slightest sign that the son is now responsible, is truly repentant, has the right motives… the father gives him the best robe, which is what was done for the person whom a leader wished to honour above all (Esther 6:1-9). And the father gives the son his signet ring (cp. Gen. 41:41,42). All this, before the prodigal has in any way proved himself. All he’s done is come home, still not wanting to be a son, just a craftsman; and he was only driven home by his desperation. Such is the huge significance attached by the Lord to our turning up home. And in our dealing with returning sinners, which is every one of us day by day, we should reflect the same attitude.

 We are left, as so often, to imagine how the story finished. How hard it would’ve been for the younger son to live with the older brother! And one day, dear, darling dad would’ve died. The younger son would’ve had his sons, been called upon to uphold the family honour, make decisions in the village. We are left to imagine how his experience of grace would’ve made him judge differently to all others.

A Window Onto The Cross

Who does the father represent? The context for the three stories is the Lord Jesus justifying his eating with sinners. The fact that the father had received the sinful younger brother is phrased in the same way as the Pharisees’ complaint about the Lord Jesus receiving sinners (Lk. 15:2 = Lk. 15:27). And each of the stories involve a closing scene featuring a joyful meal of celebration. The father would appear therefore to refer to Jesus; and yet clearly enough we are intended to see the father as also our Heavenly Father. As you likely know, I don’t go for the primitive equation ‘Jesus = God’. I’m not a Trinitarian. So I take this to be an exemplification of how “God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself, not imputing their iniquities unto them” (2 Cor. 5:19). Notice in how many ways the father humiliates himself before everyone, and breaks all traditional Jewish expectations to do so. He gives the younger son what he asks, and more than the Law allowed; he runs to meet the son; he accepts the son; he leaves the banquet where he is the host in order to plead with his older son; he doesn’t discipline either of his sons as expected. He makes a fool of himself time and again, upsetting Jewish rules and norms. And the younger son pestering the father to divide up the inheritance may indicate that the father was about to die. Likewise, when the father says to the older son that he gives him there and then all that is his… this is language only really appropriate if the father is about to die, or has actually died. Does not all this speak of the cross as the basis for the Father’s love, grace and acceptance? That there, God was in Christ to reconcile us to Himself, not imputing sin to us… there the Father was humiliated in Christ, made a fool of, ridiculed. The Almighty God came this low… to the public shame and death of the cross. The suffering of God in the cross was all about rejected and unaccepted love; and so it is to this day.

 Notes

(1) Joachim Jeremias, The Parables Of Jesus (New York: Scribners, 1963) p. 128.

(2) Kenneth E. Bailey, The Cross And The Prodigal (Downers Grove: IVP, 2005) p. 52.

(3) Kenneth E. Bailey, Jacob And The Prodigal (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003) p. 102.

(4) J.H. Moulton & G. Milligan, The Vocabulary Of The Greek New Testament Illustrated From the Papyri And Other Non-Literary Sources (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1952) p. 89.

Jacob, Esau And The Prodigal

The parable of the prodigal contains multiple allusions to the record of Jacob and Esau, their estrangement, and the anger of the older brother [Esau] against the younger brother (1). There is a younger and an elder son, who both break their relationships with their father, and have an argument over the inheritance issue. Jacob like the prodigal son insults his father in order to get his inheritance. As Jacob joined himself to Laban in the far country, leaving his older brother Esau living at home, so the prodigal glued himself to a Gentile and worked for him by minding his flocks, whilst his older brother remained at home with the father. The fear of the prodigal as he returned home matches that of Jacob as he finally prepares to meet the angry Esau. Jacob's unexpected meeting with the Angel and clinging to him physically is matched by the prodigal being embraced and hugged by his father. Notice how Gen. 33:10 records how Jacob felt he saw the face of Esau as the face of an Angel. By being given the ring, the prodigal "has in effect now supplanted his older brother" (2); just as Jacob did. As Esau was "in the field" (Gen. 27:5), so was the older brother.

What was the Lord Jesus getting at by framing His story in terms of Jacob and Esau? The Jews saw Jacob as an unblemished hero, and Esau / Edom as the epitome of wickedness and all that was anti-Jewish and anti-God. The Book of Jubilees has much to say about all this, as does the Genesis Rabbah (3). The Lord is radically and bravely re-interpeting all this. Jacob is the younger son, who went seriously wrong during his time with Laban. We have shown elsewhere how weak Jacob was at that time. Jacob was saved by grace, the grace shown in the end by the Angel with whom he wrestled, and yet who finally blessed him. As Hos. 12:4 had made clear, Jacob weeping in the Angel's arms and receiving the blessing of gracious forgiveness is all God speaking to us. The older brother who refused to eat with his sinful brother clearly represented, in the context of the parable, the Jewish religious leaders. They were equated with Esau- the very epitome of all that was anti-Jewish. And in any case, according to the parable, the hero of the story is the younger son, Jacob, who is extremely abusive and unspiritual towards his loving father, and is saved by sheer grace alone. This too was a radical challenge to the Jewish perception of their ancestral father Jacob.

The parable demonstrates that both the sons despised their father and their inheritance in the same way. They both wish him dead, treat him as if he isn't their father, abuse his gracious love, shame him to the world. Both finally come to their father from working in the fields. Jacob, the younger son, told Laban that "All these years I have served you... and you have not treated me justly" (Gen. 31:36-42). But these are exactly the words of the older son in the parable! The confusion is surely to demonstrate that both younger and elder son essentially held the same wrong attitudes. And the Father, clearly representing God, and God as He was manifested in Christ, sought so earnestly to reconcile both the younger and elder sons. The Lord Jesus so wished the hypocritical Scribes and Pharisees to fellowship with the repenting sinners that He wept over Jerusalem; He didn't shrug them off as self-righteous bigots, as we tend to do with such people. He wept for them, as the Father so passionately pours out His love to them. And perhaps on another level we see in all this the desperate desire of the Father and Son for Jewish-Arab unity in Christ. For the promises to Ishmael show that although Messiah's line was to come through Isaac, God still has an especial interest in and love for all the children of Abraham- and that includes the Arabs. Only a joint recognition of the Father's grace will bring about Jewish-Arab unity. But in the end, it will happen- for there will be a highway from Assyria to Judah to Egypt in the Millennium. The anger of the elder brother was because the younger son had been reconciled to the Father without compensating for what he had done wrong. It's the same anger at God's grace which is shown by the workers who objected to those who had worked less receiving the same pay. And it's the same anger which is shown every time a believer storms out of an ecclesia because some sinner has been accepted back...

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Notes

(1) K.E. Bailey, Jacob And The Prodigal (Downers Grove: IVP, 2003) lists 51 points of contact between the Jacob / Esau record and the prodigal parable.
(2) A.J. Hultgren, The Parables Of Jesus (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000) p. 79.
(3) See e.g. Jacob Neusner, Genesis Rabbah: The Judaic Commentary To The Book Of Genesis (Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1985) Vol. 3 p. 176.

15:12 The somewhat sad picture of the loving Father dividing between his sons “his living” (Lk. 15:12), for them to go off and make what they will of, to either squander in the world or selfishly and self-righteously hoard to themselves, is a picture of the vast and genuine delegation to us by the Father.

The Father has given us huge freewill and an amazing amount of self determination. Divine delegation is one of His great characteristics as a Father. It would have been highly unusual for any father to agree to liquidate part of the family estate ahead of time, just so as to give in to the will of a wayward son who totally rejected him. And yet the father did this; he liquidated part of the family inheritance to give it to a son who wanted to openly quit the family. This is how much the Father is willing to give us the essential desires of our own hearts, how much He is willing to allow us to go our own way, so that we may serve Him of our own freewill.

15:17 God hoped through the hope of Hosea that 'Gomer' would say "I will go and return to my first husband, for it was better with me then than now" (Hos. 2:17). But Gomer / Israel would not; and so the Lord picked up the idea and puts it in the mouth of the returning prodigal son in Lk. 15:17.

15:20 Compare "Slay and make ready" (Gen. 43:16) for the meal. This is the basis of the prodigal son parable (Gen. 45:14,15 = Lk. 15:20); father = Christ; prodigal = repentant Jews, wanting to be servants and nothing else.

The Father offered forgiveness without repentance to the prodigal son before there was any direct evidence of repentance- just a sign of general regret or desire to be in the Father’s house. Indeed, it would see that the very fact the son wanted to return to the Father’s house was quite enough to warrant his acceptance there- and the killing of the fatted calf.

The Lord's zeal for our redemption and His enthusiasm to see us as righteous is brought out in the parable of the prodigal. The Father (manifest in the Lord) runs out to meet the son. That story was masterfully tied back in to Is. 64:5-8: "Thou meetest him that rejoiceth and worketh righteousness, those that remember thee in thy ways... we have sinned... we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags... but now, O Lord, thou art our father". The patient, hopeful father saw in the son a boy rejoicing and working righteousness; but this was hardly how he felt! And so it will be with Israel in the last days. And so it is with each of us now, in our times of repentance. That surpassing grace is ours; we are seen as working righteousness when all we have is a bitter self-loathing and desire to somehow get back to God. But the crucial point is: how often do we have such a true repentance? We repeatedly sin, that we admit. But how frequently is there this kind of repentance which calls forth such grace, to see us as so righteous when we are so unrighteous, the grace of Jesus so great, so free...? 

The parables so often allude to contemporary Jewish conceptions of grace, and show how God's grace is so far beyond them. The Father is watching for the return of the prodigal, even while the son was "far off" (Gk. makron); and this is the same word used about the "far (Gk. makros) country" where the son was (Lk. 15:13,20). The Divine eyesight sees the person who is far off in sin, and longs for their return. This was quite contrary to all Jewish and human notions of showing grace to those who return - after they return. There was a contemporary Jewish story about a son who wished to return to his father; and the father sends a message to him saying "Return as far as you can and I will come the rest of the way to you". The Lord's parable showed how the care of the Father for His children is so far more than that. And He is there watching billions of cases, simultaneously... such is the passionate heart of God for the individual.

We must grow in our realization of the enthusiasm of God for our salvation. Consider how the Father ran unto the pathetic son and fell on (Gk. violently seized) his neck and kissed him (Lk. 15:20; the same Greek as in Acts 20:37).

The Father restlessly watching for the prodigal's return matches the woman searching for the lost coin “till she find it” or the unusual shepherd who searches for his lost sheep “until He finds it” (Lk. 15:4,8,20). This involves God in huge activity- setting up providential encounters, nudging consciences through circumstance. The huge amount of ‘work’ is one thing; but the mental energy of concern and thoughtfulness is phenomenal beyond our comprehension. God rises up early seeking His people- rather like us somehow being able to wake up early in the morning without an alarm clock, because our internal clock is restlessly wanting to be up and on our mission for the day. In all this we are to manifest God- for we too are to seek and save the lost.

The elder brother in the prodigal story shows an unbelievably self righteous attitude. Yet, this truly is the position of the legalists of Christ's day and this. The love of the Father [God] for the son [repentant Israel] is quite something. Would a father really rush out and kiss him, i.e. forgive him (Lk. 15:20 cp. 2 Sam. 14:33) without first requiring an explanation and specific repentance? For this unusual Father, the mere fact the son wanted to return was enough. And when the vineyard workers refused to work and beat and killed the Owner’s servants that were sent, the response we expect is that the Owner sends in some armed men and re-establishes control. But He doesn’t. Why ever keep sending servants after some are killed? But this is the loving, almost desperate persistence of the Father for our response. This is what the parables of Israel teach. In the end, He does something humanly crazy. He sends a single Man walking towards them- His only Son. Or think of the parable of the older son. The loving Father divides all that He has between the two sons- and the son who remained at home therefore ended up with all that the Father had, seeing the younger son had blown the other half of it (Lk. 15:31). This was the extent of God’s love for Pharisaic, hypocritical Israel. He gave them His all- the blood of His only Son. Elderly oriental gentlemen never run in public. But the Father will do so when the younger son returns. Such will be His joy, and such is His joy over every sinner who repents!

15:21 I have sinned- see on Job 33:27

In your sight- see on Ps. 51:4.

15:22 robe- see on Rev. 6:11.

quickly- see on Lk. 14:5.

15:24 The prodigal son was a favourite of Paul's. At least four times (Lk. 15:24 = Eph. 2:1,5; 5:14; Col. 2:13) he makes the point that he saw the repentant son as a type of every one of us: not just those who publicly disgrace themselves and go out of church life for a time. 

15:24 It's bankruptcy, or bankruptcy. Paul spoke of spending and being spent in the Lord's service (2 Cor. 12:15), alluding to how the prodigal spent himself in dissipation (Lk. 15:24). That sense of losing all must come- either in sin's service, or in that of the Lord. See on Mt. 3:11.

15:28 The elder son would not 'go in' to the wedding (Lk. 15:28); and the Lord surely constructed that story to use a word which so often is used about going in to the Kingdom (in Matthew alone: 5:20; 7:21; 18:3,9; 19:17,23,24; 25:21). His point clearly is that those who don't enter into His Kingdom chose themselves not to do so, they keep themselves out of the Kingdom, because they cannot bring themselves to show a true love to their brother. In the end, the very end, we receive our dominant desire.

15:30- see on Mt. 20:11.

The bitter elder brother, angry at the Father's gracious enthusiasm for the worthless brother, is addressed by the Father (God) in language which is relevant to the Lord Jesus: "Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine" (Lk. 15:30).

The parables are full of almost incidental indications of how well the Lord knew our nature and how accurately He foresaw the future struggles of His body. He foresaw that the elder brothers would be self-righteous and unwilling to accept back into fellowship the repentant. Yet instead of making the father address the older boy with words like "You hypocrite! You yourself are disobedient! Get away from me, you callous hypocrite!", the Lord puts the words of grace themselves in the father's mouth: "Son,  thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine" (Lk. 15:30). The Lord foresaw that the elder brethren's relationship with the Father would be damaged by their harshness. But in the way the story ends, I see real hope for the hard line, right wing Christian who condemns his brother, in the light of the Lord's teaching that we will be judged as we have judged. Wrong such brethren certainly are; but their Lord is gracious enough, it seems, to still work with them. In the same breath as the Lord warned that by our words we will be justified and condemned, and that we will have to account for them at the judgment, He also said that whoever speaks words against Him, He will forgive. I'd like to concentrate on other examples of where the Lord Jesus in His sensitivity foresaw this problem of dealing with apparently weak believers.  

The prodigal son parable has as its end stress the problem of the self-righteous elder son. This is in fact the crux of the whole story. He refuses the invitation from his father to come in to the feast- an image used elsewhere in the parables to describe rejection of God’s invitation. To refuse such an invitation was a public insult and rejection of his Father. He refuses to address his father as “Father” and refuses to call his brother “brother” [cp. “thy son”]. By breaking his relationship with his brother, he broke his relationship with his Father. As we do likewise. And the end stress of the whole wonderful parable is that we are left wondering how the story finished. The elder brother is left standing there, temporarily rejecting his father, wondering… whether to storm off into the evening darkness, or to turn back and go in to the feast and accept his brother. And this is really the essential point of the story, and the appeal which it makes to us. We may just mindlessly forget some disfellowship case of years ago, leave the decision to others, forget in our own minds that there is a brother or sister begging for our renewed fellowship and forgiveness. Yet it is exactly these issues and our response to them which may decide our eternal destinies. And this was the end stress of the parable…

15:31 Much homework awaits someone to work out all the times when the Lord was speaking to Himself in the parables, through the elements of unreality. Perhaps He saw Himself tempted to be like the elder brother in the Prodigal parable, who was “always” in the Father’s house (as Jesus per Jn. 8:35) and ‘everything the father has is his’ is the very wording of Jn. 17:10. Or is it co-incidence that the only time the Greek word translated "choked" is used outside the sower parable, it's about the crowds 'thronging' Jesus (Lk. 8:14,42- note how they're in the same chapter and section of the Lord's life)? Was the Lord not aware of how the pressure of the crowds, whom He carefully tried to avoid, could choke His own spiritual growth? Was it for this reason that He begged those He cured not to generate big crowds to throng Him? And thus yet another layer of the Lord's mind and thinking will be revealed to us.

16:1 The Lord Jesus without doubt focused upon the twelve disciples; they were His special love, His predominant concern. And when they came to write up their records of their experience of this amazing Master, they bring this out very much. He clearly chose them in order to impress His character upon them, and then left them to continue the witness to Him. Even in high society, surrounded by the elitist Pharisees, He spoke parables which were to them- even though the others heard (Lk. 16:1,14; 20:45). There is a repeated feature, in Luke particularly, of the Lord teaching the twelve in front of a multitude- as if the huge crowds were there just listening to what the Lord was speaking specifically to the twelve. When one of the crowd interrupts, the Lord quickly returns His focus to the twelve (Lk. 6:19,20 cp. 7:1; 12:1,13,22). For Jesus, the disciples were His focus and priority. 

The parable of the unjust steward must be read in the context of the preceding parables of forgiveness. The man is in debt to his Master, surely speaking of our sinfulness (Lk. 16:3,4 cp. Mt. 18:24). He has wasted his goods- which are given to us at baptism (Lk. 16:1 cp. Mt. 25:14). He could have begged, but he was too proud. Therefore in order to get forgiveness he raced round forgiving everybody else. This suggests a spiritual selfishness which surely isn't ideal. And yet "the Lord commended the unjust steward". 

16:2- see on Lk. 20:25.

The parable of the unjust steward suggests that there are times in this life when we are called to give an account of our stewardship- and how we react to those judgment calls is what will affect our ultimate destiny (Lk. 16:2). We have a tendency to consider God as passive to our failures and acts of righteousness, simply because His judgments are not openly manifest. We may forget that on, say, 6.6.96 we swore under our breath in anger… but God, in this sense, doesn't forget. The passage of time doesn't act as a pseudo-atonement for Him as it does in our consciences. The tendency for human beings to assume that God forgets our wrong actions and will never judge them is frequently commented upon in Scripture. "They consider not in their hearts that I remember all their wickedness", i.e. to judge them for it at a future date (Hos. 7:2). The day of judgment is likened to God 'awaking' (Ps. 68:1; 73:20). Not that He is now sleeping; but then, the principles of His judgment which now appear to lie dormant will be openly manifested. Peter warns that the condemnation of false teachers is given by God in an ongoing sense, and that damnation doesn't slumber (2 Pet. 2:3).

The 'unjust steward' was saved because he forgave others their debts after getting into a mess himself. He wasted his Lord's goods, as the prodigal did (Lk. 15:13 connects with 16:2). Seeing the prodigal represents all of us, the lesson is surely that we all waste our Lord's goods, therefore the basis of salvation is through our forgiving others as an outcome of our own faith in the Lord's grace. This is one explanation of why the parable of the steward flows straight on from that of the prodigal.

One of the most telling examples of an unfinished ending is to be found in the parable of the unjust steward. This is perhaps the hardest parable to interpret; but I suggest the thought is along the following lines. The steward has done wrong; but the element of unreality is that he isn't jailed or even scolded, it's just left as obvious that he can't do the job of steward any longer. The usual response of a master would be to jail servants for running up debts (Mt. 8:23-25). But the Master is unusually gracious. The steward now faces poverty, and so he takes a huge gamble. Before news of his fall is common knowledge, he urgently runs around to those in his master's debt and tells them that their debts are forgiven. His haste is reflected in the way he says "Write quickly... and you... ". He has to write off their debts before his master finds out, and before the debtors know that he now has no right to be forgiving them their debts. His gamble is that his master is indeed such a generous and gracious guy that he will actually uphold these forgivenesses or reductions of debt, and that therefore those who have received this forgiveness will be grateful to the steward, and be generous to him later, maybe giving him employment. The story reflects a theme of the other parables- how the servant knows and understands his master extremely well, and can guess his response. The way the servant invites the beggars to the feast even before his master has told him to do so is an example. But the power of the parable is in the unended story. Does the gracious Master indeed forgive those in his debt? And seeing he is impressed by how the steward has acted, does he in fact re-instate him, impressed as he obviously is by this sinful steward's perception of his grace? From the other parables we are led to believe that yes, the Lord and Master is indeed this gracious. And of course we are to see ourselves in the desperate position of the steward, staking our whole existences upon His grace and love beyond all reason. For me, this approach to the parable is the only one which can make any sense of the master dismissing the steward for fraud, and then praising him for his apparently 'dishonest' behaviour in forgiving the debtors (Lk. 16:2,8). See on Lk. 10:34.

16:4 The parable of the unjust steward must be read in the context of the preceding parables of forgiveness. The man is in debt to his Master, surely speaking of our sinfulness (Lk. 16:3,4 cp. Mt. 18:24). He has wasted his goods- which are given to us at baptism (Lk. 16:1 cp. Mt. 25:14). He could have begged, but he was too proud. Therefore in order to get forgiveness he raced round forgiving everybody else. This suggests a spiritual selfishness which surely isn't ideal. And yet "the Lord commended the unjust steward"- He makes concessions to our weakness. 

16:6- see on Lk. 14:5.

16:8 There were times when the Lord used shock tactics to get His message over. He did and said things which purposefully turned accepted wisdom and understanding on its head. Thus He touched the leper, spoke of drinking His blood... and used leaven, the usual symbol for sin, as a symbol of the quiet influence of His Gospel. And His parables feature the same element. Because the parables are so familiar to us, we can overlook the fact that their true character is intended to be shocking and disturbing- they are most definitely not just comfortable, cosy, moralistic tales. Consider the way He chooses to take a lesson from a crook who fiddles the books. The 'hero' of the story was a bad guy, not a good guy. Yet the point of the story was that we must realize how critical is our situation before God, and do literally anything in order to forgive others. We can't let things drift- disaster is at the door unless we forgive others right now. Everything is at stake in our lives unless we forgive others. The parables didn’t give simple teaching to those who first heard them. He used that form of teaching so that men would not understand Him; and even His disciples had to come to Him in order to receive the interpretations.

The way "the children of this world" are so zealous in forgiving others their debts so as to get themselves out of major trouble is an example to us, the Lord said (Lk. 16:8). It could be that His comment that they were "wiser than the children of light" was a rebuke to the children of light- that those in the world are more eager to forgive, more zealous in their secular lives, than many of us are. The unjust steward in the parable of Luke 16 ran round forgiving others their debts, so that in his time of crisis and judgment he would have a way out of his own debt problems. And in the context of forgiving our brethren, the Lord holds him up as an example. But He laments that sadly, the children of this world are often wiser than the children of the Kingdom, i.e. the believers (Lk. 16:8). I take this as meaning that the Lord is sorry that His people don’t see the same obvious need to forgive each other, in view of their own inadequacies and the coming of judgment. The children of this world see the coming of their judgments and the urgency of the need to prepare, far more strongly than many of us do; we who face the ultimate crisis of sinful, responsible man meeting with an Almighty God.

The story of the indebted steward likewise stresses the importance of true forgiveness. The master commends the steward because he had told others that their debts to his master were reduced. No human master would ever commend his steward for acting so irresponsibly (Lk. 16:8). But the Lord Jesus does commend us for forgiving those who sin against Him, even though our forgiving of those indebted to us and Him is against all the laws of human common sense. See on Mt. 18:23.

16:9 The Bible has a lot to say about the sacrifice of 'our' material possessions; not because God needs them in themselves, but because our resignation of them to His service is an epitome of our whole spirituality. So great is the Lord's emphasis about this, that He suggests in the parable of the crafty steward that if we use our worldly things prudently, when we spiritually fail, the fact we have used them wisely will bring us into the Kingdom (Lk. 16:9). This implication that we can almost buy our way into the Kingdom is hyperbole. This is a device the Lord commonly used in His parables: an exaggerated statement to make a point. When He spoke of the good shepherd leaving the 99 good sheep to go chase the foolish one, this doesn't really mean that He does in fact leave us. He will never leave us. But so great is His love of the lost that it's as if He leaves us for the sake of finding them. Or the command to gouge out our eye if it offends us. This is a gross exaggeration; but our self-deprival of those things which lead us into sin requires the same self-will and self-mastery. So in Lk. 16:9, the Lord is saying that the use of our material possessions is so important that it's almost as if (in the hyperbole) we can buy our way into the Kingdom. See on Lk. 11:41.

We have nothing now, we own nothing, all we have is given for us to use wisely, so that when we fail (morally, in the failures of our lives), our use of these things may prepare the way for our entry into the everlasting place of the Kingdom (Lk. 16:9). We fall so easily into the trap of thinking 'this is my money… I worked for it, saved it…’. It's God's money. The danger of materialism is to think it is ours. Israel were told that every 7th year they were to cancel debts, release each other from the debt they had; and yet it was "the LORD's release". You released a man from his debt, Yahweh released him. What it meant was that your money was Yahweh's money. He released the debt, you released it. In being generous spirited, then, and realizing 'our' money is God's, we are Yahweh-manifest. We are invited to see ourselves as the Levites- whose inheritance was Yahweh, and not anything material in this world. Relationship with God and the honour of doing His service was seen as the ultimate antidote to materialism. Eliphaz seems to have perceived this when he told the wealthy Job: “Lay thou thy treasure in the dust… and the Almighty shall be thy treasure” (Job 22:24,25 RV).

There is no doubt that our attitude to materialism is a sure indicator of our real spiritual position. We are to make friends of mammon [riches] by giving it away (Lk. 16), forsaking all we have- the implication being that riches / mammon are our spiritual enemy, no matter how little of them we possess. And yet we are surrounded as never before by a materialistic, money loving world.

16:10 God Himself ‘detests’ the mammon which man so highly esteems (Lk. 16:13-15 NIV). A day will come when man will despise material possession. "In that day a man shall cast his idols of silver, and his idols of gold... to the moles and to the bats; to go into the clefts of the rocks... for fear of the Lord, and for the glory of his majesty" (Is. 2:20,21). But for us, today is the day of the Lord's coming in judgment. If we will be forsaking all we have in that day; we ought to now, in spirit. The parable of the unjust steward surely teaches that our attitude to the “mammon of unrighteousness” will determine our eternal destiny. The wealth of this world is called “that which is least… that which is another’s [i.e. God’s]” (Lk. 16:10,12 RV). We are told: “make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when it shall fail [at the Lord’s return], they may receive you into the eternal tabernacles” (Lk. 16:9 RV). There will come a day when money will fail, and when we will despise it for what it was- “that which is least”.

16:11 Lk.16:11,12 draws a parallel between the "true riches" and "that which is your own"; both phrases, in the context, refer to our reward in the Kingdom. The true riches is the spiritual knowledge of God. In Christ are hid all the riches of God. David rejoiced at the truths of the word more than at finding great riches. We can look forward to a highly personal knowledge of God in the Kingdom; the riches of knowledge "which is your own". This is in the same sense as Rev.2:17 speaks of each believer receiving a stone with "a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it". No other being will be able to enter into the personal knowledge of God which we will then have; as even in this life, it is scarcely possible to enter into another believer's spirituality and relationship with God. To some degree, the Kingdom will be something different for each of us, although this diversity will be bound together by the great unity of all being the collective bride of Christ, and all manifesting the same God, all having the same "penny a day".

If we are faithful with the riches we have been given, then we will be given the true riches of eternal salvation (Lk. 16:11). This "unrighteous mammon" is not our own, it is the wealth of "another man", i.e. God; whereas in the Kingdom, we will have our very own "true riches". This is an altogether lovely idea. Whatever we have now is not ours; we come into this world with nothing, and at death we carry nothing out (1 Tim. 6:7). We must give our all if we are to attain the Kingdom.

Lk. 16:11 hammers home the point: If we are faithful in how we use the things lent to us by God in this life, we will be given "the true riches". What we now have is "the Truth", because this is how the Spirit speaks of it. But Truth is relative, and the Truth God wants us to accept as Truth is doubtless designed by Him to be acceptable by mere mortals. But it isn't "the true riches" spoken of here. We are asked to be faithful in that which is God's, and then we will be given " that which is your own" (Lk. 16:12) in the Kingdom, as if we will be given "true riches" which somehow are relevant to us alone, the name given which no one knows except ourselves (Rev. 2:17). "Riches" represent the riches of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:13), and they are paralleled with "that which is your own", as if somehow in the Kingdom we will be given a vast depth of spiritual knowledge and perception which is in some way relevant to us alone. To me, those few words of Lk. 16:11,12 take me to the brink of understanding what the Kingdom will be about. We can go no further.

16:12 The time is soon coming when I will be given that which is my own (Lk. 16:12)- the things associated with being in the Kingdom. We are slaves now, owning nothing (1 Cor. 6:19), but then we will be gloriously free (Rom. 8:21). So this idea of owning nothing, not even ourselves, is only true of this life; the day of release from slavery will dawn, we will receive that true freedom and that true concept of personal possession- if now we resign it. Abraham really grasped this idea that we now can own nothing. He swore to Yahweh as "the possessor of heaven and earth, that I will not take from a thread even to a shoelatchet, and that I will not take anything that is thine..." (Gen. 14:22,23). He knew that Yahweh is the owner of all, and therefore he was not going to yield to the temptation to increase what appeared to be 'his' possessions. See on 1 Cor. 6:19.

We are asked to be faithful in that which is God's, and then we will be given "that which is your own" (Lk. 16:12) in the Kingdom, as if we will be given “true riches" which somehow are relevant to us alone, the name given which no one knows except ourselves (Rev. 2:17). "Riches" represent the riches of wisdom and knowledge (Col. 2:13), and they are paralleled with "that which is your own", as if somehow in the Kingdom we will be given a vast depth of spiritual knowledge and perception which is in some way relevant to us alone.

The parable of the unjust steward makes the point that in the Kingdom, the faithful will be given by Christ "the true riches... that which is your (very) own" (Lk. 16:12). The reward given will to some degree be totally personal. Each works out his own salvation, such as it will be (Phil. 2:12)- not in the sense of achieving it by works, but rather that the sort of spirituality we develop now will be the essential person we are in the eternity of God's Kingdom.

16:13 The Lord Jesus surely based His words of Lk. 16:13 on those of Elijah in 1 Kings 18:21: “No servant can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot serve God and mammon”. So although on one hand the Lord Jesus Himself quotes Elijah’s ‘truth’ approvingly, there is evidence galore that at the very same time, Elijah’s attitudes were far from Christ-like, as we will show below. At the very same time, Elijah mocks the Baal worshippers, teasing them to shout louder, because maybe their god has gone ‘in a journey’- a Hebraism for ‘gone to the toilet’ (1 Kings 18:27). This kind of mockery and crudeness is surely not how the Father and Son would have us act. Yet Elijah did this whilst at the same time deeply believing the fire would come down, and bringing it down by his faith. And saying other words which were alluded to with deep approval by the Lord.

Mammon is an “abomination” (Lk. 16:13,15)- a word associated in the Old Testament with idol worship. We are to not only be free of such idolatry, but despise materialism.

16:22 The way the Lord constructed His parable about the rich man and Lazarus in Luke 16 is proof enough that He Himself alluded to false ideas without correcting them, but rather in order to make a moral point within the faulty framework of understanding of His audience. Indeed, the Bible is full of instances of where a technically ‘wrong’ idea is used by God without correction in order to teach a higher principle. Thus an eagle doesn’t bear its young upon its wings; it hovers over them. But from an earth-bound perspective, it would appear that [looking up], the eagle is carrying its young on its wings. God accommodates Himself to our earthly perspective in order to lead us to Heavenly things. He doesn’t seek to correct our knowledge at every turn, or else His end aim would not be achieved.

We assume too quickly that the Lord's reference to the Angels carrying Lazarus to the bosom of Abraham means 'straight after his death'. But not necessarily so. He died, was buried, and then at the Lord's return, the Angels will carry the faithful to judgment / the Kingdom- they will go forth and gather the elect. The rich man would only be thrown into Gehenna at the last day, as Jesus so often taught elsewhere. The only element of accommodation to, or parody of, existing Jewish beliefs was in the rich man asking that Lazarus be returned from the dead to warn his brethren. And this element is doubtless inserted into the story by the Lord as a prophecy of how even His resurrection would not convert those who did not truly listen to the Old Testament.

So serious is the tendency to material acquisition that the Lord uses a telling hyperbole in Lk. 16 (in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus): He implies that the rich man was condemned just for being rich. This is hyperbole, an exaggeration to make a point. And the point was, that being rich is very likely to lead you to condemnation. The rust of riches is likened to the fire of condemnation and rejection (James 5:3).

16:23 Forget, for one moment, that 'the rich man and Lazarus' is a 'difficult passage'. Focus on how Lazarus is “in" Abraham's 'bosom' or chest (Lk. 16:23). This doesn't mean literally inside it. He was 'in' Abraham's arms, on his chest; and this is explained to us in v.25 as meaning that Lazarus was receiving "comfort" at the same time as the rich man was experiencing torment. Mic. 7:5 uses the same figure of being “in" a man's bosom to describe how a wife is held by her husband. And Lam. 2:12 uses it again to mean 'receiving comfort'. This is what the Kingdom will be like, especially immediately after our reward. For this is what the parable is about- the rich man will not be eternally tormented, his torment will be on knowing the reality of the fact that he stands there rejected. But while he is temporarily tormented, some poor beggar brother is getting comforted by Abraham. Both of them with Divine nature. Abraham holding the other brother to his chest and comforting him. And, in passing, this would interpret for us John's words in Jn. 1:18: "The… son, who is in the bosom of the Father" (after His ascension). After His ordeal, Jesus was as it were receiving comfort from His Father. There was and is an emotional bond between them. And so there will be between us all in the Kingdom. The parable of Lk. 16 goes on to say that there will be those who will want to cross over from rejection to acceptance, and also- and note this- there will be some who will want to go the other way to save those in the group of the rejected- weeping, screaming, gnashing their teeth as they will be. But it won't be possible for them. Even in Divine nature, some of us will have the desire to do the impossible- to save those rejected. It will be rather like the Angels in the time of Ahab suggesting their plans of action to God, but they were all turned down except for one. To have Divine nature, as Angels do, doesn't preclude having emotional thoughts. Nor does it mean we will have 100% understanding of God's ways beamed into us.

