Luke 9

Chapter 9. The Parables of Divine Mercy(Part 1)I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. (Luke 5:32)There are 14 parables peculiar to the Gospel of Luke, and singularly appropriate to his picture of the Son of Man. They naturally divide themselves into two series, namely, parables of divine mercy and parables of human destiny. The first seven are parables of divine mercy. The three parables of the 15th chapter of Luke form a trinity in unity. The other four also form a cluster by themselves and present a striking and complete view of the mercy of God. The first, the Good Samaritan, illustrates God’s mercy to the fallen; the next, the Friend at Midnight, help in time of need; the third, the Great Supper, mercy for the suffering and outcast; and the fourth, the Pharisee and tax collector, pardon for the penitent, and rejection for the self-righteous.

Section I: the Good Samaritan, or Mercy for the Fallen

Section I—the Good Samaritan, or Mercy for the FallenLuk_10:25-37While in its first application this beautiful parable is of course designed to exemplify the duties of humanity and kindness to our neighbor, in answer to the man’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” (Luke 10:29), and in illustration of the Lord’s teaching about love; yet deeper than all this it unfolds the glorious picture of the Lord Jesus Himself as the Friend and Deliverer of ruined and helpless sinners. The unhappy traveler, attacked, robbed, almost murdered on his way down from Jerusalem to Jericho, is the type of the sinner who on his downward path has fallen into the hands of Satan, and been stripped of his raiment, wounded in every part of his soul and body, and left, not only half dead, but spiritually dead in trespasses and sins. The Passersby The priest and the Levite who pass him by in his misery, represent the failure of all human resources, and all human schemes of benevolence and reform, to reach and relieve his distress. The first stands for Jewish sacerdotalism, and the cold and selfish priesthood of every age; and the other for humanitarianism in all its forms and failures. The lowly despised Samaritan is a good type of the rejected Nazarene. “Aren’t we right in saying that you are a Samaritan and demon-possessed?” (John 8:48) was the very germ of the treatment that the Pharisees gave to Jesus; and He is willing for a time to accept the obloquy, and to glorify it by the love that puts to shame all their pretensions. And so this good Samaritan does for the unfortunate traveler what none of the others had thought of doing. Although the man has no sort of claim upon him, and has perhaps also regarded him as an enemy and an alien, yet the sight of his distress is enough to call forth all his love and strength for instant help and deliverance. First, he goes right to him, undeterred by fear of lurking enemies and a similar fate himself. Next, he has compassion on him; his whole heart swells with tenderness and pity, and all thought of selfishness is at once driven out by the one overwhelming impulse of sympathy and love. Then with his own hands, tenderly bending over him, he binds up his hideous wounds, pouring in oil and wine. And when the poor victim is able to rise, he gently seats him on his own beast, conducts him to the nearest inn, takes him to a chamber, and watches tenderly by his side all the night. On the morrow before he departs, he pays in advance for his expenses, and gives his pledge to see that all else he may need shall be honorably paid for when he comes again. Christ, the Good Samaritan What an exquisite picture of the love and compassion of Christ. First, He pities us. Then He comes to us even before we go to Him. He heals the wounds of our sin; yes, even of our body. He pours in the oil of His Holy Spirit in comforting, quickening and healing love and power, and revives us with the wine of His own love and joy. He does not send us on our way alone, but carries us Himself, bearing us in His own arms, or walking by our side. The inn in which He shelters His rescued ones, is the blessed Church of Christ. There He Himself takes care of us, watching all through the night of our trial; and when He seems to pass on and withdraw His more manifest presence, He still leaves ample provision for all our need, and assures us that everything we can require is already paid for and may be freely drawn from the resources of grace. And best of all, He adds the precious promise that He is coming again; and that every kindness rendered to His brethren, shall receive a hundredfold recompense.

