Luke 6
LenskiCHAPTER VI
While Jesus was speaking these things in front of Matthew’s house, Jairus came to him (Matt. 9:18); but Luke does not record the story of Jairus until 8:41. He does the reverse with the plucking of the grain, which occurred some time after the appointment of the Twelve (Matt. 12:1, etc.), but which Luke inserts at this place. His order is again not chronological. Like Mark, he breaks the τάξις as the evangelist John is reported by his pupil Papias to have said of Mark. Luke presents another attack of the Pharisees upon Jesus who is now and again in v. 6, etc., charged with breaking the Sabbath law, which was a severe charge indeed in the eyes of the Jews.
Luke 6:1
1 And it came to pass on a Sabbath that he was passing through the grain, and his disciples began plucking the ears and eating them after having rubbed them with their hands.
Only in the parallel passage in Mark (2:23) and in Luke’s writings does ἐγένετο occur with the accusative and the infinitive, and this used as the subject (R. 393; 1043). The point of note is the fact that what occurred took place “on the Sabbath.” The fact that the disciples were hungry (Matthew) is a minor matter and is, of course, no excuse as regards breaking the law. The time of this occurrence is certainly determined by the condition of the grain, which was ripe enough to be rubbed out “with the hands,” dative of means, R. 533. It was April, shortly after the Passover, a year before Jesus’ death. For some reason Jesus was walking “through grain,” i. e., on a path between two adjoining grainfields or leading through a single field. In the most natural way the hungry disciples began to pluck (inchoative imperfect) the ears and to eat the grain after rubbing it out with their hands. Deut. 23:25 permitted plucking a few ears in a neighbor’s field.
The problem as to whether we ought to retain δευτεροπρώτῳ after ἐνσαββάτῳ or not belongs to the specialists in text criticism; but they are divided in their opinions. This word does not appear elsewhere in Greek literature, and B.-D. says that its meaning is not clear; B.-P. charges that it was dropped from the texts because nobody knew what it meant and surmises that it was a technical term in the Jewish calendar; others labor to put a meaning into this “second-first” (R. V. margin) by counting in some way from a fixed Jewish date yet without attaining anything like certainty (see Stellhorn, Kurzgefasstes Woerterbuch). What these efforts labor to obtain is already clear from the condition of the grain, namely that it was a Sabbath in April. R., W. P., has a hypothesis as to how this unheard-of word came to be coined and got into the text: some scribe wrote “first” in the margin because a second Sabbath story follows; another noticed the Sabbath story in 4:31 and therefore wrote “second” in the margin; and a third put the two together and coined this odd compound that now taxes the learning of the learned.
Luke 6:2
2 And some of the Pharisees said, Why are you doing what is not lawful to do on the Sabbath?
Because of 5:17 and 30 Luke now writes “some” of the Pharisees (see 5:17 on this sect) so that Theophilus may know that not all those previously mentioned are referred to, they were perhaps not the same ones at all. These enemies were still dogging Jesus’ footsteps. In Matthew and in Mark Jesus is charged because of the action of his disciples, in Luke the disciples are accused because of their own action, and the charge is indeed raised against both. Matthew has a declaration, Mark and Luke a “why” question. The question is put with the idea that no legitimate answer can be given; but both a declaration and a question may have been voiced as several of the Pharisees spoke. They act as though they were outraged by what they see, but they are inwardly delighted to have a sure case of actual unlawfulness against Jesus.
Anything the disciples did with Jesus’ silent consent was regarded as being done also by him. They were after him and cared little about the disciples.
With ὃοὐκἔξεστι they charge a breach of the law, namely of Exod. 20:10 which is illustrated by Exod. 16:22 but as these passages were interpreted by the Patres Traditionum: He who reaps the very least on the Sabbath is chargeable; and to pluck ears is a species of reaping. And whoever breaks off anything from its stalk is chargeable under the specification of reaping. The works which make a man chargeable with stoning and death, if he does them presumptuously, or with a sacrifice, if he sins ignorantly, are either generic or derivative. Thirty-nine of the generic kind are enumerated: to plow, to sow, to reap, to bind sheaves, to thresh, to winnow, to grind, to pound to powder, etc.; to shear sheep, to dye wool, etc.; and the derivatives are of the same class and likeness: furrowing=plowing, cutting up vegetables=grinding, plucking ears=reaping. The issue was thus not regarding eating the grain but regarding the plucking and the rubbing with the hands—this on the Sabbath, the Greek plural and the singular (v. 1) are used in the same sense.
These Pharisees tolerate no excuse whatever. They see only the law as they read it and this plain transgression, and hence their verdict is guilty. Jesus assumes full responsibility for what his disciples are doing although he himself has plucked no ears. In the other charges about the Sabbath it was always the same: with his own hands Jesus did nothing on which the Jews could pounce. This gave Jesus the tactical advantage of defending others, not himself, and of compelling the Pharisees to raise the question about the real principle at issue: “Is it or is it not lawful?” instead of passionately assailing his person. The law itself was the issue, and what men did were only illustrations for or against it.
This was wisdom and mastery. On this point Jesus was agreed with the Pharisees, that he had to keep the Jewish ceremonial law and dared not break it.
Luke 6:3
3 And answering them Jesus said: Did you not even read this that David did when he was hungry and those being with him? how he went into the House of God and, having taken the showbread, did eat and did give also to those with him, which it is not lawful to eat save on the part of the priests alone? And he went on to say to them that lord is the Son of man of the Sabbath.
A writer may use the aorist εἶπε when he wants to note only the fact of speaking, but he uses ἔλεγε, the imperfect, when he is picturing the speaking (Schilderung einer gehaltenen Rede) B.-D. 329, which explains the change from the use of one word in v. 3 to that of another in v. 5; on “answering” see 1:19. Jesus lays his finger on the real trouble with these Pharisees: too much reading of rabbinical law, not enough of divine law. They have only a fractional view of what the Scriptures say by stressing one or two passages only and by failing to combine all the passages on the subject—a frequently found fault to this day. The Pharisees had, of course, read 1 Sam. 21 but had failed to note how this chapter interprets Exod. 20:10. We need not think that David’s need was so great that he and his companions were starving; they were very hungry, and that was enough.
Luke 6:4
4 What did David do in his need? He went “into the House of God,” which does not, however, mean into the Holy Place or Sanctuary of the Tabernacle but into the courts, where he might freely go; compare Ps. 122. The ἄρτοιτῇςπροθέσεως, “the breads of the setting forth,” are the showbreads. There were twelve of them, each was made with about 6¼ pounds of flour, and they were set forth in two rows on a gold-covered table in the Holy Place every Sabbath day; when they were removed they were to be eaten only by the priests, Lev. 24:5–9. The bread that David received was not that which was at the time lying in the Holy Place but some that had been removed after serving its sacred purpose. Luke omits the name of the high priest who permitted David’s act as not being necessary for Theophilus. The whole responsibility rests on David: “he did eat, and he did give.” In v. 3 οἱμετʼ αὐτοῦὄντες substantivizes the participle whereas in v. 4 the phrase alone is made a substantive.
Jesus assumes that the Pharisees agree with him that David did right in taking, eating, and giving this showbread to others. Yet the law reserved this sacred bread only for the priests. The Pharisees had used οὐκἔξεστι, and Jesus repeats this their own term: οὓςοὐκἔξεστιφαγεῖνκτλ. It was God’s own law that made it “unlawful” for anyone but priests to eat this bread and not merely a rabbinical dictum such as the Pharisees brought against Jesus to condemn the plucking of a few ears of grain. Jesus overtops the charge of the Pharisees. He proves by David’s own example that even the divine ceremonial law was not intended to be absolute in its application.
The rabbinical refinements are left entirely behind as being unworthy of notice. God cares more for the proper spiritual condition of the heart than for the outward observance of his own ceremonial regulations. The argument is thus overwhelming. David’s hunger sets aside even a divine regulation; shall not the hunger of the disciples set aside mere rabbinical notions that lack all binding force to begin with?
Luke 6:5
5 Matthew reports a second refutation of the Pharisees: the priests who serve in the very Temple of God violate the ceremonial law of the Sabbath rest by the hard work they do in butchering the sacrificial animals, and this work is prescribed even by God himself. Mark records the great saying that the Sabbath came to be on account of man, not man on account of the Sabbath. But Luke is content with Jesus’ last word which is indicated as such by καὶἔλεγεν.
The entire ceremonial law, all the forms of Jewish worship, in particular also the Sabbath with its divine regulations, were given to Israel by God, not as Elohim, but as Yahweh, as part of the great plan of salvation to be wrought out by the Messiah. The Sabbath was part of the preparation that was to fit Israel for its coming Savior. Hence not as the essential Son but as the God-man Jesus was κύριος, which is, therefore, also placed first. He who as “lord” thus stood at the top of all these laws and institutions was now here to honor and to fulfill all that they meant (Matt. 5:17). For this reason he calls himself “the Son of man” (see 5:24), he who is man and yet more than man, the incarnate Son, the Messiah. He who with the Father and the Spirit as Yahweh had himself instituted the Sabbath with its religious observances for man’s benefit was now here to honor the Sabbath and to do this by fulfilling the divine Sabbath law. He was the very last to let his disciples fall into any violation of the Sabbath.
The idea that “lord of the Sabbath” means that he is so superior to the Sabbath that he can do what he pleases with the Sabbath or on the Sabbath, or let his disciples do what is contrary to the divine Sabbath law, is just about the opposite of what Jesus means. Jesus was under the law (Gal. 4:4) to fulfill it for us, which included the ceremonial law and thus also the Sabbath law. He observed this law during his entire life faithfully. The Sabbath desecrations with which the Jews charged him were contradictions only of the man-made Pharisaical regulations that were contrary to the divine law. But in the Son of man and in his fulfillment the whole ceremonial law would attain its divinely intended purpose and would thus eventually fall away as being no longer needed. This would come about with the death and the resurrection of the Son of man.
The new covenant without ceremonies would then supersede the old with its ceremonies. Thus the Jewish Sabbath and all the sacrifices plus even the Temple would disappear and be abrogated. It is, however, unwarranted to think that Jesus was already abrogating the Jewish Sabbath, Temple, etc. The Christian Sunday still lay in the future. After Pentecost, and led by the Spirit, the apostles and the church would in perfect Christian liberty choose a day for the divine public worship, but not as another law or Sabbath but only as a free expression of their desire to use the Word in public as the Lord bade them and unitedly and in proper order to worship the Lord. Col. 2:16, 17; Concordia Triglotta 91, §§ 57–60.
To call the Christian Sunday “the Sabbath” is to give it a wrong and a misleading name, to mix Judaism and Christianity, and to introduce a false and dangerous legalism into the observance of Sunday.
Luke 6:6
6 The first clash regarding Sabbath observance (v. 1–5) is soon followed by a second, and all the synoptists relate these two in this succession. Now it came to pass on another Sabbath that he went into the synagogue and was teaching. And there was a man there, and his hand, the right, was withered. But the scribes and the Pharisees were watching him covertly, for themselves, whether he will heal on the Sabbath, in order that they may find how to be accusing him.
Luke follows independent information as we see at various points in his narrative. He points to the fact that this was “another” Sabbath, with which Matthew (12:9) agrees who states that Jesus left the place where the disciples had plucked the ears of grain. None of the synoptists indicate to what town he went; he followed his usual custom, he went into the synagogue of the place when the Sabbath came (aorist infinitive to indicate the momentary act) and was teaching there (present infinitive to express the longer act); on ἐγένετο with the accusative and the infinitive see v. 1.
In the audience there was “a man,” an ordinary individual like the rest and yet distinct from all the rest, for his right hand was withered, Luke, like Matthew, unlike Mark, uses only the adjective ξηρά. Note that ἡδεξιά is added with a separate article after the possessive pronoun, which makes it like an apposition and like a climax (R. 776). The fact that Luke alone mentions “the right” is usually attributed to his being a physician, but it is Mark who is proficient in details of such a nature. Luke notes that it was the right hand because its atrophied condition meant a greater loss to the man than if it had been his left hand. This should be noted: a hand that was withered, whose muscles and nerves were dried up, implied some injury of long standing which had gradually produced this sad and hopeless result. It is beyond human skill to restore such a hand.
Luke 6:7
7 The imperfect παρετηροῦντο implies that this watching continued all the while that Jesus was teaching (διδάσκειν is also durative), and the middle voice that they did this for themselves, for the evil purpose expressed in the ἵνα clause, and παρά, “on the side,” “covertly,” so that no one should notice what they were doing. See 5:17 on the scribes and Pharisees. In 6:1 only “some of the Pharisees” were mentioned to show that they were not the same ones that were mentioned in 5:17, 30; and so in the present narrative “the scribes and the Pharisees” are again different persons, but, like all of their sect, they are hostile to Jesus.
