An Exposition of the Gospel of Luke

THE late William Kelly, for many years editor of the serial entitled The Bible Treasury, left in it a set of papers covering the whole of the Gospel according to Luke, for reproduction in collected form. The editor of the present volume, which carries out that intention, has used as Introduction a section of the same writer’s “God’s Inspiration of the Scriptures,” which was published a short time before his decease, has added marginal references to parallel passages of the other Gospels, and has supplied critical apparatus in footnotes, as well as a full index immediately following the Exposition. The translation of the biblical text has been derived mainly from the same source as that used in editing a companion volume on the Gospel according to Mark. Where, in references to the Revised Version in Part II., any difference exists between the English and the American “Standard” edition (1901), attention is called to this for the convenience of Transatlantic readers. The portions in Part I., in clarendon type, are peculiar to Luke’s record; though this indication is typical, not systematic.

As in the current editions of Mr. Kelly’s Expositions of the Gospels, severally according to Mark and John, a sequel of notes (Part 2) has been subjoined, for which the editor alone is responsible. These may show the bearing of this Exposition of the Third Gospel upon critical views largely developed since the papers first appeared, and will in other respects put the reader in possession of the various phases of thought upon the composition and history of Luke’s Gospel in particular, the literature for which is very extensive. The notes are in general harmony with the expositor’s point of view; much in them results from conversations and correspondence with him during a friendship of some thirty-five years. Reference to this part may be aided by the Summary of Contents prefixed to it, which should, in the first instance, be read continuously.

As a venerable German professor of the first rank has remarked in correspondence with the present writer, much of the criticism of the Gospels in which his countrymen indulge “strikes out that which is inconvenient to it, and drags in that which has not the support of a single word in the text.”

Criticism is of little value unless independent of academical tradition, however imposing, or of ecclesiastical authority, however dogmatic; and every one must in these days have the courage of his own convictions. But there may at least be general agreement as to what is morally weakening; progress in its highest department must not be sacrificed to that of any lower. In the closing index will be found reference to treatment of “Difficulties” under that head.

The Third Gospel being a mine of material for homiletic as well as mission work, constant reference has been made in Part II. to discourses of notable preachers in comments on prominent passages of this precious record.

Mr. Kelly, who was mighty in the Scriptures, helped believers much. In like spirit to that in which he himself sent forth such books, the present volume is commended to the gracious blessing of God, “without Whom nothing is strong, nothing is holy,” that He may use it, to the glory of Christ, for the profit of souls.

E. E. W

Luke: Introduction

§ 1. Summary of Contents.

THE third Gospel is distinguished by its display of God’s grace in man, which could be only and perfectly in the “Holy Thing” to be born and called the “Son of God.” Here, therefore, as the moral ways of God shine, so is manifested man’s heart in saint and sinner. Hence the preface and dedication to Theophilus, and the Evangelist’s motives for writing; hence also the beautiful picture of Jewish piety in presence of Divine intervention for both forerunner and Son of the Highest to accomplish promise and prophecy, as announced by angels (ch. 1). The last of the Gentile empires was in power when the Savior was born in David’s city, and Jehovah’s glory shone around shepherds at their lowly watch that night when His angel proclaimed the joyful event and its significant token, with the heavenly host praising as they said, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, in men complacency” (or good pleasure). God’s Son, born of woman, was also born under law, the seal of which He duly received; and the godly remnant seen in Simeon and Anna, that looked for Jerusalem’s redemption, testified to Him in the spirit of prophecy; while He walked in the holy subjection of grace, with wisdom beyond all teachers, yet bearing witness to His consciousness of Divine Sonship even from His youth (ch. 2).

In due time, marked still more explicitly by the dates of Gentile dominion and of Jewish disorder, both civil and religious, John comes preaching, not here the kingdom of the heavens, nor yet the kingdom of God, but a baptism of repentance for remission of sins. He alone and most appropriately is quoted from Isaiah’s oracle, “All flesh shall see the salvation of God”; here only have we John’s answers to the inquiring people, tax-gatherers and soldiers; and here too is stated anticipatively his imprisonment, but also the baptism of our Lord; and here only is given His praying, when the heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him, and the Father’s voice was heard, “Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee am I well pleased.” And the genealogy is through Mary,(as she throughout is prominent, not Joseph as in Matthew) up to Adam, as becomes the Second Man and Last Adam (ch. 3). It may help if it be seen that “being, as was supposed, the son of Joseph” is parenthetical, and that “of Heli, of Matthat,” etc., is the genealogical line from Mary’s father upward.

Then follows His temptation, viewed morally, not dispensationally as in the first Gospel; the natural, the worldly, and the spiritual. This order necessarily involved the omission in chapter 4:8, which ignorant copyists assimilated to the text of Matthew. The critics have rightly followed the best witnesses, though none of them appears to notice the evidence it renders to plenary inspiration. Divine purpose is clearly in it. Thereon He returns to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and at Nazareth in the synagogue He reads Isaiah 61:1, 2 (omitting the last clause strikingly), and declares this scripture fulfilled “today” in their ears. In that interval, or within the acceptable year, Israel is it were goes out, and the Church comes in where is neither Jew nor Gentile, but Christ is all and they one new man in Him. Then when His gracious words were met by unbelieving words on their part, He points out the grace of old that passed by Israel and blessed Gentiles. This kindled His hearers to murderous wrath even then, whilst He, passing through the midst of them, went His way. At Capernaum He astonished them publicly with His teaching, and cast out an unclean spirit in the synagogue, as He brought Peter’s mother-in-law immediately to strength from “a great fever,” and subsequently healed the varied sick and demoniacs that were brought, while He refused their testimony to Him.

And when men would detain Him, He said, “I must announce the kingdom of God to the other cities also, for therefore was I sent” (ch. 4). It is a question of the soul yet more than of the body.

In connection accordingly with preaching the Word of God, we have (ch. 5) the Lord, by a miracle that revealed Him, calling Simon Peter (who judged himself as never before) with his partners, to forsake all and follow Him: an incident of earlier date, but reserved for this point in Luke. The cleansing of a man full of leprosy follows, and after the healing of multitudes He retires and prays; but as He afterward is teaching in presence of Pharisees and law-doctors, He declares to a paralytic the forgiveness of his sins, and, to prove it, bids him arise, take up his couch, and go to his house, as the man did forthwith. Then we have the call of Levi, the tax-gatherer, and a great feast with many such in his house; but Jesus answers all murmurs with the open assertion of His coming to call sinners to repentance, as He defends the actual eating and drinking of His disciples by their joy in His presence with them: when taken away, they should fast. In parable He intimates that the old was doomed, and that the new character and power demand a new way; though naturally no one relishes the new, but likes the old.

Chapters 6 shows first, the Son of Man Lord also of the Sabbath, and secondly the title to do good on that day, which filled them with madness against Him. Next, going to the mountain to pray all night to God, He chose twelve and named them apostles, with whom He came down to a plateau, healing all that came under diseases and demons. Then He addresses them in that form of His discourse which falls in perfectly with our Gospel. The great moral principles are there, not in contrast with law as in Matthew, but the personal blessedness of His own, and the woes of such as are not His but enjoy the world. Another peculiarity, is that Luke was led to give our Lord’s teaching in detached parts connected with facts of kindred character; whereas Matthew was no less Divinely given to present it as a whole, omitting the facts or questions which drew out those particulars.

Then in chapter 7, He enters Capernaum, and the healing of the centurion’s slave follows. Luke distinguishes the embassy of Jewish elders, then of friends when He was near the house; but the dispensational issue was left to Matthew. The raising of the widow’s only son at Nain yet more deeply proves the Divine power He wields with a perfect human heart. It was high time for John’s disciples to find all doubts solved by Jesus, Who testifies to the Baptist’s place instead of being witnessed to by him. Yet was wisdom justified of all her children, as the penitent woman finds from the Lord’s lips in the Pharisee’s house. Everywhere it was Divine grace in man; and she tasted it in the faith that saved, and in the grace that bade her go in peace.

In chapters 8 we see Him on His errand of mercy, followed not by the twelve only but by certain women healed of wicked spirits and infirmities, who ministered to Him of their substance. And the Lord addresses the crowd in parables, but not of the Kingdom, as in Matthew; after that He designates His true relations to be those that hear and do the Word of God. The storm on the lake follows, and the healing of Legion in the details of grace, as well as of the woman who had a flux of blood, while He was on the way to raise the daughter of Jairus.

Chapters 9 gives the mission of the twelve empowered by and like Himself, and sent to proclaim the Kingdom of God, with its effect on Herod’s bad conscience. The apostles on their return He leads apart, but, being followed by a hungry crowd, He feeds about 5,000 men with five loaves and two fishes multiplied under His hand, while the fragments left till twelve handbaskets. After praying alone, He elicits from His disciples men’s varying thoughts of Him, and Peter’s confession of His Messiahship (Matthew recording much more). For this He substitutes His suffering and His glory as Son of Man: they were no more to speak of Him as Messiah. Deeper need had to be met in the face of Jewish unbelief. The transfiguration follows with moral traits usual in Luke, and the Center of that glory is owned Son of God. When the Lord and His chosen witnesses come down, the power of Satan that baffled the disciples yields to the majesty of God’s power in Jesus, Who thereon announces to them His delivery into men’s hands, and lays bare to the end of the chapter the various forms that self may assume in His people or in pretenders to that place.

Then we have in chapter 10 the seventy sent out two and two before His face, a larger and more urgent mission peculiar to Luke. On their return, exultant that even the demons were subject to them in His name, the Lord looks on to Satan’s overthrow, but calls them to rejoice that their names are written in the heavens. To this our Gospel leads more and more henceforth. His own joy follows, not as in Matthew dispensationally connected, but bound up with the blessedness of the, disciples. Then the tempting lawyer is taught that, while those who trust themselves are as blind as they are powerless, grace sees one’s neighbor in every one who needs love. The parable of the Samaritan is in Luke only. The close of the chapter teaches that the one thing needful, the good part, is to hear the Word of Jesus. It is not only by the Word that we are begotten; by it we are refreshed, nourished, and kept.

But prayer hereon follows (“as He was praying”) (ch. 11.), not only because of our need, but to enjoy the God of grace Whose children we become through faith; and in His illustration He urges importunity. Here again we have an instructive example of the Divine design by Luke as compared with that in chapter 6 of Matthew. His casting out a dumb demon to some gave occasion to blaspheme, whereon He declares that he who is not with Him is against Him, and he who gathers not with Him scatters: a solemn word for every soul. Nature has nothing to do with it, but the grace that hears and keeps the Word of God. So did the Ninevites repent, and the Queen of Sheba come to hear; and a greater than Solomon and Jonah was there. But if light is not seen, it is the fault of the eye; if it is wicked, the body also is dark. Then to the end the dead externalism of man’s religion is exposed, and the woe of such as have taken away the key of knowledge, and their malice when exposed.

Chapters 12 warns the disciples against hypocrisy, and urges the sure revelation of all things in the light, with the call to fear God and to confess the Son of Man, trusting not in themselves but in the Holy Spirit. It is no question now of Jewish blessing; and He would be no judge of earthly inheritances. They should beware of being like the rich fool whose soul is required when busy with gain. The ravens and the lilies teach a better lesson. The little flock need not fear, but rid themselves rather of what men covet, and seek a treasure unfailing: if it is in the heavens, there will the heart be. And thence is the Lord coming, Whom they were habitually and diligently to wait for. Blessed they whom the Lord finds watching! Blessed he whom the Lord finds working! To put off His coming in heart is evil, and will be so judged. But the judgment will be righteous, and worst of all that of corrupt and faithless and apostate Christendom. Whatever His love, the opposition of man brings hate, and fire, and division, not peace meanwhile. His grace aroused enmity. Judgment came and will; as, on the other hand, He was baptized in death that the pent-up floods of grace might flow as they do in the Gospel.

With the Jews on the way to the judge, and about to suffer from God’s just government (at the end of the chapter before), the Holy Spirit connects in chapter 13 the question of what had befallen the Galileans. Here the Lord pronounces the exposure of all to perdition, except they repented. The parable of the fig tree tells the same tale; respite hung on Himself. In vain was the ruler of the synagogue indignant for the Sabbath against Jehovah present to heal; it was but hypocrisy and preference of Satan. The Kingdom about to follow His rejection was not to come in by manifested power and glory, but, as under man’s responsibility, from a little seed to wax a great tree, and to leaven the assigned measure, wholly in contrast with Daniel 2:7. Instead of gratifying curiosity as to “those to be saved” (the remnant), the Lord urges the necessity of entering by the strait gate (conversion to God); seeking their own way they would utterly fail. So He would tell them He knew them not whence they were, in the day when they should see the Jews even thrust out, and Gentiles sitting with the fathers, last first and first last, in the Kingdom of God. Crafty as Herod was, it was Jerusalem He lamented, the guiltiest rejecter alike of God’s government and of His grace, yet not beyond His grace at the end.

Hence chapter 14 points out unanswerably the title of grace in the face of form, and its way of self-renunciation, which will be owned in the resurrection of the just, not by the religious world which is deaf to God’s call to the great supper. But if the bidden remain without, grace fills it not only with the poor of the city, but with the despised Gentiles. Only those who believe God’s grace are called to break with the world. Coming to Christ costs all else: if one lose the salt of truth, none more useless and offensive.

In chapter 15 the Lord asserts the sovereign power of grace in His own seeking of the lost one, in the painstaking of the Spirit by the Word, and in the Father’s reception and joy when he is found; as self-righteousness betrays its alienation from the Father and contempt for the reconciled soul.

Then chapter 16 describes parabolically the Jew losing his place; so that the only wisdom was, not in hoarding for self but in giving up his master’s goods, to make friends with an everlasting and heavenly habitation. Practical Christianity is the sacrifice of the present (which is God’s) to secure the future (which will be our own, the true, riches). Pharisees, being covetous, derided this; but death lifts the veil that then hid the true issue in the selfish rich tormented, and the once suffering beggar in Abraham’s bosom. If God’s Word fail, not even resurrection would assure. Unbelief is invincible, save by His grace.

As grace thus delivers from the world, so it is to govern the believer’s walk, who must take heed to himself, rebuke a sinning brother, and if he repent, forgive him even seven times in the day (ch. 17). Faith is followed by answering power. But the yoke of Judaism, though still existing, is gone for faith, as the Lord shows in the Samaritan leper, who broke through the letter of the law, rightly confessed the power of God in Christ, and went his way in liberty. The Kingdom in His person was in the midst of men for faith. By-and-by it will be displayed visibly and judicially; for such will be the Son of Man (now about to suffer and be rejected) in His day, as in those of Noah and Lot, far different from the indiscriminate sack of Jerusalem by Titus.

Chapter 18 shows prayer to be the great resource, as always, so especially when oppression prevails in the latter day, and God is about to avenge His elect, and the question is raised if the coming Son of Man shall find faith on the earth. After this the Lord lets us see the spirit and ways suited to the Kingdom in the penitent tax-gatherers contrasted with the Pharisee, and in the babes He received, not in the ruler who, not following Jesus, because he clave to his riches, lost treasure in heaven. Yet he that leaves all for His sake receives manifold more now, and in the coming age life everlasting. Lastly, the Lord again announces His ignominious death, but His resurrection.

Then (vs. 35) begins His last progress to Jerusalem and presentation as David’s Son; and the blind beggar, invoking Him so, receives his sight, and follows Him, glorifying God.

Zacchaeus in chapter 19, chief tax-gatherer and rich, is the witness of yet more — the saving grace of God. But the Lord is not going to restore the Kingdom immediately, as they thought; He is going to a far country to receive it and to return; and when He does, He will examine the ways of His servants meanwhile entrusted with His goods, and He will execute judgment on His guilty citizens who would not that He should reign over them. Next He rides to the city from the Mount of Olivet on a colt, given up at once by the owners; and the whole multitude of the disciples praise God aloud for all the powers they have seen, saying, “Blessed be the coming King in Jehovah’s name: peace in heaven, and glory in the highest.” It is strikingly different from the angels’ praise at His birth; but both in season. Pharisees in vain object, and hear that the stones would cry out if the disciples did not. Yet did He weep over the city that knew not even then the things that made for its peace, doomed to destruction because it knew not the time of its visitation. The purging of the temple follows, and there He was teaching daily; yet could not the chief priests and the chiefs of the people destroy Him, though seeking it earnestly.

Then in chapter 20 come the various parties to judge Him, really to be judged themselves. The chief priests and the scribes with the elders demand His authority; which He meets with the question, “Was John’s baptism of Heaven or of men?” Their dishonest plea of ignorance drew out His refusal to tell such people the source of His authority. But He utters the parable of the vineyard let to husbandmen, who not only grew worse and worse to their lord’s servants but killed at last his son and heir, to their own ruin according to Psalms 118:22, 23, adding His own solemn and twofold sentence. Next, we have His reply to the spies who would have entangled Him with the civil power; but as He asks for a denarius, and they own Caesar’s image on it, He bids them render to Caesar Caesar’s things, and to God the things that are God’s; and they were put to silence. The heterodox Sadducees followed with their difficulty as to the resurrection; whereon He shows that there was nothing in it but their ignorance of its glorious nature, of which present experience gives no hint. Resurrection belongs to the new age, to which marriage does not apply. Even now all live to God, if men cannot see. The Lord closes with His question on Psalms 110, how He Whom David calls his Lord is also his Son. It is just Israel’s stumbling-stone, ere long to be Israel’s sure foundation. Then the chapter concludes with His warning to beware of those who affect worldly show in religion, and prey on the weak and bereaved, about to receive, spite of long prayers, judgment all the more severe.

Chapter 21 begins with the poor widow and her two mites of more account than the richest in the offertory. Then, in correction of those who thought much of the temple adorned with goodly stones and offerings, the Lord predicts its approaching demolition, though the end was not to be immediately. But He cheers and counsels His own meanwhile. From verse 20 to 24 is the siege under Titus, and its consequences to this day. Verse 25 and the following look on to the future. The Gentiles are prominent; whence we have, “Behold the fig-tree and all the trees” in verse 29. Observe also “this generation,” etc., in verse 32, is in the future part, not in what is fulfilled. Lastly, verses 34-36 give a moral appeal. Here again we find Him teaching in the temple by day, and every night lodging at Olivet.

The last Passover approached (ch. 22) and found the chief priests and the scribes plotting, when Judas Iscariot gave them the desired means. On the day of sacrifice He sent Peter and John to prepare, and the Lord instructed them divinely when and how: for as He said, “With desire I have desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer,” and its cup He bade them take and divide it among themselves. Then He institutes His supper. As yet He had given no sign to mark the traitor, though He had long alluded to the fact. But alas! they were even then contending which of them would be accounted greatest; whilst He explains that such is the way of the Gentiles and their kings, whilst they were to follow His example — “I am in the midst of you as he that serveth.” Yet He owns their continuance with Him in His temptations, and appoints to them a kingdom. He tells Simon of Satan’s sifting, but of His supplication that his faith should not fail, and bids him, when turned again, or restored, to stablish his brethren. After further warning Peter, He clears up the change from a Messianic mission to the ordinary ways of Providence in verses 35-38, and then goes out to the mount and passes through His agony with His Father (39-46) while the disciples sleep. Then a crowd comes, and Judas draws near to kiss, and the Lord lays all open. He heals the high priest’s bondman, whose right ear was cut off; but remonstrates, yet allows Himself to be taken Who could have overwhelmed them with a word. Peter denies Him thrice. The men revile the Lord with mockery and blows; and as soon as it is day, He is led to the Sanhedrin, and when asked if He is the Christ, He tells them of the place the Son of Man will take, and owns Himself Son of God.

Before Pilate in chapter 23 the effort was to prove Him a rival of Cesar; but though confessing Himself the King of the Jews, Pilate found no fault in Him. The connection with Galilee gave the opportunity for a compliment to Herod, who got not a word from the Lord; but after, with his soldiers, insulting Him, he sent Him back, when Pilate again sought to release Him, as neither he nor yet Herod found evidence against Him. But the Jews only the more fiercely demanded a seditious murderer to be released, and Jesus to be crucified. Still Pilate made a last effort. But their voices prevailed. And Pilate gave sentence that what they asked for should be done. Such is man; and such is religious man, even more wicked: “Jesus he delivered up to their will.” Simon of Cyrene had to prove the violence of that hour; and Jerusalem’s daughters lamented with wailing. But the Lord bade them weep for themselves and for their children, and proceeded to Calvary where He was crucified, and the two robbers on either side. There He prayed His Father to forgive them, as rulers scoffed and soldiers mocked. Even one of those crucified kept railing on Him; but the other became a monument of grace, confessing the Savior and King, when others forsook and fled. The centurion too bore testimony to Him; and if they made His grave with the wicked, the rich was there in His death, and with Pilate’s leave His body was laid in a tomb hewn in stone where never man had yet lain. It was Friday, growing dark, and Sabbath twilight was coming on. And the Galilean women who saw Him laid there returned and prepared spices and unguents. Little did they know what God was about to do; yet they loved Him in Whom they believed.

On the first day of the week at early dawn the women came (ch. 24), but found the stone rolled away from the tomb and the body gone; and two in dazzling raiment stood by them to their alarm, who asked, “Why seek ye the Living One among the dead? He is not here, but is risen”; and they recalled to their minds His words in Galilee, now fulfilled in His death and resurrection. Even the apostles disbelieved.

And Peter went, and saw evidences and wondered. Then we have the walk to Emmaus with all its grace and deep instruction from the Scriptures, not for those disheartened men only, but for all time and all believers. Next the Lord makes Himself known in the breaking of bread (the sign of death), and at once vanishes. For we walk by faith, not by sight. On returning to Jerusalem they hear how He had appeared to Simon; and as they spoke, the Lord stood in their midst, bade them handle Him and see (for they were troubled), and even ate to reassure them of His resurrection. He speaks further and opens their minds to understand the Scriptures; a distinct thing from the power of the Spirit they were to receive in due time. No going to Galilee is introduced here; it is exactly suited to Matthew’s design. Here Jerusalem is prominent, which was avowedly most guilty. So repentance and remission of sins “were to be preached in His name, unto all the nations, beginning with Jerusalem.” There too they were to tarry till clothed with power from on high. But thence, when the day arrived, He led them out over against Bethany, and blessed them with uplifted hands; and, while blessing them, He parted from them and was borne up into heaven.

2. The Prologue (1:1-4)

There is no Gospel which more shows the mind and love of God than this of Luke2. None is more truly and evidently inspired. Nevertheless there is none so deeply marked by traces of the human hand and heart. This is its characteristic object in presenting Christ to us. Luke had, as the work assigned to him of the Holy Ghost, to delineate our Lord as a man, both in body and soul. This he does, not only as to facts which are related about Him, but in all His course and teaching in His life, death, resurrection, and ascension. It is emphatically a man we see and hear, a Divine Person, no doubt, but at the same time a real, proper man Who walks in perfect dependence and absolute obedience, honoring God and honored of Him in all things.

For this reason I believe it is that Luke alone opens his Gospel with an address to a particular man. You could not have Matthew, consistently with the purpose and character of his Gospel, addressing it to a man; nor is it conceivable of Mark or of John. Luke so writes with the most admirable propriety. “Whereas many have undertaken to arrange a declaration concerning the matters fully believed in among us, even as they, who from the beginning were eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word, delivered them to us, it seemed good to me also, having thorough acquaintance from the outset with all things accurately, to write to thee in, regular order, most excellent Theophilus, that thou mightiest truly know the certainty of accounts [or things] in which thou hast been instructed.” Thus Luke was led of God as one who had a thirst and loving desire for the good of Theophilus, and fitly addresses this Gospel to him: and this we shall find in harmony with its character throughout. It was not for him only, of course, but for the permanent instruction of the Church; yet none the less was it written to him. Theophilus was laid on the heart of that godly man to be instructed in the things of God, and this draws out the workings of the Spirit of God in him to expound the way of God as shown in Christ more perfectly.

Theophilus appears to have been a man of rank, probably a Roman governor. This seems the reason why he is called here “Most Excellent,” or, as we might say, His Excellency. It relates to official position, and not to his character morally as a man.3 It is evident he was a believer, but only partially instructed. The object of the Evangelist here was to give him a fuller understanding of “the way.”4

At this time there were many accounts of Christ in vogue among Christians. The “many” spoken of here who had undertaken to draw up these accounts of our Lord, were not inspired.4a Luke does not charge them with evil intent in what they wrote, still less with falsehood, but it was clearly inadequate, as being no More than the fruit of a human effort5 to relate the matters5a fully believed5b among the Christians. They did not accomplish the work so as to set aside the need of a fresh and above all a Divinely given narrative of the Lord Jesus. Only we must carefully remember that the difference between an inspired writing and any other is not that the other is necessarily false, and that the inspired one is simply true. There is much more than this. It is the truth as God sees it, and with that special object that God always has in view when He furnishes an account of anything. A gospel is not a mere biography: it is God’s account of Christ, governed by the special moral object He was pleased to impress on it. This is characteristic of all inspired writings, whatever their form or aim. Inspiration excludes mistake, no doubt; but it does much more than that. It includes a Divine object for the instruction of the faithful in the display of God’s glory in Christ. These “many” biographers4a spoken of by Luke were not authorized by the Spirit of God. They may have entered on their self-imposed task with the best motives, and some or all may have been persons in whom the Spirit of God was (i.e., Christians), but they were not inspired any more than one who preaches the Gospel or seeks to edify believers. There is a weighty difference between the leading of the Spirit in a general way, where flesh may more or less impair the truth enforced, and the inspiration of the Spirit, which not only excludes all error but gives what was never given before. Luke was inspired; yet he does not put forward his inspiration. And what then? Who does? Matthew, Mark, John, Paul, or any other? When people write an imposture they naturally pretend to this or that, and are apt most to claim what they have least or not at all. They may talk much about inspiration; the inspired writers, as a rule, take it for granted. It is self-proved, not posted up. The special character that distinguishes these writings from all others to the heart or conscience gives the believer the certainty of inspiration. For, I repeat, the Holy Ghost not only excludes error, but writes with a Divine object, and communicates the truth as none but God can. And these proofs are such as to leave the unbeliever without excuse. Light wants nothing else to show itself.6

Observe one marked difference here claimed between these many uninspired writers and Luke’s Gospel. They had taken up the tradition6a of such as had been from the beginning6b of the Lord’s public life eyewitnesses and ministers of the Word.6c It was founded on oral testimony4b. But Luke takes particular pains to let us know that this is not said of his own Gospel.6d He does not attribute it to the same sources as theirs,7 but claims an accurate and thorough acquaintance of all things8 from the very first (ἄνωθεν). He does not explain his sources4 any more than other inspired men, but he does contrast the character of what he knew and had to say with those who merely drew up9 a report from the earliest and best tradition. This is of high importance and has been often overlooked. Like Matthew, he goes back to the very first10 and even before Matthew’s relations; for he gives us, not only the circumstances that preceded the birth of Christ, but the account of all that pertained to His forerunner’s birth. Thus, though Luke does so far say that “it seemed good to me also” as well as to them,11 nevertheless he otherwise distinguishes his own task entirely from theirs. He does not tell us how he had his perfect understanding of all things from the very first; he simply lays down the fact.6d Again, it seems to me that the reason why he alone gives us his motive for writing, without putting forward his inspired character, is of all interest. Not only is it unusual in the sacred writers, but also Luke has the human element so predominant that it would be somewhat inconsistent with it to dwell strongly on the fact that it was God’s Word he was writing. He, above all, therefore, would rather avoid bringing it out prominently or formally, though be proves practically that every line was truly inspired. The regular (καθεξῆς) order was not that in which the events occurred. Such a mere sequence is by no means either the only order or the best for all purposes. To Luke it would have been an arrangement infinitely inferior to the one he has adopted. All it means is that he has written his account from the very first in a methodical manner. What that method is can only be learned from studying the Gospel itself. It will be proved, as we proceed, that Luke’s is essentially a moral order, and that he classifies the facts, conversations, questions, replies, and discourses of our Lord according to their inward connection, and not the mere outward succession of events, which is in truth the rudest and most infantile form of record. But to group events together with their causes and consequences, in their moral order, is a far more difficult task for the historian, as distinguished from the mere chronicler. God can cause Luke to do it perfectly.12

Again, Luke writes as a man to a man, unfolding the goodness of God in man — the Man Christ Jesus. Hence all that would exemplify humanity, as in Christ and also in us before God, is brought out in the most instructive manner. He writes for the help of his Excellency, Theophilus, that he might truly know (ἐπιγνῷς)13 the certainty14 of those things15 wherein he had been instructed.16 God thus takes care of those who know Him, though it may be imperfectly, and He would lead, them more deeply into the understanding and enjoyment of what He is now communicating to man by His grace. “To him that hath shall be given.” It is the way of God. Theophilus had been enabled to receive Christ and to confess Him. Hence, though Luke sets forth with particular care how truly the Gospel was preached to the poor (see ch. 4, 6, 7), yet his Gospel as a whole is addressed to this man of rank, now a disciple. Circumstantially, there is no man so much to be pitied as to the truth of God, or who so needs the grace of God, as one who is great in this world, because he is peculiarly open to snares, temptations, and cares of the world, which war against the soul and threaten to choke up the seed of the Word. Therefore we have the gracious care of Him Who knows so well what the heart of man needs, and Who, despising not any, deigns to provide for the great man now made low, and assuredly feeling his poverty, in spite of rank or riches.

§ 3. Textual Criticism.

Although able critics have for a century sought to edit the Greek Testament on documentary evidence of Greek manuscripts, ancient versions, and early citations, none as yet have succeeded in commanding more than partial confidence. Hence it has been a necessity for any careful and conscientious scholar who would really know the sources to compare several of these editions, and search into the grounds on which their differences depend, so as to have anything like a correct and enlarged view of the text, and to judge fairly of the claims of conflicting readings.... Mature spiritual judgment, with continual dependence on the Lord, is just as essential as a sound and thorough familiarity with the ancient witnesses of all kinds.

Lachmann published a manual edition of the New Testament professedly based on Bentley’s idea of exhibiting the text as read in the fourth century... at one fell swoop sentenced the mass of the surviving witnesses to an ignominious death, and presented us with a text formed on absolute principles of singular narrowness.... The neglect of internal evidence is a fatal objection. But the grand fallacy involved is that a manuscript of the fourth or fifth century must give better readings than one of the seventh or eighth. Now this is in no way certain. There is a presumption in favor of the more ancient manuscript, because each successive transcription tends to introduce new errors in addition to those it repeats. On the other hand, a copy of the ninth century may have been made from one older than any now extant, and certainly some old documents are more corrupt than many of the more recent witnesses. Every ingenuous scholar must own, to say the least, that the oldest manuscripts have some bad readings, and that the modern manuscripts have some that are good. Hence the distinction is not between the united evidence of the most ancient documents (Manuscripts, Versions, Fathers) and the common herd of those more recent; for rarely, or never, is there such unanimous ancient testimony without considerable support from witnesses of a later day. The truth is that almost always, where the old documents really agree, there is large confirmation elsewhere, and where, the ancients differ, so do the moderns. it is quite unbounded, therefore, to treat it as a question pure and simple between old and new. Nor is it the important point of research what particular readings existed in the days of Jerome. For notoriously errors of various kinds had then crept into both Greek and Latin copies, and no antiquity can sanctify an error. The true question is: What, using every available means to form a judgment, was the primitive text?

It is often forgotten that our oldest documents are but copies. Several centuries elapsed between the original issue of the New Testament Scriptures and any manuscripts now existing. All, therefore, are on the ground of copyists differing only in degree. It is not, then, a comparison between a single eyewitness and many hearsay reporters, unless we had the original autographs. And, in fact, we know that an historian’s account, three centuries after alleged facts, may be, and often is, corrected, five hundred or a thousand years after, by recurrence to sources more trustworthy, or by a more patient, comprehensive, and skillful sifting of neglected evidence.

My own conviction is that in certain cases, especially in single words, the most ancient copy that exists may be corrected by another generally inferior, not only in age, but in almost every respect besides, and that internal evidence ought to be used, in dependence upon the Spirit of God, where the external authorities are conflicting.17

Endnotes

§ 1.

1The third Gospel, exclusive of the Prologue or Preface, may be divided into four sections (cf. Moffatt): (1.) 1:5 — 4:13, the preliminary period; (2.) 4:14 — 9:50, the Galilean Ministry; (3.) 9:51 — 18:30, the Ministry in Samaria and Peræa; (4.) 8:31 — end, the closing Judean Ministry with the last supper, the Lord’s trial, crucifixion, resurrection and ascension.

It also admits, including the Prologue, of division into seven parts (cf. Garvie) (1.) chapters 1. and 2., the annunciation, the birth and childhood of the Baptist and of the Lord; (2.) 3:1 — 4:13, early preaching of the Baptist, and the Baptism and Temptation of the Lord; (3.) 4:14 — 9:50, the Lord’s Galilean ministry; (4.) 9:51 — 18:30, His ministry in Galilee and Perms; (5.) 18:31 — 21:38, closing Judean ministry, including the Prophecy on Olivet; (6.) 22 and 23, the last supper, trial and death; (7.) 24, the resurrection and ascension. Godet would make the fourth of these end at 19:28, and the fifth begin, accordingly, with 19:29 (so R. G. Moulton, “Modern Readers’ Bible”).

Renan’s praise of this Gospel as “the most beautiful book in the world” (“The Gospels,” p. 283) has often been reproduced. As Westcott says, the “narrative begins with hymns and thanksgivings, and ends with blessings and praises”. It is the Gospel which has the fullest details of the Lord’s life on earth; often circumstantially informing us (when the first Gospel does not) the occasion upon which He spoke the words recorded (e.g., “the Lord’s Prayer”). Most readers are struck with the frequency of the mention of Prayer (3:21, 6:12, 9:18, 29; 10:2, 11:13, 24:49), as also of the Holy Spirit (1:41, 67; 2:25, 27; 4:10, 14, 18; 10:21, 11:13, 24:49). For other links with John’s Gospel, like the last named, as in 9:51, 11:42, 12:21, 22:26f, see Harnack, “Luke the Physician,” p. 224ff. Readers of Bernard’s “Progress of Doctrine in the New Testament” (pp. 42-44) will know of the distinction made between Luke and Matthew and Mark, that while these set forth the kingdom with reference rather to the past and present respectively, this Gospel views it largely in the light of the future.

“Christ,” says Canon Wilson, “is seen here as the teacher of individual souls” (“Studies,” etc., p. 66); but that the same writer goes too far in stating that the parables here have no bearing on the Kingdom (p. 67) will be shown in notes below.

Being the Gospel of the “Son of Man,” it is characterized, as the Expositor remarks, by many specially human traits, such as the development of the Lord’s mind and body. Differences in character are portrayed, as Herod’s curiosity and Pilate’s indecision. Dante has spoken of the writer as “the scribe of the gentleness of Christ,” his tenderness comes out in sympathy with women and children (7:12, 9:38, 42; 23:28f.), as well as with the poor. The expository literature upon it is exceedingly rich, and this Gospel has always been a much-used instrument in the hands of preachers.

§ 2.

2 Three questions arise in connection with study of any Book of the Bible: as to the authorship and the materials (“sources”) used by the writer, to which those engaged in the higher internal criticism address their inquiries; as to the authority attaching to the Book, which is concerned with inspiration, and also with interpretation; (3.) as to its genuine text, which is the inquiry of textual, external criticism (cf. Barry, p. 28). To each of these topics some remarks will be devoted, as introductory to such study of the Gospel.

First, as to the authorship of the third of the Gospels, which, like the rest, is anonymous. This has been traditionally ascribed to LUKE; in the manuscript copies that have come down to us, the shortest form of title, “according to Luke,” is borne by the two oldest, the so-called “Sinaitic” (א) and “Vatican” (B).

The Apostle Paul names in his Epistles, as a close companion in itis labors, a Luke, described by him as “the beloved physician” (Col. 4:14). Comparison of the Preface to the Gospel with the introductory words of the “Acts of the Apostles” — also traditionally connected with the name of the same writer — in which (1:1) reference is made to a “former treatise,” seems to determine the authorship without dispute, for, although the later book does not name its writer, the common style and dedication support the belief that these two books were produced by one and the same person, each of them affording indication that he was a physician.

It was not until the last century that the traditional view was questioned, as by De Wette and Baur of a past generation, and by Jülicher amongst living scholars, who have contended that the writer of the Acts could not have been the Luke intimate with Paul (Col., ibid., Philem. 24, 2 Tim. 4:11), because of the alleged contrast between the Apostle’s own account in his Epistles of his attitude towards the Jewish party and the way in which that is presented in Acts 15, alongside of the fact, practically acknowledged by all, that the two books were from the same hand (see Bp. Hervey, Lect. 4, on “The Authenticity,” etc.). The traditional view, however, has within the last few years received the unhesitating support of Harnack; of old it would seem never to have been doubted. The Muratorian Fragment (elm 170 A.D.) calls Luke the writer of this Gospel, and a “Medicus”; Irenæus (circ. 180), in his treatise against Heresies, 3:1, says that “Luke, Paul’s companion, recorded in a book the gospel preached by him”; and Tertullian (tire. 200), in his treatise against Marcion, iv. 2 and 5, speaks of Luke as author. So also the contemporary Clement of Alexandria.

The name Lucas (Lucanus) is not to be confounded with Lucius (Acts 13:1). Eusebius (“Ecclesiastical History,” 3:4) describes our Evangelist as by birth “of those from Antioch” (cf. Jerome, “Life”); but see Westcott, “Introduction to Study of Gospels,” p. 233, note. Eusebius’ words may mean only that Luke had a family connection with that city; so Ramsay (“St. Paul the Traveler,” p. 389), who supports Renan’s suggestion that he was a native of Philippi, and regards the Evangelist’ as having been the “man of “Macedonia,” of Paul’s vision, comparing this with Paul’s previous vision as to Ananias, and Peter’s as to Cornelius. Harnack, however, favors the older view that he was an Antiochene and thus was familiar with the origin of the name “Christian” (“Expansion,” vol. i., p. 317, note).

Titus, as not being mentioned in the Acts, some have supposed was a near relative of Luke, (f. 2 Cor. 12:18 (τόν, his).

Beta’s MS. (D) in Acts 11:28 has “When we were assembled”; but, from the text represented by most MSS., the Apostle and the Evangelist seem to hare first met at Troas, in 53 A.D. during Paul’s second missionary tour. After using “they” in Acts 16:8, the writer in verse 11 Changes to “we”; but in 17:1, he reverts to “they,” which seems to show that Luke was left behind at Philippi (infra). Then, in connection with the Apostle’s return to Troas during his third missionary journey, we meet in 20:5 with “us... we” whilst in 21:19, the narrative is resumed in the third person; but from 27:1 f. we learn that Luke had rejoined Paul at Cæsarea.

The “beloved physician” — described by Wilson as a “layman” (op. cit., p. 83) — and he alone (2 Tim., ibid.), remained with the Apostle to the end of so much of Paul’s life as is covered by the New Testament. Harnack treats the reference to him there as cold (“Expansion,” i., p. 170), which English reader, more happily regard as commendatory. He is probably the “true yokefellow” of Phil. 4:3.

Luke’s medical knowledge is disclosed by various passages in our Gospel, 4:38, 7:44, 10:30, 21:34. This has been worked out by Hobart (“The Medical Language of St. Luke”), whose book has been turned to account Harnack. The Evangelist’s treatment of cases of demoniacal possession important in this connection: he does not regard them, according to mod motions, as merely physical disorders.

As Col. 4:11 is usually understood, Luke was by birth, not (as Roberta and Hahn have thought) a Jew, but a Greek. He may have been a “proselyte,” and so have ranked as a Hellenist. Dalman supposes that he did not know Hebrew or Aramaic (“Words of Jesus,” p. 32); but see Jerome, “De Vir. Illust.,” ch. 7. Neubauer treats the Evangelist’s quotations as derived from an unwritten “Targum” or Aramaic paraphrase (Essay in “Studia Biblica,” vol. i., p. 67); whilst Harnack and others have to assume that Luke was not unacquainted with Aramaic, if he was to translate, as they suppose he did, from an Aramaic document for the first part of Acts. His familiarity with Greek is easily recognizable; and for his use of the Septuagint, see Hawkins, “Horn Synopticæ”; indeed, his vocabulary is largely drawn from the Apocrypha (Abbott).

From the fourth century, he was thought by Some to have been one of the Seventy (chapter 10.); but this is now generally discredited. This affords some around for the belief that he was the unnamed disciple of ch. 24:78: his withholding the name has significance for readers of juridical training.

Finally, Origen and Jerome believed that this “physician of the soul” was the brother whose praise in the Gospel is through all the churches (cf. the Collect for St. Luke’s Day with 2 Cor. 8:18), in the sense that Luke had then already published his Gospel. Although Erasmus reproduced this idea in his Latin. translation of the Gospels (1520), it meets now with as little support as aloes the idea that it is to this Gospel the Apostle refers in 2 Tim. 2:8; cf. Rom. 15:19; Gal. 2:2 (see also note 100 below). Another statement of Jerome; that Luke lived to the age of 84 and remained unmarried, Harnack supposes goes back to the third century. The Evangelist’s death is variously reported to have been by martyrdom, or peacefully; some saying in Bithynia, others in Bœotia.

W. Kelly has regarded Luke as a prophet: see “Exposition of Mark,” p. 2. Hippolytus prefixed a quotation of 18:2-5 by “as the apostle and Evangelist says” (“On Antichrist,” in Ante-Nicene Christian Library; vol. x., p. 33).

In seeking to determine the date of the composition of this Gospel time must be allowed for the attempts made by others of which the Prologue speaks. Followed by the Book of Acts, which does not record Paul’s death, the Gospel might seem to have been completed before 64 A.D. (Blass, after Eusebius: by at least 60). So the late Bishop Hervey and Dr. Gloag; whilst Keim puts it at.66; Godet, between 63 and the last-named year. Writers such as Julicher (p. 336), influenced by the idea that the language of 19:43f. as to the overthrow of Jerusalem imports composition after the event, would say after 70; and so Zahn, about 75; Plummer and Sanday, 75-80; B. Weiss, Abbott, Ramsay, about 80; McGiffert and Bacon, following Harnack’s former opinion (down to 1897: see below), decide for 78-93; Wernle and Moffatt, for cire. 90. In the same way it has been argued that Deuteronomy could not have been of Mosaic date, because of the contents of the last chapter: but in either case allowance may be made for editorial accretions or modifications after the original record was put in writing. As to grounds for belief that Luke’s Gospel was put forth before the year 70 of the era, see Pullan, in Murray’s “Bible Dictionary,” p. 487.

The extreme views range between the last decade of the first century and the year 1:10 (Jülicher). In considering such opinions one must work back from about the year 160, i.e., from the time of Justin Martyr. While not naming our Evangelist, Justin speaks of “the Gospel,” a term current in his time for all four records, winch snake up the “Diatessaron” of his pupil Tatian, an English translation of which may be seen in J. Hamlyn Hill’s “The Earliest Life of Christ” (1910). Thirlwall (Introduction to Schleiermacher’s “Essay on Luke,” p.64. ff.) considered that Justin’s looseness in quotation (dwelt on by Cassels in “Supernatural Religion”) was due to his regarding the New Testament as a commentary on the Books of the Hebrew Canon, which he quoted pore carefully (p. 73.). Somewhat earlier was Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis, whose date is put by Harnack at 145; by Stanton, at 140; by Abbott, at 115-130. The testimony of this old bishop is of less account because he avowedly preferred oral to written accounts. But in Marcion, of a bishop of Synope in Pontus, who was at Rome about 140 A.D., we have a witness of prime importance, because the substance of a Pauline gospel put forth by him is manifestly drawn from some recension of our third Gospel: see. Westcott, on the Canon, chapter 4. Akin to Marcion’s doctrinal system was that of his fellow Gnostic Valentinian (circ. 130), who, with Basilides, a contemporary heretic, seems also to have been acquainted with the contents of Luke’s Gospel. We are thus carried back to the early years of the second century; and then, for the last decade of the first, are met by the question whether Luke had read Josephus’ Antiquities (published in the winter of 93-94) because of similarity in the language used by the Evangelist and by the Jewish historian.

Boltzmann, Keim, Hausrath and Burkitt, after Krenkel, hold that Josephus’ work was known to Luke, and accordingly date this Gospel after 93 (Clemen: 94 or 95) A.D. Zahn, Sanday, Salmon, Wellhausen’ Harnack and Moffatt discredit all this. The words employed by the two, of course contemporaries, were undeniably in common use: each drew from the LXX., and thus sometimes used an identical vocabulary.

Reverting to the yet earlier critical dates, that of “about the year 70” may be taken as a moderate conjecture, in probably large acceptance. In this the present writer can acquiesce, only so far as it may mark the limit of editorial revision, as to which see Wright, “Composition of the Gospels,” p. 117. The process of construction is represented by the more advanced critics as completed later: thus Loisy’s date is 90-100; Schmiedel’s, 100-110.

The last-named writer (§ 110), after Pfleiderer (cf. Bruce, “Kingdom of God,” p. 337), finds in this Gospel in its settled form certain opposite tendencies: Pauline universalism associated with Jewish particularism (1:68; 2:10; 5:30: 7:16; 8:16; 19:9; 22:30), referring such to different editorial “working, over”; but in the present Exposition these will be found explained as part of the Divine design of which the Evangelist himself was the instrument. The fact is, Luke’s Gospel was not intended specially for either Jews (as Matthew’s or for Gentiles (as Mark’s), but equally for both. Whatever actual revision there was connects itself with the extended or completed publication, and not flue original issue, of the Gospel, which may quite well have been before the year 70 as formerly believed by all later readers. Harnack (supra) in his recent book me the Acts in particular finds it difficult to think that Luke in 21:32 regarded the destruction of the city as past at the time of his writing (E. T., p.293). He now thinks that a date soon after the year 60 is credible.

3 Theophilus (“Friend of God”), whose name (Origen: “a man whom Got loves”) may have been given to him at his baptism, and used only amen Christians, seems to have been of equestrian rank, and saluted as “most excellent” (κράτιστε, cf. our “Right Honorable”), from being a ἡγεμών, like. Felix (Acts 23:26) and Festus (26:25). He can have been no such fictitious person as Origen supposed, by reason of this very designation. With the Expositor’s remarks on the social position of this friend of the Evangelist.

Compare note on 6:20.

4 The Gospels called “Synoptic,” i.e., as together representing the same genes:, view (cf. note 3 on Mark), can have been composed under one or other of the following conditions. 1. To each Evangelist was separately revealed that which he had to write, independently of the rest (cf. note 10 on Mark). Very fa., Biblical scholars since Greswell have committed themselves to this theory, be it was that of the Expositor himself, and very much the view of Dr. Harvey Goodwin, when writing contemporaneously as Dean of Ely, before becoming Bishop of Carlisle. 2. Each Evangelist reduced oral tradition to a write form in the light of his special purpose and in his own way. Such has been view of English scholars who followed Gieseler: since the early sixties it I been represented by Westcott, in particular, and by Abbott, Wright and Salm( in Germany by Zahn, etc. 3. Some written record long defunct lies behind the Gospels in their existing form — the view of Eichhorn and his followers. 4. One of the Gospels is a main source of the rest; the second and the eb used one or more additional sources no longer separately extant. During to preceding generation this has been the view most accepted. The first, the ecclesiastical or “traditional” view, which satisfied most minds from the fifth to the eighteenth century, means that “all the differences between the Gospels were taken as individual variations of a divine type, each variation perfect in its kind” (Nash, pp. 61, 155). The second will be considered here in sections A., B. Whatever is true in the third is generally deemed to be included in the last of the views above stated: these together rely on the notion of dependence as governing the development of the Gospel records (sections C. F.).

Hug, amongst Roman Catholics, was one of the eighteenth-century scholars holding that each successive Evangelist used his predecessors. The theory which has given rise to views of dependence may be seen stated in Westcott, “Introduction to the Study of the Gospels,” p. 183. There will be found an account of the “supplemental” view, according to which each successive writer added something to his predecessor’s account: an idea first suggested by Chrysostom. Greswell has left a Dissertation on the subject.

In principle there can be no objection to the belief that writers of the New Testament have drawn upon ordinary sources of information, e.g., Acts 23:25-30, and from one another: this last seems to have been done by the historical and prophetical writers respectively of the Old Testament. Tacit borrowing is noticeable in Micah, from Isaiah (if not vice versa); Jeremiah, from Hosea, Isaiah and Zephaniah; Ezekiel, from Hosea, Zephaniah and Jeremiah; Joel, from Jonah; Haggai, from Ezekiel; and Zechariah, from Isaiah. Girdlestone, referring to this “spiritual communism,” remarks that “Inspiration does not imply originality” (“The Grammar of Prophecy,” p. 10.f.). Whilst it may be unnecessary to go so far as to say that “the most simple faith and the keenest investigation are one and the same thing” (Thirlwall), we have certainly apostolic injunctions, on the one hand, to “prove all things” (1 Thess. 5:21), and, on the other, to be on our guard against “spirits” not of God (1 John 4:1). If both of these considerations be kept in view, investigation of this subject may be fruitful.

It is the two-fold effect of manifest independence (differences) in combination with apparent use of common sources (agreements) which has given rise to the “Synoptic Problem,” for the history of the solution of which see H. Holtzmann, “Introduction to the New Testament,” pp. 351-357. The well-selected passage by way of example from Luke 5. (verses 18-26), collated with Mark 2:3-12, Matt. 9:2-8, in Green’s Angus (“Handbook to the Bible,” p. 630), may be compared with that, in A.V., used by Rush Brooke (“Synopticon,” p. 96). Upon the parenthesis each time, “He said to the sick of the palsy,” of which use was made by H. Holtzmann in his earliest work on the subject, see comment of D. Smith (Introduction, p. 14).

This problem has been briefly considered in notes 6-12 appended to the “Exposition of Mark.” In the present volume we shall start from a general statement of that which is suggested by the phenomena made by a truly devout and esteemed English Biblical student, the late Lord Arthur Hervey, Bishop of Bath and Wells, who in a lecture on the third Gospel expressed himself as follows: — “The writer seems to have had three sources of information: (1) the oral teaching, as we see it in those parts which occur also, word for word, in Matthew or Mark, or both; (2) those living eyewitnesses whom he had personally known, and from whose lips he had taken down the various particulars related by him;, (3) written records which he transcribed or otherwise used in the composition of his own narrative” (p. 99 f.). The subject, with special reference to Luke’s Prologue (1:1-4), which is unique in the whole Bible, will be taken in the same order as the bishop’s statement, in successive sections.

A. The word for “delivered” (παρέδοσαν) in Luke 1:2 is etymologically Connected with that for “tradition” (παράδοσις), which in the plural comes before us in 2 Thess. 2:15. Such tradition might be either oral or written (ibid.); it is with the first that we are concerned at present. It originated with “the Apostle’s teaching” (Acts 2:42), and seems to have continued for about 100 years, as there are words about it attributed to Papias, who lived, it is believed, as late as at least 130 if not 140 A.D. He tells.us that Christians of his time preferred “the living voice” to written statements, one reason perhaps for delay in production of our Gospels. “There appears,” wrote Thirlwall, “to be no reason for supposing that written documents of any kind entered into the general plan of the Apostles for the diffusion of Christianity” (p. 121.), and, as says Bunsen in his “Hippolytus” (i., p. 28), “Nobody was anxious to have a written biography of Him whose return was daily expected.” To tradition we owe the names of the respective writers of the Gospels. One saying of our Lord outside their records has been rescued for us by Paul (Acts 20:35), yet recorded by Luke himself. That this was in currency before the Apostle quoted it, may be seen by his word “remember.” Other such sayings, which are credited, are found in Clement (of Rome), chapters 2, 13, 46 and Polycarp, chapter 2. (see Harnack, “Sayings of Jesus,” pp. 187-190). Fragmentary notes may indeed have been taken by individual hearers of the Apostles’ instruction.

Nearly all scholars are agreed that these three Gospels rest ultimately on oral tradition. “The written word marks a time when the first generation of Christians was passing away and the Lord still delayed His coming” (Green’s Angus, p. 632). For a considerable time the Apostles labored together in Jerusalem. But that which here is of chief importance is the Evangelist’s reference to catechizing in verse 4; this has been turned to account by Wright (cf. Carr in Expositor, October, 1907). It must have been very much the instruction that now is given in Bible classes for adults and in Sunday schools or children’s services. Timothy would engage in this (1 Tim, 5:17). See further, notes 9 and 16 below.

As preceding continuous written records, the primitive believers, then, had at their command a fund of material which, through constant repetition of the Same things by the same speakers, would “stereotype the words” (Bennett, p. 136). The Synoptic Gospels represent “written records of forms taken by tradition at the end of three diverging lines of development” (ibid.); or as Salmon, in his posthumous work (p.27), says, “The most probable explanation of three histories, so like one another yet so independent, is that we have preserved for us the oral gospel as delivered at three different centers” (Jerusalem, Rome, Antioch). But this explanation of variations from “lapse of memory” (p. 67, etc.) will not do. As another puts it, “The Evangelists were editors, not authors: they reduced the oral apostolic tradition to writing; and therefore it is that their books are entitled, not the Gospel of, but the Gospel according to Matthew,” etc. (D. Smith, p. xiv). Cf. Godet, i. pp. 36-41. That which Hahn held as to Luke, Zahn maintains for Matthew―the belief that none but oral sources were used.

This floating tradition in the Aramaic vernacular Westcott and others have conceived was put into Greek before being committed to writing. Orr thinks that it was closely followed by Mark, and that the two other Evangelists “borrowed parts of the same tradition which they combined with material drawn from other sources.”

Sir John Hawkins (“Horæ Synopticæ” p. 67) allows for other than documentary sources; and so B. Weiss in his “Life of Christ,” 1. 81, and “Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” chapter 1; but in his “Sources of Synoptic Tradition,” chapter 5, the venerable Berlin scholar seems practically to exclude it. Whenever doubt may arise between oral and written sources, he would decide for the latter. Various objections to the oral theory are enumerated by Peake. That any substantial record was kept orally is discredited by Burkitt from supposed difficulty it memorizing it; but this objection is disposed of by the younger Weiss, who says. “When we see how in the Talmud words of the Rabbins have been preserved for centuries, clearly with the utmost exactitude, we shall not doubt that the Lord’s disciples also were able to retain the leading subjects for decades. These men had by far fresher and more practiced memory than we children of a paper age.... Many people even now who cannot read much make up for it by their retentive memory of what they hear” (“Writings of the New Testament,” p. 54). We have, of course, to add to this the all-important words of our Lord in John 14:26. For Westcott, as for Godet (see Introduction in his later French editions), apostolic tradition was the dominant factor. Besides Westcott (“Instruction to the Study of the Gospels”), reference may be made to Abbott, “The Common Tradition,” introduction, p. vi., Moffatt, Introduction, pp. 180-182, and Wright, “Synopsis of Gospels in Greek,” Introduction, p. x. (cf note 11 on Mark).

Before proceeding further, it may be convenient for the reader to be furnished with a list of passages altogether peculiar to Luke, which is transcribed from Wernle, “The Synoptic Question,” p. 92:

Chapters; 1, 2: 3:10-14, 23-38; 5:4-9; 7:11-17, 36-50; 8:1-3; 9:51-56; 10:17-20, 25-37, 38-42; 11:5-8, 27-28; 12:13-21, 35-37, 47-49, 54-56; 13:1-5,. 6-9, 10-17, 31-33; 14:1-6, 7-14, 28-33; 15:11-32; 16:1-12, 14-15, 19-31; 7-10, 11-19; 18:1-8, 9-14; 19:2-10, 41-44; 22:28-38; 23:6-12, 27-31, 39-43; 24:13-35, 36-53. Other portions of “The Single Tradition of Luke” (as in chapter 3, verses 1-2, 4-6, 15-16, 18-20) would be found in Rushbrooke’s third appendix.

Difficulty has arisen among critics in arriving at agreement as to the source of the special passages, whether oral or written. Wernle himself, amongst others, treats them as derivable from that writer’s one written “special source” supposed to have been used by Luke.

B. The Apostle Paul, converted, whether, as Harnack thinks, not more than a year, or as Ramsay, three years after the Crucifixion, has made use of the aid of “eye-witnesses” with reference to the death, burial, and resurrection of the Lord: 1 Cor. 15:3, “Also I received,” with which of “Also ye” in verse I, and verse 23 with note 540 below. In 1 Cor. 15. there is no question of any appeal made to a written document (of Heb. 2:3), in an epistle of which some still hold that Paul was the writer.

Besides Apostles (for John, see below) as eyewitnesses in general, who would be the originators of tradition dealt with in section A, there must have been private persons (see Acts 1:21f.) who supplied the Evangelist with information in answer to his inquiries (of note7 below). The birth narrative could have been obtained from the Lord’s mother. Her reticence as to His childhood has beet: recorded by Luke (2: 51): it has a bearing on her probably special disclosures to this Evangelist (Macalpine, p. 20).

For the Galilean and Peræan records in particular there would be the evidence available of other women from that region; and for the respective relations of the Baptist and of our Lord to the court of Herod, that of Joanna (3:1, 8:3, 9:7-9, 13:31, 23:7-12).

Luke was resident for two years in the house of Philip the Evangelist (Acts 21:8; of Harnack, “Luke the Physician,” p. 155ff.), through whom he may have gleaned much that is recorded in chapters 9-18. Again, he may have obtained from such as Nicodemus details as to the Passion of our Lord (Barnes). We may also suppose that Luke had considerable intercourse with John the son, of Zebedee; for affinity between his Gospel and the Fourth, see already note 1.

C. Reverting to What has been introduced at the beginning of the present note as to critical opinion going back to the last quarter of the eighteenth century, it is necessary to recall such views as Lessing’s that common written material underlies all the Synoptics; Eichhorn’s, that an Aramaic original was used in the composition of the tree existing Gospels, but that none of them saw the others’ work. Unremitting study of the subject by many scholars during the last century has led to the now dominant conclusion: most critics find various strata or layers in all, indicating different stages of development in the form that the Synoptics have respectively taken (J. Weiss, p. 39f.), resulting in part from interdependence (with this cf. Godet’s conservative view, i., pp. 42-48, 53-71). And so of Luke’s Gospel, that it depends primarily on one or other of its predecessors. We may, then, first consider the order in which these Gospels were written.

In the early Curetonian Syriac version, Luke’s is placed last of the four Gospels, probably because it was the latest to be translated into Syriac. In the Western MSS. existing when Jerome began his study of the New Testament, as in the recently discovered Akhmim Codex now at Detroit, U.S.A. although placed third (as already in the Muratorian Fragment), it follows John, and is before Mark. The order in which readers of the English Bible know it is that assigned to it by Origen, the great Christian scholar of the third century, in agreement with the majority of MSS. and versions that have come down to us. The view taken by some Germans in the middle of the last century hat it was the first written is now much discredited. Indeed, Bishop Westcott’s arrangement, 1 Mark, 2 Luke, 3 Matthew, has found support in Germany, as by Pfleiderer. But writers of such a different type as Professor Schmidt America and Professor Orr in Great Britain dispute the priority of Mark to Matthew.

The question as yet remains, had the writer of our third Gospel seen the one going under the name “Matthew.” The answer of Hug was lint hake made use of it, and the Roman Catholic professor was followed in this by Greswell, who held that Luke must have seen Matthew’s record. A few writers such as H. Hohmann, Wendt, and Allen, think that he used it to some extent. The esteemed Roman Catholic professor Schanz adheres to the ancient view that Luke’s Gospel was to a large extent derived from both Matthew and Mark.

But the view of most moderns, amongst them Ewald, Meyer, B. Weiss, and now Harnack (“Sayings,” p. 112), is that the independence of Luke and of the present “Matthew” was established by Weisse (1838), after the great English scholar Thirlwall (Introduction to Schleiermacher’s Essay) in 1825 had expressed the belief that neither of them could have known the other’s account of the Infancy and the Resurrection. Current criticism favors the theory that it is the use by Luke of a document lying behind our Matthew which explains a considerable amount of matter being common to these two Gospels alone. This point will be discussed in section E. below.

With regard to the question whether Luke had seen Mark’s Gospel, critical opinion, to a large extent, is very different. This must now engage attention.

D. Analytical comparison of Luke’s Gospel with that attributed to Mark has revealed, especially in chapters 4-9 of the third Gospel, a similarity so close in order and wording in both Matthew and Luke to the parallel record in our second Gospel, as to lead many scholars to the conclusion that Mark’s Gospel was used by each, with the necessary corollary, in keeping with the now prevalent opinion recorded in section C., that the shortest of the Synoptic Gospels was the one first written. This is a complete reversal of the view taken by Griesbach, Schleiermacher, Baur, Strauss, and Davidson, for whom the order was 1 Matthew, 2 Luke, 3 Mark (cf. note 2 in volume on Mark). Such are the vagaries of criticism previously illustrated by the paraded late date, as was supposed, of Deuteronomy, which has given place to the priority, maintained with no less dogmatism, of that book to the so-called “Priestly Code.” The now supposed priority of Mark to Matthew underlies the book entitled “The Synoptic Question (Problem),” by Wernle, and the more recent works of Harnack, which may be consulted in English translations, as also in the latest writings of Professor Bernhard Weiss, which have been reviewed in the German “Journal of Theological Literature” by Dr. Harnack.

The principal, more or less common, results worked out by these three scholars, in particular by Weiss in his “Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” will be set out in the present section, which is concerned with so much of the hypothesis now most in Favor respecting the composition of the first and the third Gospel as pertains to the supposed relation between Luke’s record and that of Mark.

The “common tradition of the Synoptic Gospels” (cf. section A.) is contained in the passages of Luke (as of Matthew) parallel to Mark, which are shown in Rushbrooke’s “Synopticon,” pp. 1-131, and is there exhibited by the aid of red type. The strict parallels (see margin of text of Exposition, passim) begin with Luke 3:1 and end at 24:11 of our Gospel. Examination of this material has shown that Luke has reproduced nearly three-fourths of Mark in much the same order (Harnack’s “Luke the Physician,” p. 87); this, phenomenon is specially noticeable as far as chapter 9 of the third Gospel, A sample was given by Abbott thirty years ago in the “Encyclopedia Britannica,” which reappears in the introduction to the “Synopticon” (Matt. 23:21-42; Mark 12:1-11; Luke 20:9-17); another may be seen in Green’s edition of Angus’s “Handbook to the Bible” (p. 630,f.; Matt. 9:28; Mark 2:3-12; Luke 5:18-26). The following passages of Mark alone seem to have no equivalent in our Evangelist (cf. Wernle “Synoptic Question,” pp. 3-40): — 4:26-29, 33,f; 6:1-6, 45-56; 7 throughout; 8:1-9; 10:35-40; 13:20-23; 15:16-20 (here, hover, el. Luke 23:11). Parts of these also absent from the Gospel of “Matthew” have been put in Clarendon type in the “Exposition of Mark.”

Incidents (the “matters,” πράγματα, of verse 1 of the Prologue; cf. the “deed” of 24:19), as distinct from the words of our Lord (see next section), make up a little over half of Luke’s Gospel (Wernle states it as 52 Per cent., p. 253), which may be verified by the aid of the Cambridge “Verba Christi” Testament. This is deemed the Marcan element in his record.

The idea that Luke (as “Matthew”) made use of Mark’s Gospel in an earlier form (the “Ur-Markus” or “Primitive Mark” of earlier criticism (cf. Barnes, p. 25; Moffatt, pp. 191.ff.)), had already been abandoned by its chief advocate, Holtzmann, before the recent books of Harnack and B. Weiss appeared. These writers agree in the belief that Mark’s Gospel lay before the other Evangelists in turn in the same form as that in which his Gospel has come down to us. The following is a sample of the fanciful treatment of the subject in the hands of some critics: “The endeavor of Luke, as of Matthew, was to give: renewed recognition to the Gospel of Mark by an enlarged and improved edition in such a way as Mark himself would have freshened up his work in any second edition” (J. Weiss, p. 36; cf. Harnack, “Luke the Physician,” p.1158). Such is the fruit of a system from which Divine design is excluded. The following remark of an English writer is appropriate: “If Luke and Matthew made use of a written Mark, the book must have been frequently copied and widely circulated immediately after it was written. And yet, according to the now current theory, only one copy of St. Mark’s Gospel existed at the time of his death and probably for many years afterward” (Wright’s introduction to “Gospel of St. Luke in Greek,” p. xv.)! Salmon has left behind his matured opinion that Luke was not acquainted with Mark as a written document, but only With those portions of it which he had heard orally recited at Antioch (p. 26), before he became Paul’s companion (p. 38). As far as Luke’s Gospel is concerned, we may take into account the intimacy between these two Evangelists. They may have conferred together on their joint labors, Luke being partly influenced by Mark’s chronological arrangement (cf. note 12 below, and “Exposition of Mark,” p. 3, and note 4 there), from his colleague’s close connection with a prominent eyewitness “Exposition of Mark,” pp. 1 and 2).

Prof. Schmidt in America, and Prof. Orr of Glasgow (“The Resurrection,” pp. 63-72), are amongst writers of repute who repudiate the Marcan part of the documentary hypothesis, which Burkitt and Allen in this country fondly imagine to be “among the most assured results” of investigation of the Synoptic problem. Orr has written, “None of the critics defending dependence are able to do more than elbow out the difficulties created by the phenomena set out in Alford’s ‘Prolegomena.’” For the view of Thirlwall and De Wette, see note 6 d below.

As it is, those who contend that Luke was dependent on Mark for his narrative portion have, on their own principles, to account for the large amount of matter, chiefly of course sayings, which is common to the first and the third Gospels, but without any equivalent in Mark. This presents itself for consideration in the section which immediately follows.

E. In an earlier section was foreshadowed that portion of the theory now in favor which, in particular, is supplementary to the portion of it dealt with in section D. Matthew and Luke also often agree closely when they do not follow Mark, that is, they have the same material within the limits of our second Gospel, which, nevertheless has nothing corresponding to their parallels inter se. But neither Luke nor Matthew could have borrowed from the other, because the literary peculiarities of each remain the same as when following Mark (see section C. above).

The matter common only to Matthew and Luke is found to be a record chiefly of the Lord’s sayings: see λόγων, verse 4 of the Prologue,’ R.V. marg. “words,” and 24:19, where “things” is divisible between “deed” and “word,” for which last cf. John 17:8. The two are combined again in Acts 1:1, “to do and to teach.” The deeds of our Lord, as has been seen, are supposed to be accounted for by the Marcan material in Luke (section D.); for the sayings, Weisse propounded a theory, that in the composition of the Gospel of Matthew use was made of another document, which H. Holtzmann, Weizsäcker, B. Weiss, Harnack, etc., think Luke also has turned to account, each compiler being independent of the other in the process. This further phenomenon has already been introduced in the last paragraph of note 10 on Mark (p. 238). It is discussed in, amongst recent books, Hawkins’ “Horæ Synopticæ,” pp. 88 ff.; Wernle, “Synoptic Question,” pp. 80-91, 224-233; Wellhausen, “Introduction,” pp. 65-68; Harnack, “Sayings,” and B. Weiss, “Luke’s Gospel,” chapter 2; “Sources of Synoptic Tradition,” chapters 1, 2; and Moffatt, “Introduction,” pp. 194 ff.

The critics’ belief was suggested by a statement preserved by Eusebius, of Papias, Bishop of Hierapolis (see note 1), which acquires importance for the study of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Papias speaks of a collection made by Matthew of Login (Nova) of our Lord in “the Hebrew dialect.” From, the use of this by the compiler of our first Gospel the name under which that goes is supposed to have been derived. Harnack, whilst himself of opinion (pp. 115, 171) that it is probable that this collection, which with B. Weiss he conceives lay primarily behind Luke’s Gospel, was (as Salmon supposed) identically the same as that spoken of by Papias, thinks that it is a point which 190n neither be proved nor disproved Journal of Theological Literature 1907, No. 5, p. 13 ff.). Weiss regards the compiler of the Login as an eyewitness. To this hypothetical document the designation of “Q” has been given; as first letter of the German word for “source” (Quelle).

This “double tradition” of Matthew and Luke may be gathered where the from the passages set out in Rushbrooke’s first appendix, pp. 134-170, material common to these two Evangelists is shown in capitals. The passages asterisked in the list of these below are considered by Wernle (§ 7) to be in historical order. The Matthew parallels (see again margin of Exposition) may be ascertained from reference Bibles, such as the Cambridge “Interlinear” at Bagster’s. cf. Hawkins, p. 107 ff.

Luke 1:26-31, 34f.; 2:39; 3:7-9, 17, 23-25, 31-34; 4:3-13; 6:20-23, 25, 27-49; 7:1-3, 6-10, 18-35; 9: 57-60; *10:1-16, 21-24; 11:1-4, *9-15, 19f, 23-26, 29-32, *34-44 [47-50]; *12:2-9, 22-34, 39-46., 51-59; 13:20f, 23-29, *34f.; 14:1-6, 11, *13-24, 26f., 34f.; 15:3-7; 16:13, 16f. 13, .; 17:1, 3-6 *23 f., 26f., 33-37; *19:11-28; 20:18; 22:28-30.

It will be observed that in chapters 5, 18, 21, 23 f. nothing from “Q” is found noticeable. That document is thought to begin to be clearly discernible in the record of John’s Baptism. According to Wernle’s analysis, about 48 percent, of our Gospel consists of discourses.

The text of “Q” as conceived by B. Weiss appears in chapter 1 of his critter’ commentary. Harnack similarly furnishes a translation of it according to his own analysis. Weiss has always contended that it extends to narrative also until lately his view has been supported by very few writers; but Harnack now finds in “Q” seven narratives, two of them miracles of healing (p. 163.) Orr also has recently expressed his agreement with Weiss on this point: Cf. Schmidt, pp. 219f., 227f.

It is commonly believed that “Q” was written originally in Aramaic, colloquial dialect (Wellhausen, p. 14, etc.), in which form Pfleiderer and Nastle think that it was used, by both Evangelists; but Abbott, Resell, Briggs, and the Jewish scholar Dr. Gaster are more probably right (such also was the opinion of Delitzsch in his later years) in holding that Hebrew was the language of its competition. Aramaic does not seem to have been used in Palestine for literature so early.

The late Bishop Goodwin gave as his judgment in the sixties that “the common written materials used by the Evangelist, were not originally in Greek, but were translated into Greek by different hands” (p, 32). It is clear that some record in Greek would early be needed by the Greek-speaking believers of the Dispersion, when it is remembered that there are quid to have been no less than three hundred synagogues for the Hellenists (cf. Acts 6.) at Jerusalem alone. Although the question of variations arising free different translations (see Jülicher, p. 359) may present itself, as Harnack says (p. 92), in places like Luke 15:4, “wilderness,” compared with Matthew 18:12, “mountains,” yet this distinguished scholar supports in the main the view of Weiss, that one and the Same Greek version of “Q” was used by Matthew and Luke, because their verbal agreements in this element of each Gospel are generally so close.

Wellhausen (pp. 73-89) assigns priority in time to Mark. But Weiss, dating “Q” in the year 67, thinks it earlier than Mark’s record (so Harnack, p. Sanday “Life of Christ in Recent Research,” p. 157). From the fact that it includes no account of the Lord’s death, etc., Salmon (p.247) end Ramsay have revived a suggestion of Paley, the celebrated writer on evidences, that some record was kept in Christ’s lifetime; as to this, Loisy (“Gospel Studies,” p. 11) remarks that the Twelve were “more accustomed to the fisherman’s rod than to the pen of a scribe”; but this would be inapplicable to Matthew, who, moreover, would know both Greek and Aramaic, (Zahn). As far as concerns Greek, knowledge of that language must, it seems, be credited to Philip and Andrew (John 12:20f.) as well as to Matthew. A reason given by some who discredit Paley’s idea is, that the vivid expectation which the disciples’ had of the speedy “completion of the age” would keep them frosts so recording the Lord’s utterances (cf. Westcott, Introduction, etc., p. 163). It has to be remembered, however, that the Lord’s words about this came only at the end of His ministry. Whatever view be adopted, it must of course take into account the bearing of His words in John 14:26. There can be little doubt that the prevalent impression is that any record was oral only.

Godet (pp. 48-53), whilst admitting use of documents, questioned their being common to the different Evangelists, and Zahn does not support the view that any such document as “Q” was a dominant factor in the composition of Matthew and Luke, whilst, from what has been said in section A. of Salmon’s judgment, the reader will be able to appreciate the Dublin scholar’s opinion already recorded, that, although he joins others in thinking that Luke was dependent on “Q,” our Evangelist obtained his knowledge of it, not by study of any document, but by having heard it read at the weekly gatherings of the Assembly in Antioch. A “Synoptic Table,” according to the Two-source Theory, would be found in Holtzmann, Introduction, pp. 376-382. Although Schmidt, describing his own opinion as “in harmony with early tradition,” holds that “the attempt to solve these problems by the so-called two-source theory cannot be regarded as successful” (p. 228f). Similarly “Oxford Studies,” Burkitt (“Gospel History,” p. 37), and Allen (Preface to St. Matthew, 7), following H. Holtzmann, as already stated, accept the theory as established before the recent works of Harnack and Weiss appeared. Moreover, currency has been given to it in this country by the Angus-Green popular “Handbook,” which is put forth by the Religious Tract Society, so that it is no longer Coined to the fraternity of the learned.

When material from the sources dealt with in the last two sections has been discriminated in Luke’s Gospel, there is still a residue of its contents to be accounted for, which must be considered in the next section.

F. Parts of Luke remain discernible in every chapter of his Gospel, so as to amount to more than one half of it, which by modern critics are attributed to some special source or sources at his command (c.f. ff., and ff and section B. above). Weiss (“Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” chapter 4) ―with whom Harnack essentially agrees―assigns these to a single source which he has designated “L,” and Bartlet “S” (Sondergut of Wernle). Whether there is more than one such source, Harnack describes as at present “the most important problem in Synoptic criticism.”

“L” (“S”) is rich in parables, such as that of the Good Samaritan and the parable of the Prodigal Son so-called. It is in passages so classified that the, epithet “the Lord” occurs, applied characteristically in this Gospel to Christ, that we have the birth and childhood narratives, the genealogy, the version of the great discourse said to have been delivered on a “plateau,” the raising to life of the young man of Nain, the healing of the Samaritan amongst the lepers, the parable of the Pounds, and our Evangelist’s record of the Last Supper, the Passion, Resurrection and Ascension. In Weiss’s treatment of this part of his analysis (“Sources of Synoptic Tradition,” chapter 3.), writes Harnack, “that veteran has no predecessors.” In chapter 4. of his treatise, “L” is regarded as of Judean, i.e., strictly Hebrew-Christian origin, and a purely written source, so likewise Sanday, in his academical lecture (Expository Times, December, 1908). Wright finds three sources (“Luke’s Gospel in Greek,” p. vii. f.). Wernle discusses “L” in his “Synoptic Question,” pp. 91-107 (c.f. the English translation of his popular booklet, pp. 143-153).

The passages representing Abbott’s “Single Tradition of Luke,” as arranged by Rushbrooke, will be found in the “Synopticon,” pp. 108-234. arranged by with the first and ending with the last verse of the Gospel are:

Luke 1 and 2 Throughout; 3:1-2, 4-6, 10-16, 18-20, 23-38; 4:14-30 5:1-10, 12, 17-19, 39; 6:11f. 19, 24-26, 37 f.; 7:1-7 1-5, 10-21, 29 7-21, 29-42; 36-50; 8:1-3; 9:6, 30-32, 36, 43-46, 48, 51-56, 61f.; 10:1-5, 7-11, 17-21, 29-42; 11:1, 5-8, 12, 21f., 27-29, 33, 36-11, 44-46, 53f.; 12:1, 13-21, 32-38, 41, 17-58; 13: 1-17, 22-27, 31-33; 14:1-33; 16:1-31; 17:5-22, 25, 28-30, 32, 37; 18:1-14, 34, 43; 19:1-28, 37-44, 17f.; 20:20, 26, 31-36, 38; 21:12-15, 18-26, 28, 34-38; 22:15f., 23f., 27-41, 43f., 48 f., 51-53, 59-61, 63, 65-68; 23:1 f., 4-19, 22-25, 27-32, 31f., 39-46, 48-51, 53-56; 24:3-53.

Cf. the “Register” of B. Weiss in his “Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” pp. 10-12, and the margin of the text in the “Commentary on Luke,” by J. Weiss (“Writings of the New Testament”), where “M” stands for Mark, “Q” for the collection of sayings, “S” for his father’s “L.”

The younger Weiss, after Pfleiderer and Wernle, regards “S” (“L”) as an enlarged edition of “Q,” applying this to “special” matter of either Matthew or Luke; but see Harnack’s strictures in “Sayings,” p. 185, note. Bartlet thinks that the “Q” element in Luke came to him already in “L” (“Oxford Studies,” p. 360), and that this is largely parallel with Mark, where Luke’s Gospel is (p. 361). Stanton likewise makes much of “L.”

Harnack supposes, after Dr. Bendel Harris, that there was a written document entitled “Words of the Lord Jesus” (see Acts 20:35), which he inclines to identify with the Logia.

Bishop Hervey and Dr. Sanday agree with German critics in the belief that there was an Aramaic written source of chapters 1, 2, the Oxford scholar remarking that “for a Greek like Luke there must have been any technical points” in the topics concerned (loc. cit., p. 112). Contra, Ramsay.

Zahn (p. 104 of German edition) repudiates the idea of some critics (see Burkitt) that the canticles were simply composed by Luke himself.

B. Weiss believes that just when Luke had no chronological indication such as Mark often otherwise afforded him, our Evangelist arranged his “special” materials according to his own sole judgment. W. Kelly would have said, more happily; Luke in that, as in all else, was Divinely guided, with a moral design. See in particular his “God’s Inspiration of the Scriptures,” p. 105.

G. A succinct account having thus been given of the development to the present time of the “Synoptic Problem,” a few words may be added by way of summary and appraisement of critical results. We have found that the hypothesis now prominently before students of the Gospels assumes the existence of at least two, most scholars think three, main sources of “Luke.” Amongst indications of the synoptist’s use in general of various sources is that afforded by what are deemed’ duplicate records (Weiss, “Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 119); that is, two records of the same incident or discourse noticeable in Matthew, and even in Mark, in regard to which our Evangelist is believed, like John, to have exercised something like modern “criticism,” at least discrimination: as to these “doublets” so-called, see Hawkins, pp. 80-107, if not Wernle, pp. 99-101. Luke 4:16-30 might be compared with Mark 6:1-6, or Luke 15:4-7 with Matt, 18:12-14 see Bennett. 1). 141, Hawkins, loc. cit., or Wernle, p. 99 ff. Some, as H. Boltzmann (followed by Wernle), find “doublets” even in Luke, e.g., the mission discourse in chapter 11. compared with that in chapter 10.; 19:26 with 8:18; 21:14; with 12:11. Such writers discredit the supposition that the Lord spoke or acted in the same or a similar way at different times, in diverse connection, with distinct purposes; but see Godet, i., p. 69.

Readers trained in evidence dealt with in English courts of justice, when they take up critical treatises by German theologians, are struck with the slender amount of evidence for their theories that satisfies these writers. Cf. Letter of the late Lord Chancellor Hatherley to the present Bishop of Durham (book let of “Thoughts on the Resurrection”), and the weakness of the reasoning upon such evidence as they adduce. Hypotheses, each in turn “assured.” supplant one another in rapid succession. Such has been the history of these literary investigations. Blass might well speak of “scientific” theology so-called as “that untrustworthy guide of laymen” (“Philology of the Gospels,” p. 35).

Use of earlier by later writers is suggested by agreements, and these “the documentary hypothesis” can account for, as Wright has owned (“Luke’s Gospel in Greek,” p. x.). But it is differences which most test the capacity of the inquirer. Divergences, as the same English writer further remarks, are not accounted for by the dominant critical theory. “The oral hypothesis rightly understood accounts for both” (ibid.). So, already, Godet, i., p. 70. Augustine may well be followed in his belief that a fusion of the two elements affords the best solution of an undeniably difficult problem.

4a, None of the narratives referred to in the text, other than the Gospels of Matthew and Mark, both of which the Expositor excludes, have survived, at least in their integrity, as applicable to the “Gospel according to the Hebrews” (supposed by Lessing to be common source of the three Synoptics), and the “Gospel according to the Egyptians,” to which latter the recently-discovered Oxyrhynchus fragments of Logic may have borne some relation. The Gospels commonly called “Apocryphal” were considerably later productions (Cf. Godet, vol. i., p. 56).

5 Origen, in his first Homily on Luke, says that such compilers’ did but attempt that which the canonical Gospels achieved. Those others worked “without the grace of the Holy Spirit.” The word επεχείρησαν, rendered “undertaken,” is the same as is used by the Evangelist in Acts 19:13, of the Jewish exorcists.

5a As regards the word πράγματα, rendered “matters,” cf. its use in Acts 5:4, where “thing” is equivalent to “action.” Reference has already been made to the use of λόγο in the same connection (verse 4) and to like conjunction of act and word in 24:19, and Acts 1:1.

5b The word πεπληροφορημένων, which has been rendered “fully believed,” as by Olshausen, Meyer, etc., Jerome (whom Godet, p. 58, Bishop Lightfoot and Blass follow), took as “fulfilled” (R. V. text) “come to pass.” Orr would translate it “fully established” (R.V. marg.); Cf: its use in 2 Tim. 4:5, 17, as rendered in R.E.

6 The subject of Authority, the second mentioned in note 2, goes to the heart of burning questions of religion at the present day. Already fifty years ago Dean Goodwin wrote: “The inspiration controversy has ceased to be the property of the learned.” In Germany, Some representatives of the theological faculties of the Universities have been giving what in England would be described as “University extension” lectures to audiences of such as Prof. Harnack would describe as “half-educated” people; and this with the idea of saving the position from pastors of the type of Frenssen and Kalthoff, if not from men of the calibre of Haeckel, alike deemed to poach on the preserves of the “scientific” theologians, who little regard “the man in the street.” The pronouncements of such “pastors” are reproduced in this country through English translations circulated by the Rationalist Association for popular reading; so that the question is pressed on public attention.

Our English philosopher, Locke, wrote that “every one has to decide for himself what is REVELATION, and believe accordingly.” The Apostle Paul, “that if anyone thought himself a prophet or ‘spiritual’ (πνευματικος) he was to recognize the Apostle’s words as from God” (1 Cor. 14:37); and he evidently assumed that the persons whom he had in mind possessed some Divine afflatus, such as resided in the Ante-Nicene Church down to the time of Tertullian.

“Revelation,” writes Stalker, “took place through the institutions, events, personages of a divine history” (p. 19). “Inspiration was the purer of interpreting, through history, putting its meaning into words” (ibid.) Cf. Bishop Boyd Carpenter’s statement in pp. 89, 96, of his perhaps widely circulated little book, published by Dent. The bete noire is what goes under the name of “verbal” inspiration, a leading writer upon which eighty years ago was the very able Alexander Carson. He, in “Remarks on Dr. J. Pye Smith’s Theory of Inspiration” (1827), with reference to 2 Tim. 3:16, asks, “What is a writing but words written?” (p. 32). Upon the disputed translation of that classical passage, Carson observes, “The substantive verb is naturally to be understood to each of the adjectives. What reason can be given for giving it to one and withholding it from the other?” Cf., in defense of the A.V., W. Kelly’s treatment of the same passage in his “Exposition of the Epistle,” and also his “God’s Inspiration of the Scriptures,” pp. 25, 38 and 598 f, as well as his exposition of 1 Cor. 2:10-16, in the last-mentioned volume (pp. 22-25). There is no excuse for referring (as does Bousset) the Apostle’s statement in 1 Cor. to the ecstatic language of tongues; the word λαλεῖν, (verse 13) Paul used in Rom. 7:1 definitely of the language of a letter.

All depends upon what is exactly meant by the phrase “verbal” (“literal”) inspiration. In modern times it seems to have had its roots in Calvin’s words “composed under the dictation of the Holy Spirit” (“Institutes,” 4:8, 6), and his speaking of the New Testament writers as “amanuenses of the Holy Spirit” (ibid., iv. 8, 9), which his seventeenth century followers expanded, unhappily, into what has since been described as “mechanical inspiration” (Synod of Geneva, 1675).

Luther, rightly enough, gave no countenance to this last view. He doubtless, by his free treatment of Scripture, gave the impulse that has produced “higher criticism,” some of which he would certainly have repudiated.

With such language as that of the Swiss synod in his mind, Thirlwall, afterward Bishop of St. Davids, speaking of “that doctrine of inspiration once [i.e., for about 100 years, to the time of Lessing] universally prevalent — the sacred writers were merely passive organs or instruments of the Holy Spirit — abandoned by the learned, still a generally received notion... this doctrine of literal inspiration, etc.,” admitted that all the hypotheses as to the composition of the Gospels were irreconcilable with a theory, which no intelligent Bible student seems any longer to hold: see W. Kelly’s “introduction to the Study of the Gospels” (1866), p. 288; cf. his chapter on The Human Element in “God’s Inspiration, etc.” At the present day no representative writer can be charged with maintaining that the inspiration of the Bible was on a plane with the Moslems’ idea of the Qoran — dictated word for word to a Prophet (see Margoliouth, “Mohammed and the Rise of Islam,” p. 91 f.). It is, however, precisely that absurd system which Archbishop Temple (“what can be a grosser super”), Dean Farrar, Canon Wilson, and Mr. Gladstone (on Butler, iii. p. 17 have in turn criticised. What the meaning was of the reaffirmation of plenary inspiration by such Papal encyclicals as the document of 1893 may be left to writers of that communion to determine. We are concerned mainly with the sentiment of those not subject to the Roman obedience. That there is room for criticism of statements by Gaussen, Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, Dean Burgon, and Archdeacon Lee is not questioned. Some of them have not allowed that the personality of a scripture writer could influence at all what he wrote; but words of Paul dispose of such ill-advised ideas “I speak as a fool” (2 Cor. 11:23). Tregelles, the eminent textual critic who held a healthy form of plenary inspiration, had weighed well what he wrote: “It is the thing and not the expression which I would maintain. The expression has been represented as if it implied some mere mechanical operation, while the thing really is that all scripture is given by inspiration of God, so that everything in it — narratives, prophecies; citations — are such as He saw fit to be there; and the whole — ideas, phrases, expressions, and words — was given forth exactly as was according to His mind and will” (“Remarks on the Prophecies of Daniel,” p. 275). Cf. his (“Hope of Christ’s Coming,” p. 94). This was but another way of stating the proposition of Carson: “It is of the words as containing the meaning, and not of the meaning as distinguished from the words, that inspiration is directly and expressly asserted.”

We may next record the position of Theodore of Mopsuestia, because he was the ancient protagonist within the Church of the now current academical view.

It is thus stated by Barry (p. 216): “Theodore limited the meaning of inspiration by the mind of its organ; he could not tolerate a deeper than man’s intention. So prophecy to him became ethics; Messianic passages were understood exclusively of their immediate objects; the words of the Bible did not proceed from God” (cf. Newman, on “Development,” pp. 285-291. and Farrar, “The Bible,” p. 71). Before him came Origen, who ventured to write that “God Himself introduced errors” (De Princ. iv., 1; see Gwatkin’s extract), following the Alexandrian Jew, Philo, who, though holding what crudely passes for “verbal inspiration,” attributed by him to the Seventy, said that it contained “self-contradictory statements and ridiculous stories” (Watson on “Inspiration,” p. 221). As to this the late Prof. Jowett wrote: “There is no more reason why imperfect narratives should be excluded from Scripture than imperfect grammar; no more ground for expecting that the New Testament should be Aristotelian in form than that it should be written in Attic Greek” (reprint of “Essay on Interpretation of Scripture,” p. 20f). That “Reason excludes inconsistency” (Bonn, “Rationalism,” i., 131) is common ground for believers and unbelievers. It is always and solely a question of making good any inconsistency alleged. Chrysostom, in a homily on Matthew, says that collusion might have been imputed had everything tallied exactly (Schanz, “A Christian Apology,” ii., p. 423, E. T.).

As to the objection raised from the several evangelists reporting the same thing in different words, see Carson, p. 39 ff He selects as example the different wording of the inscription on the Cross (cf. note 349 in “Exposition of John”). A living writer has remarked, “Jesus did not use both forms of expression at one and the same time... not that they are always literally and exactly the very words Christ used” (Orr on “Verbal Inspiration,” and so W. is cited above). The Glasgow professor illustrates his view by reference to Luke 6:22 Compared with Matt. 5:11; Luke 9:27 with Matt 16:28; Luke 7:5f. with Matt. 10:28; Luke 23:28 with Matt. 27:37; also Mark 15:26 with John 19:19.

The inconsistency is flagrant of scholars who belittle “verbal” inspiration in the sense of this note, and yet insist on discriminating the exact Seen of particles. etc.

On the bearing of textual criticism on Inspiration, see note 17 below.

Many serious Bible students will join the present writer in here at least following, Augustine (quoted by Schanz from a letter of his to Jerome): “I firmly believe that none of their authors has fallen into any error,” rather than Thirlwall (p. xv.) or Dr. A. Wright in Introduction to his “Synopsis of the Gospel,” and that to his “Gospel of St. Luke in Greek,” who rates the authority of schürer more highly than that of Luke with regard to the Census: we are reminded of Carlyle’s famous words about the Creation.

It is often said, disparagingly, of some Biblical record, that iris only given by one of the Evangelists: this, to say nothing worse, is really uncritical. Thus is Luke 23:7-12, pronounced by some critics as unhistorical because not found in Mark, deemed by them superlatively reliable! Burkitt, himself ably representing “critical” principles, as to this sensibly remarks: “The story of the Gadarene swine rests really on no more evidence than the story of the blind man at Bethsaida; and similarly the parable of the seed growing secretly really no more attested than the parable of the vineyard” (p. 132; cf. p. 138f.). We must ever consider the. Biblical writers in a light relative to their respective periods. Smyth well remarks, “Even Moses, Samuel, and David may have had on some points lower spiritual conceptions than some of, the children in our Sunday-schools today, and yet their conceptions were so far above those of the people whom they taught that only, Divine inspiration could account for them” (p. 172). Upon the Bible viewed as an Eastern book, see Barry, p. 18f.

The official Roman Catholic position may be found stated in Schanz, op. cit., vol. ii., chapter xiii. (p. 432 in particular); cf. Cardinal Newman’s paper in The Nineteenth Century for Feb., 1884, and Barry, p. 17. The last-named writer states that verbal inspiration “is no longer made equivalent to verbal perfection, as though there must be a divine style recognizable by its human characters.” The only reason why the Jesuits reject it is, that they seek to raise Tradition to the level of Scripture.

Christ’s “power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9); this may explain the allowance of such a reference as that in Acts 7:16, which perhaps falls under the principle stated by Barry: “We should be creating imaginary difficulties did we suppose that, because a volume is inspired, it must needs be written with a minute accuracy of quotation or incident such as no human author can achieve” (p. 19).

Schanz says, “Faith in Scripture will waver only if faith in the authority of the Church falters” (p. 391). This characteristically Roman position will be examined in note 13 below. It has a bearing on the “Modernism” that agitates Roman, and the “Higher Criticism” which burdens English, Church circles. “Anglican Churchmen have used the Church to lessen the strain upon the Scriptures; in other words, to take away the terrors of criticism” (Nash, p. 160 f:). See, e.g., the series of Essays entitled, “Lux Mundi” (edited by W, now Bishop, Gore).

Unitarian sentiment is represented by the writings of the late Dr. James; Martineau, as in the cheap reprint of his “What is Christianity?” (p. 17). It is largely what lies behind “advanced” criticism.

“The Bible,” writes Nash, “must submit to the most searching examination.” Left to speak really for itself, it has always done so. What about the converse process? (Heb. 4:12). That is a vitally serious question which every reader “must” answer. “It is said,” writes Tregelles, “whatever theory of inspiration a man may hold, it does not disqualify him from being a Christian. A parallel statement would be: Whatever theory of obedience to the lawn a man may hold, it does not disqualify him from being a loyal and peaceable subject and citizen” (op. cit., p. 278).

A recent writer has said, “Believers in the Apostles’ day were independent of the written Word; but we can neither stand nor move without it.” “Scripture is the crystallized breath of the Holy Ghost, and the Bible a telephone down the ages, at the other end of which is the Voice of God” (D. M. Panton).

Carson described the doctrine of verbal inspiration, rightly understood, as “one of the fortresses committed to Christians by Jesus Christ” (p. 49). This was re-affirmed by the Expositor’s own words: “Scripture, like the Lord Jesus, is a grand moral test” (“God’s Inspiration, etc.,” p. 57).

Cf. note 13 on Mark, and also notes 11 and 13 below; besides a recent defense of plenary inspiration by C. E. Stuart (“Outline of the gospel of Luke,” pp. 325-336).

6a Delivered; cf. Acts 6:14; 2 Thess. 2:15 (alike oral and written tradition).

6b “From the beginning” (ἀπ ἀρχῆς). The meaning is fixed by Acts 1:22 The baptism of John. See 4E above.

6c “Of the word” (λόγου), — ministry, as in Acts 6:2. Wright takes the “ministers” of “catechists”; cf. the use of ἱπηρέτης in 4:20, where the chazzan of the synagogue is spoken of, whose function it was to give such instruction. The same two Greek words occur again together in Acts 13:5.

6d The same view was expressed with almost equal emphasis by Thirlwall, who wrote: “It seems nearly certain that if his document had been founded either on a document such as that imagined by Eichhorn (note 4) or on the works of St. Matthew and St. Mark (infra) he would have made some allusion to these sources. All that can be collected from the Prologue with certainty is that, at the time when St. Luke wrote, there were several documents relating to the transactions which form the subject of his Gospel, and that these were imperfect. To deduce anything more from his language requires a rather subtle and elaborate argument” (p. cx. ff.) Similarly De Wette (ad loc.), “Luke does not expressly say that be used his predecessors.” Cf. “God’s Inspiration of the Scriptures,” p. 70 f. Cf. Godet, i, p. 85. Origen and Athanasius (cf. Zahn) took λόγος here in the sense of John 1:1.

7 “Having thorough acquaintance... accurately.” — The word παρακολουθεῖν means personal acquaintance. Calvin refers to its use by Demosthenes, “On the Crown,” 53 (the passages may be seen in Alford), the similarity of whose language to several words of the Prologue is most striking. The famous commentator of the Reformation remarks that in the case of the Athenian orator and the Evangelist alike “each was in the same position as if he had been an eyewitness.” Orr: “Luke himself, in contrast with the many, goes back to firsthand sources. This is his own account, with which any interpretation must harmonize” (p. 71). Cf. the use of the same word in 2 Tim. 3:10.

The word ἀκριβῶς is used of exact scientific processes (Carr).

8 “All things.” Whether Luke was acquainted with the Gospels of Matthew and Mark or not, he was, undoubtedly, with the facts that they recorded. Abbott writes, with reference to the words quoted by Paul in Acts 20:35, “had the Evangelists known it as Christ’s saying they could hardly have omitted it... almost certainly it did not come from His lips” (“From Letter to Spirit,” § 997). This is like saying that either Luke did not know of the contents of Mark 6:45-8:26, because he has no clear equivalent, or that, aware of such a record, he discredited it, as is the wont of some writers on the Gospels. Luke’s omission of, at any rate, most of that section is, in itself, a problem for critics.

9 “To arrange.” ἀνατάξασθαι, rendered as equivalent to συντάξασθαι. The word employed by Luke is taken by Blass to mean, “reproduce, restore from memory.” He cites Irenæus for use of the same word as to Ezra’s traditional restoration of the books of the Old Testament (“Phil. of the Gospels,” p. 15). Cf. note 4A above, and note 16 below.

10 “From the outset.” In Acts 26:5, Luke has used ἄνωθεν in the same sense as here, of time.

11 “Seemed good.” Cf. the same form of expression in Acts 15:22, and in verse 28, “to the Holy Spirit and to us,” where Divine direction and human motive are unquestionably linked together.

12 “In regular order”; as Ebrard, Meyer, Weiss, Hahn and Godet, understand καθεξῆς of chronological order (cf. 8:1, Acts 3:24); but Blass, more as the Expositor, explains the word as meaning “uninterruptedly,” “completely.” Alford (after Westcott), “a moral or logical sequence.” Cf. Salmon, p. 74, etc. Luke follows Mark’s sequence of events as far as 9:17 of his own Gospel, after which he seems never to return to it. While von Soden thinks that Luke has Followed the order of “Q” more closely than Matthew, Harnack gives the other Synoptist’s order the preference.

13 “Mightest truly know.” Cf. use of ἐπιγνῶαι in Acts 24:8 These Words introduce the subject of Interpretation (note 2), which is ancillary to that of Inspiration (note 6).

It is still sometimes said, but chiefly by Romans and their sympathisers, that indiscriminate, popular Bible reading is productive of heresy, so-called. With regard to this, Girdlestone inquires, “Who was to interpret St. Luke to Theophilus... to the elect lady, John’s letter to her?” (“English Church Teaching,” p. 10). It might seem as if a Romanist would attempt an answer to this by first inviting a distinction between Books of Scripture which afford “devotional and spiritual reading” (Clarke, “The Pope and the Bible,” p. 43), and those from which the Church has developed its doctrine. Thus the R.C. “Penny Catechism,” Ans. to Q. 360, names the “Gospels” par excellence without any distinction between the Synoptics and the Fourth, as suitable for the purpose just named. But there Romanist and Protestant alike meet with inspired teaching; and in theory Roman dogma is grounded upon it. So that Clarke’s idea of limiting the “general distribution” of the Scriptures to the above as “the sole object” goes by the board. Indeed, according to a “Roman Catholic correspondent” writing to the Guardian, (issue of 9th Dec., 1908), the Society of Jesus in France has tried to have the reading of Gospels prohibited, because of their suggesting Protestantism. Father Clarke has done his best to justify the prohibition, in 1229, of Bible-reading by the laity, but Voltaire’s criticism (cited by Reinach, p. 423), is unanswerable: “It was to insult the human race to venture to say to it, We want you to believe, and would not have you read the Book upon which this Faith is based.”

Memorable are the words, from his pulpit, of John Chrysostom, the great ornament of the ancient Eastern Church, whose canonization by Rome. awkwardly for her, no Pope has executed the feat of cancelling, as did Benedict XII. that of Clement of Alexandria. When the Church was rent, in the same way as now, by contending factions and discredited by corruption, the “golden mouthed” preacher in his Forty-third Homily on Matthew, declared that “there, can be no proof of true Christianity, nor other refuge for Christians wishing to know the true faith, but the Divine Scriptures”; that “the Church of Christ is known in no way to those wishing to ascertain which is the true Church, bur only through the Scriptures.” Not a word does he add about note or comment.

“We cannot imagine,” says a Roman writer, “the Bible without the Church or the Church without the Bible” (Barry, p. 8). Observe here the “Vicious circle”: Bible and Church are made mutually to rest on each other. For Romans, the Church has a living magisterium or teaching office (Schanz, p. 389), and claims monopoly of right “interpretation” (cf. note 2, above). This, however, traverses the testimony of the Holy Spirit in 2 Tim. 3:15, as to the “Holy Scriptures,” there said to be able per es, to make wise, etc. Again, Catholics rely on the “consent of the Fathers,” which is very much a mirage, as Barry frankly witnesses: “Diversities make the unanimous consent of Fathers in an identical exegesis rare” (p. 15). He takes, for example, Basil's and Augustine’s different interpretations of Gen. 1.

Once more listen to Clarke: “What effect has Protestant Bible-reading on the lives of the readers?... No one can read the books of modern infidels and agnostics without observing how familiar to them is Scriptural language” (p. 46). The moral of this is that such people, whether trainer! as Protestants or Romanists, need to be evangelized; Canon (now Bishop) Gore’s relations with the late Dr. G. Romanes illustrate this. Which precedes the other in Eph. 4:11, the teacher or the evangelist Here arises the question whether the Church is or is not the source of ministry. That it was so primitively is an untenable proposition. The Church was called and formed already by evangelization, one form of ministry.

That it was so primitively is an untenable proposition. The Church was called and formed already by evangelization, one form of ministry. Hence the flaw in Dr. Hawkins’ principle, that “the Church teaches, Scripture proves”; see his Bampton Lectures (Sermon II.) and Newman’s letter to Froude, in Miss Mozley’s “Life and Correspondence” (II., p. 126), of the Provost of Oriel’s more famous colleague, who has referred to it also in his “Apologia.” Again, as well might hostile critics of the New Testament be right in holding that our Lord’s Resurrection was progeny of the Apostolate as for an Anglican writer, Vernon Staley, to speak of the Bible as “the child of the Church” (“The Cal Religion,” p. 343), instead of the Church as Witness to Holy Writ, which derives no authority from it. So Leslie, quoted approvingly in Bishop Vail Bampton Lecture, p. 327, whose position supplies the antidote to Augustine’s famous saying: how it was that he believed in the Gospel, which was quoted at the Council of Trent.

The “ruin of the Church” as a whole, a view of which W. Kelly was a leading exponent, would not impair the credit of its witness to Holy Writ, — to the canon arrived at by it, because we have to distinguish between the mass in early times and the “faithful men” referred to in 2 Tim. 2:2, by whose influence, under the hand of God, such questions were determined.

Is it not throwing dust into people’s eyes to go on telling them that “the Church wrote the inspired books?” (Staley, loc. cit.). To whom then, any intelligent reader might inquire, were the books addressed? “Historical Christianity,” which gave birth to such a theory, was for the Expositor a system too circuitous and vapoury.

And so for Bishop Gore’s suggestion (“Lux Mundi,” p. 339, f) that it is “irrational, considering the intimate links by which the New Testament canon is bound up with the historic Church, not to accept the mind of the Church as interpreting the mind of the Apostolic writers,” which was probably suggested to him by Newman’s like argument with regard to ecclesiastical miracles. The worthlessness of the bishop’s remark has been shown by Sir R. Anderson’s, parody of it: he transfers the idea to the Old Testament canon as determined by the Jews, whose interpretation of the Messianic prophecies their descendants might similarly call upon us to accept (“The Bible or the Church,” p. 73f).

The well-worn misapplication of 2 Pet. 1:20 would be found corrected by Bishop van; Mildert (op. cit., p. 180 f.). The observations of that bishop on p. 153 f. as to dispensational differences might well be re-affirmed in the; present generation — so much neglected still is the principle concerned.

As to the exaggeration of the pregnancy of Scripture by the system of Cocceius (Vitringa the Elder, etc.), see Conybeare’s Bampton lectures, pp. 263 ff.

See further, notes below on 5:1 and 6:39, and Sir P. Anderson’s trenchant chapter 6.

14 “The certainty” (ἀσφάλειαν). Cf. Luke’s use of, τὸ ἀσφαλές in Acts 22:30. A man, to impart certainty; must first himself command it. How can any with show of reason, question the Evangelist’s claim? Dr. Abbott ventures to say that Luke is “probably the least authoritative of the four.” Marcion’s judgment, strange to say, was the exact opposite of that of our modern English scholar, whose saying that Luke “defeats his object” by adapting, improving, and reconciling, rests upon question-begging.

One sometimes hears it said that inspiration is not required for writing true history. Even those who say so, if candid, admit that scriptural history at what they would call its worst is incomparably above ordinary records. Cf. it only with Church histories, most affected by the writers’ bias. It has only been in our own time that “historical science” has been cultivated.

Luke was not himself a witness. “Scientific” critics hold, furl her, that none of the writers of the other Gospels were; that their records are founded on testimonies no longer available. The effect of this is that the historic, JESUS is beyond our apprehension (Reinach, p. 332), i.e., in any merely human way. His very death, belongs to the same category as all else. Divine testimony, and faith in that, are needed throughout. Cf. note 6 above, and notes 450 and 589 below.

15 “The things” (verse 4). As to λόγοι here and πράγματα (“matters” in sense of “acts”) in verse 1, see note 4, especially section E.

16 “Thou hast been instructed” (κατηχήθης), that is “catechised,” as said of Apollos in Acts 18:25. Cf. 1 Cor. 14:19; Gal. 6:6; Wright: “Did the gospel originate in the pulpit or in the schoolroom?” He supposes that Mark’s Gospel was used for the instruction of Apollos; but Blass thinks that Apollos may have derived his information from reading the document as itself the instructor.

Goodwin: “St. Luke does not purpose to enlarge the knowledge of Theophilus but to confirm it.” in other wore, the Evangelist does not, as sometimes alleged, propose to communicate to the addressee all that the writer himself knows.

§3

17 The question of textual (external) criticism — third of those enumerated in note 2 — which has been briefly dealt with in notes 14-16 on Mark, must here receive development, because of its relatively greater importance in connection with Luke’s Gospel.

The English Authorized Version (1611) of the New Testament was Mainly derived from what was afterward called the Received Text, bawl on a recension of the original Greek called “Byzantine” by Griesbach, and contained chiefly in relatively late MSS. (such as LA among uncials and cursive 1). The Revised Version (1881) is founded on a more ancient text (אABC, etc.) allied to that which the same critic named “Alexandrian,” but, as limited by Westcott and Hort, the most influential members of the committee in textual matters, has been called “Neutral.” The views of these English scholars rapidly received general support, and the dominance of their system of selection has only within the last few years been shaken by those critics who incline towards greater, recognition of a third rescension, known as the “Western” or “Syro-Latin.” As Sir R. Anderson has written, the Westcott-Hort “mutilation of the Gospels” by rejection of the indirect evidence afforded by the united voice of version, (such as the Old Syriac and Old Latin) and Fathers in Favor of the direct evidence of “certain of the oldest manuscripts,” was not likely to commend itself to adepts in the science of evidence. (“Pseudo-Criticism,” p. 5.) The leaders in the reaction are German critics, Blass and Wellhausen in particular. Sanday continues his allegiance to the Cambridge scholars, whilst Weiss adheres to a modified form of the Westcott-Hort criticism, regarding the cursives somewhat more than those English scholars have done, and internal evidence always but sometimes following B even when Hort has not done so, as in 5:18, while, Harnack is disposed to apply the drag to the rapidly radical departure from it.

Westcott and Hort, developing predecessors’ classification of the Greek copier arranged the MSS. as follows: ―

1. The Syrian group (previously called Byzantine), that of most copies, headed by the Alexandrine

(“A,” in the British Museum), which have been compared, in particular, with Chrysostom’s quotations and radiated frog: Antioch.

2. The Western, typified by Beza’s MS. (“D,” at Cambridge), compared with Latin Patristic quotations, and proceeding especially from Rome and Carthage.

3. The “Neutral,” so called from being thought comparatively free from, corruptions, which are best represented by the Vatican MS. (“B,” at Rome compared especially with Origen’s quotations, and derivable, probably, from Cæsarea, if not Alexandria.

The theory of the Cambridge scholars (Hort in particular) was that the text underwent a Syrian revision by editors acting under episcopal supers from about the middle of the third to almost the middle of the fourth century. Interpolations (inter alia) were deemed to characterize more or less the two other groups, the first especially, so that note was taken of any Western to interpolations― i.e., omissions of what is, accordingly, placed by these editors under suspicion. Example: Luke 22:44f.

“B” was accorded the first place in excellence among “Neutral” MSS. being least of all influenced by other copies, unlike A and C effected by “א” (Sinaitic), or LΔM by “D.”

The Swiss professor Wernle expresses preference of one combination above another, thus: “אBCL together are more reliable than D Ital Syrr cu sin” (. 9).

Scrivener discussed the theory in chapter 7. of the Hind edition of his “Introduction” (1883), describing it as “destitute of historical foundation.”

Godet’s critical apparatus in his commentaries was discredited simply because, as Schanz says, he was “no friend of the Alexandrines.” The esteemed Swiss scholar himself wrote: “Criticism inclines to the documents of the Alexandrian text as blindly as it did formerly to the representatives of the Byzantine... the Alexandrian text cannot deprive criticism of the right of free examination in each particular ease. Very often the true reading has been preserved by the representatives of the two other texts combined, or even by those of one of them.” (3rd French ed., 1888, p. 80 f.)

The copies of the Western group are marked by tendency to adopt additions from non-canonical sources — e.g., at Luke 6:5, and 23:53; to harmonizing, noticeable in chapter 24:6, 12, 36, 40; to paraphrase (24:53), or to elucidation of the sense, as in 14:5 (D adds “sheep”) and 24:51 f.

Such authority as was possessed by “D,” Hort thought to be derived from its being read in the Assembly at Rome. As the only uncial which has the Western text, he depreciated it. This codex exhibits more variations in Luke’s writings than elsewhere, which Hort accounted for by supposing that it had, naturally, a large circulation among Gentile Christians at trade centers widely distant from one another. Its peculiarities have since been discussed by Professor Bendel Harris and Prof. (now Bishop) Chase. Dr. Bendel Harris (in “Texts and Studies,” edited by Dean Robinson, vol. ii., pp. 1-272) regards the Western text as a “readjustment of an earlier text to the Latin, versions.” He suggests that “D” has passed through Montanist hands (chapter 14). If so, its reading in 11: 2, “Let Thy Holy Spirit come in,” is the more interesting. Cf. the “Ante-Nicene Christian Library,” vol. vii., p. 289. The bishop, in his “Syro-Latin Text,” regards the Western as “Moulded on a Syriac text.” See further in. Kenyon’s “Handbook,” pp. 73-82.

It is the textual work, however of the late learned Dr. Friedrich Blass, Professor of Classical Philology at Halle, which has most recently attracted the special attention of students of the New Testament. Blass was not restrained by any such theory as Hort’s from following merely Western authority. He has explained the many variations of “D” in Luke’s Gospel and the Acts by supposing (“Philology of the Gospels,” chapters 7. and 9.) that there were two editions of each, and that while the codices “א” and “B” represent the earlier and shorter recension, followed in this scholar’s own edition of the Gospel, “D” has preserved to us the later edition of it, which was that read by Theophilus (p. 103). Another view taken is that the shorter text represented in our English Bible is a later, revised one. In the idea of two editions Blass was anticipated by the view of Le Clerc in the seventeenth century, revived by the late Bishop Lightfoot in his “Fresh Revision of the New Testament,” p. 29. It might account for additions or omissions, as in 9:56; 22:43; 23:34; but would fail in some other respects. Whilst Nestle, Salmon (p.-497), and a few more scholars have favored Blass’s theory, it is discredited by B. Weiss, W. Holtzmann, Zahn, Jülicher, Bousset, Ramsay, and Kenyon (see pp. 291-304 of his “Handbook”).

There is a balanced account of the Western text in the Interpreter, Jan., 1908, 150., by Prof. Swete. Wellhausen, in his “Commentaries on the Gospels,” favors the recension. “D,” he remarks in his “Introduction, etc.,” “often contains Semitisms which were removed in B and א.” The Western text also finds appreciation in the article on “The New Testament Text,” by C. II. Turner (“Murray’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary,” p. 575). The latest Continental textual investigator, Prof. von Soden, manifestly inclines to it. See an account of his researches and theory in Lake, pp. 100-103 (4th ed.).

Upon the connection of the Synoptic with the Textual problem, see Salmon, p. 108 f. Had Luke’s Gospel been a mere enlargement of Marcion’s, the canonical document would have been as late as 130 A.D. Scholars now commonly agree that Marcion mutilated it for dogmatic purposes, although a few cling to the idea that he used the first or shorter edition. See further, Thirlwall, pp. li.-lxiv.

Dr. Rendel Harris writes: “Of the books in the New Testament which have undergone revision, the two which have suffered most are the Gospel of Luke and the Acts” (“Studies, etc.,” p. 286). And Orr: “The text of the Bible during its long literary history has been subject to vicissitudes, to interpolation, explanatory annotation, editorial revision, for a special purpose (e.g., Temple use of Psalms, etc.).” There is no real excuse, however, for such words as those of Mede: “It is patent that, once we know the elementary facts of the history of the text, it is utterly impossible that there can be any question of verbal inspiration” (p. 77). Tregelles, of course, had a familiarity with the whole textual problem beyond all comparison with that of the Theosophist, writer and to his remarks, reproduced in note 6 above, reference may here again be made. It is only superficial prejudice that would resist the proposition of W. Kelly “Various readings belong to the distinct region of man’s responsibility” (“God’s Inspiration,” p, 598). As to critical “emendation” of the text; it may suffice to refer to Scrivener, op. cit., p. 490.

Prominent for textual criticism of this Gospel among recent discoveries are a copy in the Monastery of the Laura on Mount Athos, of the eighth or ninth century, which is lettered Ψ, and the Akhmim from Egypt, of Ile fourth or fifth century, in the possession of C. L. Freer, at Detroit, U.S.A. The witness of the following fragmentary copies of Luke’s Gospel will be recorded in the footnotes where variant readings calls for it.

(1) Those of Codex Zacynthius, lettered ξ, in the library of the British and Foreign Bible Society; a palimpsest of the eighth century with marginal commentary, published by Tregelles in 1861. It contains less than one-fourth of the Gospel, viz., 1:1-9, 19-23, 27f., 30-32, 36-66, 77-80; 2:1-19, 21f., 33-39; 3:5-8, 11-20; 4:1f., 6-20, 32-43; 5:17-36; 6:21-49; 7:1-6, 11-37, 39-47; 8:4-21, 25-35, 43-50; 9:1-28, 32f., 35, 41-62; 10:1-18. 21-40; 11:1-4, 24-33. Six-sevenths of its agreements with א, A, B, and C. are with the “Vatican” uncial.

(2) Those of Codex Nitriensis, lettered “R” by Tischendorf, a palimpsest of the sixth century (Scrivener, i., p. 145). It is shown in Case C of Biblical at the British Museum, and contains about one-half of the Gospel, i.e., 1:1-13 69-2:4 (visible in B.M. case), 16-27. 4:38-5:5. 5:25-6:8. 6:18-36, 49-7:22, 44, 46f. 8:5-15, 28-9:1. 9:12-43. 10:3-16. 11:5-27. 12:4-15, 40-52 13:26-14: 1:14. 12:15. 1:15. 13:16. 16:17. 21:28 10:18. 22:20. 20:20-33-47. 21:12-22:15. 22:42-56. 22:71-23:11. 23:38-51 (all recorded in Tischendorf’s eighth edition).

Seven-ninths of its agreements with ancient copies ax with “B.”

The term “conflation,” which will sometimes be used in the footnotes, is that used by Westcott and Hort for mixtures, where scribes having before then, a marginal alternative reading, copied it as well, e.g., in the last verse of Gospel, where before “blessing” (εὐλογῦντες) “D” added “praising” the (αἰνῦντες), reproduced in A.V.

Besides literature referred to above, reference may be made to Burkitt’s on the “Text of the New Testament” in the “Encyclopedia Biblica,” vol. 4. (1903), to Kenyon, in Hastings’ “One Volume Dictionary,” and to the American, Professor Vincent’s “History of Textual Criticism”; whilst readers of German might derive aid from consulting Prof. B. Weiss’ study of Luke’s text in the “Texts and Investigations,” edited by Gebhardt and Harnack, new series, vol. (1890), pp. 1-246. Reference is sometimes here made to this last in critical notes.

18 With regard to translation, some students regret our not having possess of the actual Aramaic background of the Greek text. There is, however, one advantage acknowledged in the fact that an impress of the Aramaic thou remains in the Greek, which was happily reproduced in the translation published in 1611, the cherished inheritance of English-speaking peoples.

Mr. Kelly’s critical notice of the R.V. of Luke’s Gospel would be found in “The Bible Treasury,” vol. xiii., p. 302, and that of the American renderings in vol. xiv., p. 335.

Luke: Introduction to the Endnotes

§ 1. — Sections into which Third Gospel divisible.

2. — Questions arising, in study of a book of Scripture. Authorship of Third Gospel; career of Luke; characteristics of “the most beautiful book in the world”; date of its appearance.

Theophilus. — Conditions under which Synoptic Gospels may have been composed. Originality and indebtedness of Biblical writers. The “Synoptic Problem.” Apostolic tradition.

Catechizing. Relation of the written Gospels to tradition. The question of memory. List of passages specially peculiar to Luke’s Gospel. Dependence on eyewitnesses: apostles and private persons (the Lord’s mother, Joanna, Philip the evangelist, Nicodemus). Alleged “strata” in development of Gospels. Order in which Gospels were written. Whether Luke had seen the Gospels bearing the names of Matthew and Mark. His independence of “Matthew.” Result of analytical comparison of Luke’s with Mark’s Gospel; close connection in order and wording; the “common tradition of the Synoptic Gospels”; alleged borrowing by Luke of the Marcan narrative portion; contrary views. Theory as to the source (“Q”) of our Lord’s teaching as recorded by Luke; the “double tradition”; passages representing it. Characteristics of this supposed source. Question of language and translation. Attitude of certain critics towards general theory. The residue of matter in Luke, attributed to “L” (“S”), or other special sources, running through every chapter; the “single tradition of Luke.” Question as to arrangement being chronological or not. Summary of the literary analysis. Defects of German critical inquiry. Augustine’s idea of fusion of oral and documentary materials affords best solution.

Narratives referred to in verse l. — The matters “fully believed.” Question of Biblical inspiration to the front in religious literature. In what this consists. Views of past and living theologians. Unwise definitions of verbal inspiration. Tregelles quoted. As to apparent discrepancies. Singly-attested incidents. The Bible viewed as an Eastern book. Roman Catholic, High Anglican, and Unitarian positions. Paramount importance and value of Holy Scripture.

Expositor’s view of what the Evangelist himself says in Prologue, already broached by Thirlwall and De Wette. Luke’s “thorough acquaintance” with, and reproduction of, things “from the outset”; in “regular order.”

Interpretation of Scripture.: popular Bible reading. Position of Church of Rome; its claim to monopoly of “teaching office.” Diversity in Patristic exposition. Precedence of “Evangelists,” through whom Church formed, to “teachers.” Provost Hawkins’ principle. The Church, witness to the Bible, which derives no authority from it (saying of Augustine). Misuse of 2 Pet. 1:20. Dispensational differences. Pregnancy of Scripture exaggerated by Coccceius. The Evangelists’ command of certainty. The catechetical process.

§3. — The English “Authorized” version based on relatively late Greek copies; he “Revised” version, on a more ancient text. Defect of Westcott and Hort’s system of selection. German reaction in Favor of a third group of authorities. Westcott and Hort’s arrangement and theory; attitude of Scrivener and of (Inlet. The “Western” text, and that of “D” in particular; its peculiarities.

Theory of Friedrich Blass; two editions of Luke’s Gospel. Marcion’s recension.

Relation of textual criticism to inspiration. Recently found MSS., and fragmentary copies of the text of this Gospel. “Conflations.” Some recent literature. Translation.

C.C.

Chapter 1

― 5 ff. — Meaning of “Judaea.” Character of the Liman canticles. Archangels. The names “Jesus,” “The Highest.” The Virgin Birth: Messianic requirements; the “Son of God”; Joseph’s legal heir; Isaiah’s prediction as to a “virgin”; stages in New Testament view of the Person of Christ; the Marcan, Matthæo-Lucan, Johannine; Pauline Christology; miraculous conception in sub-apostolic literature; repugnant to Jewish mind; the Christ of History and the Christ of Faith; essential holiness of JESUS. The “Magnificat”; “soul” and “spirit.” The “Benedictus.” Supposed conclusions of separate documents.

Chapter 2

―The Lord’s “own city.” The census question. Date of the Birth of Christ. Messianic designation. Mary’s being called “Mother of God;” JESUS, Messiah by birth. “Peace of complacency.” “Revelation of the Gentiles.” Education of the Holy Child. “My Father’s business.” Apocryphal records of the childhood.

Chapter 3

— Luke’s historical accuracy. Jewish idea of enjoyment of eternal life. Stage of His ministry at which the Lord’s Messianic claims were raised. Luke follows Old Testament manner of record. Connection of the Messianic vocation with the Baptism. The Genealogy: history of ecclesiastical view as to whether Joseph’s, or that of Mary; the Jewish view; change of front among Christians; reversion to primitive view; modern return to Patristic standpoint; view of advanced “critics”; the genealogies compared; our Lord’s Messianic claim, virtually through Mary, so prominent at beginning of this Gospel; the genealogies not questioned of old.

Chapter 4

— A personal Devil. The different order of temptations. Evangelist’s source of information. First Judean ministry. Fatly Messianic claim. Duration of the ministry. “Joseph’s Son.” The Lord’s repeated sayings. Marcion: his recension of Luke’s Gospel; his doctrinal system. Pauline coloring of Luke’s Gospel. The present cry of “Back to Christ.” Unclean spirits. Attitude of moderns towards miracles. Alleged first “strata” show the Lord working miracles. Gospel of the Kingdom.

Chapter 5

— Two distinct scenes pictured (by Luke and John respectively) by the Lake of Galilee, in which Peter prominent figure. The Word of Gen. Disciples’ impression as to the Lord’s sinlessness. JESUS as “Son of Man.” Parable of cloth and wineskins.

Chapter 6

— The “second-first Sabbath.” Matthew’s account of Sermon on the Mount compared with Luke’s. Relation between Religion; Morality, and Theology: their respective history and characteristics; Faith; Mysticism; “Seat of authority”; Syncretism; relation of Religion to politics; detachment of Morality from Religion; Mosaic account of development of conscience set aside by modern theory as to origin of Morality; duty arising from relationships, not from man’s moral power; views of philosophers and of scientific theologians; moral training of young. Theology: systematic development of truth; Biblical, Symbolic, and Dogmatic; typical theologians of the past; meaning of “Dogma”; “Orthodoxy”; “Pragmatism.” Demoniacal possession. The “poor” of this discourse; theory of an Ebionite origin. Hillel’s “quintessence of the Law.”

Chapter 7

— The title “the Lord,” characteristic of this Gospel. Three stages in the cases in the Gospels of dead being raised. Fluctuation in John the Baptist’s faith. “Little” in the Kingdom of Heaven. Mistakes made a treatment of the last section of this chapter.

Chapter 8

— Parables; instrument of religious instruction; interpretation; those special to Matthew and to Luke compared: various classifications significance of there being none in Apocryphal Gospels. “Honest and good.” As to Matthew’s and Luke’s silence about the description of the Lord as “beside himself” (Mark). Question as to parentage of His “brethren”: the different theories.

Chapter 9

— Preaching of the Kingdom and of the Gospel. Sacrifice, of the essence of Christianity. The way in which the Transfiguration is introduced in this Gospel. Extended record of Ministry, peculiar to Luke. Fitness for the Kingdom distinguished from qualification for Eternal Life.

Chapter 10:1-37

— Judean ministry. Comparison of the two missions. Critical allegory. Supposed quotation of this Gospel by Paul. Apostolic interpretation of Christ’s words needed. Apocalyptic collapse of Satan. Synoptic requirement by JESUS of faith in His Person; His pre-existence. Characteristics of parable of Good Samaritan.

Chapter 10:38 – 11:54

— Judean ministry continued. The function of PRAYER; Communion; in the energy of the Spirit. Philosophical criticism. Fatherhood of God under Christianity. The Kingdom of God; of the Father; of the Son. Present and future aspects. Essential meaning of the “Kingdom.” How viewed by Catholics and by Protestants. Increased attention to doctrine of reward according to works. The petition for “daily” bread: various explanations. Purpose of “the Lord’s Prayer.” Not intended as liturgical formula. Stereotyped and extemporaneous prayer. Early history of the Prayer. Luke’s “Holy Spirit” and Matthew’s “good things.” The “Kingdom of Heaven,” not co-extensive with “Kingdom of God”; how treated by Apostle Paul. Modern depreciation of types. Religion of the Pharisees; their attitude towards the Kingdom.

Chapter 12

— The Kingdom variously regarded as a gift, and as a prize. Its relation to service.

Chapter 13

— “Leaven,” in the Gospels and in the Classics. The question as to “few being saved.” Meaning of the Lord’s being “perfected.”

Chapter 14

— The “Resurrection of the just,” equivalent to the “First Resurrection.” Resurrection not limited in our Lord’s words to the just. A resurrection from among the dead, preceding that of the rest of the dead. Early and late Patristic views; the opinion of the ancient Pharisees; of Maimonides and Jews of the present day, with some “Christians”; of Rabbi Manasseh, distinguishing the resurrections in point of time. Renunciation of all for Christ.

Chapter 15

— Parable of Lost Sheep treated by Matthew and Luke from different points of view. Marcion’s attitude towards Parable of Prodigal Son so-called. Divine ideal contrasted with that of Greek philosophy. German treatment of this parable. The “Fatherhood of God” again. The religion of bondage. Newman’s and Robertson’s respective use of the Prodigal story. The religion of spiritual whitewash. Under Grace, not Law.

Chapter 16

— Secularism. The unjust steward. The word “everlasting.” Paradise and Hades. Question of retribution in the Intermediate State. The Catholic theory of Judgment. Ebionism suggested in modern exposition. Jewish purgatory. Jews’ attitude towards Resurrection of JESUS. Critical treatment of the “Lazarus” of Luke and of John respectively.

Chapter 17

— Jewish idea of Messianic reward. The geography of this section. The Kingdom according as visible and invisible. Noah and Lot, typical of Jews in the last days.

Chapter 18

— The unjust judge. Low ebb of faith at the end. Analysis of FAITH. Prayer and Fasting. “Justification” of the tax-gatherer. The Kingdom: “inheriting” life; the twofold inheritance; standing in grace and standing in responsibility; the time of recompense; relation of Kingdom to Eternal Life; no essential difference between the Synoptists and John’s Gospel; in the Kingdom initial manifestation of Eternal Life; early Patristic view of Kingdom; unpopularity of Paul’s declaration of “the whole counsel of God.” Limitations attaching to our Lord’s humanity. Apparent discrepancies witness to the Evangelists’ mutual independence.

Chapter 19

— Parables of Pounds and Talents compared. When Kingdom of Heaven endured. Apparent discrepancy as to ass and colt. Luke’s Circumstantial account of siege of Jerusalem.

Chapter 20

— God the FATHER it was who “came” in connection with the fall of Jerusalem. “Deemed worthy,” said of the Kingdom, not of Eternal Life. JESUS, as at the same time Lord and Son of David. The Lord’s reasoning contrasted with the Socratic. The New Testament regarded as enabling us to test other men’s views of Christ.

