It is not easy to see just what connection there might be between this discourse of Jesus and the parables which immediately precede it. This section of Luke’s gospel, which has hardly any perceptible links with Matthew and Mark, gives the impression of being an assemblage of disconnected paragraphs, but it might be a serious mistake to assume that this is the case.

Here the Lord begins with a warning against being personally a cause of stumbling in the life of any of his “little ones”. This expression can hardly mean little children. It is used in the sense of new or young or immature disciples (cp. 1Jn. 2:12, 13; Jn. 13:33; Mt.l0:42; Zech.l3:7).

How could such offence come about? Most probably in one of two ways-through clumsiness in personal relations, or through unsympathetic ill-advised decision by the ecclesia. It is evident from this very serious admonition that the Lord deemed the preserving of fellowship to be of paramount importance.

The vivid hyperbole of the one who has caused his brother to stumble now having a great mule-driven millstone (and not just the hand-manipulated thing) tied to his neck and he then thrown by superhuman strength into the depths of the sea is a terrible warning of the extent of divine displeasure in such human crises.

But there is also the other side of the picture. The one to whom offence is given must beware of taking too seriously any slight, whether wilful or accidental. There is always the possibility of mistaken judgement at the receiving end also. The thin-skinned individual can be a serious liability in ecclesial fellowship, and by his very susceptibility he can compass his own spiritual downfall. How easily it can be forgotten that God knows and that therefore sooner or later all, even the most grievous misjudgement, is sure to be set right.

So, warns Jesus: “Take heed to yourselves” that there be not an unforgiving spirit.

Peter had asked: “Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me and I forgive him? till seven times?” (Mt.18 :21). The shattering answer given then was now reinforced with a further counsel of impossible idealism:

“If he repent, forgive him; and if he trespass against thee seven times in a day, and seven times in a day turn again to thee, saying I repent; thou shalt forgive him”.

Such facile repentance would surely proclaim an arrant cynical insincerity. Nevertheless Jesus bids his disciple take a man at his word. There must be no harbouring of the least suspicion of duplicity. After all, is it really serious if one who has been undeservedly forgiven by Almighty God should himself forgive a man not deserving of it?

Faith and the Sycamine Tree

“Lord, increase our faith,” begged the apostles of their Master one day. Faith regarding what? If there is connection with the context, they may have felt the need for help in keeping closer to his daunting idealism.

Another possible connection is with the day after the Transfiguration when Jesus had to reprove his disciples because of their little faith concerning their attempts to heal the epileptic boy whilst Jesus was absent from them (Mt.17 :19,20). The natural reaction to this reproof would be to ask, as soon as opportunity came their way: “Lord, will you teach us how to add to our little faith, so that we may be of greater usefulness in your service, and not let you down by failures such as that?” But Luke 17 and Matthew 17 appear to be remote from each other in point of time.

More likely, the parables of Luke 15 and especially 16—the Unjust Steward and the Rich Man in Hell—had at last told the Twelve that their Master was not aiming at a reform of the existing order, but at making a completely fresh start, a New Creation. And they, these twelve ordinary men, were to have such a formidable task committed to them. How could they hope to succeed against all the tradition and deep-rooted prejudices of people and rulers? What hope of progress against the vested interests of the men of the temple? No wonder faith faltered at the prospect. (The rare use of the word “apostles” would support this suggestion; v.5).

The Lord’s response to their plea, in a short and a longer parable, was strictly relevant:

“If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye would say to this sycamine tree, Be (hot plucked up by the root, and be thou planted in the sea; and it would have obeyed you.” This saying is marvellously like the answer Jesus had given them on the earlier occasion, just referred to: “If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say to this mountain (the Mount of Transfiguration), Remove hence to yonder place (Mount Zion); and it shall remove” (Mt.17:20), That saying reflected the Lord’s exhilaration of spirit after the mountain experience of tin presence of Moses and Elijah and the Shekinah Glory of God. Since then the discouragements which had beset him imparted a more sombre tone to his prophecy.

Interpretation

The sycamore (AV) is a kind of maple. But the sycamine, which is what Jesus really referred to, is a species of fig tree. In the LXX version every reference to the sycamine is unmistakably too fig tree. The figure hardly needs to be expounded. One passage of Scripture after another points to the Jewish nation (e.g. Jer. 24; Mic.7:1; Hos.9:10 Joel 1:7; Hab.3 :17; Mt.21 :19; 24 :32; Lk.13 :6; Rev.6 :13).