The indirect discourse, “whether he will heal on the Sabbath,” retains the future tense of the direct, which was, of course, the question they asked themselves: “Will he heal on the Sabbath?” placing the phrase forward for the sake of emphasis. The ἵνα clause states the purpose of their cunning watchfulness: “in order that they may find (aorist to indicate the one act of finding) how to be accusing him (present infinitive to express a standing accusation),” the genitive αὐτοῦ is used after a verb of accusing. For nothing were they longing more than to get something that would pass as a well-founded accusation.
It is Matthew who indicates that Jesus in some way made these scribes and Pharisees speak out. They, of course, hide their evil intent against Jesus and only ask the question whether it is lawful, εἰἔξεστι (see v. 2), to heal on the Sabbath. This is all that they are capable of considering: “Is it lawful?” never for a moment: “Is it merciful?”
Luke 6:8
8 But he knew their reasonings. Moreover, he said to the man having the hand withered, Rise up and stand in the midst! And having arisen, he stood.
The man had been sitting quietly among the other auditors, listening to Jesus, but when these scribes and Pharisees now make an issue of healing on the Sabbath, Jesus orders the man to get up and to stand right where he had been sitting, right in the midst of the entire assembly. We should imagine the people sitting cross-legged on the floor, and Jesus sitting in the same way on the platform where he had been teaching—all teachers sat. The man is simply to stand up in his place where all could readily see him. He is not ordered to come to Jesus; the healing will be wrought by a word only and not by a word and a touch. Our versions still think that εἰςτὸμέσον indicates motion and so translate “stand forth in the midst”; and Robertson translates with what is a pharaphrase: “step forth into plain view” and puts the motion into the verb. There is no motion, the man stood where he was, and εἰς is static. The adjective ξηράν is in the predicative position (not after the article): “having the hand (which was) withered.”
The man obeyed readily and did what this authoritative teacher told him to do. Though he is so personally involved the man appears passive throughout the account. He has not asked to be healed. Those who think that every sufferer must have faith in order to be healed have nothing on which to base the view that this man had faith. In the issue with the scribes and Pharisees this man is only an example of what they thought wrong and Jesus thought right. Jesus, too, is concerned only with that issue, for “he knew their reasonings,” and we are not told that he knew anything about the man save what everybody could readily see, that he had a badly deformed hand.
Jesus used his divine attributes as far as this was necessary in his Messianic work; so he here called upon his supernatural knowledge. It enabled him to meet the “reasonings” of these men with perfect effectiveness. The man “stood,” στῆθι and ἔστη are both intransitive as second aorist μι forms. Let us not fail to note how dramatic Jesus made the scene.
Luke 6:9
9 Moreover, Jesus said to them, I inquire of you whether it is lawful on the Sabbath to do a good deed or to do a base deed? to save a life or to destroy it?
Both the second δέ in v. 8 and the δέ in v. 9 intend to add, but to add something that is slightly different; so we translate “moreover” although this is heavy for the delicate Greek. From speaking to the man with the crippled hand Jesus turns to speak to these his treacherous opponents. In order to get the force of what Jesus says to them we should first note the dignity of ἐπερωτῶὑμᾶς and, secondly, the simplicity of the questions that follow. This verb is even stronger than ἐρωτῶ, the preposition indicates the speaker’s greater personal interest. But the chief point is the formal dignity with which Jesus makes inquiry of these Jewish authoritative persons about a point on the Sabbath on which there simply cannot be any question. After reading the thoughts and reasonings of these men Jesus would now say to them: “It has actually come to this that I must solemnly inquire of you, as if it were a grave problem and exceedingly hard to answer, whether it is lawful to do a good deed or a base deed on the Sabbath.” The inquiry is tinged with the saddest kind of irony.
According to Matthew, Jesus said more; he first used the illustration of a sheep that has fallen into a pit on the Sabbath, which the owner would certainly lift out though it was the Sabbath, yet how much better is a man than a sheep? Matthew then restates the substance of the questions found in Mark and in Luke in declarative form, that it certainly is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.
The questions of Jesus are limpid and intend to correct the muddied ideas of these scribes and Pharisees regarding the Sabbath. The real issue is in many instances twisted or entirely perverted by putting the question in a wrong way. In a number of cases we note Jesus answering, not what is asked, but what should be asked. He does so here. These Jews made the alternative either “to do” or “not to do on the Sabbath” and then decided that lawfulness required the latter and disregarded everything else and entirely misconceived the purpose of the Sabbath. They made it a law which was strictly imposed on man instead of a blessing that was bestowed on man.
They thus knew of no work of mercy for suffering man on the Sabbath although they would inconsistently work to save a sheep on the Sabbath, for they did not like to lose a sheep. But some other man they would treat heartlessly; his suffering meant no loss to them. But the whole question is simplicity itself. “Is it lawful on the Sabbath to do a good deed or to do a base deed?” The aorist infinitives are punctiliar and hence may be rendered as designating one deed even also as single deeds are then specified. Deeds that are “good,” ἀγαθοί, morally excellent, would only grace and honor the Sabbath. Jesus knows but one alternative, deeds that are κακοί, morally base—no need to say how they would fit the Sabbath. Man does either the one kind or the other, for the alternative of the Pharisees is deceiving: to do or not to do.
Not to do an excellent deed is already to do a base deed.
The second alternative, “to save a life or to destroy it,” at once exemplifies and carries the question to its ultimate extreme. When Jesus said “or to destroy it” he may well have had in mind the effort these scribes and Pharisees were busy with at the moment: to destroy Jesus, Sabbath or no Sabbath. The highest moral excellence would be actually to save life, and the basest deed would be to destroy life by either killing outright or by killing indirectly, refusing to rescue from mortal danger.
The ultimate always includes all that is less but of the same nature. Thus in Matt. 5:21, etc., murder includes the lesser sins that Jesus names; and in v. 27, etc., adultery includes all the less gross sins that violate the chastity of the heart. The extremes must be mentioned lest it be thought that they have been forgotten. In the synagogue Jesus covers the whole question at issue, of which the excellent deed of healing a withered hand or the base deed of leaving it unhealed on the Sabbath is only a part and an example. To confer such a blessing certainly went well with the Sabbath, which was intended as a blessing for man. To withhold it would certainly go ill with the Sabbath, would be a desecration of it.
But could Jesus not wait and do his healing on a weekday? To have waited would have left a totally wrong impression on the people: as if it were really unlawful to heal on the Sabbath. This was the very error Jesus wished to eradicate.
Luke 6:10
10 Though a child could have answered the questions of Jesus, these scribes and Pharisees remain silent (Mark 3:4). To answer would be to convict themselves. Luke only implies their fatal silence. And having looked around upon them all, he said to him, Stretch out thy hand! And he did. And his hand was completely restored.
The middle περιβλεψάμενος accents the movement of the eyes or the concern expressed in the look, R. 813. Jesus let his eyes pass over “them all,” i.e., the persons mentioned before, all the scribes and the Pharisees, to see whether at least one man among them would give the proper response. The moments became tenser and tenser as Jesus waited and eyed these men. Mark adds that Jesus became angry at the obduracy he witnessed and at the same time became grieved at the “hardness” in their hearts. It was a terrible thing that Jesus witnessed in these men.
Turning to the man, Jesus utters the command: “Stretch out thy hand!” That is all, nothing more. The miracle was done. “He did it.” All eyes were upon that withered, blasted, deformed hand. But while they were looking, “it was completely restored.” They felt like rubbing their eyes—could it be possible? All three evangelists have ἀπεκατεστάθη, “brought back again to its former condition,” and the passive points to Jesus as the agent. It was, indeed, a shining deed of omnipotence. Let modern healing cults equal it.
The notable thing is that Jesus did nothing. He did not touch the hand; he did not even say that it should be healed. All he did was to tell the man to stretch out his hand; and not even the most rabid Pharisee could call that a work that was forbidden on the Sabbath. The man was healed by the almighty volition of Jesus, by that alone. This made the case hard for these enemies of Jesus. With his great mastery Jesus cut off every plea on which they might fault him with a show of right.
Luke 6:11
11 Instead of making them desist, this care of Jesus only enraged his enemies, robbed, as they were, of even specious ground for accusation. But they, they were filled with madness and started to talk over with each other what they could do to Jesus.
Luke often has αὐτός or αὐτοί as the subject and always with a slight contrast and accent; we try to convey that idea by repetition: “but they, they were,” etc. Ἄνοια is far more than anger; derived from α privativum and νοῦς, it means that they lost all sense and reason, became like persons insane: “they were filled with madness.” The more sensibly, rationally, lucidly Jesus spoke, the more crazy these fools became. This is one of the mysteries in the human heart and will, that the truth, goodness, and salvation of Christ have the very opposite effect in some hearts from what they ought to have. But where this occurs as it did here the fault is wholly with the heart and the will and brings on the most terrible ruin.
The enraged scribes and Pharisees, as Mark and Matthew state, bolted out of the synagogue and did outside what Luke also adds. They began “to talk through with each other” (inchoative imperfect) and with the Herodians, the men of the Jewish party who supported Herod and his rule under Rome as a good arrangement (Mark), “what they might do to Jesus.” Matthew and Mark are more explicit by using the expression “destroy him,” the very word that Jesus had used in his question “to save a life or to destroy it.” In the eyes of these fanatic Jews for Jesus to heal on the Sabbath—a mortal crime; but for them to plot the destruction and murder of Jesus—a most lawful act even on the Sabbath! The indirect question with the optative and ἄν is the apodosis of a condition of potentiality which had this optative in its direct form (R. 1021); it contains a deliberative element as well as doubt and perplexity (R. 938, 940). The direct question with the addition of a protasis would be: “If we had him in our power, what could we do to him?” But this “what” refers not to some form of punishment but to the way and the means of killing Jesus: “what could we do to him to kill him?” Compare John 5:18. Matthew adds that when Jesus realized the plotting of these men he withdrew from the locality.
Luke 6:12
12 Now it came to pass in these days that he went out to the mountain to pray. And he continued through the night in prayer to God.
For the third time Luke uses ἐγένετο with the accusative and the infinitive as its subject (see v. 1). “In these days” is again only general, and no one is able to determine exactly at what time Jesus appointed the Twelve as apostles. The best calculation places this act about a year before the death of Jesus. When the time came formally to appoint the Twelve from among those who had followed Jesus closely in the past, as he did in preparation for other decisive moments and acts, Jesus retires for prayer. It is Luke who tells us of his praying on the present occasion and uses both the verb and the noun (προσεύχομαι, προσευχή) which denote the religious act of prayer to God. As he did so often, Jesus now, too, retires and prays on “the mountain” all by himself. The article speaks of this mountain as being one that was well known.
It is most likely the mountain on which Jesus delivered the Sermon on the Mount, extracts from which Luke gives in v. 20, etc. If this is correct—one cannot be very positive—the appointment of the Twelve took place early on a Sabbath morning just before the great sermon was preached, and Matt. 10:5–42 preceded the sermon. The important nature of what would be done on this Sabbath morning caused Jesus to spend the entire night in prayer; the periphrastic imperfect ἦνδιανυκτερεύων emphasizes the long duration. The genitive τοῦΘεοῦ is objective, prayer “to God,” an unusual genitive with this noun.
The subject and the contents of this long period of prayer on the mountaintop, under the great, starry sky, can be determined only from the acts that follow. Jesus prayed for the men whom he was about to choose, for their work in the world, for their preparation for that work, and for all that it would accomplish in the future. We have a sample of his praying for his disciples in John 17:6, etc. The supposition that the prayer dealt with the preparation of Jesus for making the choice of the Twelve is a misconception and, we fear, is due to the estimate of Jesus which makes him a mere man.
Luke 6:13
13 And when day came, he called to him his disciples; and having elected for himself from them twelve, whom also he named apostles, Simon whom also he named Peter, and Andrew, his brother, and James and John, and Philip and Bartholomew, and Matthew and Thomas, and James, the son of Alpheus, and Simon, being called the Zealot, and Judas, the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who turned traitor; and having come down with them, he stood, etc.
Jesus proceeded with the appointment as soon as it became day. The number of “his disciples” must have been considerable at this time, for in v. 17 they are called “a great multitude.” The entire body of the disciples is called to Jesus on the mountain height in order to witness the election of the Twelve and to hear the charge and the authority investing them (Matt. 10). The sun just rising, the beautiful morning sky, the wide panorama from the top of this mountain, the disciples formally called into Jesus’ presence by someone acting as his servant, all the rest of the great multitude waiting farther below on a level space—what an impressive setting!
The sentence continues with two participles, ἐκλεξάμενος and καταβάς (v. 17), and the finite verb ἔστη follows: “having elected for himself … and having gone down … he stood.” Whereas the electing act is thus made grammatically minor and only a parallel to the act of going down from the mountaintop, its material importance is secured by the object “twelve” with the long line of appositions giving the names. The participle is in the middle voice: “he selected them of and for himself” even as he tells them in John 15:16 that they did not choose him, but he chose them. It is useless to ask just why these individuals were elected and not others, for if others and not these had been taken, we should have to ask the same question. But divine grace and wisdom make their choice, as we see throughout both Testaments, neither blindly nor arbitrarily, never on the basis of human merit but ever on the basis of grace alone.
