Luke 9

CHAPTER IX

Luke 9:1

1 Luke has not preserved the connection of time, neither has Mark 6:7, etc. Jesus is sending the Twelve out two by two on a preaching tour. The instructions Jesus gave for this tour are identical, as far as they go, with the directions Jesus gave in his far more comprehensive address to the Twelve at the time of their appointment as apostles. That great address (Matt. 10:5, etc.) included their entire future work as apostles. It is likely that Jesus repeated those former directions when they were now to make their first independent tour. Now having called together the Twelve, he gave to them power and authority over all the demons and to heal diseases. And he commissioned them to herald the kingdom of God and to cure the sick.

The observation may be correct that, although they had been appointed as apostles, all of the Twelve were not always in the immediate company of Jesus, especially in Capernaum where at least five of the Twelve had their own homes, and where Jesus, too, had his. “Called together” may thus imply a summons to some who were absent at the time.

Luke states merely the fact of the gift of power and authority over the demons together with that of healing diseases (unarticulated: diseases of any kind). Jesus equips them with power that is similar to his own, but their power was derived from him, his was inherent in himself. To δύναμις there is added ἐξουσία, the right and the ability to wield the power. They could thus drive out demons and heal diseases. Demoniacs are discussed in 4:33. These powers were the credentials with which Jesus sent out his disciples. They were the more effective because all people had heard about the miracles of Jesus, and these works of the apostles were the evident continuation of his miracles.

Luke 9:2

2 First the important credentials, then the great commission itself, namely “to herald the kingdom of God,” to shout out like a herald the coming of the divine rule of grace in the Messiah and the manner in which this rule enters and saves men’s souls. On the kingdom see 4:43 and note that κηρύσσειν is the word for preaching, simply announcing in public the message that has been committed to us as heralds of Jesus, neither adding, changing, or subtracting in any way by any wisdom of our own. Part of this apostolic mission consisted in curing the sick, the participle denoting the weak condition that was due to any ailment whatever. By ἰᾶσθαιτοὺςἀσθενοῦντας Jesus means that to their herald’s message the apostles are to add as the divine seal this curing of all those who are weakened by ailments (demoniacs and diseased, v. 1).

Luke 9:3

3 And he said to them: Take nothing for the road, neither a staff, nor a pouch, nor bread, nor silver; neither have two tunics. And into whatever house you enter, there remain and from there keep going out. And as many as do not welcome you, on going out from that city shake off the dust from your feet for a testimony against them.

The orders which Jesus issues to the apostles are to teach them absolute dependence upon their Lord who sends them out. They are to take nothing along for the road because Jesus will see that they are provided for. After this lesson had once been thoroughly learned, they would be ready for their world-wide mission so that, whether they had something with them or not, their dependence on their Lord would always be the same. When Mark writes nothing “except a staff,” this is not a contradiction with Matthew and Luke who write nothing, “neither a staff,” ῥάβδος, which is used by all three. The two latter mean: no new staff is to be provided just as no new sandals and no other new equipment were to be bought, Matt. 10:10.

The disciples are to go as they are with such garments, sandals, walking sticks (the word does not mean “club”) as they have. The apostles are not to take even a pouch along in which to carry bread or other supplies, and no bread, that would require a pouch, and no silver (carried in the belt) with which to buy bread, etc. Both the phrase “for the road” and the position of πήρα before bread and silver and in Mark between them exclude Deissmann’s idea (Light from the Ancient East, 108) that a mendicant’s bag for collecting alms is referred to by this word. Jesus and the disciples never traveled as mendicants and beggars, and the thought of the apostles doing so on this tour is thus far from the mind of Jesus and called for no prohibition on his part.

The disciples are not to put on (Mark) and thus to have an extra tunic, the garment worn next to the body and under the outer robe; one tunic is enough. The infinitive has the force of an imperative, see R. 1092. Travelers often had two or more tunics, not only in order to have a change but also to wear as a protection against the cold. These orders are not intended to inflict hardship on the disciples but to relieve them of all worry regarding their bodily needs. He who sends them out will himself attend to all these things. We know, too, just how this tour turned out in this respect, 22:35.

Other employers may rob their workers or let them shift for themselves, Jesus never does so. He may seem to have nothing, but everything is at his command. The Twelve are to learn this by actual experience, which is better than to learn it by hearing alone.

Luke 9:4

4 To the directions “for the road” there are added those for their lodging places. On entering a town or village and preaching there some man, being won by the message, will likely invite the two heralds to his house. Now whatever kind the house may be, even if it is very poor, “there continue to remain” (present imperative), Jesus says. The next imperative is again the present tense, this time it is iterative: “and from there keep going out,” namely day by day as long as you stay and work in that town. The apostles are not to shift from one house to another as if the first were not good enough for them, as if they sought a house which offered them better food and more comfortable accommodations.

Luke 9:5

5 Suppose no one welcomes them, what then? The nominative clause is suspended (R. 437) and not incorporated into the sentence but serves only as the antecedent of ἐπʼ αὐτούς. The plural “as many as do not welcome (receive) you” is indefinite and refers to all such cases, and there will be some. The apostles are not to force themselves on such people. Jesus takes it for granted that when his messengers find that they are really unwelcome they will simply leave, and he thus does no more than to tell them what they are to do on leaving, “on going out of that city.” They are then to “shake off the dust of their feet,” the aorist contemplates this as being one deliberate and momentary act. In walking dust would naturally gather in and on sandals.

There would thus be dust on the sandals of the apostles, some of it also from the city itself whose streets they had just walked. The act of shaking off this dust is highly symbolical, signifying that the feet of the heralds of Jesus have actually been in the place and now leave their dust “for witness against them,” to testify that the apostles were there but were forced to leave as unwelcome guests whose message was not believed and wanted. This act is sometimes, however, misinterpreted. It is unsatisfactory to call it an act of contempt for the city and the people; or to speak of the dust as defiling the apostles as that of heathen places did; or to say that the apostles will have absolutely nothing to do with the place; or to regard the act as equal to exclusion from the kingdom.

Luke 9:6

6 After these instructions had been given, the Twelve left in pairs. And going out they kept going through village by village, preaching the good news and healing everywhere. Luke’s description is summary and pictures the entire tour briefly. The imperfect διήρχοντο and its present participles are descriptive; κατά is distributive, “village by village.” Six pairs of men covered a great deal of territory in a short time.

Luke 9:7

7 Moreover, Herod, the tetrarch, heard all that was occurring and was perplexed because it was said by some, John did rise from the dead! and by some, Elijah did appear! and by others, Some prophet of the old ones did arise! But Herod said, John I myself did behead; but who is this, concerning whom I keep hearing such things? And he began seeking to see him.

It is the object of Luke to inform Theophilus that Jesus and what he was doing became so prominent at this time that even Herod Antipas (3:1, 19) discussed him and τὰγινόμεναπάντα, everything that was still in the process of occurring (note the singular perfect participle, which is similar to this present plural, in 8:34, 56). The imperfect διηπόρει describes Herod as continuing to be at a loss for a proper explanation of all these things that were occurring, especially the miracles and now also those that were being wrought by the apostles of Jesus. What caused his perplexity was what different courtiers stated as their opinion; διὰτό with the infinitive is causal, and the present infinitive indicates statements that were made whenever the question was brought up; and notice that ὑπό is not repeated with ἄλλων in v. 8.

Three opinions were voiced at court. The first that is listed by Luke may have had the most adherents: “John did rise from the dead.” The aorists are idiomatic in these opinions, and each states only the fact as being past; the English would use perfects: “has risen,” etc. We see that this opinion caught the attention of Herod especially (v. 9); he has no answer to the other opinions but has one for this opinion. It is remarkable that an opinion such as this should be voiced at Herod’s own court. Luke has not said so previously, but in v. 9 he states that John was dead at this time, having been beheaded by Herod, who had imprisoned him (3:19, etc.) and had held him in prison a while (7:16–35).

What made these men think that John had risen from the dead and was again walking the earth in the person of Jesus? Pure superstition, and this was induced by the secret evil conscience about the way in which John had been made away with—beheaded by Herod’s order on the occasion of his birthday celebration at the word of Herodias because their flagrant sins had been rebuked by John. Dissolute as this Herodian court was with such a queen at its head, conscience still stirred and saw in Jesus a spectral John who was now doing greater deeds than ever. Was this incongruous? Superstitions are always so.

Mark (6:14) writes that Herod himself said, “John, the one baptizing, has risen from the dead, and for this reason these works of power operate in him.” Even an interpreter like Zahn comes to the conclusion that Luke is directly contradicting this statement of Mark’s and that he has discovered Luke’s sources for this act, namely 8:3; Acts 13:1. Why is it necessary to find a contradiction between the evangelists? Zahn, for instance, not only fortifies the supposed contradiction; he declares that Herod, like other prominent Jews, did not believe in the resurrection. But this contradiction does not exist. Mark reports the final conviction of Herod in regard to Jesus, Luke reports what preceded that final conviction, namely Herod’s perplexity and his questioning about Jesus. From Luke we learn that Herod’s final conviction regarding Jesus was not his own but one which he got from his courtiers. Luke is not concerned about Herod’s opinion as such, his object is to state that Herod and his court were taking note of Jesus and were impressed by him.

The phrase ἐκνεκρῶν denotes separation and nothing more, R. 598. The absence of the article points to the quality of being dead and not to so many dead individuals who are left behind. The sense of the phrase is “from death.” In the interest of the doctrine of a double resurrection the meaning is said to be “out from among the dead.” This is untenable linguistically and doctrinally. When it is applied to the unique resurrection of Jesus, this is at once apparent; the idea is, not that he left the other dead behind, but that he passed “from death” to a glorious life. No wonder ἐκνεκρῶν is never used with reference to the ungodly. This phrase occurs 35 times with reference to Jesus, a few times figuratively with reference to other persons, and twice with reference to the resurrection of many, Mark 12:25; Luke 20:35, where the words can have no other meaning than they have in the other passages. Herod’s courtiers are, of course, speaking only of a return to this earthly life.

Luke 9:8

8 Others, however, explained that Jesus was Elijah come to life again and appearing to prepare for the Messiah, Mal. 4:5. And still others imagine that Jesus was “some prophet of the old ones” who was long dead and now back in life, but they declined to identify him. It is worth noticing that all three opinions that were voiced at Herod’s court necessitated a bodily resurrection. All of Herod’s court evidently believed in a resurrection, and Herod would have stood alone if he had been a skeptic on this point as is asserted regarding him. Let us note in this connection. that Judaism was so conversant with the resurrection that its faith in this fact made the Sadducees stand out as an unbelieving sect when they denied the possibility of the resurrection.

Luke 9:9

9 Herod rejects only the first opinion, for that touched him closely. He says that he himself had beheaded John—Luke’s only intimation of John’s death. It is unwarranted to understand Herod to mean that he knew that John was dead and could not be Jesus since there was no resurrection. For all the old prophets had most certainly been dead for centuries, and any denial of the resurrection would have made their return even more impossible than John’s, who had been killed only recently. What Herod means is that he knows John only too well, having himself beheaded John; but this Jesus does not seem to be John arisen—he must be somebody else—“who is this, concerning whom I keep hearing such things?” things that are so different from anything that John ever did. To satisfy himself he sought to get sight of Jesus; but this did not happen until 23:6–15. The fact that Herod, who was as superstitious as his court, finally also felt sure that Jesus was John risen again need not surprise us in the least.

Luke 9:10

10 And having returned, the apostles recounted to him in order what things they did do. And having taken them along, he withdrew privately toward a city called Bethsaida.

Like Mark (6:30), Luke also calls the Twelve “the apostles” after the return from their preaching tour (v. 1–9). The Gospels do not allow us to determine how long they were away. Jesus most likely fixed both the time and the place for their return. They then made a full report by recounting in order to the end (διά in the verb) all that they had done (the Greek is satisfied with the aorist). Jesus then takes them along and withdraws κατʼ ἰδίαν, “privately” (an idiomatic phrase). He has two reasons for a quiet, undisturbed conference with his disciples; Matthew reports the one (14:13), namely the news of John’s tragic death, Mark and Luke the other, the desire to confer in private with the apostles after their first experience in the work.

The entire context shows that εἰςπόλιν does not mean that Jesus withdrew privately “into a city called Bethsaida” but only “to” or “toward” this city. Mark (6:31) adds that Jesus selected a lonely place, τόποςἔρημος, uninhabited, and that he reached it by boat. This Bethsaida, where Jesus sought refuge, is otherwise called Julias and lies near the northeast corner of the lake, not far from the entrance to the Jordan, and must be distinguished from the other Bethsaida which is located on the west side of the lake, not far from Capernaum. It is the latter on which Jesus pronounced his woe (10:13; Matt. 11:21); it was the home of Philip, Andrew, and Peter, John 1:44. It is this Bethsaida toward which the disciples were ordered to sail after the feeding of the 5, 000 (Mark 6:45). Efforts are made to establish the fact that there was only one city of this name, but this upsets the records.

Luke 9:11

11 But the multitudes learned it and followed him. And having welcomed them, he ‘went on to speak to them concerning the kingdom of God, and those having need of healing he went on to cure.