16:24 In the day of judgment, that man will cry out "father... have mercy / pity on me", just as Lazarus used to cry out to him daily. The apparent terseness and indifference of Abraham's response in the parable is surely intended as a reflection of the attitude which the rich man had shown to Lazarus in his mortal life. A great gap had been fixed between the saved and the rejected; and the language begs the question, 'Fixed by whom?'. Clearly, by the rich man in the attitude he adopted in his daily life. For it would not be God who fixed a gap between the damned and the saved; through His Son He seeks to save and bridge such gaps. The lesson is that whenever we hear the voice of the desperate, we hear inverted echoes of our own desperation at the final judgment. And how we answer now is related to how we will be answered then. We make the answer now.

16:26 The eternal chasm between them was foreseen by the Psalmist: "As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways, the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity [cp. the condemned goats]: but peace shall be upon Israel [the sheep, looking on at the rejection of the wicked]" (Ps. 125:5). Those who will want to cross the chasm then will be unable to (Lk. 16:26); the great gulf is fixed. In the context of describing the establishment of the Kingdom, we read that God's servants will eat, drink and rejoice, singing for joy of heart, at the same time as the rejected will be ashamed, hunger and thirst and howl for "breaking of spirit"- all the language of the rejected (Is. 65:13,14,17,18 RVmg.). It seems that this is a picture of the rejected watching the accepted eating with Christ as the Passover is eaten anew. Hence their howling and shame; for shame implies being naked in the presence of others. Thus the rejected will in some sense be in the presence of the accepted.

16:28 The fact that sin really does result in eternal death, and that death is really unconsciousness, there is no immortal soul, the Hebrew word nephesh doesn't mean that, leads us to preachthe hope of resurrection which we have. It must do- for otherwise we would be plain selfish. And it makes us realize for ourselves the decisiveness and finality of this life's decisions for the determining of eternal destiny. The hope of resurrection is the first and most basic need of our fellows. It was said of the 18th century British preacher Richard Baxter that "he preached as a dying man to dying men". Our mortality, and our appreciation of that of others, should lead to an intensity of appeal to them. Knowing the truth about death leads to a great desire to testify to others. Recall how the rich man in the parable, once he perceived the truth about the death state, earnestly wished to testify to his brethren and persuade them to believe (Lk. 16:28). Elie Wiesel tells how victims of the holocaust either facing death or reflecting upon it later, felt an overbearing desire to testify to others: "We [victims of the holocaust] have all been witnesses and we all feel we have to bear testimony... and that became an obsession, the single most powerful obsession that permeated all the lives, all the dreams, all the work of those people. One minute before they died they thought that was what they had to do". We don't- quite- have to go through those starings of death in the face to perceive death as we should; for the Bible has a lot to say about it, and if we accept the Biblical definitions, then we too will feel this strong compulsion to testify to others.

16:30 Reflect on what the Lord was really saying in the parable of the rich man and Lazarus. It was Abraham who showed the rich man how useless were human riches. The rich man thought that his natural ancestry was enough- he appeals to “father Abraham”. But the point of the parable was surely that the rich man was not a true son of Abraham because he had been materialistic and had neglected the needs of his poorer brother. This was and is the implication of being a true son of Abraham.

16:31- see on Lk. 24:11.

The parable of the rich man and the poor beggar Lazarus surely carried with it the message that we ought to be generous to the poor; and that there is a need to do this in view of the judgment to come and sense of the future we may miss because of our selfishness in this life. The condemned rich man wanted to warn others of the need to be generous to the poor so that they would not be condemned. The Lord's comment was that it was His resurrection from the dead which was intended to "persuade" people of this (Lk. 16:31). Accepting the import of His resurrection therefore should result in our being "persuaded" towards a life of generosity to the marginal- just, of course, as the Lord's death and resurrection was God's grace to us, the marginal beggars in spiritual terms.

17:1 Not all the disciples were dirt poor. Their fishing business employed hired servants. The parable about “one of you” having a servant ploughing and preparing his food was spoken to the twelve (Lk. 17:1,7).

Even if we are separated from this world externally, we can still act in a worldly way, and share the world’s condemnation. The Lord taught that the believer who makes his brother stumble should have a millstone hung around his neck and be cast into the sea (Lk. 17:2). This is exactly Babylon’s judgment (Rev. 18:21). The unloving in the ecclesia will be treated like the unloving world whose spirit they share.

17:3 "Take heed to yourselves; if thy brother trespass... forgive him" (Lk. 17:3) is alluded to in Acts 20:28, where Paul says we should take heed of the likelihood of false teachers. Surely what he's saying is 'Yes, take heed to forgive your brother personal offences, take heed because you'll be tempted not to forgive him; but have the same level of watchfulness for false teaching'.

The Greek and Hebrew words translated ‘repentance’ strictly mean a change of mind, and not necessarily any works / actions. God in this sense can ‘repent’. It seems to me that we have to recognize a changed state of heart in our repentant brother, without demanding ‘works’. In Mt. 18:15, the Lord says of a sinful brother: “If your brother sins… go and point out the fault… if he listens to you, you have regained your brother”. But in Lk. 17:3, He says: “If your brother sins, rebuke him, and if he repents, forgive him”. This would parallel the brother’s ‘repentance’ with him ‘listening’ to you. Seeing repentance is a state of the heart, and we simply can’t know the hearts of others, it seems to me very hard indeed to judge the level of another’s repentance.

17:4 Peter found it hard to grapple with the idea that the degree or amount of sin was irrelevant. But "seventy times seven" indicated how far out he was. Even when a brother's repentance seems humanly unlikely (the 490th time in the day takes some believing!), we must still have that covenant mercy for him. Note that only a verbal repentance was required- and the Lord said that the forgiver was to just accept this, rather than demand evidence of 'forsaking' in physical terms. The Greek word for repentance is a compound meaning ‘to think differently after’. Repentance is essentially a changed attitude of mind. This is why it’s difficult to judge whether it exists within the heart of another person. Because our very natures are sinful, we live constantly in need and receipt of mercy, every second of our existence. The New Covenant is often spoken of in the Old Testament as "mercy" and/or "truth". If we are in that Covenant, we are permanently living in grace/mercy. Mercy is not something which we just receive in the few moments while we pray for forgiveness. It is something constantly ongoing. We live in it. If we appreciated this, we would not see our forgiveness of others as something we occasionally 'grant'; we will extend mercy to them constantly, as God does to us.

17:5 The disciples asked that as a community, their faith may be increased so as to forgive others as Jesus requires them to (Lk. 17:5). The Lord's response is that they should on an individual level realize that even if they were perfectly obedient, they were "unprofitable servants" (Lk. 17:10)- and the only other time that term occurs on the Lord's lips is when speaking of how the unprofitable servant will be cast away to condemnation at the last day (Mt. 25:30). What He's saying is: 'Imagine condemnation. Being cast away as you stand before the judgment seat. That's you- that's what should happen, even if you "do" all. Get it- you're saved by grace, an amazing grace- respond to that, and forgiving others will flow naturally enough from that'.

17:8 There is the real possibility that when Christ returns, none will hold the faith (Lk. 17:8). Only eight people were truly watching when the flood came; and Peter cites this as an example for us at the time of Christ's return. No wonder there is such emphasis upon the need to watch. If we are the generation which will see Christ's appearing, we will be the only people who never physically die. And we will be those who welcome the Lord Jesus to this earth, who stand ready to welcome Him. This is an honour higher than we probably appreciate. No wonder there is this pressing need in these last days to watch our doctrine, our way of life, to hold on to the great salvation which we have been given in prospect.

What we may think of as righteousness which touches His heart is nothing more than the monotonous ploughing of a field, according to Lk. 17:8-10. This extraordinary story is so simple: A master doesn't thank his slave for ploughing all day. When he comes home in the evening, the slave's job is to get the Master's food ready, and then when the Master has been looked after, he can get himself something. The Master has no need to thank (Gk. charis, s.w. to give "grace") the slave, and the slave expects nothing else. This is how the Lord sees our works; He expects us to serve Him for nothing, because of our role as His slaves, and not because we expect any gratitude, recognition or reward. We serve because we are His slaves. The parable teaches that absolute obedience should be the norm of our lives, not the exception, and that this is only what our Master demands and expects. From the way He told the story, Christ framed our sympathy to be with the slave. But His point is that when we have done all, worked all day and then gone the extra mile in the evening, we should still feel unprofitable slaves, slaves who aren't mush profit to their Master. The passive, unspoken acceptance seen between Master and slave in the parable should be seen between us and the Lord. There is no attempt by the Lord to ameliorate the Master : slave figure; "Ye call me master and Lord, and ye say well, for so I am" (Jn. 13:13). And yet we are told that at the judgment we will receive "praise of God" (1 Cor. 4:5). This can not, therefore, be praise of our efforts at obedience; it will be praise for the status we are in on account of being in Christ, being counted as righteous as Him. The parable was spoken in the context of the disciples thinking that God would be very happy with them if they forgave their brother seven times a day (Lk. 17:3-6). But the Lord is replying that things like this, which to us may seem going more than the extra mile, should be the norm; such heights of spirituality are only the daily ploughing of the field, and are only the obvious minimum which Christ accepts. He won't shew us grace ("thank") for doing this- with the implication that His grace is totally undeserved, not related to our forgiveness of others or other acts of obedience. The story paints the Master as being rather ungrateful and hard, to see his servant work so hard, then go the extra mile, and not utter a word of thanks. And the Lord is saying: 'Yes, to the natural mind, that's how I am'. Christ says that the slave will not expect the Master to say to him "Sit down to meat", but will expect to be told, tired as he is, to gird himself and serve his Master (Lk. 17:7,8). The Lord's words here are surely intended to recall when He said that in the Kingdom He would make us each sit down to meat and come forth and serve us (Lk. 12:37). The point of the connection is to show that Christ's treatment of us in the Kingdom will be different from that of an ordinary Master, but we really, honestly shouldn't expect it; we should serve because we are His servants, not expecting any praise or response from him. As it happens, He will give us all this in the Kingdom, but we shouldn't expect this at all. As the slave would have been dumbfounded if his Master did this, so should our response be in the Kingdom. What makes it difficult is that we know our Master is like this, that He's a most unusual Lord, one who washes our feet; and the extraordinary relationship we have with Him ought to make us eagerly desire to show a similar service to our brethren (Jn. 13:13,14). 

17:9 The story of the slave who worked all day in the field and was then expected to come home and cook for his master without a word of thanks to him seems to be more realistic, lacking the element of unreality usually seen in the parables. But the Greek word "charis", usually translated "grace", is the one used for "thank" here (Lk. 17:9). The point is that we don't receive grace because of our going the extra mile, as we are inclined to think. We receive grace, but not as a result of all our special efforts; these are what are expected of us, on account of the fact that we have become salves to our Master, the Lord Jesus. At the end of all our special efforts (in whatever sphere), we must consciously make an effort to recognize that we are "unprofitable servants" (Lk. 17:10). This must surely connect with Mt. 25:30, which describes the rejected at the day of judgment as unprofitable servants. If we judge / condemn ourselves, we will not be condemned (1 Cor. 11:31). This is just one of many examples of where the Lord's parables seem intended to be linked with each other- which further proves that they are not stories with a deeper meaning, whose storyline is not intended to be carefully considered. We must recognize not only that we are unprofitable servants, but that we have only done what was our "duty" or debt to do- the implication being that we were sold into slavery on account of an unpayable debt. This is exactly the figure used by the Lord to describe us in Mt. 18:25.  

17:10 There is a telling detail in Lk. 17:10 which further reflects the grace of Jesus: "When ye shall have done (not 'when you do') all these things which are commanded you, (you will) say, We are unprofitable servants". It may be that this is taking us forward to the Kingdom; it is at the judgment that we 'do all' (Eph. 6:13), it is in the Kingdom that we will obey all the commandments (Ps. 119:6). This parable is a glimpse into the appreciation of grace we will have as we enter the Kingdom; once we are fully righteous, we will realize how unprofitable we are of ourselves (notice we may still feel in a sense "unprofitable" then). We will realize that all our service is only the repaying of the huge debt incurred by our sinfulness. Then, and perhaps only then, will we see works in their true perspective. This surely is the purpose of the judgment seat. We will walk away with the sense of wonder at the grace of Jesus that filled the one-hour workers as they walked away from the pay table with a day's wages. 

We shouldn’t be discouraged if in our self perception we see ourselves as serious sinners. We must say of ourselves that “we are unprofitable servants” (Lk. 17:10)- i.e. condemned, for this is how the phrase is used elsewhere in the Lord’s thinking (Mt. 25:30). This is the finest paradox of all. If we perceive ourselves as worthy of condemnation, we will be saved. If we would judge [i.e. condemn] ourselves, we will not be judged / condemned (1 Cor. 11:31).

As slaves, we serve without expecting any thanks at all; we do what is our duty to do by reason of who we are (Lk. 17:10). The Lord spoke this in response to the disciples saying it was impossible for them to accept His teaching about unconditional forgiveness of each other (Lk. 17:5). Man’s ingratitude is perhaps one of the hardest winds to weather, and it can so easily blow us off course in our service. But as the Lord’s slaves, judged by Him alone, we didn’t ought to look for recognition of our labours; neither should we demand apologies for anything. The Lord humbled Himself to wash the feet of His brethren, even though He was their leader (Phil. 2:4-11 is full of allusion to the foot washing incident, as if there the Lord exemplified the spirit of the cross). There may be brethren who consider it beneath them to talk to others, who think it is not for them to help wash up or move furniture or all the host of other tasks that our gatherings require. But in these things lies the spirit of Christ. Paul didn’t lord it over others, but was a fellow-worker with them (2 Cor. 1:24). It is one of the finest paradoxes: that he who is the greatest must be the servant of all. See on Mk. 10:45.

17:11 Time and again, the Gospel records reveal how the disciples manifest the Lord Jesus. There are several passages where the text is unclear, as to whether it should read, e.g., “As they were on the way” or “As He went” (Lk. 17:11 RV cp. AV). The textual confusion may reflect the unity between the Lord and His preachers. Even within the Gospels, incident after incident shows the Lord doing something alone, and then the disciples somehow being presented as doing the same.

Even when He was heading away from Jerusalem during the course of that final journey, He's still described as going to Jerusalem, Lk. 17:11.

17:12 Reflect how the group of ten lepers huddled together, Jew and Samarian together, their differences sunk in their common appreciation of their desperation (Lk. 17:12). In deep seated humility, we can wait with unfeigned faith for the day of acceptance to dawn, serving with a true love, not interested in feuding with our brethren, thankfully partaking of the emblems with them, not forgetting how we were cleansed from our past sins (cp. 2 Pet. 1:9 RV- a sure allusion to the nine ungrateful lepers who forgot the wonder of their cleansing). If we remember how we were cleansed, then there will abound in us virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, brotherly kindness, culminating in a true love (so Peter’s logic runs in 2 Pet. 1:5-9). For our desperation, the cross of the Lord Jesus, the frankness of the Father's forgiveness- these things will ever live within our grateful, gracious souls.

17:20 The disciples repeat the Pharisees' question about when the end will come- in almost the same words. They were clearly influenced by them (Lk. 17:20 cp. Mk. 13:4).  

The tendency to multiply words in prayer without intensely meaning them is probably behind the Lord's teaching about faith as a grain of mustard seed, which could move a mountain (Lk. 17:20). He's surely saying that a little bit of the real thing can do such wonders.

"When will the Kingdom come?" was another perennial question (Lk. 17:20)- again answered by the Lord redirecting the entire enquiry. "The kingdom of God is within you... as it was in the days of Lot... one shall be taken and the other shall be left" (Lk. 17:34). 'Don't worry about the calendar date, don't let a fascination with prophecy distract you from the personal reality that whenever I do come, some will be left behind. Will that be you?'. See on Lk. 19:11.

17:21 The life that He had and now lives is the essence of the Kingdom life. Who He was and is, this is the definition of the Kingdom life. It’s why one of His titles is “the kingdom of God” (Lk. 17:21). And it’s why it can be said that we ‘have’ eternal life now, in that we can live the essence of the life we will eternally live, right now.

17:21 "The kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:21). This is more correctly translated "the kingdom of God is among you" (see A.V. mg.). The context shows that Jesus was speaking to the Pharisees (v.20); the "you" therefore refers to them. They were certainly not Christian believers - the kingdom of God was not established in their hearts. The Jews were making a great public show of their zeal in looking for Messiah. In this passage, "the kingdom of God" seems to be a title of Messiah, seeing he is to be the king of the kingdom. Thus when Jesus entered Jerusalem, the people shouted, "Blessed is he (Messiah) that comes in the name of the Lord:  blessed be the kingdom of our father David, that comes in the name of the Lord" (Mark 11:9,10). This parallels Messiah and "the kingdom".  Thus John the baptist preached that "the kingdom of heaven is at hand. For this is he (Jesus) that was (prophesied)" (Matt. 3:2,3).  In our passage in Luke 17:20-24, Jesus answered their question about "when the kingdom of God should come", by speaking about the coming of "the son of man". Christ's point was that the Jews were making so much show of being on the look out for Messiah's coming, expecting him to be suddenly revealed in power, that they failed to realize that Messiah - "the kingdom of God" - was already among them in the humble person of Jesus. Thus he warned them: "The kingdom of God (Messiah) comes not with outward show... behold, the kingdom of God is among you" (Luke 17:20,21). A well known theologian, Joachim Jeremias, has come to the same conclusion: “The meaning ‘indwelling in’ can certainly be excluded. Neither in Judaism nor elsewhere in the New Testament do we find the idea that the reign of God is something indwelling in men, to be found, say, in the heart; such a spiritualistic understanding is ruled out both for Jesus and for the early Christian tradition” (Joachim Jeremias, New Testament Theology (London: SCM, 1972) p. 101). He goes on to draw out the parallel between Lk. 17:21 and Lk. 17:23,24:

“Neither shall they say, Lo, here! or, There! for lo, the kingdom of God is within you…And they shall say to you, Lo, there! Lo, here! go not away, nor follow after them: for as the lightning, when it flashes out of the one part under the heaven, shines unto the other part under heaven; so shall the Son of man be in his day”.

The parallel is between the Kingdom of God coming at the return of Christ at the last day- and the Kingdom being ‘within’ or ‘among’ you. Jeremias suggests on this basis that “the Kingdom of God is within / among you” means ‘The Kingdom of God will come among you suddenly and visibly, at the last day- so it’s no good expecting it right at this moment now’.

Who He was and is, this is the definition of the Kingdom life. It’s why one of His titles is “the kingdom of God” (Lk. 17:21). And it’s why it can be said that we ‘have’ eternal life now, in that we can live the essence of the life we will eternally live, right now.

17:22 Lk. 17:22 warns that in the last days, the Lord’s disciples will “desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see it”. Yet Jn. 8:56 implies it is always possible to see one of the days of the Son of man through faith in Him. Is the Lord not hinting here that there will be a clouded spiritual vision amongst His latter day followers, even though they will “desire” this not to be the case? And can we not see uncomfortable similarities with our position and feelings today, realizing our vision is somewhat clouded, desiring for things to be different, but still not seeing…?

17:24-26 Lk. 17:24-26 speaks of the days of the Son of man" - and refers them to three things:

1. The days of Christ's ministry

2. The time leading up to His return

3. The day of judgment, of His actual second coming.

Putting these together, we come to the following conclusion: those living in the very last days will effectively be living with the actual presence of Christ, it will be as if Christ has physically returned, although He has not done so. This may well be in order to provide encouragement to the persecuted saints in their latter day holocaust; but it surely suggests that they will know that Christ is about to return, that they are living in the days of the Son of man. Those days leading up to Christ's return will not, therefore, just seem like any other portion of human history- to the faithful. The signs will be so clear to them that it will be as if Christ has returned.

17:26 The idea that the believers who live on the brink of the second coming will know the day and hour fits in with at least two themes in latter day prophecy: firstly, that there will be a sudden upsurge in Biblical and prophetic understanding within the true ecclesia in the very last days; and secondly, the repeated teaching that the second coming will occur after a defined, specific number of days of persecution (literal days, it seems, seeing that no figurative interpretation makes any real sense). The believers who are alive in this period and correctly perceive their position in prophecy will then be in exactly the situation we spoke of at the beginning of this study: they will know with absolute certainty that the Lord's coming is imminent. This is why the days leading up to Christ's return are called "the days of the son of man" (Lk. 17:24,26)- the signs will be so clear that it will be as if  he's back. And doubtless in the depths of their (our?) tribulation, we'll dearly cling on to that glorious assurance.

17:26-32- see on 2 Pet. 2:5-8.

17:27 In Contra Celsum we read Origen justifying the Christian church against Celsus’ criticisms that it is a church of poor, simple people. That the majority of Christians would be poor and simple was indeed the expectation of both the Lord Jesus and Paul. Yet Origen seeks to justify the Christian church as middle class and respectable, with respected intellectuals amongst its membership. It was and is this desire to be seen as worldly-wise and ‘normal’ which is the death-knoll for any revival of Christianity. It was this which led to the acceptance of the Trinity; and it is this which robs true Christianity of its radical nature and appeal today. Perhaps in our last days this lesson needs to be learnt as never before. The Lord’s picture of the world of the last days is of a household eating and drinking, absorbed with being normal (Mt. 24:38; Lk. 17:27). But the Lord’s point is that this very ‘normal’ behaviour is what He finds so wrong.

17:28 There can be no doubt that the sexual aspects of Sodom's sins have great similarity to the moral filth of our present world. But significantly it was not this aspect which our Lord chose to highlight when speaking of how "the days of Lot" typified those of His return. Instead He spoke of those things which were more likely to ensnare His people: "They (as well as our present world) did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded" (Lk.17:28). Their obsession with daily activities without an awareness of God was as bad as their other sins; a point we would do well to be aware of. However, their eating and drinking must have been to gross excess- Ez.16:49 defines "the iniquity of Sodom" as being "fulness of bread" among other things. Some lavish Christian lifestyles frequently feature "fulness of bread" - but because it is not perceived as a gross sin, this unhealthy similarity with Sodom slips by unchallenged. "They bought, they sold" suggests that Sodom was a major trading centre, rapidly increasing in wealth; "they planted, they builded" (Lk.17:28) implies a real boom town. Such success resulted in the people being proud and haughty (Ez.16:49,50); the wealth created at the expense of others brought about "abundance of idleness in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy" (Ez.16:49). It is these aspects of Sodom which are so precisely matched by our self-centred, money mad world. As our Lord realized, it is these aspects which are most likely to ensnare the child of God. Yet Sodom's people were not completely unaware of their religious conscience. Jeremiah likened the false prophets of Israel who effectively taught that sin was service to God to the people of Sodom, suggesting that they too said the same (Jer.23:14). This is another hint that the people of Sodom had some degree of responsibility, as have latter day Israel whom they typify.

17:29 The whole human experience is analogous to sleepwalking; we go through the motions of reality, but actually (as a race) we are spiritually asleep. The world around us are sleepwalking,  in God's eyes. And we too should share His perspective. The Lord said that Lot in his last days in Sodom was a type of the believers living in the world at the time of the end (Lk. 17:28-31). Lot in those last hours was walking around the streets of that city trying to save his family, walking amidst angry, blind people who hated him, drunk on their own lusts. Walking those streets must have been an uncanny experience. But that is God's picture of the world of our day, and our own uncanny, almost charmed life amongst the sleepwalkers

17:30 "The day of Christ" refers both to the time of the believers' judgment seat in Phil. 2:16, and to the lightning-like appearing of Christ to the world in judgment in Lk. 17:23,29,30. The coming of Christ in judgment will be at the same 'day' for both believer and unbeliever. But what evidence is there that the "day of Christ" is a period of 24 hours? We must understand that the meaning of time as we know it will be collapsed around the time of the second coming. It is for this reason that we can only suggest possible chronological scenarios, of which there are as many versions as there are Bible students.

God's Name is essentially His character. He is His character. In all He creates and destroys, in all He shows of Himself to man, this character is revealed, magnified and glorified. Lk. 17:30 says that at the last day, the Son of man will be “revealed”; and yet the other references to the Son of man being revealed refer to the way He is even now revealed to His true followers by the Father (Mt. 11:27; 16:17 etc.). At the second coming, the real nature of God’s Son, the essence of His character, will be revealed to all. At the very time that the Wicked One will be revealed, so will the Son of God (2 Thess. 2:8). In the way God judges man, His character is again glorified and revealed; for in the way He judges, His essential characteristics are revealed. It is therefore possible to see anticipations of the day of future judgment in how God has judged in the past- thus incidents like Adam and Cain's rejection, the Babylonian and Roman invasions and the subsequent condemnation of God's people, the flood... all these are prototypes of the future judgment. Take, for example, the prophecy of Obadiah against Edom. It is full of language elsewhere used about the judgment seat.

17:31- see on Lk. 14:33.

Initially, it does not appear that there will be much compulsion to come to the judgment. After a meeting of the Lord in the air (1 Thess. 4:17), both sheep and goats eventually appear before the judgment seat. The point has been made that when the Angels first come to call us to judgment at the second coming (Matt. 13:39), there will be an element of choice as to whether we immediately accept the call to go and meet Christ. “In that day” we will have the choice to go and take our goods from the house, or to go immediately with the Lord (Lk. 17:31). Under the law, the trumpet sounded and Israel had to gather themselves together (Num. 10:4); yet Paul says in Thessalonians that the Lord comes with a trumpet to gather His people together. If this is indeed based upon the Old Testament pattern, then there is an element of choice as to whether we gather ourselves unto Him- at least initially. Noah and Lot were invited, not forced, to leave the world. Those who respond to Christ's return "immediately" will be accepted, implying that the unworthy delay. This means that the response is optional in the first instance (Lk. 12:36). There are other indications of this.  The most obvious is in the parable of the virgins, where the wise go out to meet their Lord immediately, whilst the foolish delay in order to spiritually prepare themselves. Our attitude in that split second is so vital. The rejected will mourn and wail, in anticipation of their future condemnation, when they see the sign of the Son of man indicating His imminent coming (Mt. 24:30,31). And this is why there is the implication that effectively, the division between sheep and goats happens in the gathering process (Mt. 25:33); our response to the gathering is our judgment. The parables invite us to see the Lord gathering the wheat to one place and the tares to another, as if the gathering is the judgment (Mt. 13:30); the wheat is gathered to the garner, and the chaff to the place of burning (Mt. 3:12). The Angel who reaps for judgment 'thrusts in' his sickle, and 'casts out' the wicked in rejection (Rev. 14:19). But 'thrust in' and 'cast out' in that verse both translate the same Greek word ballo- the implication being that the gathering-to-judgment process is in fact the separation process. Likewise the net is "cast" into the sea in order to gather people for judgment, and then the rejected are "cast" away (Mt. 13:47,48).

The news that Joseph was alive and glorified was received rather like that of Christ's resurrection: initial disbelief, but then the family of Jacob who believed it rose up and left all they had to go to be with Joseph; Israel in AD70 and the last days are likewise bidden leave their stuff and go to be with Christ (Gen. 45:20 cp. Lk. 17:31).

17:32 Lot seems to have gone to Sodom for material ends- our Lord holds up his wife as an example of those who love the materialism of this world more than the reality of his Kingdom (Lk.17:31,32). But the Angels speak of spiritually prepared people as being the only real possessions Lot had: "Whatsoever thou hast in the city, bring them out".

"But his wife looked back from behind him" (Gen.19:26) suggests the picture of the wife following behind Lot, filled with remorse at the loss of all she had held dear. Our Lord comments concerning not desiring our "stuff which is in the house" in the day of his coming: "Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever (like her) shall seek (Greek: 'plot') to save his life shall lose it". We can infer from this that she plotted and schemed how to save her possessions- i.e. her 'life', seeing that for her, her life did consist of the abundance of the things which she possessed (Lk.12:15). These feelings grew so strong that she paused to take a loving, wistful look at the city. Remember that the fire only fell after Lot was in Zoar; therefore the city was looking as it normally did. Their exodus was at night- "the sun was risen upon the earth when Lot entered into Zoar" (Gen.19:23), so she would have seen the flickering lights of the city in the distance. Compare this with how the virgins of Mt.25 go out to meet their Lord at night.

"Remember Lot's wife" suggests that we should meditate upon her position as it has especial warning for the last days. Her leaving of Sodom appears to have been due to the personal influence of Lot her husband, yet ultimately she failed to have that personal desire to obey God. It would not be pushing the type too far to suggest that the wives of latter day believers may feel that they can enter the Kingdom in the spiritual shadow of their husbands. One cannot help wondering whether she left Ur not through personal response to the promises but because the others were leaving. Doubtless her uncle Abraham would have led her and the whole family in regular prayer and meditation during the journey towards Canaan. But somehow the reality of the God of Israel was never allowed to touch her inner being, and the years of the soft life in Sodom would have sealed her spiritual state. It is hard to avoid making the point that many of us may be in a similar position. Gen. 19:14 RVmg. brings out the likely immediate background to her decision. Lot’s sons in law “were to marry” his daughters. The Lord too perceived that they were marrying and giving in marriage the very day the flood came, and He pointed out the similarities with the Sodom situation (Lk. 17:27-29). Could it not be that the very day of the double wedding, they had to leave? With all the build up to the wedding, Lot and his wife would so wanted to have stayed just another day to see the wedding of their two daughters. It is to the girls credit that they both left. But Lot’s wife had invested so much in it emotionally that she just had to look back.

17:34 Not only is the city of Sodom representative of the world of the last days, but Lot's calling out of Sodom by the Angels is typical of our being 'taken' by Angels to meet the Lord.

In that day, "One will be taken, whilst the other will be left [behind]" [Lk. 17:34]. The Greek for "taken" is the same as in Jn. 14:3- the Lord comes again to take us to be with Him. Seeing this passage also speaks of the second coming, it seems to me on reflection to fit more logically that the faithful are taken away; and the rejected 'left behind". The Greek word for "left" really has the idea 'sent away'. Whilst it's not the same Greek word, it is the same idea as in several pictures of the judgment- the rejected are 'sent away'; the idea of being 'left sitting' doesn't seem to be there. So in the very moment of the Lord's return, the essential division is made; the faithful are taken, whilst the rejected are "left", but their being "left [behind]" is actually their condemnation, their being sent away from the Lord.

17:36- see on 1 Thess. 4:15.

17:37 God sometimes uses language in a way which we may find embarrassing or inappropriate. Thus when creating a mini-parable to explain the gathering of the responsible to him at the second coming, Jesus likens himself to a rotting carcass which will instinctively attract the eagles, representing the responsible (Lk. 17:37). Within the human use of language, it seems inappropriate to liken the Lord Jesus Christ to a decaying carcass. It seems similarly inappropriate to liken God’s response to our prayers to an unjust judge who grudgingly answers requests (Lk. 18:1-7), or to repeatedly compare Jesus to a thief (Mt. 24:43; Lk. 12:39,33; 1 Thess. 5:2-4; Rev. 3:3; 16:15). It seems out of place to liken believers struggling to enter the Kingdom to violent people trying to storm a city by force (Matt. 11:12). The absentee landlords of Galilee were despised by all; and yet the Lord uses one of them as a figure for Himself (Lk. 20:9). Most stunning of all is Psalm 78:36,65,66: “They (Israel) did flatter Him (God) with their mouth… then the Lord awaked… like a mighty man that shouteth by reason of wine. And he smote his enemies in the hinder parts”. Now hold on, this just isn’t what we expect; to read about God being flattered by foolish men, and for Him to be likened to a drunken soldier who goes on the rampage kicking others in their private parts (this is alluding back to 1 Sam. 5:9). And the Lord likens His final appeal to Israel to casting dung around them (Lk. 13:8).