These Twelve, who are now formally installed and ordained as apostles, had first been called as believers and then (at least some of them) as constant pupils so that the present act constitutes a climax in their contact with Jesus. This is a scene, indeed: the Lord assembled with his church and appointing his apostles for that church, and the crowd of others left at a distance below as not yet being concerned in this act. Thus he gave “some (as) apostles” (Eph. 4:11) to be the foundation of the church, he himself being the cornerstone (Eph. 2:20). Since Jesus called them in his own person, we usually say that their call was immediate and not mediate through the church, which was as yet unorganized and not able to function.
We note that “twelve” has no article, which means that until this time no one knew how many were to be apostles; but Jesus now selected this number. This number recalls the twelve patriarchs of Israel and the twelve tribes. In Rev. 7:4 the two twelves (the 12 patriarchs and the 12 apostles) are multiplied and raised to a thousand (10 × 10 × 10), which indicates the greatest completeness and makes the symbolic number 144, 000 (compare Rev. 14:1, 3), the sum total of all believers at the end of time, and indicates the two sources from which the church has come in the two covenants. See The Eisenach Epistle Selections by the author, II, 367.
“Whom also he named apostles” reads as if Jesus named them thus when he was selecting them. The word ἀπόστολος, from ἀποστέλλω, means one sent or commissioned and, according to the dignity of the sender, is the equivalent of ambassador. So Jesus was sent and commissioned by God, and in John he constantly speaks of his Sender (“he that did send me”). This word was at times used in a wider sense to include men like Barnabas and the assistants of the Twelve, but it is the regular term for the Twelve as in their high office being distinct from all others, it afterward included only one other, namely Paul.
14–16) Like Mark, Luke strings the names together by adding each with καί and making no divisions in the list whereas Matthew makes pairs. But in Acts, Luke has 4, plus 2, plus 2, plus 3 (Judas being omitted). Peter is placed first in all the lists and Judas Iscariot last. If we make three groups of four, the lists show the same four names in each group, but they do not always occur in the same order; yet the same name heads each of the three groups.
Luke has thus far called the first man “Simon,” and he now adds, as a fact that it is necessary for Theophilus to know, that Jesus named him “Peter” (πέτρος, a detached boulder as distinct from πέτρα, feminine, a rock cliff). When Jesus did this (John 1:42) is not mentioned. The fact that Peter is always first in the four lists, Matthew even calling him πρῶτος, does not place the others under Peter as being the pope but names him as primus inter pares; he was not even the first to come to Jesus (John 1:41, 42). Andrew is called Peter’s brother, and Luke mentions him here for the first time. James and John are named without a modifier because Luke has already introduced them in 5:10. Bartholomew is a patronymic: son of Tolmai (Ptolomy), the Nathanael of John 1:45, etc.
Philip alone bears a Greek name. Matthew was called Levi in 5:27 although Luke does not now say so, this fact being known to Theophilus. The second James in the list is identified by adding his father’s name: “of Alpheus” (see 3:24, etc., for this genitive “son of,” etc.). So Simon, too, is distinguished from Simon Peter by the addition “being called Zelotes,” Luke translates Matthew’s and Mark’s Hebrew transliteration “Cananaean” correctly. Simon was a former adherent of the patriotic Jewish rebel party called “the Zealots” (Acts 5:37; Josephus, Ant., 18, 1, 1 and 6; Wars 2, 8, 1).
The first Judas is distinguished by a genitive: “of James,” which must mean “son of James” because the preceding “of Alpheus” means “son of.” So we cannot translate “brother of James,” for in v. 14 “brother” is written out. This Judas (also Acts 1:13) is called so by John (14:22) but is called Lebbeus by Matthew, Thaddeus by Mark. His father James is as unknown to us as is the father of Nathanael but just as good as a famous name for identifying his son as not being the other Judas. This second Judas is called “Iscariot,” which most likely means “the man of Kerioth.” This was an appellation which he derived from his father Simon (John 6:71), both father and son were named thus from their home town Kerioth in Judea, and Judas was the only apostle from that country. In the Gospels he is always designated by some modifier that marks him as the traitor who betrayed Jesus. The aorist “who became traitor” is written from the viewpoint of Luke’s date of composition and is thus a simple historical aorist.
Luke 6:17
17 Luke continues: … and having come down with them, he stood on a level plain, and a great multitude of his disciples and a great multitude of the people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed from their diseases. And those being troubled from unclean spirits he went on healing. And all the multitude was seeking to touch him because power kept going out from him and was curing all.
This is Luke’s description of the scene and the situation on this Sabbath morning after the ordaining of the Twelve and just before the delivery of the Sermon on the Mount. In v. 13 Jesus called all the disciples to the top of the mountain where he chose the Twelve. When Luke now states that Jesus came down “with them” (the Twelve), and that he stood on a level place and also the great multitude of his disciples, this crowd of disciples must have left Jesus and the Twelve to confer privately even as Matt. 10 reports his instructions to them.
There is not a contradiction between Matthew (5:1) and this sketch of Luke’s—the latter had to invent “a level plain” because he spoke of the great crowd. What about “the multitudes” in Matthew—did they sit or stand on the mountain slopes? So also Jesus’ “going up on the mountain” (Matthew) and his “having come down” after he had gone to a mountain (Luke) is not a contradiction. Both are true. Luke sends Jesus up the mountain in v. 12, and he now comes down only far enough to reach a level place so that all this great mass of people can hear him. On a spot that was raised a bit so that all might see him he sat down (Matthew). It is contrary to the facts to think of two sermons, one the Sermon on the Mount, the other the Sermon on the Plain.
The second subject of ἔστη is the multitude of disciples, which shows how many had come to believe in him at this time. The Sermon on the Mount was thus most certainly delivered at the height of Jesus’ ministry, and, we may add, just before the opposition to him grew so intense that Jesus withdrew more and more to the far borders of the land. A third subject is the great crowd of people from all over the country. In 5:17 we see law teachers and Pharisees who were attracted from afar for hostile purposes, here we see the common people who have come with good intent from all over Judea, including the very capital Jerusalem, and from the seacoast of pagan Tyre and Sidon, Gentiles mingle with Jews.
These crowds, who numbered a few thousand, followed Jesus about and, it seems, had come out to this mountain already the day before, on the evening of which Jesus retired to the very top of the mountain. So they were ready when he came down from the top and were spread out on this “level place.” The aorist ἦλθον is, of course, not a past perfect but simply reports a past fact, “they came”; but since it occurs in a relative clause after a main verb in the aorist, “he stood,” “they came” refers to a prior coming. So this mass of people was there not for this one day alone but had come days ago and also intended to stay. Their purpose was “to hear him” and his wonderful teaching and “to be healed from their diseases.” The idea is not that all were diseased but that they brought many sufferers. The aorists are constative and effective as including all the hearing and being healed, and both were actualities.
Luke 6:18
18 This implies that the people obtained what they wanted. Here Luke again separates the demoniacs from all other ailments and speaks of them as being a class by themselves; compare 4:33 on them. He again speaks of unclean (foul) spirits, and ἀπό indicates their agency (R. 579) after the passive participle “those being troubled from or by” these spirits. The descriptive iterative imperfects tell what Jesus had been doing again and again, and what the people kept doing and experiencing. The demoniacs were thus healed one after another.
Luke 6:19
19 The people who had ailments, being a multitude, sought only to touch him (the genitive after a verb of touch) and did not claim his personal attention for each sufferer. The reason for this was the fact that this was enough “because power kept going out from him and curing all” as it did in the case of the woman mentioned in 8:43, etc. When Jesus now preached his great sermon to them, there was not a single sufferer in the entire audience that waited on Jesus’ words. By thus describing the scene and the audience Luke materially amplifies Matt. 5:1 and furnishes us the most graphic kind of a picture.
Luke 6:20
20 And he, having lifted up his eyes on his disciples, went on to say, Blessed the beggarly because yours is the kingdom of God.
Luke agrees with Matthew in the fact that the sermon is addressed to the disciples, who are presented as a great crowd in v. 17; the rest of the multitude was, of course, to hear it too in order to be drawn also to become disciples. Luke makes this even plainer than Matthew does by using the second person in all the beatitudes he records.
That Luke is not reporting the same sermon as Matthew is a contention that is still made by some. It needs only a little explanation. Matthew reports all that pertained to Jewish Christians; Luke, who is writing for the Gentile Theophilus, very naturally left this out, which makes Luke’s presentation much shorter. Yet from Luke’s account especially we see that Jesus spoke some sayings that he used again at other times, a practice that we find throughout his teaching, so that it need not surprise us. Even Matthew’s longer account does not record all that Jesus said. Luke preserved some sayings that Matthew passed by.
The hypothesis that Matthew and also Luke made up the sermon by piecing together, like a mosaic, things that Jesus said on various occasions seems to ignore the facts. The individual points are treated in the discussion.
It is an old and a serious misunderstanding to regard the sermon as an exposition of the law, as if Jesus were correcting the legal interpretation of the Jewish rabbis by a correct interpretation of his own. The glorious opening sentences, which ring with blessings, ought to obviate this misunderstanding, for these sentences are pure gospel. It is another form of this misunderstanding when the sermon is thought to present “the new ethics,” as superseding either the Old Testament ethics or the perversions of the rabbinical ethics. To be sure, the sermon deals also with ethics, but with these as the outgrowth of the gospel possession of the kingdom, of the change wrought in the soul by true repentance and faith, Matt. 5:3–20; Luke 6:20–24.
Luke does not show the structure of the sermon in the portions of it which he has preserved. Matthew reveals this clearly by showing the theme, the parts, and the development of each part; see the author on Matt. 5. From Luke we gather only that Jesus is speaking of The Blessedness of the Children of the Kingdom and is describing it as follows: Since they are blessed with all the blessings of the gospel (v. 20–26), their lives will shine with distinctive love (v. 27–38), will be rid of all self-deception (v. 39–46), and, in conclusion, will stand in the day of judgment.
The Beatitudes read like a psalm; μακάριοι at once recalls the ’ashre of Ps. 1:1. “Blessed!” It is intoned again and again and sounds like the bells of heaven ringing down into this unblessed world from the cathedral spire of the kingdom that invite all men to enter. This word is like its opposite οὐαί, “woe!” It is neither a wish regarding a future condition nor a description of a present condition but a judgment that is pronounced upon the persons indicated by stating that they must be considered blessed. The form used in Luke is almost exclamatory: “O the blessedness of those who,” etc.! And it is Jesus who renders this judgment, which is, therefore, absolutely true although all the world disagrees.
Each of the judgments is at once established by revealing in what the blessedness consists; and the last is substantiated at greatest length for the obvious reason that the disciples would undergo much persecution. All this blessedness is spiritual, each part of it comes from the great Messianic kingdom; it is true soul-blessedness, a rich possession now but with a glorious promise of still greater riches—the very opposite of the world’s happiness which is poisoned already in the bud and soon blasted forever. “Blessed” means joy for those concerned, but in the heavenly way: the kingdom and its gifts are ours and insure a constant flow of joy so that, even if we be sad and sorrowful for a moment, the joy will again well up in our hearts. John 15:11.
It is the general tendency to regard μακάριοιοἱπτωχοί as a vocative and in the second person because the second person follows in the ὅτι clause: “Blessed you poor!” Although it is a minor point, we see no reason for this. As is the case in Matthew, the pronouncements are in the third person, are broad and general so as to include all concerned, and in the ὅτι clauses the application is made to the present disciples of Jesus. No one knows what the Aramaic was, but its sense permitted a rendering like Matthew’s or one like Luke’s.
The word πτωχός is derived from a verb which signifies cringing, crouching like a beggar (M.-M. 559). It is stronger than just “poor,” it denotes “cringingly, beggarly poor.” These are the ‘anavim or ‘aniyim of the Old Testament as for instance in Isa. 66:2. The poverty referred to is not one against which the will rebels but one under which the will bows in deep submission. It is more than a state or condition, it is also an attitude of the soul over against God. It is the attitude that grows out of the profound realization of utter helplessness and beggary as far as any ability or possession of self is concerned. These wretched beggars bring absolutely nothing to God but their complete emptiness and need and stoop in the dust to receive pure grace and mercy only.
This is the condition and the attitude of true repentance that was preached by both the Baptist and Jesus as being basic for all who would come to God and to his kingdom. These disciples had attained it, and the Twelve gave the special evidence of forsaking all and following Jesus and looking to him and receiving from him alone.
Luke omits “in the spirit,” but he has in mind the same poverty and beggarliness that Matthew mentions, one that pertains to the soul, a spiritual condition. One wonders at interpreters who make this a physical beggarliness and find earthly riches referred to in v. 24. Jesus and his disciples were not beggars: Peter could hire men (5:1–11), James and John had a flourishing business, and Matthew could prepare a reception and feast for a great company. And since when does wealth or lack of wealth determine exclusion from and inclusion in the kingdom? No, only the beggarly in spirit, no matter what wealth of money they command, are blessed.