Luke is very brief. He says nothing about the journey by boat on the part of Jesus and the Twelve or about the crowds’ running along the shore around the northern end of the lake and finally arriving at the place where Jesus was. It is enough for him that the crowds again appeared. So all that Luke says is that Jesus welcomed them. If this seems strange, first fleeing from the crowds and then welcoming them after all, Mark 6:34 explains that this was due to his compassion, the people appeared to him like shepherdless sheep. And so he cut short his time for private conversation with the Twelve and once more devoted himself to the service of these people; this is the force of the imperfect tenses.

Luke names the preaching first because it is the more important, but he surely first healed the sick. And his subject, as always, was περὶτῆςβασιλείαςτοῦΘεοῦ (see 4:43), some important parts of the great theme, “the kingdom of God.”

Luke 9:12

12 Now the day began to decline; and having come forward, the Twelve said to him, Dismiss the multitude in order that, having gone into the villages and farms around, they may lodge and may find supplies; because here we are in a desert place.

We turn to John 6:5–7 at this point. When Jesus first stepped out from his retirement on the mountainside he put the question to Philip about buying bread for all these people. Jesus did this in advance in order to test out one of his disciples. Already then Jesus knew what he would do when evening would approach. But all that Jesus got from Philip was the statement that it would take more money than they had in their treasury to provide even a very little for so many people. There was not an inkling that Philip remembered Cana or thought about miraculous help from Jesus in any way.

Disappointed in Philip, Jesus descends to the multitude, heals the sick, and teaches about the kingdom until “the day began to decline”—as if he were all unconcerned about the needs of the people and the passing of the time. The question put to Philip was evidently asked so that he would report to the other apostles, and thus all of them would think about it as the hours wore on. They did that, but we see at what conclusion they arrived.

When the day began to decline, the disciples could stand the pressure no longer. In spite of all that Jesus had said to Philip at the start, no thought such as Jesus desired had come to them. They come to Jesus in a body after evidently having talked the matter over among themselves. One, their spokesman, tells Jesus what he seems to be forgetting entirely, that he must let the people go and hold them no longer. The dative κύκλῳ is used as an adverb, and καταλύσωσι is ausspannen, to unyoke animals and thus to take up one’s quarters. “Because here we are in a desert place” reminds Jesus gently that he is now not in a city but in the uninhabited, inhospitable wilderness, within reach only of scattered villages and farms (this is the sense of the plural ἀγροί).

Luke 9:13

13 But he said to them, Do you give them to eat! But they said, We have not more than five bread-cakes and two fishes unless, after going out, we ourselves buy eatables for all the people. For there were about five thousand men.

Astonishing reply to these dull-witted men, yet wholly transparent! If they are to give food to this tremendous multitude when there is no food in their possession, then Jesus must mean that they, the Twelve, have a source of supply that they have so far wholly overlooked. We see how Jesus is trying to lead his disciples to think of his almighty power and to place their reliance on him, on his wisdom and on his thoughtful care. But despite a hint as broad as this command for them to furnish the food, they remain in the dark.

Luke abbreviates the account by combining the statement about the five bread-cakes and the two fishes with the proposition of buying supplies for so many. Both statements show how impossible it is that they, the disciples, can give the crowd food to eat. What can they do with only these bits of food on hand? “What are they among so many?” John 6:9. The Greek uses the plural ἄρτοι, “breads,” the flat cakes of bread that were baked so commonly at that time; the translation “loaves” should not lead us to think of our thick modern loaves.

Equally hopeless is the only other alternative, that of their buying (emphatic ἡμεῖς) βρώματα, foods, for this mass of people. Philip had already told Jesus that the 200 denarii in their treasury would never buy enough even for each person to take only a little. And where should they do the buying, and how should they carry the food if the impossible became possible and they found enough food? If Jesus is contemplating either of these two alternatives, the Twelve assure him that neither is possible—and Jesus should have thought of that earlier in the day. Never for a moment do the Twelve think beyond what they with their resources might be able to do. To show how right they were in their judgment Luke adds that the ἄνδρες or “men” alone were about 5, 000.

14, 15) But he said to the disciples, Make them lie down in groups about fifty by fifty; and they did so and made them all recline.

Jesus is through parleying with the disciples. He proceeds to work the miracle without saying another word. What the disciples thought when Jesus suddenly gave them his command is left to our imagination. Thousands are asked to get ready to dine—and what is there to dine on? Was ever such an order issued in all the world? The Jews reclined at table, stretched out on couches, several to a broad couch, and each rested on his left elbow.

In the active the verb means “to make recline,” and here it has the cognate accusative plural κλισίας, “groups reclining,” and ἀνά is distributive: “about 50 by 50.” In this way the estimate of about 5, 000 men was made. “They did so” is added by Luke because the command was so incomprehensible to the disciples. They raised no objection but went ahead and made all lie down in orderly groups. It was near the Passover season (John 6:4) a year before Jesus’ death; hence the open spaces were covered with green grass, which made an ideal place for dining in the open; this grass would dry up later on.

Luke 9:16

16 What a picture—these thousands arranged ready to dine, and only a handful of food to set before them! But having taken the five bread-cakes and the two fishes, after looking up to the heaven, he blessed them and broke them and went on giving to the disciples to place before the multitude. And they did eat and were filled all; and there was taken up what was superfluous, twelve baskets of broken pieces for them.

The story of the miracle is simplicity itself and is so graphically told that comment is hardly necessary. The subsidiary actions are expressed by participles, which makes the main actions stand out the more. The five flat cakes and the two fishes were easily held while the blessing was being pronounced. The act of looking up to heaven was a common attitude while standing in prayer. The idea that Jesus first had to have God’s consent and help and by looking up to heaven asked for it, misunderstands not only this miracle but all of them. Jesus dare not be reduced to the level of the prophets and the apostles who were dependent on God. Jesus wrought all of his miracles by his own will and power, that will and that power which reside equally in all the three persons.

All three synoptists have εὐλόγησε, “he spoke a blessing,” which John defines as giving thanks. This must have been the usual grace before a meal. If the words were unusual, one or the other of the four evangelists would surely have at least intimated that fact. The miracle was not wrought by the words but, to be precise, by the will of Jesus. After the blessing Jesus broke the bread in pieces. Luke, like Mark, has the compound verb which describes more graphically what Jesus did, namely make pieces for handy distribution.

And after the aorists, and thus in contrast to them, Luke, like Mark, writes the imperfect ἐδίδου, “he continued to give to the disciples,” and thereby indicates the miraculous multiplication of the bread in Jesus’ hands. There were always more pieces to break off; the bread grew in Jesus’ hands. Jesus gave the pieces to the disciples who were to place them before the people. They had the task of being the waiters at this miraculous meal. This is all that Luke says about the miracle itself. An uninspired writer would have multiplied words. A divine restraint held the holy writers in check so that they let the facts speak for themselves.

Luke 9:17

17 By reversing the order of the subject and the verbs both receive strong emphasis: “They did eat and were filled—all!” There was not one but ate and was filled. The verb χορτίζειν is really coarse, it is used with reference to animals who are fed to capacity with grass (χόρτος) or fodder. No stinting here as when Philip thought of each person’s getting but a little. These people had come a long way and had had little or nothing to eat all day and so were certainly real hungry. Moreover, pieces of bread and of fish were left over. Some people always take too much. They did so here; some took pieces from the disciples of which they could eat not even a bite, being so completely filled. Jesus intends that none of his gifts shall be wasted. This miraculous food was not to be thrown away.

We assume that Jesus gave the order to take it up (αἴρω). Matthew has the neuter present participle, Luke the neuter aorist of περισσεύω: “what was superfluous,” the aorist just stating the fact, the present describing it. Another marvel: more was left than was there at the start, no less than “twelve baskets of broken pieces for them,” κόφινοι, such as travelers used to carry food and necessities, which were used by the disciples when they were acting as waiters in distributing the food. Twelve baskets: one for each of the Twelve, none for Jesus, which means that he who had created all this bounty made an opportunity for the Twelve to share their abundant portions with him. From all that he gives to you, you are privileged to give a little back to him. What were the feelings of the Twelve when, as the dusk approached, they finally reclined around Jesus with all those full baskets before them?

Luke 9:18

18 It came to pass while he was praying alone there were with him the disciples. And he inquired of them, saying, Who are the multitudes saying that I am? And they answering said, John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and others, that some prophet of the old ones did arise.

Luke begins this new, important account with his frequently used, old-style formula for “while,” ἐντῷ with the infinitive, here the periphrastic εἶναιπροσευχόμενον (see 1:8). Neither the time nor the place are specified, thus no connection with what precedes is indicated. So from Matthew we add the detail that Jesus was near Caesarea Philippi, and from Mark that he was somewhere on the road, Luke completes this by speaking of his continuing in prayer by himself although his disciples were with him, and nobody but they. To construe κατὰμόνας with συνῆσαν makes it entirely too emphatic in the Greek. John 6:66, etc., shows that Jesus had reached the critical period of his career in Galilee. The importance of what Jesus now does with his disciples appears from the fact that he prays before he proceeds. We may be sure that he prayed for his disciples that their faith and their confession might be true.

Then the moment came when he made his formal request to say whom men declared him to be. This question is plainly preliminary. Jesus is not asking for information for himself, for he knows the different opinions of men. What he intends is to have his disciples state the wrong opinions of men in order to set over against them their own right conviction. These foolish opinions he does not care even to discuss; the disciples themselves will brush them aside.

Luke 9:19

19 We have already met these opinions and discussed them in connection with v. 7, 8. But we should note that all three leave Jesus a mere man and thus resemble the opinions of the rationalists and their descendants, the modernists.

Luke 9:20

20 But he said to them, But you, who do you say I am? And answering Peter said, The Christ of God!

This is the main question with its emphasis on ὑμεῖς over against οἱὄχλοι. Jesus is asking for an open confession from his disciples. With λέγετε he asks for a confession of the lips but, of course, only as a true expression of their heart’s conviction. Any other confession is falsehood. Jesus could see the heart, we cannot and must thus accept the confession of the lips. Our only aid is the conduct, the acts of the individual, the practice of a congregation or of a church body. This, too, is a confession and should harmonize fully with the confession of the lips. When it clashes with that, the confession by deeds is the real confession by which we must judge. Deeds and practice always speak louder and are more weighty than words.

It is natural for Peter, because of his readiness for action and his quickness to assume the lead, to speak for the Twelve who undoubtedly indicated or voiced their assent to what he said. Luke records Peter’s words only briefly but absolutely to the point. ΤὸνΧριστὸντοῦΘεοῦ is the accusative to agree in case with τίναμεεἷναι. The answer ὁΧριστός (on which see 2:11) is the appellative, namely a title: “the Christ,” the Messiah or Anointed One, i. e., whom God anointed (3:22) and inaugurated into his great office. “Of God” is thus the subjective genitive. The conviction that Jesus was the Messiah who had been promised in all the Old Testament revelations drew disciples to Jesus, beginning with the Baptist’s assurance recorded in John 1:32–34 and with the faith of the first six who attached themselves to Jesus as recorded in John 1:41, 45, 49. More than two years of constant intercourse with Jesus had only deepened and fully established this conviction.

All those who are included in οἱὄχλοι, however highly they were willing to rate Jesus, refused to see in him “the Christ,” and it is over against this refusal that Peter sets his confession that Jesus is the Christ. This confession is thus most emphatic, without qualification, brief, and decisive. Men had a false, a political conception of what the Messiah was to be; no wonder they could see no more in Jesus than that he might be the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet risen from the dead. By rejecting these false notions the Twelve showed that they had the true conviction regarding the Christ, the one of the Old Testament promises, the one who had appeared in the person of Jesus. Yet others besides the Twelve had this conviction. They are not brought in here because Jesus is dealing with the Twelve in a special manner.

Luke abbreviates the incident; see Matt. 16:17, etc. This is done because the announcement of the Passion is to follow at once.

Luke 9:21

21 But he with rebuking charged them to say this thing to no one, stating, It is necessary that the Son of man suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and high priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised up.

One great task had been accomplished: the disciples had been brought to a full realization of the divine person of Jesus as Peter had just voiced this conviction for the Twelve. Another task had to be completed: the disciples had to be made to realize the redemptive work that Jesus was about to conclude. Although Luke has not preserved these instances in the first portion of his Gospel, Jesus had spoken about this work in a veiled way and now at last speaks out in the plainest terms. Over two years ago, behind the temptation after the forty days of fasting Jesus saw the shadow of the cross. When he cleansed the Temple the first time he spoke of the temple of his body which the Jews would destroy and he would raise up. To Nicodemus he said: “The Son of man must be lifted up.” But the time for plainer language had now come.

According to Mark 8:31 Jesus did not just tell, he taught his Passion to the disciples. They had confessed him as “the Christ of God.” They are to draw no false conclusions from his deity and Messiahship such as they were only too much inclined to draw because of the vain Jewish hopes that were still lurking in their hearts. Though Jesus is the Messiah of God, no golden, glorious, refulgent earthly kingdom and grandeur lie ahead but the very opposite. It would be extremely bad for the disciples to spread about the report that Jesus was the Messiah. The very word “Messiah” meant political and nationalistic domination to Jewish ears. Jesus avoided this word and used it but once, in Samaria (John 4:25). And so even “with rebuking” (ἐπιτιμήσας, indicating action that is simultaneous with that of the main verb) he forbids his disciples to say anything about his being the Messiah.