Chapter 21

— The Prophecy on Olivet in Luke compared with the other Synoptic accounts. No confusion on the part of this Evangelist between “Desolation” and “Abomination.” The flight to Pella. Break between verses 24 and 25, illustrated from Old Testament prophets. Christ’s casing again: Presence (secret) and Manifestation. What the Lord disclosed, and the disciples’ imperfect apprehension of it. That “Generation” not ending until all should be fulfilled. “Deemed worthy to stand before the Son of Man.”

Chapter 22

―The Lord’s anticipation of the Judean hour for keeping the Paschal feast, and His suffering within the same day. “Made ready the pass-over,” not coextensive with observance of the “preparation.” The celebration, that of the Passover pure and simple. The “Lord’s Supper” the bread, figure of Christ’s body; Catholic notion; Hooker’s view; Bishop Gore’s theory; question as to verses 19 and 20 being part of genuine text, and as to the Lord’s institution of a permanent ordinance; the historical and spiritual functions of the Supper; Ritschl’s repugnance to certain hymns voicing the “blood theology”; the great lesson of the ordinance. Isaiah’s “banquet” in the future Kingdom. Emphatic contemporary reaffirmation of the eschatological aspect of the Kingdom. Early Patristic doctrine; Origen’s declension from this stereotyped in Augustine’s attitude; views of Newman and Martensen; of modern millenarians. Relation of 1 Thess. 4:13 ff. to Rev. 20:11 ff. Literature on the “Kingdom.” The word “conversion” in modern usage. The agony in Gethsemane, an incident much misunderstood. A Divine sufferer. Textual question. Discrimination of the three trials.

Chapter 23

―Critical treatment of omissions in Luke’s record. “Paradise”: its relation to “Hades”; Peter’s citation of Psa. 16:10; Patristic view of the Separate State; recoil since Reformation from earlier ideas transformation of the primitive “unseen” world from gloom to comfort; hearing of the Tribunal of Christ on the question of the Intermediate State; the “dead in Christ.” Meaning of the “Preparation.”

Chapter 24

―The Resurrection. Its impeachment: alleged discrepancies, legends, and accretions in text. The Pauline argument. Harnack’s attitude. Psychical research. Lessing’s caustic observation. Modern questioning of the Lord’s physical resurrection. Sin: nature and definitions. Diminished sense of “Sin.” “Original Sin.” “Total Depravity.” Revolt of Culture. Forgiveness available. Possibility of this questioned. Grace and Government. Gospels and Epistles in harmony. Forgiveness within Christian circle. Apostle Paul preached Kingdom as well as a glorified Christ. Default of Historical Church.

Luke 1

THAT the Gospel of Luke has a special aspect towards men at large, that it displays the grace of God towards the Gentiles who had been so long forgotten, or seemed to be so in the outward dealings of God, is very plain. Nevertheless some have found, as they thought, an insuperable difficulty to their admitting this to be the characteristic business of Luke, because we find, for instance, at the very beginning a striking occupation of the writer’s mind with the circumstances of the Jewish people before, at, and after the birth of Christ. In fact, none of the Gospels introduces us so thoroughly into the whole routine of their state and worship, with their relation to the worldly powers: first of all to the king that then ruled over them, Herod the Great; and, in the next chapter, to the Roman Empire.

But I think it will be found, if we look below the surface, that there is no real inconsistency between such a preface as we have in Luke and the general regard that he pays to the Gentiles in the rest of his Gospel. In fact, it answers closely to what we find in the ministry of the apostle who had Luke for his companion in labors. For although Paul was so emphatically the apostle of the Gentiles, the uncircumcision being delivered over to him as the circumcision was to Peter; none the less was it Paul’s habit in every place first to visit the Jews, or, as he says himself, “to the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.” So it is precisely that Luke begins with the Jew, discloses God working in the midst of the remnant of that people before we find the intimations of His mercy towards the Gentiles. So far from inconsistency on the part of Luke with his purpose, this very introduction of the Jews in the beginning of his Gospel seems even to be necessary; because God could not, so to speak, go out to the Gentiles according to the analogy of His dealings from the beginning and His promises to the Jewish people, unless there were first the manifestation of His goodness there and the unheeded effect of it as far as the Jews were concerned. God proves amply His mercy towards Israel before He turns to the nations. Israel would have none of Him or His Kingdom: the Gentiles would hear.

Hence we find that, although Luke’s be the Gentile Gospel, there is first this full and bold outline presented to us of the working of God’s grace among the Jews.

“There was in the days of Herod the king of Judea,19 a certain priest by name Zacharias, of the course of Abia: and his wife was of the daughters of Aaron, and her name Elisabeth.” Thus we have the living picture of the state of things then going on in Israel. There might be a foreign prince over them — an Edomite, and high priests in strange confusion, as we shall see shortly; but for all that there was a priest duly married to one of the daughters of Aaron, Zacharias, of the course of Abia. “And they were both just before God, walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the LORD blameless.” Low as the state was in Israel and outwardly most irregular, nevertheless, in the midst of all there were godly ones: and the only thing that enabled any to walk after such a sort in Israel was the faith of the coming Messiah: this at least had not disappeared. On the contrary, God’s Spirit was working in the hearts of a few, preparing them for the One Who was coming. Zacharias and Elisabeth were among these few. They were expecting in faith, the effect of which, where it is real, is to give power of walking rightly. The only souls who walked well, even according to the law, were those who looked beyond the law to Christ. Those who merely rested in the law broke it, though the law might be their boast. On the contrary, such as looked for the Messiah were faithful, “walking in all the commandments and ordinances of the LORD blameless.”

It is the same thing in principle now. There are those who cry up the law as a rule of life, but such never carry themselves well even according to that standard. On the contrary, those who go forward in the sense of God’s grace, knowing the full deliverance of the believer in the redemption that is in Christ, do really manifest the righteousness of the law; as it is said, “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.” If I am walking after the law, I do not fulfill it; if I am walking after the Spirit, I do. The same doctrine appears in Galatians 5. If we walk according to the Spirit, there are good fruits: “against such there is no law.” On the contrary, the law justifies the fruits of the Spirit, but the Spirit never justifies the ways of any man who finds his rule of life in the law, which is and must be to a sinful man a rule of condemnation and death. There is no power of grace, unless Christ be the Object of the heart.

Such was the case with this godly pair in Israel. The aged priest and his wife were really (i.e., believingly) looking for the Messiah. Their hope was no fleshly desire to exalt themselves or their nation in earthly power; though it remains true that Israel will then be the head and the Gentiles the tail, when Messiah comes to close their last fiery tribulation and deliver them from their foes. But in that day the hearts of the godly remnant will be lifted above pride or vanity; they will bear to be exalted above all other peoples of the earth. Such is the Divine counsel according to prophecy which God will surely accomplish in its season.

Observe how faith leads to faithfulness. Those who merely look to the law (i.e., as much as God requires) never accomplish His righteous requirement. In every case one must be above any obligations in order to fulfill them. I must have faith in God’s object in order to fulfill God’s will. If my mind is occupied with Christ, I shall be able in the same measure to glorify God.

Thus it was with Zacharias and his wife. They looked in faith for the Messiah: hence they were righteous, and walking in the commandments and ordinances of the Lord blamelessly. Nevertheless they had a disappointment of heart which answered to the state of things in Israel. “They had no child, because Elisabeth was barren; and they were both advanced in years.” They had prayed about it, as we find afterward. Though Zacharias seems even to have lost sight of his own prayer, yet God had not. And so “it came to pass, as he fulfilled his priestly service before God in the order of his course” — for here he was faithful to the requisition of daily duty― “it fell to him by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter into the temple of the LORD to burn incense. And all the multitude of the people were praying without at the hour of incense.” We have thus a full and lively setting forth of what was actually going on then in Israel. “And an angel of [the] LORD appeared to him standing on the right of the altar of incense.” In this form such a visit was unknown for a long while. It was a gracious intervention of God (not merely betimes, as we find in another Gospel, for the healing of sicknesses and weaknesses of the people, but) for the more glorious purpose of announcing the forerunner of the Messiah Himself. Was it so strange after all that he was to be born beyond nature of this godly couple? One could not have anticipated such a thing; but once announced as God’s intention, how wise and suitable our hearts see it to be! When Zacharias saw the angel he “was troubled, and fear fell upon him. But the angel said to him, Fear not, Zacharias, because thy supplication has been heard; and thy wife Elisabeth shall bear thee a son, and thou shalt call his name John” (i.e., the gift of God). “And he shall be to thee joy and rejoicing: and many shall rejoice at his birth.”20 It was calculated to strike the eye and heart of any godly Israelite, being manifestly God’s gift. The LORD was faithful to His people and His purposes. There were many who at this time were looking for the Messiah. We know even from heathen authors that there was a strong, general, and ancient tradition (no doubt derived from Balaam of old, and Daniel later, and the Septuagint), that at this time a great prince was to be born in Israel, who would lead that nation on to supremacy. Hence they would naturally heed this extraordinary birth, and the singular course of life which John the Baptist ever followed, as well as his preaching when the time for it was come.

“He shall be great before [the] LORD, and he shall drink no wine nor strong drink; and he shall be filled with [the] Holy Ghost even from his mother’s womb.” He should be a Nazarite, separated to the LORD, not only in outward separation, but with inward and special power of God.21 “And many of the sons of Israel shall he turn to [the] LORD their God.” This would be the characteristic aim of his mission — to recall them to God from whom they had departed. “And he shall go before him in [the] spirit and power of Elias, to turn hearts of fathers to children, and disobedient ones to [the] thoughts of just [men] 15 to make ready for [the] LORD a prepared people.” Elijah was the prophet who took up the broken obligations of the people. Hence it is that he went to Horeb. Thence it was that Elias had his great commission from before God; there he went through the scene we have so strikingly described in his history. Horeb was the place where the law was given, and Elias went back thither, feeling how deeply the people had departed from God; John should now recall the people in the spirit and power of Elias. It is repentance; it is not of course the great work of God in putting away sin — that could only be done by one, even Jesus the Lord. Neither is it the power of the Holy Ghost shed upon Israel. This also could only be done by Christ. He is, as we find in John, “the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world... the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” But John could at least do his own work by God’s grace given to him; he should go “before him in the spirit and power of Elias.” This is a remarkable testimony: first, because it is said he shall go before the LORD, i.e., before Jehovah; a plain statement of the dignity of Jesus. He was really Jehovah; and this messenger of His should go before His face, next, “in [the] spirit and power of Elias, to turn hearts of fathers to children.” There was no union, but alienation: everything was broken in Israel. Sin always produces such dislocations. But John should “turn the hearts of fathers to children;” that is, he would be used of God to unite them in affection, and also to instruct them morally, or lead “the disobedient to the wisdom of the just.”22 Hence, in all respects, both in affection and in moral power and wisdom, his mission was “to make ready for the LORD a prepared people.” Such would be John’s work — “to make ready for the LORD a prepared people.”

“And Zacharias said to the angel, How shall I know this, for I am an old man, and my wife advanced in years?” Unbelief works just when God was about to accomplish this signal mercy — a remarkable but by no, means infrequent case which we would do well to apply to our souls, That is, when God means mercy to us, we are too apt to limit the Lord; to doubt Him even when the blessing comes very close to us; to put some difficulty in the way, yielding to the suggestions of the enemy and the unbelief of our own hearts. Zacharias accordingly asks how he should know it.

The angel answers, “I am Gabriel 23 who stand before God; and I have been sent to speak to thee and to bring these glad tidings to thee. And, behold, thou shall be silent, and not able to speak, till the day in which these things shall take place, because thou hast not believed my words, such as shall be fulfilled in their time.” A measure of chastening was thus put upon Zacharias — a sign to others, but at the same time a rebuke to himself. The very fact that he was struck suddenly dumb would awaken the attention of the people. They would see that an extraordinary occurrence had taken place and might be led to think about it: On the other hand, when God had sent His angel to tell him that these things should be done; Zacharias showed his unbelief in requiring another sign.

Hence his chastening. God’s words should be fulfilled in their season spite of his unbelief. Mercy removes the stroke in due season.

“And the people were awaiting Zacharias, and they wondered at his delaying in the temple. But when he came out he could not speak to them: and they recognized that he had seen a vision in the temple. And he was making signs to them and continued dumb. And it came to pass, when the days of his service were completed, he departed to his house.” Each priest had to serve in his course from Sabbath to Sabbath; so when the week was up, he leaves. “Now after these days Elisabeth his wife conceived, and hid herself five months, saying, Thus has the LORD done to me in [these] days in which he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.” The feeling of Elisabeth under the circumstances was just as godly as the unbelief of Zacharias was a striking witness of what is so natural to us all.24

This closes the opening incidents which the Spirit of God gives us by Luke.

It was the angel Gabriel who was sent to Daniel to make known of old the Messiah’s coming and cutting off in the famous prophecy of the seventy weeks. Now he comes to Mary, the espoused of Joseph, and announces to her, “the virgin” of a still older prophet, the birth of that Messiah.25 No wonder that he salutes her as a favored one, with whom the Lord was. Blessed was she among women! Mary,26 though troubled, pondered what might be the meaning of this salutation. The angel bids her not fear, for she has found favor with God. She is the chosen channel of the wondrous purposes which should yet fill the world as well as her own people with blessing — the appointed mother she is to be of One in Whom God was about to solve all the difficulties that sin had brought into the world by a righteous triumph over it — nay, to make it possible for God to bless those who believed, sinners though they had been, and to make them righteously triumph through and with Himself.

Therefore he says, “Behold, thou shalt conceive in the womb, and bear a son, and thou shalt call his name Jesus” — a Divine Saviour.27 “He shall be great, and shall be called Son of [the] Highest,28 and the Lord God shall give him the throne of David his father.” This is another and quite different glory, which evidently combines with saving power His title of Messiah. “And he shall reign over the house of Jacob for the ages; and of his kingdom. there shall not be an end.” Even in the lowest domain, how far is His Kingdom from being a mere human dominion!

“But Mary said to the angel, How shall this be, since I know not a man?” She does not doubt, but she asks confidingly. Hence there is no smiting dumb nor any sign of unbelief, as in the case of Zacharias, who asked, “Whereby shall I know this?” There may be a question in the spirit which needs an answer, but betrays no lack of faith. There might be one not to dissimilar in form; but which really sprang from unbelief. God does not judge according to appearance, but the heart.

The angel accordingly explains in all grace to Mary. “[The] Holy Spirit shall come upon thee,29 and power of [the] Highest overshadow thee.” It was not to be nature, but Divine power. “Therefore the holy thing also which shall be born [of thee] shall be called Son of God,” and not merely Son of man. This is exceedingly important. “Son of God” is a title that belongs to our Lord both in His Divine glory before He became a man and here; for, in this place when He became a man, He did not cease to be Son of God. As incarnate He was still the Son of God. So, again, when He rose from the dead, the same thing was true; He was the Son of God as risen again. It is plain therefore that it is a title that appertains to Him in the three conditions in which Scripture represents our Lord. He was the Son of God when He was purely and simply a Divine Person; Son of God when He became a man; Son of God when risen from the dead and gone out of this world to heaven.

But there is another thing also to note, that His taking manhood did not in the smallest degree connect Him with the taint of man’s fallen nature. This was absolutely counteracted by the singularity of His conception, which was effected through the power of the Holy Ghost. “Wherefore the holy thing also which shall be born [of thee] shall be called Son of God.”30 Thus He was holy, not merely in His Divine nature, but in His humanity. He was emphatically the Holy One of God: without this not only would salvation have been impossible for us, but even His own acceptance as man would have been out of the question.30a We have therefore in this passage the most important truth as to the birth of this wondrous Child, and the union of the Divine and human natures in the person of Christ. Much here given is peculiar to Luke. Mary is informed also of what God was doing to her cousin Elisabeth, for as the angel added “with God nothing shall be impossible.”31 She bows at once to the will of the LORD, with the words, “Behold the bondmaid of [the] LORD; be it to me according to thy word. And the angel departed from her.”

Mary then arises, enters into the house of Zacharias and salutes her kinswoman, Elisabeth, which gives occasion to the wonderful obeisance that was paid even by the unborn babe, Elisabeth’s child, to her the predestined mother of the Messiah, in honor to the Messiah himself.32 The consequence was that Elisabeth, filled with the Holy Ghost, breaks out into an acknowledgment of the place God had given Mary. “And whence [is] this to me, that the mother of my Lord should come to me?” It is remarkable how beautifully it is owned that even the child that was yet to be born was the Lord. We find just the same thing with Mary herself. She has no notion of being taken out of the place of a needy sinner, whilst the miraculous birth of John does not detract from Elisabeth’s sense of the Messiah, but rather adds to her sense of it. She owns at the same time that God has shown singular favor to cry’s soul. “Blessed is she that has believed; for there shall be a fulfillment of the things spoken to her from [the] LORD.”33 She knew that what had happened to her husband was because of unbelief, and contrasts with it Mary’s meek, because believing, heart.

Mary answers,34 “My soul doth magnify the Lord, and my spirits35 hath rejoiced in God my Saviour, For he hath looked upon the low estate of his bondmaid; for, behold, from henceforth all generations shall call me blessed.” It is remarkable how simply Scripture has met beforehand the monstrous unbelief of man which lowers God as much as it exalts a human being. Mary had no thought of exaltation. She says, “All generations shall call me blessed,” but not a blesser. She was the object of blessing, not, the giver or mediatrix of it. “For the Mighty One hath done to me great things; and holy [is] his name [not a word of her own]. And his mercy is to generations and generations to them that fear him [not that pray to or worship me]. He hath wrought strength with his arm; he hath scattered haughty [ones] in the thought of their heart. He hath put down rulers from thrones, and exalted the lowly” — alluding to her own place as well as Elisabeth’s. “He hath filled the hungry with good things; and sent the rich empty away. He hath helped Israel, his servant, in order to remember mercy; as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham, and to his seed forever.” It is remarkable how Jewish the character of the joy is, and the acknowledgment of the mercy.

So Mary abides with her cousin three months, and then returns to her own house.36 “But the time was fulfilled for Elisabeth that she should bring forth; and she gave birth to a son. And her neighbors and kinsfolk heard how [the] LORD had magnified his mercy with her; and they rejoiced with her.” The general thought was to call37 the child after his father’s name; but the mother, who alone can speak for it, directs him to be called John. Zacharias is appealed to and writes, “John is his name.” And immediately the punishment of his unbelief departs from him. His tongue was loosed and he spoke and praised God; which filled all around with fear, astonishment, and anticipation of what this Child would be.

Zacharias breaks forth into a strain of praise.38 “Blessed be [the] LORD the God of Israel; because he hath visited and wrought redemption for his people, and raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of David, his servant.” It is remarkable the grace that does not so much look at his own house as at the house of God’s servant David. There was faith here. During the season of his dumbness Zacharias has pondered the ways of the LORD; and the Holy Ghost, as He had filled Elisabeth, as He had filled the babe from his mother’s womb, so now filled Zacharias, who prophesies the end of these wonders. “That we should be delivered from our enemies, and out of the hand of all who hate us; to fulfill39 mercy with our fathers, and remember his holy covenant; [the] oath which he swore to Abraham, our father, to give us, that, saved out of the hand of our enemies, we should serve him without fear.”39a It is important to observe how thoroughly this savors of Old Testament hopes. It is not a question of sins merely, but of being delivered from their enemies, which last is assuredly not, nor ought to be, the feeling of the Christian now. Does not the Christian serve God, delivered from his sins, in the midst of his enemies? So when the Lord comes, it is simply a taking him up out of the midst of his enemies when the time of deliverance comes. Here then the language is, “That we being saved out of the hand of our enemies might serve him without fear, in piety and righteousness before him all our days.” Such is the expectation of Israel according to the Psalms and the Prophets.

“And thou, child, shalt be called [the] prophet of [the] Highest; for thou shalt go before the face of [the] LORD to make ready his ways” — an allusion clearly to Malachi as well as to Isaiah

“To give knowledge of salvation41 to his people by [the] forgiveness of their sins.” It is not that the Jews will be without the remission of their sins; they will have that beside deliverance from their enemies. All this is “on account of [the] bowels of mercy of our God; whereby Ethel day-spring from on high has visited us, to shine upon them who were sitting in darkness and in [the] shadow of death, to guide our feet into [the] way of peace.” Such will be the condition in which the Jews will be finally met by God; there will be a special darkness more immediately before the light shines out upon them.

It was when they were in bitter degradation under the Gentiles, as well as in the moral darkness, that the Lord came the first time; still more will this be the case when He comes again. There will be renewed bondage under the power of the West; a stranger king will reign in the land, and a special delusive power of Satan will be there, but the Lord will appear to the discomfiture of all their foes and the full deliverance of His people Israel.

Meanwhile “the child grew, and was strengthened in spirit; and he was in the deserts until the day of his shewing to Israel.”42 We have seen that, before the large universal character of the Gospel of Luke appears — the grace of God to man — there is the utmost care to show the goodness and forbearance of the Lord in meeting Israel as they then were. Thus they have the responsibility of refusing their Messiah, before God lays the foundation of the richest grace to man generally.

Endnotes

19 Verse 5. — “Judæa.” This seems to stand for the whole land or manifestly in Acts 10:37, and in the Gospel at 6:17, 7:17, and 23:5. In 2:4, 5:17, however, it probably represents the limited territory of Judah: (see verse.39).

20 Verse 13. — The are seven pieces of dialogue in this and the chapters following, which are more or less rhapsodical utterances, and go under the name of “canticles.” Margoliouth says: “The evidence is strongly in Favor of their having been originally in Hebrew verse” (address on Synoptic Gospels at University College, London). Cf: note 4 F with reference to the suggestion of Schleiermacher (p. 25) and others (as Burkitt), that these are Luke’s free compositions; see also Godet, i,, p. 216 f., and Sanday, “Outlines of the Life of Christ,” who regards chapters 1 and 2 as “the most archaic thing in the New Testament” (p. 166), and Briggs’ “of the first degree of historic importance” (p. 164f).

The passages are: — (1.) 1:13-17; (2.) 1:28, 30-33, 35-37 f.; (3.) 1:42-45; (4.) 1:46-55; (5.) 1:68-79; (6.) 2:10-12, 14; (7.) 2:29-32, 34f.

21 Verse 15. — For Nazarite vows, see Num. 6., and cf. Matt. 11:18.

22 Verse 17. — Plummer refers to Ecclesiasticus 48:10 (see R. V.), languishing of parental affection. Augustine’s idea (adopted by Calvin) was that by the “fathers” is meant the patriarchs (see Isa. 29:22 f.; 43:16).

“Disobedient,” i.e., to God, so Schanz, referring to Tit. 1:16, 3:3; cf. Rom. 1:5,

“To (for, by) the wisdom” (A.V.) came from Mal. 4:6.

23 Verse 19. — “Gabriel.” Tobit 12:15, speaks of seven archangels (naming Raphael”). The Book of Enoch adds “Uriel.” These are the sources of Milton’s nomenclature. In canonical Scripture (but see Rev. 1:4, 3:1, 4:5) not more than two archangels are named, Gabriel (Dan. 8., 9.), herald of goodness, and Michael (Dan. 10, 12; Jude 9; Rev. 12:7) of wrath. The Jews have said that “Gabriel flies with two wings; Michael with one.”

24 Verse 25. — “Reproach” (see Gen. 30:23).

25 Verse 26 ff. — We here enter upon the Birth story, as to which Harnack (“What is Christianity?” p. 31) says, “The oldest tradition knew nothing of any stories of Jesus’ ‘birth.’” The whole question of the Virgin birth will be discussed below at verse 34 ff. As to “Nazareth,” see note 46.

26 Verse 27 f — Mary as a name represents the Old Testament “Miriam,” in Aramaic “Mariam,” as in Greek here. According to the Protevangelium of James, she was fifteen years of age at the time. The ancient belief was that she died in the Year 64.

The question has been raised whether the words “of the House of David” go with “Virgin” (B. Weiss, Godet) or with “man”, (De Wette, Meyer). Chrysostom and Bengel say with both. Cf. verse 32 and note there; also 69, and see note in chapter 3. on the Genealogy. Its being said of Joseph would have no meaning in this connection, when actually applied to him, in 2:4, it is introduced as something fresh: Cf. on verse 32. On the infancy, see Nicoll, “The Incarnate Saviour,” chapter 1, pp. 14-16, in particular.

27 Verse 31. — “Jesus.” The name (Jeshua), Neh. 8:17, was very common among the Jews of the time. In Col. 4:11, mention made of a Jesus, surnamed Justus, one of the Circumcision. One of the Lord’s ancestors, according to the flesh, bore the same name, see 3:29 (R.V.). The Talmud, in order to get rid of the original meaning of “the name” (Jas. 2:7), although using “Jeshua” of all others bearing it, regularly speaks of the Lord by the clipped tame Jesu.

28 Verse 32. — “The Highest.” The O. T. Elyon. It was the usual designation of GOD among the Hellenistic Jews of the Dispersion. Again in varies 35, 76.

“His father David.” Mary was probably of the tribe of Judah (B. Weis,).

29 Verse 34 ff. — Five verses here enshrine Luke’s narrative of the supernatural (virgin) birth of the Lord Jesus.

Schanz forsakes his usually sensible exegesis — but what is a Roman writer here to do? — by taking Mary’s words as a vow of virginity, which is excluded by verse 27.

“The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee,” etc. Cf. Acts 1:8. For the “overshadow,” see Ex. 40:31. Pfleiderer “It is not God himself, lay God’s Holy Spirit, who begets Jesus” (“Primitive Christianity,” ii., p. 117 f) a remark certainly not derivable from the exact words of the Evangelists, which represent the Holy Spirit’s action only as the procuring cause. The article is absent, as again in 2:13.

30 “Shall be called Son of God.” The “therefore” shows that we have not here the Eternal Sonship. The Messiah (see note on 2:11) had to be, transcendently, Son of God (verse 35); next, Son of Man (see note on v. 21), if He was to take up the Davidic claims; and child of a virgin (verse 27).

1. As Son of God, He should be both Priest and Victim (L. A. Sabatier, “The Atonement,” p. 53, comparing John 17:19, and Heb. 8:2), and fulfill at the same time the types of “burnt offering,” and “sin offering.”

Ritschl has well said that the distinctive N. T. name of GOD is “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” Eph. 1:3.

The Christadelphian theory that the Sonship began with the birth of the Lord, so as to preclude His pre-existence, is but a popular echo of unbelieving “scientific” theology. Its advocates are materialistic Unitarians. Swedenborgians, on the other hand, confess the pre-existence. For Loisy’s assertion (“Synoptic Gospels,” vol. i., p. 194.) that this idea is “not expressly formulated nor even suggested in the Synoptic Gospels,” see note on 10:22.

The Lord is spoken of as “Son of God” in this Gospel (1) by others, in 3:22; 4:3, 9, 41; 8:28; 9:35 and 20:9. (2) By Himself in 10:22 (“The Son”) as in 22:70 in answer to the high priest’s adjuration. He speaks of God as His “Father” in 2:49; 9:26; 10:21f.; 22:29, 42; 23: 34, 46; 24:49.

2. That JESUS should be legal heir of Joseph belongs rather to the consideration of Matthew’s narrative; but see note on the Genealogy below, and also that on 8:20, with regard to indispensable requirements of such a claim.

3. The virginity of Mary is also developed by Matthew; who cites Isa. 7:14, attaching to that prediction a meaning not previously given to it by the Jews; so that Dolman, who notes this little-known circumstance, treats it as supporting the truth of the narrative, on the ground that a virgin-birth was not looked for (“Words of Jesus,” p. 276). As D. Smith says, “the history was not as sceptics insinuate, adapted to the prophecy, but the prophecy to the history” (p. 528). Pfleiderer (op. cit., ii., p. 346) in connection with Mark 3:21 (cf. note 41 in “Exposition” of that Gospel), objects that Mary could not have joined His brethren in treating JESUS as out of His senses if she had known of a supernatural birth. But there is absolutely nothing in Mark’s text to show that she did participate in their impression. The Marcon incident does not clash with her attitude in verse 34 here.

J. H. Newman, preaching on the Incarnation (Sermons, vol. ii., p. 5), said: “As in the beginning woman was formed of man by Almighty power, so now, by a like mystery, but a reverse order, the new Adam was fashioned from the woman.... He had no earthly father; He abhorred to have one.” The great recent German theologian, Dorner, has remarked: “As Son of Man, the Lord cannot have been the son of any particular man:” see his “Christian Doctrine,” ii., pp. 146-451.

Nowhere in the Old Testament is there any mention of a human father of the Messiah (Delitzsch, “Messianic Prophecies”) cf. Ps. 22:10.

The Syriac of Sinai, in Matt. 1:16, has “Joseph begot Jesus”; that version, hover, in the same context speaks of Mary as a virgin; so that its “begot” must be understood in a juridical sense, as manifestly in the Greek of verse 8; “Joram begot Uzziah,” and of verse 13, “Zerubbabel begot Abiud.” The Curetonian Syriac follows the traditional text.

The status of betrothal was in the eye of Jewish law the same as that of Marriage: Deut. 22:23f.

The stages in the New Testament view of the Lord’s Person are doubtless three, as stated by Lobstein (p. 65f.): —

(1) In Mark, corresponding more to the popular Messianic belief or theocratic view of the Divine Sonship. Such would supply, according to his parable, the “green blade of the doctrine.” As to Mark’s being said not to have heard of the Virgin Birth (Menzies, Clodd, etc.), see note 57 in “Exposition” of that Gospel. Critics are careful to say as little as possible about Mark’s “silence” as to Joseph which, however, so impressed Baur that he maintained the critics’ first Evangelist was acquainted with the Virgin Birth.

(2) Of the independent records of Matthew and Luke, either of which would be alien to the Jewish mind, Matthew’s is the more objective (public) account, proceeding, it seems likely, from Joseph; Luke’s, the more subjective (private) account, probably derived ultimately from Mary (cf. Godet, i., p.162f.), through her son James (as suggested by Bishop Chase, referring to Acts 21:18),: Although he “begins with the Jew” (Exposition) and so corroborates Matthew’s specially Jewish testimony, his record was designed for Gentile readers, many of whom would be familiar with legendary stories of virgin-births (Pfleiderer, “Early Christian Conception of Christ,” pp. 35-43), as of Buddha (Paul Carus), who would not be alienated by the representation of such a supernatural event. Here the Church would receive the “ear” of Mark’s parable.

(3) In the Prologue of John’s Gospel. As to the fourth Evangelist’s supposed silence upon this subject, see Neander, “Life of Christ,” p. 17, and note 21 in the Exposition of the last Gospel; also note 42 There, on Gardner’s fancy (“Exploratio Evangelica,” p. 239) that John meant to protest against the Virgin Birth, or that writer’s notion that the words to Nicodemus in 3:6 could be used against it. This last stage would represent the “full blade in the ear.”

And so of the Apostle Paul, as in Rom. 1:3f. “Paul,” writes Pfleiderer, “is anything, rather than a Jew in his Christological exegesis of the Old Testament. Here he leaves all Jewish tradition on one side and gives vent to his mythological gain; whence he derives it, it would be hard to tell. No road leads up to the divinity (sic) of Christ from the Old Testament” (op. cit., ii., p. 115). Such a theory as this we may hold, with Orr, “is the death of all its predecessors in its admission that the idea of the V.B. was familiar to Paul” (see 1 Cor. 15:47; also Gal. 4:4, γενομένος, “ come,” rather than, as in Luke 7:28, of the Baptist, γεννητός, “born”) and the early Christians. (cf. chapters 3, 5, of Dr. R. J. Cooke’s “The Incarnation and Modern Criticism” (1907)). It is because of the difficulty felt in being consistent in this respect that negative critics have fallen back on the device of tracing the belief to Gentile myths, going back to Babylonian (Orr, p. 27 of pamphlet); but Harnack, to his credit, dissociates himself from this part of the business.

The miraculous conception is recognized first, outside the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, in the Letter of Ignatius to the Ephesians, and in the recently recovered Apology of Aristides. It begins to be denied by Cerinthus (Irenæus, 1:26), probably within the lifetime of the Apostle John (cf. above under Gardner). So repugnant must it have been to the severely austere morality of Jews, that “the mere fact that it arose on Jewish, soil is a singular attestation of the Evangelic story” (D. Smith, p. 52, after Neander, p. 15). Orr, referring to present-day criticism allied with the system of the Jewish “Ebionites,” remarks: “It is a curious irony which makes the narrowest and most retrograde of Jewish-Christian sects (the ancient Nazarenes, or more tolerant party, accepted the belief) the true representatives of Apostolic Christianity” (“The Virgin Birth,” p. 164f.).

This matter forms an essential part of the larger question as to the distinction which is made between the “historical Jesus” and “the Christ of the Creeds.” Thus Pfleiderer: “Primitive Christianity has transferred the Jesus of history into the Christ of faith... has identified the ‘self-existing Christ’ with the heavenly Son of Man of the Apocalypse and the Son of God and Logos... has finally brought this eternal heavenly Being down to earth to become man, to die, to return to Heaven, there to share the throne and sovereignty of God until His future coming to judge the world” (“Early Christian Conception,” p. 160f.). Lain Schmidt: “He (i.e., JESUS) would have been utterly bewildered by the Nicene creed” (p. 383); and Gardner: “There is no demonstrable connection ween the ‘Jesus of history’ and the Christ of Christian experience.” These are typical expressions of what goes under the name of the “New (Modern) Theology” from three countries of “modern civilization.” But listen to one who, advanced critic as he is, is careful in his statements — Wellhausen — who writes. “The historical Jesus, like a leading card, has been playas against Christianity.... To divorce Him from the effect of His history is to be unjust to Him Whence came faith in Him as religious Ideal save from Christianity?... We cannot go back even if we would.” (“Introduction to the First Three Gospels,” p. 114.),

H. Holtzmann and Harnack question the two verses, as if an interpolation. On the same side, besides Lobs (above) write Drummond, Wernle (pp. 81-83. Cf. booklet in E. T.), and Schmiedel (“Encyclopædia Biblica,” art. “Mary”), J. Weiss, etc.; whilst in defense of the V.B. the following, besides Orr, may be consulted: — Dorner, B. Weiss, Godet (pp. 213-216), Zahn, Fairbairn, Bruce, Gore and Sanday, etc. See further, besides notes referred to above, those on 2:41 and 48; 4:22; and 18:19.

30a The “holy thing” (cf. Matt. 1:20). This distinctly traverses Dr. Boses’, saying that the Lord was “not holy by nature” (“The Gospel in the Gospels,” p. 163). The position taken by the American professor is a curious comment on his countryman Prof. Foster’s claim as against “orthodox” scholars, to “intellectual” honesty. JESUS was from the outset “holy,” cf. John 10:36, although “made of a woman” (Gal. 4:6); see Job 25:4. On the connection of this with His sinlessness, see Orr, pamphlet on the “Virgin Birth,” p. 29. A pulpit, if not academical, utterance of Schleiermacher should be noted: “It is the experience of all without exception that in everyone who has appeared on earth, endowed only as the children of men, sin has sooner or later developed. So it would have been in the Redeemer Himself if he had been Horn His birth like other children. ... If Christ had been a sinner even in the least degree, could He have been our Saviour?” (“Selections from Foreign Pulpit Literature,” vol. xvi., p. 279 ff.).

Bruce has well said: “A sinless man is as much a miracle in the moral world, as a virgin birth is a miracle in the physical world” (“Apologetics,” p. 410, in criticism of the view taken by Abbott in “Onesimus,” bk. iii., par. 7).

For the translation of verse 35, cf. American Revision.

31 Verse 37. — cf. verse 35, and note on 2:11 (Theotokos, cf. note 51).

32 Verse 42. — Cf. Judith 13:18.

33 Verse 45. — These words Bunyan represents as coming to the remembrance of Christiana and her party as soon as they had crossed the “Slough of Despond” (“Pilgrim’s Progress,” Pt. ii.).

34 Verses 46-55. — The “Magnificat.” The Virgin was familiar with the old Testament Scriptures, especially the Psalms, where compare 45:3; 98:3; try 107:9; 132:1, 6, 7, 15. That Luke resorted to the vocabulary of the Save at; (note 4 F) to record the Aramaic utterances of Mary (verse 48) in Greek May readily believed; but to say that he freely composed them (cf. note 20) another matter. Ryle aptly refers to Col. 3:16 for the lesson conveyed by Ha, beautiful canticle. Hort’s marginal reading “Elizabeth” instead of “Mary,” in verse 46, is that of three old Latin MSS., and was known to Origen. It seems to have no support from Greek copies.

35 “Soul... spirit.” Cf. Ps. 103:1; “all that is within me” (Mackeren). How closely connected, and yet distinct, “soul” and “spirit” are, is shown by Heb. 4:12. The difference broadens in the adjectives, “soulish” and “spiritual” in 1 Cor. 15:46. “All through Scripture,” writes Professor Laidlaw, “spirit denotes life as coming from God; sofa, life as constituted in the man” (“Hastings Dictionary of the Bible,” iv., p. 167). The “spirit” is the energy of a man. As for the soul, in it “lies the center of his personality” (Orr, “God’s Image in Man,” p. 51). The view, however, of the writer last quoted, that “spirits that had bodies could not be called souls” (ibid.), is questionable, as “soul” in Scripture has not “always” the connotation of body; see Lev. 26:11; Judg. 10:16; Isa. 42:1. If that were so, there could be no objection to Nautzsch’s saying (ibid., art. “Religion of the Old Testament”) that in prophetic times Jehovah was conceived of as having bodily forma apparently based on such passages as Ex. 33:23.

For the tripartite organism of man see Gen. 2:7. It is brought out clearly in 1 Thess. 5:23. “Breath of lives” in Genesis seems to suggest a continuity for the spirit which science recognizes in respect of the body. If this be so, the Creationists Traducianists (see Liddon, “Elements of Religion,” pp. 98-104, represented by Romanists and Lutherans respectively, share truth between them.

36 Verse 56. — Here comes in Matt. 1:18ff.

37 Verse 59. — The word ἐκάλουγ is well rendered by Carr, “were for calling.” The naming of a child was by Jewish custom independent of its circumcision.

38 Verses 68-79. — The “Benedictus.” For the vocabulary here, et Ps. 18:2: 132:17. This canticle seems specially modeled on the prophets (Plummer). In verse 77 “salvation,” not found in Matthew and Mark, is a link with John’s Gospel (cf. note 1). “Since the world began”; American Revision, “of old.”

39 Verse 72. — “To fulfil” (ποιεῖν), cf. 10:37 (“show,” see note there), and in the Old Testament,. Gen. 21:23; Josh. 2:12; Judg. 1:24; Ps. 119:65.

39a Verse 74. — See Dr. Chalmers’ sermon on “The Right Fear and the Right faith.”

40 Verse 75. — “Piety,” ὁσιότης, Carr: “A conscientious obedience to God.... a wider word than δικαιοσύη, obedience to law.”

41 Verse 77. — “Deliverance”; or “salvation” (σωτηρία), Cf. Psalms of Solomon 17:36: Messiah’s removal of sin by His powerful word.

“Zacharias and Elizabeth” forms subject of a discourse by Dr. Whyte in his “Bible Character’s,” No. LXXII.

42 Verse 80. — Some think that here, as at 2:40; 2:52; 4:13; there is mark of the conclusion of a separate document each time. The idea is discredited, amongst others, by Ramsay, p. 86 f.

Luke 2

WE have had the forerunner of Jesus and the announcement of the birth of Jesus. But now this chapter opens with a providential event which we find nowhere else in the Gospels, and yet which explains a fact that is found in the first Gospel as well as in the third. Jesus was born in Bethlehem. His parents were in the habit of living in Galilee. How, then, if the ordinary residence of His parents was at Nazareth, which was at one extremity of the land, could he be born at Bethlehem, which was almost at the other?

“And it came to pass in those days that a decree went out from Omar Augustus, that a census should be made of all the habitable world.” Caesar Augustus was the then Emperor of Rome, the last human kingdom of Daniel. Even the Holy Land was put in subjection to these imperial powers, and Caesar used his power and marked it in this that he demanded the presence of every man in his own city, as if all belonged to him. It was a testimony to the total subjection of the habitable world43 to himself, not to Christ. This, indeed, will in due time be according to God, the fruit of His own power, when Jesus is manifestly exalted and God’s direct power is vested in His hands, Who, being Himself a Divine Person as well as man, will thus exercise all the power as man, yet without derogating in the smallest degree from the rights and authority of God, yea, displaying them gloriously before the world, as He has already established them before God and, to faith, in the cross.

With Caesar Augustus, however, it was far different. Even the people of God were placed in servitude; and wonderful to Ray, the mother of the Messiah was among those, as well as His legal father, who had to pay obedience to the decree of the Roman Emperor. They went up accordingly for the census45 to their own city, the city of David, Bethlehem,44 thus accomplishing the prophecies. And what made it the more remarkable is that, in verse 2, we are told that “the census itself first took place when Cyrenius43a was governor of Syria.” It was not effected at the time here in view as proposed, but was sufficiently carried out to call the parents of our Lord from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, which accomplished not man’s census, but God’s prophecy. God took care that it should be just fulfilled enough to carry out His purposes. It was not till some years afterward that Cyrenius was governor of Syria. Then it was carried into effect fully,45 but meanwhile all went up to be enrolled, each to his own city.

Therefore “Joseph also went up from Galilee,46 out of the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to David’s city, which is called. Bethlehem (because he was of the house and family of David), to be enrolled with Mary47 his betrothed wife, 47a she being great with child.” From the time that a woman among the Jews was espoused, she was considered legally the wife of him to whom she was betrothed. Thus the Lord, while really Son of His mother Mary, was legally of Joseph; and both Joseph and Mary were of the royal line. The Lord Jesus, therefore, represented David on both sides; but as the law required, He was the descendant of Solomon on the legal side. For no matter how unquestionably He might have been the Son of Mary, descended from the Nathan stem, He could not have been according to law the Messiah as long as there was a living representative of the Solomon branch. But the Lord, being the legally reputed Son of Joseph as well as Mary’s child, was precisely so descended as to be in every required respect “David’s Son,” the Messiah. I say this quite independently of His Divine glory, which was demanded for other and far deeper reasons.

Thus then “while they were there, the days were fulfilled that she should be delivered. And she brought forth her first-born son48 and wrapped him up in swaddling clothes, and laid him in the manger; because there was no room for them in the inn.” Luke always loves to present moral features. Accordingly there is an intimation very instructive for us in the circumstance that it was in the manger Jesus was laid, not in the inn. There was no room for them in the inn. The Lord of glory when born into this world was laid in the manger. What a picture of the state of the world! There was no room for Him who was God in the world! The children of men according to their means found their place in the inn as it suited them. Those who had money could command a place proportioned to what they were willing to pay. But the parents of the Lord were in such poverty as to be thoroughly despised at the inn, and the only place where they could find a shelter toe the Babe was a manger.

But this did not hinder the outflow of Divine grace any more than it could deny, except to unbelief, the Divine glory of Him who was laid there. Unbelief never receives that the Lord of heaven and earth could be born in such circumstances and of such parents. In fact, to be born at all, to be really a man, to know beyond all other men the bitterness of the world, the scorn and hatred of men, and finally the cross — all this is utterly stumbling to unbelief. But this is just the truth of God, and the only truth that really makes known God and delivers man. And those who receive it are the simple. Grace makes them such, especially the lowly. It can make the proudest simple, no doubt; but it addresses itself in particular as the rule (and Luke marks the fact) to those that are despised on the earth as Christ was.

“And there were shepherds in that country49 abiding in the field and keeping watch by night over their flock. And lo, an angel of [the] LORD stood by49a them and the glory of [the] LORD50 shone around them, and they were sore afraid.” Nevertheless, there was no reason. Man, because he is a sinner, is afraid of God, but in truth “God so loved the world that He gave His only-begotten Son, that every one that believeth on Him should not perish but have eternal life.” The angel in the spirit of this says, “Fear not, for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be” — but not exactly “to all people.” For although Luke does finally proclaim the saving grace that goes out to all men, he begins within the strict limits of Israel, and shows God faithful to His people and willing to accomplish all His promises if they would receive Jesus. But they would not; and therefore God was morally justified in turning from the despising Jews to the Gentiles. The true way of understanding this clause is “(which shall be) to all the people,” meaning the people of Israel. This is confirmed in the next verse: “For unto you is born this day, in the city of David, a Saviour, which is Christ [the] Lord.”51 It was the Anointed of God, whom their fathers had long waited and looked for. The Child51a was now born, the Son given, and unto them, as said the prophet.

“And this is the sign unto you: ye shall find a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, and lying in a manger.” “A babe” it should be. And so it was: a most significant sign — a Messiah, not in power and glory as the Jews expected, but a babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, who in grace was subject to all the realities of the circumstances of a human birth and infancy, and who was found in fact, as to external position, lying in a manger.

But if such was the place of obscurity that He entered, all the world being really out of course and God unwilling to allow such a thought as a sanction by His Son of the state of men in sin; if He gives Him, therefore, a place, as it were, outside, on the other hand there was suddenly “with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men.” This is comprising in a few words the whole scope of Divine purpose. The manifestation of the Son, now man, leads to this, not exactly the moral ground of it, or the means by which it will be brought about, but the result as illustrating to their unjealous eyes God’s good pleasure in men (not angels). First of all there is, “Glory to God in the highest.” Up to the birth of Jesus all had been disappointment in man. The creature had broken down under the best circumstances, and every attempt by any other means to correct it had brought either destruction to men or rebellion against God, growing worse and worse. The deluge had not mended the world, but simply destroyed men. The law had only aggravated the condition of man provoking their sin into open, transgression and sealing them up in condemnation.

But the birth of the Lord Jesus is at once the signal for the angels to sing, “Glory to God in the highest.” It would not be merely “Glory to God below,” but “in the highest,” throughout the whole universe of God, and expressly in its highest places — glory to God at length, everywhere. On earth, where nothing but war had been against God, and with man, confusion, misery, and rebellion — “on earth, peace.” Nothing less than this would ensue from the birth of the Messiah, though not all at once; but the heavenly host take in the magnificent issues of His birth who is Father of the age to come. That birth, too, was the expression that God’s complacency is in men.52 There could not be a greater proof of God’s good pleasure than this; for the Son of God did not become an angel but a man. He was God from all eternity, but He became man. This bore witness, irrefragable and evident to every one who reflects, to what an object of love men were to God. The heavenly host therefore only sing of these great outlines. They did not enter into detail; perhaps they did not know how any one was to be brought about. But the great fact was there before them; the Lord from heaven was this Babe, the object of contempt to man, wrapped in swaddling clothes and lying in a manger, perhaps as no other babe was. No wonder it drew out the loudest songs of the angels. They see God’s glory in it; they see men thus the object of His infinite love and condescension; they anticipate peace for the earth, spite of all appearances, spite of Caesar Augustus or his decrees, spite of the Roman armies, those massive iron hammers that battered down the nations, the beast that trampled what it could not devour — spite of all this, “peace on earth.” They looked at things as the scene for displaying in man (because the Son was now man) God’s glory and grace; and they were right.

When the unwonted vision passed away, the shepherds said one to another, “Let us make our way 53 now as far as Bethlehem and let us see this thing that is come to pass, which the LORD has made known to us. And they came with haste, and found both Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger. And when they had seen [it], they made known about the country the thing which had been said to them concerning this child. And all who heard [it] wondered at the things said to them by the shepherds.”

Thus, in their artless way, they acted upon what was made known to them, upon the report of the angels; and when they had proved its truth, they spread the news. They were anticipating thus far the way of grace. Tidings of such great goodness and joy could not be, ought not to be, confined to the breasts of those to whom it was first communicated.

They made it known wherever they could. “But Mary kept all these things, pondering [them] in her heart.”53a A deeper feeling, no doubt, wrought in her mind. The time was not come for the propagation of the Gospel which was in store: the basis for it was not even laid. But she who must needs have been intimately interested in the wonders that surrounded her — she weighed all, and treasured it all up in her heart. The shepherds, too, simple men, favored as they had been of God, returned, glorifying and praising Him “for all things that they had heard and seen, as it had been said to them.”

We now see the Lord Jesus under the law of Moses, as in the earlier verses, born of woman. For “when eight days were fulfilled for circumcising him, his name was called Jesus, which was the name given by the angel before he had been conceived in the womb.” This name refers both to His being Jehovah and a Saviour, as we are told in Matt. 1:21. Here the fact simply is mentioned. Nevertheless we have here — beyond what we have in Matthew — the Jewish evidence of the poverty of the holy family, as we had before the contempt of man proved in the lowly circumstances in which the Lord was born (vs. 7). “And when the days were fulfilled for their purifying according to the law of Moses,54 they brought him to Jerusalem55 to present [him] to the LORD (as it is written in the law of [the] LORD: Every male that openeth the womb shall be called holy to the LORD), and to offer a sacrifice, according to what is said in the law of the LORD, a pair of turtledoves, or two young pigeons.” Now, we know from the Pentateuch that this sacrifice was a provision where the parents were extremely poor. Thus Luke preserves the two traits that we have noticed as the characteristics of his Gospel. First, there is the Evangelist showing that the Lord met Israel thoroughly according to the Divine ordinances — that He was presented in the strictest compliance with the law “to the Jew first.”54 The next feature is the display of moral principles manifested in all that surrounded the Lord on His coming into the world, as well as His ways in it. To the poor the Gospel is preached; and the Lord did not preach the Gospel to the poor as One who was a rich and mighty and distinguished Patron, though entitled even as man to the highest place on earth. But though He was rich, the Lord Jesus tasted what it is to be poor and despised in all its reality. It was not as a benefactor, which is the way of the world; their great ones are called benefactors, when they spare of their bounty for the destitute. As it is said, “They that exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But ye [shall] not [be] thus.” And as we are commanded not to act thus, on the other hand Jesus was surely not so, but the very reverse. Infinitely above all, He nevertheless took His place with the least, with the most obscure and overlooked in the land: and this, as we see, from the very beginning of His earthly course.

But if there was no natural éclat but evident humiliation in the facts of our Lord’s infancy, what was there not of moral glory! This again it was most suitable for Luke to notice, and he alone does so. “And behold, there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; and this man was just and pious, awaiting the consolation of Israel,56 and [the] Holy Spirit was upon him.” The consolation of Israel was come; the Person who brought it in, and who would make it good in due time, was here. But, further, it was revealed to Simeon “by the Holy Spirit, that he should not see death before he should see [the] LORD’S Christ.”57 These and the like revelations were vouchsafed before the canon of Scripture was complete. “And he came in the Spirit into the temple.” It was a part of that same goodness of God, Who would give suitable witnesses, that this godly man came in at the very time when the parents brought in the infant Jesus to do for Him “according to the custom of the law.” But he sees that there was in that babe One altogether above the law. In grace He might become subject to it, and His parents were, of course, right in paying every deference to its ordinances. But Simeon “received him into his arms, and blessed God, saying, Lord,22a now thou lettest thy bondman go according to thy word, in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.”57a The law of Moses never could give a sinful man to depart in peace — so to speak, it never ought. Peace must be, in order to be real and righteous, from the God who gave the law present in grace present as man in this world, and present to suffer for sins; the Just for the unjust. And so He was, for such was Jesus. No wonder, then, that he whose eyes were touched with a better eye salve than that of earth could see God and His salvation in the Babe — could say, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace.” It was not imagination, but sober faith; it was “according to thy word.” It was not a mere craving desire, nor a sanguine hope. There is nothing so surf as the testimonies of God and His Word; and he had an intimation that he should not see death until he had seen the Anointed of Jehovah. But to depart in peace according to the Lord’s Word was a matter of broader interest; it was for he might not see the Babe. To him, however, it was performed. “For mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” This was what kings and prophets had desired to see, and now Simon saw it in the person of Jesus. And so, as it was grace of the most marked character in the favor shown to the aged Simeon, he enters more or less into the dealings of grace by the power of the Spirit of God. Thus he pursues it: (“Mine eyes have seen thy salvation), which thou hast prepared before the face of” — not now “all the (Jewish) people” but “all peoples.” Again, it is “a light” not exactly “to lighten the Gentiles,” but “for revelation of [the] Gentiles, and [the] glory of thy people Israel.”58 To this godly man there was an intimation of the momentous change that was at The salvation of God could not be restricted to one; if God’s salvation was upon earth it must at least in result be before all the nations; as the Apostle Paul said, “The of God that bringeth salvation hath appeared to all men.” That goes farther, no doubt, because it supposes the work done, as well as the person manifested; nevertheless the principle is the same, and it is here.

But further note, “a light for revelation of [the] Gentiles.” This is an unusual expression and to be weighed. The Gentiles during God’s dealings with Israel were in the dark. Those were the times of ignorance, and God winked at their ways. But now, says the apostle, He commands all men everywhere to repent. There is no excuse for ignorance longer. The Light shines, the true Light. Christ was that Light, and He is a Light for revelation of the Gentiles. This is the time during which Israel is blinded, and the long-hidden Gentiles are revealed, brought out of the degradation in which they had hitherto lain.58 But when God has accomplished His work among the Gentiles, that which is added here will be made true, “and the glory of thy people Israel.” 58a This verse is very important as showing what was to ensue when Israel would reject the Messiah, and before they shall be brought in by and by. This is not the order that we find in the prophets. There the Lord, wherever He is presented as the Glory of Israel, is also seen as blessing the Gentiles subordinately to the chosen people. Here the reversed order is, I think, significant: “a light for revelation of [the] Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel.” The predicted and regular state of things will follow this exceptional period during which the Gentiles have been revealed. Nevertheless once God has brought the Gentiles into light, He never puts them back into darkness. But this will not hinder Mini from bringing Israel to the highest pitch of earthly glory above all the Gentiles. Thus God’s wisdom will secure that His goodness to the Gentiles shalt never pass away, but at the same time He will accomplish His ancient and special promises to Israel. During the present dispensation these two things are necessarily separated. The Gentiles are being revealed now, and though hereafter they shall not cease to be revealed, Christ will be the glory of His people Israel. Now He is, as it were, their shame, or rather they are His; because they crucified Him, and they have not yet repented of their sin, but added to it their contempt of the Spirit’s message of forgiveness on faith in the Gospel.

“And his father and mother wondered at the things which were said concerning him. And Simeon blessed them.” Now, too, he is given to supply the key to the fact that the glory of the people Israel should be postponed. He “said to Mary his mother, Lo, this [child] is set for the fall and rising up of many in Israel; and for a sign spoken against (and even a sword shall go through thine own soul), so that [the] thoughts may be revealed from many hearts.”58b The personal sorrow of Mary is alluded to, who is to be a witness of the crucifixion of her own Son. Luke always brings out these touches of human affection and sorrow. This is a part of his province, because he particularly portrays the Lord Jesus as a man; and in accordance with which he brings out the feelings of those so nearly connected with Him as His mother. The moral object and effect is added with equal propriety “that [the] thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.”

Such is the issue of the rejection of Jesus. If men’s hearts tire set upon present glory and ease, the cross of Jesus scandalizes them. If their hearts, on the contrary, are taught of God to feel the need of redemption through the blood of the Saviour, then the Cross of Christ is most welcome and sweet. If Divine love has value in our eyes, if the alienation of the world from God is strongly felt by our hearts, then the death of Christ will have its just place more or less. On the other hand, to self-righteousness, or self-will, or worldliness the Cross of Christ is just hateful and repulsive in the measure in which it is understood. Where there is the sense of need, where there is the teaching of God, where there is entrance into Divine love, where the world’s position in His sight or the place of faithful testimony for God is appreciated, there the Cross irises in its value before our hearts. Thus the thoughts of many hearts are revealed, and by the Cross above all other tests.

God, however, brings in, besides Simeon, another witness, Anna the prophetess, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.

As Simeon was said to be just and pious, so the Spirit loves to record a blessed account of this believing woman, Anna. If he, too, had the spirit of prophecy, so had she. “She was a widow up to eighty-four years,59 who did not depart from the temple, serving night and day with fastings and prayers.” The subjection of these godly ones in Israel to ordinances, or their submission to God according to the law, is carefully noted here. “And she coming up the same hour, gave praise to the LORD, and spoke of him to all those who waited for redemption in59a/. Jerusalem.” The present guidance of God is equally conspicuous in her case as in that of Simeon. There was then, as ever, a remnant according to the election of grace; and God took care that the testimony should reach those whose hearts were prepared for Jesus. Grace might and would in due time go out to the very vilest; but God first of all makes Him known to those whose hearts were already touched, waiting for Jesus. The moral wisdom of such ways seems to me equally apparent and admirable.

Such is the presentation of the Lord as yet in Jewish circumstances, given by our Evangelist, though not without hints and predictions which look out to a larger vista of Divine goodness.

There was the full recognition of the law of the LORD, while the person of Jesus is brought before us with all evidence as the great manifestation of God’s grace. This surprises some. They are apt to set law and grace in contradiction to each other. Now for this there is no just reason. It is true neither of the person Of Christ nor of His work, any more than of those that are Christ’s. In no case does law suffer through the grace of God, but on the contrary, it never receives so important a testimony either to its authority or to its use as through grace. Indeed, it is grace alone which accomplishes the law. Other people talk about it and employ it for their own importance; but in point of fact they weaken it, and even teach or allow in their doctrine that God mitigates it under the Gospel, instead of maintaining all its real authority. This is very strikingly shown in our Lord’s ease, but it is equally true both in the Cross and in Christianity. Hence in Romans 3 we read that through faith “we establish the law,” because the believer rests upon the mighty work of Christ on the cross, which gave the most solemn sanction to the law that it ever received or could have. Faith beholds Jesus suffering the curse in all its depth and its bitterness; whereas, in the view I am opposing, God is conceived to depart from the rigor of the law in order to show mercy. The doctrine of the apostle shows, on the contrary, that Jesus underwent the extreme judgment of God for sin and bore all that God could display against, our evil when imputed to Him. Therefore nothing but grace remains, so to speak, and becomes the portion of those who believe. Thus faith establishes the law, as legalism undermines it in order to let off the guilty. It is the same principle with the people of God. In Romans 8. it is written, “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh: that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” It is not merely fulfilled in Him, but in the Christian; it was established in the Cross and it is fulfilled in us “who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” The reason is because the new nature in the believer always loves the law of God and is subject to it, as nothing else is. This displays itself in the ways of the believer, in holiness, obedience, and love. For he who loves has fulfilled the law; as the apostle says elsewhere, “Love is the fulfilling of the law.” Hence we find that in the case of Christ, who was the proper manifestation of God’s grace, there was the fullest homage paid to the law; though personally His own title was above law, yet was He in grace made under law as truly as He was made of a woman, and this fittingly and righteously to accomplish redemption.

“And when they had completed all things according to the law of [the] LORD, they returned to Galilee, to their own city, Nazareth.”60 The law was owned in Jerusalem; grace takes, its place among the insignificant and despised and outcast and, good-for-nothing in the eyes of men; indeed, not only in Galilee but in a place proverbially obscure even there — Nazareth. What a wonderful witness of the way of Divine grace! People when they choose a place are apt to consider what pleases them most and will answer their interests best. What pleased God most and answered the interests of grace best was Nazareth. There His Son spent His earliest days. “And the child grew and waxed strong [in spirit], filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.” How entirely independent of human culture,61 of anything that man could bring from without — this Child the Son of God, filled with wisdom; but as it is written, “the grace of God was upon him.”

“Now his parents went to Jerusalem every year at the feast of the Passover.” It is this, their yearly visit to Jerusalem, which accounts for their being at Bethlehem when the Magi came up from the East. Certainly the arrival was not immediately after the Babe was born. It can hardly be doubted that it must have been on one of their regular subsequent visits, when they not only went up to Jerusalem, but, as we can understand, they turned aside to Bethlehem, which had now more than ever the deepest interest in their eyes, as the birthplace of the Child that had been given them — the Messiah. On the occasion of this visit, at least a year after His birth, the Magi came up and found the young Child with Mary His mother, and presented unto Him their gifts. And this accounts for the fact that, when Herod found it out, he ordered the children to be killed from two years and under. He would scarcely have done this, cruel man as he was, had the Child been just born; but because at least a year had passed or more, to make sure of his purpose, he orders all to be killed from two years old and under “according to the time which he had accurately inquired from the Magi.” This causes at first sight a difficulty, because the Child is again seen in Bethlehem, whereas we are told that they lived at Nazareth. But there is really nothing to perplex the weakest believer. Luke supplies the link by telling us of the annual return to Jerusalem, while Matthew gives us the additional scene of the visit of the Magi to Bethlehem according to prophecy.62 Nothing would have been easier than, when they were at Jerusalem, to have turned southward to Bethany — nothing more natural than that they should revisit the scene of the most important event in their lives. Indeed, never had anything in interest approached the birth of Jesus since the world began. It was to be eclipsed, or at the least outshone, by the greater and altogether incomparable Work of His cross., But this was not yet come.

We are next given to see that, when He was twelve years old, a remarkable illustration of His youthful days takes place.63 “When they had completed the days64 as they returned, the boy Jesus remained behind in Jerusalem; and his parents knew not [of it].... And not having found him, they returned to Jerusalem, seeking him. And it came to pass, after three days, they found him in the temple, sitting in the midst of the teachers and hearing them, and asking them questions” (vss. 43,45 f). A more attractive sight morally there is nowhere even in God’s Word. Just at the age when there is apt to be neither the simplicity of the child nor the exercised good sense of the man, we find Jesus thus engaged. Others of like age were, no doubt, bent upon their play, or the indulgence of curiosity in such a city, frittering away the most valuable time, that never can return, before the bustle of human life begins and the great struggle in which so many lose themselves continually. But Jesus was found lowly, and at the same time filled with wisdom, using the golden opportunity, sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them (a proof of His humility), and asking them questions, a proof of Hid interest in the Scriptures. It was not enough that the Lord wakened His ear morning by morning to hear as the learned: it was not enough that He gave Him the tongue of the learned that He might know how to speak a word in season to him that is weary. But here it is the ear and tongue of the learner in the use of the means at the command of any child in Israel. However taught of God He might be immediately, here He was none the less sitting in the midst of the doctors of Jerusalem, both hearing them and asking them questions. It was not teaching them, though perfectly competent and personally entitled to do so as the Son of God.

No doubt His very questions were very instructive, such as never had been heard in this world before. Still, this beautiful picture displays the perfect propriety of the child Jesus. For though He was God, He was man; and not only man, but in this special stage of His manhood, as a youth, He shows all deference to those who were older than Himself. Had He acted upon right, He was the Lord of that temple, He might have taken up the word of Malachi, which bore witness to His coming there in power and glory. He might have claimed as Jehovah “suddenly [to] come to his temple: and who shall endure the day of his coming? And who shall stand when He appeareth... He shall sit [as] a refiner and purifier of silver; and he will purify the children of Levi and purge them as gold and silver, that they shall offer unto Jehovah an oblation in righteousness.” But no; He, the Master, is found there as the disciple of the Word of God, as one Who does not for Himself dispense with, hut on the contrary, would seek the profit of that Word which was on the lips of these doctors. It was, after all, His Father’s Word: so he hears them and asks them questions. “And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and answers.” Thus His questions led to the manifestation of Divine truth; so yet more His answers, as is evident from this that they also put questions to Him.65

And when His parents “saw him, they were amazed: and his mother said to him, Child, why hast thou dealt thus with us? Behold, thy father and I have sought thee distressed. And he said to them,66 Why [is it] that ye have sought me? Did ye not know that I ought to be [occupied] in my Father’s business?”66a Thus from early youth our Lord had the consciousness of being the Son of God above all earthly claims. But exactly as grace acknowledges the law, so the eternal So a acknowledges His human place as the child of Mary. He asserted and proved that He was really the Son of the Father in His own consciousness and that consequently He must be about His Father’s business. It was not open to, or possible for, Him to set aside His Father’s will. This was the first object before His heart. But spite of all this devotedness as Son of God, spite of His parents not understanding what He said, He comes down with them “to Nazareth and was in subjection to them,” while His mother keeps all these sayings, little understood, in her heart.

“And Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature and in favor with God and men.” Thus we have this fresh notice of the herd’s growth outwardly as well as inwardly. How can we reconcile such intimations with His being God Himself, though man? Most evidently He was always perfect, but then He was the perfect Babe, and the perfect Youth, as we shall also find Him to be in due time the perfect Man. At any given moment He was absolutely perfect, and yet He grew. He advanced from a Babe to a Youth and from a Youth to a Man. And so it was, that, as He grew up, the perfection was in exact harmony with His growth, and proved itself to be so both to God and man. If the immaculate and holy Babe was precious in the sight of God, yet more as youth, and most of all the developed maturity of a man.

It is thus therefore that, while all was perfect and always so, still, that perfection admitted of progress; “and Jesus advanced in wisdom and stature, and in favor67 with God and men.” But all this, we may observe, is in precise accordance with the spirit and design of our Evangelist, and, in fact, found in this Gospel alone.

Endnotes

43 Verse 1. — “Habitable world.” This is practically equivalent to the whole area of Roman dominion. Strabo uses οἰκουμένη of the Mediterranean lands. The word is found in the LXX. sometimes for the Hebrew terel, or eretz in the sense of “earth.”

43a, “Cyrenius” is the Greek, “Quirinius” (R.V.) the Roman form of the name.

44 Verse 3. — “Own city.” Observe that the same expression is used 1, a Nazareth in verse 39 as here for Bethlehem, which should restrain criticism that since at least the time of Schleiermacher, has sought to set this Evangelist at variance with Matthew. Thus, after German writers (e.g., Soltau, p. 18), the article by Gardner in the “Encyclopedia Biblica,” in which it is said to be “historically probable that Jesus was born at Nazareth.” Now, Matthew stark with Bethlehem, but not so as to imply that the habitual residence of Joseph was there; Mark speaks only of Nazareth; and then Luke deals with both, shine Nazareth as his starting point (ἄνωθεν). Matthew discloses that Joseph thought of settling at Bethlehem on his return from Egypt, but was divinely restrained. In introducing mention of Nazareth he describes it, just as one would expect on the first occasion, in the same way as Luke the first time. Matthew, as John, shews how Messiah was rejected in Judea before, as an infant, He was in Galilee at all. Cf. Godet, i., pp. 217ff., with O. Holtzmann (“Life of Jesus,” p. 65). Bethlehem is about five miles south of Jerusalem.

45 “To be enrolled.” On the difference between the present tense or verse 3 and the aorist in verse 5, see Ramsay. Already in verse 1 we are introduced to what has been a hunting ground of writers adverse to the inerrancy accuracy of Scripture, nothing being known from secular records of any general census at this time. “Advanced” critics, accordingly, arraign the Evangelist of “carelessness” in making the Nativity synchronize with a census, with the correct date of which it is nevertheless of necessity admitted that he was acquaint: see Acts 5:37, comparing Josephus, “Antiquities,” 7:13, 5. The question resolves itself into whether Quirinius discharged any administrative function at the earlier dale or not (see below).

When Herod died (750 A.U.C., i.e., 4 “B.C.,” Quintilius Yarns was imperial legate of Syria. Luke’s statement is not at variance with this. By the researches of Augustus Zumpt, founded on Tacitus, “Annals,” 3:17, which have been followed by Mommsen’s interpretation of an inscription at Tivoli, turned to account by Schürer, it has been rendered highly probable that a surmise of Grottos (followed by Neander, Hahn, B. Weiss, etc.) was correct, that Quirinius was in office twice, first as a commissioner in 750-753, and afterward as legate in 760-765. Luke’s word ἡγεμών, (cf. note 3), accordingly, may be understood to speak of Quirinius’ earlier functions as a “procurator,” subordinate to the legate. Justin Martyr (Dial. c. Tryph. Jud., p. 303), describes him in the, same way. The duties of this official, to which Luke refers, would then be limited to statistical (Hahn) or domestic (Ramsay), as distinct from financial and imperial functions. Some, therefore, would say that he completed as legate that which he had begun as commissioner; others, that he carried out what was begun by his predecessor. Ramsay has shown from the papyri found in Egypt some twenty ago, that successive enrollments must have been habitually made there after intervals of fourteen years. None of the early opponents of Christianity, such as Celsus or Porphyry, impugned Luke’s accuracy. The A.V. of verse 2 has the support of Ebrard, Hofmann and Godet.

46 Verse 4. — “Galilee.” This comprised the old territory of Naphtali and Asher; but Nazareth itself was in that part of the hills of Zabulon within the borders of Issachar. The modern town, En-Nasira, is about fourteen miles (Merrill, “Galilee in the Time of Christ,” p 123: “five hours”) from the Lake of Tiberias, twenty-one miles from the Mediterranean, and sixty-six miles. (Merrill: “three short days’ journey”) from Jerusalem. Sepphoris (note Safed), the capital of Galilee until 28 A.D., was about one hour and a half from Nazareth. The older form of this, Nazara, is read by Westcott-Hort and Weiss in iv. 16, as in Matt. 4:13.

47 Verse 5. — Professor Haupt, of Baltimore, in order to discredit the Evangelist’s account of Mary going up to Bethlehem as well as Joseph, holds that it was not requisite that she should do so for the purpose which took Joseph there. He might as well say that of the Passover (verse 41), with reference to Deut. 16:16; and yet attendance of women at the great Feast was recommended by Hillel. The American professor’s theory that there were no people of Jewish blood in Galilee after 164 B.C. (on the slender foundation of 1 Macc. 5:15), is discredited by all sensible scholars of right and left alike. As to historical connection between Nazareth and Bethlehem, see Ramsay, “Education of Christ,” p. 56f.

47a The best Greek MSS. have “betrothed”; an old Latin copy has “wife”; whilst the later Greek copies have “betrothed wife.”

48 Verse 7. — “First-born son,” πρωτοτόκος, but when Luke speaks of an only son, he uses μονογενής: 7:12, 8:42, 9:38. Cf. note on 8:20.

Dionysius the Little, at the beginning of the sixth century, reckoned the year of the Birth as 753, after the foundation of Rome; but it is certain that Herod died, as stated above, in 750. Hence three or four years have to be deducted from 753; and so 749, i.e., 4 “B.C.” as Ellicott; whilst 5 “B.C.” is taken as the date by Godet for the fifteenth year of Tiberius. Kepler, hover, who has been followed by Alford, calculated that the Nativity took place in 6 “B.C.” Cf. Turner, “Chronology of the New Testament,” in “Hastings’ Dictionary,” i., p. 415, and Gilbert, “Student’s Life of Jesus,” pp. 95-99.

“Christmas,” as supposed season of this event, was substituted as a festival for the birthday of Mithra, the Sun-God (Neumann, p. 31).

For the views of independent British scholars on the place and time of the Lord’s Birth, see Ramsay, “Was Christ Born at Bethlehem?”; and Rendel Harris’ paper in Expositor, March, 1908. It probably took place in tin autumn (Sept.), about the time of the Feast of Tabernacles (Lev. 23:34), under the Full Moon, five months after the birth of the Baptist, which would be about Passover.

49 Verse 8. — For the word χώρα, “country,” see Ps. 132:6, in the LXX., and verses 12, 16 there, for “ye shall find” (verse 12). Mithra was likewise, said to have been seen as a newly-born babe by shepherds.

49a Verse 9. — “Stood by,” επέστη, used by Luke, also in Acts 23:11, of the Lord.

50 Shekina, the Talmudic and Rabbinical word for this, which has passed into Christian terminology, was drawn from Onqelos’ Aramaic paraphrase of Deut. 12:5. Cf. note 20 on John.

51 Verse 11. — “Saviour”: first occurrence in the New Testament. “Christ” is from the Greek Christos, which in Hebrew is Meshiach, and in the language of the time Meshicha (John 1:41, “Messias”).

Our Lord, in this Gospel, refers to Himself as “the Christ” in 4:18 f., 20:41, 21:8, 22: 67f., 24:26, 46. In the following passages, besides this, others so speak of him: 2:26, 3:15, 4:41, 7:19, 9:20, 23:2, 35, 39. He is called “Son of David” in 1:27, 32 above, and in 3:3, 18:38 f., 20:41, 44.

“Christ (the) LORD” (R.V. margin, “the anointed Lord”) in combination, is found only here in Scripture, although found in Psalms of Solomon, 17:36, 18:8. Its use there excludes the suggestion that it is an erroneous translation of the Aramaic. In the Papyri κύριος stands for “God,” being used of any deity (Deissmann, “New Light,” p.79). It is distinct from “the Lord’s Christ” in verse 26 (see note there), cf. 23:2, “Messiah (Christ) a King” (RSV. margin, an anointed King).

It was from such passages as this that the theological term Theotokos, “Mother of God,” as used of the Virgin (cf. 1:35, 37) was drawn, which the Council of Chalcedon, happily, did not endorse. See, notwithstanding, the “Catholic Catechism,” p. 74. Our Lord, according to Mark 3:35, provided against undue emphasis being put on the mystery of the Virgin Birth (see note above on chapter 1).

“Born... Christ.” See note in volume for John, on “Gnosticism,” which denied His birth as such, holding only the natural birth of “Jesus,” upon whom “the Christ” was supposed to have descended at His baptism; that is, it denied the Godhead of JESUS, and the humanity of the CHRIST.

Reference may be made to Stalker, “Christology,” pp. 127-167; and to notes here on “Son of God,” “Son of Man,” as well as corresponding notes in “Exposition of Mark.”

51a “Child.” This inspired Luther’s hymn, written (1540) for his little son, Hans, in “Lyra Germanica,” (Newnes’ ed., pp. 9-11).

52 Verse 14. — “Good pleasure”; or “complacency” (εὐδοκία). The cognate verb is used in 3:22 in connection with the Baptism of the Lord.

The determination of the reading, whether εὐδοκία or εὐδοκίας, depends on the construction of the words following “peace.” Is εἰρήνη to be isolated, a stop being understood? The A.V., followed by Field; so took it, reading εὐδοκία, in support of which has now to be added the testimony of Syr sin (see further in Scrivener, ii., p. 344 ff.), whilst the Revisers (see Westcott-Ηort, Appendix, p. 52 ff.) read εὐδοκίας, making two clauses only, which show “parallelism.” The R.V. is “(men) in whom He is well pleased”; Westcolt renders “(men) of well pleasing”; Evans, “(men) of His counsel for good” (or “His gracious purpose”), after Alford had explained it, of “the elect people of God,” at which Canon Cook took umbrage. These renderings are all based on supposed connection of εὐδοκίας with ἀνθρώοις.

It is clear, however, that Origen took εὐδοκίας, read by him, not with ἀνθρώποις, but with εἰρήνη (“peace”): see Benedictine edition of his Works, vol. iii., p. 946. Origen says, “that peace which the Lord does not give upon earth [xii., p. 49 f.] is not the peace of goodwill.” In keeping with this view, and for doctrinal accuracy, it is best, if this reading be adopted, to render “peace of complacency in the midst of men,” understanding by “peace of complacency” CHRIST (3:22, cf. John 17:23). This removes Field’s objection to εὐδοκίας, founded on its being connected by the above-named scholar with ἀνθρώποις: he remarks (referring to Ps. 119:24) that it would require ἄνδρες, not ἄνθρωποι.

Peace between God and man was not realized by the Incarnation, as many imagine, who adhere to the A.V. reading and rendering: cf. note 126 on John.

On the Nativity there are sermons of Luther; of Bishop Latimer, from verse7; of Dr. Isaac Barrow, on verse 10; of H. Melvill on verse 13f.; and of Dr. Chalmers, on verse 14; besides a “Contemplation” of Bishop Hall on verse 6f.

53 Verse l5. — “Let us make our way,” cf. Ps. 132:7.

53a Verse 19. — “Pondering, etc.” Luke would learn this from Mary herself, cf. Mark 14:72, “when he thought thereon,” which Mark would similarly learn from Peter, and both passages with 1 Cor. 2:11.

54 Verses 21-24. — Cf. Lev. 12:6, 8, Gal. 4:4, and for verse 21 in particular, Col. 2:11.

“Their purification,” referring to that customary with the Jews (Edersheim, “Life of Jesus, etc.”); not to the parents (as J. Weiss and Vincent take it). It was thirty-three days after circumcision, i.e., when a boy-child was forty days old. For a girl it was longer (as among Hindus still). The redemption-money was five shekels (Num. 18:15f.), corresponding to the later value of the old English “mark,” or 13s. 4d.

55 “Jerusalem.” The modern Arabic name is El-Kuds “The Holy Place.”

56 Verse 25. — The “Consolation of Israel” was a Jewish name for Messiah. In John 14:16, the “another” presupposes that the Lord was already “Paraclete.”

57 Verse 26. — See Lam. 4:20. Some have needlessly suggested that the Aramaic behind verse 11 (see note there) may have been the same.

57a Verse 29ff — The “Nunc Dimittis.” Cf. Gen. 49:18; Neil: “Simeon thinks of his death as his dismissal from servitude”; cf. Heb. 2:15.

Romaine preached from these verses.

58 Verse 32. — The reference here is rather to Isa. 25:7 than to 49:6 (of that prophet) (“revelation to”; cf. 42:6). The marginal rendering in R.V. (cf. the Vulg.) is preferable to the textual. Cf. John 8:12 and 1:79 here.

We meet with an echo of the words here in Acts 26:23.

58a For Messiah as “glory of Israel,” cf. Isa. 46:13, and Rom. 9:4. An imagined analogy in Buddhism may be found in Carus “The Gospel of Buddha,” p. 30ff.

58b Verse 34 f. — See Tholuck’s sermon “The Test of Every Heart,” in series entitled “Light from the Cross”; also, Whyte, op. cit., LXXI. For the “falling and rising,” cf. 2 Cor. 2:16, The American Revision discards “up” after “rising.”

59 Verse 36 f. — The Syr sin curiously makes the meaning to be “had lived seven days only with her husband.” As the R.V. shows, she must have been at least 105 years of age. For ascetic connection, cf. 1 Tim. 5:9. See also “Catholic Catechism,” No. 330. “Up to”: Engl. Revv., “even for”; American, “even unto.”

“Night and day.” Cf. Acts 26:7, and Mark 4:27, 1 Tim. 5:5. The Jewish ecclesiastical day of course began with the evening.

59a Verse 38. — “Redemption,” cf. Isa. 40:2. Note that the critical text followed by Revv., is “of Jerusalem,” i.e., Messianic deliverance.

60 Verse 39 (cf. note 44 above). — “Their own city, Nazareth.” Cf. Matt. 2:23 represented as irreconcilable with this. But Matthew must have regarded. Bethlehem in the same light as Luke, who uses the epithet in various, connections.

61 Verse 40. — See Edersheim, “Sketches of Jewish Social Life,” ch. 8.; as, Ramsay, “The Education of Christ.”

As soon as JESUS could speak, He would learn passages like Deut. vi. recited to him: at the age of five, the Hebrew characters would be learned, for the reading of Leviticus (Edersheim, p. 130), followed by the rest of the Pentateuch, the Prophets, and the poetical books in turn; when six, He would, under ordinary circumstances (see Grätz “History of the Jews,” ii. 148), have begs, attendance at the synagogue school; and when ten, He would make acquaintance with the oral law, afterward codified under the title of the “Mishna.” But opinion will probably always be divided as to whether in His ease all this realized. Cf. note 65.

62 Cf. Thirlwall, note on Schleiermacher, p. 316. The Expositor was of opinion that the adoration by the Magi took place during a subsequent visit of Joseph and Mary to Bethlehem on the occasion of a Passover: see volume on Matthew p.40.

63 Verse 42. — The Lord would now be a “son of the Law” after “confirmation” (Schor, p. 84), beginning to wear fringes and tassels, and under obligation to attend the Festivals at Jerusalem ( Ex. 23:14ff., Deut. 16:2-16)

64 Verse 43. — “Fulfilled the days”: octave (Exod. 12:18.)

65 Verse 46 ff — See notes 23 and 56 on Mark. JESUS would he independent of the subtleties of rabbinical instruction in so obscure a place as Nazareth.(Delitzsch, “Jesus and Hillel,” p. 14).) supposed Buddhist parallel to this visit to the Temple is used by Pfleiderer, “Early Christian Conception of Christ,” pp. 43-45.

“Thy father” (verse 48) In the case of a fatherless child, the person who cared for his education, we learn from a Jewish writer; was called his “father” (Gratz loc. cit.).

66 Verse 49, ff — The Lord’s first and last (John 19:30) recorded words were about the work that God had given Him to do (D. Smith)

66a “Must,” cf. 9:22, 13:33, 19:5, 24:44, “My Father’s business.” Christ’s familiarity with the Father characterized His lifelong consciousness. To the end He used the address “Abbe”: see Mark 14:36.

“Business,” Tois κ.τ.λ. So Erasmus, Calvin, Ewald, McClellan, Pfleiderer, carr, and Weymouth. Cf: 1 Tim. 4:15 and alse Irem Hær, 5:26.

Origen, Theodoret, Augustine, and most moderns take it as “House” (cf. John 2:16); so Grotius, Bengel, B. Weiss, Schanz, and Field. Mary’s word “sought” and the reply of JESUS taking up the word, are considered to Favor this rendering (cf. “the zeal of Thine House hath consumed me”). But van Oosterzee seems to be right in saying that this narrows the fullness of the expression.

Syrsin shows “with My Father.”

Dr. Whyte has a discourse on “Joseph and Mary,” in op. cit., No. LXX.

67 Verse 52. — “Favor” χάρις, is found in the Gospels elsewhere only in verse 17 of John’s “Prologue” (“grace”). Like characteristic Lucan words αre σωτηρία (note 41) and εὐαγγελίζειν (1:19, etc.).

This closes the record of the Holy Childhood as furnished by the canonical Gospel. Cf. Edersheim, “Life of Jesus the Messiah,” i, 226-234; Nicoll “The Incarnate Saviour,” chapter; and Hughes, “The Manliness of Christ,” pp. 35-60. Apocryphal accounts, like the “Gospel of Thomas,” allege working by the youthful JESUS of no less than sixteen miracles: see Orr, “Apocryphal Gospels,” p. 122. Such conduct, however, as these portray, would be “as unlovely as shocking” (Rush Rhees, p. 57).

Again, His alleged words “I am the Logos,” or “I have always been perfect” (Pseudo Matthew, chapter 18.), are on a par with such sayings put, down to young Gautama, as “the chief I am of all the world.” Contrast Matt. 11:29

Luke 3

THE dates are given in Luke reckoning from the years of the Roman empire. Judea is but a province of it, the Herods are in power. All this was a very humiliating and significant circumstance for Israel — impossible if the people had been faithful to God. But God does not hide the shame of His people; on the contrary He makes it manifest by this very fact — He gives it a record in His own eternal Word, the Word that liveth and abideth forever.

“Now, in the fifteenth year of the government of Tiberius Caesar,68 Pontius Pilate being governor of Judea, and Herod Tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip Tetrarch of Ituraea and the region of Trachonitis, and Lysanias Tetrarch of Abilene,69 in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas. We see from this that, although the high priests were there, yet even this holy office was affected strangely by the new circumstances of Israel. There was not one high priest but two;70 there was disorder that not only dislocated the people politically, but tainted their religious relations. However, God was faithful and His word “came upon71 John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness” — even in spite of these circumstances, but in the wilderness. It is no question of the city of the great King now, but of the wilderness; and John the Baptist’s dwelling in the wilderness, and the Word of God coming upon him here, speak volumes as to the real state of the holy city. It was not to Zion that the Word of God came.

Accordingly, John “came into all the district round the Jordan,72 preaching [the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins.” Repentance was what characterized John’s preaching; not but that repentance was and abides always a truth obligatory upon every sinful soul that comes to the knowledge of God. Under Christianity repentance, so far from being lessened in its character, is deepened: yet you could not say that it is characteristic of Christianity — faith is much more so. Hence in Galatians the apostle speaks of “when faith was come.” “When repentance was come” would be no description of the new thing, whereas in John the Baptist’s preaching it was the emphatic word that described the character of his message. John came therefore “preaching [the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins.” He had indeed a peculiar position. It was not law simply nor even prophets, though in truth he was the greatest of prophets; none had arisen greater than John the Baptist. But it was one who was the herald of the Messiah, Whom he proclaimed to be just at the doors — yea, in their midst, as he says — and in view of His immediate coming he calls men to repentance. It was the confession of utter failure with respect to the law and despising of the prophets, but it was also to confess their sins in view of One just coming Who could and would forgive their sins. He preached therefore “[the] baptism of repentance for [the] remission of sins.” This was not arbitrary but of Divine authority. “He that sent me to baptize with water, the same said unto me, Upon whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending and remaining on him, the same is he which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost.” He was really sent to baptize with water; but at the same time there was an intimation given to him that he should see the Spirit descending upon some special Individual — the Messiah; and that the Messiah should be a baptizer (not with water, but) with the Holy Ghost. This was his peculiar mission. Christ, and He alone, baptizes with the Holy Ghost, and this the Lord Jesus did when He went up to heaven. But John baptized upon earth with water. No doubt under Christianity baptism with water still continues and has a very important meaning, — I do not doubt a good deal deeper than John’s. It is not merely baptism unto repentance that “they should believe on him which should come after him.” But now baptism is founded on the faith of Him Who has already come and died; consequently, the great point of Christian baptism is burial (not into Christ’s life, of course, but) into His death. John could not say this; he saw a living Christ, though he spoke by the Holy Ghost of His being “the Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world.” How far he entered into the meaning of what he said is another matter. We know for certain that when he was thrown into prison himself afterward, he was somewhat offended or stumbled, and sent some of his disciples to ask, “Art thou he that should come, or do we look for another?” It is clear therefore that he looked for a Christ in power to break the chains of the oppressed and to deliver the captives, as well as to preach the Gospel to the poor. But to see a Saviour despised and rejected more and more, and himself, His forerunner, languishing in a prison, these were altogether new and strange thoughts to John the Baptist. Nevertheless God had taken care that his lips should proclaim the mighty work of Christ in both its parts, as the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world, and as the One Who baptizes with the Holy Ghost.

Now we have John the Baptist acting here according to Isaiah the prophet. “Voice of one crying in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” Only the Spirit of God in Luke takes care to give it the utmost breadth. “Every gorge shall be filled up, and every mountain and kill shall be brought low, and the crooked [places] shall become straight [paths], and the rough places smooth ways. And all flesh shall see the salvation of God.”73 We have not this elsewhere. In Matthew, Mark, and John the quotation stops short of this. But Luke, though he begins with the Jew, does not end with aim; but very decidedly goes out to all the nations. Hence expressions that would add largeness and comprehensiveness are particularly added by the Spirit here.

But another peculiarity of Luke is exemplified here also, There is not only exceeding breadth given to the ways of God, but also the Word of God in its moral power is continually enforced. So when John the Baptist speaks to the multitudes that come to be baptized of him, he warns them, as the other Evangelists do also, to flee from the wrath to come, and not to presume upon their privileges of birth, saying, “We have Abraham for [our] father74; for I say to you, that God is able of these stones to raise up children to Abraham.” Moreover, already “the ax is applied to the root of the trees”; judgment was at the door; “every tree therefore not producing good fruit is cut down, and cast into the fire.” This process was what was now going on. So far we have what is common to Luke with Matthew. But we have afterward what is peculiar. “And the crowds asked him, saying, What should we do then?” And then we have John the Baptist’s detailed exhortation to different classes of men. “He answering says to them, He that has two coats let him give to him that has none; and he that has food let him do likewise.” Although John called to repentance, it is a poor and superficial sorrow for sins that simply owns the past and judges, however strongly, the evil that has hitherto broken out in our ways. John lays down suitable conduct for those who professed to repent. God was acting Himself for His own glory in the spirit of this same grace. Repentance prepares the way for grace; it is produced by grace, of course, but at the same time it leads into a path of grace.

So also when the tax-gatherers came to be baptized, instead of dismissing them contemptuously as a mere Jew would have done, he answers their question, “Master what should we do? And he said to them, Take no more [money] than what is appointed to you.” Notoriously they, were extortioners, their rapacity was proverbial; they plundered the people of whom they were the official tax-gatherers. The soldiers similarly “asked him, saying, And we, what should we do? And he said to them, Oppress no one, nor accuse falsely; and be content with your pay.”74a It is clear that here we are warned against violence and corruption, the two great features of men left to themselves But, besides, contentedness with their pay is pressed upon them. It is remarkable how much the spirit of contentment has to do not only with the happiness of a soul but with its holiness. There is scarcely another thing that so tends to disturb our relationship with God and man as discontent. It makes an individual ripe for any evil. It helps, on a great scale, to the revolutions of nations and other social ruptures. On a smaller scale, it subverts the equilibrium of families and the right attitude of individuals as nothing else can. So we read of “unthankful, unholy” classed together by the Spirit of God. We also find unthankfulness mentioned as leading into idolatry. The Gentiles not only did not glorify God as God, but they were unthankful, and they fell into all kinds of moral depravity. There nothing mote important than to cherish a thankfulness heart, sanctifying the Lord God in our hearts, having confidence in His goodness, and also in the certainty that He has given to ourselves individually exactly the thing that is best for us. But the only way to be thus content, whatever is to look at God as dealing with us in Christ for eternity.

There is thus, under the most homely words of John the Baptist, real moral wisdom from God suitable to men’s circumstances here below. We have not here heavenly things; those are the fruit of Christ’s redemption. Nevertheless, the sketch that is given us of John the Baptist’s teaching, is eminently practical, and suited to deal with the conscience and heart. And we shall find this to be always true as we advance further in our Gospel.

John the Baptist’s appearance in Israel at this moment struck them the more, because, in consequence of Daniel’s famous prophecy of the seventy weeks, and it may be other scriptures, they were at that very time waiting for the Messiah. The expectation was general over the East, no doubt through the Jews who were scattered abroad. Therefore a man so distinguished as John the Baptist was for righteousness raised the question whether he were the Christ75 or not. But his answer was always distinct. He pointed to the fact of his own baptizing with water. This was peculiar to him and a sign to Israel. But even his (if I may so say) coming by water gave him the opportunity of contrasting One Who had come after a far different sort, even looking at power, not to speak of blood. Jesus “came by water and blood.” The point, however, that John contrasted with the water is His baptizing with the Holy Ghost. It was a Person infinitely greater than himself, One Whose dignity was such that the tie of His sandals he was not worthy to unloose; One not only mightier and more dignified, but Who would be distinguished by baptizing with the Holy Ghost and with fire — baptizing with the Holy Ghost as the fruit of His first advent, and baptizing with fire as the accompaniment of the second. When the Lord Jesus comes again, He will baptize with fire; He will execute the solemn judgment of God upon the world. Baptizing with the Holy Ghost is what makes the Church (that is, God’s present assembly) separate from the Jew even.

The Acts of the Apostles may serve to make this particularly plain. When the disciples were with the Lord after His resurrection, He spoke to them of the things concerning the kingdom, besides giving them many infallible proofs of His own life in resurrection after His suffering. Among the rest, He told them that they were not to depart from Jerusalem, hut to wait for the promise of the Father. The Lord therefore distinguished John’s from His own mission by this. He baptized with the Holy Ghost, John only with water. Accordingly not many days after this, on the day of Pentecost, the baptism of the Holy Ghost became a fact. The Lord shed forth what was then seen and heard: the Holy Ghost came upon them, and they were thus baptized (as Paul afterward taught — into one body; that is, the Church). Of the baptism with fire, you will observe, the Lord does not speak one word. The reason is that this was not to be accomplished then tiff hen John is looking onwards, he sees both, but when Christ had actually suffered on the cross, He announces the one and not the other. Baptism with fire will take place when the Lord will be revealed from heaven “in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God, and them that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ.” This is plain from vs. 17: “Whose winnowing fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his threshing floor, and will gather the wheat into his garner; but the chaff he will burn with, fire unquenchable.” This is the baptism with fires76 “Exhorting them many other things also, he announced [his] glad tidings to the people.”

Then we have in Luke’s remarkable manner a compendious description of John up to his imprisonment. “But Herod the Tetrarch being reproved by him as to Herodias the wife of his brother, and as to all the wicked things which Herod had done, added this also to all [the rest], that he shut up John in prison.” The object is to present a full picture of John77; and hence Luke does not adhere to mere time any more than Matthew does. Whatever adds to the moral description is Luke’s province. John was faithful not only to the lower classes, but also to the highest. His testimony to Christ was decisive, making nothing of his own glory in order to exalt the Lord; and he suffered for it too; he was shut up in prison because of righteousness.

And now the door is open for presenting Jesus. And it came to pass “all the people having been baptized, and Jesus having been baptized, and praying, the heaven was opened.” How lovely the picture! The Lord, perfect as He was, did not keep Himself aloof from the people. Morally separate from sinners, nevertheless their confession of sin, which was implied in their baptism, attracted the Lord’s heart, and He would be with them, though Himself absolutely sinless. The Holy Jesus also being baptized, and praying — so thoroughly was He found taking His place as the dependent Man upon earth, and while He was praying — the heavens were opened “and the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven which said, Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I have found my delight.”78 The heavens had never opened before, except in judgment when Ezekiel had seen them. But there was an object upon earth that even God could look upon with delight. There was none in heaven that was adequate to draw out and fix the attention of God; nothing could solicit His complacency: a creature could not, but Jesus, because He was not only God but perfect man, was precisely what met the love of God — of His heart. It was God’s delight to look down and see a Man Who could answer to all His affections and nature and mind and judgment about everything. This is beautiful, and shows what the grace of God is in connection with His being baptized when all the people were: Man as such knows nothing of the mind of God. As the heavens are high above the earth, so are His thoughts higher than our thoughts; and the heavens now answer to Jesus on the earth, and the Holy Ghost descends upon Him.

From the very first the Holy Ghost had to do with Jesus as man; we were told so in the first chapter, where it was said (when Mary inquired how she was to be the mother of a child) that the Holy Ghost should come upon her. But Jesus was much more than thus conceived of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost descended upon Him. This is what is called by Luke, in Acts 10:38, His anointing of God: “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power.” The anointing of the Holy Ghost was not to counteract the evil of human nature — this was already secured by His miraculous conception. There was no taint of evil whatever in the humanity of Christ; all was perfectly pure, there being a total absence of sin, sin in nature as well as in act. But now there was more than this; there was the Spirit of God poured upon Him. Him God the Father sealed, and this when He was baptized, before He entered upon His public service. It was the expression of God’s perfect delight in Him, and it was also power for service. He alone of all men needed no blood to fit Him, as it were, to be anointed with the Holy oil. I speak now after the language of Exodus and Leviticus. Others of His people would receive the Holy Ghost, but this only in virtue of blood, His atoning blood being put upon them. Where the blood was put, the oil could be. But Jesus as man receives the Holy Ghost without blood shed or sprinkled. The Holy Ghost descended upon Him in a bodily shape like a dove. I do not doubt that the outward form of the Spirit’s descent was in relation to the character of Christ, just as the cloven tongues as of fire were in relation to the place and work of the disciples on the day of Pentecost. It was not merely a tongue, but a divided tongue, showing that God was now going out to the Gentiles as well as to the Jews. It was a tongue of fire, whatever the grace; it was in the Divine judgment of all evil. But in Christ’s case there is neither of these characteristics. In bodily shape the Spirit came down like a dove, the emblem of what is proverbially pure and gentle to the last degree. “Holy, harmless; undefiled,” such was Christ.

But more than this the voice came from heaven which said, “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I have found my delight.” This voice is of all importance too. It is manifested that Jesus was the delight of God as man, not merely in consequence of a work that was going to be done; it was the Person Who was owned, and His Person too after He had identified Himself with the people who were baptized. They must not mistake nor misinterpret His baptism; it was the baptism of repentance for them, but thoroughly in grace for Him. He had nothing to own. He was about to enter upon a great work, but baptism was in no way the expression of need on His part, tor to fit Him for what He was entering upon. “Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased”―not only I am, but I have been well pleased, “have found my delight.” It is retrospective, and not present merely.

Then we have in a very remarkable manner the genealogy of Jesus introduced.79 It ought to strike any thoughtful mind that the Spirit of God must have sufficient reason for introducing it here. The natural place we might think for such an account of our Lord’s ancestry would be when He was born, or even before His birth, as we have had one in Matthew. A Jew would require it there, and has it there in the first Gospel; but here it is introduced when He is baptized. The reason is just this, that the genealogy here is brought in, not so much to show whence Jesus was naturally or rather legally, to meet the difficulties of a Jew, and to prove He was truly the Messiah according to the flesh, but to bring out the Person of Jesus on the human side as the Father had just owned Him on the Divine. Accordingly, the genealogy is very peculiar in this — that it traces him up to Adam and to God. Why so? Clearly this has nothing to do with His being the Messiah; but it is expressly to Manifest One Whose heart was toward the whole human race. It is the genealogy of grace, as Matthew’s is of law. It is not one traced down from the two great fountains of blessing for Israel, Abraham, and David, the stock of promise and the line of royalty. Here it is tracing Him up; this wonderful Person owned as the Son of God, Who is He? So the Spirit of God deigns to show that He was, as it was supposed (He was legitimately counted), the son of Joseph. This implies that the writer of the Gospel was perfectly aware that He was not a mere man, that He was not Joseph’s son except before the eyes of men. I presume that the genealogy was really Mary’s, but (Mary being Joseph’s wife) He could be “as was supposed, the son of Joseph,” and so on. This will accord with the character of the Gospel, because the Lord Jesus was not a man in virtue of His connection with Joseph, but with Mary. The reality of His manhood depended on His being the son of Mary; nevertheless He was, as was supposed, the son of Joseph, which was of Heli. Heli, as I take it, was the father of Mary; hence the genealogy here traces Him through Nathan to David; this was His mother’s line, as it appears to me. In Matthew He is derived through Solomon, which was Joseph’s line. Therefore, as the law required, it was the father who gave Him His title, and thus He had a strict legal title to the throne of David. The great point in the Jewish system was the father. Thus Matthew gives us Joseph’s royal genealogy; but Luke furnishes the maternal line through Mary. This indeed was the real one for Christ’s humanity; and the object of Luke was to attest the grace of God displayed in the Man Christ Jesus. The humanity of Christ has the largest place throughout this Gospel.

Endnotes

68 Verse 1. — “The fifteenth year.” This, according to the prevalent view, which takes the reckoning from A.U.C. 765, when Augustus made Tiberius joint-emperor, would be A.D. 26, see Ramsay, “Paul the Traveler,” p. 386 cf.; of John 2:20, according to which the first Passover of the Ministry fell in A.D. 30, forty-six years from A.U.C. 734. Philip, son of Cleopatra, and married to his niece Salome (of note on verse 19).

69 Verse 2. — “Lysanias.” Luke’s accuracy here, at one time questioned, has been confirmed by Schürer (div. i., vol. ii., Appendix 1), guided by inscriptions (cf. O. Holtzmann, p. 111). There had been another prince of the same name, who died sixty years before this (Josephus, “Antiquities,” xv. 4, 1).

70 “Annas.” He was now “Sagan,” or Deputy, although titular high priest (Acts 4:6), the designation applied to Caiaphas in John 18:13. Annas had been deposed by Valerius Gratus fifteen years earlier; but as far as the Jews were concerned his influence was but little diminished.

There is a useful plate (6.) at the end of Sanders and Fowler’s “Outlines for the Study of Biblical History and Literature,” exhibiting the political divisions of the land at this time.

71 “Came upon” (ἐγένετο ἐπί) cf. Jer. 1:1. The Baptist seems to have begun his ministry in 26 A.D.

72 “The country about Jordan,” cf. Gen. 13:10f. It is a phrase representing the depressed valley of that river.

73 Verse 4 ff. — Luke cites Isa. 40. in the LXX., including at the close a part of verse 5 there, which Box, in his recent edition of the Prophet, has left out as “superfluous, and not agreeing rhythmically with the rest of the Prologue” — a curious instance of modern subjectivity.

“All flesh” (verse 6), i.e., the main divisions of mankind — Gentiles as well as Jews (of. Acts 2:17).

“The salvation of God,” i.e., the Messianic salvation, cf. Ps.,1:23; ch. 1:69 above and John 4:22; also note 192.

74 Verse 8 f. — “We have Abraham,” etc., cf. John 8:33, 39. Montefiore confesses that his ancestors at that time “were somewhat too confident of eternal life; all Israelites except determined sinners were believed to have their share in it” (Hibbert Lectures, 1892, p. 482).

On the words “not producing good fruit,” see Maclaren, B. C. E., p. 45.

74a Verse 14. — Strange use was made of the Baptist’s words here by Pope Pius X. on the occasion of addressing a mixed company of British bluejackets, Catholic and Protestant, in May, 1908. “When it was asked,” said the Pontiff, “in Holy Scripture what it was necessary for a man to do to be saved, the answer was, that it was sufficient for him to perform the duties to which he had been born. I repeat the same thing to you” (Reuter). Could such language be frankly endorsed by Catholic any more than by Evangelical sentiment? “Oppress... falsely.” American Revv., “Extort... by violence... wrongfully.”

75 Verse 15. — Here arises another question discussed by Germans — as to when Our Lord’s Messianic claim was first asserted. The present passage harmonizes completely with John 1:19-27, as to which see note 27 in the volume for that Gospel.

76 Verse 16. — “Fire” (cf 12:49). The Expositor’s explanation may be ranged with that of Origen, Neander, van Oosterzee, B. Weiss, Schanz, and H. Holtzmann. That the reference is to inner regeneration, was the view of Grotius, Bengel, and Godet.

77 Verse 19 f — Luke here follows the manner of O.T. chroniclers. Cf. the way in which Isaac’s story is dismissed in Gen. 35:28 f.; the patriarch did not really die then. And so in 24:50 of our Gospel, which does not mean that our Lord ascended at that point.

“His brother’s,” i.e., Philip’s, Mark 7:17. Herod I. had two sons named. “Philip” (cf. note 68). The one here referred to was son of Mariamne (ibid.). Burkitt (“Earliest Sources,” p. 86) speaks of Mark’s “mistake” being “silently corrected here.” Now, while Josephus speaks of Antipas also as “Herod” (“Antiqq.,” 18:5), the Jewish historian had previously (17:32) spoken of Herod’s “son Herod Philip by the high priest’s daughter,” a passage which the Cambridge professor must have overlooked.

“Added this also to all,” so American Revv., with “them” before “all” instead of “added yet this above all,” retained by the Westminster Committee.

See Whyte, op. cit., for discourse on “John the Baptist” (LXXIII.).

78 Verse 22. — “My beloved Sun.” Rather, “my son, the Beloved” as Allen (on Matt. 3:17), treating “the Beloved” as a Divine name. Cf. note below on 9:35.

The solitary reading of “D.” “This day have I begotten thee” (see Ps. 2:7, used by Paul of the Resurrection, Acts 13:33), arose out of the second century idea that Jesus became Son of God at baptism. Connected with this is the observance in the Eastern Church of the Lord’s birth on “Epiphany” (6th January) as also commemorating His baptism. What is clear, however, is that His baptism “marked His awakening of all that was involve, in Messiahship”―a statement not weakened by the strictures of Stock (p. 58f., see Isa. 1:4ff, Fairbairn, “Studies,” p..90 f.). This leading, recognized by Augustine, but supported only by some old Latin versions — not by the Syriac of Sinai; naturally suits writers such as Pfleiderer (op. cit., p. 407; cf. Harnack, “Sayings,” p. 311f) as militating against the miraculous conception.

“In a bodily shape like a dove;” of Gen. 1:2. This phenomenon would have the more interest for Luke, because of his probable early associations; in Syria the dove was a totem.

Bishop Andrewes preached from verse 21 f., Hooker, on the Personality of the Holy Ghost, from verse 22.

79 Verse 23 ff. — ἀρχόμενος. The R.V. “began [to teach]” gives effect to the explanation of Origen, followed by Bengel, De Wette, Meyer, and Alford.

“Thirty years old,” cf. Num. 4:3, etc.

The GENEALOGY. — ὡς ἐνομίζ as He was accounted, i.e., in the eyes of the Law. The Revv. have followed Alford in making the parenthesis end with ἐνομίζετο, instead of after Ἰωσήφ, as Wieseler, amongst others, followed by the Expositor, and since by Plumptre and Gloag. The curtailed parenthesis of, course tends to produce the impression that the genealogy, like that in Matthew, is of Joseph. Several English writers (Lord A. Hervey, Alford, Farrar, etc.), with Germans such as Meyer and Hofmann, during the last fifty years have attempted to establish the Patristic view (of Origen and Jerome), which has actually encumbered the subject with needless difficulty. The difference of opinion has a curious history.

The Jews, in controversy with the early Christians, accepted that which seems to have been the primitive view, that the second of the genealogies concerns the mother of our Lord. The Talmud speaks of her as “daughter of Heli” (verse 23). They ignored Matthew’s genealogy, which seemed to them to make for our Lord’s being born in wedlock, whilst their aim — in a spirit of prejudice, and with motives of hostility — was to show that He was a child of shame. Hence Christian controversialists had recourse to the expedient of treating Luke’s genealogy also as one of Joseph; it seemed to enable them to suggest that there was a Levirate marriage on the part of Jacob or Heli, who were supposed to have been half-brothers, sons of Matthan (Matthat), i.e., the survivor of them it was thought, married the other’s widow: Euseb., “Eccl. Hist.,” 1:7, 4; of Schleiermacher, p. 56.

This necessarily hypothetical position was not overcome until the closing ears of the fifteenth century, when the original view, so obscured by anti-Jewish feeling, was revived. This has been adopted by, amongst others, Gullet, P. Weiss, Plumptre, Spence and Gloag. One objection raised to it is that put forward by De Wette (followed by Plummer), that women’s registers were not kept, but proof to the contrary is afforded by the case of Judith (8:1), whose lineage is given for fourteen generations before her father. Women were respected much more in Israel than among other nations; disparagement of them (see Jewish Prayer Book, p. 6) is due to the Talmudists. Indeed, it would be difficult to understand how the Jews in early Christian times could with any plausibility have turned Luke’s genealogy to account, had the public records, regarded males alone.

Such is the irony of events that German critics, adverse to the idea of miraculous conception, deem it expedient to regard the genealogy in Matthew as dominating interpretation of that in Luke, just as of old it happened to be Convenient for Jews to treat the second genealogy as supplying the lineage of Mary.

B. Weiss well remarks (“Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 198, note), that the Evangelist could not have committed the absurdity (in the eyes of Gentiles) of giving the genealogy of JESUS through Joseph (as Alford insists), if, as is clear he did, Luke considered Him only His foster-father’s reputed Son. Luke was not writing for Jews, and therefore was not under such limitations as Matthew.

The prophetical words in verse 23 are not those of an interpolator, as most contemporary German writers suggest, but those of Luke himself as editor: so even Renan.

Mary’s being spoken of as “of the house of David” (1:27; cf. note 26) finds its justification in this genealogy (cf. Rom. 1:3). Joseph is two scarcely mentioned: the Evangelist could not have come in contact with one so long dead. It is not Joseph’s but Mary’s hesitation that he dwells upon.

The Davidic claim (verse 31, cf. 2 Sam. 5:14, Zech. 12:12) of Solomon’s line represented by Jeconiah was barred by that king’s childlessness (Jer. 22:30), so that the succession passed to that of Nathan, represented by Salathiel, whose actual father was Neri (verse 27).

Difficulties arising from comparison of the two genealogies are due chiefly to a mistaken ecclesiastical standpoint. Any reader may see that, whilst these mechanically agree from Abraham to David, they do not from David to Jeconiah. “Rhesa” in verse 27 is now known to have not been a personal name: in Aramaic it stood for some “prince” of the captivity whose name seems to have been Abiud (Matt. 1:13), son of the most notable descendant of David since the exile — Zerubbabel. See further the helpful note of Plumptre, ad loc. in Ellicott’s “N.T. Commentary for English Readers.” “[The Son] of God” at the end bears a double sense (see verses 32 and 35 of chapter 1).

There seems never to have been any actual error discovered, as distinct from “constructive” mistake alleged, in either genealogy. Men like Celsus (circ. 150 A.D.) and Porphyry (circ. 300 A.D.) did not question them when these records had an importance which they do not possess for our age. Tatian’s omission of them altogether is an eccentricity of his “Diatessaron,” due, of course, to his difficulty in “harmonizing” them.

Reference may further be made to Gloag, p. 253 ff., and to W. Kelly’s “God’s Inspiration, etc.,” p. 61.

Luke 4

IN none of the Synoptic Gospels has the temptation a weightier place than here. Matthew confronts the Messiah with the great enemy of God’s people; and, giving the three closing acts just as they took place, reports them as they illustrate dispensation, and the great impending change, which is emphatically his theme. Mark notes the fact in its due. time, and the devotedness of the blessed Servant of God thus tempted of the devil in the wilderness, with none but the wild beasts near, till at its close, as we know also from Matthew, angels came and ministered to. Him. John characteristically omits the circumstance altogether; for it clearly attached to His being found in fashion as a man (when He emptied Himself, and took upon Him the form of a servant, and was made in the likeness of men), and not to His being God. To Luke it was of capital moment; and the Spirit, as we shall see, saw lit to arrange the order of its parts so as the better to carry out the design by our Evangelist.

Here is noted the transition from Jordan of Jesus, “full of the Holy Ghost” (vs. 1). It might not at first sight appear to be a likely path; but the more one reflects, the more one may see its wisdom and suitability. He was just baptized, sealed of the Spirit, and, above all, owned by the Father as His beloved Son, forthwith led in the Spirit in the wilderness; and there He was forty days tempted of the devil.80 The principle is true of us too. Sons of God by the faith of Jesus, and consciously so by the indwelling of the Holy Ghost, we too know what it is to be tempted by the devil. Temptation is hardly the way in which the devil deals with his children; but when we are delivered, such conflicts begin.

The first in order, and this in Matthew too, is the appeal to natural wants. “And in those days he did not eat anything; and when they were finished, he hungered. And the devil said to him, If thou be Son of God, speak to this stone that it become bread.”81 The Lord at once takes the lowliest ground, really the most elevated morally, that the sustenance of nature is not the first consideration, but living by the Word of God. He waits for a word from Him Whose will He was come to do. He refuses even in His hunger to take a single step in the way of satisfying His sinless wants without Divine direction. The true and only right place of man is dependence; and He having become a man, would not swerve from the dependence which referred to God instead of following wishes of His own: indeed, His will was to do God’s will. “And Jesus answered unto him, saying, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God”/81a (vs. 4). Such was the true estate of man, and his right relation to God; and Jesus therein abode, in circumstances of the greatest trial, the bright, contrast of the first Adam, who left it where all circumstance were in his favor.

Historically Israel were so tried and failed totally, spite of that constant lesson in the daily manna of their dependence on God and of His unfailing care of them. They hardened their hearts, not hearing His voice; so that forty years long Jehovah was grieved with that generation, and said, “It is a people that do err in their heart, and they have not known my ways.” But the heart of Jesus was toward His Father, and He, with the full power of the Spirit, refused to supply even the most legitimate wants of the body, save in obedience. “My meat,” as He said later, “is to do the will of him that sent me.”

The next here (the third in Matthew, and, as I believe, in the order of occurrence) is the worldly appeal. “And [the devil] leading him up into a high mountain, sheaved him all the kingdoms of the habitable world in a moment of time. And the devil said to him, I will give thee all this power, and the glory, for it is given up to me,82 and to whomsoever will I give it. If, therefore, thou wilt do homage before me, all shall be thine. And Jesus answering him said, It is written, Thou shalt do homage to the Lord thy God, and him alone shalt thou serve” (vss. 5-8). The best authenticated text leaves out of the Lord’s answer to the devil “Get thee behind me, Satan; for.” And a little reflection shows that, as the external authority demands this omission, so it seems necessarily to follow from the change of order in which Luke was, I doubt not, guided of God. For the vulgarly received text would give the strange appearance that the Lord told the adversary to get behind or go away, while Satan is represented as staying where he was and tempting the Lord after a new sort. Omit these words, and all flows on in exact connection with the context. Internal evidence is thus in harmony with the external.

In Matthew where the words occur in the third place,83 as in fact it was so, the command to get hence is followed by the devil leaving Him. Thus all is as it should be. In Luke where the transposition occurs, the necessity for omitting the clause is evident; and so it was.

The Lord rebuts the worldly temptations by insisting, according to the written Word, on worshipping the Lord God and serving only Him. Homage to Satan is incompatible with the service of God.

Lastly comes the religious trial. “And he led him to Jerusalem,84 and set him on the edge of the temple,85 and said to him. If thou be Son of God, cast thyself down hence, for it is written, He shall give charge to his angels concerning thee to keep thee; and on their hands they shall bear thee up, lest in any wise thou strike thy foot against a stone. And Jesus answering said to him, It is said, Thou shalt not tempt [the] LORD thy God”. Herwas with hime the devil would separate the way from the end, omitting this part of the psalm which he cites. The Lord replies with the saying in Scripture, “Thou shalt not tempt the LORD thy God.” To trust Him and count on His gracious ways is not to tempt. The Israelites tempted Jehovah by questioning whether He was in their midst or not; they ought to have reckoned on His presence, and succor, and care. Jesus did not need to prove the faithfulness of God to His own Word; He was sure of it and counted on it. He knew that Jehovah would give His angels charge over Him, and this not outside, but to keep Him in all His ways. Thus foiled in his misuse of Scripture, as everywhere else, the enemy could do no more then. “And the devil having completed every temptation, departed from him for a time.”86 Jesus, the Son of God, was victorious, and this in obedience, by the right use of the written Word of God.

It is important to notice that the temptation in the wilderness preceded the active public life of the Lord, as Gethsemane preceded His death in atonement for our sins. It is an utterly false notion that this defeat of Satan in the wilderness was the basis of our redemption. Such, I believe, is Milton’s view in his “Paradise Regained.” But this theory makes victory to be the means of our deliverance from God instead of suffering, and gives consequently the all-importance to living energy, rather than to God’s infinite moral or judicial dealing with our sins on the cross; it puts life in the place of death, and shuts out or ignores expiation. The real object and connection of the temptation is manifest, when we consider that it is the prelude to the Lord’s public life here below, in which He was continually acting on His victory over Satan. When the enemy came again at Gethsemane, it was to turn the Lord aside through the terror of death, and specially of such a death as His on the cross. In the wilderness, and on the mountain, and on the pinnacle of the temple (for there were three different sites and circumstance of this temptation) it was to draw him away from the path of God by the desirable things of the world.

But however this may be, Jesus now returns in the power of the Spirit into Galilee: “and a rumor went out into the whole surrounding country about him. And he taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all.”87 This is the general description, I apprehend; but the Spirit of God singles out a very special circumstance which illustrates our Lord in the great design of this Gospel. It is peculiar to Luke.88 “He came to Nazareth [Nazara], where he was brought up: and he entered, according to his custom, into the synagogue on the sabbath day, and stood up to read.89 And the book of the prophet Esaias was given to him. And having unrolled the book, he found the place where it was written.” It was, in fact, the beginning of Isaiah 61.90 This is the more remarkable because the connection of the prophecy is the total ruin of Israel, and the introduction of the kingdom of God and His glory when judgment takes its course. Yet in the midst of this these verses describe our Lord in the fullness of grace. There is no prophet so evangelical, according to ordinary language, as Isaiah; and in Isaiah there is no portion perhaps of the whole prophecy that so breathes the spirit of the Gospel as these very verses. Now what can be more striking than that this should be read on that occasion by Christ, and that the Spirit of God gives Luke alone to record it? Our Lord takes the book and reads, stopping precisely at the point where mercy terminates. It is the description of His grace in ministry; it is not so much His Person as His devoted life, His work, His ways on earth. In fact, it is pretty much what we have in Acts 10 “How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” Immediately after in the prophecy follows “the day of vengeance of our God.” But our Lord does not read these words. Is not this, too, extremely remarkable, that our Lord should stop in the middle of a verse, and read what describes His grace and not what touches on His judgment? Why is this? Because He is come only in grace now. By and by He will come in judgment, and then the other verses of the prophecy will be accomplished. Then it will be both the year of His redeemed when He will bless them, and the day of vengeance when He will execute judgment upon their enemies.

Meanwhile, all that He was about to do in Israel for the present was only gracious activity in the power of the Spirit. To this accordingly God had anointed Him — “to preach glad tidings to [the] poor; he hath sent me [to heal the brokenhearted], to preach to captives deliverance, and to [the] blind sight, to send forth [the] crushed delivered” — and this is what He was to preach — “[the] acceptable year of [the] LORD.”91 “And he rolled up the book.” Now nothing, it is plain, can inure aptly suit the object of the Spirit of God in Luke, who is the only writer inspired to record this. All through the Gospel, this is what He is doing. It is the activity of grace among men’s misery and sins and need.92 By and by He will tread the winepress alone, He will expend the fury of the Lord upon His adversaries; but now it is unmingled mercy. Such was Jesus upon the earth, and so Luke describes Him throughout. No wonder therefore that He closed the book. This was all that was needful or true to say about Him now; the rest will be proved in its own time. The judgment of God in the second advent is as true as the grace of God that He has been showing in the first advent.

Another thing, too, is remarkable and proved by this. It is that the whole state of things since Christ was upon the earth till the second advent is a parenthesis. It is not the accomplishment of prophecy, but the revelation of the mystery that was hid in God that is now brought to view. Prophecy shows us Christ’s first and second advents together; but what is between the two advents is filled up by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven, Who is forming the Church wherein there is neither Jew nor Gentile. Prophecy always supposes Jew and Gentile. The Church is founded upon the blotting out of this distinction for the time being. It is during the period when Israel does not own the Messiah, which stretches over all the interval between the two advents of Christ, that this new and heavenly work proceeds.

The Lord therefore stopped dead short, and closed the book. When He comes again, He will, as it were, open the book where He left off 92a Meanwhile, His action was exclusively in grace. The Lord draws their particular attention to this; for when He returns the book to the officer who has it in charge, He sits down. People were all gazing at Him in wonder, He tells them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your ears.”

But unbelief at once betrays itself. “Is not this the son of Joseph?” They could not deny the grace,93 but they contemn His person: “He was despised and rejected of men.” In point of fact, unbelief is always blind; He was not Joseph’s son,94 except legally — He was God’s Son. “And he said to them, Ye will surely say to me this parable, Physician, heal thyself:95 whatsoever we have heard has taken place in Capernaum, do here also in thine own country.” His answer to their thought was, that “No prophet is acceptable in his [own] country.”96 Nevertheless grace shines out all the more because Christ was rejected. It is remarkable that He does not vindicate Himself by power; He does not work any miracles to make good the rights of His own person, but appeals to the Word of God, the Old Testament Scriptures, for what suited the present time. “Of a truth, I say to you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elias, when the heaven was shut up three years and six months,97 so that a great famine came upon all the land; and to none of them was Elias sent, but to Sarepta of Sidon, to a woman [that was] a widow.” Grace, therefore, when Israel rejects (and they were doing so now), goes out to the Gentiles. Sidon was under the special judgment of God, and there was a widow there, reft of all human resources, and she was the one to whom God sent His prophet in the days of deep distress. When Israel themselves were suffering from a terrible famine, God opened stores for the desolate woman in Sidon. Thus grace goes outside His guilty people. So, too, in the time of Elisha the prophet. Many lepers were in Israel, “and none of them was cleansed, but Naaman the Syrian.” Grace is sovereign; and in the days of Jewish unbelief Gentiles are blessed. This Scripture showed; and how beautiful this was and in keeping with Luke! It paves the way for the going forth of the Gospel. When Israel rejected the Lord Jesus, the grace of God must work among the Gentiles, among those who least expect and deserve mercy. How did the men of, Nazareth relish this? They were “filled with rage, and rising up, they cast him forth out of the city, and led him up to the brow of the mountain upon which their city was built, so that they might throw him down the precipice.” This is the expression of the hatred which follows rejection of grace. When self-righteous men are convicted of wrong without feeling their guilt against God, there are no bounds to their resentment; and the enmity of their hearts is most of all against Jesus.

The result of the Lord’s first appearance at Nazareth in the synagogue was that, though He Himself characterized His ministry from the Word of God, or rather the Spirit of God had already anticipated it as He then openly proclaimed it, as being the ministry of grace, by reading this scripture and declaring that it was that day fulfilled in their ears, man soon turns from it in anger and dislike. Attracted at first, he revolted from it afterward, because grace both tells out the ruin of man, and always insists on going out wherever there is need and misery. Nevertheless, the Lord did not make it plainly known that grace should go out to the Gentiles till their rejection of. Himself began to manifest itself. And now the same men who were so smitten with the charm of grace at first were ready to turn upon Him and cast Him down headlong from “the brow of the mountain upon which their city was built. But he, passing through the midst of them, went his way.”98 His time was not yet come.

He “came down to Capernaum, a city of Galilee,101 and taught them on the Sabbaths. And they were astonished at his doctrine; for his word was with authority.” 102 This was what Jesus showed. It was not first miracles and then glory, but the truth of God. The Word, not a miracle, forms a connecting link between the soul and God; no miracle can do this — nothing but the Word of God. For the Word addresses itself to faith, while a miracle is done as a sign to unbelief. But as God produces faith by the Word, so He also nourishes it by the Word. This proves the immense value of the Word of God; and Christ’s word was with authority.

“And there was in the synagogue a man having a spirit of an unclean demon.”103 This is the first great work that is recorded in Luke. Our Lord seems already to have done mighty deeds in Capernaum (that is, in this very place) before He went to Nazareth: but Luke begins with Nazareth, in order to characterize His ministry by that wonderful description in the Word of God which opens out grace to man. Now we find Him in Capernaum, and the first miracle recorded of Him here, whilst He was teaching in the synagogue, was the cure of a man possessed with a spirit of an unclean demon which had the consciousness of the power of Jesus. For the demoniac cried out, “Eh! what have we to do with thee, Jesus, Nazarene? 104 Hast thou come to destroy us? I know thee who thou art; the Holy [One] of God.” It is remarkable here and elsewhere, the “I” and the “we” — the man himself, and yet the identification with the evil spirit. Moreover, this possessed man says, “I know thee who thou art; the Holy [One] of God.” This appears to be the same character in which Psalms 89 speaks of Christ, where it says, “Jehovah is our shield; and the Holy One of Israel our King” (vs. 18). It is a psalm full of interest because the Holy One there is the sole groundwork of the hopes of the people, as well as the stay of the house of David, otherwise ruined. It is just the same thing in our Gospel, save that Luke goes out more widely. The point of Psalms 89 is that every hope depends on Him. Israel have come to nothing; the glory has waned, and at length departed; the throne is cast down to the ground. But then He is the King, and therefore it is perfectly secured.

The shame of God’s servants shall be removed, and their enemies shall surely be put to perpetual reproach, after the downfall of their pride, and all the painful discipline that the people of Israel shall pass through.

Here the unclean spirit prompts the man to acknowledge Jesus as this Holy One. But He refused such testimony; He did not, even receive the witness of men, how much less of demons! “Jesus rebuked him, saying, Hold thy peace, and come out from him. And the demon, having thrown him down105 into the midst, came out from him without doing him any injury. And astonishment106 came upon all, and they spoke to one another, saying, What word [is] this! for with authority and power he commands the unclean spirits, and they come out. And a rumor went out into every place of the country round concerning him.” He has thus shown that the power of Christ must first put down Satan (but not without, a certain allowed humiliation for man); that this is the chief evil which pollutes and oppresses the world; and that until the day Satan’s power is expelled it is no good to expect full deliverance. We must go to the source of the mischief. This, therefore, is the earliest of the miracles of — Christ brought before us by Luke.107

But then there is also compassion — deep and effectual pity for men. So our Lord, when He leaves the synagogue, goes into the house of Simon.108 “And Simon’s wife’s mother was suffering108a under a great109 fever, and they besought him for her. And, standing over her, he rebuked the fever, and it left her; and immediately standing up, she served them.” Not only was there power to dismiss the disease with a word, but there was, contrary to all nature, strength communicated to her. A “great” fever leaves a person, even when it is gone, exceedingly weak, and a considerable time must elapse before usual vigor returns. But in this case, as the healing was the fruit of Divine power, Peter’s wife’s mother not only arose, but served them immediately.

The same evening, “when the sun went down, all they that had persons sick with divers diseases brought them to him; and having laid his hands on every one110 of them, he healed them.” It made no difference. It was not only that He could cure the fever, but He could cure everything. “He laid his hands on every one of them, and healed them.” Another thing to be noticed is the manner of it, the tenderness of feeling — He laid His hands on them. This was in no way necessary; a word would have been enough, and the Lord often employed nothing more than a word. But here He shows His human compassion — He laid His hands upon them and healed them. Demons also came out of many, but we find Him here keeping up the testimony to man of the power that Satan had in the world. There are few things more injurious to men than forgetfulness of the power of Satan. At the present time there is exceeding unbelief on the subject. It is regarded as one of the obsolete delusions of the past. But we find most clearly demons going out of many, not in any one peculiar case, “crying out, and saying, Thou art the Son of God.” These acknowledge the Lord, not as the Holy One of Psalms 89, but as the Anointed One, the Son of God, of Psalms 2. He was the King of Israel in both cases. But the Lord accepted not their testimony in any instance. He really was the Holy One and the Son of God, but it was from God that He took His title, and recognition by the demons He refuses. “They knew that He was the Christ.”111 What a solemn thing to find that man is even more obdurate than Satan! for the demons were more willing to acknowledge Jesus than the men even who were delivered here from the demons, and who were healed of all their diseases. Man for whom Jesus came! What a proof of the incurable unbelief of man, and the certain ruin of those who refuse the Son of God! Devils believe and tremble. Man, even when he does believe with his natural heart, does not tremble. He may believe, but he is insensible in his belief. Can such faith save him? The only faith that is good for anything is that which brings the sinner in his need and ruin before God, and which sees God in infinite mercy giving His Son to die for him. Anything short of this ends in destruction; and so far from natural faith bettering a man, it only brings out his evil, and turns to corruption the more speedily. It is a kind of complimenting the Son of God, instead of a lowly and a true owning of man’s own condition and God’s grace.