It is astonishing that Jesus should pronounce people such as these “blessed,” fortunate in the highest degree. Pharisees, Sadducees, and the world generally would do the very opposite. But the coin of all such is counterfeit and never passes at God’s bank, who accepts no coin from men save only beggars’ empty hearts and hands. And thus it is not astonishing at all that when such beggars stoop before God they are “blessed.” Empty hearts he can fill; those that are filled with pride, their own riches and claims, he cannot fill, they are filled with their own. So it is true of these beggars: “yours is the kingdom of God,” i. e., yours alone. This bars out all others, all who come with a different attitude toward God.
Commentators sometimes contradict the text they comment on. The text reads “is,” which means: is now; yet we are told that this refers only to a future possession because the following verses have future tenses. A more learned way is to make the copula timeless or to fall back on the Aramaic where the copula is thought to be absent. These efforts make “the kingdom of God” wholly eschatologic: “the world as it will be when it has become God’s again, in the regenerate world of the future,” this being, however, understood in a chiliastic sense. So these poor beggars are to stay beggars, their souls are empty, giftless, unsatisfied till that grand earthly kingdom of glory is ushered in with its vista of a thousand years! This is contrary to all that the gospel reveals regarding God.
He feeds and satisfies the poor, Luke 1:53; he does it the instant they come to him; and not with a promise of future bread only; we are to eat now, and we do eat the Bread of Life, possess the treasures of the kingdom. The kingdom which the Baptist and Jesus proclaimed as being at hand is “within you,” 17:21, an actual present possession. Christ’s kingdom is one of grace and glory combined; the grace is here, the glory is not yet revealed, 1 John 3:2.
The kingdom of God” (compare the elucidation in 4:43) should not be regarded as an outward realm as we speak of earthly kingdoms and think of land and people. The kingdom of God centers in the King, Jesus Christ, and in the powers of grace, might, and glory that go out from him. Where he is, there the kingdom is because there is his exercise of grace and power. The rich and proud in spirit resist that exercise as it would work in and over them for salvation. The poor cry out for that exercise of saving grace and help. It is impossible that the King should let them go on crying; he fills their hands and their hearts at once.
Whatever he has in store for them in the future he already has in vast abundance. The spiritually poor thus become rich toward God, 12:21. This royal riches consists in Christ’s grace, pardon, adoption, sanctification, “all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ,” Eph. 1:3.
It is not as though these gifts now end the attitude of the beggarly so that this term no longer describes them. The case is this: as long as we live in this world of sin and in spite of all grace “sin daily,” so long our poor hands are stretched out to God’s grace in Christ, daily receiving grace for grace. And the flow of God’s rich grace goes out and can go out to us only as we keep that attitude to which God himself has brought us and in which his grace works to keep us. Thus the kingdom is ours now, and, being ours, it will bring us all that God still has laid up for us.
Luke 6:21
21 Blessed they that are hungering now because you shall be filled. Blessed they that are sobbing now because you shall laugh.
We see that Luke is making selections from the sermon and that, although he possessed Matthew’s Gospel, he proceeds on the basis of knowledge that extends beyond this. Luke makes his own selection from the eight beatitudes and chooses the four that seemed most important to him and even abbreviates these. The present participle, which is substantivized, is durative and expresses a quality or condition, that of hungering constantly, for the hunger referred to not only continues but even increases in the very act of being satisfied. Both hunger and thirst are very commonly used in a figurative sense with reference to strong spiritual desires and needs. We daily cry for forgiveness, and daily God satisfies us. We are blessed because our hunger continues. If it should cease, Jesus could no longer pronounce us blessed because he could then no longer satisfy us.
Perfectionism finds no support here. The addition of the adverb “now” in this and in the next beatitude has led to a number of peculiar interpretations. “Now” is regarded as being in contrast with the great millennial kingdom to come; again it is thought to make these two beatitudes different from the first; these have future tenses in the ὅτι clauses whereas the first has the present tense. We are told that to have the kingdom is only an assurance of being filled and of laughing, and that these future tenses will come to a fulfillment in the millennial kingdom, others substitute the kingdom in its consummation at the end of the world.
We have already settled this question in regard to the first beatitude in the case of those who would put a future sense into “is.” Scripturally regarded, it is unthinkable that Christ would leave any soul hungering and sobbing all its life long and put off satisfying that poor soul until the millennium arrives, or until the actual end of the world comes. These beatitudes that add “how” are the same as the others without “now,” the same as the corresponding ones in Matthew in which the “now” is dropped without loss of meaning. The future tenses “shall be filled” and “shall laugh” are immediate futures: the moment we hunger Jesus will fill us; the moment we sob Jesus will dry our tears.
The first beatitude is fundamental and complete; to have the kingdom is to have everything, all that the other beatitudes contain. To have the kingdom is far, far more than a mere assurance of other things that we are to have besides the kingdom and for which we must wait and wait. There is nothing beside and above the kingdom. The other beatitudes only unfold something of what is already included in the first, for this is so vast that one could keep on and on in unfolding the blessedness it contains. This “now” speaks of hungering and sobbing in our day of grace, even now in this life, while we can still be filled and made glad over against “then” when it would be too late. This is exceedingly plain in Matthew where the hunger is is said to be “after righteousness,” after that quality when the divine Judge declares a poor sinner who believes in Christ righteous for Christ’s sake.
When is this hungry soul filled, when does the Judge pronounce it righteous? The instant that hunger of faith sets in and not even a fraction of an instant less.
Yet here again this hunger continues the more it is satisfied, and the satisfying can continue only as long as there is hunger. We daily cry for forgiveness, and daily God satisfies us by richly and daily forgiving us our sins. We are blessed just because our hunger continues; if it should cease, Jesus could no longer call us blessed because he could then not fill us any more. Perfectionism again finds no support here. The verb χορτάζω is strong, it is used with reference to feeding and fattening cattle with fodder and grain and feeding men with great abundance. He who during his earthly life is fed daily with Christ’s righteousness is blessed indeed.
Κλαίω refers to audible weeping, hence “they that are sobbing.” To be hungering and to be sobbing are only expositions of being beggarly by showing in what the beggarliness consists. There is no warrant to exclude from this sobbing the sorrow for our sins in true contrition. Do our sins inflict no loss upon us? Do they not rob us of what is dearer than relatives, money, or other goods? Instead of excluding the sorrow for sin, this is the very chief part of the lament. But we must, of course, include every other grief that is due to the power of sin in this world as it inflicts blows, losses, and pain upon the godly.
It includes every wrong done us as well as every painful consequence of our own wrongdoing. It is very self-evident that this sobbing is not like that of the world, which howls loud enough when its sins find it out; “but the sorrow of the world worketh death,” 2 Cor. 7:10.
Behind the sobbing of the godly there is the recognition of the merciless power of sin and of our helplessness to ward off this power and to escape. Hence this sobbing is a constant cry to God in our distress. The substantivized present participle denotes people who are constantly sobbing. As far as contrition is concerned, let us keep in mind the first of Luther’s famous 95 Theses, that our entire life must be a continuous contrition and repentance. As far as other sorrows are concerned, “we must through much tribulation enter into the kingdom of God,” Acts 14:22; in fact, all the passages that mention tribulation belong here. God’s people are, indeed, a sad lot!
It is even more paradoxical to call these “blessed” than it was to call the beggars and the hungry blessed. Yet the paradox is again solved most perfectly, these are the ones who shall laugh (Matthew: be consoled). Chiliasts interpret: “In the glorious earthly Messianic Millennium, when all the forces of evil are crushed, when all the Christians shall be triumphant at last.” But Christ says: “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you,” John 14:18; regarding the manner in which he came we read: “Then were the disciples glad, when they saw the Lord,” John 20:20. No; this chiliastic kingdom of comfort is a mirage. This future tense is the same as was the preceding one: wherever there is godly sobbing, blessed laughter shall follow. Remember the “little while” mentioned in John 16:16.
To sob and to laugh are figurative and are chosen to make the contrast strong. Both represent the extremes and thus include all lesser manifestations just as was the case in 6:9. Both state effects produced in us, both imply the obvious causes of these effects: sin and guilt—absolution; tribulation—and the Lord’s support, relief, and consolation. Nothing makes the contrite heart happier than the Lord’s absolution; and it cannot hear it pronounced too often, for without this all other comfort is vain. God’s Word, God’s deliverance and help, God’s support, cheer and uplift us in tribulation as nothing else could do. Finally, God’s promises of future deliverance from all evil in the heavenly kingdom of glory now fill us with happiness.
As our sobbing sounds in God’s ears in this vale of sin and tears, so his constant grace and help flow down to us. And thus those who are weeping are most blessed, for they shall, indeed, laugh. But they who provide their own laughter—the Lord says: “I also will laugh at your calamity,” Prov. 1:26.
Luke 6:22
22 Blessed are you whenever men shall hate you, and whenever they shall excommunicate you and shall revile you and shall cast out your name as wicked on account of the Son of man. Rejoice in that day and gambol, for lo, your reward is great in the heaven! For according to the same things their fathers used to treat the prophets.
The last beatitude stands out in two ways: in the elaboration of the infliction and in the full statement of the blessedness. Also this beatitude is at once applied to the disciples: “Blessed are you!” and the specifications are literal—no more figures—and tell exactly what these very disciples there present will undergo. First the general and comprehensive statement: “whenever men shall hate you,” the subjunctive aorists, constative, include all the hatred, etc., in one point. The ὅταν clauses denote that these inflictions are to be expected, and that they will come frequently. In their hatred men “shall separate you” in the sense of “shall excommunicate you” from the Jewish synagogues. In John 9:22 we see how early this threat was made.
In connection with this excommunication they “shall revile you” by saying the most slanderous and wicked things about you and “shall cast out your name as wicked,” namely your common name as “Nazarenes” or Χριστιανοί (Acts 11:26; 24:5), as being a “pernicious” name, one that no man should be permitted to bear. Jesus stops at this point, which is so close to imprisonment, court trials, and death sentences.
But he adds significantly: “on account of the Son of man,” which is the same as the phrase used in Matthew, “on account of me.” See 5:24 on this title of Jesus. “On account of me” means because you believe in me as the Son of man, the God-man, the Messiah, confess me, preach my gospel, and walk in my ways as my disciples. Ever and again men will find it intolerable that you should do this and will take more or less severe measures to stop you. Jesus was from the start very open and plain with his disciples about the treatment they were bound to receive in this world; see, for instance, John 15:18, etc.
Luke 6:23
23 Instead of grieving and lamenting when these painful experiences overtake them the disciples are to regard all this persecution as the greatest good fortune that could come to them. This and exactly this makes them “blessed” in the judgment of Jesus. But is this not paradoxical in the highest degree: malediction resting on the name they bear and Jesus’ calling it a benediction? In none of the other beatitudes does he say as he does here: “Rejoice in that day and gambol!” or inchoative to match the durative tenses used by Matthew: “Start to rejoice and to gambol” or leap as people who cannot contain themselves because of the good fortune that has come to them (R. 834). Σκιρτάω was used in 1:44.
The adequate reason for this astounding command is at once added and with the exclamation it surely deserves: “For lo, your reward is great in the heaven!” Why, Jesus intends to say, these people are helping you to obtain the greatest kind of reward in heaven itself. This μισθός is “pay” but never in the sense of something that is earned by works or sufferings of ours but as something that is wholly unearned and thus freely bestowed by grace by the generous hand of God (Matt. 19:29). For he is ever such a God who will let no man do a thing for him and his Son unless he reward it with an abundance that comports with his own greatness and glory. This “pay” is “great,” not according to our merit, of which none exists, but according to him who bestows it. It is “in the heaven,” laid up for us there in God’s bank like a wonderful capital that is drawing interest, to be paid out to us in full in due time. It consists, not in salvation which becomes ours by faith before we ever do or suffer anything for Christ’s sake, but in the greater glory that shall be ours in heaven.
A second γάρ explains still farther: “For according to the same things (as just stated by Jesus) their fathers used to do to the prophets” in the old dispensation. Jesus points to the most illustrious martyrs of the past (Matt. 23:34, 37), so many of whom gave up even their lives for God. He ranges the Twelve and his other disciples alongside of these prophets. In one and in only one way may we join this most illustrious company of heaven: by joyfully suffering persecution for Christ’s sake. The highest glory in heaven beyond question belongs to the martyred prophets, and next to them stand in due order all others who suffered for Christ in their various stations. Not in spite of our persecutions are we to rejoice as if ours were a hard lot, but because of our persecutions, which make our lot such a blessed and happy one.
The wounds and hurts are medals of honor. They attest more than anything else could that we belong to Christ and not to the world. Promotion is rapid in war, and the war for Christ never ceases. 2 Tim. 4:7, 8. Yet so many are afraid of a few scars for his sake.
Luke 6:24
24 No one can say whether Jesus spoke more woes than these four. These four match exactly the four beatitudes in the order in which they are placed by Luke, who reverses the second and the third of Matthew’s order. It seems as if Luke selected these four beatitudes because the woes match them. As far as the latter are concerned, a thoughtful mind could supply them even if Jesus had not uttered them, for they are the negatives that are implied in the positives of the beatitudes. It may well be the case that Matthew omitted them for this reason and because he placed Jesus’ sermon in the forefront of his Gospel. The woes spread out what is compressed in v. 49 just as the beatitudes center in v. 47, 48.