Luke 9:22

22 Note the exceptional εἰπών (aorist) and not the ordinary descriptive λέγων (present). Jesus is making a specific statement. All that awaits Jesus is a necessity. Δεῖ expresses all types of necessity, here evidently what the gracious will and counsel of God made necessary in the mission of Jesus. These things “must” take place (δεῖ is often translated “must”), and Jesus himself wills that they shall, for without them he could not ransom the world. Luke has shown us something of the opposition that Jesus had aroused (5:18, etc., also v. 30; 6:1, etc.). Even now Jesus is keeping to the far borders of the country (Caesarea Philippi at this time) on account of that opposition.

But Jesus now reveals clearly to his disciples that this opposition will triumph. In fact, Jesus himself will go to Jerusalem (Matt. 16:21) and place himself, as it were, in the hands of his worst enemies. Not in some far-off corner would he be arrested by the authorities, he himself would go to the capital. Jerusalem would be the place of his sacrifice (13:33). There he would “suffer many things,” παθεῖν a constative aorist that includes in one all the suffering, πολλά still leaves a veil over the details. See 5:24 on “the Son of man.” Jesus knew what these “many things” were.

The prophets had foretold them in their terribleness (Isa. 53; Ps. 22), and Jesus knew even more fully just what was included. Despite their number their severity would not be lessened. In the many things Jesus was to suffer we may well see the reflection of the many sins he bore, which, in his great Passion hymn on the thorn-crowned head of Christ, Paul Gerhardt likens to the grains of sand upon the seashore.

The verb ἀποδοκιμάζω means to reject after submitting to a test. Inferior or spurious coins were carefully tested and then rejected. Jesus will be rejected by no less an authority than the Sanhedrin, the highest judicial and religious tribunal of the nation, which was far more representative than the high priest alone. Jesus gives the body its full name: “the elders and high priests and scribes.” In ordinary connections it was enough to mention only two classes.

“The elders” were the old, experienced men of the nation who had served as judges in the lower courts and, due to their prominence, had risen to membership in the highest court. “The high priests” were members of the ruling high priest’s (Caiaphas) family; they were the rich Sadducees and highly influential. “The scribes” were the experts in the interpretation of the Old Testament and of the rabbinical tradition, and the most prominent sat in the Sanhedrin. We do not know how many of each class there were, or whether the proportion was fixed, but the court consisted of seventy-one judges.

The naming of the Sanhedrin as the court to make the rejection points to a trial for a capital offense and to a formal condemnation to death. So Jesus adds the terrible word: “and be killed.” This is certainly plain although Jesus still withholds mention of the scourging, the mockery, the mode of death, etc., for the disciples cannot bear all these things at once. The mention of the Sanhedrin points to a judicial killing, but ἀποκτανθῆναι means only “to be killed” in the sense of to be put out of the way (ἀπό), murdered, robbed of life. It suggests no thought of justice on the part of the Jewish tribunal but, in connection with the preceding παθεῖν, the gravest kind of injustice: judicial murder.

Jesus is brief in this first formal announcement. He is like one who is breaking a piece of terrible news to his dearest friends. The shock cannot be avoided, but it is softened as much as possible. The very thought of seeing their beloved Master, whom they had just confessed as the Christ of God, a bleeding, murdered victim of the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem must have overwhelmed the disciples—and not only because of their love, attachment, and high hopes but also because of their conception of the Messiah, which included the very opposite of suffering and being killed, namely earthly grandeur and triumph.

Yet glory and triumph, though of a far higher kind, are included, namely his resurrection “on the third day.” Matthew and Luke write ἐγερθῆναι, the passive “be raised up,” whereas Mark has ἀναστῆναι, the active “rise up” from death. The passive may, indeed, be taken in the active sense but hardly here after the two preceding passive verbs. Both are true: Jesus arose, and he was raised up by God, for the opera ad extra sunt indivisa aut communa. Jesus uses only the one word and says nothing further concerning the glorification that is connected with his resurrection. Any true conception of this stupendous act was at this time beyond the comprehension of the disciples. It was enough for them to hear that Jesus would not remain in death but be brought back to life as the Messiah. “On the third day” is so important because it foretells the exact time.

Jesus would be raised up, not at some indefinite future time, but definitely on the third day after his death. Jesus sees the future with direct vision. None of the prophets had specified three days; all that the Old Testament has on this point is the analogy of Jonah’s stay in the belly of the great fish.

Luke reports nothing about the effect of this announcement on the disciples, Matthew and Mark record Peter’s effort to dissuade Jesus from his Passion—what Jesus had said about his resurrection was lost on him, which showed how clouded his conception of the Messiah’s career was. Unbelieving criticism to this day denies both the prophecy which Jesus utters and the fulfillment that is recorded by all the evangelists and was preached by all the apostles. These critics allow the death but stumble at the glorious resurrection.

Wholly untenable is the supposition of others who are less radical, that Jesus did not speak as plainly as the evangelists record his statement, but that these wrote as they did on the basis of their later knowledge, especially about his being raised up on the third day. Only in this way, they think, the reluctance of the disciples to believe the Easter news of the resurrection can be properly explained. But Peter’s effort to keep Jesus from his Passion shows conclusively that the disciples fastened on this alone and failed to heed the word about the resurrection. The last discourses of Jesus as they are recorded by John in extenso make this still plainer. It is one thing to sit in a cool study today and to rationalize on the reactions of the disciples and quite another thing to pass through the terrible experience of the disciples when their Master was crucified and then buried in the tomb. All the preceding assurances that he would rise again on the third day were lost in the night of the calamity that engulfed them.

Luke 9:23

23 Moreover, he went on to say to all, If one wills to come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross day by day and go on following me.

Luke registers a break and starts anew with the descriptive ἔλεγε which bids us contemplate what is now said. “To all” includes also the multitude (Mark 8:34), for whereas the announcement of the Passion was intended for the Twelve alone, the principles of the new life are to be heard by all. Peter has tried to turn Jesus from his Passion, but Jesus’ course is fixed, and he says nothing more about that. We note that his words involve all that precedes concerning himself, namely that he is the Christ of God (v. 18–20) and must be killed and raised up again (v. 22). Whoever would belong to this Messiah must do what Jesus now says. The statement is universal and without exception (τίς, anyone). The condition is one of reality; Jesus is thinking of one who does so will. Θέλει is more than “wishes,” “desires,” or “would” (R.

V.), it is “wills” (A. V.) or “decides,” the will forming a continuous volition (R. 878).

“To come after or behind me” means to attach oneself to Jesus as a disciple; but the thought is deepened: to follow as a disciple of this Messiah who is going into death and the following resurrection. “Christ does not pull his sheep by a rope; in his army are none but volunteers.” E. Frommel. Jesus knows of no irresistible grace but only of the grace which draws the will and wins it for himself. And this grace excludes no one—τίς is like a blank space into which you are invited to write your name, no matter who you may be.

Whoever wills to come after Jesus, “let him deny himself,” ἀρνέομαι, to turn someone off, to refuse association and companionship with him, to disown. And the one who is here to be disowned and denied is ἑαυτός, SELF, and that means self altogether, not merely some portion, some special habit or desire, some outward practice. The natural, sinful self is meant as it centers in the things of men and has no use for the things of God. As Peter denied Jesus, saying, “I know not the man!” so must you say to this your self, “I disown you completely!”

This is not self-denial in the current sense of the word but true conversion, the very first essential of the Christian life. The heart sees all the sin of self and the damnation and the death bound up in this sin and turns away from it in utter dismay and seeks rescue in Christ alone. Self is thus cast out, and Christ enters in; henceforth you live not unto yourself but unto Christ who died for you. Moreover you can thus deny only one whom you know, a friend, for instance, by breaking off relations with him. To deny a stranger would mean nothing. If Jesus had been a stranger to Peter, Peter’s denial would have meant nothing. So you are to deny your very own old self and to enter the new relation with Christ.

This will mean that “he take up his cross” (αἴρειν). Jesus undoubtedly chose this figure because he was himself to be crucified. Although this was a Roman mode of execution it was known universally. Jesus will bear his cross, one which he alone can bear. Regarding his disciples he says that each is to bear his cross, i. e., the particular one allotted to him. This word has grown too familiar by constant use.

It is a mistake to call all our suffering a cross. The wicked have many sorrows (Ps. 32:10) but no crosses. The cross is that suffering alone which results from our faithful connection with Christ (6:22). And the intimation is that each disciple will have his share of this suffering. The thought grows overwhelming: Christ leads with his cross, and all his disciples, each loaded with his cross, follow in one immense procession like men who are being led away to be crucified. Paul carries the figure farther: they that are Christ’s have crucified the flesh (Gal. 5:24); and Paul himself is crucified with Christ (Gal. 2:20).

The earthly prospects of a disciple are not alluring. However heavy your cross may be, he helps you bear it after him.

So Jesus adds, “let him be following me,” and uses the usual word for the attachment of faith and faithfulness, which is quite the same as to come after him. Let no one think of changing the course of Jesus, which leads to the cross, but only of following him with his cross. Godet says that three things are necessary in traveling: first, to say farewell (to self); secondly, to carry one’s baggage (the cross); thirdly, to proceed with the journey (follow me). The only question is our will to make this journey. The first two imperatives are properly aorists, for to deny self and to shoulder the cross are momentary acts; but the third is present, for to follow is a long and continuous course of action. The distributive καθἡμέραν makes the definite taking up of the cross a daily act, which is punctiliar each time.

The two aorist acts are the preparation for the durative present act; and the three always occur in this order. We need hardly add that all three are impossible for us, for no human power is able to work conversion and the new life. Christ’s Word and work alone work both.

Luke 9:24

24 For whoever wills to save his life shall lose it; but whoever loses his life on account of me shall save it.

This is the reason (γάρ) for the preceding gospel commands. It is a warning and a promise combined. Its paradoxical form is sure to embed it in the memory. “Whoever wills to save his life” once more stresses the will; the decision is always made in this center of our personality. The verb σώζειν means not only to save by rescuing but in addition to preserve in a safe state. We note that ψυχή is neither exactly the English “life” or “soul” although we must choose the one or the other when translating (R. V. and the margin show the wavering).

We get little help from the observation that in the Semitic nephesh is used as the reflexive “himself” and is yet translated ψυχή in the Greek: “he that finds (loses) himself.” Nobody knows whether Jesus used nephesh, or whether he used it in this sense. We could be sure, as we are in the case of quotations, only when we have the original. In the present connection ψυχή faces in two directions; it animates the body (in fact, it always refers to the body) as its life and yet contains the ἐγώ and the πνεῦμα and is thus somewhat like our word “soul.” This will help us to understand what Jesus means.

To save one’s ψυχή is more than to keep it in the body so that the body remains alive; it is to keep safe the immaterial part of our being in which the ego dwells. Note the tenses, θέλῃ, the present to indicate a willing that continues and σῶσαι, the aorist to express a saving that is complete. This is the terrible folly of the man whose will it is to save his life, namely by not denying himself, taking up his cross, and following him: by this very volition of his he shall lose his psyche. By sparing himself this painful denial, this awful cross, he may enjoy every earthly delight and think himself safe, he has thereby really destroyed his very psyche, in which his person dwells: he shall lose it, it is doomed.

On the other hand, Jesus does not again say “whoever wills to lose his life,” for this willing is understood. He advances at once to the fact that this one “loses” (or we may render the subjunctive “shall lose”) his life and considers a case where this loss becomes actual and hence uses the aorist. This man may even become a martyr and lose not merely many earthly treasures and advantages but earthly existence itself. Does his case seem sad and deplorable? Far from it! In and by the very loss he shall save his psyche, find it safe and blessed with Christ and God.

But note the significant phrase, “on account of me” (Mark adds “and of the gospel”), which explains “his cross” in v. 23. This means on account of his faith in me and his faithfulness to me. On the one hand, the gain is only temporal and a delusion whereas the loss is irreparable; on the other hand, the loss is only minor whereas the gain is immense and eternal. We cannot have both, only one of the alternatives can be ours. Hence we have the urging in v. 23 to choose the right one. By making the alternatives so plain Jesus drives at the religious will which must follow the norm that prefers the real to the sham, the eternal to the temporal, and, when it does not follow this norm, must forever blame itself.

Luke 9:25

25 A second γάρ elucidates the reason just given for following Jesus. For what is a man benefited, having gained the whole world but having lost and forfeited himself?

We see what underlies the paradox stated in v. 24. To save the psyche means to secure for it as much as this world affords; and thus to lose the psyche means to forego what the world affords. Jesus supposes the absolute limit, that a man have secured for himself (κερδήσας, the aorist participle to express actuality) “the whole world”—actually all the world’s wealth, power, pleasure, glory, the beauty of all the fair things that ever graced the world, the sweetness of all the delicacies that ever grew in it, the grandness of all the high things that ever towered aloft on it, all sensations, all enjoyments, all achievements, all satisfactions. Such a thing is, of course, frankly impossible for any human being, and that is understood. But granting the impossible and for the moment accepting it as actual, in what is this man benefited (the present tense asks only about the fact) by thus having gained the whole world and at the same time having lost and forfeited his psyche, i. e., himself? The aorist participles again express actuality.