18:1 Lk. 18:1: "He spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint”. There are so many allusions by Paul to this verse and the ensuing parable. This shows just how like us Paul was; he had his favourite parables, one or two that really stuck in his mind, just as we do. And he alluded to them! They were in his heart, to inspire and motivate him, just as the Lord intended. Paul picks up the idea of not fainting in 2 Thess. 3:13: "Brethren, be not weary (s.w. "not to faint") in well doing" . What well-doing did Paul have in mind? Attending the Sunday meetings? Being patient with some difficult sister in the ecclesia? The connection with Lk. 18:1 tells us what he had in mind: keep on praying intensely. It's no co-incidence that Paul started that section of 2 Thess. 3 (in v.1) with the exhortation: "Brethren, pray for us". And he concludes it with the same rubric: "Brethren, be not weary" (faint not), in your prayers. He knew from the parable that repeated prayer was powerful. And so he asks them to keep at it for him, because he needed it. Perhaps Paul had the same thing in mind when he wrote to the Ephesians (3:13): "In (Christ)  we have boldness and access with confidence (to God, in prayer, cp. Heb. 4:16)... wherefore I desire that ye faint not (s.w. Lk. 18:1) at my tribulations"; is he not implying 'You know how powerful prayer is, so don't faint in it, you know what struggles I'm having, please keep on praying for me, like that persistent widow in the parable'. This fits in with a number of other passages in which Paul unashamedly begs his brethren to pray for him. In this we see his humility, his high regard for other brethren who were almost certainly weaker than him, and also the physical desperation of his daily life. 

18:1-5 Note the Psalmists' joy that judgment is coming (Ps. 67:4; 96:12,13). The same spirit can be seen in the parable of the woman who keeps begging the unjust judge to open her case. She may have had her little piece of land taken away from her, whatever it was, she is confident she has a watertight case and this is why she so pesters the judge to judge her (Lk. 18:1-5). Now this is a powerful challenge to a brotherhood which underneath seems to fear the judgment process. David shows the same spirit in asking God to 'avenge my cause' (Ps. 35:23). There is the same confidence that by grace, he is in the right and longs for justice to be done. So much of Romans is dedicated to the images of the court room; we are justified, and we should  be earnestly seeking the vindication of Spirit against flesh.

18:3 Much of the pain felt by the spiritually abused focuses upon the issue of injustice. They were treated like this, but others are treated like that; you can't break bread in a church, but he can, even though they know that he is homosexual; she isn't allowed to attend the gathering but he is, and so forth. The Lord told a parable about a woman who repeatedly asked for 'justice', with the implication that she would only eventually find it at the Lord's return. But He went straight on to tell another parable, about the repentant man who beat upon his breast saying "God have mercy upon me, the sinner"; this man "went down to his house justified". The theme of 'justification' is thus a thread which continues from the woman demanding 'justification' (Gk.) against her abuser (Lk. 18:3). The Lord's point wasn't merely that justice will only be ultimately done at His return; but further, that we are all serious sinners, who have been 'justified' by God's grace; and this colossal-scale experience of receiving undeserved justice / justification should mean that we're not so concerned about receiving justice in human matters in this life. There cannot be perfection this side of God's Kingdom being established upon earth. To seek for perfection in relationships is perhaps reflective of a lack of faith or understanding relating to the Kingdom of perfection which is yet to come. One of the greatest things for me about that Kingdom is the unity and perfection of relationships which there will then be. It is, however, all so hard because the New Testament presents how the church should be- an ideal of loving, sensitive, caring relationships in the spirit of Christ. And this is very attractive to us. It's very hard, therefore, to face the reality that this great intention, this lofty possibility, has actually been left unachieved by the church. It's like reading the descriptions of God's house in Ezekiel 40-48. This wonderful temple could've come about in Ezekiel's time. The possibilities are given in such great detail- but their fulfillment was quite simply dependent upon whether Judah wished to make it come real by living up to it (Ez. 43:10-12). And they chose not to. It's the same with the ideal "house of God" presented to us in the New Testament. Those who tend towards perfectionism find this very hard to cope with. It is indeed a tragedy, that so much Divine potential is as it were wasted, not realized, by our dysfunction. But none of this should take away from the personal reality of salvation and relationship with God which we each have. This is not to say that exposing abuse and dealing with it shouldn't happen. It should. But let's not feel that if justice isn't done, we are somehow without justice. We are the ultimately justified, and our standing before God's judgment seat is far more significant that our standing before that of mere humans.

First century Palestinian peasant courts have been described in some detail. They involved a mass of men shouting at the judge, who usually decided cases according to who gave the largest bribe. Women never went to court. It was a man's world there. This woman had no male in her extended family to speak for her. She had no money to pay a bribe. But still she went to court and sought to persuade the judge. In this element of unreality we see the bravery of prayer, the height of the challenge; that we who have nothing and no human chance of being heard, will indeed be heard. It would've struck the initial peasant hearers of the story as strange that above all the male shouting, somehow this heroic woman was heard- and was heard repeatedly. Again, we see an encouragement to prayer. And to liken powerful praying to a woman was in itself unusual in that male dominated age.

18:5- see on Lk. 11:7.

The widow by her continual coming in prayer 'wearied ' the judge into responding (18:5); Strong defines this Greek word as meaning 'to beat and black and blue' (RVmg. gives "bruise"). It's a strange way of putting it, but this is another reminder of the intense struggle of prayer. Jacob's wrestling with the Angel was really a clinging on to him, pleading with tears for the blessing of forgiveness; and in this he was our example (Hos. 12:4-6). Lk. 21:36 RV speaks of the believer 'prevailing' with God in prayer. Our prayers are to give the Father no "rest" (Is. 62:7), no cessation from violent warfare (Strong). See on Col. 2:1.

The parable of the widow who keeps nagging the free-wheeling judge is rather humanly unlikely. Would such a tough guy really pay attention to the repeated requests of the woman? But although he considers himself independent of both God and men, he ends up being controlled by the widow. This reflects the immense power which there is in human prayer, and God’s willingness to respond if we are importunate enough.

18:7- see on 2 Pet. 3:9.

The many connections between Revelation and the Gospels need to be followed up; the incidents in Christ's earthly experience seem to be woven by him into the fabric of the visions he gives John. The theme of persecution is especially common. The widow crying to God because of persecution represents the prayers of the "elect" remnant of the last days (Lk. 18:7 cp. Mk. 13:20). They will be asking for vengeance against the beast which is persecuting them, and thus this parable is the basis for the souls under the altar crying out for vengeance (Rev. 6:9). Christ's return is therefore the day of vengeance (Lk. 21:22; Is. 34:8; 61:2; 63:4) of his persecuted latter day ecclesia. Despite the power of prayer in bringing about the Lord's return in vengeance, Lk. 18:9-14 continues in this same context to warn that despite this:

- Perhaps the Lord won't find such faith in prayer when he returns

- Many will pray but be so sure of their own righteousness that their prayers are hindered

- The disciples will tend to despise the little ones in the ecclesia.

All these are latter day problems: abuse of "the little ones", self-righteousness and lack of real faith in prayer.

We read that God will shorten the period of time of trouble before His return (Lk. 18:7); and we read that He will also lengthen the period of grace (Lk. 13:6-9)… if His people ask Him. What He ‘will’ do perhaps should be read as what He can do. And this is why so much prophecy is conditional. Significantly, no other religion that I know contains this feature- of a God so passionate and so real that He will change His stated will and intention for the sake of His people’s prayers.

18:8 “Nevertheless", despite the fact God answers prayer, "when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith?" (Lk. 18:8). The implication is that the experience of answered prayer ought to develop faith, but such will be the spiritual perils of the last days and the lack of serious prayer, that there may well be no faith in the final generation.

18:9-14 Despite the power of prayer in bringing about the Lord's return in vengeance, Lk. 18:9-14 continues in this same context to warn that despite this:

- Perhaps the Lord won't find such faith in prayer when he returns

- Many will pray but be so sure of their own righteousness that their prayers are hindered

- The disciples will tend to despise the little ones in the ecclesia.

May we not give way to these latter day temptations!

18:10 We must examine ourselves and conclude that at the end of the day we are “unprofitable servants” (Lk. 18:10), i.e. worthy of condemnation (the same phrase is used about the rejected, Mt. 25:30). If we realize our utter spiritual desperation, our worthiness of rejection, our betrayals of our Lord's love, if we condemn ourselves in our own judgment; then we will not have to go through this process when the Lord comes. Yet if we don't do this, Paul says, then we are drinking condemnation to ourselves at the last day. It's a powerful, terrifying argument. Such must be- not ought to be- our level of self-analysis and knowledge of our desperation. If we so know our desperation now, we will not be condemned. Knowing and feeling our desperation is the key to so many Christian problems: monotony and boredom in spiritual life, problems with our partner, with our ecclesia, pride, a critical, ungrateful spirit, a lack of heartfelt praise, a reserve in witnessing. Even division amongst us would be outlawed by a true sense of our personal desperation. See on Lk. 6:42.

18:11 The OT idiom of prayer ‘returning into one’s own bosom’ is surely the quarry from which the Lord dug His image of a man praying with himself. It isn’t real prayer; it’s one part of the brain talking to a black box in another part of the brain, that we call ‘God’.

18:13 - see on Ps. 51:4; Lk. 23:48; 1 Tim. 1:16.

Usually men prayed with hands crossed over their chest. But men even at funerals don't usually beat upon their breast: "The remarkable feature of this particular gesture is the fact that it is characteristic of women, not men". The man was quite exceptionally upset and in grief- because of his sins. And personal recognition of private sin wasn't a big feature of first century life. The Lord's initial audience would've been amazed at the contrition and grief which this man had because of his secret sins; and this is the lesson for us. The times of prayer in the temple coincided with the offering of the daily sacrifices. The man asks for God to 'have mercy on me' (Lk. 18:13). But he uses a different word to that in Lk. 18:38, where the same translation commonly occurs. Hilastheti moi, he says; and the noun occurs only in Rom. 3:25; Heb. 9:5; 1 Jn. 2:2; 4:10 to describe the atonement sacrifice. It seems the man was so extraordinarily moved by his own sin and the sacrifice offered. No wonder the same phrase occurs in Lk. 23:48 about people likewise beating their breasts in repentance when they saw the actual sacrifice of Christ on the cross.

The humble man “smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner". “Be merciful" translates the word elsewhere translated “make propitiation", in describing the atoning death of Jesus on the cross (Heb. 2:17). The man’s sinfulness drove him to plead for the cross: ‘Please God, make a propitiation for me’ was his plea. He realized his need for the cross. And we should look back at the cross and feel and know the same need. . According to the Lord's own teaching, there are in some ways only two types of believer: either we are the self-righteous Pharisee, or the publican who beats his breast in self-loathing, hating his corrupt heart, begging for “mercy” [Gk. propitiation], confessing that he is the sinner (Lk. 18:13 Gk.). Paul, in one of his many allusions to the Gospels, reached the same height of contrition when he said, in total honesty, that he was “[the] chief of sinners". James 4:9 tells some believers in the Jerusalem ecclesia that their joy ought to be turned to heaviness, implying the downcast look of the publican who could not so much as lift up his eyes to God (Lk. 18:13). This man is held up by the Lord and James as some kind of hero and example to us.

The man who ‘humbled himself’ smote upon his breast in knowledge of his own sin and his Lord’s grace (Lk. 18:13). The Greek phrase occurs elsewhere only once, again in Luke’s thought, in describing how those humbled by the vision of the cross beat upon their breasts (Lk. 23:48)- surely in recognition of their sin and contrition before the grace of God outpoured. In the cross, we see self-humbling that we might be exalted. And we respond by likewise humbling ourselves, that others may be exalted.

18:14- see on 2 Cor. 11:7.

The Lord taught that he who humbles himself in prayer will be exalted (Lk. 18:14). Paul perhaps had this in mind when he spoke of how the Lord Jesus on the cross humbled Himself that He might be exalted (Phil. 2). Real prayer is a humiliating experience, a true humbling of self after the pattern of the Lord’s crucifixion. We really need to ask ourselves whether this is anywhere near true of our prayer life.

To come before "the throne of grace" is to come in essence before the judgment and before the cross of our Lord. Inevitably these things convict us of our desperation. The publican who beat upon his breast "went down to his house justified" (Lk. 18:14). Yet we were justified by the shedding of the blood of Christ (Rom. 5:9). That man's faith was consciously focused upon the Lord's sacrifice. We believe on Him who justifies us, through the blood of the cross (Rom. 4:5), and this faith is manifested through focusing upon the cross, and expressing it in prayer to be justified. The publican went home after prayer "justified rather than the other". It has been suggested that this reflects "a Semitic idiom which describes… an anticipation of his aquital in the final judgment".

18:15- see on 1 Pet. 2:2.

18:17 We will enter the Kingdom as shy children. This is the implication of Lk. 18:17: "Whosoever shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter therein". It doesn't just mean that we must now be as little children, but more that we will enter the Kingdom as little children. For Jesus had just said that "of such is the Kingdom". Children unspoilt by the hardness of this world and this flesh… this is how we will be as we walk away from the judgment seat into the Kingdom. And we should live the Kingdom life now. See on Lk. 12:37.

He perceived spiritual prompts in the ordinary things of every day life. Recall how the disciples rebuked those who wanted to bring children to Jesus (Lk. 18:17). Yet He saw in them the qualities of those who would be in His Kingdom. Those kids weren't 'spiritual' in themselves. They were just Palestinian kids with well meaning mums. Yet, the Lord explained, that was no reason to disregard them. They should be seen as reminders of spiritual qualities which should be in us all. And this was how He perceived everything in His daily round of life. He raised everything to an altogether higher level.

18:18 "What shall I do to inherit eternal life?" was another classic question (Lk. 18:18). 'Give me a list of dos and don'ts, I'm game'. But the answer was ultimately: "Follow me" (Lk. 18:22)- 'don't worry about specifics, but have a spirit of life committed to following Me, bearing My cross'. For that is reward enough. Likewise Peter was interested in what the reward would be for having given things up for the Lord; and the final answer is really 'I'm going to die on the cross- please share that death with me' (Lk. 18:28-33 and parallels).

18:22- see on Mk. 10:21; Lk. 10:42.

In the first century, family and the family inheritance was everything. The way the Lord asked His followers to reject family and follow Him was far more radical than many of us can ever appreciate. Likewise His command to sell everything and follow Him (Lk. 18:22) implied so much- for the Middle Eastern family estate was the epitomy of all that a person had and stood for. And to be asked to give the proceeds of that inheritance to poor strangers... was just too much. It could seem, once one gets to know Middle Eastern values, that to abandon both family and the village home in favour of Jesus was just impossible- those things were more valuable to a Middle Eastern peasant than life itself. But still He asked- and people responded.

Consider the parallels between the Lord’s demand of the young man, and Peter’s comment (Lk. 18:22 cp. 28; Mk. 10:21 cp. 28): 

“Sell all that you have and distribute to the poor	“We have left all
…and come, take up the cross	[no comment by Peter- he censord this bit out in his hearing of the Lord's words]
and follow me”	…and have followed you”

Peter seems to have subconsciously bypassed the thing about taking up the cross. But he was sure that he was really following the Lord. He blinded himself to the inevitable link between following Christ and self-crucifixion; for the path of the man Jesus lead to Golgotha. We have this same tendency, in that we can break bread week after week, read the records of the crucifixion at least eight times / year, and yet not let ourselves grasp the most basic message: that we as followers of this man must likewise follow in our self-sacrifice to that same end.

18:24 Mk. 10:24 speaks of the man who trusts in riches; the parallel Lk. 18:24 speaks of him who has riches. To have riches is, almost axiomatically, to trust in them. This is the nature of wealth 'possession'. For the man who has / trusts in riches, he must bow down like the camel wriggling through the small gate on its knees, having shed all its mountain of goods. This parable was given in the context of the Lord's straight statement: "He that humbleth himself shall be exalted" (Lk. 18:14 cp. 25). As the camel rose up from its knees the other side of the gate, so within the Kingdom's gates, those who have shed their trust in possessions will likewise be exalted.

18:25 Luke's writings bear the marks of a doctor writing; he uses exact medical terms. Luke's medical language is clearly seen in how he records the Lord's words about "passing through the eye of a needle" (Lk. 18:25). He uses the Greek medical term belone- a surgeon's needle. Matthew and Mark use the more domestic word raphis (Mt. 19:24; Mk. 10:25).

18:28- see on Lk. 14:27.

The family based structure of the first century is hard to fully empathize with from our distance. Family was all. Peter comments that the disciples had “left our own homes” (Lk. 18:28 RVmg.), and the parallel Mt. 19:27 says “left all”. Your home was your all. To have to leave it for the sake of Christ was the most fundamental thing you could do. Hence the real meaning in the first century of the Lord’s response that such converts would receive families in this life, i.e. in their relationships in the ecclesia. And yet the radical call of Christ is no less demanding and intrusive as men and women meet it today, the only difference being that the starkness of the choices is less pronounced today- but just as essentially real.

18:29- see on Acts 8:12.

18:30- see on Mt. 10:27 for the allusion to Job.

18:32- see on 1 Thess. 2:2.

18:33

Judgments on Israel Experienced by Jesus on the Cross

Hos.2:3,6 = Matt.27:27-29; Jn.19:28

Josh.22:13 = Lk.18:33

Ps.89:30-32; Is.28:18 = Mt.27:30

Ez.22:1-5 = Jesus mocked by Gentile Roman soldiers, Mt.27:27-31

Is.50:2,6 = Mt.26:67; 27:30; Lk.18:32

Jer.18:16 = Mt.27:39

These similarities are too close to have been engineered humanly; if it is accepted that Jesus was crucified, it does not seem unreasonable to accept that the sufferings of Jesus described in the New Testament really did happen. It therefore follows that Jesus of Nazareth did bear the sin and judgments of Israel, and therefore he is their saviour-Messiah.

18:34- see on Lk. 9:45.

19:9- see on Acts 16:34.

Abraham- see on Gen. 23:3.

Lk. 19:9 = Rom. 4:11,12. If you have real faith, you'll be like Zacchaeus. You'll have his determination, his unashamedness to come out in the open for Christ your Lord.

19:10- see on Mt. 13:46; Lk. 9:54,55; 15:2; 1 Cor. 10:33.

19:11 Lk. 19:11-27: 'Will the Kingdom come really soon, like, in our lifetimes?'. Answer: the parable of the pounds. Trade your personal talent- because there is such a thing as people being rejected at the last day because they didn't do this. See on Lk. 21:7.

19:13 How far His affairs prosper is dependent upon the zeal and initiative of us His stewards (Lk. 19:12,13; 1 Cor. 4:1,2).

As a whole, the church of all ages will fully have manifested His character. This is why it may be that the true church has been concentrated on different aspects of spirituality at different times. It also explains why the final date of the coming of Christ is in some way dependent upon our spiritual development. And it also explains why the whole body of Christ is told collectively "occupy till I come" (Lk. 19:13), using the Greek pragmateuomai, i.e. be pragmatic, be realistic, and develop these characteristics, so you may as a body reach the full reflection of Christ. See on Eph. 4:15.

The believer is called to his Lord to receive his pounds, and yet is also again called to Him in judgment at His return (Lk. 19:13,15). The repetition of the idea of being called to our Lord surely suggests that our calling to Him in the first place is in fact a calling to judgment. We are being gathered to judgment now (Mt. 13:47; 22:10; Jn. 11:52) although we will be gathered then to meet the Lord (s.w. Mt. 3:12; 13:30). The point is, we must act now as men and women will do when they are on their way to judgment, and the meeting with their ultimate destiny. Then we will not be bickering amongst ourselves or worrying about our worldly advantage; then, only one thing will matter. And so now, only one thing matters. The Christian life is likened to a man on his way to his judge along with his adversary (Lk. 12:58); and evidently, he ought to settle his differences with his brother before he arrives, for this judge will be extremely hard upon those who cannot be reconciled to their brethren.

One of the Lord's pen pictures of the rejected included that of the man who thought that because he had preserved the talent (the basic doctrines of the Gospel) intact, therefore he was entitled to a place in the Kingdom. We are left to imagine him half-proudly, half sheepishly, holding it out to the Lord (Mt. 25:25). But he should have traded with his pounds (Lk. 19:13 RV)- done something with it all. The crowds hung upon Jesus' every word and teaching; it was so fascinating for them, so wonderful (Lk. 19:48 RV); and yet they still crucified Him. Those words, those wonderful ideas, didn't pierce deep within.

19:14 "They hated Joseph" because of his dream that one day he would reign over them (Gen. 37:4,8). Christ had problems with His brothers (Jn. 7:3); the Jews hated Christ and would not have him reign over them (Lk. 19:14).

19:15 If we are to take the judgment figures literally, another the question arises: Does Christ know beforehand who will be accepted, and the degree of their reward? If we take the judgment figures to have a literal meaning, then it sounds as if He doesn't know. Lk. 19:15 suggests that perhaps He doesn't know; the Lord calls the servants "that he might know how much every man had gained by trading". He is ordained to be judge of all (Acts 10:42). However, as Lord of Heaven and earth, with all power given to him, this seems unlikely- although it must be remembered that in the same way as God is omnipotent and yet limits His omnipotence, so He may limit His omniscience. The shepherd sees the difference between sheep and goats as totally obvious. It needs no great examination. Surely the idea is that the judge, the omniscient Lord of all, will act at the judgment as if he needs to gather evidence from us and thereby reach his verdict. The parables give this impression because they surely describe how the judgment will feel to us.

The believer is called to his Lord to receive his pounds, and is called to Him in judgment at His return (Lk. 19:13,15). The repetition of the idea of being called to our Lord surely suggests that our calling to Him in the first place is in fact a calling to judgment. See on Mt. 13:47.

19:16 The purpose of the judgment is for our benefit, to develop our appreciation and self-knowledge. This is perhaps reflected by the ten pound man saying that Christ's pound had gained, had worked to create (Gk.) the ten pounds he could now offer (Lk. 19:16). The man who achieved five pounds uses a different word in describing how the pound given him had made five pounds (Lk. 19:18), while the men in  Mt. 25:20,22 uses yet another word to say the same thing. This is surely a realistic picture, each of the faithful comes to the same conclusion, that what spirituality they have developed is an outcome of the basic Gospel given to each of us at our conversion; yet  they express this same basic idea in different words. The place of basic doctrine as the basis for the development of all true spirituality should need no further stress, if the Lord's teaching here is appreciated.

All those who will be in the Kingdom will feel that really we should not be there, we don't deserve it, we will be hesitant to enter it and therefore Christ will have to almost make us go into the Kingdom. It's the same in the parables of Matthew 25, at the judgment Jesus will praise the righteous for doing so many good things, and then they will disagree with him, they will say 'No, we didn't do that, really we didn't', and He will say 'Yes, in my eyes, you did'. Their good works had not been consciously done. This is surely what the Lord was driving at in saying that our left hand must not know what the right hand does. We aren't to be self-consciously brooding on our own generosity. It would seem that with a spirit of amazement and surprise the man says 'Your pound has gained [more] pounds!'.  It's the self-righteous, those who think they have done so much and therefore they must be in the Kingdom, who will be rejected.

19:17 The parable of the pounds describes the reward of the faithful in terms of being given ten or five cities (Lk. 19:17). This idea of dividing up groups of cities was surely meant to send the mind back to the way Israel in their wilderness years were each promised their own individual cities and villages, which they later inherited. The idea of inheriting "ten cities" occurs in Josh. 15:57; 21:5,26; 1 Chron. 6:61 (all of which are in the context of the priests receiving their cities), and "five cities" in 1 Chron. 4:32. As each Israelite was promised some personal inheritance in the land, rather than some blanket reward which the while nation received, so we too have a personal reward prepared. The language of inheritance (e.g. 1 Pet. 1:4) and preparation of reward (Mt. 25:34; Jn. 14:1) in the NT is alluding to this OT background of the land being prepared by the Angels for Israel to inherit (Ex. 15:17 Heb.; 23:20; Ps. 68:9,10 Heb.) . We must be careful not to think that our promised inheritance is only eternal life; it is something being personally prepared for each of us. The language of preparation seems inappropriate if our reward is only eternal life.

The reward was way out of proportion, both to what had been given, and to what they had achieved with it: ten cities! The Master's words almost seem to be a gentle rebuke: "Because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities"   (Lk. 19:17); "thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things" (Mt. 25:23). The "Truth" we have now (and it is that) is "a very little... a few things". We mustn't see it as an end in itself. Yet because of our humanity, our limited vision, the way we are locked up in our petty paradigms, we tend to think that the Kingdom will be rather similar to our present experience of "the Truth”. Yet the Lord emphasizes, at least twice, that what we have now is pathetically limited compared to the infinitely greater spiritual vision of the Kingdom. We (personally) will then be made ruler over all that Christ has (Mt. 24:47; the "many things" of Mt. 25:23); and in him are hid all the riches of spiritual wisdom (Col. 2:3).  

19:18 The faithful in the parable of the talents / pounds realize that "thy pound hath gained" what spirituality they can now offer Christ at the judgment. They understand that their growth was thanks to that basic deposit of doctrine delivered to them. Each of us have been given different aspects of Christ's character to develop from the same basic doctrines, and therefore we will each have an individual discussion with out Lord. We shouldn't think of the judgment as being a process which is more or less identical for each of us. This misconception arises from failing to recognize that our meeting with Christ is only likened to a human judgment court. The similarities aren't exact. 

We are to “gain” more for the Lord on the basis of what He first gave us. The Greek word translated “gain” is elsewhere usually used about gaining men and women for Christ- a wife ‘gains’ her unbelieving husband (1 Pet. 3:1); Paul sought to ‘gain’ people for the Lord (1 Cor. 9:19-22); we ‘gain’ a lost brother by pastoral effort with him (Mt. 18:15). Be that going for a coffee with him, sending an email, trying to imagine his feelings and approaching him appropriately.
Significantly, the other usages of this word translated ‘gain’ are about the folly of gaining material wealth, even gaining the whole world. We can’t be successfully about the Lord’s business, of gaining folks for Him, if we are selling our soul to gain material things. That’s the point. We were “delivered” talents by God. It’s the same word used about how the Lord Jesus exhaled His last breath on the cross; how “that form of doctrine” was ‘delivered’ to us before baptism (Rom. 6:17; 1 Cor. 15:3; Jude 3). We can’t say we have no talents. Christ died for you, for me; He bowed His head towards each of us personally and gave us His last breath.

19:20 In the culture of the orient, it was not usual for a person to keep money in a cloth. Their culture was to trade and barter with what they had. That a man should just bury such a talent was therefore unreal for the original hearers. The point of this unreality is surely that spiritual laziness is so bad. It was better to have traded and lost through genuine mistakes, through naievity, through the betrayal and deception of others, than to simply do nothing. I fear, really fear, that our Christian culture has bred for many of us a ‘do nothing’ culture- which is exactly what this element of unreality is warning against. We can delegate responsibility to church committees, to others, to our leaders; or we can do nothing out of fear, fear of making a mistake, fear of taking a risk, fear of what other brethren may think of us… all the time denying this principle of Divine delegation. And it might be added that the ‘do nothing’ man of the parable emphasized that the talent or money was not his; he returned to his Lord what was his [“thy talent”]. In order to trade it, or even to put it in the bank and get interest, he had to take personal ownership of it. And this he failed to do. And it is just this that we are being asked to do by our Lord- that His truth, all that He has given us, is in a sense ours now, to be used on our initiative, for His glory and service. Indeed, the reward of the faithful will be to be given more of their Lord’s riches in the Kingdom, with which likewise to use their initiative in order to bring Him glory. We are left to think how the story might have gone on- the faithful were given more talents and they go away and do, in the Kingdom age, what they did in this life- using what they were given for His glory and service, on their own initiative.

We are expected by Christ to realize that our relationship with Him means total commitment to His cause. In this sense Jesus is a demanding Lord. Thus when He gave the talents to His servants, He doesn't tell them to trade with them; it seems that the one talent man is making this point when he says 'You gave me your money to look after, and I looked after it, I didn't steal it; you're unreasonable to think I should have done anything else with it, you're expecting what you didn't give'. And the Lord is; He expects that if we realize we have the honour of knowing His Truth, we should get on and do something with it, not just keep it until He comes back. He doesn't have to ask us to do this; He takes it as being obvious. The anger of the rejected man comes over as genuine; he really can't understand his Master. He's done what he was asked, and now he's condemned because he didn't do something extra. He was a Lord that man never knew- until all too late. You can imagine how you'd feel if someone gives you some money to look after, and then expects you to have doubled it, although he didn't ask you to do anything with it.

19:21 The man who didn't develop as he should have done accuses the Lord of reaping what he didn't sow (Lk. 19:21). But the Lord does sow the seed of the basic Gospel, as the parable of the sower makes clear. The point is that the unworthy fail to let that seed bring forth fruit, they fail to see that the Lord expects fruit from those  doctrines they have been given. But they fail to see the link between the basic Gospel and practical spirituality; they feel he's reaping where he didn't sow. Christ will require his own, i.e. that which he has sown, the basic Truths of the Gospel, with usury (Lk. 19:23). The parable of the tiny seed moving the great mountain was surely making the same point; the basic Gospel, if properly believed, will result in the most far reaching things (Mt. 17:20 cp. 13:31). There is an element of unreality in the parable of the pounds: wise use of a few coins results in power over several cities. We are left to imagine the men marvelling in disbelief at the reward given to them. They expected at most just a few pounds to be given to them. And in their response we see a picture of the almost disbelief of the faithful at their rewards.

19:22- see on Job 15:6.

19:23 Both sheep and goats register their surprise at their Lord's comments on various specific actions of theirs which he discusses with them- "When saw we thee...?" (Mt. 25:44). The thought that at least some of our deeds will be discussed with us at the judgment should surely make some impact on our present behaviour. Lk. 19:23 implies not only that there will be a discussion with our judge, but that Jesus will point out to the rejected what they should have done to be accepted: "Out of thine own mouth will I judge thee... wherefore then gavest not thou my money into the bank?". The rejected are to be cut in two, shown as the two faced hypocrites which they were. But the idea of cutting in two was immediately associated in the Jewish mind with making a covenant. When Abraham placed the sacrifices in two parts and the Lord passed between them, the idea was really that God would cut in two the man who broke the covenant. Hence the Jews spoke of 'cutting a covenant'. Those who have made the covenant with God but not kept it will be cut in two, as they initially agreed. God will keep His side of the covenant.

Luke 19:20–23 shows Jesus using the untrue words of the one–talent man in the parable to reason with him, but He does not correct the wrong words the man used.

According to Lk. 19:23, the Lord will show the unworthy how they could have entered the Kingdom. This is after the pattern of rejected Adam and Eve having the way to the tree of life clearly shown to them after their rejection (Gen. 3:23,24). Again, notice how the judgment is for the education of those judged and those who witness it. He will shew them how they should have given their talent, the basic Gospel, to others, and therefore gained some interest. This has to be connected with the well known prohibition on lending money to fellow Israelites for usury; usury could only be received from Gentiles (Dt. 23:20). Surely the Lord is implying that at the least this person could have shared the Gospel with others, especially (in a Jewish context) the Gentile world. This would have at least  brought some usury for the Lord. This would suggest that issues such as apathy in preaching, especially the unwillingness of the Jewish believers to share their hope with the Gentiles, will be raised by the Lord during the judgment process. Of course, the Lord hadn't told the servant (in the story) to lend the money to Gentiles; he was expected to use his initiative. The overall picture of the story is that at least the man should have done something! Alternatively, it could be that we are intended to understand that the Lord would even have accepted him if he lent money on usury, something which the Law condemned; if he'd have done something, even if it involved breaking some aspects of God's will... Instead, his attitude was that he had been given the talent of the Gospel, and he saw his duty as to just keep hold on it. He was angry that the Lord should even suggest he ought to have done anything else! We really must watch for this attitude in ourselves. He justifies himself by saying that he has "kept" the money (Lk. 19:20), using the word elsewhere used about the need to keep or hold on to the doctrines of the One Faith (1 Tim. 1:19; 3:9; 2 Tim. 1:13; Rev. 6:9). He had done this, he had held on, he hadn't left the faith. And he thought this was enough to bring him to the Kingdom. Sadly, our understanding of spirituality has almost glorified this very attitude. Any who show initiative have been seen as mavericks, as likely to go wrong. The emphasis has been on holding on to basic doctrine, marking your Bible with it, attending weekly meetings about it (even if you snooze through them), regularly attending... And, son, you won't go far wrong. The Lord, in designing this parable as he did, had exactly this sort of complacency in mind.

At His coming, He will “require” of us our use of wealth (Lk. 19:23). The man who did nothing with his pound should have at least lent it out on usury, the Lord said- even though this was illegal according to Moses. He should have done at least something with his money, even if it involved taking a lower level of service than the Lord ideally expects.

The parables of the Kingdom speak of the eternal consequences of the judgment. The Lord will require His own at the judgment (Lk. 19:23). This doesn't mean, as the one talent man thought, that Christ will require us to give back to Him the basic doctrines of the Gospel which we were given at conversion. The Greek means to exact regularly, in an ongoing sense (s.w. Lk. 3:13); Strong defines it as meaning "to perform repeatedly... not a single act". When the Lord examines our achievements at the judgment, He will expect to keep on receiving the result of what we have achieved for Him in this life. This is the ultimate encouragement for us in our preaching and encouraging of others, as well as ourselves; what we achieve now will yield eternal, continual fruit to the Lord.  See on Mt. 25:27.