But woe to you, the rich, because you have received in full your consolation. Woe to you that have been satiated now because you shall hunger. Woe to you that are laughing now because you shall mourn and sob. Woe wherever all men speak you fair, for according to the same things your fathers used to do to the false prophets. Turn the beatitudes into negatives and you have the woes and need little further comment. The conjunction πλήν is adversative, R. 1187.
“Woe” is neither a wish nor a mere description but the Lord’s judgment which is rendered now. It is exclamatory in form and is an interjection. The repetition of this woe is like the tolling of the bells of doom. No words need be wasted on who are meant by “you, the rich.” These are the opposite of “the beggarly.” The two words are equally figurative, refer equally to spiritual conditions and attitudes. As the latter are those who recognize their sad condition in true repentance, so “the rich” are those who imagine that they have all that they need and can do without the kingdom of God, its pardon, sonship, and promise of heaven. They hold their head high, talk boldly and proudly, and are well satisfied with themselves.
Some commentators introduce material riches as being the thing that Jesus refers to. Dives in the parable does duty because of his wealth; and R., W. P., mentions “the rich Pharisees and Sadducees” as if a large number of these were not poor. James is quoted in what he says to the rich. Jesus is not quoted when he explains to his disciples which rich are included: “they that trust in riches,” Mark 10:24. “You, the rich,” may be those who are poor in money. The riches of these “rich” consist of anything in which their souls trust, and with which their souls are satisfied, so that they do not trust in God and in Christ and in his grace for their salvation.
All the impenitent are thus “the rich.” Many trust in themselves and are self-sufficient, many in their education, science, wisdom, and many in the common things of earth.
When Jesus makes “you” so prominent in the woes, let us not forget that he had even a Judas before him among the Twelve and we know not how many others who were far from that lowliness of spirit that leads to repentance. Ἀπέχω, as the papri prove at length, is a business term like our expression “received payment in full.” This sense fits admirably in Matt. 6:2, 6, and here. These rich have received in full all that they can claim. In their attitude God, as it were, has their receipt in full which shows that he owes them nothing more. We regard ὑμῶν as objective: the consolation that consoles “you.”
The term παράκλησις is masterly in every way. Recall “the Paraclete,” the Comforter, that precious name for the Holy Spirit which, as Jesus spoke, implied that he (Jesus) was the first Comforter, who was called to the disciples’ side as their aid and support. In the use of the word here the implication is that, in whatever they deem themselves rich, these rich have all the aid and comfort they will ever get. The further suggestion is that the terrible moment will come, perhaps not until in the hour of death, when all their other riches shall fail them, when they will need what “the beggarly” have, the kingdom of God, the everlasting consolation, and then, when it is too late, will not be able to obtain it; compare 16:25. No wonder that Jesus, who sees all this, cries woe upon them.
Luke 6:25
25 “The beggarly” are described as “they that are hungering”; so now “the rich” as “they that have been filled up,” the perfect participle implies that they continue indefinitely in this condition. They are satiated with their riches, i. e., all the earthly things on which they have set their hearts. The adverb “now” is to be understood exactly as it was in v. 21: in this life over against the life to come. Even God cannot find a bit of room in their hearts for his kingdom, for the Bread of Life, for the righteousness that saves. The world is full of these satiated creatures who think that believers are fools to feed upon the Word.
But, alas, “they shall hunger.” All that now satisfies so thoroughly will prove an absolute disappointment in the end. The money, for instance, which Judas desired so keenly burned in his hands at last so that he threw it away and for his folly had left nothing but despair. So are the wisdom, power, greatness, business, achievements of this world that fill the hearts of so many. What are all these in the end? When the final, fatal hunger sets in, these cannot satisfy, and one heavenly gift that would and could satisfy is forever removed. Jesus sees it and cries a warning woe in advance.
“The beggarly” are also “they that are sobbing”; so we have the reverse: “the rich” as “they that are laughing now”—mark it “now,” not as the beggarly who laugh in the end. No, these rich have no time for contrition and the sobbing of the heart that goes with this condition. In many cases they also flourish like the bay tree (Ps. 37:35) and are not in trouble like other men. “They are laughing,” are delighted in the things of earth, chasing pleasure after pleasure, are frivolous and giddy “now”—while it lasts. Their gospel is that the future and eternity will take care of themselves.
They will, indeed, but in a way they do not expect although Jesus has warned them more than enough. They may think that in the end they will fare as well as the believers, or that there is no hereafter at all. But with his woe Jesus warns them, “You shall mourn and sob” when it is too late. Note how exactly this verse reverses verse 21b. Only they shall have their mouth filled with laughter who let the Lord do great things for them and let him turn their captivity. Ps. 126:2.
Luke 6:26
26 The clauses used in v. 22 which describe the persecutions of the godly are counterbalanced by only one short clause in v. 26 which describes the universal favor enjoyed by the ungodly and seals that with the final woe: “Woe whenever all men speak you fair,” that is the meaning of καλῶςεἴπωσιν. Paul also warns against “men-pleasers,” Eph. 6:6; Col. 3:22. If a man may be known by the friends he has he may also be known by the enemies he has made. A disciple must have the right kind of enemies in his discipleship and his testimony for Christ. If he has made none such, something is fatally wrong as the γάρ clause explains. Worldly men may regard it as a great achievement to have all men speak well of them; in the case of a disciple this would be plain evidence that his discipleship is false.
Note how exactly the next clause corresponds with the clause used in v. 23, only one word being changed, “false prophets” instead of “prophets.” In v. 23 we see how the fathers treated the true prophets, and we learn how we may join this illustrious company of martyrs, “of whom the world was not worthy,” Heb. 11:38. Here we see how the fathers treated the false prophets who invented their own messages and told the fathers just what they liked and what tickled their ears. These pseudo-prophets basked in universal favor whereas the true prophets were persecuted and killed. As there is a way in which to join the galaxy of the latter, so there is a way in which to join the horde of the former. Just drop from your discipleship everything that displeases the world, both as to doctrine and as to life; make it so that it will suit and please the world and win its applause, then you will be in exactly the same position as the false prophets. And your damnation will be about as certain as was theirs. Some people delight in this kind of riches, public favor and applause at any price; in the case of the true disciple this is a price that is too high to pay.
Luke 6:27
27 As Luke presents the sermon, v. 20–26 undoubtedly form the first part which he desires us to know and v. 27–38 the second part. That is important for the interpretation, for it lays due stress on the gospel in the sermon and on contrition, repentance, and faith, and following these with the proper conduct in life toward our fellow men. The tendency is to do the reverse, namely to stress the ethics and conduct in the sermon, to make it law and to lose the gospel. All who tend in this direction call v. 27 and the following the body of the sermon and thus disagree with Luke’s view.
Another serious point in the interpretation is that many regard Christ’s demand of love, etc., as stating the condition on which the blessings are to be ours and the woes to be far from us. This bases salvation and escape from damnation on works, a thought that is in conflict with the entire Scripture. In Christ’s command to love, etc., he asks us to show the evidence in our lives that the gospel blessings have been truly appropriated by us, and that we have taken the warning of the woes to heart. In the Baptist’s words (3:8) those who do repent must show the fruits that are worthy of repentance.
Moreover, to you that hear I say: Be loving your enemies; be doing well to those hating you; be blessing those cursing you, be praying in behalf of those despitefully using you.
Ἀλλά is not adversative in this connection; those who have it mean “but” labor too much to secure this kind of a connection. The connective here has its original meaning “other” as introducing another matter that goes together with what precedes; we render it “moreover.” The following is something that dare not be forgotten when one is considering the blessings and the woes lest he after all go wrong. Repentance must produce its native fruits.
The substantivized participle τοῖςἀκούουσιν is not a superfluous addition to ὑμῖν. The fact that the people were listening need not be said; “you that are hearing” means that are really hearing, i. e., taking to heart what I am saying. Jesus is singling out the true believers. To them as the blessed ones all that he now says applies. They will be able to love their enemies, etc. A new life and a new power are in their hearts, those of the kingdom of God (v. 20), and they will show their presence in the most distinctive and tangible way. The fruits of repentance which Jesus names are those which the world cannot achieve by any ethics it may invent or practice.
As the first beatitude is basic and is only expounded by the others, and as the first woe is basic in the same way, so to love our enemies contains all, and the next three injunctions only unfold the fundamental requirement of love. To treat well, to bless, and to pray for them are only different essential ways of exercising this love. And only a true follower of Christ can love his enemies thus. At this point the ways of the world and those of the church not only part, they run in opposite directions. Luke omits the polemics of Jesus against the false ethics of the rabbis and their perversions of the diving law and leaves the injunctions of Jesus in their universality, and they are thus the more easily apprehended by the Gentile Theophilus.
The imperatives are present tenses, durative to cover the entire lives of the believers. The substantivized participles are in the present tense to designate the usual conduct of our enemies who keep on hating, cursing, and mistreating us. They may go on in their wickedness toward us, we, too, will go on in our love and loving treatment of them; they shall never outdo us. The ἐχθροί are personal enemies who for any reason take their spite out on us. They have a fearful account to render to God; let ours be the very opposite.
We should get the true meaning of ἀγαπᾶν as it is used here. In his elaborate comparative study of this verb Warfield, Biblical Doctrines, 511, etc., “The Terminology of Love in the New Testament,” misses the point when he makes the distinctive feature of ἀγαπᾶν this that we see some value in the object loved and thus love that object. But what value did God see in a damnable world (John 3:16)? And what value in our enemies does Jesus point to? The distinctive point lies in another direction. We see this when we compare φιλεῖν which denotes the love of mere affection and liking.
This kind of love would be impossible toward an enemy. He would not accept our affection, would strike us if we tried to embrace him. Nor should we ever be able to like our enemies; Jesus does not ask it of us even as we nowhere read that he liked the wicked Jews, his enemies. In the New Testament the verb ἀγαπᾶν rose far above its old and broad use, for instance in the LXX, and came to be used as the one term that could express the very highest type of what could be called love. It denotes the love of intelligence, comprehension, and corresponding purpose. It sees all the hatefulness and the wickedness of the enemy, feels his stabs and his blows, may even have something to do to ward them off; but this fills the loving heart with only the one desire and aim to free its enemy from his hate, to rescue him from his sin, and to save his soul.
Mere affection is often blind, but it even then thinks that it sees something attractive in the one toward whom it goes out; the higher love may see nothing attractive in the one loved, nor is this love called out by anything that is attractive; its inner motive, be the object worthy or not, is to bestow true blessings upon the one loved, to do him the highest possible good. I cannot like a filthy, vicious beggar and make him my personal friend; I cannot like a low, mean criminal who may have robbed me and almost taken my life; I cannot like a false, lying, slanderous fellow who has perhaps vilified me again and again; but I can, by the grace of Jesus Christ, love them all, namely see just what is wrong with them, desire and work to remove that wrong thing, and to this end do them all good. On God’s ἀγάπη see the author’s interpretation of John 3:16.
It is in this sense that Jesus specifies: “be doing well to those hating you,” meet them with the exact opposite of their hating. If we define μισεῖν in this connection, it is the ignorant, noncomprehending hate, whose purpose and efforts are according, that damages others indeed but damages itself still more. One of the ways of overcoming this hate is to keep meeting it with kind deeds, heaping coals of fire upon the hater’s head (Prov. 25:21, 22). If he goes on hating in spite of our doing him all manner of good, our conscience will be clear, we shall be showing the true spirit of the disciple, and the Lord’s favor will be ours.
Luke 6:28
28 Note the gradation: hate—cursing—despiteful abuse. And the corresponding intensification of love: doing good—blessing—praying for. Although the hater curses us and wishes God to strike us with damnation, we go on blessing him and wishing that God may do him all manner of good. Whereas he actually abuses us, we not only quietly take that abuse but pray for the benefit of our abuser (ὑπέρ), in his behalf, that God may change his heart and not give him what his deeds deserve. Ἐπηρεάζω is the climax and hence cannot be reduced to mean only “to insult,” which would be less than to curse. The best commentary on this praying for our abusers (Matthew “persecutors”) is the prayer of Jesus for his executioners. How love like this can and does come into our hearts is shown by the beatitudes.
Luke 6:29
29 The connection found in Matt. 5:39 is true also in the case of Luke. The natural and unregenerate heart is thoroughly selfish and stands on its rights. Jesus therefore adds these illustrative injunctions that point in the exactly opposite direction. To the one who strikes thee on the cheek present also the other; and from the one taking away thy robe also the tunic do not withhold. To everyone who asks thee be giving; and from him who takes away thy things be not asking them back.