Jesus, it would seem, foresaw that one of (lie greatest trials awaiting his apostles was that which he also found hardest to bear-the faithlessness and opposition of his own people. Their apostolic work of taking the gospel to all parts would certainly be mightily hindered by the opposition of Jewry. Nevertheless, he bade them believe that if in faith they committed to God the mission he was soon to commit to them, their great obstacle—the fig-tree nation—would be uprooted and planted in the sea (2 Chr.7 :20); that is, Israel would be cast adrift, to be no longer a hindrance to their great task.

Other similar scriptures seem to have a similar reference: “The wicked shall be cut off from the Land, and they that deal treacherously shall be rooted out of it” (Pr. 2 :22—the origin of the Lord’s saying?). “Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up” (Mt.15 :13). And Jude was to describe Judaistic perverters of the gospel as “Trees without fruit, twice dead, plucked up by the roots;” and, remarkably enough, his next figure of speech is: “raging waves of the sea, foaming out their own shame” (Jude 12,13).

Unprofitable Servant

By yet another parable Jesus bade his disciples recognize that, in their work for him, success depended not only on their faith but also on their faithfulness.

When an employee (or, more exactly, a stave) comes into the house at the end of a day’s ploughing or shepherding, he has no right to expect that he may immediately rest and enjoy a meal. First, there is the master’s meal to prepare and serve. Then, when that is concluded, the servant’s turn comes next. And oil this he may expect to do as a matter of course, and without even a word of thanks.

In that epoch, so different from the twentieth century, this kind of thing happened every day. Although difficult to imagine now, the social system of that time took it for granted. Today it is important to seek out the meaning Jesus intended, and why he used such an idea to answer the disciples’ request.

Once again, it is possible to observe a fairly clear one-one correspondence between the details and their meaning. The servant ploughing or tending sheep is a picture of the typical Jew devoted to the service of the Law of Moses. He serves God in the “field” of Jewry; the curse on the ground (Gen. 3 :17-19), which makes his labour necessary, suggests the curse of the Law: “by the Law is the knowledge of sin”(Rom.3:20).

When a man leaves the field to come into the house, he is like a disciple moving from the dispensation of works to that of grace. Then let him not assume that thenceforward he has no further responsibilities save to receive comfortably all the blessings that are poured upon him. As the servant is now called upon to gird himself with a towel and serve his master personally, providing whatever is his good pleasure (Gk: “serve continually,” or “go on serving”), so also the new-found convert from Judaism has an obligation to take on himself the imitation of Christ. He now serves his Master in a more personal sense doing all things as unto the brd (who has himself been a suffering Servant)—and this with no sense of personal virtue or of pride in his own achievements, but purely as a commonplace expression of humble duty. Yet, paradoxically enough, it is through the dedication and diligence of the man in the parable that faith is increased.

Nor can there be expectation of thanks for anything which he achieves. Such service is the least he can do. Peter crystallizes out the same lesson using the very words of Lk. 17: “giving all diligence (like the servant in the parable), add to your faith …” (2 Pet. 1 :5). And with the finest endeavours he is capable of, this servant knows himself to be at best an “unprofitable servant” (Ml. 25:30).

At last, when all duties are at an end, there is his own meal. The food is provided by his master, but the quality of the meal depends on the pains and skill with which he himself prepares it. It will be even so regarding the gift of eternal life and the rewards which the sharing of Christ’s kingdom will bring (1 Cor. 3 :12-14; Lk. 12:37).

The lesson, then and now

The main principle behind this parable is a highly important one, and valid for every generation. No man in Christ must ever allow himself to think that the blessings open to him are to be earned through his own dedicated efforts. At best, when all is done, he is a very ordinary fellow, an “unprofitable servant’—’in thy sight shall no man living be justified” (Ps. 143 :2). No amount of good works can put God in his debt: “Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again?”(Rom. 11 :35). The true spirit of Christian service is expressed by Paul regarding his unique achievements as a minister of Christ: “Though I preach the gospel, I have nothing to glory of: for necessity is laid upon me; yea, woe is unto me if I preach not the gospel! For if I do this thing willingly, I have a reward: but if against my will, I have a stewardship intrusted to me” (1 Cor.9 :16,17); that, is, I must keep at it just the same.