But there is another thing which this chapter brings before us — namely, that our Lord departed112 when it was day “into a desert place; and the crowds sought after him, and came up to him, and [would have] kept him back113 that he should not go from them. But he said to them, I must needs announce the glad tidings of the kingdom of God to the other cities also; for for this I have been sent forth. And he was preaching in the synagogues of Galilee.”/114 The great object of the coming of Christ was to preach God’s kingdom;115 it was bringing God and God’s power before men — God’s power visiting man in mercy. No healing of diseases or expulsion of demons could satisfy the Lord. And when He had by His miracles attracted attention in any place, it was the more reason for His going to another. He did not seek His own fame; another Should come in his own name who would. But for our Lord Jesus to attract A name was a reason for departure, not for staying.

Endnotes

80 Verses 1-13. — The TEMPTATION.

“By the Spirit.” Luke has ἐν τῷ πνεύματι (American Revv., “in the S.”); Matthew, ὐπό τοῦ πνεύματος. Comparison of the Evangelists suffices for exclusion, of any such idea as the Unitarian, that the Lords own spirit alone is here meant, according to which the conflict must have been purely mental. “In the Spirit” means “in the power of.” Cf. its use in 11:15, and Weymouth there.

If there were no personal devil (verse 2), then our Lord would have been tempted from within (Norris); and this is what the suggestion comes to — made, amongst others, by J. Weiss (p. 5l) — that it was a mere vision like that in Ezek. 8:3, or Isa. 6, or 2 Cor. 12:1-4. Cf. note on 22:31.

There are three sermons on this subject by Adolphe Monod, and all “Exposition” by Maclaren (vol. i., pp. 78-85).

81 Verse 3. — Note the order: Body, Mind, Spirit (most subtle). Edersheim records the then popular notion that Messiah would feed His people, as Moses did, with manna. Cf. the miraculous feeding of thousands, with Ps. 103:5, 105:40, 132:15, each time of Jehovah.

81a Verse 4 ff. — Luke’s; as compared with Matthew’s, statement shows abbreviated quotation of Deut. 8:3.

Dr. Arnold preached from verse 4, on Fasting.

With verse 5 f. cf. John 8:44, 2 Thess. 2:11.

82 Verse 6.― Cf. John 12:31, 14:30; Rev. 12:3.

83 Verse 7f. ―The difference of order (see note 81) from that in Zahn would explain by supposing that what JESUS told His disciples about it they repeated differently from memory (“Introduction,” ii., 403 German): but such an exposition as W. Kelly’s is more in accordance with the inspiration of the Evangelist. Zahn shares Alford’s idea that Luke could not have had Matthew’s account before him.

“It is written.” Bettex sententiously remarks, “Satan is silent. For idle there is no Biblical criticism” (“The Book of Truth” p. 125).

84 Verse 9. — “Jerusalem” represents Matthew’s “holy city,” in keeping with the distinction (B. Weiss) between our Evangelist’s use in the original Greek (e.g., at 1:22), cf. Hierosolyma and Jerusalem. Ramsay’s discrimination of “geographical” and “hieratical” (as here) would render a reference to “different sources” (Weiss) quite needless.

85 “Edge,” πτερύγιον, a word common to both Evangelists recording this, end at the same time peculiar. Weiss deems conclusive for his theory of a common source (“Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 100).

Norris: “Faith allied to self-will passes into presumptuous fanaticism.”

86 Verse 13. — “Season.” Wesley (as the Expositor) takes this referable to the scene in Gethsemane (22:53). The other view, according to which our Lord was more or less subject to Satan’s subtle enmity in this way throughout has been based on ch. 22:28. But indeed the form of the Greek, “every temptation,” shows that no form of testing set forth in 1 John 2:16 can be excluded. Cf. John 6:15, Mark 8:11, Matt. 16:23.

As to the Lord’s incapacity for sin, see Trench, “Studies in the Gospels,” p. 28.

For the Buddhist parallel adduced (as by Pfleiderer, “Early Conception, etc.,” pp. 51-53), see “Sacred Books of the East,” iv. p. 204.

A difficulty is sometimes raised about no one having witnessed this scene. There is none, however, in supposing that the Lord communicated it to Iris disciples, if not during the Ministry (Garvie suggests, at Cæsarea Philippi), at least during the forty days before His Ascension.

Sermons on the Temptation have been preached by, amongst others, Dither (p. 299), Bishop Andrewes (series of seven), and G. Whitefield.

Between this and the next verse a place may be found for events recorded in John 1:19-4:42, in the interval, that is, between the Temptation and the Galilean ministry of Mark’s framework., This would seem to have embraced visit to Galilee before the imprisonment of the Baptist, and a return to Judæa tor ministry there, with (Briggs suggests, p.1) the sons of Zebedee.

87 Verse 14 f. ― Reference may be made here to Farrar on “Jesus as He lived in Galilee,” “Life of Christ,” chapter 22.; and for Synagogues, to Edersheim, “Jewish Social Life,” chapter 16. f.

As Stock says, it is not likely that any of the teaching (cf. verse 31) here referred to preceded that at Nazareth (verse 16 ff.). He helpfully compares Matt. 4:13 (p. 70).

88 Verses 16-30. — Upon the question whether Christ was twice rejected at Nazareth, consult Rush Rhees, p. 292f.

89 Verse 17. — This affords illustration of the Lord’s familiarity, by training, with the Hebrew Scriptures. Synagogue rolls were not in Aramaic. A Haftara, or section of the Prophets, was read on Sabbath after the reading of the Law.

90 Verse 18. — The quotation is made up of Isa. 61. and 58:6.

“Anointed,” see Zech. 4:6, 14. “Thus early did He claim to be Messiah” (Stalker, p. 131). Prophecy prepared men for a Messiah working miracles, of ch. 11:20.

Henry Venn preached from verse 181., on “The Work of Christ.”

91 Verse 19. — “Acceptable year of [the] LORD,” cf. 2 Cor. 6:2. As to the break between the “acceptable year” and the “day of vengeance” in Isa. 61:2, see note below on 21:25.

A question that has been discussed since the Patristic period is, of what duration was our Lord’s ministry? The present verse was of old supposed to indicate thrift the Synoptic ministry lasted only one year.

The Synoptists nowhere say that the ministry extended over only a single year. On the other hand, when Jülicher says that it is “childish” to use 13:7 of this Gospel in support of a three years’ ministry, it would be none the less so understand the present passage as so limiting it. By comparison of the third and the last Gospels, we may venture to say that the

First Passover (John 2:13) synchronizes with Luke 4:13, A.D. 26-27

Second. (John 5:1) “ “ 5. „ 27-28

Third (John 6:4) “ “ 9. “ 28-29

Origen, Jerome, and Augustine, allowing for a Fourth Passover in John’s Gospel (cf. note 53 on John), concluded that the period was from three years to three years and a half. Turner (art. “Chronology of the New Testament” in Hastings’ “Dict. of the Bible”) makes it “between two and three years.”

Blass has observed that Mark (Peter) would not so readily report in Jerusalem what had happened there, as that which the Jerusalemites could net know. Similarly Matthew, and also Luke if he composed any part of his Gospel in Judæa. With reference to 13:34, the Halle Professor has written: “It is John who first clears up the passage and justifies it” (Expository Times, July, 1907). Luther and Lightfoot had already made use of it.

92 Verse 21. — Here is the Lord’s first direct statement to Israelites of His Messianic claims: of John 4:26. See Whyte, “Walk, Conversation, and Character of Jesus Christ our Lord,” chapter 10; “Our Lord’s First Text”; also chapter 29, “Our Lord and the Bible.” Frennsen, a recent German revolutionary writer, has made use of this passage of Luke in his “Holy Land,” chapter 26. (E. T., p. 315). C. Kingsley’s sermon, “The Message of the Church to Laboring Men” is from this passage.

92a Cf. Rev. 5, 6.

93 Verse 22. — “Words of grace,” cf. Ps. 45:2. Westcott: “To substitute gracious words [A.V.] would be to obscure the truth” (“Some Lessons, etc.,” p. 33): cf. Acts 14:3; 20:32.

94 “Joseph’s son.” Mark, although reliance is placed on 4:3 of his Gospel for modern denial of the Virgin Birth (cf. note 57 on Mark, note 30 above, and see Wright, “Introduction to Synopsis, etc.,” p. 41.), speaks of the “carpenter, the Son of Mary,” whilst Luke, who is discredited when he records it as a miraculous event, in his parallel to Mark has the above description. It would be absurd to have to suppose that Joseph is regarded as dead at the point of the narrative of the one Evangelist, but still alive by the other. Again, it is in Luke that we meet with “His parents” and “Thy father.” Accordingly, critics can but conceive editorial variations in each Gospel, all of which suggestions (e.g., Wright’s “Trito-Mark”) must be taken for what they are worth. Anything like proof in the sense of our English High Court of Justice (see note 56 on Mark, ad fin.) is rare indeed.

95 Verse 23. — For this proverb (“parable”), see Talmud, “Bereshith Rabba,” sect. 23. It is still current amongst Jews in the form “He is a physician for others, not for Himself.”

“Capernaum.” It would not require the training of a critic to see that, front the reference to great deeds there, this section is out of chronological order.

96 Verse 24. — There is a clear instance of our Lord’s repeated use of the same proverb: see John 4:44.

“Our country.” Cf. Matt. 19:1, and see note on ch. 2:3 above.

97 Verse 25. — “Three years and six months,” as in James 5:17: cf. 1 Kings 18:1. The period of drought may have been so stated according to a symbol of misfortune (Dan. 12:7); so De Wette, followed by Weiss.

98 Verse 30. — Here is another link with the Gospel of John (9:59).

99 Verses 31-37. — From here to 7:16, Luke’s account is in close touch with that of Mark: see Harnack’s “Luke the Physician,” p. 87

100 Marcion’s recension of Luke begins here. He passed over the Baptist as one belonging to the Old Dispensation. Marcion may be regarded as the fiat Biblical critic (Harnack, “History of Dogma,” pp. 237-240; cf. Bebb, art. in Hastings’ “Dict. of Bible,” and Burkitt, chapter 9). What we know of pine (cf. notes 14, 17, above) comes chiefly from Tertullian, Adv. Marc. v., and Epiphanius, Hær. 42. Irenæus says that he “mutilated the Scriptures ... curtailing the Gospel according to Luke and the Epistles of Paul” (3:12, 12) Semler suggested that our Gospel and Marcion’s were compiled from the same original source; and after his time arose the idea that the Gospel according to Luke was an expansion of that used by Marcion; but critics seem now all to have returned to the old view. The passages omitted by this Gnostic et: enumerated in Gloag’s work.

Marcion’s system was strongly Anti-Jewish; he questioned our Lord, speaking as in Matt. 5:17 (Tertullian., Adv. Marc. 4:7, 5:14; but of Luke 16:17). The third Gospel was the only elm that he seems to have recognized; and the use which he made in connection with it of some of the Pauline Epistles, may have sustained the impression that there is a strong Pauline cast upon Luke’s record. See Godet, “New Testament Studies,” p. 44. This Pauline coloring has been specially investigated by Resch in vol. 12. (1904) of the New Series of Monographs edited by Gebhardt and Harnack (see in particular p. 571, ff. of his Dissertation). Cf. Swete, “St. Paul assimilated that side of our Lord’s teaching which this Gospel has specially preserved” (“Studies in the Teaching of our Lord,” p. 119). It is generally admitted that there are passages in LUKE alien to parts of the Epistles, e.g., 12:35 compared with Eph. 6:14; 18:1 with 2 Thess. 1:11; 21:34 with 1 Thess. 5:3; 29:34 with 1 Cor. 15.; whilst chapter 21 may be read throughout alongside of 1 Thess. 5. As for 10:7 (cf. 1 Tim. 5:18 and 1 Cor. 9:14) see note there. The Expositor, it will be seen, compares Luke’s Gospel with the Epistle to the Romans.

The attempt of H. H. Evans to establish Paul’s authorship of this Gospel and of the Book of Acts (1884), although it has been commended by some German writers, seems to have attracted little attention in this country. Evans brought out the interesting fact that of 1750 words peculiar, to LUKE amongst the Evangelists, one-half are found in Paul’s Epistles; also that 250 words occurring in both this Gospel and the Acts are not to be found elsewhere in the New Testament outside the Apostle’s writings (p. 20f.; cf. note 29 above).

The interest of this subject now lies in its connection with the cry “Back to Christ!” expressed by Carpenter as “transfer of the center of interest from Paul to Christ” (“The Bible in the Nineteenth Century,” p. 341), as if the Reformers were not radical enough in contenting themselves with recovery of Pauline truth (and that, as the Expositor would have said, to a very limited extent). It is true that our Lord’s teaching was “the word of the beginning of the Christ” (Heb. 6:1), and that Luke “had in mind the Lord Jesus Christ as the risen Saviour” (Bruce, Introduction to “Expositor’s Greek Testament,” i.); but, as Fairbairn has said, “What gives to the Gospels their peculiar significance is that they are lives of Jesus by men who believed that Christ had created Christianity. The struggle of the modern spirit is to get behind the faith of the Evangelists and read the history they wrote with the vision they had before their eyes were opened” (“Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 306); cf. note 30, ad. fin. (Wellhausen).

101 “Capernaum,” cf. note on verse 23. See Delitzsch, “A Day in Capernaum.” Matt. 4:13 tells us that it became the Lord’s place of residence, so far as He had one, in Galilee. Cf. note 22 on Mark (“His own city”).

102 Verse 32. — Cf. 1 Cor. 1:18, and note on Mark 1:22, besides that on 5:17 below.

103 Verse 33. — “Spirit of unclean demon”; cf. 6:18; 11:24, “unclean spirit.” Lightfoot (Horn; Hebr., on 13:11, “spirit of infirmity”) records a distinction made between spirits causing disease and “evil spirits,” occupied with sorcery and accordingly called “unclean.” Probably Luke’s “unclean” was adapted to Gentile thought, for that recognized a distinction between good and bad “demons.” Zech. 13:2 and Rev. 16:13f. show the connection of unclean spirits with false prophets.

Renan speaks of the wilderness as “haunted according to popular belief by demons.” Of, however, Maurice, “Not in deserts, but in places of concourse, in the synagogues we hear of them.” “Let its fly from superstitions,” says the critic. “We do not hear less of spirits... in this day than in former days. I do not perceive that even scientific men can point to deliverance from a superstition... not a few succumb,” etc. (p. 6211). A notable instance was Lord Herbert of Cherbury, a deistical apostle of “the philosophy of common sense” who looked for a sign if he was to publish his “Tractatus de Veritate.” Of course, he heard a sound from heaven such as he desired.

104 Verse 34. — “Nazarene,” see note on John 18:5. “Matthew,” writes Weiss, “always has Nazarean, Luke nearly always has Nazarene” (“Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 12).

105 Verse 35. — “Having thrown him down.” This does not conflict with Mark’s tearing him; the convulsions left no evil effect (Darby-Smith).

106 Verse 36 — The word θάμβος is peculiar to Luke (v. 9; Acts: 3:10 “Wonder”).

107 Verse 37. — This miracle is one of the seven performed on Sabbaths, the rest of which are — in verse 38 here, 6:6 ff., 13:10 ff., 14:1, and two in John (5:9 ff., and 9:1 ff.).

The temper of our age is, of course, adverse to MIRACLE. No “intelligent man” is expected any longer to rest the truth of Christianity at all upon operation in times past of “the powers of the age to come,” at the dawn of which Christ’s words in 18:8 of this Gospel will have their application. We may not be far off that time now. The American Professor Foster writes: “An intelligent man who now affirms his faith in miraculous narratives like the Biblical, can hardly know what intellectual honesty means” (p. 132). But do not sensible men in all countries correct their logic by their experience? el, Kaftan, “The Truth of the Christian Religion,” vol. ii., p. 130 f.; also Orr, “The Bible under Trial,” p. 152. indeed, Ritschl, with all his dislike of metaphysics, has said: “Everyone will meet the miraculous in his own experience” (“Instruction in the Christian Religion,” p. 189, note. cf. Wesley’s note on Mark 16:18; it seems to have been derived from Bengel’s Gnomon, “Even at this day in every believer faith has a latent miraculous power.” Those who imagine that belief in miracle is not essential to Christianity, if consistent, must surrender prayer in the Christian sense. Huxley has amended Hume’s argument upon miracles, which in his revised form — consonant with the views of J. S. Mill — makes it all a question of evidence, whilst it is by the aid of Hume’s own philosophy that Fairbairn has criticized the eighteenth-century writer’s treatment of the subject (“Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 25 ff.).

Harnack, in an unwonted manner, goes almost into rhapsody over the sure ground afforded by agreement of “Q” with Mark (“Sayings,” p. 249). It is certain that “Q,” if ever it existed, harmonized with the same canonical gospel as regards the large amount of Christ’s “supernatural energy” — this is generally conceded.

A medical writer in the Hibbert Journal (April, 1907) has confessed that many of the disorders recorded could not have been cured by moral therapeutics (auto-suggestion).

The Biblical miracles seem to have closed with the incidents of the last chapter of the Acts, when Paul definitely gave up his testimony to the Jews, for whom they were intended (cf. 1 Cor. 1:22), in Fulfillment of Isaiah. Contrast the cast of Epaphroditus (Phil. 2:25 ff.): “Why did not the Apostle heal him?” (cf. Sir R. Anderson, “The Silence of God,” p. 57f.)

Besides Butler’s “Analogy,” part 2, chapters 2, 7, in this connection, the following recent literature well repays consultation: — Mozley’s Bampton Lecture, (6th ed., 1883), Westcott’s “Gospel of Life” (chapter 7.), Sanday’s “The Life of Christ in Recent Research” (section 8.), Boyd Kinnear’s “The Foundation of Religion” (chapter 10.), Dr. Jas. Drummond’s “The Miraculous in Christianity” — candid like all that he writes — Bettex’s “Modern Science and Christianity” (E. T., 1903), pp. 162-185; and not least Dr. L. von Gerdtell’s pamphlet on “Miracles before the Forum of Modern Thought” (still only in German; see note 52 on John and the Christian of 12th Oct., 1911, p. 17). For the connection of the transcendent character of JESUS with His miracles, see Rush Rhees, pp. 249-269.

An extract from Illingworth may close this note: “Miracles flow naturally from a Person... at home in two worlds.... We cannot separate the wondaful life, or the wonderful teaching, from the wonderful works. They involve and interpenetrate and presuppose each other” (“Divine Immanence,” p. 90.)

There is a classification of the Lucan Miracles in Westcott, “Introduction to the Study of the Gospels,” p. 392f. See further, notes 27 and 58 on Mark.

108 Verse 38. — Another illustration (cf. note on verse 23) of Luke’s non-chronological order; nothing hitherto has been said about Simon, who is introduced abruptly.

108a Verse 39. — For the compound imperfect in the creek, cf. verse 44 and v. 16f. See also note 108 on Mark.

109 An instance of the Evangelist’s special medical knowledge (cf. note 2). “Great fever” describes typhus. See again 8:41 etc.

110 Verse 40. — Cf. Mark 1:32, where critics pounce upon “many” as if improved upon here by “all,” “every one.” Mark may mean “many they were that,” etc., in the modern manner.

111 Verse 41. — Here is the point of contact with the other Synoptists.

112 Verse 42. — “Coming out” is understood by De Wette as from Capernaum.

113 Note the imperfect tense: “Would have kept — were for keeping — Him back.”

114 Verse 43 f. — The reading “Judæa.” Godet has remarked that this “neutral” reading should have been a lesson to Westcott and Hort. If it be accepted, it must mean the whole land, as in 1:51 (see note there). For the ministry in Judea proper, cf. 13:34, 19: 31, 22:14, Acts 2:9, 10:37.

115 As to the “Kingdom of God,” regarded by Ritschlians as the center of Christ’s teaching, see note 21 on Mark, and cf. notes below on 12:31, 17, and 19:12.

Some conceive that verse 43 marks the end of a section in one of Luke’s sources (Zahn, p. 373),

Luke 5

IT will be remarked that the account of the call of Simon and of the rest of his companions, at the. Lake of Gennesaret, is given not only more fully in Luke than in any other Evangelist, but in a totally different connection. In Matthew and Mark we find it mentioned immediately after our Lord began to preach, when John was reported to be put into prison. The first thing named then is when Jesus was “walking by the sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon called Peter, and Andrew his brother, cast a net into the sea, for they were fishers; and He said to them, Come after me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Both in Matthew 4 and in Mark 1 The account is given in general terms. We have far more detail in Luke. Is this an accident? Contrariwise, it is the fruit of a gracious design of God. Luke had the task confided to him more than any other of bringing out God’s grace toward man and in man. Along with this he had also to lay bare the working of man’s conscience and heart, especially under the operation of the Spirit of God.

The Lord, then, is shown us calling Simon, not at the time when it actually occurred, but in connection with the development of this great purpose — calling men to be associated with Himself. Hence this notice of their call, which had taken place some time before, is reserved till the opening and character of His own ministry have been fully set before us; His reading at Nazareth with grace and nothing but grace to man — not judgment as yet, for He stopped before it; His subsequent comment when they began to show their unbelief, even after their confession of the gracious words which had proceeded out of His mouth; His proof from the law that the unbelief of Israel turns the stream of grace toward the Gentiles, the intimation of what God was going to do now, and their subsequent deadly wrath and indignation; then His course in the power of the Holy Ghost; but above all, His word with power, not nevertheless without mighty works, as in dealing with Satan’s dominion over man and all the physical consequences of it, the healing of all diseases and the casting out of demons. But especially He preached the kingdom of God, and that far and wide, fame among men being only an additional reason for moving elsewhere.

Thus it is Man, by the power of the Holy Ghost, entirely above Satanic working and human weakness, delivering mankind, and ministering the Word of God as the sole means of spiritual strength and association with God, as the Spirit is the source of all that is good and great according to God. But even this is not enough for His grace; He would associate men with Himself in good. Hence in the next scene before us the Holy Spirit shows us the Lord calling others. He rejoices in the habitable part of His earth, and His delights are with the sons of men; He associated them with Himself. It was not only for men’s pardon that He came, but for salvation and all its fruits. Simon Peter, being the more prominent of those now called, is brought into the foreground. If he is to help others, he must be first helped himself; and man cannot be truly helped without raising the question of sin and settling it in the heart, as well as by Christ outside ourselves.

The Lord now effects this. Standing by the lake, He sees two ships117 there, and the fishermen engaged in washing their nets, when “the people pressed upon Him to hear the Word of God.” 118 So he enters “into one of the ships, which was Simon’s, and asked him to draw out a little from the land. And he sat down, and taught the crowds out of the ship. But when he ceased speaking, he said to Simon, Draw out into the deep, and let down your nets for a haul.”

The work must be carried within. Even the Word may seem to fail, but it may be followed up by some act or way on God’s part in order to drive it home to the heart. He tells Simon therefore to thrust out and let down the net for a haul. A seaman is apt to think that he understands his own business best; and Simon answered saying, “Master,119 we have labored through the whole night and have taken nothing; but at thy word. I will let down the net.” Thus, feeble as his faith might have been at this time, it was real. He bows to One Who naturally could not be considered to know anything of a fisherman’s work, but Peter has confidence that He is Messiah, and learns that He is this and, far more, that He had the mind and grace of God. It would be now shown whether He had all power at His command. Simon had reason to know that He had Divine energy as to men on earth; but now there was a new thing, One Who had dominion over the fish of the sea. Sin had greatly hindered the exercise, and even proof, of the large dominion which was originally granted to them. But here was the repairer of all breaches; in Peter’s ship was the Second Man, the Lord from heaven. “And having done this, they enclosed a great multitude of fishes.” The failure of human resources, as they are to avail themselves of the blessing, is made manifest. “Their net was breaking, and they beckoned to their partners who were in the other ship to come and help them. And they came and filled both the ships, so that they were sinking.” The help of man is as vain as man himself, even for the blessing of God. The day was coming when the net should not break, no matter how large the fishes nor how great the variety. But this is reserved for another age, when the Second Man shall reign in righteousness and power. Here we see the feebleness of this age.

“But Simon Peter seeing it, fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, Lord. For astonishment had laid hold on him, and on all those who were with him, at the haul of fishes which they had taken.” Now comes the deep moral result for Peter’s heart. The greatness of the Lord’s grace as well as His power brought his sinfulness more than ever before his soul. A strange moral inconsistency follows. He casts himself at the Lord’s feet, and says, “Depart from me.” But he does not depart from Jesus. Rather does he fall down as near to Jesus as he can; yet he says, “Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, Lord.” He confesses his unfitness for the presence of the Lord, yet would not lose Him for all worlds — goes to Him, yet feels and owns that He might justly go away from such a sinner. Thus the Lord, Who knew the heart, did that which was eminently calculated to act upon Simon, who knew the powerlessness of man as he is to do what the Lord had done. They had all shown how unable they were; they had “labored through the whole night, and taken nothing.” But the Lord not only knew all, but could do all; and this brings up sin on Simon’s conscience120

But, further, the Lord’s answer thereon was, “Fear not; henceforth thou shalt be catching men.” He banishes the fear so natural to the heart where sin is, which is even increased at first by the action of the Spirit of God. The Holy Ghost only removes fear by the revelation of Christ, His work, and His word. His operation is to make us know what is calculated to produce fear as well as to lead us to Him Who alone by His grace can banish it. The effect of the state of the first man, when rightly viewed, is to fill with intense fear and horror: as to himself he could not but fear; from Christ he hears, “Fear not.” And who is entitled to be heard? “My sheep hear my voice; and I know them, and they follow me.” It is blessed to learn from God that our sinfulness, while not only naturally but even spiritually it ought to produce torment, is met, and fear is cast out, by the perfect love of God in Christ. Our Lord, on the ground of that great redemption which He was about to bring in by His blood, was entitled righteously to say, “Fear not.” This was the Divine way of forming one that was afterward to become a fisher of men. He must be in the experience of the blessing of grace himself before he was fit to be the witness of it to others.

“And having run the ships on shore, leaving all, they followed him”120a Such was the power of grace; it made all things little in comparison with Christ, and of what Christ becomes to the man Who believes in Him.

We have seen that the call — the special ministerial call — of Peter and the rest was taken out of its historical place in order to present the Lord uninterruptedly in the activity of His grace, when He entered upon His manifestation.

Now we find two remarkable miracles, which, I believe, set forth sin in two different forms. The first is under the phase of leprosy. “It came to pass, as he was in one of the cities, that behold there was a man full of leprosy.” Luke particularly mentions this symptom. It was not in an incipient stage or a slight case, but a man full of leprosy, “and, seeing Jesus, falling on his face, he besought him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou art able to cleanse me.” The man wanted confidence in the Lord’s love and good pleasure to meet his need. The Lord, accordingly, showed not only His power but His goodness. “He stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will: be thou cleansed.” This was by no means necessary for healing. Love, however, does not limit itself to man’s necessities, but takes occasion by them to show the great grace of God. Under law it would have been defiling: but we shall never understand the Gospel unless we see that He Who was pleased as man to come under the law was really above law. And we find these two things running through the account of our Lord’s life on earth — dispensationally under law, and in His own person above it. Nothing could overthrow the rights and dignity of His person. But now we find Him displaying both what man ought to be towards God and what God is towards man. In the first case He is found under law, but this course of miraculous manifestation was the display of what God is — God present and active in goodness among men, and this in the reality of a man’s soul, mind, and affections. So Christ stretched forth His hand and touched him, and, so far from defilement accruing to Himself, the leprosy departed from the man. He “enjoined him to tell no man,121 but go, show thyself to the priest.” Thus we have in the injunction a man under law, as truly as we have, in the Lord God Who healed the leper, One above man and consequently above law. “Go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, as Moses ordained, for a testimony to them.” Until the cross, Jesus rigorously maintains the authority of the law. To have been merely under law would have defeated the whole object of the Gospel; it would result in leaving man under his leprosy, under the utter loathsomeness of sin, the hopeless and defiling ruin that sin produces. Therefore if grace was to be shown, Christ must be infinitely above man, must in a human body put forth a hand which is the natural emblem of its work, and touch the man that was lost in sin beyond all human remedy. “I will” — which only God was entitled to say — “be thou cleansed.” Divine power at once accompanies the word. “Power belongeth unto God.”

The Lord would make the healing known, but according to law. “Go, shew thyself to the priest,” whose business it was to inspect. The priest would have known the reality of the leper’s case, and would be the best judge among men of the reality of the cleansing. “Offer for thy cleansing, [according] as Moses ordained,122 for a testimony to them.”

There was no provision under law for healing leprosy, but there was provision, when a man was healed, for his purification, his cleansing. None but God could heal. When, therefore, the healed leper came and showed himself to the priest with his offering, it was a proof that God was there in power and grace. When had such a thing been known in Israel? A prophet had once, with characteristic difference, indicated a cure from God, outside Israel. But God was now present in the midst of His people. The conviction would thus be forced upon the priest that God was there in Christ, above law, but yet not overthrowing the law’s authority. “Go, shew thyself to the priest, and offer for thy cleansing, [according] as Moses ordained, for a testimony to them.” If that testimony were received, they would themselves (and in due time openly) enter the ground of grace. “By grace ye are saved,” as it is grace, too, that enables us to walk according to God. “Sin shall not have dominion over you: for ye are not under the law, but under grace.” This is the Christian’s ground.

Again, the more the Lord forbade his speaking, so much the more went there a fame abroad of Him: and great multitudes came together “to hear, and to be healed by Him of their infirmities.”

The Lord, however, instead of yielding to the applause of the multitude, “withdrew123 himself, and was about in the desert and praying.” Nothing can be more beautiful than this retirement for prayer between these two miracles. However truly God, He was man, not only in maintaining the authority of the law, but also in practicing dependence upon God.

“And it came to pass on one of the days that he was teaching, that there were Pharisees125 and doctors of the law sitting by, who were come out of every village of Galilee and Judea, and [out of] Jerusalem: and the power of [the] LORD was [there] to heal them. And lo, men bringing on a couch a man who was paralyzed: and they sought to bring him in, and to put [him] before him.” Now we have the other form in which sin is set forth, not so much in its defiling influence, but in the impotence which it produces — in man’s total powerlessness under it. Sinful man is not only defiled and defiling, but also has no strength. The Lord accordingly proves Himself equal to meet this result of sin as much as the other. There were difficulties in the way; but what are these to the sense of need and faith? “And not finding what way to bring him in, on account of the crowd, going up on the house-top, they let him down through the tiles,126 with his little couch, into the midst before Jesus.”

Wherever real faith exists, there is earnestness. Here the difficulties and obstacles only increased and made manifest the desire to meet with Jesus. Accordingly the man submits to all these efforts on the part of those who carried him. He was let down into the very midst of the crowded assembly where Jesus was. “And seeing their faith,126a he said, Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.” Not, Man, thy palsy is healed; but, “thy sins are forgiven thee.” This is very instructive. In order to reach the powerlessness of a sinner he must be forgiven. There is nothing keeps a man feebler, spiritually, than the lack of a sense of forgiveness. If I am to have the power to serve the living God, I must have the assurance that my sins are forgiven. (Cf. Heb. 9) Accordingly the first word of the Lord took up his deepest need, that which, if not supplied, would always leave him without strength. “Man, thy sins are forgiven thee.”

But forgiveness on earth at once aroused the incredulous opposition of the scribes and Pharisees. They “began to reason, saying, Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who is able to forgive sins, but God alone?” As God alone could heal a leper, so God alone could forgive sins; so far they were right. The great mistake was that they did not believe Jesus to be God. But then in both these miracles Jesus is man as well as God, and this comes out distinctly here. For, “Jesus, knowing their reasonings, answering, said to them, Why reason ye in your hearts? Which is easier, to say, Thy sins are forgiven thee; or to say, Rise up and walk?” One was as plain as the other. He could have said either. He had a true and a gracious spiritual motive for dealing with the real root of the evil first. The deepest necessity of man was not to rise and walk, but first of all to have his sins forgiven. “But that ye may know that the Son of man127 hath power upon earth to forgive sins,128 (he said to the paralyzed man,129) I say to thee, Arise and take up thy little couch, and go to thine house.” He did not say, “That ye may know that God in heaven will by-and-by forgive sins”; but “that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins.” Jesus is God; but here it is in His quality of the rejected Messiah, the Son of man, that He has power on earth to remit sins. He has authority from God, as indeed He is God; but still it is as Son of man, which adds immensely to the grace of His ways. The despised Messiah or Israel had authority on earth to forgive sins. Thus, the strength that is imparted by the Holy Ghost to the believer is not at all the ground of the remission of his sins, nor is to be the proof to himself that he is forgiven, but “that ye may know,” etc. Others sought to know the reality of this forgiveness, and, above all, of the Son of man’s authority to forgive man. This is God’s great object. It is not merely doing good to man, but the display of the rejected Man, the Lord Jesus Christ. God is putting honor on Him, not only in heaven but upon earth. Now He is exalted in heaven; but even as the Son of man, the rejected Christ, He has authority on earth to forgive sins; and this the Gospel proclaims. Then the strength to rise up and walk imparted to the poor powerless sinner is just a witness to others of the forgiveness of his sins; but the great thing for such an one is not merely what others see and judge of, but what pertains to himself alone, that none can absolutely know outside, that which is a word from the Lord to his own soul — “Thy sins are forgiven thee.”

The public fact, however, acts powerfully upon the beholders. “Immediately standing up before them, having taken up that whereon he was laid, he departed to his house, glorifying God. And amazement seized all, and they glorified God, and were filled with fear, saying, We have seen strange things to-day.”

They had not the sense of forgiveness, but at least they were filled with fear. It was a new thing in Israel.

We have seen the grace which both cleanses and forgives. The soul needs both. God is “faithful... to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” But now it will be found that it is not only grace which characterizes the power of God, but the direction in which it works. The cleansing and forgiving might have been solely within Jewish precincts. It is true that the latter of the two — the forgiving — is tied to the person of the Son of man (“The Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins”), and that the title of Son of man supposes His rejection as Messiah. This, therefore, at length, opens the way for His working in grace among men as such — not merely in Israel. But all comes out far more distinctly in the new scene.

“And after these things he went forth, and saw a tax-gatherer, Levi by name, sitting at the receipt of taxes; and said to him, Follow me.”

The Jews had an especial horror of tax-gatherers. They were their own countrymen; and yet they made themselves the instruments of their Gentile masters in gathering the taxes. Their position constantly gave occasion to the improper exercise of their authority, to oppressing the Jews, and to extorting money on false pretenses or to an unlawful amount. Hence, as a class, the publicans were peculiarly in disfavor.

But when grace acts, it calls the evil as well as those whom men would count good. It goes out to the unjust no less than to persons just (as far as men could see). The Lord calls the tax-gatherer, Levi (who is named by himself Matthew, the inspired writer of the first Gospel). He was called, as it were, in the very act, “sitting at the receipt of taxes.” We hear nothing of any antecedent process. There may have been: but nothing is revealed. All we know is that, from the midst of this work, naturally odious in the eye of an Israelite, Levi was called to follow Jesus. This was a very significant token of grace, going out even to what was most offensive in the eyes of the chosen people. When God sated in grace, it was necessarily from Himself and for Himself, entirely above the creature; there was no ground in man why such favor should be shown him. If there were any reason in man, it would altogether cease to be the grace of God. Grace means the Divine favor, absolutely without motive save in God Himself, to a good-for-nothing creature, miserable and lost; and the moment that you come down to that which is utterly ruined, what difference does it make what may be the nature of the ruin, or what the means of it? If people are needy and ruined, this is enough for the grace of God in Christ, who calls such that they may be saved and follow Him.

Thus Levi quits all for Jesus: “He forsook all, rose up, and followed him.” But more than this: his heart, gladdened by such undeserved and unlooked-for grace, goes out to others.

He “made a great entertainment for him in his house — and there was a great crowd of tax-gatherers and others who were at table with them.” This was a further carrying out of the same grand truth. God was displaying Himself in Jesus after a sort entirely unexpected by man. It is difficult for us to conceive the light in which the Jews regarded the publicans. But here was a great company of them, and of those who were associated with them; and, wonderful to say, Jesus the Holy One of God, sits down with these publicans and sinners, Jesus was now making known the grace of God. Man never understands this — never appreciates it. On the contrary, he charges grace (implicitly at least) with being indifferent to sin. The truth is, that self-righteousness covers sin, and is always as malignant as it is hypocritical, imputing its own evil to others, especially to grace. There is nothing so holy as grace, nothing which supposes sin to be so very evil. Nevertheless, there is a power in grace which calls and raises entirely above the conventionalities of men. It supposes total guilt and ruin when it comes to deliver; and if it comes to deliver, why should it not work among the neediest and the worst? Were it human, the effort would be unavailing. But it is the revelation of God Himself, and therefore it is efficacious by the gift and in the cross of Christ.

Man, however, objects. “Their scribes and the Pharisees murmured at his disciples, saying, Why do ye eat and drink with the tax-gatherers and sinners?” They had not the honesty to complain to Jesus, but vented their spleen against His disciples. But the Lord answers for His people. “Jesus answering said to them, They that are in sound health have not need of a physician; but those that are ill” — a simple but most satisfactory and impressive answer. Grace always enables even a man, a believer, to speak the whole truth; it is the only thing that does. How much more did He, Who was full of grace, speak in the power of truth! Granted that they were sick; they were just the persons for the physician. It is not even said that they were conscious of their sickness. At least God knows the need, and God seeks the needy, and Jesus was God Himself as man presented in grace. As He said, “I am not come to call righteous [persons], but sinful ones to repentance.”/130

Then comes in another truth of immense importance. In reply to the question, “Why do the disciples of John fast often, and make supplications in like manner to those also of the Pharisees; but thine eat and drink?”/131 “He said to them, Can ye make the sons of, the bridechamber132 fast while the bridegroom is with them?” They were ignorant of the glory of the person of Him Who was present, as much as of His grace. Had they known the singular dignity of Jesus, they would have seen how incongruous it would have been to fast in His presence. At ordinary times, in view of the evil of the first man, in the sad experience of his rebellion against God, to fast would be appropriate. But how strange would be His people’s fastings in presence of their longed-for King! His very birth was announced by angels as good tidings of great joy, and the heavenly host praised God, saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will towards men.” Certainly, then, His disciples should act in consistency with the presence of such a glorious Person, with such a spring of joy to heaven and earth. Would a fast be in keeping with the circumstances? The Lord therefore answers, “Can ye make the sons of the bridechamber fast while the bridegroom is with them?” Gladness of heart suits both the grace and the glory of the Lord: “But days will come when also the bridegroom will have been taken away from them, then shall they fast in those days.” The Lord had the full consciousness of what was at hand — of man’s fatal, suicidal opposition to God, and to God above all manifest in person. His rejection would soon come,133 and sorrow of heart for the disciples. “Then shall they fast in those days.”

But He furnishes more light than this. He points out the impossibility of making the principles of grace coalesce with the old system. This He sets forth by two similes.134 The first is the garment: “No one putteth a piece of a new garment upon an old; otherwise, he will both rend the new, and the piece which is from the new will not match the old.” There can be no harmony between the old thing and the new: law and grace will never mix. But next, He sets it forth under the figure of the new wine. “No one putteth new wine into old skins; otherwise the new wine will burst, the skins, and it will be poured out, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine is to be put into new skins, and both are preserved.” He shows that there is an energy in the new thing which is destructive to the old. Just as the new wine would burst the old skins, and thus the liquor would be lost and the bottles perish, so would fare that which Christ in the Gospel introduces. Where there is the attempt to connect grace with anything of the law, the old no longer retains its true use, and the new completely evaporates. “New wine is to be put into new skins.” Christianity has not only an inner principle peculiar to itself, as flowing from the revelation of God in Christ, but also it claims and creates forms adapted to its own nature. It is not a mere system of ordinances and prescriptions. It has living power, and that power makes new vehicles for itself. But man does not like it.

Accordingly the Lord adds what we have at the close of the chapter, and what is peculiar to this Gospel, the general maxim: “And no one, having drunk old wine, [straightway] wisheth for new; for he saith, The old is better.”/135 The legal system is far more suited to the fallen nature of man; it gives importance to himself, and it claims his obedience, and falls in with his reason. Even a natural conscience owns the rightness of the law; but grace is supernatural. Though faith sees how perfectly suitable grace is to God as well as to the new man, and how it is the only hope for a sinful man who repents towards God; nevertheless it is wholly above the reasonings of man, and it is constantly suspected by those who know not its value and power. Man’s nature cleaves to its old habits of prejudices, and distrusts the intervention of grace.

Endnotes

116 Verses 1-11. — As to the difference between this scene and that in John 16, see Harnack, “Luke the Physician,” p. 227, and note 380 in the volume on that Gospel. Wright’s statement that “St. John’s account contradicts St. Luke’s” (“Synopsis,” p. 271), is itself contradicted by German opinion, that St. John’s is “unhistorical.” The way in which such nine-pins are set up to be knocked down is very unedifying.

“The earlier event,” writes Bruce, “served the purpose of winning Peter to the life of discipleship; the later, of inspiring him to devotion to the heroic-career of apostolate” (“Miraculous Element, etc.,” p. 229).

117 Verse 1 f. — Dr. Abbott, by way of distinguisher, the two Evangelists’ respective accounts, observes that in John xxi., “there is only one boat mentioned” (art. in “Encyclop. Bibl.,” § 32); but in verse 8 mention is made of the tender (τὸ πλοιάριον) as well as the πλοῖον of verse 3. When it suits negative critics to insist on distinction in words, they are not slow to do so. The real differences are too many to support the idea of a discrepancy, as if there were duplicate accounts. If doctrinal insight fail, ingenuity must likewise; and so of Dr. Wright’s remark (loc, cit., p. 12) on verse 4, that if Luke “were ignorant of the visit to Galilee after the Resurrection, upon which he is silent, he would the more infer that the draft of fishes belonged to the earlier period of the ministry.”

118 “The Word of God.” — Cf. 8:11, 11:28. “As used by Luke,” writes Harnack, “the Word did not mean Church doctrine; it did not mean even the Bible; it meant the message of the free grace of God in Christ” (op. cit., p. 274). Cf. Acts 8:11, where “the Word” and “the Scriptures” occur together. In Matt. 15:6 (R.V.), and Mark 7:13, it certainly means Old Testament Scripture, as again in Rev. 1:2.

What used to be called “proof-texts” of Scripture were singly a word (ρῆμα) of God; but in Evangelical parlance by the Word of God is meant the whole of Scripture (Hofmann, “Scripture Proof,” part. i., p. 96 ff:). See Acts 20:32 for like use of λόγος; Heb. 6:5, and 11:3, for the employment of ρῆμα

The following extract from Scholten expresses a now unhappily common idea, represented in England by the writings of Dr. James Martineau. “There is a difference between the Scripture and the Word of God. The latter is what God reveals in the human spirit concerning His will and Himself. The writing down of the communication is purely human; therefore the Bible cannot be called Revelation.” The effect of this is that the Scriptures have come to be regarded as, a mere record of Revelation. As to this, see note 6 above, comparing note 69 on Mark and also note 115 on John.

It is the fashion, on the part of those who disparage the unlimited, authority of the Bible, to taunt with “Bibliolatry,” i.e., superstition, such as adhere to the view of inspiration stated in note 6 above, with making the same “fetish” of Scripture that others make of the Church. Well, the Word of God commends those who tremble at it (Isa. 66:2, 5) who dare not abate their reverence for it, because for them at least it enshrines CHRIST, so that impairing its plenary inspiration is nothing more nor less than taking Him “away.” As to our Lord’s having merely “the first place,” see “the Bible or the Church,” p. 213f.

Are we to say that the authority of Scripture is “of the past alone,” that it is “a fossil stored carefully in a museum,” as Grubb (“Authority and the Light Within,” pp. 28, 37)? Or rather, as the writer to the Epistle to the Hebrews (4:12, with which cf. verses 4 and 7), that Scripture is “living,” as God Himself? Do we not “hear” inspired Apostles, and so God, in their writings; 1 John 4:6, Rom. 7:1? Scripture is not merely compared to a “two-edged sword,” but is said to transcend that: it deals with Past, Present, and Future alike, so that its penmen did not serve only their own generation (Acts 13:36).

Archer Butler has a sermon, taken from the present passage, on “The Word of God” (vol. ii.).

119 Verse 5. — “Master,” ἐπιστάτα. This word (as κύριος) in Luke is used by disciples; διδάσκαλος by others (e.g. 21:7).

120 “Depart... sinful man, Lord.” Here we have the disciple’s impression as to the Lord’s sinlessness. Norris compares the lesson of the Transfiguration. As to sin, see note on 11:4; and for the word “sinner” in this Gospel, cf. 7:37, 13:2, 15:10, 18:13. For “Lord” in this connection, cf. John 13:13.

“The Character of Peter” is the subject of Dr. Whyte’s discourse LXXV., in the series entitled “Bible Characters.”

120a Stock discriminates seven steps in the call and appointment of the first disciples, as to which see his “Talks,” p. 85.

121 Verse 14. — “To tell no man.” So only prescribed in Galilee, perhaps because it was the headquarters of the “Zealots,” as to whom see note 146.

122 “Moses ordained.” A confirmation by our Lord of the Mosaic authorship of that which is by critics called the “Priestly Code,” cf. 20:37, 24:44. May not one fairly say that discrediting writings which on the face of them claim to be those of Moses is to disbelieve them? The Lord’s words in John 5:47 find striking illustration in our own day. It is not, as alleged, believers who are responsible, by appealing to His utterances, for any surrender of confidence in Him.

123 Verse 16. — “Withdrew.” Wesley’s note draws attention to the compound imperfect here: “He did so frequently.”

124 Verses 17-24. — This paragraph serves as Harnack’s second illustration of Luke’s supposed use of Mark’s record (“Luke the Physician,” pp. 90-92).

125 Verse 17.― “Pharisees.” Cf. in particular, 11:42-44, and see Edersheim, “Sketches of Jewish Social Life,” chapter 14. “The power of the Lord.”

Cf. 1 Cor. 1:24.

126 Verse 19. — “Tiles”: Luke’s adaptation to the way in which a Roman house was constructed (Ramsay).

Weiss is alone in following B, which has “all” instead of “Jesus.” This he thinks was conformed to “Him” in verse 18. There may be no other way of accounting for B’s reading.

126a Verse 20. — See sermon from this text, by D. L. Moody, on Faith.

127 Verse 24. — “The Son of Man” (of. Matt. 9:6, Mark 2:10). This title of our Lord has been merely touched on in note 30 above.

To the Old Testament passages named in note 30 on Mark (2:10) may be added Num. 23:10.

As by other Synoptists, it is put by Luke in the mouth of the Lord alone, and in the following passages, beside the present: — 6:5, 22; 7:34; 9:22, 26, 44, 53; 11:30; 12:8 — where Matthew 10:32 has “I” — 12: 10, 40; 17:22, 24, 26, 30; 18:8, 31; 19:10; 21:27, 36; 22:22. 48, 69; and 24:7.

For its use in the Jerusalem Talmud (Taanith, 656), see Streane’s edition of Laible, pp. 10, 50.

Opinions vary according as scholars consider the title to describe the Lord as —

1. The promised Seed: so Erasmus, after Gregory Nazianzen. Allied to this view is that which makes it mean Last Adam and Second Man (Beyschlag and Fairbairn).

2. The ideal or representative man: Schleiermacher, Meander, Godet, Westcott, Stanton, Sanday (for “Humanity”: see “Life of Christ in Recent Research,” pp. 126-132).

3. “Man” as such, according to Syriac, as in 1 Cor. 15:45, of Adam (“Barnosho”): H. Holtzmann, Martineau, Wellhausen, Nöldeke, Bevan. Marti (see p. 72ff). This view has been questioned by Dalman Indeed, as Abbott says, “The thought, not the word, is the important and really only feasible thing, for Aramaic did not preserve the distinction between Adam and Ish,” (“Notes on New Testament Criticism,” p. 141).

Allied to the last-named view is that of Nösgen and Wendt, according to which “Son of Man” would stand for lowly and weak (which Westcott has questioned); and so one reaches such an idea as that of D. Smith (p. 49 f.), that it was a nickname for one of the common folk (p. 53), a name of scorn (cf. 9:58), which the Evangelists, accordingly, who loved the Lord would not themselves use of Him.

That it stands for “Man” in general, a single passage will negative: this is found in both Luke 7:33f, and Matt. 11:18, f: where the Lord and John the Baptist are contrasted. According to that theory, the Baptist would not be a man at all!

Most think that it originated from Dan. 7:13. Charles holds that it came from the pre-Christian similitudes of the Book of Enoch (6:46, etc.). He, with Meyer and Schürer, treats it as having been a current Messianic title; but such is not the opinion of the majority. In Daniel (after Pss. 8:5 and 80:17, in the LXX.), in the Apocalypse and John 5:27, it is used without the article, and the Synoptics, accordingly, becomes a new title: see Westcott’s note in his posthumous “Commentary on the Gospel of John in Greek,” p. 74 ff.

As used by our Lord Himself, some, as B. Weiss, H. Holtzmann, Harnack, and Dalman, regard it as meaning Messiah (cf. Wellhausen on Luke 6:5). This is only admissible as we qualify it with rejected (el note 565). So Fairbairn. “It was the Messiah conceived as the suffering Servant of God” (Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 397f).

For an effective reply to Friedrich Delitzsch, who has assigned a Babylonian origin to the name, see König, “The End of the Babylonian Captivity of the Bible” p. 77 f.

Montefiore has a long note on this title in vol. 1., pp. 93-106, of his recent work.

128 “To forgive sins.” As to the idea (broached by Germans, followed by Drummond and Schmidt) that forgiveness here means between man and man. It may be said, had the Lord meant no more than that, He would have made it plain, to avoid a charge of blasphemy.

Again, Mason observes that “One might as well say that every man is homeless, or each man’s death may have redemptive value for others” (“Camb. Theological Essays,” p. 450f.). Upon the topic of forgiveness of sins in general, see below at 11:4 (note 285).

129 “He said to the paralyzed man.” These parenthetical words, as they occur in all the Synoptics, have been deemed proof of use of a written source (EL Holtzmann and his followers). Inspiration is not impaired by such things (note 4). Divine guidance of the Evangelists determined retention, change, or omission of words.

129a Verse 30. — Pharisees of either the “Catholic” or “Evangelical” type, if consistent, would have had to condemn our Lord here for infringing their bugbear of looseness. But, as the Expositor remarks in this chapter, Christ “did not choose His company.” Such choice for His followers is “heresy” (αἵρεσις), as to which of 1 Cor. 11:19 (parties). Cf. 6:40 and note 147 C, ad fin.

“Their scribes.” Cf. Acts 23:9. Some men of this class seem to have belonged to the Sadducean faction also; of them the Temple would be the stronghold, as the Synagogue that of the Pharisees. Cf. note 23 on Mark, and on the Pharisees of the school of Shammai, note 310 below.

130 Verse 32.―cf. “Prayer of Manasseh,” 8.

131 Verse 33.―See note 32 on Mark.

132 Verse 34.― “Sons of the bridechamber,” the bridegroom’s invited friends.

133 Verse 35.―This is the Lord’s first public announcement of His death, after He had spoken of it privately to Nicodemus (John 3:14). See, further, 9:22, 31, 44; 12:50; 13:32f.; 17:25; 18:31-33; 20:9-18; 22:14-22; besides 24:7, 26, 46.

Words of Wesley, in his Journal (7th April, 1763) upon Fasting, have a voice for the present day: “Is not the neglect of this plain duty one general occasion of deadness among Christians? Can anyone willingly neglect it and be guiltless?” Cf. W. Kelly’s “Lectures on Matthew,” p. 166.

134 Verses 36-39.―This parable, in two parts, is the first recorded by Luke. See special note at 8:10. The variations in the other Gospels should be compared. J. Weiss thinks that Luke has “misunderstood” what he found in Mark, and “stunted” the meaning. See, on the other hand, Wellhausen. The fault is in interpreters not sufficiently regarding the immediate context. Cy. Neander, p. 220f. (following Chrysostom), and Carr’s notes.

Verse 37f. — The passage shows how, on the one hand, doctrine is cemented by rite; on the other, how rite is worthless without doctrine: our Lord here shows their necessary connection. Rome has robbed the Gospel of its simplicity by her multitude of rites; the Society of Friends has shorn it of rite altogether; such is the evil of extremes. We should not deviate from God’s way either to the right or to the left. Manning’s hesitation, on the eve of his “verting” to Rome, between Romanism and Quakerism singularly illustrates this twofold tendency. Barclay of Cry in his “Apology” uses the logic of the Jesuits, from whom he received his early education.

As to the words καινός and νεός, see Trench, “Synonyms of the New Testament.”

135 Verse 39.―The reading χρηστός must be understood as doing the work of a comparative.

Luke 6

The Evangelist is inspired to introduce these accounts of two, Sabbaths here. Very probably also they took place at this point of time. If so, it is because the moral object of the Spirit in Luke coincided here with the historical order. This we may infer from a comparison with the order of Mark, who, as a rule, cleaves to the sequence of events. In Matthew, on the contrary, these facts are reserved for a much later point of his Gospel (ch. 12). A vast compass both discourses and miracles is introduced by him before he speaks of these two Sabbath days. And the reason is manifest. Matthew here, as often, departs from the order of occurrence in order to show the long-continued and ample testimony to the Messiahship of Jesus, before he makes use of these incidents on the Sabbath, which even the Jews themselves felt to slight their sabbatical practice, and threatened the legal covenant. Ezekiel speaks of the Sabbath as a sign between Jehovah and Israel (ch. 20:12, 20). And now this was about to vanish away. Hence these actions on the Sabbath day are extremely significant. They occur in Matthew, in the chapter where our Lord announces the unforgivable sin of that generation, as also at the close He disowns His natural ties, and speaks of the formation of a new and spiritual relationship, founded on doing the will of His Father in heaven. Then forthwith, in the next chapter, He shows the kingdom of heaven and its course, which was about to be introduced because of the utter apostasy of Israel and the consequent rupture of that economy.

In Mark and Luke this is not the immediate object. They are given, it would appear, as they occurred, and Mark had to tell. Still, it is evident that their mention here falls in with Luke’s design remarkably. He takes notice, we saw in the last chapter, of the working of Divine grace, which calls not the righteous, but sinners to repentance. Nor will the new things of Christ, the Second Man, mix with the old things. Yet man’s preference is undisguised for the old because it suits his habits and self-importance. Grace exalts God, and must be paramount.

In this chapter we are told, “It came to pass” that not on the second Sabbath after the first, but “on the second-first Sabbath” — a very peculiar phrase, which has perplexed the commentators and critics immensely. It is found in no place or author but here. The only thing which really explains it seems to be a reference to Jewish customs and their feasts.

On one of these occasions (Lev. 23:10-12) the first cut sheaf of corn was waved before God. The disciples were now going through the cornfields. Thus the connection was evident. It was the earliest Sabbath after the first-fruits had been offered. This adds to the striking character of the instruction. The Passover took place immediately before; as we know: the paschal lamb was killed on the fourteenth of Nisan between the evenings. Then followed the great Sabbath immediately, and on the day after, the first sheaf of corn was waved before the Lord. It was the type of Christ’s resurrection. The corn of wheat had fallen into the ground and died, but was now risen again. As the killing of the Iamb was the type of His death, so was this wave sheaf of His resurrection. From the day on which it was offered, seven weeks were counted complete (of course with their Sabbaths), and then came the next great feast, or that of weeks. The first of these Sabbaths in the seven weeks, counted from the day of the wave sheaf, was not the great paschal Sabbath, but it followed next in succession. The Sabbath that opened the feast of unleavened bread after the Passover was the first, and the following Sabbath day was “the second-first.” It was “second” in relation to that great day, the paschal. Sabbath, but “first” of the seven which immediately ensued. Thus it was the first Sabbath-day after the wave sheaf; and no “Israelite indeed” could have counted it lawful to have eaten of corn till after Jehovah had received His portion.136a

On that Sabbath, then, the disciples, in passing through the cornfields, “were plucking the ears of corn, and eating [them], rubbing them in their hands.” This was always allowed, and is still, in Eastern countries round the Holy Land — no doubt a remaining trace of the old traditional habit of the Jews. It is allowed as an act of charity to the hungry. What a condition for the followers of the Lord Jesus to be in What a proof of His shame and of their need!

But nothing moved the Pharisees: religious bitterness steels the natural heart. “But some of the Pharisees said to them, Why do ye that which is not lawful to do on the sabbath”137 The Lord answered instead of the disciples, “Have ye not read so much as this, what David did when he hungered, he and those who were with him; how he went into the house of God, and took the shewbread, and ate and gave to them also who were with him; which it is not lawful that [any] eat unless the priests alone?” The Spirit of God here takes up only David — not the priests of whom also Matthew treats, which was very suitable. He, writing for Jews, would use a proof of the folly of their objection which was before their eyes every day. But Luke refers to the moral analogy in the history of the great king David, who, after his anointing, and before coming to the throne (which was just the Lord’s position now), was educed to such excessive straits that the holy bread was made profane for his sake. God, as it were, refused to hold to ritual where the anointed king and his followers were destitute of the barest necessaries of life. For what did it imply? The depth of evil that ruled the nation. How could God sanction holy bread in such a condition? How could He accept of the shewbread of the people as the food of His priests, when all the foundations were clearly out of course? Was not this evident in the hunger of His anointed and of His trusty band? Was not the rejected Son of David as free as the rejected David?

The Lord closes this part of the subject with the declaration that “the Son of man is Lord of the, sabbath also.” Thus there is another reason yet more powerful. David was not the Son of man as Jesus was. The Son of plan had, in in His own person and position, rights altogether superior to any ritual. He was entitled to abrogate it. He would do so formally in due time; for this attached to His personal glory. “The Son of man is Lord of the sabbath also,” which David was not.

Nor is this all. The Lord Jesus on another Sabbath enters the synagogue and teaches, where “there was a man whose right140 hand was withered.” And now the scribes and Pharisees with deadly hatred are watching141 to see “whether he would heal on the sabbath, that they might find something of which to accuse him.” Such was man on one side on the other there was a Stranger come down from heaven; a Man also, to fallen man, and with a heart to display heaven’s and God’s mind perfectly. But those who prided themselves upon their righteousness and wisdom are afraid lest men should be healed by Him at the expense of their ceremonies, and they seek to fasten an accusation against Him. “But he knew their thoughts,142 and said to the man who had the withered hand, Rise up and stand in the midst. And having risen up, he stood [there].” The thing was not done in a corner, but boldly, in presence of them all.

The Lord even challenges them publicly, and says, “I will ask you if it is lawful on the sabbath. to do good or to do evil? to save life, or to destroy [it]?” They were doing evil; it was His to do good. They were seeking to destroy His life; He was willing to save theirs. “And having looked around on them all, he said to him, Stretch out thy hand.” It was enough: the man did so, “and his hand was restored as the other.” How simple, and yet how truly Divine! Was this, then, a work done? Was the Son’s healing what God had forbidden? Was this unworthy of God? Was it not, on the contrary, the very expression of what God is? Is not God always doing good? Does He forbear to do good on the Sabbath day? Was not the very Sabbath itself a witness how God loved to do good, and a pledge that He will bring His people into His own rest? Was not Jesus doing so to this sufferer, and giving a witness of the gracious power that will do so fully by and by?

And what was the effect upon unbelief? “They were filled with madness, and spoke together among themselves what they should do to Jesus”; and this because He had shown that God never foregoes His title to do good even on the Sabbath day in a world that is ruined by man’s sin and Satan’s wiles. A superior power has entered and manifests the defeat of Satan. But, meanwhile, the instruments of Satan are filled, first with his lies, and secondly with his murderous hatred. “They spoke together among themselves what they should do to Jesus.” For indeed they had no communion with God and with His mind. They were only filled with madness, and communed one with another how to injure the Lord, the manifest children of their father: such did not Abraham.143

The pronounced enmity of the religious leaders led our Lord to special prayer. From man He turns to God. But there was another reason. He was about to call others to take up the work in which He had been engaged, and to carry it out to the ends of the earth. “And it came to pass in those days that he went out into the144 mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.” This special prayer suited both the circumstances of evil on man’s side, and the fresh mission of grace on God’s part. “And when it was day, he called his disciples; and having chosen out twelve from them whom also he named apostles.”145 These were to be His chief envoys in the work.146

“And having descended with them, he stood on a level place.” This has been often misunderstood, and some have contrasted the discourse in “the plain” here with the discourse on “the mountain” in Matthew 5; 6; 7. There is no ground for this. The expression does not really mean a plain, but a plateau or level place on the mountain. It was the same discourse, which Matthew set down, without presenting the special circumstances which led to particular parts of it — questions, &c.; whereas Luke was inspired to give it in detached portions here and there, and generally with the questions or other circumstances which led to each particular part.147 The two inspired writers, I doubt not, were governed in this by the special design of the Holy Ghost in each.

It has been irreverently asked whether Luke could thus have written with the Gospel of Matthew before him. The answer is, It would be the highest degree of improbability on mere human principles. Had his Gospel no higher source than a skillful use of existing documents, he could not, in my judgment, have ventured to differ so widely from Matthew, in the disposition of facts and teachings, if he regarded his apostolic predecessor as inspired, and desired to strengthen his testimony, not to perplex souls, nor to furnish objections to men of speculative mind, The course he has pursued is the weightiest conceivable proof of his own direct inspiration, as the fruit of a special design on the part of the Holy Ghost whether Luke had or had not the Gospel of Matthew in his hands. This I say, accepting fully the identity of the two discourses; for the attempt of the late M. Ganssen and others to establish their difference has long seemed to me a failure, not only in fact but in principle, from reducing the function of the Spirit to that of a reporter instead of an editor, in either case of course unerring.

Here, then, Jesus stood, where a vast multitude might hear Him. “And a crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem, and the sea-coast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases. And those that were beset by unclean spirits 148 were healed. And all the crowd sought, to touch him; for power went out from him and healed all.”

But now we come to what was still better, not for the body nor for this world, but for the soul in relation with God. “And he, lifting up his eyes149 upon his disciples, said, Blessed [are] ye poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” There is this remarkable difference in the manner of presenting the discourse on the mount here and in the first Gospel. That in Matthew gives it in the abstract, presenting each blessing to such and such a class. “Blessed are the poor in spirit.” Luke makes it a more personal address “Blessed be ye poor.”

The reason is manifest. In the one case it is the prophet greater than Moses, Who lays down the principles of the kingdom of heaven in contrast with all Jewish thought, and feeling, and expectation. In the other case it is the Lord comforting the actually gathered disciples, addressing themselves as so separated to Himself, and not merely legislating, so to speak. It was now the time of sorrow; for as bringing the promises in His person, man would not have Him.

Again, it is always “the kingdom of God” in Luke. “The kingdom of heaven” is more dispensational, and finds its perfect place in Matthew. Luke, as ever, holds to that which is moral. Certainly the poor were little in man’s kingdom. “Blessed,” were they, said the Lord, “for (theirs) is the kingdom of God.”

Further, it may be remarked that there is no such fullness here as in Matthew, where we have the complete sevenfold classes of the kingdom, with the supernumerary blessings pronounced on those persecuted, whether (1) for righteousness’ sake, or (2) for Christ’s sake.

But here we have another difference very notable. There are but four classes of blessing — not seven; but then they are followed by four woes, which in Matthew are reserved to a still greater completeness in chapter 23, at the end of His ministry, for the same dispensational reason which is adhered to throughout his Gospel. Luke, on the other hand, presents at once, first, the blessings; and immediately after, the woes. It was not the time of ease; judgment was coming. This flows from the moral character of his Gospel, just as we find Moses in Deuteronomy, which has a similar purpose, telling the people that he sets before them the blessing and at the same time the curse (ch. 28).

The first blessing, it will be noticed, is that which man always counts the greatest misery. So the poor in this world look to be despised; but “yours is the kingdom of God.”149 The next blessing is hungering now, with the certainty of being filled. The third is present sorrow with joy promised (that is, in the morning).150 Lastly “blessed are ye when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you.151 [from them], and shall reproach [you], and cast out your name as wicked, for the Son of man’s sake.” Luke, it will be noticed, leaves out entirely persecution for righteousness’ sake, which finds its fitting, though not exclusive, place in Matthew. “Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy: for behold, your reward is great in the heaven: for after this manner did their fathers act towards the prophets.” This supposes exercised faith, with the greatest resulting blessing. But the fact that Luke confines himself to the blessedness of those persecuted for the Son of man’s sake, beautifully accords with the direct addresses in his four classes. As the blessed here are immediately before the Lord, so the persecuted here are only for His sake. All is intensely personal.

Then follow the woes. “But woe unto you rich! for ye have received your consolation.” Nothing more dangerous than ease and satisfaction in this world — there is no greater snare even to the disciple. So again: “Woe unto you that are filled! for ye shall hunger.” This, of course, has its moral bearing. There is leanness for the soul where the heart has all that it desires. “Woe unto you that laugh now! for ye shall mourn and weep.” A still further carrying out of the danger of man’s heart. “Woe when all men shall speak well of you!” Here it is not personal only, but relative satisfaction.152 “For after this manner did their fathers to the false prophets.” In all respects it is a complete picture of that which is spiritually desirable or to be dreaded. And thus our Evangelist closes this pact of the discourse.

There is no such open contrast with Matthew law as in Matthew 5-7. The reason is manifest. Matthew has the Jews full in view, and therefore our Lord contrasts “Ye have heard that it was said to them of old time, Thou shalt not kill; and whosoever shall kill shall be in danger of the judgment: but I say unto you,” etc. All that Luke says is, “But I say unto you that hear, I say.” The disciples actually addressed were Jews, but the instruction in its own nature goes out to any: man, and is profitable for all the faithful, to the Gentile as much as to the Jew. Notwithstanding it was pre-eminently important for a Sew who had been formed on the principles of earthly righteousness. None the less was it full of instruction for the Gentiles when should be called to hear. The Gentile believer has the same heart as the Jew, is in the same world, has to do with enemies and those that hate. Hence the value of such a word, “Unto you that Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you, bless those that curse you, pray for those that use you despitefully.” This is entirely contrary to nature; it is the revelation of what God is applied to govern the heart of His children. “Love your enemies, do good to those that hate you.” It is this that He was doing and showing in Christ, and the children are called to imitate their Father. “Be ye therefore as dear children.” This is of the deepest importance practically, for Christ is our real key according to that revelation of Him which is given in the New Testament and this alone enables us to use rightly and intelligently the Old Testament. The Christian who is under grace understands the law far better than the Jew who was under law least, he ought to enter into it, as a whole and in all its parts, With a deeper perception of it, than the saints who had to do with its ordinances and ritual. Such is the power of Christ and such the wisdom of God which is our portion in Him.

But, besides these unfolding’s of truth, there are the affection that one proper to the Christian, “Bless those that curse you and pray for those that use you despitefully.” The Lord looks for the activity of good, and the looking to God on behalf of those who might treat themselves despitefully. Thus it is not only kindness and pity, but there is the earnest and sincere pleading with God for their blessing.

Verse 29 is remarkable as compared with the corresponding portion (vss. 39, 40) of Matthew 5. They both deserve our particular consideration and well illustrate the difference of the Gospels, and, what is also of the greatest importance, the manner of inspiration generally. It is a mistake to think that the Spirit of God is limited to a mere report even of what Jesus said. He exercises sovereign rights, while He gives the truth and nothing but the truth; and inasmuch as His aim is to give the whole truth, He is not tied down to the same expression, even while He is furnishing the substance of all that is needed for God’s glory.

Thus in the Gospel of Matthew the case is of one who sues at law. In that case the object is to take away the coat; and the Lord bids the disciple to let the cloak be taken also. Luke, on the contrary, writes, “him that taketh away thy cloak, forbid not to thy vest also.” It is not a case of legal suing, but of illegal violence; and the spoiler who would take the outer garment is not to be resisted if he proceeds to take the inner one also. This clearly gives a far greater fullness of truth than if the Spirit of God had restricted Himself to only one or other of the two cases. The apparent discrepancies of the Gospels are therefore their perfection, if indeed we value the entire truth of God. Only thus could the different sides of truth be presented in their integrity. The Jew would require especially to be guarded on the side of law; but there is also violence in the world contrary to law; and it was necessary that the disciples should see it to be their calling and privilege to hold fast their heavenly principles in the face of man’s force, no less than law. To maintain the character of Christ in our pray lice, is of greater consequence than to keep one’s cloak or coat also.

Then the Lord says, “Give to every man that asketh of thee.” It is no question of foolish prodigality, but of an open hand and heart to every call of need. “From him that taketh away what is thine ask it not back.” It is of all consequence that, as there should he the patient endurance of personal wrong– “unto him that smiteth thee on the cheek, offer also the other―” so there should he also the testimony that our life does not consist in the things which we possess. At the same time, He adds for our own guidance towards others, “As ye wish that men154 should do to you, do ye also to them in like manner: and if ye love those that love you, what thank155 is it to you? for even sinners love those that love them.” To, love those who love us is not the point for a Christian; it a mere human principle — as the Lord emphatically says here, “sinners also love those that love them.” It is not as in Matthew, publicans or Gentiles, but “sinners,” according to the ordinary moral tone of Luke. This was true of man everywhere, and the word “sinner” has a great propriety and emphasis. Not only men, but bad men, may love those who love them. So, too, the doing good to those who do good to us is but a righteous return of which the evil are capable; as indeed lending, when they hope to borrow or to receive. Sinners do quite as much.155a But for us the word is “love your enemies, and do good and lend, hoping for nothing in return; and your reward shall be great.” Nor is the reward all. “And ye shall be sons of [the] Highest.” How soon it was made their conscious relationship! Thus it becomes the desire and aim — to acquit ourselves according to the relationship grace has given us. “For he is good to the unthankful and wicked.” How truly Divine! We ourselves are the witnesses of it in our unconverted days.

Hence the call in our Gospel does not follow as in Matthew, “Be ye therefore perfect even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect,” but “Be ye therefore merciful, even as your Father also is merciful.” The perfection in Matthew seems to be in allusion to the call on Abraham, whose perfection was to walk in integrity, confiding in the shadow of the Almighty. The disciple, instructed of Jesus, had the Father’s name declared, and his perfection is to illustrate his Father’s Character in indiscriminate grace — not in the spirit of law. Writing for the Gentiles, Luke simply calls them to be merciful as their Father was merciful. This would be obvious even to such as had not a minute acquaintance with the Old Testament, and therefore incapable of appreciating the delicate allusions to its contents here or there. Any believer could understand the force of such an exhortation as “Judge not, and ye shall not be judged.” The tendency to censoriousness, the imputation of evil motives, and the danger of sure retribution, are here brought before us. “Condemn not, and ye shall in nowise be condemned”156a

On the other hand, says our Master, “remit, and it shall be remitted unto you.” It is the spirit of grace in the experience of wrongs. “Give, and it shall be given unto you.” It is the spirit of large generosity; and who ever knew a giver with nothing to give or receive? Yea, “good measure, pressed down, and shaken together, and running over shall be given157 into your bosom.” Men are very far from giving thus; and the Lord leaves it entirely vague. It might be by men or by believers certainly God thus acts. Whoever gives will find his account sure in the far-surpassing goodness of God. “For with the same measure with which ye mete, it Shall be measured to you again” — whatever the means that He employs and whatever the time of recompense.

The first principle that the Lord here lays down is the necessity of a man himself seeing in order to lead others aright. This has been constantly lost sight of in Christendom. It was not in the same way necessary to priesthood in Israel, though there were duties of a priest which needed discernment, to judge between clean and unclean. Still, their function lay in mere outward things, which required no spiritual power. But it is not so in Christianity, though there are moral principles — first principles of everyday life — which are unchangeable. Yet as a whole, Christianity does suppose a new nature and the Spirit of God; and he who has not that nature and the power of the Spirit is incapable of rightly helping others. Now, ministry demands this, even in the Gospel. There are varying states; and unless a man is capacitated by his own personal faith as well as by the Word of God, he will misapply Scripture. But it is still clearer in the instruction and guidance practically of believers. He who is called to help them on must necessarily be taught of God, not in mind only but in heart and conscience, well and thoroughly furnished in Scripture, so as rightly to divide the Word of truth. The blind, therefore, cannot lead the blind. Neither is it Christianity that the Seeing should lead the blind. The true principle of our calling is, that the seeing should lead the seeing — the very reverse of the blind leading the blind.

Although every believer is supposed to see, yet he may not see clearly. He has the capacity, but may not yet have been exercised in using it. But when the truth has been brought clearly out, he is able to see it without more ado, and, it may be, as distinctly as he who had taught it. Thus that which he receives (whatever the means employed) stands on the Word of God and not on the authority either of Church or of teacher. If the teacher is removed or goes astray, still he sees the truth for himself in the light of God.

Thus it remains true that the seeing, whom God has qualified to lead others, teach the seeing who have light enough from God to follow, and who know that they are not following man but God, in that they intelligently follow those who are taught of God, and who lead them according to His word, that which commends itself by the Holy Spirit to the Conscience. So far is ministry therefore from being incompatible with Christianity, that it is characteristic of it. Strictly speaking, it was now distinctive feature of Judaism. They had priests to transact their religious business for them; but Christians have ministry in order to guide and cheer them on, and strengthen them by God’s grace, in doing that which pertains to the whole body of which ministers are but a part. “Can a blind [man] lead a blind [man]? Shall not both fall into [the] ditch?”158 This is precisely what Christendom, by confounding Christianity with Judaism, is falling into rapidly. Some take the side of infidelity, some of superstition. But they both fall into the ditch, on the one side or the other.

On the other hand, “the disciple is not above his teacher.” Our portion is according to Christ. Christ was despised, and so are we. Christ was persecuted, and so must the disciple he content to be. He has Christ’s portion: if above, so upon earth. “Every one that is perfected shall be as his teacher.”158a Then there is another danger, and that is of censoriousness. The habit of always seeing faults in others is exceedingly to be deprecated and watched against. “And why lookest thou on the mote that is in thy brother’s eye?” What is the true root of it? Invariably, where there is the habit of beholding faults in others, there is an overlooking of our own. “Why lookest thou on the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but perceivest not the beam that is in thine own eye?” In that state of things we cannot help others: we must have our own evil dealt with first. “For how canst thou say to thy brother, Brother, allow [me], I will cast out the mote that is in thine eye” (love would meet another’s want: self is blind and busy, forgets its own faults, but can be zealous in correcting others for its own glory) — “thyself not seeing the beam that is in thine eye?” Our own fault, unjudged, always obstructs our affording real aid to another. Whereas, where we have judged ourselves, it is not only that we can see more clearly, but we can enter upon the work more humbly and lovingly. It is this that makes a man spiritual. Nothing but self-judgment can ever do it, coupled with the sense of the Lord’s great grace and holiness, which is the crown of self-judgment, by the Spirit’s power. But it is only the sense of the Saviour’s grace and regard for His holiness, which produces self-judgment; as, on the other hand, the exercise of self-judgment increases our sense of that grace, and keeps us bright in it, instead of letting ourselves be lowered to the level of surrounding circumstances, and the state to which the allowance of flesh would ever reduce us. The Lord speaks very severely of such — “Hypocrite!” and I believe censoriousness as a rule does tend directly to hypocrisy. It leads persons to assume a spirituality which they do not possess; and is this truthful? A person who is continually commenting on others you may set down as more or less hypocritical in pretending to a holiness which is certainly beyond his measure. Such is the Lord’s judgment; and you may be sure that the word which He has spoken will so decide at the last day. People forget that there is no way of pretending to spirituality more cheap and more imposing on thoughtless minds than this readiness to speak of the faults of others; but there is scarcely anything that the Lord Jesus more sternly refutes and condemns. “Hypocrite! cast out first the beam out of thine eye, and then thou shalt see clearly to cast out the mote that is in thy brother’s eye.”

Then He shows how clearly it is a question of nature. “For here is no good tree which produceth corrupt fruit, nor a corrupt tree which produceth good fruit.” You cannot change the nature; “Every tree is known by its own fruit; for figs are not gathered from thorns, nor grapes vintage from a bramble.” The Lord did not as yet show the action of two natures, and the way in which the fruits of the new creation might be hindered by the allowance of the old. He simply points out the fact that there are two natures, but not their co-existence in the same person, which is the matter of fact even in the real believer. “Every tree is known by its own fruit.” This is peculiar to Luke — I mean the putting it in so strong a manner. Matthew says, “By their fruits ye shall know them.” Luke makes it more comprehensive and emphatic. “Every tree is known by its own fruit.” “The good man out of the good treasure of his heart bringeth forth good; and the wicked [man] out of the wicked bringeth forth that which is wicked: for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.” This is another addition of Luke’s in this place. Our words are very weighty in the sight of God, as Matthew reveals in chapter 12. of his Gospel, quite in a different connection: “By thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned.” He had in view particularly the great dispensational change when the Jews should be cut off, not only for speaking against the Son of man, but for blaspheming against the Holy Ghost — the sin that cannot be forgiven, into which also the Jews fell. They rejected, not only the humbled Lord Jesus, the Son of man, but they refused the Holy Ghost’s testimony to Him when He was glorified. They rejected every evidence that God gave them, and all advance in the ways of God was utterly loathsome to them. The consequence was that they broke out in violent rejection, according to their own evil, of God’s good things. “Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh.”158b Their mouth spoke, and they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment, even as men generally shall; of every idle word they shall give account. The Jews have thus lost their place for the time, and God has brought in a new thing.

But Luke presents the matter far more as a moral principle. It is true of every man, that Out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaketh: and this is an important test for the state of our souls. Our lips betray the condition of our heart — of our affections. Then there is another thing. If we own Christ to be Lord in word, how come we not to do what He says? The very saying that He is Lord implies the obligation of subjection to Him. “Why call ye me, Lord, Lord; and do not the things that I say? Every one that cometh to me, and heareth my words, and doeth them, I will show you to whom he is like. He is like a man building a house, who dug and went deep, and laid a foundation on a rock.” Nothing could shake that house. “But a great rain coming, the stream broke upon that house.” But in vain when the flood arose, it could not be shaken; “for it had been founded on the rock.” The heeding the words of Christ is that which survives every shock of the adversary. He who proves his faith thus in his obedience shall never be moved nor ashamed. “And he that has heard and not done,” which is precisely what has characterized Christendom and Judaism then and since — “is like a man who hath built a house on the ground, without a foundation, on which the stream broke, and immediately it fell; and the breach of that house was great.” So it shall be. The heaviest blow of the Lord returning in glory will fall, not upon pagans who have never heard, but upon the baptized who have heard and not obeyed the Gospel.

Moralizing for others, or bare unfruitful hearing even of Christ’s words, is but adding to one’s own condemnation. Nothing can be substituted for real obedience of heart. Christ was the obedient as well as the dependent Man, the bright moral contrast of the first man; and such must be and are those who are His. In all respects the discourse supposes and insists on a reproduction of His character in His disciples. It is not only promise come and fulfilled in Christ, but the manifestation of God in Him, and this now forming the disciples who are thus morally and actually distinguished from the nation.159

Endnotes

136 Verse 1.― The operation referred to at the end of the textual note goes by the name of “dittography.” It is Meyer’s explanation, and cf. Field ad loc. Salmon characterizes such explanations as “complicated and lame.” Neander, Winer, De Wette, and Hahn uphold the common reading.

136a Delitzsch: “In the interpretation of this I agree with John Lightfoot, understanding the first Sabbath after the second Easter day, the second Sabbath after the day of offering the barley sheaf (Lev. 23:15), the second Sabbath with sephirah, ha‘omer (computation of the omer).” That is (cf. Lev. 23:4). the omen offering on the morrow after the first great Sabbath (second day unleavened bread). “It seems, therefore, to have taken place a week after Passover” (Briggs. p. 14). Wellhausen has recently written, “It does not rest merely on a blunder.”

137 Verse 2.― “Not lawful on the Sabbath.” See Mishna “Sabbath,” 7:2 and Bennett’s whole chapter 5. We learn from this passage how the Lord put an end to the whole taboo of the Sabbath, as, in Mark 7:19, He did to that meats.

138 Verse 5.―The added words in “D” are shown in transcript opposite to 32 of Paterson Smyth’s “How We Got Our Bible.” James and Paul both use the words, “transgressor of the law” (παραβάτης τοῦ νομοῦ). Only Blass among Edd, (see his “Philology of the Gospels,” pp. 153-155) has ventured to print the insertion in text, as 5a between verses 10 and 11.

139 Verses 6―11. — Neander observes that “the accounts of this event in Matthew, Mark, and Luke were written independently of each other” (“Life of Christ,” p. 275).

140 Verse 6.― “Right hand.” Dr. Belcher (“Our Lord’s Ministry of Healing,” p. 123) notes this as mark of a physician’s exactitude. For some “advanced” writers it has only the value of an accretion in the manner of tradition. But see Harnack.

141 Verse 7.―Observe the use of παρατηεῖν, as to which see ante on 17:20.

142 Verse 8.―Another link with the fourth Gospel.

143 Verse 11.― “Scientific” critics find a discrepancy in the fact that Mark 3:5 exhibits JESUS as angry with the Pharisees. The psychology of such writers is very much at fault.

For the independence of the Synoptists of each other in verses 6-11, see C. E. Stuart, p. 68f.

144 Verse 12.―As to the definite article before “mountain,” see note 39 on Mark (3:13). It is not a particular mountain, as Wetstein and others have supposed. Wellhausen recognizes the principle, illustrated by some modern languages, in his “Introduction,” p. 26. As to prayer, see note 28, and Rom. 12:12.

145 Verse 15.― “Zealot” we have substitution of a Greek for a Hebrew name. Matt, 10:4 has “Cananæan.” The Zealots were the most extreme and violent of the Pharisees (Joseph. “Antiqq.,” 18:1, 6). The Jewish historian states that they originated in Galilee (cf. note 121).

146 Verse 16.― “Judas,” so John 14:22. The same, it is supposed as Matthew’s “Thaddeus,” “was the”; American Revv. rightly “became a” (or, “proved,” ἐγένετο).

147 Verses 17 f.―The corresponding passages in Matthew (5-7, 107 verses) of the so-called Sermon on the Mount should be compared throughout with those of Luke (30 verses only in this chapter) in the following order: Luke 6:20-23 with Matt. 5:3-12; 14:34f. with Matt. 5:13; 8:16 and 11:33 (critics’ “doublet”) with Matt. 5:15; 16:17 with Matt. 5:18; 12:58f: with Matt. 5:25; 16:18 with Matt. 5:32; 6:27 with Matt. 5:44; 11:1-4 with Matt. 6:9-13; 11:34-36 with Matt. 6:22f.; 16:13 with Matt. 6:24; 12: 22-31 with Matt. 6:25-33; 12:34 with Matt. 6:21; 6:37, 38, 41 f. with Matt. 7:1-5; 11:9-13 with Matt. 7:7-11; 13:24 with Matt. 7:13; 6:43f, with 7:16, 20; 6:45 with Matt. 5:37; 6:46 with Matt. 7:21; and 6:47-19 with Matt. 7:24-27.

In aid of detailed comparison of the two records, reference may be made to Salmon, pp. 109-145.

This most notable of the Synoptic discourses raises the question of the relation of Morality to Religion, and of this to Theology. Each of these, accordingly, will be discussed in the sub-sections immediately following.

A RELIGION in general has already been briefly considered in note 9 on joint. As distinct from Theology, which is the study of Religion, the one is “subjective” or personal, the other is “objective.” Unhappily, the two are often confounded.

For the source and nucleus of Religion as conceived by the late Herbert Spencer, see his “Principles of Sociology,” vol. iii., p. 6, “The Religious Idea,” §584: “Belief in a being of the kind we call supernatural―a spirit.” This describes as “The essential element of a cult.”

Auguste Comte has divided the history of Religion into three stages: 1. Supernatural. 2. Metaphysical. 3. Positive (his own system, the “Religion of Humanity”: cf. note 450).

“One of the strongest implications of the doctrine of Evolution,” writes Fiske, “is the Everlasting Reality of Religion” (“Through Nature to God,” p. 111). Cf. Max Midler, “Origin and Growth of Religion,” Lect. ii. Spencer (op. cit., vol. 1. §146) and Tylor (“Primitive Culture,” p. 428) alike discredit the entire deficiency of any tribe of mankind in religious ideas. At the root of Religion lies Faith (see note on 18:8), with both emotional (the dominant) and intellectual elements, crude forms of which pass under the name of “Superstition.” The form of religion at the same time highest and deepest is called “Mysticism” (see “Psychology of Religion,” pp. 154-173, 244f.), one expression of the Christian form of which is found in Paul’s words, a “life hid with Christ in God” (Col. 3:3: cf. Gal. 2:20). This has nothing to do with the “Mysteries” or worship of pagan deities of the Earth or Sea, as to which see Sir W. Ramsay’s article in “Encyclopædia Britamnica,” or Sir R: Anderson’s “The Bible or the Oilmen,” ch. 8., and the late Archdeacon Cheetham’s Hulsean Lectures on “Christian Mysteries.”

A recent masterly book on Christian Mysticism is that of Dr. Rufus Jones, the American Quaker scholar. A man’s religion, as the word is used by Christians, is that which expresses, from his own point of view, his relations to a supernatural Being. All the leading religions, beginning with Judaism (see Abrahams, ch. 6.), have produced mystics, whose tone of mind in the Christian element is described as “spiritual.”

“Control of the individual,” writes Grubb, “by a knowledge larger than his own, is what we call authority,” and “Every one who can see further than others into the truth of things speaks with some authority” (“Authority and the Light Within,” p.11 f.).

The “Seat of Authority” in Christianity is variously determined by different “schools”: those of the Catholic type find it in the Church; Unitarians, in the individual Conscience; whilst those roughly described as “Evangelical” refer everything to Scripture. The last-named position, of course that of the present volume, is well represented by Sir R.’ Anderson’s above-named book, the writer of which insists on the difference between “The Christian Religion” and “Christianity” (“The Bible or the Church,” p. 94f.). It is, of course, true that Christianity is not strictly a “religion” in the sense in which this word was used by Archbishop Laud.

Where any religion has borrowed from another, there is said to be “Syncretism” (mixture). Fairbairn has observed, “The last religion one could describe [Gunkel does] as syncretism is the Christian... its founders too ignorant,” he adds, “of other religions... it was a living organism” (“Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 518f.).

Religion as represented by large communities of men or nations had always to the time of Christ been mixed up with Politics, by which, as in Mohammedanism, it is still much affected. Thus the seventeenth century philosopher, Thomas Hobbes, regarded Religion only as a department of the State. The English “Free Church Council,” representing six denominations, in 1900 emphasized “the claim of political activity upon the Nonconformist conscience”: this “militant” attitude doubtless, however unhappily, does but express the logical outcome of the Puritan policy in the seventeenth century. But what a far cry from our generation to that of Cromwell, to say nothing of Calvin, or Savonarola, referred to at the Swansea Conference by S. Horne! We “live and learn.”

The fundamental ideas and practices (in particular, worship) of Religion, in its highest element, as commonly understood, start from recognition of the claim of some Higher invisible Power on man in this life, which is therefore regulated by the principles of his religion in view of rendering account after death. And so Hobbes found the natural cause of Religious anxiety about the future (Routledge’s edition of Leviathan, 1904, p. 68). For the Jew, such principles are found in the scriptures of the Old Testament; for the Christian, in the whole Bible; whilst the faith and conduct of the Moslem are referable to the Quran, and so on. Hence, throughout the various forms of Religion — the monotheistic of particular (witness Mohammed’s reiterated confession of need of forgiveness his sins) — runs the idea of SIN (in conflict with “Holiness”), its consequences and remedies, which will be dealt with in note on 24:47 below. “Ethical Religion” — to which Buddhism is akin — affects to dispense with this idea altogether (sub-section B).

Comte’s “metaphysical” religion is simply Theology (sub-section C); whilst his “positive” stage is doubtless the precursor of the worship of the Apocalyptic “Beast.” At present it is but a sublimated form of Herbert Spencer’s genesis of Religion, i.e., the apotheosis of deceased heroes, such as Romulus among the ancient Romans. According to this, Jehovah (Yehceh) should have been no more than Emerson’s “superman” (plagiarized by Nietzsche).

“Theosophy” is a jumble, registering the occult ideas of the world in general. In this country it is chiefly advocated by women; many of its Society’s publications are written by them. Thus amongst books “recommended for beginners” are Elements of Theosophy, by Lilian Edger; First Steps in Theosophy, by Ethel M. Mallet; and The Path of Discipleship, by Annie Besant, the most prolific writer of all. The system is Eastern in the main.

“Religion,” strange as it may seem, is still “the special sphere of Satan’s influence” (“The Bible or the Church,” p. 162f.).

Höffding is a standard writer on the “Philosophy of Religion,” as T. H. Green and Dr. John Caird in this country, with whose works rank that of Max Midler, “Introduction to the Science of Religion.” None of these writers, however, able as they were, can be said to have gone to the heart of the matter, which the last-named reached only in his closing days. Liddon’s “Elements of Religion” introduces its reader to a more Biblical element, as does Fairbairn’s valuable work. An article by McPheeters, in Hastings’ “Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels,” deals with authority in Religion. On the distinctly so-called “liberal” side there is “Religions of Authority and the Religion of the Spirit,” by Auguste Sabatier.

The study of Comparative Religion has been usefully served by the series of “Sacred Books of the East,” edited by Max Muller, with which intending Christian Missionaries in that part of the field do well to make themselves familiar. Reinach's recent book entitled “Orpheus” affords a handy repertoire of information, which has been followed by Gilmore’s article in Schaff-Herzog, vol. iii. CHRISTIANITY, of course, is for its adherents the absolute and final religion (John 14:6), which alone brings humanity to “the City of God” (MacCulloch, “Comparative Theology,” p. 2), Its most formidable rival at present is Islam.

B. MORALITY, from being largely concerned with men’s relations to one another (“Righteousness”), is by those who disclaim adherence to any form of supernatural Religion regarded as covering and meeting the whole of their higher needs. For writers such as Leslie Stephen its very genesis is “simply from the felt need of human beings living in society” (“Science of Ethics,” p. 107). Nevertheless, as far back as History goes, Morality (Conscience) is, in fact, found connected with Religion (God consciousness) as its parent (cf. Anderson, “The Bible or the Church,” p. 16); and amongst the old Greeks, Morality was first detached from religion by Aristotle, in the fourth century B.C. whose “Nichomachean Ethics” remain unsurpassed as a system of purely mundane DUTY, the performance of which is now being substituted for recognition of GOD. Such it was with Emerson, the American sage (“superman”). Cf. the “Ethical Hymn Book,” No. 327. Which makes use of the canticle in the second part. of Ps. 19, but substituting “Duty” for “Jehovah.”

In the East, Confucianism is regarded as merely Chinese Hate morality. And so with the religion, such as it is, called “Shinto,” of the Japanese. Both these nations of the yellow race, however, acknowledge a future state of existence, in connection with which reverence (worship) of ancestors cultivated, as expedient for the present life at least. In Japan, writes Baron Kikuchi, they “talk very little of rights,” Duty being paramount. Buddhism is purely ethical, on the lines of morality expounded in the West by writers like David Hume, who distinguished the various types of national morality (not ignored by Christians).

For the Jews, Religion and Old Testament morality remain intertwined.

Abrahams says: “Pentecost celebrates... the inseparable conjunction of the service of God with the service of man” (p. 55).

Christians for the most part are guided by the Decalogue, the Sermon on the Mount and Apostolic precepts developing it, which together constitute their Code of righteousness: this teaches beyond all question (Acts 10:35) that righteousness is what Stanton Coit describes as “the holiest reality” (“Ethical Lecture on the Ten Commandments,” p. 6).

The morality of Moslems is derivable from their sacred book.

Outside the Bible, writers in countries of Christian civilization who have surrendered their allegiance to Gen. 3., trace the origin of Morality to parental affection. Thus Fiske “The relation between mother and child must have furnished the first occasion for the sustained and regular devilment of the altruistic feelings” (op. cit. pp. 121, 133ff.). Cf. Hume’s judgment of Society, expressed as “self-judgment” (Fairbairn, p. 66). By such writers treating sense of Duty as a social feeling implanted in the breast, “The Mosaic Record of the Fall” and of the acquirement of Conscience is deemed an allegory and nothing more, so that Morality is for then, from first to last, a human creation, in no wise proceeding from Revelation. The present writer has heard a lecturer of a London Ethical Society attempt to dispose of the doctrine of original Sin so-called by reference to a child’s treatment of its doll; no distinction being made between the sexes; no allowance for the working of anticipated maternal instinct in a girl; and the derivation of the name of the fetish from “idol” ignored, if indeed apprehended.

The Biblical idea of Sacrifice, that of the individual for the race — so well understood by the Christian soldier, C. J. Gordon — is purloined by the votaries of “Ethical Religion.”

Bishop Butler wrote: “Duties arise out of relations” (“Analogy,” part ii., book ii., § 2). Secular Ethics, on the other hand, as expounded by such as Tolstoi, “makes Duty flow from man’s moral power” (supposing that man is able to do his duty if he will) (W. Kelly, “Exposition of the Epistles of John.” p. 190). Butler was followed by Kant, who, at the close of his “Critique of Practical Reason,” declared himself impressed by (1) the heavens above, (2) the moral law — the moral faculty or conscience within. By writing that work he signified his sense of the insufficiency of his previous classical treatise on Pure Reason. For his bringing the religious element back into the calculation, Kant has been denounced by the nineteenth century Nietzsche as an “idiot”; that is, by the man who could write that “God is dead;” and yet became himself in his last days definitely insane: this should afford reflection for Agnostics enamored with his “Zarathustra.” Harnack brings man back to saner sentiment: he has described virtuous Agnostics as “parasites, living on the faith of others.”

Socialists have attempted to enlist the “Sermon on the Mount” in the service of their nostrums. But, to speak only of Property: Christ’s words as to sacrifice suppose individual ownership. “Christian Socialism” was a plank in Bishop Westcott’s platform: in his “Social Aspects of Christianity” he speaks of the saving, not only of men, but of the world (p. 86). Again, the Bishop Truro (Dr. Stubbs), in his “Vox Clamantium,” would make the object of the Church the reorganization of society (p. 355). For healthier teaching, Hs, D. M. Panton, “Socialism and the Sermon on the Mount.”

Notable are words of George Washington in his last presidential address “National morality cannot prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” Of the so-called “Ethical Religion” imported into England from America (its prophet was Emerson), Prof. Foster, of Chicago, redeeming some earlier utterances, has written: “What does it mean that a society of religionless men are to be the Religion of the Future? On the basis of history it is a fact that moral idea, have always found access and evinced their power in the life of peoples only in connection with the corresponding religious ideas” (The American Journal Theology, April, 1908, pp. 118, 122). Again, Prof. Michael Sadler, in his paper contributed to the Proceedings of the International Congress on Moral Education (1908), has expressed his settled conviction that “there are cert parts of moral education necessary to the good life which are inseparable from one or other form of religious belief.” The recent controversy, however, in connection with a Parliamentary Education Bill, lay rather between advocates of moral training of the “Positivist” type and representatives of Theology, of what is called “definite” religious instruction: this comes in for consideration next.

The case from that point of view has been ably presented by Ernest R. Hull, S.J., in his pamphlet, “Why Should I be Moral?” Upon Synoptic teaching as to Righteousness, see Stalker, “The Ethic of Jesus,” chapter 4.

C. THEOLOGY (cf. Kattenbusch, in the Schaff-Herzog Encyclopædia, vol. xi., pp. 394-397), concerned with systematic, logical development of TRUTH (see Fairbairn, p. 263), as a process collects and formulates religious ideas; in the form of “Biblical” Theology doing this for Revelation in the light of the periods during which that was vouchsafed; in the form of “Symbolic” Theology treating of the fundamentals of the Faith as these were investigated in the age of the first Church Councils, which issued “Catholic Creeds”(cf. note on 18:8); whilst “Dogmatic” Theology has to do with the development of such doctrine in the light of spiritual experience; and so on.

By a “Theologian” in the narrower and strict sense of the term is meant one who is scientifically, as distinct from ecclesiastically, “dogmatic.” Origen le I the way among Christians; with him may be classed Maimonides amongst Jews. Origen has been followed by Athanasius, the Cappadocian “Fathers” (Basil and the brothers Gregory) and Augustine; by Calvin, Hooker, Jonathan Edwards, Newman, Martineau, Dorner, Dale, etc.

By “dogma” in the ecclesiastical sense is meant a truth to which submission is due (Kaftan, Gore, etc.); or as expressed by Orr, “doctrine ecclesiastically sanctified.” Harnack, its great living historian, calls it Doctrine which is held by the CHURCH as such. Those who conform to what is current in their own generation are by their contemporaries deemed “Orthodox.” Höffding has observed that “within the Protestant Churches it is the laity, far more than any Church authorities, who control the orthodoxy of the preachers” (p. 320). They go by what they were taught in their youth and resist “innovation.” There is, unhappily, an indisposition to view Truth like “a growing tree” (J. N. Darby).

When this takes the form of attempting to supersede the Revelation of the New Testament (2 John 9), faithful Christians refuse “Development.” But that any have been entirely free from this tendency, as allied to the dictates of experimental expediency, Newman was right in denying. Very many non-Catholics could agree with him in regarding Infant Baptism, in whatever form it has presented itself, as a product of Development. This aspect of Truth is connected with that which has given rise of late to “Pragmatism,” an apostle of which was the late Prof. William James in America. The Pragmatic method he speaks of as the “interpretation of a notion by the light of its supposed practical consequences” (“Lectures,” p. 45). “Truth in our ideas means their power to work” (ibid., p. 58). Thus the propounder of a theory as to the χαρίσματα the first Corinthian Epistle; in a conversation related by him to the present writer, with the late Professor Tholuck, to whom it was personally explained, was old by that distinguished man that he was of the same opinion, but that he doubted if it would work; to which J. N. Darby rejoined: “Have you ever tried it?” Of course, difference will exist in each case as to the measure of success obtained. For an attack by Nietzsche on those who have “theological in their veins,” see his “Antichrist,” § 9.

148 Verse 18. — The distinction again appears here between disease and demoniacal possession, which modern inquirers are loath to admit. Carpenter, because of “the vast accumulation of evidence from the ages both before and after Christ” (cf. the works of E. B. Tylor, and, in particular, art. Demonology in “Encyclopædia Britannica”), says that “the hypothesis of a peculiar outburst of demoniac energy in the time of Jesus falls in complete collapse.” One has, however, only to read such books as Mrs. Howard Taylor’s Memoir of “Pastor Hsi,” to learn how prevalent it is to our own day in certain quarters.

On this topic, cf. Orr, “The Bible under Trial,” pp. 222-224.

149 Verse 20, — “Lifted up His eyes.” This, B. Weiss observes, is an expression characteristic of the source that he has named “L” (note 41.), rather than of “Q” (“Sources of Synoptic Tradition,” p. 256).

As to glib acceptance of the teaching here, Maclaren remarks: “The people, who say, 'Give me the Sermon on the Mount — I don’t care for your doctrines, but I can understand it,’ have not felt the grip of these Beatitudes (“Expositions,” &c., vol. i., 128).

149a “Poor,” without qualification, cf. 2 Cor. 6:10, James 2:5. For the personal element in this Gospel, of 22:20, and see note on verse 22 below. Some (as Schmiedel, art. Gospels, in “Encyclop. Bibl.,” § 123; of his “Jesus in Modern Criticism,” p. 70 ff.) have suggested Luke made use of an Ebionite source here, and for verse 35f., 11:41, 12:33, 14:21f. and 33, 18:22, 19:8. Tuffs idea is discredited even by Michel; (Introduction, § 27, p. 206, E. T.). The Ebionites’ system would be far too unpalatable to an Evangelist for him to resort to their literature. It should be observed that according to vii. 1, the Lord is addressing a miscellaneous audience. The Apostles themselves, as Salmon says, were not chosen from the very poor, but belong at least to the “lower middle class” (p. 116; cf. Ramsay, Expositor, April, 1909, p. 306). One must not exaggerate this aspect. The thought in this as in Matthew’s Gospel is based on Old Testament passages, such as Ps. 32:2, Prov. 9:23, Isa. lvii. 15 (“an established Old Testament principle,” Schlottmann, Compendium, § 148), with which Gentile readers could familiarize themselves from the LXX. Nevertheless, it is true that the soil in which Christianity at first was sown was characteristically that of poverty, in Greece as well as in Judæa see Deissmann, in Expositor, February, March, 1909.

Again, an attempt has been made to connect the teaching here with the system of the Essenes (alien to Buddhism), as to whom see Lightfoot on “Colossians,” pp. 158-179, Edersheim, “Sketches, etc.,” chapter 15., and Harnack, “Missions,” i. 337). Eusebius (3:27) seems to have referred the name of this sect to the poverty of their intellect in observing sabbaths and oilier Jewish rites.

By “rich” must probably be understood the Pharisees: see 16:14. The opinion of some (as Harnack), founded on 6:24, 16:19, 18:24f., that Luke had a bias against the wealthy, is negatived by cognate passages in Matthew (as 19:21) and Mark (as 10:23). With just as much reason might it be said that Mark had a bias in the contrary direction, because of 14:7 in his Gospel.

150 Verse 21. — Our Lord was for Nietzsche the great type of aristocratic morality, a joyful rather than a suffering Christ!

151 Verse 22 f. — “Separate,” usually taken as from the synagogue (John 16:2); but De Wette took it, like the English translation, as from their society in general. “Cast out”: spread abroad, i.e., bring you into bad repute (Wellhausen).

Son of Man: Matthew’s parallel has “my” (verse 11): of note on 12:8 below. “Rejoice”: as did the excellent John Chrysostom who, when dying, said, “Thanks be to God for all” the persecution he suffered (el. 1 Thess. 5:16-18).

152 Verse 26. — Wesley in his Note asks, “But who will believe this?”

153 Verses 27-36. — For Ritschl, GOD is LOVE, and nothing else, cf. Pfleiderer. “The Development of Theology,” E. T., p. 186. As to Montefiore’s strictures on our Lord’s invective against the Pharisees, see note on 7:40.

154 Verse 31. — cf., of course, Matthew’s form of words (7:12), and also Tobit, 4:15. This golden rule was called by Hillel “the quintessence of the Law” (Pirqe; Aboth); but he stated it negatively (Murray, “Christian Ethics,” p. 66f), as did also the Chinese sage Kung-fu-tse (Legge, “The Religions of China,” pp. 137-139).

155 Verse 32. — “Thank,” or “grace” (χάρις): Vulg. “gratia.” Matthew (v. 46) has “reward,” for which in verse 24 Luke has “consolation.”

155a Verse 33. — Such also was a maxim of Lao-tse, contemporary of Confucius (cf. note 154).

156 Verse 35,ff. — “Hoping for nothing in return”: so Vulgate (followed in. A.V.). Erasmus, Beza, Grotius Wetstein. Godet and Meyer take ἀπελπίζειν as “despair,” after Old Lat. (cf. LXX. of Isa. 29:19); the Revv., in the sense of lack of faith in God’s own’ recompense (Humphry). Field, however, supports A.V. with the remark, “The context is too strong for philological quibbles.”

“Ye shall be (prove) sons.” Cf. Ecclesiastics 4:10. It is a question of character, as in Rom. 8:14.

Plato regarded the object of the life of man as becoming like God.

156a The closing words of this section (of. Matt. 6:14f.) bear on the question, of communion between God and any who have entered into the relationship of children upon initial Repentance and Faith.

With verse 36, cf. Pss. 111:4, 122:4.

157 Verse 38. — “Shall be given.” Strictly, “They shall give.” As in the Aramaic of Daniel, the passive is avoided, so that the agent has not to be expressed. Cf. verse 44 and 12:20, 14:35, 18:23, 23:31.

“With the same measure”: see Deut. 25:15, and of Zech. 5:8f “The very instrument which the woman used for her unholy work was to be the means of her confusion” (C. H. H. Wright ad loc.). The same sentiment is in the Mishna (“Sotah,” 1:7: cf. Bennett, p. 116).

158 Verse 39. — As to blind leaders, cf. Matt. 15:14. It alludes to shepherds’ custom, when angry with their flock, of giving them a blind sheep as a leader. And so of bad administrators of a town (Neubauer, in “Studio, Biblica,” vol. 1., p. 52, note). These words have a bearing on the subject of Interpretation of Scripture. As to which see note 13 above.

158a Verse 40. — “The disciple, etc.” Cf. in this Gospel 22:64 with Acts 23:2; 23:1 with Acts 22:30; 23:2 with Acts 24:5; 23:4, 14, 22 with Acts 23:29; 25:25 and 26:31 respectively, as showing “resemblances very marked” (Moffatt, p. 264, note). See also 2.Tim. 3:17 and note 129a above ... For these two verses reference may be made to Luther’s discourse in “Sermons,” pl. 49, and Spurgeon’s Sermon, No. 1248.

158b Verse 45. — q. 2 Cor. 6:11

159 Verse 46 ff — See Spurgeon’s Sermon, No. 1702.

Luke 7

WE have already had the leper in chapter 5, which Matthew displaces, in order to put it along with the centurion’s servant, which opens our chapter; (the one being used to show the dealings of the Lord Jesus and the character of His ministry among the Jews, and the other to bear witness to the great change which was about to take place in the going forth of mercy to the Gentiles on the rejection of Israel. Luke, as we have seen, was inspired by the Spirit of God to use it for a wholly different purpose. The leper was put with the paralytic man, not with the centurion, in order to bring out the different moral effects of sin, not the change of dispensation. Here, then, we find that the Lord has fully separated the godly remnant of His disciples and shown out the qualities of God’s Kingdom as realized, and Christ’s own character as looked for in them: this would extend to the Gentiles also when they were called.

Now He gives us, in the case of the centurion’s servant, a manifestation of His power and goodness which carries out the truth still further. There are certain points of difference here, worthy of all note, as compared with Matthew, which we might not expect at first sight. The manner of its relation by Luke brings in two things, one of insertion and the other of omission, both very different from Matthew160 First, the embassy of the elders is mentioned here, not in Matthew: “A certain centurion’s bondman who was dear to him was ill and about to die; and having heard of Jesus he sent to him elders161 of the Jews, begging him that he would come and save his bondman.” This brings before us, not only the officer’s affection for his servant, but his employment of the elders of the Jews. “But they, being come to Jesus, besought him diligently, saying, He is worthy to whom thou shouldest grant this, for he loves our nation, and himself has built us the synagogue.162 And Jesus went with them.” Then we have a second embassy: “But already when he was not far from the house, the centurion sent to him friends, saying to him, Lord, do not trouble thyself; for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.” Second thoughts are not always best among men. They constantly mar the simplicity of the first impression, which is apt to be direct from the heart or the conscience. But the mind which sees the consequences continually affects to correct these early impulses, and not seldom for the worse. Simplicity of purpose is ruined by secondary and prudential considerations. But it is not so with real faith, which makes us grow; as it is said, “Grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.” In this case we have what is beautifully characteristic of our Evangelist, both in the first embassy and in the second. The first is his reverence for God’s dealings with the Jews shown in his employment of the elders, of those who were the leaders of Israel, to send to Jesus. But next also we see his employment of friends, who more spoke of his own heart. Matthew mentions the case, but far more succinctly! We should not even learn from the first Evangelist but that he came himself: “A centurion came to him, beseeching him.” Whereas it is clear there was the intervention of both elders and friends. The clue to it is that old maxim of law or equity, that what one does by another one does by oneself. The second occasion brought out more fully the reconsideration in his soul of the glory of Jesus. It was natural that in sending the Jews he should ask for His presence. For not a Jew only, but a faith that leaned upon Israel, that laid hold, as it were, of the skirt of a Jew, was always bound up with the personal presence of the Messiah; but when he spoke out his own proper feeling, and when friends consequently were the medium of his second mission, he says, “Lord, trouble not thyself; for I am not worthy that thou shouldest enter under my roof.” This brings out two things — the deep sense of the Lord’s glory, and a corresponding sense of his own nothingness. “Wherefore neither did I count myself worthy to come to thee.” This is left out in Matthew entirely; because Matthew, summing it all up, simply speaks of the centurion. If we had had this alone, then we might have thought that the centurion actually came, and that there was only one message to Jesus. But it was not so. Here as we have the embassies mentioned, it is added by the Spirit of God, “Wherefore neither did I count myself worthy to come to thee.”

And that was just his state. It looked the saddest case, He was not worthy that the Lord should come; and neither did he think himself worthy that he should go to the Lord.

How could mercy flown Faith finds in each extremity the opportunity for grace worthy of God, and for the glory of such an One as Jesus. “But say by a word, and my servant shall be healed.” Thus the “word,” as we habitually find in Luke, has its paramount place. The turning-point is not the bodily presence even of Messiah, but the word. Jesus was man, but He was the vessel of Divine power; therefore He had only to say in a word, and his servant should be healed. His coming to the spot was in no way necessary — His word was enough. “For I also am a man placed under authority, having under myself soldiers: and I say to one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my bondman, Do this, and he does [it].” That is, his faith owned that Jesus had the very same power, and indeed more; for he was only a man under authority: Jesus, the perfectly dependent and obedient Man, could command all, ever to the glory of God the Father. Even he, under authority as he was, nevertheless had authority himself to order this one and that one, especially his own servant. All things were but servants to Jesus — all subserved God’s glory by Him. He had only to speak the word: disease itself must obey. “Say by a word, and my servant shall be healed.” “And Jesus, hearing this, wondered163 at him, and turning to the crowd following him said, I say unto you, not even in Israel have I found so great faith.”

But there is an omission — and this was the second point of difference I wished to mark — an omission of what Matthew adds: “But I say unto you, That many shall come from [the] rising, and setting [sun], and shall lie down at table with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob in the kingdom of the heavens. But the sons of the kingdom shall be cast out into the outer darkness; there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.” At first sight one might have expected this, particularly in Luke; but a closer inspection will show that its proper place is not here. The Lord does bring it in elsewhere in Luke, namely, in chapter 13, when the time was come for distinctly indicating the change; and this on moral considerations, and not on dispensational ones only. Whereas Matthew, being intent on the impending change for Israel and the Gentiles, is led of the Spirit to introduce it in this place and time, where no doubt it was uttered. But with equal wisdom Luke reserves it for another connection. I do not doubt that the moral reason for that reservation was this, that while the Lord did acknowledge, if I may so say, the simplicity Of the faith of the Gentile — and simplicity in faith is power — while He exceedingly valued that faith which saw much more than a Messiah in Him, which saw God in Him (man though He really was) — saw His power over sickness, even though at a distance from it, which is so effectual a bar to all human resources, but which only displaced One Who was man, but far more than man. Such was to be the faith of the Gentile, in due time, when Jesus should be actually absent from this world; but when all the virtue of Jesus should be as, or even more, conspicuous in some important respects. Such is Christianity; and the Gentile centurion was an illustrious type of the character of this faith. Nevertheless Christianity being brought out, specially among the Gentiles, as Romans 11 shows us, the continual danger is for the Gentile to account that the Jew has been cut off that he might be grafted in. Hence there was the wisdom of God in not introducing that solemn judgment upon Israel, as well as the strong expression of the substitution of the Gentile for him in this place. It was evidently to correct Gentile conceit. It is true the Jews were to be judged — in fact, were already under judgment; but that sentence was to be executed still more stringently when the Gentiles were to be gathered in. But the Lord waits a more fitting season for announcing it. Thus the Gentile is taught by this scene the proper feeling towards a Jew. Faith would not despise them. It may go beyond Jewish intervention, but it should honor the Jews in their own place. At the same time, his own danger of presumption, as if he were the exclusive object of God’s purpose, is guarded against by the omission of any such sentence here.164

It is needless to say that they that were sent, returning to the house, found the bondman whole who had been ill.165

But there follows, the day after, another scene of great interest, carrying out the picture of our Lord’s power more completely; and it is a scene peculiar to Luke. “It came to pass afterward, that he went into a city166 called Nain; and many of his disciples and a great crowd went with him. And as he drew near to the gate of the city, behold, a dead man was carried out, the only son167 of his mother, and she a widow.” Two touches very characteristic of our Evangelist, as indeed the whole scene is peculiar to him: he was the only son of his mother, and she was a widow. It is the heart of a man touched by the circumstances of desolation, and open to the affections that suited such a case. The Lord of glory deigned to feel, and to bring out by the Holy Ghost these circumstances. “A very considerable crowd [was] with her.” Even man showed his sympathy. What did the Lord? “And the Lord168 seeing her, was moved with compassion for her, and said to her Weep not.”169 He came to banish the tears which sin and misery had brought into the world. I do not say that He came not to weep Himself; for, in banishing it, He must weep as none other wept. But to her He would say in His gracious power, “Weep not; and coming up he touched the bier,170 and the bearers stopped. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Wake up.” Vain words had they not been His words; or from any other mouth! What a difference it is who says it! That is what men forget when they think of Christ, or speak of Scripture. They forget it is God’s Word, they overlook God in man and by man, the Man Christ Jesus. “And the dead sat up and began to speak. And he gave him to his mother.”

God was there; God was with that Man in His own power: for what is more characteristic of God than raising the dead? It was even more wondrous than creation. That God should create is, so to speak, natural. That God should raise the dead to life again, after that which is created is fallen into ruin, that He should show his all-compassing power of retrieving to the uttermost, supposes indeed man’s weakness and evil, and the enemy’s temporary success, but God superior to all circumstances of hostile power in the creature, and His own just judgment of sin. And this is true most evidently in the Gospel. It is viewed as the quickening voice of the Son of God, and this in view of sin and of eternity. But the Lord shows it in matters of time here. And he said, Young man, I say unto thee, Wake up.” And our Evangelist closes with words in keeping with all his spirit: “And he gave him to his mother.” If he was a man acquainted with grief, He was a man acquainted with the power of sympathy. He knew how to minister to the heart that was bereaved.171 “And fear seized on all and they glorified God, saying, A great prophet has been raised up amongst us; and God has visited his people.” He had the power of life in the midst of death. He was a prophet, and more than a prophet. God had anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power, Who went about indeed doing good.172 “And this report went out in all Judea173 concerning him, and in all the surrounding country.”174

Up to the end of chapter 6, the Lord is still within the precincts of Israel, though undoubtedly there are principles of grace which intimate much more — the outgoing of Divine mercy towards every soul of man. Yet until the end of that chapter the Lord does not actually go beyond the godly Jews now associated with Himself, and in mission too, as the apostles. If He gathers, He sends out from Himself to gather into Himself: and their moral traits, which distinguished them from the nation, are laid down with great emphasis and direct personal application to the close of that chapter. Then we have a Gentile’s faith, who owns Christ’s Divine supremacy over all things, whether even disease or distance here below. Nothing could be too great for Him. Jesus, the day after, proves His power over death. Most truly man, He is nevertheless above nature, so to speak, and that which sin had brought in as God’s judgment on the race. Clearly therefore in all this we have what goes beyond Israel as such, and expressly so in the case of the Gentile centurion’s servant.

This, accordingly, brings in deeper things. John’s disciples reported all these things to their master, who calls two of his disciples and sends them to Jesus, questioning whether he were “he that is coming, or are we to wait for another?” The Lord, in the same hour that they stated their errand, cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits, and unto many that were blind He gave sight. And then He “answering said to them, Go, bring back word to John what ye have seen and heard: that blind see, lame walk, lepers are cleansed, deaf hear, dead are raised, the poor are evangelized; and blessed is he whosoever shall not be offended in me.” It was a solemn answer, and should have been a very touching reproof to John. Here was One Who sought not His own glory, yet He could not but point to that which God was doing, for God was with Him. He “went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.” God meant this for a witness. But was it not sad and humbling that he who was raised up specially to render witness to Jesus should require witness from Jesus?175 And Jesus, in the overflowing of His grace, gives witness, not only to what God was doing by Himself, but to John also. Thus no flesh glories in His presence. He that glories must glory in the Lord. John himself failed completely in the object for which he had been sent, at least at this crisis. None can bear utter rejection but the Spirit of Christ; nothing else can go through it undimmed, unstained. Christ is not only the great doer, but great doer, but greatest sufferer; and John did not look for this. He had known what fidelity of witness was in an evil world: but the testifying of the Messiah that He should be a sufferer, and consequently his own share of it as His herald in prison, seem to have been too much for his faith or that of his disciples. He needed at the very least to be confirmed; he needed to have proof positive that Jesus was the predicted Afessiah, for himself or for others.175a We have seen the answer given him by our Lord.

Observe here that there was no point more remarkable in the ordinary ministry of Jesus than His care for the poor. To the poor the gospel was preached. His concern about them was the very reverse of all that was found among men before. If others had cared for the poor, it was but an evidence of the working of His Spirit in them, and nothing characteristic; in Jesus’ case it was opening out His heart, if possible, with greater care to them than to any others, the bright hopes that the gospel announces, the display of that which is eternal for the eyes of believers in the midst of present need among those who were most liable to be overwhelmed by it.176 “And blessed is he, whosoever shall not be offended in me.” There we find a rebuke, couched certainly in the gentlest terms; nevertheless, it was that which was intended, no doubt, to deal with the conscience. John seems to have been stumbled but blessed was he whosoever was not offended in Jesus, There was nothing that so grated upon every natural thought of a Jew as the rejection and shame accompanying the Messiah, or those that bore witness of Him, Man was wholly unprepared for it. They had been waiting for long and weary years for the Messiah to bring in deliverance. Now that He was come, that evil should fall with apparent impunity on His servants, and even upon Himself — that they, and He too, should be despised of men―was too much for their faith. They were “offended” in Him.177

Christianity, let me say, has given immense range.to the display of all this. Indeed, it is the glory and blessing of the Christian. He is not stumbled at the rejection of Christ. He sees the Cross in the light of heaven, not of the earth; he knows its bearing on eternal things. Present things are not the question. God has brought in the unseen things, and the Christian is familiar with them even now. He accordingly rejoices in the Cross of Christ, and boasts in that which is the overthrow of all the natural thoughts of men, and the judgment of the world, but which is really, by the grace of God, the judgment of sin, and the vindication of His own moral glory. Therefore the Christian triumphs in it. Besides, it is that which gave occasion to the infinite grace of the Lord Jesus, and in all these things he delights. He therefore has the blessing fully; and is strengthened, not offended, by the Cross.

When the messengers of John go away, the Lord can speak in vindication of His servant. After all, viewed, not in connection with what was coming, but according to that which had been and was, who was found among men worthy of such honor? He was no reed shaken with the wind: this they might see any day in the wilderness. Neither was he a man clothed in soft raiment: they must look to kings’ courts to find men gorgeously appareled and living delicately. There is no moral grandeur in any of these things. A prophet then he was, and much more than a prophet. Such is the witness of Jesus: “This is he concerning whom it is written, Behold, I send my messenger before thy face, who shall prepare thy way before thee.”/178 He was the immediate forerunner of the Messiah. God put singular honor on him. There were many prophets; there was but one John, but one who could be the messenger before His face. Consequently our Lord adds, “Among those that are born of women,179 there is not a greater [prophet] than John [the Baptist].”

Yet this, be it noted, brings out so much the more the superior blessing of those who were to be in the new state of things, when prophecy or unfulfilled promise should be no longer, but the basis of the kingdom should be laid on the work of Christ. That new order was coming in, first to faith, then in power; and Luke gives great force to that which was revealed to faith, because it is known through the Word of God and the power of the Holy Ghost. It is not yet the visible manifestation of the Kingdom, but none the less God’s Kingdom, which was to come in through a rejected Son of man. Redemption may be the basis of better and still more glorious things, but it is the basis of the Kingdom of God: and in that Kingdom the least was greater than the greatest before — greater even than John. The least in that Kingdom would rest on redemption already accomplished; the least would know what it is to be brought to God, sin put away, and the conscience purged. John the Baptist could only look onward to these things. The Christian knows them to be actually come, and by faith his own portion. He is not waiting for them; he has them. Thus he that is least in the Kingdom of God is greater than John.

At the same time, we are told that “all the people” that heard John the Baptist, “and the publicans” too — that is, the mass, even the despised tax-gatherers — “justified God,180 being baptized with the baptism of John.” They were right so far. It was a witness of what was coming: it was a confession of their own sin. Thus far they justified God. But the prudent and wise, the religious, learned, and great, “the Pharisees and lawyers,” rejected and “frustrated the counsel of God against themselves;” because they refused even the preparatory work of John the Baptist. Having refused the lesser testimony, they never passed into the greater things — the reality from God. Having refused that which their own consciences ought to have proved to be true, they were not prepared to receive the gift of His grace. Christ can only in the conscience be received to salvation, Feeling and understanding will never do alone. There must be conscience. Those whose slumbering consciences had been aroused Godward concerning their sins were only too glad to receive Christ. Those whose consciences slept, or were roused but for a moment, were never brought to God savingly. When Christ is received by faith, the conscience is active toward God, the mind and heart rejoice as they enter into and appropriate the blessing, but not otherwise. Where there is no work in the conscience, all is given up speedily. They are “offended” by this or that. Thus, the men of that generation181 were like captious children, “sitting in the market-place, and calling one to another, and saying, We have piped to you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned [to you], and ye have not wept.” Whatever God called to was offensive. If God brought in joy, they would not dance: if God brought in a call to mourn, they would not weep. Thus, when John the Baptist came, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, the expression of no communion, because sin was in question (and how could God send one to have communion with sin 2), they said he had a demon. “The Son of man is come eating and drinking.” Now there could be communion: the rejected Christ is the foundation of all true fellowship with God. But they said, “Behold, an eater and a wine-drinker, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!” Man, thinking well of himself, counts the grace of God to be allowance of sin. When God calls to righteousness, it is too severe for man when He calls to grace, it is toe loose for him. Every way man likes not God: he shrinks in presence of law, and he despises in presence of grace. “And wisdom is justified 182 of all her children.” And the incident that follows is a striking proof of it in both its parts — the witness of it, not only in her who was a sinner but is now a child of wisdom, but also in him who could not appreciate the One Who is the wisdom of God.

As illustrating wisdom justified of all her children, as well as the superiority of the new system of grace, the kingdom of God as it was about to come in, the Spirit leads Luke to give the story of the woman who followed Jesus into the house of the Pharisee (it would seem in His train). All was arranged to bring out the truth and the grace of God with great precision. “One of the Pharisees183 begged him that he would eat with him.” The Lord goes into the house and takes His place at table. “A woman in the city, a sinner,” evidently of notorious character,184 “when she knew that he was sitting at meat in the Pharisee’s house, took an alabaster box of myrrh, and standing at his feet behind [him] weeping, began to wash his feet with tears, and she wiped them with the hairs of her head, and kissed his feet, and anointed [them] with the myrrh.”184a

Faith makes a soul very bold; at the same time, it gives great propriety. But its boldness is inspired by the attractive power of the Object looked to. It is from no qualities of our own. What, for instance, could be more beautifully in season, what more modest and right in feeling and act than the conduct of this hitherto abandoned woman? Now, at least, so much the more glory to the Object of her faith Who brought about this immense change. When she knew that Jesus was invited there, she went too. It was the last place where she would otherwise have ventured. It was Jesus Who emboldened her to go there without invitation. But when she found herself there, she did not ask Peter or James or John or any of them, as the Greeks asked Philip, to see Jesus. She went at once: not merely her own deep sense of need, but her sense of His ineffable grace — the grace of Jesus — gave the entrée at once, and introduced her without further form or ceremony. Completely absorbed in an object, which she may not have defined to her mind to be a Divine Person, but which proved itself to be none the less Divine by its all-overcoming power over her soul, she must have instinctively shrunk from the Pharisee’s house under any other circumstances. Ordinarily there was everything to repel, nothing to attract her, in that house. Yet she made no apology for the intrusion; she knew without being told that Jesus made her free to draw near; and there she was found, standing at His feet behind Him, weeping.

Remark, too, how every way, every act, every feature of the case was perfectly suited to express without a word the real truth of her past as well as present, and of His goodness. She began to wash His feet with tears, and did wipe them with the hairs of her head, and kissed His feet and anointed them with the ointment. Mary did it another day — did that which was so similar, that seine have even fancied this to be Mary.185 But that is a profound mistake. We hear nothing at all of her tears. We do hear of her anointing the feet of Jesus, as well as His head, and Wiping them with the hair; so that the house was filled with the odor of the ointment. In both it was an act of devotedness to Jesus; and devotedness does not imitate, but like devotedness to the Same object, produces similar effects, though each with its own peculiarity. But besides devotedness, there was in this woman confession of her own self-abasement, of her horror at her sins, of her repentance towards God, and her faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. That was not the question with Mary. Mary was filled with a sense of the danger that impended over Jesus. She had a vague but true consciousness of His approaching death, so that the Lord counted it an anointing for His burial, gave it Divine value, and expressed what her heart had not uttered even to Himself, but nevertheless what she could not but feel, though she could not articulate it. But in this woman’s case it was the unaffected pouring out of a burdened heart, which felt its only relief in thus washing his feet with tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head. Thus, in sense of grace produces effects very similar to a deep sense of His glory. They are both Divine, both of the Spirit of God. A sense of His grace, shaded by the sense of her own sinfulness, was the predominant feeling in this poor woman’s mind; as a sense of His glory, shaded by the feeling of approaching danger, was of Mary’s.

All this was lost upon the Pharisee; or rather, it stirred up the unbelief of his heart. “When the Pharisee which had bidden him saw it, he spice within himself, saying, This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner.” His thought was that the being a sinner would unfit for Jesus. Yet he had no adequate notion of the glory of Jesus, nor of His holiness, nor, of course, of His grace: he would not even allow Him to, be a prophet. Had He been so, as he thought, He must have seen through the woman who touched Him. Simon knew that the woman was a sinner. It was known commonly in the place. If Jesus had only known her character, it was inconceivable to Simon that He would have allowed her to take such a liberty with His person. But Jesus thoroughly knew her as well as Simon; and if she was a sinner He was a Saviour. Alas! the Pharisee neither felt the sin nor saw the Saviour according to God. Phariseeism is an attempt to take a middle ground between a sinner and a Saviour, and this ignores both the misery of the one and the grace of the other. All worldly religion avoids a real, deep Confession, as of sin so of a Saviour. It contents itself with generalities and forms. It admits sin, and it acknowledges a Saviour, after a Sort; but the golden mean which in the world’s things is so valuable is fatal in what is Divine. This is what Christianity was intended to bring people out of. It is what the faith of God’s good news disproves and banishes for the gospel of salvation stands expressly on the ground of total ruin through sin, Now man, religious man, dislikes all extremes, likes moderato views; but by this moderation of view the depths of sin are unfelt and the Saviour is unhonoured, The Pharisee shows it out in contrast with the woman. He was not a child of wisdom: “wisdom is justified of all her children.” He found ignorance where she found perfect grace; and she was wise. She was a child of wisdom.