These precepts have an astounding sound, and that is exactly what Jesus wants them to have. They do teach the complete reverse of what the unregenerate call right. From Matthew we see that Jesus teaches us that the principle of right, retribution, and punishment according to which the courts of the land act, is not the principle according to which the disciple is to act Rom. 13:4 stands. But the very God who placed the civil and criminal law and its execution where they belong, in the hands of the government, by so doing places another law and its execution, the law of love, into the hearts of Christ’s disciples. This law requires patience, forbearance, willingness to forego our rights and to suffer wrong in order to overcome the evil with good, that the courts may not need to step in, and that we may honor the name of our Lord. On the other hand, those misunderstand Jesus’ meaning who regard him as teaching the doctrine of absolute “nonresistance” which would ignore and overthrow all justice and all righteousness. The law of love is not intended to encourage lawlessness nor to open the floodgates of cruelty and crime.
This explains the illustration of the nonresistance that is due to love, that love which acts intelligently and with the purpose of Jesus. Rather than to give way to anger when he is struck unjustly on the cheek or even to strike back in anger as natural right dictates, the disciple who has this love in his heart will offer the other cheek for a second blow that would otherwise not be struck. A false literalism would make a farce of Jesus’ precept. The fact that anything of this kind is excluded we see in the action of Jesus himself when he was struck without cause in John 18:22, 23, where he furnishes us the commentary on this precept.
The present tense of the participle and of the imperative is that which is used in stating general principles by showing what constantly applies. On the other hand: “If a neighbor knocks out your eye, are you justified in knocking out his eye to get even with him? It is getting even with him in sin.” Loy. The worst part of this sin are the anger, resentment, and passion which fill the heart in such resistance; another blow would be preferable to that. Jesus’ word is intended to keep our hearts clear of all such carnal propensities.
Again, rather than resentfully to resist and to fight him who takes away his robe, the long outer garment that is worn by Orientals, the disciple would not withhold also his tunic, the inner garment that is worn next to the body, and regard the double loss as pure gain in that he keeps his heart free from angry passion under the infliction of such wrong. We know what Jesus has to say to the striker (John 18:22, 23) and to this robber. The command is negative and hence is expressed by the aorist; being negative, this aorist has to be a subjunctive: “do not withhold” in any such case.
Luke 6:30
30 The third illustration contrasts with the two preceding ones, for it speaks of request instead of force. Instead of feeling bitterness and passion the heart may show hardness, lack of pity, etc., toward him who asks something of us. Jesus bids us “be giving,” the present imperative matches παντί, “everyone.” Compare Deut. 15:7, 8, 10; Prov. 21:26. Love will always be ready to help, to give without expecting a return. But it need not be said that Jesus could not inculcate indiscriminate giving such as fosters shiftlessness and other evils.
In the fourth example we have the same phrase that was used in v. 29, ἀπὸτοῦαἴροντος, “from him who takes away thy things,” and it has the same meaning: takes them wrongfully. “Be not asking them back” (present imperative) means “do not keep clamoring to get them back,” hence we have a negative command with the present imperative; the aorist subjunctive would mean: once for all do not ask them back. The disciple loses less by letting his things be taken wrongfully than he would by with a selfish heart clamoring to have them returned.
By means of these striking illustrations Jesus wants to protect the disciple’s soul from damage and loss. It is better to suffer in body and in goods to every extent than to let passions and wrong desires possess the soul. Jesus speaks for the disciple and not for the wicked man who wrongs the disciple. God will deal with him, and God has authorized penal laws for his punishment. When this is borne in mind, no extravagant interpretation will be put upon the examples that are introduced by Jesus. “If a ruffian strikes me in wilful wickedness, or in conscious violation of all law takes away my property to gratify his greed or spite, or in bare malice to inflict an injury upon me, asks me to give or lend him my money or goods without any claim to suffering or need on his part, shall I understand Christ’s words to mean that the love which the Holy Spirit has given me will find its appropriate expression in yielding to his santanic assaults and demands, and even doubling my loving compliance with his ungodly desires? I think not”—and Loy is right.
Such love would cease to be love. Christ’s injunctions are not to be applied mechanically, just formally, or in foolish blindness which loses sight of the true purposes of love. Love is to foster no crime in others or to expose our loved ones to disaster or perhaps to death. Coupled with selfless love is the wisdom which applies love. Christ never told me not to restrain the murderer’s hand, not to check the thief and robber, not to oppose the tyrant, or to foster shiftlessness, dishonesty, and greed by my gifts.
Luke 6:31
31 These specific examples which deal with fellow men who would injure or take advantage of us Luke follows with the saying of Jesus that is recorded in Matt. 7:12, which deals with our actions toward men including all our fellow disciples. And even as you will that men should do to you, you also keep on doing to them likewise.
This is the so-called Golden Rule. When Luke writes “even as … likewise,” this is not a change from Matthew who writes “all things whatsoever,” for he, too, has οὕτω, “even so.” It is uncalled for to stress the point that Luke refers only to manner and Matthew only to the things themselves, for what we do is inseparable from the manner of our doing it. Note that in v. 27 we have καλῶςποιεῖτε and in v. 26 an adverbial phrase that has the same verb; and it is thus that Luke now uses “even as … likewise.”
Far more important is the sense of this famous dictum. It is a misconception to think that Jesus makes self-love the measure of love to our neighbor. Jesus is speaking to those who accept his teaching (see v. 27), not to men in general whose self-love is selfishness. It is not natural self-love (selfishness) that he has in mind but that purified regard for self which the kingdom (v. 20) puts into the hearts of the disciples; this spiritual love for self is to be the norm for our love to others. The disciple is concerned about his soul, his spiritual interest, and what he wants men to do to him is to aid, support, and further him in these interests. He does not want any innate selfishness to be satisfied by men about him.
And thus, Jesus says, he is to treat others in the same way, to help and to support them in what is truly blessed for them. This is not a game of you gratify my selfishness, and I will gratify yours; you satisfy my worldly desires, and I will do the same for yours—a kind of even trade. Whether men do or fail to do what we would want them to do, help us spiritually, makes no difference as to what we are constantly going to do to them, namely further their relation to the kingdom.
Christ’s Golden Rule has appealed to many, yet only true disciples have understood it and have found the power to translate it increasingly into their lives. It is unwarranted to write that Hillel, Philo, Socrates, Confucius used it. They had not the least conception of it. Take as an example Rabbi Hillel’s dictum, which is only the voice of selfishness and nothing spiritual: “What is hateful to thyself, do not to thy neighbor; for this is the whole law, and all else is its exposition.” Hillel voices the egoism which withholds injury lest it again suffer injury. Hillel’s dictum is only formally like the saying of Jesus. All these apparently similar sayings, including Tobit 4:16, are negative.
Whereas it is true that positives involve their corresponding negatives and vice versa, in the present case these Jewish and these pagan “golden rules” remained brass because their negation never rose to the affirmation and, in fact, could not because the spiritual world was closed to them. The saying of Jesus is positive and affirmative and thus of an altogether different type; it moves where spiritual life alone moves and thus needs no negative which, when offered alone, is bound to remain in the domain of this selfish world.
Luke 6:32
32 And if you go on loving those who go on loving you, what thanks are there for you? For even the open sinners go on loving those who go on loving them. And if you shall go on doing good to those going on doing good to you, what thanks are there for you? For even the open sinners go on doing the same. And if you shall go on lending from whom you go on hoping to receive, what thanks are there for you? Even open sinners go on lending to open sinners in order that they may duly receive the same.
In Matthew, too, these verses substantiate the precept that the disciples love their enemies even such as are described in v. 22. But in Matthew it is made clear that, unless they do so, they cannot be sons of the Father in heaven, i. e., true disciples of Christ. Luke omits this intervening thought, but it underlies the thought of these three verses, for they all show, by a strong argumentum e contrario, that, unless we love our enemies, we shall be nothing but common ἁμαρτωλοί or open sinners and not true disciples and members of the kingdom (v. 20). Moreover, the three illustrations used bring out most clearly the unselfishness of the love that Jesus demands. What return could one expect from loving an enemy? None.
In the nature of the case none can be expected, and our love is to be offered without such expectation. We have seen that this selflessness is referred to also in v. 31, when we do to others as we would that others do to us. So Jesus presents the three examples of the contrary actions, selfishness instead of selflessness.
The first is a condition of reality which regards the case as a fact. The other two are conditions of expectancy which consider such cases as one may well expect to occur. So also the first is broad and deals with selfish loving as such whereas the other two cases are specific and deal with other selfish acts as specimens of the entire class. Note the present tenses in the verbs and also the participles, all express regular courses of action and not merely some isolated and exceptional action. In order to make this plain in English our translation must become cumbersome.
If a man loves only in return for love received, “what thanks are there for him,” ποία, of what kind? Why, of no kind. Can God give him any recognition for that? Not unless he would give recognition also to the open sinners who most certainly do this very thing, love those that love them. The use of ἀγαπᾶν in this connection is perfectly in order, “to love with intelligence and purpose”; yet the intelligence is here that of selfish calculation, and the purpose is equally selfish, namely to get full returns.
Luke 6:33
33 The specification of doing good makes the matter still plainer. The practice of doing good to those only who do good to us is the selfish morality of the commonest sinners who even pretend to be no more. If we rise no higher, can God acknowledge us?
Luke 6:34
34 One way of doing good is to lend. But the practice of lending only to those from whom we expect to take is again only the selfish morality of open sinners who certainly expect no credit for such deeds. “Hope to take” refers to interest on the loan and finally to the amount of the loan. In ἀπολάβωσι the preposition adds the idea of taking what is due; in παρʼ ὧν the dative antecedent is drawn into the relative. The entire transaction is one of business only, δανείζω denoting that kind of lending whereas κίχρημι means to lend as a favor.
Luke 6:35
35 On the contrary, be loving your enemies and be doing good and be lending, hoping for nothing in due return; and great shall be your reward, and you shall be sons of the Highest because he is kind to the unthankful and wicked.
As it was in v. 24, πλήν is an adversative conjunction. The admonition returns to the original injunction given in v. 27 but now with the added light and force that are gathered from the opposite course of the open sinners. The one way to prove by evidence that we are no longer common sinners is to love our enemies. Since certain modes of selfish love were mentioned these modes are repeated in the form of selflessness: “be doing good and be lending, hoping for nothing in the way of due return,” thus acting wholly unlike the sinners who always make sure about the due return.
But we meet a linguistic problem of an exceptional sort. Ἀπελπίζω, wherever it is found, even in the LXX and in Maccabees, has the meaning “to despair of,” and the medics use it with reference to patients of whose life they despair. Some commentators yield to this finding and, like the R. V., translate “never despairing.” But what is the thought of always lending without ever despairing? If this means never despairing of getting return, it would be nothing but the worldly way of lending, that of common sinners; and if the thought is: never despairing of getting a return from God, it would again be selfish and out of line with this entire section. These commentators labor to make the idea of not despairing fit, if not in one then in another way.
The sense that is demanded in the present connection is so very plain that other commentators yield to that demand and translate: “hoping for nothing in the way of due return.” The fact remains, however, that ἀπελπίζω is not found even once with that meaning. In spite of this lack of examples Jerome’s Vulgate translated our passage: nihil inde sperantes, and there are traces of this meaning in the rendering of other passages; we also note the fact that Chrysostom and other ancients understood the word in this sense. We have the analogy of other compounds with ἀπό: ἀπαιτεῖν, to ask what one has the right to ask; ἀπολαβεῖν, to take what is due, and ἀποδιδόναι, to give what is due. Hence ἀπελπίζειν may mean to hope to get back what one has the right to expect. The papyri may yet reveal that this verb is used in this meaning. After saying that the open sinners lend only to people who will pay back, lend only in order to take back all that is coming to them, any reference to the disciples’ lending must contain the opposite point: to lend without looking for any return. We accept that to be the meaning intended by Jesus.
R., W. P., calls this a false rendering and says that it caused great havoc in Europe and then quotes Plummer: “On the strength of it popes and councils have repeatedly condemned the taking of any interest whatever for loans. As loans could not be had without interest, and Christians were forbidden to take it, money lending passed into the hands of the Jews, and added greatly to the unnatural detestation in which Jews were held.” We add that this question has disturbed sections of the church even in recent years. But this should not be blamed onto Jerome’s translation; the blame is to be placed on the false interpretation of Jerome’s correct rendering, a rendering that is accepted by many (Luther: dass ihr nichts dafuer hoffet; A. V.: “hoping for nothing again”; Keil and also Zahn). In Matt. 16:18 the rendering is correct enough, it is the false interpretation that finds the papacy there and has thus caused great damage.
The variant reading μηδένα instead of μηδέν only makes the matter more difficult although C.-K., 433 consider it seriously. In passing let us note that we cannot translate: “Love your enemies and do good to them and lend to them,” for enemies would not borrow from us.
When Jesus promises that our reward, μισθός, pay, shall be great he is not after all appealing to our selfishness and arousing our cupidity. This “pay” is made in a coin that the natural man scorns as being valueless; it is the coin of unmerited grace. It is paid to us, not as having been earned by us, but as satisfying the generous heart of God which delights to reward those that yield to his Spirit. All this the worldling could not even understand. There is then, no appeal to selfishness or to the natural heart but to the regenerate heart and to its unselfish desire to please God and to receive more gifts of his grace.