It is not difficult to see how a parable stressing this aspect of life in Christ is closely related to the preceding saying about the uprooting of the fig tree. Judaism was to be the great obstacle to the preaching of the gospel in the early days, and only the faith of the preacher and the providence of God would remove it. But why should there be such bitter Jewish opposition to a movement so basically Jewish, the Hope of Israel, in fact? Because Jewry was unwilling, and still is, to let go the idea of justification by works (Rom.9 :30-33; 10 :3). To ask a Jew to regard his faithful allegiance to the formalities of the Law of Moses as “unprofitable” was an almost outrageous proposition. And to this dpy many earnest Gentile disciples of Christ are too much in love with the same misguided concept.

The problem of the challenge of loyalties— Moses or Christ?— as it was to face the early church is mordantly illustrated in an acted parable which Luke inserts in his record at this point.

But, first, a geographical detail which is something of a puzzle: “And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.”

Probably Luke is indicating here another of the big circuits which Jesus made during the last few months of his ministry. It took him through Samaria and into Galilee once again, though not for long. He was now staying for no appreciable length of time in any place. And this northern sweep was “as he went to Jerusalem,” because that was the ultimate goal of his pilgrimage.

Lepers, and a leper

As Jesus and his party were approaching a village, a group of ten lepers (a synagogue of misery) clamoured for his compassion. Social outcasts that they were, they kept at a good distance but raised a united shout which they repeated again and again: “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” The fame of the powers of Jesus had reached even these pariahs. Now was their great opportunity.

The narrative reads as though Jesus, busy in discourse as he went, was not aware of their proximity until their shout reached his ears. His response was immediate: “Go and show yourselves unto the priests.” It was an indirect promise of healing.

Without any hesitation they believed his word, and set off. Soon, as they were going they realised that what they had asked was already granted them—they were every one of them healed, their flesh as clean, firm and wholesome as a child’s. With an excitement and gladness which may be readily imagined they quickened their pace to the local Jewish priest who would provide certification of healing.

All except one. When this one of them—a Samaritan!—knew himself to be healed he forthwith abandoned all idea of going to his Samaritan priest. Disobeying the instruction Jesus had already given him and instead giving priority to what he deemed a higher duty, he rushed back to Jesus. His loud shout of praise to God was heard from a distance:

“I cried to Thee, O Lord; and unto the Lord I made supplication . . . Hear, O lord, and have mercy upon me: Lord, be thou my helper. Thou hast turned for me my mourning (Lev. 13 :45) into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness; to the intent that my glory may sing praise unto thee. O Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee for ever” (Ps.30 :8-12, a psalm of David’s leprosy; cp. Ps.38). This time, instead of standing afar off, the man came right up to Jesus, pouring out his ceaseless fervent thanksgiving, and prostrating himself at his feet.

“Were there not ten cleansed?” But where are the nine?” There was surely a touch of bitterness about his question: “Were there none found that returned to give glory to God (by thanking his Son) save this stranger?”

Then he spoke his thanks to the man at his feet: “Arise and go thy way: thy faith hath saved thee.” Faith in Christ had cleansed the other nine, but now they were taken up with dutiful observance of the outward forms of the bw. This stranger, by rising to the higher level of continued personal dependence on Christ, was more than cleansed, he was saved.

Acted parable

And now the parable. Always, ten men have been a necessary pre-requisite for the formation of a synagogue. The prophet foretells a time when “ten men shall take hold of the skirt of Him that is a Jew, saying, We will go with you, for we have heard (and now believe) that God is with you (Immanuel!)” (Zech. 8 :23). It is a prophecy of the long overdue acceptance of Christ by the nation which has always rejected him.

These ten lepers, then, prefigured a Jewish synagogue healed by Christ and then going off to pay full observance of the Law, to the neglect of the One who healed them. Out of them all, only one shows due loyalty to Christ—and he an outcast, from whom the others would now be extremely glad to hold themselves aloof.

