Luke 11

Luke 11:14-12

Section 2. (Luke 11:14-54; Luke 12:1-59.)Confirmation in view of opposition. The provision of God for His people having been shown; we have now the opposition on the part of the enemy, who is moreover the prince of this world. Thus the world becomes a scene of strife just so much the more because the Prince of peace has come into it. The Lord prepares His disciples for this, warning and confirming them, and setting them in view of His coming again, when winds and waves shall cease. A great deal in all this part is similar to what we have had before, -especially in Matthew; so that we shall notice it more briefly.

1. (1) The substance of what is here we find in Matthew 12:22-30. The man out of whom the demon is cast is there said to have been blind as well as dumb; and the multitudes ask, “Is this the Son of David?” But there is only wonder, and not conviction; and others refer the power over demons (which they cannot deny) to Beelzebul the prince of the demons. The Lord, addressing Himself to them, shows them that He has read their thoughts, and refutes them by the argument that then Satan would be against himself. But if this were the finger of God, then it was the Kingdom of God that had come upon them. (2) The result in this case was the spoiling of Satan, whom it required power greater than his own to dispossess. And for Himself the Lord declares that He accepted no compromise, and allowed no indifference on the part of any to Him. It was simply for or against; and he that gathered not with Him was only scattering. (3) But indeed there might be the case in which Satan had not been expelled, but merely left his house empty, to return when he pleased. As the Lord applies it in Matthew, it was indeed their own. Nationally they had reformed from their once constant idolatry, and were now swept clean and adorned, but hollow-hearted. God was not enshrined among them, as their empty temple witnessed. Satan then could come back, and bring with the old spirit of idolatry an intensity of wickedness never before known. The Lord does not say, as in Matthew, that it would be so with them; and the word is left for wider application.
2. We have now the competence of the testimony given asserted, and the reason assigned for its failure with them, in the lack of the spirit of obedience, the want of singleness of eye. (1) A woman in the crowd that was listening to Him lifted up her voice, and said, “Blessed is the womb that bare Thee, and the breasts that Thou hast sucked.” And He answers, “Yea, rather” -so it is, indeed, but there is a greater blessedness -“blessed are they who hear the word of God, and keep it.” It was in fact the central feature of Israel’s condition; that with professed reverence for the word of God, they had crusted it over with their traditions, their “unwritten law,” which they exalted above it, and so made it of no effect, as the Lord told them. This is a condition of things which, as we know, has once more come about in the history of the professing Church, human nature manifesting itself similarly in all generations. It is striking, and shows the prophetic character of Scripture, that the Lord here takes occasion by the woman’s words, to guard against an error which has assumed of late, in that body which has, more than any other, adopted and developed the traditionalism of the Jews, the most colossal proportions. Romanism has exalted the mother of our Lord above all creatures, and into a perilous nearness to Deity itself. In its cruder forms it would, by virtue of this human relationship to Him, exalt her in some sense above Him to whom she owes this exaltation. The Lord declares here the blessedness of the spiritual tie above the natural, and most distinctly characterizes this blessedness as that of those who “hear the word of God and keep it;” which Rome, as far as lies in her, will not permit. Good reason she has, surely, not to permit it. (2) The last incident is recorded by Luke alone; what follows is in Matthew also, with some difference. In it He contrasts the spirit of the very heathen at Nineveh, and that of the Arabian queen of Solomon’s days, with the people then around Him. A greater than Jonah was then among them, and as Jonah had been a sign to the Ninevites so would He be in His death and resurrection a greater sign; but they would not repent. Nor could a wiser than Solomon attract them with His wisdom. (3) Not signs were wanting, but the heart to interpret them. God had not done what man would not do: He had not lighted a lamp to hide it from men’s eyes, but that all might see and rejoice in the light. But whatever the light might be outside, the light that illumined the man within was his eye: his eye must be single, without any veil there, or the light outside would not light the lamp that could alone be light to him. But the testimony given was not insufficient. If the light within them was not darkness, they would walk in the full brightness of the illuminating lamp.