Wisdom was not justified by him. It was unseen and denied. “This man, if he were a prophet, would have known who and what manner of woman this is that toucheth him, for she is a sinner.” He did not know: such was the Pharisee’s account of Jesus.

But Jesus answered what lie did not utter — “Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee;185a and he saith, Teacher, say [it].” And the Lord then tells him the parable of the creditor. “There were two debtors of a certain creditor: one owed five hundred pence, and the other fifty” — One a comparatively large and the other a small sum; but neither could pay, and he186 “forgave both of them [their debt].” Who would love him most? The Pharisee would answer on human ground with correctness, “I suppose he to whom he forgave the most.” The Lord owned that he had rightly judged, and then He at once applies it. “Seest thou this woman? I entered into thy house; thou gavest me no water for my feet.”

After all, the entertainment that even a Pharisee — a religious man — provides for Jesus is very short. Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks: the poor reception betrayed how little his heart welcomed Jesus. Yet he thought to patronize Jesus. This is what natural religion always does. He thought he was doing honor to Him, but instead of that he was nourishing himself, and proved the low conception he had of Jesus by the measured scale of that which he provided for Jesus. “I entered into thy house; thou gavest me no water for my feet” — that was an ordinary thing in they countries — “but she hath washed my feet with tears, and wiped them with, her hair. Thou gavest me no kiss” — in these lands no strange reception — “but she, from the time I came in, hath not ceased kissing my feet; my head with oil thou didst not anoint”187 — but here again how entirely she went beyond “but she hath anointed my feet with myrrh.” Not even a king was so entertained. “For which cause I say unto thee, Her many sins are forgiven, for she loved much; but he to whom little is forgiven loveth little.”188

It was evidently not the woman’s first sense of the grace of Christ. What she had done was because with her heart she slid believe in Him. She believed before she came. Her faith had brought her, but she did not know that her faith saved her. She loved before she came, and all that she did was the fruit of her love; yet not her love, but her faith saved her.189 She loved much, because she was forgiven much; and she felt it. Thus she was led to this love by the deep sense of her sin, and of the attractive grace of the Saviour; and so she must hear how truly she was forgiven. The Lord says to her, “Thy sins are forgiven.” This drew out the inward question of those around, and not Simon’s only: “They began to say within themselves, Who is this that forgives sins also?”

Here, again, also, it was not the first time. The Lord had said publicly to the palsied man, “Thy sins are forgiven thee.” But there was a difference, and a weighty one, between that forgiveness and this. There it was within the bounds of Israel, and it was specially in reference to this world. I do not mean to say that the man may not have been forgiven eternally; but that it was emphatically the forgiveness of sins proved by the healing of his body, and both in connection with the earth. Thus it was what May be and has been called governmental forgiveness, and after this sort I suppose it will be that God will act in the millennium. It may or may not be eternal. The millennial reign of Christ will be accompanied by the banishing of diseases and the forgiveness of sins. There will be nothing but blessing everywhere. But whether it be eternal or not will depend, no doubt, on the reality of the work of God in the soul (i.e., on faith).189a

In the case before us the forgiveness has nothing to do with the present life. It is absolute, unconditional, and eternal; and assuredly this will be found by and by in the kingdom of God, as it is now brought out in the power of the Holy Ghost. It was what ought to be in Christianity — a kind of little anticipation or example of what was to be proclaimed in the Gospel; and it is peculiar to Luke. He said to the woman in Answer to these doubts, “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace”190 words nowhere said to the palsied man. It was not her love that saved her, but her faith. Love is the exercise, of that which is within us — of that new nature which the Holy Ghost imparts, and of which He is Himself the strength. But faith, although of the Spirit of God, nevertheless finds all in its object, in another. Love is more what people call a subjective thing; whereas the essence of faith is that, though in man, it is nevertheless exercised on what is outside him. The whole of that which it depends on is in its object — even Christ. “Thy faith hath saved thee; go in peace.” Thus there is present salvation, and this in such power that the Lord can bid her “go in peace.” This is precisely what the Gospel now announces freely, and unfolds fully, according to the value of an inestimable, exhaustless Christ and His work.191

Endnotes

160 This chapter exhibits no link whatever with the Gospel of Mark.

161 Verse 3. — “Sent.” Abbott (“Encyclopedia Biblica,” col. 1774) remarks. Matthew and Luke differ irreconcilably. Matthew says that the man did come to Jesus. And so, as the present writer has been informed by a member of the Burmese Commission, would a Burmese say not taught otherwise by Western magistrates. An Eastern calls himself the principal when acting only as agent. “Elder” are called “rulers” in Mark 5:22. If “overseers” in Acts 20:28, 1 Pet. 5:2; and “guides” in Heb. 13:7.

162 Verse 5. — “The synagogue,” Remains of this still extant may be found described in various books.

163 Verse 9. — For wander attributed to the Lord, cf. Mark 6:6; there at belief; here at belief.

164 Verses 6-9. — The wording of these verses is compared with that of Matt. 8:8-10 by Harnack, “Luke the Physician,” p. 94f.

“I also,” implying that he acknowledged the Power behind the Lord his appreciation of which Christ marveled (Morison on Matt. 8:9).

165 Verse 10. — This section should not be confounded — as by some moderns — with John 4:46ff., which is entirely distinct.

166 Verse 11. — How paltry some of the criticism that is bestowed on the Evangelist’s geography or topography, finds illustration in Hausrath’s objecting to the description of Nain as a city. See “New Testament Times,” 3:4l0 and Hahn ad loc. What, for example, did Hausrath know of Nazareth as it was shell in the days of Christ?

Scripture speaks similarly of “streets” in Jerusalem, etc., but these are not what we so call: any visitor to the old part of Jerusalem could confirm this: there you have only open spaces.

167 Verse 12. — “Only son.” For another case, see 9:38, and see note 18, above.

168 Verse 13. — “The Lord” (ό Κύριος). See again in 101 [Edd., 39, 41], ¨11:39, 12:42, 13:15, 17:5f., 18:6, 19:8, 22:31, 24:3 (before “Jesus”) and 34, all in this Gospel of the “Son of Man.” In John’s Gospel it occurs only four times: 4:1, 6:23, 11:2, and 20:20. It is not found in either Matthew or Mark.

169 “Weep not” or “do not go on weeping,” the continuous present, as in John 20:17, “do not go on clinging.”

170 Verse 14. — “Bier”: as to Jewish manner of burial, see Joseph. “Antiqq,” xvii. 197f., Life, 323, or Edersheim, “Sketches of Jewish Social Life,” p. 109.ff: 171

171 Verse 15. — Cf. 1 Kings 17:23.

172 Verse 16. — “Visited.” Cf. 1:68 and 19:41, where also it is merciful visitation (ἐπισκόπη). The word for “visitation” in the sense of vengeance isἐκδίκησος, as in 21:22.

173 Verse 17. — “Judæa.” Meyer’ Ewald, Weiss and H. Holtzmann take this of the whole land (cf. note 114); Hahn, who holds that it is nowhere in the New Testament so used, observes that the Lord’s opponents were chiefly in the South (so Plummer on the present passage).

174 This incident of raising the dead is intermediate between that of Jairus’s daughter, not carried out for burial, and the raising of Lazarus when already buried. Difference in the significance of the three cases as typical of stages in the process of conversion was suggested already by Augustine, Sermon XCVIII., whom Wordsworth follows.

The publicity of this case, which is not recorded by Mark, might supply such critics with food for reflection as attach greater historical value to our second Gospel. Cf. O. Holtzmann, p. 274, for candid recognition of the circumstances of this miracle; also Wellhausen’s note ad toe. (“before many witnesses”).

175 Verse 19. — As to the Jewish idea that there are two Messiahs, one the “son of David,” the other the “son of Joseph,” see Lightfoot, “Horæ Hebr.” The Baptist would at least know that JESUS was the suffering one.

The Expositor’s view of John’s state of mind is that taken by Tertullian, Neander, Meyer, Dc Wette, Olshausen and Godet the Baptist had real (not, as Stier, simulated) doubt, and that increasing, not (as some moderns) declining. See further Godet ad loc., as to the Baptist’s state of mind being characteristic of the old dispensation.

175a Augustine, Hilary, Chrysostom, Calvin, Wordsworth, and Ryle suppose that the mission of John’s disciples was meant by him to aid their faith.

176 Verse 22. — We have here a summary of Messiah’s work: “Poor evangelized.” Wesley offers a characteristic comment: “The greatest mercy and the greatest miracle of all.”

177 Verse 23. — Observe that nowhere in the Gospels are the Scribes and Pharisees represented as challenging the Lord as to miracles: this alone might show that they were actually performed. The Talmud adds confirmation by the very explanation that it offers (cf. note 107 above).

178 Verse 27.―This quotation (as in Matt. 11:10; Mark 1:2), from neither the Hebrew nor the LXX., illustrates the belief of the late Adolf Neubauer, that Aramaic paraphrases lie behind quotations in the Gospels from the Old Testament.

179 Verse 28. — “Born of women.” Chrysostom, whom Sadler follows, explain, that our Lord excluded Himself from the number of those so described. It noticeable that the word is γεννητός, not, as in Gal. 4:4 (cf. Phil. 2:71. γενόμενος (“come”). In verses 23, 29 of the same chapter of the Epistle to the Galatians the Apostle uses, of Isaac and Ishmael, verb forms cognate to γενόμενος.

“Little.” Bishop Basil Jones “less,” explaining it as, “than John in gifts and Mower.” Augustine and Chrysostom, although happily followed by very few (as Spence), take this of the Lord Himself.

Farrar “The smallest diamond is made of more precious substance than the largest flint.”

The last words of the Lord here about John are, of course, very offensive to the Mandæans, or modern disciples of the Baptist, settled to the south of Bagdad (Reinach, p. 107).

180 Verse. 29 f. — Syrsin here has “justified themselves to God.” These verses are taken by the Expositor as parenthetical; that is, as Luke’s own comment. So Field and Adeney; whilst Meyer, Bishop Basil Jones, B. Weiss, Spence, and Plummer regard the words as proceeding from the Lord. But, as Norris says, the tenses used indicate that it is the Evangelist who speaks. Besides, is parenthesis is in his manner: see 13:7, and Acts 1:18 f. Compare, further, Matt. 21:32.

181 Verse 31. — “This generation.” Meyer, Hofmann and Hahn understand by this, the Pharisees.

182 Verse 35. — “Is justified” (ἐδικαιώθη). Burton (§ 43) calls this a “gnomic aorist,” to which effect was given by the English version, retained by the Bevy.; whilst Winer (Moulton’s ed., p. 346) held that this does not occur in the New Testament. Cf. like use of ἐβλήθη in John 15:6, and note there.

Dorner finds here germs of our Lord’s pre-existence (1:1, 61). Cf. 10:23f., 11:49.

“Children.” The reading of א, “works,” may have come from Matt. 11:19. “All” is omitted in אcorr D, Syrcu,

183 Verse 36. — “One of the Pharisees.” Not the same as Simon the leper (Mark 14:3).

As to the better side of Pharisaism, see Murray’s “Handbook of Christi Ethics,” p. 67.

Venn preached from this passage (Sermons, p. 217), as Augustine lung ago (Library of the Fathers, vol. i. of “Sermons on the New Testament,” p. 387),

184 Verse 37. — “A woman... a sinner.” The chapter heading of Bibles still in use and the “Pilgrim’s Progress” have given currency to the idea of Latin Fathers (Augustine, etc.) that she was the same as Mary of Magdala: to this Farrar was inclined to adhere on the sentimental ground of its associations in sacred art! But see B. Weiss and Norris.

184a Verse 38. — “Kissel,” i.e., covered with kisses (κατεφίλησε).

“Behind.” The Lord at the time was recumbent, His head forward, with His feet backward.

185 Gregory “the Great” (“Works,” p. 1582), whose view was definitely accepted by the Church of Rome, supposed that she was identical with Mary of Bethany; as Grotius, Schleiermacher and H. Holtzmann also have done, Bat, to say little more, Bethany is described as a κώμη (10:38); this place, a πόλις. Cf. the wording of 8:1, and note 192, s. init. On the Romish muddle here, see Stock, p. 126.

The Greek Fathers rightly distinguished all three cases. Schanz, although a Roman, regards the incident entirely from the Lucan standpoint.

185a Montefiore remarks (on 6:27, 35, etc.) that JESUS, had He carried out His own teaching, could not have called His enemies (Pharisees) “vipers” (Matt. 12:34), and exultingly have consigned them to Gehenna. Note, however, the words of F. W. Robertson: “He blighted Pharisaism, with irony and terrible invective. But to the actual living Pharisee, how tenderly did He express Himself! Simon, I have somewhat to say unto thee ... So far as he is a man an object of infinite pity and tenderness” (“Lectures on Corinthians,” p. 72). Our Lord could not have used smooth words towards the system which Mr. Montefiore Endeavors to defend. The Apostle Paul tells us that love is to be “without hypocrisy” (Rom. 12:9).

186 Verse 42. — “Forgave” (ἐχαρίσατο) is one of the Greek words that shares with Paul. (Rom. 3: 24; Eph. 2:8f.).

See Spurgeon’s Sermons, 1739 and 2127. Gregory “the Great” said that as often as he read this narrative, he felt that he could better weep than preach.

187 Verse 46. — For head “anointed with oil,” see Ps. 23:5, and cf. Amos 6:6.

188 Farrar works out the rhythmic parallelism noticeable in these verses. Cf. Matt. 2:7-10.

189 Verse 47. — Her faith wrought by love: Gal. 5:6. For the love accompanying faith which works manwards, see Matt. 5:43 ff. Cf. Gore, “The Creed of the Christian,” p. 53. As to Lucan Paulinism, see note 100 above.

189a Verses 48-50. — Dr. Alexander Maclaren has preached from these verses. (Third Series of Sermons: “Love and Forgiveness.”)

190 Verse 50. — For “Go in (εἰς) peace,” of Mark 5:34, ὔπαγε εἰς εἰρήν, Plummer: Els marks the subsequent life (lasting condition); ἐν (as in Acts 16:36; Jas. 2:16), the moment of departure. Cf. Carr ad loc. Farrar in his Excursus gives quotations from the Moed Qaton. Maclaren, “His Word is like a living creature and fulfils itself” (vol. i., p. 214).

191 Frennsen has made use of this narrative in his “Holy Land.” p. 376.

The views of some critics that it is a “doublet” of Mark 14:97, which Luke omits, is rejected by J. Weiss. The parable of the two debtors, as Bruce observes, is an original element (“Apologetics,” p. 462).

Luke 8

THE last chapter broke out into the widest sphere, and brought in Divine power over human sickness and death―yea, more, Divine grace in presence of nothing but sin. Nevertheless moral ways are produced according to God’s own nature. Grace does not merely forgive. Those who are forgiven are born anew and manifest their new life in suitable ways, and this in due season by the, power of the Holy Ghost.

In this chapter we find how grace goes forth in service. “It came to pass afterward, that he went through [the country], city by city, and village by village.” How indiscriminate is His “preaching and announcing the glad tidings of the kingdom of God”!192 Anywhere and everywhere grace can go as to its sphere, but it distinguishes according to God’s will; because He must be sovereign. He pardons whom He will, and when) He will He hardens. The twelve were with Him; and not they only, but “certain women who had been healed of wicked spirits and infirmities, Mary, who was called Magdalene,193 from whom seven demons had gone cut, and Joanna, wife of Chula, Herod’s steward, and Susanna, and many others who ministered to him of their substance.” Thus we find grace produces fruits now, in this present life. I think it plain and certain that Mary Magdalene is not the person described in the last chapter as the woman who was a sinner. Tradition fluctuates, some supposing that the forgiven woman was Mary Magdalene, others. Mary the sister of Lazarus; but to my own mind the internal evidence is conclusive that she was neither the one nor the other. In fact, there is evident moral beauty in the absence of her name. Considering that she had been a notoriously sinful woman in the city, why name her? The story was not to inform anyone who she was, but what the name of Jesus had been to her. It is His name, not hers, that is the great matter. And hence all the effect produced in her by the Spirit of God is according to this. She does not go before His face, but behind Him. She is at His feet, weeping, washing His feet with tears and wiping them with the hairs of her head. The Spirit of God, therefore, casts a veil over her person. However much she might be the object of grace, there is no indulgence of human curiosity. It was a part of the very plan of the Spirit that her name should not be mentioned. Mary, sister of Lazarus, stands before us in Scripture (whatever legends feign) a character evidently and altogether different, and remarkable, I should judge, for moral purity, as well as for that insight into God’s mind which was brought about by the grace that gave it to her.

So also Mary Magdalene, although a desperate case, manifested evil of a wholly different nature. It was not corruption, but Satan’s power. She was possessed; as we are told here, “from whom seven demons had gone out.” This was her scriptural description, and uniformly so wherever she is brought before us. Never is moral looseness attributed to her.

But besides Mary Magdalene, one of those who ministered to the Lord of their substance was Joanna, the wife of Chuza, Herod’s steward.194 Thus God called where one might least expect it: and she who was connected with the Court of the false king rejoiced to be permitted to follow the despised but true King, Jesus of Nazareth.

But others were not wanting — “Susanna and many others,” but of whom We know nothing, save that which grace gave them, in honoring Jesus to find their everlasting honor. They were attracted by the Lord Jesus, and ministered to Him as they could.

“And a great crowd coming together, and those who were coming to Him out of each city, he spoke by parable.”195 He was not come to be a king, though the King. He was come to sow, not to gather in and reap. This He will do by and by at the end of the age. He was come to produce what cannot be found in man — to give a new life that should bear fruit for God. “The sower went out to sow his seed.” It is the activity of grace. “And as he sowed, some fell along the way; and it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it up. And other fell upon the rock; and having sprung up, it was dried up, because it had not moisture; and other fell in the midst of the thorns; and the thorns having sprung up with [it] choked it; and other fell into the good ground, and having sprung up, bore fruit a hundredfold. As He said these things, he cried, He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.”196a It is remarkable that we have not here, as in Matthew, “Some thirty, some sixty, some a hundredfold.” We have only the complete result of grace: the modifying causes are not taken into account. There was good seed sown upon good ground, as He afterward said, “That in the good ground, these are they who in an honest and good heart, having heard the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” The other cases are cases, not of good seed producing fruit imperfectly borne, but we have the moral hindrances to any fruit at all. Luke brings out the sad and painful fact that it is not Satan’s power only that hinders souls from being saved and receiving the Word of God. The world hinders, flesh too, as well as, Satan. Those are the three enemies that are brought before us.

The first is the open and evident power of Satan: “As he sowed, some fell along the way.” There was no pretense of receiving it; it was simply dealt with contemptuously — “it was trodden under foot, and the birds of the heaven devoured it up.”

The next class is, “And other fell upon the rock.” There was an appearance here. It sprang up, but it was dried up, “because it had not moisture.” These represent the persons who, “when they hear, receive the Word with joy, but having no root they believe only for a while, and in time of temptation fall away” — a very serious description; because there is apparent reception, but there is no root. They receive, the Word with joy — not with repentance, but only joy. Now, there may be joy; but where there is no spiritual action in the conscience there is no root. This is exceedingly serious, especially in Christendom where people are apt to be taught the elements of Christian truth, and where they may be received on the faith of a parent — not of God’s Word, but of a father, or mother, or teacher; brother, sister or anybody, the prevalent religion of the country, the common creed of Christendom. All these things may operate, but it is mere nature. It is the seed sown upon a rock 197: there is no real root; for conscience is the real door. Without conscience the Word of God has no abiding effect. The Spirit of God does not make great scholars, but leads poor sinners to believe and be saved. It matters not who the person may be; scholar or not, he must come as a sinner, and if as a sinner, with repentance towards God. Nov, repentance in its own nature gives a chastened feeling, horror of self, judgment of the whole man, certainty that all one’s hope is in God, and the judgment of all that we are joy.198 Other things may gladden the heart, spite of and along with it. The mercy of God seen in Christ is most assuring; but “godly sorrow worketh repentance to salvation not to be repented of.” They are mistaken who, suppose that repentance is sorrow; but, nevertheless, such is its effect, where according to God.

That which fell among thorns represents those who, “having heard, go away, and are choked under the cares and riches and pleasures of life, and bring no fruit to perfection.”199 Luke views the matter in its full result, not in an individual, not the new nature hindered, but the new nature producing its full results. It is the Word not received from one cause or another; and where it is received, it is said to be those Who, “in an honest and good heart, having heard the word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.” Along with the Word of God, there is the operation of the Spirit. It is these that produce this honest and good heart.200 Thus the heart is purified by faith, and that, working by the feeling and, confession of our sinfulness. Luke, as always, brings out the moral roots, both of that which hinders and also of that which receives the Word. These “having heard the Word,201 keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience.”202

There is another point I would just observe. Matthew speaks of understanding — that is the great point with him who speaks of the Word of the kingdom, Luke speaks of the Word of God (not so much of the Kingdom, though we know it was the kingdom of God). But it is the Word of God — “the seed is the Word of God;” that they who believe (not they who understand) should be saved. Matthew speaks of hearing and understanding, Luke of believing and being saved. This admirably suits the different objects of the Gospels. Matthew shows us already a people of God dealt with, put to the test by the Messiah proclaiming the kingdom of heaven; and those whose hearts were set on worldly objects did not understand the Messiah, nor care for the word of the Kingdom. But Luke shows us the Word of God dispersed; and although with in the limits of Israel as a matter of fact for the time being, yet in its own nature going out to every city and village in the world. In principle already they an tending towards it, and about to be sent out actually in God’s due time. Accordingly, it is not merely the Kingdom, but the Word of God. It is for man as such; and hence as the great mass of men Outside Israel were wholly ignorant of the Kingdom, it was a question of believing, not of understanding. It is not a word they had already, or knew things either, that they could not understand, but it is a question of believing what God was sending. It was a new testimony to those who had been wholly in the dark, and consequently it was a question to them of believing and being saved. Thus we find, even in the minutest particulars, Luke was inspired to hold to that great design which runs through his Gospel―deep moral principles, and at the same time the going forth of grace towards man from God. It is as it were the Gospel of God in the salvation of men — just what we find in the Epistle to the Romans; and Luke, we must remember, was pre-eminently the companion of the Apostle Paul.

Then there are some further moral principles added. “No one having lighted a lamp, covereth it with a vessel, or putteth it under a couch: but setteth it on a lampstand, that they who enter may see the light.” To receive a new nature by the operation of the Word of God is not enough. God raises up a testimony for Himself. Where a candle is lit, it is not meant to be covered: it is to shine, to give light, “that they who enter may see the light.” God loves that the light should be apparent. Is it not there to be seen?203 “For there is nothing hid which shall not become manifest.” Darkness shrinks from the light, and man is in the dark, and love, darkness rather than light, because his deeds are evil. But God’s resolve is that all shall appear. “For there is nothing hid which shall not become manifest; nor secret which shall not be known and come to light.204 fake heed therefore” not only what, but — “how ye hear.” The mingling of truth and error makes it of the greatest importance what we hear; and in Mark this is the warning: “Take heed what ye hear.”205 But Luke regards tut heart of man; and it is not only of importance what I hear from another, but how I hear it myself. My own state may expose me either to receive error or to reject truth. It is not always the fault of what hear, but my own. “Take heed therefore how ye hear: for whosoever hath, to him shall be given.” Having is a proof of valuing. “And whosoever hath not, even that which seemeth205a to have shall be taken from him.” Where any do not really possess, it is not for want of God sending, but because of the unbelief that either has not at all or only seems to have. Nothing but faith possesses: and if I possess a little really, God will vouchsafe me more. “He giveth more grace.”

Jesus was going everywhere preaching and evangelizing, followed by the twelve, and not without the worship of grateful hearts in the women who ministered of their substance. He came not a King as yet, but a Sower, and instead of governing in righteous power, was but creating a light of gracious testimony. He next disowns any association with Himself after the flesh, were it even His mother and His brethren. Whatever love to all, and even subjection to His mother, He owed, He most surely paid in full; but now it was a question of the Word of God, and nothing else would suffice. Thus even before His death and resurrection there was a complete moral break. Flesh does not understand the things of the Spirit. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”/207 “It was told him [saying], Thy mother and thy brethren stand without, wishing to see thee. But he answering said to them, My mother and my brethren are those who hear the Word of God, and do [it].”/208 Natural links were proving themselves to be nothing now: all must be of God and grace; and this exactly falls in with the tone of our Evangelist.

Then we find the circumstances of those to whom the Word of God and the testimony of Christ was committed. Jesus goes into a ship with His disciples, and tells them to go over unto the other side of the lake. “And as they sailed he fell asleep; and a sudden squall of wind came down on the lake; and they were being filled [with water].” Humanly speaking, they “were in jeopardy.” This was ordered of the Lord, and the enemy was allowed to put forth all his resources; but it was impossible that man should overthrow God, impossible that the Christ of God should perish. All the blessedness of the servants, if wise, would be seen to be concentrated in the Master, and all their security derived from Him. There was therefore no ground to faith why they should be alarmed. He fell asleep; He allowed things to take their course: but whatever might happen, the ship in which Jesus was could not be unsafe for those with Him. Jesus might be tempted of the devil, and might encounter all storms; but He came to destroy the works of the devil and to deliver, not to perish. It is true that, when the time came, He went down Himself into depths of sorrow, suffering, and Divine judgment — far, far greater than anything that the winds or waves could do; but He went down to the death of the Cross, bearing the burden of our sins before God, and enduring all God felt against them, in order that, rising again, He might righteously deliver us to God’s glory. The disciples, knowing nothing as they ought, through unbelieving anxiety for themselves (for this it is that blinds the eyes of God’s people), come to Him and awake Him with the cry, “Master, master, we perish!” They told the secret. Had their eyes been upon the Master, according to what He was before God, impossible they could have spoken of perishing. Could He perish? No doubt, separated from their Master, they might, nay, must perish; but to say “Master, master” to Jesus, and “we perish” was nothing but unbelief. At the same time they showed, as unbelief always does, their intense selfishness. Their care was for themselves, not for Him. “Then he, rising up, rebuked the wind and the raging of the water,209 and they ceased, and there was a calm.” Any other would have first rebuked them. He rebuked the raging of the wind and water; and when there was a calm He asked them, “Where is your faith?” And, being afraid, they were astonished, saying to one another, “Who, then, is this! that he commands even the winds and the water, and they obey him?” It is evident that all depended upon the Master. The disciples were to be sent forth on a most perilous mission; but the strength was in Him, not in them; and they from the very beginning had to learn that even Jesus inquired, “Where is your faith?”

Then we find another scene: not the enemy’s power shown in stirring up what we may call nature against Christ and His disciples, but the direct presence of demons filling a man. We have this desperate case set forth in one who had been thus possessed for a long time. He had broken with all social order; he “put on no clothes, and did not abide in a house, but in the tombs.” A more dreadful picture of human degradation through the possession of demons could not be. “But seeing Jesus, he cried out, and fell down before him, and with a loud voice said, What have I to do with Thee, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beseech thee, torment me not.”210 The demons had the consciousness of the presence of their Conqueror, the Conqueror of Satan. They dreaded to be bruised under His feet; for Christ “had commanded the unclean spirit to go out from the man”; and then we have a further description of this power of Satan: “For very often it had seized him; and he had been bound, kept with chains and fetters; and breaking the bonds, he was driven by the demon into the deserts.” Jesus was led of the Spirit there, but the devil led this man in misery; whereas Christ went in Divine grace, and in order righteously to break the power of Satan.

That the awfulness of the case might be more fully brought out, Jesus asks him, “What is thy name? And he said, Legion: for many demons had entered into him. And they besought him that he would not command them to go away into the bottomless pit.”211 They dreaded their hour. There was the instinctive sense in these demons that Jesus would commit them to the abyss. “And there was there a herd of many212 swine feeding on the mountain; and they besought him that he would suffer them to enter into those; and he suffered them. And the demons, going out from the man, entered into the swine; and the herd rushed down the precipice into the lake, and were choked.” This at once roused those who had the charge of them. “But they that fed [them], seeing what, had happened, fled, and told [it] to the city and to the country.” They come out, and find the man from whom the demons had gone out, “sitting, clothed and sensible, at the feet of Jesus.”213 “They were afraid.” Now the state, of the people discloses itself. Had there been one particle of right feeling, they would have given thanks to God; they would have been in the presence of One Who, though to be bruised by him, was to break Satan’s power forever. But though they saw “the man from whom the demons had gone out, sitting, clothed and sensible, at the feet of Jesus, they were afraid,” though they knew how the demoniac had been healed; still, their own hearts were not won, but the very reverse appeared. “All the multitude of the surrounding country of the Gadarenes asked him to depart from them.” Ah, foolish Gadarenes! who bewitched you? They all had, alas! a common interest; but the common interest of men was to get rid of Jesus. That was their one desire. After the certainty of His gracious power, after the plain overthrow of Satan’s energy before their eyes, after the deliverance of their fellow, restored now, and sitting, clothed and sensible, all their thought was to beseech Jesus to depart from them, “for they were possessed with great fear.” What a proof of the delusion of men! Whatever might be their terrors in presence of the man possessed with a legion of demons, they had greater fear of Jesus, and their hope and object was to get rid of Him as fast as possible. He brought in all that was holy, true, loving. He fed, He healed, He delivered; but man had no heart for God, and consequently sought only how to get rid of Him Who brought in the power of God. Any other person was more welcome. What is man! Such is the world.

Not so with him that was healed. He besought Jesus that he might be with Him, and thus stood in moral contrast with the whole multitude which besought Him to depart from them. He had been in far more awful circumstances than they. But such is the power of God’s grace. It creates and forms what we should be. If any one, according to natural antecedents, might have been expected to keep far away from Jesus, it was this demoniac, so completely had he been led captive of Satan at his will. But he was delivered, and so perfectly from the first hour, that his one desire was to be with Jesus. This was the first-fruit of the Spirit’s action in a man whom grace had delivered — the untutored instinct of the new man to enjoy the presence of Jesus. The simplest soul that is born of God has this wish.

“But he sent him away, saying, Return to thine house, and relate how great things God hath done for thee.” He will have his desire later; meanwhile “Return to thine house.” This is of price with the Lord, to show God’s wonderful works, not merely to strangers, but to one’s own house. Such as they would know best the shame, and sorrow, and degradation to winch he had been reduced. Therefore Jesus says, “Return to thine house, and show how great things God hath done for thee.” The man in faith bows and understands; whatever might be his heart’s desire, he is now to do the good; holy, and acceptable will of the Lord. “He went away through the whole city,214 publishing how great things Jesus had done for him.” Mark, it is of Jesus he speaks. Jesus would have him to tell what God had done; and God would have him to tell what Jesus had done. This could not have been had Jesus not been the Son of God Himself. Though the lowliest servant of God, He was none the less also God. The man was right. He was not contravening the will of God, nor breaking the command of Jesus. Its spirit was the more kept, even if in the letter it might sound somewhat differently. God is honored best when Jesus is most shown forth.

Two other scenes (interwoven, it is true) close the chapter. The Lord is appealed to by Jairus, the ruler of the synagogue. “He, falling at the feet of Jesus, besought him to come to his house.” This was the way in which a Jew expected to be healed — by the coming of Messiah to his place. “Because he had an only daughter about twelve years old, and she was dying.”215 Such was the condition of the daughter of Zion now. Israel was proving that there was no life in them; but Christ is entreated, and He goes for the purpose of healing Israel.

While He is on the way, a woman crosses His path, having a most urgent need — “a flux of blood”216 twelve years, who having spent all her living on physicians, could not be cured by anyone. It was therefore a hopeless case, humanly speaking. Nevertheless she comes behind Him in the desperate sense that now was her opportunity, and “touched the hem217 of His garment. And immediately her flux of blood stopped.” The Lord was, of course, conscious of that which was done. If faith feels the grace and power of Jesus in any measure, and applies ever so feebly, hesitatingly, and tearfully, Jesus knows it well, and yearns over that soul. His heart was towards her, and He would have her know it. She touched Him from behind. Jesus would bring her into His presence, face to face, and would have her to know that His hearty consent went with the blessing which she had seemed to steal but really acquired by the touch of faith. Hence He says, “Who has touched me?” It was in vain that Peter or the others sought to explain it away, when all denied. It was in vain to say that the multitude thronged, and therefore why ask who touched Him. The Lord stood to it: somebody had touched Him. It was not a crowd’s pressure: it was not an accident. It was distinctly one who had touched Him. There was the real recourse of faith, however weak. “Jesus said, Someone hath touched me, for I have known that power hath gone out from me.” The multitude thronging could extract no virtue: not thus did Jesus heal. No such external pressure is of avail to bring blessing out of Him. But the soul that finds itself near to Jesus, and touches, however timorously, never fails to gather blessing from Him. “And the woman, seeing that she was not hid [this was not the state in which the Lord would leave her, nor any who are blessed], came trembling, and, falling down before him, declared [unto him] before all the people for what cause she had touched him, and how she was immediately healed.” The glory of God was thus secured, and a bright testimony to Him was rendered; but her heart needed also to be thoroughly restored. She must learn what love God has, and how completely Jesus would give her communion with Himself in the blessing conferred. Thus is the Giver known, and the gift enhanced infinitely. It was not something stolen, but freely imparted. Therefore says He, “Be of good courage, daughter.” He uses the term of affection expressly to banish all terror and uneasiness. “Be of good courage, daughter; thy faith hath healed thee; go in peace.” What a joy it would be to her ever afterward to know that she had not only got the mercy her body needed from God, but that the Saviour, the Lord God who healed her diseases, the ever blessed Physician, had spoken to her, given her His own warrant, comforted her when her heart was utterly afraid, used terms even of such endearment towards her, owned her faith, feeble as it was, and finally sent her away with a message of peace.

“While he was yet speaking, there cometh one from the ruler of the synagogue’s house, saying to him, Thy daughter is dead; do not trouble the teacher. But Jesus hearing it, answered him, saying, Fear not: only believe, and she shall be made well.”

Such turns out to be the real condition of Israel, not sick only; but dead. But Jesus tarried within Himself the secret of resurrection. He is equal to all emergencies, and knew infinitely better than they both the maiden’s need and His own mighty power. He did not come down to do what others might have done. An angel may trouble the pool of Bethesda for a man not too infirm to step in immediately. The Son quickens whom He will. And the Jews, long rebellious in unbelief, long seeking to destroy His name Who by such a claim makes Himself equal with God, will yet own the despised Messiah as their Lord and their God, and the dry bones shall live; and all Israel, at length saved, shall blossom and bud, and fill the face of the world with fruit! Of this the sick and now dead maiden is the pledge; and He, Who then bids her father fear not but believe, will redeem the pledge He gave of old.

“And when he came to the house, he suffered no one to go in but Peter, and John, and James,/ 218 and the father of the child and the mother. And all were weeping and lamenting her. But he said, Do not weep; for she hath not died, but sleepeth.219 And they derided him, knowing that she had died. But he, having turned them all out, and taking hold of her hand, cried, saying, Child, arise. And her spirit returned, and immediately she rose up; and he commanded [something] to eat to be given to her. And her parents were amazed, but he enjoined them to tell no one what had happened.” The spirit of scorn then and there was but a little sample of what is to be; but such can have no portion in the blessing permanently. For while many of Israel that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, with some it will be to shame and everlasting contempt, as surely as with others to everlasting life. For they are not all Israel that are of Israel. But the word of gracious power shall go forth from Him in Whose eyes the virgin daughter of Zion was not dead, but sleeping; and she shall arise. And He Who at length wakes her up from her death sleep, shall care for her and strengthen her for the great work to which Zion will then be called. It was, however, but a passing act of power then; the time was not yet come for more; and Jesus charged them to tell none what was done. If He were not received Himself, if His word were refused, it was vain to publish His power; unbelief would only turn it to worse evil.

Endnotes

192 Verse 1. — “Throughout every city... village.” Christ left, accordingly, His abode at Capernaum (Matt. 11:1) and began an itinerant ministry. “The good news was not to be confined to places where there were synagogues” (Stuart, p. 92).

To “preach” (κηρύσσειν, to herald) “implies solemnity of announcement” (Darby-Smith). Cf. 9:2 and Acts 28:31. When Luke speaks of the simple Gospel of Grace, he specially uses εὐαγγελίζειν 4:18, 7:22, 9:6, 20:1. For “glad tidings of the kingdom of God,” cf. Matt. 4:23, etc.

In considering the relation of the “Kingdom” to the “Gospel,” it is needful to grasp the bearing of a passage like Luke 12:50 upon such as 24:27. As “Minister of the Circumcision” (Rom. 15:8), our Lord limited Himself to the Jewish people. Even in the Fourth Gospel we find Him saying that “salvation is of the Jews” (John 4:22). Cf. the Expositor’s remark on verse 11 here. The Apostle Paul began his ministry with “the Gospel of the Grace of God” (Acts 20:24) in its worldwide significance and scope; and it is in the form which that Gospel took in his hands that Christians of the “uncircumcision” have to set it forth. But “the Gospel of Christ,” of which he says he was not ashamed (Rom. 1:16), for him retained the double aspect of grace and works (Luke 3:8), and was not divested of the second characteristic when it acquired its wider scope. It is lamentable how no less a writer than Calvin found in “Kingdom” only a synonym for “Gospel renewing men into God’s image” (“Works,” p. 185, quoted by W. Kelly in his “Exposition of Acts,” vol. p. 198).

On the relation of the KINGDOM to the CHURCH, as to which Professor Wellhansen and Bishop Gore really occupy the same unsatisfactory position, cf. note 21 on Mark: See, further, note on 18:16f.

193 Verse 2. — “Mary Magdalene.” Origen distinguished her from the woman of chapter 7. See notes above on 7:37. Wesley’s comment shows that he followed Gregory “the Great.”

“Out of whom went,” etc. Brace: “In the Gospels demoniacal possession something quite distinct from immorality,” “Seven demons” may be a formula. It often occurs in the Babylonian magical texts, some of which ale exhibited in the British Museum. Cf. the “seven spirits” of 11:26, and also the same expression in Rev. 1:4. Dr. Whyte has taken “Mary Magdalene” as subject of his discourse I.XXXI. in “Bible Characters.”

194 Verse 3. — This explains Matt. 14: 2, where Herod is said to hear of Jesus. “Ministered to Him their substance.” The innkeeper Gains in the “Pilgrim’s Progress” says: “I read not that ever any man did give unto Christ so as much as one great; but the women followed Him and ministered,” etc. For “Joanna,” again, see 24:10. “Chuza”: American Revv., “Chuzas.”

195 Verse 4 ff. — Here Luke resumes the same thread as that of Mark’s narrative, dropped at 6:19. Farrar treats the present passage as an illustration of the Synoptists’ non-use of each other’s narrative or of a common source.

See Spurgeon’s Sermons, 308,1132, 1457, 2040: Maclaren, vol. i., pp. 230-241; also Irving’s six lectures on the passage (Sermons, ii., p. 243 ff:), Augustus Hare has preached from verse 11 (Sermons; vol. ii., p. 17).

196 PARABLES. — A “parable” (comparison) serves the purpose of religious, as a fable that of moral, instruction. It may be very terse, as in 6:39 above. As to the design of our Lord’s parables, see Bruce, p.16, comparing A. R. Habershon, p.

On the interpretation, see Trench, chapter iii., also A. R. Habershon, p. 13f. Jülicher questions the need of interpretation, regarding the Gospel parables as it general self-explanatory, and conceiving that every difficulty would disappear if the original connection were known. The Lord, he alleges, did not, as a rule, explain them. But, see Mark 4:34. The Marburg professor holds that it was the Evangelists who imported allegorical features into them. Trench’s work, of course, is not to his taste (p. 300). Stevens (p. 43) is influenced by Jülicher’s theory. Saneness of view is, happily, not in such a bad way in this country.

On the connection between the parables and the miracles (note 107 above), see A. R. Habershon, chapter 14. The parables peculiar to Matthew are characteristically dogmatic and judicial; those solely special to LUKE, ethical and merciful.

Several writers offer a classification: Westcott’s would be found in his “Introduction to the Study of the Gospels” (p. 393f.), a work accessible to most readers.

Godet: (α) Parables referring to the Kingdom of Heaven (God) under the old dispensation, as that of the Fig Tree (13:6-9); (β) to the new dispensation, its that of the Sower, here; (γ) the Kingdom as realized in individual life, e.g., that of the Good Samaritan (10:29-35).

Bruce: (α) Parables of the Kingdom, e.g., the seven in Matt. 13., and in Luke 19:12-27; (β) of the Gospel (goodness), as the three in Luke xv.; (γ) those which are judicial and prophetic (righteousness), as the Barren Fig Tree of chapter 13.

Jülicher: (α) Strict, simple similitudes or comparisons, as in 14:28-33, the man intending to build a tower, and the king going to make war against another; (β) amplified comparisons (parables proper), as the visit to a friend at midnight, 11:5-8; (γ) exemplary narratives, as that of the Good Samaritan, Luke 10: 30 ff.

The number of parables is put by Trench as thirty; Bruce finds thirty-three; others, many more.

There is a suggestive paper on the Lucan parables by Swete in Expositor, Aug., 1903. These come under the following heads: —

(i.) Salvation: The Two Debtors (7:41 ff.); the Great Supper (14:22ff.); the Lost Coin (15:8 ff.); and the Lost Son (15:11ff.). (ii.) Prayer: the Midnight Visitor (15:5 ff.); the Importunate Widow (18:1 ff.); and the Pharisee and Publican (18:9-14). (iii.) Service: the Barren Fig Tree (13:6 ff); the Plowing Slave (17:7 ff.); and the Pounds (19:12 ff.). (iv.) Social Relations; the Good Samaritan (10:30 ff.); the Rich Fool (12:16 ff.); the Dishonest Steward (16:1 ff.); and the Rich Man and Lazarus (16:19 ff.). All but one, it will be seen, belong to the section 9:51-18:14.

There are no parables in the apocryphal gospels, one sign of their inferiority, as the multiplication of their alleged miracles is another.

196a Verse 10. — “The mysteries of the Kingdom.” Cf. Matt. 13:11; and p. 284 of the Expositor’s “Lectures” on Matthew. Cf. also note on 19:12, 15. 1965.

196b “The seed is the Word.” Cf. Matt. 1:18; 1 Pet. 1:23.

197 Verse 13. — “Rock,” the “stony heart of flesh” in Ezek. 11:19, 36:26.

198 “With joy.” So Bunyan’s “Man in the Iron Cage.” See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 1132.

199 Verse 14.― “Life,” βίος. B. Weiss (“Manual Comm.”) aptly refers to Mark 12:44, comparing 1 John 2:16. Bunyan selects Demas (2 Tim. 4:10) as a Biblical illustration of the Lord’s words here. See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 2040.,

200 Verse 15.― “Honest and good,” the Greek ideal, καλὸς κάγαθός. The word ἀγαθός is like the Heb. tou (Wellhausen, Prolegomena to “History of Israel,” p.346), “good” as doing good; cf. Matt. 7:17, 20: 15, 25:21 ff. Καλός, “excellent,” finds illustration in Mary of Bethany, as ἀγαθός in Joseph of Arimathæa (Bruce ad loc.).

Upon the understanding of this parable hangs that of all others. See Mark 4:13.

201 “Keep.” Matthew has “understand”; Mark, “receive.”

202 “Patience” or “endurance.” Cf. Rom. 2:7, and for the whole verse; John 15:2.

203 Verse 16.―See again at 11:33.

204 Verse 17.―Cf. Matt. 10:26.

205 Verse 18.― “How ye hear.” Preaching upon 1 Cor. 8:1 ff., F. W. Robertson has shown how much of what passes under the name of “definite religious construction” the Apostle Paul would have rated as secular knowledge. By “knowledge,” he says, “the Apostle meant not merely knowledge without Christian doctrine, but knowledge without Love” (p. 146). So must it be where the Spirit of God is not enlisted in the work. No Parliamentary legislation can really secure us against such a state of things. Even the teacher’s believing in what he teaches does not suffice. Much of the current unbelief has either been generated or accentuated by “an Arm of godliness without the power.” “Many a person now zealous on this point of ‘education’ would be content if only the Bible, without note or comment, were taught. But St. Paul would not have been content; he would have calmly looked on and said, ‘This also is secular knowledge. This, too, is the knowledge which puffeth up.’ It is the spirit in which it is acquired which makes the difference between secular and Christian knowledge. It is not so much the thing known, as the way of knowing it” (p. 147). How eminently true this is of the facts of our Lord’s life. Cf. note 46 on Mark.

205a Verse 18.― “Seemeth.” For RV. “thinketh” (δοκεῖ), cf. 1 Cor. 10:12.

206 Verse 19.―In Matthew and Mark this incident precedes the Parable of the Sower, already passed in Luke.

Comparing the passage in Mark just named with this, Carpenter comments on the earlier statement, as he interprets it, that Mary joined the Lord’s “brethren” in an endeavor to put Him under restraint as being out of His wits, upon which Matthew and Luke alike are silent: he calls the conjunction of knowledge of the supernatural birth on her part with this attitude as “incredible.” Some proof must first be offered that she was other than a passive instrument the others whose ebullition is described. Cf. notes on 1:34 and 4:22.

207 The names of our Lord’s brethren are given in Matt. 13:55 and Mark 6:3; that of “James” first in each, to whom the Lord appeared after His resurrection (1 Cor. 15:7): he was accounted a “pillar” of the Church at Jerusalem (Gal. 2:9; cf. 1:19); and is prominent in Acts 15:13 ff. The first description of him as “bishop” of that Church is in the “Clementine Recognitions,” theological romance of the second century.

“Jude” may have been the writer of the Epistle under that name.

Here arises the question, which has never ceased to be discussed, as to the parentage of these “brethren” of JESUS. There are three theories: ―

The Epiphanian―that they were sons of Joseph by an earlier marriage. So Origen, the late Bishops Westcott and Lightfoot and Dr. Salmon. It is the traditional, so-called “Catholic” view, by which the perpetual Virginity is maintained (as to which myth, see Sir R. Anderson, “The Bible or the Church,” p. 256).

(2) The Hieronymian―after Jerome—that they were cousins of the Lord, sons of Mary’s sister. Few now support this view.

(3) The Helvidian―that they were our Lord’s “uterine” brethren, that is were children of Mary and Joseph. So Meyer, Alford, Godet, Weiss, Farrar,

Andrews, Mayor (Introduction to his edition of the Epistle of James, anti, papers in Expositor, for July, August, 1908), W. Kelly, etc.

The first view ably as it was championed by Bishop Lightfoot, is excluded by the fact that then one of Joseph’s natural sons must have been his eldest son, and so by law his heir (Edersheim, “Life of Jesus, &c.,” vol. p. 364) In his Homily quoted by Lightfoot, Origen says that Scripture nowhere speaks of Mary having other children; but he must have forgotten the Messianic Ps. 69:8.

Those who follow Jerome think that “Judas of James” in 6:16 means “J. brother of J.,” but Bishop Lightfoot was clear that it means “son,”

208 Verse 24.―Cf. Jas. 1:25, and verse 18 above.

209 Verse 25.―According to Matthew’s account, the Lord administered the rebuke before he stilled the storm.

210 Verse 28.― “What have I to do with thee?” Cf. 2 Chron. 35:21 in the LXX. version, adduced by Maldonatus. Here follow the words: “I do not come to make war on thee.” And so here, “Why shouldest Thou vex me?” (Carr).

“Son of God.” (Cf. Matt. 8:29; Mark 5:7.) See Stalker, p. 98f, who effectively disposes of German denial of anything higher than the established theocratic sense of the title.

“Had commanded”; or (as American Revv.) “was commanding” (παρήγγελλεν).

211 Verse 31.―See Trench, who shows consistency of this with Mark’s statement.

“The abyss”: see Rev. 20:1-3.

212 Verse 32 f.— “Many.” Mark says, “two thousand.”

“Choked”: American Revv. “drowned.”

213 Verse 35.― “At the feet of Jesus,” not so much as a scholar (Weiss, ante, Meyer), as in token of the Lord’s delivering power (Cohn Campbell, p. 171, referring to verse 8).

214 Verse 39.―Mark says, “in Decapolis.” Cf. the Lord’s way of commissioning the leper, Mark 1:41; the young ruler, Mark 10:21: and the man in 9:19. See also note 52 on Mark. There is a sermon of J. H. Newman on this incident, reproduced in Allenson’s reprint (No. IV.).

215 Verse 42.―(Cf. verse 49). See note 53 on Mark.

216 Verse 43.―Cf. Lev. 15:19. Some MSS: of the “Gospel of Nicodemus” give her name as “Bernice” in Greek, the “Veronica” of Latin.

217 Verse 44.― “Tassel,” the fringe (zizith) of Numb. 15:38, 22:12; Deut. 22:12; See Schor, p. 85. Norris: “Faith, though disfigured by superstition, may still be blessed.” As to this incident, see Whyte, “Bible Characters,” No. LXXX.

218 Verse 51.― “Peter, John and James.” The order is peculiar to Luke here, and at 9:23; Acts 1:13. These three were thrice singled out on special occasions (here; Transfiguration; Gethsemane).

219 Verse 52.―Norris aptly compares 20:38.

Luke 9

THE last chapter showed Christ’s testimony to the change that was coming. This chapter gives us the twelve entrusted with the same testimony. They were to go forth representatives of Christ everywhere, invested with the power of the Kingdom. They had both “power and authority over all demons and to heal diseases,” as well as a mission “to proclaim220 the kingdom of God.” The Lord gave them their authority. They were to be manifestly dependent on the King, and in a remarkable way the King’s power would open and none should shut, and shut and none could open. Nevertheless, this sovereign power of the King over the hearts of His people Israel was not without the maintenance of their responsibility. Whoever rejected Him must bear his burden. The word, however, is, “Take nothing for your journey, neither staff, nor wallet, nor bread, nor money.”221 It must be manifestly the resources of God, however He might work by men. They were not to care for themselves, not even to have two coats (vests) apiece. “And into whatsoever house ye may have entered, there abide, and thence go forth. And as many as may not receive you, going forth from that city, shake off even the dust from your feet for a witness against them.” Thus then they departed, “and passed through the villages, announcing the glad tidings, and healing everywhere.”

Then we find the working of conscience in Herod. “And Herod the Tetrarch heard of all the things which were done [by him]: and was in perplexity, because it was said by some that John was risen from among the dead; and by some, that Elias had appeared; and by others, that one of the old prophets had risen again.” Herod’s conviction was that he had beheaded John: he knew this too well. “John,” he said, “I have beheaded: but who is this of whom I hear such things? And he sought222 to see him.” But desire in Divine things, unless it be accompanied by the action of conscience in the sense of sin on the one hand, and of grace on the other on God’s part, never comes to any good. Many a man has heard God’s testimony gladly, and given it all up. Many a man has had respect for the witnesses; but, as we see in Herod’s case, first as to John, it did not hinder him from beheading John; and next, as to Jesus, it did not hinder him from taking his part in the last scene of the uttermost humiliation of the Lord. There was nothing of Divine life in the action of his conscience. There was no working of grace, because there was no sense of his own sin and need in God’s sight, which might drive him to God.

The apostles return, telling, the Lord of all that they had done. But it is evident that they knew not how to avail themselves of the power that was entrusted to them. So Jesus takes them, and goes aside “apart 223 into224 [a desert place of] a city, called Bethsaida.” And now we see how perfectly Jesus wielded the power of which He was the vessel as man. For although He had turned aside privately, the people follow Him there; “and he received them, and spoke to them of the kingdom of trod and cured those that had need of healing.”224a No one ever came amiss to Jesus. No need ever was presented without drawing out lids grace. No retirement led Him to treat those who cane as intruders. But the difference between the Master and the servant appears. For “the day began to decline,225 and the twelve, came and said to him, Send away the crowd, that they may go into the villages around, and the fields, and lodge, and find victuals: for here we are in a desert place.” But this would not suit Jesus. “He said to them, Give ye them to eat.” Unbelief begins at once to reckon. They counted the loaves and the fishes: there were but, five loaves and two fishes, except they should go and buy meat for all this people. Thus those who ought to have been the witnesses of the power fold grace of God are ignorant of the Lord’s present, resources, and only think of what might he, procured by money from man. The Lord says to His disciples — so great was His grace that He would put honor upon them even in their weakness and want of faith― “Make them sit down in companies by fifties. And they did so, and made them all sit down. And taking the five loaves and the two fishes, looking up to heaven, he blessed them, and brake, and gave226 to the disciples to set before the crowd.” Viewed as the Son of man, and the Son of God as man (and so Luke does view Him), God was with, Him, not only when He went about doing good, but when men followed Him into the wilderness. There was no difference. Everywhere the grace of God was upon Him, the power of God with Him, So He blessed them, and brake, and gave to the disciples to set before the multitude. He fed His poor with bread. It was not the true Bread which came down from heaven, because He, and He alone, was this. But He Who was the true Bread loved to feed them even with the bread that perishes, though He would have loved still better to feed them with that Bread which is unto life eternal. The Lord Jesus alone knows, therefore, how to use all the resources of the kingdom of God. He waited for no special time and for no special circumstances. He is able to bring in the blessing according to need now; for God was with Him, and He was with God touching all circumstances. “And they all ate and were all filled; and there was taken up of what had remained over and above to them twelve handbaskets.” There was more at the end than at the beginning, though five thousand men, besides women and children, had partaken. Such was Jesus; and such will Jesus be when the: kingdom of God appears — the furnisher of all the nourishment, and joy, and blessing of the kingdom, Nor is He less, or other, but the same now,527 though the manner of exhibiting His gracious power is according to the present purpose of God in the Church. But He is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.

The Lord is again praying alone, as we have found Him in previous parts of this Gospel, and indeed in others. So it was at His baptism, when the Holy Ghost descended on Him, and afterward in His ministry, when we are told that He withdrew Himself into the wilderness and prayed. This was when multitudes came to hear and to be healed, when the power of the Lord was there to heal afresh. So also before He chose the twelve apostles, it is said, “He continued all night in prayer to God.” It was after men were communing to kill Him, and before the appointment of the apostles and the discourse on the mount.

Now He is about to disclose His death. The sense of His entire rejection filled His soul, because of the unbelief of the people; and the Father was about to give the most direct personal witness of His glory, as well as to show what was reserved for Him in the Kingdom. He would own Him as Son of God now, He would display Him by and by as the Son of mail. Accordingly “it came to pass, as he was praying alone, his disciples were with him; and he asked them, saying, Who do the crowd say that I am? But they answering said, John the Baptist; but others, Elias; and others, that one of the old prophets has risen again.” This elicited from Peter, in reply to the direct question of the Lord — “But ye, who do ye say that I am?” — the confession that He was the Christ of God.

It is remarkable how Luke here omits what Matthew records. In point of fact He owned Him to be the Son of God as well; but this is peculiar to Matthew. The reason why it is given in Matthew seems to me because that is the title of Christ’s personal glory, which is the joy of the Christian. The Church of God delights in Christ as the Son of the living God; Israel will hail the Christ as the Son of David. The world, all mankind, will be blest by Christ as the Son of man; but the Christian and the Church have their joy in Him as the Son of the living God. It is clearly the most elevated and properly Divine of His titles. It is intrinsic and personal. Along with this we find in Matthew, and in his Gospel alone, the revelation from the Lord Jesus that upon this rock He would build His Church — that is, on this confession of His name. Consequently as Matthew is the only one who gives us His name, and the confession of it by Peter, so the Lord is represented only there as about to build the Church.

All this disappears from Luke. Here Peter simply says “The Christ of God.” The Lord “earnestly charging them, enjoined [them] to say this to no man.” This is a remarkable word. Why withhold from people that He was the Christ of God? Why this reserve as to His Messiahship? It was useless to bring it forward, Some said one thing, and some another. No man bad faith in Him except those who wore born of God. Man, as man, rejected Him. The Jews rejected Him. The disciples confessed Him, Peter pre-eminently; but it was no use to go on preaching Him as the Christ or Messiah of Israel. He was the Anointed of God, but in truth He was going to suffer, and consequently the Lord introduces another title in connection with His cross. “The Son of man must suffer many things, and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and the third day be raised up.” It was particularly this very title that the Lord habitually gives Himself. So in Matthew: “Who say ye that I the Son of man am?” Peter then confesses Him as really the Jewish Christ, but also “the son of the living God.” The Lord intimates that they must drop the first. It was useless to speak about it, it was too late. Had the people received Him, He would have reigned as Messiah. But, morally speaking, that could not be. On the one hand man was unbelieving, wicked, and lost; on the other hand it was recording to the counsels of God that Jesus was to be put to, death on the cross, and to rise into a new creation in which He would have men His fellows. If Jesus had not been crucified, it would have proved that man was not altogether so evil as God had said. But as man really is profoundly bad according to the Word of God, it was a moral certainty that man would crucify the Lord Jesus, and so God predicted by His prophets. The Lord now reminds them that the old proclamation as the Christ must close. He was going to die as Son of man. He had His death always before Him. It was the settled counsel of God the Father, and the settled purpose of the Son. He came to die, not only knowing it, but with his heart fully devoted to the accomplishment of the will of God, cost what it might, as it did cost His own death and rejection. In His death He wrought atonement for our sins. Here, however, His death is simply viewed as rejection from man: “The Son of man must suffer many things and be rejected of the elders, and chief priests and scribes, and be killed and the third day be raised up.” God’s part in the matter, either in judgment of our wickedness or in introducing redemption, is not stated. Assuredly it was then and there, as it was always destined to be but sometimes the one side of truth, sometimes the other, is presented in Scripture. He is rejected by the heads of the Jews. It was a sad and humbling fact that they should cast off their own Messiah, who was, adds He Himself, to “be raised up the third day.”

This suffering of the Son of man at once defines the path for the disciple. “He said to [them] all, If any one will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily and follow me.”229 It was in no way enjoyment of earthly things. That would be all suited and seasonable in the Kingdom when He reigns as the Christ, as well as Son of man, according to the hopes furnished by the prophets. There we find every kind of proof of God’s beneficence, and men’s hearts will be filled with gladness. But such is not the character of Christianity. The Cross shows us our true path. If Christ suffered, the Christian cannot expect to be above his Master. Christ was going to the cross; therefore if any man would come after Him, “let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me. For whosoever shall desire to save his life230 shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake, he shall save it. For what shall a man profit if he shall have gained the whole world, and have destroyed or come under the penalty of the loss of himself?”

The truth comes out. Everything now depends on eternal life. It is no longer a question of living long on the earth. This was, and will be, all very well for the Jew. But the Cross of Christ is the burial of all Jewish thoughts. Hence if a man is careful to save his life now, he will lose it. He may Save it in a lower sense, but he will lose it in a deeper. He may save it in this world, but lose it for eternity. But if I am willing to lose it in the lower, I shall save it in the best — the eternal — sense. The death of Christ brings everything to a point: all then becomes the momentous question of eternal life and salvation. The Jews did not think of this. They panted for a great king that would raise them to the pinnacle of earthly greatness. Christianity shows us the One on Whom all turns, Himself crucified; and those who come after the Crucified cannot escape from the cross. Each Christian must deny himself, and that not merely once, but daily taking, up His cross, and following Him. “For whosoever shall have been ashamed231 of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man232 be ashamed, when he shall come in his own glory, and [in that] of the Father, and of the holy angels.”

There lies the solemnity of the issue. If ashamed of One rejected and of His words, He will be ashamed of us in glory. We have not Christ personally, but we have Him by faith, His name, and also, as a test of our truth of heart, His words. A man might plead the words of Moses and the prophets but these would not avail now. A man who merely attached himself to the words of the law and the prophets, to the exclusion of the New Testament, could not be saved.

When God brings, out the full revelation of Christ, I must go forward and be subject to what God gives. The Jews, hold on to the truth of the unity of God in order to deny the truth of Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. True faith now values all that God gives. It is not real if it does not value what He gives for the present time. Hence the test is truth freshly used of God for the actual moment, and not merely what was known of old. Unbelief is always wrong; it takes advantage of what is traditional to deny what was newly revealed.

“Whosoever shall have been ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed, when he shall come in his glory.” There we find the proper glory of the Son of man. It is a rejected Man Who is exalted on high; but He will come in His own glory, and “[in that] of the Father, and of the holy angels.” His being a man did not at all touch His Divine rights. The angels were all subject to Him as man, He had a title above them because He was God; and He had Won a title superior to them, because He had died on the cross. Thus by a double title the Lord Jesus has not only all mankind but angels subject to Him as man. “But I say unto you of a truth, there are some of those standing here who shall not taste death233 until they shall have seen the kingdom of God.”233a This was a bright witness calculated and intended to strengthen those who were meant to be forward and at the head of things in God’s testimony and in the Church. The reference is to Peter, James, and John, who were permitted a sight of the kingdom of God before it comes in power.

Eight days after,234 when the glory was about to appear, the Lord prays. “And as he prayed, the fashion [aspect] of his countenance became different, and his raiment white235 [and] effulgent.” Luke is the only one of the Evangelists who mentions His prayer here, and that, as He prayed. He was, transfigured, “And lo, two men with him, who were Moses and Elias,” the representatives of the saints dead and raised, living and changed. Moses died and is here seen as risen, and Elias as the pattern of those who shall be changed. “Who appearing in glory, spoke of his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.”236 This is the great topic of heavenly discourse. There can be no fact above so precious as the death of Jesus. It will be the grand theme throughout eternity. It is the foundation of all the ways of God in redemption, the highest moral glory of God as it is the fullest proof of His love. “They spoke with him of his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” On earth Jesus takes the highest place, as alas! the lowest also for us and our sins, yet He is, too, the highest in grace, as He will be in the ways of God. It will be so in the days of the Kingdom, when God’s counsels shall appear for the earth as well as the heavens.

“But Peter and those with him were oppressed with sleep.”237 They slept in the garden when Christ was going through His agony, and they were heavy with sleep when Christ’s glory was being revealed. Thus man is utterly worthless for communion, whether with suffering or glory, and this, not man without life from God, but the chosen disciples, the future pillars of the work, the most worthy and excellent of the earth. Yet these, as they could not watch one hour when it was a question of the sorrows of Jesus, so they were oppressed with sleep when His glory in His kingdom was revealed. So wholly incapable of answering in his soul to God’s display is man of the grace of Christ or of the glory He intends for him.

“But having fully woke up (or kept awake),238 they saw his glory, and the two men who stood with him. And it came to pass as they departed from him, Peter said to Jesus, Master, it is good for us to be here; and let us make three tabernacles,238a one for thee, and one for Moses, and one for Elias: not knowing what he said.” Indeed, he did not know. It was sheer forgetfulness of the personal dignity of Jesus. “Let us make three tabernacles,” one for his Master and the other two for His servants, Moses and Elias. Would he, then, put his Master, the Lord of all, on the same level with the head of the law and the chief of the prophets? Peter thought this would be great honor for Him! He was altogether astray. The root of all wrong is depreciation of Jesus. The power for all that is good is faith in His glory. Thus Peter, in a human way, seeking to honor Jesus, in reality lowers Him; and this God the Father would never allow, specially in a disciple. “But as he was saying these things there came a cloud and overshadowed them,” the well-known symbol of Jehovah’s presence in Israel: it was not a dark, but a bright, cloud, as we are told in another Gospel: “and they feared as they entered into the cloud,” meaning, I suppose, that the disciples feared as they, saw Moses and Elia; enter the cloud.239 They could not understand that men, even glorified, should be within the circle of the peculiar presence of Jehovah. The pavilion of His glory might tabernacle over man; but it seemed too much to them that men should thus be at home there, even though it were men in glory.

More follows: “There came a voice out of the cloud, saying This is my beloved Son: hear him.” It is no longer a question of Moses and Elias. The law and the prophets were admirable forerunners; and not a tittle can fall unfulfilled to the ground; but the Son of God comes and necessarily takes precedence of all. “This is my beloved Son: hear him.” Do not put Moses and Elias on a level with Him. They were to be heard as the finger-posts which point to Christ; but when Jesus the Son of God is there, He is to be heard. This is Christianity. Almost every working of unbelief in Christianity now consists in lowering Jesus to the law and the prophets, or, at any rate, to main, the first man. No one born of God would slight the law and the prophets; but it is one thing to own them as having Divine authority, quite another to put them on a level with the Son of God. They were Divine witnesses, but the Son must have His own due supremacy in all things He must have the pre-eminence And so God the Father here insists upon it. “This is my beloved240 Son: hear him.”

“And as the voice was [heard] Jesus was found alone.” This is really the very strength of our souls — that we have but one Person who is or can be the full objective revelation of the mind of God to us. We honor most the Father and we show best the power of the Holy Ghost when we have Jesus before us, and we are following Him day by day. “This one thing I do,” says the apostle. “And they kept silence and told no one in those days any of the things they had seen.”240a

The next scene plunges us at once into the realities of the world as it is, the more painfully felt because of the bright vision of the age to come on the mount of transfiguration, whether in the sample of the kingdom of the Son of man or the inner scene of those who entered the cloud. Here, on the contrary, we have the world as it now is through the power of Satan. “It came to pass that on the following day241 when they came down from the mountain, a great crowd met him. And a man from the crowd cried out saying, Teacher, I beseech thee, look upon my son, for he is mine only child: and behold a spirit takes him and suddenly he cries out; and it tears him with foaming; and with difficulty departed from him after crushing him. And I besought thy disciples that they might cast him out, and they could not.” It was a picture, indeed, of Israel and we may say of man. Such was the power of the demon over him; and the fact most distressing was that the disciples were quite unable to meet the case. They were men of God; they were His most honored servants, already sent out with power and authority by the Lord Jesus, as we saw in the beginning of this chapter: and yet they could not cope with this aggravated form of demoniacal possession.

“And Jesus answering said, O unbelieving and perverted generation, how long shall I be with you and suffer you? bring hither thy son.” The Lord had thus before His mind the vivid feeling of His approaching departure: “how long shall I be with you and suffer you?” It was for want, not of power but of faith, that they could not cast the spirit out. Faith always supposes two things — sense of the weight and yoke of evil that presses on man, and confidence in God as always superior to evil in His gracious power and supreme, There may be failure, but never final defeat where room is left for God to come in, and the heart cleaves to the certainty of His glory concerned in the matter. The lack of this was what grieved the Lord Jesus; their inability was due to want of faith and of self-judgment.

“But as he was yet coming the demon tore him, and dragged him all together. And Jesus rebuked the Unclean spirit, and healed the child, and gave him back to his father.” The Lord had thus before Him a fresh and, if possible, mightier effort of Satan; but His power, or rather the power of God, which He wielded as the self-emptied Son and obedient Man, rose above all the efforts of Satan. He rebukes the unclean spirit and heals the child. “And they were all astonished at the glorious greatness of God.” Yet why should they have been? Jesus was God Himself manifest in the flesh. But the blessedness of Jesus was this, that He never did anything simply as God, but as the Man Who was dependent on God. Had He not preserved such a place and wrought by the power of the Holy Ghost as man, He would have failed to preserve the perfect place of man and of servant in the world. But this was His human perfection from the time He came born of woman. Nothing could be so powerful as either motive or example to us.

“And as all wondered at all the things which [Jesus] did he said to his disciples, Do ye let these words sink into your ears. For the Son of man is about to be delivered into men’s hands.” They were astonished with a wonder which, while it was a homage to what was done, was also an indication of a want of intelligence. The Lord now brings out a far deeper cause of amazement and of adoration, had they only felt it rightly. Alas! it is what unbelief always stumbles at. He who could rebuke all the power, not only of men but of Satan, was nevertheless to be delivered into the hands of men. Such was the purpose of God, such the perfect willingness of Jesus the servant of God and Lord of all! Whatever would demonstrate the truth of man’s state and of Satan’s power here below; whatever would evince the ruin of the people of God and the destruction of His glory through their ruin on earth; whatever would prove the vanity of all present hopes for man and the world — for this Jesus was willing to encounter all, and to suffer from to the uttermost, that God might be, first morally, then in power, glorified, and man be set in perfect peace outside it all, first by faith and at last in palpable fact and forever. The work of atonement came within this most complete humiliation of the Son of man; but these words of Christ speak simply, it is evident, of His suffering at the hands of men.

“But they understood not this saying.” Yet Scripture was full of it; but the will of man blinds him to what he does not like, and nowhere so much as in Scripture. The Jews greedily caught at the vision of glory and the promises for the people — the exaltation of their nation and the downfall of their haughty Gentile oppressors. And so the words of God which described the humiliation of the Messiah, were quite overlooked in general and always misunderstood. Even when our Lord here told them, not in prophetic form, nor with any obscurity of figure, but in the simplest terms possible, they understood not His saying. How little the understanding of Scripture has to do with its language! The true cause of darkness lies in the heart. The only real power of intelligence is in the Holy Spirit, who makes us willing to bow to Christ, sensible of our own need of such a Saviour and really in earnest that God should save us on His own terms.

This was not the case with the disciples — “They understood not this saying.” They had not confidence fully in His love. Confidence in Him has much to do with intelligence of His Word; and even if we do not understand, confidence in Him leads us not to cavil nor to hurry, but to wait and count upon Him that He will surely clear up what we do not understand. He will reveal even this unto us. The disciples merely dropped the matter. “They feared to ask him Concerning this saying.” The real state of their hearts is brought before us in the next account: “And a reasoning came in amongst them, who should be [the] greatest of them. And Jesus, seeing the reasoning of their heart, having take little child, set it by him, and said to them, Whosever shall receive this little child in my name receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me. For he who is the least among you all, he is great.” This was what they wanted―to become as little children. It is not here presented as in Matthew, in order to enter the Kingdom, but in relation to Christ and, to God Himself. They wished each to be greatest; there was consequently a discussion which of them should have the higher place. A little child does not think about this, but is content with its parents’ love and with that which comes before it. It is not occupied with thoughts of itself, nor should it be. Indeed, this is just what is wrought in the heart by conversion; and especially by the subsequent power of the indwelling Spirit of God giving us to see Another’s greatness and goodness, in the enjoyment of which we forget ourselves. “Whosoever shall receive this little child in my name receiveth me; and whosoever shall receive me receiveth him that sent me.” The reception of Jesus is the reception of God Himself and thus the root of real greatness. But practically, flowing from this, to be least is the true greatness of the believer now. Such was Christ Himself. He was willing to take, and did take, the place of the most despised of all.242

“And John answered and said, Master, we saw some one casting out demons in thy name; and we forbad him, because he follows not with us. And Jesus said to him, Forbid [him] not; for he that is not against you is for you.” Here comes a considerably subtler form of self. The grossest form was in the question which of them should be greatest; but now comes a certain disguise of self, which consists in apparent seal for the Master’s honor. “Master, we saw one casting out devils in thy name; and we forbad him, because he followeth not with us.” What a reason! It was well, it was an immense honor, to follow Jesus; but John betrayed himself by his very language “he followeth not with us.” Had he kept Jesus before his eye, he never would have uttered the complaint. He would have seen that it was for Jesus to call, as they had been chosen by Him in pure grace unto this honor. It was evident that John looked at it as an interfercnce with the apostles, and a failure in acknowledging their importance. But Jesus, superior to everything of a fleshly nature, answers, “Forbid him not; for he that is not against you is for you.” Jesus, in the sense of His humiliation and looking for it even unto death, owns whatever is of God. It was not Satan that cast out Satan. It was the power of God that cast out the demons. Nay, more than this. The demons were east out in the name of Jesus; why, then, should John have a jealousy so narrow and unworthy? Why should he not own the power that answered to his Master’s name. Ah! was it really his Master and not himself that he was thinking of? “He that is not against you is for you.” Where it was a question of the unbelief of the nation, where Jesus was utterly despised, the word then was, “He that is not with me is against me.” The converse principle is true, no doubt; but where there was a simple-hearted man, serving God according to the measure of his faith, the Lord vindicates his action in His name. By John’s own account the power was there which answered to the name of Jesus. There was one who resisted the demons, using the name of Jesus against them. And there was power; for he did cast them out, and this through the name of Jesus. Had there, therefore, been a true care for the glory of the Lord Jesus, John would rather have rejoiced than have sought his prejudice. “Forbid him not,” says the Lord, “For he that is not against you is for you.”243

“It came to pass when the days of his being received up were fulfilled he steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem. And he sent messengers before his face. And having gone they entered into a village of the Samaritans that they might make ready for him. And they did not receive him,245 because his face was [turned as] going to Jerusalem.” There was no readiness for the Lord. Their dislike of favored Jerusalem made them utterly forget the glory of Jesus and the testimony of His gracious power which these very Samaritans had every reason to know and to feel grateful for. But, “they did not receive him, because his face was [turned as] going to Jerusalem.” How often circumstances bring out the state of our hearts! What they would not dare to do, were it simply a question of Jesus, some paltry selfish feeling arouses some latent jealousy and brings all to light. These same men stumble over the personal glory of Jesus; others, attracted by the world, prove that they have no heart for a Saviour, by seeking what it has of present things to bestow. Others, again, disliking the inevitable shame of the Cross of Christ, shrink from the trial it brings them into, and prove that they have no faith, because wherever this is real, it looks fixedly and simply to Jesus. Where other objects come in, there is a turning aside; but where real faith is, it welcomes the Cross and receives. Himself, and to such God gives title to become His children.

What was the effect of Samaritan party-feeling now on the disciples? “And his disciples James and John seeing [it], said, Lord, wilt thou that we speak [that] fire come down from heaven and consume them, as also Elias did?” Now it was not contrary to the principles of the disciples that Elias should thus be the instrument of Divine judgment; but how painfully did James and John (for now John was not alone), two that afterward were of great weight and value in the Church of God,246 show their little perception of the grace of Jesus! The Lord of glory passes on, accepting His rejection, and bows to the ungrateful unbelief of the Samaritans. But His two servants, deriving everything of which they could boast, the only Our that could take away their evil and bestow the goodness of God on them, under pretense of honoring Jesus, would command fire to come down from heaven and consume them like a Jewish prophet. How little love had they for souls! As little was it a true regard for Jesus. It was honest Jewish nature, though in apostles. It was no doubt indignation, but this far more springing from themselves than for Jesus. Jesus turned therefore and rebuked them. It was not now simply a correction of what they were saying, but a rebuke to themselves.

“Ye know not of what spirit ye are.” 240a The next verse would seem to be — the first part at least — an interpolation. It was not a question of saving souls in this place. If inserted here it would make man the reason and end; whereas the suggestion was contrary to the display of what God is, and inconsistent with His grace, which does not merely save the soul but fills the heart with the moral glory of the Lord Jesus. “And they went to another village.”

In all this context, since the transfiguration, human flesh is judged in its various forms, Indeed, even there the flesh was shown quite incompetent to appreciate the glory of God, or the new things of His kingdom. Thenceforward disciples and man manifest their unbelief and consequent powerlessness before Satan; their unintelligence as to the sufferings of the Son of mail; their worldly ambition, cloaking itself under the Lord’s name, though so utterly inconsistent with Him; the party spirit that overlooks the Spirit of God Who deigns to work sovereignly; and the spirit of grace that God was now showing in Christ as contrasted with all that even an Elias did.

But now we have not the failure of I lie apostles themselves, but the judgment of those who either were or wanted to be disciples. This is brought before us in the close of the chapter in three different forms successively. “It came to pass, as they went in the way, one247 said to him, I will follow thee wheresoever thou goest, Lord.” It was apparently a good confession, as it was a zealous resolution; but man never can go before the Lord. No one ever did give himself up to God — he must be called. He who says “I will follow thee” knows not his weakness. When we think what man is and what Jesus is, for man to say “I will follow thee wheresoever thou goest” is manifestly the grossest presumption, yet man sees no presumption in it. He ignorant is man, so besotted in unbelief, that to his eyes real faith seems presumptuous, whereas there is nothing so humble for faith forgets in the goodness and might of Him on Whom it leans. It was the expression of self-confidence to say to Jesus, “I will Follow thee wheresoever thou goest, Lord.” Now he who does this always miscalculates. He overlooks the glory of Christ and the depth of His grace. He overlooks also his own total want of power and perhaps even his need of forgiveness. No man is competent till he is called by grace to follow the Lord. And when we are called, the Lord does not us forth at our own charges. He gives liberally the needed wisdom and ability to those who ask Him; but He goes before us. To follow the Lord whithersoever He went, before His death (as in this case), was beyond man. When even Peter, at a later date, said something like it, it was just before he denied the Lord. Such is flesh. “I will follow thee to prison and to death,” said Peter; but, in fact, the very shadow of what was coming frightened him. A servant-girl was enough to terrify the chief of the apostles. It made him tell lies with oaths; whereas the same Peter, after the death and resurrection of Christ, when his own conscience had been purified by faith according to the sprinkling of the blood of Jesus, became bold as a lion, as he finally followed the Lord, not only to prison but to the death of the cross. But this was altogether the strength-giving effect of God’s grace, not of his own power, which utterly failed. When his natural energy was gone, he was stronger than ever: he was only truly strong, when he had no strength of his own. The Lord answers the scribe (for such we know him to be from another Gospel):

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven roosting-places, but the Son of man hath not where he may lay his head.” The man was judged, He came for what he could get, and the Lord had nothing to give him — nothing but shame, and suffering, and destitution. The foxes might have holed, and the birds of the air nests, but the rejected Messiah had not an earthly resting-place. There was to be found in Israel no man so poor as the Lord Jesus. When He wanted to teach them a lesson of subjection to Caesar, whom their sins had set over them, He had to ask for a penny to be shown Him. We do not know that the Lord, ever possessed a fraction. “The foxes have holes, and the birds of the heaven have roosting-places; but the Son of man hath not where he may lay his head.” It was no use therefore for this man to follow Him in hopes of gaining by it. What could be gained by it on earth, but a share of His rejection? “If in this life only we have hope in Christ, we are of all men most miserable.”

But now comes another case, considerably different, where the Lord takes the initiative.

“He said to another, Follow me.” The flesh, so bold in its offers to go after Jesus, is really slow to follow when He calls; as this man, though called, instantly feels the difficulties, and says, “Lord, allow me to go first and bury my father.” You find this in true believers. When a person has Christianity before his mind as a theory, all seems easy. He thinks he can do anything. Ordinarily, where the faith is genuine, difficulties are felt; and this man pleads the very first of all human duties. What would seem not only reasonable, but so, incumbent on him, as first to go and bury his father? Did not the law command the child to honor father and mother? To be sure; but One was there greater than the law. The God who gave the law was calling, and if He says, Follow Me, faith gives up everything, even be it father, or mother, or wife, or children, for Christ’s sake. Believers must come to this sooner or later; generally, in the long run, every one who thoroughly follows Christ. It is not felt at every moment but the principle of Christianity is the sovereign call of God in Christ that takes one clean out of the world. Whilst still in the world one belongs to another — absolutely and only to Christ, to do the will of God, Hence all natural ties must be in comparison like the green walls with which Samson was bound, anti which were no more than two before ins all over coming strength. The most intimate of natural ties are after all but of flesh; whereas flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God. The link with Christ is of the Spirit, and the Spirit is mightier than the flesh. Therefore, whatever might be the claim of a dead father; or of what was due to the feelings of a Jew―for the Jew regarded him who did not bury his father with suitable care and affection as lost to all that was proper and as unworthy of any association with them — yet if the distinct person and call of Christ come in at that moment, surely He must be followed.

This was a test; Christ knew all, and not without moral motive had called him at that point precisely rather than any other; and the question for him was whether Christ was more to his soul than any one or thing in the world besides. Was it really so, that standing well with the Jews and with his family was of more consequence to him than Christ, than heaven or hell, than eternity itself? This Irian may have honestly desired to follow Christ, yet he pleads for a delay on the road. But the Lord’s answer to him is “Suffer the dead to bury their own dead,248 but do thou go and announce the kingdom of God” ―a perplexing answer to a person whose eye was not single. Thus the Lord tries faith.

He does not put things in the simplest possible form to faith or to unbelief — above all, where there is something allowed that hinders. The Lord will be inquired of. So He says here, “Suffer the dead to bury their own dead,” that is, let the dead spiritually bury their natural dead — “but do thou go and announce the kingdom of God.” It was not only that this man was called to follow Jesus, but to be a witness for Him, to be a proclaimer of God’s kingdom. How could it fare with others, if there was not faith in him to give up all for Christ? One of the reasons why there is so little power in the testimony of Christ is because there is so little faith in those who testify it. Mohammedans, etc., constantly tax Christian missionaries with this: “You profess to have a revelation from God in the Bible; but you yourselves evidently do not act according to that book. How can you seriously ask us to believe? How can we think that you believe it? We believe our books, and if we accept loyally the Koran, with its system of prayers and ablutions, we follow it. We scrupulously conform to the prescriptions of the Prophet. You affirm that Christ preached the sermon on the mount, for instance. Yet you constantly get out of the difficulty of not following it by the plea that the times are changed. We stick to the Koran every day and at all costs. God is the unchangeable God, and He has a constant claim upon the faithful.” Thus one of the main obstacles to the conversion of other religionists is the way in which ministers of Christ expose themselves by their want of faith to the mockery of their adversaries. This increases the heart’s unbelief, because for the most part professing Christendom does not even pretend to adhere inflexibly to Scripture. They say that times have so altered that they can take only such parts as suit the present day. They think nothing of seeking the world and its glory and everything that will attract flesh. They think to draw some by this means and some by that; whereas the truth is, they are themselves drawn away by the world from the truth and will of God. To court the countenance of man, to seek what the world values, is practically to abandon Christianity for the will of man. It is the living mingling with the dead, instead of leaving the deed to bury their dead, The Lord’s call must set aside every other.

The third case again differs somewhat. “I will follow thee, Lord; but first allow me to bid adieu to those at my house.” There we have one who allows the amenities of life to be “first.” It was no such serious detention. It was merely to pay them ordinary courtesy. But the Lord insists, upon the absolute renunciation of every hindrance: “No one, having laid his hand249 on [the] plow and looking back is fit250 for the kingdom of God.” If Christianity is anything, it is and must be everything. It admits of no rivals and of no delays. It could not be the kingdom of the true God if it tolerated the turning aside of His servants forever so little. Christ is the first and the last, and must be all to the heart or He becomes nothing through the wiles of the devil.

Endnotes

220 Verse 2.― “Proclaim,” κηρύσσειν, of the Kingdom (see note192). Burkitt seeks to distinguish here between the style of Luke and that of Paul (p. 117, note); but see 1 Cor. 9:27, where having used εὐαγγελίζειν in verse 16, when the Apostle conies to the conflict connected with reward (cf. note on 22:16 ff.) he uses κηρύσσειν. Cf. Acts 20:25 and the last verse of the same Book.

“To heal the sick.” With the idea that some such power resides still in the Church, a “Guild of Health and Spiritual Healing” has recently hen by some Anglicans. As to this topic, see art, by Dr. A. T. Schofield, in Contemporary Review, March, 1909, who calls attention to the Epistle of, James 5:14 (ἀλείφειν, medical, not χρίειν, sacramental).

221 Verse 3.― “Money,” i.e., silver (ἀργύριον), because Luke is writing for Greeks; Mark has “copper,” from writing for Romans (Farrar).

“Wallet”: cf. that carried by Eastern beggars at the present day (Deissmann, “Light from the Ancient East,” p. 42ff.).

222 Verse 9.― “Sought”: the imperfect, equivalent to “would seek,” as a habit: cf. 23:8.

Herod seems to have supposed there was a change of soul from an old body into a new one, as part of the current Jewish notion of pre-existence: cf. John 9:2.

223 Verse 10.―Richard Cecil wrote: “Christ’s workmen must not live in a bustle ... driving through the business of the day. I am obliged to withdraw myself regularly and say to my heart, ‘What are you doing? Where are you?’” Cf. Sone. of Solomon 1:6, “Mine own vineyard have I not kept” (Ryle).

224 “Into,” as εἰς is commonly rendered; but its use in 19:29 justifies the rendering of the preposition here as “towards”: for the distinction between it and πρός cf. note 65 on Mark. John 6:5 shows that the incident took place in the neighborhood of Bethsaida. Luke is not inconsistent, as alleged by Wright. (“Gospel of Luke,” p. 87). Some of those who suppose that there were two places with the same name distinguish this, in Galilee, from Bethsaida Julias in Gaulonitis (cf. note 40 on John). The reading of “D,” “village,” may indicate that this was the site of the Old Bethsaida (so Wellhausen).

224a “Spoke... cured.” The Lord had both taught (Mark) and healed (Matthew). “Luke, treating, so markedly of grace, calls attention to the double manner of its manifestation that day” (Stuart, p. 18).

225 Verse 12 ff.― “The day began to decline”: cf. 24:29.

This is the only miracle recorded by all the Evangelists. It took place in the spring, just before the Passover (John 6:4). “Victuals”: American Revv., “provisions.”

226 Verse 16.― “Gave”: again, an imperfect (kept giving).

227 Verse 17.―Matthew Henry: “None are sent away empty from Christ, but those that come to Him full of themselves,” a reminiscence probably of 53; cf. Rev. 3:17.

The translation in the “Exposition” of the close of the verse is that approved by De Wette, B. Weiss, and Plummer. Alford followed Meyer.

The κόφινος (handbasket) appears in all the accounts of the feeding of the-five thousand; whilst. πυρίς (hamper) is used by Matthew and Mark in connection with the four thousand. Those laying stress on verbal analysis have to reckon with this when treating the later miracles as a “doublet.”

228 Verse 18ff.―There is a rift in Luke’s record compared with Mark’s. Our Evangelist omits the story of the heathen woman, to the discomfiture of critics. J. Weiss: “We can only confess our ignorance.” It were well if such a Confession came oftener. Even an Apostle could write, “We know in part.”

“Alone” American Revv., “apart.”

“I” (verse 18), as Mark 8:27. Matthew here has “Son of Man” (16:13).

C.f. note on 6:22.

The verses down to 22, compared with the parallels in Matthew and Mark, tell us of the great crisis or turning-point in the Lord’s disclosures; verse 20 being the revelation that he was Messiah; verse 22, a contemporary announcement for the first time, according to this Gospel of the coming Passion and coincident with the introduction of His self-designation as “Son of Man” (see “Exposition”). For the surprise such association of ideas must cause to the Jewish mind, see 1:33, and John 12: 34. As to the critics’ treatment of the Messianic claims, see note 82 f on Mark.

Peter’s confession here precedes (in Matthew follows) the saying, “All things have been delivered,” etc. (10:22).

229 Verse 23ff. (cf. 14:29f, etc.). ―Around these words, found substantially in each of the Gospels (of. Matt. 16:25; Mark 8:35; John 12:25), gather all the thoughts of Thomas a Kempis’ “Imitation of Christ.” Self-sacrifice, suffering, is seen, by men otherwise so widely differing in their views as Br. Martineau and Bishop Gore, to be of the essence of Christianity, which so far has no meeting-point with Buddhistic “illusion of self,” at present so much in vogue; that idea and Christ’s “denial of self,” the suppression of sorrow and its transfiguring into joy, badly sort together.

As to difference between self-love and selfishness, see Murray (“Christian Ethics,” §116), and for the various “selves” represented in the individual man which are recognized by modern Psychology, James (“Text book,” chapter 12.).

Noticeable is the travesty of the Lord’s words here in B. T. Campbell’s “New Theology,” where salvation is said to be “in ceasing to be selfish” p. 210).

“Daily,” not once a week. Cf. verse 26. “It is not at ell a question of professional ministry, any more than of monasticism” (see Catholic Catechism. No. 312). Cf. 1 Cor. 15:31.

One modern writer tells us that JESUS “was not a Christian” (Wellhausen, Introduction, p. 113); another, that “there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross. There never have been Christians at all” (Nietzsche, “Antichrist,” § 39). Is it not a truism, so far as regards this last pronouncement, that “there are none so blind as those who will not see”?

Some critics, enamored of the idea of “accretion” declare that these words could not, have been spoken before the Crucifixion one would be glad to learn from such writers how they conceive that the language could have originated after that event without misunderstanding. If “cross” and “lose his life” here are to be understood, the “daily” of 14:27, which is here represented by the present tense of the verbs, must be taken into account. The reader is urged to abide by Paul’s interpretation (1 Cor. 15:31), realized in that Apostle’s experience, and by having his words in Rom. 12:1 and Gal. 2:20 burnt into the soul. Celsus said that, in his own day, Gal. 6:14 was ever “in the mouth of every Christian of every sect.” We are reminded here of “form of godliness without the power” (2 Tim. 3:5), in days when anything like stern reality is decried as “enthusiasm,” so prone are “the many” to lukewarmness. We have here constantly repeated assumption of successive forms of self-denial or self-stripping, be it hand or foot or eye (Mark 9:43-47), symbolic of the deeds of the body requiring mortification (Rom. 8).

230 Verse 24.― “Life,” i.e., soul: see note 35 and cf. 12:19.

231 Verse 26.― Fear of society’s ridicule, not peculiar to one period of life, heads the list of hindrances to decided discipleship set forth in a “Bulletin de l' Union Chretienne de Jeunes Gens” (Brussels, Feb., 1906).

232 “The Son of Man.” Wellhausen, in his Introduction, p. 79, remarks: “Jesus here distinguishes Himself from the Son of Man.” But cf. Matt. 10:32f. with verse 23 there, and see note 30 on Mark, ad fin.

“The holy angels”: cf. 2 Thess. 1:7.

233 Verse 27.―For “taste of death” (γεύεσθαι τοῦ θανάτου), cf. the Talmudic ta’am mitha.

233a The “Kingdom of God” instead of the personal “Son of Man” in the other Synoptics. Schmiedel remarks: “There is no longer any mention of the coming” (“Jesus in Modern Criticism,” p. 33f.), as to which observe that; in each of these three Gospels the respective form of words is in the same context, that of the Transfiguration. We need not consult Jerome, Hilary, or Chrysostom to be assured that this vision was the one meant, and that it has no reference (as Sanday supposes) to Pentecost (Acts 1:8, 2:4). On critical principles one would have expected transposition; so Wellhausen has to suggest that the story originated in a vision of the risen Christ. Awkwardly for such writers, the Transfiguration was recorded by Mark likewise; so that it cannot be said of Peter as far as the Gospels are concerned, that he seems not to have known of it. Mark tells us that it was at the bidding of JESUS the three disciples did disclose it until after His resurrection; and Matthew’s like statement was ss derived from his fellow Apostle. The disciples would freely communicate to one another their several experiences, which thus became, “common property.”

Mark speaks of “power” (9:1). At 8:38 of the record which, according to the critics is the first Synoptic, the same Evangelist has “with the holy angels,” which Matthew has reproduced (6:27). But it is not the mention of these which explains the “power” peculiar to the shortest Gospel, in which JESUS is characteristically the Isaianic “Servant of Jehovah,” who was “made a little lower than the angels” (Heb. 2:9), to prove “much better” than they, as He “by inheritance obtained a more excellent name,” that of the SON (ibid. 1:4; “This is my beloved son” in all three Synoptic accounts). Thus, it was to be “crowned with glory and honor,” the passage first cited from Hebrews tells us, as by anticipation in this scene, cf. 2 Pet. 3:16f. Hence “power” in the Critics’ first Gospel exactly expresses the transformation which the disciples witnessed.

234 Verse 28 ff. — “Eight days.” A fragment of a day at each end was reckoned in addition to the “six days” of Matthew and Mark.

As to a week being passed over here without any record of the ministry. See Stuart, p. 116.

235 Verse 29. — The word λευκός, for “white,” is used also in Rev. 1:14.

236 Verse 31. — Wright would have that “spoke” (ἔλεγον) means Moses and Elias informing the Lord of the details of His death (“Synopsis,” p. 85). Does such exposition court serious refutation?

A really illuminative remark is that of Bishop Hall, in his “Contemplations” (7:5), that the appearance of Moses’ body, hid in the valley of Moab, was for Christians to know that “their bodies are not lost but laid up, and shall as sure be raised up in glory as they are laid down in corruption.”

“Departure” (ἔξοδος): cf. Acts 13:34, for Luke’s use of Chaos, “entry,” The word “exodus” is found again in 2 Pet. 1:15. As to such being the theme of the conversation, Dr. Torrey, in one of his London addresses, well asked, “Could anything make more for the fundamental importance of His death?”

237 Verse 32. — “Oppressed with sleep,” seemingly indicating that it was night; cf. verse 37.

238 “Having fully woke up.” So Revv. text, Wellhausen, etc. The R.V margin, “having kept awake,” is in accordance with the usual sense of the word.

238a Verse 33. — “Tabernacles.” This seems to have taken place about the time of the Feast so named, in the autumn of the year preceding the Passion.

239 Verse 34. — The reading ἐκείνους, as the pronoun in the second place, B. Weiss, in his critical dissertation, supposes was substituted for αὐτούς there in order to make the meaning clearer, that the disciples did not themselves enter the cloud. Blass puts a stop at “feared,” which enables him to connect “as they entered” with “a voice,” etc. If αὐτούς be read, all six persons would seem to have been in the cloud (so Godet), unless (with Weiss) we take this αὐτούς as referring back to the one in verse 33. “Out of the cloud,” in any case, makes for the disciples being outside of it.

240 Verse 35. — “Beloved.” The word ἀγαπητός seems to have become Biblically equivalent toμονογενής, “only begotten” (i.e., “Only Son,” Swete “Studies,” p. 167), from the way in which these words alternate in the LXX. version of yachid. Cf. note 90 on Mark, and Sir R. Anderson, “The Lord from Heaven,” p. 30 ff.

For the designation ἐκλελεγένος, “chosen” (R.V.), see Isa. 42:1, and cf. 23:35 of this Gospel. Observe, however, that by the prophets it is used of the Lord as παῖς, not as υἰός.

As to the glory of Christ making that of Moses and the prophets disappear, cf. the argument of 2 Cor. 3:7-11.

240a Verse 36. — The Transfiguration and the Lord’s words leading up to it have no more to do with the Roman destruction of Jerusalem than with His ascension. The scene is a type, a shadow of the Millennial Kingdom.

For such as Loisy (1:93, 2:40), Wellhausen ad loc., and in England, Carpenter (pp. 143-151), “told no man” does but mean that before the death of JESUS no one had ever heard of the Transfiguration! Historical criticism of this kind will not stand the test supplied by sense of human character.

241 Verse 37. — Cf. Exod. 34:30. The Syriac of Sinai shows the same reading followed as by the Curetonian — “that” instead of “following” day.

242 Verse 46 ff. — Self-assertion: cf. 22:24. In Mark 9:29 the inefficiency; of the disciples is attributed to lack of prayer (if not fasting also); whilst in Matt. 17:20, faith in their very commission (verse 1 here), seems to have broken down.

“Should be”: American Bevy, “was.”

“In My name” (verse 48). To the present day Arabic-speaking hospital patients in Palestine and Egypt use the name of JESUS in appealing for relief.

Jealousy comes out in verse 19 here; the more petty because of the man’s success contrast with their culpable failure.

243 Verse 50. — Cf. Mark 9:39 f. Here “you” replaces “us” of the earlier Gospel.

244 Verse 51.― At this point we enter upon a record of the Lord’s ministry which, with the exception of 11:14-44, 12:1-12, 35-40, and 17:1-4, is peculiar to Luke (see note 4 F), ranging from about the Feast of Tabernacles (October) — cf. John 8.― to about Passover of the year following (the spring), and covering the chapters down to 18. (verse 14), where the link with Matthew and Mark reappears, down to 19:29. Cf. also John 7:2 and 10:12, from the latter of which passages we learn that the Lord was at Jerusalem in the winter, and then retired “again beyond Jordan” (verse 40).

Wieseler, followed by Ellicott (“Historical Lectures,” p. 241), regarded this portion of the Gospel as spreading over two journeys of Christ before’ the final one: the second of these would begin with 17:11, and end at 19:29 (but of next note). It supplies that ministry of our Lord, loosely called the “Perean.” Peræa was in the district of old called “Gilead.” From the assertion of the direction always taken (13:22 and 17:11, of 18:35), critics (Keim and followers, as Wellhausen) have started the idea that the Evangelist was confused in his geography. As to this, Godet or Hahn may be consulted. A later writer, Spitta, has shown in his “Disputed Questions” that the criticism is baseless, for that the route from Galilee to Judma, (1) through Samaria, and (2) by way of Jericho, was customary.

“Receiving up,” ἀνάληψις, which supplied a technical word for the Ascension. It is used here only in the New Testament; but for the verb, see Acts 1:2, 11:22, besides 1 Tim. 3-16.

See Maclaren’s sermon (Third Series), on “Christ Hastening to the Cross.”

“To go to Jerusalem.” Cf. 13:22, 17:11, 18:31, 19:38. There seems to be one journey in view throughout, of which there is a “threefold narrative”: see paper of Col. Mackinlay in Interpreter April, 1911. Three may be seen to play an important part in the Book of Acts, where Paul’s conversion is thrice described (9:3ff., 22:5 ff. 12 ff.), and Peter’s visit to Cornelius in the same way alluded to (10:1 ff., 11:4 ff. 15: 7 ff.), whilst that Apostle’s vision is said to have been threefold (10:16). It is conceived that Luke had in his Gospel the same plan — to draw special attention to the particular incident in question.

245 Verse 53. — For Jewish feeling toward Samaritans, see Ecclesiasticus, 1:25 f.

246 Verse 54. — “James and John.” Briggs supposes that the sons of Zebedee were the only Apostles with the Lord at this time (“New Light,” chapter 4). Carr notes that John was the first to give Apostolic blessing to the newly-founded Christian community of Samaria in Acts 8:14 f. Bishop Jeremy Taylor preached from this verse.

246a Verse 55. — The Lord wrought miracles in every element except fire, which is reserved for the consummation of the age (Bengel).

247 Verse 57. — “One.” Matt. 8:19 informs us that he was “a scribe.” Augustine has a sermon on this verse (op. cit., p. 397).

248 Verse 60. — “Let the dead bury their dead” is a saying still current in the East.

249 Verse 61f. — “Hand,” not hands (Schor, p. 19f.). It is the same in India at the present day. The ploughman requires the other hand for holding the pole with which he pricks the oxen.

250 “Fit,” εὔθετος, as a question of conduct. Cf. use of the word in 14:35, and of ἀδόκιμος in respect of work in Tit. 1:10: “worthless as to every good work.” It is not a question of fitness for eternal life, which consists in acknowledgment before God of one’s absolute worthlessness and need. Cf. Acts 13:4 in that connection with 2 Tim. 3:8, worthless as regards the faith.” With these two verses cf. Matt. 6:33, 13:44-46.

Luke 10:1-37

251/THE mission of the seventy252 is peculiar to Luke. It has in itself a character of grace about it, though really on its rejection the harbinger of imminent judgment to Israel. All things are now made manifest since the transfiguration of the Lord. The former mission preceded that great event and is given elsewhere; but Luke adds the mission of the seventy. His death, His suffering, His rejection have all been fully announced, and accordingly His departure from the world, because of the inability of Israel or even of the disciples to profit by His presence in Israel, and then judgment of all the forms of human nature in hindering the following of Christ or His service. That we have had. Now as concluding the testimony to Israel, this new mission is sent out to announce not only before the revelation of His rejection, but since it, the kingdom of God.

“After these things the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them two and two253 before his face into every city and place where he himself was about to come.”254 The Lord’s heart felt for the people as He said, “The harvest indeed.255 [is] great, but the workmen few.” Now there are more laborers raised up by far as the pressure of the need was before His soul. “Supplicate therefore the Lord of the harvest.” Nevertheless He was encouraging prayer, because before He tells them to pray He is Himself appointing these seventy to go forth. He was the Lord of the harvest. At the same time He warns them what they were to expect. “Go: behold, I send you forth as lambs among wolves.”

He well knew, and they were to know, what man was, even in Israel. Flesh was completely judged. The Jews are no longer regarded as the lost sheep of Israel, but as wolves with themselves to prey on as lambs.

But there is another thing. While they were thus seat forth in a spirit of grace, exposed to the evil of man, they were to go with the full consciousness of His glory. “Carry neither purse [pouch] nor wallet, nor shoes, and salute no one on the way.”256 The danger was imminent, the duty was urgent. There was no need of preparation and resources from without; they were entitled to count on the power of His name providing for them in Israel; for He was the King, let men reject as they might. So, on the other hand, there was no time for salutation. Such courtesy is all very well for the earth and for the present time; but eternity was coming more and more distinctly before the minds of the servants as it was fully before the Lord. “Salute no one on the way.” Deeper interests were at stake, and everything that would occupy their minds with that which might be dispensed with was only a hindrance.

“And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, Peace to this house.” Thus there was the full word of grace sent forth to them. At the same time, so much, the worse for those who rejected it. Nevertheless the peace should turn to them again. It was not war; they had nothing to do with that. “If a son of peace257 be there, your peace shall rest upon it: but if not, it shall turn to you again.” Peace rejected was returned to themselves. “And in the same house abide, eating and drinking such things as they give: for the laborer is worthy of his hire.”258 There was to be no covetousness, no self-seeking; but, casting themselves upon their allegiance of heart to the Messiah, they were to take such things as were given. While the Messiah acknowledges the worthiness of the laborer, the laborer is worthy of his hire. Those who were of Him would feel it and own it. They were not to go from house to house. This would be derogatory to His glory because it might be charged with a seeming indulgence of self-seeking. The grand point was the solemn claim of the Lord Jesus in Israel.

“And into whatsoever city ye may enter, and they receive you, eat what is set before you:259 and heal the sick in it, and say unto them, The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” There was no want of power, but the word was, “The kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” This they were to say to them. It was not a question of miraculous exhibition to strike the mind or eye, or anything for present life merely, but “the kingdom of God is come nigh unto you.” “But into whatsoever city ye may have entered, and they do not receive you, go out into its streets and say, Even the dust of your city, which cleaveth260 to us on the feet we shake off against you.” Thus the rejection of this mission would be most serious, and the very measure of grace out of which it springs would make unbelief the more perilous, and the judgment of it more peremptory. “Even the dust of your city, which cleaveth to us on the feet we shake off against you: but know this, that the kingdom of God is come nigh.” It would not alter the truth. They might reject, but the kingdom of God had come nigh unto them.

“I say unto you, that it shall be snore tolerable for Sodom in that day than for that city. Woe unto thee, Chorazin! woe unto thee, Bethsaida! for if the works of power which have taken place in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they had long ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes. But it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you. And thou, Capernaum, which hast been raised up to heaven, shalt be brought down even to Hades.” This is a solemn principle much too easily and too often forgotten. People are apt to pity the heathen and to think of distant lands; but while it is well for those who are thoroughly rejoicing in the Lord to feel for those who want Him, there cannot be a greater delusion than to suppose that when the judgment comes, men as such will be better off, e.g., in England than they are in Tartary. No doubt, wherever there is faith in a rejected Christ, it will bring into heavenly glory; but the rejection of Christ when He was on earth, or now that He is in heaven, is fatal. More particularly the rejection of a heavenly Christ is ruinous; even then the Lord could say, “It shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon at the judgment than for you.” Not that Israel was not privileged; but privileges despised or misused bring only a deeper perdition upon those who reject or pervert them.

Therefore it is that these cities rise up before the Lord. It was bad enough for the cities Chorazin and Bethsaida, inasmuch as there had been mighty works done in them and they had not listened, and the Lord said, “If the works of power which have taken place in you had taken place in Tyre and Sidon, they had long ago repented, sitting in sackcloth and ashes.” Israel were more guilty than the heathen, and the Israel of Christ’s day peculiarly so. No heathen had ever listened to such a testimony. To refuse the Word of God is to expose to the judgment of God. “it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the judgment than for you.” And if there was one city that had even greater advantages than these, it was Capernaum, which is called His own city, where He was pleased to live and labor. And what as to it? “And thou, Capernaum, which hast been raised up to heaven, shalt be brought down even to Hades” — a still more awful judgment.

But it would not be a light thing now for those who rejected the disciples any more than for those who rejected Himself. He adds, “I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for Sodom in that day than for that city.” Mark, not merely for Tyre and Sidon, but for Sodom. The Lord clothes the words of His disciples with a more awful judgment than His own, because the disciples were more liable to be despised than their Master. Men might take advantage of His disciples and say that they were only men of like passions with themselves, and had their faults, and so they had. But the question was, What was their testimony — their mission? and from whom? What were the blessings held out and what the penalties with which God menaced those who scorned them? They testified of God’s kingdom at hand. There was nothing really that had ever been presented to man to compare with this Others as prophets had borne witness of it, but avowedly from a distance; but now that it was at hand, to despise those who preached it would be to despise Jesus and God Himself, as to listen to them would be a true way of honoring Jesus.

“He that hears you hears me; and he that rejects you rejects me; and he that rejects me rejects him that sent me.” It was contempt of God Himself, and this in all the painstaking of grace and loving desire that His people should possess the truth. It is still worse now where mankind refuse the Gospel, because its message is the revelation, not only of the kingdom, but of the grace of God that brings salvation. To put it away from the soul is to insult God in the depth of His love, and knowingly to reject His mercy for eternity. For now it is a question of heaven and hell of eternity with God or away from Him. All depends upon receiving I grist, and the testimony that He sends. The principle of this was begun now in the mission of the disciples, although literally it was addressed to Israel in: view of the kingdom. Still deeper things begin to manifest themselves; and whether it Le then or now, to reject His testimony, by whomsoever it may be brought, is to reject himself and God.261

The seventy came back, when their mission was ended and their testimony given, saying, “Lord, even the demons are subject to us through thy name.” This was a great witness to Messiah’s power. Men in Israel always looked, and of course especially the faithful, for the manifestation of Divine power through Messiah over Satan in the world. It was not so much God as such to act directly, as through man in Israel, the Seed of the woman, the Son of David. And now what a sign and a seal was given, seeing that not only did He cast out demons, but they, His servants, through His name, did the same! Nevertheless, the Lord marked this the more to be a conclusory mission to the people and land, and that His Messianic glory, the object of promise, however true, was in no way the great truth that was beginning to unfold itself. Heavenly things were about to come in through His rejection and death. “And he said to them, I beheld262 Satan as lightning262a fall262b out of heaven.” It was quite true. The exaltation of Satan through man’s fall was gone, as it were, before His eyes, and the Lord had the full vista of God’s counsel in sight, the total destruction of the enemy’s power. “I beheld Satan as lightning fall out of heaven.” But while this was true to the Lord’s vision who sees things that are not as though they were, suggested by His disciples’ casting demons out of men, there were things even better than these, though He fully owned what there was then. “Behold, I give unto you the power of treading upon serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing shall in any wise injure you.” He openly confirms what He had given. There was thus authority to trample upon the well-known symbols of Satan’s craft and torment for man, and over all the power of the enemy, whatever it might be. They were delivered from all calculated to injure; “nothing shall in any wise injure you.” They belonged to the Saviour. “Yet in this rejoice not, that the spirits are subjected to you; but rejoice rather that your names are written in the heavens.” To belong to heaven, to be called to that seat of Divine light and blessing, was a far greater prize: the rest was Satan’s power broken on the earth, a sample of the earthly kingdom, and the powers of the age to come. But a rejected Christ opens the door into the presence and glory of God. This was a matter of far more real and profound joy — that their names were written in heaven. To this the Jews were utterly blind, as man is still; for his cool assumption of heaven, as if it were a natural end for man, is even more evil and presumptuous. Present power and authority are great in his eyes; heavenly things are little, because they are distant and unseen. Nevertheless they are nigh to faith which beholds them, knowing that they are the great reality, and that present things are only the arena of sin and folly and distance from God. But the disciples must learn this; therefore the Lord would lead their hearts into this deeper joy: “but rejoice that your names are written in the heavens.” 263

“In the same hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit and said, I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes: yea, Father; for thus hath it been well-pleasing in thy sight.” Now in a legal state of things the wise and prudent have their importance. The law admits of angelic media, and supposes human administrators; it desires things in due order, regulated in a way that commends itself to men’s reason and conscience. But grace meets a ruined world when all this is set aside; and Jesus, rejected by those who boasted of the law, rejoices in the grace of God, and thanks Him as the Father, whom the law never revealed. He was Father in His own Divine relationship to the Son, entirely outside the ken of men or the scope of their thoughts or imaginings. The Jews who had the law never saw the reality of Divine relationship. It was dimly couched under various obscure forms and terms in the Old Testament. For all through God was a veiled One, dwelling in the thick darkness, not revealed as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, This comes out clearly in and through Jesus our Lord; as also light and incorruptibility comes to men through the Gospel, not through the law. In the law it was simply one God, the Jehovah-God of Israel, and He only behind the intricate barriers of the Levitical system. But the Gospel shows the veil rent, and, through Him who went down to the cross, the Father known by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven. Thus Christianity supposes the full revelation of the true God and the persons of the Godhead.264 Hence it was impossible to have a distinct or full, if any, knowledge of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost under the law. And it may be a question how far those who are in the spirit of the law enter into it fully now; they may be orthodox, and recognize the general certainty of it; but this is a very different thing from entering into and enjoying it practically as the known truth and blessing of the soul.

Our Lord Jesus, then, perfect in everything and with Divine knowledge of all, says, “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth, that thou hast hid these things from wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to babes: yea, Father; for thus hath it been well-pleasing in thy sight.” It was no longer a question of Israel and the land; neither are wisdom and prudence of account now. Things that are highly esteemed among men are judged as an abomination in the sight of God. He had revealed His mind unto babes. Clearly this was grace. There was no claim; and babes would have seemed the very last persons to whom God would have revealed what was beyond the wise and prudent, what the vulture’s eye had not seen. “Yea, Father; for thus hath it been well-pleasing in thy sight.” It was His pleasure; He took complacency in His own love. And grace does not find but makes objects proper to itself and for God’s glory. Grace Creates, the law does not. It does not give a nature capable of enjoying God, nor can it give an object, still less one worthy of God Himself to rest on; it can only press a claim on man from God. But grace does all this and more through Jesus, Who both gives us a nature capable of enjoying God and is also Himself the Object to be enjoyed.

Hear how He presents Himself even here: “All things have been delivered to me by my Father.” It is not now merely the land of Israel or the Jewish people, but “things”; the Son of man with all things handed up to Him — a higher glory even than dominion over all people and tongues (Dan. 7). It is the universe put under Him; and this because He is the Son of God. “All things have been delivered to me by my Father.” It is not merely the Ancient of Days giving the universal kingdom under the heaven to the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven; but the rejected Man an earth revealing Himself as the Son of God; the Son of man, who is in heaven, as is said elsewhere, to whom His Father has delivered all things. We see not yet all things put under Him. But He speaks of a far deeper blessing and glory than even this universal inheritance. “No one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father.” He is a Divine person — the glory of His person is unfathomable; it is for the Father alone to know and delight in, though for us to know it unknown. No man knoweth; indeed, it is not merely no man, but “no man knoweth who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal [him].” It is clear that none but the Son knows of Himself the Father. But it is not merely true that the Son knows the Father, for He reveals Him to others — “he to whomsoever the Son is pleased to reveal [him].” This is Christianity; and to lead on the Souls of the disciples from their Jewish expectations to the heavenly and Divine truths of Christianity is the object of the Lord Jesus henceforth, as of the Spirit afterward. It is remarkable that it is said “no one knoweth who the Son is, but the Father,” but it is not added lie to whom He will reveal Him. Thus God envelops the Lord Jesus as it were with a Divine guard against Joh. 3:13. the prying curiosity of the creature; and if the Son humbled Himself in grace to man, God forbids that man should approach that, as it were, holy ground. Not even with unsandaled feet can he tread there. God reserves the knowledge of the Son for Himself; He alone really penetrates the mystery of the Only-begotten, The Son does reveal the Father; but man’s mind always breaks itself to pieces when he attempts to unravel the insoluble enigma of Christ’s personal glory. All that the saint can do is to believe and worship. No man knows the Son but the Father. On the other hand, it is our deepest comfort that the Son not only knows the Father but reveals Him. The revelation of the Father in and by the Son is the joy and rest of faith. It is true even of the babes. The little children (παιδία), and not merely the young men and the Father (1 John 2:14); and this falls in with these unspeakably blessed words of our Lord in Luke 10: “And having turned to the disciples, privately he said, Blessed are the eyes which see the things that ye see. For I say unto you, that many prophets and kings have desired to see those things which ye behold, and did not see [them]; and to hear the things which ye behold, and did not hear [them].” Thus the Lord Jesus, while He is preparing them for greater things, fully owns the blessedness of the present.266a

The immense change from law to grace was set forth remarkably in the incident which now follows; and the more so, because the law was now directly introduced in order to show what man was under it, and that there is nothing which really fulfills the law but grace. Those who have only the law before them never accomplish it; they only talk about it, and would cover their self-condemnation by despising others if they could. Those who are under grace are the only persons who do fulfill it (Rom. 8:3, 4); but they do a great deal more. They understand what is suitable to grace, while in them the righteousness of the law is fulfilled.

“And behold, a certain lawyer stood up tempting him, and saying. Teacher, having done that, shall I inherit life eternal?” He did not ask, “What shall I do to be saved?” The law neither supposes the ruin of a sinner nor proposes salvation. It cannot but address itself to man’s competency, if he has any. The law is directed to those who assume that man can do what God requires; and consequently it is on God’s part a command or that which is due to Him, what He cannot but ask if they take such a ground with Him. The measure of duty which God proposes to man who thinks himself capable of doing it is the law.267

The lawyer accordingly asks Him as a teacher, what he is to do “to inherit life eternal.” The poor brokenhearted jailer at Philippi asked a far different question, and one more befitting a sinner — what he should do to be saved. The lawyer was not in earnest; he was a mere theorist. It was a subject for a discourse or argument. There was no his soul, no sense of his own condition or of what God is. “What shall I do to inherit life eternal?”267a The Lord answers him, “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” because, when he took this ground of doing something to inherit eternal life, he had betaken himself really to the law. Thus the Lord in His wisdom answers the fool according to his folly. A fool thinks he can keep the law, and that this is the way to inherit eternal life. The Lord accordingly says, “What is written in the law? how readest thou?” because he is going to convict him of the utter futility of all efforts on that ground. “But he, answering, said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and, with all thine understanding.” That is, the whole man must love the Lord our God inwardly as well as outwardly, “and thy neighbor as thyself.” This was excellent as a statement of duty: nothing could be better;268 but how had he done it? and what hope was there for his soul on any such footing; as this? If he took the ground of doing something to inherit eternal life, this must be the way. He was wrong in the very starting-point of his soul, wrong in what he thought about this great concernment, because he was wrong about God; and indeed he that is wrong about himself must be wrong about God. The great fundamental difference of a soul taught of God is this, that, conscious of his own sinfulness, he look, to God and to His way of being delivered out of it; whereas a mere natural man in general hopes to be able to do something himself for God, so as to put Him under a kind of obligation of giving eternal life. Human thought always denies God’s grace, as it denies its own sinfulness and need of grace. However, the answer was all right on that ground, and the Lord says to him to this effect, “Thou hast answered right: this do, and thou shalt live.” But he was dead. Now, the law never deals with the man as deed end therefore in Old Testament times there never was such a thing brought out as morel death. We never find a hint that this was known in the law or even the prophets. But in the Gospels and Epistles man is treated as dead and as wanting eternal life, which the Son of God alone can give; and He gives it, not by law but by grace — two totally opposite principles. Therefore it is by faith that it alight he by grace: whereas the law appeals to that human ability of which man is proud. He deems himself competent to do the will of God and thus to live. The Lord answered him, “This do, and thou shalt live,” but there is where he was wrong. He could not do it, and on that ground therefore he could not live. He was dead, though he did not know it himself morally dead while he lived.

“But he, desirous of justifying himself,” not to justify God but himself, “said to Jesus, And who is my neighbor?”270 This is the constant resource of a heart that is not obedient. It makes difficulties and starts objections. “Who is my neighbor?” One would have thought this a very simple question to decide, who one’s neighbor was, but the plainest things are just those which the disobedient heart is prone to overlook. Had he entered into the obedience of Jesus (1 Peter 1:2) he would not have needed to ask the Lord; he would have known himself. He and all must be taught by a parable. “A certain man descended from Jerusalem to Jericho.” This is just the course of man. From the place of blessing, Jerusalem, he goes down to that of the curse, Jericho, and there of course falls among thieves. Such is the world. Having no real unselfish love, it does not give, but violently takes where and what it can. He “fell into [the hands of] robbers, who also, having stripped him and inflicted wounds, went away, leaving him in a half-dead state.” This is just the world. “And a certain priest happened271 to go down that way, and, seeing him, passed on to the opposite side.” There was no kindness, no purpose of love in his heart — only a concurrence of regrettable circumstances for the poor man: it was not the priest’s matter. There was no grace active there, and so the priest this highest expression of the Yaw of God, goes that way, “and meeting him, he passed on to the opposite side.” He did not know who his neighbor was any more thou the lawyer: self always blinds. Surely he ought to have known; but the law never gives right motives. It claims right conduct from those who have not right motives, in order to show that they are thoroughly and inwardly wrong. By the law is the knowledge of sin; it is never the power of holiness. The law is said to be the strength of sin. It simply shows a man his duty, but convicts him that he does not practice it. So with the Levite. “And in like manner also a Levite, being at the spot, came and looked [at him], and passed on the opposite side.” He was next the priest in point of position, according to the law; but lie looked on the man and did not recognize his neighbor any more than the priest. He too passed by on the other side. “But a certain Samaritan,” who had nothing to do with the law at all, “journeying, came to him; and, seeing [him], was moved with compassion,272 and came up, and bound up his wounds, pouring in273 oil and wine,” There was grace before his eyes which bed won his heart, and accordingly at once finds out his neighbor. Love sees clearly, whatever the heathens may dream. The law merely speaks of his neighbor to a man without heart, who has not ears to hear or eyes to see his neighbor; but grace gives eyes, and ears, and heart. The Samaritan accordingly, when he seeks him, seeks him with the suited provision of grace for the future as well as the present. “He put him on his own beast, and took him to [the] inn, and took care of him.” Thus the righteousness of the law was fulfilled in him who walked not after the flesh but after the Spirit. This was precisely the way of grace. It was so that God sent His Son in quest of those who were fallen among thieves, who were more than half dead. They were wholly dead; and the Son of God gave not only all that He had, but Himself. He far exceeded all that man or a creature could do. Only God could so humble Himself and so love; only He could work suitably to His humiliation and His love. And not only does this Samaritan do all the good he can, but he takes measures that when he himself goes away, the needy one shall be taken care of adequately. “And on the morrow [as he left], taking out two denaria he gave them to the innkeeper, and said to him, Take care of him, and whatever thou shalt expend more, I will render to thee on my coming back.” It is the provision of grace which not only furnishes the blessing with all freeness, but secures, it fully when the giver is no longer here. And Jesus will repay when He comes again. He took care Himself of the sinner when He was in the world. He takes care of him now that he is brought in as His sole charge; and when He comes again, all will be repaid274 “Which [now] of these three seems to thee was275 neighbor [had been neighbor] to him that fell into [the, hands of] the robbers? And he said” — even this lawyer, because man has a conscience — “he that showed him mercy.” Consequently it is not law that can avail. The great transition, then, is made plain to all who hear. Mercy and mercy alone, can suit a lost man; but mercy is distasteful because it exalts God; whereas law is used by man to exalt himself and his capacity. It is only when we believe our own ruin, perhaps, after efforts under law, that mercy first saves our souls and then opens our eyes and makes us see a neighbor in each needy soul, without asking who he is. Mercy makes us feel every one that wants our help and compassion to be our neighbor; whereas the spirit of legalism contents itself with asking, “Who is my neighbor?” Without Christ, law merely acts upon the natural man; though it shows a man his duty, it never gives him power or heart to do it. The spirit of grace alone gives Divine motive and power. “What the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh,” etc. Grace has shone in Jesus Christ; and the Holy Ghost works according to the same grace in those who have received Jesus, who are not under law but under grace.276

Endnotes

251 Some Judean ministry seems to be recorded in chapter 10-13:21. As to this, see Professor Briggs’ book, “New Light, etc.” (Cf. note 53 on John.) It becomes most apparent as we reach verse 38, which, with the four following verses, will be taken in connection with chapter 11.

252 Verse 1.― “Seventy.” Luke was supposed by some of old to have been one of them (see note 2). References for that view could be found in Hahn’s commentary, etc. The number has been variously taken as referring to the supposed number of nations at the time; to the seventy elders of the Jewish polity (Num. 15:16); and, by “Catholic” minded people (cf. the full college of seventy Roman Cardinals), to the elders of the primitive Church.

As to the reading “seventy-two,” see curious explanation of how the “conflation” may have arisen in Abbott, “Clue: A Guide through Greek to Hebrew Scripture,” p. 137f.

253 “Two and two,” cf. Mark 6:7 of the Twelve. Critics, as their manner is, imagine that Luke is following two different reports of the same mission (cf. 9:1-6); but you find them at other times saying that our Evangelist discards a report of some miracle or saying as a “doublet.” So crooked are the ways of some writers that with them caprice runs riot.

254 “Every city and place... come.” Carpenter treats this as an allegory: he would have it that no earthly visit is meant, but the advent of the glorified Messiah, as the Kingdom should spread among the Gentiles by the disciples’ preaching. Cf. verse 16. Such is part of what the Expositor has elsewhere described as “the mythology of the nineteenth century.”

255 Verse 2.― “Indeed.” The R.V. at Matt. 9:27 retains the “truly” of A.V., but drops it here, although the Greek is the same (δ μέν).

See Augustine’s “Sermons on the New Testament,” vol. i., p. 401.

256 Verse 4.― “Salute no man,” i.e., abstain from that which, in the East (cf. 2 Kings 4:29), is a prolonged ceremony. Ryle, “The man of God ought to have no leisure for any work but that of His Master.” Cf. Prayer Book of British Jews, p. 186. Different counsel seems to be given now to the clergy by some diocesans.

257 Verse 6.― “Son of peace.” Cf. “child of wisdom” (wrath), “son of perdition” (death).

The αὐτόν may grammatically mean “him,” and was so taken in the Latin.

For the last words of this verse, of Ps. 35:13.

258 Verse 7.― “The workman is worthy of his hire” (Matthew: “food”). Cf. 1 Cor. 9:14 and 1 Tim. 5: 18. The Expositor, after Lewin (i. 393), with whom Bishop Hervey agreed, was of opinion that the Apostle in the passages named quoted this Gospel (“God’s Inspiration, etc.,” p. 18). Color may be given to this view by the mention of Luke in the same connection as the “parchments” (2 Tim. 4:11-13). As to 1 Cor. cf. Hausrath (“New Testament Times,” 3:70). Salmon thought that the words in 1 Tim. may have been heard by Paul from Luke’s lips at a weekly church meeting. B. Weiss supposes that the words were known to Timothy as a familiar saying of the Lord. H. Holtzmann’s view was that the Evangelist derived them from the Apostle (Introduction, p. 401). The simple truth seems to be that it was a current Jewish proverb, derived from Deut. 24:14f.

259 Verse 8.―Cf. 1 Cor. 10:27, Ecclesiasticus 31:16.

260 Verse 11.―The word κολλᾶθαι, “cleave,” is frequent in Luke’s writing’s: see 15:15, and Acts 5: 13, 9:26, 11:23, and 17:34. Paul uses it in 1 Cor. 6:17.

261 Verse 16.― “He that hears you hears Me.” Cf. John 16:25, 17:20.

The teaching of the “historical Jesus” is partly incomprehensible without the Apostolic interpretation. The Catholic Catechism, No. 228, resorts to the words.

262 Verse 18.― “I beheld.” Cf. Luke’s use of θεωρεῖν, as here, in Acts 17:16. That which the sets before us is not visionary (H. Holtzman), by intuitive, Divine knowledge (Meyer, Schanz, Weiss, Hahn).

262a “As lightning.” Of Matt. 24:27.

262b “Fall,” πεσόντα. All Germans seem to translate it as our A.V. The Revs, “fallen,” after Bishop Basil Jones, etc., a rendering criticized by Evans, whο explains thus: “Satan fell. I was there looking on.” J. H. Moulton. “Ι watched him fall” (“Prolegomena.,” p. 134; cf. Goodwin, “Moods and Tenses,” § 148). “Fallen” suits πεπτωκότα alone, as in Rev. 9:1. Failing, again would be πίπτοντα. The form used here is, of course, the instantaneous, momentary aorist participle; which sets forth the act as a whole, not as in progress contrast “rising” (R.V.) in 12:54.

It is “prophetic” (Godet); that is, anticipatory, see John 12:31; Rev. 12:10. Wellhausen’s reference to Isa. 14:12 f., of course, connects itself with the fourth verse of Rev. 22. The Sura 72 in the Qorân, which speaks of ejection of demons from heaven by meteors, does but caricature Old Testament predictions with the substitution of Mohammed for our Lord. The real phenomenon will be fulfilled before the great Tribulation, and is distinct from that of Matt. 24:29 (Mark 13:25), which will precede the time of stress. The Fathers’ view, represented in modern times by Cornelius a Lapide was that it refers to the time when Satan first sinned: so B. W. Newton in his “Thoughts on the Apocalypse,” p. 249; but see Trench, “Studies,” pp. 227-230. It is not a fact accomplished; as Bruce states the matter.

263 Verse 20.― “Names written, etc.” Cf. Exod. 32:32; Ps. 69:28, besides Rev. 3:4f — the Assembly’s roll at Sardis, and its confirmation or otherwise in heaven. Of Matt. 5:12, noting like connection of the word “rejoice.”