The question answers itself. Jesus is using the norm of the religious will, and using it so perfectly that only an irrational man would make the wrong choice, take the whole world and forfeit himself.

However, a man need not die to lose and to forfeit himself, for he does this already when he fails to secure salvation. The Jews are keen on finance—well, here is the whole matter reduced to a simple question of profit and loss. Write on the credit side of the ledger “the whole world” and then on the debit side “myself,” and not only is the profit nothing, the balance is all on the wrong side, a fatal and utter loss. Satan needs to pay no such price to buy men’s souls; all the bait he needs is a little piece of the world.

Luke 9:26

26 We come now to the final γάρ, which adds the ultimate elucidation, beyond which no reasoning can go, namely the final judgment. For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he shall come in his glory and that of his Father and of the holy angels.

“To be ashamed of Jesus” is one of the highly significant concepts of which Jesus presents so many. It means doing the opposite of what v. 23 bids, it means to deny Jesus, to prefer the world, to turn from him. Jesus combines “me and my words,” λόγοι, the substance of what he says. He and his words belong together and cannot be separated. These logoi are life, blessedness, salvation. They are the medium through which Jesus comes to our hearts, enables our hearts to receive him and to obtain all his heavenly blessings. To be ashamed of his words means not to believe and to accept them, to contradict them, and thus to nullify the blessed power of these words for the heart.

Τοῦτον emphatically takes up the description of the man as being one who is ashamed, etc. Against this word there is abutted “the Son of man,” he who is man and more than man and as both man and God the Messiah (see 5:24). These two shall face each other: he who was ashamed of the divine Lord and Savior and that Savior in all his glory. The ὅςἄν clause is indefinite: “whoever,” he to whom the description applies, and ἄν (ἐάν) with the subjunctive lends the note of expectancy, Jesus visualizes such a man and his action, expects that such men will be found. Hence he uses the positive future tense: “of this man the Son of man will be ashamed,” and it is the Son of man who himself declares what he will do.

Note the absolute justice in the declaration. The one act produces the other. What we sow we reap, for that is for what we sowed it. At the last day the Judge would be absolutely unjust and unfit to be the Judge if he acted in any other way. For him to be ashamed of a man means for him to deny that that man is one of his disciples, for him to disown and to reject. He who will not be a disciple certainly cannot be regarded as one by Jesus; he who thought it beneath him to follow Jesus certainly cannot be considered by Jesus as having done the opposite.

Many regard this threat lightly when they hear it, but it will be quite a different matter “when he shall come in his glory and that of his Father and of the holy angels.” To be disowned by the thrice-glorious Redeemer, disowned forever and ever, will reveal fully the folly of those who disown him and are ashamed of him and his words. All subjunctives are future, the aorist ἔλθῃ indicates the one future act of coming. What is said about the glory of Jesus to be manifested at that day should be added to his Passion and his resurrection mentioned in v. 22. The Son of man shall come in his own glory, that of his divine nature which is imparted to his human nature. When he spoke, his human nature, indeed, possessed the divine attributes and their glory, but it was still in the state of humiliation, unglorified but soon to be glorified (John 17:1, 5), rendered refulgent in its exaltation and enthronement in heaven.

The Father’s glory will accompany Jesus when he comes to judgment, and the glory of the holy angels will surround him, for these angels shall be his assistants on that day. The genitives are added to the one word “glory” because this is one glory that has a threefold radiance. This supreme glory is emphasized because it brings out the utter folly of being ashamed of Jesus and the loss of eventually having him to be ashamed of us. It is unwarranted to say that Jesus is speaking of himself, not as a judge, but only as a witness before God as the judge. But God is not mentioned thus in any way, and it is Jesus who comes, and it is his glory that includes even the Father’s and that of the angels and thus presents him as the Judge.

Luke 9:27

27 Moreover, I say to you of a truth, there are some of those standing here who shall in no way taste of death until they shall see the kingdom of God.

A new and a different point is added with δέ, and ἀληθῶς with λέγω make the affirmation especially strong. The perfect of ἵστημι, here the participle ἑστηκότων, is always used in the present sense: “of those standing here.” Some will, of course, die in the interval, but some will live to see what Jesus foretells. They shall not die before they have seen the kingdom of God. To taste of death refers to its bitterness, which remains even for the disciples of Jesus because they are still sinners. Not all these persons (τινές) are disciples as is often claimed. Jesus was speaking to “all” (v. 23), namely to the multitude (Mark 8:34), and some of these, too, some even who would never become disciples, would see what he states.

Luke writes, “until they shall see the kingdom of God”; Matthew (16:28), “till they shall see the Son of man coming in his kingdom”; and Mark, “until they shall see the kingdom of God having come in power.” All mean the same thing. Where the King, the Son of man, is, there is the kingdom, see 1:33. It is unwarranted to say that Luke went back to the simpler form of Matthew’s expression because in Mark the words “having come in power” were an effort to interpret this mysterious word of Jesus. This is to discredit both Mark and his authority, Peter, and has in view the wrong interpretation that Jesus is here, too, speaking of the end of the world. Jesus is speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem and of the final fate of the obdurate Jewish nation. He spoke of this in Mark 13:30 and in Matt. 26:64, and himself gave us the interpretation in Matt. 22:7 and in 23:38, 39.

Then the King came in his power (Mark) with judgment on the nation, a judgment that lasts to this day. It began with the war that started in the year 66 and ended in the year 70; 90, 000 Jews were sold into slavery, and the nation was abolished as a nation, never again to be a nation. This judgment also meant much for the kingdom of grace by marking the definite turning point in the gospel which transferred it from the obdurate Jews to the more receptive Gentiles. Moreover, the fulfillment of this preliminary prophecy concerning the Jews was to be a seal of fulfillment of that greater prophecy concerning the end of the world and the final judgment, when the kingdom would reach its consummation.

It is unwarranted to have Jesus say that the end of the world will come before some of his present hearers are dead, for Mark 13:32 assures us that even Jesus did not know when the end of the world would come. Because v. 26 speaks of the final judgment is no reason that v. 27 must do the same. Spiritualizing the coming of the kingdom is entirely out of place. The Parousia of Christ may be viewed in a narrow sense as referring to his coming at the end of the world but also in a wider sense as including the preliminary judgments, in particular that visited upon the Jews. The ordinary workings of the kingdom are invisible, but this judgment visited on the Jews should reveal the royal rule of Jesus before the eyes of some of the very people to whom Jesus was speaking at this moment. Against Zahn’s interpretation of this passage we quote his own words from his commentary on Matthew, page 673: “To say that Jesus erred in this and prophesied falsely appears, in view of the more detailed prophecies which separate more sharply the individual features of the picture of the future, to be just as foolish as if someone would call the Baptist a false prophet because the kingdom whose advent he preached was not realized at once as completely as he pictured and described its coming.”

Luke 9:28

28 Now it came to pass after these statements about eight days, having taken Peter and James and John, he went up into the mountain to pray.

This is a place where Luke gives us the connection of time by means of a parenthetic or pendant nominative, “about eight days,” yet he states it only in a general way—the exact interval was six days (Matthew and Mark)—and Luke chose this general way because all that he intends is to show that there was a connection even in time between the announcement of his Messiahship, Passion, etc., and the transfiguration. Jesus is preparing his disciples for the close of his earthly life and work. He is, indeed, the Christ of God (v. 20); he shall, indeed, be raised from the dead (v. 22), and he shall come to judge (v. 26) also this obdurate nation even in this generation (v. 27). The transfiguration casts its light on all these statements like a great shining seal of verity. We doubt very much that λόγους means “things” (R. 107 and Deissmann), for what precedes are statements that Jesus made, and it is with these statements as statements that Luke connects the transfiguration even as Jesus himself intended this connection. On ἐγέντοκαί plus a finite verb see 5:12.

The verb παραλαμβάνω means “to take to oneself,” “to take along.” Jesus selected the three whom he had chosen as witnesses once before (8:51), and they will be so distinguished at another time (Matt. 26:37). Only these three were to see and to hear what was now to be revealed, for the testimony of two or three witnesses is sufficient. The way in which Jesus takes them to this mountain height shows clearly that he knows in advance what will happen there. Since they believed and confessed the deity of Jesus these disciples were to see Jesus in the glory of the Son of God. In addition to all the evidences of his deity which they had already received he will now show himself to them transformed in actual heavenly glory. In 2 Pet. 1:16–18 Peter himself stresses the great revelation that was thus vouchsafed to him.

The attempts to identify the mountain, which is called high by the other synoptists, are quite futile. The traditional site is Mt. Tabor; but the records agree that Jesus was still near Caesarea Philippi, and one does not see how he could so soon be considerably south of even Capernaum. Some think of the slopes of the great Mt. Hermon, which, however, is entirely too far north. It is sufficient to think of one of the highest points in the mountainous region not far from Caesarea Philippi, where we know that Jesus was at this time (Mark 8:27).

Luke alone states that Jesus went here to pray, the aorist implies that his intention was carried out. So he prayed in v. 18. This prayer was similar and likely dealt with the same subject which was presently to be discussed between him and Moses and Elijah (v. 31) and with this glorification as part of the preparation.

Luke 9:29

29 And while he was praying, the appearance of his countenance became different, and his apparel white, dazzling. And lo, two men were talking with him, who were Moses and Elijah, who, having appeared in glory, were speaking of his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.

The transfiguration took place while Jesus was praying. It is gratuitous to assume that Jesus kneeled or was prostrate while praying, was transfigured in that position, and then arose when Moses and Elijah came. Ἐντῷ with the infinitive = “while,” see 1:8. The transfiguration was a transaction between the Father and his beloved Son incarnate, who always received everything from the Father. Jesus did not ask to be transfigured just as he did not ask to have the Spirit descend upon him as a dove. Knowing the Father’s intention, Jesus came up the mountain and brought along the needed witnesses. The body and the human nature of Jesus were glorified.

“The appearance of his countenance became different,” ἕτερον (R. 748), “it shone like the sun” (Matthew). All the aorists used in Matthew, Mark, and Luke (ἐγένετο) report facts, actual changes that occurred in Jesus himself and not something that was merely subjective, only in the eyes and the minds of the disciples. The natural explanations of rationalists that the rays of the sun lit up the face and the clothes of Jesus while he was standing on a higher elevation than the disciples are efforts to avoid accepting another miracle. When the disciples looked at the countenance of Jesus they looked at a refulgence that was as brilliant and dazzling as the sun itself. This extended to his entire form, for his very apparel (ἱματισμός, the word for sumptuous attire, which is chosen to express its new appearance) was “white, dazzling” (no connective: “dazzling white”), the participle ἐξαστράπτων describing it as flashing out (the simple verb is used with reference to the flashing of lightning). Mark says of the whiteness: “such as a fuller on earth is not able to whiten,” a whiteness that was altogether superearthly. Instead of thinking of the radiance on the face of Moses (Exod. 34:29; 2 Cor. 3:13), as some do, we have far more reason to think of John’s vision of Jesus in Rev. 1:13–15.

Philosophizing about this transfiguration is delusive. To offer the alternative, the transfigured body was either a donum superadditum or a donum naturale, brings in an old dogmatical distinction that applies to the image of God in the creation of man but is valueless when it is applied to the transfiguration. Peter writes (2 Pet. 1:16): “We were eyewitnesses of his majesty” (μεγαλειότης). John 1:14 adds: “We beheld his glory, glory as of the Only-begotten, from the Father.” It was the same body and human nature that the Virgin bore but in that birth joined to the nature and the person of the second person of the Godhead. By virtue of this union the human nature shared in the divine attributes but during the days of the humiliation used these attributes only on exceptional occasions as in the case of the performance of miracles. One of these occasions was the transfiguration when the whole body of Jesus was allowed to shine with the light and the splendor of its heavenly divinity.

Jesus now shines thus in heaven forever. Of the holy city (heaven) it is said: “The Lamb is the light thereof,” Rev. 21:23. The glory was thus not extraneous, glowing for a while and then being removed. It was the possession of Jesus when it shone out as well as when it was hidden.

The remarkable feature is that the earthly clothes of Jesus were transfigured like his countenance. It may sound learned to speak of a process that was operating from the spirit of Jesus upon his body, a process that was now so far advanced as to permit his divine spirit (he had only a human spirit!) to shine out through his body. The Scriptures know nothing of such a speculation. The disappearance of the glory of the transfiguration answers this supposition of a process and does it in spite of the explanation that this disappearance was only an element in the process and in the final result of permanent glorification yet to be achieved. Jesus came to his final glorification through no process between his spirit and his body or between his divine and his human natures. From his conception onward he was the very Son of God, and here on the mount his divine glory was permitted to shine out through his body for a little while. The time had come for a revelation such as this.