It is really in explanation that Jesus says, “And you shall be sons of the Highest” (Matt. 5:45) and at once adds the reason for this statement: “because he is kind or mild to the unthankful and wicked.” Love, etc., to our fellow men does not make us sons of the Highest but proves us such sons, namely by revealing that we are truly like him in character and in action. Luke uses “the Highest” whereas Matthew has “your Father in the heavens,” both bring out the idea of absolute exaltation. What greater glory can come to us poor mortals than to resemble “the Highest” so as to be his sons? It exhibits the lowest kind of a nature to be selfish as described in v. 32–34; it reveals a new birth, a new heart, and the kingdom (v. 20) in our hearts to be like God in his kindness to the unthankful, whose greatest wickedness is that they do not even thank God for the benefactions that they constantly receive from him (Matt. 5:45b). Kindness that asks and expects no return is divine.
Luke 6:36
36 Go on being compassionate even as your Father is compassionate. And be not judging, and you shall in no way be judged; and do not go on condemning, and you shall in no way be condemned; go on acquitting, and you shall be acquitted; go on giving, and it shall be given to you; an excellent measure, having been pressed down, having been shaken together, running over will they give into your bosom; for with what measure you keep measuring, it shall be measured to you in return.
These precepts and promises follow in natural order for those who are sons of the Highest. One of the outstanding attributes of their Father is his great compassion, his pity and desire to help all that suffer (Matt. 9:36, the compassion of Jesus); hence his sons will “go on being compassionate” in the same way. The present imperatives in these verses express courses of action, repetitions whenever the occasions arise. Because the positive imperatives are plain on this point, the negative imperatives must have the same meaning and cannot mean stopping a wrong course already begun. We have γίνεσθε, not ἔσεσθε, because the idea is that of compassion every time a case may arise that calls out this motive.
Luke 6:37
37 As was the case in v. 27, 28, love is the basic term and is elucidated by those that follow; as this is again the case in v. 32–34 and once more in v. 35, it is here the motive of compassion that is basic for all the following precepts. Compassion is to be back of not judging, not condemning, acquitting, and giving, and that, too, is why compassion is distinguished as being a quality of the Father whose sons we are. Though we stand so high we are not to exalt ourselves and, like the Pharisees, set ourselves up as judges of all other men, glory in ourselves and despise others. By forbidding us to judge Jesus is not contradicting John 7:24; 1 Cor. 5:12; 1 John 4:1; or the disciplinary judging of the church, Matt. 18:17, 18; John 20:23. What he forbids is the self-righteous, self-exalting, and hypocritical judging which is false in its very nature and calls down only God’s judgment on itself.
“And you shall in no way be judged” is expressed by οὐμή, this strong double negative and the aorist subjunctive are used in the sense of an emphatic negative future indicative (R. 929 below). The unexpressed agent back of this passive “shall not be judged” must be God. We should run into his judgment by the vice of judging and would thus escape his judgment and not be judged at all if as true disciples we refrain from judging and allow compassion to dictate our conduct. The Father does not judge his sons. The aorist refers to the final judgment in which all God’s judgment centers and climaxes. The disciples always keep that great judgment before their eyes.
The verb κρίνειν is neutral, “to judge,” to assume the judge’s throne and authority, irrespective of what verdict we render. The Pharisees took to judging in order to condemn others and in order to acquit themselves; and that is, indeed, what the natural man always loves to do. So Jesus adds that the true disciples are not to condemn but always to acquit in true compassion for others. The Pharisees and men in general reserve all their compassion for themselves, always acquit themselves, never do what Paul writes in 1 Cor. 11:31. But to condemn calls down God’s verdict of condemnation on us on the last day whereas acquitting has the promise of God’s acquittal on that day—remember that the present imperatives denote courses of action such as mark what the persons really are, compassionate sons of God. Ἀπολύειν, “to forgive” (A. V.), “to release” (R.
V.), is in the present connection best rendered “to acquit” especially since it is the opposite of “to condemn.” But by not acting as a judge at all, as the first injunction requires, this acquitting implies that the disciples hold nothing against anyone and thus let him go. They leave the judgment to God, “to him that judgeth righteously” and will certainly judge those mentioned in v. 22. Even Jesus was not sent to judge (κρίνειν) the world.
Luke 6:38
38 Still broader is the exercise of compassion in giving, the imperative without a modifier refers to any and to all gifts that we may find that we can supply to relieve the needs of others. The passive has the same broad sense, “it shall be given to you” by God at the judgment day, it is the degree of glory reserved for you by him. But it is not as men measure here by skimping as much as possible, by short-measuring us, but “an excellent measure,” one that comports with the abounding generosity of God (as in 12:17, 19 and in other parables), far beyond anything that is like an equivalent.
The two perfect participles, which are followed by a present participle, mean that the contents in the measure are first pressed down and shaken together in order to get as much as possible into it, and after that, while it is actually running over, are given into our bosom. These participles are heaped up without a connective in order to picture graphically the superabundance of the measure—who ever got a measure like that at market? The plural “they shall give” is indefinite like the German man gibt because the sense cannot be different from that of the preceding passives. It is a point in style, Luke does not desire to repeat δοθήσεται. Κόλπος is the loose fold of the Oriental garment just above the belt, which could be used as a small pocketbag. The excellent measure refers to something that could be carried in this fashion.
Jesus explains this return measure by stating the principle on which it is given: “for with what measure you go on measuring it shall be measured to you in return,” ἀντί in the verb means in turn or back. In other words, by our giving we build the measure that will be used for giving back to us. Our own measure is used to measure back to us. By using it ourselves we declare that we want God to use it for us at the end. 2 Cor. 9:6. It is the measure we bring to God, and all he can do is to fill it. And fill it overflowingly he will. Thus they who give nothing will receive even less, and they who give much their lifelong will receive vastly more. This is both justice and grace.
Luke 6:39
39 Because this verse is found in Matt. 15:14, and v. 40 occurs in Matt. 10:24, and v. 45 in Matt. 12:34, the conclusion has been drawn that Luke took the liberty of inserting these sayings into the Sermon on the Mount; in fact, Matthew, too, is supposed to have inserted sections that were taken from elsewhere. As far as Luke is concerned, the record of these sayings is fully explained by the acknowledged fact that Jesus used pithy sayings more than once, on different occasions, as the subjects in hand demanded, and as any good teacher is bound to do. Although Luke has a record of the sermon that is shorter than Matthew’s he preserved some statements that Matthew omitted.
Moreover, he spoke also a parable to them: You would not say that a blind man can lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into the pit?
Luke makes a break in his account of the sermon because he wants us to consider what follows as a unit. After telling us how the lives of those in the kingdom (v. 20) shine with love and its kindred virtues Jesus goes on to say that they are free from self-deception and will stand in the day of judgment (v. 39–46). Nothing is worse than when men think that they see when they are in reality blind, and when in their delusion they make bold to act as leaders and guides for others whom they think blind and who, indeed, are blind in fact. This was the fatal delusion of the scribes and Pharisees, whose was a self-willed, deliberate blindness, a fixed opposition to the light and to sight, who obdurately chose darkness rather than light (John 3:19) and proudly called their blindness sight (John 10:40, 41), who loved to be called οἱβλέποντες as so many today love to be called “scientists,” men who know. So they set themselves up as guides for others—with fatal results.
The two questions and their self-evident answers make this plain, the one introduced with μήτι implies a negative, and the one with οὐχί an affirmative answer, both interrogative particles are written in the strengthened form. For lack of an English negative interrogative particle we are compelled to circumscribe: “you would not think, would you,” etc.? No, no one would say that a blind man can lead a blind man (the adjectives are used as nouns). Everybody would agree that both would fall into the ditch. The questions are of such simplicity and their interrogative form so childlike that a touch of humor plays into them.
The ground is so rocky in Palestine that stone is dug out along the roads for surfacing them, and dug out in other places for other purposes, leaving many dangerous pits. The author saw them when travelling and was reminded of the sheep falling into the pit on a Sabbath and of these blind men. Their delusion is comical in a way, but it is deadly in the end. When Jesus said “pit” he may well have had in mind the pit of hell, for he is speaking of the fatal results of spiritual blindness.
Luke 6:40
40 A disciple is not above the teacher; moreover, after having been perfected, everyone shall be as his teacher.
A glance at Matt. 10:24, 25 is sufficient to show that Luke most certainly did not take this saying of Jesus from that connection, for it is divided and combined with another figure in Matthew. The statement about the disciple and his master is just as clear and self-evident as are the questions about the blind men. A μαθητής is one who has imbibed the spirit of his teacher. But as being one who is a disciple he remains under his teacher, for the thing that makes him what he is he has received and will always have received from his teacher.
The warning is idle that we must not stretch this too far since some pupils become more learned than their teachers. No matter how much a pupil advances beyond his teacher, as a μαθητής of that teacher, the spirit he has imbibed from that teacher keeps him forever “under” that teacher. Many an illustrious man has acknowledged that with regard to his teacher. It is not the amount of knowledge that is involved in “disciple” but the character and the spirit that make him what he is.
So it is again wrong when we are told that this dictum does not apply to Jesus and to his disciples. What is it doing here if it has no such application? It applies to Jesus and to his disciples in the most eminent way. In the whole sermon he is trying to imbue his disciples with his own spirit and his principles. Those who are at this time his disciples are such only because they have in some measure imbibed his spirit. They will thus never get above him, for if they absorb some other spirit they will become only renegades and apostates who are no longer “under” him but far from him. The relation expressed by Jesus is one that has no exceptions.
Δέ only adds another point to this little parable, one that is slightly different; hence it means “moreover” and is certainly not our strong adversative “but.” Jesus is only adding another thought. The subject is πᾶς, and its modifier κατηρτισμένος is placed before it in order to give it the fullest emphasis. Its tense is perfect because it expresses a state at which the disciple has arrived: “after having been perfected,” i. e., after having fully imbibed his teacher’s spirit and principles. How is he then? Only “as his teacher.” As a son always remains a son, no matter how great he becomes, so a disciple always remains a disciple, no matter how great he grows.
This is true of every disciple who is more than a pupil, who absorbs more from his teacher than mere learning. And it is most eminently true of a disciple of Jesus. In the case of fine earthly teachers it may be possible that a disciple absorbs all of his teacher’s spirit and, as Jesus says, then will be “as his teacher.” But in the case of our teacher Jesus none can rise that high in his discipleship. Oh, that we could be “as our Teacher”! But compare Phil. 2:5; Matt. 11:29; John 13:15; 1 Pet. 2:21; 1 John 2:6. He is “the head over all things to the church,” Eph. 1:22; we are to “grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ,” Eph. 4:15; Col. 1:18; in fact, “we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones,” Eph. 5:30; Col. 3:11.
There is one danger: not to see at all and thus to become a joke and a calamity. A second danger is: to try to be above the teacher and not to be as the teacher.
Luke 6:41
41 Moreover, why dost thou see the sliver in the eye of thy brother, yet the beam in thine own eye thou dost not perceive? Or how canst thou be saying to thy brother, Brother, hold, I will take the sliver out, the one in thy eye, thyself not seeing the beam in thy eye? Hypocrite, take out first the beam out of thy eye, and then shalt thou see clearly the sliver, the one in the eye of thy brother.
In Matthew this parable follows after the injunction about not judging so that the parable illustrates the kind of judging Jesus warns against. In Luke it follows after the statement about the blind leader and that about the disciple who may think himself above his teacher so that the parable forms an illustration for that blind haughtiness. We see at once how it fits either connection. Luke has the saying about judging a little farther back, in v. 37. The parable thus furnishes an illustration for these various injunctions of Jesus, and it is not proper to restrict it too closely to just one of them.
The suppositions here used are frankly impossible in actual life. Nobody could possibly have a piece of timber, a plank or a beam, in his eye. The same is true regarding a κάρφος, which is not a “mote” (our versions) or a “speck” (R., Tr.,) but a dried twig or straw. Who could endure that for a moment? Both suppositions are intended to be ridiculous—a man with a plank in his own eye seeing a twig in his brother’s eye and proposing to take it out. The eye is often overlooked in the interpretation of this parabolic language.
The splinter is taken to be some small moral fault in the man and the beam a fault that is correspondingly greater. But why are the splinter and the beam placed in the eyes; why not in other parts of the body, for instance the hand, the organ for so many of our acts? Jesus is not speaking of faults or sins in general, one being tiny and the other immense, but of moral and spiritual perception, which is slightly wrong in the one man, totally wrong in the other. He who is devoid of all spiritual insight pretends to aid another who is lacking in that insight to a small degree. The very idea is farcical—yet men act thus.
Jesus first scored the pretense of the eye that has the beam seeing the eye that has the splinter; he next (v. 42) scored the pretense of the eye that has the beam aiding the eye that has the splinter. The preposterous idea is carried to its climax.