264 Verse 21f. For the Lord’s requirement of faith in His Person, of Matt. 11:25ff. These twin passages, awkward for critics, those have to face who can but talk of “Christological development from Paul to the Fourth Gospel” (alt. “Son of God” in “Encyclopedia Biblica”). The fertility of imagination displayed by some is very unedifying. The background of the pre-existence of JESUS (Horner: see on 7:35) makes itself felt here, and must, accordingly, be explained away!

On Harnack’s apparent misreading of the Lord’s words here, Sweet remarks: “It is His Sonship which enables Him to know, not knowledge which makes Him the Son” (“Studies,” p. 79f.). For the unique Sonship, cf. 2 John 3, “the Son of the Father,” words which admit of only one interpretation.

265 The traditional reading, in every source of evidence ordinarily credible, is γινώσκει “knows” (Matt., ἐπιγινώσκεὶ). Schmiedel (art. “John son of Zebedee,” in “Encyclopedia Biblica,” col. 2527) emphasizes the aorist ςγνω, which emerges in a few Patristic quotations: something that came about at a definite moment of time, within the period of the earthly life of the Lord. The subject has been discussed by Harnack, “Sayings,” pp. 19 and 196 ff., where references will be found to Justin Martyr, Irenæus, Tertullian, etc. For the use made by Marcion of these passages in the Gospels, see Burkitt, p, 308.

Will the “advanced” writers accept the Patristic reading ἐγεννήθη (instead of ἐγεννήθησαν) in John 1:3? A thousand times, No! And yet, that variant is of like character to this from a purely scientific point of view.

Harnack observes that Luke could only have here quitted the words of Matt. 11:28-30. But, speaking of the manner of critics, would our Evangelist’s first readers have understood the “yoke” there spoken of, which is a Jewish Conceptions (Acts 15:10)? Cf. Edersheim, “Life of Jesus, &c.,” vol. ii., p. 142f. and Morris Joseph’s work, “Judaism, as Creed and Life” (1903).

266 Blass has discarded the seven last words of verse 22 on the scanty evidence of “D” and three Old Latin copies. In words are unquestioned in Matthew.

266a Verse 23 f―See Sermons of Chas. Simon, (“Works,” xii. p. 418) and of H. P. Liddon in Allenson’s reprint of selected series (No. X.).

267 Verse 25. — “Lawyer.” As to the class of scribes, see Neander, pp. 269, 401, and note below on 11: 45. The “tempting” was, of course, to test the Lord’s orthodoxy (Stock).

267a “Everlasting” (αἰώνιος). Of the use of this in the Old Testament, Isa. 45:17 is a typical passage. In Luke it always has a future reference; whilst αἰών, “age,” is used for all three forms of time. As bearing on the lawyer’s question, cf. Prov. 4:13 and 1 Tim. 6:12.

268 Verse 27. — See the Sitcom in the liturgy for both morning and evening of the Jewish Prayer Book.

The scribes had decided that the chief commandment was enshrined in Lev. 19:18.

The Old Testament original of Deut. 6:5 speaks of man in his threefold nature — “might” standing for “spirit” (energy): cf. note above on 1:46.

On equal love of Neighbor and self, see Murray, “Christian Ethics,” pp. 27.32. Luther preached from verses 23-27 on the “Difference between the Law and the Gospel” (“Sermons,” p. 436).

Two of Bishop Butler’s sermons were upon the Love of God and the Love of Our Neighbor respectively.

269 Verse 29. — The aorist δικαιῶσαι means: to keep up for the nonce his reputation for righteousness; whilst the present δικαιωσαι would mean: to acquire standing justification.

270 “Neighbor”: cf. Lev. 19:18, “children of thy people.”

See D. L. Moody’s Gospel address on “Who is my Neighbor?”

271 Verse 31. — “Happened.” The phrase κατὰ συγκυρίαν may be rendered “by a coincidence.”

272 Verse 33. — “The story is full of tender touches by One who had lately been repulsed from a Samaritan village” (Lindsay).

273 Verse 34. — Wellhausen curiously remarks: “In wounds oil is applied, but not oil and wine.” The “pouring in” oil or over (ἑπιχέων) means for massage, as now amongst Arabs; the wine, to staunch bleeding. For a quotation from Shabbnath, regarding their use in circumcision, see Farrar, in Excursus.

274 Verse 35. — Cf. the Book of Enoch, 40:5 (part of the Similitudes, 38. — 70.).

275 Verse 36. — “Was,” or “proved” (R.V.), for ἐγένετο.

276 Verse 37. — “Showed”: lit. “did” (ποιήσας), a Hebraism peculiar to Luke in the New Testament. Cf. 1:72a; Acts 14:27, 15:4. It is taken from the LXX.

The words “do likewise” ground Jülicher’s classification of this among the “exemplary parables” (note 196).

Spurgeon’s Sermons, 473, 1360, are on this section of the Gospel.

For the allegorical interpretation as it has by different writers been worked out in detail, see the notes of Alford or Ryle.

Admirers of Buddhist Ethics compare with this parable the story by P. Carus, entitled “Karma,” so highly appreciated by Tolstoi.

Luke 10-11

WE here enter upon a new section of the Gospel. The Spirit of God sets before us, speaking now generally, two things: first, the unspeakable value of the Word of God, and more particularly of the Word of Jesus; secondly, as we shall see another time, the place and exceeding importance for the soul of prayer. But then there are many things to be considered in connection with each of these topics, of which we shall only now look at the first. There is a moral comparison between the two sisters who loved the Lord. She who chose the better portion was the one whose heart clung most to the, Word as a link between the soul and God. As we all know, it is by the Word of truth that any are begotten of God, for it is the seed of incorruptible life, that Word which liveth and abideth forever. But then it is much more than that. It is the means of growth, of cleansing the way, of enjoying God, and consequently of spiritual blessing day by day. This was made very apparent in the diffidence between Martha and Mary. They were sisters in the flesh, believers both of them, loved of Jesus. Nevertheless, difference there was; and the main cause and evidence of it between the two was the superior value that Mary had for the Word of Jesus. The Word of God has a formative power over the mind and affections, and she is proved to be the one who most prizes the Lord, and who most really and in the truest communion serves Him, who has the deepest value for His Word. This we find as a general principle elsewhere in Scripture (“This is the love of God, that we keep his commandments”) particularly in John 14:23, “If a man love me, he will keep my word”; but here it comes out practically in the case of Martha and Mary. “A certain woman named Martha received him into her house.” She fully owned Him to be the Messiah. There was faith of God’s giving in Martha’s heart; but it saw no more in Him than simply the Messiah. Her faith did not go farther. “And she had a sister called Mary, who also, having sat down at Jesus’ feet was listening to his word.”

Mary is not characterized by such a reception of the Lord, by loving attentions and hospitality, though founded, no doubt, upon a growing out of faith. “Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and listened to his word.” Some might suppose this to be a far less proof of love; but to Jesus it was incomparably the more acceptable of the two. Martha did honor to Jesus as a believing, righteous Jew might; she owned herself subject, Himself as King, and was as happy as her faith would admit of in thus receiving the Lord to her house in the day of His humiliation; but her sister sat at His feet and heard His Word. In her case it was not so much what she, did for the Lord; but she had such a sense of His greatness and love that her one point was to sit at His feet (an attitude of far deeper humiliation than Martha ever took) with the consciousness of the Divine fullness there was in Him for her. She heard His Word; but Martha “was distracted with much serving.” How many there are who are fond of serving the Lord, but are much more full of their own doings for Him than of what He is to them as well as in Himself! This deceives many. They measure faith by their round of bustle and activity. But in truth this always has a great deal of self in it. When true humility animates, there may be much done, but there is little noise. Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His Word.278

“But Martha was distracted with much serving, and, coming up, she said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister has left me, to serve alone? speak to her therefore that she may help me.” Thus not only was there a large spice of self-importance in Martha, but she felt herself constantly slighted and incommoded by others. The spirit of egoism measures by itself, and cannot appreciate a love which is deeper than its own, and which issues in ways and forms which have no beauty in its eyes. Therefore Mary, instead of being an object of complacency to Martha, troubled her: Why did Mary not help her? Martha’s thoughts circled round herself. Had she been thinking of Jesus, she would not have dictated to Him any more than have complained of Mary. “Lord dost thou not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? speak to her therefore that she may help me.” What want of love and lowliness! She does not even leave it to the Lord to direct. Self is always captious as well as important, and as swift to impute to others as to arrogate to itself what is unbecoming. “Speak to her therefore that she may help me.” She forgets that she was but the servant of the Lord.

Who was she to wish to control Him? Martha was full of zeal, but of her own ways (not to say her own will) in serving Christ.

Jesus, however, answers with the dignity that was proper to Him, and the love that always sees true to its mark (for there is nothing that gives such a single eye as genuine affection), but which at the same time vindicates the true-hearted before those who misunderstand them. He loved them both, indeed, and says in reply, “Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things.” He deals first of all with herself. She ought not to have been thus anxious and careworn. Martha did not know what Paul knew so well: “This one thing I do.” There was never a man with such multitudinous occupations as the apostle; there was never another with such a heart for the Church. And yet he could happily employ his hands in making tents, because he would not be burdensome, though he had a right to be so as an apostle of Christ. What was it that carried him through all his unexampled toil and suffering, undistracted and happy? The reason was that one person, the only worthy Object, filled and governed his heart. This made him thoroughly happy in the midst of the deepest afflictions. This “one thing” is precisely what is needful for the child of God, and the very thing that Martha practically had not.279 It was not that she did not believe in the Lord; but she had her own thoughts too. Nature was strong. Jewish feeling and tradition held their ground; all these things wrought actively in her mind; and to such a person receiving the Lord Jesus was not only a question of doing Him honor, but of receiving honor herself too. In such cases self always, more or less, mingles even with the desire to show present respect to Jesus.

“But there is need of one; and Mary hath chosen the good part such as shall not be taken from her.” There is nothing like it. That good part is prizing Christ and His Word, not thinking what Mary could do for the Lord, but what the, Lord could do for Mary. To receive all for her soul from the Lord, instead of receiving Him into her house, was before Mary’s soul. This was the one thing needful — it was Christ Himself, He is all, and Mary Celt this, That “good part, such as shall not be taken from her” — it is eternal. Martha’s honors passed away; they were shortly about to end, for soon Jesus would not be known after the flesh, but must be known, if at all, in a higher glory than that of the Messiah. Soon, therefore, the possibility of receiving Him with a hospitable heart could not be Martha’s portion; for at His cross it would necessarily be cut short and disappear. But Mary’s position of lowly faith in hearing His Word could be always. Even in heaven the essence of it will not be lost. Communion with Jesus, delight in Jesus, humility of heart before Jesus, will always be true; it is the part of real devotedness and of the deepest love. Great as faith and hope may be (and their value cannot be over-estimated on earth), still, after all, love is that which abides forever; and love now is in proportion to the power of faith and hope. All these things were incomparably richer and stronger in Mary’s heart than in Martha’s, and this because Christ filled her heart — this one thing that is needful.

But blessed as receiving Jesus by faith may be, and sitting at His feet in the delight of love to hear from Him more and more, prayer must not he forgotten. It has an incalculable value for us here below. It is in this world that we pray. Worship is the outgoing of the heart in heaven. Not that worship for us now is not true, for it is the greatest privilege into which the Christian is brought while on earth. A Christian thus anticipates the mind and employment of heaven. He will still: be a worshipper when glorified; but he is a worshipper here, for the hour “now is when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth; for the Father seeketh such to worship him.”

Nevertheless, before the soul can worship in anything that could be said to be the power of the Spirit, prayer is the early and habitual resource day by day; and after Christian worship is entered into, real prayer abides and always must be for our wants and desires here below.

The disciples felt their need of prayer. They were stirred up to it by the fact that John taught his disciples to pray. They were born of God; but for all that, they lacked power for prayer, their souls were feeble in it. “And it came to pass, as he was in a certain place praying.” No one was so prayerful, so dependent on His God and Father, as Jesus; nor does any Evangelist present this so much as Luke, nor, consequently under so many different circumstances. “When he ceased, one of his disciples said to him, Lord, teach us to pray,280 even as John also taught his disciples. And he said to them, When ye pray, say, Father, Hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Give us our needed bread for each day; and forgive us our sins; for we also forgive every one indebted to us; and lead us not into temptation.

I fully believe that this is the same prayer substantially that we have in Matthew, at the very same time and place. Luke does not adhere to the mere historic sequence of events any more then Matthew. But there is this difference in the way in which Luke and Matthew relate facts or instructions of the Lord: Matthew puts what our Lord says in a certain dispositional order, leaving out the occasions that drew them forth Luke puts His instructions in their moral order with the facts they illustrate.) Thus Luke introduces prayer at this point, after hearing the of Jesus;, because the Divine Word is what brings the knowledge of Jesus into the soul, as prayer is the outgoing of the heart to Him Who has given and shown us mercy and revealed it to us in His Word. A man must believe before he prays. “How shall they call on him in whom they have not believed?” None can believe without the Word of God; but when one has received the Word of God, if it be only to plow up the conscience and attract the heart, one prays.

Thus, the disciples at this time feel their need of prayer, and the Lord teaches them how to pray. The Lord did not give them prayers suitable to the new position and circumstances they would be brought into after redemption. If He had descanted on prayer about the Church, the body of Christ, or the working of the Spirit by the members of that body, it would have been utterly unintelligible to them. The prayers that we have of Paul afterward could not have suited the condition of the disciples then, because they were not yet in any such standing. The conduct that would suit a married woman with her husband, etc., would be unbecoming in one who was still unmarried. For a woman who is only affianced to be praying about the children she is going to have when she may never have any, or about the household when the wedding day may never come, would be most evidently out of season. The Lord Jesus perfectly suited what He said to the condition and circumstances of those whom He addressed. The disciples had not received, though quickened of the Holy Ghost, the indwelling Spirit in the way they were going to have Him; consequently they could not pray as on that ground. It is a blunder to suppose that the gift of the Holy Ghost is conversion. When the Lord Jesus went to heaven, He sent down the Holy Ghost. The saints of the Old Testament were converted, but they had not the Holy Ghost as all have who rest on redemption since Pentecost. The disciples wanted to know how to pray, and the Lord gave them a prayer suited to their then circumstances. Only the Spirit of God has given a difference between the form in Matthew and in Luke. One is as Divinely inspired as the other; nothing can be more perfect than both are. The Gospels are absolutely perfect, each for its own object, and we need them all. The difference of their design affects the prayer, as it does everything else, Our Lord then directs the disciples to their Father. This is the first and very significant word of the prayer. When believers in addressing God now use the titles of Jehovah or Almighty God, do they not forget that they are Christians When God was intelligently addressed as Almighty, it was in the days of Abraham and the patriarchs. They were the days of promise. Afterward, when the nation of Israel was called out and put under law, it was as Jehovah-God that He was known. Now it is as Father that the Christian knows Him. Luke says simply, “Father” (not “Our Father which art in heaven,” as Matthew has it).281

The first petition is, “Hallowed be thy name.” The desire is that in every case the heart might make God its object; as we hear in James, “the wisdom that cometh down from above is first pure, then peaceable.” It first judges by God, and seeks the glory of God. “Hallowed be thy name.” Such is, and ought to be, the prime desire of the renewed mind, that the Father’s name should be sanctified in everything. All else must yield to this. “Hallowed be thy name.”

The next petition is that His kingdom should come. It is not the kingdom of the Son of man, the kingdom of Christ, that is spoken of here, but the Father’s kingdom. It is not “my kingdom come,” but “thy kingdom come.” The Father’s kingdom is distinguished from the Son of man’s kingdom. It is the sphere in which the heavenly saints will shine as the sun. The Son of man’s kingdom is the sphere in which all people, nations, and languages shall serve Him, and out of which the angels of His power shall cast all things that offend. Heaven and earth will both be put under the Lord Jesus when He comes, and both will constitute the kingdom of God. But the Father’s kingdom is the upper department, and the Son of man’s kingdom is the lower one. (Compare John 3:3, 12.) The Lord teaches them to pray for the Father’s kingdom. This is blessed and perfect. The Son would teach the children of the Father to wait with reverence and delight for the Father’s glory. This was the animating spring of every thought and feeling of His own heart. But the Father’s kingdom is not all the scene of glory.

Hence He adds elsewhere, “Thy will be done, as in heaven, so in earth.” Though left out of Luke by excellent authority, it is undoubtedly read in the Gospel of Matthew, because the future kingdom will bring in the earth as well as heaven. This confirms the distinction between the Father’s kingdom and the Son’s. Not merely shall heaven be blessed, but the earth. All is to be made subject in fact, as all is put under His feet in title. The will of God is that all should bow to the Son, and that the crucified One should be exalted. The Son loved to exalt and did exalt the Father at all cost; the Father will accomplish His purpose “that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth; and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”282

Then comes a petition expressive of dependence on God for our ordinary need. “Give us our needed bread for each day.” It takes up the pure and simple need of the body. The word “daily” is a very imperfect expression in English of the original term. Ἐπιούσιος really means our “sufficient” bread (seemingly a word expressly formed for this idea in contrast with superfluity). One cannot without slighting the wisdom of the Lord ask for more than sufficiency. One ought not to look for more, even from the Lord of heaven and earth. He bids me ask for bread enough for each day’s wants.283 Yet it is thoroughly the spirit of the One Who, after He had fed five thousand men with the five loaves and the two fishes, bade the disciples gather up the fragments which remained, that nothing might be lost. And then and thus twelve baskets were in fact filled. How easy it might have seemed for Him by Whom all was supplied to have exerted His power afresh! He would not have an atom to be thrown away because He had unlimited power. What a lesson for us!

Next comes the need of the soul. “Forgive us our sins.” It is not merely our “debts” (as in Matt. 6): a Jew would understand this; but Luke, writing particularly for Gentiles, tells the disciples to say, “Forgive us our sins.” This does not refer to a sinner’s forgiveness, when he first comes to the knowledge of the Lord, but to the disciple under the daily government of his Father. How misleading, then, it is to make an unconverted person take the ground of asking forgiveness like a child of God! Under the Gospel the way for the unconverted to receive the remission of sins is by faith in the blood of Jesus, by receiving the Gospel itself. 284 The common use of it is to confound all truth by mixing up all, the world and children of God, as if they were alike disciples drawing near and asking forgiveness for their daily sins. The forgiveness of a child is all that is spoken of here, the removal what hinders communion; not that which the Gospel publishes to the most guilty that believe in the Saviour and Lord, but the daily pardon which the believer needs. It is, therefore, the habitual need of the soul, just as the daily bread was that of the body. “For we also forgive every one indebted to us.” This is remarkable, because it evidently supposes one who has a forgiving spirit already, and no one really has this except he who is forgiven by the grace of God. And God does hold His children to this. How can a man who does not forgive another pretend to enjoy the forgiveness of his own sins before God? There is a righteous government on our Father’s part, and the particular, sin which grieves the Lord is not forgiven till we confess it to Him. “If ye do not forgive,” says our Lord in Mark 11:26, “neither will your Father who is in the heavens forgive your offences.” It is the cherishing a spirit entirely antagonistic to the Spirit of the Lord. If there were a child in a family going on in a course of self-will, there would be a bar for the time to mutual good feeling. So with God our Father; if there were a persistently bad spirit towards another, so long the Father does not forgive as a question of communion and of daily intercourse with Himself. It ruins the intelligence of Scripture to make it all a question of eternity. In the Epistles of the New Testament the remedy or duty in such circumstances takes the form, not so much of asking forgiveness as of confession, which goes far deeper. To ask for forgiveness is easy enough, and quickly done (as you may learn from your child); to confess one’s fault in all its gravity is a very humiliating process, and if not with a view to forgiveness and the restoration of communion, it is a mockery of God. To confess, to judge oneself, is therefore far beyond asking forgiveness.

The last clause here should be, “and lead us not into temptation.” The heart, knowing its own weakness, does spread its desire before the Lord; it feels the need of being kept, not of being put to the proof. “Deliver us from evil” is left out in the most ancient copies. The only right and true way of understanding the mind of God, and the best homage to Scripture, is always and only to cleave to that which is undoubtedly of Himself. This is not to take away anything from Scripture; it is to lay aside what is not Scripture. We have these words quite rightly in Matthew besides: we gain by their omission here instead of losing. The question arises, Why should it be given in Matthew and omitted here? “Deliver us from evil” refers, I believe, to the evil one and the exhibition of his power, which a Jew ought always to have before him, that tremendous hour which will be allowed as a final retribution on the nation, before they are delivered for the reign of Christ. As Luke had the Gentiles in view, this was naturally and wisely left out. Deliverance from this scourge would have been less felt by them, and hardly intelligible, as the earthly millennial portion disappears for a similar reason. What is general and moral abides here.285

The Lord here enforces prayer, and this on considerations drawn (as often in Luke) from the human heart, as showing still more powerfully what God feels in answer to the earnestness of men.

“He said to them, Who among you shall have a friend, and shall go unto him at midnight and say unto him, Friend, let me have three loaves; since a friend of mine on a journey is come to me, and I have nothing to set before him? and he within answering should say, Do not disturb me; the door is already shut, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot rise up to give [it] thee, I say unto you, although he will not rise up and give [them] to him because he is his friend, because of his shamelessness, at any rate, he will rise up and give him as many as he wanteth.” The time may seem ever so inopportune, but although a man may not for friendship’s sake listen to him who requests the loan of bread, he would rather rise and give than expose himself to trouble. Every one knows that this is apt to be the way of a man with the neighbor who is bold enough to press. He might be ever so much annoyed at the importunate suitor, but still to avoid the trouble of a continued appeal at his door, he yields. At least, such is an ordinary case: “Because of his shamelessness he will rise and give him as many as he wanteth.”286

If such is the way of selfish, ease-loving man, how much more will the God of all grace hearken to those who cry to Him! He is not weary He never slumbers nor sleeps; He is full of goodness and compassionate care. “I say unto you, Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you”287 — an evident climax; tending to urgency of supplication before God: not as if God needed it, but man does; and God values the earnestness of man’s heart, although His own is open to the cry of want or distress from the very first. But we know that there are hindrances from other causes, and that the Lord has Himself told us of a kind (speaking of evil spirits) that goes not forth but by prayer and fasting. There we have the highest degree of the soul’s abstraction from all else, giving itself up to God’s power in order to defeat the devil. “For every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it will be opened.” There is always in Luke, not only an appeal to the feelings of the heart, and man’s own concession of what even he would do in order to illustrate the ways of God, infinitely more admirable and excellent, but there is also a comprehensiveness which goes far beyond the narrow bounds of Israel. “Every one that asketh receiveth.” Thus we have here the call to importunity of prayer, and the certainty of God’s answer.287a

But this is again enforced on the ground of the relationship of a child with a father. “Of whom of you that is a father shall a son ask bread, and [the father] shall give 288 him a stone? or also a fish, and instead of a fish shall give him a serpent? or if also he shall ask an egg, shall give him a scorpion?” How contrary to the feelings of a parent, to mock when he affects to give! to give what is injurious instead of what is good! Impossible that a father, speaking now ordinarily of any father, would be guilty of such ways. “If, therefore, ye, being 289 evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more will the Father who [is] of heaven 290 give [the] Holy Spirit 291 to them that ask him.” In the Gospel of Matthew it is “give good things to them that ask him.”291a

But Luke goes farther, and shows us, not, it is true, the person of the Comforter, as in the Gospel of John, but certainly the Holy Spirit as characterizing the gift of the Father’s love to those who ask Him. For we must remember that the disciples had not yet the Holy Spirit. They were born of the Spirit, but this is a very different thing from enjoying the gift of the Spirit. To have the Holy Ghost given is over and above conversion or new birth; it is not life, but power; a privilege superadded to the possession of the new nature, and the chief or only means of enjoying God according to all the instincts of that nature, and consequently of entering into His wisdom in the Word of God. This is the richest distinctive gift of Christianity on earth, as Christ on high, the Head to Whom We are united as His body, is the main heavenly characteristic. Neither of these privileges was true as yet; no one had ever enjoyed them since the beginning of the world. The disciples were told then and encouraged to ask their heavenly Father, Who would surely give the Holy Spirit to those who asked Him. The disciples accordingly continued Acts 1:14 as we know from Acts 1:14; so that even after the Lord died and rose they had not received the Holy Spirit according to this word; they were still expecting. Yet they had received the Spirit as life more abundantly, as the power of His resurrection life; but the gift of the Spirit was something more. It was the indwelling of the Spirit of God, Who would also act in various gifts in the members, and, above all, in baptizing them into one body. All this was accomplished, but not before Pentecost. They were therefore to ask their heavenly Father, and so they did; and the Holy Spirit of promise was given according to the Saviour’s word.

There may be cases still, I cannot but think, where it would be right thus to ask our Father. This would be souls who are, like the disciples, converted, but who have not yet submitted to the righteousness of God — who do not yet consciously rest on redemption. In such a state it would be hazardous to say they had received the Holy Ghost while they do not enjoy peace with God. When there is a simple rest by faith on the great work of the Lord Jesus, and not merely faith in His person, then the Holy Ghost is given. Where the blood was put the oil followed, according to the types of Leviticus.

There is great care in this Gospel to show the connection of Satan with men, just as we have seen the privilege of the believer in the possession of the Holy Ghost. The Spirit of God is the power of communion for the new man, for those who are born of God. So Satan is pleased to fill with the power of the demon the old nature of man, in certain cases where God permits him; and the Lord shows the link between the demon and the sickness, weakness, or other malady of body or mind; as we find here in the case of the dumb man: “And he was casting out a demon, and it was dumb; and it came to pass, the demon having gone out, the dumb [man] spoke. And the crowds wondered.” It is evident from this that what produced the lack of speech was not physical infirmity, but the demon that dwelt in the man. Directly the demon left he that had been dumb spoke. What the Lord was occupied with here below was in giving a specimen of that which will characterize the world to come. The powers that He exercised, as others afterward in virtue of His name, were “the powers of the world [or age] to come,” as they are called in Heb. 6:5. The millennial age will thus afford a full display of the defeat of Satan, to the glory of God, and this in and by man. The Lord’s curing of bodily diseases, and casting out of demons, was a partial exhibition of what will be public and universal in that day.

“The crowds wondered” on this occasion; but the spirit of unbelief is stronger than the power of evidences. Hence, “some from among them said, By Beelzebub,293 the prince of the demons, casts he out demons.” We must distinguish between the instruments of Satan’s power and the devil himself. The word “devils” confounds the two things. It is to say “demons.” “By Beelzebub, the prince of the demons, casts he out demons.” Others did not go quite so far as this; but “tempting [him], sought from him a sign out of heaven.”

Satan does not lead all in the same way, but he suits his action to the flesh of each. Some men are violent in their unbelief, while others are more religious. Some “tempting [him], sought from him a sign out of heaven.” They were not content with what God had given, though there could be no external proof more convincing than the expulsion of Satan’s power. Hence this was strongly marked at the starting-point of the Lord’s ministry in this Gospel as well as Mark’s. So it was throughout. The Lord, answering their unbelieving thoughts, says, “Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and a house set against a house falleth.” It would be suicidal for Satan to undermine his own influence. “If also Satan is divided against himself, how shall his kingdom subsist? ye say that I cast out demons by Beelzebub.”

But there is more to be noticed. God had before this occasionally given power to Jews to cast out demons. Faith is always honored of God; and on the darkest day the Lord did not fail to keep up as it were the holy fire, that His light should not absolutely go out on the earth. “But if I by Beelzebub cast out demons, your sons — by whom do they cast [them] out? For this reason they shall be your judges.” No unbelief on their part ever irritated the Lord. Far from this, He could calmly acknowledge what had been of God among them, though this in no way hindered them from denying God Himself present among men.294 “But if by the finger of God295 I cast out demons, then the kingdom of God is come upon you.”

This is an expression of no small importance, “the kingdom of God is come upon you.” In another sense it might be said that the kingdom of God was nigh. Here it is said to be come, because Christ was there. Christ brought, as it were, the kingdom of God in His own person. All others require the kingdom of God to come for them to be in the kingdom; but Christ, being a Divine Person, brought that kingdom in Himself, displaying it by His own power, manifested by the overthrow of Satan, by casting out demons. And yet man was blind, more guiltily so than the poor soul before us was, who could not through his dumbness speak the praises of God. For here, when God had proved His power, they were as blind as ever, they could not see God in it, or rather in Jesus.

When the kingdom of heaven is spoken of, it is never said to be come. It could not be said according to Scripture phrase, “The kingdom of heaven is come unto you.” Thus “the kingdom of heaven” and “the kingdom of God” are not quite identical. They agree so far that what in one Gospel is called the kingdom of heaven is called in another Gospel the kingdom of God. Matthew alone speaks of “the kingdom of heaven,” as Mark, Luke, and John do of “the kingdom of God.” But what is in Matthew called “kingdom of heaven,” is called in the other Gospels “kingdom of God,” of which last Matthew himself speaks in a few passages. The difference is this: that the kingdom of heaven always supposes a change of dispensation consequent on the Saviour’s having taken His place above. He may by and by bring His power below, but He must have come from heaven to bring in the kingdom of heaven. Hence in the future, to establish it in power and glory, it is the Son of man coming in the clouds of heaven Who receives that kingdom, and makes it good over all the earth.

The kingdom of heaven never means heaven itself; but rather the rule of the heavens over the earth. When the actual departure on high of the Lord Jesus is spoken of, it is always said to be into heaven, and not into the kingdom of heaven. When the Lord, then, was here below, and manifested His power over Satan, it was the kingdom of God: it could be so called because the King — the power of God — was there. So here in this place He, by the power of God casting out demons, proved that the kingdom of God was come. What better proof could be asked? Man was totally insufficient for such a work; others might have done so in special answer to prayer. God is always superior to the devil, and it was important that He should prow this from time to time in expelling demons by the son of Israel who possessed the place of relationship to God that no other people had. But in the Lord’s case it was not occasional, exceptional, or partial, but uniform and universal: even where the disciples themselves, using His name, failed to cast them out, He always did it with a word. The kingdom of God, therefore, was come as a witness of His power, not yet as a state and sphere of manifestation, Both morally and in power, the kingdom of God was come in Him Who bound the strong man and stripped him of his goods.

And this leads me to another remark. The apostle Paul frequently speaks of the kingdom of God, not as a dispensation but as a moral display. He says that “the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” He says, too, that “the kingdom of God is not in word, but in power.” You could not say “the kingdom of heaven” in these cases. Thus we see the reason why Luke particularly can speak of the kingdom of God, for he is the Evangelist who dwells on the moral side more than any other. Hence, too, there is a stronger link between his language and that of St. Paul than between any other two writers of the New Testament.296

Then the Lord introduces a remarkable figure: “When the strong [man] armed keepeth his own house [court], his goods are in peace; but when the stronger than he coming upon [him], overcometh him, he taketh away his panoply297 in which he trusted; and he will divide the spoil [he has taken] from him.” This was going on then. If Satan was the strong man in the figure, Jesus was now stripping him of his goods and dividing his spoils. The whole ministry of Jesus was the evidence of a power superior to Satan in the world. It is true that this did not finally deliver, because it did not touch the judgment of God. It was present and not eternal deliverance. It was the overthrow of Satan, not the satisfaction of God. Sin could not yet have been abolished, and judgment must still have remained. No grace, nor power, nor ministry can take away sin, nothing but the sacrifice of Himself.298 That infinitely deeper question was behind, and was settled, not in the life of Jesus, but in His atoning death on the cross. Here He merely speaks of the power then present by a living Christ, which did deliver men from the oppression of Satan, as far as this life was concerned in the world; but not for eternity, not before God. This side of the truth, the victorious power of Christ over Satan in this life, for the earth, has been greatly forgotten in Christendom; and the more so because they bring in the living power of Christ to supplement His death for righteousness and atonement. They have made both life, and death necessary for settling the question of a guilty soul for eternity. Consequently they have in practice seen little more than this, forgetting the power of Satan on the one hand, and the power of the Spirit on the other, except in a superstitious way, which only brings the truth into disrepute. These antagonistic realities have been lost sight of; and the grand witness is overlooked that the Lord was giving of a future deliverance of man from Satan’s power, when His kingdom will be, not merely in the Spirit’s power, but in manifestation. All this has well-nigh dropped out of Christendom. The Jews were feeble about eternal deliverance, but held fast the hope of the kingdom, of blessing in the earth and world by the Messiah, when the power of the serpent would be evidently broken.

Then we find a most solemn principle in vs. 23. “He that is not with me is against me; and he that gathereth not with me scattereth.” The presence of Christ brought this out, and more particularly when He was being rejected. When Christ was acceptable, there was no moral test; but when public opinion was universally against Him, and it was evident that to follow Christ was to be slighted by the great and wise, then it proved the strongest criterion. So the Lord now says, “He that is not with me is against me.” If I am not with Him I am against Him. The more He is rejected, the more I must throw in my lot with Him. And this is a, test, not only for one’s person, but also for one’s work, as it is added here, “He that gathereth not with me scattereth.” The first is more particularly true for the unconverted man, and the second for the converted who is worldly in his work.

A man might himself be really with Christ, but yet in his labors he might build or prop up what is of the world. Such a person, no matter what the apparent effects may be, may become the most popular of preachers, and produce widespread effects, philanthropic and religious; but “he that gathereth not with me scattereth,” says the Lord. There is no scattering so real in the sight of God as the gathering of Christians on false principles. It is worse than if they were not gathered at all. There is a deeper hindrance to the truth, because there is a spirit of party and denomination that is necessarily hostile to Christ. A false gathering-point substitutes another center for Christ, and consequently makes greater confusion. “He that gathereth not with me scattereth.”299

Then we find the picture of the unclean spirit — that is, the spirit of idolatry. It had once possessed the Jewish nation; but here it is applied in the case, not merely of a nation, but of an individual, It acquires a more moral shape than in the Gospel of Matthew, where it is dispensational. “When the unclean spirit hath gone out of the man, he goeth through dry places, seeking rest; and not finding any, he saith, I will return unto my house whence I came out.” A person might, through evidence and convictions of one sort or another, profess to follow Christ, and be outwardly with Him. But the mere absence of outward evil will never bring a soul to God. God Himself must be known, and Jesus Himself received, not merely the unclean spirit be gone out. A man may leave off evil of a gross kind, he may give up false religion, or, as in this case, idolatry; bat all this does not consecrate a man. It is the presence of God in possession of a soul — it is the having a new nature, and not merely the absence of this or that evil — that determines the matter. The unclean spirit ran return to the house unless it is already occupied by the power of God’s Spirit, which alone effectually mts Satan out. “And having come, he findeth it swept and adorned.” No doubt, as compared with heathenism, there is the absence of much that is abominable and offensive. Christian truth is owned; and the unclean spirit, therefore, finds the house, when he returns, swept and garnished. This will be true in Christendom, as it may be also in an individual. After a person has through the outward influence of Christ laid aside evil, the power of Satan gathers fresh fuel; and the man falls into worse evil than if he had never professed His name at all. It is not a simple return to what he was, not merely that the old evil re-asserts its energy; but there is a fresh and complete torrent of evil, a new and worse power of the enemy that takes possession of the soul; and “the last condition of that man becomes worse than the first.”300 An apostate is the most hopeless of all evil men. So it will be with the Jew and so with Christendom; it is the same thing with any man at any time in these circumstances. There is nothing for any one except cleaving to the name of the Lord. Nor is it only a question of glorifying the Lord, but of positive necessity for his own soul.301

The power that delivers a man’s body, in this respect breaking the thralldom of Satan, however true, is eclipsed by that which is still more precious. Nevertheless, men could not but feel the homage that was due to power, and this so beneficent. “And it came to pass as he spike these things, a certain woman, lifting up her voice, out of the crowd said to him, Blessed is the womb that has borne thee, and the paps which thou hast sucked.” This gave the Lord occasion to show what was far better. “But he said, Yea, rather, blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep [it].” Without denying the value of Divine power in such a world as this, yet, said our Lord, “rather blessed are they that hear the word of God and keep [it].” The goodness of God sown in nature, for which (though not alone) the Jews were called to wait, would give place to a superior order of blessing. The very badness of the world’s state and of men upon it is the occasion for God to bring in what never passes away, and is destined to endure when the world is gone. There is nothing here below that introduces the eternal like the Word of God. Power, even were it as great as that which Jesus wielded over man or the enemy, is but for a time in its effects; but “he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.” And “he that believeth hath everlasting life.” “Rather, blessed are they who hear the word of God and keep [it].” The Word of God is the link between man on earth and God above; it is the seed of incorruptible life, “which liveth and abideth forever.”

Accordingly here again man is put to the proof. He had been already tested by power, and he who could impute that which cast out Satan to Satan himself was self-condemned. It would make Satan more foolish than the most foolish man, for it is a universal principle that a kingdom divided against itself cannot stand. Can it be thought that Satan deliberately destroys his own kingdom and himself? Is he really suicidal? The Jews then showed to what they were fallen when they imputed to Satan the power that cast out demons., And now what became of the Jews who heard the Word of God and did not keep it? Nothing more terrible.

“But as the crowds thronged together, he began to say, This generation is a wicked generation: it seeketh a sign; and a sign shall not be given to it but the sign of Jonas.” Instead of keeping the Word of God, they were seeking outward tokens. They wanted something visible to their senses, an object tangible in their midst, not only present but earthly and suited to the world. “But there shall no sign be given it but the sign of Jonas the prophet.” The allusion is to one who prophesied in Israel, but who was sent to the Gentiles — to the Ninevites.303 “For as Jonas was a sign unto the Ninevites, thus shall also the Son of man be to this generation.” He too, the rejected Messiah, would take the place of Son of man, despised and rejected of men.

But more than this: “a queen of the south” and “men of Nineveh” are brought before us in another way to condemn the Jews of that day.

“A queen304 of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, more than Solomon is here.” This showed her earnestness of purpose to hear the wisdom of Solomon. The wise and wealthy son of David was not the vessel of the Word of God in his ordinary speech as the Lord Jesus was: yet she came without a single miracle to attract her, without a sign to guide or confirm, and heard the wisdom of Solomon: “and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here.”

Then, again, men of Nineveh themselves, that great city which had been given up to destruction at last — “men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonas;”305 They were willing to own their own evil, their sinfulness, their forgetful ignorance of God, and this at the preaching of Jonas — a prophet comparatively unfaithful, who hove to escape from the mission on which God sent him, “and, behold, more than Jonas is here.” But where were the men of this generation, and what? Did they repent?

No more did they repent than they showed what was seen in a queen of the south — earnestness of heart in listening to the wise man of her day. Thus there was a double testimony against them; Gentiles, high or low, at one time or another, rose up to condemn the men of Jerusalem.

Then the Lord brings out another truth, namely, that the fault lay not in the want of signs any more than in the display of power (for we have seen the contrary), but in the state of the heart. That is the only reason why man does not rejoice in or keep the Word of God; it is because his heart is not right with God. No person would prefer darkness to light or pleasure to the Word of God unless the heart were wrong. “No one having lighted a lamp setteth it secret,306 nor under the corn-measure, but on the lamp-stand, that they who enter in may see the light,” So it was with the ways of God. There was no defect in his presentation.

The Light was come and God set it in a due and commanding position that all who saw it might be profited, Never was there one who held forth the light of God as Jesus did. He never wavered, for He was the Holy One, the Undefiled, separate from sinners. There was no fault therefore to be found with the Medium; Jesus not only showed perfect light in what He said, but was the Light Himself. All His perfection on Him; yet how had men treated it? Alas! there are other conditions necessary. “The lamp of the body is thine eye: [therefore] when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is light; but when it is wicked, thy body also is dark.” Here we reach so far what man is. It is not here as in John, that Christ is the Light; there we see His personal glory.307

But Luke always brings in man’s state, or moral condition. “The lamp of the body is thine eye.” Light alone outside does not enable a man to see. If the eye, physically, is powerless, the light mikes no impression. As in John, the light may be over so true, but, according to Luke, the eye also enters the a account; and by nature it is evil and only so. It is not only Christ as Light that is wanted. Eyes to see must be given; its actual state must be considered. “[Therefore] when thine eye is single, thy whole body also is light.” It is a question here of moral purpose. If there be no object to divide the heart’s attention, if Christ fills the field of vision, the whole body is light. “But when it is wicked, thy body also is dark.” And is there not evil in looking to other objects from Christ, in turning away from the only One Who is worthy? “When it is evil thy body also is dark. See, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” What darkness is comparable to it? This is moral darkness, and fatal to the soul which can see nothing in Christ, or if it seem to see, is evidently indifferent to Christ, indifferent not to one’s own soul alone, but to the eternal truth of God. The eye is evil, the body, therefore, is dark indeed.

“See, therefore, that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” Such is the end of a carelessness and unfaithfulness to truth. This was becoming the confirmed history of Israel. They had, as compared with the Gentiles, possessed Divine light; but “See that the light which is in thee be not darkness.” It was to the last degree becoming their fixed state. They were first indifferent to Christ; finally, they would reject Him to the uttermost — then it would be the darkness of death. “If, therefore, the whole body is light, not having any part dark, it shall be all light, as when the lamp lighteth thee with its brightness.” Thus when one has light for oneself, it becomes the means of light for others. In Divine things you cannot separate power for others from testimony to the glory of God.

What follows is of a very different character from that which we had before. It is not now the setting aside of Jewish expectations for the Word of God, which the Holy Spirit makes efficacious by judging self, and thus the eye is made single and the whole body full of light. There is no substitution here of God’s Word and spiritual blessing for the Messiah, and all the natural mercies and external glory that Israel looked for then and shall look for by and by. Now it is the moral judgment of Israel in their present state; and for this occasion was given, by a certain Pharisee asking the Lord to dine308 with him. He goes at once. He in no Way chooses what was pleasing to Himself. As He entered into the house of a tax-gatherer, and refused none of the company there, so also He declines not to seat Himself at table with a Pharisee. When He went into the tax-gatherer’s house, the wonder was how He could eat with sinners; the wonder with the Pharisees now is, “that he had not first washed before dinner.” Such was their religion.309 Yet the truth, on the face of things, is that washing is for those who are unclean: He Who was pure and holy did not need it. The Pharisee therefore condemns himself doubly. There is a vague consciousness that he needed cleansing. He shows also his blindness to the personal glory of the Lord Jesus, the only One Who needed nothing from without — the Holy One of Israel, the Holy One of God.

The Lord takes this accordingly as the ground of appeal.

He “said unto him, Now do ye Pharisees cleanse the outside of the cup and of the dish; but your inward [parts] are full of plunder and wickedness.” Their religion, all protest to the contrary notwithstanding,310 was essentially of the outside; and, far from being clean, they were full of plunder and wickedness, plundering others and wicked themselves. Although they had the highest reputation among the people, the Lord pronounces them fools; and what His Word censures now His judgment will act On by and by. The judgment of God is always according to the Word of God. What is condemned by the Word of God now will certainly be condemned by the Lord Jesus when He takes the judicial throne. But it was the same God Who made both the outside and the inside. “Fools, hath not he who hath made the outside made the inside also?” They had forgotten Him; they were anxious only for what was seen of men. The Lord looks upon the heart. They did not think of this. Unbelief is always blind, and fixes, if there be a difference, on things the least important. The reason is manifest: it seeks the praise of men and not that of God. The Lord Jesus, however, bids them “rather give alms of what ye have311 and, behold, all things are clean unto you.” He knew well that a Pharisee would do nothing less than this — that intense selfishness characterized the whole party. They were faithless and covetous. Him Whom God gave they despised; what they had they kept for themselves. All things therefore were unclean to them.

But there is much more than this. The Lord pronounces successive woes upon them for their zeal about trifles, their love of religious distinction, and their hypocrisy.312? “Woe unto you, Pharisees! for [beginning with that which was seemingly the least evil] ye tithe the mint and the rue and every herb, and pass by the judgment and the love of God: these ye ought to have done, and not have left those aside.” It was really the same root of self, fallen human nature under a religious veil. Why did they thus seek to be distinguished from others? Others gave tithes honestly due to God; the Pharisees laid hold of the most minute points which did not cost much and gave themselves credit in the eyes of men not wiser than themselves, but they slighted judgment and the love of God. Righteousness is a due sense of our relationship to God and man; of it they had no adequate measure whatever before them. The love of God was the last thing that came before or from their hearts.313 “These ye ought to have done, and not have left those aside.” Let them value their infinitesimals if they would, but let them not neglect the greatest duties.

But it was not merely this God-dishonoring pettiness. “Woe unto you, Pharisees! for ye love the first seat in the synagogues, and salutations in the market-places.” Now we come, not so much to personal conduct and pretension to the strictest conscientiousness, but to their love of public reputation for sanctity and of honor in the religious world.

Another ground detected was lower still. “Woe unto you, [scribes, and Pharisees, hypocrites] for ye are as the sepulchers which appear not, and the men walking over them do not know fit].” Now they are put with the scribes — people learned in the law, who had the character of being the most punctilious in their conduct: both are alike treated as hypocrites — as sepulchers which appear not. Unremoved death, all uncleanness and corruption, was under these fair-seeming religionists.

One of the lawyers was offended “and said to him, Teacher, in saying these things thou insultest us also.” Then the Lord answers them: “Woe unto you also, doctors of the law! for ye lay upon men burdens heavy to bear, and yourselves do not touch the burdens with one of your fingers.” They were notorious for their contempt of the very people from whom they derived their importance.314 It is an easy thing to lay burdens upon others; it is hard to bear them. Christianity is the exact opposite of this. Christ comes down first of all and takes the sorest of all burdens, the judgment of our sin and guilt, our condemnation from God; then He leaves us under the Gospel, without that burden. It is true that, till He comes again, we are groaning in the body, waiting not uncertainly but in confidence for Christ to change us even into the likeness of His glorious body. Hence it is that the practical exercise of Christianity is in liberty and joy. No doubt grace brings with it the highest obligations, but they are those of men who are free and who use their liberty for the One whom they love. It was not so with these doctors of the law. They laid burdens upon men that were grievous to be borne, but they themselves did not touch the burdens with one of their fingers. It is only grace that enables one to manifest what the law requires. The doctors of the law were precisely those who showed the least conscience. They thundered the law at others; they did not subject themselves to any of its precepts, except where it suited them. It is grace which purifies the conscience by faith and strengthens it in the will of God.

But if they did not touch any of the burdens that they laid on others, they built the sepulchers of the prophets. This sounded well and holy. What could be more laudable than that they should honor the ancient sufferers and prophets by building their sepulchers? It was really the spirit of the world. First of all they proved that they were the successors of those who killed them, not the successors of the martyrs but of their murderers. Although it seemed the opposite of what their fathers had done, it was the same love of the world which slew the martyrs in that day; and now led men to build their sepulchers in order to make religious capital out of this pious honor, They would fain have the halo that surrounded those men of God thereby to shine upon themselves. It was the love of the world that made the fathers slay them; and the love of the world it was that led their sons to build these sepulchers over them. There was of course nothing of Christ in those who persecuted the martyrs. Was there a whit more in these men bet on empty self-glorification under cover of the righteous victims of old? Therefore says the Lord, “Ye bear witness then and consent to the works of your fathers: for they killed them, and ye build [their sepulchers].” And to prove that they were the lineal successors of the murderers of the old martyrs, the Lord adds, “For this reason also the wisdom of God hath said, I will send them prophets and apostles, and some of these they shall kill and drive out by persecution.”315 It is expressly put as the wisdom of God, because it is not what would appear to man. The builders of the sepulchers of the sufferers might seem to be the farthest removed from the persecuting violence of the fathers; but not so. The contrary would soon appear. God would test them soon by sending prophets and apostles, some of whom they would slay, and some they would persecute, getting rid of them all in one way or another. “That the blood of all the prophets, which hath been poured out from the foundation of the world, may be required of this generation; from the blood of Abel unto the blood of Zacharias, who perished between the altar and the temple; yea, I say unto you, it shall be required of this generation.” This is a searching and solemn principle. Man fails from the first, and God pronounces on it. But it is always the last who is the most guilty, because the cases of former slaying of the prophets ought to have aroused their consciences. Their building of sepulchers for the saints whom their fathers slew proved that they knew how wrong it was. But the heart was unchanged; and hence a similar testimony produced no less results, but more evil. God’s testimony at the present day arouses quite as much hatred as His warnings of old. Hence, little as the Jews thought it (for they had been long without prophets), now that the truth was sent out in power, the same murderous spirit would be manifested, and God would hold the people guilty of all the blood that had been shed from the foundation of the world. Instead of using the example of their fathers to deter them, they followed their guilty footsteps. They were more guilty, because they despised so solemn a warning.

So it will be in the latter day. There will be a violent outbreak against the witnesses of Jesus, whose blood will be shed like water — a persecution all the more guilty because men will have known it beforehand; they will have owned the guilt of those who did it, and yet they will fall into the same rut themselves. Alas! unbelief is most of all blind to self.

The Lord pronounces final one more woe. “Woe unto you, the doctors of the law, for ye have taken away the key of knowledge is; yourselves have not entered in and those who were entering in ye have hindered.” So they were doing then; as others at this present time. Wisdom was there, truth was there, Christ was there: all that the doctors of the law did was to hinder people from profiting by it, in order to maintain their own importance.

“And as he said these things to them, the scribes and the Pharisees began to press him vehemently, and to make him speak317 of many things.” They wanted Him to commit Himself — that the Lord might utter something for which they could drag Him to their tribunal, “watching him [and seeking] to catch something out of his mouth [that they might accuse him].” Their hearts were filled, not only, with plunder, but with wickedness that would take the shape of violence against the truth and those who bore it, just like their fathers. The first Adam is never changed for the better: he is only evil continually: the more good is shown him, the more evil he proves himself to be.

Endnotes

277 Chapter 10, verses 38-42. — This section seems to be connected with a Visit to Jerusalem at the Feast of Dedication (in winter: John 9:1-10:42). Cf. notes 244, 251. The visit to this “certain village,” understood as Bethany, cannot have belonged to the Passion period, but must be placed very early in the same year.

There are two sermons of Augustine on verse 38 (op. cit.); one of Richard Baxter on verse 41 (“Works,” x. 407); and G. Whitefield preached on verse 42 (“Works,” v. 456).

278 Verse 39. — Cf. 1 Cor. 7:31 ff. Carr suggests that our Lord’s words were in the Apostle’s mind. See also note on John 14:23. Augustine says: “A man resting on faith, hope, and love needs not the Scriptures, except for the purpose of instructing others” (“On Christian Doctrine,” 1:37: cf. his Epistles, 19:82). Is it, however, to be supposed that he acted upon this himself?

279 Verse 42. —Basil and Theophylact offer the feeble explanation: one dish only.

280 Chapter 11, Verse 1. — Here seems to begin the second narrative (see note 244) of the final journey to Jerusalem, extending as far as 14:21.

“To pray.” Luke has recorded in this place the dictation by our Lord of the formula which goes by His name, in order to bind together the two great supports of spiritual life, Christ’s Word (10:39) and Prayer: see the Expositor’s “Lectures on Matthew,” p. 85f,

The Shorter Catechism of the Westminster Divines has as Question 98, “What is Prayer?” Sabatier answers by “Religion in act” (“Philosophy of Religion,” p. 27).

PRAYER has ever been regarded as an appropriate instrument of communion with the Unseen; as such it is the counterpart of His voice to us. The Scriptures and Prayer together fortify believers against mere Mysticism (147A) on the one hand, and against pure Rationalism on the other (cf. Ritschl, “Theology and Metaphysics,” p. 476). For the Spirit as the power of such communion, see Rom. 8:26, and Exposition of verse 14f.

Pantheism (exemplified by Buddhism) makes no provision for Prayer, which is alien to such systems. Some philosophers and scientists criticize the underlying conception of Prayer as irrational: to their objections Martineau’s writings offer effective replies. “Does Prayer influence GOD?” a common inquiry, to which the answer of S. D. Gordon is “It does not influence His purpose; it does influence His action. He does nothing without our consent. When we learn His purposes and make them our prayer, we are giving Him the opportunity to act. Nature’s laws are merely God’s habit of action in handling secondary forces. They involve no purpose of God. His purposes are regarding moral issues. Emergencies change all habits of action. The world is in a great emergency through sin” (“Quiet Talks on Prayer,” p. 54ff.).

281 Verse 2. — “Father.” This is “Abba,” Aramaic emphatic form of “father” used in Rom. 8:15; Gal. 4:6, and Luke’s form of invocation.

Chrysostom and Augustine emphasized the Fatherhood of God as characteristic of the Christians dispensation: no Old Testament saint used the, epithet save as member of a community. Maurice and other moderns have developed the idea.

Cf. Matt. 6:6, “Thy Father,” and verse 9 there, as shelving that “our” even in that Gospel must be so taken.

For omission of “in heaven,” cf. 6:36; for those wards, Matt. 6:9 (as in verses 45, 48 there).

“Hallowed be Thy Name”: cf. Lev. 24:16, by misuse of which the Jews come to treat Yahveh (Jehovah) as taboo, and to employ it in the Temple services only, but in those of the synagogues. Adonay (Lord) alone: see references in Schürer, div. ii., vols. 1, 2. In common life they spoke of “the Name” (Aramaic: Shona) (adman, p. 149f.). In the Tosefta “Sanhedrin” (12:25) we have, “He that pronounces the Tetragrammaton has no part in the future world.” Cf. Joseph. “Antiqq.,” ii. 276.

Stock (p. 28) compares the substitution by journalists of “the Founder of Christianity” for “JESUS,” etc.

282 “Thy KINGDOM come.” To this day the words find place in the Kaddish of the Jewish Prayer Book. Cf. in particular Luke 9:27, 14:15, 19:11, 21:31, 22:16, 18, and 23:51, in each of which passages the “kingdom” is regarded emphatically as future. But these words evidently “keep the double aspect in mind” (Warman, “New Testament Theology,” p. 23).

In 22:29f. the Lord speaks of His own Kingdom in the same future aspect of manifestation: see notes on that chapter. For prayer that it may come, see Rev. 22:20, almost the last words of the Bible.

His words about the “Kingdom” are everywhere pregnant. It is “(α) spiritual (β) apocalyptic” (Stevens, p. 72). The scholars who, as Ritschl and Wellhausen treat it as solely present are just as much mistaken as those who, with Meyer, Weiss and Bousset, regard it as wholly future. Of the latter class Wernle, the following of whose words, however, so far as they go, are right. “From the beginning to the end of His ministry, not merely at the close (as in 19:11, 22:18), when He might be deemed disappointed as to His mission (Isa. 49:4) the future is before the Lord” (“Beginnings of Christianity,” p.61). As to ties present, mystic, by the Expositor described as “moral,” sense of the term (Col. 1:13), cf. note on verse 20 below, and Charles, p. 318. in connection with 11: 20, 16:16, and 17:21. The term is first met with in the “Wisdom of Solomon,” 10:10, and appears also in Psalms of Solomon, 17:4. For its use in the Targums, see Dolman, “Words of Jesus,” p. 91f.

In the hands of Augustine, unhappily, the term acquired for medieval theologians identity with “Catholic Church”: see his “City of God,” and cf. note on 8:1. A further turn was given to its meaning by Protestants for whom it came to denote “the life of the redeemed after death,” or, as the idea, was expressed by Martineau, and rightly rejected by him, “the future stale of the righteous,” in the same sense (“Endeavors after the Christian Life,” p. 218).

The perpetual use of this petition, from the Apostolic age to our own time, is of itself evidence that, the Church in its truly healthiest mood never ceased to believe in what is now called “the eschatological background” of the Gospels. (cf. note 546); and so, not even when Augustine sought to establish an identity of Church and Kingdom, from which misconception such an influential scholar as Wellhausen has not been emancipated. Prof. Mackintosh has written that the eschatological cast of our Gospels “could not be seen clearly till modern scholarship arose” (“Christian Ethics,” p. 76), which is correct in the sense that ecclesiastical obscurantism prevailed until, not in Germany during,’ the past few years, but in this country, early Patristic interpretation of the “Kingdom,” stripped of its extravagance, was reaffirmed eighty years ago. This was in connection with the quickening among British Christians of the Church’s Hope of the “Second Coming” of the Lord, in the light, not of learned theological disquisitions, but of effect being given to spiritual truth, seen in life and practice governed by Scripture alone. One may trust that the present trend of thought in Germany will receive like impulse; it will be so if the atmosphere of the Gemeinschaften prevail over that of the academical, Seminars.

The various Scriptural aspects of the “Kingdom,” besides that of its relation to the “Gospel” already touched upon (chapter 8., sub init.; cf. note on 18:16f.), will be developed in successive notes on verse 20 of the present chapter, 12:31, 47f., 14:14, 17:20ff., 18:16f., 24ff. 21:36, 22: 16ff. The attention once given to the doctrine of the CHURCH seems now being transferred to that of the KINGDOM. This is none too soon; for the latter topic provides “the key of knowledge” (cf. 11:52 with Matt. 23:13). Again, Matt. 13: 52 cannot apply to the “Church,” which is a purely New Testament disclosure (Eph. 3:5). The absurdity of Rome’s application of the “keys” in Matt. 16:19 to the Church is palpable.

The true doctrine of the Kingdom is the most effective instrument in the hands of any Christian scribe who would really strive to serve the present generation, perplexed with so many problems, ecclesiastical and social.

283 Verse 3. — “Give,” δίδου present; whilst; Matthew has δός, aorist, as appropriate to σήμερον, there.

“Us.” The plural, Dr. John Lightfoot says, was used by Jews in their pricate prayers, as excluding any idea of the petitioner being apart from the congregation (“Works,” vi., p. 426; xi., 1043).

“Needed,” ἐπιούσιος. “Daily” (A.V.) came from the Vulgate. The word here is quite distinct from that found in James 2:15. Origen states that, ἐπιούσιος was used nowhere else in Jewish literature. The Expositor (see his special pamphlet on “The Lord’s Prayer, so-called,” p. 29) follows the Peschito Syriac— as did Suidas, followed by Reuss, Godet, Arnold Meyer, etc. — taking it to mean deficient. Cf. Prov. 30:8, which Delitzsch has followed in his Hebrew New Testament. The Syrsin has “continual” (amîna): cf. John 11:27. For the light thrown by the various Syriac versions on time actual Aramaic word used by our Lord, see Paper of Margoliouth in Expositor. April, 1910.

The Hebrew “Gospel of the Nazarenes” had mahar, “of tomorrow,” with which must he ranged the view taken by Erasmus, Grotius, Bengel, De Wette, Meyer, Bishop. Lightfoot (“A Fresh Revision,” etc.), H. Holtzmann, with most modern scholars, that the form is derivable from ἐπιοῦσα, in the sense of, for the coming day. Olshausen and Stier, whom Plumptre followed, understood spiritual’ food.

284 “Bring us not into temptation,” as the Spirit did JESUS (4:1).

285 As to SIN and the initial forgiveness of sins, see note on 24:47, and a pamphlet by the present writer (same publisher). With the present passage. cf. of course, Matt. 18:25, and see Saphir on the Lord’s Prayer, Lect. XIII.; also Sermons of Augustus lime (vol. ii) and H., Melvill (vol. i.).

If the disciples ever offered this prayer during the period of the Lord’s ministry, it could not hare been in His Name: see John 16:24. Whately contends that Christians do now implicitly so use it, as to which see IV. Kelly’s remarks in his special pamphlet (s. tit) “It was intended for those who were true believers, but for whom redemption was yet prospective, and to whom the Holy Ghost had not been given” (p. 21 p. 23). Reference may be made also to Bruce, “Training of the Twelve,” where it is described as “for spiritual minors, for Christians in the crude state of Divine life” (p. 51).

Some happy remarks on grounds alleged for its disuse have been made from the usual point of view by Dr. Thirtle, in his Paper entitled “Form and Substance” (“Christian,” 20th Jan., 1910). Much of the criticism bestowed upon it does but illustrate Luther’s description of the Prayer as “one of the greatest of Christian martyrs.”

That it was not meant as a liturgical formula, the different wording in the two Gospels containing it should suggest to all intelligent readers: see Meyer and cf. Harnack, p. 64f. This difference of scope and form in Matthew and Luke, J. Weiss (on Matthew, p. 286) speaks of as “striking a death-blow to belief in Verbal Inspiration.” If such a thing were possible for critics of his school, it could only be by way of mechanical uniformity: the difference between Divine and human vanishes for them.

In defense of a written form of words for congregational prayer, Archbishop Whately made use of a curious argument in a “Letter to a Clergyman of the Diocese of Dublin” (1837). From our Lord’s words in Matt. 18:19, as to agreement about petitions made, he extracted an implication of exclusive use of precomposed prayers (p. 8f). Christians, however, who use extemporaneous prayer alone, outside of conventional prayers from Nonconformist pulpits, habitually so agree as to subjects of intended prayer. There is nothing in our Lord’s statement governing the language of such petitions. These who approve add their “Amen.” As to their being, according to the Archbishop, merely “hearers” while not themselves voicing the mind of the company, a priori impressions are rectified by experience.

The New Testament is generally supposed to be silent as to any use being made, whether privately or publicly, of this formula, either during the lifetime of the Lord or in the period of Apostolic ministry. No answer has naturally been found to Bingham’s inquiry, “When did its use begin” (“Antiqq.,”13:7). It is first met with, outside the gospel of Matthew and Luke, in the Didactic (§ 8), and here in the Matthean form, with an injunction that it shall be said thrice daily. But as late as the time of Justin Martyr (Apol., 1:67) extemporaneous prayer (supra) was certainly recognized at celebration of the Lord’s. Supper (ὅση δύναμις), translated in Pusey’s Library of the Fathers by “with all his strength.” By the third century this formula had become “legitimate and ordinary” prayer.

Cf. Exposition by Maclaren, i. pp. 322-325. Reference should also be made, for comparison with this prayer, to the Prayer Book of British Jews (Amidah), pp. 44-54.

286 Verse 7. — See Schor, p. 25.

257 Verse 8. — Cf. Mark 11:24. Abrahams so vs, with reference to the Rabbinic idea of prayer, “The man who prayed expecting an answer was, regarded as arrogant and sinful”! (p. 147).

287a Verse 9. — “This is the Magna Charta of prayer”

288 Verse 11. — “Shall give,” i.e., in answer to him (ἐπιδώσει).

289 Verse 13. — “Being,” to begin with (ὐπάρχων). This word is characteristically Pauline: it occurs again in 16:11, 23, and 23:50. As to the doctrine of “Original Sin,” see note 617 below.

290 “Father who is of heaven,” ἐξ οὐρανοῦ. Cf. 1 Cor. 15:17, and Weiss, “Theology of the New Testament,” p. 93; also his “Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 73. Wesley notes the gradation: friend; father, GOD.

291 “Holy Spirit.” Syrsin has “good things.” Harnack (as Wellhansen) speaks of Luke’s change of words as capricious (ἄγαθα), e.g., his, fondness for “spirit” (“Sayings,” p. 10); but cf. verse 20, where our Evangelist has “finger” (δακτύλῳ) for Matthew’s “spirit” (πνεύματι), as shown on the next page Harnack’s own book.

Our Lord’s word, “good-things,” recorded by Matthew, seems to belong to a different time or connection from “Spirit” here. As Dr. Campbell Morgan has said, the former was spoken by Him in the character of Jewish Messiah (“The Spirit of God,” p. 172); but the same writer seems to have missed the point p. 94) in Luke’s record, which regards efficiency in service, and Dial now, as well as in time yet to come, independently of dispensation. The esteemed minister of Westminster Chapel is right in guarding such passages from the interpretation put upon them by those who support the idea of a “second blessing.” But is there any warrant for asserting that the disciples did never act upon the Lord’s statement? The same might as well be said of the formula, of verses 2-4 in the immediate context.

The omission of the article indicates that a faculty rather than the personal Spirit is spoken of (cf. Middleton on Matt. 1:18, p. 126; Acts 19:2; 1 Cor. 12:31, 14:1, and Phil. 1:19). As to gifts of the Holy Spirit already spoken of in Isaiah 11:2, see “Catholic Catechism,” p. 93, where these are set out.

Warner has described the Holy Spirit as “operative in the subconscious area” (p. 284).

291a “Ask”: “The Son was given unasked, the Spirit to be given must be implored” (Neil).

292 Verse 14 f. — B. Weiss treats these verses as parallel to Matt. 9:32 ff.

293 Verse 15. — “Beelzebub.” The final letter is not shown as b in any Greek MS., but is derived from the Vulgate. The critical reading is “Beelzeboul.” So in Matt. 12:24-27; Mark 3:22. As to the meaning of this name, see 2 Kings 1:6, and cf. Dalman, “Aramaic Grammar,” p. 137.

294 Verse 19. — For the use made by Carpenter of these words, see p. 367 of his “Bible in the Nineteenth Century.”

295 Verse 20. — “Finger of God.” See Exod. 8:19; Ps. 8:3. Cf. note 291.

296 “The Kingdom of God is come, upon you.” For φθάνειν, cf. 1 Thess. 4:15, where the word clearly has the classical sense of “to forestall,” “anticipate,” whilst in Rom. 9:31 it means “to reach.” Here it may have the first meaning, “to come unexpectedly” (J. Weiss: “to break,” as the dawn), but a few writers labor under the impression, aided by the fact that Heaven and God were to some extent interchangeable in the language of the period (ch. 15:21), that Kingdom of God and Kingdom of Heaven are equivalent terms (so H. Holtzmann). But the Kingdom of Heaven is not a mere “euphemism” (as Selbie, p. 85) for Kingdom of God. These are not co-extensive: see note 21 Mark (p. 245). The “Kingdom of Heaven,” as Allen states (on Matt. 12:28, 21:43), is a regularly eschatological term. It represents that which is described in expository literature as the “Millennium,” from Rev. 20:4. Cf. the Lord’s “heavenly kingdom” in 2 Tim. 4:18, and the administration of the “fullness of times” (Eph. 1:10). In Matt. 13. the Kingdom acquires its heavenly character from the King being there, regarded as having returned to heaven. “The Kingdom of God” extends beyond the Messianic reign, being of endless duration (1 Cor. 15:28).

297 “Panoply.” This word is shared by Luke and Paul (Eph. 6:11-13); and is peculiar to them.

298 Verse 21 ff. — The late Count Tolstoi, in conversation with Dr. F. W. Baedeker (Memoir, p. 207), remarked that there would be no prisons — Baedeker had been visiting convicts as a missionary — if people were rightly taught; to which the rejoinder was, that so long as there is sin in the world there will be prisons; and this passage was quoted, of which the Russian writer, who has produced a book on “The Teaching of Jesus,” avowed himself ignorant! “When everybody,” he writes, “has understood the true teaching, then evil and temptations will come to an end”! (§ 39 ad fin., E. T., p. 85).

299 Verse 23. — Cf. Matt. 12:30. Just as the first part of this “saying” regards every man’s individual relation to the Person of Christ, the second concerns His Work (Hahn).

The principle derived by the Expositor from this verse is now better understood than at the time his comment was written; but there is still room for much improvement with regard to it in the Church “militant.”

300 Verse 21f — Martensen considers that the use which Luke makes of this logion bears upon seeming conversion (“Individual Ethics,” E. T., p.152). “An unclean spirit, e.g., lust, is gone out. The man assumes a robe of piety; the unclean spirit returns in another form, e.g., pride and censoriousness.” It has been suggested that the exchange of Protestantism for Catholicism has often the character described in 2 Pet. 2:20ff.

Dr. Arnold has preached on verse 25 (“Sermons on the Christian Life,” p.156).

301 Verse 26. — Cf. Matt. 12:45 for words not in Luke, and illustrating the different design of the Gospels (“Introductory Lectures,” p. 325). As to the seven spirits, see note,) above on 8:2.

There is a sermon on this verse by Isaac Williams.

302 Verse 27 ff. — This, as some critics conceive, is Luke’s equivalent for what he has omitted of Mark 7:1 ff.

303 Verses 29-32. — The attitude of critics towards Typology may be gathered from Schmidt, pp. 55-61. “The critical study of the Hebrew Scriptures has eliminated types.” “The reason why modern learning has abandoned typology is ... it can find no place in history for many persons... regarded as types.” So complete has become the confusion between the method employed by our Lord and his Apostles and the Patristic allegorizing. People who claim to be “scientific” may be expected to live up to their reputation, which is too often, however, a castle of cardboard. Evolution is supposed to have made Typology impossible!

304 Verse 30ff. — “A queen.” “Men of Nineveh.” The Expositor (as Westcott, “Some Lessons, etc.,” p. 55) preferred the indefinite form of rendering.

305 Matthew, whose special use of the prophet’s adversity is sometimes belittled, has also preserved the preaching of Jonah as the sign (12:41).

306 Verse 33. — “In secret” (W. H., κρύπτην, or, as Blass and Weiss, κρυπτήν), “in a vault.” See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 2109.

307 Verse 35f.― “The light... in thee.” Grubb: “The light within is the power of a self-conscious person to enter into communion with God” (op. cit., p. 93: see the whole of chapter 7, and on the relation of such light to the conscience, chapter 12 of his book). Cf. John 11:10 with Gore, “The Creed of the Christian,” p. 38f.

Robert South preached on verse 35.

308 Verse 37. — “Dine.” This was the ἄριστον, or midday meal (breakfast, luncheon): see Acts 10:9f., and cf. Josephus, “Life,” sec. 54. For the δεῖπνον (dinner, supper), see chapter 14.

309 Verse 38. — “Washed (American Revs'. ‘bathed himself') before dinner.” Cf. Mark 7:4, and see Bennett on Mishna, etc., p. 33f.

310 Verse 39. — The PHARISEES. As to this party, see Bennett, chapter ix., and paper by Box in Churchman, September, 1911. The Expositor (cf. his pamphlet on the Talmud) here sides with Farrar and Edersheim, against Deutsch and Montefiore. On Deutsch’s own showing (“Literary Remains.” p, 29) some language of the Talmud about them is just as severe as any the Gospels.

See Augustine’s Sermon in op. cit., vol. i., p. 431.

311 Verse 41.― “What ye have,” ἐνόντα, as taken by Godet and Bishop Basil Jones. Whilst Wordsworth explains by “hearts,” the R.V. text males the mean souls (cf. Matt. 23:25ff.) the margin (rejected by W. Kelly in his “Bible Treasury” review), the contents of the cups, which was the view of De Wette, after Theophylact. And so B. Weiss. Cf. Expositor, March, 1909 (p. 282f, Papyri).

312 Verse 42 ff.―The woes Matthew has assigned to the Passion narrative.

313 “Love of God” (cf. 10:27, and note there). Save as in John 5:42 (cf. 8:42 of that Gospel), this is peculiar to Luke. In Matthew, “mercy” and “faith.” Augustine said that, “one can do anything if he love God.” Cf. Jas. 1:25. Thomas à Kempis “If thou didst know the whole Bible by heart what would that profit thee without the love of God?”

As to this element in the Jewish Chassidism of the eighteenth century, sea Abrahams, p. 76. For the Old Testament basis, cf. Deut. 6:5 and 30:20. The Divine claim of love is characteristic of Judaism and Christianity amongst religious systems, as to which see Bettex, “The Book of Truth,” p. 676. On the love of God in the Synoptic teaching, see Stalker, “The Ethic of Jesus,” chapter 10.

314 Verse 44 f.―Cf. Matt. 23:27. According to the Received Text, the “lawyers” seem to distinguish themselves from the “scribes”; but the critical text omits “scribes” here. There can be no doubt that “scribe” was used of any man of learning. Cf. note on 10:25.

315 Verses 49-51.―Cf. Matt. 23:34. This passage is considered by Alford to be a paraphrase of 2 Chron. 24:18-22; by Lindsay, as a paraphrase of Prov. 1:20-31. Cf. Job 12:13, 28:23; Prov. 8:22-31; Wisdom of Solomon, 7:27; Rom. 11:33, and 1 Cor. 1:24; also note 125 above (Luke 5:17).

Harnack supposes that an apocryphal Jewish writing is quoted (“Sayings,” p. 103).

John 7:38 and Jas.4:5 are passages as to which the like question has arisen.

“Hath been poured out,” ἐκκεχυμένον. If ἐκχυννόμενον (Tisch.) be read, future bloodshed will be included (Weymouth).

Observe the entail of hereditary guilt attaching to the Jewish people, forerunners of the “historical church” in a like connection (Anderson, “The Bible or the Church,” p. 100).

316 Verse 52.― “The key of knowledge,” generally supposed to refer to the symbol of authority handed to new rabbis by the Sanhedrin when commissioning them. See, however, note on verse 2.

317 Verse 53.― “To make him speak,” ἀποστοματίζειν. McClellan: “to urge Him to answer offhand.”

Luke 12

WE have seen the favored nation set aside, and judgment awaiting “this generation,” not glory, and the woes upon those classes among them that stood highest in public estimation, who indeed were now the manifest adversaries of the Messiah. Our chapter opens with the Lord’s warning to the multitude who were crowding around Him, to beware of the leaven319 of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy.

Accordingly, we find the Lord showing that a new testimony was to be formed, not governed by law, but by the light of God. “For there is nothing covered up which shall not be revealed, nor secret that shall not be known.” And this testimony, as it was in the light, so also it was to be spread abroad. There was to be nothing hidden, nothing kept silent now. With this entirely falls in the teaching of the Apostle Paul — that now, on the rejection of Israel, God has brought to light the “mystery which hath been hid from ages and from generations, but now is made manifest to his saints.” The same thing is true morally. The heart is laid bare, nature is judged, all now is brought into the light of God. “Therefore, whatsoever ye have said in the darkness shall be heard in the light; and that which ye have spoken in the ear in chambers shall be proclaimed upon the housetops.”320

This is of all-importance, and extremely solemn. Even now God is forming souls in the light as that which puts them to the test. His own moral nature that detects everything inconsistent with itself. This shows us what a wonderful character Christianity has morally as well as doctrinally. Under the law it was not so; there were many things allowed because of the hardness of their hearts. The vail was not yet rent. God had not brought out His own absolute nature made relative in Christ to judge man by. There was no proper revelation of God Himself under the law, though many revelations from Him. There were commands, there were promises, there were prophecies when things failed; but Jesus is the manifestation of God. Even as He is the only-begotten Son, He is the true Light that now shines; and such also is the atmosphere which the Christian breathes. We walk in the light even as God is in the light. This was altogether new doctrine, especially for the Pharisees to hear. They were characterized by a fair appearance before men, which was hypocrisy in the sight of God. The multitude were warned that an end was coming to all this. Not only will the day of judgment make it manifest, but faith anticipates that day. And now faith is come. Christianity is not of law but of faith; and Christianity alone, both as a question of light and of love, goes forth energetically. Everywhere is the Gospel to be preached, to every creature. Christ’s Word is to be proclaimed to all nations — the law was given to Israel.

But there is another consideration also, that now it is not the intervention of present earthly judgments, but the fear of God, Whose eternal judgment is revealed for those who despise, His Word. “I say unto you, my friends,321 Fear not those who kill the body, and after this have no more that they can do.” The law displayed earthly dealings now wrath is revealed from Heaven, and this wrath has eternal consequences. It is not merely the setting aside of man’s wrath, nor the instructive lesson of all in a chosen nation on the earth, but the certainty that body and soul must be cast into hell. This will be proved true presently for those who are found alive in opposition to God and rejection of His final testimony; and it will be true also at the close of the Kingdom for those who had died in their sins since the world began. Then God will show how truly He is the One to be feared; for the hypocrisy of the Pharisees had its root in the fear of man. They did not fear God. They would stand well with men, especially in the way of religious reputation: is this the true fear of God? “Fear not those who kill the body, and after this have no more that they can do,” By redemption we are brought to God. Christianity essentially supposes the putting the soul in the presence of the unseen and eternal. “I will show you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, who after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell322; yea, I say unto you, Fear Him.”

But then the Lord brings in motives of comfort, as these were of warning. The present light of God and the future judgment of God were solemn considerations for any soul of man; but now comes in the comfort of His present care and future reward. “Are not five sparrows sold for two farthings (assaria),323 and not one of them is forgotten before God?” What infinite care of God that can descend to the least thing, that man despises most! How much more, then, His care for those who are His witnesses! For now, on the setting aside of the Jewish nation, a fresh body of men to testify for Christ was to be formed, the very hairs of whose head would be numbered. There is nothing that more strengthens one who is bearing witness for the truth than the consciousness of God’s love, and that the least one or thing that pertains to him is of interest to God. “But even the hairs of your head are all numbered.324 Fear not therefore: ye are better than many sparrows.”

No present consciousness, however, of goodness would be sufficient to maintain a soul now in presence of evil. And God does not set aside the evil, but gives spiritual power to endure; He sends a testimony that utterly condemns the evil, and vouchsafes power to bear. Power is now in suffering for righteousness’ or Christ’s sake, not in reforming the world; it does not consist in judgment of the world’s evil. God alone is competent for this, and He will set aside and judge finally instead of reforming. But, besides all that, the soul needs the comfort of the time when it shall be completely taken out of the power of evil; and the future prospect is bright before us. “But I say unto you, Whosoever shall confess me before men, the Son of man325 will confess him also before the angels of God; but he that shall have denied me before men shall be denied before the angels of God.” Both faithfulness and unfaithfulness bear their consequences in the day of glory. “And whoever shall say a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but unto him that speaketh injuriously against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven.” This had been. proved. Who spoke more against Him than Saul of Tarsus? Who was a more blessed proof and witness of forgiveness than he was? So it will be even with the nation. If “this generation” must suffer, are suffering them now, and are yet to suffer them, still the nation will be forgiven in the end. “But unto him that speaketh injuriously against the Holy Spirit it shall not be forgiven.” Such is the fate of “this generation.” They would reject not only Christ Himself, but the further testimony which, we, have seen, it is the object of the Spirit of God to bring before us in this chapter. Now we have a most important element in this new thing. Not only was there light and truthfulness, not only the energy that went out in proclamation and the preservative care of God now, with future reward by and by; but, besides all, there is the power of the Holy Ghost. This makes it unspeakably grave. “Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.” What an issue! On the other hand, to the believer what a gracious support! What earnestness also and exercise of love in giving their message must there be in realizing that, in a certain sense, it is worse to reject the testimony now that the Holy Ghost is given than when even the Lord Himself was here below! For the Holy Ghost bears witness, not only of Christ, but of His accomplished redemption and His Cross. Then he who rejects the fullest mercy of God, when He has completely put away sin by the sacrifice of His Son, shows himself utterly insensible both to his sin and to God’s grace as well as to the glory of Christ. All this the Holy Ghost now brings out without a cloud. Hence to blaspheme Him is unpardonable. “Unto him that blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven.”326

But the Holy Ghost does not merely act in thus putting so solemn a seal on the testimony; He is also a positive power for him who is engaged in the testimony. “But when they bring you before the synagogues,327 an rulers and the authorities, be not careful how or what ye shall answer, or what ye shall say; for the Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said.” For when the Spirit should be given, there would be no setting aside the evil in the world: this as we know becomes worse and worse. Accordingly, when they should be brought before the powers of the world, “Be not careful,” the Lord says unto them, “how or what ye shall answer, or what ye shall say.” The spirit of absolute dependence upon God is shown us here. “The Holy Spirit shall teach you in the hour itself what should be said.” This completes the first part of the chapter and shows us the power of the testimony, and thus the danger of those who reject it, and the encouragement of those who are rendering it.

The rejection of Christ leads to an important change, both in His position and in what men would find in and from Him, A Jew would naturally have looked to the Messiah as the Judge of every vexed question. Even he who valued the Lord, Jesus for His unblemished ways and holy conversation might well seek His aid. But it is here shown that His rejection by man changes everything. One cannot reason abstractedly therefore from what the Messiah was as such; we must take into account the fact of the state of man towards Him and God’s action thereon. The Cross of Christ, which was to be the fruit and measure of the rejection of the Lord, would have in its train consequences immense, and of all possible difference from what had gone before; and this not only on man’s part, but on God’s.

Hence, when one of the company said to Him, “Teacher, speak to my brother, to divide the inheritance with me,” the Lord answers, “Man, who established me [as] a judge or a divider329 over you?” He was not come to judge. The rejection of Christ leads into that infinite salvation He has wrought, in view of which He declines the settlement of human disputes. He was not come for earthly purposes, but for heavenly. Had He been received by men, He would undoubtedly have divided inheritances here below; but, as they were, He was no judge or divider over men or their affairs here below. But Luke, as is his manner and habit, presents the Lord it looking at the moral side of the matter, as indeed the rejection of Christ does lead into the deepest manifestation and under: standing of the heart.

The Lord therefore addresses the company on a broader ground. “He said to them, Take heed and keep yourselves from all covetousness, for [it is] not because a man is in abundance [that] his life is in his possessions.” This anxiety for Christ’s help to settle questions flows from the heart’s desire of something that one has not here below. Maintenance of position is here judged, eagerness after earthly righteousness is exposed— “beware of covetousness.” The rejection of Christ and the revelation of heavenly things led into the true path of faith, of confiding in God for whatever He gives, of trusting, not man but Him, for all difficulties, of contentedness with such things as we have. God arranges all to faith. Nor is this the whole matter. The heart has to be watched. “Keep yourselves from all covetousness, for it is not because a man is in abundance [that] his life is in his possessions.”330 And this too He illustrates, as well as its awful end. There is exceeding selfishness, folly, and danger in what might seem to be earthly prudence. Hear the next words of the Lord. “He spoke a parable to them, saying, The land of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully; and he reasoned within himself, saying, What shall I do, for I have not [a place] where I shall lay up my fruits?” Clearly this man counted that the prime good lay in the abundance of the things that he possessed. His desire was to employ what he had so as to get and keep more of present things.

Systematic selfishness was there, not the reckoning of faith either in its self-sacrifices of suffering or in its active and, generous devotedness. There was no eye upon the future outside this world. All was in the present life. It is not that the rich fool made a bad use of what he had according to human judgment, not that lie was immoral, but his action did not go beyond gratifying his desire of ever-growing abundance. “He said, This will I do; I will take away my granaries, and build greater; and there I will lay up all my produce and my330a good things.”

This conduct stands in marked contrast with what the Lord afterward brings into prominence in chapter 16, where is seen the sacrifice of the present for the future, and that such only are received into everlasting habitations. It is not the means of deliverance from hell, but the character of alt who go to heaven. So far they resemble the steward in the parable, whom the lord commended, not for his injustice but for his wisdom. He sacrificed present interests, his master’s goods, in order to secure the future. The rich proprietor here, on the contrary, is ever casting down his barns and building greater, in order the better to secure all his fruits and increase his goods. His sole and entire thought was for this present life which, he assumed, would go on unchangeably. The steward looked out for the reverse that was at hand, and acted accordingly. May we feel ourselves stewards in what men would call our own, and act with no less prudence! It was not so with him who said to himself, “Soul, thou hast much good things laid up for many years; repose thyself; eat, drink, be merry.” There was both self-satisfaction in what he possessed, and withal the desire for a long enjoyment of present ease. It was the practical Sadduceeism of unbelief 331 “But God said unto him, Fool, this night thy soul shall be required332 of thee; and whose shall be what thou hast prepared?”

He never considered this. God was not in all his thoughts. He had reduced his soul to the merest slavery of the body, instead of keeping under the body, that it might he the servant of the soul, and God the master of both. But no: God was in none of his thoughts; yet God said to him, “Fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee; and whose shall be what thou hast prepared?” He had looked onward for an uninterrupted prosperity in the world. This night!” Little did he think it. “This night thy soul shall be required of thee. . . Thus is he who layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich333 toward God.” Riches before God cannot be without what men shortsightedly count impoverishment of self, using what we have, not for ourselves, but for others. Only such are rich toward God, be their means great or small. If their means are small, they are nevertheless large enough to let them think of others in love and provide for wants greater than their own: if their means are great, their responsibilities are so much the greater. But in every case the gathering up is not for self, but for the service of grace; and this can only be by bringing God into the matter. Such only are rich toward God. Laying up treasure for oneself is the hard labor of self, and the unbelief that reserves for a., long dream of enjoyment which the Lord suddenly interrupts.

Then the disciples are addressed, and the Lord accordingly rises in the character of His appeal. The other was a warning for men, but for the disciples there was a new path opening. “And he said to his disciples, For this cause I say unto you, Be not careful for life, what ye shall eat; nor for the body, what ye shall put on. The life is more than food and the bod than raiment.” That is, Be not anxious for your life, what ye shall eat, or what put on. This was a great advance in the instruction given to souls — a guard against anxiety, which depends on faith. in God. The Lord gives them an instance from the birds around them. “Consider the ravens, that they sow not nor reap; which have neither storehouse nor granary; and God feedeth them.” God’s care condescended to watch over even an unclean bird like a raven. “How much better are ye than the birds?”335

But we have more than this: the utter powerlessness of man, in what mast nearly concerns him, is brought, out with matchless beauty and truth. “Which of you, by being careful, can add to his stature one cubit? If therefore ye cannot [do] even what is least, why are ye careful about the rest?” What concerns the body is least. “Why take ye thought for the rest?” Then we are given a still more graphic instance from the flowers of the field. “Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin,” God’s care of the vegetable, no less than the animal, world affords striking and familiar proofs which cannot be gainsaid. “They neither toil nor spin.” The ravens might seem to do somewhat; but as to the lilies, what can they do? “They neither toil nor spin; but I say unto you, not even Solomon in all his glory was clothed as one of these.” This was not said as to the ravens. “But if God thus clothe the grass, which today is in the field, and tomorrow is cast into [the] oven” — the meanest thing as it were that He has made in the vegetable kingdom, that which is both common and transient— “how much rather you, O ye of little faith?” The one, therefore, the ravens, rebuked their care for their food, and the lilies their care for their clothing, “If God thus clothe the grass ... how much rather you, O ye of little faith?” Hence they were to beware of resembling the nations of the world, which know not God. “Seek not what ye shall eat or what ye shall drink, and be not in anxiety336 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after.” They were without God, “And your Father [not only God, but your Father] knoweth that ye have need of these things.” He advances now until He puts the disciples into the enjoyment of their own relationship with a Father Who cared perfectly for them, and could fail in nothing towards them. The God Who watched over the ravens and the lilies — their Father — would surely care for them. He knows that we have need of these things, and should be trusted by us.

The instruction previously given was rather negative — motives to avoid the ways and objects of the Gentiles, because of their confiding in their Father’s care. And now we have more directly positive instruction “But seek His kingdom;/337 and [all] these things shall be added unto you.” As usual, Luke gives us the moral force of things. “The kingdom of God is not meat and drink,” as the apostle says, “but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.” They were to desire and pursue what God Himself was about to bring in, that which manifests His power in contrast with man’s weakness. And so seeking, all other things — all that is needed for this life — all the things that man makes to be so important, should be added unto them. God assuredly takes care of His own. If we seek His things, He does not forget ours; He could not, would not, overlook our need day.

Farther (verse 32), they are not to fear, although a little flock. Their strength did not at all rest on numbers or resources of an earthly kind, but on a most simple and blessed principle: it was their Father’s good pleasure to give them the kingdom. He had delight in it, it was His complacency. This could not fail: why should they fear? Far from it, they were told to sell what they had: “Sell that which ye possess, and give alms.” All that would manifest love flowing out to the needy became them. It was their Father’s way with them who were once poor indeed, and they were to keep up the family character. They might, it is true, provide bags; but they were to be such as waxed not old, such as heavenly treasure demands. They were not to be of an earthly kind, but rich toward God, “a treasure which doth not fail in the heavens, where thief doth not draw near, nor moth destroy.”338 There is nothing forgotten; “God is not unrighteous to forget your work of faith and labor of love”; and what is of importance, too, there is no disappointment with the treasure: no thief approaches it on the one hand, no moth corruption the other, “for where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” The object was, that their heart should be settled on things above, and it would be so if their treasure were there. A man is always determined by what he seeks, by his objects. If he sets his heart upon a degrading object, he is degraded; if upon that which is noble and generous, his character is morally elevated. If therefore he is attracted by Christ Who is at the right hand of God, if heavenly treasure is before his eyes, his heart follows his treasure, he is taken entirely above the power of present things, which cannot more drag him down.

Is it too much to say that there is nothing of such moment for the disciple? If he has Christ, it is of all consequence he should see Christ where He is, and the things of Christ, where He sits at the right hand of God. Only to look at Christ on earth would falsify a Christian. Assuredly He is and must be an infinitely blessed Object wherever He is, nor is it that there would be no worthy effect of thus looking at Christ. But we must bear in mind that Christ here below was under law, and connected with Judaism, with its temple, rites, and priesthood; that as yet the great question of redemption was not decided, sin was not judged, evil was not put away; that the world was not given up as hopelessly bad, nor, consequently, was man. Whoever therefore merely looks at Christ as He was here below, shuts himself out from the great truth that all these things are questions already decided; that the world is judged before God, the earth under sentence, heaven opened, redemption accomplished, and sin put away. The soul that only looks at Christ on earth is not merely shut out from all the distinctive truths of Christianity, but is plunged into a state of uncertainty; whereas all under the Gospel ought to be clearly seen and settled. The mighty work of redemption does not row in to be accomplished. This is one reason why the mass of Christians who look at Christ thus are necessarily of doubtful mind, and count assurance to be presumption. The spiritual character is formed accordingly. But our Lord Himself tells us to have “a treasure which doth not fail in the heavens,” “for where your treasure is, there also will your heart be.” He wished to have them heavenly; and in practice there is no other way than seeing, and knowing, and possessing, in the true sense, our treasure in the heavens. If so, the heart is there also.

But there is another thing too. It is good to have before us the object that is before God. It is good to have an object, a true object, that calls one out into a state of patience and expectation. We cannot do without the power of hope; if we have not the true object, we shall have false ones. “Let your loins,” therefore, He says, “be girded about, and lamps burning; and ye like men who wait for their lord, whenever he may leave the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh, him immediately.” I do not take this expression about returning from the wedding as prophetic, but rather as moral, in accordance with the habitual style of Luke. It is certainly intended to present no aspect of judgment, but of joy, and it is therefore an allusion to the well-known facts constantly before their eyes, a figure taken from them. They were to be waiting for their Lord, not in a judicial sense, but as to One Who returns from a wedding, that when He comes and knocks they may open unto Him immediately. This is another grand point, not only that He is associated with joy, but that they should be free from all earthly encumbrance, so that the moment the Lord knocks, according to the figure, they may open to Him immediately without distraction or having to get ready. Their hearts are waiting for Him, for their Lord; they love Him, they are waiting for Him. He knocks, and they open to Him immediately. Such is the normal position of the Christian, as waiting for Christ, the only true object of hope. “Blessed are those bondmen whom the lord [on] coming shall find watching; verily, I say unto you that he will gird himself, and make them recline at table, and coming up will serve them.”340 Here their blessing as waiting for Him is shown. We shall find another blessing a little later on; but the blessing here is the watching—not so much working as watching. That is, it is not so much occupation with others as watching for Him, and assuredly this is of some importance to feel. Watching takes precedence even of working. There is no doubt that working has no small value, and that the Lord will remember it and reward it, hut watching is far more bound up with His person and with His love, Hence it is said, “Blessed are those bondmen whom their lord on coming shall find watching; verily, I say unto you that he will gird himself, and make them recline at table, and coming up will serve them.” All the activity of His love is shown, and His gracious condescension. “And if he come in the second watch, and come in the third watch, and find [them] thus, blessed are those [bondmen].” There is intentness therefore upon it. It is not vague; it is sustained; it is carried through the night. They are looking for Him from first to last: “Blessed are those [bondmen], But this know, that if the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be digged through. And ye, therefore, be ye ready;341 for in the hour in which ye do not think [it] the Son of man cometh.” It is not the Messiah taking the throne of His father David, but the rejected Son of man Who is coming in glory; and blessed are those who are thus waiting and watching for Him. “And ye, therefore, be ye ready.”

Our Lord presented His coming as claiming the affections of the saints, and dealing with their moral state. Their loins were to be girded about, their lights burning, themselves like unto men waiting for their Lord. For, their treasure being in the heavens, their hearts would be there also. This connects itself, too, with immediate readiness in receiving Himself, that “when he cometh and knocketh, they may open unto him immediately.” It is the blessedness of watching for Christ, with its infinite joy in result. “Verily I say unto you, that he will gird himself, and make them recline at table, and coming up will serve them.”

If He does tarry, and the heart that lo es Him finds it long and has need of patience, it is well worth waiting. for Him, whatever the delay. “And if he come in the second watch, and come in the third watch, and find [them] thus, blessed are those [bondmen].” At the same time, it is important to add the aspect of His coming for the conscience. The return from the wedding does not present this. “But this know, that it the master of the house had known in what hour the thief was coming, he would have watched, and not have suffered his house to be digged through.” Present ease and unwatchfulness in such a world as this always make the return of the Lord to be more or less unwelcome. The only right attitude for love or conscience is the attitude of watching for Him. “And ye, therefore, be ye ready, for in the hour in which ye do not think [it] the Son of man cometh.”342

“And Peter said to him, Lord, sagest thou this parable unto us, or also to all? And the Lord said, Who then is the faithful and prudent steward, whom his lord will set over his household to give the measure of corn in season?” Now here again appears another aspect. It is the position of one called to be faithful and wise as a steward. It is one whose duty it is, ruling over the master’s household, to give their meat in due season, a grave and honorable work. Still, it has not. necessarily the intimacy of personal affection which the continual watching for Him supposes. Man, no doubt, thinks very differently; but we are hearing the Word of the Lord, and His Word ever judges, and was meant to judge, the thoughts of men. Accordingly there is a difference in the result. “Blessed is that bondman whom his lord [on] coming shall find doing thus. Verily I say unto you, that he will set him ruler over all that he possesseth” (verses 42-44).343 It is not the return of His love so much as the post of honor in His kingdom. “Blessed” indeed are both; but the heart ought to need little light to discern which is the better of the two. May we answer His love and be true to His trust, and know this two-fold blessedness as our portion when He comes again!

Undoubtedly much was left here, as elsewhere, to be filled up by the Spirit of God. Our Lord had many things to say, but His disciples could not bear them all then. The accomplishment of redemption, the fall of Israel definitively for the time, the call of the Gentiles, and above all, the revelation of “the mystery,” had an immense influence in giving development to the truth of the Lord’s return. Nevertheless, it is deeply interesting to notice how admirably the words of the Lord on this occasion present that truth in its two main aspects of grace and responsibility. On these, however, I do not dwell, because the Scripture before us does not enter into detail. It is enough to point out the general truth — a truth, be assured, of great importance to seize in its principles and in its practical consequences.

The Lord next looks at the vast scene of profession, and shows us in a few solemn words bow it will be affected by His return. Christendom and man at large will assuredly be judged then, for we are not here looking at the judgment of the great white throne; it is the judgment of the quick, not yet of the dead — a judgment too much forgotten, not only by the careless but by those who exercise the largest influence in the religious world. Judaism always tended to swamp the final judgment by bringing into exclusive prominence the judgment of the world when the nations shall be put down, and Israel, humbled by grace, at length shall be exalted to their promised supremacy under Messiah and the new covenant. But Christendom forgets the judgment of the quick, and its forgetfulness of it is no small part of Satan’s device to ruin the testimony of Christ. Not only is the truth of His coming lost as a practical joy for the heart, and as a solemn test for the work, but the bare fact itself is disallowed by confounding that day with the judgment of the dead.

The unbelief of man, however, will not nullify but rather prove the value of the warning of the Lord: “But if that bondman should say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming; and begin to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat and to drink and to be drunken, the lord of that bondman shall come in a day when he loth not expect it, and in an hour he knoweth not of, and shall cut him in two, and appoint his portion with the unbelievers.344 But that bondman who knew his own lord’s will, and had not prepared [himself], nor done his will, shall be beaten with many [stripes]. But he who knew [it] not, and did things worthy of stripes, shall be beaten with few. And to every one to whom much is given, much shall be required from him and to whom [men] have committed much, they will ask from him the more” (verses 45-48).

How exact the sketch, save, indeed, that the ruins of Christendom have brought out added horrors to those depicted here, no less than the epistles furnished the fuller display of the truth of Christ’s coming! And these horrors are given us at length in such Scriptures as 2 Thessalonians; 1and 2 Timothy; Rev. 17;19.

We see that Christendom, having taken the place of Christian privilege, will be judged according. It is “that bondman.” Having no heart nor faith in Christ’s coming, men were willing that it should be deferred. The heart was rather relieved than made sick through a hope deferred that was no hope. They said in their heart, “My lord delayeth his coming.” The wish was parent to the thought; and in such a state of feeling circumstances will readily be found to justify it. But the moral consequences are soon seen. With Christ’s coming no longer before the eye, that servant ere long began “to beat the menservants and the maidservants, and to eat to drink and to be drunken.” The spirit of haughty assumption and intolerance was developed on the one hand, and a demoralizing intercourse with the world on the other. But “the lord of that bondman shall come in a day when he doth not expect it, and in an hour he knoweth not of, and shall cut him in two, and appoint his portion with the unbelievers.” Whatever its profession, the heart of Christendom in that day will be prove to be infidel. No disguises of creed or rite, no activity, nor tool, will shield it from the just judgment of the Lord at His coming.344a

Nevertheless the Lord is always just, and in that day there will be a marked difference in His dealings with the quick, as He says here. For the servant who “know his own lord’s will, and had not prepared [himself], nor done his will, shall be beaten with many [stripes]”; whereas he who knew it not yet was guilty, though he will not escape, will be beaten with few stripes. The less favored heathen therefore will not fare so ill in that day as she who sits as a queen with a vain presumption that she will see no sorrow. “Therefore shall her plagues come in one day; death, and mourning, and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God Who judgeth her.” For it is a fixed thing with Him that where much has been given much shall be required, as even man’s conscience and practice confess every day. “To whom [men] have committed much, they will ask from him the more.”344b

We have seen the Lord’s coming as the Object of their heart’s affection, and consequent expectation as the rewarder of service. As the judge of those who have wrought on earth, He will deal righteously according to their respective privileges.

But the Lord now speaks of the effect of His actual presence then: “I have come to cast a fire on the earth; and what will I, if already it hath been kindled?” This is in no way the purpose of His love, but the effect of His presence. He could not but deal as a Discoverer of man’s state. Fire is the constant symbol of Divine judgment, end this was morally true even then. He came to save; but, but if rejected, it was really the kindling of a fire. This in no way contradicts the great truth of His intrinsic grace. He says, “But I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened until it shall have been accomplished!” He Himself was about to go through the deepest suffering, and this because of the necessary antagonism of God’s character to sin, which was not yet judged. It was about to be judged in the person of Christ, absolutely without sin, yet made sin by God on the cross. In devoted love; glorifying God, He would be a sacrifice for sin. This was the baptism with which He was to be baptized, and till this was done, the Lord, as He says here, was straitened. Whatever might be His love, it could not yet dew out in all its fullness. There were barriers among men, and there was beyond all these a hindrance on the side of God’s glory. His character, amply displayed for good during Christ’s life, had not yet been vindicated as to evil. But in and from His death we find no limits to the proclamation of Divine love. Meters that it was more promise within the limits of Israel, not without hinds of mercy beyond it. God would be true and faithful to His word, whatever the state of Israel, but He could not send out freely to the Samaritans, and to the world in general, before the Cross. After the Cross this is exactly what He does. The Lord therefore was straitened till this was acomplished345.

Hence, again, they must not be surprised if, man being what he is, Christ’s presence produced conflict, opposition, if men were stirred up into jealousies and envies, hatred and enmity. All these things became manifest in those in whom it had not been seen before. People might have gone on quietly; but Jesus always puts the heart to the test; and if there be not faith, no man knows what he may not do whenever the Truth (as Jesus is) puts him to the proof. “Think ye that I have come to give peace in the earth?” Undoubtedly such will be the effect of His reign by and by, but it is far from being the case now, where good has to make its way and show itself in the midst of evil which is in power. We must always remember that this is an essential characteristic of the time when Jesus was on earth; and it is so still. As far as the world is concerned, evil is in power: good therefore has to maintain itself by faith in conflict with it and superiority over it. It is not that good loves conflict, but that evil will oppose what is good, and, consequently, suffering there must be. “Think ye that I have come to give peace in the earth? Nay, I say unto you; but rather division;346 for from henceforth there shall be five in one house divided: three shall be divided against two, and two against three.”

This state of moral rupture is simply the result of Christ’s coming to the world, as it is man in a state of alienation and opposition, more particularly man with religious privileges, who cannot bear to have all his imaginary good sentenced to death. Therefore the Jews were ever more hostile than Gentiles. The latter could not but see their vanities judged by that which carried its own evidence of light and love along with it; but the Jews had what was really of God, only preparatory, however, and pointing onward to Hid, Who was now come, and Whom they would not have, but rejected utterly. In that rejection the baptism spoken of was accomplished, and sin was judged, and God now can be righteous in justifying him who believes, and this solely on the ground of atonement for proved, convicted sin. This, alas! was the last thing a Jew was willing to admit. He would not own that he needed redemption as much as a Gentile, end that a Jew no less than a Gentile must enter the kingdom by being born again. Hence division in families, in no way because the grace of Christ in itself promotes discord, but because man’s evil fights against the truth which puts it in the light, and man’s hatred refuses the love of which it does not feel the need.

Hence, we come to yet fuller particulars: “the father against son, and son against father; mother against daughter, and daughter against mother a mother-in-law against her daughter-in-law and daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law.”347 The nearest relationships, sex, age, or youth, made no difference. As grace works freely according to the sovereign will of God, so man’s hatred, is indiscriminate, and in the most unlikely quarters. The Lord is alluding to the prophecy of Micah, who describes in similar terms the worst evil of the last days (chapter 7:6). It is solemn to find, therefore, that, before the days spoken of by the prophet arrive, the evil was itself now come, and that the presence of Divine love in the person of Jesus provokes it. This could not be if men were not thoroughly bad; but Jesus is the Truth, and therefore brings all things to a head.

In the next verses He appeals to the people, and convicts them of the greatest moral blindness: “He said also to the crowds, When ye see a cloud rising out of the west, straightway ye say, There cometh a shower; and it happeneth so. And when ye see the south wind blow, ye say, There will be heat, and it happeneth. Hypocrites, ye know how to judge of the appearance of the earth and of the heaven; how [is it then that] ye do not discern this time?” Men were good enough judges of the signs of the weather; they were sufficiently shrewd in forming a judgment as to the present in what they saw; but they utterly failed in what most of all becomes a man — judgment of what is morally above him, judgment of what touches him most closely in his relationship to God, judgment in what concerns his eternal future. In these things they utterly failed, they were hypocrites. Their love of evil, cloaked with a veil of fair religious appearance, made them blind; their love of their own, interests made them sharp in discerning and practiced in the pursuit of present things. They utterly failed in conscience; and so the Lord goes on to reproach them. It was not only that they were blind as to the signs that God gave outside themselves; but why did they not even of themselves, as it is said here, judge what was right? This is peculiar to Luke. Matthew speaks of the external signs God was pleased to give them, but they had no eyes for them. Luke alone speaks of the responsibility of judging from themselves, and not merely from what was vouchsafed outside them. The truth is that all was internally wrong with themselves: therefore they did not judge what was right.348

The Lord hence concludes this part of His discourse with a warning of their actual position: “For as thou goest with thine adversary before a magistrate, strive in the way to be reconciled with him; lest he drag thee away to the judge, and the judge shall deliver thee to the officer, and the officer cast thee into prison.349 I say unto thee, thou shalt in no wise come out thence, until thou hast paid the very last mite.350 Israel were on their trial now, they were in the way. There was an opportunity of being delivered: would they refuse? Would they throw all away? They might depend upon it, if there was not diligence to avail themselves of what God was now granting them, in the presence of Jesus, justice must take its course; and if so, they must be dragged to the judge, and the judge most assuredly would deliver them to the officer, and the officer would cast them into prison. The result would be that they should in nowise depart thence till they had paid the very last mite. And such in point of fact has been the history of the Jews. They are in prison still, and out of this condition they will not be delivered until the whole debt is paid in the retributive dealings of God, when the Lord will say that Jerusalem has received from His hand double for all her sins. He will not allow her therefore to suffer more. His mercy will undertake her cause in the last day, His hand accomplishing at length what His mouth promised from the first.

Endnotes

318 This chapter resembles Matt. 5-7 so far as regards its mosaic construction: of its fifty-nine verses of sayings the contents of no less than thirty-five were delivered on entirely different occasions (Burgon).

319 Verse 1.― “In those (times),” “in which circumstances” (ἐν οἵς) as in Acts 26:12.

“Myriads”: cf. Acts 21:20.

“Leaven”: see note on 13:21.

“Hypocrisy.” The remarks of Boehmer, ad loc. (p. 201 ff.), are specially worthy of attention.

320 Verse 3.― See Schor., p. 28.

321 Verse 4.― “Friends,” in contrast with 19:27, “Mine enemies.” In other respects it is Johannine.

“Fear”: not Satan, who has to be resisted (Jas. 4:7).

322 Verse 5.― “Gehenna,” here alone in Luke, the valley of Hinman: see Josh. 18:6 in the LXX. The final α is that of the Aramaic ending ain. (Dalman). Jewish apocalyptic (e.g., Apoc. of Baruch, 49:10) regarded Gehenna as the place not of the final but of thy intermediate punishment of the wicked. See further note 418 below.

The essential immortality of the soul, of which the Bible nowhere offers proof, is here recognized.

323 Verse 6.―Cf. Matt. 10:29. The “assarion” had two values (Kennedy, art. “Money” in Hastings’ “Dict. of Bible,” § 5), and allowance must be made for local differences; but the “two farthings” would be equal to about one penny of our money. In Matthew the emphasis is on the smallness of the coin for which two sparrows were bought; in Luke, on the number of birds obtained (Weiss, “Sources of Luke’s Gospel,” p. 80).

324 Verse 7.― On the doctrine of special providence, see Abrahams, p. 48. There is a sermon on the subject, from this verse, by John Wesley (“Works,” vi., p. 313).

325 Verse 8 f.− “The Son of man”; Matthew has “I” (10:32), The introduction of the title in this connection (cf. 9:26 of the same type) is peculiar to Luke; but in Mark 8:38 also the Lord has spoken of Himself as Judge in the character of Son of man. In the Synoptics He is described always as the son of man; but in John 5:27 (as in Rev. 1:13, 14:14) as Son of man without the article, where, as Westcott says, His judicial function attaches to His true humanity so emphasized, rather than His personality.

326 Verse 10, ―Here again is a logion in a connection different from that in Matthew (12:32).

Schmiedel has written: “Had Jesus possessed that exalted consciousness of his pre-existence and divine dignity which is attributed to Him in the Fourth Gospel, the declaration that blasphemy against Him was capable of forgiveness could never have been attributed to Him (art. in “Encycl. Bibl.,” col. 2541). See, however, 1 Tim. 1:13, and note 171 on John (8:48 ff.).

As to such sin as does not admit of forgiveness, cf. 1 John 5:16. It is an insuperable difficulty for all who conceive that mercy ever will entirely swamp judgment. Such seek relief, but hopelessly, in the thought of annihilation.

327 Verse 11.―The Synagogues were used as Courts of Law.

328 Verses 13-21.―Cf. Sirach. 2:17f.

329 Verse 14.― The Syrrsin and cu omit “or a divider.”

330 Verse 15.― Cf. Ex. 20:17; 1 Thess. 2:5. For the God-ward aspect of covetousness, cf. Col. 3:5.

“Life,” the Johannine ζωή. Cf. Prov. 3:25.

330a Verse 17f―For the repeated “my,” cf. 1 Sam. 25:11; Hos. 2:5 (Stock, 190).

331 Verse 19f.― “Soul.” See note on 1:46. It is language of a depraved heart. Ps. 14:1, comparing Eccl. 2:1, 5 f., 24.

As to Buddhist denial of possession of Altman, the seat of personality, see; Carus, “Buddhism and its Critics,” p. 84 ff. In these latter days. Nietzsche, an admirer of that system, has gloried in the shame of such an attitude as that described by our Lord’s words. “Remain faithful to the earth” spells his Gospel: see Prologue to his “Thus Spake Zarathustra. Probably no one would be led away by such literature who had read Dr. Arnold’s sermon from this verse (“Christian Life,” p. 99).

332 Verse 20.―As to omission of the subject in the Greek, see note on 6:38.

333 Verse 21.― “Is not,” “if he is not” (μή).

“Rich, etc.”: cf. verse 33; 1 Tim. 6:19, and Ecclesiasticus 11:18f.

See also Latimer, “Dr. Baedeker in Russia,” p. 207.

334 Verse 22 ff. Here come fragments of the sermon on the “plateau.”

“Be not anxious.” Such was the meaning of “take no thought” in the A.V., retained by the Revv, in 1 Sam. 9:5.

335 Verse 24 ff. — “God feedeth them:” cf. Ps. 147: 9. For Luke’s κατανοήσατε, “consider,” Matthew has καταμάθετε, “take a lesson.”

“Glory” (verse 27), that is, of his coronation.

336 Verse 29.― “Be not in anxiety” (μετεωρίζεσθαι). Vulg.: “be not lifted up”; explaining, “do not go to extremes in your demands.” So Wellhausen, referring to Sirach 33:4. The Hebrew “lift up one’s soul” (Ps. 24:4) was used with regard to vanity. The Roman Catholic joint writers Darby-Smith here follow the English Protestant version: “to be unsettled in mind” (as meteors).

337 Verse 31ff ― “Seek His Kingdom,” that of the Father, or heavenly department (Matt. 13:45): see note on 11:2. The seeking (“keep on seeking,” ζητεῖτε, continuous present), by prayer, response to which may lie in the words of verse 32. Cf. the lines of Bonar:

“The kingdom that I seek.

Is Thine; so let the way

That leads to it be Thine,

Else I must surely stray.”

“Little flock.” Cf. “few chosen,” which does not apply to the Gospel of pure grace, let unbelievers say what they will.

“Give,” as sometimes used in Scripture, meaning award: cf. Gen. 30:28 Ex. 2:9, etc., with the verse following here, and 2 Tim. 4:8.

It is not to be supposed that, whilst the Lord says, according to Matthew, “Seek and ye shall find” (7: 7) this is independently of God’s righteousness (ibid., 7:33): Judas the traitor could lend an ear to the one, but the other was not to his liking. Just as with Eternal Life in the Fourth Gospel, so also for the Kingdom “life” of the Synoptics, election seems to operate: see 2 Pet. 1:10f., noting Hort’s marginal reading (א A 69, Syrr., Vulg., etc.). “Give the more diligence through (your) good works,” some of these authorities omitting “your.” Cf. Eph. 2:10.

The apostle Paul, before he passed away, acquired personal assurance of this: 2 Tim. 4:6-8, with which cf. Heb. 6:10f; as also Rom. 8:24, where the hope is that of the coming of our Lord (¤ Tit. 2:13). For His Kingdom and His appointment, see 22:29 of this Gospel, which refers to the earthly department of the Kingdom to come, described in Matt. 13:41 as “the kingdom of the Son of Man.”

German writers discuss the all-important point whether the Kingdom is a Gabe (gift) or an Aufgabe (something to be worked out). With H. Holtzmann, (“New Testament Theology,” i., pp. 202-204) and Bousset (“Preaching of Jesus,” p. 101) it is a gift in the absolute sense as understood by them here; whilst Ritschl, in his “Instruction,” § 5, emphasizes its character as something proposed for the soul’s attainment (a prize): see Col. 3:24; Phil. 2:12 (of the Messianic salvation), and 3:14. Bousset’s denial (loc. cit.) of this latter aspect is subversive of the Word of God, which exhibits both views, so that neither is exclusive of the other―one of many illustrations of the two-foldness of Divine truth, from neglect of which so many controversies have arisen and are still maintained.

Professor Denney has well remarked: “The Kingdom is not to be established” ―as often asserted now― “by our energies at all.... We have to be ready for it, to make any sacrifice to secure our entrance into it” (“The Church and the Kingdom,” p. 87 f.).

338 With verse 33 compare 18:22, and note there.

339 Verse 35 ff.―Here we have, as stated by Bruce, the germ of the Parable of the Virgins (Matt. 25: 1-13). Each passage emphasizes the looked-for coming of the Lord as the supremely practical tenet of the Church. Cf. J. H. Newman’s “Parochial Sermons,” vol. iv., under “Watching” this, he said, is “a suitable test of a Christian. Many... want the tender and sensitive heart which hangs on the thought of Christ and lives in His love.” Cf. 21:36 and note there, besides Mark 13:35.

On the “lamps,” see Schor, p. 49.

340 Of such beatitudes as that in verse 37f. Wernle rightly says that they are all promises (op. cit.); hence they are limited in their application.

341 Verse 40 ff.― “Be,” or “become”; and so “prove” γόινεσθε).

342 With this passage Neander connects 1 Thess. 5:1 ff., observing that Paul had these words of our Lord in view (p. 350). Cf. 2 Pet. 3:10; Rev. 3:3, 16:15 and also 21:34 below.

343 Verse 42-44. — Cf. 1 Cor. 4:1 f., and see also 16:10 below.

344 Verse 45ff. “Shall come,” or “shall arrive” (ἥξει). “Unbelievers,” ἄπιστοι. as in 1 Cor. 14:23. It is clearly for these here more a question of their conduct than of their creed: they may be ever so “orthodox.” The word is in contrast with πιστός, “faithful,” of the steward in verse 42 (of. 1 Tim. 1:12); and so “unfaithful,” as expressed by R.V. Observe Peter’s inquiry in verse 41, and that it is not merely an assumed position of which the Lord speaks in the verse following that. We have here a solemn Scripture for all who are engaged in His service, to whatever communion they may adhere. The words admit of no toning down. If the rendering “unbelievers” be maintained, the issue becomes yet more grave!

344a As to the Kingdom being the time of recompense or award, see note 370 below.

344b Verse 47.f―The present chastisement of believers springs from love: Heb. 12:6; Rev. 3:19 (φιλῶ...παιδεύω). It is not this which is spoken of in verse 47f. The luck in his “Exposition of the Sermon on the Mount” has spoken of the partial unblessedness which even they may inherit (p. 39) when the time of reckoning comes, from which none are exempt (2 Cor. 5:10f). Cf. Mark 9:45. Some will be saved “though as through fire” (1 Cor. 3:15). And so, 1 Pet. 4:18.

For the “many” and the “few” stripes (verse 47f.), of Matt. 11:22.

345 Verse 49 f― “What will I,” etc. American Revy., “What do I desire,” with marg. “How would I that,” etc. The Evangelist supplies us here with a saying characteristic of this period of the ministry. Alford would refer it to Pentecost; but it is best taken hypothetically.

With verse 50 cf. John 19:30 (“it is finished”).

346 Verse 51.― “To give”: “D” has ποιῆσαι, “to produce,” which Wellhausen seems disposed to take as equivalent to δοῦναι, although at 15:22 he questions whether the two verbs can be used as equivalents.

In our Lord’s words here there is an illustration of the two-foldness of Divine truth: cf. 2:14.

“Division.” Cf. Matt. 10:34; and the Vulgate here, “separation.” The cleavage is between those who stand with Christ and those who do not.

In 1 Cor. 1:10, Paul beseeches the brethren there addressed to repress “divisions,” asking, “is CHRIST divided?” The word μεμέρισται (verse 13) is connected with διαμερισμός here. When the σχίσματα come again before us in that letter, it is in 11:18, not in verse 19 as represented in a recent pamphlet entitled. “There Must be Divisions” (Melbourne, 1911). It is false that “truth has only been preserved by division.” It is not true that αἴρεσις in the one verse is identical with σχίσμα (cf. John 7:43) in the other. “The cream lies on the top,” but one needs eyes with which to see it. It is a serious thing to trifle with Scripture. The “approved” in 1 Cor. 11:19 are manifestly those who will not abet “divisions”; the disapproved, those by whom they are engineered. The “approved,” the simple and childlike, give heed to Rom. 16:17; the disapproved, such as airily and sophistically explain away, not only the Apostle’s appeal, but the Lord’s prayer to the Father (John 17:21). Is it any wonder that the world does not believe?

347 Verse 53.―Observe the different cases taken here by the preposition ἐπί.

348 Verse 57.―This bears on Calvin’s theory as to human depravity. He is silent in his “Commentary” about these words of our Lord, with which cf. John 89:46.

349 Verse 58f.―Cf. Matt. 5:25 f., and for the question of Endless Punishment, note 42 on Mark; also recent pamphlet in Evangelical Alliance Series, entitled “Sin and its Consequences,” by Webb-Peploe.

350 Verse 59.―The mite (lepton) was the smallest coin.

Luke 13

THE Lord pursues what occupied Him at the close of the last chapter. He is laying bare before them the crisis that was now approaching for Israel. He was the Truth, manifesting the reality of things on earth—for instance, of the Jewish people in the sight of God underneath all religious forms. Nothing eluded Him, and He reveals all that was needful to man. It has not the high character of the truth in John as the revelation of what was in Himself, what God was as displayed in the Word made Mesh; but it is equally necessary in its place. According to the general tone of Luke, there is moral dealing with men, and here with Israel

“There were present352 some at that season who told him of the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with that of their sacrifices.” The cruel and hard-hearted governor had dealt with excessive brutality and had shown his contempt of the Galileans. This furnished a subject for conversation: it was a judgment. They could more easily speak of it as it was a question of Galileans, whom the men of Jerusalem were apt to despise. But the Lord answers them, showing that the time for the kind of discriminative dealing which was in their minds has not really arrived. It will do in the millennium, but it had not and could not come while the Messiah was in humiliation, a Sufferer, sent to die by the same governor who so unworthily used those Galileans — yea, by those highest in Jerusalem whose sin was yet greater; sent, not to have His blood mingled with sacrifices, but to be Himself the Sacrifice for sinners, in the infinite grace of God to all, beginning with Jerusalem. “And he answering said to them, Think ye that these Galileans were sinners beyond all the Galileans, because they suffered such things? No, I say to you, but, if ye repent not, ye shall all perish in like manner.” The Lord makes it an appeal to their own conscience, and shows that the light of Himself on earth reveals the deplorable state of all men without exception, and, if there be a difference, the exceeding guilt of the Jew in particular. They should all perish except they repented.352a

He does not here speak of believing, though no doubt it is implied and goes along with faith; but repenting brings in the thought of their sin and their want of all right moral judgment of it. On this He insists, but He does more: He brings forward a case calculated to arrest and search their consciences. They had spoken of Galileans; He reminds them of some nearer home in like case — men of Jerusalem, eighteen of whom had some time ago perished from a tower in Siloam that fell upon them. The Lord accordingly asks them, “Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them, think ye that they were debtors beyond all the men who dwell in Jerusalem? No, I say to you: but, if ye repent not, ye shall all perish in like manner.” It is not so grave before God, nor so near to man’s danger or best interests that a special disaster had occurred to Galileans, or to men of Jerusalem. What Jesus shows is the inevitable ruin of all who do not repent. This is characteristic of Christianity. Itis the most separative of all things. It severs even out of Israel to God by the, judgment of sin as it is and the knowledge of His grace; but at the same time it is the most comprehensive testimony possible.

Not only does it go out to all nations to gather from them and put believers on equal privileges whether Jew or Gentile; but it is no less profound than universal, inasmuch as it shows both what God is towards every child of man, and what He is to none but His own children. Indeed, it is a revelation of God in Christ, both for the Church and in His connection with the whole universe. He is the God and Father of all, “Who is above all and through all and in you all” though this will in no way hinder the destruction of all men who do not repent. Christ, come in humiliation to redeem from sin to God, alone reveals things as they are.

The Lord adds a parable also: “A certain [man] had a fig-tree planted in his vineyard; and he came seeking fruit upon it, and did not find [any], and he aid to the vine-dresser, Behold, [these] three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none: cut it down: why doth it also render the ground useless? But he answering saith unto him, Sir, let it alone for this year also, until I shall dig about it, and put dung: and if it shall bear fruit, —but, if not, after that thou shalt cut it down.” This manifests, on a still larger scale, a similar truth; it adds the grounds on which they were so peculiarly responsible. The fig-tree was planted in his vineyard and he came and sought fruit on it and found none, and he said, “Cut it down: why doth it also render the ground useless?” So far from security, nothing could be more critical than the condition of Israel now. It was not for them to be coolly speculating about Galileans and forgetting men of Jerusalem; for the thoughts of men are always partial and self-deceptive. The Lord, then, does not merely bring in counter-facts, but shows in a parabolic form their moral history and what was impending from God. It was only through His intervention and intercession that God was willing to bear with Israel. “Behold [these] three years I come seeking fruit on this fig-tree and find none.” There was the most ample testimony rendered—more than enough — these three years.353 “Cut it down: why doth it also render the ground useless? And he answering saith unto him, Sir, let it alone for this year also, until I shall dig about it, and put dung:354 and if it shall bear fruit—and if not, after that355 thou shalt cut it down.” This was what awaited Israel. The Lord was giving them a last opportunity, as far as His ministry was concerned.

We know well that, whatever His pains, whatever the means used, all was vain for the time and that generation. They did not bear fruit; they rejected Himself. “After that thou shalt cut it down.” And so it was. Israel has disappeared from its place of testimony: the fig-tree, the emblem of their national existence, is cut down, and withered away. Not that God cannot renew them on a different principle. Grace will interfere and bring in this Messiah for the generation to come; but their national position under the law, even in the feeble condition of a remnant from Babylon, is completely blotted out from their land. The fig-tree is cut down; so the Lord told them it would be and so it is.

Although the Lord showed the impending fate of the Jews because of their uselessly cumbering the ground, He did not the less teach in their synagogues on the Sabbath day. It was still the term of patience; and further, grace was in no way hindered from acting individually. “And lo, [there was] a woman, having a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bent together, and wholly356 unable to lift her head up.” She did not seek the gracious power of Jesus, but when He saw her, “he called to [her], and said to her, Woman, thou art loosed from thine infirmity.” Not satisfied with this, He laid His hands upon her. There was far more grace in acting thus than in simply curing her by a word. He could have done the one as easily as the other.

But grace, though it tenderly stoops to the wretched, does not accommodate itself to the obstinate unbelief of men, more particularly of men who make a show of their religion but who have nothing real in the sight of God. Christ cured her on the Sabbath and in face of the congregation, knowing it would provoke the enmity of the ruler of the synagogue. There is no use in striving to keep fair terms with men who profess to be friends, but are really the enemies, of God. “And immediately she was made straight and glorified God.357 But the ruler of the synagogue answered with indignation, because that Jesus had healed on the sabbath day.” Now had he for a moment reflected, he would have seen the folly and wickedness of his affectedly pious indignation he would have seen that lie was fighting against God. But passion in religious matters never reflects; and, being wholly apart from true faith, it is apt to be governed by present interests. So this man, little suspecting that he was carrying on war with God to his own eternal ruin, turns to the people with the words, “There are six days in which [people] ought to work; in these therefore come and be healed and not on the sabbath day.” Vain and wicked man, that presumed to lay down the law to God He was far from keeping the law himself, yet ventured to give law to Him who was not more truly man than God. God is not to work on His own Sabbath day! But as the Lord told the Jews in the Gospel of John, it is a folly to suppose that God, in the presence of such a world, of man and Israel as they are, is keeping the Sabbath. Morally speaking, He co not do so. His love would not permit Him to rest when the earth and human kind are full of sin, wickedness, and misery. Accordingly grace led both the Father and the Son to work for poor guilty man: “My Father worketh hitherto and I work.” The Jews might be keeping their Sabbaths in pride; but God was, working for man! Alas! the world has as little sense of the holiness as of the love of God; and so the Lord here answers the ruler with stern rebuke: “Hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the manger and leading [it] away, water [it]?” He does not take His text from the Father, as in the Gospel of John, but from men’s own acknowledged ways, what even natural conscience feels to be right, what no legalism can blot out from the heart of man. Luke is the great moralist of the Gospels. It would be cruel towards the poor brute to withhold its necessary provender or drink because of the Sabbath day; and if it would be a mistake of God’s mind so to treat one’s ox or ass to keep it from what is necessary to its refreshment in natural life, how much more was it not worthy of God to relieve in grace a victim of Satan’s power! “And this [woman] who is a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan hath bound, lo [these] eighteen years, ought she not to be loosed from this bond on the sabbath day?” He puts it on the double ground of relationship to Abraham, God’s friend; and of subjection to the insulting power of the enemy.

A daughter of Abraham, she ought surely to have in their eyes an additional claim, and no less because Satan had bound her fox so long a time us It was plain therefore that the ruler, under the pretense of high respect for God’s institutions, was in truth a satellite of Satan. If true-hearted, he would have rejoiced at the expulsion of that spirit of infirmity by which the woman had been so long bound. The people felt the truth of what Jesus said as well as the grace of His deed. “And as he said these things, all who were opposed to him were ashamed, and all the crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things which were being done by him.” Even the open opposers, if not won, were ashamed; but all the people rejoiced, for they at least had a sense of their need and were more free to acknowledge what was good and true. There may not have been power, and there is not without faith, to receive the truth in the love of it (for the heart is alienated from God); but they hailed with joy the Divine power that rescued the miserable. Where there is Divinely given faith, I doubt that the first action of the Spirit of God is joy. The entrance of the Word gives light, and discovers what is within of sin, and guilt, and ruin. But, even without being converted, people who have no particular animosity against the truth presented in Christ and who feel the value of light nowhere else to be seen, may well rejoice. They are not broken down in the sense of their own evil, they are not brought to God, but they rejoice in what is come to men, owning the evident and excellent hand of God, and feeling the difference between Christ, however little seen, and the parchment divinity of the ruler of a synagogue. “All the crowd rejoiced at all the glorious things which were being done by him.”