Luke 9:30

30 Even Luke, who is sparing in the use of interjections, exclaims “lo” when he notes that two men were engaged in conversation with Jesus in his transfigured form. The two verbs are imperfects because they denote continuance, and the first, συνελάλουν, refers only to the talking whereas ἔλεγον refers to the contents of their talk even as this verb also has its object τὴνἔξοδον. The relative οἵτινες seems to say a little more than does the next relative οἵ; it has qualitative force: “who were personages no less than Moses and Elijah.” The question is inevitable, “Why just these two?” The best answer seems to be: “Moses was the great representative of the law, Elijah the great representative of prophecy.” Both are outstanding figures in the Old Testament, and both represent prophecy as well as law. Moses stands at the head of Israel’s history, Elijah appeared when Israel had declined so that only 7, 000 remained who had not bowed to idolatry. The days of Elijah were like those which Jesus found when all the rulers and the great mass of the people had lost the true faith and had gone away far from God. The observation that the appearance of these two with Jesus intended to assure the disciples that the death of Jesus was in perfect accord with the Old Testament prophecies concerning the Messiah, may be accepted as correct; the disciples had other ideas and found his death a great skandalon.

Luke 9:31

31 The aorist passive ὀφθέντες, “having been seen,” is used intransitively, “having appeared,” namely having come to be visibly present. It is Luke who states that this was “in glory”; sent by God from heaven, they appeared in their heavenly radiance. As regards Jesus, Moses, and Elijah, their glorious appearance was in a form that was sufficiently subdued so that the earthly eyes of the disciples could behold it without being blinded. Speculation again introduces a spiritual process: the three disciples advanced in this process sufficiently to see this vision, meaning only an inward picture and certainly not actual, outward realities. The effort to make the whole scene subjective, taking place only in the consciousness of the disciples, is contradicted by all three synoptists.

Luke alone records the subject of the conversation with Jesus: “his departure which he was about to accomplish in Jerusalem.” The word ἔξοδος, which is used also with reference to Peter’s departure (2 Pet. 1:15), means more than the “decease” or death of Jesus (our versions), especially in this connection after the prophecy of both the death and the resurrection of Jesus (v. 22, plus the implications in v. 23–27). It denotes the entire “exodus” (Ausgang) by which Jesus left this earth, the sacrificial death plus the resurrection and the glorification. This was not an incidental subject of conversation but the supreme topic of even these exalted heavenly personages. They were now in glory like all the saints in heaven on the strength of this “departure” that Jesus was about to accomplish in Jerusalem (the imperfect of μέλλω with an infinitive to express something that will occur in the near future). All the saints in heaven looked forward to this accomplishment of Jesus. Redemption was intended for the universe of men, for the dead as well as for the living and those yet to live.

What was said in the conversation is not stated. But we may take it that Jesus and these prophets spoke of it as being something that they knew fully in detail and in effect.

Luke 9:32

32 But Peter and those with him had been weighed down with sleep; but on getting fully awake they saw his glory and the two men standing with him.

Luke alone has preserved this information. It is usually assumed that Jesus continued so long a time in prayer that the disciples fell asleep; but we really know only the fact of their sleeping and nothing more, especially also we do not know why their sleep should have been so heavy. Luke has the periphrastic past perfect to indicate that the change which took place in Jesus and the arrival of Moses and Elijah occurred while the apostles slept. Then, as the aorist participle indicates, they were all at once fully awake. The effect of διά in the participle may be either to be awake “through” something (R. V., margin, “having remained awake”) or to become thoroughly awake (ingressive); the latter must be the sense here. Then, indeed, they saw, εἷδον, with their wide-awake eyes actually saw “his glory,” saw “the two men standing with him.” The sight must have dumbfounded them, yet their eyes were in no way deceiving them.

The question is asked as to how the disciples recognized Moses and Elijah. Certainly not by the correspondence of their features and their dress to ideas that the disciples and the Jews had formed concerning their looks. Nor do we hear that the disciples had to wait until Jesus told them who these glorified men were. A far better answer is that the saints in heaven need not to be introduced and named to us but are known at once through an intuition that is wrought by God. If anything beyond that is needed, it is that when God makes a revelation he makes it fully by conveying to the beholder all that he is to know.

Elijah ascended bodily to heaven and thus undoubtedly appeared here in his glorified body. There is much speculation in regard to Moses. According to Deut. 34:5, 6 he died and his body was buried by God himself in an unknown place. We know of no transfer of his body to heaven. Only the soul of Moses has entered heaven. We brush aside the speculations that prior to the final resurrection the souls of the saints in heaven are temporarily clothed with some kind of a heavenly body; 2 Cor. 5:1, etc., furnishes no support for this view, for note v. 8, “absent from the body.” Like the angels, the saints in heaven have no bodies of any kind, yet when an angel is sent to men on earth he is seen and heard and does various acts. In the same way God sent Moses, who was both seen and heard and left again with Elijah.

Luke 9:33

33 And it came to pass as they were parting from him, Peter said to Jesus: Master, excellent it is for us to be here! And let us make three booths, one for thee and for Moses one and one for Elijah, he not knowing what he said.

On ἐγένετο plus a finite verb and on ἑν with an infinitive see 1:8. It is Luke who tells us that Peter spoke up as Moses and Elijah were in the act of taking their departure from Jesus. Note that the disciples were there only as witnesses, and no one had thus far spoken to them. Peter’s word sounds like an effort to keep Moses and Elijah from leaving although he dares to address only Jesus. What he says is valuable in one respect. He feels that it is καλόν to be here, and the simple positive “excellent” is more expressive than the comparative or superlative would be. “The positive represents the highest absolute idea of a quality and cannot therefore be increased,” quoted by R. 661.

Peter felt as if he and his fellow disciples were very near to heaven. Although they were filled with deep awe they knew themselves to be in the presence of heavenly glory in which Jesus was so unspeakably glorified in divine majesty (2 Pet. 1:16) and two dwellers of heaven were also “in glory.” It was Peter’s desire to prolong this experience. He practically asks that Moses and Elijah should remain. Hence we have his suggestion about the booths, one for each glorious person. The volitive subjunctive ποιήσωμεν is hortative (read R. 930, etc.), which asks the consent of Jesus and in the subject “we” includes Jesus in so far as he would be giving his assent. When Matthew writes the singular ποιήσω, “I will make,” etc., he shows what Peter meant, namely that he would manage the work.

Peter says nothing about any shelter for the disciples because he perhaps felt so humble that he and the other two disciples would lie out in the open. The idea that Peter is placing Moses and Elijah on the same level with Jesus and is thus introducing saint worship could not have entered Peter’s head. It is improper to make ἡμᾶς emphatic: “It is a good thing that we (the disciples) are here”—we can attend to building these booths for you. Since καλόν is impersonal, the subject of εἶναι must be written out. Since Peter is speaking to Jesus, “we” naturally includes him and not only the three disciples. Matthew writes “Lord,” Mark, “Rabbi,” but Luke his customary title, “Master,” Ἐπιστάτα (vocative, see 5:5). These titles are synonymous, each evangelist translates the Aramaic original in his own way.

“Not knowing what he said” (λέγει is retained from the direct discourse, R. 1030) explains that Peter was really talking foolishly, just babbling as it were. Forward Peter had to say something, and he was not in a condition to say anything and should have been silent like James and John. The foolishness lies in the idea that men who were in the glorified state would remain here on this unglorified earth and would need shelters for the night as ordinary men do. Mark explains further that the disciples were ἔκφοβοι, upset with fear, and that Peter thus babbled as he did. Therefore Jesus, too, gave him no answer at all, perhaps never even looked at him—other more important things were transpiring.

Luke 9:34

34 But he speaking these things, there came a cloud, and it overshadowed them; moreover, they became afraid when they went into the cloud. And there came a voice out of the cloud saying: This is my Son, the one having been chosen for myself! Him be hearing! And when the voice came, Jesus was found alone. And they were silent and reported to no one in those days anything of the things they had seen.

The cloud was bright (Matthew), which indicated the beneficent presence of the Father, not dark so as to threaten. It is not reported that this cloud came slowly; it came suddenly, while Peter was still speaking, before the words were entirely out of his mouth. And the cloud overshadowed them all, i. e., enveloped them for a brief time. The aorist ἐφοβήθησαν is ingressive (R. 884); the fear began the moment they entered the cloud. The coming of this cloud was supernatural; its white film hid everything and thus inspired new fear.

Luke 9:35

35 Out of the cloud there came a voice which was that of the Father himself, judging from what the voice said. All the synoptists agree regarding what the voice said, Luke alone substitutes ἐκλελεγμένος, “having been chosen for myself,” for ἀγαπητός, “beloved.” This is the same voice that spoke at the time of the baptism of Jesus, 3:22, where “my Son” is duly explained. The οὗτος indicates that the words are addressed to the disciples. Luke’s expression, “the one that has been chosen,” is interpretative of “the beloved,” and the perfect tense implies that he is still the Father’s Elect who was chosen to do his great work of redeeming the world and is doing it perfectly even now.

The command given to the disciples is: “Him be hearing!” the present imperative to express constant hearing, and the genitive αὐτοῦ to indicate the person heard. On this command, which was transmitted already through Moses, compare Deut. 18:15, last clause and especially v. 18, 19 with the threat against those who fail or refuse to hear Christ. “Him be hearing!” in the sense of him alone is valid to this day. The Father himself has placed this seal upon every word of Jesus. This is the confirmation by God himself of Peter’s great confession recorded in v. 20, God’s own attestation of the deity of the Son who is to die and be raised up again, v. 22. As far as Jesus and the Father were concerned, they certainly left nothing undone to prepare the disciples for what was impending.

Luke 9:36

36 The accounts of Mark and Luke are very brief. Matthew states that upon hearing the voice the disciples fell on their faces in great fear, and that Jesus touched them, and that they arose and saw that the cloud was gone and that Jesus was now alone. The same almighty power that had brought Moses and Elijah had removed them again. Jesus, too, was again in his natural state. If it be asked why the disciples fall prostrate but no one falls prostrate when the Father spoke at the baptism, the difference is apparent: Jesus transfigured, Moses and Elijah present in glory, the sudden cloud, and then the voice—all this together was too much for mortal man not to be overwhelmed with fear. The Greek uses the adjective μόνος and not an adverb (R. 657).

What kept the three witnesses silent regarding the things they had seen was a strict order from Jesus, and with the ordinary historical aorist Luke reports only the fact that “they were silent.” We cannot see that this is an ingressive aorist (R. 834 and his other books), “become silent,” for the clause states how long they were silent, “in those days,” namely until Jesus arose from the dead (Matthew and Mark); ἐσίγησαν covers this entire period. We cannot agree that the three were allowed to tell the other nine. If that were the case, why were the nine not made witnesses as the three had been? Even the disciples had wrong expectations regarding the Messiah. Jesus avoided furnishing support for such expectations and thus sealed the lips of his three witnesses just as he had ordered the Twelve strictly to say nothing about his being “the Christ of God” (v. 21).

The transfiguration and what went with it took place as part of the great foundation of faith. It forms one of the major acts of our salvation. It establishes the fact that Jesus was the Son of God, and it did this, not by word alone, or by inference from deeds (miracles), but by withdrawing the veil from his actual divine glory. He who would die and rise again for our redemption, who thus walked in lowliness in the fashion of man, let the divine majesty (2 Pet. 1:16) and glory which belonged to his person and through it also to his human nature and body shine forth for a little while for these witnesses to behold. Heaven sent its great saints to confer familiarly with him. The Father came and sealed the scene with his personal attestation.

The time to tell it all was fast approaching. His resurrection would make it all plain. In ὧν we have a concealed ἅ, the object of ἑωράκασιν, which is also written with an aorist ending, ἑώρακαν (R., W. P.).

Luke 9:37

37 And it came to pass on the next day they having come down from the mountain, there met him a great multitude.

See 1:8 on ἐγένετο plus a finite verb. Mark paints the scene with full detail, Luke alone adds that it occurred the next day. There were scribes among the multitude, much disputing with the nine disciples whom Jesus had left behind, and an eager welcome for Jesus when he arrived.

Luke 9:38

38 And lo, a man from the multitude shouted, saying: Teacher, I beg of thee to look upon my son because he is an only-begotten for me. And lo, a spirit takes him, and suddenly he shrieks; and it convulses him with foaming, and with difficulty it withdraws from him, bruising him. And I begged of thy disciples to cast it out, and they were not able.

Mark states that Jesus asked the scribes why they were disputing with the nine disciples, but that they were cowardly and said nothing; they had been taunting the nine and discrediting them before the multitude because they were not able to heal the boy. When the scribes did not answer, the father of the boy did, and he did it with loud shouting so that everybody could hear. He appealed to Jesus and told the whole story about his son. His petition is simply that Jesus would “look upon” his son, i. e., in pity to help him, and to do this especially because he was this father’s “only-begotten.” As in 7:12; 8:42 this expression means not merely an only son but the only one that had ever been born to this father, there had never been a brother or a sister for the boy.

Luke 9:39

39 With the exclamatory “lo” the father describes the symptoms of the boy, all of which are terrible, indeed. The tenses are vivid descriptive presents and picture what occurs again and again. The case is one of demoniac possession with periodic outbreaks. “A spirit takes him” refers to the fits of epilepsy, the boy even fell into fire or into water (Matt. 17:14, 15). When the seizure comes, the boy shrieks out. Then the demon convulses him, and the paroxysm is accompanied by “foaming” and gnashing of the teeth (Matthew) much as we know epilepsy today. The spirit also “withdraws from him with difficulty,” the attacks subside slowly; and the boy is bruised by falling during these fits.