19:24,25 The parable of the pounds also comments on the Angels' relationship with the unworthy. Jesus "said unto them that stood by, Take from him the pound, and give it to him that hath ten pounds. . . and they  (i.e. that stood by) said unto Him, Lord, he hath ten pounds" (Lk. 19:24,25). "Them that stood by" must surely be a conscious reference by the Lord to Zechariah's prophecy of the Angels as "these that stand by" Christ (Zech. 3:4,7); note that he too speaks in a judgment/reward context. If our Lord is referring to the Angels, then we have a fascinating picture of them taking away the opportunities given to the unworthy and granting them to the accepted. Their query of the amount of reward being given fits in with what we know about their limited knowledge, and the fact that our reward will be far greater than their present status (Heb. 1,2). Hence their reverent questioning of the extent of reward being given. They said unto him, Lord, he hath ten pounds" (Lk. 19:25) suggests that "them that stood by" somehow questioned the Lord's judgment; their sense of equality was not that of their Lord. They felt that the gloriously strong brother with his wonderful reward didn't need it to be made even more wonderful. "Them that stood by" could refer to the Angels, or to the way in which the judgment will in some sense take place in the presence of all the believers. The fact is, even with God's nature, it will be difficult to appreciate the principles of judgment which the Lord uses; and so how much more difficult is it today!

19:25- see on Mt. 20:11.

They interrupted a parable, clearly not understanding it (Lk. 19:25). Yet the Lord said that His parables were only not understood by the unbelieving Jewish world.

Some will be in the Kingdom who have big questions about the justice of God (Mt. 20:12,13 "friend"); the elder son is apparently accepted in the Father's fellowship, although his attitude to his weak brother is so wrong (Lk. 15:31); the wise virgins, apparently selfishly, won't give any oil to the others; some will sit in the Kingdom in "shame" because they thought they were greater than other brethren (Lk. 14:9- cp. the elder brother?); some remonstrate that a highly rewarded brother already has ten pounds, and surely doesn't need any more exaltation (Lk. 19:25).

19:26 At judgment day, the rejected who have nothing will find that even what they have is taken from them (Lk. 19:26). This surely means that the spirituality they appeared to have, what they thought they had, actually they never had, and even the appearance of it will be taken away from them. We can appear to have spirituality, when in fact we have nothing, nothing at all. The man who built his house on the sand had the sensation of spiritual progress; he was building, he was getting somewhere, apparently. Likewise Israel were an empty [fruitless] vine, but they brought forth fruit- to themselves. In reality they had no fruit; but they went through the fruit-bearing process (Hos. 10:1). In Jer. 5:13, God mocks the false prophets as being "full of wind", or 'ruach'- with which His true prophets were filled. This play on words reveals that spirituality is either the real thing, or a being filled with wind in such a way that apes the true spirituality.

19:27- see on Rev. 14:10.

It is fairly certain that time will be compressed at the judgment seat; there will therefore be no problem in such an individual discussion between each of the responsible and Christ. Several Bible passages suggest a going through of works; and yet we know that the basis of acceptability with God is not works but rather faith. The judgment of our works seems not to be related to as it were weighing up our salvation chances. For salvation is a gift, unrelated to works. That's what grace is about. But our use of our talents will be related to who and how we will eternally be. In the parable of the talents, the one talent man who kept his talent but didn't use it will have that talent taken from him; but Lk. 19:27 continues the story: "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me". The implication seems to be that the one talent man is saved and doesn't share in the condemnation of the wicked which will happen at the final judgment. The 'going through' of works is therefore for our benefit, to teach us- not as a basis upon which the Lord decides worthiness. Salvation itself is not on the basis of our works (Rom. 11:6; Gal. 2:16; Tit. 3:5); indeed, the free gift of salvation by pure grace is contrasted with the wages paid by sin (Rom. 4:4; 6:23).

19:35 When they put their clothes on the colt and started mistakenly proclaiming Jesus as the triumphal Messiah entering Jerusalem to begin His political Kingdom, the Lord doesn’t rebuke their misunderstanding. Instead, He defends them to the critical Pharisees (Lk. 19:35-37,40). He imputed righteousness to them, as He does to us today.

19:38 God has inspired His word in order to interpret certain facts to us. This is further proof that we are not intended to insist on a strictly literal meaning to everything we read (for example, that the sun literally rises). Thus Matthew records that the people cried ‘Hosanna’ at Christ’s entry into Jerusalem (Matt. 21:9). Seeing that first century Israel spoke Aramaic, this is doubtless what did actually come out of their lips. But Luke says that the same group of people shouted “Glory” (Lk. 19:38). Luke’s Gospel seems to be designed for the Greek speaking world, and so he uses the Greek equivalent of ‘Hosanna’, even though they did not actually say that word. The way the New Testament quotes the Old with slight changes without pointing this out is another example of how God’s word mixes interpretation with direct transmission of facts (e.g. Ps. 32:1-2 cp. Rom. 4:6-7). This fact is not irrelevant to the issue of demons. We have seen that the accounts of demons being cast out are framed in such a way as to show the supremacy of God’s power over the vain traditions of the first century world.

When the people shouted Hosannas and “Blessed be the King that comes in the name of the Lord!” (Lk. 19:38), they thought the Messianic Kingdom had come. And the Lord didn’t turn round and correct them for their misapplication of Scripture. Neither did He reject them or call fire down from Heaven upon them because of their misunderstanding. He said nothing, and let the crowd live on in their misunderstanding and see His death – in order to teach them something about what was needed in order to enable the Kingdom. And the same ‘long term’ approach of the Lord is found in His dealing with the demons issue. The elder son in the parable falsely claims to God that he has never broken one of His commands; but although this is evidently untrue, the father (representing God) does not correct him in so many words (Lk. 15:29–31).

19:40 Often Scripture alludes to or quotes other Scripture which may seem out of context, if we insist on seeing everything from our viewpoint of time. Thus Lk. 19:40 quotes Hab. 2:11 concerning the stones of apostate Israel crying out, and apparently applies it to the acclamation of faithful men. Matthew particularly seems to quote Scripture which is relevant to the Lord's second coming as applying to His first coming. Indeed, the way the NT quotes the OT apparently out of context is a sizeable problem. There are times when we may quote or allude to the words of a Bible passage quite out of context, just because the words seem appropriate. And it seems the NT sometimes does just the same. Search and try as we may, the context seems just inappropriate. This may be explicable by understanding God to have the ability to take words from one time-context and insert them into another, in a way which to us is not contextual. We have no authority to do this; but He can. He can speak as if "the resurrection is past already"; but for us to do so is to deny the Faith.

19:41-44 1 Pet. 2:12 defines the "day of visitation" as that of the Lord's return to earth to establish His Kingdom. But a similar idea is to be found in Lk. 19:41-44. Because Jerusalem knew not "the time of your visitation", she didn't perceive the things of "her peace" "in this day" (RV), therefore days of destruction would come upon her in AD70. The implication surely is that had Jerusalem accepted Jesus as Messiah, the events of AD70 need never have happened, and His first coming could have been the day of "visitation" to establish God's Kingdom. Of course God's program functioned differently because this never happened; but that doesn't take away from the fact that it was truly possible.

19:41-44- see on Lk. 21:20-24.

19:42 The pain that arises from knowing what might have been is so poignantly brought out by the grief of Martha and Mary over their brother's death- they knew that if Jesus had have been there, Lazarus wouldn't have died (Jn. 11:21,32). Jesus as God's Son had something of this ability to see what might have been- hence He could state with absolute confidence that if Gentile Tyre and Sidon had witnessed His miracles, they would've repented in sackcloth and ashes (Lk. 10:13). He lamented with pain over the fact that things would have been so much better for Jerusalem if she had only known / apprehended the things which would bring her ultimate peace (Lk. 19:42). The Lord Jesus was deeply pained at what might have been, if the things of God's Kingdom had not remained willfully hidden from Israel's perception. His pain was because of realizing what might have been. In this He was directly reflecting the mind of His Father, who had previously lamented over Jerusalem: "O that you had hearkened to my commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river" (Is. 48:18).

19:44 All major events in God's purpose have occurred within the approximate period when true students of the word expected them to - the Flood, the desolation of Jerusalem and its rebuilding, the Lord's first coming, the events of A.D. 70 etc. are all good examples.   How much more then with the time of the second coming and the consummation of God's purpose?   "The Lord God will do nothing, but he revealeth his secret unto His... prophets" (Amos 3:7), and the purpose of their writing was so that we might understand. The Lord rebuked the Jews because they couldn't discern the signs that Messiah's first advent was with them (Mt. 16:3; Lk. 19:44); and his first advent was a type of his second. The coming of judgment through the Babylonians was another type of the last days; and Israel were criticized for not perceiving the approach of that day, whereas "the stork in the heaven knoweth her appointed time; and the turtle and the crane and the swallow observe the time of their coming" (Jer. 8:7). This means that as the natural creation have an inherent knowledge of the seasons, so God's people should have a sense of the time of the Lord's coming. The Lord said the same when he spoke of how our internal awareness of the approach of Summer should correspond to our certain knowledge of the Kingdom's approach.

The grace of Jesus and His Father, so great, so free, was a challenge for even the Lord to express in any verbal medium. The way He spoke was grace itself. He wept over the men of Jerusalem, sorrowing that their destruction must come because "thou knewest not the time of thy visitation" (Lk. 19:44). He could have quite well said: "because you have rejected me...". But His grace was greater than to say that. The utter inappropriacy of our salvation is brought out time and again in His teaching. The oil lamp with the bruised reed and smoking flax which annoyingly filled the house with smoke was nurtured and tolerated in hope by this Lord of ours.

19:48- see on Lk. 19:13.

20:9 'From where do you get your authority? What is your exact nature and relationship to God?' was answered by the parable of the servants who refused to receive the Son and give fruit to the owner (Lk. 20:9-16). The Lord could've answered: 'My authority? From God, He's my Father, I had a virgin birth, you know'. But He wasn't so primitive. Instead He appealed to them to realize their own responsibilities to their creator and to accept His authority by giving fruit to the Father

20:13 God sent His Son to Israel, thinking "they will reverence him when they see him" (Lk. 20:13). But Isaiah 53 had prophesied that when Israel saw Him, they would see no beauty in Him and crucify Him. Yet God restrained that knowledge, in His love and positive hope for His people. Likewise Jesus, it seems to me limited His foreknowledge of Judas. He knew from the beginning who would betray him. One of the 12 was a traitor. Yet Judas was His own familiar friend in whom He trusted.

20:15 The Lord’s initial Palestinian hearers were well used to the scenario of absentee landlords. The   parables of Israel would have been easily understood by them. The landlords lived far away, were never seen, and sometimes their workers took over the whole show for themselves. The Lord’s parable of the absentee landlord in Lk. 20:9-16 alludes to this situation. He sends messengers seeking fruit from the vineyard, but the tenants abuse or kill them, and he does nothing. When his son shows up, they assume that he’s going to do just as before- ignore whatever they do to him. After all, they’d got away with not giving him any fruit and ignoring his messengers for so long, why would he change his attitude? He was so far away, he’d been in a “far country” for a very long time (Lk. 20:9), they didn’t really know him. The Lord asked the question: “What therefore shall the lord of the vineyard do unto them?” (Lk. 20:15). The obvious answer, from the context provided within the story, would be: “Judging on past experience, not much at all”. But then the Lord presented the element of unreality in the story, as a sudden, biting trick of the tail: No, the lord of the vineyard would actually personally come and destroy them, and give the vineyard to other tenants. Even though his experience of having tenants farm his land had been a fruitless and painful experience that had cost him the life of his son. And it was that element of unreality that brings home to us the whole point of the story. The Father does appear distant and unresponsive to our selfishness, our rebellion, and our refusal to hear his servants the prophets. But there is a real judgment to come, in which He will personally be involved. And yet even His destruction of the Jewish tenants hasn’t taken away His almost manic desire to have workers, in His desperate desire for true spiritual fruit. The parables of Israel surely speak encouragement to each of us. The parable of the absentee landlord has a telling twist to it. Absentee landlords who had never visited their land for ages, and found the people they sent to the property beaten up, would usually just forget it. They wouldn’t bother. In the parable which draws on this, the Lord asks what the landlord will do (Lk. 20:15). The expected answer was: ‘Not much. He got what he could, he was never bothered to go there for years anyway’. But this landlord is odd. He keeps on sending messengers when any other landlord would have given up or got mad earlier on. But God’s patience through the prophets was likewise unusual. And then, when the tenants thought they must surely be able to get away with it because the Lord seemed so distant and out of touch… He suddenly comes Himself in person and destroys them. He doesn’t hire a bunch of people to do it. He comes in person, as the Lord will in judgment. And instead of deciding he’d had his fingers burnt and giving up vineyards as a bad job, this Lord gives the vineyard to others- He tries again. And so the Lord is doing with the Gentiles.

20:18 A passage in Ps. 118 is referred to in Lk. 20:18; Acts 4:11; Eph. 2:20; 1 Pet. 2:6-8. One wonders if this was a proof text which the early believers would have known by heart. And one wonders likewise about Psalm 2- it is referred to so often.

20:25 The memories of the Maccabean heroes and their rebellion were strongly in the minds and consciousness of first century Israel. Their exploits were recited yearly at the feast of Hanukkah. Yet the Lord purposefully subverts the history of the Maccabees. Mattathias had taught violent resistance to Gentile occupation in the slogan: "Repay the Gentiles in their own coin" (1 Macc. 2:68 N.E.B.). But the Lord alludes to this, at least to the LXX form of the saying, when He advocated paying the Roman temple tax, giving the coin to them, and not violently resisting. See on Heb. 5:6.

The Lord taught that whatever bear's God's image must be 'rendered' to God, just as what bore Caesar's image must be rendered to Caesar (Lk. 20:25). Seeing that the human body bears God's image, He was clearly teaching that we should 'render' to God our whole being in the course of our human lives. But the same idea of rendering to God is picked up in 1 Pet. 4:5, where we are told that in the final judgment, we will 'render' [s.w.] ourselves to God. By the way we live now, the manner in which we render to God all that is not Caesar's, we are effectively rendering to Him our judgment account. And so we also find this Greek word for 'to render' in Rev. 22:12; Mt. 16:27; 20:8; 2 Tim. 4:8 and Rom. 2:6- at the day of judgment, where we render ourselves to God, He will "give" [s.w. 'render'] to every man according as his works have been. We're rendering ourselves to God right now, here in this life. And He will render that back to us in the last day- for we are right now giving our account to God. And there are times in life where perhaps God specifically intervenes in order to give us a taste of that final day of 'rendering' of ourselves to God- hence in the parable of Lk. 16:2, the man is asked to 'render an account' of his stewardship [s.w.]. It may be through illness, tragedy, loss, the intense introspection of depression, conviction of sin... in these things we are led to a specific preview of the 'rendering an account' which lies ahead. And we should be grateful that we have such opportunities.

20:32 "Should we give tribute to Caesar?" was likewise answered with the comment that whatever has God's image on it should be given to God- and seeing we're made in God's image, the Lord was asking that they gave their very personal selves to God, every part of their mind and body- rather than worrying about the 'guilt by association' that might come from paying your taxes to Caesar (Lk. 20:23-25).

20:33 'Who will be married to whom in the Kingdom?' was well answered by the Lord, but His final cut was that God is the God of the living and "all live unto Him", i.e. the fact we are alive means we are responsible for our actions to Him right now- and we must be moved by that, rather than by speculation about the physicalities of how others may be in God's Kingdom (Lk. 20:33-38).

20:37- see on Heb. 11:27

God is His word (Jn. 1:2). Moses is likewise spoken of as if he is his word (Acts 15:21; 21:21; 26:22; 2 Cor. 3:18), so close was his association with it. The words and commands of Moses were those of God. “In the bush God spoke unto (Moses), saying, I am the God of Abraham... Isaac and Jacob” (Mk. 12:26; Mt. 22:31; Ex. 3:6). Yet Lk. 20:37 says that “that the dead are raised, even Moses shewed at the bush, when he calleth the Lord the God of Abraham” etc. Yet this was what God said of Himself.

20:38- see on Rom. 14:8,9.

21:3 The Lord condemned how the Pharisees “devoured widow’s houses”- and then straight away we read of Him commending the widow who threw in her whole living to the coffers of the Pharisees. It wasn’t important that the widow saw through the hypocrisy of the Pharisees and didn’t ‘waste’ her few pennies; her generosity was accepted for what it was, even though it didn’t achieve what it might have done, indeed, it only abetted the work of evil men.

The Lord taught that one must forsake all that he has in order to truly be His disciple (Mt. 13:44; Lk. 14:33). But at the end of His ministry, He as it were chose to exemplify this aspect of discipleship by drawing attention to a woman who gave to God “all the living that she had” (Lk. 21:3). Putting the passages together, the Lord is saying that she is to be the model for us all in this aspect of devotion.

21:7 Martin Hengel concludes that the early Gospel records were so radical that they would’ve been part of an “underground literature”. He suggests that the Roman law forbidding oral or written prophecies about the fall of the Roman empire- on pain of death- was enough to make the Olivet prophecy alone a highly illegal document.

If none of us can know the time of the Lord's return, the whole spirit of the Olivet Prophecy is hard to come to terms with. When the disciples asked "When shall these things be, and what sign will there be when these things shall come to pass?" (Lk. 21:7), the Lord didn't cut short the conversation by saying 'Well actually you can't know, so your question isn't appropriate'. He gave them just what they asked for: signs whereby the faithful would know "when these things shall come to pass". The primary application of all this was that the faithful knew exactly the approaching end of the Jewish age in AD70- everything went according to plan, for those who correctly understood the prophecies. Therefore James, Peter and Paul could assuredly teach that "the judge standeth before the door" (James 5:9) etc. And it is apparent that the situation in the run up to AD70 was typical of that in our last days. Likewise, the position of the faithful remnant in Babylon at the time of the restoration is another type of latter day events. And they too had an opening of their eyes to the prophetic word, resulting in an ability to clearly see where they were, and that the time of restoration of Israel's Kingdom was imminent.

'What will be the signs of the last days?' was indeed answered quite directly, but building up to a personal, incisive appeal to pray constantly that we will be preserved from those horrors and be accepted before the final judgment seat of God's Son (Lk. 21:7,36). It was as if the Lord was adding a powerful caveat- as if to say 'Now don't go and get obsessed and distracted trying to match these signs to current events- worry about how you will survive the last days, and whether, when you stand before Me in the very end, you will stand or fall before Me'. And 'Are you really the Messiah? Do you really fulfil all the Old Testament prophecies?' was met by an appeal to not stumble in faith (Lk. 7:21-23). See on Lk. 19:11.

21:8 “Be not deceived" is extensively quoted later in the NT concerning the need not be deceived by false teachers within the ecclesia (1 Cor. 6:9,15,33; Gal. 6:17; 2 Tim. 3:13, as Mt. 24:4 = 1 Jn. 3:7). The deceivers Christ spoke of were not just bogus Messiahs out in the world, but apparently Spirit-gifted brethren who will arise within the ecclesia.

21:11 During their holocaust, Israel will experience intense "terror" (Lev. 26:16), which would be enough to kill them (Deut. 32:24).   This extraordinary level of paranoia will be modelled upon that of Jacob as he faced Esau - representing Israel's confrontation with the Arabs in the last days (Jer. 30:5,7).   This state of fear will result in many Jews going to live in Jerusalem, as happened during the Babylonian and Assyrian invasions (Jer. 35:11).   Ezekiel had prophesied of this time:  "Terrors (an intensive plural - i.e. 'the one great terror') by reason of the sword shall be upon my people" (Eze. 21:12).   Likewise our Lord spoke of "fearful sights" being seen in latter-day Israel (Luke 21:11).

21:12 "The synagogues... the prisons" - implying both a religious and civil persecution of the saints?

21:13 Lk. 21:13 speaks of how when a believer is persecuted, “it shall turn to you for a testimony”. What does this really mean? For me, the most satisfactory explanation would be that the Angels give a positive testimony of the faithful believer in the court of Heaven. Or could it mean that the way we respond to our trials during the tribulation will determine our verdict at the judgment? It will be a testimony in our favour at the day of judgment. In view of this, "Settle it therefore in your hearts" to make this witness in God's strength (Lk.21:14). "In the endurance of you (in the tribulation), ye will gain the souls of you" (Lk.21:19 Marshall's Interlinear). The run up to the tribulation will provoke a "praying always, that ye may be accounted worthy... to stand before the Son of man" (Lk.21:36). Peter describes the tribulation of the believers in the run up to AD70 (and therefore the last days too) as judgment taking place on the house of God, in which even the righteous are "scarcely saved" (1 Pet.4:17,18). This suggests that the last generation of believers will only be saved due to their response to the tribulation which comes upon them; but even then, only by the skin of their teeth. Lot in Sodom and the parable of the virgins, among others, are hints that the last generation of believers will be in a weak state.

For those who suffer persecution, prison etc. for the Lord's sake, "it shall turn to you for a testimony" (Lk. 21:13). When? How? Surely in that these things will be 'gone through' with them at judgment as a testimony to their faithfulness.

21:15 "I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay". This is alluding to Ex.4:12, where God tells Moses at the time of the Egyptian persecution of God's people, "I will be with thy mouth and teach thee what thou shalt say". This persecution lead to intensified prayer to God, resulting in  the deliverance of the suffering saints at Passover time, after a period of especial distress and 'time of trouble' for the surrounding world due to the plagues. After this deliverance, God's people went into the wilderness and were declared God's Kingdom. We have earlier shown how all these events form a remarkable latter day prophecy. This verse also suggests that the gifts of the Spirit may be given to some in the Elijah ministry in order to enable them to make a more powerful witness (as in Rev.11:6). The fact they are given personally by Christ would indicate that in some way, Christ is already back at this stage. Time and again we will see how the prophecies of events in the last days are ambiguous as to whether Christ is already back at the time of their fulfilment, or whether they herald his return. Seeing that we will never know the exact time of Christ's return, this is understandable. Similarly Joel 2 prophesies the pouring out of the gifts " before the great and terrible day of the Lord" (v.31). Malachi surely refers to this passage when prophesying the Elijah ministry "before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord" (Mal.4:5). This suggests that the 3.5 year Elijah ministry of the last days (James 5:17) will be accompanied by Spirit gifts, and will coincide with the time of persecution. Note that the gifts were given "before the day of the Lord" in AD70 too. It is possible that because of this possession of the gifts by 'Elijah', false teachers within the ecclesia at the end will also claim to possess them (Mt.24:24), so convincingly that all but the elect within the ecclesia will be duped into following them. Yet it must be stressed that it is a feature of the gifts that they are unmistakable and obvious to identify (cp. Acts 4:16); it will be evident enough if and when they are poured out in the last days.

21:16 Mic. 7:2-9 is a clear prophecy of Christ's sufferings. But embedded in it are words which are quoted in Lk. 21:16 and Mt. 10:36 concerning the latter day tribulation of the believers: "the son dishonoureth the father...a man's enemies are the men of his own house”. In similar manner, some of the prophecies of Israel's latter day sufferings speak in the same context of those of Christ. Mic. 5:1 is an example: "...he hath laid seige against us: they shall smite the judge of Israel (Christ) with a rod upon the cheek". The whole of Amos 5 can be scanned for connections with both the future tribulation of Israel, and also the sufferings of Christ. See on Mk. 13:13.

"Some of you shall they cause to be put to death... but there shall not an hair of your head perish" can only be reconciled by appreciating how miraculously the disciples were preserved in order to inspire and co-ordinate the rest of the body. Perhaps a similar group of elders ("the two witnesses"?) will be preserved in the last days too.

"Ye shall be betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends and some of you shall they cause to be put to death". This indicates that the persecuting power will infiltrate the ecclesias, as the Jews and Romans did to the early church in order to bring about their persecution.

21:17 "Ye shall be hated of all men for my name's sake". This hating by all men may imply a world-wide persecution.

21:18 "There shall not an hair of your head perish" - primarily concerning the disciples, seeing that some believers were to die for their faith in the period around AD70 (cp. v.16). The figure of not a hair of the head perishing is used in the Old Testament concerning sudden deliverance from what seemed like certain death, e.g. Jonathan in 1 Sam.14:45. This is fitting, seeing that "except those days should be shortened there should no flesh be saved" (Mt.24:22). It is also the language of the faithful few among an Israel who wouldn't stand up and be counted being miraculously preserved from Babylonian tribulation (Dan. 3:27). There are many instructive parallels here with the latter day tribulation, which the majority of natural and spiritual Israel may try to avoid by some tokenistic acquiescence to the dictates of the King of Babylon.

"Saved" here ("there should no flesh be saved") implies 'delivered'; it will appear that none of us will survive the tribulation, "but for the elects sake those days shall be shortened" and we will be saved by the second coming. Thus 2 Pet.3:12,15 reminds us that by our prayers and spiritual development, the days before the second coming will be shortened. If they were not, even the elect would lose their faith (Mt. 24:22)- showing how those of us who are alive at Christ's coming will barely survive the spiritual traumas of the last days. The virgins were sleeping when they should have been watching; and Peter says that the righteous in the last generation (see context) will scarcely be saved (1 Pet. 4:18). So it would appear that the days of the final tribulation will be shortened, although in another sense the coming of the Lord is delayed in order to allow our greater spiritual development (Mt. 25:5). This ‘delay’ is why the harvest will be “over-ripe” for reaping (Rev. 14:15 RV)- or is this a reference to the lack of zeal of preachers to Israel in the last days, not harvesting the ready fruit? The Lord likens the final tribulation to the travail of a woman to bring forth her child. But we read in Is. 66:7,8 in this same context of Israel’s latter day suffering: “Before she travailed, she brought forth: before her pain came, she was delivered of a man child. Who hath heard such a thing?... for as soon as Zion travailed she brought forth her children”. This seems to imply that the expected period of Zion’s travail will be cut short, and she will give spiritual birth far quicker than expected. Perhaps the Lord was alluding to this passage when He spoke of how “the days” [of Zion’s labour?] shall be shortened.

We must lose our lives, one way or the other. If we lose them for Christ, we will find eternal life. If we keep them for ourselves, we will lose that eternal life. This teaching is picked up by the Lord in Lk. 21:16-18, in stating that some of His people would be put to death, but actually, not a hair of their heads would perish. Surely He was saying that yes, they would lose their lives, but in reality they would find eternal life. Those men and women who died on crosses, were burnt as human torches, were thrown to the lions... the Lord foresaw them, and implied that their sacrifice was in principle the process that must be gone through by each of us: a losing, a resigning, of our life and all the things that life consists of in everyday experience. Either we die to sin now, living out in practice the theory of baptism, or we will die to sin in rejection at judgment day; sin has it’s end in death (Ez. 21:25; Dan. 9:24), either now, or then. So we may as well die to the things of sin in this life.

21:20 Jerusalem was truly “compassed with armies” in Hezekiah’s time, and perhaps the Lord has this in mind when He predicted that Jerusalem would again be like this in the last days. His subsequent warning to those in the country areas not running into Jerusalem for refuge is also an allusion to the situation in Hezekiah’s time- for this was exactly what happened then (Lk. 21:20,21 RV).

21:20-24 We need not get overly worried about the supposed discrepancies between prophecy and its historical fulfillment. Such differences don't negate the Divine inspiration of the original prophecy- rather do they show how God's intentions can be worked out in different ways because of the open-ended approach He takes to human response. Thus it's been observed that the siege of Jerusalem in AD66-70 doesn't exactly follow the descriptions in Lk. 19:41-44 and 21:20-24. This would be because there were within the Olivet prophecy a number of possible scenarios of what could happen if the believers fled the city as commanded; and of course, if Israel repented and accepted Christ at His AD70 'coming' in judgment. Additionally we must remember that this prophecy was only having its initial fulfillment in AD70- the final fulfillment will be in our last days.

21:21- see on Rev. 11:1.

As the faithful remnant were miraculously allowed to leave Sodom, immediately unleashing the Divine judgments by doing so, the faithful Christian remnant were allowed to leave Jerusalem just before the final Roman onslaught of AD70, doubtless spurred on by their Lord's command: "Let them which are in Judaea flee to the mountains; and let them which are in the midst of it (Jerusalem) depart out" (Lk.21:21). The reference to fleeing to the mountains would have suggested a conscious allusion back to  the command to Lot to flee out of Sodom "to the mountain" (Gen.19:17).

"Then let them which be in Judaea flee to the mountains" means that there will be Jewish believers in Jerusalem in the last days, seeing the whole prophecy has a latter day application. Dan. 12:1 says that in the final tribulation of Israel, those Jews who are "written in the book", i.e. who are acceptable saints (Ex. 32:32; Rev. 21:27) will be delivered. So there will be a minority in latter day natural Israel who have not bowed the knee to Baal, as in Elijah's time- which is typical of the situation at the latter day Elijah ministry.

21:24, 25

Does The Olivet Prophecy Have A Break In Fulfillment?

Some have tried to impose a break in the Olivet prophecy between Lk.21:24 and v.25, saying that only after v.24 the prophecy applies to the last days. The following problems have to be tackled if this is done:

- Mt. 24:14 is located in the first half of Lk. 21 (i.e. before v.24, in the so-called AD70 section): "this Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come". The first century fulfillment of this was only typical of the major, latter day fulfillment. "The end" can hardly refer to AD70!

- The 'gap' between Lk. 21:24 and 25 is matched by Mk. 13:24: "But in those days, after that tribulation" - there is no room here for a gap of 1900 years! The prophecy flows straight on!

- v.24 is quoting Zech.12:3 (LXX) concerning the last days.

- In what sense were "the times of the Gentiles" fulfilled in 1967? Plenty of Gentiles, especially in the developing world, are still being baptized.

- The signs of v.9-11 are obviously being fulfilled now and will be to an increasing extent, given the irreversibly worsening world situation.

- V.22 "These be the days of vengeance that all things that are written may be fulfilled" - language of the last days. "All things" were not fulfilled in AD70. also come true. For many readers approaching the Olivet prophecy seriously for the first time, what has been laboured at such length above may seem painfully obvious. It will seem strange to them that some argue so strongly and even aggressively that the Olivet prophecy has no relevance to our days. I have often wondered why there has to be such enthusiasm to disprove this relevance. Is it not something to do with the fact that deep down, far beyond our conscious thought processes, we just can't brook the idea that we could be in for a persecution which will shake our little cosy world inside out?

Valid Interpretation?

We need to examine more carefully how we have used the Olivet prophecy in our preaching to the world. For ease of reference we will stick mainly with Luke 21. As with many Bible prophecies, this had an initial fulfillment in AD70 as well as a latter day one. The clarity of its reference to the last days before Christ's return is frequently hammered home by Christian preachers. Time and again we put the graphs on the Powerpoint, show the ghastly slides from Oxfam- and then read Luke 21:9-11: "Wars and commotions... nation shall rise against nation...great earthquakes, famines and pestilences... fearful sights and great signs". And yes, we make a convincing case. The lecturer then does a dramatic Biblical leap-frog to v.24: " Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" - cue to talk about the present position of Israel. Next, v.25,26: "Distress of nations with perplexity, men's hearts failing them for fear" - plenty to talk about there. "And then shall they see the Son of man coming" (v.27)- the real crunch point of the lecture.

Now there is nothing wrong with interpreting Luke 21 this way. Only someone blind to reason could deny that there is a marked correspondence between this chapter and the present world condition. Indeed, what we are now seeing is but a prelude to the real time of trouble and persecution: "Wars... famines... pestilences and earthquakes...all these are the beginning of (the) birth pangs" . These labour pains will result in the glorious birth of the Spirit into the Kingdom (Mt.24:6-8). But we must not overlook Lk.21:12-23, which are all about the persecution of God's people "before all these (things)", v.12. It seems that the real time of world crisis will only be seen after a period of active persecution, and we are therefore only experiencing a very small fulfillment of these prophecies now. In the same way, we quote Ezekiel's prophecies regarding the fruitfulness of Israel and the return of Israel in the Kingdom as having some fulfillment now, in the present re-establishment of the Jewish state.

The greatest signs

The watchful student will note that the persecution of God's people spoken of in Lk. 21 is hard to slot in as coming before the earthquakes and famines in the parallel records of Mark 13 and Matthew 24. A glance at Strong's concordance will reveal that the Greek for "before" can also mean 'more importantly than'. Now this fits the lock even better. Jesus is saying 'The greatest indication that I will soon be back is when "they shall lay their hands on you and persecute you" - a far more important and obvious sign to you who suffer it than earthquakes, famines etc...'. So if there is no period of persecution, will there be a second coming? Notice that in v.12-20 Jesus is not talking to the natural Jews but to the believers. They were to be delivered up to the synagogues (i.e. Jewish powers), and the descriptions of being given the right word to speak in courts, and being betrayed and put to death, find ample fulfillment in the record of the early church in Acts. It is at this time that "ye shall see Jerusalem compassed with armies" (v.20), a situation clearly foretold in the prophets as occurring before the second coming. It could be that the latter day witness to Israel that takes place within the land results in the Jewish synagogues brutally persecuting the preachers (Lk. 21:12). Orthodox Jewish response to some Christian preaching makes this not hard to believe.

"Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles be fulfilled" (v.24) is a direct quote from the Septuagint of Zech.12:3. This is a prophecy of the latter day invasion of Jerusalem just prior to Christ's intervention. This treading down of Jerusalem is probably that predicted in Zech.14:1,2 also. "The times of the Gentiles" connects with the 42 months downtreading of Jerusalem in Rev.11:2, thus suggesting a 3.5 year period of Gentile domination of Jerusalem in the last days- and an identical period of persecution of the saints?