Then the Lord is brought in by our Evangelist, as comparing the kingdom of God to “a grain of Mustad [seed] which a man took and cast into his garden.”359 The kingdom of God was not yet coming in that power and glory in which all adversaries should be destroyed. The essential feature of it, evident to every eye which beheld Christ as its actual witness, was the power of God in lowliness displayed in His own humiliation; it was in no way a king governing with external majesty, but a man who takes a grain of mustard seed, a very little germ indeed, and casts it into his garden, where it grows and waxes a great tree, so that the fowls of the air lodge in its branches. The Lord has before His eye the rising up of a vast worldly power which Christendom should become from the very little beginning planted by Himself then present. Such is the first view that is here given by our Lord. People were premature in rejoicing for all the glorious things that were done by Him, if they counted on a mighty deliverance and kingdom just yet. This would be the result in due time at His coming again, and man would try to found it on what He had already done. No doubt there would be deeper things underneath; but He speaks now of what would be before all the people, before men’s eyes. It is Christendom commencing as a little seed in the world and becoming such a power that even the very adversaries themselves should find grateful shelter there. But it is not yet the time for the kingdom of God to come in power and glory. There is Divine power dealing by the Spirit with individual souls, but not at all in the direct public government of the world. Christianity would grow into an outward system of power, but not such as to expel scandals and those who practice lawlessness. Far different is the state of things now. Christendom is become a worldly system, just as much as Mahomedanism or Judaism. It is become active worldly power in the center of civilization, and not a few among those of chief influence in nominal Christianity one the enemies of God. and His truth.

But, besides the outward power, our Lord compares the kingdom to “leaven which a woman took and hid in three measures of meal until the whole was leavened.” it is the figure of the agent in what is done publicly, the woman of the resulting condition of what is done hiddenly, Hence Babylon is compared to the woman in Revelation. There is the spread of doctrine, of creed, of a mere verbal confession which does not suppose faith. It is not only that there is that which, rising from the least beginning, becomes a great and towering power in the earth; but there is also a doctrinal system spread over a defined space (Christendom) which affects men’s minds and feelings. This is compared to leaven, and leaven in Scripture is never the symbol of what is good. The leaven of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees was their doctrine, which differed in each, but was far from good.

Here the leaven was hid in the three measures of meal till the whole was leavened. It does not mean all the world becoming Christian — a vain and groundless inference, opposed o many plain Scriptures which treat of this subject expressly. There is a very small part of the world even nominally Christian; a very much larger part consists of Buddhism, Mahomedanism, and of heathenism. We hear of “three measures,” a certain definite space of the world which God has permitted to be influenced by nominally Christian doctrine — a witness even more that). enough.

Thus the spread of Christendom, as a political power, is set forth by the tree, and the spread of the doctrine of Christian dogma is shown by the leavening of these three measures. Both these things have taken place, and there is nothing in either to hinder the coming of the Lord on the plea that these Scriptures have not been fulfilled. Christendom has long become a great power in the earth, and has spread its doctrine within extensive limits. What sort of doctrine it is, and what sort of power, Scripture elsewhere at least does not leave doubtful; but the object here is not so much to show the character of its power or the quality of its doctrine, as to imply the height of pride to which it would grow, and its prevalence over a defined space. The fact is, that from a little beginning it becomes great in the earth, and is also accompanied by a certain spread of doctrine over a limited area. There is no trace whatever in these parables of the coming millennium, or reign of righteousness, where evil is put down. It is rather this age where evil insinuates itself and reaches the highest places under the protection of Christendom along with the spread of a mere creed without life or the power of the Spirit. How truly both have been, and are before all eyes!360

Those who had the chief place and power in Israel the Lord had convicted, under pretense of jealousy for law, of utter hypocrisy and hatred of grace even to the seed of Abraham. Under the parables of the mustard seed and the leaven, He had shown what would be the outward form of the kingdom during His rejection. But this does not hinder His going on for the present with His labor of love: “He went through one city and village after another, teaching, and journeying to Jerusalem.” He knew right well what was to befall Him there, as indeed is expressly stated at the end of this chapter. One now says to Him, “Sir, are such as are to be saved361 few in number?” Are those that shall be saved (the remnant and those destined to salvation) few? The Lord does not gratify such curiosity, but at once speaks to the conscience of him who inquired: Take care that you stand right with Goal, “Strive with earnestness to enter in through the narrow door, for many, I say unto you, will endeavor to enter in and will not be able.” It is not, as is sometimes thought, so much a question between “seeking” and “striving.”362 This would throw the stress upon man, and the difference of his state; though it is true that conversion means a mighty change, and that where the Spirit of God works in grace there must needs be a real earnestness of purpose given. But the true point is that people must “strive to enter in through the strait gate.” The strait gate means conversion to God through faith and repentance. It is a person who is not content with being an Israelite, but feels the need of being born again, and so looks to God, who uses the Lord Jesus as the Way. This is to “strive to enter in through the narrow door.” “There are many,” He says, “who will endeavor to enter in and will not be able.” This does not mean that they would seek to enter in by the narrow door for, if they did so, it would be all right. But they seek to get the blessing of the Kingdom without being born of God; they would like to have all the privileges promised to Israel without being born of water and of the Spirit., This is impossible: “Many will endeavor to enter in, and will not be able.” For if they enter, it must be through the narrow door of being born anew.

“From the time that the master of the house shall have risen up, and shall have shut the door, and ye shall begin to stand without and to knock at the door, saying, Lord, open to us; and he answering shall say unto you, I know you not whence ye are.” The Lord takes this position outside them through His rejection; they rejected Him and He has no alternative but for the time to reject them, unless God would be a party to the dishonor of His own Son. But whatever be His grace (and He will be most gracious), God shows His complacency in Christ and His resentment at those who, though taking the highest ground of their own merits, proved their unrighteousness, and unbelief, and rebellion against God when He displayed Himself in love and goodness in the Lord Jesus.

“From the time that the master of the house shall have risen up, and shall have shut the door” — it would be quite unavailing for the Jews to plead that Jesus had come into their midst, that the Messiah had been in their streets, that “they had eaten and drunk in his presence,” and He “had taught in their streets.” This was what most evidenced their guilt. He had been there, and they would not have Him. He had taught in their streets, but they had despised and rejected Him even more than the Gentiles. They had insisted upon His crucifixion when the most hard-hearted of Gentile governors had wished His acquittal.

It is always so. Religious privilege, when misused and abandoned, leaves those who enjoy it worse then before, worse than those who have never enjoyed it. Messiah therefore shall say to them, “I tell you, I do not know you whence ye are; depart from me, all [ye] workers of iniquity.”353 God could not have mere forms: there must be what suits His nature. This is invariably proved true, when the light of God shines. The Gospel does not mean that God now sanctions what is contrary to Himself. Even in remitting sin through faith He meets what is opposed to Himself, but produces what is according to Himself by His own grace. But He always holds to His own principle, that it is those who “by patient continuance in well-doing seek for glory, and honor, and incorruptibility,” that have eternal life, and none others. Those “who by patient continuance in well-doing” please Him are to be with Him, and none but they. How this patient continuance in well-doing is produced! is another matter, and how souls are awakened to seek after it. Certainly it is not from themselves, but from God. Conversion essentially consists in distrust of self and turning to God. This the Jews had not, and, in spite of all their high pretensions to religion, they were only workers of iniquity. “There,” — not among the heathen — “shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth, when ye shall see Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob, and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but yourselves cast out.” But this is not all — the picture would not be complete if they did not see others brought in too. It is not only the Jews shut out from their fathers when the time of glory comes; but others “shall come from east and west, and from north and south” — that is, the widest ingathering of the Gentiles — “and shall lie down at table in the kingdom of God.”364 Thus it was manifest that “there are last which shall be first.” Such were the Gentiles; they were called by grace to be first. And “there are first which shall be last.” Such were the Jews. They had held the earliest and the calling of God; but they renounced it for self-righteousness and rejected their Messiah accordingly. The Gentiles would now hear, when the natural children, we may say, of the Kingdom should be thrust out. Grace would conquer. where flesh and law had utterly failed, reaping woe to themselves as much as dishonoring God.

Scripture is very careful to press the respect and obedience which are due to authority, but it is not a Christian’s work to occupy himself with settling questions of the earth. He has nothing to do with the ways and means whereby kings or other governors have reached their place of authority. There may have been wars, and revolutions, and all sorts of questionable means for them to arrive at such exaltation. What he has to do is to obey, as a matter of fact, those who are in authority. “Let every soul be subject unto higher powers. For there is no power but of God; the powers that be are ordained of God.” Scripture does not demand obedience to the powers that ought to be, but to “the powers that be.” No doubt this may expose to danger where a revolutionary leader usurps: authority for a season; but God will care for results, and the duty of the Christian remains simple and sure. He obeys the powers that be. Notwithstanding, all obedience in man has its limits. There are cases where the Christian is bound, I do not say to be disobedient, still less to set up his own authority (which is never his duty), but “to obey God rather than men.” Where earthly authority demands sin against God, for instance where a Government interferes with and forbids the stewardship of the believer in proclaiming the name of Christ, it is evident that it is a question of a lower authority setting aside the highest. Consequently the principle of obedience to which the Christian is bound forbids his being swayed by what is of man to abandon what he knows to be the will of God.

Take, again, a peremptory call on a Christian to fight the battles of his country. If he knows his calling, can he join Christ’s name with such unholy strife? If right for one side, it is right for another, or the Christian becomes a judge instead of a pilgrim, and the name of the Lord would be thus, compromised by brethren on opposite sides, each bound to imbrue their hand in one another’s blood, each internments of hurrying to perdition souls ripening in sins. Is this of Christ? Is it of grace? It may suit the flesh and the world; but it is in vain to plead the Word of God to justify a Christian’s finding himself engaged in such work. Will any one dare to call human butchery, at the command of the powers that be, Christ’s service? The true reason wily people fail to see here is, either a fleshly mind or an unworthy shrinking from the consequences. They prefer to kill another to please the world, rather than to be killed themselves to please Christ. But they should not ask or expect Christian sympathy with their unbelief or worldly-mindedness. To sympathize with such is to share their failure in testimony to Christ. To deplore the thing while doing it does not mend matters, but is rather an unwitting testimony of our own lips against our own ways.

In short, the Divine rule is what our Lord Himself laid down with admirable wisdom and perfect truth: “Render unto Cesar the thing which be Cesar’s, and unto God the things which be God’s” (20:25). This alone gives us the true standard of the, path of Christ through a world of evil and snares. He Himself seems to act on the same principle here. “The same hour certain Pharisees came up, saying to him, Get out and go hence, for Herod is desirous to kill thee.” The Lord knew better. He knew that, bad as Herod might be, the Pharisees were no better, and that their profession of interest in caring for His person was hypocritical. Whether Herod had made use of this or not, He was not going to be influenced by any such suggestions, direct or indirect, from the enemy. He had His work to do for His Father. As the child, we have seen in this Gospel, He must be about His Father’s business. It was not otherwise when the anxiety of His mother was expressed to Him at a later day before His public work. So now the Lord said to the Pharisees, “Go, tell that fox.”

There is no hiding the truth of things where there is an attempt at interference with the will of God. The cunning that wrought to hinder the Lord’s testimony for God was vain. He saw through it all and did not scruple to speak plainly out: “Go, tell that fox, Behold, I cast out demons, and I do cures365 today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected.” The Lord was then evidently the vessel of the power of God on earth. The gracious work which He was doing showed man’s folly in seeking to hinder God. “Behold, I cast out demons.” Not all the power or authority of the world could have done such deeds as these. This was paramount to every consideration: He was here to do the will of God and finish His work.

It was in vain therefore for Pharisees or Herod, under false pretensions, to draw Him aside and thus interrupt the execution of His task. He was obeying God rather than men. He came to do the will of Him who sent Him, and at all cost this must be done. “I accomplish cures today and tomorrow, and the third [day] I am perfected.” The work was in hand and assuredly should be done. The Lord, having finished His course, entered into a new position for man through death and resurrection into heavenly glory. “But I must needs walk today, and tomorrow, and the [day] following.” He knew better, too, than that any power of man would be permitted to stop Him till His work was completed. He knew beforehand and thoroughly that Jerusalem was the place where He must suffer, and that Pharisees were to play a far more important part in His suffering unto death than even Herod. Man does not know himself. Christ the Truth declares what he is, and shows that it was all known to Him. There is nothing like a single eye, even in man, to see clearly; and Christ was the true Light that made all things manifest.

“It must not be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.” Their anxiety, therefore, was a mere pretense. The Lord has His work to do, and devotes Himself to it till it is done. From the beginning and all through He shows clearly as here that He knew where His rejection was to be. We gather this clearly from a previous chapter, where we are told that He steadfastly set His face to go to Jerusalem, and this, too, when the time was come that He should be received up. He looked onward to His being perfected. He knew right well the pathway through which this lay: it was through death and resurrection. So here; it might be the perishing of the great prophet in Jerusalem, but it was the receiving up of the Lord of glory, now man, after accomplishing redemption, into that glory from which He came. The Lord, therefore, remains perfectly master of the position.

But there is more than this: He was free in His love. Not all the cunning of Herod, nor all the hypocrisy of the Pharisees could turn aside the grace that filled His heart — grace even to those who loved Him not. If His servant could say that, though the more abundantly he loved the less he was loved, how much more fully true was it of the Master The disciple was like his Master; but the Master was infinitely perfect. And so love fills His heart as now He utters these solemn words over Jerusalem, guilty of all the blood of the witnesses of God from Abel downwards. He has His own cross before Him; yet He says: “Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the [city] that killeth the prophets, and stoneth those that are sent unto her; how often would I have gathered thy children together as a hen her brood under her wings,366 and ye would not.” He was then more than a prophet — the Lord Jehovah. He was one competent to gather; and He had a love that proved its Divine spring, source, and character by His willingness often to have gathered the children of Jerusalem together. He could have been their Shield and exceeding great Reward, but they would not. (There is no blessing that the will of man cannot shut its eyes, to and reject. Flesh can never see aright, because it is always selfish; it does not see God,: and consequently misses all that is really good for itself. Man is most of all his own enemy when he is God’s enemy; but of all enemies, which are so deadly as religious enemies — as those whose hearts are far from God, though near with their lips mid have the place of the highest religious privilege? Such was Jerusalem, They had had the prophets, but they killed them. They had had messengers sent from God to them unweariedly, but they stoned them. And now that He who was the great prophet, Messiah, Jehovah Himself, was in their midst in Divine love, what would they not do to Him! There was no death too ignominious for Him. “Behold, your house is left unto you.” It was their own ruin, when they thought and meant it to be His. But love rises over every hindrance. It is impossible that grace should be defeated in the end for its own purpose. And He adds: “I say unto you, that ye shall not see me [this was judgment, Ye shall not see me], until it come that ye say, Blessed [is] he that cometh in the name of [the] LORD” — this is grace. He comes in glory, but in the perfect display of that love which had suffered for them and from them and which will not fail in the end by this very suffering to ensure their eternal blessing.

Endnotes

351 Verses 1-9. — A notable passage, as bearing on sins of omission, for which cf. Matt. 25:24-30.

352 Verse 1 ff.― “There were”; or, “There came,” παρῆσαν (with the news, ἀπαγγέλλοντες): so Alford, followed by Field, who cites Acts 10:21. The critical German Bible (Weizsäcker’s version) takes it in the same way.

352a. Verse 3.―See Archbishop Leighton’s Sermon on Repentance; also one of G. Whitefield from this verse. Repentance is essentially thorough change of heart and mind Godwards, and is closely connected with Renunciation earthwards (14:33). For its relation to Faith, see Expositor’s remarks in vol. on Mark, p. 65.

353 Verse 7.―The three years may represent completeness (Spence). Anyhow, it is the time required by the fig tree for maturity. See Spurgeon’s Sermons, 650 and 1451; also one of Augustine (vol. i., p. 451).

354 Verse 8.— Euthymius and Theophylact, followed by Matthew Henry, regarded our Lord as being the vine-dresser. For the sequel to this, see Matt. 24:32f., when He comes again.

355 Verse 9.― “After that.” The as εἰς τό μέλλον Markland, followed by Field, would render “next year.” The former cites Joseph. “Antiqq.,” 1:11, 2. In 1 Tim. 6:19 the same phrase means “against the Millennium.” μέλλειν is used in the New Testament constantly for the future in that connection, as in “the age to come.”

For the rhetorical figure here (called aposiopesis), cf. Acts 23:9, Rom. 9. 22-24. In the Old Testament cf. Ex. 32:32, etc. (Plummer).

356 Verse 11.— “Wholly,” εἰς τό παντελές. Used only here and in Heb. 7:25, and exhibiting one of the many similarities between the language of that Epistle and the Lucan vocabulary.

357 Verse 13. —Cf. Ps. 145:14.

“Immediately”: Maclaren happily remarks, “Where He is the physician, there is no period of convalescence” (“B. C. E.,” p. 169). On “glorified God” the same writer says, “He did not substitute doing good to man for worshipping God” (as did Cotter Morison), “ ... but He showed us both in their true relations” (p. 167),

358 Verse 16.― “A daughter of Abraham.” For “a son of Abraham,” cf. 19:9. For connection between physical disease and sin, see Mark 2:5-12, John 5:14, and Acts 10:38. For “bound,” cf. Ps. 146:7, and Deissmann, op. cit., p. 88.

See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 2110.

359 Verse 18 f.―For Luke’s κήπος, Matthew has ἀγρόσ, Mark γῆ. Luke shares with Matthew ἐν τοῖς κλάδοις for which Mark has ὐπο τήν σκιάν.

360 Verse 20f. (cf. Matt. 13:33).― The mystery lies in the leaven being hidden.

There are three forms of leaven of which our Lord speaks: (1) the leaven of the Pharisees, ―hypocrisy, or false worship, 12:17; (2) that common to Pharisees and Sadducees, false doctrine, Matt. 16:6; (3) the leaven common to Pharisees and Herodians—false conduct, Mark 8:15.

To the reference to Aulus Gellius in Plummer, add that to Plutarch, in Rose’s edition of Parkhurst’s Greek-English Lexicon, under ζύμη, for the circumstance that no Flamers Dialis, or priest of Jupiter among the Romans, was allowed to touch leaven. “Leaven,” says that old biographer, “both arises from corruption and itself corrupts the mass with which it is mixed.”

With verse 22 cf. John 10:22.

361 Verse 23.―For οἰ σωζόμενοι, cf. Acts 2:47. It was a recognized religious formula among the Jews (Carr, referring to 2 Esdr. 8:1 and 9:15f.). As for the Canonical Books, the LXX. use it in Isa. 37:32 and 45:20 (ἀπό τῶν ἐθναν), In 10:20 of the same prophet that version has σωθέντες: in Jer. 51:14, σεσωμένος (of. Eph. 2:8, and for the verbal form, Rom. 10:9, 13). See Westcott, “Some Lessons,” p. 161f., and Vaughan, “Sermons on the R.V.,” p. 71, and especially a paper on “The Force of the Present Tense in Greek,” —one of “Occasional Papers on Scriptural Subjects,” No. ii., p. 76f., by B. W. Newton (who took a distinguished degree at Oxford in 1828).

Professor Burton, in his “Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament Greek” (§ 125), rightly rejects “are (were) being saved” in passages in which forms of the present tense (as 1 Cor. 15:2) or present participle (as Acts 2:47) are used. Cf. the like usage of οἰ ἀγιαζόμενοι, etc., in the Epistle to the Hebrews; and for the Apostle Paul’s use of οἰ σωζόμενοι, 1 Cor. 1:18 and 2 Cor. 2:15.

Godet takes it here of entrance into the Messianic kingdom. Cf. “We shall be saved from wrath, etc.,” in Rom. 5:9, referring to be apocalyptic judgments that are to fall upon the earth,

362 Verse 24. “Strive with earnestness.” Carr, “Keep on striving.” Application of this to the Gospel of Grace is excluded by such passages is John 6:37 (cf. note 337). Maclaren: “The entrance gate is very low... it must be on our hands and knees that we go in” (B. C. E., p. 227). There are sermons from verses 16-24 by Augustine, Luther, and G. Whitefield.

363 Verses 25-27. Cf. Matt. 25:10-12.

364 Verses 28f―The Kingdom again in its future aspect, that of the “Kingdom of Heaven” (Matt. 8:11). As to the “Messianic banquet” of Isaiah, see note on 22:30.

365 Verse 32.―For “Herod that fox,” see Whyte, “Bible Characters,” No. LXXXVI. Neil: “The only purely contemptuous expression of Jesus recorded.”

Observe again the distinction which this Evangelist makes between costing out demons and healing disease (see note 148): critics are loth to recognize it.

For “I am perfected,” cf. Ex. 29:9 (filling of priest’s hands in consecration) and Hos. 6:2. The word is elsewhere used of our Lord, in Heb. 2:10, alone. It is strictly middle voice: “I bring my work to an accomplishment” (Carr). American marg.: “Or, I end any course.” Cf. Paul’s use of the word in Phil. 3:12.

366 Verse 34.―For the motherhood of GOD, see Deut. 32:18, and cf., of course, Matt. 23:37-39, where a lamentation over Jerusalem was uttered by the Lord in the city itself, similar to this placed in Galilee at an earlier time.

367 Verse 35.―The “desolate,” Harnack wrote (“Sayings,” p. 30), was not left out by Luke because (as Wellhausen on Matt. 23:38 suggests) at the time he wrote the city had raised itself up again. But for his latest view as to this see note 2, ad fin. Moreover, he does not see why ἀφίεται, should not be taken as prophetic future (so the Latin, etc.). The Expositor, however (see his Lecture on Matthew, p. 472), takes this word to mean in the light of “your” that “it was no longer His house, or His Father’s, but theirs.” Cf. “having a form of godliness,” without the power (2 Tim. 3:5).

Luke 14

THE last chapter had closed with the setting aside of the Jew and the judgment of Jerusalem. We have now the moral principles involved set forth in chapter 14. The Lord was asked to “the house of one of the rulers [who was] of the Pharisees to eat bread on [the] sabbath.” One might have expected, if there were anything holy or any appreciation of grace, now was the time for it. But not so. They were watching Him. They, ignorant of God, looked for evil, desired evil. God was in, none of their thoughts, nor His grace. Yet these were the men who most of all piqued themselves upon their nice observance of the Sabbath day.

But grace will not stay its work or withhold the truth to please men: Jesus was there to make known God and do His will. “And behold, there was a certain dropsical [man] before Him.” No religious forms can shut out the ruin that is in the world through sin, and our Lord, filled with the good that was in His heart, answers their thoughts before they uttered them, speaking to the lawyers and Pharisees with the question, “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath?” His question was an answer to their evil judgments. It was impossible to deny it. Hardened as man was and habituated to evil, he could not say that it was unlawful to heal on the Sabbath day. Yet they really wished that it should be so, and, as we know, made it repeatedly a ground of the most serious accusation against the Lord. However, here He challenges those who were ostensibly the wisest and most righteous in Israel, the lawyers and Pharisees; but “they were silent.” The Lord then takes the dropsical man; heals him, and lets him go. Then He answers them further by the question: “Of which of you shall an ass or an ox fall into a well and he doth not straightway pull him up on the sabbath day?” This is a little different from His reply to the ruler of the synagogue in the chapter before. There it was more the need of the animal, the ordinary supply of his wants. But here it is a more urgent case. It was not simply that the animal, needed watering and must be led to it, but “of which of you shall an ass or an ox fall into a well and he doth not straightway pull him up on the sabbath day?”

It was lawful, therefore, to look after the good of an animal on that day. They proved it where their own interests were concerned. God had His interests and love: therefore was Jesus in this world, therefore, was He in the Pharisee’s house. He had meat to eat that they knew not of. It was not the Pharisee’s bread, bitt to do the will of His Father. In healing the dropsical man. He was glorifying His Father. He was boldly acting upon that which even they durst not deny — the right of healing on the Sabbath day. If they could relieve on that day their animals from their pain, or danger, what title had they to dispute God’s right to heal the miserable among men among Israel?

“And they were not able to answer him to these things.” How unanswerably good is the grace and truth of God!

But it is plain that the heart of Israel was sick and that this very scene showed how much they needed to be healed.

But they knew it not. They were hardened against the Holy One Who could do them good. They were maliciously watching Him, instead of presenting themselves in their misery that He might heal them.

But the Lord in the next scene puts forth “a parable to those that were invited, remarking how they chose out the first places.” It is not only that there is a hindrance of good to others, on the part of those who have no sense of need themselves, but there is a universal desire of self-exaltation. The law does not hinder this: it can only condemn, and that, too, for the most part, what the natural conscience condemns. But Christ here brings in the light of God’s grace, of Divine love in an evil world as contrasted with human selfishness. He marked how those that were guests chose out the chief rooms. They sought for themselves; they sought the best. But “when thou art invited,” says He who was Himself the perfect Pattern of love and humility — “when thou art invited. by anyone to a wedding, do not lay thyself down in the first place at table, lest, perhaps, a more honorable than thee be invited by him. And he who invited thee and him come and say to thee, Give place to this [man]; and thou begin with shame to take the last place.” Assuredly it would be so with Israel themselves. They had had the outward call of God, they had chosen the chief seats, and now they were going to lose all place and nation. Jesus was in the fullest contrast with them. He went down to the lowest room, He took it in love for God’s glory; and certainly there is One Who will say for Him, Give this man place. Clearly, however, it is an exhortation for every heart and more particularly for those who heed the call of God.

Then comes a more positive word: “When thou hast been invited, go and put thyself down in the lowest place” — He had done so Himself — “that when he who hath invited thee cometh, he may say unto thee, Friend, go up higher.” He took the form of a servant, was found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself, and became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross. “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him and given him a name which is above every name.” As He says here, “Then shalt thou have honor before all that are lying at table with thee. For every one that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that abaseth himself shall be exalted.” They are universal principles of God: the one true of Christ and of all that are Christ’s, as the other is of the spirit of man. The first Adam sought to exalt himself, but only fell through the deceit of Satan. The Second Man humbled Himself and is set above all principality, and power, and might.

Then we find, further, it is not a question only of guests but of a host: He has a word for every man. God looks for love in this world, and this, too, apart from nature. His love is not for one’s friends or family alone; it is not on this principle at all. “When thou makest a dinner or a supper, call not thy friends, nor thy brethren, nor thy kinsfolk, nor rich neighbors, lest it may be they also should invite thee in return and a recompense be made thee.” A witness for Christ is marked by that which is supernatural. There is no testimony to His name in merely natural kindness or family affection, but where there is love without a human motive or any hope of recompense there is a testimony to Him. It is exactly so that God is doing now in the Gospel, and we are called to be imitators of God. It is not meant to be merely in making a feast or a supper, but that grace should stamp its character on all our Christian life, The whole time of the Gospel call, as we shall see farther on, is compared to a feast to which the activity of love is gathering in from the miserable of this world.

Hence, the Lord adds, “When thou makest a feast, call poor, crippled, lame, blind,369 and thou shalt be blessed; for they have not [the means] to recompense thee.” How Divinely fine, yet how different from the world and its social order out of Which the Christian is called! If we thus act in unselfish self-sacrificing love, God will surely recompense according to all His resources and His nature. This will be at the resurrection of the just, the great and final scene when all that are severed from the world will be seen apart from it, when human selfishness will have disappeared forever, when they that are Christ’s will reign in life by one, Christ Jesus. Anything short of this is not the exercise of the life of Christ, but of on nature in this world; and this is precisely what has no place at the resurrecting of the just.

The Lord speaks here of a special resurrection, in which the unjust have no part. Not that these too do not come forth from their graves; for indeed they must rise for judgment. But our text sneaks of the resurrection of life in which none can share but those who are just by the grace of God — justified, no donut, hut also just — those that practiced the good things, in contrast with those that did the evil. Other Scriptures prove that these two resurrections differ in time as decidedly as in character; and the great New Testament prophecy determines that more than a thousand years separate the one from the other, though the effects for each never pass away. It is manifest also that only the resurrection of the just admits of recompense. For the unjust there can be but righteous retribution.370

It was an unwonted sound to man. The evidently Divine grace of the Lord acted on the spirit of one of those who were lying at table with Him, who, hearing that which was far more suitable to heaven than ever was as yet seen carried out on earth, said “Blessed [is] he who shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.”371 Our Lord then proves that this is a great mistake as far as concerns man’s readiness to answer the grace of God. Hence He puts the case in the following parable: “A certain man372 made a great supper and invited many.” There was no lack of condescension and goodness to win man on God’s part. His heart went out to any. He invited according to His own largeness of mercy and grace. “And he sent his bondman at the hour of supper to say to those who were invited, Come, for already all things are ready.” This Gospel, like Paul’s epistles, shows that God even in His grace does not forsake, in the first instance, prescribed order. So Paul, when he went to any place, went first to the synagogue; and in explaining the Gospel in the epistle to the Romans, says, “To the Jew first, and also to the Gentile.”

Though God has no respect of persons, He nevertheless does heed the ways that He has Himself established. This makes so much the less excusable the lack of faith on the part of the Jew. God never fails — man always Favored man only makes the greater show of his own unbelief. Here the message to them that were bidden was, “Come, for already all things are ready.” Such is the invitation of grace. The law makes man the prominent and responsible agent; it is man that is to do this, and, yet more, man that must not do that. Man therein is commanded to love God with all his heart, and with all his soul, and with all his strength, and with all his mind. But the commandment just as it is, is wholly unavailing, because in this case man is a sinner and loveless. No law ever produced or, called out love. It may demand but cannot create love; it is not within the nature or lower of law to do so. God knew this perfectly; and in the gospel He becomes Himself the Great Agent. It is He that loves, and who gives according to the strength of that love in sending His only begotten Son with eternal life in Him — yea, also to die in expiation for sin. Law demonstrated that man, though responsible, had no power to perform. He was incapable of doing God’s will because of sin; but his pride was such that he did not, would not, feel his own incapability, or its cause. Were he willing to confess it, God would have shown him grace. But man felt no need of grace any more than his own guilt and powerlessness to meet law. So he slights the call to come, though all things are now ready.

“And all” (says the Lord Jesus) “without exception began to excuse themselves.” No doubt these were the Jews — the persons who were bidden. “The first said unto him, I have bought land and I must go out and see it; I pray thee hold me for excused. And another said, I have bought five yoke of oxen, and I go to prove them; I pray thee hold me for excused.” Not that these things were in. themselves wrong; they are the ordinary duties of men. It is not a person who is too drunk to come, or one living in misery in consequence of his grossness, like the prodigal son; but these might be decent, respectable men. They were engrossed in their own things, they had no time for the supper of grace. God invited them, having prepared all things for them; but they were each so preoccupied that none had heart or care for God’s invitation. Is not this a, true picture of the condition of man — yea, of man who has the Bible, of Christendom no less than Judea? It is an unbelieving excuse founded on alleged duties, certainly on present material interests. But what blindness! Does eternity raise no questions? Not to speak of judgment and its awful issues, has heaven no interest in man’s eyes? If Christ or God be nothing, is it nothing to be lost or to be saved?

These are evidently serious questions, but man goes off without the moral courage to seek an answer from God. Here those bidden despised His mercy and grace, as they felt no need of it for their own souls. They lived only for the present. They blotted out all that is really admirable in man according to God’s grace. They were living only for nature in its lowest wants the providing what is necessary for fool or for pleasure. The commonest creature of God, a bird or a fly, does as much; the meanest insect not only provides food, but also enjoys itself. Does boastful man by sin degrade himself to be in profession no better than a butterfly; in practice far worse? “Another said, I have married a wife, and on this account I cannot come.”, He did not even say, “I pray thee hold me for excused.” His wife was an excellent reason in his eyes for refusing God’s invitation.373 It was a question of a family in this world, not of God hereafter. It is clear that the real root of all unbelief is the absence of sense of sin, and no glory given to God. There is no sense of what God is, either in His claims or in His grace.

Again, “The bondman came up and brought back word of these things to his lord. Then the master of the house in anger said to his bondman, Go out quickly into the streets and lanes of the city, and bring here the poor and crippled, and blind, and lame.”374 Such is the urgent message of grace, when the proud refuse and God presses it on the most despised. Still we have before us the streets and lanes of the city. I think the Lord had Jerusalem as yet in view, though not put forward distinctly. At any rate, it was that which was orderly and settled in the world: only the despised and the wretched are now the express objects of the invitation. The busy great had slighted it; the lawyers and scribes, the teacher; and Pharisees, were indifferent if not opposed. Henceforth it became a question of publicans and sinners, or anybody that was willing, however wretched. “And the bondman said, Sir, it is done as thou hast commanded, and there is still room.” Then comes a third message. “The lord said to the bondman, Go out into the ways and fences, and compel to come in, that my house may be filled.” Thus we have the clear progress of the Gospel among the Gentiles; and this too with the strong earnestness of Divine mercy.373 “For I say unto you, that not one of those men who were invited” (none of those who had the promises, but trifled with them when they were accomplished) “shall taste of my supper.”

Thus the whole case is brought before us, but with remarkable differences from the view given in Math 22. There it is much more dispensational. Hence it is “the kingdom of heaven is like unto a certain king which made a marriage for his son.” All savors of this: the king, the king’s son, the marriage feast — not merely a feast, and again the messages and his action attest it. The first mission there represents the call during Christ’s ministry on earth; the second was when the failings were killed — that is, the work was done. This is followed by the judgment that fell upon those who despised the Gospel message and maltreated the servants. “The king was worth and sent forth his armies and destroyed those murderers and burned up their cities.” There is not a word about this in Luke. It was well that it should be brought forward in the Gospel that was intended for the warning as well as the winning of the Jew. And there only was it written. The destruction of Jerusalem befell the Jews because of their rejection or Christ and of the Holy Ghost in the preaching of the apostles finally. Again, it is only in Matthew that we have the case of the man who was present without a wedding garment, setting forth the advantage that an unbelieving man would take of the Gospel in Christendom, where we have the corruption of those bear the name of the Lord, and their presumptuous pretension to be Christians without the slightest reality, without a real putting on of Christ. Need I say how common that is in Christendom? All this is left out in Luke, who confines him, silt to the moral dealings of God.

On the Lord’s departure great multitudes go with Him, to whom He turns with the words, “If any man come to me, and shall not hate377 his own father, and mother, and wife and children, and brothers and sisters; yea and his own life too, he cannot be my disciple.” They might have thought that at any rate they would treat the Lord better than His message — so little does man know of himself. The Lord would not permit that the multitude then following Him should flatter themselves that they at least were willing to partake of the supper, that they were incapable of treating God with the contempt described in the parable. So the Lord tells them what following Himself involves. The disciple must follow Christ so simply and decidedly that it would seem to other eyes a complete neglect of natural ties, and an indifference to the nearest and strongest claims of kin. Not that the Lord calls for want of affection; but so it might and must look to those who are left behind in His name. The attractive tower of grace must be greater than all natural fetters, or any other claims of whatsoever kind, over him who would be His disciple. And more than this: it is a question of carrying one’s cross and going after Him. “Whoever doth not carry his cross, and come after me, cannot be my disciple.” It is not enough to come to Him at first, hut we must follow Him day by day. Whoever does not this cannot be His disciple. Thus in verse 26 we see the forsaking of all for Christ, and in verse 27. the following Christ with pain and suffering and going on in it.377a

Again, the Lord does not hide the difficulties of the way, but sets them out in two comparisons. The first is of a man intending to build a tower, who had not the wisdom to count the cost before beginning. So it would be with souls now. Undoubtedly it is a great thing to follow Jesus to heaven, but then, it costs something in this world.378 It is not all joy; but it is well and wise to look at the other side also. Then the Lord gives a further comparison. It is like a king going to war with one who has twice as many forces. Unless I am well backed up, it is impossible for me to resist him who comes against me with twice my array; much less can I make head against him. The inevitable consequence of not having God for us is, that when the enemy is a great way off, we have to send an ambassage and desire conditions of peace. But is it not peace with Satan, and everlasting ruin? “Thus, then, every one of you who forsaketh not all his own possessions cannot be my disciple.” A man should be prepared for the worst that man and Satan can do. It is always true, though not always apparent; but Scripture cannot be broken, and in the course of a disciple’s experience a time comes when he is thus tried one way or another. It is well therefore to look all thoroughly in the face; but then to refuse Jesus and His call to follow, not to be His disciple is to be lost forever379.

The Lord closes all with another familiar allusion of everyday life. “Salt [then] is good; but if the salt also has become savorless, wherewith shall it be seasoned?”379a There is shown the danger of what begins well turning out ill. What is there in the world so useless as salt when it has lost the one property for which it is valued? “It is proper neither for land, nor for dung; it is cast out.” It is worse than useless for any other purpose. So with the disciple who ceases to be Christ’s disciple. He is not suited for the world’s purposes, and he has forsaken God’s. He has too much light or knowledge for entering into the vanities and sins of the world, and he has no enjoyment of grace and truth to keep him in the path of Christ. The expression “men cast it out “is perhaps too precise, It has a virtually indefinite meaning: “they cast it out” — i.e., it is cast out, without saying by whom. Savorless salt becomes an object of contempt and judgment. “He that hath ears to hear let him hear”: how solemn the call to conscience!

Endnotes

368 Verse 5.― “Ass.” Wellhausen pronounces as “impossible” Elie reading “son” of W. H. (Revv., marg.), followed by Blass and Weiss. Although the diplomatic evidence is in its favor, Mill supposed that υἰός was developed from ds, “pig,” through this being regarded as an abbreviation of it, or that ὔς was corrupted into ὄις “sheep”; and so Lachmann, followed by Dr. Bendel Harris (Expositor, May, 1907, and “Side-Lights,” p. 204ff)

369 Verse 13.―Cf. Tobit 2:2 and 4:7, 16.

370 Verse 14.― “The resurrection of the just.” Cf., in particular, 1 Thess. 14:16f. In Matt. 25:31ff. there is no question of resurrection, because there we meet with a judgment of nations, living persons to whom the “Gospel of the Kingdom” is specially addressed at the “end of the age” Matt. 24:14 and Rev. 14:6).

Resurrection of just and unjust alike is clearly affirmed in John 5:29 and Acts 24:15, without distinguishing such resurrections in point of time. But the present passage is co-ordinate with 20:35f. below, which speaks of an ἀνάστασις ἐκ ωεκρῶν: for this the Apostle Paul uses the yet stronger expressionἐξανάστασις ἐκ ν. (Phil. 3:11). As to coincidence of the two, see B. W. Newton, “Aids to Prophetic Inquiry,” p. 297. The final stage in New Testament terminology is reached in the first Johannine “first resurrection” (Rev. 20:5f.). De Wette and Olshausen rightly identify the Lucan and Johannine terminology. This identification goes back to Tremens, who in his treatise “Against Heresies” (V., chapter 35) says that the Apocalypse speaks of a “resurrection of the just,” one of the things, he adds, affirmed by the disciples of John.

The phrase “rapture of the Church,” sometimes employed is better avoided, as not being Biblical. All believers “asleep in Jesus” and those alive at his Parousia will participate in the first resurrection (1 Thess. 4:14, 1 Cor. 15:23). We know that the Apostle Paul’s desire as to the manner of his departure (Phil. 3:11) was granted. Whether, however, resurrection from among the dead will be in every case for recompense in the sense of reward is another question. But the Lord has said of all such that “they cannot die any more” (20:36 below).

The common idea of the ancient Pharisees, seemingly derived from passages like Ps. 1:5 (see Heb., and cf. note 108 on John), was that resurrection would be a peculiar privilege of the righteous (Bousset, “The Religion of Judaism in New Testament Times,” p. 356 ff.). Wellhausen, accordingly, whose mind is steeped in Semitic lore, regards our Lord’s words here as confirming that limitation. In 20:35, however, where it is a question of being deemed worthy to attain, the resurrection spoken of is one that should be from among the dead; i.e., some dead are to be left behind, to be dealt with later on. (Cf. Simcox on Rev. 20:4.) Such is the explanation of Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel—whom Cromwell befriended—in his “Conciliator,” ii., p. 443f., who says that the unrighteous will not rise at the same time as the righteous.

The medieval rabbinical scholar Maimonides held that resurrection did not extend to the body. Such is the view of some Jews of the present day (M. Joseph, p. 144), also of some “Christians,” critics in particular, who have their representatives in this country. As to this, see note on Resurrection, at chapter 24.

371 Verse 15.― “Blessed,” etc.: cf. Rev. 19:9. For “eat bread,” etc., see notes on 22:16, 30, and of John 6. with note 126f. there.

372 Verse 16f.―On the fact that the Holy Spirit does not confine Himself to the actual words used by the Lord (see Exposition of Mark, p. 10f.), Luke giving a “certain man,” Matthew speaking of the “king,” etc., and the reason for the differences in this connection, cf. “Lectures on Matthew,” p. 453f.

See sermon by Bishop Mcllvaine, Spurgeon’s Sermons, 578 and 1354, and an address by D. L. Moody.

373 Verse 20.― “Married a wife.” With regard to this, contrast Deut. 24:5 with 1 Cor. 7:29.

See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 2122.

374 Verse 21.―This is the second part of verse 8: see A. R. Habershon, chapter on Double Parables.

375 Verse 22 f.―Bengel: “Grace no less than Nature abhors a vacuum.” See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 227.

376 Verse 25.―This third narrative of events of the last journey to Jerusalem (see notes 244, 280) takes us back to just before the Transfiguration (chapter 9.), It continues to 20:18.

For surrender of the World, even of life, cf. John 12:24-26.

377 Verse 26f.―It is the first of our Gospels, observe, that softens the language here (“hate”). The word μισεῖν, means to renounce the claims or influence of the person or thing concerned (Hahn). Paley, on John 15:23, “to be indifferent to.” Cf. Matt. 10:37, “He that loveth father or mother more than Me.”

377a “Thorough-going Christians,” says Maclaren, “may be disliked, but they are respected: half-and-half ones get and merit the sarcasms of the world” (B.C. E., p. 177).

The reader should note Luke’s specification of “wife” (cf. 18:29), “brothers” and “sisters.”

“His own life”: cf. Matt. 8:34, and see also note on 9:23.

There is a sermon from this place by Venn (vol. ii.).

378 Verses 28-32.―See sermon by Trench in Westminster Series, and one of Newman’s in Allenson’s Selected Series, No. XI.

For “ask for terms of peace” (verse 32), see Ps. 122:6 in the LXX., and cf. 19:42 here.

379 Verse 33.―Francis de Sales: “We must live in this world as if the soul was already in heaven and the body mouldering in the grave” (quoted by Spence). Cf. note 352.

Julian the Apostate appealed to this passage when robbing the Church of Edessa (Robertson; “Church History,” i., p. 343).

Dr. Arnold has a sermon from this verse (op. cit., p. 88).

Mackintosh: “He does not admit the possible existence of second-rate Christians” (“Christian Ethics,” p. 44).

379a Verse 34. — See sermon of Dean Alford (vol. iii.).

Luke 15

IN the latter part of chapter 14. we saw the Lord’s terms, if I may so say, to the multitude that was following Him. There He laid down that, except a man came to Him hating father and mother, wife and children, brothers and sisters, and even his own life, he could not by His disciple. “And whosoever doth not bear his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple.” Thus first He insists on a thorough break with nature, and next that this shall continue. Hence in His illustrations He sets forth the need of purpose and the danger of undertaking such a business. A man is sure, otherwise, to have the work undone. And how would it fare if a king with double your forces should come against you? The moral of dl this is that man is insufficient, and that God alone can enable a man to quit the world for Christ and to keep following after Christ. The worst of all is to renounce Him after bearing such a name — salt that has lost its savor.

Nevertheless His words drew to Him the outcast and degraded, too wretched not to feel and own their need. The tax-gatherers and sinners, instead of bearing a repulse, were coming near, immensely attracted, to hear what they felt to be the truth, and what conscience bowed to, though they had never heard it before. They heard, indeed, that which they could not but perceive leveled the pretensions of proud men. For the Pharisees and scribes had no notion of following Jesus any more than of coming to Him. They deified self in the name of God. It was their own tradition they valued; and if they seemed to make much of the law, it was not because it was of God, but because it was given to their fathers and identified with their system. Their religion was a settled setting up of self — this was their idol. Hence they murmured at the grace of Christ toward the wretched.

For the ways of Christ, like His doctrine, leveled all and showed, recording to the subsequent language of St. Paul, that there is no difference. No doubt the man who is in quest of his own passions and pleasures will neither go to Christ nor follow after Him: still less will he who has got a religion of his own on which he plumes himself. Grace goes down to the common level of ruin that sin has already made. It addresses man according to the truth; and the truth is that all is lost. And where is the sense of talking of differences if people are lost? How blind to be classifying among those who are cast into perdition! To be there at all is the awful thing — not the shades of distinction in ways or character that may be found among those who are there. The tremendous fact is that, having all equally sinned against God and lost heaven, they are all equally consigned to hell.

But there is that also in the sayings of the Pharisees and scribes which shows that they, too, felt the point of the truth, and what they resented most was grace. For they murmured saying, “This [man] received sinners380a and eateth with them.” Indeed He does; it is His boast. It is the going out of Divine love to receive sinners. And it was His grace as a man that deigned to eat with them. Had He not done so, with whom could He have eaten at all? But in truth, if He deigned to eat with men, He did not choose His company. He had come down and been manifested in the flesh expressly to manifest the grace of God; and, if so, He received sinners and ate with them.

The Lord answers in a parable — indeed, in three. But the first of them is that which we will look at now. He puts the case of a man — of themselves — having a hundred sheep. “If he loses one of them, doth he not leave the ninety and nine in the wilderness381 and go after that which is lost until he find it?” He appeals to them: not one of them but would go after his lost sheep and seek to recover it. With us, indeed. it is not a question here of our going in quest of Christ, but of the man Christ Jesus, the good Shepherd, going after us — that which was lost. Supposing man has ninety-nine that did not so urgently call on his energetic efforts, he can leave the sheep that abide in comparative safety. The one that is in. danger is that which draws out his love until he finds it. “And having found382 it, he layeth it upon his own shoulders rejoicing.” It is evidently the work of the Lord Jesus that is set forth here. Who can fail to recognize in it the mighty manifestation of Divine love which characterized Jesus? It was He Who came, He Who undertook the labor; it was His to endure the suffering unto death, even the death of the cross; it was He Who found and saves the lost sheep; it is He Who lays it on His shoulders rejoicing. Whose joy can be compared with His? No doubt the sheep does reap the benefit; yet assuredly it was not the sheep that sought the Shepherd, but the Shepherd the sheep. It was not the sheep that clambered on His shoulders, but He that laid it there with His own hand. And who shall pluck it thence? It was all, all His Work. It was the sheep that strayed; and, the longer it was left to itself, the farther it got away from the Shepherd. It was the work of the Lord Jesus, then, both to seek and to save.

But further, He has His joy in it, though it goes forth far beyond the object of His care. “And having come to the house, he calleth together the friends and the neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.” It is altogether to forget the fullness of love that there is in God and in Christ Jesus our Lord, to suppose that it is merely a question of the sinner’s need to be saved or his joy when he is. There is a far deeper joy; and this is the foundation of all proper worship. In fact, our joy is not the mere sense of our own personal deliverance, but our appreciation of His delight in delivering us, His joy in our salvation. This is communion, and there can be no worship in the Spirit without it. And such seems to be the bearing of what is figuratively set forth in the parable as describe at the close. “He calleth together the friends and neighbors, saying unto them, Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep.”

Thus the heart of man that feels the comfort of recovering what belongs to him could apprehend in some measure how God has joy in saving the lost. At any rate, Christ appeals to the one to vindicate the other. “I say unto you, that thus there shall be joy in heaven for one repenting sinner,382a [more] than over ninety and nine righteous, such as have no need of repentance.” But man as such does not rejoice when his fellow turns in sorrow and self-judgment to God. This is not the feeling of the earth where sin and selfishness reign; but assuredly it is the mind of heaven. What joy there is over the repenting sinner! Angels sang at the good news of grace to Israel and to man above all. And so do they rejoice still, as we may fairly gather from the later words of our Lord Jesus. Here it is more general. The manifold wisdom of God in the Church is the continual object and witness to the principalities and, powers in heavenly places; the Lord here gives us the assurance that a repentant sinner gives the keynote of joy on high. There are no murmurers there; it is universal delight in love. Is it so with us? Yet we have a new nature not less but more capable of appreciating the joy of grace, not to seek of ourselves, knowing the need of a sinner and the mercy of God’s deliverance in Christ as no angel can.

Remark in the last place that it is joy “for one repenting sinner,” not exactly over his salvation. It is joy over a soul brought to confess its sin and judge itself and vindicate God. We are apt to be more occupied. with the deliverance from imminent danger. In short, we are apt to feel for the human side far more than we enter into God’s moral glory or His grace. The joy in heaven is over the repenting sinner.

To my mind it is impossible to avoid the conviction that these parables have a root in God Himself as well as a reference to His operations on the heart of man. As we saw that the first is a most clear prefiguration of Christ’s work (the Shepherd being the well-known figure that He Himself adopted to set forth His interest and His grace for those that need Him), so also in the last parable there cannot be a question that the father sets forth God Himself in the relationship that He establishes by grace with the returning prodigal. There is also another sense of that relationship with the elder son, whose self-righteousness was so much the more glaring because of his want of respect and love for such a father, though known, no doubt, on a lower ground.

But if this be so, how can we avoid the conviction that the intermediate parable has a similar connection and that the woman has a propriety and a peculiar fitness, just as much as the shepherd and the father? If, therefore, the shepherd represents the work of the Son of God come as Son of man to seek and to save that which was lost, and if the father shows the relationship in which God reveals Himself to him who is brought back to Him and who learns His love within the house, we cannot doubt that the woman must set forth the ways of God working by His Spirit.383 We know that the Spirit now particularly deigns, not only to act in man, but also in the Church, and this may account for the fact of the figure of the woman, a woman being habitually used to set forth the Church of God. However this may be, that in some form or another under the woman is set forth the activity of the Spirit of God cannot be questioned. So we shall find that all the details of the parable fit in with this view.

“Or, what woman having ten drachmas, if she lose one drachma,384 doth not light a lamp and sweep the house and seek carefully till she find it?” Now we find the lost creature is represented, not by a sheep, which, if it has life of a certain sort, has it only to go astray; not by a man, who is at last, after having perverted all that God gave him, brought into intelligent enjoyment of God; but in this parable the lost piece of money is an inanimate thing, and this is most fitted to express what a lost sinner is in the mind of the Spirit of God. He not only slipped aside, though capable of being the object of a new action by grace outside self to find him; but meanwhile the soul is but a dead thing spiritually, with no more power to return than the missing piece of silver. The propriety, therefore, of this coin being used to represent the sinner where there is evidently not the slightest power to go back to God, where it is utterly helpless, where only the Holy Ghost can avail, is manifest. But the woman does not so easily reconcile herself to the loss of her piece of silver. She lights a lamp, sweeps the house, and seeks diligently till she finds it. The lamp clearly sets forth the testimony of the Word of God; and this it is particularly in the use of the Spirit of God. The Lord Jesus Himself and God as such are thus spoken of. But it is the Spirit alone who, as we know, brings it home to the heart in conscience or peace, when we are brought to God. The Spirit has the character of agency very peculiarly, and in this agency employs the word. The lamp, therefore, is said here to be lit. But that is not all. The woman sweeps the house and searches diligently till she finds it. There is painstaking love, the removal of obstacles, minute working and searching. Do we not know that this is pre-eminently the part God’s Spirit is wont to take? Do we not remember when truth was powerless to reach us? The Lord Jesus is rather the suffering Saviour; His mighty work assumes that form. The Holy Spirit of God is the active agent in the soul. The Father freely gave according to His infinite love and counsels. Having in Himself the deep enjoyment of love, He would bring others, in spite of their sins, to be righteously without them, in order to make themselves happy in the enjoyment of Himself. But the Spirit of God, just as beautifully, engages Himself in activity of effort and ceaseless painstaking, till the last thing is found.

“And having found it, she calleth together the friends and neighbors, saying, rejoice with me, for I have found the drachma which I had lost.” In every case, whether it be the Son, or the Father, or the Holy Ghost, there is communion. We know that our communion is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ; but it cannot be less familiar to the believer that there is the communion of the Holy Ghost. This is what appears to be set forth here at the close of the second parable: the spreading of universal joy among those who enter into the mind of God. “She calleth together the friends and neighbors, saying, rejoice with me.” Thus on all sides is real delight, every person of the Godhead having His own appropriate place and part in the wonderful work of redemption, but, further, deep Divine joy in the result of redemption. “Thus I say unto you, There is joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner,” It, is not here generally in heaven, but joy in the presence of the angels of God. They enter into it. They may not have the same immediate concern in it, but it is in their presence; and they delight in it ungrudgingly and unjealously without being the parties to derive direct or personal results from it. Their joy is in what God delights in, and hence in what He is to the creatures of God. What a new scene of enjoyment, too — joy among those who had been lost to God, and enemies to God! “There is joy before the angels of God for one repenting sinner.”

We have seen the Lord Jesus in His work set forth by the shepherd, and the more hidden but at the same time the active, painstaking operation of the Spirit of God, no less necessary in order to bring home the work to men in both giving the light to see and also searching them out. Now we have in the third parable the effect produced; for the work is not merely conversion or pardon, and therefore nothing that is done in this way would suffice unless there was the full bringing of the soul to God and also into fellowship with Him, the new and intimate relationship of a son by grace. This is what the third parable accordingly set forth. And hence it is no longer a sheep or a piece of money, but a man. It is there that we find intelligence and conscience, and so much the more guilt. Such is man’s case. The first Adam had a certain relationship to God. When he was formed out of the dust, God dealt with him in tender mercy and gave him special advantages in Eden, privileges of every suited sort. But man fell front God, as the prodigal here left his father’s house.

In a general way this is represented by a certain man who had two sons. “And the younger of them said to the father, Father, give to me the share of the property that falleth [to me]. And he divided unto them his living.” There was the point of departure, the first and main step of evil. There is scarce anything in which men are apt more to mistake than in what the true nature of sin consists. They measure sin by themselves instead of by God. Now the desire to have one’s own way at a distance from God is positive sin and the root of all other sin. Sin against man is sure to follow; but sin against God is the mainspring. What more evident denial of Him in works than to prefer one’s own will to His?

The younger son then (which makes the case the more glaring) said to his parent, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” He wished to go away from his father. Man would be at a distance from God, and this in order to be the more at ease to do what he likes. “And he divided unto them his living.” Man is tried — he is responsible; but, in fact, he is not hindered from having his way, God only keeping the upper hand for the accomplishment of His own gracious purposes. Still, as far as appearances go, God allows a man to do what he pleases. This alone will tell what sin means, what the heart seeks, what man is with all his pretensions, and the worse the more he pretends.

“And after not many days the younger son gathering all together went away into a country a long way off; and there dissipated his property, living in debauchery.” There was eagerness to get away from his father. It was, as far as his will was concerned, a complete abandoning of his father to do his own pleasure. He wished to be so thoroughly at a distance as to act according to his own heart without restraint. Thee, in a far country, he wastes his substance with riotous living. It is the picture of a man, left to himself, doing his own will in this world, with its ruinous, consequences for the next as well as this. “But when he had spent all, there arose a violent famine throughout that country, and he began to be in want.” Such, again, is the picture, not only of the active course of sin but of its bitter issues. Sin indulged in brings misery and want. There is a void that nothing can satisfy, and the selfish waste of all means only makes this to be more felt in the end.

So, in the extremity of distress, “he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country; and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.” Now we find the sinner’s degradation; for love is not there, but self is. The citizen does not treat him as a fellow-citizen, but as a slave. There is no slavery so deep or degrading as that of our own lusts. He is treated accordingly; and what must this sound to a Jewish ear? He is sent into the fields to feed swine. “And he longed to fill his, belly with the husks386 which the swine were eating; and no one gave unto him,” He is reduced to the lowest degree of want and wretchedness; yet no man gives to him. God is thy giver, man grudgingly pays his debts, if he pays them: never to God, only half-heartedly to man. But no man gives so, the prodigal found.

Now we begin the work of God’s goodness. He comes to himself, before he comes to God.387 “And coming to himself, he said, How many hired servants of my father’s have abundance of bread and I perish here by famine.” It is God giving him the conviction of his state. Hence his feeling is that even those who have the lowest place in his father’s house are well and even amply provided for compared with him.

His mind was made up. “I will rise up and go to my father, and I will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven388 and before thee; I am no longer worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.” The last words betray the usual legal state. It is one who conceives that God must act according to his condition. This grace never does. He had wronged his father, he had been guilty of folly, excess, and lewdness; and he could not conceive of his father doing more for him at best than putting him in the lowest place before him, if he received him at all. He felt that he deserved humiliation. Had he judged more justly, he would have gathered that he deserved much worse; that the more favored he was, seeing that he was so guilty, he must be put away — net merely go away, but be put into outer darkness where should be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.

But although there was this wrong reasoning, at bottom there was at least a real sense, however feeble, of his sin, and, what was more and better, a real sense of love in God the Father. If he could only see Him, hear Him, be with Him! He rises accordingly and comes to his father, “but while he was yet a long way off, his father saw him, and was moved with compassion, and ran, and fell upon his neck and covered him with kisses.”

It is not the son who runs; but, even though a long way off, the father saw him. It was the father ran and fell on his neck and kissed him. The son would not have dared to have done so, still less would he have expected his `father to do so. But grace always surprises the thoughts of men, and therefore reason can never find it out, but rather denies and opposes and enfeebles it, qualifying it, putting clogs and fetters on it, which only dishonor God, and do not alter the truth, but most surely injure the man. The father, then ran389 and fell on his neck and kissed him. Not a word about his wicked ways! and yet the father it was who had wrought secretly, producing the conviction of his own evil and the yearning after his own presence.

Further, it was the father who deepened all that was of himself in his own soul immensely, now that the prodigal was come to him. It is not true, therefore, that by not putting forward the evil in this case our Lord implied that the father was indifferent to the evil, or that the prodigal son was not to feel his outbreaks or his fleshly nature.389a Surely it should be so much the more, because it was allowed him to judge himself and the past in the light of unspeakable grace. “And the son said unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven and before thee: I am no more worthy to be called thy son,” He cannot say more. It was impossible in the presence of the father to say “Make me as one of thy hired servants.”/390 It was well, as far as it went, to acknowledge that he was no more worthy to be called his son. It was unqualifiedly right to say, “I have sinned against heaven and before thee”; but it would have been still better if he had said not a word about anything of which he could be worthy or unworthy. The sad truth was, that he was worthy of nothing but bonds or death. He deserve to be banished forever—to be driven out from the presence of his father.

Grace, however, does not give according to what man deserves, hut according to Christ. Grace is the outflow of love that is in God, which He feels even towards His enemies. For this reason He sent His Son, and He acts Himself. All must now be of the very best, because it must be in accordance with the grace of God and the gift of Christ. “Bring out the best robe, and clothe him in [it], and put a ring on his. hand, and sandals on his feet,391 and bring the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and make merry.” The younger son had never worn the best robe before; the elder son never did wear the best robe at all. The best robe was kept for the display of grace.

The two sons, therefore (of course, the prodigal before his return), do not represent children of God in the sense of grace, but such as have merely the place of sons of God by nature. Thus Adam is said to be so (Luke 3). All men are spoken of similarly in that sense — even the heathen in Acts 17:28, as being endowed with a reasonable soul as men, and as having direct personal responsibility to God in presence of His favors and mercy. It is also doctrinally affirmed in “one God and Father of all” (Eph. 4:6).

But then, sin has completely separated man from God, as we have seen in this very parable. Grace brings into the nearer and better relationship of “sons of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” The prodigal only enters this state when he at length comes back to his father, confessing his sins and casting himself upon Divine grace.399a The best robe, the ring on his hand, the shoes on his feet, the fatted calf, all these belong, and belong solely, to the relationship of grace, to him who is born of God by believing in the name of Jesus. It is God magnifying Himself to the lost. “For this my son was dead,392 and has come to life, — was lost, and has been found. And they began to be merry.”

It is important to note this common joy. It is not only that there is personal blessing for the heart that is brought back to God, but there is the joy of communion, which takes its rise in and its strength from God, whose joy in love is as much deeper than, ours as He above us. Nor is it now w only in heaven as we saw before, but there is the effect produced on earth, Loth individually and also in other hearts; and the great power of it all is, after all, communion with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, which the Holy Ghost sheds abroad — His love shed abroad in the heart, no doubt, but issuing also in communion with one another. “They began to be merry.”

But here we have a further picture.393 “And his elder son was in the field; and as, coming up, he drew nigh to the house, he heard music and dancing.” The joy of true Christian worship, of living fellowship in, grace, is unintelligible to the natural heart. This was what struck repugnantly the ears of the elder son. “And having called one of the servants, he inquired what these things might be.” He could have understood debt, he could have urged right, he could see and pronounce on failure; but he did not scruple to judge God Himself, as we shall see. The servant “said unto him, Thy brother is come, and thy father hath killed the fatted calf, because he hath received him safe and well.” But he became angry, and would not go in. “And his father went out and besought394 him.” His heart was outside the home of his father, nor did he breathe the spirit of the love that was being shown to the returned prodigal. He was a stranger to grace, so he had no part in all this joy. He was pursuing his own things. No doubt he was active and intelligent “in the field,” in the world, away from the scene of Divine mercy and spiritual joy.

When, therefore, the servant told him that his brother had come, and of the way the father had received him, he showed his aversion on the spot, and yet more the more he heard what made the others happy. Grace was to him most irksome and even hateful. Doubtless he took the ground of righteousness, though he had none — plenty of talk and theory, but nothing real. His father comes out in the fullness of love and entreats him. “And he, answering, said to his father,” with that kind of pious, or rather impious, indignation against Divine love which belongs to and does not shock the natural mind, “Behold, these many years I serve thee [hollow and wretched service!]395 and never have I transgressed a commandment of thine [the unhappy sinner had no sense of sin!] and to me thou hast never given a kid, that I might make merry with my friends.” Thus he was bold enough to judge the father as the self-righteous shrinks not from judging God. To the thought of the unbeliever He is hard and exacting. There is utter blindness as to all the favors of God, total insensibility of heart as well as conscience. “But when this thy son, who has devoured thy living with harlots, is come, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” There is manifest dislike of grace and its ways. He does not call the prodigal his brother,395a but tauntingly “thy son.” And though it was what the father had given, he calls it “thy living,” in every case putting the worst aspect forward.

Truly the patience of God is as wondrous as His love. Hence the father perseveres: “But he said unto him, Child [for nothing can exceed the tender mercy of the father, even to the unthankful and the evil, the ungrateful and rebellious son],396 thou art ever with me, and all that is mine is thine.” It was just the place of the Jew under the law. But it is the same position that every unconverted man in Christendom takes who is endeavoring to walk after the flesh religiously. It is just so that the natural man in these lands thinks and speaks. And no doubt the Jews had the chief place, and indeed the only place, that God claimed in this earth. All other countries God had given to the children of men, but His land He had reserved for Israel. He had brought them to Himself through redemption of an outward sort and put them under law. The same principle is true of any self-righteous man who is in his way endeavoring to be good and serve God, but insensible to the truth that it is mercy that he wants and delivering grace. “It was right to make merry and rejoice.” Wonderful thought! God Himself delighting in the joy of grace and putting Himself in it along with others. “Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.”

Notice again, “Because this thy brother was dead and has come to life again, and was lost and has been found.” “Thy brother” is to be observed. God is not in any way disposed to allow the denial of proper relationship. Hence one of the sins that will draw out the last judgments of the Jews is not merely their base ingratitude toward God, but also their hatred of the grace He is showing to the poor Gentiles in their wretchedness and sin. This we find strongly put by the Apostle Paul: “Forbidding us to speak to the Gentiles that they might be saved, to fill up their sins alway: for the wrath is come upon them to the uttermost” (1 Thess. 2:16). They cannot endure that others, dogs of the Gentiles, should hear the Gospel of grace, which their pride of law induced them to despise forthemselves.397

Endnotes

380 If the section containing chapters 15-17:10 be chronological, it synchronizes with John 11:54.

380a Verse 2.― “Receiveth sinners”: cf. John 6:17, and the well-known hymn, “Sinners Jesus will receive,” etc. (“Sacred Songs and Solos”).

The late Professor Hermann Cremer of Greifswald never tired in lecture room or pulpit of saying that the forgiveness of sins is the Alpha and Omega of Christianity (Boehmet, p. 239).

381 Verse 4.― “In the wilderness;” Matt., “on the mountains”: see Harnack, “Sayings,” p. 92, and cf. Weiss, “Sources of the Synoptic Tradition.” p. 24.7.

Dr. Alexander Maclaren, in his second volume of “Expositions,” has made effective use of this as an answer to sceptics’ query as to the great GOD concerning Himself with this microcosm (p. 491f.).

382 Verse 5.― “Having found”; Matt., “if it should come to pass that he find.” Jülicher (followed by Loisy, “Synoptic Studies,” p. 166) treats Luke’s variation as capricious. The simple explanation is, that his record regards the matter from the standpoint of Grace, whilst Matthew’s views it from that of Responsibility. Observe also the different connection in which the parable is introduced by Luke.

See Spurgeon’s Sermons, 1801 and 2065. Luther also preached on the passage, as did H. Melvill.

Bossuet preached from verse 7 (vol. ix.); so also Toplady and Robert Hall.

382a “One repenting sinner.” Warner: “The great goal of Christian endeavor is the individual unsaved life” (p. 357).

383 Verse 8.― “Woman.” The Expositor, as Stier and Alford, has followed Bengel in treating the woman as symbol of the Holy Spirit, the Hebrew word for which is feminine. Maclaren, however, on this and verse 4, observes that “the owner should be the seeker... Jesus” (B. C. E., p. 189). The “friends and neighbors” (verses 5, 9) seems to bear this out.

384 “Drachma,” otherwise called “denarius,” of the value of 81d. As to this picture, see Schor, p. 81.

385 Marcian discarded the Parable of the Prodigal Son; so-called, because of the consideration shown by the father to his elder son, the symbol of Judaism.

386 Verse 16.― “To fill.” American Bevy, “to have filled.” As to the “husks’” see Trench on the Parables, and Schor (loc. cit.).

387 Verse 17.― “Coming to himself.” Cf. Acts 12:11 of Simon Peter. Upon the question of sudden conversion, see Murray, “Christian Ethics,” p. 170

388 Verse 18.― “I will arise, etc.” Swete: “Repentance is the sinner’s return to the Father.... Faith, makes the return possible” (“Studies,” p. 178).

“Sinned, etc.” Cf. of course, Ps. 51.

“Heaven.” Wellhausen notes this as the only case in the Gospels where it is so used of GOD. He seems not to regard Matt. 5:34 as in point. Indeed, Zahn on Matthew will not allow that the terms are interchangeable. Cf. note 296. It is not to be supposed that our Lord countenanced mistaken reverence. “For the anonymous God... Christ substituted the Father” Mackintosh, “Christian Ethics,” p. 44.)

389 “Ran.” Aristotle had said that the “high-minded man (μεγαλόψυχος) will not be hasty... ought to move slowly” (“Ethics,” 4:3, 8). For the contrast, cf. Isa. 55:8f.

389a Verse 21ff. ― “The Father does not receive the son by reason of Christ’s death, but because He cannot help forgiving” (Parab. Discourses, ii., p. 365). In the same strain Bousset (“Jesus,” p. 101), whose is naturally welcomed by Montefiore (“Synoptic Gospels,” ii., p. 990), and J. Weiss ad loc. But the whole chapter is to bring out why, rather than how, men are saved (A. R. Habershou). As the English writer just referred to observes: “The scope of the fifteenth of Luke is exactly as large and comprehensive as the word sinner” (cf. note 153). The German writers fail to distinguish Grace from love, see the excellent note of Dr. Whyte, in his “Commentary (p. 46) on the Shorter Catechism” (Q. 20).

It would seem that even for such a writer as Foster, “it is for the personality of Jesus that faith cares” (p. 405). That goes a long way; because a man who believes that He is “the CHRIST” is born of God (1 John 5:1).

390 How unhappy is the result of neglect by textual critics (not by Weiss) of the internal evidence — in particular, the spiritual aspects of each question — may be seen from the foisting in, by W. H., of the further words that the prodigal had thought of using (verse 19) because of those curious documents א and “D,” and apparently because with these MSS. “B” here agrees. Augustine notes their absence, and the versions are almost solidly against the repetition.

391 Cf. Ex. 3: 5. Wellhausen: “Hand without ring were as slavish as foot without shoe.”

391a “Father ... son.” The idea of a personal, individual relation between God and man had already emerged in the apocryphal writings since the Exile: see Sirach, 23: 1, 4, 51:10; Wisdom, 2:13, 16, 18, 14:3; Tobit, 13:4 (Enoch 52:11).

For the “Fatherhood of God,” reference may be made to Fairbairn, “Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 350 (cf. p. 352); also to the chapter under this heading in Gore, “The Creed of the Christian”; but especially to Orr, “The Progress of Dogma,” in which the doctrine is carefully and wisely stated. Swete observes: “It is only in the sinner that repents that the paternal love of God finds free exercise” (“Studies,” p. 65). Both Pullan and Selbie remark that it was to the multitude, as well as disciples, that the Lord spoke as He did in Matt. 23:9. What about His adversaries? See John 8:42, comparing it with the first part of 11:23 above.

As to the father’s interruption of the son (Wesley), Farrar aptly refers to Isa. 65:24.

For the need of absolute change of nature, see Matt. 12:33, another Synoptic passage, compared with John 1:12f.

392 Verse 24. — “Dead.” This word has a Pauline ring about it, whatever Harnack and others may say about the Evangelist’s view of Forgiveness nut being in line with the Apostle’s doctrine of Redemption.

393 Verse 25 f. — Were Pfleiderer right in treating this as Luke’s own addition to the Lord’s words, we should miss in Christ’s mouth the lesson which He designed for the Pharisees.

394 Verse 28. — “Besought,” or “kept beseeching” (imperf.). Adeney “There is a Gospel even for the Pharisees.”

395 Verse 29. — “Serve.” The verb is δουλεύειν, “to serve as a slave.” Cf. Heb. 2:15, “all their lifetime subject to bondage.”

395a Verse 30. — Contrast John 20:17.

396 Verse 31. — “Child” (R.V. margin), τέκνον.

397 Spurgeon preached seven sermons on a topic so near to his heart. These are Nos. 43, 176, 588, 1000, 1189, 1204 and 2236. See also Maclaren, “Expositions,” vol. ii., pp. 59-74.

Massillon preached from verse 13.

This parable pre-eminently pictures to us, in Luke’s characteristic manner, what the heart of man is Godward, and what God’s heart is towards man.

Newman and Robertson have both misused it. The quondam Vicar of St. Mary’s, Oxford, in his sermon on Christian Repentance (vol. iii., No. 7) said: “We must begin religion with what looks like a form”; and he illustrated from the prodigal’s begging to be made one of his father’s servants! The famous Brighton preacher in his discourse on “The Word and the World” (vol. iv., No. 15) declared that “It is a matter of no small importance that a strict life ... should go before the peace which comes of faith in Christ.”

God will even own in His government, to their temporal advantage, the rectitude of all “whose life is in the right”: such men are to be felicitated. But to make that the foundation of peace with Him is just as fatal as Antinomianism itself, which is abhorrent to every bonâ-fide, real disciple of Christ (cf. note 457a). From either point of view Death, not life, is annexed to Law as between men’s souls and JESUS as Saviour: it will not harmonize with Grace — “the grace of life” (1 Pet. 3:7) — the glory (Eph. 1:6) of which is impaired by supposed precedent human merit. Gal. 6:7 ff. and many other like passages were addressed to those who had been “called in Christ’s grace” (1:6), and have to do with the “Kingdom.” The words “sowing to the flesh” are more comprehensive than the “Litany,” the pitch of which is relatively high. The highest standard must ever be before those “not under the Law but under Grace,” Until we come to close quarters with God, the lesson conveyed to Job 5f.) is feebly apprehended.

Luke 16

THE Lord here addresses His disciples.399

The last chapter consisted of parables spoken to the publicans and sinners that drew near to hear Him in the presence of the murmuring Pharisees and scribes. They had for their object to show how the sovereign grace of God makes the lost to be saved, and in this the mind and temper of Heaven in contrast with the self-righteous of the earth.

Now we have a weighty instruction for disciples., It is no longer sinners shown the way to God, but disciples taught, the ways which become them before God, and this in view of the judgment of the world, more particularly of the elect nation. The Jews were now losing their special place. The peculiar privileges of Israel had wrought no deliverance for themselves or for the earth. Contrariwise they had caused the name of God to be blasphemed among the nations: They had been untrue to God; they had been ungracious and even unrighteous to man. The Lord accordingly sets forth in a parable the only wisdom which suits and adorns those who understand the present critical condition of the world.

“There was a certain rich man who had a steward, and he was accused unto him as wasting his possessions.” This had been done by man, of course, in general, but by the Jew especially, as being the most favored and therefore under a more stringent responsibility. He was not only a man, but a steward. There was a trust reposed in the Jew beyond all others; and most justly was he accused of wanting his master’s goods. What had he done for God? He ought to have been a light in the earth; he ought to have been a guide of the blind; he ought to have been a witness of the true God. But he fell into idolatry when God was displaying Himself in the temple in the Shekinah; and now he was about to reject God Himself in the person of the Messiah, His Son — a still more profound and gracious display of God. Thus; he had altogether lost his opportunities, and wasted the goods of his Master. He had brought shame on the law of God, and the living oracles into contempt through his own vanity and pride.

Hence, in tile parable, the master called the steward, and said to him, “What [is] this that400 I hear of thee? Give the reckoning of thy stewardship, for thou canst be no longer steward.”

The Jew was about to sink down into the level of all other nations, just as in the Old Testament times we hear that God had pronounced him Lo-ammi as set forth in Hosea. Then the last hope was gone, when not only Israel was swept away, but Judah became faithless to the true God. This was confirmed when the returned remnant in the days of Christ proved no better — rather worse. There was a feeble body which represented the Jews who returned from Babylon, and it might have been a nucleus for the nation; but, instead of this, they were more and more hardened against God, till all ended in their rejecting the Messiah and the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.

“And the steward said within himself, What shall I do? for my lord is taking the stewardship from me; I am not able to dig; I am ashamed to beg.” He had no power; for the law rather provokes evil ways than gives good. “But what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, sending His own Son, in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteousness of the law might be fulfilled in us who walk not after the flesh but after the Spirit.” On the other hand, the Jew was ashamed to beg. He was unwilling to take the place of lost, good-for-nothing sinner, entirely dependent on God, looking up that God might do and give what he could not. Alas! the indomitable pride of the Jew rose up in rebellion against God’s sentence of his impotence.

“I know401 what I will do, that when I shall have been removed from the stewardship I may be received401a into their houses.” This was prudent, and the precise point of earthly wisdom in the parable which the Lord commends for our admonition. Well for the Jew had he adopted it! “He called each of his own lord’s debtors, and said unto the first, How much owest thou unto my lord? And he said, A hundred measures [baths] of oil.402 And he said unto him, Take thy bill and sit down quickly, and write fifty. Then he said to another, And thou, how much owest thou? And he said, A hundred measures (cors)403 of wheat. And he said unto him, Take thy bill and write eighty.”

Thus plainly the steward assumes the title to sacrifice the present in view of the future. He acts with the utmost liberality with his master’s goods. No doubt it cost him little or nothing. Nor is it the honesty of the step but its prudence which his Master commends. He reduced the debt of the first one half, of the second considerably. He thus bound by his favor and leniency these debtors to himself; that, when he was turned out of his place, they might receive him into their houses. There is no ground to suppose that the parable makes light of his dishonesty. He is especially branded as the “unjust steward.” Such really was the position and character of the Jew; they were all unrighteous in the sight of God. But had they done what the steward does when about to be discharged? No! He looked forward to the future, and acted at once upon the conviction. Were they not, on the contrary, absorbed in the present? Is not this the great snare of men, and of the Jew as much as others, to sacrifice the future for the present, not the present for the future?

“And the lord404 praised the unrighteous steward because he had done prudently. For the sons of this age 404a are in respect of their own generation404b more prudent than the sons of light.”

They look onward, though it be only on the earth, for they have a keen sense of their best earthly interests; but for the soul, for heaven, for Christ’s love, for God’s nature and will, men are apt to allow the smallest of present advantages to blot out all just thought, of the future, This is an important consideration for our hearts as disciples. What the Lord is insisting upon is that the present — so fugitive and fallacious — is not the real prize for us; that the future—the eternal future — is the thing to consider, and that it should govern the present. For we cannot walk rightly as disciples unless filled with the sense of what is to be, not carried away by what is. What is it that spoils the testimony of disciples now? That they are living chiefly for the present moment. If circumstances guide, what can such be but as governed only by what is wished? This ruins, not merely the sinner as such, but the disciple, because he is only living for himself and the circumstances of this life. It is impossible to glorify the Lord thus. Let us hear His will and wisdom in this parable.

The unjust steward, as here portrayed, though bad in other respects, was wise in this, that he looked out steadily for the future; so that, when lie lost his stewardship, he might be received kindly by the men whom he had before ended. For this it matters not that the goods were his master’s rather than his own; indeed, we may see the deepest wisdom in the parable as it is, when we come to the application to our own practical conduct. For the only means whereby we can thus look out for the future is by reckoning what people what self — would call ours, the resources of our master. We have nothing whereby to secure the future, except we use all as belonging to God. But this is the victory of faith, that instead of looking with a natural eye at the present moment, we resolutely contemplate the future, and act accordingly. Then, instead of seeking to hold fast what we have for ourselves, we learn to use all freely as in truth belonging to God. So assuredly those do who gain that which is future and eternal. Hence we find the Lord applies the illustration thus: “And I say into you,405 make to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrighteousness,405a that when it fails, ye may be received into everlasting habitations.” 405b Are you thus making to yourselves friends with the mammon of unrigliteousness? Instead of keeping money as something precious, treat it as what it really is.

Observe that the Lord gives here an ignominious name to the objects man covets — money, property, and everything of the kind. He calls it, not only mammon, in itself a word of ill omen, but “the mammon of righteousness.” He heaps plentiful disdain upon it; just as the apostle Paul counts all that man values most, even religiously, as the vilest refuse, which should he kept or thrust out of doors. This is a great point; for Saul of Tarsus had not always be n disposed thus to sacrifice the present in view of the future. His place as a Jew, his tribe, his family, his earthly thoughts and feelings, his personal advantages, he once estimated as much every way to cherish. But when he viewed them in the light of Christ and. of that glory to which he was hastening, he counted them but dung. Who would ever think the earth at its best an object to look back on, when they have the glory before their eyes? Who would talk of getting rid of dung as a great sacrifice? Certainly everything, yea in religion too, of which men are apt most to boast, Paul calls dung; such he counted it, and so to the last, for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his Lord. Was not this really to act in the wisdom of the steward, not in his injustice, but in his looking out and onward? In Paul’s case it was heavenly wisdom; and the love of Christ was its source and spring.

The meaning of the words “that they may receive you” is simply “that ye may be received into everlasting habitations.” Just so the apostle says: “That I may know him and the power of his resurrection, of his sufferings, being made conformable unto his death; if by any means I might attain unto the resurrection from the dead.” This answers to being received into everlasting habitations when all that is of earth fails. To be received there is w at should be of concern to the heart that loves the Lord and His will. There is no stress to be laid on the form of the praise “they may receive you.” This has misled not a few. Lite ally this might hold good on earth, as we see in verse 4, but spiritually it simply meant “that ye may be received. Compare Luke 6:38, 12:20; the first wrongly rendered in the Authorized Version, the last rightly. God alone receives into heaven: no one else has a title to receive there. The expression alludes to the parable, but is used with the utmost vagueness. It is a virtual impersonal — “that reception may be given you into the everlasting tabernacles.”

Let us not over-estimate these sacrifices of the present, but imitate the apostle who shows how little he values the best things that earth honors. So our Lord Jesus here says, “He that is faithful in the least is faithful also in much.”405c The smallest thing affords a sphere in which one can glorify God; but there must be the disregard of the present in the light of the future. It is something to be generous in money matters; it is very much more to love the Church, and be devoted to the Master, suffering with Him and for Him. But there are countless ways in which He may be magnified. “He that is unrighteous in the least is unrighteous also in much.” Yet, as all know, little things constantly test our reality. Many a man might not be dishonest about a thing of great value, but he might make too free in what is petty. There cannot he a greater fallacy than decrying a severe judgment formed about moral failure in matters of little pecuniary value, as it were snaking much ado about nothing, whereas it is in small things often that a man’s true character is best known.

“If therefore ye have not been faithful is the unrighteous mammon, who shall entrust to you the true?” The true riches cannot be entrusted where the heart has been false in that which is so trifling in the Lord’s eyes as “the unrighteous mammon,”406 Nor is it only that present honor and riches are not “the true,” but the mere counters of the hour. There is the further consideration: “If ye have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who shall give unto you your/407 own?” Present property is not strictly one’s own. The whole course of the Christian here is really that of one acting for another, even Christ. We are servants he trust for the Lord. The Christian ought to regard his time, his money, his abilities, id property, as the goods of his Master; and his business is to serve his Master, faithfully carrying out: His will. This is of immense importance; because covetousness consists in endeavoring to make earthly things which God has not given your own. The wisdom of the disciple is to count what appears to belong to him as really his Master’s.

Now, it is easy to be generous with another’s money. Count your riches another’s and act with all possible liberality in faith of the future. We should thus judge by faith what we have to be Christ’s, and then be as free with it as the unjust steward was with his master’s goods. Those who enter heaven are not men hard and grasping, as if, by possessing more than is needed, a man’s life consists of his substance. No doubt the natural spirit of man cleaves to what it counts its own (and perhaps particularly of the Jew), as if the present moment were of all importance. But the true wisdom is to be like the steward in his steady resolve to secure the future by acting freely with what belonged to his lord. When the glory comes, we shall have what is our Own. What a wonderful truth, that the wide scene of Christ’s glory in which we shall reign with Him will be ours! Then we shall bear power and glory without abusing it; now we can only safely use what we have by counting it Christ’s and using it according to His will.

“No servant can serve two masters.” If I have not Christ for my Master, I shall make myself so; and the moment we set up our own will, we find ourselves in Satan’s service, for the fallen will is Satan’s slave. “No servant can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and will love the other, or he will cleave to the one and despise the other.” In the first we find the stronger ease. With a man warm in his feelings everything is apt to be extreme. The other case supposes a person of feeble character. But in one way or another, whatever the character, to attempt this double service is fatal. “Ye cannot serve God and mammon.” Alas! mammon is the real ecumenical idol; it is the object of widest homage — not only in the world, but, grievous to add, in Christendom. By its own confession (witness the popular prize of that title) mammon now reigns supreme in the hearts of men generally throughout these lands professing the name of the Crucified, who most of all despised and denounced it.408

Next the Pharisees, not the disciples, come before us. They are characterized here as covetous.409 It is not their forms or their legalism but their love of money which was touched by the doctrine of the Lord to the disciples; for after they had “heard all these things,” they “sneered at him.” The evil against which the disciples were warned was at work in the Pharisees without a check. This state was not less corrupt than haughty.

“And he said unto them, Ye are they who justify themselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts for that which amongst men is highly thought of410 is an abomination before God.” Not so those who are justified before God by faith. Such do not justify themselves before men any more than before God, unless so far as they allow nature, and slip from their own ground of faith. Nevertheless, they are not free from the snare of covetousness; so far as they are influenced by the thoughts of men, they are exposed. “Men will praise thee when thou doest well to thyself.” The intense selfishness of the heart naturally prefers its own care to that of God: thence is a link of worldly sympathy with the men of this age. Let us therefore beware, for “that which among men is highly thought of, is an abomination before God.” No evil more common in the religious world of our own day as truly as in our Lord’s. Ease, honor, influence, and position are as highly valued as ever, to the infinite disparagement of the truth. Anyone can see how strongly the word of God rejects all these conditions of fallen Adam, and how incongruous they are with the cross of Christ. And they are only a worse Abomination where men essay to join such worldliness with heavenly truth.

The Lord next insists upon the crisis that was come. For this, too, adds its emphasis to His rebuke. What is morally true may become more urgently a duty, and such is the fact in the case before us. The religion of the world always takes the ground of Pharisaism; it assumes more or less the present favor of God, and that worldly rank and prosperity are to be taken as a sign of it. Faith looks away from present things since sin came into the world, and each successive step in God’s ways is but a fresh confirmation of faith. “The law and the prophets [were] until John; from that time the glad tidings of the kingdom of God are preached,411 and every one forceth his way into it.” It was in vain, therefore, to rest all upon the law and its rewards to faithfulness. In fact, they. had broken the law; and because of this, indeed, were given the prophets, who reproved their iniquities, laid bare the actual state of ruin, and bore witness of a wholly new condition, which would end the present by judgment and introduce a new state, never to pass away. John Baptist, as the immediate herald of the Messiah; insisted on repentance in view of the immediate advent of Christ. This sweeps away all the self-righteousness of man. It is not that the law is not good; the defect lay not there, but in those who, being sinful, felt it not, but assumed to make out a righteousness of their own under law. “Since John’s time,” says our Lord, “the glad tidings of the kingdom of God are preached.” It is not here as in Matt. 11:12: “The kingdom of the heavens is taken by violence and the violent seize on it.” There it is question of the true hope of Israel, and the necessity of breaking through all that opposes faith. But here it is much more ground opened to man if he believed. “The kingdom of God is preached, and every one forceth his way into it.” “Is he the God of the Jews only? Is he not also of the Gentiles? Yes, of the Gentiles also; seeing it is one God w o shall justify the circumcision by faith, and the uncircumcision through their faith. Do we then make law void through faith? Far be it. Yea, we establish law.” Thus the great apostle. So here the Lord says, “And it is easier that the heaven and the earth should pass away than that one tittle of the saw should fail.” Neither the truth nor faith enfeebles the law; rather do they maintain its authority, over all that are under it as well as its intrinsic righteousness. Certainly, our Lord not only honored it to the highest degree, but gave it the weightiest sanction;412 for He obeyed it perfectly in His life and was made a curse according to it in His death.

But those who while under it hope to stand on that ground before God do really destroy its authority, without intending or even knowing it. For they hope to be saved under law, though they know they have broken it and that it calls for their condemnation. And even those who, “being justified by faith,” take the law as their rule of life at the least impair its authority and so put dishonor upon it. For what does the law denounce on those who fail to do the things that it demands? Does it not threaten death on God’s part? And have they not failed to keep it? It is in vain therefore to plead that they are justified persons: the law knows no such distinction. Justified or not, if they fail, do they not enfeeble its solemn threats?

How, then, does the truth set forth the deliverance and maintain the holy walk of the believer? Not by the notion most erroneously taught in the common text of Rom. 7:6 “But now we are delivered from the law, that being dead wherein we were held.” For the law is not dead. If so, the words of our Lord would be falsified; and not only one tittle of the law but the whole of it would have failed before heaven and earth pass away. But this is notoriously inexact, not only in the Authorized Version, but in the received Greek text, where one letter makes the difference between truth and error. The English margin is right. It is we who are dead to the law, not the law to any. The believer is shown to be dead with Christ, in Rom. 6 to sin, and in Rom. 7, to the law, “that we should serve in newness of sprit and not in oldness of letter.”

“Wherefore, my brethren, ye also are, dead to the law by the body of Christ; that ye should be married to another, even to him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God.” The truth, therefore, is that, even had we been Jews, we are become dead to the law by the body of Christ, instead of living under it as our rule. And the very argument of the apostle is, founded upon, or at least illustrated by, the principle that one cannot belong to two husbands at the same time without adultery. “If, while her husband liveth, she be married to another man she shall be called an adulteress”; if death come in, she is no adulteress though she belongs to another man. And so it is with the Christian, for we now belong to Him who is raised from the dead, that we should bring forth fruit unto God. Deliverance from law is essential to true Christian holiness. Excellent as the law is, its rule is to curse the lawless and disobedient; it “is not made for the righteous man” which every believer is; it is a rule of death for the bad, not of life for the good. Christ only is Life and the light of life or the believer.

And does it not seem most striking that in the very next verse our Lord uses the same allusion on which the apostle reasons in the beginning of Rom. 7? “Every one who putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery; and every one that marrieth one put away from her husband committeth adultery.” Undoubtedly both principles apply to the literal fact most truly and in the letter. But can one, doubt the connection with the verse before and the context? If so connected, it is a striking instance of the one Spirit throughout Scripture; if not so, it is exceedingly hard to understand why such a statement should close the Lord’s words on this subject.413 No doubt the Jews allowed divorce for frivolous causes and marriage after such a divorce, and in both encouraged adultery.414 I cannot but think there is more in the connection here.

We have seen the conclusion of the earthly state of things; the Jew, who had wasted his master’s goods, losing his stewardship; the character of those who receive heavenly things; the close of all the earthly testimony and the necessity of a new one; the kingdom of God preached, which alone was gain (that Of nothing); the attempt to keep the old thing being exposed as altogether evil in the sight of God.

This is followed up by the rich man and Lazarus — I was going to say by the parable, but the Lord does not so say, though it has this character, as it seems to me. It puts in a most vivid manner the condition of the soul viewed in the light of the future, not yet of Gehenna, but of torment in Hades. The light, therefore, of the future even before the judgment is let fall upon present things to judge them. “There was a rich man and he was clothed in purple and fine linen, making good cheer in splendor every day.” According to a Jew’s notion a good fortune, as men say, was happiness. The Jews regarded such prosperity as a mark of God’s favor. His name was not to the Lord’s mind worth recording, the beggar’s was. The rich man had all that heart, or, rather, really flesh, could desire; and he gratified it. But it was all selfish enjoyment: God was not in it, nor was there even care for man. All centered in self. This was put to the proof and made evident by “a poor man named Lazarus,416 [who] lay at his gateway full of sores, and desiring to be filled with the crumbs which fell from the table of the rich man.”416a For him it was little more than desire. The rich man cared not for him, but for himself; the dogs were more considerate, and rendered him better favor than their master. They came and licked his sores.

Such was man, such the Jew in present life, according to his thoughts of earthly good; but when death comes, when that stands revealed which was beyond the grave, the difference at once appears in all its solemnity. Then we have things in their true light. “And it came to pass that the poor man died.” And how different! There is not a word of his burial: perhaps, indeed, he was not buried; but he “was carried away by the angels into Abraham’s bosom,”417 the place of especial blessedness according to a Jew, in the unseen world, with the Most honorable of God’s servants waiting on him.

“The rich man also died, and was buried.” Here there might be splendor of retinue and ample show of grief in the eyes of men. But “in Hades418 lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he seeth Abraham afar off, and Lazarus in his bosom.” This is not a picture of the final state of judgment, but of a certain condition after death. This is of great importance. Luke gives us both, confirming what is seen in the Old Testament and even adding to it. He gives its full prominence to the resurrection elsewhere; but here it was of consequence to know what would be even now for man’s profit here below. In Hades, then, “lifting up his eyes, being in torments, he seeth Abraham afar off.” We are not judges, save so far as Scripture speaks and we are subject to it, of what is entirely outside our experience. How far those who are lost can have the knowledge of the condition of those who are saved, it is not for us to pronounce on. Scripture is plain as to the distance between them. There is no mingling of the two together. But what would be incredibly distant to man living on the earth may be simply far off to those in the separate state, and the difference between them mutually known. Lazarus, then, according to the Word, was seen in Abraham’s bosom by him who was in torment. “And he, crying out, said, Father Abraham, have compassion on me: and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am suffering in this flame.”

Thus we have clear proof that, even before the judgment, the wicked man is in torment.419 Figures no doubt are employed, but these founded on that which would be most intelligible to us. It is through the body that we feel the world. From this the Lord takes figures in order to be understood by those whom He addresses in presenting according to His own wisdom the case of the unseen world. There at least the d parted rich man has the sense of the need of mercy. It is well to see that this man does not in any way take the place of an infidel. There is no faith in him assuredly, but still he talks of “Father Abraham”; and though he has never looked to God for mercy, he sees that there at any rate the richest mercy was enjoyed — in Abraham’s bosom. He asks him, therefore, to send Lazarus that he might dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. What a very small favor this had been once utterly despicable — a drop of water, and above all, sent by such as Lazarus! it would have been detestable to him on earth. But the truth appears when man has left this life. Do we, then, hear while on the earth what the Lord says?

“I am suffering in this flame.” He who tells us this is Jesus; and we know that He is truth, and that these are true sayings of God. Abraham’s answer, too, is most noteworthy. “Child” (says he, for he does not repudiate the connection after the flesh), “remember that thou hast fully received thy good things in thy lifetime, likewise Lazarus evil things; but now here he is comforted, and thou art in suffering.” He who was of Satan had good things on earth; he who was born of God received evil things here. The earth as it is gives no measure for the judgments of God: when Jesus comes, and the Kingdom is set up, it will be different. But the Jew and men in general have to learn that it is not so now, and that, before He comes, there is still the solemn truth that men show by their ways here how little they believe such words of God as these. But when they die, they will surely prove the truth of what they refused to hearing this world. “Now he is comforted here, and thou art in suffering.”

It is not the day of Messiah’s public Kingdom. Luke lets us see what is deeper even than it, both in good and ill, the unseen portion of the righteous, as well as that of the unjust.420 “And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm is fixed, so that those who desire to pass hence to you cannot, nor do they [who desire to cross] from there pass over unto us.” The severance between the good and evil in the intermediate state is incalculably great and fixed. There is no passing from one to the other. The notion of possible mercy in the separate condition is absolutely excluded by Scripture. It is the mere dream of men who wish to cling to evil as long as they can Or at least to enjoy themselves in this world, who therefore despise the warnings of God, being bent on holding fast or acquiring good things here, and utterly careless of the solemn lesson furnished by the rich man and Lazarus. “Between us and you a great chasm is fixed,” says Abraham — between the departed righteous and those who die in their sins the separation is complete — “so that they who desire to pass hence to you cannot.” Still less can any pass to Abraham that would come from beyond the gulf. In every way such change is impossible.421

Thus, as no possibility of change remains for himself, he turns his attention to his family. “And he said, I beseech thee then, father, that thou wouldst send him to the house of my father, for I have five brothers, so that he may earnestly testify unto them, that they also may not come to this place of torment.”422 But the answer of Abraham brings out another grand truth from the Lord’s mind — the all-importance of the Word of God, and this, too, even in its lower forms. The New Testament undoubtedly has fuller and perfect light; but the Old is no less inspired.

“But Abraham saith to him, They have Moses and the prophets, let them hear them.” Still he pleads: “Nay,423 father Abraham, but if one from the dead should go unto them they will repent.” The answer of Abraham is decisive: “If they hear not Moses and the prophets, not even if one rise from among [the] dead will they be persuaded.”

There is no proof that can succeed for eternity where the Word of God is rejected. Such is the testimony from the unseen world. I do not deny that, for this world, there may be conviction pressed by crushing judgments of God; but the tale before us is in view of present things before the Kingdom comes, and during this state of things there is no conviction so profound, no proof so deep, as that which is rendered by the Word of God. In fact also our Lord’s own resurrection seal the truth of His words. For what so evident proof of the total failure of any other means to arouse man? Though He rose from the dead, out of the midst of a band of armed men set to watch as we know, men were not persuaded; least of all thy Jewish priests and elders, who only hardened themselves mon completely. As one portion of the people set themselves against the Lord during His life, the rest were equally chagrined by the truth of His resurrection. Thus all the people manifested their unbelief. It was bad to prove their want of sympathy with the only righteous One here below; it was, if possible, worse to refuse the testimony of grace which had raised Him from the dead and sent the message of salvation in His name. This Israel did.

But there was even more than this, and sooner. A Lazarus did proceed from the dead not long after at the call of Jesus, and many of the rich man’s brethren came to see him when so raised. But, far from repenting, the chiefs at least, yea the chief priests, consulted together that they might put Lazarus also to death, as well as Him whose resurrection power only provoked their deadly hatred, instead of persuading them to hear Moses and he prophets424

Hence the rich man who had departed, careless of the truth before man during his life, had no doubt received the due reward of his deeds; but those who rejected the testimony of Christ risen from the dead fall into a still greater gulf. Thus all the people are judged. The only light for the benighted soul, the only testimony that brings eternal life to the dead sinner, is the Word of God, received by faith.

Endnotes

398 Verses 1-13. — The Expositor’s treatment of this parable ranges itself with the general view taken by Athanasius and Augustine, Luther and Calvin. Cf. that by Maclaren, vol. ii., pp. 75-101.

399 Verse 1. — It is important to note, for the lesson conveyed by the parable, whom the Lord has in view.

400 Verse 2. — “What is this?” τί τοῦτο: cf. LXX. of Gen. 42:28. So English Revv., with Schanz, H. Holtzmann, and B. Weiss. For the A.V. “How,” cf. Acts 14:15 (“why?”): so Luther, De Wette, Meyer, Weizsäcker, and Plummer here. See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 192.

401 Verse 4. — “I know,” ἔγνων, “I am resolved” a dramatic aorist (Burton, § 45).

401a “I may be received”: the passive again, to represent the active form with an indefinite subject, as often in Luke. So in verse 9.

402 Verse 6. — “Baths,” a liquid measure. Ten of these went to the cor (Ezek. 45:14). See next note.

403 Verse 7. — “Cors”: a dry measure. It was the Hebrew homer, standard measure of capacity (Ezek. 45:11), made up of ten ephahs: about eight English bushels.

404 verse 8 “The lord,” i.e., the steward’s master; not (as Wellhausen) ITS. As Montefiore remarks, 18:6 is not an adequate parallel (Syn. Gospels, ii. 993).

“Unjust steward” expresses Christ’s judgment of the man. Not only the words of the second part of the verse, but all of it is a comment of our Lord Himself: the whole of it proceeded from Him.

This verse has formed the text of sermons by Dr. Arnold and A. Hare.

404a “Sons of this age.” The same phrase occurs in 20:34, with which cf. the verse there following, “that œon.” It expresses adherents of the system that now goes by the name of “Secularism,” of which Nietzsche constituted himself apostle.

“Sons of light”: cf. John 12:36. “Children of light” occurs in 1 Thess. 5:5.

404b We have here a very noticeable instance of γενεά used morally. See note on 21:32.

405 Verse 9. — Jülicher, through rejection or its lesson as to wealth, has not caught the meaning of the parable.

There is a sermon from this verse by Augustine.

405a The “mammon of unrighteousness” has reference to material resources used as one’s own, whereas they belong to GOD. That which is unfaithfulness in the one relation becomes fidelity in the other.

405b “Everlasting habitations (tabernacles).” Cf. “everlasting gospel” in the Apocalypse, which does not mean that the Gospel is to be preached endlessly. And so here we have a millennial connection, — Messianic blessing, as in 19:9.

The indefinite subject of the verb “receive” (see note on verse 4) is Only indirectly the “friends”; Matt. 25:40 helps to show that the subject is Christ Himself. Cf. Tennyson’s “God accept him, Christ receive him.”

The Catholic doctrine of almsgiving in the name of Christ is true when not applied to the life strictly endless.

405c Verse 10. — See Maclaren’s sermon in Series 1, “Faithful in Little,” etc.; also one of Henry Melvin, “Equity of Future Retribution.”

406 Verse 11. — “Unrighteous mammon.” Here it is ἀδίκῳμ, i.e., false in contrast with genuine riches. For the ἀληθινόν, cf. John 1:9, 17:3; and see Matt. 13:22, etc., “deceitfulness of riches.”

407 “Your.” The reading of “B” (“our”) is discredited by Wellhausen. It was a stupid blunder of a scribe who missed the point. Hort’s adoption of it illustrates his partiality for that MS. Blass takes the reading, τό ἐμόν, “mine,” in cursive 151, to be equivalent toτό ὐμῶν, “yours.”

Dean Vaughan explained “your own” as meaning “your soul” (sermon on the passage, p. 72), which is forced. Adeney has a good note ad loc., connecting the parable with the Kingdom of Heaven.

408 Verse 13. — “God,” without the article, showing that θεός. and δ θεός may be equivalent.

“Mammon.” Ibn Ezra considered this was a variation of the word hence (abundance) in Ps. 37:16. There does not seem to be any proof for its being the name of any deity.

The parable is divisible into seven parts thus: verses 1, 2, 3-4, 5-7, 8-9, 10-12, 13.

A recent helpful book on the main subject is that of S. D. Gordon, entitled “Money: the Golden Channel of Service.”

409 Verse 14. — “Who were covetous,” ὐπάρχοντες, i.e., essentially. Cf. Ps. 10:3, and 20:47 below. “Their theory and practice (were) different” (Edersheim, “Sketches,” etc., p. 126).

410 Verse 15. — “Highly thought of”; or, “lofty” (ὐψηλόν).

“Abomination.” Elsewhere, idolatry (Matt. 24:15; Rev. 27:4f., etc.).

411 Verse 16. — “Is preached,” εὐαγγελίζεται; the Gospel, as the A B C of the Kingdom; because “without faith it is impossible to please” God (cf. 11:2 with Heb. 11: 6).

“Forces his way,” i.e., through struggle of soul overcomes his self-love and resistance of the Holy Spirit; such must be the meaning of the words in Matt. 11:12.

412 Verse 17. — “The law”: Marcion converted this into “My words.”

413 Verse 18.― See, in illustration of the Expositor’s remarks, Carpenter, p. 236. resorting to the conventional stalking-horse of “different sources.” In verses 14-18 J. Weiss finds three (L, Q, M).

Wellhausen characterizes verse 18 as “the quintessence of Mark 10:1 ff.” The example, he remarks, used by our Lord was well adapted to show at His drastic treatment of the that law was its veritable Fulfillment. Cf. 1 Cor. 7:10.

414 Hillel, for example, taught (“Gittin,” 9:10) that a man might divorce his wife for burning his dinner or over salting his soup.

415 Verse 19 ff. — Colin Campbell: “In this parable is concentrated the whole Ebionite doctrine of the Gospel” (p. 274); but see note 149a. Moreover our Lord does not describe this story as a “parable.”

Tennyson has turned this passage to account in “In Memoriam,” xxxi.

416 “Lazarus.” This is the only parable — if indeed it be rightly so called (cf. Exposition) — in which a personal name is introduced.

416a Verse 21. — “Napkins were not used for the hands. The guests wiped their hands on bits of bread and then threw the pieces under the table” (Montefiore).

417 Verse 22. — Garvie: “The rich man’s funeral was the last of his good things; the first of Lazarus’ good things was his happy death.”

Adeney: “Lazarus is supposed to be seated next to Abraham in the banquet of the blessed.” Cf. John 1: 18. Our Lord here seems to recognize certain truth in the representation of the “separate state” contained in the uncanonical writings called Pseudepigrapha, which were familiar to His hearers. See convenient manual by W. J. Deane.

Dr. J. Lightfoot was of opinion that Paradise is the scene. Cf. “the Paradise” of 23:43, of which the pseudepigraphical writings had already spoken. The view of the Westminster Confession (32.), as briefly stated in the “Minor Catechism” (ans. to Q. 37), is that “the souls of believers at death... do immediately pass into glory.” So Weymouth, in note to his version of the New Testament at Matt. 16:18, denying that believers at death enter Hades. The Expositor has expressed himself similarly in his remarks on 23:13. Dalman considers that Lazarus here is conceived of as in heaven. See, further, note 585.

418 Verse 23. — “Hades.” Wellhausen would identify this with “Gehenna” (12:5), the place of retribution (Tobit 13:2). Should we not rather say Tartarus? (2 Pet. 2:4). Cf. Enoch 20:2, where “Uriel” is represented as its ruler. Sheol is likewise spoken of in connection with a flame in Song of Solomon 8:6. For the Biblical representation of Sheôl (Hades) the article by Dalman in Hauck’s Encyclopedia (the American “Schaff-Herzog”) should be consulted.

419 The “torment” (βάσανος) of verses 23 and 28 has already set in, with doom to follow: cf. 2 Pet. 2: 9, where κολαζομένους is rendered in R.V. by “under punishment.” Similar must be the self-accusing thoughts of guilty persons during confinement preliminary to their appearance before a tribunal.

According to the old Greeks, judgment was to be at death; the belief of the Jews was that it is to be at the end of things.

The “Catholic” theory is that everyone is judged at death, for which Heb. 9:27 is assigned, as well as at the Last Day. According to the Catechism, No. 76, the so-called general judgment “will be held in the valley of Jehoshaphat,” which is a curious confusion of Joel 3:12 (living) with Rev. 20:11 (dead).

420 Verse 25. — Schmiedel (“Jesus in Modern Criticism,” p. 72) and others object that the rich man is not said to be godless. Not much insight, however, is required for apprehending the sense of his impenitence: this comes out in his own words. The Bedfordshire tinker, by the word about Dives put into the mouth of the “Interpreter” in “Pilgrim’s Progress,” entered into this narrative better than the smart professor at Zürich; as Spurgeon also in his sermons, 243, 518. We are actually invited by Schmiedel to believe that “the unrighteous steward is admitted into the everlasting habitations” (ibid.). The same writer naively adds, “Jesus cannot have said such things.” The canons of “modern criticism” surely need looking after.

Bishop Andrewes and Charles Simeon have preached on the verse.

421 Verse 26. — B. Weiss compares Heb. 11:29. As he says, the real lesson of he “parable,” so-called, begins here.

Observe how the words of this verse exclude all thought of “Purgatory” (Neil).

See sermons on Eternal Punishment by Archer Butler and Dr. George Salmon.

422 Verse 27. — For the Jewish doctrine of Purgatory, underlying the Kaddish, prayer for a departed father, see Abrahams, p. 86f. In LUKE it is the deceased person who is the petitioner.

423 Verse 30. — “Nay,” or “No, no” (οὐχί).

424 Verse 31. — Cf. John 12:9-11. In the last of his useful notes on this chapter, Wellhausen remarks that “the motive of repentance here is not the Kingdom of God, but Heaven and Hell. The thought behind the story is that the Jews do not believe in the Risen Christ, from unbelief in the Law and the Prophets.”

As to the critics’ romance that we have here the germ of John’s account of the raising from the dead of his “Lazarus,” which is regarded as a development of this “parable,” see note 205 in Exposition of the Fourth Gospel.

The whole of this passage of Luke is of importance in connection with what Delitzsch has described as the “False Doctrine” of “Soul Sleep” see his “Biblical Psychology,” p. 490 ff., where he shows the misuse that has been made of Jer. 51:39.

Henry Martyn has a sermon from verse 31 on “Scripture more persuasive than Miraculous Appearances.”

Luke 17

THE chapter opens with instruction which follows from what we have already seen. The Jewish system was judged. It was to be left entirely behind. Present favor and earthly prosperity were no tests of God’s estimate. That which is unseen will entirely reverse the actual condition of things. Lazarus quits the world for Abraham’s bosom, the rich man is after wards tormented in hell; but from both the infinite moment of the Word of God is seen for every soul.

Here the Lord lets the disciples425 know the certainty of stumbling-blocks in such a world as this, and the awful doom of those who cause them. “It would be more profitable426 for him if a millstone were hanged about his neck and he were cast into the sea,” says the Lord about any one so offending others. Hence we have to take heed to ourselves, as His disciples; and while guarding against being caused to stumble by others, we have to cherish the grace of God which is as essential to Christianity as the law was to the Jews as their rule. “Take heed to yourselves; if thy brother should sin, rebuke him; and if he should repent, forgive him.” It supposes that there is an evil course and current in the world, which may affect every one’s brother; but grace is never intended to weaken the moral reprobation of what is evil. “If thy brother should sin, rebuke him; and if he should repent, forgive him.”

Repentance is a great word, altogether contrary to the bent of human will. Man may make efforts, but will never repent. Only grace gives real repentance, which, when used in its proper sense, means simply and invariably the judgment of self. Now, this man will never bend to. Amends he may offer, he may endeavor to do good, and repair the evil: but to own self thoroughly wrong without qualification, reserve, or endeavoring to throw the blame on others is never the nature of man, but the result of the working of Divine grace, and true, therefore, of every soul that is truly renewed. It is impossible for a sinner to be brought to God without repentance. Faith, no doubt, is the spring of all; it alone gives power by the revelation of grace in the person and work of Christ; but repentance is the invariable consequence or concomitant. And so it is in particular cases, as here in trespass, as, “If he should repent, forgive him.” This was more especially needful to urge on a Jew, accustomed as he was to severity. And further, grace would hinder one from being wearied any more by ill-doing in others than in well-doing on our part. “If he should sin against thee seven times in the day, and seven times should return to thee, saying, I repent, thou shalt forgive him.” It is seven times as showing the failure complete, and in a day, too, as adding to the trial. To men’s minds this would indicate the hopelessness of any good in forgiveness. But it is so that God deals with us: He is unwearied in His grace. If it were not so, it would be all over with us, not only when in our sins but even a believors.426a

Nevertheless the apostles (for so it is expressed here for our instruction) — “the apostles said to the Lord, Give More faith to us.” They felt that such a demand was entirely beyond them.426b “But the Lord said, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard [seed] ye had said unto this sycamore tree,427 Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed you.” Thus faith works what is impossible to man, to nature; and this, too, wherever there is a grain of reality, be it ever so small. For whether faith. Be little or strong, if real, it bring in God is the same God in answer to little faith as to great. There may be a great difference as regards the result for sensible enjoyment; but God answers in His grace the feeblest exercise of faith in Him. “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard [seed], ye had said unto this sycamore tree, Be thou rooted up, and be thou planted in the sea [an entire contrariety to the course of nature], and it would have obeyed you.” We must always hold, as believers, the superiority of God, to all circumstances.

At the same time, we have a place of duty here; and the Lord reminds us, therefore, not only of the power of faith above every obstacle, but of the tone of conduct that becomes us in doing our duties, or rather when we have done them. “But which of you [is there] who, having a bondman plowing or shepherding, when he cometh out of the field will say, Come and lie down immediately to table? But will he not say unto him, Prepare what I shall sup on, and gird thyself and serve me that I may eat and drink; and after that thou shalt eat and drink?428 Is he thankful to the bondman because he hath done what was ordered? I judge not.” Grace in no way weakens the duty that we owe. There are certain proprieties which we must never give up, and of which the Lord here reminds His apostles, The master in such a case does not thank the servant; it is but his obligation, the discharge of the service he undertakes, what he cannot, therefore, forget or omit without wrong.429 “Thus ye, also, when ye shall have done all things that have been ordered you, say, We are unprofitable bondmen; we have done that which it was our duty to do.”

People are sometimes apt to think that the proper owning of our unprofitable service is when we do not the things commanded; no at least they speak. But the Lord teacher, us to feel that we are but unprofitable Servants when we have done all the things, that, are commanded. Not to do our duty is a real wrong to the Master; but when we have done all, it becomes us to say, “We are unprofitable bondmen, we have that which it was our duty to do.” All we are commanded is short of that which Christ deserves; and we have to do with the Christ of God. When we have done that which was our duty to do, is love satisfied? It would go further. Christ loved to obey, ever doing what was enjoined, and hence suffered to the utmost in grace to us and to the glory of God. So love is the fulfilling of the law; and in it we are now called to walk as Christ also loved us and gave Himself for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savor. We are indeed unprofitable servants; yet how rich is the place into which grace brings us even now!430

The incident that is here recorded completely falls in with what we have seen. The Spirit of God is indicating not only the break-up of Judaism but the introduction of better things and very particular of the liberty of grace. By and by we shall have tile liberty of glory; but the saints of God are now entitled to the liberty of grace. Creation will never know this; it “will be delivered from the bondage of corruption to the liberty of the glory of the chidden of God” (Rom. 8:21.)

“And it came to pass, as he was going up to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst431 of Samaria and Galilee.” The scene lay in the despised quarters of the land. “And as he entered into a certain village, ten leprous men met him, who stood afar off.”432 This is a remarkable miracle, peculiar to our Evangelist, who brings before us several incidents of similar character, that are given nowhere else. The selection of the Spirit of God, to carry forward the object He had in view in so inspiring Luke, is thereby manifest. “And they lifted up [their] voice, saying, Jesus, Master, have compassion on us. And seeing [them] he said to them, Go, show yourselves unto the priests.” The Lord thereby exercised the faith of those addressed, while at the same time He maintained the order of the law for those who are under it. It was a requisition under the law that, if a man was cured, without saying how the cure could be, if the plague of leprosy was healed, the man must present himself to the priest and be cleansed. This was laid down with particular care and detail in Lev. 14. It was an important requirement in this way, for it became a testimony to the power of God that now wrought on earth. For the question. would naturally arise: How came these lepers to be cured? This would at once draw attention to the fact that Jesus was there, and that He was really the vessel of God’s power in grace.

Hence, too, the Lord sometimes, as we read elsewhere, touched the leper. But here these men stood afar off. It was not that there was not grace enough in Christ to touch them, but their feeling according to the law was to stand afar off. It was perhaps right in them that it should be so, as it was certainly the grace of His heart that made Him touch the leper who prostrated himself at His feet. So we see in Mark 1:41. These men, however, standing afar off, lifted up their voice and prayed for His mercy; and His answer was, as with a leper always, “Go show yourselves unto the priests.”

But there was another notable feature brought out in the present case, if there was no touch as the sign of the power that removed the leprosy without contracting defilement, which could only therefore be the power of God, which was above the law, even while He maintained the law. In this case there was a trial of faith, so much the more because they were afar off, and they were bidden to go and show themselves to the priests, without such words as “Be ye cleansed.” The Lord did not use that expression in every case, as far as Scripture records. Hence it was, as they went, they were cleansed. They had to go first. They felt nothing the moment they were bidden to go. It was “as they were going they were cleansed.”

“And one of them, seeing that he was cured” — for this could not be hid — “turned back, glorifying God with a loud voice.” Surely this is highly remarkable, though given here only. The lepers were told to go and show themselves to the priests one of them, and one alone, turned back, when he saw that he was healed, “glorifying God with a loud voice, and fell on [his] face at his feet, giving him thanks. And he was a Samaritan.”432a

We have grace therefore in this place for the worst. But the lowest object of grace is very often the one who enters most into the fullness of grace in God. He may be the neediest among men; but the very depth of his need shows what God is; and hence grace is often seen and enjoyed more simply by a long way than by others who might boast of much better privileges. Certainly it was so here. This Samaritan was far more simple in his thoughts of God, and at once concluded what Jesus must be, not perhaps definitely and distinctly as to His personal glory. At least, he was quite sure that Jesus was the best Representative of God’s power and grace in that land. If, therefore, he was to show himself to any one, he would go to Him; if he was to glorify God. it must surely be at the feet of Jesus. He, consequently, who was the farthest removed from the formality of the law and ritual, could all the more readily go straight to Jesus.

“And Jesus answering said, Were not the ten cleansed? But the nine, where are they? There have not been found to return and give glory to God, save this stranger.” Now, this is most worthy of our consideration. The Lord Jesus accepts the thanksgiving of this man as being the peculiar token of his faith. The others had equally received a blessing; it was not that they were not thankful, but this man alone had returned to give glory to, God, this stranger. The others might show themselves to the priests, carrying out the letter of the word of Jesus; but this stranger’s heart was right and his spiritual instinct was of faith. There is nothing good for the soul without the sense of the glory of God. The Samaritan might not have been able to explain, but his hurt was thoroughly true and Divinely guided. He was therefore tar more right than others who seemed to reason better. The other nine might plead that he was presumptuous, disobedient, and not, like them, acting on the word of the Lord; for Jesus had distinctly, told them they must go and show themselves to the priests; whereas he without any express command had turned back to show himself to Jesus, and give thanks at His feet. And appearances favor unbelief.

But Jesus vindicated him in coming and approved the boldness of his faith, which acted et once on what he instinctively felt to be due to the ford Jesus. What is still more striking, the Lord says to him, “Rise up and go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.” There is not a word of showing himself to the priest now. He had found God in his soul. (He, in the healing of his leprosy, had proved the gracious power of God, he recognized it in Jesus, and so gave Him glory.)

When a soul is thus brought to God, there is no question of showing oneself to priests on earth. Priests had their place once for those who were under the law. But when grace delivered from it (in principle only then, for it was not yet the precise time to break down the wall of partition for all), the delivered soul could not possibly be left, still less put, under the law. Therefore says the Lord, “Rise up and go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.” It is a striking prefiguration of the Gentile who is not under law like the Jew (never was, indeed), and who, when brought to God by His green now and cleansed from all his defilements, is certainly not put under law. As the apostle says, “Sin shall not have dominion over you, for ye are not under law, but under grace.” He was to go his way in liberty of heart. This is the calling of a Christian. Christ dose not call to the bondage of law. He makes us His freemen, thought no doubt also bondmen to Himself. This is a very different thing from being under law, which the Christian is not, even if he had once been a Jew.

The kingdom of God was the national hope of Israel. It was before the minds of all who looked for good from God. It was bound up with the Messiah’s presence. Such is the way in which the Kingdom is presented in the Old Testament. Nor does the New Testament in any way set this aside, but confirms the expectation: only it disclose the Kingdom in another shape before it is introduced in power when the Lord returns in glory.

Of this, however, the Pharisees know nothing. They demanded of Him when the kingdom of God should come, thinking only of that which is to be manifest when the Jews shall be brought back from all their wanderings, and restored in their full nationality to the land under the Messiah, and the new covenant. The Lord, as throughout Luke, shows something more and deeper, something that demanded faith, before the establishment of the Kingdom in power. He answers them therefore, “The kingdom of God cloth not come with observation.” This was what was morally important to know now. The Kingdom would surely come as they looked for it in its own day, and the Lord distinctly lets us see this afterward. But first of all He insists, as was most according to God, on that which they knew not, and which it most concerned them to know: “The kingdom of God doth not come with observation,” or outward show.434 “Nor shall they say, Lo here, or, Lo there; for lo, the kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” Of this they were wholly ignorant, and this ignorance is fatal: for it was not to know God’s king, when He manifested the one power of the Kingdom in victory over Satan, and over all the resells of man’s subjection to infirmity in this world — when he manifested it positively in righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost, the dependent and obedient Man, but in the unfailing power of God which wrought by Him. To all this they were blind; they valued it not, because they valued not God. They did desire as a nation that which would elevate them, and overthrow their enemies; they did not desire that which exalts God end humbles man.

The Lord, therefore, in this His answer, first meets the moral need of the Pharisees, and shows that in the most important sense now, from the time of His rejection till His return in glory, it is no question of “Lo here and lo there,” but of faith to own the glory of His person, and to recognize that the power which wrought is God’s. “The kingdom of God is in the midst of you.” It was in their midst and they saw it not, because they saw not Him. They thought little of Jesus. This is ruin to every soul who hears but refuses the testimony.435

It will be observed that it is the kingdom of God, not of heaven. It is never said, while Jesus was here, that the kingdom of heaven was come; but Matthew confirms this report in Luke, were that needed, and represents the Lord as saying (Matt. 12:28), “If I by [the] Spirit of God cast out the demons, then, indeed, the kingdom of God is come upon you.” The character of the power proclaimed God’s kingdom. He was victor of Satan, and cast out his emissaries: none but the Seed of the woman, the Son of David, could do this. It was reserved for Him. Others might, as God’s servants, but He, as the Beloved, in whom His soul delighted. Those who cast the devil out, by God’s gracious use of them, were their judges. Satan is not against Satan: else his kingdom would fall. But Messiah was there then, the King of God’s kingdom, yet the Jews recognized it not. They rejected Him and He accepts His own rejection, but is exalted in heaven. Thence, the kingdom of heaven begins, the rule of the heavens over the earth, now only known really to faith, the responsibility for those who are baptized to walk accordingly. Indeed, thus comes what is commonly called Christendom, the great field where not only wheat but tares grow together. It is, of course, also called the kingdom of God, as always in Luke. Matthew alone speaks of the kingdom of heaven, but he never speaks of the kingdom of heaven save as preached or promised, until the Lord left the earth. In short the kingdom of God, WAS there when Christ was there, the conqueror over Satan, and exhibiting in every direction morally the power of the Spirit, But the kingdom of heaven was not there till from heaven He introduced His rule over the earth.436 When He returns in glory, it will be still the kingdom of heaven: the rule of the heavens will never be lost, certainly not when the Kingdom comes in power and glory.)

But the Lord next addressee the disciples, and says, “Days are coming when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see [it].”437 Here He can speak freely of the future form of the Kingdom, of which alone the Pharisees thought. The disciples had received the Lord by faith; and, however little intelligent they might be, they apprehended the kingdom of God among them. Hence the Lord could give them Divine light as to the future, when He should establish the Kingdom visibly, “Days are coming when ye shall desire to see one of the days of the Son of man, and ye shall not see [it].” He opens to them His rejection, as well as the efforts of Satan during his rejection. “And they will say unto you, Lo here; or, Lo there. Go not nor follow [them].” (Verse 23.) False Christs should arise; but they were forewarned. “For as the lightning which lightening from [one end] under heaven shineth to [the other end] under heaven, thus shall the Son of man be in his day.” There will be no question of “Lo here, or, Lo there” when Christ comes again any more than when. He was here. It was unbelief to say, See here, and See there, when Christ was present in the power that revealed Who He must be and was. It will be unbelief by and by to say, See here, and See there; for the Kingdom will be established in power. They were not to follow such rumors but to heed His Word. He returns not merely as the rejected Messiah, but as the Son of man, the exalted ruler of all nations, peoples, and tongues. His Kingdom shall be manifested under the whole heaven as He comes from heaven.438

“But first he must suffer many things and be rejected of this generation.” This was in principle going on then; the Cross would be its consummation. The moral order is thoroughly according to God: first must He suffer So we read in 1 Peter 1:11 of the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should follow. It must be so in a sinful world for one who seeks not his own glory, but God’s, and the eternal good or man. It would be impossible to take the Kingdom when man is in a state of sin and rebellion. (In grace, then, He accepts the rejection which was inexcusable on their part: and in His rejection He accomplishes atonement. Hence God can righteously introduce the Kingdom with many a rebel pardoned. Only this goes on now whilst He is gathering out the Church, before the Kingdom is set up in visible power. “First he must suffer many things, and be rejected of this generation.” The Christ-rejecting generation was then and continues right through. In the crisis of the latter day, at the end of the age, this generation will still be there. “This generation shall not pass till all these things be fulfilled.” In the millennial age there will be a new generation who shall praise the Lord and glorify Him for His mercy. But “this generation” is a perverse one, children in whom is no faith. Such were and are the Jews; and such will they abide, till judgment shall have dealt with the mass, who will have fallen into an apostate state and have accepted the Antichrist, leaving only the true remnant who shall become a strong nation, the “all Israel” who “shall be saved” in that day.439

The Lord next refers to the days of Noah: so should it be in His own days when He comes as the Son of man. It is no question either of receiving the Church or of judging the dead, though the latter will follow at the end, as the former precedes. Here it is distinctly the judgment of the quick on the earth, a truth which has very generally passed out of the mind of Christendom. “They ate, they drank, they married, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and the flood nine and destroyed all [of them].” This cannot refer to any but those alive upon the earth surprised by the deluge. “And in like manner as took place in the days of Lot; they ate, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded.” There was progress in the world; civilization had advanced, but was it better morally? “But in the day that Lot went out from Sodom, it rained fire and sulfur from heaven and destroy all [of them]” Men too easily forget that a judgment incomparably more comprehensive, but after the pattern of these two Divine interventions, awaits the world, and more particularly that part of it which has been favored with the testimony of God. There can be no delusion more ruinous than the notion that because there is much good in the midst of Christendom its doom will not come. The Lord lingers in order to save souls. Such is His long-suffering and grace, but He “is not slack concerning His promise as some men count slackness.” When His own are gathered out, judgment will proceed so much the more sternly because His grace was seen, its fruits manifested, and His warnings given in vain As it was then in the days of Noah and in the days of Lot, “after this [manner] shall it be in the day that the Son of man is revealed,” For the Lord speaks only of His revelation from heaven in the judgment of the world, not at all of translating the saints to be with Himself in the Father’s house.440

“In that day, he who shall be upon the housetop, and his stuff in the house, let him not go down to ta e it away; and, he that is in the field, let him likewise not return back.” It is no question of the destruction of Jerusalem,441 any more than that of the final judgment and it is absurd to apply it to death. But the mind of man is fertile in expedients to parry the blows of the truth. It is a testimony which keeps the advent of the Lord Jesus to judge the habitable world ever changing over the heads of careless men.

“Remember Lot’s wife.” This is a moral touch for those who might seem safer Than others, but are not saved, It is peculiar to Luke, and a most searching word for every one whose face and heart are not steadily fixed on the Lord, for she was very near to, Lot and seemed to have passed out of all reach of judgment. But her heart was in the, city to which she looked back, and she heeded not the admonition of God’s messengers, but in her destruction proved the truth of the word which she believed not.442 “Whosoever shall seek to save this life shall lose it, and whosoever shall lose it shall preserve it.”443 There is no security any more than real happiness save in faith, and faith is ever obedient to the Word of the Lord.

“I say unto you, in that night there shall be two [men] upon one bed one shall be taken444 and the other let go. Two [women] shall be grinding together; the one shall be taken and the other let go.” Here again the proof is complete and palpable, that it is no question of the Romans dealing with Jerusalem and the Jews, for the conqueror made no such discrimination among the conquered, nor is it any other providential judgment executed by man, for he is incapable of thus distinguishing. between it is not so with the Son of man, who will thus judge between cattle and cattle whether among the Jews or among the Gentiles.

Judged by the witnesses, verse 36 would appear to have no sufficient authority in our Gospel, but seems plainly to have been imported from the Gospel of Matthew, where it finds its just place.

“And answering they say to him, Where, Lord? And he said to them, Where the body [is], there the eagles will be gathered together.” The executors of God’s judgment will not fail to find themselves where an object demands it in that day. Power and righteousness are then together, and a wisdom adequate even to that great occasion. It is the day of Jehovah for the world. The area of judgment is not limited to Judea as in Matthew 24, where a similar but stronger phrase appears and indeed there is much in common between the two passages. That the Jews may be before the Lord here, too, as the prominent persons warned, is very possible. It is always so where the dealings of God with man and the earth are found; for Israel is Jehovah’s son, His firstborn. When the Church or Christians are in view it is not so; for there the distinctions of the Jew or Gentile disappear before Him whom we have put on and in whom is neither Jew nor Greek. The attempt to apply the passages to the Lord’s coming for us, or at least not to distinguish between this and His appearing for the judgment of man, Jew or Gentile, is, that people construe “the eagles” as “the saints”! from Ambrose and Chrysostom, etc., down to Luther and Calvin, etc., and even to Burgon and Wordsworth in our days. They are still more perplexed as to “the body,” some taking it as “Christ!” others as the “Church” no less than “the eagles”; others as “the Lord’s supper”; some as “the judgment”; others as “heaven”; and none really knowing anything rightly about the matter. Most moderns take “the eagles” as “the Romans” and “the body” as Jerusalem and the Jews. This is nearer the truth, but inadequate when simply applied to the past. M. Henry thinks that “the eagles” may mean both “the saints” and “the Romans”; and Ryle thinks it very probable that all the interpretations hitherto proposed will prove at last incorrect! I have given not nearly all the opinions: but my readers will agree that I have given at least enough, and that miserable comforters are they all, especially such as think that the truth remains to be discovered only at the Second Advent. There is not much living faith in such thoughts. What a descent from our Lord’s promise, in John 16:13, now fulfilled: “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all the truth... and he will show you things come.”