Section Ii: the Friend at Midnight, or Help in the Time of Need

Section Ii—the Friend at Midnight, or Help in the Time of NeedLuk_11:1-13This beautiful parable leads us a step in advance of the other. There the sufferer is helpless and ready to die, and does not even ask or hope for deliverance. Mercy finds him in his misery, and brings to him unsought her gracious deliverance. This parable, however, represents the divine mercy as given in response to the prayers of the needy. It is introduced by the lesson on prayer which the Lord Jesus gave to His disciples in response to their petition, “Lord, teach us to pray, just as John taught his disciples” (Luke 11:1). First, He gives them a beautiful pattern prayer, the simplest and most universal liturgy of all Christendom. Then He illustrates the principle of prayer by this beautiful parable, in which God is represented under the figure of a friend and a father. The case of distress is one of extreme emergency. The need is not a personal, but a relative one. Help is required for a friend who has come at a late hour of the night; and his host has kindly taken him in, but has nothing to set before him. In this situation, he appeals to his friend. But it is an unseasonable, and almost an unreasonable request. The time for visitors is long past. The doors are all closed, and his children are with him in bed. The whole figure represents a case in which all probability, even of divine help, seems cut off, and every door shut. It is at such a time as this that the friend presumes upon the kindness of his benefactor. It is a case where even friendship probably would have been refused. But the parable teaches us that where the claims of human kindness would not have been strong enough, divine mercy breaks through every barrier, and meets the cry of distress with instant and ample aid. “I tell you, though he will not get up and give him the bread because he is his friend, yet because of the man’s boldness (importunity) he will get up and give him as much as he needs” (Luke 11:8). Dr. Walker, in his profound book on the Holy Spirit, states that the word “importunity” here does not mean urgency on the part of the suppliant, but rather emergency in his situation—the extreme distress in which his benefactor saw he was, and on account of which his kind, compassionate heart rose above all difficulties and immediately relieved him. First, we have God in the two figures of Father and Friend. Second, we see His willingness to help us, not only in season, but out of season, when the door of mercy even seems to have closed, and the time to help seems to have passed. Third, we see His consideration for the extremity of our circumstances, and the fact that the more difficult the case is, the more likely and willing He is to help. Fourth, we see the completeness and generosity of His provision; “as much as he needs” (Luke 11:8). The three loaves for which the friend asks, may well express the threefold fullness of the gospel: salvation from past sins and future judgment; sanctification from the power of evil; and temporal deliverance both from sickness, sorrow and all the other troubles and needs of life. Our Need and God’s Resources Finally we find how much stronger is the claim we have upon His bounty and help, not for our selfish needs, but for those that we wish to relieve, either temporally or spiritually, who have come to us in their distress, and we have nothing to set before them. Even in our utmost helplessness and need we may venture to undertake the most difficult services for others; and then as we go to Him, we will find Him ready to meet all our need. There is something beautiful in the boldness of this man’s faith, in taking in the midnight wayfarer when he knew that he had nothing to set before him. He seemed to have such confidence in his friend, that he ventured to the utmost length in the exercise of his own hospitality. Surely we may venture as far in undertaking the burdens of Christ’s work and the relief of His suffering ones, in full assurance that, even in the most extreme case, He will prove faithful to us and place at our command His abundant and unfailing resources. What an encouragement to us in the work of His kingdom, that in every work before us, in charitable relief for the orphan and the helpless, when done in accordance with His wise and holy will, and in all our spiritual work where we are conscious of our own insufficiency, and must constantly venture out in the confidence that He will supply the wisdom and the power, the faith and the love, the agencies and the efficiency for all our service as we go forward!

Section III: the Parable of the Great Supper, or Mercy for the Suffering and Outcast