3. The Pharisees and lawyers are now put in the light, and searched out by it: an exposure, indeed, scathingly severe, and which rouses them to the utmost. The denunciation so closely resembles that in Matthew 23:1-39, which took place at a later time, that Van Oosterzee* supposes that Luke has, in fact, borrowed from this, and interpolated what was actually now said with it. But besides the natural difficulty of accepting what we should certainly object to in an ordinary historian; there is no part of what is here that we might not imagine to be borrowed; to be sure, with some changes. If we confine ourselves to the unchanged parts, these can only be found in vers. 43 and 52: too small a debt to be worth while to incur. On the other hand, that Matthew borrowed from Luke of what was uttered at this time has similar difficulty, and is rejected by Van Oosterzee himself.
   Why may we not accept it as the truth that the Lord in His final judgment of Pharisaism repeated much of what He had said at the earlier time recorded by Luke? Why may He not, at the end of His ministry in Israel, have deliberately reaffirmed His former judgment of those scribes and Pharisees whose characters were so well marked? a double testimony suited to the solemnity of it. (1) To the Pharisee the Lord’s words denounce the self-righteousness which was their prominent characteristic. This failed in its externalism, as if God had made the body, not the soul; -the form, but not breathed the spirit into it. Instead of the excessive scrupulosity which this engendered, let them only be ready to impart to the necessities of others, and all else would be clean to them. Then their scrupulosity in these minutiae -tithes of mint and rue and every kind of herb -went with the great defects in things of great account, as judgment and the love of God. With this, self-exaltation; which made them love the chief seat and public greeting. While the hypocritical smooth outside, with the defilement underneath, made them like graves which rendered men unclean, without their being aware of them. (2) The doctors of the law He rebukes for their well-known laying on of intolerable burdens (see p. 215), which they would not even put forth a finger to remove. They built also the sepulchres of the prophets whom their fathers had killed, and honored those whose living voices disturbed men’s consciences no longer. Tested by new prophets, they would act as their fathers did, and bring upon themselves the gathering vengeance for all righteous blood from the beginning. Again, as professors of knowledge, they had taken away the very key of it, and, not entering in by it themselves, had only hindered those who were ready to enter.
4. What has been said with regard to the connection of the address to the Pharisees and lawyers with Matthew 23:1-39 may be and has been said as to the connection of the present chapter with the tenth and other parts of Matthew. That Luke does not always preserve the order of time or the historical connection of events or words may be freely admitted, nor does he here give as definitely as in the last case the time or times of these sayings of the Lord. After the most searching investigation that we can give to such matters, Van Oosterzee allows that definite certainty will, probably, be impossible. If it could be, we would have to ask, would there be any particular profit in such knowledge? It is hard to imagine what.

We have the Gospels in the form the Spirit of God has been pleased to give them, and shall surely find divine wisdom in this as elsewhere in Scripture. When it leads commentators to talk of “heterogeneous elements of discourse,” we can realize the dangers of too much theorizing in things unknown. We shall do well to take it as we find it, assured that none can mend what needs no mending, and that “to this man will I look,” saith the Lord, “even to him that is lowly and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at My word” (Isaiah 66:2). In that which is now before us disciples are addressed, in view of such a condition of things as what has gone before implies. The multitudes are crowding after Him, so that they tread one upon another, and it was at just such times that the Lord’s warning voice was almost certain to be heard, to break the spell of that seductive influence which apparent popularity was so apt to exert over the minds of His real followers. The multitudes were under the sway of the Pharisees, as we know, and their pretentious religiousness helped to maintain them in this place. The Lord warns them against “the leaven of the Pharisees, which is hypocrisy,” and puts them in the light of that coming day when all disguise will be stripped off, and what may have been spoken in privacy in the chamber will be proclaimed openly as on the house-tops. But fear in the presence of the multitude might be as potent a governing principle as the love of power or applause. He exhorts them, therefore, not to be afraid of those whose power was confined at most to the body and the present life, but to fear Him who could not only kill the body, but cast afterwards into