NOTE. — Quotation marks agree with the author’s article in “Bible Treasury,” October, 1871, approved by himself, and were possibly intended to emphasize the number of conflicting interpretations.

Endnotes

425 Verse 1. — “Disciples”: see note on 16:1.

“All are included, from the severest persecutor to the inconsistent believer” (Neil).

There is a sermon by Dr. Chalmers on this verse.

426 Verse 2. — “It would be more profitable,” λυσιτελεῖ, Matthew has συμφέρει, whilst Mark has καλόν... μᾶλλόν Cf. note 98 on Mark.

426a Verse 3 f — Cf. Matt. 18:21 f. — Robert Chapman: “The man who seventy times seven forgives injuries, is he who best knows how to protect himself” (“Choice Sayings,” p. 148). F. W. Robertson had already said from his pulpit: “Judaism was the education of the spiritual child, Christianity that of the spiritual man... Judaism said, Forgive seven times — exactly so much; Christianity said, Forgiveness is a boundless spirit — not three times nor seven — seventy times seven. It must be left to the heart” (“Lectures on the Epistles to the Corinthians,” p. 130). Augustine has a sermon on verse 3.

426b Verse 5. — “The only recorded instance of the disciples asking a spiritual gift of Christ” (Neil). 427 427 Verse 6. — “Sycamore tree,” Matthew and Mark have “mountain.” Sanday: “He assumed the existence of the same power in His disciples as in Himself” (“Life of Christ in Recent Research,” p. 223 f.). The American Rem adhere to the Received Text (“D”) “If ye had faith it would obey you.”

Chas. Simeon preached on verse 5 f.

428 Verse 8. — See Schor, p. 49.

429 Verse 9. — See note 91 on Mark.

430 Verse 10. — Bengel: “Woe be to him whom his Lord calls unprofitable servant, happy he who calls himself so.”

Mackintosh: “In the presence of the living God the very thought of merit falls away” (“Christian Ethics,” p. 44).

As to Messianic reward, see Abrahams, p. 20, and with regard to merely mercenary motive, cf. the saying of Antigonus of Socho in Pirqe. Aboth: “Be, not as servants, who serve their master on the understanding that they will receive recompense.”

See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 1541.

431 Verse 11. — (Cf. John 12:1.) Bengel by διἀ μέσου (μέσου) understood “between” (R.V., margin). So van Oosterzee, Hahn, and Plummer, that is, along the borders (American Revv.) of each, either as the Lord was journeying from Galilee to Jerusalem, or on some journey north from Ephraim back to Galilee, in order to make His final ascent with Galilean pilgrims. Upon the question of locality discussed by critics 18:15 may throw some light, because Matt. 19:1, 13 and Mark 10:1, 13 show that the incident there recorded took place in Peræa, i.e., in the small strip of it shown in maps lying between Samaria and Galilee. Cf. 9:52 and 13:31.

Luther has a sermon on verses 11-19; Isaac Williams, one on verse 17.

432 Verse 12. — See Lev. 13:45f. The distance prescribed by “tradition” was 100 paces (Wetstein).

432a Verse 15 ff. — The excellent remarks of Maclaren (B. C. E., p. 216 f.), should be consulted.

433 Verse 20 ff. — This discourse probably gave rise to the questions of the disciples ill Matt. 24:3. Conjoined with 18:1-8 here, between which and the last section of chapter 17. there should be no break as in R.V., the discourse may be divided into seven part: verses 20 f, 22-24, 25-30, 31-33, 34-36, 37, 18:1-8.

434 “Observation.” The word παρατήρησις and its cognate verb were used medically for watching symptoms of a disease, and) express preliminary investigation; also in astrology, for observation of the stars. Luke’s implement of the verb (6:7, 14:1, 20:20) is to indicate hostile. intent: cf. 37:12 in LXX., and Weymouth’s note on present passage.

The idea that the Lord’s words mean that the Kingdom would I not be physically visible is excluded by the after context, where the emphasis is laid on the future (Wernle, “Beginnings,” p. 68).

435 Verse 21. — “In the midst of,” ἐντός. So Syrsin, Grotius, Bengal, Meyer, Alford, Trench, Weizslieker, B. Weiss (referring to Song of Solomon 3:10), H. Hohmann, Schanz, Farrar, Spence, Lütgert, Plummer, Wernle, and Loisy. Cf. 11:20. Wernle: “It is quite certain that the right translation is among” (loc. cit.). Warman: “The Pharisees asked when, not where” (“New Testament Theology,” p. 22f.). Boehmer: “The Lord does not say ‘already.’”

The A.V., “within,” to which Bevy adhere in text, represents the view taken by Chrysostom’ Erasmus, Luther, Calvin, Olshausen, Godet, Field, Candlish, Sanday, and Wellhausen. It is the rendering which has generally been favored by mystics. Thus Fenelon recommends his reader who may perceive “natural impetuosity gliding in” to “retire quietly within, where is the kingdom of God.” This rendering accords with the usage of ἐντός Biblical Greek (Field); “among” represents its sense in the classical literature, with which this Evangelist must have been familiar, Wellhausen has to own that the sense of the present passage is different from the Matthæan passage as explained by him in commentary on that Gospel.

In whichever way the word be taken, it of course speaks of the Kingdom in its moral aspect (cf. Rom. 14:17).

436 Cf. 19:12 with note there.

437 Verse 22f. — “One of the days,” etc.: cf. verses 24, 26, 30. Bengel, following Euthymius and Theophylact, took it as desire to recall one of the days of the Lord’s life on earth, when it would be too late. See, however, Olshausen, Meyer and J. Weiss. Hahn (cf. Plummer) takes the μιάν as Hebraistic for “first”: cf. 24:1 and Acts 20:7.

Least of all do these words mean, as Stevens represents, “epochs in the progressive development of His Kingdom” (p. 173). It is Luke’s way of describing the παρουσία of Matt. 24:3, 27, 37-39, the eschatological and abiding “presence” (R.V. margin passim).

438 Verse 24. — As to the ἐπιφάνεια of the παρουσία (2 Thess. 2:8), cf. note 134 on Mark and note 524 below; also Harnack, “Sayings,” p. 106f.

For “day” here (as also verse 30), compared with verse 22, see Gen. 2:4.

439 Verse 25. — “This generation,” with a moral signification, as already in 16:8.

440 Verses 26-30. — Here arises the question whether Lot’s retirement from Sodom typifies the removal of Christians from this world in the sense of 1 Thess. 4:13ff., or the deliverance of the future Jewish “Remnant” spoken of by the Apostle in Rom. 9:27-29. Wellhausen (ad loc.) treats Noah and Lot as representing Christians, whilst owning that in Mark at least the admonition is to Jews. The Expositor’s view is that of writers who explain it of the “Remnant.” Cf. note 444.

“Is revealed.” For the ἀποκάλυψις of the Lord Jesus, cf. 2 Thess. 1:7; 1 Cor. 1:7, and 1 Pet. 1:7.

441 Verse 31. — The SON is here prominent, not “the Lord of the vineyard.” See note on 20:15f.

442 Verse 32. — These are the, words inscribed on the monument which Bunyan’s. “Hopeful” and “Christian” met with after parting with “Demas.”

443 Verse 33.― Cf. 9:24, of which critics deem this a “duplicate.” it is one of the sayings of the Lord found in all four Gospels.

444. Verse 31. — B. Weiss rightly compares 1 Thess. 5:2; Norris wrongly, 1 Thess. 4:19. In παραλαμβάνειν the preposition serves as well for take frost the side of as for take to, etc. (John 14:3). Here it is for, not (as Plummer) from destruction.

Luke 18

WHETHER the parable of the importunate widow was uttered as the sequel to the preceding discourse, I am not prepared to say; but this at least is plain, that the parable connects. itself very naturally with what had just gone before, though there seems to me a more general form of the truth also (as is common with our Evangelist) so as to fit in admirably with what follows. It forms, therefore, a pendant as well as a transition.

But the connection with chapter 17 is of importance if it were only to guard from the unfounded idea that its direct application is ecclesiastical, that the widow is the Church, and the judge her God and Father in heaven. Such notions are as far as possible from the context, as well as the contents of the parable; and the error lies incomparably deeper than missing the scope of the Scripture before us. It is of the deepest moment to understand as a Divine truth, in our estimate of relationship with God, that Israel was in the position of the married wife (Jer. 2; Ezek. 16) with Jehovah; whereas the marriage-supper of the Lamb is not celebrated till after the saints, changed into His likeness, are translated to heaven, and Babylon has been judged under the last vial of God’s wrath. (Rev. 19) Hence, whatever the anticipative power of faith in realizing our place as the bride before the consummation, and whatever the closeness of exhortation founded on Christ’s relation to the Church, the apostle speaks of betrothing us to one man or husband to present as a chaste virgin to Christ. So, on the other hand, the specific form of Israel’s unfaithfulness was adultery, as we hear so often in the prophets. But it is not so in Christendom, where the grievous corruption is designated under the figure of a great harlot, not an adulteress. (Revelation 17.) The assumption that we are like Israel, the married wife, falsifies our attitude both toward our Lord Jesus and toward the world. It Judaises the Church instead of leaving her in her proper place of waiting for Christ in holy separateness from the world.

Babylon the great, who falsely arrogates this place to herself, naturally follows it up by saying in her heart, “I sit a queen and I am no widow” (as poor Zion is) “and shall see no sorrow”; and so she has glorified herself and lives deliciously. “Therefore shall her plagues come in one day, death and mourning and famine; and she shall be utterly burned with fire, for strong is the Lord God who judges her.” But here have we no continuing city, though we seek one to come; and in this world we look for tribulation, and through much tribulation to enter the kingdom, being content, yea joyful to show Christ’s rejection where He was put to shame and death, and assured of appearing with Him when He appears in glory. Hence, though we suffer meanwhile with Christ, and glory in affliction, distress, and insult for His name’s sake, it is not as orphans or as widowed; for we enjoy the adoption of sons to our God and Father, and are one spirit with the Lord; but for this very reason we are in the secret of the Divine counsels, and await His coming who is on high, not of the world as He is not, till the day arrives for Him to take the world kingdom and for us to reign with Him. Thus we “reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed to us.” Refusing to assume the air of the wife in rest and possession of His inheritance, we feel that our sorrow here is joined with the communion of His love before He comes to receive us to Himself and to display us with Himself before the world.

In short, then, the parable touches the godly Jewish Remnant rather than the Christian when we come to the exact application of the widow; and this falls in aptly with those saints involved in the judgment of the quick described just before, where one shall be taken and the other left — an earthly scene, it is plain, without a word implying translation to heaven. Still, the Holy Spirit gives the exhortation a more general bearing and with the moral purpose we have so often remarked in our Evangelist. Every saint should profit by it.

“And he spoke also a parable to them, to the purport that they should always pray, and not faint, saying, There was a judge in a city, not fearing God, and not respecting man. And there was a widow in that city, and she came445 to him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary; and he would not for a time; but afterward he said within himself, If even I fear not God, and respect not man,446 at any rate because this widow annoys me, I will avenge her, that she may not by perpetual coming completely harass447 me.”

The reflection which the Lord adds as its second part and application makes all plain to the instructed ear. “And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God at all avenge his elect, who cry to him day and night, and he bears long as to them. I say unto you that he will avenge them speedily. But when the Son of man cometh, shall he indeed find faith on the earth?” It is an à fortiori analogy, which no more views the unjust judge as God than the unjust steward449 in chapter 16 means the disciple. In the two cases it is a powerful or a consolatory appeal. Jesus would encourage one always to pray without fainting if the answer seem to tarry and evil to abound. Even the unrighteous judge would rather see to the right of the most friendless and feeble than be ever stunned with appeals. How much more shall not God interfere on behalf of His elect against their enemies! It is true that He bears long as to His own; but he will avenge them soon, as all will own when the blow falls.

The attentive reader will note that the deliverance as well as the prayers are Jewish in character, not patient grace like the Christian’s. It is not by their going up to meet the Lord, but by Divine judgment on their foes. Still, the e is real faith in thus crying day and night to God, Who, if He delay, is not slack concerning His promises, but is bringing souls to repentance that they too might be saved. And there is perseverance till the answer is given. When the Lord comes, there are elect saints already glorified with Him (Rev. 17:14; 19:14) but here they are on earth crying to God till He takes vengeance on those who wronged them. It would seem also, from the question which the Lord puts and does not answer, that faith will be rare then as in the days of Noah and Lot, when few were saved and some nearest to the saved were lost — so feeble and fluctuating the faith, too, that only He could find it.450

The next section of our Gospel sets forth, first by a parable, then by facts, lastly by the words which passed between the Lord and the twelve, the characteristics which suit the kingdom of God. The connection is with this as we know it now, rather than with its display when the Son of man comes in judgment of the quick as in the preceding parable. Indeed, the exceeding breadth of the lesson about to be taught we learn in the words with which the Evangelist opens: “And he spoke also to some, who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and made nothing of all the rest [of them], this parable.” It is no dispensational picture of the Divine ways with Jews. and Gentiles; it is a moral delineation which tells us how God regards those who plume themselves On their correctness of ways as a ground of confidence with Him, and, what His estimate is of those who are broken before Him because of their conscious and now to themselves loathsome sinfulness.

“Two men went up into the temple to pray, the one a Pharisee, and the other a tax-gatherer. The Pharisee, standing, prayed thus to himself: God, I thank thee that I am not as the rest of men, rapacious, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax-gatherer. I fast twice in the week, I tithe everything that I acquire. And the tax-gatherer, standing afar off, would not lift up even his eyes to heaven, but was striking upon his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me the sinner. I say unto you, this [man] went down to his house justified rather than that [other]; for every one who exalted himself shall be humbled, and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted.”

The Pharisee represents the religious world in its most respectable shape; the tax-gatherer, such as had no character to lose, but whatever he may have been, now truly penitent and looking to God’s compassion in self-judgment. How different are the thoughts of God from those of men! A delicate difference is implied in the two forms of the word which we translate “standing” in each case. With the Pharisee the form (σταθείς) implies a stand taken, a putting himself in position, such as one might naturally do in addressing a speech to an assembly. With the tax-gatherer it is the ordinary expression for standing in contradistinction to sitting ἑστώς).451

Again, the essence of the Pharisee’s prayer, if prayer it can be called, is not a confession of sin nor an expression of need even, but a thanksgiving; and this, not for what God had done and been for him, but for what he himself was. He was not, like the rest of men, violent and corrupt, nor even as the tax-gatherer, of whom he cannot speak without a tinge of contempt — “this tax-gatherer.” He finally displays his own habits of fasting452 and of religious punctiliousness. Not that he laid false claims; not that he excluded God, but he trusted, as a ground for acceptance, to his righteousness, and he made nothing of others. He never saw his own sins in the sight of God.

The tax-gatherer, on the contrary, is filled with shame and contrition. He stands afar off with not even his eyes raised to heaven, and beats withal on his breast, saying, “God be compassionate to me, the sinner if ever there was one.”453 There is no solid reason to infer that he pleads the Atonement in the word ἱλάσθητι. No doubt the idea of propitiating is expressed by the verb; but it is used far more widely, like its kinder world in Matt. 16:22, in where no o e could suppose such an allusion. Whatever the origin or usage of the word, we are not to suppose that the tax-gatherer in employing it thought of the day of atonement, or of the mercy-seat in the holiest; still less are we warranted to attribute to him an intelligence of the mighty work of redemption which Jesus was soon about to accomplish. The word might allude to propitiation; but that he did so in his crying to God thus is another matter altogether. We easily transfer to souls before the death of Christ a knowledge which, however simple and clear to us since the Cross, could not be possessed before.

And this misapprehension has led to another, that the Lord was here pronouncing the tax-gatherer justified as we are who believe in the Lord Jesus and His blood. But this is not the teaching of the passage. The strong assertion of Archbishop Trench that it is, and the fact that Roman Catholic theologians deny it, need neither allure nor deter. It is in vain to say that the sentence of our Lord is that the publican was justified by faith at the time when he is described as going down to his house. There is a distinct comparison with the Pharisee, and it is affirmed that the tax-gatherer went down justified rather than the former. Had justification by faith been meant as in Rom. 3-5, no such statement could have been made. There are no degrees in the justification of which Paul speaks; the Lord implies that there are in what He speaks of. Besides the form of the word differs. He is said to have gone down, not δικαιωθείς absolutely, but δεδικαιωμένος... παπῤ ἐκεῖον/454 I do not doubt that this is the true text.

The common English version seems quite correct, though founded, no doubt, on the vulgarly received text, ἢ ἐκῖνος.

The great mass of Uncials and cursives join in giving the strange reading ῆ γᾶρ εκενος followed even in his eighth edition. by Tischendorf, spite of the Sinai MS. which casts its weight into the scale of the Vatican (B) and Parisian 62 (L), not to speak of D with its not infrequent additions, and some few other authorities.

Dean Alford shows us the danger of misapplying the case to justification, which is his own view, by the remark he adds: “Therefore, he who would seek justification before God must seek it by humility and not by self-righteousness.” It is the more to be regretted that this glaring error should have been made by one who had just confessed that we are not to find any doctrinal meanings in ἰλάσθητι. It would have been more consistent not to have pressed δεδικαιωμένος similarly.455

From the homily on lowliness in view of our sins we are now to receive another, lowliness because of our insignificance. “And they brought to him also infants that he might touch them; but the disciples when they saw [it] rebuked them. But Jesus calling them to [him] said, Suffer little children to come unto me, and do not forbid them; for of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child shall in no wise enter into it.”457 The babes were of great price in the eyes of Jesus, not of the disciples, who, if not rabbis themselves, would have lowered their Master to the level of such an one in contempt of little ones. But this could not be suffered, for it was not the truth. Neither the Son nor the Father so feel toward the weak and evidently dependent. Nor is this all: “of such is the kingdom of God.” Those who enter into His kingdom must by grace receive the Saviour and His word as a child that of its parents. Self-reliance is excluded and replaced by dependence on God in the sense of our own nothingness.

Next comes the young and rich ruler, who went away sorrowfully from Christ rather than give up the self-importance attached to his manifold possessions. “And a certain ruler asked him, saying, Good Teacher, having done what shall I inherit life eternal?457a And Jesus said to him, Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, God./458 Thou knowest the commandments, Do not commit adultery, do not kill, do not steal, do not bear false witness, honor thy father and thy mother.458a And he said, All these things have I kept from my youth. And Jesus on hearing [this] said to him, One thing is lacking to thee yet: sell all that thou hast and distribute to poor [men], and thou shalt have treasure in the heavens; and come, follow me. But he on hearing these things became very sorrowful, for he was exceedingly rich. And Jesus having seen him [become very sorrowful said, How difficult shall those who have riches enter into the kingdom of God! For it is easier for a camel to enter through a needle’s eye than for a rich [man] to enter into the kingdom of God.”

The case is plain. The young ruler had no sense of sin, no faith in Christ as a Saviour, still less did he believe that a Divine person was there, which indeed Ito must be to save sinners. He appealed to Jesus as the best expression of goodness in man, the highest in the class in which he counted himself no mean scholar. The Lord answers him on the ground of his question. Did he ask the Lord as the good master or teacher, what thing doing he should inherit eternal life? He took his stand on his own doing: he saw not that he was lost and needed salvation. It had never occurred to him that man as such was out of the way, none good, no, not one. That Jesus was the Son of God and Son of man. sent to save was a truth to him unknown. The Lord brings in the commandments of the second table: but his conscience was untouched: “All these things have I kept from my youth.”458b “One thing is lacking to thee yet,” said Jesus to the self-satisfied yet dissatisfied ruler, conscious that he had not eternal life and that he had no solid security for the future: “Sell all that thou hast, and distribute to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven, and come, follow me.” The conscience which had resisted the test of law fell at the first touch of Jesus. “And hearing this he became very sorrowful, for he was exceedingly rich.”459

Yet how infinitely did the demand fall short of what we know and have in the Master, good indeed, God indeed, who never laid on others a burden which He had not borne,460 who bore one immeasurably greater and under circumstances peculiar to Himself, and for ends redounding to the glory of God, and with the result to every sinful creature on earth of a testimony of grace without limit, and of a blessing without stint where He is received! To the ruler it was overwhelming, impossible, the annihilation of all he valued; for indeed now it was evident that he loved his riches, money, mammon, a thing he had never suspected in himself before; but there it had been all along, discovered now in presence of and by Him Who, though He was rich, yet for our sakes became poor, that we through His poverty might be made rich. The ruler valued his position and his property, and could not bear to have nothing and be nothing, Oh, what a contrast with Him who “counted it not a matter of robbery to be on equality with God, but emptied Himself, taking a bondsman’s form, born in likeness of men; and who, when found in fashion as a man, humbled Himself by becoming obedient as far as death, yea death of the cross.”

How plain, too, that worldly prosperity or wealth, fruit of fidelity according to the law, is a danger of the first magnitude for the soul, for eternity! And Jesus did not fail to draw the searching moral for the disciples, ever slow, through unjudged selfishness, to learn it. They knew not yet to what Christians are called, even to be imitators of God as dear children, and to walk in love according to the pattern of Christ. It is all but impossible, it is impossible, as far as man is concerned, for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God.461 “And who can be saved?” is the remark of those who heard a sentence so counter to their secret desires.462 Jesus replied, “The things that are impossible with men are possible with God.” 462a There is no other hope of salvation. It is of God, not of man. Yet to save cost God everything, yea His own Son. And “if the righteous are with difficulty saved, where shall the impious, and the sinner appear?” And why wonder at the danger to a rich man through the unrighteous mammon? None can serve two masters. Happy he who through grace makes wealth to be only for Christ’s service, looking to have the true riches his own in everlasting glory!

“And Peter said, Behold we have left all. things and have followed thee. And he said to them, Verily I say unto you, There is no one who hath left home, or parents, or brethren, or wife, or children for the sake of the kingdom of God who shall not get manifold more at this time, and in the age that is coming life eternal.”463 But if Peter was thus prompt to speak of their losses for Christ, who certainly repays as God only can both now and through eternity according to the riches of His grace, “he taking the twelve to [him] said to them, Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things written by the prophets of the Son of man shall be accomplished; for he shall be delivered up to the nations and shall be mocked, and insulted, and spit upon; and when they have scourged him they will kill him, and on the third day he will rise again.” Again, what a contrast even with the thoughts and hopes of disciples! Alas! “they understood none of these things; and this word [or matter] was hidden from them, and they did not know what was said.” So it ever is where the eye is not single, By faith we understand. Where nature is still valued by saints, the plainest words of Jesus are riddles even to such.465

The final scene approaches. Jesus is about to enter Jerusalem and to present Himself in the flesh to the Jews for the last time. Our Evangelist slowly traces this journey (chapters. 9:51; 13:22, 31, 33; 17:11; 18:31; 19:28, 29, 37, 41), with the infinite consequences which flow from that cross which, to human eyes, was His rejection, but which faith knows to be the glorifying of God forever, as well as the only possible ground of salvation for sinners.

Jericho held a remarkable place as the way to Jerusalem from the Jordan, and of old, when it stood in its might, the key of the position. Hence its solemn destruction under Joshua; hence the curse pronounced on him who should dare to rebuild it. But there Elisha, after the translation of Elijah and his own crossing through the miraculously parted river, healed the waters. So here the Lord, drawing towards the close of His long and last journey, after the transfiguration, performs a miracle of mercy on the blind man. It was an especial sign of His Messiahship; and rightly, therefore, led of God, did the blind man call on Him as Son of David: so the three synoptic Gospels carefully record.

It is to be observed, however, that not Mark nor Luke, but Matthew records the fact that two blind men were healed at this time. F know that the son further, Mark, who as usual adds details of the most graphic description, lets us know that the son of Timæus, Bartimæus, was thus healed as the Lord was going out of Jericho, Matthew also intimating that it was on leaving, not entering, the place. Luke, on the other hand, has been generally supposed to say that the miracle was performed on entering Jericho. So all the old English translations, Wickliff, Tyndale, Geneva, Cranmer, the Rhemish, as well as the Authorized: so the Latin, Syriac, and other ancient versions, with most moderns.

But it appears to me that the Greek phrase is so constructed as to avoid any such conclusion, and that, the genuine, unforced meaning is “while he was near to Jericho.”

According to the usage of the New Testament there might have been ground for the objection raised, if Luke had employed the genitive absolute. In strict grammatical nicety there is nothing to tie the sense to the entry into Jericho; it means equally well, as far as language is concerned, while the Lord was in the neighborhood.

I cannot doubt that what weighed with translators in general is the fact that chapter 19 opens with the Lord’s entering and passing through Jericho. Hence it was assumed that the previously mentioned circumstance must have preceded this in time. And it must be owned if Luke, as a rule, adhered to the order of occurrence in his account, it would be most natural to translate chapter 18:35 as in the Authorized Version. But it has been shown throughout our Gospel that he adopts another and deeper order than the mere sequence of events, and habitually groups the words, works, and ways of our Lord in moral connection, whenever it is needful to this end, putting together what may have been far apart in time.

In the present case it seems to have been in the mind of the Spirit that all three who dwell on the Galilean ministry of Christ should mark Jericho and the healing of the blind there as a common starting-point before His formal appearance in Jerusalem. We can understand, therefore, why Luke, even if the incident of Zacchæus occurred after the miracle, should, according to his manner, postpone his account of it till he had told us of the blind man healed. But there seems to have been a yet stronger reason of a similar character in the fact that, if the healing had been introduced after Zacchæus, when have no doubt) it really took place, adherence to the mere chronology of the facts would have spoiled the very impressive order actually adopted, in which we see the tale of Zacchæus, with salvation brought to his house though a chief tax-gatherer, followed at once by the parable of the pounds, which together beautifully set forth the general character and differing objects of the two advents of the Lord, who was about suffer as the Ground of righteousness and salvation for the lost, instead of at once establishing His throne in Zion as others fondly thought.

If this were the design of the inspiring Spirit, as I conceive it certainly to b, gathered from the special character traceable throughout its course, it does not seem possible to suggest any other order, so admirably calculated to convey it as that which is pursued. Hence the point in verse 35 was to choose a phrase which, while not breaking the thread of the narrative, and, of course, in. words thoroughly consistent with the exact truth, should nevertheless convey the thought of a time or state during which, the particular act related took. place. This, in my opinion, has been done perfectly in the language of Luke: so much so that, granting the aim to be as I suppose, no man can desire better words to combine what is intimated, or to avoid, a false inference for all aware of that design. If, on the contrary, men, however learned, assume a bare order of fact, this naturally would influence their translation; and so I think we may fairly account for the common mistake.

Accordingly there is no need of resorting to any of the various methods of reconciling Luke’s account with Matthew and Mark. We are not driven to the harsh supposition that Luke’s blind man was healed before entering Jericho, and that the news of this reached Mark’s blind man, Bartimæus, so that he went through a similar process of appeal on the Lord’s exit, as Origen and Augustine supposed in early days, Greswell, etc., in our own time. Nor is it necessary (though undoubtedly quite legitimate, and the fact elsewhere) to suppose that Matthew combined the two instances in one summary. Less reasonable is the view of Euthymius, who will have it that all three instances were distinct, and, therefore, that four blind men were healed at this time near Jericho. Nor is there any substantial ground to argue, as men have done from Calvin to Wordsworth, that the blind man began crying as our Lord approached Jericho, but was not healed till another joined him outside, and both received sight as Jesus left the place. Still more violent are the hypotheses of Markland and of Macknight. The truth is that there is nothing in this to reconcile, all that being evidently harmonious, when the language of Luke is seen to be such as falls in with the time and place described more precisely by Matthew and Mark. It may be well, however, to add that Matthew elsewhere names two where Mark and Luke as here speak only of one, as in the case of the demoniacs. (Compare Matthew 8:28-34 with Mark 5:1-20 and Luke 8:26-39.) See also Matthew 9:27-31.

This was all right, when the fact (as here) warranted it, in one writing especially for Jews, with whom it was a maxim to demand at least two witnesses. The other Evangelists were each led to dwell only on the one that best suited the design of his own Gospel.

It is striking also to note that as there was a reason why Matthew, and not Mark nor Luke, should record pairs which were healed, so there is the strongest indirect evidence in this against the very poor theory that the omissions of the first Evangelist were supplied in measure by the second, and yet more by the third and so on. For it was the earliest who in these instances speaks of the two; which is irreconcilable, on the supplementary theory,466 with the second and third mentioning but one. The Holy Spirit made them by His power the vessels for setting forth the various glories of Jesus the Son of God on the earth. Each had his own line given and perfectly carried out, and fact or sayings are recorded by each, whether reported by the others or not, as they bore on his proper objects.

“And it came to pass when he was in the neighborhood of Jericho, a certain blind man was sitting by the wayside begging;467 and when he heard the crowd passing, he asked what this might be. And they told him that Jesus the Nazarene was passing by, and he called aloud, saying, Jesus, Son of David, pity me. And those in advance rebuked him that he should be silent; but he kept crying much more, Son of David, pity me. And Jesus stopped and ordered him to be brought to him; and when he came near, he asked him, What wilt thou that I should do for thee? An he said, Lord, what that I should receive my sight. And Jesus said, Receive sight: thy faith hath healed thee. And immediately he received sight, and followed him, glorifying God. And all the people saw, and gave praise to God.”

The Lord was still the rejected One, not understood even by His disciples, yet with a heart towards the most lowly and wretched in Israel who cried to Him in faith. The blind man near Jericho was one of them, and seized the moment of His presence, made known to his sightless eyes by the heedless noise of those who seeing saw not. Blindness in part had happened to Israel in good sooth, blindness most of all to such of them as least acknowledged it. Here was one who, near the city of the curse, dared to confess Him to be the Messiah Whom the religious chiefs had long desired to destroy, and sooner than they hoped were to be allowed to do so, and yet they dared to ask of Him that sign of opening the eyes of the blind peculiar to the Son of David, as even rabbinical tradition confessed. The story of His gracious power was not lost on the blind man. Now was his opportunity: might it not be the last? He called aloud; and the more rebuked, the more by far he cried. If to others Jesus was but the Nazarene, to him none other than David’s Son. “Son of David, pity me.” And never in vain goes forth the appeal of distress to Him. How pleasant in His ears the persistent call on His name! Jesus stops, commands hint to be brought, inquiries into his want, and gives all he asks. So will He in the day of His power when Israel (the remnant becoming the people) shall be made willing, shall call on Him and find sight, salvation, and every other god thing to the praise and glory of God.468

But it was still the day of His humiliation, of Israel’s blind and willful unbelief; and Jesus steadily pursued His sorrowful path to the Holy City about to perpetrate the most unhallowed deed of this world’s sad history.

Endnotes

445 Verse 3. — “Came”; or, “kept coming” (imperf.). Cf. Ecclesiasticus 35:11 ff.

446 Verse 4. — “The creed of a powerful atheist” (Bengel).

447 Verse 5. — “Completely harass” or “plague.” Cf. “wear out,”

ὐπωπιάζειν. (Cf. 1 Cor. 9:27.) Weymouth: “pester.” D. Smith: “It is a pugilist’s term and means hit under the eye.”

448 Verse 7. — The αὐτοῖς would be either, as the Expositor take, it, the “elect” Remnant (cf. Matt. 24:22, Rev. 6:9-11); or, the adversaries (cf. 2 Pet. 3:9). Field “He deferred His anger on their behalf” (that of the elect). Cf. further, Ps. 8:1f., 55:17 and 94:1-4; also Prov. 9:11; Ecclesiasticus 35:18.

For “and he” American Revv. have “and (yet) he.”

449 Cf. Ps. 36: 1 and 94:20, which latter some (as B. W. Newton) have understood as predicted of the Beast’s legislation, but the Psalmist seems to speak there of judicial, rather than political oppression, “seat” representing tribunal (Jennings and Lowe).

450 Verse 8. — See Isa. 60:2, Matt. 24:12, 2 Thess. 3:2 and 2:10 of that Epistle for the few believers on the earth then. Cf. Bruce ad loc. Jewett of Balliol, in sermon at St. Mary’s, Oxford (1872), paraphrased thus: “What prospect is there of any great moral or religious improvement among mankind?” Farrar well says that such faith as the Son of Man will find among men will be faith in themselves.

Dr. Arnold has a sermon preached from this verse (“Christian Life,” p. 20).

“The (or, that) faith,” τὴν πίστιν. This is variously taken as (a) such faith as the widow’s, typical of the Remnant (Exposition, and so very much B. Weiss); (b) personal faith in general; (c) Christianity (Canon Scott Holland, in sermon at St. Paul’s). Dr. Frederic Harrison, presumably, would understand it of creeds in general. He closes his autobiographic “Memories” (1911) by saying, “Our age has no abiding faith in any religion at all,” which should include that “of Humanity,” of which he is himself the English prophet (note 147a).

The Mohammedan Seljuks of the thirteenth century originated a belief that Aissa, the saint said to have preceded the Prophet by some 500 years, will visit every country of Europe, England, and America, but find none faithful to his teaching, until he reaches the Lake of Tiburijeh (art. by Capt. von Herbert in Hibbert Journal, Oct., 1908).

FAITH — For faith in the word of JESUS, see Mark 1:15; for faith in Himself, Matt. 8:10. Cf. note 98 on Mark.

The “Catholic” definition would be found in the “Explanatory Catechism,” No. 9. For Cardinal Newman’s Theory of Belief, see the psychological analysis of it in Mellone, “Leaders of Religious Thought” (1902). According to Maher, a living Catholic professor, Newman’s faith would be no more than opinion (“Psychology,” p. 328). See the Cardinal’s “Grammar of Assent,” chapters 4, 6, 7. Another representative of Catholicism comes near to the Expositor’s view in treating Faith as belief on Divine testimony (Rickaby, “First Principles,” part 2, chapter 8).

A recent work by Dean Inge deals with the psychological aspects of Faith. Sir W. Hamilton wrote: “Knowledge is a certainty founded upon insight; belief is certainty founded upon feeling. The one is perspicuous and objective, the other obscure and subjective.”

The theological aspect of Faith has been thus stated by Fairbairn “Faith is an intellectual act, for it is a form of knowledge; it is an emotional attitude and activity, for it trusts persons and works by love it is a moral intuition, for it sees obligation in truth and right in duty” (“Philosophy of the Christian Religion,” p. 548). Of Rom.1:5, Gal. 5:6, and note 9 on John, sub init.; and see also Stalker, “The Ethic of Jesus,” chapter 8.

For a scientific appreciation of the present state of Religions Belief in “Christian” communities, see Pratt, “Psychology of Religion,” especially chapter 8. (p. 231 ff.). This writer’s third class of believers is composed of those who by the Evangelist are regarded as truly such. A correspondence in the Daily Telegraph some years ago, which has since been republished in a volume edited by W. L. Courtney, revealed the many lights in which this Vital subject is now regarded. One of the contributors referred to an aphorism which would be found in Nietzsche’s “Antichrist”. (§ 52), that “Belief means not wishing to know what is true.” (Cf. Herbert Spencer on “Christian Scepticism.”)

Newman, from his Oxford pulpit, spoke well when he said, “Unbelief is opposed to Reason criticizes the evidences of Religion, only because it does not like it, and really goes upon presumptions and prejudices as much as Faith does.”

In this connection it is odd that Hume, the protagonist of Doubt in the eighteenth century, avowed that he had never read the New Testament! Here it becomes a question of those who live in glass houses not throwing stones.

Benn, in Literary Guide and Rationalist Review, Oct., 1908, has strikingly written, “Faith is no more than a particular application of Reason. It means confidence in the legitimacy of inferring the future from the past; the unseen from the scene; the unknown from the known.” Christian thinkers would acquiesce in this, from passages of Scripture like 1 Pet. 3:15. The Bishop of Ossory, in Evidential Lecture at King’s College, London, in the year 1909, expressed himself in a like sense; emphasizing, of course, the element of trust, which adheres to Benn’s view nol. vol. But Christian faith is a gift of God (Eph. 2:8), of which JESUS is originator (Heb. 12:2; cf. Gal. 2:20); and here lies all the difference.

Cf. notes 54 and 58 on Mark, and note 133, in particular, on John.

See Spurgeon’s Sermons, 856 and 1963.

451 Verse 11. — “The Pharisee.” For the “Christian” counterpart, cf. Rev. 3:17 f. As J. H. Newman in a parochial sermon said very truly: “The worldly man is a Pharisee.”

“Stood,” For σταθείς, cf. 19:8, of Zaccheus. Standing was, and remains, the habitual attitude of Jews in prayer: cf. Mark 11:25. The scriptural: attitudes are either standing (Abraham, in Gen. 18:22: cf. Jer. 15:1, of Moses and Samuel), or kneeling (Solomon, Daniel, our Lord in 22:41, Stephen, Peter, Paul). For the quaint expression “sat” in 1 Citron. 17:16, cf. Matt. 4:16: the Hebrew word and its Greek equivalent being used for abiding, tarrying. Cf. further 21:35 of this Gospel.

452 Verse 12. — “Twice, etc.” That is, on Mondays and Thursdays, according the Talmud. It is prescribed in Old Testament Scripture only for the Day of Atonement. The Didaché enjoined its observance by Christians on Wednesdays and Fridays (§ 8.).

453 Verse 13. — “Was striking upon his breast.” Cf. Neander’s fatuous saying, “The breast makes the theologian,” which carried the sympathy of Schleiermacher. The words of the writer of the well-known Church History were those of a man of genius.

“The sinner”; or, as A.V., retained by Revv., “a sinner.” That is, “who is a sinner,” the article being then regarded as equivalent to a relative pronoun, as in Rom. 7:21.

The same words were on the lips, when dying, of Archbishop Usher and William Wilberforce.

There is a discourse of Bunyan on verses 10-13 (“Works,” vol. ii.), also sermons of G. Whitefield and Isaac Williams.

454 “Justified,” δεδικαιωμένος. Meyer, Godet, and Weiss suppose that it means Pauline doctrinal justification, a view which the Expositor’s remarks were designed to meet. Cf. Wellhausen: justified relatively.

455 For verses 9-14, see “Pilgrim’s Progress,” part 2: “Great heart” to the pilgrims; also sermon of Whitefield, and Spurgeon’s 1949.

Critics, as the manner is, suppose a duplicate here of 14:11.

456 Verse 15.―The connection with Matt. (19:13f.) and Mark (10:13 ff.) is here resumed.

457 Verse 16f.―The KINGDOM (“moral” aspect).

“To receive” (verse 17); or, “to accept,” δέχεσθαι (active). Observe the distinct force of this word in 1 Cor. 2:14, compared with verse 10 there; also 2 Cor. 11:4, where both λαμβἀνειν and δέμβάειν instructively occur in the same verse. The Vulgate in Luke 18 has distinguished δεχ. in present verse from λαμβ. in verse 30.

Stock: “receiving is not exactly a passive thing” (p. 230).

As to acceptance of the Kingdom (God’s Sovereignty, or Christ’s Lordship), see Dalman, p. 91, and note 105 on Mark; for entrance, which in Scripture is regularly used of the time of recompense, Dalman, p. 95, and note 99 on the same Gospel.

The GOSPEL as popularly used (see note on 8:1) is only the scaffolding of the KINGDOM, not the building itself. Children of at least Christian parents obey them readily, from the heart, so far as they do respond to faithful “nurture and admonition.” Cf. Rom. 1:5, 6:17, and Eph. 6:4: in the last passage they are required to recognize the Lordship of Christ, to be subject to that. In the child as such there is no consciousness of merit; and so for those who entertain the doctrine of the Kingdom and enter upon the path which leads to its attainment.

“As a little child.” See Nicoll, “Return to the Cross,” pp. 201, 210, and chapter “The Theology of Little Children” (p. 142), quoting Bushnell: “it is the very character and mark of all unchristian education that it brings up the child for future conversion.” This American writer also remarks, “Of the Moravian Brethren not one in ten recollects the time when he began to be religious” (quoted ibid., p. 145); in other words, to love the Lord.

457a Verse 18.― “Inherit”: see note 106 on Mark, and in particular Rom. 8:17, where a twofold inheritance is spoken of:

(1.) “heirs of GOD,” obtaining an endless inheritance promised (Tit. 1:2, 2:3; Heb. 9:15; cf. 1 Pet. 5:10), which “fadeth not away” (1 Pet. 1:4 f.) and connected with Pauline justification, by FAITH, “of life” (Acts 13:39; Rom. 5:18), clenched by “this grace wherein (we) believers stand”;

(2.), “but,” as Vulg. rightly : see Meyer, “joint-heirs with CHRIST, if so be . . . that we may be also glorified with (Him),” where a semicolon after “Christ” obscures the meaning. For this cf. Col. 3:24; 2 Tim. 2:12. and Heb. 3:14 (Greek). In Rom. 8:17 the μέν and δέ together make up the “but.” This distinct inheritance, which is the prelude to the other (verse 30; cf. 2:7 of the same Epistle), popularly confounded with it, is related to justification by WORKS in James (2:18, 24).

It is sometimes said by apologists for crude “Reformed” doctrine that, because Paul alone uses “before God” (Rom. 4:2), justification in James means: before seen (cf. Matt. 5:16), and appeal is made to Jas. 2:24. But that the Apostle James uses the word “see” for ideal sight is proved by verse 11 of his Epistle. Bishop Bull’s second Dissertation (chapter 1) on Justification has refuted what he describes as this “foolish scheme.” That one believer’s works are open to another’s human appreciation is clear from Jas. 2:18 but James’s reference to Genesis (22:19) is different from that made by Paul (15: 6): observe in Gen. 22:15, “now I (Jehovah) know,” when no men were on the scene but Abraham and his son. Luther (like Calvin, note 1921 did not apprehend the truth of the Kingdom, any more than that of the Church, which together have come out more clearly during the last eight years.

See further 21:36 of this Gospel and 1 Cor. 10:12, which, in harmony other passages, establish the standing in responsibility (obnoxious to Calvinists alongside of that in grace (obnoxious to Arminians). The statement of Norris that “Justification is complete, though liable to be forfeited” (“Rudiments of Theology,” p. 125), is misleading: cf. Rom. 8:30 and 1 Tim. 2:4, which strike one note with 1 Thess. 2: 12, which strikes another. “Probation,” recognized in the New Testament (1 Cor. 9:27, etc.), has to do with standing in responsibility. The Holy Spirit would jealously guard such a scripture as Acts 13:39 from an interpretation admitting of antinomianism in any shape or form. See 2 Pet. 3:16; 1 Cor. 10:11 f., etc.

Controversialists, Roman and Protestant, High Anglican and Evangelicals, too often will but “see” one side of the ease: whilst Higher Critics are wont to divorce Gospels from Epistles, and, from Lutheran tradition, to view these as in disharmony (cf. note 617).

Kingdom blessing depends, not on conform to “the Law,” as the term is used by the Apostle Paul (Gal. 2:16, “the works of the Law”; cf. Rom. 6:14), but upon the believer’s realization of, and conformity to, New Testament requirements: see in particular Matt. 7:24, 28:20. and 1 Cor. 9:21. The Kingdom in its manifestation will be the sphere of recompense for doing and suffering: see 14:14, comparing 1 Thess. 4:14-17, Phil. 3:10f.

“Eternal life,” as used by the “ruler,” is the “life for evermore” of Ps. 133:3, and so always by the Synoptists, who exhibit it in its historical limitations. Not that in the Fourth Gospel any more it is used as equivalent to the synoptic “Kingdom,” as says Garvie (after E. F. Scott). From Luke’s treating the Kingdom largely from a “moral” point of view, bearing on the present dispensation (1 Cor. 4:20), he has seemed to some German writers to lead up to what they suppose to be a merging, by the fourth Evangelist, of I he Kingdom in Eternal Life; just as early “fathers” thought, on the other hand, that the βασίλεια swamps the ζωὴ αἰώιος. This has resulted from an imperfect induction of passages. The lineaments of the Synoptic Kingdom are engraved indelibly on John 15:1-8, where not a word occurs about “life,” and where the three stages of fruit-bearing in Mark iv. 20 are plainly recognizable, Again, the “abundant” life: of John 10:10 is as thoroughly Lucan as it is Petrine. Cf. notes 65, 66, and 66a on John.

When Wernle criticizes Hermas amongst sub-apostolic writers for the conviction that many Christians would forfeit Kingdom blessings on the ground that the writer of the Shepherd “never got quit of Jewish uncertainty of salvation” (“Beginnings,” ii., p. 303), it must be remembered that, whilst it is true that none of the spokesmen of that generation laid hold of the Biblical fact that the believer has a “purged conscience” (Heb. 10:2 and 22), their imperfect understanding of Grace arose from the mistake above mentioned, which may have been accentuated by misunderstanding of 2 Pet. 1:11; this, notwithstanding critics’ depreciation of the Epistles as a whole, has become classical.

458 Verse 19.―The emphasis is on “good,” not on “Me.” Cf. Ullmann, “Sinlessness of Jesus,” p. 148, ff. and note 107 on Mark, which deals with the point raised in such popular books as Schmiedel, “Jesus in Modern Criticism,” p. 23. The limitations of the Lord’s humanity we cannot determine outside Scripture (John 5:19, etc.), they were incidental to His self-imposed humiliation. There is here no more avowal of imperfection than in 20:41-44 a repudiation of his Davidic Sonship. It is noticeable that the Qorân, whilst more than once recording Mohammed’s sense of need of forgiveness of sins, nowhere attributes to Aissa any such confession, although apocryphal gospels, from which “the Prophet” received his information, are not free from insinuations of the kind.

For “good” (ἀγαθός) applied to the Lord, cf. John 7:12. “Goodness” (ἀγαθωσύνη) GOD displays specially in sacrifice (verse 22; cf. Rom. 8:32). Ethical religionists may talk of “sacrifice in behalf of the race,” but JESUS first taught and practiced it, as none other could or would do. Treasured have ever been words of the “judicious” Hooker in his great sermon on Justification: “We care for no other knowledge in the world than this, that man hath sinned and God hath suffered; that God hath made Himself the sin of teen, and that men are made the righteousness of God.” Had Irving and others held to this fundamental truth, we should never have had the unhappy suggestion of peccability of the Lord intruded on the Church.

458a Verse 20.―We have here, of course; a summary of the Ethical Code on its manward side, and that alone.

458b Verse 21.―In the Talmud the inquiry is raised, “Why did God give so many commandments?” To which a rabbinical answer is, “To multiply Israel’s merit”!

459 Verse 23.―Matthew adds here, “he went away.”

460 Cf. Gal. 6:2.

461 Verse 24 f.―Difficult as it may be for the affluent to accept the Gospel of salvation, still more is it for such, when already Christians, to conform their conduct to the principles of the Kingdom. But heavenly grace suffices for the one situation as for the other. The same Evangelist, who in this chapter of his record has commemorated the offering of the “poor widow,” has in another (23:50f.) told of the loving service rendered to the Master, when He was no longer on the scene to acknowledge it, by one of the class (of. Matt. 27:5, πλούσιος) here spoken of, “who was looking for the Kingdom of God” and, we may well suppose, will be awarded a place in it.

“Needle’s eye.” The small gate for foot passengers is not beside (Adeney), but within the larger one for animals (Schor, p. 30). Both words here (τρῆμα, βελόνη) are medical terms: see Hobart.

462 “Saved.” As to Messianic salvation, see note 361 (13:23).

462a Verse 27.―cf. Mark 14:36 in another connection.

463 Verse 30.― “Manifold more.” Garvie: “communion of saints instead of family relationships.”

“In this time.” Nietzsche: “Buddhism gives no promise, but keeps every one; Christianity gives any promise, but keeps none” (“Antichrist,” § 42). This is the language of a man not understanding what he said (1 Tim. 1:7) in either direction. The Buddhism that he so much lauded occupies novice and gray-haired men alike in a delusive struggle against suffering. Nietzsche wrote of Pascal, that the eminent French Christian’s intellect was ruined by his faith; but this miserable man himself, as elsewhere stated, died insane. Again, Stanton Coit writes: “Many have asked and no one has answered, save where the prayer was overheard by some fellow man” (“The Lord’s Prayer,” p. 12). Myriads of men and women “in this time” can give the lie to this airy statement.

“Receive,” λαμβάνειν (passive).

The “age to come” will witness the initial manifestation (cf. references in note 457a, following that to present verse) of the Eternal Life of the Fourth Gospel, which is, or should be, known morally by all believers now. Cf. 1 Tim. 4:8, “having promise of the life to come” (μελλούαης, a word regularly used in millennial contexts (cf. note 355)); and for the manifestation of the sons of God, Rom. 8:19.

The promise is made to those who have already acted as Peter says (Boehmer).

464 Verses 31-34.―See note 220a on John (12:1). Verses 31-43 appear in the “Lectionary” as Gospel for Quinquagesima, to accompany 1 Cor. 13. as the Epistle. “The one affords a transcript from actual life of that which the other exhibits as an ideal” (A. W. Robinson).

465 Verse 34.― “Understood not”; or, “did not perceive,” cf. 24:25, 46 and John 12:34. It is much the same in Christendom now as it was in the Churches of “Asia” to which Paul’s declaration of “the whole counsel of God” was addressed, cf. Acts 20:27 and 2 Tim. 1:15. “Know,” get to know (γινώσκειν).

466 Verse 35f.―The variations of the several Evangelists here are set out in Plummer, p. 429. As to the “supplementary theory,” see Westcott, “Introduction,” p. 183f.

467 See note 111 on Mark. Luke agrees partly with Matthew and partly with Mark, a feature which is somewhat embarrassing to advocates of the current documentary theory.

Of the various explanations available, that seems to be most worthy of Consideration which is derived from the fact that there were two Jerichos, the older site and the city then lately built, at a distance of 1¼ mile from each other. Excavations are being conducted by Prof. Sellin under the auspices of a German archaeological society.

Nösgen, as the Expositor, has followed Grotius’ explanation of ἐγγίζειν εἰς; but the present writer is not prepared to resist the suggestion of motion conveyed independently by the preposition (cf. the Greek 19:29), and agrees with the remarks ad loc. of Bishop Goodwin, p. 311. Chrysostom: “Such apparent discrepancies between the Evangelists do but tell for their mutual independence. The Holy spirit has not been pleased to supply us with all the facts.” The most satisfactory rendering seems to be the one followed in the present volume, which happens to agree with that of Wellhausen.

668 For Messianic passages on blindness, see Isa. 29:18, 35:5, 42:7.

Bartimæus was the first of those outside the apostolic band who addressed the Lord by His Messianic title.

A poem of Longfellow was derived from this narrative.

Luke 19

THE account of Zacchæus is one of those peculiar to Luke and we may readily see how strikingly it furthers the moral aim of the Spirit in this Gospel. Its collocation too may be at once explained on the same principle, supposing, as I do, that the facts occurred while the Lord was passing through Jericho, whereas the blind man Bartimæus did not receive sight till He was on His way outside. But it seemed good to the Holy Ghost here, as often similarly elsewhere, to bring the narrative of Zacchæus into such a position with the parable that follows as to illustrate by them the general character, not only of His first advent but of His second, thereby correcting many a mistaken thought into which men, yea disciples, were apt to slip then end since.

“And he entered and was passing through Jericho; and behold a man by name called Zacchæus,469 and he was chief tax-gatherer and he was rich. And he was seeking to see Jesus who he was, and could not for the crowd, because he was little in stature. And he ran on before and got up a sycamore469a that he might see him, because he was going to pass that [way]. And when he came to the place, Jesus looking up saw him and said to him, Zacchæus, make haste and came down; for today I must469b abide in thy house. And making haste he came down and received him joyfully.”

The Lord had already in parables set forth Divine grace to the lost sinner as such, above all in the prodigal son. We brave now the actual history of a publican, a chief tax-gatherer, and a rich man, to whom grace sent salvation that very day. But here it is well to distinguish what is often overlooked. some allege that Zacchaeus was a man without the fear of God, and unconverted; others compare him with Simeon in the temple. We should not forget that salvation is more than new birth, that it could only then be pronounced by the Messiah; and that it is now in virtue of redemption proclaimed far and wide through faith in His name. It is the primary Christian blessing that a soul needs and receives in a dead and risen Christ; but it should never be confounded with that awakening which accompanies quickening by the Spirit. As the due understanding of this clears up many difficulties created by the confusion prevalent in Christendom from the days of the “fathers” till our, own time, so it will be found, helpful here. The Lord vindicated the grace of God toward one in the waist possible position, the loathing of the proud Pharisee. He who struggled against the many obstructions in the way, who hesitated not to cast off all conceit of dignity and to brave all ridicule in order to see Jesus, heard with astonishment the voice of the Good Shepherd call His sheep by name and invite Himself to remain at his house. Certainly He was none other than the Messiah, who could thus tell all things and would thus meet the desire of a heart that dared not hope for such an honor. What a wonder, yet no wonder! He who knew all knew Zacchaeus; He who asked a drink from the Samaritan woman whose life He read asked Himself to the house of the chief tax-gatherer. It is easier for a camel to go through a needle’s eye than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God; so that they who heard said, “Who then can be saved?” Now He proves what He then answered, that the things which are impossible with men are possible with God; for assuredly He entered the house, not to get but to give.

But nothing is so unintelligible to a man as God’s grace. “And when they saw [it] they all murmured,470 saying that he had turned in to lodge with a sinful man.” How blessed that so He could, and so He would! How hopeless the blank for no if it were not so! It suits His love so to deal with those who have not the smallest claim.

“And Zacchæus stood and said to the Lord, Behold, Lord, the half of my goods I give to the poor; and if I have by false accusation exacted anything of any man, I restore fourfold.471 And Jesus said to him, To-day salvation is comes to his house, inasmuch as he also is a son of Abraham: for the Son of man came to seek and to save that which is lost.”473 It is not that the Lord discredited the chef tax-gatherer’s account of his feelings and ways. Such was his character, such his habits, in a sorrowful position doubtless, with a delicate if not scrupulous conscience. But why this before One Who had already proved that all was known to a heart that could not misjudge? Why talk even of what the Spirit had produced in presence of the salvation—bringing the grace of God? The Lord denies not, spite of his occupation, that he too was a son of Abraham; but if He Himself were the Messiah, and at this very time presenting Himself as such for the last time on earth, beginning at Jericho, He was the Son of man in grace and humiliation on the way to death, yea, the death of the cross; the Son of man come to save what is lost. What else was worth speaking of? This day salvation was to his house.

As this affecting incident maintains the activity of grace according to God’s aim in the first, advent of the Lord, even while He was testing them for the last time as the Messiah so the following parable vas uttered to dispel the wrong expectations which filled their minds who so soon had forgotten that first He must suffer many things, and be ejected of this generation, and that the introduction of the Lord’s world-kingdom must await His second advent. Those who were on the stretch for the immediate sitting up of that kingdom were self-deceived. If He was near Jerusalem, He was near the cross, not the manifestation of His kingdom yet. “But as they were hearing these things, he in addition spoke474 a parable because he was nigh to Jerusalem, and they thought that the kingdom of God was about to be manifested475 immediately. He said therefore, certain high-born man went into a far country to receive for himself a kingdom and to return.476 And he called ten of his own bondmen and delivered them ten minas,477 and said unto them, Trade while I am coming.”478 It is obvious that this is quite distinct from a similar parable in the last prophetic discourse, on Olivet, and this not less certainly distinct in internal marks, as we shall see throughout. There the lord exercises his rights and gives as he pleases according to his knowledge of the varying capacities of his servants. Here all receive the same at starting, and their respective use of the deposit in business (figuratively) is the main point—the responsibility of the servants in the one., the sovereignty of the master in the other. Equally in contrast is the result in each: the good and faithful bondmen in Matthew alike enter into the joy of their lord, while in Luke each receives authority according to his labor and its fruit.

Again, there are weighty moral instructions connected with this parable, but distinct from what we find later in Matthew. For here we read that, “His citizens hated him and sent a message after him, saying, We will not that this [man] should reign over us.”479 Such was the spirit of the Jews, who not only rejected the Messiah, but, as another has well said, sent a message after Him as it were in the martyrs they slew, refusing Him glorified no less than humiliation.

“And it came to pass on his return, having received the kingdom,480 that he desired his bondmen to whom he gave the money to be called to him in order that he might know what each had gained by trading. And the first came up saying, Lord, thy mina has produced ten minas. And he said to him, Well [done] thou good bondman, because thou past been faithful in that which is least, be thou in authority over ten cities. And the second came saying, Lord, thy mina has made five minas. And he said also to this one, And thou, be over five cities. And the other came, saying, Lord, behold thy mina which I kept laid up in a napkin. For I feared thee, because thou art a harsh man: thou takest up what thou layedst not down, and reapest what thou didst not sow He says to him, Out of thy mouth I will judge thee, wicked bondman. Thou knewest that I am a harsh man, taking up what I laid not down, and reaping what I did not sow.481 And Why gavest thou not my money into a bank, and at my coming I should have received482 it with interest? And he said to those that stood by, Take from him the mina and give [it] to him that hath ten. And they said to him, Lord, he has ten minas. I say unto you, that to every one that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not that even which he hath shall be taken.”483 Here we have the responsible service of Christians till Jesus returns, with His judgment then of their service Meanwhile. It is not that the faithless bondman will not safer the results of his unbelief, like the elder brother who despised his father and scorned his brother. But our Evangelist tells the tale of grace, without describing, the awful doom of those who corrupt or turn from it. It is in the earthly accompaniment that we hear of Divine vengeance. Thus the picture is made still more complete; for we have also the public execution of judgment on the guilty citizens, the Jews, at His appearing.

“Moreover, those mine enemies who would not [have] me to reign over them, bring them here and slay [them] before me.”484 The judgment of the habitable world is a truth which practically has dropped out life, if not the creeds, of Christendom.

Next follows the approach to Jerusalem.485 The Messiah indeed, but Son of man, presents Himself according to the prophecies going before even when they are not formally cited, with the fullest parabolic instruction just given that the opposition to Him was deliberately willful and conclusive, for it was not only that His citizens (the Jews) despised Him, coming as He did in humiliation for the deepest purposes of Divine love, but they “hated” Him and sent a message after Him, saying, “We will not have this man to reign over us.” Awful to hear from His lips, those were His “enemies,” above all others, who would not that He should reign over them. His heavenly glory was at least as repugnant to them as His earthly abasement. They appreciated neither the grace which brought Him down nor the glory to which as man He was exalted. What could He say then but “Bring them here and slay [them] before me”? As ever, the moral springs are laid bare in our Gospel, and, if evil, judged.

“And when he had said these things, he went on before, going up to Jerusalem. And it came to pass when he drew near to Bethphage and Bethany, towards the mountain called Olivet, he sent two of his disciples, saying, Go away into the village over against you; in which as ye enter ye shall find a colt tied, on which not one of men ever sat: loose and bring it. And if any one ask you, Why do ye loose [it]? thus shall ye say unto him, Because the Lord hath need of it. And they that were sent, having gone away, found even as he had said to them. And as they were loosing the colt, its owners said to them, Why loose ye the colt? And they said, Because the Lord486 hath need of it. And they brought it to Jesus; and, having cast their garments on the colt, they set Jesus thereon;487 and, as he went, they strewed their garments in the way.”

The labor of ancients and moderns to find in this remarkable incident a type of the Gentiles obedient t the Gospel, as the Lord received and rode on the colt, seem to me far from intelligent. Bather was it very simply the evidence of His Divine knowledge and the assertion among. the Jews of His, claim as Jehovah Messiah, verified by facts a d by the proved subjection of human hearts where God was pleased to produce it to the honor of His Son. Hence the minuteness with which the words which passed and the accomplishment of all He said are noted by the Spirit. Doubtless, as in all the Gospels, so here it was in meekness and lowliness He entered; still, it was as the King according to the revealed mind of God. It was not yet the day of trouble when Jehovah will hear His Christ with the saving strength of His right hand; nor was yet the time come for the Jew to glory in the name of Jehovah. He alas! as indeed the Gentiles who knew not God, manifested his hostility to the Christ of God. But One was there who for them and us in all the degradation and selfishness and guilt of the fallen race was willing to bear the uttermost rejection of man, the forsaking of God Himself crowning it, that we might be brought to God, owning our sinfulness and resting on the grace which reigns through righteousness unto eternal life by Jesus Christ our Lord.

But the power of God, which wrought in hearts prepared by grace as a suitable testimony to Jesus at that moment, was still more pointedly marked in what Luke next records, and Luke only as it is characteristic of the Holy Ghost’s design in his account. “And as he was drawing near, already at the descent of the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began with rejoicing to praise God. with a loud voice for all the mighty works which they had seen, saying, Blessed the King that cometh in Jehovah’s name: in heaven peace, and glory in [the] highest.488 And some of the Pharisees from the crowd said to him, Teacher, rebuke thy disciples. And answering he said, I say unto you that, if these shall be silent, the stones will cry out.”

It is not merely the crowds or those who went before and followed as in Matthew and Mark; nor is it the cries of the children in the temple, saying, “Hosanna to the Son of David,” as in the first Gospel most appropriately. Here we are told of the whole multitude of the disciples, and hence words only befitting their lips; though surely given of God with a wisdom reaching far beyond their measure, as is known not seldom among the witnesses of Christ. “Peace in heaven tad glory in the highest” looks to things higher and more immediate than the preceding words cited from Psa. 118. and common to all four Evangelists.

It is a striking change even from the announcement of another multitude, near the beginning of this Gospel, who suddenly appeared with the angelic herald of the Saviour’s birth, and praised God, saying, “Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, in men good pleasure.” Such was the suited celebration of the Son now incarnate, that marvelous and mighty fact which introduced God Himself into the. most touching relations with humanity, and laid the basis for the manifestation of the Father in the person of Christ, as well as for the accomplishment of the infinite work of redemption, on which hangs the righteous Vindication of God, and the gracious deliverance of the elect, and the reconciliation of all things in heaven and on earth to His own everlasting glory. And the heavenly host speak of the grand result as, then invisibly enshrined in Him just born, a babe in Swaddling clothes and lying in a manger in Bethlehem. God was pleased to manifest His good pleasure in men, not in angels and so to fill the highest seats with glory to Himself and earth with peace.

But, in fact, Jesus was, as the prophets had fully and distinctly foreshown He must be, despised and rejected of men. This postponed in Divine wisdom, though it could not frustrate, the purpose of God. Rather did it make room for a new and higher display of what was hidden in God from ages and generations, and now made known in the Church to the principalities and powers in heavenly places. However this be, the disciples in their outburst of praise (now that the Lord was rejected and with Him meanwhile peace for the earth gone, and division and a sword the consequence of the struggle between light and darkness) do nevertheless anticipate “peace in heaven and glory in the highest.” If the former proclaimed the general purpose of God, the latter revealed His ways even when the enemy might seem on the point of triumphing. If earth disown and cast out the Saviour, if the Jews refuse the Messiah because He is incomparably more than the Son of David and come to bring about incomparably deeper and larger purposes, it is but for a season a transfer of the seat of blessing to heaven for the brightest and fullest accomplishment of God’s will mind. The kingdom itself became manifestly of heaven thereby, and the exaltation of the rejected Lord is to sit down meanwhile on the right hand of the Majesty on high, Satan being utterly defeated by man in the person of the woman’s Seed on the throne of the highest; and the kingdom over the earth will follow the moment that it pleases the Father, Who is meanwhile forming a people united to Christ His Son, His body, His bride, to be with Him where He is at His coming. Peace is in heaven, because He was going there victoriously, having made peace by the blood of the Cross, Himself our peace now, whether we have been Jews or Greeks.

If Pharisees, insensible to His glory, complained of the praises of the disciples, the Lord could not but tell them that they were more obdurate than the stones beneath and around them.

Observe further that instead of the dispensational lesson of the fig-tree cursed as in Matthew, and in Mark with yet minuter details for instruction in service, we have the grace of the Lord in His weeping over the guilty and doomed city. “And when he drew near, on [seeing the city, he wept489 over it, saying, If thou hadst known, even thou, at least in this thy day, the things for thy peace: but now they are hid490 from thine eyes. For days shall come upon thee that thine enemies shall make a rampart about thee and compass thee round and keep thee in on every side, and level thee with the ground and thy children in thee; and not leave in thee stone upon stone; because thou knewest not the season of thy visitation.”491 Every word of the warning was punctually fulfilled in the siege of Titus; but what grace shone out of that heart surcharged with grief for the people so blindly to their own ruin refusing Himself Who wept over them in a love thus truly Divine and perfectly human!

It was Matthew’s office to bring out the woes He solemnly pronounced over the holy city now so unholy, not their civil destruction, but rather the sanctuary once His Father’s house, now their house left to them desolate, yet not hopelessly. “For” as He said then, “ye shall not see me till ye shall say, Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Jehovah.” All that is left out in this part of our Gospel, and the more remarkably, as we find the cleansing of the temple afterward. “And entering into the temple he began to cast out those that sold, saying to them, It is written, And my house shall be a house of prayer, but ye have made it a den of robbers.”492 Without agreeing with Jerome, who saw in the act of our Lord the greatest miracle He ever wrought, one may note profitably how, even at such a moment when irresistible energy accompanied His indignant rebuke of their profanity and cast such unworthy traffic outside the sacred precincts, He employs as ever the written Word a His ground and warrant.

In harmony with this we read that “he was teaching day by day in the temple; and the chief priests and the scribes; and the principal men493 of the people sought to destroy him, and did not find what they could do, for all the people hung on him while hearing.” The Word of God from His lips especially told on the consciences of men. The religions leaders, having long rejected Him, not only lost all right feeling but were given up to a murderous hatred non to be satisfied. Such ever proves the world when confronted with the light of God; and withal the perfect love of God in Christ only provoked it the more.

Endnotes

469 Verse 2.― “Zacchaeus.” His is a Hebrew name: see “Zacchai” in Ezra. 2:9; Neh. 7:14.

469a Verse 4.― “Sycamore”: cf. 17:6, “sycamore.”

469b Verse 5.― “Must”: cf. 13:38; also John 4:1.

470 Verse 7.― “Murmured”; or, “began to murmur” (imperf.).

471 Verse 8.― “Fourfold”: see Exod. 22:1.

“By false accusation.” This rendering (A.V.) is defended by Field against. Bevy. (“wrongfully”).

472 Verse 9.― “Salvation,” of 2:30.

“Is come,” ἐγένετο: an example, cited by Burton (§ 46), of the frequent use of the aorist, expressed by the English perfect.

See G. Whitefield’s sermon on “The Conversion of Zacchæus.”

473 Verse 10.―CY: 1 Tim. 1:15, which these words may have originated.

D. L. Moody preached from this verse. See also Whyte’s “Bible Characters,” No. LXXVIII. (on Zacchæus).

474 Verse 11.― “As they heard these things,” that is, in or near Jericho. The similar parable of the Talents was spoken in Jerusalem: cf. Matt. 24:1, 25:14.

“He in addition spoke,” προσθεὶς εῖπε: a Hebraism which occurs again in 20:16 and seems to indicate use of a Hebrew source.

“Thought that the kingdom was about (μέλλει) to be immediately manifested.” They evidently believed that the “Seventy Weeks” of Daniel were running out.

475 “Manifested.” Again, the future aspect of the Kingdom: see note on 9:27.

476 Verse 12.― “To return,” ὐποστρέφειν, only in this parable, which is distinct from that of the Talents in Matthew (see A, R. Habershon, p. 309f). Jülicher gives a false lead in treating the one parable as a different version of the other. This may have been suggested by the embassy of Archelaus to Rome, and his slaughter of disaffected subjects on his return (Joseph. “Antiqq.,” chapter 17.; “Wars,” chapter 2). Like the parable of the Great Supper, it is in two portions: see note on 14:8, 21.

477 Verse 13 ff.― “Minas.” The “talent” of Matthew’s parable was worth sixty times as much as Luke’s “pound,” which represents one hundred drachmas, or about £3 11s. Od.: cf. note 384.

478 “While I am coming.” “This should be our view of our Lord’s Advent; He is even now on His way hither” (Spurgeon’s Sermon, 1960).

What the disciple has now he holds as a steward; but it will he his own on the Lord’s return. In Matthew the talents are given to each according to his capacity (δύναμις). Whilst the χάρις in Luke is common to both, parables, Matthew’s talent is a χάρισμα in the Pauline sense of that word. The thought has been well worked out by Lütgert (p. 162f).

The case of Apollo strikingly illustrated the combination of “capacity” and “gift”: cf. Acts 18:24, 27 with 1 Cor. 12:7.

479 Verse 14.― Cf. Ps, 2:3.

480 Verse 15.― “Having received the kingdom”; cf. Matt. 28:18. These two passages enable us to determine when the Kingdom of Heaven enured. At present it is in “mystery.” The ἐνέγεια of it will operate whim Rev. 11:15 (see R.V.) is fulfilled.

481 Verse 22: ―Cf. Ps. 18:26; also verse 27 here, and note at 13:1. Wellhausen is one of those scholars who regard it as a mistake to suppose that Luke made use of Josephus.

482 Verse 23, ― “Received”; or “demanded (exacted)”: cf. cf. V.

483 Verse 26.―For the issues of exercise, neglect or abuse of gift (χάρισμα: see note 478), cf. Matt. 25:29; also 1 Cor. 3:15, “he shall suffer loss.”

484 Verse 27.―For Messiah’s vengeance on His enemies, cf. Ps. 21:9. This is quite distinct from what comes before us in Luke 20:13, 16, the action of the FATHER.

485 Verse 28 ff.―Cf. Matt. 21:1-9; Mark 11:1-10. It was on Saturday the 8th Nisan that our Lord took supper with Lazarus: On the next day (Sunday) He presented Himself as Messiah by the procession into the city.

486 Verse 31.― “The Lord.” The man seems to have been a disciple, perhaps made such by the early Judean ministry. Cf. note at 13:34

487 Verses 30-36.― “A colt,” as in Mark and John. Much inane criticism has been expended on Matthew’s record that there were both an ass and her colt. See Zech. 9:9, with regard to which it is needless to rely on the revised rendering of the vav (AV. “and”; R.V. “even”). Matthew quotes the LXX.; some MSS., however, shewing a second ἐπί in that no Evangelist’s account. The Apostle Matthew was an eyewitness, to whom knowledge of the structure of Hebrew poetry may be credited as good as that of moderns. Observe that the two disciples had the Lord’s direction to bring the mother, and therefore did not act from their own mere sense of prudence. Christ’s use of the two may be ascribed to His tenderness: the restiveness from discomfort of the colt would be counter acted by the presence of its mother, whose movements may have been regulated by the Lord’s hand resting upon her, that she might the better keep pace with the colt, on which He rode: this is probably all that the first of our Gospels means by “He sat on them.”

488 Verse 38.―All four Gospels vary in the form given to this anthem. For Luke’s arrangement of the words, cf. the Hebrew accents of Ps. 118: (117.) 25, which connect “in the Name” with “Blessed” (see Westcott on John 12:13).

The Lord at length definitely took the Messianic position; not from any development in His convictions, as some critics represent, but because there was no longer any danger of a popular rising, “the forces arrayed against Him being,” from the human point of view, “too strong” for that (Adeney).

489 Verse 41.― “Wept”; or “sobbed,”, “wailed” (ἔκλαυσεν), used of Peter in Mark 14:72; whilst in John 11:35 we have, of the Lord, ἐδάκρυε, “shed tears.”

490 Verse 42.― “This thy day”; see marg. of American Revision; and so for “thy peace.”

“Peace... hid.” God’s covenant of peace (Exod. 34:25, 37:26) cf. Ps. 122:6. ff. and Isa. 48:18, and, in particular, Ps. 131:13-16.

491 Verse 43f.―These verses critics have used for determination of the date the Third Gospel. The statement is deemed so circumstantial that those of the “historical” wing imagine that Luke’s record was written after the event. But prediction might in principle extend as well to detail as to any merely general statement, if the event could be foreseen at all.

Cf. Joseph. “Wars,” 5: 6, 2 and 12, 2.

For the “children,” cf. Ps. 137:9. For visitation (ἐπισκόπη), see note on 7:16 above.

492 Verse 15f.―J. Weiss differs from most other critics in defending the order shown by John’s Gospel in this connection (p. 180).

The cleansing of the Temple (in the Court of the Gentiles) recorded in the Fourth Gospel and that here spoken of are not “duplicates” as critics dream. Ezek. 24:13 refers to a double cleansing. In the last Gospel the Lord speaks of His Father’s house; here of the horse as His own. Cf. note 117 on Mark, and note 55f. on John.

This was five days (John 12:1, 10 before the Passover (the 15th of Nisan), and so, on the truth day of the month, when lambs had to be procured, in keeping with Exod. 12:3. The “Lamb of God” had become matter of traffic a few hours earlier on the same Jewish day (Matt. 26:14).

493 Verse 47f.― “Was teaching day by day”: the Wednesday could not have been spent, as often supposed, in seclusion, whereby all in chapters 20, would be crowded into the Tuesday. Cf. 21:37f. His teaching here would be in the Court of the Women.

Luke uses the expression “principal men” also in Acts 25: 2. Cf. 20:20: the Lord’s steps being dogged, and His words distorted (Ps. 37:32, 38:12).

There is a sermon of Luther on verses 41-48 (p. 335).

Luke 20

THE Lord is now seen in contact with the various classes of officials and religious and political bodies among the Jews, who successively present themselves in the hope of perplexing and inveigling Him, but in effect to their own confusion. Essaying to judge Him, they expose themselves and are judged by the truth from His lips on their own evidence one after another.

“And it came to pass on one of the days494 as he was teaching the people in the temple and evangelizing, the chief priests and the scribes, with the elders, came up, and spoke to him, saying, Tell us by what authority thou doest these things; or who is it that has given thee this authority.”

It is ever apt to be thus in an evil clay. Worldly religion assumes the sanction of God for that which exists, its permanence, and its future triumph. It was so in Israel; and it is so in Christendom. Prophets then, held up the fate of Shiloh to the religious chiefs who reasoned from the promises of guaranteed perpetuity for the temple, its ordinances, its ministers, its devotees, and its system in general; and those who warned like Jeremiah found bitter results in the taunts and persecutions of such as had the world’s ear. They denied God’s title to tell them the truth. And now a greater than Jeremiah war [lore; and those who stood on their successional office, and those who claimed special knowledge of the Scriptures, and those of leading influence in the counsels and conduct of the people, demanded His right to act as He did and its source.

No wonder they felt the solemn testimony of approaching ruin to all that in which they had their importance; but there was no faith, no conscience toward God. They therefore turned away from the consideration of their own ways and responsibility to the question of His title.494a

The Lord meets them by putting another question. “And he answering said to them, I also will ask you a [or, one], word [thing], and tell me: The baptism of John, was it of heaven, or of men? And they reasoned among themselves, saying, If we should say, Of heaven, he will say, Why have ye not believed him? but if we should say, Of men, the whole people will stone us, for they are persuaded that John was a prophet. And they answered that they did not know wh1ce [it was].”

The wisdom of the Lord’s procedure is worthy of all heed. He Who alone could have taken His stand on personal dignity, and the nearest relationship, and the highest mission, pleads none of these things. He probes their consciences; and, in their desire to escape from the consequences of answering truly, they are compelled to confess their incapacity both to guide others and even to act aright themselves in a matter of the deepest and most general concern to all Israel of that day.

“The priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and at his mouth should they seek the law; for he is the messenger of Jehovah of hosts. But ye are departed out of the way; ye have caused many to stumble at the law; ye have corrupted the covenant of Levi, said Jehovah of hosts.” So said Malachi, and so the Lord proved now. “And I also have made you contemptible and base before all the people, because ye have not kept my ways, but have respect of persons in the law.” They could not deny, yet refused to profit by, the moral power of John, who bore witness to Jesus as Messiah and to Israel’s need of repentance. To own, therefore, the baptism of John, a new institution, as of Heaven, without the least appearance of traditional sanctity or claim of antiquity or connection with the priesthood or the temple, was of the most serious import to men who derived all their consequence from the regular course of the law and its ordinances. Besides, it at once decided the question of the Messiah, for John n the strongest and most solemn way declared that Jesus was the Christ. To disown John and his baptism would have been fatal to their credit, for all the people were persuaded hat John was a, prophet. It was to them a mere question of policy, and hence they shirked answering under cover of a lie. They could not afford to be truthful; they said they knew not whence John’s baptism was. They were as void of faith as the heathen.495 He who read their dark hearts wound up with the reply,

“Neither do I tell you by what authority I do these things.” It was useless to inform unbelief. Long before the Lord had forbidden His disciples to tell any man that He was the Christ; for He was going to suffer on the cross. “When ye shall have lifted up the Son of man, then shall ye know that I am [he], and from myself I do nothing, but even as the Father taught me, these things I speak.” (John 8)

Here we have no special application to the Jews in order to let them know that the most despised men and corrupt women go into the kingdom of God before the heads honored by the people. This has its appropriate place in the Gospel of Matthew. But we have the parable of the vineyard let out to husbandmen in all three Synoptic accounts, each with its own special shades of truth.

“And he began to speak to the people this parable: A man planted a vineyard and let it out to husbandmen, and left the country for a long time. And in the season he sent to the husbandmen a bondman that they might give to him of the fruit of the vineyard; but the husbandmen having beaten him sent [him] away empty. And again he sent another bondman; but they having beaten him also, and cast insult upon him. sent [him] away empty. And again he sent a third, and they having wounded him also, cast [him] out. And the lord of the vineyard said, What shall I do.497 I will send my beloved son: perhaps when they see they will respect him. But when the husbandmen saw him, they reasoned among themselves, saying, This is the heir; let us kill him, that the inheritance may become ours. And having cast him forth out of the vineyard they killed [him]. What therefore shall lord of the vineyard do to them? He will come498 and destroy those husbandman, and will give the vineyard to others. And when they heard it they said, May it never be! But he looking at them said, What then is this that is written? The stone which they that builded rejected, this has become the corner stone. Every one falling on this stone shall be broken; but on whomsoever it shall fall, it shall crush him to powder.”

On the truth common to all it is not needful to speak now. But the reader in comparing may notice the greater fullness of detail in Matthew and Mark than in Luke as to the dealings with Israel, as also the greater minuteness in Mark of the reception the servants and son received. So also observe on the other hand that Mark and Luke speak simply of giving the vineyard to others, Matthew on letting it out to other husbandmen such as shall render him the fruits in their seasons. Responsibility is thus most maintained in Matthew, grace in Luke, both being true and of capital moment Again, in Matthew it is “he that falleth,” in Luke “every one,”etc. There is breadth in judgment as in grace. Mark has not the verse at all, as not bearing on service, the theme of the Spirit by him.

“And the scribes and the chief priests that very hour sought to lay hands on him, and they feared the people; for they knew that he had spoken this parable of (against) them.” Again does the Holy Spirit notice their bad conscience, their hatred of Jesus, and their fear of the people. God was in none of their thoughts, else had they repented and believed in Jesus. What a comment on the parable was their desire to lay hands on Him! Thus were they soon to fulfil the voice of the prophets and the parable of the great Prophet Himself.

“And having watched [him] they sent suborned persons pretending to be righteous that they might lay hold of his language so as to deliver him to the power and the authority of the governor. And they asked him, saying, Teacher, we know that thou rightly sayest and teachest and acceptest no [man’s] person, but in truth teachest the way500 of God. Is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not? But perceiving their deceit he said to them, Show me a denarius [penny]./500a Whose image and title has it? And answering they said, Caesar’s. And he said to them, Therefore render the things of Cæsar to Cæsar, and the thing of God to God.” The moral depravity of all concerned is here very marked, whether of suborners or suborned. Simplicity of purpose detects and exposes the crafty. Jesus sacrifices on duty501 Let Caesar have what is his, and God His own. The world-panderers and the zealots were alike foiled, who set one duty against another, doing neither aright because each was seeking self. “And they were not able to lay hold of his word before the people, and wondering at his answer were silent.”

“And some of the Sadducees who deny that there is any resurrection502 came up, and demanded of him, saying, Teacher, Moses wrote503 to us, If any one’s brother having a wife die and he be childless, that his brother take the wife, and raise up seed to his brother. There were then seven brothers, and the first having taken a wife, died childless; and the second and the third, took her; and likewise also the seven left no children and died; and lastly the woman died. In the resurrection therefore, of which of them does the woman become wife? For the seven had her as wife. And Jesus said to them, The sons of this age504 marry and are given in marriage; but those deemed worthy to obtain that age and the resurrection from among [the] dead505 neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they can die no more, for they are equal to angels, and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.506 But that the dead rise even Moses spewed [in the section] on the bush when he called Jehovah the God of Abraham, and God of Isaac, and God of jacob.507 But He is not God of dead but of living, for all live to Him.”508

We need not combat here men like Dr. Campbell, ably as he wrote on the Gospels, or Dwight, who contend that the point is a future life rather than the resurrection of the body. Not so. The proposed case could hardly have risen but as a difficulty in the ways of a risen body, though it is doubtless true that the Sadducees went further and denied angels and spirits.

Our Gospel, it is of interest to observe here, furnishes several distinct truths beyond what is found in Matthew and Mark. Resurrection from among the dead (not resurrection as such) sits own proper age, a time of special blessedness which the resurrection of the unjust cannot be said to be. It was after this resurrection the apostle longed so ardently, minding no sufferings if by any means he might attain to that. The resurrection of the wicked is for the second death. The resurrection from among the dead is for the righteous who die no more, being equal to angels and sons of God, being sons of the resurrection. The resurrection of the unjust is the awful condition of eternal judgment, as they had rejected Christ and eternal life in Him. God is Abraham’s God and will raise the dead to enjoy the promises not yet fulfilled; He is not God of dead men but of living; for to Him all live, even before the resurrection comes as well as when it does come. Thus Luke above all the Evangelists gives us a full glimpse of the separate state, besides the certainty of resurrection and glory. “And some of the scribes answering said, Teacher, thou hast well said. For they did not dare any more to ask him anything.” We shall see that the Lord’s turn is come to question them.

As the various parties, the leaders of religious thought in Israel, did not dare any more to ask the Lord anything, He put the crucial question to them; not of course to tempt like them, but to convince them that the Pharisees had no more real faith than the Sadducees, and that the scribes had no more understanding of the Divine Word then the crowd who knew not the law. His, indeed was a prob to conscience and an appeal to the Scriptures, if peradventure they might hear and live. Alas! they had ears but heard not, and their highest glory they denied, to their own perdition and God’s dishonor. And this is no peculiarity of the Jews in that day; it applies as really now, and even more conspicuously among Protestants than among Papists. At bottom, all appearances to the contrary notwithstanding, earthly religion slights Christ: sometimes by open antagonism, as when His Deity is opposed and His sacrifice set aside; at other times by setting up rival mediators, the virgin, saints, angels, priests, etc., who usurp that which belongs exclusively to Him. To us, then, there is but one Lord, even Jesus Christ; and as we cannot serve two masters, so we cannot have two Saviors; but either men hate the one, and love the other, or else they hold to the one, and despise the other.

“And he said to them, How do they say that the Christ is David’s son; and David himself saith in the book of Psalms, Jehovah said to my Lord, Sit at my right hand, until I put thine enemies [as] footstool of thy feet? David therefore calleth him Lord; and how is he his son?”

There is and could be but one answer. The Messiah, David’s son, must have been a Divine Person in order to be David’s Lord, the everlasting enigma of unbelief, now as then the stumbling-stone to the Jew. Yet is it as certainly if not as clearly and continually presented in the Old Testament as in the New; and as it is essential to His proper dignity and enhances incalculably the grace of God, so it is indispensable that there should be an irrefragable rock of salvation, whether for an Israelite or for any other. Without the Godhead of. Jesus, however truly man as He is, Christianity is a delusion, an imposture, and an impossibility, as Judaism was unmeaning child’s play. To Him, God and man in one person, do the law and the prophets boar their a unequivocal witness, not more surely to God’s righteousness without law than to the Christ’s glory above law, however He might deign to be born of woman, born under law, in order to redeem those who were in this position. (Gal. 4)

But man fears to face the truth till he is born anew. It annihilates his pride, it exposes his vanity in every sense, as well as his guilt and ruin; it makes God the only hope and Saviour. Man does not like what grinds his self-importance to powder, and, unless grace intervene savingly, will risk everlasting destruction rather than yield to the testimony of God. But the truth erects a judgment seat in the conscience of each believer, who now owns himself lost that he may be saved, and saved exclusively by His grace Who will be the judge, to their endless misery and shame, of all who despise His glory and His mercy now.

To the believer no truth is simpler, none more precious, than the Christ a man yet God, son of David yet David’s Lord, the root and the offspring of David, Who came to die, but withal the living and eternal God. On the intrinsic dignity of His person hang the grace of His humiliation and the value of His atonement, and the glory to God of the kingdom He will take and display as Son of man. He is now the Center to faith of all who are brought to God reconciled by the blood of His Cross; as He will be of all things that are in heaven and that are on earth reconciled by Him; but if not God, equally with the Father, such a place of center in grace or glory must be a deadly blow at that honor which is due to the only God, because it would be giving to a creature, however exalted, the homage proper to Him alone. His Godhead therefore is essential to His character of the model man; the denial of it logically implies the horrible libel and lie that He is no better than the most fraudulent and successful of impostors. This may serve to prove what the guilt of discrediting the Son of God really is; this explains why whoever denies the Son has not the Father, while he who confesses the Son has the Father also. He who honors not the Son honors not the Father Who sent Him.

Therefore is judgment given only to the Son; because He alone in infinite love stooped to become a man and to die for men, yea for the guiltiest of sinners, who alas! repaid His love by the deepest dishonor, rejecting Him when He came in grace, as they reject Him preached in grace still, Who will judge them as Son of man in that nature because of the assumption of which they despised Him and denied His Godhead. Thus will God compel all, even the proudest unbeliever, to honor the Son as they honor the Father. But this will be to their judgment, not salvation. Eternal life is in hearing Christ’s Word now and believing Him Who sent His Son in love; otherwise nothing remains but a resurrection of judgment in vindication of His injured name, the rejection of the Father in the Son.

We need not dwell on other truths wrapped up in the citation from Psa. 110, though of the deepest interest and elsewhere applied in the New Testament. Here the object is as simple as it is fundamental, an inextricable riddle to the incredulous, Jews or Gentiles. But it is especially the former who have ever stopped short there, silenced but not subdued. As for such Gentiles as professed to receive the only solution in His person, the enemy finds other ways to nullify the truth wherever they are unrenewed by grace. False friends are no better than open enemies, but rather worse — ungodly men turning the grace of God into lasciviousness, and denying the only Master and our Lord Jesus Christ, Whose judgment is just and sure, as we see in the solemn epistle of Jude.

“And as all the people were listening, he said to the disciples, Beware of the scribes, who like to walk about in long robes, and love salutations in the market-places, and first seats in the synagogues and first places at the feasts,510 who devour the houses of widows, and as a pretext make long prayers. These shall receive more abundant (severer) judgment.”

The difference in the object of the Holy Spirit’s writing by Matthew and Luke, as well as Mark, comes out here in a striking way. For the former devotes a considerable chapter to their position, their utter failure, and the stern judgment awaiting such hollow formalists from God. Mark and Luke touch the question only, the one as a falsifying of service, the other on moral ground, for the instruction of disciples. What is specially Jewish, either in title or in forms and habits, disappears; what Mark and Luke record is not loving service but selfishness and hypocrisy, the more fata because of the profanation name.

Endnotes

494 Verse 1.― “One of the days.” Mark shows that this was the Tuesday of Passion Week.

494a Verse 2.―See note on 11:52.

495 Verse 7.― Observe that in effect they own themselves “blind” (6:39).

496 Verse 9 ff. See note 121 on Mark.

497 Verse 13 ff. ―See Spurgeon’s Sermon, 1951.

498 Verse 15. — “The Lord of the vineyard”: This disproves Scott Russell’s theory (cf. Westcott’s views in his “Historic Faith”) that the SON came with the destruction of Jerusalem by Titus. Here “the Lord” (cf. 10:2) is the FATHER (cf. note 441).

499 Verse 20.―Some have supposed that this verse introduces the Tuesday of Passion Week, but see note on verse 1. The whole of chapter 20 seems to belong to that day.

500 Verse 21.― “Way.” Cf. Acts 18:26. The expression is not, however, peculiarly Lucan, as it is in each of the parallels. Instead of it, Syrrcu and sin have “word.”

500a Verse 24.― “Penny.” The Roman denarius was equivalent to the Greek drachma (8½d). The latter of these (mentioned in Matt. 18:28, and 15:8 of this Gospel) survives to the present day.

501 Verse 25.―Cairns attempts to show that the teaching of JESUS implicitly contains precepts for secular affairs, ethics of patriotism, etc. (chapter 4.); but, as Honing says, the Lord’s words will not bear such strain put upon them.

502 Verse 27.―Cf. Tobit 3:15. For discussion by the Greeks of the resurrection of the soul, see Plato’s “Phædo.”

SADDUCEES. As to this party, see Edersheim, “Sketches, etc.,” chapter 25, if not Schürer. They were Jewish Epicureans. Josephus attests their belief in extinguishment of the soul by death (“Antiqq.,” 8:1, 4).

503 Verse 28.―A Mosaic, albeit Deuteronomic, text See 25:5 f. of that Book.

504 Verse 34.― “Sons of this age.” This expression occurs in the New Testament only in ch. 16:8 and here.

505 Verse 35.― “Shall have been deemed worthy,” etc. Cf. 2 Thess. 1:5; also 14:14 and note there. Van Oosterzee on the present passage writes: “The Messianic ἰών is here represented as coincident with the resurrection of the just. It is a privilege which will not be shared by all, but only by the elect.” Cf. verse 11 of the passage in 2 Thess. with 1 Thess. 1:4, which speaks of election on the side of “Eternal Life” as used in John’s Gospel. In obedience to Christ’s words the real motive will always be love to Him, regard for His glory: to this His love will respond at the βη̑μα. “They... shall know that I have loved thee”, (Rev. 3:9).

One of the very few mistakes in J. Angell James’s old book, “The Anxious Inquirer,” is the statement that “it is a radical error to suppose that sanctification goes before justification” (p. 114).

Sanctification, which is always the work of the Spirit, in New Testament Scripture, is as an act:

(1) Absolute, objective, or imputed, as connected with “standing” in Grace (1 Cur. 1:30, Rom. 5:2), by virtue of which every true believer is a “saint” (1. Cor. 6:11, Heb. 10:10). This some Confessions, as the Westminster, fail to disengage from.

(2) A work or process, which is subjective, practical and gradual, “inherent, but not perfect” (Hooker), to which, as a distinct “standing,” responsibility attaches (1 Cor. 10:12), being sometimes described as “state” or “condition” (ἀγιωσύνη): see 2 Thess. 2:13, 1 Pet. 1:2 (ἀγιασμός), 1 Thess. 3:13; (cf. 1 Thess. 5:23), and 2 Cor. 7:1. To this attaches the Apostle’s declaration, “The kingdom of God is not in word, but in power” (1 Cor. 4:20). See further Rev. 3:7, 11: the Christian must ever remember that he has to do with a Master who is “holy and real” (ἀληθιν ός). Such holiness in conduct (reality), nevertheless, is founded not on Law but on Grace (Rom. 8:9, 11:20, Heb. 12:28), so that pride of merit and cavil of unbelief are alike excluded.

Sanctification, as Calvin puts it, means separation: “that we may serve God, and not the world.”

506 Verse 36. — “Sons of the resurrection.” Cf. such Hebraisms already net with, as “sons of the bride-chamber” (5:34), “sons of peace” (10:6), and “sons of this age” (16:8). Cf. note 504.

Luther has preached on verses 25-36; and Dr. Arnold has a sermon from the List of these verses (p. 110).

507 Verse 37. — “The God, etc.” The Sadducees, as generally stated, acknowledge the Torah, or Pentateuch: hence the Lord’s appeal to the book of Exodus (3:6), in which the Law proper began.

508 “All live in.” Cf. Rom. 6:10, 14:7f. Here the Intermediate State in our Lord’s teaching reveals itself, additional to the statement in the other Synoptics. It of course supersedes the Old Testament conception of Sheôl, which was felt to be a negation of all that was worth the name of “life.”

The Lord confines Himself to proof of the immortality of the soul. For the probable remaining links in the argument as regards resurrection of the body, see Neil, p. 289.

509 Verse 41ff. — See Isa. 11:1, 10 and Rev. 22:16. This resolves itself into the Lord’s being GOD and MAN in one, establishing His Messiahship. Cf. 2:11. Observe that “David himself” is referred to, and that Mark says that he spoke “in the Spirit.” Yet modern critics (but not Ewald) question the Davidic authorship of Psalm 110, which is ascribed to an anonymous poet writing about 143 B.C., and celebrating the accession of Simon the Maccabee to priestly and royal dignity. It is a curious task for any to undertake — that of showing how the language of the Psalm (e.g., verse 5) suits such an epoch. Cf. Maclaren on Psalms, vol. iii., p. 183f.

An answer to the query of verse 44 Luke supplies in Acts 2:34-36, where “Lord” represents Adon, in Ps. 110:1. Cf. 22:69 here. Resurrection afforded the clue. Any reply that the scribes might have attempted must have required the use of Psa. 2, which speaks of Messiah’s earthly, its his heavenly, kingship. They accorded the same recognition as Messianic to the one Psalm, as to the other.

O. Holtzmann (p. 83; followed by L. Muirhead, “Eschatology,” p. 10, and others — cf. Schmiedel, “Jesus in Mod. Grit.,” p. 31) says: “He goes on to show that the opinion of the scribes was wrong.” Contra: Spitta, “Disputed Questions,” pp. 158-167. A sufficient reply to such as O. Holtzmann is (1) that the argent is of like nature to that in verses 2-8: this has been missed by Kennett in Interpreter, October, 1911, p. 45. The Lord’s dialectic vein was of a different enter from that, for example, of Socrates in the Platonic Dialogues: the one made for certainty, as the other for doubt. (2) Luke could not have forgotten, 1:39 of his own record.

Burkitt has essayed the remark that “The New Testament was needed, not to bring men to Christ, or as a means of grace, but as an instrument of criticism by which to correct the impression we derive of Christ through our fellow-Christians” (Church Congress Paper, 1908). This notion seems to have been broached in view of the GOSPELS. Now, these whom God does use in ministry of “the Word of His Grace” have ever themselves been brought to Christ directly or indirectly through some application of New Testament Scripture. Catechisms, Confessions, Liturgies, Ordinances―what good have these ever accomplished save as they have reflected the written WORD? To influence the lives of our fellows in either of the ways referred to by the Norrisian Professor requires, of course, other qualifications than those which any of us possess as literary “hewers of wood” or “drawers of water.” Telling a Christian audience that the New Testament in none of its parts was designed as an instrument for individual blessing must surely have been as the proverbial water on a duck’s back.

510 Verse 46. — Here is another of the imagined “duplicates”: Cf. 11:43.

Luke 21

LUKE again is, with Mark in giving the story of the widow poor but rich, and this doubtless for reasons analogous to their report of the exposure of the proud and empty scribes; Matthew has it not at all. For far different was the Israel of the then day, and with this he is occupied, the judgment coming on Jerusalem, rich but poor, with which the Lord concludes His denunciation of the scribes and Pharisees.

“And he looked up and saw the rich casting their gifts into the treasury, but he saw also a certain poor widow casting into it two mites. And he, said, Verily I say unto you, that this poor woman hath cast in more than all; for all these out of their abundance have cast into the gifts but she out of her need hath cast in all the living which she had.” It is a lovely picture of devotedness in the widow; how much lovelier to behold Him, who gave her the faith and drew out her love, admiring and so richly appreciating the fruit of His own grace! May He have so to speak of our Wealth toward God in the day that approaches, when mammon and every false estimate shall have disappeared forever!511

Luke alone of the Evangelists notices the fact that the disciples spoke to the Lord about the votive offerings with which the temple was adorned; all three speak of its goodly stones or buildings. But this does not warrant the inference that the prophetic discourse which follows512 belongs to those in the temple, rather than those on the Mount of Olives. It has been properly remarked that the questions are distinct from the Lord’s solemn answer to the admiration expressed, and may well have been to the chosen four on retiring thither as we are told He did by night at the end of our chapter.

“And as some512a spoke of the temple that it was adorned with goodly stones and consecrated offerings, he said, [As for] these things which ye are beholding, days are coming in which stone shall not be left upon stone which shall not be thrown down.” On the other hand it is surely without justification to assume that Luke could not have omitted the change of scene and auditory if aware of it. On both sides such reasoning leaves out the Spirit of God, and His having a purpose by each which alone accounts for differences on the basis of His own perfect knowledge of all, not of the writer’s ignorance.

“And they asked him saying, Teacher, when then shall these things be? and what [is] the sign when these things are going to take place? And he said, See that ye be not misled. For many shall come in my name, saying, I am [he]; and the time is drawn nigh: go ye not after them. And when ye shall hear of wars and tumults be not terrified; for these things must first take place,513 but the end [is] not immediately.” It will be observed that the Holy Spirit inspired the writer to drop the question respecting the coming of the Son of man and the completion of the age. As with Mark, they ask when the destruction of the temple shall be, and the sign of its commencement. The Lord fully replies, but as usual gives much more. But there is neither the completeness of dispensational information right through, nor details as to the consummation of the age, found in the Gospel of Matthew. On the other hand, here only are we given distinct light on the coming siege and capture of Jerusalem by the Romans, here only its subsequent ignominious subjection till the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled. Other peculiarities of Luke we may see as we proceed through the chapter. The question of the disciples goes no farther than the demolition the Lord spoke of, the Spirit having reserved for Matthew the parabolic history of the course, conduct, and judgment of Christendom as well as the special account of the Jews at the end of the age. and of all the Gentiles gathered before the throne of the Son of man when He is come. The early warning that follows the inquiry here refers to what soon ensued. There may be analogous deceits in the last days; but I apprehend that here we are in view of what has been. If it were the closing scenes, where would be the propriety of assuring the disciples that the end is not immediately? Matthew may take in what, soon followed; but the characteristic feature with him is the end of the age, first in general, then specifically, with its shadows before.

“Then said he to them, Nation shall rise, up against nation, and kingdom against kingdom: there shall be both great earthquakes in different places and pestilences and famines, and there shall be fearful sights and great signs from heaven. But before all these things514 they shall lay their hands upon you and persecute you, delivering up to synagogues and prisons, bringing before kings and governors on account of my name; but it shall turn out515 to you for a testimony. Settle therefore in your hearts not to meditate beforehand [your] defense; for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall not be able to resist or reply unto/515a Moreover ye will be delivered up even by parents and brethren and relations and friends, and they shall put to death [some] from among you, and ye will be hated by all516 on account of my name; and a hair of your head shall in no wise perish. By your patient endurance gain your souls.” The strict application of all this the state of things, whether in the world or among the disciples, before the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans must evident to every unprejudiced mind. Luke alone sets forth the grace of the Lord in giving His own a mouth and wisdom beyond the craft and power of all adversaries. In Mark they are to speak “whatsoever shall be given you; for not ye are the speakers but the Holy Spirit.” Luke also puts in broad terms the consequences of their testimony, which would be true in the highest sense for heaven if they were slain.517

Next we have a graphic picture of the crisis for Jerusalem under Titus. “But when ye see Jerusalem encompassed with armies, then know that its desolation518 is drawn nigh. Then let those who are in Judea flee unto the mountains,519 and those in the midst of it depart out, and those in the fields not enter into it. For these are days of vengeance,520 that all the things written may be accomplished. Woe to them that are with child and to them that give suck in those days; for there shall be great distress521 upon the land and wrath upon this people. And, they shall fall by the edge of the sword and be led captive into all the nations; and Jerusalem shall be trodden down by [the] nations522 until [the] times of [the] nations522a be fulfilled.” Here there can be no misunderstanding unless for a preoccupied mind. The siege with its consequences described by our Lord cannot be a future event because it is followed by the humiliating possession of the Jewish capital by one nation after another till the allotted seasons of Gentile supremacy terminate. This is peculiar to our Evangelist, who accordingly speaks of armies encompassing the city, which was true then, not like Matthew and Mark of the abomination of desolation, which Call only be verified in its closing throes. Hence, too, the reader may notice that, in spite of a considerable measure of analogy (for there will be a future siege, and even a twofold attack, one of which will be partially successful, the other to the ruin of their enemies, Isaiah 28; 29,from Zechariah 14), there ore the strangest contrasts in the issue; for the future siege will be closed by Jehovah’s deliverance and reign, as the past was in the capture and destruction of the people dispersed ever since till the times of the Gentiles are full. Accordingly we hear nothing in this Gospel of the abomination of desolation nor of the time of tribulation beyond all that was or shall be; we hear of both in Matthew and Mark, where the Spirit contemplates the last days. Here we are told of great distress on the land and wrath on the Jewish people, as indeed there was. The notion that Luke’s variation is designed as a paraphrase of Matthew and Mark, a simpler expression in his Gospel for one more obscure in theirs, is moat unworthy of the Holy Ghost and destructive of the truth in the first two Gospels if not in the third. There is fresh truth, and not a sacred comment on what the others said.

In verse 25 and onward we are naturally carried onto the conclusion of the Gentile times. “And there shall be signs523 in sun and moon and stars, and upon the earth distress of nations in perplexity, for at the roar of the sea and rolling waves, men ready to die through fear and expectation of the things coming on the habitable earth; for the powers of the heavens shall be shaken. And then shall they see the Son of man coming524 in a cloud with power and great glory. But when these things begin to come to pass, look up and lift up your heads, because your redemption draweth nigh.” It is Luke only who mentions the moral signs of men’s anguish: spite of the deceits and pretensions of that day. No doubt there will be strong delusion and the belief of falsehood; but for this very reason there is no rest nor contentment, for only the grace and truth of God in Christ can give peaceful enjoyment with a good conscience. Hence God will know how to trouble men’s dreams and to break up Satan’s ease, their horror culminating at the sight of the rejected Lord, the Son of man, coming in a cloud with power and glory. But there will be those then on earth, disciples tried by the evils of that day, for whom even the beginning of these troubles and tχορhe tokens of change for the world will be the sure harbinger of deliverance.

“And he spoke a parable to them, Behold the fig-tree and all the trees: when they already sprout, by looking ye know of your own selves that already summer is near. So also when ye see these things take place, know that the kingdom of God is near.525 Verily I say unto you that this generation shall in no wise pass away until all come to pass. The heaven and the earth shall pass away, but my words shall in no wit, pass away. But take heed to yourselves lest possibly your hearts be weighed down with surfeiting and drunkenness and cares of life, and that day come upon you suddenly unawares, for as snare it will come upon all that are settled down upon the face of the whole earth. But watch, at every season praying that ye may be deemed worthy to escape all these things that are, about to come to pass. and to stand before the Son of man.” We have here an instance of the exceeding accuracy of Scripture even in figures. Who but God could have thought of giving only the fig-tree in Matthew, speaking of Israel, the fig-tree and all the trees in Luke where the Gentiles ace mixed up with the troubles of Israel?

But this is not the only point of interest in this appendix to the prophecy. For the Lord has given us the positive proof, by the way which verse 32 stands here, that “this generation” cannot mean a mere chronological space of thirty or even one hundred years, for it is brought in after the running out of Gentile times and the coming of the Son of man with power and glory, events still unfulfilled. Its force is moral; not exactly the nation of Israel but that Christ-rejecting race which then refused their Messiah as they do still. This will go on till all these solemn threats of judgment are accomplished. It is profitable to remark that here, not in doctrine or in practice only, but in these unfoldings of the future, the Lord pledges the impossibility of failing in His words. The Lord does not say that “this generation” shall not pass away till he temple is destroyed or the city taken, but till all be fulfilled. brow, He had introduced the subsequent treading down of Jerusalem to the end of Israel’s trials at His appearing, and He declares that this generation shall not pass away till then; as indeed it is only then grace will form a new generation, the generation to come. The more we hold fast the continuity of the stream of the prophecy, as distinguished from the crisis in Matthew and Mark, the greater bell be seen to be the importance of this remark.526

Notice the strongly moral tone in which the dangers and snares of the days before the Son of man appears are touched by the Lord, an often-recurring characteristic of our Evangelist.527

The concluding verses are a summary of our Lord’s manner or habit at this time, the nights spent on the Mount of Olivet, and by day teaching in the temple, whither all the people came early to hear Him. It was this which led several copyists to insert here the paragraph from John 7:53 to 8:11; but there is no real ground for such a transposition, any more than for denying it to be the genuine writing of the last Evangelist, in spite of allege difficulties.

Endnotes

511 Verses 1-4. “The Widow with the Two Mites” is the subject of Whyte’s discourse LXXXIII., in “Bible Characters,”

512 Verses 5-36. — On Messianic prophecy, see Edersheim, Warburton Lectures (“Prophecy mid History in Relation to the Messiah”), and as to the prophecy on Olivet in particular, Stuart, pp. 238-246; also note 120 on Mark. Jewish opinion may be learned from Abrahams’ recent interesting book in Constable’s series (chapter 7)

For comparison with Matt. 24 and Mark 13, chapter 3 of a recent unpretentious but instructive little book, “The Time of the End, but the End not yet,” by E. J. Thomas (Weston, 53, Paternoster Row), would be found helpful.

512a Verse 5f. “Some.” Wellhausen rightly calls at attention to the fact that as it appears in Luke’s Gospel, proceeded from a wider circle than the disciples merely. This is borne out by verse 7, where the Lord is addressed as “Teacher” (διδάσκαλε), whilst the disciples in Luke’s Gospel regularly use (κύρ), or “Master” (ἐπιστάτα). Cf. note 119 above.

513 Verse 9. — Down to verse 11 we have what Matthew and Mark describe as ἀρχή ὠδίνων, “beginning of throes.” As to these “sorrows Messiah,” so-called, see Edersheim op. cit., p. 247. Tacitus supplies information about such events, here referred to, in his History, 1:2, 1.

514 Verse 12. — The order here is as in Mark 13:9-13. Cf. Matt 10:34-42.

515 Verse 13. — “Turn out,” so Field, who refers to Phil. 1:19.

515a Verse 15. — Robert South preached from this verse.

516 Verse 17.― “Hated by all.” Cf. John 15:19, Acts 28:22, and see Tacitus, “Ann.,” 15:44.

517 Verse 19.― Cf. 17:33, and see Dean Vaughan, “Authorized or Revised?” p. 67.

518 Verse 20. — “Desolation.” Schmiedel (§ 153) represents Luke as identifying, in the Evangelist’s own mind, Titus’ desolation of Jerusalem with Daniel’s “abomination,” which does but evidence that critic’s ignorance of the scheme of Old Testament Prophecy. As the Expositor shows, it is characteristic of Luke that our Evangelist distinguished them.

“Luke’s language here,” Purves remarks, “is only an interpretation of Christ’s words (cf. Matt. 14:15, Mark 13:14), designed to make there meaning clear to Gentile readers” (“Christianity in the Apostolic. Age,” p. 272).

519 Verse 21. — “Flee to the mountains.” Wellhausen, as others, speaks of Luke’s bringing the prophecy “up to date.” But some date for it before 70 finds support from these words, because the historical flight was to fella, in the Jordan valley.

520 Verse 22. — “Vengeance.” The Greek (ἐκδίκησις) is the same as that of Hos. 9:7. Cf. note on 7:16.

521 Verse 23. — “Distress,” ἐκδίκησις (cf. 1 Cor. 7:6). It is the θλίψις of Matthew and Mark.

522 Verse 24.― “Trodden down,” etc., by Romans, Saracens, Franks, etc., in succession.

522a The “times of the nations” run from Nebuchadnezzar to the Apocalyptic head of the revived Roman empire (Rev. 13:1-10). It is a phrase to be distinguished from “fullness of the Gentiles” in Rom. 11:25, which rufous to the completion of the Church. In Tobit 14:5 we meet with the “times of that age” the similarity of αἰώνων and ἐθνῶν in MSS. (e.g., Rev. 15:3), see Nestle, in Expository Times, March, 1909.

523 Verse 25. — “And there shall be signs,” i.e., of the ἀποκάλψις of Christ’s Presence (παρουσία, Matthew, cf. next note): cf. Rev. 8:12. The “and,” introducing a detached narration, is analogous to a peculiarity of the conjunction (υαυ), of which Isa. 61:2 affords one of the most striking illustrations in Old Testament Scripture. That passage was used by our Lord on the occasion spoken of in 4:16-19 of this Gospel. He stopped before the words, “and the day of vengeance,” etc. (cf. Zech. 9:9f.). “Rejoice... the foal of an ass,” and then abruptly, “And I will cut off the chariot from Ephraim,” etc. A long space of time may intervene between the respective incidents of such seemingly disjointed passages or portions of them and so here, between verses 24 and 25.

To understand verses 25-33, it is necessary to see that here is taken up that which was suspended with verse 11. Cf. 17:22-37, which was anticipatory of the section now reached.

524 Verse 27 (cf. note 498). — “Coming,” ἐρχόμενον: cf. 2 John 7. This is, doubtless, the same coming as in Rev. 1:7, referred to by Westcott (“Historic Faith,” Lecture VII, p. 41), but the “Manifestation” and the “Presence” are not equivalent expressions; for Paul speaks of the ἐπιφάνεια of the παρουσία (2 Thess. 2:8), showing that the παρ. is at first secret: cf. Ps. 27:5. In the last-cited New Testament passage, “brightness” has in the hands of the Revv. given place to the true rendering.

The phrase “Second Coming” is sometimes questioned, but it is sufficiently sanctioned by Heb. 9:28.

The word παρουσία was used in everyday Greek of the time for the visit of a prince to any locality, so as to mean where the “Court” was (Deissmann, op. cit., pp. 269-273).

Charles, after H. Holtzmann and Wendt, writes: “That JESUS expected to return during the existing generation is proved beyond question by the universal hopes of the apostolic age” (“Encyclopædia Britannica,” art. “Eschatology,” col. 1373). As the Fourth Evangelist belonged to that age, which closed with his death, are we to suppose that he conceived that the Master was mistaken?

See John 21:2, and if note 526 below, as to the disciples.

Montefiore here has a good note on the Jewish and the Christian conceptions of Messiah.

525 Verse 31f. — A comparison of verse 27f. sets Matthew’s “Son of Mon coming in His Kingdom” (16:28) in solid connection with Luke’s record bore of the: future manifestation of the Kingdom.

526 “This generation.” Cf. note above on 16:8, and notes 135, 136 on Mark. For the Jewish, “moral” connection of the word, cf. Old Testament passages, such as Gen. 7:1 and Ps. 12:8; in particular, Deut. 32. verses 5 and 20, besides, in Lucan writings, Acts 2:40. The Deuteronomic references seem not to have been duly weighed, with regard to their marked difference in time, by Zahn; they do not hear out his note on Matt. 24:34. Cf. Jer. 7:8, 8:3, in the LXX. For Gentile connection, see, e.g., Phil. 2:15, cited by Hahn. The successive races of men since the Flood are in this light regarded by scripture as one generation.

The word as used in this Synoptic connection has “a nearer and a further meaning” (Farrar).

Cremer and Hahn regard the αὔτη, “this,” as explained by verse 28. In any ease, the words come in the future part of Luke’s record.

There are some excellent remarks on the whole subject in Jowett’s essay, “On Belief in the Coming of Christ.” As to “that day” in Mark 13:32, the writer asks: “Is it reverent or irreverent to say that Christ knew what He Himself declared that He did not know” (p. 88 of recent reprint). Cf. Horton, on the moral beauty of Mark’s report, which commands adhesion to what the Lord said from His actual knowledge while on earth.

With regard to Charles’s statement (supra), may it not be that the Lord’s words about “that day” recorded by Mark of themselves suggest that it would not fall in the near future? They rebut critic’s fancy that there is “confusion” in that Evangelist’s record, by alleging which they do but create an inconsistency on his part.

Verse 32 is only difficult to reconcile with verse 24 for those who take “generation” to mean a period elapsing between father and son, a sense it might indeed have borne had it occurred in the same context as 23:38 “weep for yourselves and for your children.”

Neander (p. 130, followed by various English writers down to Selbie) says that the early disciples were mistaken in their view. Rather, they did not fully apprehend the Lord’s meaning: it was not intended that they should do so (1 Cor. 13:9).

The whole question is trenchantly discussed by B. W. Newton in his “Prophecy of the Lord Jesus in Matt. 24. f. Considered,” pp. 39-79 (3rd ed., 1879)., As to the bearing of verse 32 on the question of the date of this Gospel, see note 2 above, ad fin.

527 Verse 36. — “Praying ... may be deemed worthy” (or, reading as Revv., κατίσχυσητε, “may be strong”) “ ... to stand (be set) before the Son of Man.” see note on 20:35, and for “to be set” (σταθῆναι), cf. Ps. 1:5 (note 370) Wisdom of Solomon 5:1. Resurrection is affirmed in the Hebrew of the Psalm: cf. note 108 on John, and see also Mal. 3:2. This is not a judgment in the sense of John 5:24 (cf. Ps. 143:2), but the occasion of our Lord’s assigning reward or loss (1 Cor. 3:13-15) to those of the House of God (1 Pet. 4:17), when He holds His first inquest, reviewing the life of each disciple as such.

Luke 22

THE end approaches, with all its solemn and momentous issues, which our Evangelist relates after his wonted manner, adhering to moral connection rather than illustrating dispensational change, or the series of facts in His ministry, or the glory of His person.

“Now the feast of unleavened [bread] which [is] called Passover was drawing nigh,528 and the chief, priests and the scribes were seeking how they might kill him, for they were afraid of the people. And Satan entered into Judas who is called Iscariot, being of the number of the twelve; and he went away and spoke with the chief priests and captains529 as to how he should deliver him up to them. And they rejoiced and engaged to give him money; and he agreed fully,530 and was seeking an opportunity to deliver him up to them away from [the] crowd.” When the will is thus engaged on the one side and on the other nearness to the Lord was enjoyed without self-judgment, nay, in conscious hypocrisy and the habitual yielding to covetousness; Satan readily found means to effect his own designs, as a liar and murderer, against the Son of God. Yet how reassuring it is to observe that both man and the devil were powerless till the due moment came for the execution of God’s purposes, which their malice even then only sub served, unconsciously and in a way which they counted most sure to hinder and nullify them. But He catcheth the wise in their own craftiness.

It may be well here to note that the English Version misleads if it be inferred from verse 3 that it was at this time Satan entered into Judas; for we know from John 13:27 that it was only after the sop, the latter Gospel also distinguishing this full action of the enemy from the earlier occasion when he had put it into the betrayer’s heart. The truth is that Luke has no expression of time here, using only a particle of transition, and therefore contents himself with the broad fact without entering into the detail of its successive stages, which found their fitting place with him whose task of love was to linger on the person of the Lord.

“And the day of unleavened [bread]531 came, in which he Passover was to be killed. And he sent Peter and John, saying, Go and prepare the Passover for us, that we may eat. But they said to him, Where wilt thou that we prepare And he said to them, Behold when ye have entered into the city, a man will meet you carrying a pitcher of water;532 fallow him into the house where he goeth in; and ye shall say to the master of the house, The Teacher saith to thee, Where is the guest-chamber where I may eat the Passover with my disciples? And he will show you a large upper room furnished; there make ready. And they went away and found as he had said to them; and they prepared the Passover.”533 There is no ground of difficulty here for him who believes the Word of God. He who beforehand could describe thus minutely the person, place, time, and circumstances was in communion with the Divine power and grace which controlled the heart of the Jewish householder, even though a stranger hitherto, and made him heartily acquiesce in the Lord’s using it for the paschal feast with His disciples. That God should thus order all in honor of iris Son for the last Passover seems to me beautifully in keeping as a testimony in Jerusalem where the religious, chiefs, and even a disciple, with the mass were hardening Themselves to their destruction in His rejection and death.

“And when the hour was come, he took his place, and the apostles with him.534 And he said to them, With desire I desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer, for I say unto you that I will not any more at all eat it until it be fulfilled in the kingdom of God. And having received a cup, he gave thanks and said, Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I say unto you, I will in no Wise drink535 henceforth of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God536 come.” What an expression of tender love for the disciples! For the last time He would, eat it with them, not at all more. As to the cup of the Passover,537 they were to take and divide it among themselves, not He with them. The Passover was to be fulfilled in the kingdom of God; and of the fruit of the vine He would in no wise drink henceforth till the kingdom of God come. It is the sign of the passing away of the old system.

Next, the Lord institutes the new thing538 in a foundation sign of, it. “And having taken a loaf with thanksgiving he broke and gave [it] to them, saying, This is my body which is given539 for you; this do in remembrance of me.540 In like manner also the cup, after having supped, saying, This cup [is] the new covenant in my blood541 which is poured out for you.” It was a better deliverance on an infinitely better ground, as the cup was the new covenant in His blood. not the old legal one guarded by penal sanction in the blood of accompanying victims. What immeasurable love breathes in “my body, which is given for you,” “the new covenant in my blood,” etc.!542 It will be observed that Luke presents a more personal bearing of the Lord’s words here, as in the great discourse of chapter 6. Matthew gives rather the dispensational change in consequence of a rejected Messiah.

“But, behold, the hand of him that delivereth me up [is]with me on the table; and the Son of man indeed goeth according to that which is determined, but woe unto that man by whom he is delivered up! And they began to question together among themselves who then it could be of them who was about to do this. And there was also a strife (and emulation) among them which of them should be accounted greater. But he said to them, he kings of the nations rule over them, and they that exercise authority over them are called benefactors. But ye [shall] not [be] so; but let the greater among you be as the younger, and the leader as he that serveth. For which [is] greater, he that is at table, or he that serveth? [Is] not he that is at table? But I am among you as he that serveth. But ye are they who have persevered with me in my temptations545 And I appoint unto you as my Father appointed unto me, a kingdom, that ye may eat and drink at my table in my kingdom546 and sit on thrones judging the twelve tribes of Israel.” The Lord announces the betrayer’s presence at that last feast of love. How perfect the grace which knew but never once by behavior made known the guilty soul! How consummate the guile of him who had so long heartlessly companied with such a Master! Now when His death in all its ineffable fragrance and power for them is before Him, and as a sign little then appreciated by them, He tells out bin oat secret which lay on His heart, a bitter burden He felt for him who as yet felt it not at all. And the disciples question who it could be, but none the less strive for the greater place. How humbling for the twelve, especially at such a moment in presence of Him, of the supper before them, and of the cup before Him alone! But such is flesh, in saints of God most of all offensive when allowed to work. No good thing dwells in it. Tenderly but in faithful love the Lord contrasts the way of men with that which He would cultivate and sanction in His own. The condescension of patronage is too low for, saints. It is of earth for Nature’s great ones. He would have them to serve as Himself. In a ruined, wretched world what can the love that seeks not its own do but serve? The greatest is he that goes down the lowest in service. It is Christ: may we be near Him! Then He turns to what they had been in view of His disposal of the Kingdom according to the Father’s mind, and puts the highest value on all they had done. Matchless love surely this which could thus interpret His calling and keeping them as their continuing with Him in His temptations! But such is Jesus to us as to them, while in the day of glory each will have his place, yet all according to the same rich, unjealous grace.

But the Lord makes a special appeal to one while warning all of a common danger. “Simon, Simon, behold Satan has begged547 for you to sift as wheat, but I have besought for thee that thy faith fail not, and thou, when once turned back548/ establish (confirm) thy brethren.549 And he said to him, Lord, with thee I am ready to go both to prison and to death. And he said, I tell thee, Peter,550 [the] cock shall not crow to-day before that thou hast thrice denied that thou knowest me.” Love not only brings into what itself possesses, but holds out and provides against the greatest possible strain where every appearance must condemn the object loved. Yet it was no lack of love that exposed Peter to the sin of denying his self-confidence made shipwreck of his faithfulness. Through grace alone his faith failed not utterly. We see it not only in the tears of bitter self-reproach, but yet more in the earnest ardor after the Lord which went into the tomb whither John had outrun him. But we see the grace of the Lord, which here supplicated beforehand, still shining after all in the message to “the disciples and Peter,” in His early appearing to him by himself, and in his later more than re-instatement when all his failure was traced and judged to the root. What can we express but our shame and sorrow that such is nature even in the most zealous, when put to the test, and above all when the Word of the Lord is practically slighted? If we believe not His admonition of our own weakness, we are on the point of proving its truth, perhaps to the uttermost.

The Lord now prepares the disciples for the great change at hand. He contrasts their past experience with that which was coming. “And he said to them, When I sent you without purse and wallet551 and sandals, did ye lack anything? And they said Nothing. He said therefore to them, But now he that hath a purse [pouch], let him take [it] and likewise his wallet, and he that hath none, let him sell his garment and buy a sword. For I say unto you, that this which is written must yet be accomplished in me, And he was reckoned among lawless [men]: for also the things concerning me have an end.”552 Thus the changes to them depended on Him. Jesus was about to be given up into the hands of wicked men; the protection thrown around Him, as around them, was now to be withdrawn. Clearly this is no question of atonement, though of suffering and rejection in which others could have communion, as the apostle expressly teaches in Phil. 3:10. Jesus was despised and rejected of men, yea, given up to it finally of God; besides He “who knew no sin” was about to be “made sin” for us.

Little did the disciples understand their Master. Indeed, flesh and blood can never relish suffering, more especially suffering such as His, where man proves his vileness and opposition to God to the uttermost. Even saints are slow to enter in. They necessarily feel the value of atonement; for otherwise they have no standing-place, not even a well-grounded hope of escape as sinners before God. “And they said, Lord, behold here [are] two swords. And he said to them, It is enough”553 — a correction of their thought, however mild. For had it been a question of the literal use of the sword in self-defense, two must have proved a wholly inadequate means of protection. The Lord had employed the sword, purse, and, wallet as symbolic of ordinary means on which the disciples would henceforward be thrown, but certainly not to abandon personally the ground of grace in presence of evil, even to the last degree of insult and injury, on which He had insisted at the beginning of their call and charge as apostles. No more, however, is said; the true sense is left for that day when the Holy Spirit being given would lead them into all the truth. Alas! Christendom has lost the faith of the Spirit’s presence as well as the certainty of the truth, into which grace alone has been leading back a feeble remnant as they wait for the return of the Lord Jesus. Truths such as this cannot be appreciated unless we go forth unto Him without the camp bearing His reproach.

But now we approach what is still more solemn and sacred ground. “And going out he proceeded according to his custom to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples also followed him. And when he was at the place, he said to them, Pray that ye enter not into temptation. And he was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and, having knelt down, he prayed, saying, Father,555 if thou wilt, remove this cup from me, — but then, not my will but thine be done.” It was, indeed, no wonted occasion even for Him, but the awful moment of the enemy’s return, who had departed for a season after his old defeat in the wilderness. But this garden was to behold an equally decisive defeat of the enemy as became the Second man, the Lord from heaven. It was no longer Satan seeking to draw away from the path of obedience by what was desirable in the world. He sought now, if he could not drag Jesus out of the path of obedience, to fill Him with alarm and to kill Him in it. But Jesus shrank from no suffering and weighed before God all that was before Him. He watched and prayed and suffered being tempted, The disciples failed to pray and entered into temptation, so that nothing hut grace delivered them.

The Holy Spirit does not give us the detail of the three prayers of the Lord as in Matthew, but rather a summary of all in one. In both we see His dependence in prayer and tried but perfect submission to the will of His Father. Here, however, we have what is characteristic of our Evangelist, both in the angelic succor which was sent Him, and in the bloody sweat that accompanied His conflict. It is well known that many Fathers, Greek and Latin, have cast a doubt upon verses 43 and 44. “And an angel appeared to him from heaven strengthening him. And being in conflict he prayed more intently, and his sweat became as clots of blood falling down upon the earth.” Several of the more ancient MSS. indeed also omit them, as the Alexandrian, Vatican, and others, beside ancient versions; but they are amply verified by external witnesses, and the truth taught has the closest affinity to the line which Luke was given to take up The true humanity and the holy suffering of the Lord Jesus stand out here in the fullest evidence.556

Here again, however, observe that the suffering differs essentially from atonement. For not only d es He speak out of the full consciousness of His relationship with the Father, but He has also the angelic help which would have been wholly out of season when forsaken of God because of sin-bearing. All was most real. It is not meant that His sweat fell merely like great drops of blood, but that it became this as it were; that is, the sweat was so tinged with blood which exuded from Him in His conflict that it might have seemed pure blood.557 “And rising up from his prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping from grief. And he said to them, Why sleep558 ye? Rise up and pray that ye enter not into temptation.” We shall see presently the result of their sleeping instead of praying. Not only did the absent Judas betray, but all forsook, and even the most prominent of the three chosen to be nearest the Lord denied Him with oaths, denied Him thrice before the cock crew. They entered into temptation and utterly failed. We can only be kept, by watching and prayer, Evil is not judged aright save in the presence of God. There the light detects and His grace is sufficient, even for us. But man has no strength against Satan. It must be His light and His grace; without the power of His might we enter only to dishonor our Master. Leaning upon Him, the weakest of saints is more than conqueror. Thus only is the devil resisted and he flees from us.