This is what happened in the early church. Many Jewish Christian communities came into existence through the preaching of the gospel. Yet, although experiencing the healing Christ imparted, they mostly went back to the synagogue and the Law. The powerful “counter-reformation” mounted by Jewish vested interests overwhelmed them. The main purpose behind the writing of the Epistle to the Hebrews waste stem this drift back to the synagogue. By the time another generation had gone by, there were hardly any Christian Jews at all, and such as there were knew themselves to be out-Law-ed by the rest. Yet these were saved with an everlasting salvation.

The miracle has also its message for the believer of the present day. Cleansed of his leprosy, he must be warned against going to seek justification by his own works. The nine lepers actually obeyed Christ’s command implicitly. Yet they pleased him less. What they lacked was the personal appreciation of the One who gave it. There was more self-interest in a prompt appearance before the priest. Then today let a man not neglect to show himself to Jesus his true high-priest. Euchariston, the Samaritan’s giving of thanks (v.16), is one of the names adopted by the early church for the Breaking of Bread (Study 197). There, at the Breaking of Bread, let him pour out his thanks; there let him be reminded that it is his faith in Christ which saves him; and there let him accept the Lord’s own assurance that he is saved.

Notes: Lk. l7:1-19

5.	The apostles said. This rare use of the word (9:10; cf.v. 1) might well suggest a break in the narrative here. Where else besides Mt. 17:19; 18:1; Acts 1 :6 was there a general apostolic enquiry?
9.	Doth he thank...?Gk. implies: No, of course not. But by contrast, v.8 implies an affirmative answer.
11.	Samaria and Galilee. Mentioned in this order because of v.16-18?
13.	Voices. The Gk. word is singular. As one man.
	Have mercy on us. Even the Samaritan among them believed that salvation is of the Jews (Jn. 4 :22). It was a better importunity than even that by another healed leper (5:12). Yet it was this plea which in the parable father Abraham disregarded.
17.	The nine. It is usually assumed that these were all Jews. See note on v. 18.
18.	Found; cp. 2Chr. 29:29 mg.
	This stranger. Gk: one of another race. So here Jesus is explicit that Samaritans had no right to claim descent from Abraham.
19.	Hath made thee whole. Gk. implies a lasting salvation.

It was a strange paradox-the experience of Gideon over again. Although the leaders of the nation held off, Jesus had no lack of followers: “there went great multitudes with him.” Yet he was dissatisfied and gloomy regarding the situation. He sought their personal committal to the life he was showing them how to live. But they were more interested in the excitement of his miracles, more intent on the Messianic Kingdom which many of them still hoped for from him.

So once again, austere and demanding, he presented his manifesto: “If any man come to me, and hate not his father, and mother, and wife, and children, and brethren, and sisters, yea, and his own life also, he cannot be my disciple.”

To some the words must have been like sudden immersion in ice-cold water. But Gideon had had to rid himself of the weak and fainthearted and had had to whittle down the remaining thousands even further by what became a test of their personal religious scruples. Here now the corresponding winnowing process was being applied to the multitudes of the Lord’s superficial sympathisers. In its tone the call was astringent and challenging. Of course Jesus did not mean there must be literal hatred of one’s family. Jacob’s inferior love for Lean was called hatred (Gen. 29:30,31). And had not Jesus mercilessly trounced the Pharisees’ sophistry which allowed a man to evade the duty of caring for his aged parents (Mt. 15:4)? On an earlier occasion Jesus had defined this “sacred hate” as “not loving more” those who are normally closest and dearest (Mt. 10:37)-this especially when they are opposed to or in competition with Christ. It had been exemplified in ancient days by the willingness of the tribe of Levi to forsake the natural ties binding them to worshippers of the golden calf, in order to respond to the call: “Who is on the Lord’s side?” (Ex. 32:26,27; Dt. 33:8,9; 13:6).

The straight meaning of this saying of Christ has been much neglected-or distorted. Very clearly he was requiring that all natural affections be given second place compared with allegiance to himself. It is a sentiment quickly and easily said, but for disciples of Christ whose families do not share their loyalty to him this con be the most demanding thing he ever required, Of course Jesus did not mean that oil responsibilities and affections for one’s own kith and kin should be let go. But he did require that priority of devotion and service should be given to his work and the members of his family. So there may be times when, to others not instructed in the gospel, following one’s duty to Christ may look like hatred of one’s own family.

