Luke 5

Luke 5:1

E. Power Through Training Others: Disciples Called (5:1-11) Several important lessons emerge from this simple account of the call of Peter.

1. The Lord used Peter’s boat as a pulpit from which to teach the multitude. If we yield all our property and possessions to the Savior, it is wonderful how He uses them, and rewards us too.
2. He told Peter exactly where to find plenty of fishafter Peter and the others had toiled all night without success. The omniscient Lord knows where the fish are running. Service carried on by our own wisdom and strength is futile. The secret of success in Christian work is to be guided by Him.
3. Though an experienced fisherman himself, Peter accepted advice from a Carpenter, and as a result, the nets were filled. … at Your word I will let down the net. This shows the value of humility, of teachability, and of implicit obedience.
4. It was in deep waters that the nets were filled to the breaking point. So we must quit hugging the shore and launch out on full surrender’s tide. Faith has its deep waters, and so do suffering, sorrow, and loss. It is these that fill the nets with fruitfulness.
5. Their net began to break and the ships began to sink (vv. 6, 7). Christ-directed service produces problemsbut what delightful problems they are. They are the kind of problems that thrill the heart of a true fisherman.
6. This vision of the glory of the Lord Jesus produced in Peter an overpowering sense of his own unworthiness. It was so with Isaiah (Isa_6:5); it is so with all who see the King in His beauty.
7. It was while Peter was engaged in his ordinary employment that Christ called him to be a fisher of men. While you are waiting for guidance, do whatever your hand finds to do. Do it with all your might. Do it heartily as to the Lord. Just as a rudder guides a ship only when it is in motion, so God guides men when they too are in motion.
8. Christ called Peter from catching fish to catching men, or more literally, taking men alive. What are all the fish in the ocean compared to the incomparable privilege of seeing one soul won for Christ and for eternity!
9. Peter, James, and John pulled their boats up on the beach and forsook all and followed Jesus on one of the best business days of their lives. And how much hung on their decision! We would probably never have heard of them if they had chosen to stay by their ships.

Luke 5:12

F. Power Over Leprosy (5:12-16) 5:12 Doctor Luke makes special mention of the fact that this man was full of leprosy. It was an advanced case and quite hopeless, humanly speaking. The faith of the leper was remarkable. He said, You can make me clean. He could not have said that to any other man in the world. Yet he had absolute confidence in the power of the Lord. When he said, If You are willing he was not expressing doubt as to Christ’s willingness. Rather he was coming as a suppliant, with no inherent right to be healed, but casting himself on the mercy and grace of the Lord. 5:13 To touch a leper was dangerous medically, defiling religiously, and degrading socially. But the Savior contracted no defilement. Instead there surged into the body of the leper a cascade of healing and health. It was not a gradual cure: Immediately the leprosy left him. Think what it must have meant to that hopeless, helpless leper to be made completely whole in a moment of time! 5:14 Jesus charged him to tell no one about the cure. The Savior did not want to attract a crowd of curiosity-seekers, or to stir up a popular movement to make Him King. Instead the Lord commanded the leper to go … to the priest and present the offering prescribed by Moses (Lev_14:4). Every detail of the offering spoke of Christ. It was the function of the priest to examine the leper and to determine if he had actually been healed. The priest could not heal; all he could do was pronounce a man healed. This priest had never seen a cleansed leper before. The sight was unique; it should have made him realize that the Messiah had at last appeared. It should have been a testimony to all the priests. But their hearts were blinded by unbelief. 5:15, 16 In spite of the Lord’s instructions not to publicize the miracle, the news traveled quickly, and great multitudes came to Him for healing. Jesus often withdrew into the wilderness for a time of prayer. Our Savior was a Man of prayer. It is fitting that this Gospel, which presents Him as Son of Man, should have more to say about His prayer life than any other.

Luke 5:17

G. Power Over Paralysis (5:17-26) 5:17 As the news of Jesus’ ministry spread, the Pharisees and teachers of the law became increasingly hostile. Here we see them assembling in Galilee with the obvious purpose of finding some accusation against Him. The power of the Lord was present to heal the sick. Actually Jesus always had the power to heal, but the circumstances were not always favorable. In Nazareth, for instance, He could not do many mighty works because of the unbelief of the people (Mat_13:58). 5:18, 19 Four men brought a paralytic on a bed to the house where Jesus was teaching. They could not get to Him because of the crowd, so they climbed the outside stairs to the roof. Then they lowered the man through an opening that they made by removing some tiles in the roof. 5:20, 21 Jesus took notice of the faith that would go to such lengths to bring a needy case to His attention. When He saw their faith, that is, the faith of the four plus the invalid, He said to the paralyzed man, Man, your sins are forgiven you. This unprecedented statement aroused the scribes and the Pharisees. They knew that no one but God could forgive sins. Unwilling to admit that Jesus was God, they raised the cry of blasphemy. 5:22, 23 The Lord then proceeded to prove to them that He had actually forgiven the man’s sins. First He asked them if it was easier to say, Your sins are forgiven you, or to say, Rise up and walk? In one sense it is just as easy to say one as the other, but it is another thing to do either, since both are humanly impossible. The point here seems to be that it is easier to say Your sins are forgiven you, because there is no way of telling if it has happened. If you say, Rise up and walk, then it is easy to see if the patient has been healed. The Pharisees could not see that the man’s sins had been forgiven, so they would not believe. Therefore, Jesus performed a miracle which they could see to prove to them that He had truly forgiven the man’s sins. He gave the paralytic the power to walk. 5:24 But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sinsThe title, the Son of Man, emphasizes the Lord’s perfect humanity. In one sense, we are all sons of man, but this title the Son of Man sets Jesus off from every other man who ever lived. It describes Him as a Man according to God, One who is morally perfect, One who would suffer, bleed, and die, and One to whom universal headship has been given. 5:25 In obedience to His word, the paralyzed man got up, carried his small sleeping pad, and went home, glorifying God. 5:26 The crowd was literally amazed, and they too glorified God, acknowledging that they had seen incredible things that day, namely the pronouncing of forgiveness and the miracle that proved it.