Luke 6:42
42 The present infinitive how canst thou “be saying” sounds as if the man who has the beam in his eye is by repetition urging the other as if he were reluctant about submitting to the operation. A grand eye specialist this man would be! By even only approaching him he might knock out both of the other man’s eyes. Ἄφες (always singular) is a mere adjunct to the volitive subjunctive ἐκβάλω (R. 430, 931): “hold, I will take out.”
The regular negative with participles is μή; when οὐ is used as it is here, the negation is more sharp.
The Lord’s indignation flashes forth in the vocative “hypocrite!” This term is used with reference to actors who impersonate other persons, the preposition ὑπό in the word denotes something underhanded that is intended to deceive. The aorist ἔκβαλε is peremptory and sharp. The thought is again not that one should first correct his own grave faults before he tries to correct his brother’s minor faults, which leaves out the eyes; but that one should clear his own eyes and judgment with the spiritual insight of God’s truth before he attempts to aid another in making some correction in his perception of the truth. The scribes and Pharisees were eye doctors who had beams in their own eyes. What they did to the people, who otherwise saw more clearly than they, can be imagined (John 7:45–49).
Luke 6:43
43 For there is not an excellent tree producing worthless fruit, nor again a worthless tree producing excellent fruit; for each tree is known by its own fruit; for from thornbushes they do not gather figs, nor from a bramblebush do they harvest a ripe grape cluster. The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth the good; and the wicked out of the wicked brings forth the wicked; for out of heart-abundance his mouth doth speak.
In Matthew this passage occurs in connection with false prophets, here in Luke with the blind, arrogant (v. 40) fools who have beams in their eyes. We see again as we did in v. 41 that the connection of thought is broad and fits all who act in blindness to mislead and to damage.
Every statement is axiomatic, clear as crystal, so obvious that a child can understand—and yet how important and precious every word! Every statement also applies to all men who belong in either the one class or in the other. In Matthew the false prophets and in Luke the blind leaders, etc., are specimens. All are judged by the axioms that are here pronounced as is also every good man and every teacher. In v. 43 the stress is on the four adjectives which, therefore, occupy the emphatic positions, and these adjectives thus make the figure of the trees and their fruits entirely transparent. This is especially true regarding the second kind of tree.
It, too, produces fruit, perhaps in great abundance (Matt. 7:22). Hence σαπρόν does not mean “rotten” or “diseased” in this connection as translators render it. B.-P. rightly asks: “Do rotten (faule) fish enter a net? Do rotten trees bear fruit at all?” The contrast is not between conditions but between kinds; not between trees that are sound and healthy and others that are rotting and decayed but between trees of excellent variety and trees of worthless variety. Both kinds may look grand merely as trees, but the fruit they produce (ποιεῖν like 3:9) invariably reveals what they are worth, for it is absolutely impossible for a tree to bear fruit that is contrary to its constitution and nature. An excellent tree cannot produce worthless fruit, and vice versa.
Luke 6:44
44 This emphasis on the fruit is essential. We recognize every tree as to its excellence or its worthlessness only by its fruit; there is no other way to tell the quality and the nature of the tree. In order to make this obvious truth still more obvious Jesus illustrates by referring to figs and a ripe grape cluster (σταφυλή, the ripe grapes that make a cluster; βότρυς, the cluster itself). Are these found growing on any kind of tree or bush? For instance, do we see anybody going out to gather figs “from thornbushes”; or to harvest a fine cluster of ripe grapes “from a bramblebush” (like the one Moses saw burning, βάτος)? The idea is not only comical, it is ridiculous—and Jesus wants his hearers to catch the humor.
Why do people (the subjects of the plural verbs are indefinite) do nothing like this? Because they have learned to judge every tree, bush, etc., by its fruits. Brambles and thornbushes bear no figs and grapes. So it is in the case of men.
Luke 6:45
45 What do we find? Why this that it is only the good man who out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth the good in word, deed, and influence. Would you expect such a thing of the wicked man? It is the wicked (man) who out of the wicked (treasure of his heart) brings forth the wicked. Would you expect him to bring forth the good? Note the triple repetition, first of ἀγαθός, “good,” then of πονηρός, “wicked,” active wickedness, not merely “evil.” As is the man, in particular his heart, so is the product of his life.
Take the mouth for instance—what comes out of it in the way of utterance (λαλεῖν)? Why, the overflow of the heart! When the heart gets too full it spills over through the mouth in speech. And you can at once tell whether the heart is treasuring what is good or what is wicked, whether the man is good or whether he is wicked.
All this need not be restricted to the truly spiritual domain, it applies even to the domain of common morality, to good and to bad as the world regards these. These axioms are entirely universal. That is what lends them such convincing force. So the fact is hammered in that the heart must be changed, the spiritual nature of the very man himself, before God can accept the fruits of his words and his deeds. This harks back to the opening of the sermon, to the beatitudes which reveal how the heart is made new by receiving the kingdom of God (v. 20, etc.).
Luke 6:46
46 Now why do you call me Lord, Lord, and do not do what I say?
The whole application is here made at one stroke. Matthew has the third person and reports this portion with greater fulness. Luke has preserved the direct personal address. It pertains to all the hearers; to the disciples in so far as they, too, may not be doing some things their Lord tells them and may be in danger of disregarding perhaps even all of his teaching. All figures are now dropped, the reality of what Jesus clothed in figures now stands forth with all clearness. Only when we do what Jesus says, of course by his grace and help, is he really our Lord, and are we truly his disciples, good trees bearing good fruit.
Mere prodigality in calling Jesus “Lord” is no ticket of admission to heaven. Saying “Lord, Lord!” means to claim that relation to Jesus which is expressed in that title. The duplication indicates the urgency made in that claim.
The title Κύριος may, of course, contain more or less according to the mind of him who uses it. Like the English word “lord,” it was often little more than our “sir,” a title of respect. But in the present connection the sense would be lost if less were meant than “divine Lord.” The point lies in the claim of a connection with Jesus as the divine Lord, Messiah, and Savior, which is spurious because those who make it fail to do what he says. Their doing (ποιεῖτε, durative, course of action) fails to call Jesus “Lord.” This means pretense, hypocrisy, exclusion from the kingdom more decisively than for those who never knew Jesus or claimed connection with him.
The question is a mighty warning, a blow that strikes home in the heart. It asks searchingly about what we are doing. It probes our very hearts.
Luke 6:47
47 In conclusion Jesus relates another parable, one that is completely lucid and transparent and reveals what doing his words really does, and what failing to do them also does. Everyone coming to me and hearing my words and doing them, I will show you to whom he is like. Like is he to a man building a house, who dug out and went deep and placed a foundation upon the rock mass. Now when a flood came, the river broke against that house, and it did not have strength to shake it because it had been built well.
The attributive participles are present tenses to describe the man as he comes, hears, and goes on doing “my words,” λόγοι, i. e., the substance of what Jesus says. The genitive of what is heard is less frequent than the accusative (R. 507). In ὑποδείζω the preposition “under” means that Jesus will show by placing under the eyes what would otherwise not be noted. The emphasis is on “doing” the words of Jesus even also as in the opposite case the point is that the man failed to do. It is the Word as it sounds forth that makes the man hear. This does not mean that after hearing we step in with our own natural powers and do that Word (“my words,” the plural, presenting its parts).
That we may do with human words that please us; we act upon them by our own powers. But in regard to all truly spiritual requirements we are dead and lifeless, unable to respond to them. The words of Jesus meet this situation; they are spirit and life, carry their own power with and in them, and thus move and enable us to do what they say. This is their normal effect.
To do the words of Jesus in and by the power which they themselves bestow means far more than outward compliance with certain requirements and regulations. That would call for no such power, for that would only repeat the folly of the scribes and Pharisees, the old error of work-righteousness. To do the words of Jesus is to let them bring forth in us the result described in v. 20, i. e., to bestow upon us the kingdom of God. This is done by working in us repentance and faith in the gospel (Mark 1:15). The essential doing is faith (John 6:29, 39, 40; John 3:23). Then there will of itself follow the true evidence of repentance and faith which is also indicated in the beatitudes and in the body of the sermon. To do the words of Jesus means to have faith, including contrition, the confidence of the heart (conversion, regeneration), and the new obedience, and all these in the power of the grace that comes to us in his words (the Word) as the divine means of grace.
Luke 6:48
48 To whom is every such man like? To a man engaged in building a house, who dug and went deep and placed a foundation, not on the earth or sand of the soil, but on the πέτρα, the rock bottom underlying the soil (πέτρος would be only a boulder). It is not said that his house was grand or more beautiful than the house which the other man built; the point is that it rested on the solid rock beneath. The idea is that of a stone house even as Palestine today has its cheapest houses built of stone, which is so abundant there.
The reason for carrying the foundation down to bedrock now appears. A flood came, the river rose and swirled about that house, broke against it but had not the strength even to shake it, to say nothing of washing it away. It rose up from bedrock as though it were a part of it. The chief point is once more stated: “on account of having been built well,” διά with the perfect passive infinitive (R. 909), which does not have the reduplication here (R. 365). The variant reading merely substitutes Matthew’s clause. But note that the rock receives all the credit for saving the house.
It is natural to seek the counterparts of the figurative terms used. It is best to let the house represent the man’s life. He built and founded his life on the words of Jesus, and these words are “the rock” (the article occurs already in the first mention). The rock is objective; hence we do not take it to be “doing the words,” for “doing” is subjective. In λόγοι the substance is referred to; hence we may say the rock is God in his Word and grace, Deut. 32:15, 18; Ps. 18:2; Isa. 17:10; or Christ himself, Isa. 28:16; Rom. 9:33; 1 Pet. 2:6; 1 Cor. 3:11. It is best to let the flood and the river refer to the supreme ordeal of death and not merely to the indecisive trials that occur in this life.
One of these may wreck a life that is not built on the rock, yet again it may not. Death alone is all-decisive.
Luke 6:49
49 Only a slight change, and the outcome is the very opposite. But he who heard and did not do is like a man that built on the earth without foundation; against which the river broke, and immediately it fell in, and the ruin of that house was great.
Everything is now the reverse. In the case of the first man the present participles describe him in the act of hearing and doing Jesus’ words; but in the case of this second man the participles are aorists, also that regarding his work of building, to say that the thing was definitely done—he was done with the hearing, he decided and was done with the decision not to do what he had heard, and so he was like the man who was done with his building—his house rested on nothing but the earth and was without foundation, one that reached down to something solid. It was easier to build that way; many others did the same thing. Their houses may have been grand and may have stood as long as sunny days lasted and no flood danger threatened.
“The earth” (Matthew: “the sand”) is just as definite as “the rock,” and we may define: all teachings and doctrines that are not the words of Jesus. “All other ground is sinking sand.” Some of these earth and sand sites, which are constantly sold by the real estate agents who are mentioned in Matt. 7:15, are extremely attractive and popular: merely hearing the Word by church attendance; regarding the righteousness that God requires as being only civil righteousness, a moral life according to the world’s approval; omitting true contrition and relying on historical faith; modernistic faith which emasculates the gospel; etc. These earth sites are sometimes quite near the rock, and the houses built on them seem to be pretentious. Some of the preliminary floods of adversity and the moderate winds of trouble may be safely endured, which enhances the false feeling of security; of course, already these slighter tempests sometimes cause a sad wreck among the houses on the earth. That is a good thing if it serves to expose the folly of the undertaking and drives men to seek the rock.
But the supreme test is the final flood of death, which is described only by a relative clause: “against which the river broke,” this river again occurs with the article and is made as definite as the rock and the earth. No more needs to be said, that breaking of the river on the house is enough. “Immediately it fell in,” it did not stand for even a short time. The earth washed out swiftly, and down came the house. Jesus feels the tragedy and wants us to feel it likewise when he adds: “and the ruin of that house was great,” collapsing, as it did, all at once with a grinding crash.
With this statement Jesus closed his great sermon. Did a hush fall over the hundreds that had been hanging on his lips? Did they look to him to add something more, to close, perhaps, as he had begun, with the word “blessed”? As the silence deepened, and all understood that the last word had been spoken, that mighty final warning must have been intensified. Who would build to end in such a ruin?
R. A Grammar of the Greek New Testament in the Light of Historical Research, by A. T. Robertson, fourth edition.
B.-D. Friedrich Blass’ Grammatik des neutestamentlichen Griechisch, vierte, voellig neugearbeitete Auflage besorgt von Albert Debrunner.
B.-P. Griechisch-Deutsches Woerterbuch zu den Schriften des Neuen Testaments, etc., von D. Walter Bauer, zweite, etc., Auflage zu Erwin Preuschens Vollstaendigem Griechisch-Deutschem Handwoerterbuch, etc.
M.-M. The Vocabulary of the Greek Testament, Illustrated from the Papyri and other Non-Literary Sources, by James Hope Moulton and George Milligan.
C.-K. Biblisch-theologisches Woerterbuch der Neutestamentlichen Graezitaet von D. Dr. Hermann Cremer, zehnte, etc., Auflage, herausgegeben von D. Dr. Julius Koegel.