We have tended to think that wars, famines, plagues etc. are the clearest signs of the second coming. Yet this view of the Olivet prophecy  fails to appreciate the context. The preceding Lk. 20 and Mt. 23 concern the weaknesses of the ecclesia of Israel at the Lord's time. The parables which follow directly on from the Olivet prophecy are all concerning the state of the ecclesia at the time of the Lord's coming. The prophecy itself has the state of the ecclesia as its main focus. Again, notice how the Lord turned the  disciples' question round. They were so worried about when the temple would be destroyed. He gave them some relevant signs, but basically said: 'Don't worry so much about the physical temple. Watch for the well being of the ecclesia, the spiritual temple. Weep not for the temple, but for yourselves. Don't get too caught up with the feeling that the world / age has come to an end when the temple's destroyed; look instead for the day of my coming'.

- V.25,26 were fulfilled prior to AD70, not just in the last days. The description of Heaven and earth passing away is highly applicable to the ending of the Jewish heavens and earth in AD70; 2 Peter 3 uses similar language about this.

- The suggested break in fulfillment between AD70 and the last days runs into particular difficulty at Mk.13:24: "In those days (of v.6-23, which some limit to AD70 alone), after that tribulation, the sun shall be darkened..." - i.e. the tribulation of the first part of the prophecy is in the "days" of the second part of it. Thus the entire prophecy must have reference to both AD70 and the last days.

So it appears that we have to face the uncanny conclusion: if the whole of the Olivet prophecy applies to the last days, then the verses about persecution of the saints must

21:24 The "times of the Gentiles" (Lk. 21:24) appears to refer to the time of Gentile opportunity to learn the Gospel, according to how Paul alludes to it in Rom. 11:25.

Zech. 12:3 "In that day will I make Jerusalem a burdensome stone for all people (i.e. all around Israel, as this often means):  all that burden themselves with it shall be cut in pieces, though all the people of the earth be gathered together against it". The Septuagint renders the first phrase as "a stone trodden down by the Gentiles", clearly alluded to by Jesus in His description of Jerusalem being captured by the Gentiles (Luke 21:24).   Those who are 'gathered together' against Jerusalem must be the Arabs, according to the Zechariah context. The rejected likewise will be burdened with a heavy stone (Mt. 18:6), showing that they will share the judgments of Israel's enemies.

It may well be that the "all" which will be fulfilled in Lk.21:32 is to be equated with "the times of the Gentiles" being fulfilled (Lk.21:24). "Jerusalem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles" for three and a half years, until the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. 'Jebus', the old name for Jerusalem, means 'downtrodden'. This hints that the liberation of Jebus at the beginning of David's reign was seen by Christ as typical of the time when He would liberate Jerusalem from downtreading, at his return. This suggests that the times of Gentile domination of Jerusalem are to be ended by the establishment of the Kingdom at Christ's second coming; we are yet to see, therefore, a Gentile domination of Jerusalem before Christ's coming.

"The times of the Gentiles" are often taken to have finished in 1967. But at least three major problems arise with this:

1) The temple site, Biblical 'Zion', is still not totally under Jewish control due to the presence of the Mosque there.

2) " Trodden down" has clear links with Dan.8:13 and Rev.11:2, which describe the temple being blasphemously desecrated for certain periods of time. How can they have ended in 1967, seeing the 'Dome of the Rock' still stands there? And 1967 minus 2300 day/years (Dan.8:13) or 1260 day/years (Rev.11:2) do not appear to yield any significant starting points.

3) The times of Gentile opportunity, as some read it, are still with us now as much as they were in 1967. If anything, numbers of baptisms have mushroomed since 1967, notably in distant Gentile lands.

21:25 There are many prophecies in Jeremiah and Ezekiel of Babylon being at war with the Arab nations who supported her in the attack on Jerusalem, e.g. concerning Ammon (Eze. 21:20) and Tyre (Eze. 26:7). Ammon is mentioned as escaping out of the hand of the king of the North during his invasion of Israel and Jerusalem (Dan. 11:41).  This shows that there will be much inter-Arab conflict both before and during Israel's prolonged desolation period. "The sea and the waves roaring" at the time of Israel's final suffering (Lk. 21:25) is a figure taken from Jer. 49:23 concerning the Arab nations around Israel being like the troubled sea in their fighting with each other. However, the outstanding inter-Arab conflicts will be temporarily forgotten in the last days to concentrate on a combined push against Jerusalem. But once this is captured, the old rivalries will suddenly violently surface, which is how God will destroy the invaders and save the righteous remnant who are still barely alive in the sewers and basements of Jerusalem.

It seems that the beasts of Dan. 7 are only different aspects of the one great beast which finally emerges. Daniel sees them all come up together after the waves of the sea are troubled (Dan. 7:3), connecting with the Lord's description of the last day powers around Israel in the same way (Lk. 21:25).

21:28 Ps. 24:9 clearly states that when the gatekeepers of Zion lift up their heads [to God in truth], then the King of glory will come in. And the Lord applies these words to His true people of the last days in Lk. 21:28- they are to likewise lift up their heads [so that] their redemption will draw nigh, or be hastened.

"When these things begin to come to pass, then look up (Gk. un-bend), and lift up your heads" may suggest that the believers will be bowed down in bondage in some sense. Alternatively, we can read it simply as a command to stand up (as NIV), which would connect with the slumbering virgins, none of them standing ready to welcome their Lord as they should have been. It is evident from a close reading of the Olivet prophecy that the Lord is using his pronouns carefully. Sometimes he speaks of "ye", sometimes of "they". It seems that the “ye" refer to the disciples and the faithful remnant in the latter day ecclesia, and the "they" either to the natural Jews or to " the many" (majority) in the ecclesia who will fall away. "They shall see the Son of man coming in a cloud... when these things (leading up to the Son of man coming) begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads" (Lk. 21:27,28). This may suggest that the majority, the "they" category, are shocked by the coming of the Lord, but the faithful minority stand up from their slumber and are expecting his coming.

“When these things begin to come to pass, then look up (Gk. 'unbend'- as if the depression of the faithful is partly lifted by discerning the nearness of Christ's return), and lift up your heads; for your redemption draweth nigh". These are words which can only apply to the last generation; and they self-evidently imply that therefore that last generation does know for sure that Christ is about to come. Just two verses later, the Lord spoke of how in the Spring "Ye see and know of your own selves that summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh" (Lk. 21:30,31). There is an instinctive sense within us concerning the change of the seasons; and this will be the same in the minds of the faithful as they sense the Lord's return approaching. There will be no need for magazine articles expounding "signs of the times"; we will not need any man to say unto us "The time draweth near" because we will know of our own selves that the coming of Christ is near (Lk. 21:7,8 should be read in the context of v.30,31). The relationship between Solomon and his bride in the Song of Solomon is typical of that between Christ and His church; and significantly, therefore, she senses his approach, she hears his voice telling her that he is coming, even before she sees him (Song 2:8).

We were redeemed by the blood of Jesus; and yet His return and judgment of us is also our “day of redemption" (Lk. 21:28; Rom. 8:23; Eph. 4:30). Yet that day was essentially the cross; but it is also in the day of judgment. Likewise, we are “justified" by the blood of Jesus. Yet the idea of justification is a declaring righteous after a judgment; as if the cross was our judgment, and through our belief in the Lord we were subsequently declared justified, as we will be in the Last Day.

21:29- see on Mt. 24:15.

21:30- see on Mt. 24:32.

21:31 The Lord introduces his Olivet prophecy by saying that it was no use listening to those who said "The time draweth near"- instead, he went on to say, 'You must personally match the spiritual and physical situation you find yourself in with what I'm describing'. And at the end of the prophecy, he hammered this home again: "When (the trees) now shoot forth, ye see it, and know of your own selves that Summer is now nigh at hand. So likewise ye, when ye see these things... know ye" (Lk. 21:30,31 RV). The very personal feeling within us that Summer is near is likened to our knowledge of the imminence of the Lord's coming; you can't be told by anyone else that Summer's coming, you see the signs, and you know within your own self.

Perhaps the very last generation will know the time of Christ's return. "Likewise ye, when ye see these things come to pass, know ye that the Kingdom of God is nigh at hand" (Lk. 21:31). As surely as trees bud and then Summer comes, so when we see the signs of Lk. 21:24-26 in Israel, we will know that the Lord is really at hand. It is only to the unworthy that the Lord comes unexpectedly. The majority of generations, including the disciples to whom Christ primarily spoke those words concerning not knowing the hour, have of course not known the day or hour. But there seems absolutely no point in the Lord giving us any signs if in fact the last generation cannot foresee with some certainty the time of His coming. Surely Yahweh has revealed all His plans to His servants the prophets? As a woman knows within herself the approximate time of childbirth although not the day or hour, so we should know that the day of new birth is approaching- so Paul's reasoning goes in 1 Thess. 5. He warns that for those who do not watch, the day of Christ's coming will be a day of "sudden destruction... as travail upon a woman with child; and they shall not escape" (1 Thess. 5:3). Surely the picture here is of a woman whose time of delivery comes unexpectedly upon her, with complications that result in her dying in childbirth. As a woman who knows the time of delivery is very near will behave in an appropriately careful way, so will the faithful of the last generation who likewise know that the Lord's coming is nigh. The same mixture of seriousness and joyful anticipation will be seen in us too, who are watching and loving the appearing of Christ.

21:32 The fig tree was to "shoot forth" (Lk.21:30) or 'germinate' (Young), witnessed by its putting forth of leaves (Mk.13:28) and tender branches (Mt.24:32). When the fig tree puts forth leaves there are often immature, unripe figs amongst them. Thus Jesus inspected the fig tree outside Jerusalem to see if it had any fruit, and cursed it because it did not. "The time of figs was not yet", i.e. it was not reasonable to find fully developed fruit on it. The fig tree referred to the nation of Israel; Jesus expected to find at least the beginnings of some spiritual fruit, but due to the chronic dearth of response to his message, Jesus cursed the nation and dried it up (Mk.11:13,14,20). This would lead us to interpret the putting forth of leaves on the fig tree as the signs of an initial repentance and indication that real spiritual fruit is developing. It may well be that the whole of the Olivet prophecy has reference to a final three and a half year tribulation of the believers just prior to the second coming, and that during this time there will be a period of zealous witnessing to both Jews and Gentiles. This fits into place with the fig tree parable; this preaching starts to produce some degree of response from Israel, and then "all (is) fulfilled" in the full manifestation of Christ's Kingdom. The parable says that as surely as Summer follows Spring, so those who see the blossoming of the fig tree in the parable, will see the Kingdom. Maybe this is to be taken literally; there may be a literal gap of a few weeks/months (as between Spring and Summer) between the first signs of Jewish repentance, and all being fulfilled. It may well be that the "all" which will be fulfilled in Lk.21:32 is to be equated with "the times of the Gentiles" being fulfilled (Lk.21:24). The Greek kairos translated “times” is also translated “opportunity”; the Gentiles’ opportunity to hear the Gospel is fast running out. There will be a call to Israel to repent in the last days, and a remnant will respond. This Elijah ministry [and maybe our present witness to Jewry prepares the way for this?] must occur “before the coming of the great and dreadful day of the Lord”. We could interpret the putting forth of leaves on the fig tree as the signs of an initial repentance and indication that real spiritual fruit is developing.

21:34 "And take heed to yourselves, lest at any time your hearts be overcharged with surfeiting, and drunkenness, and cares of this life, so that day come upon you unawares". It could fairly be asked 'Why is there this warning, if the believers of the last days are to be actively persecuted?'. This verse implies that the world will be in a materially prosperous state in the last days; it will be possible for us to become so preoccupied with it that we do not prepare for the time of tribulation, so that it comes as a sudden surprise. Of if "that day" is the day of Christ's coming, then it may be that by opting out of the persecution, we will be able to continue to enjoy the materialism of the world, in which case we will be caught unawares by the second coming. Thus while the saints are persecuted, the world enjoys a time of prosperity as it did in the times of Lot and Noah.

21:36- see on Lk. 18:5; Rev. 8:1.

21:36 "Watch ye therefore and pray always that ye may be accounted worthy to escape all these things... and to stand before the son of man". "Escape" can mean 'to suddenly flee away from'- the same idea of sudden deliverance from persecution which cropped up in our notes on v.18. Those who do not watch and pray will be unable to flee out of the tribulation, as Lot's wife was unable to. This idea of escaping connects with 1 Thess.5:3 (this is just one of many links between the Olivet prophecy and Thessalonians): "When they shall say (in the ecclesia) Peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them... and they shall not escape". The language of "peace and safety" is often used in the Old Testament to describe the calm words of Israel's false teachers, as they confidently asserted that all was spiritually well within Israel (Jer.6:14; 5:12; 14:13; Mic.3:5; Ez.13:10; Dt.29:19). Those who do not think that there is peace and safety in the ecclesia and who face up to the reality of 'watching and praying' to spiritually survive the last days, are those who will 'escape'.

Jacob's wrestling with the Angel was really a clinging on to him, pleading with tears for the blessing of forgiveness; and in this he was our example (Hos. 12:4-6). Lk. 21:36 RV speaks of the believer 'prevailing' with God in prayer. The 'struggles' of Moses in prayer are an example of this; through the desperation and spiritual culture of his pleading, he brought about a change even in God's stated purpose. See on Col. 2:1.

If our prayers really can help others' on their salvation road- how we should use this! Remember Lot's deliverance for the sake of Abraham's prayers, whilst he unknowingly went about his daily life in those last hours. Reflect too how the Lord told us: “Pray ye may be accounted worthy to… be stood before the son of man". Not 'pray for thyself', singular, but for the whole community of the last days.

Angelic appearances to men have so often included an encouragement to "fear not" that we have every reason to imagine that those same words will be repeated to us when the angel calls. The Greek text of Lk. 21:36 further fills out the place of the angels in our judgment: "Pray always, that ye may be accounted worthy... to be stood before the Son of man". This creates the picture of our guardian angel literally standing us up in acceptance before our Lord, as happened to Daniel. Ps. 1:5 can now take on a literal aspect: "The ungodly shall not stand [up] in the judgment". It is so fitting that the angel who is with us now in our every situation, will be with us in that supreme moment too.

Throughout Christ's discourses concerning his return, "watch" is the key-word (Mt. 24:42; 25:13; Mk. 13:33-37; Lk. 12:37; 21:36). There are at least ten New Testament allusions to Christ's command for us to "watch" in the last days, and thus be found loving the appearing of Christ; this alone indicates how our lives should be characterized by this spirit of watching. I would go so far as to say that generally we seem almost unaware of this emphasis. "Watch... watch... watch" is the cry that comes out from our Lord himself. It seems almost unknown to us that we are commanded by the Lord Jesus Christ himself, with a great sense of urgency, to live in this spirit of watchfulness for His return. It is easy to think that the command to watch means that we should scan Bible prophecies and compare them with current world events, and thereby see the coming of Christ approaching. However, this is not the idea behind the word "watch". We are told to watch precisely because we do not know the time of Christ's appearing; therefore Jesus cannot be telling us (in this command) to watch political developments as pointers towards the date of His return. "Watch" nearly always refers to watching our personal spirituality, and concerning ourselves with that of others’. The Hebrew word translated "watch" carries the idea of defending, holding on as a matter of life or death, enduring with stamina, being awake. Thus Habakkuk speaks of "watching", i.e. being spiritually sensitive, to what God is going to tell him (Hab. 2:1). Doing a study of New Testament allusions to Christ's command to "watch" yields conclusions which may seem unpleasantly negative to some. In Greek, the verb 'to watch' is related to the noun 'watch', referring to soldiers guarding something, or the period of guard duty. The idea behind 'watching' is definitely defensive rather than aggressive. In the same way as the gate keeper of a large house has to watch, to guard and protect, so should we in the last days (Mk. 13:34-37). Lk. 21:36 defines watching as praying always, concentrating our faith upon the fact that ultimately we will stand acceptably before the Lord Jesus at the day of judgment, and by His grace be saved from the great judgments which will surely come upon this world. The ideas of watching and praying often occur together (Lk. 21:36; Mk. 14:38; Mt. 26:41; Eph. 6:18; 1 Pet. 4:7). Prayer for our forgiveness, for acceptance by our Lord, must therefore characterize our watching in these last days. We must " watch" in the sense of being on our guard against the possibility of personal and communal apostacy from the faith (Acts 20:31); "watching" is standing fast in the doctrines of the one faith (1 Cor. 16:31), exhorting and encouraging others in the household of faith (1 Thess. 5:6,11), holding fast in ecclesias swamped by apathy and apostasy, strengthening what remains (Rev. 3:2,3; 2 Tim. 4:3-5), keeping the oil of the word burning in our lamps even though others have let it burn out (Mt. 25:13).

22:3 It was the Jewish ‘Devil’ that put the idea of betraying Jesus into Judas’ mind, so Lk. 22:2,3 implies: “the chief priests and scribes sought how they might kill him...then entered Satan into Judas”. The Jewish ideas of an immediate Kingdom and the throwing off of the Roman yoke by a glamorous, heroic Messiah entered Judas, and caused him to become so bitter against Christ’s Messiahship that he betrayed Him. The Jewish Satan, in the form of both the Jews and their ideology, was at work on the other disciples too: “Satan hath desired to have you” (plural), Jesus warned them. Especially was the High Priest seeking Peter: “I have prayed for thee (Peter – singular), that thy faith fail thee not” (Lk. 22:31–32). Could Jesus foresee the Satan – High Priest later arresting Peter and his subsequent trial in prison? Throughout the first century, the Jewish and Roman Devil sought “whom he may devour” (1 Pet. 5:8).

22:3

Satan Entered Judas

Note how “enter” is used in a non-physical sense in Mt. 25:21 “enter into the joy of your Lord”, entering in at the narrow gate (Mt. 7:13), entering into another’s labours (Jn. 4:38). ‘Satan’ enters a man’s heart in the sense that “the lusts of other things enter in” (Mk. 4:19); in this sense we can “enter into temptation” (Lk. 22:46).

The link between Judas and the ‘Devil’ is brought out by a consideration of Luke’s comment that Judas “sought an opportune time [eukairan] to betray Jesus” (Lk. 22:6). But Luke earlier used this word in Lk. 4:13 to describe how the “Devil” in the wilderness departed from the Lord “until an opportune time” [achri kairou]. The Lord’s victory in the wilderness prepared Him for the victory over the ‘Devil’ which He achieved in His final passion. Just as the temptation to ‘come down from the cross’ was a repetition of the temptation to throw Himself down from the temple. John’s Gospel often repeats the history of the other Gospels, but in different language. In Mt. 26:46, the Lord comments upon the arrival of Judas: “Rise, let us be going; my betrayer is coming”. But Jn. 14:30,31 puts it like this: “The prince of this world [a phrase understood as meaning ‘the evil one’, the Devil] is coming… Rise, let us be going”. John is picking up the mythological language of the ‘Satan’ figure, and applying it to a real person with real attitudes and sinful intentions – i.e. Judas, who is presented as a personification of the ‘Satan’ / ‘Devil’ / ‘Prince of this world’ principle.

We can easily overlook the huge significance of Mk. 14:21 recording the Lord’s words that Judas personally was guilty for betraying Him, and would suffer accordingly – even though Lk. 22:22 says that Judas did this because the Satan [i.e. the Jews] ‘entered him’. Whatever that means, it doesn’t mean that Judas nor anyone is thereby not personally responsible for their actions.

The translation of the Greek text in Jn. 13:2 has been problematic. “The Devil having put into the heart of Judas” doesn’t quite do justice to what the Greek is really saying. The respected expositor and Greek student C.K. Barratt insists that strictly, the Greek means ‘the Devil had put into his own [i.e. the Devil’s] heart, that Judas should betray Jesus’⁽¹⁾. This translation is almost impossible to make any sense of given the orthodox understanding of the ‘Devil’. And so most popular translations ignore the obvious difficulty by glossing over the strict meaning of the Greek. Understanding the ‘Devil’ as the innate source of temptation within the human heart, the picture becomes clearer. The idea is surely that the thought of betraying Jesus began within the Devil–mind of Judas; he ‘put the thought in his own mind’, as if to stress how Judas conceived this thought totally of himself and within his own mind, just as later Ananias and Sapphira [in an analogous incident] ‘conceived this thing within their heart’. So properly translated, Jn. 13:2 actually supports our general thesis about the Devil – it is stressing that the heart of Judas was itself responsible, that heart put the idea of betraying Jesus into itself – and nobody else was responsible. Note how the Lord addresses Judas as if Judas had full responsibility for his actions and control over them – e.g. “What you are going to do, do quickly” (Jn. 13:27), and Mk. 14:21 “Woe to that man by whom the Son of man is betrayed! Good were it for that man if he had never been born”. Those two passages alone surely make it clear that Judas was no robot, no puppet on a satanic string. He had full responsibility and choice over his actions, hence these words of the Lord to him. Summing up, we are left with the question: Did Judas betray Jesus, or did Satan, working through Judas, betray Jesus? The answer, surely, is that it was Judas, and he must bear full responsibility for that.

Note

(1). C.K. Barratt, The Gospel According to St. John (Philadelphia: Westminster, 1978) p. 365. Barratt’s view of the Greek is confirmed in D.A. Carson, Divine Sovereignty and Human Responsibility (London: Marshall, Morgan & Scott, 1981) p. 131.

22:15 It was 'with desire that He desired' [a real emphasis] to ate the passover with His men (Lk. 22:15). He so wants us to break bread with Him; He so wants us to try to understand the cross. See on Jn. 17:24.

22:16 The Lord told us that the Passover feast would "be fulfilled in (i.e. by?) the Kingdom of God" (Lk. 22:16). This is confirmed by the description of "the marriage supper of the lamb" in Rev. 19:9. Likewise the parable of Lk. 14 speaks of "a great supper" at the beginning of the Millennium. As we share this feast together now, we are acting out a parable of the feast to be kept at the Lord's return. In the light of this, how important it is to ensure that there is no bitterness and disunity at the breaking of bread meeting! To be invited to sit at the King's table is an honour indeed (cp. 2 Sam. 19:28). Remember that we are reaffirming our covenant. "This is the blood of the covenant" is a reference back to the blood of the Old Covenant being sprinkled upon the people, with their response of vowing obedience unto the end (Ex. 24:7). The solemnity of that distant moment should be ours, weekly.

22:17- see on Mk. 14:23.

22:19 By inviting the disciples to share His cup and His baptism, He was offering them there and then a part in the life of self-crucifixion, which found its natural and final articulation in the death of the cross. He deftly poured out the wine as a symbol that His life was even then being poured out (Lk. 22:19).

The breaking of bread is intended as a special gift to us. Let it have its intended power. “Do this in remembrance of me” (Lk. 22:19) is an inadequate translation of the Greek text – “the words do not indicate a mere memorial meal in memory of a man now dead, but strictly mean “making present reality” of Christ’s saving death”. So let the bread and wine truly be an aide memoire. That on a Friday afternoon, on a day in April, on a hill outside Jerusalem, around 2000 years ago, Jesus died for me. Three days later, a man dressed as a working man, a humble gardener, walked out of a tomb, perhaps folded His grave clothes first, and saw the lights of early morning Jerusalem twinkling in the distance. And 40 days later ascended through cotton wool clouds and blue sky, with the necks and throats of watching disciples moving backwards as they gaped at the sight; and will just as surely come again, to take you and me unto Himself. These things, and the endless implications of them, are what will fill our minds if they impress us as having really happened. If we believe the Bible is inspired, it will have the result of what Harry Whittaker called “Bible television”; we will see these things as if they happened before our eyes.

22:20- see on Mk. 14:23.

22:24 Even after the acted parable of the feet washing, there was still a strife amongst them about who should be greatest. They’d clearly not grasped the Lord’s teaching and example about not worrying about what place we take at a dinner (Lk. 22:24).

22:25 We must be aware that in helping people, be it in teaching them the Truth of Christ, or in materially supporting them in their needs, we must never allow our position of ‘superiority’ become a vehicle for abusing their person, however unintentionally. The Lord in Lk. 22:25 spoke of how in the world, “benefactors” have power over people. His idea seems to have been: ‘If you show generosity in the world, you have authority over others; but you, after my example, must show generosity to others in humble acts of service but not expect authority over others as a result of this’. The giving of help or welfare in any form should therefore never become a source of control over another person. Their integrity and independence as a person must never be in this sense ‘abused’ by us or simply lost sight of, because we have helped them.

22:26 The Lord was addressed as ‘Rabbi’ and to some extent acted like one. It was the well known duty of a rabbi’s pupils to serve their teacher and do menial chores for him; the Jewish writings of the time and the Mishnah are full of references to this. Yet the Lord treated His ‘servants’ radically differently- His behaviour at the Last Supper was just the opposite (Lk. 22:26). And He even taught that He, the Lord of all, would be so happy that His servants were waiting for Him that He would “come forth and serve them” (Lk. 12:37). He was a most unusual “Lord and Master”, one who served His servants, and whose death for them was His ultimate act of service.

22:27 The disciples slept in Gethsemane, despite being asked to stay awake and encourage the Lord in His hour of need (Lk. 22:45). Yet He thanks them for being those who continued with them in His temptations (Lk. 22:27). When the Jews agreed at a council to kill Him, the Lord went to be alone with the twelve (Jn. 11:53,54). He took such comfort from them even though they did not or would not understand the reality of His upcoming death. He, like us, could only take such comfort from His brethren if He viewed them positively.  

22:28 The disciples' persistent failure to grasp our Lord's teaching must have been a great source of trial and frustration for Him. Despite His warnings about His coming sufferings, the disciples failed to comprehend this; perhaps partly due to Jesus Himself fluctuating between talking of his death in both literal and then figurative terms. In His time of greatest need of encouragement He found them sadly lacking in any real degree of spirituality beyond a fanatic allegiance to Him. And yet He graciously thanked them for continuing with Him in His temptations, even though they fell asleep (Lk. 22:28). We can under-estimate how sensitive He is to our feeble spirituality, and how even the basic will to be loyal, no matter how much we fail in practice, means so much to Him. Yet their lack of comprehension must have been especially tragic, since one of the reasons for the gift of the disciples was to help Jesus through the pain of His ministry, and this was to culminate in the cross. After the Jews' first council of war against Christ, He prayed for strength and was answered by being given the twelve (Lk. 6:11-13).

22:30 This is an allusion to the happiness of Solomon's servants as they sat down to food and wine; they listened to Solomon's wisdom as they ate. Lk.14:15 speaks of us as happy servants.

Joseph celebrates his brothers’ repentance with a meal together, at which they sit in their proper places (Gen. 43:16). Likewise the marriage supper of the lamb, with each in his proper place (Lk. 14:10; 22:30; Rev. 19:9).

It was apparent that in the breaking of bread meetings, there had to be a host. The host was a vital figure. And yet herein lay the huge significance of breaking of bread meetings being held in homes- presumably the home of a richer believer- and yet it was the table of the Lord. He and not the master of the house was the host of that meeting. It's for this reason that it was unthinkable for any invited by grace to their Lord's table to turn away other guests- for it wasn't their table, it was the table of another One, and they were but guests. Attempts to bar others from the Lord's table in our own time are equally rude and deeply lacking in basic spiritual understanding. There are evident similarities between the breaking of bread experience and the marriage supper which we shall eat with the Lord Jesus in His Kingdom. The breaking of bread assembly is called "the table of the Lord"- and yet He says that we shall eat at "My table" at His return (Lk. 22:30).

22:31 The fact an Angel was called 'satan' in Num. 22 and in Job's case means we can maybe have another look at Luke 22:31, where Jesus tells the disciples "satan hath desired to have you (lit. :'demanded you for trial') that he may sift you as wheat". Wheat is normally a symbol of the righteous after a process of tribulation or judgement. The satan here could be an Angel, demanding them for trial from God, as Job's satan Angel did. The Lord’s comment that satan had demanded to have the disciples, especially Peter (Lk. 22:31) is clearly based upon the experience of Job, whom satan also demanded.  The Lord saw a similarity between Job and Peter, in that Job’s sufferings were to be repeated in their essence in the experience of Peter. Only through that bitter weeping and reflection upon it, corresponding in the Lord’s analogy to all that Job went through, would Peter like Job emerge triumphant.

The Old Testament prophecies also give insight into the actual process of the betrayal. The Hebrew for "equal" in "a man mine equal" (Ps. 55:13) is invariably translated elsewhere as 'price' or 'estimation'; possibly implying that the Jews had set the same price on Judas' head (in the sense of a bribe offered to them) at one stage as they had on Jesus. The Jewish satan seeking Peter and the other disciples ("Simon, Satan hath desired to have you", plural, Lk. 22:31) implies an organized attempt to subvert each of the twelve, perhaps by offering a financial reward for becoming a secret agent for the Jews. Judas having an equal price in the Jews' eyes as Jesus indicates how highly he was seen to rank among the disciples in the public eye- as important to the Jews as Jesus himself. This further strengthens the impression that Judas was highly esteemed by both Christ and the other disciples. It would appear that the love of this money was a significant factor in Judas' downfall; in the same way as Joseph's brethren were blinded by a money motive in betraying him rather than being interested in his death for its own sake. In addition, Judas' motives seem to have also been from being influenced by the thinking of the Jewish satan, offering the chance of an immediate Kingdom. He is alluded to in 1 Jn. 2:19 (cp. Jn. 13:30) as the prototype of all who left the true faith to be influenced by Judaist doctrine. 

22:31- see on 1 Pet. 5:8.

Peter and Satan

It is noteworthy that the Lord had previously warned that the Jewish Satan would be actively trying to influence the disciples away from the Truth: “Woe unto the world (often referring to the Jewish world in the Gospels) because of the offences!... but woe to that man by whom the offence comes!... whoso shall offend one of these little ones (the disciples – Zech. 13:7 cp. Mt. 26:31) which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and that he were drowned” (Mt. 18:6,7). This invites comparison with “Woe unto that man by whom the son of man is betrayed... it had been good for that man if he had not been born” (Mt. 26:24). Notice that this stumbling of the disciples at the hand of the Jewish world and its servant Judas was to be around the time of Christ’s capture (Mt. 26:31); which is what Luke 22:31 is warning the disciples (“you” plural) about, and which proved to be so relevant to Peter in the hours after the Lord’s capture. Further proof that “the world” that was to cause these offences was the Jewish world is found by comparing Mt. 13:38,41. It’s also been pointed out that ‘Satan desires to sift you as wheat’ “is a proverbial expression” ⁽¹⁾. Schleiermacher therefore observes about this passage: “There is no intention to teach anything with regard to Satan or to confirm that older belief” ⁽²⁾.

There’s also some evident allusion back to the record of Job in the Septuagint version. “The Lord said to the Devil, ‘Behold I give him over [paradidonai] to you; only preserve his life” (Job 2:6 LXX). Paradidonai and related words are very frequently used of how the Lord Jesus was ‘handed over’ to the systems of the Roman and Jewish Satan (e.g. Mk. 14:41), and yet ultimately His life was preserved by God. Here in Lk. 22:31 we have the Jewish Satan desiring to have the disciples, just as Job’s ‘Satan’ desired. If the disciples grasped the allusion, they would perceive that they were to be as Job, and believe that ultimately the ‘Satan’ was under God’s control, and through prayerful endurance they would come to victory as Job did.

Notes

(1) H.A. Kelly, Satan: A Biography (Cambridge: C.U.P., 2006) p. 312.

(2) F.E. Schleiermacher, The Christian Faith (London: Clark, 1999 ed.) p. 165.

22:32- see on Mt. 16:18; Lk. 22:3; Acts 3:19; 8:24; 2 Cor. 13:7; 2 Pet. 1:12.

Prayed. Not only did the Lord pray that Peter’s faith wouldn’t fail. He repeatedly made the point in the lead up to Peter’s temptations that His disciples really did know Him, therefore they should never deny this (Jn. 14:7,17; 15:21; 17:3), and He taught them that all men must know they were His disciples, if they truly were (Jn. 13:35). He was trying to strengthen Peter against the trial He knew would come: to deny that he knew Him. Likewise we may try to strengthen those prone to specific temptation, but the power of it depends on their recognition of their own weakness, and whether they have ears to hear. It would seem Peter didn’t, so confident was he of his own strength.

Paul referred to the Jews to whom he preached as his “brethren” (Acts 13:26), and it may be that Peter at least initially understood his commission to “strengthen thy brethren” as meaning preaching to his unbelieving Jewish brethren (although the same Greek word is used by Peter regarding his work of upbuilding the converts, 1 Pet. 5:10; 2 Pet. 1:12). Gal. 2:8-10 informs us that Peter had a ministry to the Jews of the diaspora in the Roman empire just as much as Paul did to the Gentiles living in the same area (Gal. 2:8-10). Because the Acts record focuses more on Paul’s work rather than Peter’s doesn’t mean that Peter was inactive. 1 Peter is addressed to Jewish converts living in the provinces of Asia Minor, and we can assume that Peter had spent years travelling around building up groups of believers based around the families of the individual Jews he had converted in Jerusalem at Pentecost. It would seem from 1 Cor. 1:12 that Peter had made a number of converts in Corinth, and 1 Pet. 5:13 strongly suggests Peter lived for a while in “Babylon” and had begun an ecclesia there. Whether this be taken as a code name for Rome or as literal Babylon (where there was a sizeable Jewish community), this was somewhere else Peter reached. All through this remarkable life of witness, he was motivated by his own experience of the Lord’s greatness, and His all sufficient grace toward him in his weakness. And a similar life of powerful witness lies before any who are touched likewise. 