hell. Then He reminds them of His care and tenderness, with whom not a sparrow is forgotten, and who numbers the hairs of their head. They need not fear, who were more to God than many sparrows. Then He calls for confession of Himself before men, and they would be confessed by Him before the angels of God; but those who denied Him before men must look to be denied also before the angels. Yet a word spoken against the Son of man should be forgiven, but blasphemy against the Holy Spirit -as in the malevolent imputing of power that they could not deny to Satan, -that would not be forgiven. It was the sign of malignant enmity to God manifested openly as God. On the other hand, in the presence of accusers and judges they were to expect the Spirit of God to give them a mouth and wisdom: they needed no anxiety with regard to that. Evidently, the theme in all this is a world that they must neither court nor fear, but before which Christ must be held up, with the Spirit of Christ to hold up those who did this. 5. (1) He goes on to speak of those to whom the world was all: not persecutors necessarily, but quietly enjoying it; God and the life beyond forgotten. He pictures such an one making his count of long prosperity and suddenly turned out of it into the presence of Him he had made no account of, and leaving all he valued here to whom he knew not. Folly indeed, but how common a folly! the independence of a nature fallen away from God. (2) On the other hand, the dependence of faith is the remedy for all care, in the consciousness of the care of Him whose presence and power all creation testifies. Seeking His Kingdom -the maintenance of His authority over what was but His own; and whom they could call, “Father,” -the men of faith with their hearts in the unseen; would find the good of all else ministered to them. All this is simple to us, thank God. We have listened to such words from childhood, and they are not difficult to apprehend, whether or not we have drunk in their blessedness. 6. The Lord carries us on to what is the limit of the life of faith; not death, but His own coming. Death might come, of course, but we must not, and cannot, confound, in such words as we have here, one thing with the other. The whole thought is different, the blessing of the whole Church, and of the earth, and the glory of Christ Himself being connected with His coming. It is not that we know either when He will come; for the injunction to watch implies the reverse of this. “Watch; for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come.” (1) First of all, we have the assurance which permits the heart to go out freely after this. The gift of the Kingdom is assured to us as the Father’s good pleasure; and this gift qualifies for giving, which, in fact, is but laying up treasure in it. There no possibility can be, of change or loss; and one’s treasure being there, fixes the heart there also. (See p. 93 seq. notes.) (2) The loins are to be girt up in readiness for removing, and the lamps burning, for it is night while Christ is absent. The whole attitude is governed by the fact that at any time He may return: His servants are to be as those waiting for their lord, when he shall return on occasion of the wedding, that when he cometh and knocketh they may immediately open to him. The common rendering here (“from the wedding”) raises a difficulty unnecessarily: for all other passages represent the wedding as following the coming of the Lord, not preceding it, and it would only be possible to say either that the passage here applied to Jewish saints after the heavenly ones were already united to the Lord (Revelation 19:7); or that the figure was only in loose application to the facts. The last is not to be thought of: why introduce a difficulty so easy to be avoided? The former seems contrary to what is here; for we have seen that since the transfiguration the heavenly things have been more opening to us. Hence it is preferable to translate “on occasion of the wedding,” which, while quite justifiable, removes every difficulty. The blessing of those found in this expectant service is great indeed. The heart of Him who was amongst us “as one that serveth” is called forth in response; He will gird Himself, and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. Blessed be His Name, He is the same in heaven as He was on earth. How easy should service be to Him! “‘Whether He come in the second watch, or come in the third watch, blessed are those servants.” “The Romans divided the night,” says Van Oosterzee, “into four night-watches, a division which the Jews had accepted from them. The opinion is entirely without ground that the Saviour here followed another division into only three night-watches. He says nothing of the fourth, simply for the reason that the disciples, from that, should note that His return was by no means to be expected as late as possible; even as He does not name the first, because it would weaken the whole representation of the watchful servants. The Parousia does not come so quickly as impatience, nor yet so late as carelessness supposes, but in the very middle