Section III—the Parable of the Great Supper, or Mercy for the Suffering and OutcastLuk_14:12-24This parable represents the provisions of divine mercy, under the figure of the feast long prepared, and now at last, complete. “Everything is now ready” (Luke 14:17)—mercy to pardon, grace to purify and power to keep. The invitations are sent out, and they are issued on a scale of almost boundless generosity. Three classes are successively invited. The Worldlings First, the friends of the host, who here represent the ordinary hearers of the gospel; perhaps we may say the worldly and nominal adherents of Christianity. They rejected the invitation. They did it very politely, as proud and worldly sinners still do. The first class declined on account of pressing business engagements, perhaps connected with first starting in life, and beginning to acquire earthly possessions. This man has bought his piece of ground. He is just commencing to accumulate wealth, and is too busy to go to the feast. The second has bought five yoke of oxen. This represents an advanced stage of worldly success and occupation; he is now getting to be a very busy man. He is stocking his farm by the half score at a time, and rapidly growing rich. And so he, for the present, puts off the kind invitation. The third has married a wife, and is still more peremptory in his refusal. He cannot come; and evidently he regards the religion of Jesus as incompatible with the thorough enjoyment of the pleasures of the world. Everything in its place. The bridal party, the honeymoon, the dance and revel are inconsistent in his view with the table of the Lord; and he allows the endearments, attachments and pleasures of life to outweigh the claims of Christ, and the value of his soul. The three forms of worldly obstruction which here stand in the way of the gospel are worldly business, worldly wealth and worldly pleasure. With some, it is the eager desire to grow rich. With some, it is the increasing preoccupation of constant drive and absorbing business. With others, it is the love of pleasure and the influence of friends. From these various causes the great proportion of the invited guests still stay away from Christ. Indeed, the parable represents every one of them as refusing. It looks as though the whole body of nominal professors was ultimately going to reject the gospel. The World’s Poor Next comes a different class. The Master is not going to let His bounty be lost because these proud and contemptuous worldlings did not appreciate it. He is very angry with their contemptuous excuses. He does not look lightly on the sin of rejecting the great salvation. With calm and awful dignity He declares that none of these men will taste of His bounty. He takes every one at their word, and excuses them all. And now He sends out His servants into the streets and lanes of the city; not into the fine avenues, but into the narrow alleys where the poor are found in their wretchedness. Two classes especially, are described, the poor and the sick. No doubt these are literally meant, and the provision of the gospel for the temporal needs and physical ills of humanity is surely set forth in this picture. It is, indeed, God’s blessing for the world’s poor. Most of its saved ones have come from their ranks. Without it, life has little for them. With it, life has not any grief to harm them, and great is their reward in heaven. It alleviates their physical condition. It is of infinite value even in improving the material condition of the poor, and leading to prosperity and success in temporal things. And for the maimed, and the halt, and the blind, it has not lost its ancient power of healing and uplifting them from their temporal distresses. What a mercy it would be for the poor if they could but fully trust the Lord Jesus as their Healer and physical Redeemer, as many of them do, and find in Him the balm for every pain and the remedy for every trial. The Sinful Thirdly, there is another class. The gospel is not satisfied when it has relieved the physical ills and social miseries of men. And so the servant comes back with the message, “There is still room” (Luke 14:22). The feast is not exhausted with all the multitudes of suffering poor that have already sat down. The tables still have room for myriads more; and nothing must remain or go to waste of all this costly provision. So the messengers are sent forth for the third time, and now they go beyond the city walls to the highways and hedges. It will at once occur to the thoughtful reader that this is the place where the lepers and outcasts herd together in homeless misery, and unpitied exclusion. These poor children of the wayside surely stand for the outcast members of society, for the lost and sinful who have passed even beyond the pale of hope, and for whom there seems to be no possibility of redemption or reformation—the degraded drunkard, the dishonored daughter of shame and every corruption, the criminal, the social pariahs of life. Yes, the gospel has ample room and almighty power for all these. But they are not expected to appreciate it or embrace it of their own accord. They are too hopeless or too corrupt to come within its pale, or even to accept it when they hear it. We must bear it to them, nay, must press it upon them, and even compel them to come in. All that the Savior meant by this strong expression the Church of God has not yet more than begun to realize. All that tact can do to win them, all that sympathy and consideration for their distress can do to awaken their confidence, and above everything, all that faith can do to bring to bear upon them the constraining power and love of God, all this is implied. A little of it is illustrated in the Christian philanthropies and blessed agencies of consecrated evangelism in our own and other days. And it is sufficiently vindicated and has proved effectual from the fact that multitudes of the most honored servants of God, and even the ministers of the gospel of Jesus Christ, have been snatched from these very ranks, rescued from the very gates of hell, emancipated from both spiritual and literal prisons and chains, miraculously saved from the wreck of drunkenness, pulled out of the seething pollutions of prostitution and saved from the gambling saloon, barroom and pickpockets’ den, to leave behind them the glorious record of a Bunyan, a Newton, or a Jerry McAuley. The Heathen But the last cluster includes a wider circle than merely the sinful and outcast. These poor lepers, beyond the pale of the city, stand for the great heathen world in its helplessness and misery. And the sending out of the servants to constrain them to come in is being fulfilled before our eyes in the great missionary movement of today. How solemn the stages represented in this parable. We have first the rejection of the gospel by the children of the kingdom. How perfectly it fits the picture of Christendom today, with the indifference of the great masses in Christian lands to the message of salvation. God seems to be at length excusing them and passing them by for the classes that have long been regarded as hopeless and past redemption. And so we have the second stage of the parable: the movement downward to the slums of the city. Surely that is going on around us today in a most significant manner. Finally, there is the third movement beyond the city gates to the great lost masses of humanity beyond the pale of Christendom. This is the preaching of the “gospel of the kingdom… as a testimony to all nations” (Matthew 24:14), and this is to close the gospel age and bring the Master of the feast back again. How very real all this seems as we behold it happening before our eyes in these eventful days. May God make us faithful to our trust as His messengers in working in line with His plan and so hastening His blessed coming.