Luke 5:27

V. THE SON OF MAN EXPLAINS HIS MINISTRY (5:27-6:49) A. The Call of Levi (5:27, 28) Levi was a Jewish tax collector for the Roman government. Such men were hated by their fellow-Jews, not only because of this collaboration with Rome, but because of their dishonest practices. One day while Levi was at work, Jesus passed by and invited him to become His follower. With amazing promptness, Levi left all, rose up, and followed Him. Think of the tremendous consequences that flowed from that simple decision. Levi, or Matthew, became the writer of the First Gospel. It pays to hear His call and follow Him.

Luke 5:29

B. Why the Son of Man Calls Sinners (5:29-32) 5:29, 30 It has been suggested that Levi had three purposes in arranging this great feast. He wanted to honor the Lord, to witness publicly to his new allegiance, and he wanted to introduce his friends to Jesus. Most Jews would not have eaten with a group of tax collectors. Jesus ate with tax collectors and sinners. He did not, of course, fraternize with them in their sins, or do anything that would compromise His testimony, but He used these occasions to teach, to rebuke, and to bless. Their scribes and the Pharisees criticized Jesus for associating with these despised people, the dregs of society. 5:31 Jesus answered that His action was in perfect accord with His purpose in coming into the world. Healthy people do not need a doctor; only those who are sick do. 5:32 The Pharisees considered themselves to be righteous. They had no deep sense of sin or of need. Therefore, they could not benefit from the ministry of the Great Physician. But these tax collectors and sinners realized that they were sinners and that they needed to be saved from their sins. It was for people like them that the Savior came. Actually, the Pharisees were not righteous. They needed to be saved as much as the tax collectors. But they were unwilling to confess their sins and acknowledge their guilt. And so they criticized the Doctor for going to people who were seriously ill.

Luke 5:33

C. The Non-Fasting of Jesus’ Disciples Explained (5:33-35) 5:33 The next tactic of the Pharisees was to interrogate Jesus on the custom of fasting. After all, the disciples of John the Baptist had followed the ascetic life of their master. And the followers of the Pharisees observed various ceremonial fasts. But Jesus’ disciples did not. Why not? 5:34, 35 The Lord answered in effect that there was no reason for His disciples to fast while He was still with them. Here He associates fasting with sorrow and mourning. When He would be taken away from them, that is, violently, in death, they would fast as an expression of their grief.

Luke 5:36

D. Three Parables on the New Dispensation (5:36-39) 5:36 Three parables follow which teach that a new dispensation had be gun, and there could be no mixing of the new and the old. In the first parable, the old garment speaks of the legal system or dispensation, while the new garment pictures the era of grace. They are incompatible. An attempt to mix law and grace results in a spoiling of both. A patch taken from a new garment spoils the new one, and it does not match the old one, either in appearance or strength. J. N.

Darby states it well: Jesus would do no such thing as tack on Christianity to Judaism. Flesh and law go together, but grace and law, God’s righteousness and man’s, will never mix.5:37, 38 The second parable teaches the folly of putting new wine into old wineskins. The fermenting action of the new wine causes pressure on the skins which they are no longer pliable or elastic enough to bear. The skins burst and the wine is spilled. The outmoded forms, ordinances, traditions, and rituals of Judaism were too rigid to hold the joy, the exuberance, and the energy of the new dispensation. The new wine is seen in this chapter in the unconventional methods of the four men who brought the paralytic to Jesus.

It is seen in the freshness and zeal of Levi. The old wineskins picture the stodginess and cold formalism of the Pharisees. 5:39 The third parable states that no one, having drunk old wine, prefers new. He says, The old is better. This pictures the natural reluctance of men to abandon the old for the new, Judaism for Christianity, law for grace, shadows for substance! As Darby says, A man accustomed to forms, human arrangements, father’s religion, etc., never likes the new principle and power of the kingdom.