Matthew adds that he is wasting away, a sad sight; and that this has gone on since he was little; and, as the address to the demon shows (Mark 9:25), that the demon made the boy deaf and dumb. Rationalists regard this as a case of ordinary epilepsy and use it as proof for the claim that all cases of possession were only thought to be due to evil spirits but were in reality only ordinary afflictions. On this question see 4:33 at length.

Luke 9:40

40 The aorists add the rest of the story. The father begged the nine disciples to cast out the spirit (subfinal ἵνα states what he begged them to do, it is equal to an infinitive, R. 993), and they tried to do so but could not. Jesus now learns about the subject of their dispute with the scribes.

Luke 9:41

41 But answering Jesus said (see 1:19): O generation, unbelieving and having been perverted, how long shall I be with you and endure you? Bring thy son here!

All three synoptists report this pained exclamation on the part of Jesus. This is a case where Jesus allows his deep feeling to be expressed in words. Pain and disappointment wring this cry from his heart. “Generation” applies to the people of Jesus’ time as a whole. As a generation, with only few individuals as an exception, they deserved the characterization ἄπιστος, “faithless,” “unbelieving,” always refusing to trust where they ought to trust; and the reason for this is: “having been perverted” (perfect participle: and now being in this condition), their hearts have been turned the wrong way by Satan, the deceiver. Ὦ is seldom used with vocatives, and when it is used it carries with it a certain solemnity (R. 463) and deep emotion (R. 464). Note that γενεά has the same form in the vocative that it has in the nominative, and its modifiers are properly nominative.

The point is the failure of the nine disciples to drive out the demon. The narrative nowhere charges this failure to the unbelief of the multitude. Yet some would interpret in this way. But where is any miracle ever made dependent on the faith of the crowds that witnessed it? It is likewise unwarranted to charge the father with unbelief, for he brought his boy to the disciples with an appeal for help exactly as others had done, and in Mark 9:24 he certainly shows some faith.

The Lord is rebuking his disciples as being without faith. It is their great lack of faith that rendered them helpless in their attempt to cast out this spirit. They are the ones with whom (πρός, face to face) Jesus had been in a special way so long, with whom he had borne (ἀνέχομαι, middle, “to hold up for oneself,” “to endure,” sometimes, as here, with the genitive) going on three years. Yet the old unbelief, which marked their entire generation, here again cropped out in them. From his own disciples Jesus had a right to expect something other than what this perverted generation was offering him. The pained lament, which is so fully justified, is followed by prompt action, the father is ordered to bring his son.

Luke 9:42

42 But while still coming to him, the demon tore and altogether convulsed him. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit and cured the boy and gave him back to his father.

Mark writes that at the sight of Jesus the demon once more vented his malice upon the boy. He also describes more of the effect produced although Luke’s words are very strong, especially the latter with σύν (found only in one writer in the second century B. C.), “convulsed all together.” The whole affliction of the boy appeared here, before the very eyes of Jesus. This could not be an ordinary case of epilepsy, for such cases do not throw a fit just at sight of some person. Luke names the demon spirit as causing this fit. This is perfectly in line with all else that the Gospel writers report about possession; the demons cause all kinds of physical ailments, in this boy’s case dumbness and deafness besides epilepsy.

Luke’s account is summary and omits the details of the exchange between the father and Jesus and the running together of the multitude. Mark has recorded the words with which Jesus ordered the demon to leave. With a brief command Jesus “rebuked” the spirit and thus “healed the boy,” and then, adding a tender touch as in 7:15, “he gave him back to his father,” ἀπέδωκεν with its preposition in the sense of “duly gave” as if there were an obligation—and there was, the obligation of his love.

Luke 9:43

43 Mark has additional features: the final convulsion, the boy lying like dead, the people calling him dead, and Jesus lifting him up by the hand. Luke records only the effect produced on the people: But they all were dumbfounded at the majesty of God. The imperfect states that they were in the condition of having had their wits struck out. They saw in this mighty act of Jesus, in that without effort and unhesitatingly he drove out that demon after the nine disciples had failed so miserably, a display of “the majesty of God” working in and through Jesus. The idea is not that they saw the deity of Jesus but that they saw him as an instrument of that deity. Only the majesty of God and a command coming from that majesty could make a demon that defied others yield precipitately as this one had yielded.

A new paragraph begins here, and the new verse should begin here. Now while all were wondering at all he was doing, he said to his disciples, Do you on your part put into your ears these words! for the Son of man is about to be delivered into men’s hands. But they were ignorant in regard to this utterance, and it had been hidden from them so that they perceived it not; and they were afraid to inquire of him concerning this utterance.

The marvelling on the part of all the people at all that Jesus was doing (οἷς is attracted to its antecedent from ἅ), the universal admiration of his miracles are not to mislead the disciples in regard to what was awaiting him. Matt. 17:22, 23 and Mark 9:30 inform us that Jesus was at this time in Galilee, and the latter passage that he wanted no one to know of his presence.

Luke 9:44

44 Then he once more announced his Passion. Luke states how he impressed it upon their minds. The aorist imperative is peremptory: “Put this once for all into your ears,” ὑμεῖς, emphatic, “you on your part” over against “all” the others. “These words” (statements) are not quoted by Luke but are only indicated by the γάρ clause; Matthew and Mark quote them. They were an advance on the announcement made in v. 22, which Luke’s clause also indicates in the expression “about to be delivered (handed over) into men’s hands.” The tense is the prophetic present, which contains the note of certain expectation and also of a future near at hand. The new point is the agent (Judas) who is indicated in the passive infinitive “to be delivered.” Somebody, who is as yet unnamed, will hand Jesus over “into men’s hands,” into their power to do with Jesus what they please. These men are the Sanhedrists (v. 22), but the indefinite “men’s hands” may well include also the Roman governor Pilate. By means of treachery he who is “the Son of man” (see 5:24), true man and yet more than man, namely God’s very Son, shall thus be brought to his death.

Luke 9:45

45 Matthew states that the disciples were grieved to hear this again, but Luke’s duplicated statement brings out the fact that in spite of all the clarity and the emphasis of Jesus’ announcement the disciples failed utterly to understand. The imperfect tenses are descriptive indeed (R. 883), but they also bring out that this failure to understand continued. “They were ignorant as to this utterance” regarding the Passion means that it did not penetrate their mind or νοῦς. “It had been hidden from them,” a periphrastic past (unless we regard the perfect participle merely as a predicate: “it was something that has been and is still hidden from them”), emphasizes their ignorance by hinting at something that hid the true meaning of Jesus’ words from them, namely their own preconceived ideas about the coming glorious victory and reign of the Messiah on earth. This false preconception kept them wholly in the dark as to what Jesus really meant. When Matthew says that they grieved, that means only that the sound of the terrible words depressed them.

Robertson, Tr., 998 and R., W. P. considers ἵνα as final, as denoting a divine purpose, that God did not want the disciples to understand these words of Jesus, and the commentators generally labor to make this divine purpose plausible. But such an effort is hopeless. The disciples were not obdurate unbelievers so that a judicial penalty should rest on them, that hearing they should not hear; they were believers, and the repeated announcements of the Passion were a serious effort on Jesus’ part to make them understand. By means of his literal statements Jesus was revealing and not hiding his coming Passion. This ἵνα is consecutive (B.-D. 391, 5; also Zahn): “so that they did not perceive it.” We dispense with the labored explanations that try to justify the rendering of our versions “that (in order that) they should not perceive it.” The middle voice in the aorist subjunctive σἴσθωνται has intensive force (R. 812): “for themselves they did not perceive” in spite of the emphatic ὑμεῖς in v. 44: “you on your part” and for yourselves put this into your ears.

They even feared to inquire of him concerning this utterance; Mark has the same statement. This reveals what hid his meaning from them, there was something badly wrong in their own hearts. They did not want to know what they were afraid to know, and so they did not actually know. This psychology is only too true. Regarding other things they inquired, for instance, regarding the parables (8:9); why not regarding this? They were afraid that what Jesus kept dinning into their ears might actually be true, that the Sanhedrin might actually kill him.

All their inner being fought against such an idea. This is not so strange when we see the same thing today, men’s minds resist clear evidence and knowledge because they do not want to have it true and dread that anything like that should be true. If it is, indeed, true that they would have to change all their thinking, convictions, and conduct, and that they will not do, no matter what is dinned into their ears. So the disciples had the picture of their Messiah fixed and would not upset and reverse it to comply with “this utterance” of Jesus.

Luke 9:46

46 Now there entered a reasoning among them as to who might be a greater one of them. But Jesus, having seen the reasoning of their hearts, taking up a child, stood it beside himself and said to them: Whoever receives this child on my name, me he receives; and whoever receives me, receives him that sent me. Thus, indeed, the one who is lesser among you all, he, he is great.

Luke seems to place this incident next to the preceding account in order to show the earthly thoughts that were in the hearts of the disciples concerning the kingdom of Jesus, which prevented them from realizing that Jesus meant just what he said about his Passion and his resurrection. They had thoughts of earthly greatness for themselves which did not harmonize with a judicial murder of Jesus. Luke strips the narrative of the introductory details that are found in Matt. 18:1 and Mark 9:33, 34. The discussion took place on the road. Having arrived in Capernaum at the house of Jesus, he, knowing all about it, made them speak out in order to settle this question. We regard ἐναὐτοῖς as meaning simply “among them”; B.-D. takes ἐν in the sense of εἰς: “came into them, into their heart.” But they actually argued about the matter.

The indirect question is made a substantive by τό and is thus construed as an accusative of general reference (R. 491): “as to this,” etc. The question itself is the apodosis of a potential condition and the optative with ἄν is left unchanged in the indirect question (R. 1044, 1021) and is deliberative with the note of perplexity (R. 940). The disciples are puzzling about who is “a greater one of them.” Αὐτῶν is not the genitive after a comparative: “greater than they,” which view the answer of Jesus makes impossible; but a genitive after a partitive which states the whole number from which some will get to be greater than the rest. The Greek μείζων, the comparative, is quite exact and should not be rendered by the superlative “greatest” as is done in our versions and by others. The implication is that the Twelve will be great in the coming earthly kingdom of Jesus, and the only question will be which ones will be greater than the others. The singular does not refer to one disciple only as if the question was, which one would be greater than the other eleven, but is meant in a general sense regarding any one compared with another so that several might outrank others for various reasons.

We may note that some occasion for this question concerning the relative position of the disciples in his approaching kingdom was furnished by Jesus himself. He had distinguished three of his disciples on two notable occasions (8:51; 9:19). Peter had often been allowed to speak for all the rest, and even on this day he had been sent on a special errand (Matt. 17:24–27). So the discussion had taken place on the road. Jesus delayed taking up the matter until he was in his house in order the better to settle this question which was so fraught with danger of possibly disrupting the little band of twelve because of envy, jealousy, pride, and hatred.

47, 48) Luke tells us that Jesus with supernatural sight saw the very reasoning that was going on in the hearts of his disciples. He used his divine powers whenever this became necessary for his work. From the other synoptists we learn how he sat down formally after having called his disciples to him, who likely sat before him in Oriental fashion. Then, after making them speak out, he proceeded with his reply. Luke gives us his answer in brief. He combines the taking up of the child and the standing it beside him.

We take it that he called the little one and then spoke Matt. 18:3, 4; then took the little one in his arms and spoke much more. Luke reports only a part of his words. This παιδίον (the diminutive is always neuter) evidently belonged to someone who lived in Jesus’ house with Mary, and so the little one readily came to Jesus. We have no reason to assume that there was anything marvelous or extraordinary about this child. It came and allowed Jesus to do with it what he desired. He used it in a beautiful way as a demonstratio ad oculos, one that would impress itself and what he said on the minds of the disciples in an indelible manner.

We wonder why some commentators deny that actual little children were concerned when Jesus so positively says “this little child,” or “one of such little children” (Mark), or “one such little child” (Matthew). He has an actual little child right there and is using it as a living illustration. Yet we are told that “little child” is only metaphorical and refers only to beginners in the faith, adults who are as yet spiritual babes and children. If anything is certain, it is that Jesus is speaking of receiving an actual child, namely in the sense of caring for its needs. On the basis of what Jesus says farther on in Matthew 18 we conclude that he wants us to see in the little child an illustration also of childlike believers whom we are to serve as diakonoi, especially in spiritual matters. But this extension is only an extension and itself rests altogether on what Jesus says of an actual child. Luke makes it very positive by writing “this little child.”

The more usual phrase is “in (ἐν) my name,” i. e., in connection with it; “on (ἐπί) my name” only modifies the idea: “on the basis of my name.” The sense of these phrases is seldom understood correctly, S. Goebel, Die Reden unseres Herrn nach Johannes, is the exception. The sense is usually assumed to be “on my authority” even in R. 649 and W. P. But a study of all these ὄνομα phrases and of the use of this term in general reveals that “name” means that by which Jesus (or God) is known, hence his revelation. To receive this little child ἐπὶτῷὀνόματι thus means to do this “on the basis of the revelation of Jesus which one has received.” The whole act rests on this and on no other considerations.