But the hardest clause is the last: “yea, and his own life also.” The Greek word psuche, soul, is constantly used in the New Testament to sum up a man’s natural instincts and inclinations, all the life, interests and affections of unregenerate man (see Notes). In asking his disciples to forego these, could Jesus have been more demanding?

Yet, except a man make a conscious choice of his way of life, except there be a deliberate renunciation of the priority of natural ties and inclinations, “he cannot be my disciple.” The shape of the sentence puts the emphasis on the last word. It is possible to be an “associate member” of the ecclesia and family of Christ, and yet not be a disciple. “There went great multitudes with him,” says this record, but few of them were “called, and chosen and faithful,” Amongst them all how many were prepared to “bear the cross of self, and come after Jesus”?

What a contrast here between the call of Christ and that of all human leaders! They ever beckon their disciples on with the prospect that all will be easy, pleasant, and prosperous. But not so Christ. And yet, by a strange paradox, he is able to promise an easy yoke and a light burden (Mt. 11:28-30)-which thing is true, for those who achieve the forsaking called for here.

But Paul was forewarned “how great things he must suffer” for the Lord’s sake (Acts 9:16). And Ezekiel was goaded into faithful witness, though “thou dost dwell among scorpions” (2:6).

In a general kind of way everyone hearing this challenge knew at once its sombre meaning, but in all that multitude was there one who lecognised just how pointed it was? The twelve hod heard this poignant saying before, but not one of them realised yet the plangent meaning it was to take on in a few week’s time. After Passover many of those who now heard would think again with renewed seriousness of this realistic metaphor.

Building a tower

There were those who lacked the purposeful self-dedication which Jesus sought. With a blithe airy self-confidence they said: “Lord, I will follow thee whithersoever thou goest.” In a telling parable he now bade them stop and think what they were about. Yet the warning stood written in the Book of Proverbs: “Through wisdom is an house builded; and by understanding it is established… Prepare thy work without, and make it fit for thyself in the field; and afterwards build thine house” (24:3,27). Jesus proceeded to turn this into a very forceful parable.

With great gusto and optimism a man proceeded to put down the foundations of a tower. Course by course the structure rose, with all the promise of impressive completion. Then, suddenly, when the tower was yet a long way from its full height all activity came to a halt. The man had run out of money and materials. The fine impressive structure, the mental picture of which had so fascinated his sanguine imagination, was now a monumental folly, a joke on the lips of everybody for miles round.

If only he had had the elementary prudence to go carefully into the costing of the undertaking first, the foolish fellow could have saved himself from becoming a laughing stock and a bankrupt. If, instead, he had tailored the project to suit his pocket and his own strength (v.28, 29 Gk.), there might have been a house or other erection that would have been his pleasure and pride for many a long day.

The warning against a sanguine over-hasty decision to serve Christ is specially needful when a man is of a blithe unreflective disposition. Appropriately, then, Jesus spoke in terms of building a tower. This for two reasons. It was a reminder of the tower of Babel, that great futility which men set out to erect with sublime confidence in their own powers. And, by contrast with (say) the construction of a wall round a garden or estate, the building of a tower gets more and more difficult as the structure rises higher. Thus nothing could more suitably represent a discipleship of Christ undertaken in a spirit of se/Areliance and self-confidence. Such a man, even though he lay a good foundation (which is Jesus Christ himself; 1 Cor. 3:11), if he expect to achieve eternal life through his own efforts, can end only as a sorry, failure:

“Like one that draws the model of a house

Beyond his power to build it; who, half-through,

Gives o’er, and leaves his part-created cost,

A naked subject to the weeping clouds,

And waste for churlish winter’s tyranny.”

In his version of the parable Shakespeare (Henry IV, part 2, 1:3) suggests perhaps the sadness of heaven at such a failure, but he omits

the mockery of all who, looking on, see the fine project grind to a halt, and contribute nothing but a coarse joke.

This last is an important feature in the tragedy, for when a man rushes unthinking into discipleship of Christ and comes to grief, his failure and abandonment of all high aspirations are made to reflect badly on the One he has chosen to follow. For it is in this illogical fashion that the world, itself making no effort at all, quietens its uneasy conscience.

