Luke 6
AEKLuke 6:7-31
6 Jewish tradition carried sabbath observance to ridiculous lengths. They gravely discussed whether it is lawful to put out one’s hand to give to a beggar, and how far! They disagreed as to whether it is allowable to comfort the sick on that day! It is striking how many times the Lord is reported as healing on the sabbath. The reason is clear. These instances are signs indicative of the healing of the nation. But when the nation is cured it will enter into the great sabbatism of the day of the Lord, commonly called the millennium. Healing brings relaxation, rest. How fitting that it should be on the sabbath!
12 Communion with God is the only proper and adequate preparation for His work. The apostles were not chosen without God’s guidance. They were not chosen for their own excellence, but for their fitness to fulfill the will of God and carry out His purpose. Thus one of them was actually selected from the beginning to betray his Lord.
13-16 Compare Matthew 10:1-4; Mark 3:13-19.
13 The name “apostle” is really our “commissioner”. They were to be His authoritative representatives, when He was not present. As God had given Him a commission, with authority to enforce it, so He delegated it to them. After His ascension they became the recognized leaders until the increasing apostasy deposed them and put James, the Lord’s brother according to the flesh, in their place. In the kingdom they will rule the twelve tribes, with Matthias in the place of Jud 1:14 Simon, or Peter, is always first among the apostles. His name hitherto was Simon, meaning Hearing, but the Lord changes it to Peter, meaning Rock, as he is the first stone in the spiritual edifice He is about to build.
His father’s name was John, but this is also changed by our Lord to Jonah, meaning Dove, a symbol of the spirit, and of Peter’s spiritual paternity. Simon, son of John, is the physical man, Peter, son of Jonah, the spiritual.
17-19 Compare Matthew 12:15-21; Mark 3:7-12. 20-23 Compare Matthew 5:1-12.
20 There is no reason for creating a difficulty by insisting that this is Luke’s version of the Sermon on the Mount found in Matthew’s account. Our Lord undoubtedly repeated much of His message to fresh audiences. The variations and differences in detail are intentional and correspond with the character of the account. Matthew takes Him up into a mountain and surrounds Him with His disciples. Luke takes Him down to an even place and surrounds Him with a vast concourse, though He spoke only to the disciples.
20 The weal and woe pronounced on the poor and rich, the hungry and the full, the lamenting and the laughing, those who are hated and those who are flattered, is strictly limited by the word now. Conditions on earth preceding the coming of the kingdom involve the true disciple in poverty, hunger, distress, and hatred. The same conditions will prevail again just before the kingdom actually appears. These beatitudes will be fulfilled in the vast throng who come out of the great affliction (Revelation 7:13-17). Of them it is said “They shall be hungering no longer. . . and every tear shall God be brushing away from their eyes.” The woes are equally applicable in the same period to the apostates in great Babylon. The rich apostate Jews represented by the false woman of the apocalypse (Rev.17, 18) who indulge themselves and have no sorrow-these shall suffer death and mourning and famine.
And those who see their judgment will repeat our Lord’s words: “Woe! Woe!” (Revelation 18:10). In the present interval of God’s transcendent grace, while blessing comes to the nations because of Israel’s rejection of the kingdom, there is no woe pronounced on the rich, but they are charged to use their riches for God (1 Timothy 6:17-19).
24 Compare James 5:1-6. 25 Compare Proverbs 14:13. 26 Compare John 15:19; James 4:4. 27-31 Compare Matthew 5:38-44; Matthew 7:12; Exodus 23:4; Proverbs 25:21; Romans 12:20.
27-31 These precepts reflect the persecutions preceding the kingdom, and give the conduct proper to those who enter it.
28 Compare Luke 23:34; Acts 7:60. 29 Compare 1 Corinthians 6:7. 30 Compare Deuteronomy 15:7-8; Deuteronomy 15:10. 31 Compare Galatians 5:14; Galatians 5:10.
Luke 6:32-7
32-36 Compare Matthew 5:44-48.
35 We have here the substance of the new covenant which the Lord will make with Israel when He restores them to their land and to His favor (Jeremiah 31:27-34). After those days, He says I put My law within them, And I wIll write It on their hearts. The second greatest commandment, to love your associate as yourself, never had more than a superficial and perfunctory observance. But Ezekiel declares that in that day He will give them a new heart and a new spirit, and will take away the stony heart and give them a heart of flesh (Ezekiel 36:26). This is the essential basis of the kingdom in Israel. The law will not be enforced from without but by a vital power within.
They will actually care for the welfare of others rather than their own. So long as each one is concerned for himself alone, the best that government can do is to restrain the resultant evil. This happy form of rule will not extend beyond the people of the covenant. The nations will be ruled with an iron club (Revelation 19:15). Their obedience will not be from the heart but compulsory, so that, when Satan is loosed, they are ready to rebel against the most beneficent form of government the world has ever seen (Revelation 20:7-10) .
36 The principle underlying these precepts is quite applicable in this day of grace, but a literal fulfillment of the promises is out of the question. Indeed, grace goes far beyond the spirit of this passage, for it gives freely without the promise of a recompense.
37-38 Compare Matthew 7:1-2; Proverbs 19:17; James 2:13.
38 The figure is very expressive to one who has seen grain measured in the East. By squeezing down, shaking together and piling high until it runs over, the quantity of grain in a given measure is vastly increased. Grain was carried in the loose folds of the bosom of their garments.
39 Compare Matthew 15:14.
39 Besides its general application, the Lord undoubtedly referred especially to the religious leaders in Israel. On several occasions He characterized the scribes and Pharisees as blind guides (Matthew 15:14; Matthew 23:16; Matthew 23:24). The light that was in them was darkness, hence it was very dense.
40 Compare Matthew 10:24-25; John 12:36. 41-42 Compare Matthew 7:3-5.
41 Even those who are not blind should distrust their own eyesight. We can all see the obstructions in the discernment of others. Heredity, environment, religious associations, all intrude into our perception of things divine. If each one were more anxious to discover his own defects, he would be more fitted to help others. But how shall we extract the beam in our own eye? By carefully comparing our conclusions with evidences of revelation.
Too many of us stereotype “truth” rather than hold to the facts on which all truth depends. Truth that does not bear a microscopic comparison with the minutest fact of the inspired Scriptures has no right to the name. A careful presentation of all the facts in available form should be the most efficient of all aids to remove our prejudices and reveal the truth.
43-45 Compare Matthew 7:16-20; Matthew 12:33-37.
43 In the kingdom “they shall sit every man under his vine and under his fig tree” (Micah 4:4), The fig tree figures their righteous government, hence the prophet adds, “and none shall make them afraid”, The vine portrays the gladness and joy that ensue. The nation of Israel will never produce figs or grapes so long as they are thorns and thorn bushes. Far less can the nations of the world who have not received the cultivation accorded the people of the covenant. Good government and happy homes come from the heart and cannot be imposed on the unregenerate by penal laws.
46-48 Compare Matthew 7:21-25; Isaiah 26:3-4; Isaiah 28:16; 1 Corinthians 3:10-11.
46 This parable presents the permanent character of the kingdom. Its foundation is laid deep in the solid stratum of God’s purpose rather than the insecure sand of human expedience. The superstructure may look safe, but the stress of political storms will wreck every state but the one which will displace them and have no end. So, also, are those who are allied with these ingdoms. Those who heard and obeyed Him built a house whose foundations would last for the eon. Those who do not obey are caught in the crash preceding the kingdom.
1-10 Compare Matthew 8:5-13.