This, of course, involves that the person will treat the child thus received as the revelation and teaching of Jesus require, which includes especially tender spiritual care. In the eyes of the world a reception for such spiritual purposes amounts to nothing. Even today, when the world has come to value children more highly, this is done only for natural and secular reasons (providing for their physical and their educational needs). But Jesus considers it an act of greatness when we receive a child on the basis of his revelation. Such a thing is not understood by the multitude, but the devoted humility of him who performs this lovely act distinguishes him in the eyes of Jesus.

For Jesus declares: “me he receives” with the emphasis on ἐμέ. The idea is not that Jesus identifies himself with the child as a child. This “me” lies in the way in which the child is received, in the onoma of Jesus on which the act rests. In this way it is like receiving Jesus himself, the glorious Son of God, the King of the eternal kingdom. If it could be made a deed that is visible in its greatness it would be like tendering a magnificent reception to Jesus and would make all the headlines of the dailies flare out in flamboyant type; but being invisible in its greatness, it is covered with the humble mantle of faith, and its greatness will not be displayed until judgment day (Matt. 25:40, “unto me”).

But more: “and whoever receives me, receives him that sent (commissioned) me.” The aorist participle is substantivized and thus designates the Father according to the single act of sending Jesus out with his great commission of redemption. Jesus often spoke of his Sender, his Commissioning One (in John’s Gospel). Being thus commissioned, he is never alone but always with his great Sender. Thus to receive Jesus is at the same time and in the same act to receive the Father who commissioned him. This is, of course, not the justifying reception of Christ and of God but the subsequent sanctifying reception. The one is accomplished by faith alone, the other by the works of faith.

The simple act of receiving a little child and ministering to it in the name of Jesus is exalted to the highest degree by Jesus. This is the greatness of Christian ministration, the greatness we can all reach, for which Jesus bids us strive. None are higher than Jesus and his Father; the ministration that ministers to them is the highest of all and elevates as nothing else possibly can.

Zahn is right, γάρ is neither causal as stating the reason nor explicative as explaining; it is a “confirmative adverb” which it is hard to translate and which is circumscribed by the old philologists by sane igitur, sane pro rebus comparatis, and by Zahn: so ist ja wahrlich, “thus indeed” the one who is lesser among you all, he, he is great. Οὗτος is emphatic: “he, he alone,” and ὑπάρχων is used in the sense of ἧν as it was in 8:41 and is in 23:50.

The statement, which is confirmed by γάρ, is decidedly paradoxical. How can the lesser among all, the one who is smaller than all the rest, be great? The paradox solves itself. It is this very quality of being less than others that constitutes greatness. To do a service that is considered as being least by all, which they, therefore, decline to do, is to do what is great in Jesus’ eyes. In v. 46 and here again the comparative is used and indeed fits well.

The superlative is dying out in the Koine, and so in our versions the sense is rendered by translating with superlatives. But Jesus says μέγας, “great,” as the goal to be attained and not “greater” or “greatest” in comparison with others. He wants all his disciples to be “great” in the way indicated, and a mark of this greatness is the fact that we cease prideful comparison with others even as he taught Peter with the question he asked him in John 21:15.

Luke 9:49

49 Now answering John said, Master (see 5:5), we saw one in thy name casting out demons; and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow with us. But Jesus said to him, Stop preventing him, for he who is not against you is for you.

Luke indicates the connection with the foregoing. What Jesus said about receiving a child in his name led John to think of the man whom he and his companions had seen when they were on their preaching tour (v. 1, 2, 10). John begins to have his doubts whether the two had done right in regard to this man, and so he “answered” Jesus by presenting this case, ἀποκρίνομαι being used, as it is so often, in the broad sense of responding. This man was expelling demons “in thy name”; this is the important point; this phrase is explained in v. 48. We have the present participle after a verb of seeing.

This case is certainly remarkable. It is not like that of the exorcists mentioned in Acts 19:13, etc., for the man of whom John speaks was actually expelling demons. Although he wrought by charismatic faith (1 Cor. 13:2), we have no right to class him with the men mentioned in Matt. 7:22 who are rejected by the Lord. This is an instance in which a man so grasped “the name” of Jesus by faith that he expelled demons by its power. We are not told that he wrought other miracles in the same way. Jesus had not directly empowered this man as he had the Twelve (v. 1); the man attained this power by his own faith in Jesus.

The imperfect is conative: “we tried to prevent or stop him,” and intimates that they did not succeed. The chief point is the reason that John and his companion attempted to stop the man: “because he does not follow with us,” i. e., was not among the regular followers and acknowledged disciples of Jesus. The present tense ἀκολουθεῖ is preserved although this is not really indirect discourse (R. 1030). John’s reason is misunderstood when it is thought to voice the professional jealousy of the disciples. The answer of Jesus does not even hint at such a thought. John and his companion were concerned about Jesus and imagined that only avowed followers of Jesus, not only such as they themselves, the Twelve, but also others who had formally attached themselves to the company of the disciples (μεθʼ ἡμῶν), had a right to use Jesus’ name in doing mighty works.

The point in John’s statement is the implied question whether he and his companion had acted rightly. They thought so at the time; but John is now doubtful after hearing the general statement of Jesus that whoever does a good act “on my name” pleases Jesus and his Father (v. 48). They should perhaps not have interfered with this man who was acting “in thy name.”

Luke 9:50

50 We see how Jesus understood John, namely that he wanted to know whether hindering the man was right and in the interest of Jesus or not. Jesus tells him that it is not right and adds the proof. As a rule (R. 851–2), the command to stop an action already begun is expressed by the present imperative with μή whereas the command not to begin an action has the ingressive aorist subjunctive with μή. It does so here: μήκωλύετε = “stop preventing him.” And the reason (γάρ) is that “he who is not against you is for you,” ὑπέρ, in your favor. As far as the pronoun “you” is concerned, for which Mark 9:40 has “we,” this refers to them as disciples of Jesus and thus involves Jesus just as much as “we” does.

We should, of course, consider this terse dictum in its connection and not in a mere abstract way. It applies to men like the one under discussion. It does not apply to men who are merely indifferent to Jesus and are thus not actively against him. Such indifference and coldness as a response to Jesus and his revelation (name) would be “against” him and his disciples in a decided way. To be lukewarm and neither hot nor cold is fatal. Thus, not to be against the disciples of Jesus means, indeed, to be for them, at least to some degree. Whoever appreciates Jesus and his name (revelation) enough to drop all opposition to him and to his disciples is, to say the least, on a fair road to becoming his enthusiastic follower.

This shows agreement with the dictum that is voiced in Matt. 12:30: “He that is not with me (μετά) is against me (κατά).” Both dicta state the same thing, but do so in opposite ways. One states who are for Jesus, the other who are against him. Both imply that neutrality in regard to him is impossible. Whoever comes in contact with Jesus and develops no hostility toward him and his is already to a degree won for him and will soon confess this; but whoever comes in contact with Jesus and forms no attachment for him is already to a degree against him and will soon reveal this. The two dicta thus belong together, each makes the other clearer.

The Third Part

When Jesus Faced Jerusalem

Chapter 9:51 to 18:30

The justification for making a division at this point is the opening sentence, which should be compared with the opening sentence of the next grand part in 18:31. Luke forsakes the order of events as given in Mark’s Gospel at this point and offers much that is new so that the critics think that he is following some other document. The supposition that this was a Reisebericht, an account of the journey to Judea and Jerusalem, is contradicted by the contents of this section in which points of place and time are scarcely mentioned at all, certainly not so as to trace a journey from point to point. In this section there is an inner connection of the significance of the narratives and discourses. One feature stands out, namely the increased hostility toward Jesus and his own sharp reaction. In part two we have only minor incidents of hostility (5:16–26; 5:30, etc.; 6:1–11) which are like advance notices; but now the very first narrative is one of opposition, and then there come the woes pronounced over Chorazin, etc., and similar accounts. This opposition, too, lends unity of content to part three.

Luke 9:51

51 Now it came to pass when the days for his being taken up were being completely filled, he himself set his face firmly to proceed to Jerusalem.

This preamble is entirely too weighty to introduce only the following narrative. What it really does is to inform us that the period of keeping to the outskirts of Galilee is at an end, and that Jesus is now proceeding to Jerusalem. What this means we see from v. 22 and 44. The time for this had come (ἐντῷ with the infinitive as in 1:8). The days were fast filling up or being completed (συμπληροῦσθαι), those that are characterized by “his being taken up” (qualitative genitive), i. e., by his ascension to heaven. These last days were to end, not merely with the Passion and the resurrection, but with the glorious ascension.

The Passion was only an introduction to that. “He set his face firmly,” therefore, does not mean that he faced death with brave resolve, but that he looked forward to his return to the Father with full comprehension even as he spoke of it at length in the final discourses and in the High-priestly Prayer in John. Αὐτός thus carries emphasis: “he” did this although his disciples did not understand; in other connections Luke uses this pronoun without emphasis. On ἐγένετοκαί plus a finite verb see 5:12 and R. 950; the infinitive with τοῦ may be consecutive: “so as to go” (R. 1002), or it may indicate purpose: “in order to go” (R., W. P.). With this preamble in mind Luke wants us to read all that follows to 18:30.

Luke 9:52

52 And he commissioned messengers before his face. And having gone, they went into a village of Samaritans so as to make ready for him. And they did not receive him because his face was as proceeding to Jerusalem.

The start for Jerusalem is at once made. The party with which Jesus traveled included more than the Twelve, it was probably a numerous company; 8:2, 3 mentions even certain women. In this case there were two messengers, James and John. The party was at the border of Samaria, and Jesus intended to make his way through this province as was customary with the Jews from the north when they attended the Jewish festivals in the capital (Josephus, Ant. 20, 6, 1). There was ill feeling between the Jews and the Samaritans, but not enough to prevent these journeys. Because the party was of such a size, it was necessary, especially if a village were to entertain it, to send word ahead so as to provide accommodations; ὥστε with the infinitive expresses contemplated result; the reading ὡς need not disturb us. The use of πρόσωπον is Hebraistic; Luke follows the sacred style of the tradition.

Luke 9:53

53 It is not the size of the party that led to the refusal of the Samaritans of the village to receive Jesus, nor the fact that this party was headed for Jerusalem. Even larger parties that were going and coming to and from the festivals found entertainment among the Samaritans enroute even as Jesus and his party now thought feasible. It is Jesus to whom these Samaritans object. They have heard of his miracles and know all about him. He is now proceeding to Jerusalem, there to display his powers, is passing right through their land, right past their sanctuary on Mt. Gerizim, and acting as if their worship amounted to nothing.

This aroused their displeasure to such a degree that they refused to receive Jesus. Note that Luke uses only the singular pronoun and makes everything turn on Jesus. It is saying too much to have these Samaritans refuse Jesus because he is the Jewish Messiah, for he was not regarded as the Messiah by the Jews themselves (v. 19). We stop with the general fame of Jesus. We regard πορευόμενον, not as the periphrastic imperfect with ἧν (R., W. P.), but simply as the predicate: “as going to Jerusalem.”

Luke 9:54

54 The question regarding the text of this verse and the next verses is, of course, one for the text critics to decide. Even Marcion has retained the omitted portions which seem to have been cancelled because they were regarded as casting a reflection on Elijah and the old prophets. Although the textual evidence is in favor of the shorter reading (R. V., as compared with the marginal reading and the A. V.), we are inclined to follow Zahn who deals with these readings in an Excursus and accepts the three additions.

But when his disciples James and John saw it they said, Lord, wilt thou that we say that fire come down from the heaven and consume them as also Elijah did? And having turned, he rebuked them and said, You do not know of what manner of spirit you are, for the Son of man did not come to destroy men’s souls but to save. And they went to another village.

We think that the messengers who were sent to the village were James and John because they “saw” the refusal of the Samaritans and did not merely see other messengers and only hear their report. Others, too, would have seen the messengers return, which fails to explain why just these two, James and John, got this same idea of visiting signal punishment upon the Samaritans. No, when James and John, who were themselves the messengers, “saw” the action of the villagers they waxed hot with indignation and on their way back discussed what would be a fitting penalty for these people, and so they come to Jesus with their proposal.

They were sure that the power to call down fire from heaven was at their command. They had witnessed their Lord’s glory on the Mount of Transfiguration and knew fully the wonderful power of his name. Their great faith in Jesus and also their burning zeal for his honor stand out clearly in their question. This contrasts markedly with the indifference with which many followers of Jesus now see and hear his holy name flagrantly dishonored among men.

In addition, these brothers submit their proposal to Jesus in order to be sure of his assent before they act although they feel sure that he will agree. They have the example of Elijah recorded in 2 Kings 1:10, etc., the very Elijah who talked with Jesus on the Mount (v. 30). The objection that this clause is unnecessary because calling down fire itself already reminds one of Elijah’s acts, argues the wrong way, for because this descent of fire recalls Elijah, therefore it is most appropriate to state that John and James were, indeed, thinking of this prophet’s act. Compare 7:13 on Κύριε. The use of θέλεις in asyndeton with a deliberative subjunctive is idiomatic (R. 935); we need supply nothing, certainly not ἵνα, nor need we think of two questions, as R., W. P., suggest: “Dost thou wish? Shall We bid?” Ἀναλῶσαι is from ἀναλίσκω (ἀναλόω), to consume.