Section IV: the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, or Divine Mercy in Contrast with Man…

Section IV—the Pharisee and the Tax Collector, or Divine Mercy in Contrast with Man’s Self-RighteousnessLuk_18:9-14On the one hand we have the very highest sample of mere human goodness, in the self-conscious Pharisee standing in the temple with head erect, and heart inflated, talking to himself and about himself and his excellencies, and calling it prayer. He is so full of self-consciousness that he forgets all about God after the first breath in which he has pronounced His name, and becomes in a sort of self-homage and the contemplation of his own virtues, a god to himself. “God,” and there he parts company with heaven, “I thank you that I am not like other men—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get” (Luke 18:11-12). On the other hand, the poor sinner stands far off, feeling himself unworthy even to approach the Pharisee, far less to lift his eyes to heaven, and simply confessing his unworthiness, and imploring the divine mercy for his own soul, as if there were no other sinner in the world but he. “God have mercy on me, the sinner,” is the real force of the language. There is a still deeper suggestion in the word he used for mercy. Literally it might be written, “God be the propitiation for me the sinner.” There seems to be the thought of an atonement, of the divine plan of mercy through expiation, something that God must arrange, and that he was helpless to provide, but glad to accept. Surely this was deepest penitence and simplest faith. Nor need we wonder that it was instantly effectual. The very moment he took the sinner’s place, and claimed the sinner’s Savior, he was justified. The Lord Himself emphatically declares that “this man… went home justified before God” (Luke 18:14). It is a beautiful instance of the immediate and complete forgiveness of the soul that takes its true place at the footstool of mercy. The other went as he came, satisfied with himself—not needing, not claiming, not having any part in Christ’s salvation. A Legendary Pharisee and Tax Collector Ancient legends have left an interesting tradition that strongly resembles this parable, and which Archbishop Trench has used with fine effect. Two men it is said once approached the Master as he passed through the villages of Judea. One of them, a poor sinner, besought His mercy. The other, a robed and phylacteried Pharisee, clasped his hands in holy horror and said, “God grant that I may stand far from this wicked man, in the last day.” The Master, it is said, quietly answered: “Both men have their petition. The sinner has asked My mercy, and has obtained it, and in that day, he shall stand on My right hand. The Pharisee has asked that he might stand far from him on that day. His wish is granted, for in the company of redeemed and pardoned sinners he shall never come.” The Lord Himself has given us the application in the searching words, “For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (Luke 18:14).