“When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Lk. 22:32) found its’ fulfilment in the Lord’s interview with Peter in Jn. 21. Three times He asks him: ‘do you love me?’, and three times he invites Peter to care for the lambs and sheep- to strengthen his brethren. The triple denial and the triple re-enstatement and triple confession of love both occurred by a fire, a charcoal fire on each occasion (Jn. 18:18; 21:9) just to heighten the evident connection. Peter’s conversion can therefore be equated with his response to the denials- the repentance, the realization of his own frailty, and desperate acceptance of the Lord’s gracious pardon. Yet Peter invites his fellow elders: “feed the flock of God”, repeating the Lord’s commission to him, as if he saw in himself a pattern for each man who would take any pastoral role in Christ’s ecclesia. The implication is that each man must go through a like conversion. And Peter points out that we are “a royal priesthood”, as if he saw each believer as a priest / pastor. Peter is our example. We all deny our Lord, camoflauge it and justify it as we may. We all stand in Peter’s uncomfortable shoes. We do in principle what Judas did.

“When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren” (Lk. 22:32), the Lord told Peter. Yet Peter was converted already! The Lord had spoken of conversion as really seeing, really hearing, really understanding, and commented that the disciples (including Peter) had reached this point (Mt. 13:15,16). But he also told them that they needed to be converted and become as children, knowing they knew nothing as they ought to know (Mt. 18:3). Quite simply, there are different levels of conversion. Baptism isn’t conversion: it’s a beginning, not an end.

Moses of his own freewill chose to intercede for Israel, concerning things which at the time they knew nothing about; things which were almost against their will, in fact. And this is the prototype of the Lord's mediation for us who know not what to pray for as we ought. Consider how he prayed for Peter when Peter didn't realize he was being prayed for (Lk. 22:32).

22:34 Peter's problem with the cross was perhaps at the root of his denials of the Lord. Before the cock crowed twice, he denied Jesus twice (Lk. 22:34). It's been pointed out that chickens couldn't have been anywhere near the High Priest's house because the priests forbad anyone in Jerusalem from keeping chickens, lest they stray into the temple. The Encyclopedia Judaica points out that the priest who was the temple crier was called the Gaver, Hebrew for 'cock' or 'rooster'. This man opened the temple before dawn and called the priests and people to make the morning sacrifice. And he did this two or three times. Surely the Lord was referring to this when He spoke of the 'cock' crowing. Each time, Peter was being called to make the sacrifice with Jesus; but instead he denied knowledge of Jesus and the call to the cross which that knowledge entails. The context of the Lord's warnings to Peter about his forthcoming denial was that Peter had insisted he would die with Jesus, sharing in His sacrifice. And the Lord was foretelling that when that call came, Peter would deny the knowledge of Jesus.

22:35 We are to realistically grasp the fact that His mission and ministry is in fact ours. And the total insecurity, exposure to danger, misunderstanding, slander, sudden calls of God to change direction and move way out of our comfort zone etc. are all part of participating in the short term fate and eternal victory of the One whom we follow. His call to each of us to preach Him is radical. He sent out His preachers with no money, no food etc. He didn’t tell them to go out without extra money, extra food nor clothes etc. He told them to take none of these things (Lk. 22:35). Why? Surely because He wanted them – and us- to understand that the preacher of Christ is to be totally dependent upon His provision for them. It was a high challenge. When the disciples faltered at the Last Supper, the Lord told them that OK, if you have a purse, take it; if you want a sword for protection, then buy one (Lk. 22:35). Surely He was saying, as He is to us today: ‘OK, I want you to rise up to the spirit of My ‘Let the dead bury their dead’ and ‘Take no money with you’ exhortations. But if you can’t, OK, take a lower level, but all the same, go forth and be My witnesses. Please!’.

22:41 A stone's throw - an allusion to David and Goliath near the brook.

22:43- see on Ps. 80:15.

22:45- see on Mk. 14:72; Lk. 22:27.

The manner of inspiration reflects how God sees His servants. Often the Spirit caused the Bible writers to portray God's children in an extremely positive way. Thus Lk. 22:45 says that the disciples fell asleep from sorrow, when in reality this was due to their lack of spiritual awareness and sense of spiritual urgency. Likewise, Lk. 1:18 records only a few (apparently harmless) of the many words which Zacharias doubtless said, not without strong disbelief, during the abnormally long time he remained in the temple. These examples illustrate how God looks so positively upon His children.

22:46 Without being ostentatious in the eyes of others, try to use a physical position in prayer which is conducive to concentration. There are Biblical examples of prayer standing, kneeling, sitting, sitting cross-legged, with hands uplifted... Remember how the Lord told the disciples to rise and pray; He could see that curled up as they were, they were more likely to nod off to sleep than intensely pray (Lk. 22:46). He had already told them to pray (v. 40), and doubtless they had obediently started praying, but had fallen asleep while doing so. "Rise and pray" surely suggests: 'Come on men, I told you to pray, but you can't pray lounging around like that!'. And I would bet many of us need the same words.

How He prayed is an example of the Lord’s words being made flesh in His living. He taught His men to pray “Your will be done”; and in Gethsemane, He prayed those very words Himself, even though praying them meant an acceptance of crucifixion (Mt. 26:52). In that same context, the Lord asks His men to pray that they enter not into temptation (Lk. 22:46). He was asking them to pray His model prayer just as He was doing. His own example was to be their inspiration. I wonder too, in passing, whether the Lord’s request at that time that the cup of suffering pass from Him (Mk. 14:35) was His way of praying not to be led into temptation- for perhaps He momentarily feared that He would finally spiritually stumble under the burden of the cross? This surely is the meaning of the hymn that speaks of living more nearly as we pray.

22:49 Peter’s objection to the Lord’s going to die at Jerusalem surfaced several times. He wanted to build tents so that Jesus wouldn’t go down from the mountain to the strange exodos which the prophets declared. When he wanted to “smite with the sword” in the Garden, it was to get the Lord out of the cross. Peter was willing to suffer, to fight, to even die in what would have been a hopeless combat, outnumbered dozens to one. But he just didn’t want the cross to be the way. It is recorded that when Peter saw “what would follow” in the Garden, he wanted to start a fight in order to at least have some slim chance of avoiding that inevitable crucifixion which now looked so certain (Lk. 22:49). He didn’t want the path of events to “follow” to that end. He again denied the connection between following and cross carrying. Later, the Lord told Peter in categoric terms that he personally was to follow Him to the death of the cross. And Peter turns round, sees John following, and gets sidetracked by the question of what the Lord thinks about John. As with us, quasi spiritual reasoning and issues were allowed to cloud and dilute the essential and terrifying truth- that we are called to bear Christ’s cross to the end.

An essay in unquestioning loyalty to the Lord and Master is found in Lk. 22:49: "When they which were about him saw what would follow (i.e. arrest and attack), they said unto him, Lord, shall we smite with the sword?". That grim faced band of men standing in a protective circle around their Lord knew that they had no chance of victory against the mob with Judas, armed to the teeth as they were. Yet they were willing, to a man, to heroically sacrifice their lives- the inevitable result of starting a fight- as a token of loyalty to a man who humanly speaking was a lost cause, and whose demise seemed so unexpected to them compared to their hopes of a glorious Kingdom being established there and then. 

22:56 fire- see on Jn. 3:14-21.

22:61- see on 2 Pet. 1:12.

22:61 The “day of visitation” is coming for us all (1 Pet. 2:12). The Greek is related to the word describing how after the denials, Christ turned and looked upon Peter (Lk. 22:61). This was for him his day of judgment, which we must all pass through. He called down Divine curses upon himself if he knew Jesus of Nazareth- and thus brought the curse of God upon himself (the record of his cursing and swearing refers to this rather than to the use of expletives).

22:61 Appreciating the extent of Peter's devotion to Christ's words enables us to more fully enter into the man's spiritual and emotional tragedy when he denied Christ. He paid no attention to Christ's words of warning concerning Peter's own spiritual weakness. After that third cock crow, "Peter remembered the word  of the Lord  , how  he had said unto him..." (Lk. 22:61; "how" may refer to the physical manner in which Christ spoke to Peter, as well as to the content of his words). 

22:62 Peter “went out” from the Lord. “Went out” is the language of Judas going out (Jn. 13:30- in essence, Peter and Judas did the same thing at the same time). Other prototypes of the rejected likewise had gone out from the Lord. Cain ‘“went out” (Gen. 4:16), as did Zedekiah in the judgment of Jerusalem (Jer. 39:4; 52:7). Esau went out from the land of Canaan into Edom, slinking away from the face of his brother Jacob, sensing his righteousness and his own carnality (Gen. 36:2-8). Yet Peter in this life “went out” from the Lord (Mk. 14:68) and then some minutes later further “went out and wept bitterly” (Lk. 22:62), living out the very figure of condemnation-  and yet was able to repent and come back. In this life we can be judged, condemned, weep... but still repent of it and thereby change our eternal destiny. But at the final judgment: it will be just too late. That ‘judgment’ will be a detailed statement of the outcome of the ongoing investigative judgment which is going on right now. See on Mk. 14:68.

22:64- see on Lk. 7:39.

22:70 The Lord’s sensitivity is revealed in how He comments upon the Jews’ question: “Art thou then the Son of God?”. He replies: “Ye say it because I am” (Lk. 22:70 RVmg.). The Lord perceived that men ask a question like that because subconsciously, they perceive the truth of the matter, and in their conscience, they already know the answer to their question. Perhaps for this reason He simply ceased answering their questions as the trial went on (Lk. 23:9). He realized that the questions they asked were actually revealing the answers which were already written in their consciences. For a man of this psychological insight to have lived and died amidst and for such a primitive rabble is indeed amazing.

23:9- see on Lk. 22:70.

23:26 Simon is a Greek name, and the names of his sons are Greco-Roman. The way he is described as “coming out of the field" (Lk. 23:26) could imply that he was working, doing what was improper on a feast day, because he was a Gentile. It could be that he simply lived and worked near Jerusalem, he wasn’t a religious guy, and like Saul out looking for lost cattle, he was going some place else… until the Lord as it were arrested him with the message of the cross.

23:27 As unworthy people wailed before Him on the cross (Lk. 23:27- the Lord knew they would be condemned in the AD70 judgment rather than obey his words and flee the city), so they will wail (s.w.) before Him at the judgment (Mt. 24:30). The cross and the judgment are definitely connected. Men's feelings at the cross are a foretaste of our feelings before the enthroned, glorified Lord. And hence there is a connection between the breaking of bread, the judgment, the crucifixion, self-examination... it all comes together.

He turned and spoke to the women. Luke as a doctor knew that suffering makes one self-centred. It is perhaps because of this that he especially seems to concentrate on the wonder of the way in which the Lord looked out of His own agony to be so concerned with that of others. A.D. Norris has commented (The Gospel Of Mark): "It is he who reports the Lord's prayer for Simon Peter (22:31); who recounts the Lord's sympathetic warning to the women of Jerusalem (23:27-31); and who speaks of the Lord's forgiveness for His crucifiers, and remission for the penitent thief (23:34,43)".

Reflect for a moment upon the fact that the women wept, and amongst them were the Lord’s relatives (Lk. 23:27). Lamentation for criminals on their way to die was not permitted in public. Suetonius (Tiberius 61) reports that “the relatives [of the crucified] were forbidden to go into mourning". Likewise Tacitus (Annals 6.19), Philo (In Flaccum 9,72) and Josephus (Wars Of The Jews 2.13.3,253). This is all quite some evidence, from a variety of writers. So why did they make this great sacrifice, take this great risk? The cross has power. Whether we feel it is impossible for us to be emotional, given our personality type, or whether we feel so lost in our own griefs that we cannot feel for Him there, somehow sustained reflection on the cross will lead us out of this. We will mourn, come what may. Yet the tragedy is that those women who risked so much didn’t necessarily maintain that level of commitment to the end. For the Lord had to tell them that they should weep for themselves given the calamity that would befall them and their children in AD70- for they would not listen to Him.

23:28- see on Lk. 7:9.

23:31 He turned and spoke to the women on the walk to Golgotha; He looked out of His own agony to the needs of others. This is another theme of the cross. He was even thoughtful for weak Pilate (Jn. 19:11); for the thief, for the forgiveness of those mocking soldiers, for His mother, for John, for those women lining the Via Dolorosa... And those women, He said, would be destroyed in the condemnation of Jerusalem in AD70. Phil. 2:2-4 makes the point that the essence of the cross is in the way the Lord's mind was so full of concern for others throughout the whole wretched process. The Lord's Bible-filled mind would have been aware of Jer. 9:20-22, which prophesied special woe to women in the holocaust of AD70. Those women were condemned. Yet the Lord turned, in His desperate agony, to speak to them. I admit, as I must through every stage of the cross, that I wouldn't have done this. I wouldn't have bothered with them. But He made such effort to at least try to get them to change their minds. They were weeping for Him, but He knew they would not obey His command to leave Jerusalem when it would be surrounded by armies. Neither would their children. On a human level, they must have been so annoying. Young women (if they were alive in AD70 40 years later), probably passively in love with Him, moved to tears at His passion but with no regard for His words and the real implications of His cross. Yet still He tried for them, running the risk of cat calls of 'You can't carry your own cross but you can talk to the girls'. "If they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?" is packed with allusion to O.T. Scriptures (Ez. 17:24; Jer. 11:16,19; Ps. 1; Jer. 17:5-8). His preceding words to the women were likewise; his quotation from Hos. 10:8 is set in a context so appropriate to the situation He was in. If they did these things to Him, the green and healthy shoot, what would be done to the dry dead wood of Israel…? His concern was always with the sufferings others would experience rather than being lost in His own introspection. Without getting too deeply involved in the actual exposition, a simple lesson emerges: He was not so overpowered by the terrible physicality of His human situation that He ceased to be spiritually aware. His mind was full of the word, not just out of place quotations flooding His subconscious, but real awareness of the spirit of the Father's word and its' intensely personal relevance to Himself. In this He sets a matchless example. If the crossbeam was tied to the nape of the Lord’s neck, it would have been impossible for Him to turn round and talk, as it is specifically stated that He did. I would reconstruct that the Lord collapsed, and Simon was forced to carry the cross, whilst the Lord followed on, scarcely conscious. Before collapsing again, with the result that He was carried to the cross, He used His last and final energy at the time to speak to those women. He used His last bit of mental and physical strength to preach- to women whom He knew were not going to really respond. For He said they should weep for themselves, He knew they would not listen to His warning to flee Jerusalem in AD70. But such was His hopefulness for people, that He still made the effort to communicate rather than get lost within Himself and His own thoughts as I would have tended to.

The humility of Mary was the pattern for the Lord’s self-humiliation in the cross. Here above all we see the influence of Mary upon Jesus, an influence that would lead Him to and through the cross. Her idea of putting down the high and exalting the lowly (Lk. 1:52) is picking up Ez. 17:24: “I have brought down the high tree, have exalted the low tree, have dried up the green tree, and have made the dry tree to flourish”. And yet these very words of Ezekiel were quoted by the Lord in His time of dying. With reverence, we can follow where we are being led in our exploration and knowing of the mind of Christ. His dear mum had gone around the house singing her Magnificat. He realized that she felt the lowly who had been exalted [and perhaps in some unrecorded incident before her conception she had been recently humbled?]. And Jesus had realized her quotation of Ez. 17:24. And He had perceived His linkage and connection with her, and how she saw all that was true of Him as in some way true of her, and vice versa. And now, in His final crisis, He takes comfort from the fact that like His dear mother, He the one who was now humbled, would be exalted. How many other trains of thought have been sparked in men’s minds by the childhood instructions of their mothers…? 

23:33 Note the emphasis in the records on "unto", "to", "the place". They arrived. They stopped there. This was it.

23:34- see on Acts 3:17.

23:34

Christ prayed that the soldiers would be forgiven [without repentance] because "they know not what they do". The fact He asked for their forgiveness shows that they were guilty of sin, although they were ignorant of it- and had therefore not repented. How could they repent of crucifying Christ while they were actually doing it? They may well have regretted doing what they were forced to do by reason of the circumstances in which they found themselves. Thus Christ knew that forgiveness was possible without specific repentance and forsaking. The reply 'But that only applies to sins of ignorance!' is irrelevant- Christ's attitude still disproves the hypothesis that forgiveness can only be granted if there is a forsaking of sin.

"Father forgive them"

Because the weight is on the arms, the crucified can't speak easily. The whole conversation between the thief and the Lord would probably have been whispered, with long intervals between words. The final two loud cries of the Lord must have been made with immense pain. It also explains why they confused His "Eli, Eli" with 'Eliyahu' (Elijah); He was probably speaking very quietly. There is no recorded reaction of the crowd to His prayers. Yet Ps. 22:1 speaks of His prayer as a lion roaring to God, and yet He felt that the abuse of the crowd was like the ravening and roaring of a lion (Ps. 22:13). It may be that they hurled abuse back at Him in response to the roaring of His prayers.

Note the Lord's appreciation of the Fatherhood of God throughout His passion: Lk. 22:42; Mt. 26:39,42,44; Lk. 23:34,46. Throughout the Gospels, the Lord calls God His Father around 170 times (109 of them in John, as if he noticed this as especially significant). This was a real paradigm breaker for the Jews, who even from the 15 Old Testament references to God as Father, only understood His fatherhood in a national, not personal, sense. Yet the Son's relation to the Father has been passed on to us (Mk. 14:36 cp. Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6). The closeness of the Father to the Son, prefigured by that between Abraham and Isaac, is something to be wondered at. "Into thine hand I commit my spirit... thou hast known my soul in adversities" (Ps. 31:7).

The Sayings From The Cross (1):

"Father forgive them"

The Seven Last Sayings Of Jesus From The Cross	Number of words in Greek
1."Father forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Lk. 23:34)	12
2."Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Lk. 23:43)	9
3. "Woman behold thy son!... Behold thy mother!" (Jn. 19:26)	4
4. "My God, my God, Why hast thou forsaken me?" (Mt. 27:46; Mk. 15:34)	3
5. “I thirst" (Jn. 19:28)	1
6. "It is finished" (Jn. 19:30)	1
7. "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Lk. 23:46)	8

Introduction

The pain and difficulty of speech in the position of crucifixion was such that it is apparent that the Lord meant us to hear and meditate upon the words He uttered from the cross. Perhaps it would have been far easier for Him to have prayed those words to Himself, within His own thoughts; but instead He made the effort to speak them out loud. The passion of the Lord's intercessions on the cross is matchless. He roared to God in His prayer, regardless of whether there was light or darkness (Ps. 22:1,2). He reflected there that His prayer was offered to God "in an acceptable time" (Ps. 69:13). And yet this very passage is taken up in 2 Cor. 6:2 concerning the necessary vigour of our crying to God for salvation. That the intensity of the Lord's prayerfulness and seeking of God on the cross should be held up as our pattern: the very height of the ideal is wondrous.

It is worth noting that if the Lord's seven recorded utterances are placed in the conventional chronology, the number of words Christ actually spoke can be seen to steadily decrease until the final utterance (although it should be noted that in our reconstruction, saying 3 comes before no. 2).

Not only does this serve to illustrate the intensity of effort wrung forth from our Lord in His final utterance, but we also sense that He found physically speaking increasingly difficult. The picture of a man carrying his cross towards the place of death, the image of a man hanging upon a cross in his time of dying, these are images of a man who finds it increasingly difficult to carry on, a man who finds the way harder and harder. And yet these are the very images picked up by our Lord and applied to all those who seek to follow Him. The conclusion: life in Christ in a sense becomes increasingly difficult, it is increasingly difficult to truly hold on to the spirit of our crucified Lord. And yet as so many of us can testify, the possibility of turning back recedes further and further as the months and years go by. "Lord, to whom shall we go?" becomes more and more underlined in our Bibles.

"Forgive them"

"Father forgive them" were the first words said by the Lord Jesus as He hung on the cross. It seems from the context that they were said soon after the cross was lifted up into a vertical position and dropped down into the hole prepared for it. Physically, this would have been the time of greatest shock and pain, as the body of Jesus came to rest with its full weight upon the nails, as they tore into the flesh and sinews of His hands and feet. As His nervous system began to fully react, He was in great pain and shock. And yet immediately His thoughts went to forgiving those who had brought this upon Him; and, as we hope to see, His thoughts were immediately with us, with the possibility of our salvation and forgiveness. In this we see a matchless example of being so concerned for the salvation of others, so taken up with a desire to show love to those who hate us, that the physicality of our own sufferings, however immediately and insistently they press, becomes totally relegated.

We must face up to a fundamental question: Who was it that Christ was asking God to forgive? By eliminating who Christ did not pray for, we can come towards an answer. Christ did not pray for the world (Jn. 17:9), which in the context seems to refer to the unrepentant Jewish world (cp. Jer. 11:14; 1 Jn. 5:8) as well as the surrounding (Roman) world.

- Not The Romans

Forgiveness is related to repentance. There would seem little point in Christ praying for the Roman soldiers to be forgiven. It would be rather like a believer praying for some youths to be forgiven for vandalizing a bus shelter; to what point would this be? Would such a prayer really lead them towards salvation? Would it be an appropriate thing to pray for?

Throughout the Acts, both Peter and Paul accuse the Jews of having crucified Christ, even though the Roman soldiers physically did it. Peter even goes so far as to say that it was their hands which placed Jesus on the cross and nailed Him (Acts 2:23- notice how their physical contact with the Lord's body is stressed in Mk. 14:46,53). The Roman hands which did this were effectively Jewish hands. Psalms 22 and 69 outline in some detail the things done to Christ on the cross. Some were done by the Jews, others by the Romans. And yet the same pronoun "they" is used, as if these things were all done by the same group of people. This further suggests that the Spirit saw the actions of the Romans as being attributable to the Jews. There seems no reason to think that the Roman or Italian nation were held guilty by God for the part they played in the death of His Son.

Nor The Jewish Nation

The Jewish people generally were punished because they saw the Son of God coming to their vineyard, and yet they killed Him, despite recognizing who He was. "This is the heir", they recognized (Mt. 21:38). Pilate therefore, because of the Jews, ordered the death of the Son of God (Jn. 18:40 cp. 19:1). They must take full responsibility for it. The Roman soldiers set Christ at nought (Lk. 23:11); but this very act (the same word is used) is counted to the Jews (Acts 4:11). The Lord Jesus shouted out to them that He knew that they realized who He was: "Then cried Jesus in the temple as He taught, saying, Ye both know me, and ye know whence I am" (Jn. 7:28). His allusion to the memorial Name ("I am") suggests that He recognized that they knew His Divine origin and manifestation of His Father's Name. Christ was responding to their claim that they did not think He was Messiah (Jn. 7:27)- by saying 'You do know, deep inside, that I am He; but you won't face up to your conscience about it'. It was in this sense that Jesus frequently said in John's Gospel that the Jews did not know Him nor His Father. However, this does not mean that they did not recognize who He was. To "know" Christ in the Johanine sense is to believe in Him, not just to give Him cognizance. It would be a massive contradiction within the thinking of Jesus for Him to ask God to forgive the whole Jewish people because they didn't realize what they were doing. According to His parable of the men recognizing the heir and killing him, they did know, perfectly well, what they were doing,

If indeed Jesus was praying for the entire Jewish nation, His prayer went unanswered. He had said Himself that if the Jews did not repent and believe in Him, they would die in their sins; He said that an impressive three times (Jn. 8:21,24).

Prayer For A Minority

It seems that Christ was in some way praying for those among the Jews who would later repent of what they had done. This suggestion must almost certainly have some truth about it because of the way Peter alludes to Christ's words: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do" . He seems to apply these words to the Jews, and uses them to encourage the Jews to repent and thereby take unto themselves the forgiveness which Christ's prayer had made possible: "And now, brethren, I wot that through (RV "in") ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers... repent ye therefore" (Acts 3:17,19). Paul makes a similar allusion in Acts 13:26,27: "Men and brethren, children of the stock of Abraham (Paul seems to be repeating Peter's style of 3:17)... they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers (cp. 3:17), because they knew him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets which are read every Sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning him" .

There is a clear principle throughout God's self-revelation that ignorance does not atone for sin. "Father forgive them for they know not what they do" therefore does not mean that their ignorance plus Christ's prayer equalled forgiveness and therefore salvation. We have to conclude that He was saying 'They don't now know what they are doing, please forgive them on account of my death, they'll repent and realize later'. Despite Peter's allusion to Christ's prayer for their forgiveness, Peter still asks the Jews to repent so that they could be forgiven and saved. Therefore Christ's prayer for their forgiveness was not offered or answered in the sense that they would be forgiven without repentance. That forgiveness was only granted in prospect. They had to 'claim' it by their own repentance. However, it is still wondrously true that Christ understood that God was willing to grant forgiveness to people in prospect, even though they had not actually repented. If God is willing to do this, to forgive in hope of future repentance in response to such great grace, how much more should we behave likewise to each other. And yet we struggle with this, even though we each have received such grace ourselves.

"Them" - Us?

The death of Christ was fundamentally for the salvation of Israel. His prayer was gloriously answered in that soon afterwards, 8,000 Jews were baptized (Acts 2:41; 4:4). Such is the power of anguished, heartfelt prayer for others- even when it seems there is no chance it will be heard. And such is the power of prayer for a third party. The Lord’s attitude was not that they simply had to decide. He prayed they would be converted. It only applies to us insofar as we unite ourselves with the Israel of God. That minority within Israel who were crucifying Christ in ignorance ("they know not what they do”) were the same category into which we fall. Christ praying on the cross for men to be forgiven ought to send the mind back to Is. 53, which prophesied that on the cross, Christ would "justify many; for he shall bear their iniquities", be wounded for our transgressions, be bruised for our iniquities, make a sin offering for His seed, heal us through His stripes, achieve our peace with God through His chastisement, bear the sin of many, be numbered with the transgressors, be stricken "for the transgression of my people", and make "intercession for the transgressors". These are all broadly parallel statements. "The transgressors" are primarily "my people", Israel, who despised and rejected him (53:3). And yet they also refer to us, insofar as we become identified with Israel in order to be saved. The prophesy that Christ would make "intercession for the transgressors" in His time of dying was surely fulfilled when He prayed "Father forgive them". There seems no other real alternative.

And so we come to an awe-inspiring conclusion: Christ was lifted up on the cross, and immediately His mind was full of us, all those who would repent and become the seed of Christ, full of our need, of the huge weight of all our sins. And He knew that through His death all that sin would be forgiven. It was by the Lord’s one act of righteousness, one act of obedience, that we are justified (Rom. 5:18,19). He was obedient to the death of the cross (Phil. 2:8); and yet Heb. 5:8 and Phil. 2:8 RV imply that He only became obedient whilst He was actually on the cross. Was it that there, whilst hanging there, He more deeply perceived that really, this was indeed the only way to meet our need- and therefore He made that one-off act of obedience in death which Rom. 5:19 speaks about. And that supreme love for us, that willingness to die “for us", is still part of His wonderful character; for there He “loved us" [the love of Christ and the cross are so often connected ideas], and yet He still has that same “love of Christ" for us today (Rom. 8:35,37).

As soon as the cross was lifted up, despite the sudden searing pain, His mind was fixed upon our desperate need: "Father forgive them". Each one of us who have now believed down through the subsequent years was forgiven then, in that moment, of all our sins we would ever commit. Through one act of righteousness [i.e. the cross], we were justified (Rom. 5:18 RV). There was such intensity of achievement in those moments of His death. Here on earth, on a mere speck of a planet in the outer suburbs of a galaxy that is only one of about a billion such galaxies in the observable universe, what happened on the cross determined the future of that universe. For all things both in heaven an in earth were reconcile by the blood of the cross. And yet throughout the Gospels Christ had taught that the Father would only forgive those who themselves live a forgiving life. Yet at that time we had not repented; "When we were yet without strength, Christ died for the ungodly... God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us... when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son" (Rom. 5:5-10).

Our Lord's prayer was heard; our sins, unrepented of, were forgiven, in prospect we were forgiven and saved. In the same way as Peter used the wonder of this to appeal to the Jews to repent, so we should heed the appeal. All our sins were forgiven as a result of that prayer, in prospect we were saved. God for the sake of that prayer of Christ forgave us all our sins then (Eph. 4:32), the whole concept of sin was ended in prospect (Dan. 9:24), one final sacrifice was offered for sins (Heb. 10:12). The result of this is that we should repent, search ourselves and confess as many of our sins as possible, knowing they have been conquered. And we too should forgive each other in the same manner as we have been forgiven (Eph. 4:32), not waiting for repentance, but learning the spirit of Christ and the attitude of our Father.

The extreme seriousness of our position prior to our reconciliation with God is easy to underestimate. We were "enemies... sinners". We have seen that "Father forgive them" refers to both us and the ignorant Jews who were crucifying Christ. And yet in the first instance, the "them" referred to the Roman soldiers; they crucified Christ, they parted His garments; and it is in that context that Christ asked for "them" to be forgiven. There is a certain relevance of Christ's words to those ignorant soldiers. And yet we have seen that they really refer to us, to all those who will truly repent of their sins. It follows that those soldiers represent us, as the Jews who rejected and despised Christ in Is. 53 represent us too. Truly do we sing that "We held him as condemned by Heaven", albeit in ignorance. The roughness and ignorance of those soldiers typifies our life before baptism. If we continue sinning, we crucify again the son of God, this time not in ignorance. The consequences of that are almost too fearful to imagine.

A guilt offering

Ignorance is no atonement for sin, as the Law taught. "Forgive them for they know not what they do" sounds as if Christ felt that He was the offering for ignorance, which was required for both rulers and ordinary Israelites (cp. how Peter and Paul describe both the rulers and ordinary people as "ignorant", implying they had a need for the ignorance offering of Christ, Acts 3:17; 13:27). Indeed, Is. 53:10 NIV describes Christ's death as a "guilt offering". And significantly, Heb. 5:2 describes Christ as a good priest who can have compassion on those (i.e. us) who have sinned through ignorance and want reconciliation. As we come, progressively, to realize our sinfulness, we need to make a guilt offering. But that guilt offering has already been made, with the plea "Father forgive them, for they know not what they do".

Once we begin to appreciate these things, we see the intensity behind those words of Christ. "Father forgive them" was uttered with His mind on all our future sins, He foresaw them all, He felt them upon Him, He saw they could not be forgiven without repentance, and yet He asked the Father to forgive them as sins of ignorance, believing that we would repent in the future. No wonder Peter and Paul use these words of Christ as the basis of their appeal to Israel to repent! And if we appreciate them, we will be inspired to truly examine ourselves, to realize our secret sins, to search the word in order to reveal our sins to us, to ask God after the pattern of David to reveal our weakness to us, to truly confess our sins, knowing that each and every one of them was recognized by the Father and Son as Christ hung on the cross. Every one of them was a weight upon Christ, and every one of them was forgiven in the hope that we would later appreciate the wonder of such grace, and repent. This means that as with Israel in Acts 3, our repentance is what makes the cross of Christ powerful for us, it is what makes the victory of Christ all the greater if we accept it; for when we repent, "our unrighteousness commends God's righteousness", in the language of Romans.

Christ's awareness of us on the cross

In some sense, then, Christ was aware of each of us and each of our sins as He hung there. "Forgive them" was wrung out of this deep appreciation. Just one word (in the Greek) expressed such intensity of appreciation of our need. It seems that as Christ hung on the cross He had a vision of the faithful. How this was achieved is hard to imagine, but it is not beyond the realms of Divine possibility that somehow Christ was made aware of each and every one of us, and each of our sins. Consider the following hints concerning the Lord's vision of His ecclesia on the cross:

- "When thou shalt make his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed... he shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied" (Is. 53:10,11). "When" would suggest that Christ had some kind of vision of those He was offering Himself for, especially in their future, forgiven state.

- Psalms 22 and 69 describe Christ on the cross foreseeing "the great congregation" gratefully and humbly eating in memory of Him (cp. the breaking of bread), serving Him, inheriting Zion and declaring His righteousness and His victory on the cross to others down the generations. Let us remember this as we break bread and witness to Him (Ps. 22:30,31).

- On the cross Christ saw all His bones, which represented the future members of His body (Ps. 22:17 cp. Eph. 5:30).

- The Lord prayed just before His passion in a way which would almost imply that He had some heightened awareness of the redeemed as a group: "...for them also which shall believe in me... that they also may be one".

- "For the joy that was set before him" Christ endured the cross (Heb. 12:2). "Set before" can imply a vision, as if Christ saw something in front of Him as He hung on the cross. The spirit of Christ in Ps. 16:11 describes Christ looking forward to fullness of joy in God's Heavenly presence, because "at thy right hand are pleasures for evermore". Christ is now at God's right hand interceding for us. Therefore we suggest that the joy set before Christ in vision as He hung on the cross was the joy of His future mediation for our sins as we repent of them and confess them in prayer.