In the parable the man’s basic mistake was in ever setting out to build a tower, for, if completed, it could only be a monument to his own industry, cleverness, and wealth. If the intention was to erect a tower of refuge for times of danger, then why build at all? There was such a haven of safety already available: “The name of the lord is a strong tower: the righteous runneth into it, and is safe” (Pr. 18:10). But perhaps he was set on having one of his own. Then more fool he!

This story of the unfinished tower would sound familiar in the ears of the crowd, for lately Pilate’s excellent project to furnish Jerusalem with a fine new supply of water had had to be left unfinished through lack of revenue.

And the twin parable also was the story of king Herod whose divorcing of the daughter of Aretas, king of Arabia, in order to marry the infamous Herodias, had involved him in a disastrous war and a shameful defeat.

Following Jesus, there were others in the multitude just as much in need of warning, though for a very different reason. These could see plainly enough that the claims of Jesus were true. Nevertheless, for various reasons -fear of the rulers, the influence of family ties, the pull of worldly circumstances, the daunting idealism Jesus constantly insisted on— for one or other of such reasons they held back from openly espousing his cause. Willing enough to cheer from the spectators’ benches, they were put off by the rigours of the contest from joining in.

War or Capitulation?

These, Jesus now proceeded to show, were in dire danger. Only prompt decision could save them. For, by their irresolution, they were turning the grace of God into an enemy. It was, and still is, the predicament of a king, with no more than ten thousand troops all told, having to face an aggressive campaign by an invader with an army of twenty thousand at his back, besides lots more he can bring into action if necessary. (The Greek prepositions seem to imply this.)

The commonsense thing to do, Jesus emphasized, would be to hold a conference of generals about the prospects, and then, surely, before the invader’s campaign can really get under way, to send a delegation to get the best peace terms possible.

The way this story is developed by Jesus, it is possible to see special meaning in every detail. The king who has incurred the wrath of his neighbour is the enlightened rejector of the gospel. The cloud of war now looming on the horizon is the coming day of adverse judgment. The counsellors whose wisdom is consulted in this strait are surely the men who wrote the books of Holy Scripture. Perhaps the envoy sent to parley is the mediator, Jesus himself. And in such circumstances the conditions of peace (Lk. 19:42 Gk.) are always the same-total surrender (of all that is originally his; v.33 Gk.) Here is a full renunciation comparable to the “hatred” already called for (v. 26).

How Jesus hoped as he told this brief but vivid story that his hearers would draw the logical conclusion: “So likewise, whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple.”

But it may be urged that, if the correspondence is to be pressed, there is a marked lack of seemliness about the numbers of the respective armies. Is the unsubmissive hearer of the gospel even half as good as God? Of course not! But he would like to think that he is! The man, whom the Bible’s solemn message about human sin does not impress with his own desperate plight, evidently thinks of himself as falling not too far short of the divine standard. Otherwise, in earnest repentance he would gladly make friends with God and not dally until the day when he had made the Almighty implacably hostile.

UnsaltySalt

Jesus summed up the message of this grave discourse with another little parable which he had used earlier in another context (Mt. 5:13), Salt is unique in its powers of bringing out the flavour of anything that is savoury. But if the salt loses its saltness, what else can be used to restore the flavour to it? It is then not only quite useless in cooking but also, if thrown on to cultivated land or the manure heap, positively harmful. The only place where it will do no harm is in the street or on a busy path, trodden underfoot by all.

This, exactly, is the prospect for both types that Jesus exhorted that day. The self-confident fellow who eagerly takes on discipleship with much assurance regarding his own powers of achievement, and who as hastily loses his zeal for the high calling in Christ; and the man who, learning more and more, in a detailed kind of way, about the gospel of Christ, yet lacks either the courage or the good sense to throw caution to the winds and to lose his nervousness in fully-committed service to Christ-neither of these types has any hope of finding a better, more rewarding life away from Christ. For them life can only become an insipid dissatisfaction. Both must inevitably end up as castaways.

The lessons were obvious enough. Jesus could hardly have made his point more trenchantly, Why did they not recognize and follow the wisdom of his counsel? And why do they not?