Luke 9:55

55 Surprise must have come over the two apostles when, instead of assenting to their proposal, Jesus turned, faced them squarely in order to make his words the more effective, and rebuked them. As far as the admission of the words of the rebuke into the text is concerned, it seems wholly improbable that the evangelist should record this incident and then leave out the very words of Jesus which contain the point of the narrative. The words as such, too, appear to be genuine, which even those admit who think that Luke did not write them. “You know not” means that they should have known and that their not knowing is without excuse. Some would read a question: “Do you not know?” but a rebuking declaration seems more proper.

“Of what manner of spirit you are” is understood in two ways by the commentators: either that the spirit itself is different, or that the thoughts and the emotions which originate from this spirit differ; but we see no real difference between stressing the spirit alone or the products of the spirit, both go together. So some write “spirit” (A. V.), others “Spirit.” We see no way of deciding between the two and again note that our spirit is made what it is by the Holy Spirit.

But this must be held fast: Jesus does not intend to say that Elijah was of the law and that the disciples are of the gospel; or that he was of the Old Testament and they are of the New; or that Elijah and they are, indeed, of the same spirit (Spirit), but that this spirit (Spirit) now speaks differently in them than it did in Elijah. These and similar contrasts are without foundation. We must hold fast to the fact that the prophets had the gospel just as we have it; and that we have the law just as they had it. Only when Ahaziah and Ahab constantly spurned God’s grace did God make Elijah smite with the fire of judgment. So Jesus, too, wept over Jerusalem and prayed for his murderers, but he also announced their destruction when he wept and himself sent it forty years later with terrors that were even greater than those that were wrought by Elijah. There is no derogation for Elijah (or for the Old Testament prophets) in this word of Jesus. It is this wrong idea which may have caused the elision of this word of Jesus from the text.

It is true that this village rejected Jesus. But we must ask: “Had any special effort been made to win the villagers for Jesus? Had the gospel been preached to them? Had they after all such efforts hardened their hearts as Ahaziah and Ahab did in Elijah’s time? Were they thus ripe for judgment?” We must answer “no.” Why, then, did James and John single them out for destruction by fire from heaven? We know only one answer: because they forgot of what spirit they were, the spirit of both Testaments, and gave way to the fleshly desire for signal revenge.

Elijah did not call down fire from heaven in such a spirit. Only Jonah was so foolish, and God corrected him. God waited 120 years in the days of Noah, 40 years after the crucifixion of Jesus, and still waits a long time now. He shortens no man’s day of grace unduly. Yet in the end, as of old, so now, he sends judgment on obduracy.

Luke 9:56

56 The γάρ clause has even less textual authority than the preceding words of Jesus have; and it does not seem that it is derived from 19:10. This clause fits admirably for explaining to James and to John the spirit of which they as his disciples have come to be. Let them always remember that the Son of man came not to destroy but to save men’s souls (John 3:17), ψυχαί is here not used in the sense of “lives,” that which animates the body, but in the sense of “souls,” the immaterial part which is often named when the person is to be indicated, cf., Acts 2:41: 3, 000 ψυχαί, “souls” or persons. The great mission for which Jesus “came” from heaven to earth was to save, σῶσαι, constative aorist, to rescue men from sin and damnation and to place them into permanent safety; see 7:50. No incarnation was needed to judge and to destroy sinners. On “the Son of man” see 5:24.

Jesus will, indeed, in due time attend also to the judgment, but that time is not yet, and the time of grace shall not be curtailed. It is this spirit which loves and labors so earnestly, so perseveringly, so patiently to save, which fills his heart and thus must fill the hearts of his disciples of all ages. A manifestation of that spirit shone forth at this very time when the wrong spirit of James and John called for fire, for Jesus was now on his way to die for the sins of the Samaritans as well as for those of his disciples.

“And they went to another village,” apparently not to one in Samaria but to one at the border of Galilee. A simple act, and yet how significant of Jesus! James and John were named Boanerges, “sons of thunder,” by Jesus himself in Mark 3:17, and it is supposed that this was done because of the fiery zeal for Jesus which they displayed on this and on other occasions.

Luke 9:57

57 And while they were going on the way, someone said to him, I will follow thee wherever thou goest away! And Jesus said to him, The foxes have dens, and the birds of the heaven shelters, but the Son of man (5:24) has not where he may lay his head.

It seems evident that the three brief incidents which now follow are grouped together because of their similarity, not because they occurred in close succession or even during a certain period of time. Matthew (8:19) calls the first man a scribe, one whose profession was the interpretation of the Old Testament and of the rabbinical traditions. This man was himself a teacher who had graduated in law and was qualified by the Jewish authorities. Many scribes were Pharisees and as a class joined the opposition against Jesus. But this man is an exception, one whose association with Jesus had brought him to the point of offering himself to Jesus as a permanent pupil. What better offer could Jesus wish?

It is without if or but. “I will follow thee” is volitive; the man had come to this resolution. “Wherever thou wilt go away” (the futuristic subjunctive) is the present tense and durative: wherever at any time, to any destination (ἀπό in the verb), no matter what the distance or the hardship of the way. The offer seems almost too good. The efforts to identify this scribe are, of course, quite in vain.

From the reply of Jesus we see that this man is too ready, his offer too complete. It resembles that of Peter recorded in John 13:36, 37; Luke 22:33. He is like the seed on stony ground that grew quickly but lacked root to withstand the hot sun. He is an idealist, enthusiastic, of sanguine temperament. He is superficial and does not count the cost. He sees the soldiers on parade, the fine uniforms and the glittering arms, and is eager to join but forgets the exhausting marches, the bloody battles, the graves, perhaps unmarked. It is less cruel to disillusion such a man than to let him rush in and go down in disappointment.

Luke 9:58

58 Jesus neither accepts nor declines his offer. His reply strikes the heart of the matter: the man must see what his offer involves, not in idealism, but in sober, sane realism. Jesus illuminates the way on which he leads his disciples, and this way is not bordered with roses. Though he is not merely a man, a human being, but the great Son of man who is both man and yet more than man, he actually has less of creature comforts than the wild animals and the wild birds (“of the heaven”=wild, unconfined). The foxes, for instance, using a specific example, have their dens; the birds, taking another class, have shelters. But Jesus, who is constantly on the move, has no fixed home where he can lay down his head and rest.

Even when he was in his home city, we do not read that he rested for any time at his mother’s house; the ministrations recorded in 8:2, 3 were called forth by the hardships he endured. Yet this is not to say that Jesus was a pauper; he did not live in the squalor of poverty; he was no mendicant monk, no ragged and emaciated beggar. His company had a purse and a treasurer who handled enough to give to the poor at times, enough for Judas to steal from, 200 denarii at one time. What Jesus stressed is that his whole calling and work are not for this earth but for the kingdom, and for that alone. The deliberative present subjunctive κλίνῃ is retained in the indirect discourse.

It would be too narrow a view to think that Jesus wanted this scribe merely to forsake his easy life for a hard one. Jesus uses his homelessness merely as an illustration of the path his followers must walk by choosing the spiritual instead of the carnal, the life with eternal purposes instead of the temporal, heavenly treasures instead of earthly wealth. That does not mean to become a monk or a nun although it may mean to lead lives like those of the apostles, Paul’s for instance, and it always means the kingdom first, last, and all the time, and letting God attend to the rest (Matt. 6:33). It is well to build the tower but first to count the cost. Did this scribe follow Jesus? We are not told. If you had been in that scribe’s position, what would you have done?

Luke 9:59

59 Now he said to another, Be following me! But he said, Lord, permit me that, having gone away, first I bury my father. But he said to him, Let the dead bury their own dead; but do thou, having gone away, proclaim abroad the kingdom of God (see 1:33).

The scribe offered to follow Jesus, this man is bidden to follow him. This is hardly his first following. Jesus is leaving, and this man, who is already a disciple, is asked to go along and to continue in Jesus’ company as a disciple. This seems to be the proper view because Jesus wants him to proclaim the kingdom, which he asks of no one who has not been sufficiently instructed in advance. While the scribe was overready and had to be cautioned, this man wants to delay and to join Jesus later. He has just received word of his father’s death. The Jews generally buried without delay; if there was time enough, on the same day, at least on the next. So the delay was not to be a long one.

Both natural affection and the obligation enjoined by God toward parents prompt the man’s desire to hurry home for the last service that he is able to render his father. As a disciple of Jesus he asks his Lord (see 7:13) to permit him first to go and to bury his father; the participle ἀπελθόντι is in the dative as modifying the pronoun. The man is not in doubt whether he should go or not, and far less has he a bad conscience in regard to leaving for so short a time; such ideas are untrue to the text. He is asking something that seems perfectly proper to him. Permission “first” to bury his father in no way means that he asks for permission to take care of his father until the latter dies. If the father were still living, the man would not now be asking to go to him until he as a son could bury him after his death, and that delay would have been indefinite indeed.

Luke 9:60

60 Ἄφες is followed by the accusative with the complementary infinitive as it is so often (R. 855–8). The sentimentality connected with dead relatives is still so strong today that this word of Jesus’ sounds harsh to our ears. What Jesus says is that the man is to let the spiritually dead bury their own physically dead. When one who is spiritually dead, though he be a close relative, comes to his end, the matter of putting his body into the grave is something that need not exercise us greatly. The idea is not that the disciples are forbidden to attend funerals of this kind. But they are really only secular affairs, which people whose lives are wholly devoted to such affairs can attend to without us when supreme spiritual affairs claim our attention; compare Matt. 12:48.

Christless associations make one of their great objects “to bury their own dead” and might thus fittingly take this word of Jesus as their motto. Our great concern is with the heavenly life and with him who bestows it. When the opportunity to work for the interest of this higher life has passed, our spiritual obligation ends. The soul of this man’s father had gone beyond his son’s reach; let him attend to his own soul by following Jesus. Moreover, he has another great obligation, one by which Jesus would honor him especially: “But thou go away and proclaim abroad (διά in the verb) the kingdom of God.” A double spiritual obligation beckons this man, one regarding his own soul and one regarding the souls of others whom he can reach by following the call that Jesus would soon extend to him, to go out with other disciples to proclaim the kingdom.

The harshness thus fades except for the sentimentality of the worldly-minded who are great on odorous flowers and meaningless words for the dead while they blink at the harsh reality of death itself and of that which is worse, spiritual death and eternal damnation. The manly, bracing words of Jesus are better. The best balm for this son was to follow Jesus and to prepare for the work that Jesus had in store for him. Did he stay with Jesus? Would you have stayed if you had been in his shoes?

Luke 9:61

61 Now also another said, I will follow thee, Lord, but first permit me to bid farewell to those in my house. But Jesus said to him, No one, having just put his hand to a plow and continuing to look to the rear, is fit for the kingdom of God (see 1:33).

With καί we are pointed to still another person who is somewhat like the other two. He is ready to start following Jesus but adds a request which is really a condition. He asks permission first to bid farewell to those in his house, namely his relatives; εἰς is “in,” not “into,” R. 536. This request also sounds reasonable and innocent. But when this man gets back among his people, tells them of his intention to follow Jesus, and starts to bid them all farewell, will he be able to resist their pleading to stay with them and to give up Jesus? All honor to friendship and love, but humanly noble affections may prevent us from entering the kingdom. Matt. 10:37.

Luke 9:62

62 The answer of Jesus is axiomatic and at the same time figurative: “No one who has just put his hand to a plow,” etc. This is a general truth and cannot be denied. This man is usually pictured as looking back while plowing and thus drawing crooked furrows; and we are told that the old, primitive, wooden plows required special care in handling. Looking back is also pictured as looking to past joys, etc. But this man is not at all fit for the kingdom. The aorist ἐπιβαλών refers to a beginner who is for the first time setting his hand to a plow. And the present participle βλέπων indicates, not an occasional glance backward, but constant looking “to the rear.”

This man is not an expert who can plow, as it were, with his eyes shut; not a plowman who merely draws a crooked or shallow furrow. This is a man who is starting to learn to plow and makes a joke of himself by attempting to make the plow go in one direction while he keeps his eyes in the opposite direction. Jesus intends the humor in the figure. It does not matter at what that is behind him this man looks; the fact itself is enough. This man is unfit for the kingdom because he can never learn to plow in this way. Εὔθετος, “well-placed,” “suitable,” “fit,” does not refer to moral, meritorious fitness or self-adaptation on the sinner’s part for entering the kingdom but to the unfitness of inward opposition, the attachment to the world which often persists in spite of the gracious drawing of Jesus and the gospel and will not be overcome.

It makes little difference to what part of the worldly life the heart looks back with longing and is unable to tear itself away, the effect is always the same: not fit for the kingdom. The man who could not give up his worldly friends completely when he stood in the presence of Jesus and those friends were absent could far less give up those friends when he was again standing in their presence and Jesus was absent. That thing has been tried often enough. “This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto the things which are before, I press toward the mark of the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus,” Phil. 3:13, 14; Hos. 10:2. Did this man

follow Jesus after hearing his word? What would you have done in his place?

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.