of the night, when the temptation to fall asleep is great and therefore must be most vigorously combated. It may even tarry longer than the servants think; but, grant that it should not take place even till the third, or should come even in the second watch of the night, whosoever perseveres faithfully at his post shall in no wise lose his reward.” The Lord has a word on the other side, where the servant has somehow become “the master of the house,” and the coming of the Son of man like the unwelcome visit of a thief. It would be needful for such to remember that the thief does not come at an hour expected, or perhaps the house would not have been dug through. “If he had known” only presses the fact that he does not know. (3) Peter asks whether this parable is limited to the twelve, or applies to all. The Lord answers, not directly, but by giving, on the one side and on the other, the portion of the faithful and of the unfaithful steward. Responsibility attaches wherever there is trust; and proportionate to the reward of faithfulness is the recompense of unfaithfulness. The parables here, if we may call them such, are almost word for word those at the end of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew; yet seem to have been given at another time, and the repetition of specially important lessons may surely have had its purpose in imprinting them the more on the minds of the disciples. (See p. 232, notes.) (4) The only difference in the parable of the unfaithful servant is that instead of eating and drinking with the drunken; he is himself drunken; and the association with others is omitted. His portion is said also to be “with the unbelievers,” as in Matthew “with the hypocrites.” (5) There is added here, as not in Matthew, the statement as to the gradation of penalty according to the measure of knowledge of his lord’s will on the part of the servant. On the other hand, the want of knowledge, since it was capable of being obtained, does not secure the offender. Indeed the smiting of fellow-servants and the drinking until drunken could not be excused after that manner. The common conscience of men is sufficient to condemn the grossness of what is often done by professing Christians without apparent check from their religion. 7. The Lord closes now with putting the purpose of God in connection with its present effects among men. These in fact were very different. The Prince of peace had brought a sword. Israel, so long identified with the revelation of God to men, -from which salvation was to come for men, -was nevertheless to be set aside. Yet His purposes moved on; spite of all this, to their accomplishment, and the signs were already in the world, though they might be blind to them. (1) Christ had come to cast fire upon earth. The holiness of God was to be manifested; nay, already the effects of it were showing themselves: the fire was being kindled among men. The grace in which it was displayed did not alter this, for grace in no wise means tolerance of sin. Alas, men could little bear the exposure of it: “The world hateth Me,” said the divine Speaker here, “because I testify of it that its works are evil” (John 7:7). Thus the fire that would have purified, consumed. And of Him holiness required the baptism of suffering that was before Him, before His full heart, otherwise straitened, could be poured out as He longed to pour it out. He Himself must satisfy this necessity of the divine nature. Thus on God’s part there should be no hindrance to fullest blessing. According to the significance of baptism, these sufferings would put Him into a new place with God, a place of sanctification on account of His people (John 17:19), through which they would find a new and blessed place in Him. (2) But what would be the result of this as to men at large? Peace among men, in the union of heart with heart in the acceptance of it? No; but everywhere division, and among the most intimate relations of life; a man’s foes would be those of his own household. “The world would no more endure faith in the Saviour than it did the Saviour Himself, who was faith’s object, and whom it confessed. It is well to note how the presence of the Saviour draws out the evil of the human heart. The state described here is in Micah, the description of the most dreadful state of evil conceivable (Micah 7:1-7).” (Synopsis.) (3) Yet God had not left them without witness, plainly to be read as the face of the heavens which they were so skilful in discerning. It was hypocrisy to pretend they had not what only their unwillingness to see rendered obscure. Conscience only was needed, the discernment of what was right. The signs given of God are of moral character, and the right is what appeals to every man; yet the appeal may be none the less in vain. (4) Israel had thus failed as the witness of God on earth. Their own law had pronounced upon them; Moses, in whom they trusted, was but their accuser; while they were refusing Him through whom they might have been reconciled to him. The Lord utters still His warning, but with the consciousness in His heart that their doom was at hand.