As we have said, the intensity of feeling behind those words of our Lord almost defies exhibition through the medium of human words or language. Heb. 5:1-7 describes Christ on the cross as a priest offering up a guilt offering for our sins of ignorance. He did this, we are told, through "prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears". This must surely be a reference to "Father forgive them". Those were said with a real passion, with strong crying, with tears as He appreciated the extent of our sinfulness and offence of God. There is a connection between these words and those of Rom. 8:26,27, which describes Christ as our High Priest making intercession for us "with groanings". "Groanings" is surely the language of suffering and crucifixion. It is as if our Lord goes through it all again when He prays for our forgiveness, He has the same passion for us now as He did then. Think of how on the cross He had that overwhelming desire for our forgiveness despite His own physical pain. That same level of desire is with Him now. Surely we can respond by confessing our sins, by getting down to realistic self-examination, by rallying our faith to truly appreciate His mediation and the forgiveness that has been achieved, to believe that all our sins, past and future, have been conquered, and to therefore rise up to the challenge of doing all we can to live a life which is appropriate to such great salvation.

23:38 Lk. 22:36,38 record that the inscription on the cross was “also" written- connecting with how the soldiers “also" mocked Him. The inscription was intended as another mockery; but it was a vital part in declaring God’s glory. The incident is typical of how those things which seem the most negative and unspiritual are used by the Father to His and our glory in the end.

23:41 The cross is capable of interpretation as some kind of judgment seat or throne. And significantly, there are men on the right hand and left of the Lord, one rejected, the other gloriously accepted. It is possible to translate the repentant thief as telling the other: “Do you not fear God when you stand condemned?". Before Jesus crucified, we all stand condemned. And he stresses that “we are condemned justly" (Lk. 23:41), for it was evident to all that here hung a just / righteous man. He, there, the just hanging for the unjust, convicts us of sin. Somehow the repentant thief came to know Jesus in the deepest possible sense. Truly could he address him as “Lord", perceiving already how the cross had made Him “Lord and Christ". The thief knew that judgment day was coming, and asked to be remembered for good there. He was surely alluding to Ps. 106:4: “Remember me, Lord, in the course of favouring your people. Visit me with your salvation". And this connection between the cross and the judgment was evidently impressed upon the thief. Doubtless he also had in mind the desperate plea of Joseph: “Have me in remembrance when…" you come into your position of power (Gen. 40:14 RV). The thief had perhaps meditated upon the implications of the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come". He saw it as now being certain because of the cross- “when you come in your Kingdom…". And yet he felt as if he was in prospect already there before the coming King, as he hung there before Him on the cross.

23:42 Note the Joseph allusions- in prison with two malefactors (one good and one bad?) as Christ on the cross with two thieves (one good, one bad). "Remember me when it shall be well with thee" (Gen. 40:14) = "Remember me".

23:43 "Luke elsewhere uses "today" to refer to immediate salvation (2:11; 4:21; 5:26; 13:32; 19:9); "Luke's Gospel, then, insists that salvation is not simply a radically future experience but a thing of the present"

“Today you will be with me in Paradise"

The thieves (and Barabbas) would have been tried along with Jesus; they would have been present at His trial. Roman law required that the death penalty be executed the same day as it was given. The crucifixion being quite early in the day, it seems almost certain that the four cases to be tried that day would all have been heard in the same room. The behaviour of the Lord must have really given those other three something to reflect on. An interesting point comes out of the Greek text of Lk. 23:39: "One of the criminals who were suspended reviled him" (Diaglott). Ancient paintings show the thieves tied by cords to the crosses, not nailed as was Christ. Hanging on a tree became an idiom for crucifixion, even if nails were actually used (Dt. 21:23 cp. Gal. 3:13; Acts 5:30; 10:39). If this were so, we see the development of a theme: that the whole ingenuity of man was pitted against the Father and Son. Christ was nailed, not tied; the tomb was sealed and guarded; the legal process was manipulated; the Lord was flogged as well as crucified.

The Sayings From The Cross (3):

"Today you will be with me in Paradise"

It is all too easy for us to see the thief on the cross as a pawn in the game of the Lord's crucifixion. But there is real New Testament evidence that we are to see in Him our personal representative. Thus Paul challenges us to be "co- crucified" with Christ (Rom. 6:6; Gal. 2:20 cp. 1 Cor. 11:1). To be crucified together with Christ immediately sends the imaginative mind to the thief on the cross- the one who was literally crucified together with Christ. It is doubtful if the Spirit in Paul would speak of 'co- crucifixion' without deliberate reference back to the thief. Our Lord matched the idea of the word "Kingdom" in the thief's plea with the word "paradise". Occurring only three times in the New Testament, it is hard to resist the conclusion that in Rev. 2:7, our Lord's mind was back in the agonizing conversation with the thief: "To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God". It was to the thief on the cross, some years earlier, that Christ had made the same promise of paradise. It may be significant that Rev. 2:7 was specifically addressed to those who were zealous by nature, hating laxity, yet who had left their first love. The thief may well have been a 'zealot' who had once turned to Christ, but whose real faith had slipped away. But to any who overcome, the same promise of paradise is made.

It has often been pointed out that the brief words of the thief encompass all the basic beliefs of the One Faith. He believed in the sinfulness of man, the supreme righteousness of Christ, salvation by grace, the second coming and judgment seat of Christ, and the Kingdom. Yet not only did he believe those things as abstract principles. As he beheld, at close range, the sufferings of God's peerless son, the reality of those principles really came home to him. Perhaps he was a slave who had committed a relatively petty crime, but as a slave he had to be crucified. All prisoners and most condemned men feel keenly their relative innocence and the unfairness of it all. But with quite some pain he gasped: “...and we indeed justly". He came to deeply understand the basic principles, and appreciate their personal bearing to himself. He knew the basic principles of the true Gospel, but it was his co- crucifixion with Christ that made him grasp hold of them for dear life. Job too went through the same process, thanks to his typical suffering together with Christ: "I have heard of Thee by the hearing of the ear; but now mine eye seeth Thee" (Job 42:5). And us? The thief, not to say Job, represents us. If we are truly co- crucified with Christ, the basic elements of our faith will not be just a dry doctrinal skeleton. The coming of the Kingdom, the doctrine of judgment and the atonement, these will be all we live for! For they were all the thief had to live for, during his hours of co- crucifixion.

It is possible that the thief had a really deep Bible knowledge. “Remember me when thou comest in thy Kingdom" is almost certainly reference to Gen. 40:14, where Joseph desperately and pathetically asks: “But think on me when it shall be well with thee...". Joseph went on to say “...here also have I done nothing that they should out me into the dungeon" (Gen. 40:15). This is very much the spirit of “This man hath done nothing amiss...". It could be that when he asks to be remembered for good, he had in mind Abigail's words: that when David returned in glory in his Kingdom, "my Lord, then remember thine handmaid". This was prefaced by her asking: " Forgive the trespass of thine handmaid... a man is risen to pursue thee, and to seek thy soul: but the soul of my lord shall be bound in the bundle of life with the Lord thy God: and the souls of thine enemies, them shall he sling out" (1 Sam. 25:29-31). And David's response was marvellously similar to that of the Lord to the thief: "Go up in peace to thine house; see, I have hearkened to thy voice, and have accepted thy person" (1 Sam. 25:35). It would seem that the thief saw in David a type of the Lord, and saw in Abigail's words exactly the attitude he fain would have. And the Lord accepted this.

It is recorded in the other Gospels that both the thieves "railed on" Christ, joining in with the crowd to "cast the same in his teeth" (Mt. 27:44). We must see the words of the repentant thief in Lk. 23 against this background. There he was, knowing the truth, having fallen away, now facing his death. In his self- centredness, he grew bitter against the one he knew to be his saviour. Despite the difficulty and pain which speaking whilst crucified involved, he made the effort to lambaste his saviour, as well as he knew how. But as he watched the Lord's silent response, sensing the deep spiritual communion with the Father which was then happening, he experienced a wave of even greater anger and remorse- this time, against himself. 'I could have made it, I could have repented, but now it's too late. I've added insult to injury, I've blasphemed and mocked my only possible saviour, in this my hour of desperate need'. So he fell silent, whilst (we may infer) the other thief kept up his insults and selfish pleas for immediate salvation. And he watched the suffering saviour, literally from the corner of his eye. Remember, the thieves were crucified next to Jesus. Indeed one wonders whether the other thief had also once been a believer when he says “Art not thou the Christ?" (Lk. 23:39 RV).

Such was the holiness, the supreme righteousness of the Lord, that the thought grew within him: 'Perhaps even now, while I've got life, I could ask for forgiveness, and a place in the Kingdom?' We can be sure that he grappled within himself with this thought, before ever presenting it verbally to Jesus. He would have seen the Lord's demeanour under trial, and the beauty and graciousness of His character and essential being must have made a deep impact upon the thief. When he speaks about Jesus having " done nothing amiss" , he is repeating what he had heard hours before (Mk. 14:56); and the Lord's confident words of Mt. 24:64 were still ringing in his ears when he spoke of wanting mercy when this crucified man came again in glory to establish His Kingdom (cp. Lk. 21:42). And yet this perceptive man had just blasphemed Jesus with all the vicious vitriol he knew ("cast the same in his teeth" is the forerunner of 'a kick in the teeth'). It was supreme faith in and appreciation of the love and mercy of Christ which led him to make his request. I see the very fact he could make that request as a wonderful triumph of human faith over the weakness of human flesh when afflicted. That request was born out of a healthy fear of God. Before speaking to Jesus, he rebuked the other thief: "Dost not thou fear God...?" (Lk. 23:40). Appreciating the enormity of his sin, the repentant thief had come to fear God, to imagine the day of judgment and condemnation of sin. We dare to imagine the nervous tone of voice in which he then spoke to Jesus: "Lord, remember me (i.e. for good) when thou comest into thy Kingdom" (Lk. 23:42). He was pleading for acceptance at the day of judgment, provoked to do so by a fear of God's coming judgments. This was surely a spiritual pinnacle. The pain of his own sufferings, coupled with his close observation of the supreme holiness of Christ as he hung on the cross, had led him to appreciate his own sinfulness, and had inspired one of the greatest levels of faith in the mercy of Christ which mankind has reached. And so he received the ultimate assurance: You will be with me, in the Kingdom. The question of where the comma should be placed becomes irrelevant when we imagine how the Lord would have gasped for each word. There would, as it were, have been a comma between each word.

Day by day, we must imagine even for a few moments our Lord's vertical body as it hung there, that perfect mind within it, fighting to maintain that ultimate spirituality which He had achieved. "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy Kingdom". Perhaps we could silently pray those words day by day, night by night, for the next while. Perhaps we could unite with other believers in discussing and tackling a failing which we each have: the failure to meditate upon the sufferings of the Lord as much as we ought to. Never a day, a morning, an afternoon, should slip by without a thought for Christ's cross. "Gethsemane, can we forget?". Yes, Lord, day after mindless, spiritually empty day.

The thief was confident, in faith, that he would be heard. But how he would have hung upon every one of the quiet words which the Lord muttered in response, travelling over the few metres which separated them. "Verily I say unto thee this day: with me shalt thou be in Paradise" (Rotherham). We believe that to have been the emphasis in His words. 'Yes, I can really tell you, here and now, you will be in the Kingdom!'. Think of the spiritual ecstasy which would have come over the thief! God had caused him to triumph in Christ! He, the lowest sinner, had entered the highest rank of saints- those who have been directly assured that they will be in the Kingdom. Daniel, the disciples and Paul seem the only others in this category- along with the thief.

Crucifixion was a slow death. Mercifully, our Lord died abnormally quickly. Remember how Pilate " marvelled that he were already dead". Normally men lingered in agony for days before death. The thief lived a little longer. He would have seen Christ's death, "the lonely cry, the anguish keen" ; the men taking the body from the cross. We can infer that he was still conscious when the soldiers broke his legs- if he was obviously dead, they would not have bothered. "But when they came to Jesus, and saw that he was dead already..." (Jn. 19:33) seems to imply this. The reason for breaking the legs was to stop the criminal having any chance of running away. Surely, amidst the waves of his pulsating pain, he would have marvelled at the way in which Christ was truly the lamb of God, seeing that "not a bone of him (was) broken" . There he was, assured of the mercy of Christ at judgment day, hanging on the cross, in physical agony which it is hard for us to enter into. In some ways, he continues to be a type of us. Whether we are dying of cancer, crippled with arthritis, emotionally trapped in a painful relationship, chained to a demanding job, we too can have every assurance of Christ's mercy. "To him that overcometh", Christ has promised the paradise of the Kingdom, just as he did to the thief.

But like the repentant thief, our mind must be full of the vision of our dying saviour, triumphing in His holiness, freely confessing our sin and the justice of God's condemnation of it, thrilling with the certainty of our Hope- of being in the Kingdom with Christ. Not for the repentant thief the increasing bitterness of the other man. As his bitterness grew, so the serenity and hope, and anticipation and joyful expectancy of the Kingdom rapidly increased for our crucified brother. The bitterness and disillusion of the world should not be ours, as the pain rages within and around us. Ours should be the strength and (somehow, amidst it all) peace of Christ's example. And the thief is alluded to later on in the NT as a symbol of us all. The Lord’s promise to him that he would ‘be with him’ is the very language of 2 Cor. 5:8 and 1 Thess. 4:17 about us all.

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Notes

(1) Always in the OT, “I say unto thee this day" was used as a Hebraism to bring home the utter solemnity of some great truth (e.g. Dt. 4:26,39; 8:19).

23:44 The way the sun was eclipsed at the Lord’s death is recorded in terms which clearly contrast with the prevailing view that at the demise of the emperors, the light of the sun was eclipsed. Both Plutarch (Caesar, 69.4) and Josephus (Antiquities 14.12.3,409) speak of eclipses of the sun at the death of Julius Caesar. The Lord Jesus in His death is thus being proclaimed as the true Caesar. Likewise Cassius Dio History 51.17.5) claims that at the fall of Alexandria to the Romans, “the disembodied spirits of the dead were made visible”. Similar claims were made for other Roman victories. And yet this is clearly put into context by the record that around the Lord’s victory, the graves were opened and the dead actually came forth.  

23:46 this day- see on Dt. 30:15-19.

23:46

The Sayings From The Cross (7):

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit"

"Father"

These were the final words of the Lord Jesus. It must surely be significant that this final statement addresses God as "Father", just as the first of His seven last sayings did ("Father forgive them"). He used the same title in His agony in the garden (Lk. 22:42; Mt. 26:39,42,44). Putting those four passages together we can visualize the prostrate figure: "Father... Father... Father... Father" . Evidently the Fatherhood of God was something which the Lord found extremely appealing and comforting. We have seen that if we place the seven last sayings of Christ chronologically, we find that the number of words Christ uttered runs 12-9-4-3-1-1-8. We have suggested that this indicates that Christ found speaking increasingly difficult on the cross. This final cry therefore involved supreme effort, every word was meaningful, and surely our Lord intended us to closely meditate upon the implication of every valuable word He uttered here.

"My spirit"

There can be no doubt that the Lord Jesus was not just saying something like 'Well, that's it, my life force is going back to you, Father'. We need to pause for a moment to consider exactly what we mean by the spirit of man. It is perfectly true that often, the spirit refers to the life force and / or the mind, and the soul refers to the physical body. However, this is not true in every case. We have discussed this problem elsewhere ⁽¹⁾ in a study to which I would refer you. The conclusion of that study was that sometimes the soul basically means 'you / me, the whole person in every sense'. The soul and spirit are therefore interchangeable in this sense. The spirit / mind is the fundamental person, the soul, in that sense. The spirit which returns to God does not always refer to merely the life force; it can refer to the mind and personality too. Likewise the Spirit of God is not just naked power, but power that expresses His Spirit / mind. When the Lord Jesus commended His Spirit to the Father, He was offering Him not just the life force which is in every animal and plant, but His character and personality too, the result of the supreme spiritual effort made throughout His life.

The Lord Jesus commended His spirit to the Father's hands. The Greek translated "commend" means literally to place beside, to lay down beside. The Lord Jesus had a sense that His character would not be forgotten by the Father, it would take it's place beside the Father as it were, as He later would physically. This is not, of course, to give any support to the notion of disembodied spirits. Existence can only be in an animate, bodily sense. Yet the word "commend" in the Greek does suggest that Christ felt that the place He would soon take beside the Father was due to the fact that His spirit / mind had found acceptance with Him first. The Father's hands no doubt is an idiom for His care, His preservation (cp. Mt. 4:6). Christ was taking comfort in the fact that His character, those endless minutes of spiritual effort, of struggle to develop and preserve a spiritual mind, would surely not be forgotten, it would be preserved in the Father's hands.

"All live unto Him"

It is possibly true that we have gone too far in reacting against the apostate dogma of the immortality of the soul. Whilst this is an evidently false doctrine, it is equally untrue that the Father forgets His children between the point they die and the resurrection. Therefore God thinks of Abraham as if he is still alive, speaking of "those things which be not as though they were" (Rom. 4:16,17). God is the God of Abraham here and now, even though Abraham is dead and unconscious, because " he is not a God of the dead, but of the living: for all (His people) live unto him" (Lk. 20:36,37). Because the dead are unconscious, because our memories of them fade and distort, we tend to think subconsciously (and even doctrinally, according to some lectures on the state of the dead) that this is how God too sees the dead saints. But “all live unto him", the souls under the altar cry out to Him for vengeance; in other words, His constant, detailed awareness of their characters provokes Him to act in world affairs even now (Rev. 6:9; 20:4). The Heavenly Jerusalem with which we are associated in Christ is composed of "the spirits (characters) of just men made perfect" (Heb. 12:23). As we strive to develop a spiritual character now, our spirit becomes associated with those pleasing characters ("spirits") who reached a level of spiritual completion (“perfection") and were then absorbed into God's consciousness.

The hands of God are also connected with the Angels, the means by which God performs His actions. More detail of this has been provided elsewhere ⁽²⁾. Moses' hands being upheld by the hands of others can be seen as a type of the Lord Jesus being sustained by Angelic hands on the cross, connecting with the Messianic prophecy of Gen. 49:24 concerning the hands of Messiah being strengthened for His mediation by the hands of God. Throughout Scripture, God's hands are associated with His creative work in the natural creation (e.g. Ps. 8:6; 95:5; Heb. 1:10)- work which was and is performed through the Angels. The Lord Jesus was aware of the Angels in His final agony; He was painfully aware that they were at His command to lessen the physical torment (Mt. 26:53). And yet He seems to have felt their absence when He complained that His God (His Angel?) had forsaken Him- or so He felt. Perhaps He felt that His spirit / mind was not being taken care of by them, that His mental being was being placed beside the Father, in the company of the surrounding Angels. Our struggle to remain aware of Angelic presence in the midst of intense pain and trial should surely be inspired by this; in His very last words, our Lord was demonstrating His awareness of His relationship to the Angels, and His belief that although they seemed so distant from Him in His agony, yet surely He believed that ultimately they would take care of Him.

Laying Down Life

There were several times in the Lord's ministry when He chose to escape from death. This adds significance to the fact that finally the Lord gave up His life rather than having it taken from Him. By His Divine power, He passed through the crowd who sought to throw Him over a cliff (Lk. 4:29). Several times the Lord withdrew from an area that opposed Him because He knew they sought to kill Him (Mk. 3:7; 7:24; 9:30; Jn. 4:1-3; 7:1-9; 10:40); and He almost goes into hiding from His persecutors for a while until the final reappearance in Jerusalem (Jn. 11:54). What all this means is that He could likewise have avoided His final death; but He chose not to, and in this sense He willingly gave His life rather than had it taken from Him. The death of human beings can be seen as a result of physical processes over which they have no control. They are killed, often against their will, or disease takes hold of them and eventually forces them to a point where they breathe their last. There is never a conscious giving up of the last breath as an act of the will. Death either occurs in a state of semi-consciousness or unexpectedly, in a moment. We usually, in the final analysis, cling to life at all costs, throwing our feeble best into the fight we have no chance to win. Truly did Dylan Thomas observe that men do not "go gentle into that good night" but "‘rage, rage against the dying of the light". The death of the Lord Jesus Christ was altogether different- and the death of the thieves next to Him would have highlighted this. It is so often emphasized that He gave His life for us:

"Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures" in itself suggests that the death of Christ was an act of the will

Christ gave His flesh for us (Jn. 6:51)

Moses and Elijah spoke of the cross as "the Exodus which he should accomplish at Jerusalem" (Lk. 9:31)- He would accomplish it to Himself, the Greek suggests.

The breaking of bread (a highly conscious act) recalls how Christ gave His body for us (Lk. 22:19)

Christ's death was the result of His obedience to God's command to die on a cross (Phil. 2:8)

Christ poured out His soul unto death as a conscious act performed to enable our redemption (Is. 53:12). Materially, this may refer to the way in which every respiration of the Lord would have scraped His sensitive skin against the rough wood, so that there would have been constant blood flow from His back. This was sometimes a cause of death through crucifixion: blood loss through repeated agitation of the wounds by lifting up the body to breathe and exhale. In this sense He poured out His soul unto death. Muscle cramps would have tended to fix the muscles and make respiration difficult without a wilful yanking of the body weight upwards on the wounded nerves.

"Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends" (Jn. 15:13)

The Lord was at great pains to emphasize this aspect of His death, saying the same thing time and again: " I lay down my life for the sheep...therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life...no man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself...this commandment have I received of my Father" (Jn. 10:15-18).

The death of Christ was therefore a conscious act of giving, it was not simply a result of being murdered by the Jews or Roman soldiers. No man took Christ's life from Him, He laid it down of Himself, i.e. of His own will. It is therefore apparent that Christ's death was not solely a physical result of being impaled on the stake. The fact He died abnormally quickly is proof enough of this. And it explains why the centurion when he saw how the Lord so cried out was by this fact persuaded that He was the Son of God (Mk. 15:39). That last outbreathing, that death as an act of the will, was something henomenal. We are therefore driven to the conclusion that Christ was in a position to give His life at a certain point in time chosen by Himself. "He poured out his soul unto death" (Is. 53:12) suggests that the actual point of His death was a result of mental activity within the mind of the Lord Jesus. He was the servant who "makes himself an offering for sin" (Is. 53:10). Physically this would be explicable by the way in which His life of intense physical and mental trauma had resulted in Him coming to an early death, quite probably through heart-related problems. "My soul is exceeding sorrowful, even unto death" (Mt. 26:38) suggests that the mental agony in the garden almost killed the Lord Jesus. Such was the intensity of His mind in His final suffering for us. Such was His awareness of our need, of the problem of our sins, and the majesty of God's righteousness. In the physical agony of crucifixion, it was only His will to live which kept Him alive. He was therefore able to keep Himself alive until He had said what He wanted to, and then He was able to consciously give His life for our sins, to offer Himself, as both sacrifice and priest, to the Heavenly Sanctuary. This means that Christ did not just hang on the stake waiting to die, and the process of death was mercifully speeded up by the Father. Every moment there was necessary for the perfecting of His character, making Him perfect through suffering, and once He knew He had reached that point of total spiritual completeness, He was able to give up His life as a conscious act of love for us and sacrificial dedication to the Father. The strength of will power which enabled Him to give up His life force at a specific time is something to be marvelled at. Occasionally we glimpse it in His ministry; the way He sent the people away, walked through the crowds who wanted to kill Him (Lk. 4:30; Jn. 8:59; 10:39), spellbound His would-be arresters, "suffered no man to follow him" (Mk. 5:37)- His strength of will and personality shines through.

The Lord Jesus 'commended' His spirit to the Father. The Greek para-tithemi means literally to place or lay down beside. Tithemi is the same word translated "lay down" when we read of Christ laying down His life for us. It is the word used to describe the palsied man being laid down at the feet of Jesus (Lk. 5:18), or the laying of a foundation stone (1 Cor. 3:11). It is also translated to bow down. The point at which Christ laid down His life, bowing down before the Father, was therefore when He commended His spirit to the Father. When Christ "yielded up the spirit" (Mt. 27:50), He was commending His spirit to God, laying down His life for us. The Greek for "yielded up" is para-didomi, to yield or give beside, and is evidently related in meaning to para-tithemi, to commend, to lay down beside.

Our example

So the idea of Christ giving Himself for us therefore refers to that final moment of giving up, yielding, laying down His breath for us. Paul was evidently moved by this; he marvelled at how Christ "gave himself for me" (Gal. 2:20), using the same word as in Jn. 19:30 concerning him giving up His spirit. And we can enter into that sense or marvel and wonder. Paul again alludes to this in Eph. 5:2: "Walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour". And therefore, Paul goes on, fornication, covetousness, foolish talking etc. should not even be named amongst us, "but rather giving of thanks" (Eph. 5:3,4). That wondrous moment when Christ reached such self-control as to give His life for us, to breathe out His last breath for us as an act of the will, that moment was evidently deep within the mind of Paul. Because of it we should find ample inspiration to "walk in love" towards each other, to be so full of praise for this that we have no time to even speak about the sins to which are earthly nature is so prone. These are high ideals indeed, yet in Paul (another sin-stricken human) they began to be realized. They really can be realized in our lives, we truly can begin to appreciate the intensity of that yielding up, that laying down of the life spirit of our Lord Jesus- and therefore and thereby we will find the inspiration to respond in a life of true love for each other.

The same word crops up later in the chapter: "Husbands, love your wives, as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it" (Eph. 5:25). Now this is high, heavenly, indeed. Husbands are asked to consider the intensity of that moment when Christ, rigid with self-control, gave up His life for us, breathing His last as a controlled act of the will. And the Spirit through Paul asks husbands to reflect this in their daily lives, in the petty day by day situation of life. No wonder he asks wives to deeply respect their husbands if they at least try to rise up to this spirit (Eph. 5:33). Real meditation upon the implications of all this, the very height of the challenge, will surely do more good to a marriage than any amount of counselling and reading of human words.

Another thought arises from Eph. 5:25,26. Christ gave Himself for us in that final breath, "that he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing (laver, baptismal bath) of water by the word". This is the language of Tit. 3:5 concerning baptism and spiritual regeneration. Is it too much to believe that the Lord in His final moments had visions of men and women being baptized into His triumphant death, being regenerated by His Spirit / word, and thereby being saved?

The Father loved the Son because He laid down His life in this way; there was an upwelling of love within the soul of Almighty God as He beheld it (Jn. 10:17). And ditto for all those who try to enter into the spirit of laying down their lives after the pattern of our Lord's final moment. But well before His death, our Lord could speak of how "I lay down my life" (Jn. 10:17); His whole life was a laying down of His innermost spirit, His final outbreathing was a summation of His daily attitude. He saw His death as the baptism with which He must be baptized (Lk. 12:50 cp. Rom. 6:3,4; Col. 2:10-12, His 'baptism-unto-death' Gk.); and yet He spoke of the baptism with which He was being baptized in an ongoing sense (Mt. 20:22). In this same vein, Ps. 69:8,9 is a prophecy about the final sufferings of the Lord in crucifixion, and yet these verses are elsewhere quoted about the experiences of His ministry. And “they hated me without a cause" (Ps. 69:4) was true throughout the Lord’s life (Jn. 15:25) as well as particularly in His death. The Lord spoke of the manna as being a symbol of His body, which He would give on the cross. He described the gift of that bread, that figure of His sacrifice, as not only bread that would come from Heaven but more accurately as bread that is coming down , and had been throughout His life (Jn. 6:50,51 Gk.). The spirit of life-giving which there was in His death was shown all through His life.

The fact the Lord died not just because events overtook Him and happened to Him is perhaps reflected in Paul’s speaking in Rom. 6 of “the death that he died… the life that he liveth". He died a death; he Himself died it; and yet just as truly, He lived a life. He didn’t just let events happen to Him. He was not mastered in His life by human lusts and selfish desires; He was in that sense the only ultimately free person. When He “bowed his head", the same Greek is used as in Mt. 8:20: “The Son of man has no place to lay / bow his head". It was as if He only lay His head down, giving out His life, when He knew it was time to rest from a day’s work well done. He lived a surpassingly free life, and freely gave that life up; it was not taken from Him.

That we should be called to imitate our Lord in this should truly fill us with a sense of highness, that we should be called to such a high challenge. 1 Jn. 3:16 takes us even further in this wondrous story: "Hereby perceive we the love of God, because he laid down His life for us: and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren". So intensely was God in Christ on the cross that in a sense He too laid down His life for us, He bowed down for us, laid Himself before our feet as that palsied man was laid before (same word) Jesus. In that final cry from the cross we perceive God's love for us. We perceive the humility of God, fantastic concept that that is. No wonder then that we should lay down our lives for each other. No wonder than that we must achieve a true humility in service to each other. Christ (and God, in Him) laid down His life for us while we were yet sinners. We too, therefore, should not be put off from laying down our lives for each other because we feel our brethren are spiritually weak. This is the very essence of laying down our lives for each other; we are to replicate the laying down of the life of Christ for us while we were weak in our giving of our innermost being for our weak brethren. We are truly at the very boundary of human words to express these things. We must, we must respond in practice. And the wonder of it all is that in this final, supreme moment of self-giving, the Lord was identifying with apostate Israel, of whom it had been prophesied: “She hath given up the spirit; her sun is gone down while it was yet day: she hath been ashamed" (Jer. 15:9- all crucifixion language).

It seems likely that Peter was at the cross, and therefore his letters are packed with allusions to it. What he saw there had a lifelong impact upon him ⁽³⁾. He makes at least two allusions to the words of Christ on the cross, and bids us enter into the spirit of it. "Hereunto were ye called: because Christ also suffered for us, leaving us an example, that ye should follow his steps... who... when he suffered, threatened not; but committed himself to him that judgeth righteously" (1 Pet. 2:21-23). This is the same word as used about Christ commending His spirit to God in that final agony. We really are bidden enter into His example and follow Him. Christ overcame the temptation to react wrongly to His sufferings by instead committing Himself to God. This idea of laying Himself down for us was what enabled Him not to get bitter. The antidote to our own bitterness is likewise to enter into this spirit of laying down our lives.

1 Pet. 4:13-19 likewise invites us to enter into Christ's final sufferings: "Rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ's sufferings... let none of you suffer as a murderer, or as a thief, or as an evildoer (cp. the two thieves next to Jesus on the cross)... yet if any man suffer as a Christian (i.e. with Christ), let him not be ashamed (as Christ "despised the shame" on the cross, Heb. 12:2) ...wherefore let them that suffer according to the will of God (as Christ did, Acts 2:23; Is. 53:10; Lk. 22:22) commit the keeping of their souls (same word as Christ commending His spirit to God) to him in well doing, as unto a faithful creator". We really are bidden enter into His example and follow Him. I want to stress this point. The sufferings of Christ are so deep that we can shy away from them, gaping in incomprehension at the records without grasping this sense that we really are invited to enter in to them. It has been suggested that since the Lord’s last words were “Father into thy hands I commend my spirit", His first words on resurrecting would have been a continuation of the Psalm 31:5 which He had quoted: “Thou hast redeemed me, O Lord God of truth". But this verse was the usual evening prayer of Jews in the first century. It could well be that the Lord had prayed those words every evening of His mortal life, and said the rest of the verse each time He awoke. In this we see yet again that the cross was a living out of patterns and attitudes which He had already developed during His life. It also needs to be noted that David didn’t say Ps. 31:5 on his deathbed, but rather it was an expression of his desire to commit his soul to the Father in gratefulness and praise. There was something of this in the mind of Jesus at His end.

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Notes

(1) See 'The Problem of Soul and Spirit' in James And Other Studies.

(2) See 'The Language of Angels' in Angels.

(3) See A.D.Norris, Peter: Fisher of Men and H.A.Whittaker Studies in the Gospels. Peter was "a witness of the sufferings of Christ" (1 Pet. 5:1).

23:48 Contemplation of the death of the Lord Jesus is intended to stimulate our self-examination and self-knowledge. Those who saw it "smote upon their breasts" (Lk. 23:48), an idiom only used elsewhere for true penitence and realization of personal sinfulness (Lk. 18:13). See on Mt. 27:5.

The whole structure of the records of the crucifixion are to emphasize how the cross is essentially about human response to it; nothing else elicits from humanity a response like the cross does. People 'beheld... the sight' (Lk. 23:48) - the verb theoreo and the noun theoria  here suggest that people 'theorized', what they saw inevitably made them think out a response. See on Mk. 15:33.

The disciples kept changing the subject whenever the Lord started speaking about His death. As He hung in ultimate triumph and suffering on the cross, men came and looked, and turned away again (Is. 53:3; Lk. 23:48). The spiritual intensity of it couldn't be sustained in their minds, as it cannot easily be in ours. The more we break bread, the more we try to reconstruct Golgotha's awful scene, the more we realize this.