“As He was yet speaking, behold, a crowd and he that was called Judas, one of the twelve, went on before them and drew near to Jesus to kiss him. And Jesus said to him, Judas, deliverest thou up the Son of man with a kiss?”558a How gracious, but how terrible the words of Jesus to him who knew his Master and his Master’s haunts enough to deliver Him thus to His enemies! “And those around him, seeing what was about to happen, said, Lord, shall we smite with [the] sword? And a certain one from among them smote the bondman of the high priest and took off his right ear558b And Jesus answering said, Suffer thus far; an having touched the ear he healed him.” He could still work miraculously by the Holy Ghost. Indeed, we know from John 18 that He could and did cast them all down to the ground by the power of His name; but here it is the witness of His grace to man even at such a moment, rather than of His own persona majesty, which was about to be cast off and to suffer on the cross. Each incident is of the deepest interest and eminently suited to the Gospel in which it occurs.

“And Jesus said to the chief priests559 and captains of the temple and elders, who had come against him, Have ye come out as against a robber with swords and sticks? When I was day by day with you in the temple, ye did not stretch out your hands against me; but this is your hour and the power of darkness.” God was giving up the Lord Jesus to men before He was forsaken in accomplishing the work of redemption.

“And having apprehended him, they led and introduced [him] into the house of the high priest. And Peter followed afar off. And having lit a fire in the midst of the court, and sat down together, Peter sat among them. And a certain maid, having seen him sitting by the light fixed her eyes upon him and said, And this [man] was with him. But he denied [him], saying, Woman, I do not know him. And after a short while another561 seeing him, said, And thou: art of them. But Peter said, Man, I am not. And after the lapse of about one hour, another stoutly maintained, saying, In truth this [man] also was with him, for he is a Galilean too. But Peter said, Man, I know not what thou sayest. And immediately, while he was yet speaking, a cock crew. And the Lord turned round and looked upon Peter,562 and Peter remembered the word of the Lord, how he said to him, Before [the] cock crows to-day, thou shalt deny me thrice. And Peter, going forth without, wept563 bitterly.” We see here the worthlessness of natural courage in the saint and the weakness of one’s own Love, when relied on., Only God can sustain, and this, too, in exercised distrust of self, when the Word is received by faith and the heart abides in dependence on God. A servant-girl frightens an apostle, and the first false step involves others deeper and farther, if possible, from God; for what is our consistency if we be not consistent with the Cross? The unbelief which refuses the humiliating warning of the Lord works out the accomplishment of His Word. But the Lord never fails, and as He had not in faithfulness beforehand, so, after the fact, He does not hide His face from Peter, but turns round and looks at him. His own sufferings did not preoccupy the Lord to the extent of forgetting Peter, and Peter’s guilt and shame in no way turned the Lord from him, but rather drew His look towards him. “And Peter remembered the word of the Lord,” and his sorrow worked repentance, though the Lord carried it farther still, as we know, after He rose froth the dead; for the root of evil must be judged as well as the fruit, if we, are to be, fully blessed and would know how to help others, as Peter as called to do and did.

Then follows the sad tale of men’s insolence and blasphemy; towards the Lord. “And the men who held him, mocked him, beating him, and covering him up, asked him, saying Prophesy who is it that struck thee? And many other thing they were saying blasphemously to Him.” Such was the rude evil of the underlings. The chiefs might act with more seeming decorum, but with no less unbelief and scorn of His claims. “And when it was day, the elderhood of the people, both chief priests and scribes, were gathered together, and led him into their council, saying, If thou art the Christ,565 tell us. And he said to them, If I tell you, you will not at all believe; and if I should ask, ye would not at all answer. But henceforth shall the Son of Man be sitting on the right hand of the power of God. And they all said, Thou, then, art the Son of God? And He said to them, Ye say that I am. And they said, What need have we of witness further? For we have ourselves heard from his mouth.” There was lying testimony brought against Jesus; but it failed. He was condemned for the truth, which man believed not. He declined to speak of His Messianic dignity, which was already ejected by man, and was about to be replaced by His position as Son of man on the right hand of the power of God. If they all infer that He is the Son of God, say it or gainsay it whoever will, He acknowledges and denies not, but acknowledges that truth which is eternal life to every believer.

Endnotes

522 Verse 1. — “Which is called Passover.” Cf. Joseph. “Antiqq.,” 14:2, 1, from which we learn that the name was by this time applied to the whole season. The Paschal Feast and the Feast of Unleavened Bread had long been blended. Cf. Lev. 23:5f. and Num: 28:16f, where they are distinguished, with Deut. 16:1, 3 in which they coalesce, as here.

The words of Mark, “after two days,” and “not on the feast day” (14:16), Wellhausen considers Luke left out in order to avoid contradiction with that which had actually happened. The simple truth of the matter, whether critics will recognize it or not, is that the plan of the Jewish leaders was frustrated.

The “difficulties” felt in connection with the Evangelists’ several accounts of this celebration — in particular, the circumstance that the Lund observed the Passover before the Judean conventional hour — have been discussed in note 142 on Mark, and in notes 336, 346 on John. Here may be added that the different ways of determining the new moon, of which Khodadad in his pamphlet speaks (p. 21), occasioned letters of Gamaliel the Elder to the Galileans, referred met in “Tosefta: Sanhedrin,” chapter 2. Cf. notes 531. 533.

529 Verse 4. — “Captains.” For these στρατηγοί, cf. John 18:12; and see Schürer, II. i. 265, us Edersheim, “The Temple, etc.,” p. 389ff.

530 Verse 6. — “Agreed fully,” Field, “fully consented.”

531 Verse 7. — “The day of unleavened [bread].” Provision” of ἄζυμα (Exod. 23:15) began, as we should say, with 6 p.m. (cf. verse 14) on the Thursday, when the 14th Nisan set in (cf. Matt. 26:17; Mark 14:12), i.e., the Eastern Friday eve, but um Thursday night. The theory, occasioned by comparison with the Fourth Gospel that the Lord anticipated the ceremony by one whole day (Neander, Godet, Westcott, etc.) seems to be already excluded by the Evangelist’s words “the day... in which the Passover had to be killed.” It was simply the darkness of one half of the technical day that divided the Lord’s celebration from that of the Jerusalemites in general.

532 Verse 10. — As to such an unwonted sight, see, Schor, p. 43.

533 Verse 13. — “Prepared the Passover,” i.e., the initial Paschal meal. This preparation must not be confounded with the παρασκεύη a word of different formation, spoken of in 23:54 in closest connection with the Sabbath, although it was a name given to the whole time between our sunset and the next succeeding in each recurring week. Of note concerned on chapter 23.

534 Verse 14. — The disciples, observe, did not on this notable occasion partake of the Paschal feast with their families, “showing how they had forsaken all for Christ” (Carr).

535 Verse 16. — “I will in no wise drink.” Apparently, so far as regards the present occasion, because the cup of which He must drink is to be that of, God’s wrath against sin, in contrast with the joy symbolized by the ritual of the Passover. This will be celebrated throughout the Millennium (Ezek. 45: 21).

Burkitt would extend the Lord’s words here into meaning that the meal described was not a Passover at all (The Journal of Theological Studies, July, Nos, pp. 569-571), thus understanding the opening words, of deep Hebrew coloring, in a scarcely natural way. Although Harnack and Ramsay have lent their support to this idea (Journal of Theological Literature, 1909, col. 41:1.), writers of the most opposite schools combine in treating it as a Passover. Such it was at any rate in the sense of the Mosaic ordinance. Our Lord, however, seems not to have partaken of any cup, as an accretion (see Stuart, p. 254 ff.).

536 The “Kingdom of God,” the Father’s Kingdom, Matt. 26:29, or “Kingdom of Heaven,” yet future. Cf. Rev. 19:9.

537 Verse 17. — “A cup,” viz., the first of four used in the historical ceremony (Khodadad, p. 27). Some suppose that for the second of such cups was substituted that used in the institution of the Supper (Carr). Whilst the Lord is said by Luke to have “received” (δεξάμενος) the Passover cup (of note 535), Matthew speaks of His spontaneously having “taken” (λαβών) — used in institution of His Supper.

538 Verse 19 f. — The LORD’S SUPPER, κυριακόν δεῖπνον (1 Cor. 11:20). Until the discoveries of Papyri, within the last twenty years, it was supposed that the word κυριακόν (cf. κυριακή of the Lord’s Day, in Rev. 1:10) was coined for the purpose; but it is now known that the word belonged to the Greek language of everyday life in that period, being used in the sense of “imperial,” or “royal,”

Beside; this designation of the ordinance, Scripture sanctions “the breaking of bread” (Acts 2:42, 20:7), “the Communion” (1 Cor. 10:16) and “the Eucharist” or “Thanksgiving” (1 Cor. 11:24, 14:16).

539 “This is My body given for you.” The unleavened cake declared His sacrificial death. Cf. 1 Cor. 11: 29, the Lord’s “body,” which cannot mean the Church, described in Scripture as the “body of Christ.” Turtullian uses the words against Marcion (book 4, chapter 40.) by saying, “That is, the figure of My body.... it would not contribute very well to the support of Marcion’s theory of a phantom body, that the bread should have been crucified.” This was before, the days of Transubstantiation!

The forms of words used by a father in family celebration of the Passover has been strangely neglected by Catholic writers. The “is” could only so mean represent.

“Given,” διδόμενον Catholic commentators avail themselves of tire present participle for their theory that “the sacrifice was in the Eucharist itself, not on the Cross only” (Darby-Smith). Cf. the “Explanatory Catechism,” Nos. 278-280. But all that is really meant is that the Lord’s body was on the point of being given for them, just as He was on the point of going to the Father: see the present tense of John 17:11.

Since the Reformation the great Anglican divine Hooker has written that the virtue resides in the recipient: his wise language is borne out by Mark 14:23f, for it was when the disciples had already drunk of the cup, that our Lord addressed to them the words of verse 24 there.

The present High Anglican view may be seen in Sadler, “Commentary on Luke,” pp. 555-563. Canon (since Bishop) Gere, in revolt from the idea of worship of dead elements, has had recourse to a theory that the communion is with the glorified body of the Lord (“The Body of Christ,” p. 66). But where would be the “remembrance” of words spoken by the historical JESUS before He suffered? If it is His death which governs the ordinance, all must be in keeping with that; whilst the Bishop, on that page of iris book, directs the mind of the reader to Christ in His heavenly condition, and not as the earthly Speaker. It is impossible to think of the Saviour as dead and alive at the same time (Rev. 1:18). Eucharistic doctrine developed from the “Mysteries” is accountable for such dilemmas.

That the medieval idea of eating a Divine being (“Theophagy”), to which official Catholicism still adheres, was a survival of pagan thought (Reinach, p. 26) seems to be undeniable. The attempt made, even by some Protestant “critics,” to saddle it on the Gospels, must ever be resisted. Bousset, indeed, has to own (on 1 Cor. 10:22) that, however it may have been in the hands of Paul, in the Gospels there is not the least tendency to sacramentalism discernible. It behooves every Christian to view the rite as it came from the Lord’s own lips. The Apostle cites, and does not enlarge upon, His words when 11:27-29 is rightly understood.

540 “This do in remembrance of Me.” As to the omission of these words, with the rest of verse 19 after “body” and the whole of verse 20 in the “Western” text, see, besides references in critical footnote. Zahn, “Introduction,” ii. 357-359 (German edition).

For memorial before God, see Lev. 24:7, etc., with which compare 1 Cor. 11: 26, as to the voice of this ordinance to men in general.

Luke’s words, “this cup... shed,” it will be found, combine those of Matthew, Mark, and Paul. It is because of their special relation to the Apostle’s statement in 1 Cor. 11:24 that some suppose there is an interpolation in Luke’s text. Yet it is Codex D in particular, elsewhere prone to harmonize, which omits them. The effect of supposing interference with the Evangelist’s primitive text is, of course, questioning, so far as the Gospel records are concerned, that the Lord Himself instituted the ecclesiastical “Breaking of Bread” (Acts 2:42, 46) as a permanent rite; for it is in the Third Gospel alone that the words “Do this, etc.,” appear. As confirming their rejection et the ordinance, “Friends” naturally hail this view (see British Friend, 1908), represented by writers such as Jülicher (Essay, 1892) in Germany, Gardner (“The Origin of the Lord’s Supper,” 1893) in England, and McGiffert in America. The last-named scholar remarks: “Expecting to return at an early day (Mark 14:25), Jesus can hardly have been solicitous to provide for the preservation of His memory” (“Apostolic Age,” p. 69). The assumption here expressed loss already been dealt with in cote 524. Reference might further, be made to Sanday, art. “Jesus Christ” its Hastings’ “Dict of the Bible,” vol. ii., p. 638).

Paul says; that he “received of the Lord” the account which he gives, covering the injunction. Although Sir W. M. Ramsay does not seem right in treating the Apostle’s statement as meaning that the record contained in 1 Corinthians had been handed down to Paul by tradition (Expository Times, April, 1908, p. 296f.), the Church must have had a true instinct in continued observance of the Supper, which forms part of the historical evidence of the Faith; but the way in which the “Holy Communion” has been used as an instrument of oppression has doubtless counteracted its function in this respect, so great has been the corruptions or defacement by which it is marred. Happily, the day is fast running out when men, because of doctrinal differences, hesitate to partake in common of these symbols of dove and unity, so much needed for the realization of our Lord’s High-priestly Prayer. Cf. note on John 17:21.

541 For wine as a figure of blood, Tertullian (loc. cit.) refers to Isa. 63:1. and Gen. 49:11.

In Heb. 10:19 we have the “blood of Jesus”: in 1 Pet. 1:19, “the blood of Christ”; in 1 John 1:7, the “blood of Jesus Christ.” What “higher criticism” is sufficient for these things?

Albert Ritschl, by whom many living German theologians have been influenced, in his work on “Justification and Reconciliation” (vol. iii., p. 568, of E. T.), has expressed repugnance to such hymns, dear to every spiritual mind, as the notable one by Bernard Of Clairvaux (Trench, “Sacred Latin Poetry,” p. 139ff.; cf. “Hymns Ancient and Modern,” No. 111); and, in his “History of Pietism,” of the like compositions of Paul Gerhardt (see “Lyra Germanica,” Newness’ ed., pp. 60-63), which visualized the bleeding Saviour on the Cross for the comfort of the dying, but are often discredited as voicing unpopular “blood theology.” Nevertheless; in his own last hours, the Gottingen, professor requested his son to recite to him Gerhardt’s soul-stirring lines (Gerok’s edition, p. 63), not excepting certain verses which, in his writings, he had singled out for animadversion.

As to redemptive significance of the Death of Christ, see recent works of the Scottish professors Stalker and Denney; also articles in Hastings’ one Vol. Bible Dictionary on Atonement, Mediation, Redemption, and Salvation, all by Prof. Orr. The late Dr. N. M. Adler, British Chief Rabbi, stated that “For the modern Jew there is no Atonement.... He believes that he obtains forgiveness simply by repentance”; and he went on to quote Exod. 32:30, maintaining that Jehovah’s answer there shows that He did not accept the idea of Atonement.

542 Stalker has happily remarked: “The essence of this ordinance is... God giving Himself to man, and man giving Himself to God” (p. 193). Cf. Jer. 31:33

As to remission of sins (Matt. 26:28), see note below on 24:47, and as to the word “covenant,” note 149 on Mark, besides papers of Carr in the Expositor.

Verse. 23 shows that Judas partook of the Supper.

543 Verse 24.― “Should be held”: American Revv., “Was accounted.” The order here is peculiar to Luke. According to his Gospel, the disciples must have had this contention twice over: see 9:46. In the shibboleth of critics it is a “doublet.”

544 Verse 25. — Such were Philip of Macedon and Alexander “the Great,” Ptolemy III. and Antigonus.

545 Verse 28. — “Temptations,” e.g., such as described in John 6:15. Our blessed Lord was ever sinless: 1 John 3:5.

546 Verse 29f. — “I appoint,” διατίθεμαι. Not “I bequeath”: cf. Jer. 31:31 in the LXX. Wills are believed to have been unknown to the Jews at the time the Gospel of Luke and the Epistle to the Hebrews (9:15f.) were first circulated. Cf. paper of Carr in Expositor, April, 1909.

We have here a New Testament version of the “Messianic banquet” in Isa. 45:6, 49:12. Cf. 13:28f. of this Gospel; in connection, not merely with the Passover celebration, but with the institution of “Breaking of Bread.” It sets before us “the time of Regeneration,” spoken of in Matt. 19:28 (the “restoration” of Acts 3:21). To it refer the words, “Many are called, but few chosen” (Matt. 22:14, cf. 20:16), with which contrast the statement of Rev. 7:9.

Wellhausen’s comment on βασιλεία, first without and then accompanied by the article, is that the one expresses “sovereignty,” the other the “Kingdom.” But what about Rev. 1:6?

A leading idea of all Millenarians may be expressed in the words of one amongst the Germans “The whole congregation of the faithful rule and judge mankind for 1,000 years” (Hofmann, “Prophecy and Fulfillment,” ii. 373).

The future aspect of the Kingdom comes out conspicuously in this last reference to it in our Gospel. It is this dominating aspect to which recent German literature (surveyed by Schweitzer) has been addressed. Thus Wernle speaks of “the center of gravity of the Christian faith transferred to its Eschatology”

(“Beginnings,” i. 140). Schweitzer’s own position is preposterous: the Lord died, he says, for the Apocalyptic idea, but by His death sounded its death-knell! Facts, however, are still more stubborn than theories; and the fact here is that, “not only in later Jewish and early Christian history, but right down through the Middle Ages, Apocalyptic Eschatology has been a constantly recurring phenomenon” (B. H. Streeter, in Interpreter, Oct., 1911, p. 38). The topic, nevertheless, has been until recently much more cultivated in this country than in Germany, where the influence of Bengel was largely ephemeral, and scarcely revived by such as Auberlen in the nineteenth century. Cf. note 282.

As for the relation of the Second Coming of Christ to the Kingdom, with the exception of Origen and the few who rejected the “Apocalypse” as apostolic, all primitive expositors — Irenæus, Tertullian, and Hippolytus, etc. — were pre-millenarians; that is, held that the Lord’s Second Advent will precede the Millennium: see Gibbon, “Decline and Fall, etc.,” chapter 15, comparing Elliott, “Horæ Apocalypticæ,” iv., p.310. “The expectation,” remarks Wernle, “of the Kingdom of God upon earth and of the resurrection of the dead, the two thoughts least Greek in character, stand at the center of the Christian Hope.” To this the same writer devotes his chapter 13. “Even so educated a Christian as Justin,” he says, “was a convinced Millenarian. The process of Hellenization set in about the end of the second century” (ii., p. 133), that is, in Origen’s youth. Augustine did the disservice of following in the wake of the allegorizing of that erratic theologian: see the celebrated Latin Father’s “City of God,” in particular book x., § 7. Gibbon observes that “Agreement of the Fathers went by the board;” that the Apocalyptic Kingdom “came to be treated as the invention of heresy and fanaticism.” J. H. Newman, naturally, in his Oxford sermons, through his incipient Catholicism — that farrago of ideas — discredited the Patristic Millennium indiscriminately. And so Bishop Christopher Wordsworth, in his “Lectures on the Apocalypse” (1848), as to whose views see criticism by B. W. Newton. “Aids to Prophetic Inquiry,” pp. 310-386 (3rd ed., 1881). The darkening of counsel seems complete when an esteemed writer like the Protestant Bishop Martensen is found attaching a symbolic meaning, derived from 2 Pet. 3:8, to the “thousand years” of Rev. 20:4.

On the other hand, leading expositors of such different schools as Godet, Alford Sadler, and W. H. Simcox have resolutely maintained that there can be no honest escape from time conclusion that the classical passage of the Apocalypse shows a thousand years’ reign of Christ upon earth (pace Kennett, in Interpreter: see note 509). “The plain meaning of the words,” says Simcox, “is that after the overthrow of Antichrist the martyrs and other most excellent saints will rise from the dead; the rest of the dead, even those filially saved, will not rise till later. But at last, after the Millennium, and after the last short-lived assault of Satan, all the dead, good and wicked, will arise” (“Cambridge Greek Testament for Set Joel’s and Colleges: The Revelation of St. John the Divine,” Appendix, p. 237). The belief of W. Kelly — founded upon now much-received interpretation of 1 Thess. 4:13 ff. — diverged from this statement so far to view all “saints” as rising before the ἐπιφάνεια of the παρουσία (see 524), and so, before the revelation of Antichrist (2 These. 2:8); and, Further, to see only the wicked dead in those standing before the “Great White Throne” of Rev. 20:11-15. Cf. his last “Exposition of the Revelation” (3rd ed., 1904). Simcox continues: “Any view but the literal seems exposed to insuperable exegetical difficulties. If the true sense be not the literal one, it is safest to regard it as being as yet undiscovered.” To realize the force of these words one has only to study the later expositions of the Apocalypse by Bousset and J. Weiss, partly on the lines laid down by Gunkel, who plumes himself on having “discovered” by critical acumen the clue to that book in Babylonian mythology! A humiliating circumstance here is, that this grotesque theory has been acclaimed by some in England.

The Kingdom in its present aspect has been discussed from various points of view, in England by Whately, Maurice, Seeley, Bruce, Horton, etc.; in America by Stevens and others; and in Germany by writers of the Ritschlian school, so ably represented by Harnack. Its eschatological character has been taken up also by, amongst others, the last-named scholar in the “Encyclopædia, Biblica,” and during recent years in this country by Charles.

547 Verse 31f. — “Has begged,” etc. The ἐκ of ἐξῃτήσατο denotes vehemence, importunity. See, however, Field’s note, and Burton. § 35.

548 “When once turned back.” ἐπιστρέψας Cf. the LXX, at Ps. 51:13, ἐπιστρέψουσι, for Hebrew yashubu, “shall return,” and P. B. version of Ps. 23:3, “He shall convert my soul.” See also Field ad loc. on the present passage, as to “convert” (act.) and “conversion” on inane part, which answers to God’s grace in quickening — to regeneration as used conventionally in the sense of being “born again.” The learned writer of “Otium Norvicense” would, of course, not have questioned the Psalmist’s “Turn us again,” which has doubtless given rise, since the days of Wesley, to the now current use of the word “conversion.”

Dr. Arnold has preached from this passage, on Conversion (“Sermons,” iii., 173).

549 With verse 32 cf. 1 Pet. 1:17, 1 John 2: 1, each time “the Father,” before whom the Advocate pleads.

Reference should here be made to the Catholic Catechism, No. 91.

550 Verse 34. — “Peter.” Cf. verse 31, “Simon.” Wellhausen “cannot see” any reason for the change. Was it not now to say, Strong as he was Matt. 18:18) he needed reminding of his weakness? (Farrar, apparently after Godet). As to the σήμερον here, see notes 142, 151 on Mark (14:30). Matthew and Mark give the prediction as if said on the way to Gethsemane; Luke and John as though pronounced in the upper room; so that it is probably referable to both connections divisibly, to which the account of Matthew and Mark itself lends support. The added assurance of the other disciples, uttered with raised voice, could scarcely have been given in public.

551 Verse 35. — “Without purse,” etc., words used to the Seventy (x. 4).

552 Verse 37. “Have an end.” Field: “are being fulfilled.” The quotation from the Hebrew.

553 Verse 38. — For the idea of “saying no more about it,” cf. Deut.3:26. Upon the words of this verse was founded the Bull of Pope Boldface VIII. (“Unam Sanctam”) — the two swords, spiritual and civil.

554 Verse 39-46. — This section definitely introduces the last day (Friday) of the Lord’s life on earth.

The AGONY. Cf. John 12:27, as of course the parallels in Matthew and Mark. Pfleiderer speaks of “The preceding predictions of passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus” being “not historical; otherwise the struggle in Gethsemane could not have taken place” (i., p. 389). But Fairbairn: “Few incidents have been more utterly misunderstood than this.... The antecedent of the agony Was not the idea of death, but the feeling as to its meal’s and agents” (op. cit., pp; 420-131.). Cf. note 152 on Mark.

A difficulty has been manufactured out of no man hearing the utterances of this Lord on this occasion. As to such objections, see note on the Temptation.

555 Verse 42. — Observe that our Lord says, “Father;” on the Cross, “My God” (Matt. 27:46: cf. Ps. 40:8).

556 Verse 43 f. — The Gospel of Peter (Docetic) says that JESUS on the Cross “held His peace, as in nowise having pain”! (Orr, “New Testament Apocryphal Writings,” p. 73). On Divine suffering, Caird has said: “Separation of Divine from human acts and experiences is really the dissolving or rending in twain of the unity of Christ’s person and life. It virtually asserts that He was not always, throughout His whole life, the God-Man, but only now the God, and now the man,” etc. Again: “Incapacity to suffer is not a sign of largeness, but of littleness” (Gifford “Lectures,” vol. ii., pp. 108, 142).

We meet here with an experience of the “reasonable soul” of our Lord. Cf. Matt. 26:38; John 12:27.

Conflict, ἀγωνία, an “agony of fear” (Field). Burgon has referred to Ps. 55:4-6.

“Appeared,” ὤφθη: cf. 1 Tim. 3:16.

557 As to doctrinal repugnance to the admission of such records into Scripture, Plummer writes, “There is not any tangible evidence for the excision of a Considerable portion of narrative for doctrinal reasons at any period of textual history.” It is, however, just such evidence which resists detection and is difficult to obtain: repugnance works silently as well as ostensibly.

558 Verse 45. — There are two distinct words for “sleep” used in this verse, κοιμᾶσθαι (as in 1 Thess. 4:13f.) and καθεύδειν (as in 1 Thess. 5:6, 7, 10). Two distinct classes of mankind are, concerned in these chapters of 1 Thessalonians.

558a Verse 47f — Tholuck has preached on these verses.

558b Verse 50. — Cf. John 18:10. “Suffer thus far” would be said to the soldiers.

559 Verse 52. — “Chief priests,” it will be observed, is peculiar to Luke’s account. “Power.” The Greek is ἐξουσία, “authority.”

For hands not being laid on the Lord until His voluntary submission. Cf. John 8:20.

560 Verses 54-60. — Cf. John 18:12-18, the informal investigation before Annas. For “laid hold on Him,” cf. Acts 2:23.

561 Verse 58. — Luke: a man, the second time; Matthew, “another maid.” See note 156 on Mark, in which Gospel the two other accounts coalesce. There is a helpful analysis of Peter’s denials in Stuart, pp. 269, 271.

562 Verse 61-63. — The Lord is here before Caiaphas and a committee of the Sanhedrin (John 18:24; Mark 14:55-65; Matt. 256:59-68).

“The Lord turned,” peculiar to this Gospel.

“Looked,” i.e., fixedly, is a form of ἐμβλέπω, used in John 1:42 of the Lord’s gaze then at Peter, as already of the Baptist’s at Himself (verse 36).

563 Verse 62. — “Wept,” or “sobbed,” ἔκλαυσεν.

564 Verse 66-71. — This is the third trial, before the whole Sanhedrin (Matt. 27: 1: Mark 15:1), merging in appearance before Pilate, 23:1.

Cf. John 18:13, which is accounted for by Luke’s record — an interval between the arrest and the Council’s meeting.

Fairbairn: “The elders are Israel as a State; the chief priests, Israel as a Church; the scribes, Israel as possessed of the oracle of God” (op. cit., p. 398).

“Ye say that I am.” American Revv., “Ye say (it) because I am.”

565 Verses 67-70. — See note 154 on Hark. In each of the Synoptics is brought out the contrast between “the Christ” the high priest and “the Son of Man” in the Lord answer. Cf. note 127.

With verse 69 cf. Ps. 80:17.

For the now ordinary Jewish idea of Messiah, see Montefiore, vol. i. pp. 50, 100 f.

Luke 23

WE have next the scene before the Roman governor. Heartless as he was and with little conscience, still willfulness characterized the Jews. “And the whole multitude of them rose up and led him to Pilate. And they began to accuse him saying, We found this [man] perverting our nation and forbidding to give tribute to Caesar, saying that he himself is Christ, a king.” Thus they who were really impatient under the Roman. yoke, breaking out from time to time into turbulent opposition, were here forward in the pretense of loyalty. But this was a little thing compared with the blindness of unbelief which denied their own Messiah. Nor could any charge be more false. He had departed from them when they wished to make Him a king. He had only just before expressly enjoined that they should render to Cæsar the things that were Caesar’s, no less than to God the things of God.

It will be observed that when “Pilate asked him, saying, Art thou the King of the Jews? he answering said to him, Thou sayest.” The Lord acknowledged the authority that was ordained of God, however He might suffer it. This is the true safeguard of faith, let the authority be ever so faithless. We are called to walk in His steps. We are not of the world even as He is not of the world. By and by we shall reign with Him and shall judge the world; we shall judge even angels. The more are we called above the world in spirit to be subject to God’s authority in it: only we must obey God rather than man and therefore suffer where His will and the world’s authority come into collision. So the Lord here witnesses a good confession,566 and submits to all the consequences.

But it is striking to observe that the Lord’s confession of the truth (for indeed He was the King of the Jews) did not damage His cause before the Roman governor, but with His own people, blinded against the truth. On the contrary, “Pilate said to the chief priests and the crowds, I find567 no fault in this man. But they insisted, saying, He stirs up the people, teaching throughout all Judaea, beginning from Galilee569 as far as this.” Satan was pushing the incredulity of Israel to the last extremity. It is always so finally with his victims. Christ, in the fullness of His grace and truth, thoroughly brings out what is in man, because He brings in God.

“But Pilate having heard of Galilee, demanded if the man were a Galilean. And having learned that he was of Herod’s jurisdiction, he remitted him to Herod, who himself also was at Jerusalem in those days. And when Herod saw Jesus he rejoiced exceedingly, for he was wishing for a long time to see him, because of hearing [much] of him. And he hoped to see some sign one by him, and questioned him in many words, but he answered him nothing.”569 The silence of the Lord was a very solemn condemnation of Herod, while it gave the fullest opportunity for the rude insolence of his followers as well as of the accusers. “And the chief priests and the scribes stood and vehemently accused him. And Herod with his troops set him at naught and mocked him, and having arrayed [him] with a splendid570 robe, sent him back to Pilate.”571 The Spirit of God does not fail to notice here the moral peculiarity of the transaction. There had been a feud between the Governor and the King, but “Pilate and Herod became friends with one another that very day, for they had been previously at enmity with each other.”572 Thus it is against Christ that Satan contrives to make his union in the world, as the grace of God does by Him and for Him.

The closing hour approaches, “And Pilate having called together the chief priests and the rulers and the people said to them, Ye have brought to me this man as turning away the people, and behold I, having made examination in your presence, have found no fault in this man, as to the things of which ye accuse him; nay, nor yet Herod, for I remitted you to him, and behold, nothing deserving of death is done by him. Having chastised him therefore,): will release him.” Such was the boasted equity of the Roman empire, of man. There was no doubt of the innocence of Jesus. The charges of the people had been proved to be fictitious. The hardened judge could not condemn, but acquit as a matter of justice. He was willing to concede something to please the people, but he was anxious to release the Prisoner. Whether the 17th verse be genuine or not, there can be no doubt from what follows that it was the custom to release a prisoner at this time. Several excellent authorities omit the verse, as the Alexandrian, the Vatican, the Parisian uncials (62 and 63), with several very ancient versions, whilst others change its position. Nevertheless the Sinai, with the mass of MSS. and some of the best versions, contains it. On the whole the balance seems in its favor, as it also would be harsh to act upon an unexplained custom. “Now he was obliged to release one for them at [the] feast. But they cried in full crowd, saying, Away with this [man] and release Barabbas for us; one who for a certain tumult made in the city and murder had been cast into prison.” Such was the choice of man, such the value of their loyalty to Cæsar, such their care for God’s respect for the life of a fellow-creature made in His image. A rebel and a murderer preferred to Jesus!

“Again therefore Pilate addressed them, wishing to release Jesus. But they kept calling in reply; Crucify, crucify him! And he said the third time573 to them, Why, what evil has this [man] done? I have found no cause of death in him, Having chastised him therefore, I will release [him]. But they were urgent with loud voices begging that he might be crucified; and their voices [and those of the high priests] prevailed.574 And Pilate gave sentence that what they begged should take place, and released him who, for tumult and murder, had been cast into prison, for whom they begged, and Jesus he delivered up to their will.”575

Thus all the world was proved guilty before God, but none were so deeply involved as those whom it least became. The people who had the law fell under its curse, not merely, because they were disobedient to its requirements, but, worst of all because they were resolutely bent on the rejection of their own Messiah to death, and this when the heathen sought to let Him go. Such was what the world was proved to be, where the reality came out through Him who alone was real, the Holy and the True, No room for boasting more: there never was, in truth, but now it is evident and impossible to be denied by him who rightly reads the Word of God.

Nevertheless the Spirit of God gives us more. “And as they led him away, they laid hold of a certain Simon, a Cyrenian,576 coming from [the] country, an put on him the cross to bear [it] after Jesus.” There was no restraint now, but if man were lawless, God remembered Simon another day, and his sons are not forgotten in the record of life. (Compare Mark 15:21 and Rom. 16:13.) It may be a terrible truth that God looks down from heaven and beholds the children of men, and sees none so worthy of reprobation as those who misuse selfishly the highest privileges of His mercy; but when we know Him, or rather, are known of Him, it is not the least of our comforts that God takes account of everything, and knows how to reply in His grace to those who have power and not on the side of the oppressor.

It is not that man lacks feeling: but feeling without faith comes to nothing, no less than mind, or authority, or position, were it the highest in the religious world. The affections of nature may be sweet, but never can be trusted to stand firm to Christ, however moved for a season. “And there followed him a great multitude of the people and of women who wailed and lamented him. And Jesus turning to them said, Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not over me, but weep over yourselves and over your children; for behold, days are coming in which they will say, Blessed the barren and wombs which bear not and breasts which suckled not. Then shall they begin to say to the mountains, Fall upon us, and to the hills, Cover us.577 For if they do these things in the green tree, what shall take place in the dry?” Jesus knew what was in man, despised not the feelings of the women, but trusted Himself to none. Tenderly He warns them of that which man believes not till it comes, for it is a part of man’s wisdom to suppose the future uncertain in the words of God, because it is uncertain to man. Fools and slow of heart to believe what the Lord said no less than their own prophets! Had they believed them, they had not refused Him. Had they received Him, days of heaven had dawned upon the earth, on Israel especially, and all the glorious visions of His reign had been accomplished. But Israel was ruined and guilty, man fallen and lost, and all in such a state reject Jesus. Therefore God works out deeper counsels by the Cross of Jesus in heaven and for heaven, now testified by the Holy Ghost sent down here below. These are the counsels and the ways of His grace, but His warnings stand equally, and His Word must be accomplished to the letter. Soon had they an accomplishment, though I do not say that there may not be more in store at the end of the age, when those who refused the true Christ that came in His Father’s name shall receive the Antichrist coming in his own. And the overflowing scourge shall pass through and the apostate Jews be trodden down by it. The Messiah was the green tree, the Jews the dry.578 If He because of their wickedness came into such sorrow, what was not reserved to them for their own? For, whatever His grace, God judges righteously.

“And two others, malefactors, were led with him to be put to death.”579 Jesus was spared no insult. As He was the song of the drunkard, so He made His grave with the wicked. “And when they came to the place called Skull,580 there they crucified him, and the malefactors, one on the right hand and the other on the left. And Jesus said, Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”/581 It is not here, as in Matthew and Mark, “My God my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” It is the expression of His grace towards sinners, not of His abandonment by God in accomplishing the work of atonement; and it is of the deepest interest to see that as the answer to the one came in resurrection-power and heavenly glory, so of the other in the proclamation of forgiveness by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven.582 Therefore Peter could preach (Acts 3:17ff), “And now, brethren, I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as also your rulers. But those things which God had sheaved by the mouth of all the prophets, that his Christ should suffer, he hath so fulfilled. Repent therefore and be converted for the blotting out of your sins, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord,” etc. But here again we have to wait. The message of forgiveness was refused. A remnant, indeed, believed, received forgiveness, and rose into better blessings; but the mass have pursued their heedless unbelief to this day, and will sink into deeper darkness. Yet assuredly light shall spring up in the darkest hour, and the remnant of that day shall be brought out of their sins and ignorance alike to be made the strong nation when He appears to reign in glory.

The horrors of the crucifixion in its detail come before us. “And, parting his garments, they cast lots. And the people stood beholding, and the rulers also [with them] sneered, saying, He saved others, let him save himself if this is the Christ, the chosen of God. And the soldiers also were mocking him, coming up offering him vinegar, and saying, If thou art the king of the Jews, save thyself. And there was also an inscription over him, This is the king of the Jews.”588 In every respect the Word of God was accomplished, and the ways of men laid bare. It was no question of a class and its peculiar habits. High and low, the governed and the governors, civil and military, all played their part; and the part of all was enmity against God revealing His love and goodness in His Christ. The folly, too, of man was apparent no less than grace in presence of his wickedness. It was because He was the King of the Jews, as none other had been or can be besides, that He saved not Himself, and can therefore send out the message of salvation now and bring salvation by and by. Little did man, in that day, weigh the import of that which was written over Him in Greek and Roman and Hebrew letters, “This is the king of the Jews.” If man wrote it in scorn, God will give it all its own force — God Who overrules the will and the wrath of man to praise Him. Through the Crucified, God will bless the world by and by, Jew and Gentile, high and low, even as His grace gathers out from it now.

Here God would give a testimony of His grace to man, suited to His Son and suited to the Cross. Hence He was pleased to choose the most hopeless circumstances in the view of nature, and even while delivering a soul, up to this steeped in guilt and degradation, in the agonies of death, and with the forebodings of a judgment incomparably more solemn, even as it is eternal, to secure in the fullest way His own immutable character, and to manifest in practical righteousness the ungodly one whom His grace had justified by faith. All this and much more may be seen in the history which our Evangelist alone gives of the converted robber.

“Now one of the hanged malefactors reviled him. Art not thou the Christ? Save thyself and us. But the other in answer rebuking him said, Dost not even thou fear God, because thou art in the same judgment? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due requital for what we have done, but this [man] has done nothing amiss, And he said to Jesus, Remember me when thou shalt come in thy kingdom.584 And he said to him, Verily, I say unto thee, To-day585 shalt thou be with me in paradise.”

There is no sufficient reason to suppose that the robber was converted before he was crucified, or even before he had joined his fellow in reviling the Lord., The earlier Gospels give us ground to believe that both were thus guilty, that the rejected Jesus was exposed to this as well as to every other draft of the bitter cup. I am aware that general phrases may be used, but I see no sufficient ground to doubt that each of the robbers did thus join. in insulting the Lord of glory. Why should we hesitate? Is it because the conversion of one of them might seem too sudden? — a reason in my judgment wholly insufficient. Conversion is usually if not always, sudden, though the manifestation of it may not be. The entrance of the soul into enjoyed peace may be long delayed and may demand the removal of many hindrances. This is rarely done in a very short time; but it is wholly distinct from conversion, and the two things should not be confounded as they too often are. Conversion is the soul’s turning to God through a believing reception of the Lord Jesus; the enjoyment of peace depends on the soul’s submission to the righteousness of God when the redemption-work of the Lord Jesus is seen by faith. Hence there are many souls who are truly converted because they have bowed to Jesus, who nevertheless are often cast down and unhappy and burdened, because they do not equally see peace made by the blood of His Cross. Where there is the simple reception of the Gospel the converted soul passes so soon into peace that one can well understand how the two things get confounded in the minds of many; as many others, on the contrary, confound them, because, unconsciously slighting conversion, which frequently plunges the soul in deep exercise and trouble of conscience before God, they only take into account that complete relief and peace which the Gospel ministers.

Certain it is that the malefactor was now converted who rebuked the sin of him who persisted in reviling the Lord. On the other hand, there may be the surest reviling of the Saviour without one word which man as such would consider blasphemous. In this very instance the impenitent robber simply said, “Art not thou, the Christ? Save thyself and us.” It was a thought, it was language not unnatural to man’s mind under such circumstances. It was blasphemy to the mind of the Spirit. That the promised center and medium of every blessedness for the earth, for man, and for God here below, should die upon a cross did seem beyond measure strange; that He Who had all power to save others, not to speak of Himself, should be pleased so to die, was naturally incredible. Man does not understand the depth of the humiliation of Jesus any more than the grace of God, or of his own utter need as measured and met by both.

But it is deeply interesting to see that a newborn soul discerns according to God, and this instinctively in virtue of the new nature where no formal teaching had been given or received. The converted robber at once warns his impenitent fellow of his sin, sets before him his danger, confesses his own natural state, his own life, his own ways no less evil than the other’s, and in the most serious and feeling way vindicates the glory of the Lord Jesus. “Dost not even thou,” said he in a reply of rebuke, “fear God?” The death which was before his spirit gave the gravest tone to it and made him speak out with evident anxiety, and this not so much for himself personally as in compassion for the reviler, however he might feel his sin. There they were, “in the same judgment,” as a fact, but how different in God’s eyes!

And faith gave him to estimate this aright — the crucifixion of a malefactor unrepentant, of another repentant, and of Him Whose grace drew out the repentance of the latter and hardened the former to the uttermost because he believed not. There is no true fear of God apart from faith; but faith produces not only hope and confidence in God, but also the only genuine sense of what it is to be a sinful man in His sight, and hence the only real humility. Such was the present state of this converted robber. Nothing shows it better than that he should so forget himself as practically to preach to the reviler, to set before him his sin and his danger, to hold up Jesus Christ the righteous. He does not stop to think of the singularity of such words from his own mouth, that he, a wretched, guilty, degraded malefactor, should appear to presume to speak of God to man, to rebuke a fellow-sinner, to maintain unsullied the name of Him Whom the highest authorities had just condemned to die on the cross. This in truth is the humility of faith, not the mere human lowliness of trying to think as ill of ourselves as we can, but the Divinely given sense that we are too bad to think of ourselves at all, because of the perfection we have seen in the Saviour, the Son of God, the man Christ Jesus.

Not that this self-forgetfulness produces the smallest unwillingness to confess our own sins, but on the contrary makes us free to acknowledge them fully, as we see in the words “And we indeed justly, for we receive the just requital for what we have done, but this [man] has done nothing amiss.” The converted min owns himself as bad and as justly condemned as the unconverted one, but he takes all care to exempt Jesus from the common character of fallen man. “This [man] has done nothing amiss.” How had he learned it? We know not that he had ever listened to or ever seen Him before; but we may be certain that never before had he such a knowledge as would warrant such language. Was he rash, then? He was taught of God, he had beheld the Lamb of God. On the cross he had seen enough, heard enough, to be certain that there was hanged beside him the long-expected Messiah Who should save His people from their sins and blot out their iniquities as a thick cloud, Who should make reconciliation for iniquity, and bring in everlasting righteousness. As for himself, his wicked life was ending, the forfeit of his crimes, due to the outraged majesty of the laws he had broken. But if there was a just sentence of man in his case, there was forgiveness with God that He might be feared; and the spotless dying Lamb had given him to realize both his own sins and God’s holiness as never before.

Without a particle of high-mindedness, he felt that the opinion, yea the solemn judgment of man was nothing in Divine things. The high priest had treated the claim of Jesus as blasphemy; the Roman governor had given him up, knowing he was innocent, but afraid of displeasing Cæsar, to the murderous will of the Jews. But grace had made single the eye of the converted robber; and his whole body was full of light. He could answer for Jesus as one who was known thoroughly. “This [man] has done nothing amiss.” It was contrary to all man’s experience, not only to what he knew of himself and of others known to him, but to all ever reported since the world began. Yet it was not more sure that others were sinners than that Jesus was not. It was faith, and exactly such a confession of Jesus as glorified Him at that moment when in the eyes of the world at the lowest point, despised and rejected of men. No angel was here to comfort, no apostle to confess Who He the Son of man was. If all else had forsaken Jesus and fled, the converted robber from the cross was there to confess the crucified Lord, in terms hardly heard before but truly adapted in the wisdom of God to give the lie to unbelief. The God Who opened the lips of babes and sucklings a few days before to set forth His praise wrought in the hanged robber with yet greater power now.

“And he said to Jesus, Remember me when thou shalt come in thy kingdom.” An admirable prayer and in beautiful keeping with the whole truth of the position It is not what we might have thought at first sight suitable to such a case. The Lord described a poor publican as saying acceptably to God, Have mercy upon me, the sinner that I am. The converted robber here has no doubt of the Lord’s mercy. He does not ask for a part in His kingdom, but to be remembered by Jesus then. What! He, a robber, to be remembered by the. King of kings and Lord of lords? Even so. He was right, and those who would judge him as wrong are so themselves. They enter not, as he did, into the glory of Jesus, Who, as He calls His own sheep by name now, will not forget the last any more than the first then in the perfection of His love. He prays to be remembered when Jesus should come in His kingdom for he at least believes in the kingdom of the Son of man, Others might set up the inscription without faith over the Crucified, but the name and kingdom of the Crucified were inscribed on the converted robber’s heart.

Remark also how he was guided of the Spirit, not more concerning Christ and His ways and character than about His kingdom. Truly he was taught of God. Some looked only for the kingdom of Messiah here, others since conceive that Jesus is gone into a kingdom far away. He prays to be remembered when Jesus shall come in His kingdom; for, as our Evangelist shows in the parable (chapter. 19:11, etc.), He is gone to a far country to receive for Himself a kingdom and to return: He will be invested with the kingdom on high, as also is shown by the prophet Daniel; but He will surely come in His kingdom instead of merely closing all things here below. Not so will He come in His kingdom. He shall reign over all peoples and tribes and tongues. Yet it is no mere earthly realm, but the kingdom of God, consisting of heavenly things as well as of (John 3:12) nor is it a kingdom of the Spirit, though the Spirit makes it good now in those who believe, but a real personal kingdom of Jesus; and the converted robber, with all saints, will be remembered when He shall come in His kingdom. The once robber will surely have his place in that day. He knew Whom he had believed and was persuaded that He is able to keep what he had committed to Him against that day.

But the prayer of faith, while it surely has its answer according to the measure of our soul’s confidence in Divine love according to the Word, has its answer also according to the depths of Divine grace and truth far beyond our measure. So it was now. “And he said to him, Verily, I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise.” If the prayer of the robber was admirable, much more was the reply of Jesus, a reply ushered in with special emphasis, not for him only to whom it was said, but for us also who believe in Him Who died and rose again for us. The blessings of accomplished redemption are not deferred till that day. They are true now, whether we live or die. We are the Lord’s, and we know it; we are bought with a price; we are washed from our sins in His blood. By Him the Father has made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. Such is the position, such the standing, such the assured, known privilege of the believer by virtue of redemption. The converted robber was the first soul to taste of this rich and fresh mercy. The Lord assures him, not merely of His remembrance in the kingdom, but of being that very day with Himself in paradise. What a testimony to the all-overcoming and immediate power of His redemption! A robber so purged by His blood as to be that very day with the Son of God, and this, not in heaven only, but in its brightest, highest seats! For such is paradise.

Believer, heed not those who may say that the Lord, separate from the body abode in gloom till His resurrection. Not so. His spirit was shut up in no prison but commended by Himself to the father; and where He is, there too are His saints. Doubtless He had not yet ascended; for ascension, like resurrection, is predicated of the body; but His spirit went to paradise, and as Adam’s paradise of old was the choicest spot of an unfallen earth where all was very good, so is the paradise of God the choicest of heaven. Hence Paul, in 2 Cor. 12, connects it with the third heaven; and John holds it out as the promised scene of glory where the overcomer shall by and by eat of the tree of life. No believer can conceive that this will be a place of dimness and doubt and restraint, but of Divine and everlasting glory through the Second man the last Adam.

In this paradise, then, the Lord declares that the converted malefactor should be with Him “today,” so completely were his sins blotted out by blood, so rendered capable himself, by and in that new nature which grace gives the believer. Instruction most weighty for us, and a hope full of glory, for it is the present fruit of redemption and the gift of grace to every believer. It was not assuredly his own act of dying which had this virtue for the malefactor, but the death of the Lord; and this is as free and full for every Christian as for him to whose faith it was then made known. To us now it is proclaimed in the Gospel. Shame on those who profess to believe the Gospel, but deny its most Precious and eternal blessings. Nor is it merely the dark and queen-like Circe who cheats her victims and destroys them with poisoned cup, and will surely find her plagues from God in one day. How few among those who have cast off her thralldom enjoy the liberty wherewith Christ has set us free! How many with an open Bible overlook the plainest lessons where there is no veil, but man stands immediately confronted with the light of God’s glory in the face of Jesus Christ! Anything short of this is not the true grace of God, is not the Gospel of the glory of Christ, but the darkening effect of that unbelief, so prevalent in Christendom, which has, as it were, sewn up the veil again with God at a distance within, and man without, wistfully looking for a deliverance as if the Deliverer had not already come and finished the work of redemption. For the soul salvation is come: for the body, no doubt, it waits till Jesus come again. But this is another matter on which we need not inquire more now.

Nor did God permit that so stupendous an event as the death of His Son should leave unaffected that world which He had made, or that legal system which He had set up by Moses in the midst of His earthly people. “And it was now about [the] sixth hour, and there came darkness over the whole land till [the] ninth hour. And the sun was darkened,/586 and the veil of the temple was rent in the midst. And Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit; and, having said this, he expired.”587 And the testimony was not without immediate effect on the officer in command at the crucifixion. “Now the centurion, seeing what took place, glorified God, saying, Certainly this [man] was righteous.” But the mass were filled with the sense of having committed themselves to they knew not what. “And all the crowds that came together for that sight, having beheld the things done, returned beating [their] breasts.” Not that some were not there who prized His ministry and were attached to His person, but far off in that day of man’s shame and guilt and of Satan’s power. “And all those who knew him stood afar off, and women who had accompanied him from Galilee, seeing these things.”

But God used that very day, and His grace who was thus put to death to bring out to distinct association with His name a good and righteous man. If Jesus in His life of rejection had not Joseph openly in His train, the death of the cross made him bold while others fled or stood aloof. “And behold, a man named Joseph, being a councilor and a good and righteous man (he had not consented to their counsel and deed), from Arimathæa a city of the Jews, who waited for the kingdom of God, himself went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus; and, having taken down, wrapped in fine linen and place him in a rock-hewn tomb where no one had ever been laid. And it was preparation day, and sabbath dusk was drawing on.”588 On their affection, not without darkness, a brighter day was soon to dawn.

Endnotes

566 Verse 3. — See 1 Tim. 6:13.

567 Verse 4. — “Find.” For this forensic use, still preserved, cf. 2 Cor. 5:3. 3:9, 2 Pet. 3:14. For the examination before Pilate in extenso, see John 18:33 ff. For the travesty of justice by which it was throughout marked, see Rosadi, “The Trial of Jesus” (E. T. from third Italian edition).

568 Verse 5. “All Judæa, etc.” See note on 4:44.

569 Verse 6. ff, — Against the impeachment of this section by critics (e.g. O. Holtzmann, p. 482, Schmiedel, § 108, col. 1840), Burkitt’s defense, “attested by Gospel of Peter” may well qualify by quantum valeat (p. 138).

A difficulty has been raised as to the Crucifixion being as early as 9 A.M. (Mark 15:25), in the light of Luke’s statement here. But, cf. John 18:28: “it was early,” when the Lord was led into the Prætorium (palace), which may quite well have been by 6 A.M. The distance traversed and re-traversed between the residences of Pilate and Herod would be short. The historicity of this section needs for its support no such assumptions as those of Verrall (The Journal of Theological Studies, April, 1909, pp. 321-353).

As to Luke’s source of information, cf. note 4F. He is as familiar with the doings of Agrippa Acts 12: 20, 13:1, as here with these of Antipas.

For the technical term rendered here and in verse 17, “remitted,” cf. Acts 25:21, where it is used again.

570 Verse 11. — The word λαμπρός is strictly “white”; and to this incident is attributed the use of the vestment called “alb.”

571 Verse 12. — With regard to the treatment by textual critics of verses 10-12, it may be said that what with Tischendorf’s fondness for א, Hort’s partiality to “B.” and Wellhausen’s lasing wedded to Syrsin, something further is needed as determinative beyond “diplomatic” evidence, reinforced as that may be by “historical” or “critical acumen” enlisted in the service of irreconcilable views.

572 Cf. Acts 4:27.

573 Verse 22, — cf. verses 4 and 15. By Roman Law the Procurator ought not to have entertained the second, to say nothing of the third, trial.

574 Verse 23. — “Urgent”: so American Revv. Cf. Ps. 12:4.

575 Verse 25. — Wellhausen can but speak of “indiscoverable reasons.” J. Weiss, however, notes Luke’s also forbearing to record the soldier’s completion of the crucifixion: the Evangelist clearly meant to attach the blame to the Jews.

“Pilate” is included in Whyte’s “Bible Characters,” LXXXIV.

576 Verse 26. — “Cyrene,” the modern Tripoli. Cf. Acts 6:9. Observe how Luke’s account brings together John’s statement and that of Matthew and Mark. The Lord most alone have borne the cross until relieved of some portion of it by Simon.

577 Verses 28-30. — Cf. Rev. 6:12, 15f. Stier calls this the first part of the Lord’s Passion Sermon; the remainder is, of course, the seven words from the Cross, beginning with that in verse 34, where see note.

578 Verse 31. — Cf. Ps. 1:4. The explanation of “green” and “dry” is that long ago given by Theophylact (cf. Farrar).

See Tholuck’s Sermon on verses 26-31 (“Light from the Cross,” p. 100), and Dr. Arnold’s from verse 30.

579 Verse 32. — Some copies alter the order, but the punctuation of A.V. is right from every point of view.

580 “Skull,” i.e., Golgotha; a name avoided, as Gethsemane, etc., in view of Gentile readers. “Calvary” of A.V. is from the Latin Vulgate.

581 Verse 34. — This saying of course fulfils the last clause of Isa. 53:12. Cf. 1 Tim. 1:13. The other utterances from the Cross are: (2) in verse 43 here; (3) in John 19:26; (4) in Mark 15:34; (5) in John 19: 28; (6) in John 19:30; and (7) in verse 46 here.

On the reading, see Blass, “Philology of the Gospels,” p. 71.

582 The suggestion of O. Holtzmann and others that the words in Matt. 27:46, as in Mark 15:34, had by the time Luke wrote come to be regarded as derogatory to the Son of God; is in the usual strain of “critical” nescience.

One has but to compare Luke 20:17 with the scope of quotation from Ps. 118. in Matthew and Mark, to see, as often elsewhere in this Gospel, how Luke condenses his record. That which is of chief importance is that it was to God as such, and not from the standpoint of John 3:14ff.; that the cry “with a loud voice” (verse 46) went up. Cf. note 587.

Tholuck has preached on verses 33-35 (p.-203).

583 Verse 38. — “The King of the Jews, this!” For the tone of contempt, which finds suited expression in Luke, cf. Isa. 53:3.

As to the various forms of inscription recorded by the Evangelists, see Stuart, pp. 283-285, comparing note 349 on John. The Lord here acts as King; before as Prophet (verse 28), and then as Priest (verse 34). Cf. Maclaren, p.307.

584 Verse 42 f. — As to this robber’s probable acquaintance with the Lord’s predictions, see Meyer in lee. “The Penitent Thief” is one of Whyte’s “Bible Characters,” No. LXXXVII.

Wellhausen treats the εἰς in “B” (R.V. margin, “into”) as “a very bad correction.”

585 Verse 43. — “Verily.” For this form of emphatic announcement, cf. 2:24, 7:37, 18:17, 29, 21:32.

“To-day shalt thou be, etc.” Or, “I say to thee to-day, thou shalt be, etc.” (Whately and others). This alternative is rejected by Alford, but favored, it would seem, by B. W. Newton, in his note on the Locality of Hades (“Remarks on Mosaic Cosmogony,” p. 85), who points out the advantage such punctuation affords in meeting the difficulty which some feel in respect of the present passage, and refers to the bearing of John 3:13 on the Paradise question (infra).

Syrsin has an interesting addition the impenitent robber had here said “Save thyself alive to-day.”

“With Me” Plummer, “Not merely in My company (σὺν ἐμοί), but sharing with Me (μετ ἐμου). The promise implies continuance of consciousness after death.”

“PARADISE” (cf. note on 16:22). Or, as Continental versions, “the Paradise.”

The Expositor’s view, that by this is meant the heavenly Paradise, is taken also by B. W. Newton; B. Weiss, and others. It will be observed that W. Kelly (as Delitzsch, “Biblical Psychology,” p.497, and Beck of Tübingen, “The Logic of Christian Doctrine,” p. 526) held that our Lord’s human spirit did not pass, as say the Apostles’ and Athanasian Creeds, into Hades (“Hell”); and this notwithstanding Acts 2: 27, where the Revv. have preserved “in.” His conviction was that εἰς there should have been rendered “to,” as the corresponding Hebrew preposition in Ps. 16:10, the Apostle’s citation. It is fair, however, to note that the same Hebrew occurs in Job 39:14, and is there rendered “on,” in parallelism with “in.” Others regard “to” in the Psalm as equivalent to “in.”

The usual belief is founded on such passages as Matt. 12:40 (the Lord’s soul), Rom. 10:7 and Eph. 4:9.

The Expositor, as B. W. Newton, has taken sides against the early “Fathers,” according to whose view, the separate state of all the blessed dead is referable to Hades; and has thus agreed with the Westminster Divines (note 417).

At the Reformation there was a recoil, emphasized by the Puritans of the next century, Crops medieval ideas in general; and so, not only from such conceptions as Gregory’s purgatorial suffering, but from the interpretation of passages like Phil. 1:6, considered by many still to indicate continued sanctification after death for the perfect state of Heaven (cf. Heb. 11:23), right on “to the day of Christ!” This does not, however, seem to be the Apostle’s real meaning.

Such words as Paul’s in Eph. 2:6 dispose ‘some to the view taken in the Exposition; whilst others emphasize the difference between the “Sheôl” of the Old Testament, regarded as a “prison,” a scene of “gloom.” and the condition of comfort presented in Luke 16:25, — the “unseen” world as brightened by the enjoyment, in rest, of Christ’s presence as Divine Redeemer (Ps. 139:8, Eph. 4:10, 2 Cor. 5:8. Phil 1: 23). They likewise experience difficulty in all conceiving that any could be set before the βῆμα of Christ (2 Cor. 5:10) — yet all are to be “Manifested” there — if the “Catholic” interpretation be really correct of the opening verses of the chapter concerned (see Explanatory Catechism, No. 102), as of Rev. 2:7, according to which a select company of believers gm straight to heaven on death; or the view of Weymouth, that those in so “who resemble in character and watchfulness the Wise Virgins.”

That the “Beatific Vision” (“Explan., Catech.” 132) will be finally realized by all the redeemed, is common groused (Rev. 22:4). Holy Scripture, however, nowhere speaks, as do the Roman Catechism (No. 104) and some Protestant hymns, of any disembodied spirits as already “glorified.” For that, resumption of the body will be needed (Phil. 3:21).

By “dead in Christ” (1 Thess. 4:16) must be meant the whole person of each (v. 23). Resurrection, not death, is the hope of the Christian (2 Cor. 5:4: cf. Matt. 16:18 and 1 Cor. 15:55, which are future).

Tholuck and Newman Hall have preached on verses 39-43.

586 Verse 44 ff. — Under normal conditions there could be no eclipse of the sun at the season of full moon: hence the solemnity of the darkness. Cf. Jer. 23:20 ff., Ps. 89:86ff.

Montefiore (after others, see note 582) observes that “the cry of forsakenness was inconceivable to” Luke verse 46). But — as he himself says elsewhere of remark of J. Weiss―how does he know that? No one pretends that the quotation from Ps. 31. is a “substitute” for the earlier quotation from Ps. 22. Luke’s is added detail: recovery of sense of Divine Sonship when, according to the past, of the records, from the remembrance of an eyewitness, JESUS could exclaim, “It is finished” (John 19:30).

587 The Lord’s death, according to the view of Wieseler, Schürer, and Salmon, was on the n7th April, A.D. 30. “Christ our Passover war sacrificed” (1.Cor. 5:7), at the hour of the evening sacrifice, “between the two evenings” (Exod. 7:6), which may mean between the beginning of Friday (our Thursday) evening and the beginning of Saturday (mar Friday) evening. See next note.

See Tholnek’s Sermon on verses 16-48.

588 Verse 54.― The “Preparation” (παρασκεύη) is synonymous with the “eve” of the Passover, “by which the time from the evening of the 14th to that of the 15th Nis an is always described in Jewish writings” (Edersheim, “The Temple,” etc., p. 220f.). It came to designate the Christian’s Friday.

The word ἐπέφωσκε Montefiore connects with the kindling of the “Sabbath lights” at the Jewish opening of that day.

Cf. note 531, and see Mark 15:42, John 19:31, 42, with notes thereon.

Luke 24

589/THE Sabbath day had interrupted the loving labors of the women with their spices. “On the first [day] of the week, very early [at deep dawn] in the morning” they returned.590 Love is usually quick-sighted; it might have the sense of coming danger where others were dull; it might have the presentiment of death where others saw triumph and the effect of burning zeal for God and His house. None but God could anticipate the resurrection. Their labor was bootless, as far as their own object was concerned, whatever might be the reckoning of grace. In these scenes of profoundest interest Jesus alone is perfection.

“And they found the stone rolled away591 from the sepulcher; and entering in they found not the body of the Lord Jesus./592 And it came to pass, in their perplexity about it, that behold, two men593 stood by them in shining raiment. And as they were fearful and bending their faces to the ground, they said to them, Why seek ye the living One among the dead? He is not here, but is risen: remember how he spoke to you, being yet in Galilee,594 saying, That the Son of man595 must be delivered up to the hands of sinners, and be crucified, and rise the third day.” But men, and even saints, are dull to appreciate the resurrection; it brings God too near to them, for of all things none is more characteristic of Him than raising the dead, and most of all resurrection from among the dead must be learned by Divine teaching only He could reveal it of His grace. For this breaks in upon the whole course of the world and displays a power superior to nature, triumphant over Satan, which delivers even from Divine judgment. Here it was the Deliverer Himself: often had He told the disciples of it; He had named even the third day, yet those who were most faithful, as they understood not at the time, so remembered not afterward till the fact had taken place and heavenly messengers recalled His words to them afresh. “And they remembered his words; and, returning from the sepulcher, related596 all these things to the eleven and to all the rest. Now it was Mary Magdalene,557 and Joanne, and Mary the [mother] of James, and the rest with them, who told these things to the apostles. And these words appeared in their eyes as an idle tale, and they disbelieved them.”598

The resurrection of the Saviour is the foundation of the Gospel; but it is the writers of the Gospels themselves who, let us know both the ignorance and the obstinate unbelief those who were afterward to be such devoted and honored witnesses of Jesus. Nor need the believer wonder. For the Gospel be the revelation of God’s grace in Christ, it supposes the utter ruin and good-for-nothingness of man. Doubtless it is humbling, but this is wholesome and needed no sinner can be too much humbled, no saint too humble; but no humiliation should weaken for a moment our sense of the perfect grace of God. The lesson must be learned by us in both ways; but of the two the sense of what we are as saints is far more profound than of sinners when just awakening to feel our real state before God. And this is one of the great differences between evangelicalism and the Gospel of God. Evangelicalism owns the fallen and bad estate of man as well as the mercy of God in the Lord Jesus Christ; but it is altogether short when compared with God’s standard, death and resurrection. It owns that no power but that of Jesus. can avail; but it is rather a remedy for the sick man than life in resurrection from the dead. It is the same reason which hinders saints now from appreciating themselves dead and risen with Jesus that made the, disciples so slow to comprehend the words of Jesus beforehand, and even to receive the fact of His own death and resurrection when accomplished.

We may observe, too, how little flesh could glory in what we have here before us. Out of weakness truly the women were made strong, while they who ought to have been pillars were weakness itself or worse. The words of the witnesses of the great truth seemed in their eyes a delirious dream, and they who were afterward to call men to the faith knew by their own experience, even as believers, what it is to disbelieve the resurrection. How this would enhance their estimate of Divine grace! how call out patience no less than burning zeal in proclaiming the risen One to incredulous man! He who had so borne with them could bless any by Him Who died for all.

“But Peter, rising up, ran to she sepulcher, and stooping down he sees the linen clothes lying alone, and went away home, wondering at what had happened.”599 It is to John we are indebted for telling is part and God’s analysis of his own inner man. “Then entered in therefore the other disciple also who came first to the tomb, and he saw and believed. For they had not yet known the scripture that he must rise from the dead.” “He saw and believed.” It was accepted on evidence: he no longer doubted that Jesus was risen; but it was founded upon his own sight merely of indisputable fact, not on God’s Word. “For as yet they knew not the scripture that he must rise from among the dead.” Still less was there any intelligent entrance into God’s counsels about resurrection, any adequate understanding of its necessary and glorious place in the whole scope of the truth.

Next our Evangelist gives us fully and with the most touching detail that appearing of the risen Lord which the Gospel of Mark sums up in a single verse: “After that he was manifested in another form to two of them as they walked going into the country.”

Here I cannot doubt that it is a testimony to the walk of faith to which the Lord, no longer known after the flesh, would lead on His own. It is of no consequence who the unnamed one may have been. They were disciples staggered by the crucifixion of the Messiah, whom grace would comfort, founding their faith on the Word and giving the saints to see Jesus unseen, Whom they knew not while they looked on with natural eyes. One of the ancients Epiphanies, conjectured the companion of Cleopas to be Nathaniel; among moderns the learned Lightfoot is confident that he was Peter. We may rest assured that both were mistaken, and that he could not have been an apostle; for on returning to Jerusalem the two found “the eleven” among those gathered together. (Verse 33.) The grand point of moment is the Lord’s grace in leading them out of human thoughts to Himself as the Object of all the Scriptures, and this, too, as first suffering, then entering His glory.

“And behold, two of them were going on the same day to a village, distant sixty stadia from Jerusalem, called Emmaus; and they conversed with one another about all these things which had taken place. And it came to pass while they conversed and reasoned that Jesus himself drawing nigh went with them. But their eves were holden so as not to know him And he said to diem, What words [are] these which ye interchange with one another as ye walk and are downcast?/601 And one [of them] named Cleopas,602 answering said to him, Dost thou sojourn alone in Jerusalem and knowest not602a the things come to pass in it in these days? And he said to them, What things? And they Said to Him, The things concerning Jesus the Nazorean, who was603 a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people; and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered him to [the] judgment of death and crucified him. But we had hoped that he was [the one] about to redeem604 Israel; but then also with all these things, this is the third day since these things came to pass, And withal, certain women from among us astonished us, having been early at the sepulcher, and, not having found his body, came, saying that they had also seen a vision of angels who say that he is alive. And some of those with us went to the sepulcher, and found even as the women also had said; but him they saw not.”605

How blessedly we see the way of the Lord Jesus drawing the hearts of men of God with the cords of a man! In resurrection He is still truly man, “the same yesterday, today, and forever,” and adapts Himself to the heart, even though, as Mark lets us know in the verse already cited, their eyes were holden so that they should not recognize their Master: He had appeared “in another form.” But He drew out their thoughts to lead them into the truth, in order that the very sorrows of His rejection, which seemed so inexplicable to them and inconsistent with their expectations, might be seen to be required by the Divine Word, and thus be a confirmation, not perilous, to their faith. They had looked for redemption by power; they now learn in His suffering to the uttermost, the Just for the unjust, redemption by blood; and not this only, but a new life out of death, and superior to it, witnessed and established and given is in Him, Satan’s power in sin and its consequences being vanquished forever, though for the present only a matter of testimony to the world and of enjoyment by the Holy Ghost to the believer.

“And he said to them, O senseless and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken! 606 Ought not the Christ to have suffered these things and to enter607 into his glory? And beginning from Moses and from all the prophets,608 he interpreted to them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself.”

Such is the real secret of unbelief in believers. They fail because they do not believe all. Having but a partial view of Divine truth, they easily exaggerate here or there; and the rather as, not reading Christ throughout Scripture, they are apt to shirk that rejection in the world now which disciples must accept or at least experience if they follow the Master, as surely as they will share His glory by and by. In the world, as it is, Christ could not but suffer; and everyone who is perfected shall be as He. It is morally inevitable as due to the Divine nature, as well as required by the Word. It could not be otherwise, God being what He is, and man a sinner in thralldom to the enemy. But now He was dead and risen; and they must know Him thus, no longer according to their old and Jewish thoughts. We have Christ’s own word for it, that He was in the mind of the Spirit in all the Scriptures; and they are blind or blinded who see Him not in every part of the Bible. He is the truth, but it is only by the Holy Ghost we can find Him even there.

A great lesson was taught during the walk to Emmaus, The accuracy and light of the Scriptures showed where men, and even believers, had overlooked much. The Jews had contented themselves with their general testimony to the hopes of the nation and the glory of the kingdom; but they had passed by, as the Lord proved, what was really deeper and now of the most essential importance — the sufferings of Christ, no less than the higher and heavenly part, at any rate, of the glories which should follow. The Lord condescended to draw the evidence from the written Word of the Old Testament, rather than to take His stand upon present facts alone, or Hip own fresh revelations. But more was needed than the value of Scripture thus proved, and this He supplies.

“And they drew near to the village where they were going and he made as though he would go farther. And they forced him, saying, Stay609 with us, because it is towards evening and the day is sunk low. And he went in to abide with them. And it came to pass as he was at table with them, having taken the bread, he blessed, and, having broken, gave [it] to them.610 And their eyes were opened thoroughly, and they recognized him, and he disappeared from them.”

Not that the occasion was the Eucharist, but. that He chose the act of breaking the bread, which He had previously made the symbol of His death for us, to be the moment and means of making Himself known to the two disciples. Thus was He to be known henceforward, no longer after the flesh, but dead and risen. Old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new, and all things are of God, who hath reconciled us to Himself by Jesus Christ.

Hence, too, the moment he was recognized He vanished from them. It is no longer a visible Messiah, any more than a living one after the flesh. He is only rightly seen by the Christian when unseen, yet He must have come and accomplished the mighty work of redemption first. For this purpose He had died, having glorified His Father on the earth and finished the work given Him to do. But this done, He does not yet take His old and predicted place on the throne of David. This awaits the day when Israel shall be brought back repentant and blessed in their own land, under His glorious reign, and all the earth shall reap the fruits to the praise and glory of God the Father. But, for the present, new things have come in. The Redeemer is gone to heaven, not come to Zion, and on earth He is known by His own disciples in the breaking of bread, His presence being exclusively known to faith.

“And they said to one another, Was not our heart burning in us, as he spoke to us on the way, as he opened to us the scriptures? And having risen up that hour, they returned to Jerusalem and found assembled the eleven and those with them. saying, The Lord is indeed risen and hath appeared to Simon.611 And they related the things on the way, and how he was made known to them in the breaking of bread.” As the angel had expressly said, “Go, tell his disciples and Peter” (Mar. 16:7), so He appeared to Cephas (1 Cor. 15:5), then to the twelve.

And so it is taught us here, “And while they were talking these things, he himself stood in their midst, and says to the Peace to you.612 But confounded and being frightened, they supposed they beheld a spirit.613 And he said to them, Why are ye troubled, and wherefore do reasonings613a rise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet that it is I myself; handle me and see, for a spirit hath not flesh and bones even as ye see me have. And having said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. And while they were yet unbelieving for joy and wondering, he said to them, Have ye anything to eat here? And they gave him part of a broiled fish [and of a honeycomb]. And having taken, he ate before them.” It is the Lord Himself, risen from the dead, but a real man, with hands and feet, capable of being handled and seen, not a spirit, but a spiritual body. Of this He gave the fullest proof by proceeding to eat in their presence. As having a body He could eat; as having a spiritual body He did not need to eat.614 This the resurrection of the body had its glorious attestation in His own person the needed and weightiest possible support of their faith Christianity gives an immensely enlarged scope to the body as well as the soul; for our bodies are now the temple of the Holy Ghost as surely as we are bought with a price, and exhortations to Christian holiness are founded on this one wondrous fact. Christ was the great Exemplar of man; His body wat the temple of God. We are only fitted for it through it redemption.615

But, further, there is a message. “And he said unto them, These [are] the words which I spoke unto you, while being yet with you, that all that must be fulfilled that is written in the law of Moses and prophets and psalms concerning me. Then he thoroughly opened their understanding to understand the scriptures, and said to them, Thus it is written that the Christ should suffer and arise from [the] dead the third day;616 and that repentance and forgiveness of sins should be preached in his name to all the Gentiles beginning at Jerusalem.617 Ye are witnesses of these things. And behold, I send the promise of my Father upon you; but do ye settle in the city, until ye be endued with power from on high.” It was no new thing for the Lord to disclose His death and resurrection. He had been intimating it from before the transfiguration with increasing plainness; but they had heeded little a truth the need of which they did not feel for themselves and the moral glory of which for God they could not yet see. It was impossible to affirm with truth that it was a surprise to Jesus, or that law, psalms, and prophets had overlooked it, for on this truth of His death and resurrection hang the types as a whole, and this is the deepest burden of the prophets and of the psalmist. But now the suffering Christ was risen from among the dead, and repentance and remission of sins must be preached in His name to all the nations with Jerusalem as the starting point. What wondrous grace! The nations had slain Him at Jerusalem’s instigation, but God is active in His love above all the evil of man or of His own people.

It is well to note, however, that repentance is preached with remission of sins; nor can we exaggerate its importance if we do not misuse it to depreciate God’s work of grace by Jesus Christ our Lord. Many, no doubt, misuse it, and more misunderstand it; but repentance abides a necessity for every soul which looks out of its sins to the Saviour. He has finished the work by which comes remission of sins to the believer; but it is not the faith of God’s elect where the soul overlooks its sinfulness, where the Holy Spirit does not produce self-judgment by the Word of God applied to the conscience. Faith, without such a recognition and self-loathing and Confession of our sins and state, is only intellectual, and will leave us to lie down in sorrow when we most need solid ground and peace with God. Repentance, on the other hand, is no preparation for faith, but the accompaniment of it, and is alone real where faith is of God. It is deepened, too, as faith sees more clearly.

It is well to note also that the promise of the Father is distinct from repentance and remission of sins, as it is, again, from the opening of the understanding to understand the Scriptures. These the disciples had already; they had to wait for the promise of the Father. Till the descent of the Spirit they were not endued with power from on high. Then the Holy Ghost. sent down from heaven, wrought variously to the glory of the Lord.

“And he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his bands, he blessed them. And it came to pass, while he was blessing them, he was separated619 from them, and was carried up into heaven. And they having done him homage, returned to Jerusalem with great joy, and were continually in the temple praising and blessing God.” To that spot outside Jerusalem Jesus had often gone. There was the family that He loved; thither He leads the disciples for the last time on earth, and thence, in the act of blessing, with uplifted hands, He parts from them and is borne up into heaven — the risen Man, the Lord from heaven. What a contrast with him who fell, and all the earth through him, transmitting the curse to his sad descendants! Here it is not the first Adam, but the Last; and “as is the heavenly, such are they also who are heavenly.” Filled with peace and joy, what could they do but continually praise and bless God, Who had in the second Man accomplished His own will, though at infinite cost, and perfected them that were sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. They were, and are, perfected in perpetuity no less a result than this satisfies God’s estimate of the sacrifice of His Son. But assuredly the promise of the Father, when fulfilled, did not make the joy less or the praise more scanty. For He is not only power for testimony, but also for the soul, the One Who gives us now the full taste of fellowship, and causes worship to ascend to our God and Father in spirit and in truth. But of this the sequel of Luke, commonly called the Acts of the Apostles, is the due and full witness, and there, if the Lord will, we may enter into the detailed account which the Spirit has given us of His work, whether in individuals or in the Church, to the glory of the Lord Jesus. Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

Endnotes

589 The RESURRECTION (cf. notes 167 on Mark, 356 on John). Besides the parallels set out in margin of the Exposition, see 1 Cor. 15:4. Before entering on details in Luke seriatim, it may be well to prefix some general remarks on the attitude of criticism towards this cardinal article of the Christian Faith.

The Evangelists’ joint record is impeached in five particulars: in respect of (1) time. (2) the number of women, (3) the appearance of angels, (4) their instructions to the women, and (5) the scene of the Lord’s appearances (Selbie, p. 148).

A. The so-called “discrepancies” are primarily of a forensic nature, calling for skill in their investigation such as is possessed by lawyers, habitually concerned with weighing evidence, in which shine few merely literary critics, the I rallied intelligence of whom is of another order (see note 15 on Mark). Here these are really in no better position than readers of ordinary culture, belonging to the class from which a “petty” jury is empaneled, who in marshalling the whole of the evidence, may be aided by the professional experience of the court, bat have to decide upon it for themselves, and are generally right. Many Biblical critics affect to do the work of a “grand” jury, which, after all, is only preliminary to the thorough investigation of the ease falling to the less pretentions pretentious, to ‘Whose judgment the τεκμήρια (Acts 1:3) are submitted. (1) See note.167 on Mark, third paragraph. (2) Ibid., fifth paragraph.

(3) See note below on verse 4. (4) See note 167 on Mark, as for No. 2. (5) See note 167a on Mark.

B. The historical critic comes on the scene to have his say about the alleged “legendary” matter in the record. The Most imposing figure here in critical literature for several years was D. F. Strauss. He propounded an idea, inconvenient for those who were to follow him in the same line of attack, that “no one of the narrators knew and presupposed what another records” (“Life of Jesus,” iii. p. 341), The French writer Loisy applies, his ability to this department of criticism; and Lake, an English clergyman now holding a congenial chair at Leiden, has issued a volume grounded on the fact, which no one has ever disputed, that there was no human was no human witness of the act of bodily resurrection history takes no cognizance of that which is solely a Christian belief founded on dogmatic reasoning. Cf. his letter to the Guardian of 29th Sept., 1911. His position is; “The actual resurrection of the Lord was not from Joseph of Arimathæa’s sepulcher, but from the body which He left hanging on the Cross.” But, from the historical point of view, such a belief can only be subjective: there was no human witness of any such resurrection as that either. Those who believe in Christ’s physical resurrection are, from the same point of view, in no weaker position.

Harnack has provided his Berlin hearers and his readers everywhere with a conundrum: “We must hold the Easter faith even without the Easter message” (“The Essence of Christianity,” p. 163). But Rom. 10:17 stands in the way of this (cf. note 614 below).

Allies of these writers are those who engage in “psychical research”: see, e.g., the work of Dr. Jas. H. Hyslop bearing on the Resurrection. Cf. further, art. in Interpreter, April, 1910, “Psychology add the Resurrection,” for the bearing of subconsciousness on the disciples’ experience (cf. note 614 below).

C. Finally, the textual critic presents himself, whose business is to investigate the “growth” of the text in each case, and determine “accretions,” if any. This part of the ease finds notable illustration in the disputed verses at the end of Mark’s Gospel (note 168 there) — the supposed earliest record, subsequent, as generally admitted, to the circulation of Paul’s greater epistles (e.g., 1 Corinthians and Romans).

The footnotes in the present volume exhibit the textual phenomena, of the Gospel with which it is concerned.

In addition to the literature named in note 356 on John, mention should be made here of Bishop Westcott’s posthumous “Gospel according to St. John,” pp. 331-336, and of Professor Orr’s valuable recent work on the Resurrection, Dr. Jas. Drummond treats of the Resurrection from a Unitarian point of view in pp. 30-37 of his pamphlet, already referred to, on “The Miraculous in Christianity.”

590 Verge 1. — According to Westcott’s arrangement, that which is recorded here was preceded by the events narrated in John 20:1, Mark 16:1, 2, 5, etc., Matt. 28:5.

Loisy goes out of his way to criticize Luke’s statement with regard to the spices as if too late to be of use― which is unaccountable save as careless comment. It is a question of further embalmment. Nicodemus having provided and employed spices already at the time or burial (John 19:39f.).

591 Verse 2. — “The stone rolled away.” Luke, according to a peculiarity of his record, has not previously mentioned this, stone. Cf. note on 4:23.

592 Verse 3.― “The Lord Jesus”: as Acts 1:21. See textual footnote. Hort says that “Lord Jesus” is not found in the genuine text of the Gospels, but for this he has to discredit “B” itself. The exegetical insight of Weiss keeps the German critic right in this place.

For “the hotly of Jesus,” see 23:52.

593 Verse 4. Observe that the second company of women spoken of here (cf. John) see two angels, while an early company have seen only one. Cf. note, on Mark 16:1, ad fin.

The caustic words quoted by van Oosterzee of the great Lessing, whose memory all Germans delight to honor, might be commended, to the younger men of Theological Faculties at the present day, some of whom represent the class that the editor of the Wolfenbüttel Fragments had in mind. The appeals to “cold, discrepancy-mongers” who cannot see that “the Evangelists did not count the angels,” that “the neighborhood of the sepulcher swarmed with them.” Such are words of a man all of whose predilections were on the side of DOUBT.

594 Verse 6f. — The angel that Matthew and Mark speak of recalled to the women there concerned the would of the Lord to His disciples as to His appearances in Galilee. This has been passed over by Luke, because his record is designedly limited to the Judean connection and resists all imputation of inconsistency.

595 Verse 7. — Wesley notes how the Lord Himself (see verse 26 of this chapter) did not use the title “Son of Man” after His resurrection.

596 Verse 9. — “Related,” etc. See note on Mark 16:8, as to “said nothing to any one” in that Gospel.

597 Verse 10. — “Mary Magdalene”: see John 20:2.

“The other women,” as Salome (Mark 16:1).

598 Verse 11. — “An idle tale.” Sir O. Lodge adopts the language now familiar, of others in describing the women’s narrative as “legend” (“Man and the Universe,” p. 274). It is noticeable that the disciples themselves anticipated the nineteenth century phraseology by calling their report λῆρος, fable: but those holiest men had soon to cross the Rubicon, pull down bridges and burn oats.

This seems to be antecedent to John 20:3.

599 Verse 12. — John 20:5 speaks of Peter’s first visit, accompanied by “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” Luke is speaking of the second, solitary visit, resulting from the report of the angels’ words. On returning from this later visit, Peter met the Lord: to this the Evangelist refers in verse 34.

For the relation of Luke’s to the fourth record, cf. further John 20:10.

Here the thread of Luke’s, as of Matthew’s, record diverges from that of Mark, and remains distinct to the end.

600 Verse 13 ff. — Those following Westcott’s arrangement will regard this as the third appearance (cf. Mark 16:12), the two earlier being: (1) to Mary Magdalene (John 20:14-18, Mark 16:9) and (2) to the other women (Matt. 28:9, etc.). But it may have been preceded by that in verse 31: cf. consecutive use of εῖτα and ἔπειτα in 1 Cor. 15:5 f., and, in reverse order, in verse 23f. there. Critics, one after another, emphasize Paul’s as the earliest account, which says nothing about women (1 Cor. 15:5-8). But he is equally silent on what is recorded in these verses.

In verse 16, “know” might be replaced by “recognize” (ἐπιγνῶναι); and so in verse 31.

601 Verse 17. — Field has criticized the R.V. here (“Ot. Norvic.,” iii., p. 60).

602 Verse 18. — “Cleopas”: not to be confounded, as by Alford, with Alphæus. The name here is an abbreviation of Cleopater (Wellhausen). As to the belief that Luke himself was the other, see note 2; also paper of Carr in Expositor, Feb., 1904.

602a, “Thou sojournest alone,” i.e., “art the only sojourner who does not know.”

603 Verse 19. — “Was”; or, “proved,” ἐγένετο.

604 Verse 21. — “Hoped... redeem.” This is opposed to a now current theory that it was only after His death the disciples regarded JESUS as Messiah. Even Wernle rejects that idea. Cf. Selbie, p. 97.

“Third day.” Gunkel seeks to derive this from Babylonian or Orphic mythology; but see Orr, Expositor, October, 1908. As to Eastern method of reckoning time, see Khodadad, p. 15.

605 Verse 24. — See verse 11f., and notes thereon.

606 Verse 25. — The Apostles, notwithstanding what we are told in 18:31-33, had no effective expectation of the Resurrection of JESUS. The intended embalming by the women (verse 1: cf. Mark 16: 1 f.) supposes its impossibility.

“Senseless”; or “foolish” (ἀνόητοι); not “fools” (ἄφρονς, 11:40), applied to scribes and Pharisees.

607 Verse 26. — “Enter.” See note 99 on Mark.

608 Verse 27. — “From Moses and from all the prophets.” Lindsay has a good note, working this out from each book of the Old Testament concerned; so also Neil. Richard Cecil said: “If we do not see the golden thread through all the Bible, marking out Christ, we read the Scripture without the King.” So already Augustine: “The Old Testament has no true relish if Christ be not understood in it” (Ninth Tractate on John). Cf. 2 Cor. 3:17, “the Lord is the spirit,” and Col. 3:16, “the word of the Christ.” As a first aid to such study of the Scripture, book by book, one of the very best works of its kind is that by A. M. Hodgkin, “Christ in all the Scriptures” (2nd ed.; 1908).

609 Verse 29. — “Stay,” A.M. “abide,” which inspired Lyte’s well-known hymn, “Abide with me.”

See Pusey’s Sermon, “How to detain Jesus in the Soul” (vol. i.), and Maclaren, p.346 ff.

610 Verse 30 ff. — As to use made of this by Roman writers for “Communion in one kind,” see Wordsworth in loc.

For verse 32 (cf. verse 45), see Ps. 119:130.

With verse 33, cf. John 20:19f.

611 Verse 34.― (Cf. 1 Cor. 15:5). This would, according to Westcott’s arrangement, be regarded as the fourth appearance. But see note on verse 13. How can Bousset, who (on 1 Cor. 14:5) says that Luke treats the appearance to Peter as before all others, make that square with 10f. here?

Bishop Mcllvaine has preached this verse, and Principal Whyte’s discourse, LXXXIX., in “Bible Characters,” is on “Cleopas and his Companion.”

612 Verse 36.―Cf. Ps.22:22 The fifth appearance (Mark 16:14. John 20:19).

Augustine preached from this verse (i. p. 480).

613 Verse 37. — Cf. John 20:20 and note there.

613a Verse 38. — “Reasonings.” American Revv., “questionings.”

614 Verse 39 ff. — A difficulty has been made (see, e.g., Loisy’s last work, p. 772: cf., D. Smith, 40.) about the risen Lord’s eating, founded on the assumption that His body Was here already in a glorified condition. This does not seem to have come about fully until the Ascension, the body meanwhile undergoing gradual transformation.

With this incident cf., of course, that recorded in Gen. 18:7f.

Selbie remarks that Paul cannot have held a material resurrection. But if he did not, 1 Cor. 15:3, “buried,” compared with verse 12. “from among [the] dead,” becomes very difficult—surely impossible—to interpret. The Lord’s body rose; His spirit or soul is not spoken of. Cf. Blass, “The Holy Scriptures and the Evangelical Church” (against Kalthoff). Again, Paul tells the Corinthians that there was no difference between what he and the other Apostles preached (verse 11).

The Apostle’s real position is categorically stated in Col. 2:9, Phil. 3:21; and the Lord’s bodily resurrection is clearly implied in Rom. 8:11. Cf. 2 Tim. 2:8, where, if JESUS was of the seed of David physically, and His body passed among the dead, to exclude this from the last part of the verse is scarcely “scientific.”

615 Verses 44-50. — The statement is often made that our Evangelist supposed the Lord ascended to heaven on the same day that He rose (verse 50). The one thing against that idea is that it is from Luke himself we learn that forty days intervened (Acts 1:3) so of course some way out of the collapse of the supposed “discrepancy” lies to be found, and this is the fancy that the Evangelist later on discovered more. Such triviality abounds in current literature.

Cf. Essay of Bishop Chase on the break between verse 45 and that immediately following. Verses 49 and 50 show a like break.

“Law of Moses... Psalms.” Cf. Prologue to Ecclesiasticus. In Matt. 23:5, His Lord refers to the first and the last books (Genesis, Chronicles) or the Hebrew Canon, by which we may gather that its limits were already fixed.

Verse 45 f. — See John 20:9, Where Ps. 16:10 (cf. Acts 2:25ff.) is probably the Scripture meant; see, however, also Hos. 6:2 (Bousset on 1 Cor. 15:4) and note 365.

Maclaren “He led them to believe; all that the prophets have spoken. That faith being affected, sight followed. The world says, Seeing is believing, but the converse is truer, believing is seeing” (“B. C. E.” p. 319).

616 “His obedience showed Him to be equal with God” (Chapman, “Choice Sayings.” p. 23f.).

Isaac Barrow has a sermon on verse 46 (“Works,” v., 462).

617 Verse 47. — See verse 33, “and those with them gathered together,” and John 20:21-23, with Westcott’s remarks on the commission being “to the entire society, and not confined to any particular group.”

In assigning cause of the modern deficiency of candidates for “orders,” it is usual to disguise the most potent of all, viz., the fact that men of spiritual zeal in every class of English society now “addict themselves” (1 Cor 16:15) to ministry of the Gospel and spare bishops their ordination: cf. 1 Cor. 9:16. It is not such men who daily with higher criticism and the like, and if others refrain from ordination under its hill Renee, that may be for the public good. The future of English Christianity is now very much in the “laity,” so-called.

SIN, and its forgiveness. — This all-vital subject has only been touched on in note 147A (cf. note 284). For the Biblical definition of Sin as developed in the New Testament, see 1 John 3:4 (R.V.). In 5:8 of this Gospel it appears as disease; in 19:14 as rebellion. It is essentially godlessness (Dr. Chalmers, Bishop Gore, Prof. Orr). Rom. 1:28 shows that it severs a link between the Creator and creature, who has a natural sense of guilt, illustrated by Luke’s account of the Gentile Felix (Acts 24:25).

Prof. Reinhold Seeberg of Berlin has recently described it as “the opposite of Faith and Love: Sin is faith in the world and love of the world” (“Fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion,” p. 179, E. T.). Thus in 15:12 of this Gospel we have in the “far country” the world and its service.

The present Bishop of Oxford has struck a true note when in his “Creed of the Christian” and some Oxford sermons he affirmed the great need in our day of reviving a just sense of the gravity, the solemnity of SIN. The eminent Unitarian, Dr. James Martineau, emphasized this already fifty years ago, in his “Studies of Christianity”: “The nature of sin,” he said, “is a matter on which we cannot be mistaken.... The conscious, free choice of the worse in presence of a better” (pp. 468-470).

The effect of Darwinian conceptions on modern views of Sin has been ably dealt with by Dr. E. Dennert, in a German pamphlet on Darwinian Christianity (p. 25 ff.).

Before the days of the Gospel, the earliest use made in still extend, religious literature of what Gen. 3. sets before us, that is, the idea of the Earl, appears in Wisdom 11: Inherited tendencies to evil, which Tennant, following in the wake of Ritschl, has challenged under the theological description — derived From Augustine — of “Original Sin” (Griffiths’ “Essays for the Times,” No. XII.). The most pronounced Protestant statement of it is that in the Westminster Confession (Shorter Catechism, Ans. to Q. 18), the antithesis of the idea of Rousseau, in the eighteenth century, and of Meng-tsé two thousand years earlier, that Man is naturally good: the Presbyterian Divines asserted his “total” depravity. This, rightly understood, means, as Orr (“Sidelights on Christian Doctrine,” 1909) has pointed out, that every part of his being is impaired, not that he presents no fair exterior or exhibits no praiseworthy qualities (Mark 10: 21). These indeed exist, to obscure the presence of the evil principle within, which is, moreover, checked by force of conventionality or custom. Such qualities Calvin compares to “wine spoiled with the flavor of the cask.” Nevertheless, Sir R. Anderson has remarked in his book, “The Bible or the Church?” “The truest test of a man is, not what he is, but what he would wish to be” (p. 14). It remains sadly true, however, that “if a corruption of nature means anything at all, it means the loss of free-will” (Mozley).

Opposition to the Biblical concept of the moral ruin of man appears in interpretation of the Lord’s teaching in this Gospel, from use made of the Parable of the Prodigal Son: see already note 389a ff. Now the apostle of Modern Culture was the “world-poet,” facile princeps in German Literature. Wernle writes: “The aim of Jesus stands out in the sharpest contrast to the modern idea of culture, the free and full development of the individual personality we associate with the name of Goethe. We today count sin as a part of our development” (“Beginnings, etc.,” P. 78). Here is one of the roots of the so-called “New Theology,” popularized in England on the Holborn Viaduct, with “mistaken pursuit of good”; and in Russia, etc., by the writings of Leo Tolstoi. It is voiced by the poetry of Whittier:

“That to be saved is only this —

Salvation from our selfishness.”

On its highest plane, it is the programme of the “Ethical Societies,” which seize the Christian idea of human solidarity for a use nowhere sanctioned by any words of the Lord. Nevertheless, the promoters of this movement are not to be ranked with the unhappy Nietzsche, who, not satisfied with calling SIN “a Jewish invention,” could speak of “the salvation of the soul” as “the world revolving round me” — only confirming the prediction of the Apostle Jude in verses 14-16 of his Epistle. These heterogeneous elements working together must issue in manifestation of the “Man of Sin.”

Any reader able to use a book in German should see the pamphlet on “Atonement,” confuting the current academical view, by Dr. L. von Gerdtell, who has the advantage of being a professor nor a pastor.

Universal experience attests the existence of what the Bible calls SIN, which Orr, with confirmation of Sicence, has called “racial,” as recognizing the doctrine of heredity: this emphasizes the organic unity of the sons of men. With Bishop Gore it may be said that Sin is “not outgrown experience of history” (op. cit., p. 19). “What we need today is some John the Baptist” (p. 44).

“It is only,” writes Garvie, “in the contemplation of Sin’s remedy that the sense of Sin’s disease has been fully developed” (“The Gospel for Today,” p. 94). On the subjective effect of the Cross, see ibid., p. 123 ff.

As to Synoptic teaching on Sin, see Stalker, “Ethic of Jesus,” chapter 11.; on Repentance, ibid., chapter 7.

If the Gospel of LUKE evince the Lord’s judgment of Man, as being what at different periods such as Augustine, Calvin, and Spurgeon or Moody have proclaimed, its testimony is unmistakable and clear as to the possibility of Forgiveness. With the present passage cf., in particular, 11:4. Martineau (“Hours of Thought,” p. 110 f.) from the religious, Greg (“Creeds of Christendom”), Leslie Stephen (“Essays”) and Miss Edith Simcox (“Essays”) from the ethical, point of view have modernized the Stoic idea (as to which see Hatch, Hibbert Lectures, p. 159), that forgiveness of sins past is out of question. Thus the first-named distinguishes between “God’s interior nature and His external government” and makes all hinge ultimately on government. “A mediator may renew my future, but he cannot change my past” (“Studies of Christianity,” p. 476). Nobody, however, denies the principle stated in Gal. 6:7; because Christians, Catholic and Evangelical alike, all in varying degrees, confess both Grace and Government, and maintain that each is eternally true. Government men can understand; but Grace, as revealed in the Bible, is beyond their thoughts (Rom. 11:33, Eph. 3:19): the two principles find their reconciliation in the Deity of the Redeemer. For those who confess Christ not only as Lord but as GOD it is impossible to occupy common ground with such as reject that belief.

Martineau further says: “Can the punishment precede the sin? You cannot fall, you cannot recover, by deputy” (ibid., p. 475). The one difficulty is analogous to the principle of Rom. 3:25, where forgiveness, in the inchoate form of “forbearance,” anticipates Atonement, and that by virtue, of the transcendency of the coming One, who should make propitiation for the world (“the same, yesterday, to-day, and forever”); whilst the other raises the question, “What is the true view of Substitution?” This latter process, as sometimes stated, is detached from the element of identification with Christ’s death in Pauline teaching, thereby exposing the doctrine to reasonable objection. That “no merely external thing is done for” the believer (Dean of Westminster, at Church Congress, 1908), is assuredly true. All that is needed is for Christians to give practical expression to the truth of Rom. 6:6, Gal. 2:20, by their conduct, so silencing all cavil.

Ritschl held, after Luther, that the gift of Forgiveness “the individual appropriates to himself within the community” (“Justification and Reconciliation,” p. 577, referring to Jer. 31:31-34; Mark 14:24). As some English followers have put it, “Salvation is in the Christian circle.” But these would scarcely hear of Ritschl’s tendency to subordinate Religion to Morality (see note 147B), as the supposed bond of society with God; and it is the scheme of that “Ethical Religion” (ibid.) which nowadays is by so many deemed an adequate expression of the Synoptic “Kingdom of God.” His follower Harnack reproaches the Apostles for, as the Berlin luminary alleges, not preaching the “Kingdom” as Christ did, and for making Christ glorified their only theme. Some considerations explanatory of the seemingly diminished prominence of the Kingdom in the hands of the Apostles may be seen in Candlish, “The Kingdom of Old,” pp. 180-185 but it is hoped that notes on this subject in the present volume bring out the rationale of what those men of God taught and have left behind in their writings. He that claimed to be “not a whit behind the very chiefest apostle” distinctly proclaimed the Kingdom (Acts 20:25-27, 28:31), as inferences to his Epistles amply show. The Apostle James’s hustle is saturated with it, and it is not absent from Peter’s writings, nor from the Fourth Gospel (cf. note 457a). The “historical church” alone is to blame for the neglect of it.

W. Kelly, in his “Exposition of the Acts of the Apostles,” vol. ii., p. 198f., at 20:25 of that book has written: “It is a grave blank where the Kingdom is left out as now,” speaking of “the large place it occupies in the Apostles’ preaching.” Cf. Knowing, on the same passage, with reference to Paul: “In his first Epistle (1 Thess. 2:12), as in his last (2 Tim. 4:18), the Kingdom of God is present to his thoughts”; in 1 Thess. 2:9, as in 2 Tim. 1:11, 4:17.

That the Apostles’ writings (including the Fourth Gospel) have developed the Lord’s teaching as given to us in the Synoptic Gospels is what one would expect from His implied authority to do so in the words ascribed to Him in John 16:12: theirs is the permanent expression of “the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16), with regard to the state of things resulting from His death, for which the Synoptic teaching was only preparatory. Unrecorded sayings of His must be embedded in the Epistles. It is largely from the same men who were depositories of Christ’s Word on earth that we have derived the developed apostolic leaching (Acts 2:42). Until the redemptive work was accomplished, the Lord Himself was “straitened” (Luke 12:50). It was delegated to “a chosen vessel,” Paul, to formulate the truth of Reconciliation, Justification, etc.

618 Verse 50f. — The ASCENSION (cf. notes 77 and 615). We may observe again Luke’s adoption of the Old Testament manner of narration.

Awkwardly for critics, Matthew does not record the Ascension; it would have suited their system better had he done so, with the necessary implication that it was from Galilee!

Bethany was about two miles from Jerusalem.

619 Verse 51. — “Was separated,” or, actively, “stood apart” (διέστη).

One of Bishop Hall’s “Contemplations” is on the Ascension.

Luke: Indexes

1.-Scripture Quotations.

The references are to PAGES.

Exodus 13: 2, 12, 37

29:21, 57

Leviticus 5:11, 37

8:23f., 57

12:4, 37

23:10-12, 88.

29:21, 37

Deuteronomy 6:13, 62

6:16, 63

8:3, 61

28:13, 21

Psalm 49:13, 271

89:18, 69

91:11f., 63

95:10, 61

110:9, 327

118:22, 23, 9

Isaiah 9:6, 34

27:6,136

40:3-5, 51

50:4, 46

61:lf., 2, 64

Jeremiah 2. 294

Ezekiel 16. 294

Daniel 7:7, 36

12:2, 136

Malachi 3:1, 3, 47

Matthew 1:21, 37

9:1, 162

11:12, 272

13:41, 181

16: 22, 299

28:18, 288

Mark 15:21, 352

16:7, 373

John 1:29, 33, 23, 51

1:40ff, 73

3:3-12, 181

3:6, 129

3:12, 360

3:13, 167

3:16, 34

3:36, 194

4:23, 178

4:34, 61

5:17, 228

8:321

7:24, 89

8:27, 10

14:23, 174

16:13, 293

19:20, 384

20:20, 372

20:30, 31, 352

Acts 3:17, 364

5:29, 233

10:38, 56, 113

17:30, 40

Romans 2:10, 244

3:29.31, 273

6:14, 286

7:6, 273

8:3 f., 21, 43, 168, 173,

265

8:18, 295

8:21, 283

10:14, 179

13:1, 235

13:10, 44

14:17, 190, 212

16:13, 352

1 Corinthians 4:20, 190

11:24f, 338

15:5, 372

15:19, 155

2 Corinthians 6:18,180.

8:9, 302

Galatians 3:23-25, 50

3: 26, 260

5:23, 21

Ephesians 4: 6, 225, 260

5: lf, 96, 303

Philippians 2:6, 302

2:9, 242

2:10f., 182

3:8, 268

3:10, 341

13:13, 147, 176

Colossians 1:18, 146

2 Thessalonians 1:7 f , 55

1 Timothy 1:9, 274

Hebrews 6:5, 187

7:26, 57

James 3:17, 181

1 Peter 1:2, 170

1:11, 289

1:25, 194

4:18, 303

2 Peter 3:9, 291

3:18, 107

1 John 1:9, 81

2: 17, 193

5:3, 174

5:6, 54

Revelation 17:14, 297

18:7, 295

18:8, 219

2.-Greek Words.

The references are verse PAGES.

ἄνωθεν,15

δεδικαιωηέος, 299 f.

δικαιθείς, 299

ἐξαιτέομαι, 340

ἐπιγῶναι 16

ἐπιούσιος, 182

ἐπιστρέφειν, 340

ἑστώς, 298

ἱλᾶσθαι, 299 f.

καθεξῆς, 16

κύριος, 23

κτῶμαι, 298

σταθείς, 298

3.-Subjects.

[As the chapters of the volume correspond with the chapters of the Gospel, it will be easy to locate the chief topics as dealt with in connected form.]

ADAM, the first, never changed, 202, 256

Advent, the First, 34f. See Comings,

Christ’s two.

the Second, 214-19, 295, 311.

See Comings, Christ’s two.

Alford, Dean, 300, 343

Ambrose, 293

Antichrist, 290, 297, 353

Apostasy, most hopeless of evils, 193

Augustine, 259, 306, 343

BAPTISM of John, 49f, 320f.

with fire, 54f.

with the Holy Spirit, 50f, 51

with water, 50, 54

Bentley on the text, 17

Burgon, Dean, 293

Christianity, most separative of all things, 156f., 225

Chrysostom, 293, 311

Comings, Christ’s two, 65ff., 305. See

Advent.

Conscience, needs to go on with truth,

216, 333

operative in bad men,

137f.

probed by Christ, 320, 325

spiritual action in, 116

Contentedness, 208

Conversion, 231

usually sudden, 356

Criticism, textual, 17f.

Cross of Christ, the test of, 41, 207

the Christian’s boast,

114

C ÆSAR AUGUSTUS, decree of, 31f., 36

the things of, 236, 323

Calvin, 293, 306

Campbell, Colin, 324

Capernaum, 68, 161f.

Censoriousness, 99, 101f.

Christ, center to faith, 326

disobedience to words of, 157

Exemplar of man, 373

must be all to the heart, 151f., 158

mystery of person of, 1, 27,

188, 326

not to be taken up with

earthly, 213

patronizing, 71, 146

puts the heart to the test, 220

straitened in days of His

flesh, 219f.

Christendom, a worldly system, 218,

230, 288, 294

Christianity, a parenthetical dispensation, 65f.

Father, knowledge of God as, 180-ff.

Forgiveness, governmental, 121

spirit of, 183

GABRIEL, 24f.

Cyprian, 311

DEAD, raising the, characteristic of

God, 111

Demons, Christ casts out, 68ff., 121,

130ff., 147-51, 187f.

subject to Christ’s disciples,

164

Discipleship, 210-15, 264f, 271

Documents used by Evangelists, 17f

Dwight, T., 324

EPIPHANIUS, 368

Euthymius, 306

Evangelicalism, 367

Evil, present conflict with, 220

FAITH brings in God, 281

characteristic of Christiania 7,

50, 109

natural, turns to corruption. 11

objectivity of, 117f., 122

possessed, 128

walking by, 21

Humility, 242

Hypocrisy, 102f, 221f., 233

IDOLATRY, national, individual, 192

Infidelity. See Unbelief.

Intermediate state, 275ff., 324f. See

Paradise.

Gaussen, F., 93

Genealogy, the Lucan, 58f.

Generation, moral sense of word, 290,

334f.

Gentiles, grace of God to, 67

revelation of the, 39f.

od, man dislikes, 209f

fellowship with, based on rejection

of Christ, 208

in three Persons, 168f.

Gospel of Luke, allied to Epistle to

Romans, 127

of Luke, characteristics of, 12ff.,

33, 37, 228

facts in inward connection,

64, 104, 127

Gentile, universal Gospel,

20f., 51

prologue of, Intro., sec.

2 (12-17)

summary of contents,

Intro., sec. 1 (1-12)

Gospels, not mere biographies, 14

design in, 12, 87f.

Grace, 42f., 65ff., 82, 119, 123, 132,

166, 171f., 227f, 246, 251/, 260f.,

285, 310f.

Gregory Nazianzen, 343

Irennus, 343

Israel, blindness of, 165, 287, 308

consolation of, 38

darkness awaiting, 30

earthly, 29

fig-tree, emblem of national

existence, 226f, 334

JEROME, 318, 343

Jerusalem, siege and fall of, 317, 330ff.

Jesus, in Luke’s Gospel, considered as

Man, 46, 56f, 74

holy in His humanity, 27

descended from Solomon legally,

descended from Nathan naturally,

32, 58

born under law, 37

did not seek His own fame, 72, 79

submission of faith to death of,

Godhead of, essential to Christianity,

146, 166, 326

Jews, at first more hostile than

Gentiles, 220, 233

in prison still, 223

John the Baptist, Lucan ministry of,

23f., 49-55, 112, 11,5f., 138

Greswell, E, 306

HENRY, M., 293

Hippolytus, 343

Holy One of God, 26f.

Holy Spirit, blasphemy against the,

103, 206

communion of the, 187,

252, 255

connected in Luke’s Gospel

with Jesus as Man, 56f.

Pentecostal descent of

the, 374

gift of, not conversion, 186

gift of, follows faith in

Christ’s work, 186f.

Kingdom of heaven, supposes change

of dispensation, 94, 288

of heaven, will come with

Christ’s return, 189, 360

of heaven. See Millennium.

LAW, understood by Christian better

than Jew, 96

Grace accomplishes, 43, 168

does not give right motives, 171,

245

treated as rule of life, 20f., 274

Christ dispensationally under,

44, 77, 273

Leprosy, 77ff., 284ff.

Judgment of living and dead, 217f.,

290, 296f.

of the habitable world, 313

and Grace, breadth of, 322

resurrection of, 327

KINGDOM of God, 64, 74, 04,115, 139f,

161, 188, 229ff., 286f.

brought by Christ, 188

in Luke largely moral, 190,

288ff.

of heaven, is not heaven,

189

of heaven, not said to have

come, 189

Pharisaism, not teal’ of God in, 204

240, 29

self the idol of; 250

parables. as to, 251ff.

Poor, Christ’s care for the, 113

Powers that be, obedience to, 235

Prayer, 79, 92, 144, 174, 178-84

Priests, acknowledgment of, 286

Privilege, abuse of religious, 352

Prophecy, always supposes Jew and

Gentile, 66

shows both advents together,

65f,

Light, responsibility in use of, 195ff.,

279

Lightfoot, J. B., 368

Lord’s Prayer, so-called, 178-84

Supper, 338f.

Luther, 293

MACKNIGHT, J., hypothesis of, 306

Magi, visit of the, 44f.

Mammon, 267ff. , 302f.

Markland’s hypothesis, 306

Martha and Mary, 174-8

Mary the mother of our Lord, 25f., 36,

Messiah, moral aspect of awaiting, 20

general expectation of, 20f., 51

Millennium, forgiveness of sin in, 121

powers of the age to come

187

Milligan, 350

Milton, 63

Ministry, 100f.

Miracles, 68ff., 77ff.

Mystery, revelation of, 65, 203, 217

NAZARETH, 68, 73

New Birth, 232f., 326

RELIGIOUSNESS, worldly, takes Phari.

saic ground,

272

slights Christ,

325

REMNANT, the godly Jewish, 21, 290,

295

Repentance, characterised John’s

preaching, 23, 49, 272

not a Jewish thing, 227

only given of Grace,281

accompaniment of

faith, 374

Resurrection of the just, 243, 324

of Christ, foundation o

the Gospel, 279, 366

Sadducees and the, 323f

Ryle, J. C., 293, 296

SABBATH, a witness of God’s goodness,

“ second first,” 88f.

the Pharisees and the, 89f,

228, 240

Sadducees, representing Geuti4

thought, 323ff.

Satan, his action adapted ‘to man’,

character, 188

OBEDIENCE, has its limits, 235

principle of, 235

Origen, 306, 315, 318, 331

PARADISE, 361f. See Intermediate

state.

Parenthesis, dispensational, 65f.

Self-righteousness, covers sin, 83

shrinks not from judging God, 262

swept away by repentance, 272

Sermon on the plateau, 92f.

Service of God, requires call, 151ff.

“Sheltinah,” the, 265

Simon Peter, account of, 74-7

call of, 72

HiRoplicity, Grace gives, 109

marred by prudential con.

siderations, 107

in faith, is power, 109

di n, defiling, weakening, 79

taken away by Christ’s sacrifice

alone, 190

Christ’s victory over, 317

millennial defeat of, 187, 366

modern unbelief as to power

of, 70, 191

Scripture. See Word of God.

Scrivener, 338, 343

Self-impoverishment, 210

Self-judgment, 102, 336

Testimony, rejection of disciples’, 207

solemnity of indifference

to Christ’s, 207

Theophilus, 13, 16

Trench, 296, 299

UNBELIEF, always blind, 66, 198, 202,

339, 348

due to lack of sense of sin, 216

preference of tradition to new

truth is, 141, 370

root of, depreciation of Jesus,

145f.

secret of believers’, 370

VITRINGA, 297

WAR, the Christian and, 235f,

Watching, takes precedence of working,

214f.

Wisdom, children of, 117ff.

of God, 117

Word of Christ, 108f., 204, 327

Sinners, dead level of, 170, 251

Son of David, 26, 32, 141, 304-8, 325f.

Son of God, Jesus as, 26, 47, 140f., 302,

325f.

Son of Man, the rejected Messiah, 81,

194

Lord of the sabbath, 87ff.

higher glory than Messianic,

141f., 265, 289

revelation for judgment,

327

Soul, 209, 275-6, 362

“Supplementary Theory,” the, 307

TEMPTATIONS of Jesus, moral, 61

order in, 60ff.

Tertullian, 311, 331, 334

God, faith produced by, 68

infinite moment of, 280

its rejection fatal, 279

Wordsworth, Bp. Christopher, 293,

306, 334, 338, 350

Worship, the basis of, 178, 252

Zacchaeus, the tax-gatherer, 309ff.

not a Gentile, 311

Luke: Editions of Authors Used

N.B.―Foreign Works existing in English translations are recorded under the titles of such; all are cited in the notes by English titles. * Roman “Catholic,” † Unitarian, ‡Jewish.

British.

ABBOTT, DR. E. A.: Art. “Gospels” in Encyclopedia Biblica; Corrections of Mark adopted by Matthew and Luke (1902).

‡ABRATIAMS, I.: Judaism (1907).

ADENEY, PRINCIPAL: The Gospel according to St. Luke (Century Bible) (19031, ANDERSON, SIR R.: The Lord from Heaven (1910).

*BARNES, A. S.: Westminster Lectures; The Witness of the Gospels (1906).

*BARRY, DR. W.: The Tradition of Scripture (1906).

BEBB, LL. J. M.: Artt. “Luke the Evangelist” and “Gospel of Luke” is Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible.

BENNETT, PROFESSOR: The Mishna as Illustrating the Gospels (1885).

A Primer of the Bible (1897).

BRUCE, Dr. A. B.: The Kingdom of God (1889). The Parabolic Teaching of Christ (1889).

Apologetics, 2nd ed. (1893).

Synoptic Gospels, Expositor’s Commentary on Luke (1897).

BURKITT, PROFESSOR: The Gospel History and its Transmission (1906).

The Earliest Sources for the Life of Jesus (1910).

BURGON, DEAN: Plain Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel (1877).

CAIRNS, D. S.: Christianity and the Modern World (1906).

CAMPBELL, COLIN: Critical Studies in St. Luke’s Gospel (1891).

†CARPENTER, PRINCIPAL: The Bible in the Nineteenth Century, Lect. Vf. (1903).

CARR, A.: Notes on St. Luke (1875).

CASSELS, W. R.: Supernatural Religion, 7th ed. (1889).

CHARLES, PROFESSOR: Critical History of the Doctrine of a Future Life (1899).

Art. “Eschatology” in Encyclopedia Biblica, vol. ii.

CHASE, BISHOP: The Gospel in the Light of Historic Criticism (“Cambridge Essays”) (1905).

*CLARKE, R. F.: The Pope and the Bible (Catholic Truth Society) (1889).

COOKE, DR. R. J.: The Incarnation and Recent Criticism (1907).

*DARBY, J. W., and SMITH, S. F.: Catholic Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel (cited as

DARBY-SMITH) (1897).

DENNEY, PROFESSOR: Studies in Theology, 7th ed. (1902). The Church and the Kingdom (1911).

DODS, DR. M.: Introduction to the New Testament (1888).

ELLICOTT, BISHOP: Historical Lectures on the Life of Our Lord (1876).

*EXPLANATORY CATECHISM of Christian Doctrine.

FAIRBAIRN, D.R. A. M.: Philosophy of the Christian Religion (1902).

FARRAR, DEAN: St. Luke’s

Gospel in Greek (Cambridge Series).

FIELD, DR. F. : Otium Norvicense (1886).

GARVIE, PRINCIPAL: The Gospel according to St. Luke (Westminster N. T.) (1911).

GLOAG, DR. P.: Introduction to the Synoptic Gospels (1895).

GOODWIN, DEAN, afterward BISHOP: Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke (1865).

GORE, BISHOP: The Creed of the Christian (1905). Dissertations on the Incarnation (1895).

GWATKIN, PROFESSOR: Selections from Early Writers Illustrative of Church History (1902).

HABERSHON, MISS A. R.: The Study of the Parables (1905).

HARRIS, DR. J. RENDEL: Side Lights on New Testament Research (1908).

HAWKINS, SIR J. C.: Horæ Synoptiere, 2nd ed. (1909).

HERVEY, BISHOP LORD A.: The Authenticity of the Gospel of St. Luke (1892).

JONES, BISHOP BASIL: Commentary on the Gospel of St. Luke (Speaker’s) (1878).

KENYON, SIR F. G.: Handbook of Textual Criticism (1901),

KINNEAR, J. BOYD: The Foundation of Religion (1905).

KNOWLING, PROFESSOR: The Witness of the Epistles (1892).

Literary Criticism and the New Testament (1907).

LAKE, PROFESSOR: The Text of the New Testament, 4th ed. (1908).

LINDSAY, PRINCIPAL: The Gospel according to St. Luke, with Notes (1886),

MACALPINE, SIR G. W.: The Days of the Son of Man (1905).

MACLAREN, DR. A.: Bible Class Expositions: The Gospel of St. Luke (1802). Expositions of Scripture: St. Luke (1908).

MARGOLIOUTH, PROFESSOR: Edition of Works of Flavius Josephus, trans. by Whiston (1906).

MASON, DR. A. J.: Christ in the New Testament (“Cambridge Essays”) (1905).

MAURICE, F. D.: The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven (1864).

MEAD, G. R. S. (“Theosophist”): The Gospels and the Gospel (1902).

MOFFATT, DR. JAS.: Introduction to the Literature of the New Testament (1911)

‡MONTEFIORE, C. G. (“Reform” or “Modern”): The Synoptic Gospels (1909).

MULTON, PROFESSOR W. J.: Art. “Parables” in Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels.

NEIL, C., AND OTHERS: The Teacher’s Classified Lesson Material, vol. 3.

The Four Gospels (1894).

NEWTON, B. W.: Aids to Prophetic Inquiry, 3rd ed. (1881).

NICOLL, SIR W. R.: The Incarnate Saviour (1897).

NORRIS, ARCHDEACON: Notes on the New Testament (1880).

ORR, PROFESSOR: God’s Image in Man and its Defacement, 3rd ed. (1907).

Pamphlet on the Virgin Birth of Christ (1907).

Paper in “Expositor,” on Gospel Narratives and Critical Solvents, reproduced in “The Resurrection,” etc. (1908).

OXFORD Studies in the Synoptic Problem (ed. by Sanday) (1911).

PEAKE, PROFESSOR: Critical Introduction to the New Testament (1909).

PLUMMER, DR. A.: The Gospel according to Luke (1896).

Art. “Parables” in Hastings’ Dictionary of the Bible.

PRAYER BOOK for Congregations of British Jews in Hebrew and English, ed.

by Singer, 7th ed. (1904).

PULLAN, L:: Art. “Gospel of Luke” in Murray’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary (1908).

RAMSAY, SIR W. M.: Was Christ born at Bethlehem? (1898).

St. Paul the Traveler (ed. of 1905).

Artt, in Expositor (1907). “Professor Harnack on Luke,” “The Oldest Written Gospels,” reproduced in Luke, the Physician, and other Studies (1908).

RUSHBROOKE, W. G.: Synopticon (1880).

RYLE, BISHOP J. C.: Exposition of the Gospel of St. Luke (1856, etc.).

SALMON, DR. G.: Introduction to the New Testament, 5th ed. (1891).

The Human Element in the Gospels (1907).

SANDAY, PROFESSOR Outlines of the Life of Christ, 2nd ed. (1906).

The Oracles of God (1891).

The Life of Christ in Recent Research (1907).

SCRIVENER, F. H. A.: Plain Introduction to Textual Criticism of the New Testament, 4th ed. (1894).

SEELEY, SIR J. R.: Ecce Homo (ed. of 1907).

SIMCOX, W. H.: The Language of the New Testament (1887).

SMITH, PROFESSOR D.: The Days of His Flesh (1905).

SOUTER, DR. A.: Art. “Luke” in Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ md the Gospels (1908).

SPENCE, DEAN: Expositor’s Bible: Gospel of Luke (1889).

SPURGEON, C. H.: Sermons on the Parables.

STALKER, PROFESSOR: Christology of Jesus (1897).

The Ethic of Jesus (1907).

STANTON, PROFESSOR: The Gospels as Historical Documents, part ii. (1909).

STOCK, DR. E.: Talks on St. Luke’s Gospel (1907).

STUART, C. E.: From Advent to Advent: Outline of the Gospel of Luke (1891).

SWETE, PROFESSOR: Studies in the Teaching of Our Lord, 2nd ed. (1901).

THIRLWALL, BISHOP: Introduction to Schleicrmacher’s Essay on Luke (1875).

TURNER, C. H.: Art. “New Testament Text” in Murray’s Illustrated Bible Dictionary.

TURTON, COLONEL: The Truth of Christianity, 6th ed. (1907).

VAUGHAN, DEAN: Authorized or Revised? (1882).

WESTCOTT, BISHOP: Introduction to the Study of the Gospels, 4th ed. (1872) (now in 8th ed.), Some Lessons of the Revised Version (1897),

The Historic Faith, 1883 (now in cheap reprint).

WEYMOUTH, R. F.: The New Testament in Modern Speech, 3rd ed. (1910).

WHITE, DR. N. J. D.: Art. “Gospels” in Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ the Gospels (1908).

WHITE, PRINCIPAL: Bible Characters (1900).

WILSON, CANON J. M. Studies in the Origins and Aims of the Four Gospels (1910).

WRIGHT, DR. A.: The Gospel according to St. Luke in Greek (1900).

Art. “Luke, Gospel according to,” in Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (1908).

American.

BACON, PROFESSOR: Introduction to the New Testament (1900).

BIBLE, THE HOLY: Revised Standard Edition (1901).

BRIGGS, PROFESSOR: New Light on the Life of Jesus (1904).

BURTON, PROFESSOR: Syntax of the Moods and Tenses in New Testament, Greek (1898).

EMERSON, R. W.: The Conduct of Life and other Essays (1886).

FOSTER, PROFESSOR: The Finality of Christianity (1906).

GILBERT, PROFESSOR: The Student’s Life of Jesus (1898).

JAMES, W.: The Varieties of Religious Experience (1902).

*KENRICK, ARCHBISHOP: The Four Gospels, with Notes (1849).

MCGIFFERT, PROFESSOR: History of Christianity in the Apostolic Age (1891).

McPHEETERS, PROFESSOR: Art. “Authority” in Hastings’ Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels (1908).

NASH, PROFESSOR: History of the Higher Criticism of the New Testament (1900).

PRATT, PROFESSOR: Psychology of Religious Belief (1907).

RHEES, PROFESSOR RUSH: The Life of Jesus of Nazareth (1900).

SCHMIDT, PROFESSOR: The Prophet of Nazareth (1905).

STEVENS, G. B.: The Teaching of Jesus (1901).

German

BLASS, DR F. Philology of the Gospels (E. T., 1898).

Grammar of New Testament, Greek (E. T., 1898).

Papers in Expository Times, 1907.

CLEMEN, PROFESSOR: The Origin of the New Testament (1906).

DALMAN, PROFESSOR: The Words of Jesus (1902).

Artt. on “Gehenna” and “Hades” in Hauck’s Encyclopedia, vols. vi., vii. respectively.

DEISSMANN, PROFESSOR: New Light on the New Testament (E. T., 1907).

DORNER, DR. J. A.: System of Christian Doctrine (1880-1882).

EWALD, PROFESSOR P.: Art. “Luke” in Schaff-Herzog Encyclopedia, vol. vii, (1910).

GOEBEL, PROFESSOR: The Parables of Jesus methodically Expounded (E. T. 1883).

HAHN, PROFESSOR: Commentary on Luke’s Gospel (1892).

HARNACK, PROFESSOR: The Mission and Expansion of Christianity (E. T., 1904, 1908).

Luke the Physician (E. T., 1907).

The Sayings and Discourses of Jesus (E. T., 1908).

The Acts of the Apostles (1908).

HOLTZMANN, DR. H. J.: Introduction to the New Testament, 3RD ed. (1892).

Manual Commentary on the New Testament (1889).

HOLTZMANN, PROFESSOR O.: The Life of Jesus (E. T., 1904).

JULICHER, PROFESSOR: Introduction to the New Testament (E. T., 1904).

The Similitudes of Jesus (1888, 1899).

LOBSTEIN, P.: The Virgin Birth (E. T., 1903).

LÜTGERT, PROFESSOR: The Kingdom of Heaven according to the Synoptic Gospels (1895).

MAYER-BOEHMER: The Gospel of Luke (1909).

MEYER-WEISS: Critical and Exegetical Commentary on the Gospels of Mark and Luke, 6th ed. (1901).

MULLER, DR. J.: The Christian Doctrine of Sin (E. T., 1868).

NEUMANN, DR. A.: Jesus (E. T., 1908).

NIETZSCHE, F.: Thus Spake Zarathustra, 2nd ed. (1906).

The Antichrist (E. T. of Works, 1896).

PFLEIDERER, DR. O.: Primitive Christianity (E. T. 1906).

PREUSCHEN, DR. E.: Lexicon to the New Testament Writings, etc. (1910).

RITSCHL; ALB.: The Christian Doctrine of Reconciliation and Justification. (E. T., 1900).

Instruction in the Christian Religion (E. T. 1901).

*SCHANZ, PROFESSOR: Commentary on St. Luke’s Gospel (1893).

SCHLEIERMACHER, F.: Essay on the Gospel of Luke (1817).

SCHWEITZER, A.: The Quest of the Historical Jesus (trans by Montgomery, 2nd English ed.) (1911).

SEEBERG, PROFESSOR R.: Fundamental Truths of the Christian Religion (E. T., 1908).

SODEN, PROFESSOR BARON H. VON: History of Early Christian Literature (1903).

SOLTAU, DR. W.: The Birth of Jesus Christ (E. T., 1903).

WEISS, PROFESSOR B.: Life of Christ (E. T., 1883, 1884).

Introduction to the New Testament (E. T., 1885).

The Gospels, Greek Text with Short Exposition (cited as “Manuel Commentary”) (1902); American adaptation (1906).

Sources of Luke’s Gospel (1907).

Sources of Synoptic Tradition (in series of “Texts and Investigations,” edited by Harnack and Schmidt (1908).

WEISS, PROFESSOR J.: The Writings of the New Testament. The Gospels (1908).

WELLHAUSEN, PROFESSOR: Introduction to the First Three Gospels (1905).

The Gospel of Luke Translated and Explained (1904).

WENDT, PROFESSOR: The Teaching of Jesus (E. T., 1902).

ZAHN, PROFESSOR: Introduction to the New Testament (E. T., 1909).

French

*LOISY, PROFESSOR A. (“Modernist”): Gospel Studies (1902).

The Synoptic Gospels (1907).

‡REINACH, S.: Orpheus: General History of Religions, 2nd ed. (1909).

SABATIER, L. A.: Outlines of the Philosophy of Religion (1897): Religions of Authority and Religion of the Spirit (E. T., 1904).

Swiss

GODET, DR. F.: Commentary on Gospel of Luke (3rd French ed., 1888; E. T. of 1st ed., 1865).

Art. “Parables” in Herzog’s Encyclopedia.

SCHMIEDEL, PROFESSOR: Art. “Gospels” in Encyclopedia Biblica.

Jesus in Modern Criticism (E. T., 1907).

WERNLE, PROFESSOR: The Synoptic Question (1899).

The Beginnings of Christianity (E. T., 1903).

Belgian

*SCHOUPRE, F. X. ⁑ Abridged Course of Religious Instruction (E. T., 1880)

Russian

TOLSTOI, COUNT L.; The Teaching of Jesus (E. T., 1909),

An Exposition of the Gospel of Luke

Table of Contents

Luke: Preface

Luke: Introduction

Luke: Introduction to the Endnotes

Luke 1

Luke 2

Luke 3

Luke 4

Luke 5

Luke 6

Luke 7

Luke 8

Luke 9

Luke 10:1-37

Luke 10-11

Luke 12

Luke 13

Luke 14

Luke 15

Luke 16

Luke 17

Luke 18

Luke 19

Luke 20

Luke 21

Luke 22

Luke 23

Luke 24

Luke: Indexes

Luke: Editions of Authors Used