Those who beheld the cross “beat their breasts", Luke records (23:48). The only other occurrence of this phrase is again in Luke, concerning how the desperate, sin-convicted publican likewise beat his breast before God in contrition (18:13). Does this not suggest that those breast-beaters were doing so because “that sight" convicted them of their own sinfulness? Their “return" to their homes uses the Greek word usually translated ‘to repent’. The cross inspired their repentance. The records of the crucifixion are framed to focus upon the response of individuals to the cross. The response of those who beat their breasts is very similar to that of the Centurion:

Centurion	Crowds
Having seen	Having observed
Happening	Happenings
Was glorifying	Returned / repented
Saying	Striking breasts

The parallel is between his glorifying God, and their returning / repenting. The need for repentance is a strong theme in Luke (10:13; 11:32; 13:3,5; 15:7,10; 16:30; 17:3,4)- as if he perceived that the ultimate motivation to repentance was in the cross. The apocryphal Acts of Pilate 4.5 claims that “all the crowds who were gathered together for the observation of this…returned striking their breasts and weeping awful tears". And yet the record of the cross also leads to faith, not only conviction of our desperation (Jn. 19:35, “these things" = the record of the cross).

Appreciation of the cross will create unity between us; a common sense of failure, and yet also a common appreciation of the utter grace which we have been invited to behold and actually taste of. "All the people that came together to that sight" (Lk. 23:48) uses a word which really means to bond together in close association. This is the effect of the cross. Those who stared in wonder, yearning for a deeper appreciation, were somehow bound together by their experience of the cross.

The people 'coming together to that sight' might imply that the crowd which was milling around came clustering around the cross once the Lord uttered His final cries and so evidently died. The women also beheld His dead corpse from afar. This seems to be encouraging us to imagine the picture of the Lord just at that point; the dead body on the cross, the victory achieved. It was only at this stage that the curse of Dt. 21 came into effect: "cursed (Heb. a curse; the Hebrew is always translated this way) is every one that hangeth on a tree" (Dt. 21:22,23). These words have been misunderstood as meaning that the Lord as a living being was under one of the Law's curses of condemnation. This cannot be. It must be remembered that crucifixion was a Roman, not Jewish method. The Deuteronomy passage was not written with reference to crucifixion, but rather to the custom of displaying the already dead body of a sinner on a pole as a witness and warning (cp. the display of Saul's body). Sin brought the curse; and so every sinful person who died for their sin was bearing the curse of God. They were to be buried quickly as a sign of God taking no pleasure in the death of the wicked. The Lord died the death of a sinner; He bore our sins, and therefore our curse (Gal. 3:13,14). Every condemned sinner whose body had been displayed had been a type of the sinless Son of God. He was exhibited there for one or two hours (until Joseph got the permission to take the body), totally, totally united with sinful man. And then, because God had no pleasure in this condemnation of sin, the body was taken and buried. Smiting the breast connects with the sinner smiting his breast in repentance (Mt. 11:17 RVmg.). The thoughts of many hearts are revealed by meditation on the cross (Lk. 2:35). It leads us to repentance. The prophecy that the Jews would look on His they pierced and mourn in repentance may have had an incipient fulfilment at the crucifixion.

23:49 It was only close family members who could beg for the body of the crucified. The way Joseph of Arimathaea is described as doing this is juxtaposed straight after the description of the Lord’s natural family standing afar off from Him (Lk. 23:49,52). The effect of the cross had brought forth a new family in that the Lord had now broken all His natural ties, not least with His beloved mother.

23:53 Luke's record that Joseph himself took the body down invites us to imagine him using a ladder, perhaps that used to place the title. However, Acts 13:29 suggests that the Roman soldiers on behalf of Jewish people (i.e. Joseph) took the body down; Pilate "commanded the body to be delivered", implying he gave a command to underlings. So in what sense did Joseph take the body down and wrap it? Are we to imagine him humbling himself before the crowd to assist those soldiers in the physical act of taking the nails out and lowering the body down? Or it could be that he attracted so much attention to himself and had to humble himself so much to ask the soldiers to do it, that it was effectively as if he did it. But there is no reason to think that he himself didn’t walk out in that no man’s land between the crowd and the cross and humble himself to take it down, hearing the gasp from the crowd as he touched the blood and dead body which would make him unclean for the feast. His act was a tremendous mental sacrifice as well as a social and physical one. He is described as "honourable", literally 'well-formed / bodied', as if to emphasis his deportment befitting a leader of men. But he humbled himself before that stake. "He took it down" may imply that the stake was left standing. Or was it laid backwards and lowered down horizontal, with Joseph's anxious hands guiding it down? His contact with the body meant that he couldn't keep the Passover (Num. 9:9,10). The people would have watched incredulous as one of the leaders of Israel openly showed his preference for the crucified Nazarene as opposed to keeping the Mosaic Law. The phobia for cleanliness at Passover time would have meant that everyone was extremely sensitive to what Joseph did.

23:55 It is worth putting together two passages, both from Luke: “The women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after…” (Lk. 23:55); and Acts 13:30,31: “God raised him from the dead and for many days he appeared to those who came up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem, and they are now his witnesses”. Surely Paul and Luke have in mind here the ministering women. They had followed from Galilee to Jerusalem, the risen Lord had appeared to a woman first of all, and now those women were witnessing to the people. Perhaps 1 Cor. 15:3-7 is relevant here, where we read that the Lord appeared after His resurrection to the twelve, and yet on another occasion to “all the apostles”- perhaps referring to the group that included the women. An empty tomb was no proof that Jesus of Nazareth had risen- unless there were witnesses there present at that empty tomb who could testify also that it was in that very tomb that Jesus had been laid. And only women, not men, were witnesses of this. The Greek world placed great emphasis upon sight- “Eyes are surer witnesses than ears”, Heraclitus said. They related to the past visually; for a group of people to be eyewitnesses was considered conclusive. Hence the enormous significance of the way in which the Gospels repeatedly make the women the subjects of verbs of seeing (Mt. 27:55; Mk. 15:40; Lk. 23:49,55). They were the eyewitnesses.

The women who stood afar off and watched in helplessness and hopelessness and lack of comprehension also followed the Lord (:49) and ministered to Him in the Galilee days. Their standing there like that was still reckoned to them as active following and ministry to Him. They also serve, who merely stand and wait.

24:5 Meetings with two separate Angels didn't make the women understand ; now two Angels appear together and tell them the same words as the other Angels had said.

24:6 After He rose, the Angels pointed out this sense to His men: “...remember how [the Greek sense is: ‘with what urgency’] he spake unto you when he was yet in Galilee, Saying, The Son of man must be delivered into the hands of sinful men, and be crucified, and the third day rise again" (Luke 24:6-7). Like us, they heard and saw the compulsion, that Messianic must, but didn’t really appreciate it. The Lord was no fatalist, simply reflecting that what was to be ‘must’ be. Rather He meant that it ‘must’ be and therefore He strove to fulfil it. There was no fatalistic compulsion about the cross- for He need not have gone through with it. But He ‘must’ do so for the sake of that indescribable compulsion to save us, to glorify Yahweh’s Name, which He felt within Him. He reminded the two on the way to Emmaus: “Ought [s.w. ‘must’] not Christ to have suffered these things, and to enter into his glory?" (Luke 24:26). And consider Heb. 2:17: “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people". It was in His death that the Lord’s blood acted as a reconciliation for the sins of the people- an evident reference to the ritual of the day of atonement, which the same writer shows spoke so eloquently of the cross. And yet he was “behoved" to do this, it was an obligation He felt intrinsic within His very being. The same word occurs later: “And by reason hereof he ought, as for the people, so also for himself, to offer for sins. And no man taketh this honour unto himself, but he that is called of God, as was Aaron. So also Christ..." (Heb 5:3-5). See on Mk. 14:49.

24:7- see on Mt. 27:26.

24:9 Note how these references to Joanna, and the central placement given to her in the passage in Lk. 24:9,10, all occur within Luke’s writings. It would seem that Luke had an especial interest in chronicling the women who went with Jesus- his material accounts for two of the four parables that feature women (Lk. 15:8-10; 18:1-14), and he has seven passages / incidents where women are central (Lk. 7:11-17, 36-50; 8:1-3; 10:38-42; 11:27,28; 13:10-17; 23:27-31). And it is Luke alone who gives the impression that the Lord was not followed around Palestine by twelve men alone, but by a further group of ministering women. See on Lk. 8:2.

24:11 Each of the Gospel writers brings out a sense of inadequacy about themselves or the disciples, this self-criticism, in different ways.Luke’s account of the rich man in the parable of Lk. 16 has several consciously-inserted connections with how he later describes the disciples:

Lk. 16	Lk. 24
Disbelief in the face of meeting the resurrected man (Lk. 16:31)	“They did not believe…slow of heart to believe” (Lk. 24:11,25,41)
Double mention of Moses and the prophets as proofs of resurrection (Lk. 16:29,31)	Ditto in Lk. 24:27,44
“Should rise from the dead” (Lk. 16:31)	“Should rise from the dead” (Lk. 24:46)
“They will repent” (Lk. 16:30)	Forgiveness of sins was to be preached because of Christ’s resurrection, as Luke brings out in Acts 2:38; 3:19; 8:22; 17:30; 26:20.

Thus the tragedy and foolishness of the rich man in the parable is seen by Luke as applying to the disciples in their disbelief of the resurrection. And yet the purpose of Luke’s Gospel, as all the Gospels, was to proclaim the need for belief in the resurrection.

24:18 The zeal of Mary to be an obedient witness is remarkable. All Jerusalem knew the story of the risen Jesus still on “the third day” after His death- only someone totally cut off from society would have not heard this news, as Cleopas commented (Lk. 24:18 Gk.). If the whole of Jerusalem knew the story about the resurrected Jesus on the third day after His death, and the male disciples were evidently still nervous and doubtful about everything, it must be that this tremendous spread of the news had been achieved by Mary and the women.

Even after His resurrection, in His moment of glory and triumph, the Lord appeared in very ordinary working clothes, so that He appeared as a gardener. The disciples who met Him on the Emmaus road asked whether He ‘lived alone’ and therefore was ignorant of the news of the city about the death of Jesus (Lk. 24:18 RV). The only people who lived alone, outside of the extended family, were drop outs or weirdos. It was almost a rude thing for them to ask a stranger. The fact was, the Lord appeared so very ordinary, even like a lower class social outcast type. And this was the exalted Son of God. We gasp at His humility, but also at His earnest passion to remind His followers of their common bond with Him, even in His exaltation.

24:21 The two on the way to Emmaus commented that they thought Christ would have “redeemed” Israel (Lk. 24:21). A.D. Norris makes a powerful case for one of those two being Peter (Peter: Fisher Of Men p.109). The only other time the Greek word is used is (again?) by Peter in 1 Pet. 1:18,19, where he reassures his weary sheep that “Ye were redeemed by the precious blood of Christ”- as if to say ‘it’s really all wonderfully true! I too doubted it, as you know. But I know now that it is true; even I was redeemed, from the shame of those denials, and so much else. Believe it with me!’. After all the Lord had taught about salvation, the eloquent and yet simple explanation of salvation in the Kingdom through His death, Peter and the others thought that His cross (“precious blood”) hadn’t brought redemption. How weak their understanding was, how slow they were. And Peter again is gently prodding from his own example and pattern of growth: ‘Can’t you see the reality of it all? Or are you still as inexplicably slow to see it all as I was?’.  

The disciples on the road to Emmaus were like Nicodemus. They made a great commitment to tell a stranger that they had believed in Jesus of Nazareth and His words about resurrection (Lk. 24:19-21). Remember how at that very time, the disciples locked themselves indoors for fear of the Jews. They said what they did and took the ‘chance’ they did, without believing Jesus would rise. They were motivated by the cross to simply stand up and be counted, with no hope of future reward.

The Jewish public looked for Jesus to release them from Roman bondage; but He patiently and repeatedly explained that His Kingdom was not of this world, rather would it come in a political sense at His second coming; and the essence of the Kingdom and liberation He preached was spiritual and internal, rather than physical and external. Yet the disciples didn't get it- they thought Jesus would've redeemed Israel there and then (Lk. 24:21). Their total lack of attention to the Lord's words is brought out by their lament that now was "the third day" after His death- when this ought to have been the very day they were looking for His resurrection!

24:22 The disciples were "astonished" (Lk. 24:22) and "marvelled" (Lk. 24:12,41). The same two Greek words recur together in Acts 2:7,12, describing how the crowd to whom the disciples preached soon afterwards were likewise "amazed and marvelled". Perhaps this was how and why the disciples (and Peter especially) could achieve such a rapport with that crowd- because they had experienced those very same feelings when their faith and understanding was so weak.

24:23 The women said they had seen "a vision of Angels" rather than actual Angels (Lk. 24:23). They like the disciples later (Lk. 24:37) wished to spiritualize everything rather than face the fact that the real Christ had risen in concrete and actual reality.

24:27- see on Mt. 24:14; Acts 8:35.

24:31 After His resurrection He was recognized by the Emmaus disciples in the way that He broke bread. The way He handled the loaf, His mannerisms, His way of speaking and choice of language, were evidently the same after His resurrection as before (Lk. 24:30,31). The Lord is the same today as yesterday. 

24:33 Note that the great commission to preach is given to “the eleven and those with him” (Lk. 24:33, i.e. the women. Acts 1:13,14 speaks of “the eleven and the women”- the same two groups.

24:34- see on Mt. 17:1.

The graciously unrecorded appearing of the risen Lord to Peter (1 Cor. 15:5; Lk. 24:34) may have involved the Lord simply appearing to Him, without words. It was simply the assurance that was there in the look on the face of the Lord.

24:35 The Lord held the memorial meeting as a keeping of a Passover, and yet He changed some elements of it. In like manner He was made known to the disciples “in the breaking of bread" (Lk. 24:35), perhaps because it was usual for the host to say the blessing before the meal, and yet Jesus the stranger, the guest, presumed to lead the prayer.

24:39- see on 1 Cor. 5:5.

Note that whilst flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom, the risen, immortal  Lord Jesus described Himself as flesh and bones (Lk. 24:39). In fact, we find that "flesh and bones"   are often paralleled (Gen. 2:23; Job 10:11; 33:21; Ps. 38:3; Prov. 14:30), and simply mean 'the person', or as the Lord put it on that occasion, "I myself". We ourselves will be in the Kingdom, with similar personalities we have now [that's a very challenging thought of itself]. "Flesh" doesn't necessarily have to refer, in every instance, to something condemned. Who we are now is who we will essentially be in the eternity of God's Kingdom. Let's not allow any idea that somehow our flesh / basic being is so awful that actually, the essential "I myself" will be dissolved beneath the wrath of God at the judgment. The Lord is "the saviour of the body" and will also save our "spirit" at the last day; so that we, albeit with spirit rather than blood energizing us, will live eternally. Understanding things this way enables us to perceive more forcefully the eternal importance of who we develop into as persons, right now. The Buddhist belief that we will ultimately not exist, that such 'Nirvana' is the most wonderful thing to hope for, appears at first hearing a strange 'hope' to be shared by millions of followers. But actually, it's the same essential psychology as that behind the idea that 'I' will not exist in the Kingdom of God, I will be given a new body, person and character. It's actually saying the same- I won't exist. And it's rooted in a terribly low self-image, a dis-ease with ourselves, a lack of acceptance of ourselves as the persons whom God made us and develops us into. Whilst of course our natures will be changed, so that we can be immortal, it is we who will be saved; our body will be resurrected, made new, and our spirit "saved" in that day, reunited with our renewed and immortal bodies. We have eternal life in the sense that who we are now, in spiritual terms, is who we will eternally be. Our spirit, the essential us, is in this sense immortal; it’s remembered with the Lord. In this sense, not even death itself, nor time itself, can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ (Rom. 8:35-39). Just as we still love someone after they have died, remembering as they do who they were and still are to us, so it is with the love of God for the essential us. Hence 1 Pet. 3:4 speaks of how a “gentle and calm disposition” or spirit is in fact “imperishable” (NAB)- because that spirit of character will be eternally remembered. This is why personality and character, rather than physical works, are of such ultimate and paramount importance. How we speak now is in a way, how we will eternally speak- I think that's the idea of Prov. 12:19: "The lip of truth shall be established for ever: but a lying tongue is but for a moment". Our "way" of life and being is how we will eternally be- and for me that solves the enigma of Prov. 12:28: "In the way of righteousness is life; and in the pathway thereof there is no death". In Jeremiah 18, God likens Himself to a potter working with us the clay. We can resist how He wants us to be, and He can make us into something else... we are soft clay until the 'firing'; and the day of firing is surely the day of judgment. The implication is that in this life we are soft clay; but the day of judgment will set us hard as the persons we have become, or have been made into, in this life.

The disciples thought the resurrected Christ was a spirit, a ghost. They returned to their old superstitions. Yet He didn’t respond by lecturing them about the death state or that all existence is only bodily, much as He could have done. Instead He adopted for a moment their position and reasoned from it: “A spirit hath not flesh and bones as ye see me have” (Lk. 24:39). The essence of His concern was their doubt in Him and His resurrection, rather than their return to wrong superstitions.

Note that whilst flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom, the risen, immortal Lord Jesus described Himself as flesh and bones (Lk. 24:39). In fact, we find that "flesh and bones" are often paralleled (Gen. 2:23; Job 10:11; 33:21; Ps. 38:3; Prov. 14:30), and simply mean 'the person', or as the Lord put it on that occasion, “I myself". We ourselves will be in the Kingdom, with similar personalities we have now [that's a very challenging thought of itself]. "Flesh" doesn't necessarily have to refer, in every instance, to something condemned. Who we are now is who we will essentially be in the eternity of God's Kingdom. Let's not allow any idea that somehow our flesh / basic being is so awful that actually, the essential "I myself" will be dissolved beneath the wrath of God at the judgment. The Lord is "the saviour of the body" and will also save our "spirit" at the last day; so that we, albeit with spirit rather than blood energizing us, will live eternally. Understanding things this way enables us to perceive more forcefully the eternal importance of who we develop into as persons, right now.

The disciples mistakenly thought that they had seen a ghost. Such things do not exist, seeing the Bible teaches that all existence is in a bodily form. Yet Jesus did not begin scolding them for their doctrinal weakness. Instead he calmly demonstrated the ridiculousness of such ideas: “Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones, as you see me have” (Lk. 24:39). Jesus spoke about “a spirit” as if such a thing existed, even though he did not believe in it. By all means compare this with how faithful Jepthah spoke of the idol Chemosh as if he existed (Jud. 11:24). Thus Christ’s attitude here and in the entire demons issue is an indication of His personality: patient, positive, powerful, intellectually rigorous, hoping to win others round, not mocking or pejorative.

24:41 The disciples are described as sleeping for sorrow, not believing for joy (Lk. 24:41). Both their unbelief and their sorrow and failure to support the Lord in His time of need are not really excusable by either sorrow nor joy. And yet the Lord generously imputes these excuses to His men, such is His love for them. They are described as being “glad” when they saw the risen Lord (Jn. 20:20). Yet actually they didn’t believe at that time- for Lk. 24:41 generously says that they “believed not for joy”. And they assumed that Jesus was a phantom, not the actual, concrete, bodily Jesus. Placing the records together doesn’t give a very positive image of the disciples at this time. And yet the record is so positive about them. The disciples are said not to have believed "for joy" (Lk. 24:41). But the Lord upbraided them for their arrant foolishness and plain unbelief. They slept, we are told, “for sorrow”- when they should have stayed awake as commanded.

One hallmark of the spiritual way of life is an indomitably positive spirit. Not a simplistic naivety, blindly hoping for the best in an almost fatalistic way. But as the Father and Son are so essentially positive, so will we be, if we absorb something of His Spirit.  Thus the disciples are said not to have believed "for joy" (Lk. 24:41). But the Lord upbraided them for their arrant foolishness and plain unbelief.

Joy isn't really a cause for disbelief. It's the grace in the inspired record which makes that excuse for them. They preferred to spiritualize everything, as many do today, rather than face the actual implications of a Lord who is for real. They accepted it was Jesus, and yet they still disbelieved. Note in this context how the women said they had seen "a vision of Angels" rather than actual Angels (Lk. 24:23).

This incident of eating was to yet again reassure them that He was for real. Note how later on, by the sea of Tiberias, Jesus again ate before them- He had to keep repeating Himself to get it home to them, that He was for real. If those men, who had heard the many predictions of resurrection from the lips of the Lord Himself, found it hard to believe He was for real when He stood before them- how understandably hard it is for us to grasp that He is for real.

24:44 As the resurrected Lord stood before the disciples, he says: “These are my words which I spake unto you” (Lk. 24:44 RV), and goes on to say that His resurrection had been predicted throughout the Old Testament words of God. He had made both His words and the words of God into flesh as He stood there. He didn’t say ‘Look everyone, I’ve risen!’. He just stood there, reminded them of the words of the prophets, and His own words, and said “These are my words”. He was so powerfully and completely the word made flesh.

24:45 The parallel record to the preaching commissions of Mk. 16 and Mt. 28 is found in Lk. 24:45-47. There we read how Christ explained to the disciples that their preaching of the Gospel "among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" was foretold in the Psalms and prophets. So the Bible student asks: Where  in the Psalms and prophets? The Lord spoke as if the prophecies about this were copious. There do not seem to be any specific prophecies which speak of the twelve spreading the Gospel from Jerusalem in the first century. Instead we read of the Gospel being spread from Jerusalem in the Kingdom, and often the phrase " all nations" occurs in a Kingdom context, describing how "all nations" will come to worship Christ at Jerusalem (Ps. 22:27; 67:2; 72:11,17; 82:8; 86:9; 117:1; Is. 2:2; 66:18,20; Jer. 3:17; Dan. 7:14; Hag. 2:7; Zech. 8:23). This selection of "Psalms and prophets" is impressive. Yet the Lord Jesus clearly interpreted these future Kingdom passages as having relevance to the world-wide spreading of the Gospel. "All nations" also occurs in many passages exhorting us to praise Yahweh among all the nations of this world. The reason for this is that God's glory is so great it should be declared as far as possible by us. 1 Chron. 16:24,25 is typical of many such verses: "Declare his glory among the heathen; his marvellous works among all nations. For  great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised... for all the gods of the people are idols". World-wide preaching is therefore an aspect of our praise of Yahweh, and as such it is a spiritual work which is timeless. Because the Kingdom is to spread world-wide, we should therefore spread the Good News of this coming Kingdom world-wide. In prospect- and no more than that, let it be noted- the Kingdom has been established in that Christ has all power in Heaven and earth (Mt. 28:18). This is the language of Dan. 7:14 concerning the future Kingdom. The believer must live the Kingdom life now, as far as possible (Rom. 13:12,13). In the Kingdom, we will be spreading the Gospel throughout this planet. In this life too we should live in the spirit of the Kingdom in this regard.

Prophecy does not have to refer to specific, lexical statements; it can refer to the spirit and implication behind the recorded words. Thus "the Scripture" prophesied Christ's resurrection after three days (Lk. 24:45; 1 Cor. 15:3,4); but nowhere is this explicitly prophesied. It is implied in the spirit behind the types, e.g. of Jonah and Gen. 22:4. So as 'prophecy' is not just the words but the spirit behind them, so prayer is not just the words, but the spirit in the man's heart who prays, even if the words come out wrong. See on Acts 10:4.

24:47- see on Acts 10:35,36.

The preaching of the Gospel was prophesied as beginning  at Jerusalem, Jesus said. If this world-wide preaching abruptly finished at the end of the first century, to begin  again at Jerusalem in the Kingdom, surely this would be prophesied in the Old Testament? The impression one gets from the Old Testament passages listed above is that the Gospel would begin to spread from Jerusalem, and would go on  spreading until the full establishment of the Kingdom. This explains why Christ's command to get up and go world-wide with the Gospel stands for all time. The command to preach to "all nations" would ring bells in Jewish minds with the promises to Abraham, concerning the blessing of forgiveness to come upon "all nations" through Messiah (Gen. 18:18; 22:18; 26:4). Therefore God's people are to preach the Gospel of forgiveness in Christ to "all nations”. The offer of sharing in that blessing did not close at the end of the first century. Putting the "all nations" of the Abrahamic promises together with Christ's preaching commission leads to a simple conclusion: The Hope of Israel now applies to all nations; so go and tell this good news to all nations.

24:47 Luke uses the same word translated ‘preach’ in both Luke and the Acts [although the other Gospels use it only once]. In Luke we find the word in 1:19; 2:10; 3:18; 4:18,43; 7:22; 8:1; 9:6; 16:16; 20:1; and in Acts, in 5:42; 8:4,12,25,35,40; 10:36; 11:20; 13:32; 14:7,15,21; 15:35; 16:10; 17:18. Luke clearly saw the early ecclesia as preaching the same message as Jesus and the apostles; they continued what was essentially a shared witness. This means that we too are to see in the Lord and the 12 as they walked around Galilee the basis for our witness; we are continuing their work, with just the same message and range of responses to it. Lk. 24:47 concludes the Gospel with the command to go and preach remission of sins, continuing the work of the Lord Himself, who began His ministry with the proclamation of remission (Lk. 4:18 cp. 1:77). Acts stresses that the believers did just this; they preached remission of sins [s.w.] in Jesus’ Name, whose representatives they were: Acts 2:38; 5:31; 10:43; 13:38; 26:18.  See on Acts 1:1.

As Christ appeals to all nations, so should we. The prophecies which Christ interpreted as referring to the church spreading the Gospel world-wide are specifically described as prophecies about Christ personally (Lk. 24:44,47: "All things which were written in the prophets and in the psalms, concerning me ... that repentance and remission of sins should be preached..."). Thus the preachers of the Gospel would personally manifest Christ; which accounts for the special sense of His presence which they experience as they do this work (Mt. 28:20).

Our Lord's final Bible class showed how the Old Testament prophets described the preaching of the Gospel world-wide from Jerusalem (Lk.24:47) in the first century. He must surely have been referring to 'Kingdom' passages like Is.2:2-4.

Such is the power of our preaching, the possibility which our words of witness give to our hearers. We have such power invested in us! If we are slack to use it, the Lord’s glory is limited, and the salvation of others disabled. As if to bring this home, the New Testament quotes several passages evidently prophetic of the future Kingdom as having their fulfillment in the preaching of the Gospel today:

- Is. 2:2-4 (the word of Yahweh will go out from Jerusalem) = the ecclesia’s witness to the world today, “beginning at Jerusalem” (Lk. 24:47). This, the Lord said, was in fulfillment of the OT prophets- and He could only be referring to those like Isaiah.

- Am. 9:11,12 had its fulfillment in the work of preaching to the Gentiles (Acts 15:13-18; 26:16-18).

- Likewise Is. 54:12 = Gal. 4:27; we extend the joy of the Kingdom to our hearers.

- Is. 52:7 = Rom. 10:15.

- Is. 11:10 = Rom. 15:12.

The apparent inappropriacy or lack of context of these quotations need not worry us. It is not that they have no future fulfillment They evidently will have, at the Lord’s second coming. But God sees that which shall be as already happening; His perspective is outside of our kind of time. The ecclesia’s preaching of the Gospel of the Kingdom to the world is effectively a spreading of the Kingdom to them; in that those who respond properly will ultimately be in God’s Kingdom. But God sees through that gap between their response and the final establishment of the Kingdom; He invites us to see it as if we have spread the Kingdom to them. As we present the Gospel to men and women of all races, we are enabling the fulfillment of the promises to Abraham. The more we preach, the more glorious is their fulfillment This is the power of our Gospel and the preaching of it. Let’s not treat it as something ordinary or optional or to be fitted in to our spare time.

24:47 The Great Commission In Luke

Luke records how the Angel summarised the Lord’s work as good news of great joy for all men (Lk. 2:10). The Gospel concludes by asking us to take that message to all men. Straight away we are challenged to analyze our preaching of the Gospel: is it a telling of “great joy” to others, or merely a glum ‘witness’ or a seeking to educate them ‘how to read the Bible more effectively’, or a sharing with them the conclusions of our somewhat phlegmatic Biblical researches? Whatever we teach, it must be a joyful passing on of good news of “great joy”. The Lord began His ministry by proclaiming a freedom from burdens through Him (Lk. 4). And He concludes it by telling the disciples to proclaim the same deliverance (Lk. 24:47). Consider how He brings together various passages from Isaiah in His opening declaration in Lk. 4:18:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the broken-hearted, to preach deliverance to the captives,   and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised, To preach [proclaim] [Heb. ‘call out to a man’] the acceptable year of the Lord”.

This combines allusions to Is. 61:1   (Lev. 25:10); Is. 58:6 LXX  and  Is. 61:2.

Is. 58:6 AV: “To loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free (cp. Dt. 15:12 re freedom of slaves, s.w.), and that ye break every yoke?” is in the context of an insincerely kept year of Jubilee in Hezekiah’s time, after the Sennacherib invasion. Is. 58 has many Day of Atonement allusions- the year of Jubilee began on this feast. We are as the High Priest declaring the reality of forgiveness to the crowd. Hence Lk. 24:47 asks us to proclaim a Jubilee of atonement. The Greek for “preach” in Lk. 24:47 and for “preach / proclaim the acceptable year” in Lk. 4:19 are the same, and the word is used in the LXX for proclaiming the Jubilee. And the LXX word used for ‘jubilee’ means remission, release, forgiveness, and it is the word used to describe our preaching / proclaiming forgiveness in Lk. 24:47. It could be that we are to see the cross as the day of atonement, and from then on the Jubilee should be proclaimed in the lives of those who accept it. It’s as if we are running round telling people that their mortgages have been cancelled, hire purchase payments written off...and yet we are treated as telling them something unreal, when it is in fact so real and pertinent to them. And the very fact that Yahweh has released others means that we likewise ought to live in a spirit of releasing others from their debts to us: “The creditor shall release that which he hath lent…because the Lord’s release hath been proclaimed” (Dt. 15:2RV).

We can’t have a spirit of meanness in our personal lives if we are proclaiming Yahweh’s release. This is one of many instances where the process of preaching the Gospel benefits the preacher. The jubilee offered release from the effects of past misfortune and even past foolishness in decisions; and our offer of jubilee offers this same message in ultimate term. Incidentally, the Lord had implied that we are in a permanent Jubilee year situation when He said that we should “take no thought what ye shall eat …Sow not nor gather into barns” and not think “What shall we eat?” (Mt. 6:26,31 = Lev. 25:20). There must be a spirit of telling this good news to absolutely all. And yet according to Luke’s own emphasis, it is the poor who are especially attracted to the Jubilee message of freedom (Lk. 6:20-23; 7:1,22,23; 13:10-17). There are several links between Is. 58 and Neh. 5, where we read of poor Jews who had to mortgage their vineyards and even sell their children in order to pay their debts. The “oppressed” or “broken victim” of Is. 58, to whom we are invited to proclaim deliverance, were therefore in the very first instance those under the throttling grip of poverty, who had become bondslaves because of their debts and now had no hope of freedom, apart from the frank forgiveness of a year of Jubilee. We take a like message to Westerners overburdened with mortgage payments, to those suffering from absolute poverty in the developing world, and to all those with a sense of debt and being trapped within their life situation. We pronounce to them a year of Jubilee, a frank forgiveness, a way of real escape and freedom.

To preach [proclaim] the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk. 4:19) is thus parallel with “You shall proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants” (Lev. 25:10). Likewise there are to be found other such allusions to the proclamation of Jubilee: “We as workers together with him, beseech you also that ye receive…the grace of God…a time accepted…in the day of salvation [the Jubilee] have I succoured thee: behold, now is the accepted time” (2 Cor. 6:1,2) “Repentance and remission of sins should be preached [proclaimed, s.w. 4:19] in his name among all nations” (Lk. 24:47)

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24:48- see on Lk. 1:45; Acts 5:32.

He died and rose as the representative of all men; and therefore this good news should be preached to all kinds and all races of people. Men from all nations were in prospect sprinkled by His blood (Is. 52:15); and therefore we must extend the knowledge of this to all men, both in our collective and personal witness. Lk. 24:48 simply comments that the disciples were witnesses to the resurrection and the fact that forgiveness and salvation was therefore potentially available to all men. The parallel records in Mt. and Mk. say that they were told to go out and witness to the resurrection world-wide. Putting them together it is apparent that if we are truly witnesses of the resurrection in our own faith, then part and parcel of this is to take this witness out into our own little worlds.

Matthew and Mark record how the Lord told the disciples to go world-wide with the message of His death and resurrection; He commanded them to do this. Luke’s account is different. He reminds them of His death and resurrection, and simply adds: “And ye are witnesses of these things” (Lk. 24:48). Not ‘you will be, I’m telling you to be, witnesses…’. The very fact of having seen and known them was of itself an imperative to bear witness to them. This is the outgoing power of the cross. 

Lk. 24:46-49 records Luke's version of the great preaching commission given in Mk. 16 and Mt. 28. He doesn't record that the Lord actually told the disciples to go out and preach. Instead He says that the OT prophets foretold the world-wide preaching of the Gospel of His death and resurrection, "and ye are witnesses of these things". It's as if He's saying, 'If you are a witness to all this, you must be a witness of it to all' (cp. Acts 1:8). If we are witnesses, we will bear witness; we will naturally. We have to; and note how Lev. 5:1 taught that it was a sin not to bear witness / testify when one had been a witness. This may well be consciously alluded to in the language of witness which we have in Lk. 24:48.

 24:49 The disciples returned from Galilee to Jerusalem [unrecorded].