Notes: Lk. 14:25-35

26.	Life, psuche, the inclinations of the natural unregenerate man; e.g. Lk. 12:19,22; Heb. 4:12; 1 Pet. 1:22; Rev. 18:14; 1 Cor. 2:14; Jas. 3:15; Jude 19.And Jn. 10:11; 12:25,27; Mt. 26:38.
30.	Contrast the great project undertaken by heaven: Heb. 4:3; 12:2;Jn. 19:30.
32.	Conditions of peace. King Josiah unwisely followed a different course and paid for it (2 Kgs. 23:29).
33.	Forsaketh. In OT (LXX), Ecc. 2:20 only.
34.	Wherewith shall it be seasoned? It is possible that Jesus intended an ellipsis here: “wherewith shall it (your sacrifice) be seasoned?” (Lev. 2:13).

The gospels tell of three occasions when Pharisees invited Jesus to a meal. Judging from the outcome, the other two invitations were hostile in intention (Luke 7:36; 11:37), and this loo, most probably. This time the host was “one of the rulers of the Pharisees”, the majority parry on the Council.

Even though the Psalmist has trenchant words about “not sitting with vain persons, nor going in with dissemblers” (26:4), Jesus had no qualms about accepting the invitation. Separateness from evil depends essentially on one’s frame of mind, and in this respect Jesus was immune. Indeed he saw to it that the present occasion should provide as fine an example as could be wished of wholesome table talk. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Cor. 10:31).

It was not by any accident that, close to Jesus at the meal-table, was a poor sufferer, bloated and ugly with dropsy. He had, of course, been set there with the deliberate intention of posing a problem to Jesus, though doubtless he himself had accepted the invitation with eagerness and high hopes that he too might experience the healing powers of this amazing man.

“They watched him”

These Pharisees knew the strength of the Lord’s overmastering compassion. Would he, then, heal the man, even though it was the sabbath day? On five other occasions already • Jesus had been in controversy with the Pharisees regarding his sabbath-wrought miracles. It is a measure of their fanaticism—and confidence-regarding this that they once again provoked a clash with Jesus concerning it.

So “they watched him.” “The wicked watcheth the righteous, and seeketh to slay him” (Ps. 37:32); but “all that watch for iniquity are cut off: that make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate” (Is. 29:20,21). There can be little doubt that this was a snare, a trap deliberately laid to put Jesus in a difficult position, with critics on every side and no marvelling crowd to appeal to. Even so, it is not necessary to assume that the afflicted man was party to the evil scheme. Were he so, is it likely that Jesus would have healed him?

Before he did so, the Lord “answered” (v.3) the unspoken challenge in their malevolent stare: “Is it lawful to heal on the sabbath day?” How many times had these Pharisees tried to get Jesus on the horns of a dilemma with theirtrick questions. Now they found the tables turned on them. For if they answered:”Yes, it is lawful”, what possible criticism could they then make of Jesus? And if “No”, it would be an open hurt to their afflicted friend sitting there. In any case, how could they reconcile their own self-indulgence on this sabbath with an unwillingness even to see aid brought to this sufferer? So they took refuge in an embarrassed hostile silence.

Thereupon Jesus took hold of the dropsical man, and lifted him to his feet. The gospel mentions no word of authority, but simply that the man was healed. His flabby face took on a healthy normality, his swollen body subsided, his elephantine legs and puffy feet became like those of a young man. He stood there, attempting to stammer out his delighted thanks, whilst the Pharisees stared at him in incredulity and disgust. Then, to save him from assaults on his faith by these unbelievers, Jesus forthwhile sent him away. The Greek word seems to imply that he did not want to stay, anyway.

Good works on the Sabbath

As they now began to take their places at table, the Lord stifled the sleeping volcano of their objections with a simple argument: ‘If your son or your ox falls into a pit on the Sabbath, there isn’t one of you who will not take steps to haul him out—and without losing a minute-even though it be the sabbath day. Or is there?’ But not one present was willing to contend against this reasoning. Yet it implied Christ’s personal possession of and authority over the life of the man just healed, and therefore just as much over the lives of these Pharisees.

The saving of a son or an ox was an action with a certain element of selfishness in it, but not so this healing of the dropsy. Then how much less objection could there be to such an action? (1 Cor. 9:9,10).

The fact is that the precepts of the rabbis actually forbade such a rescue on the Sabbath. The case had already been legislated for: “Supply food, but do nothing further till the sabbath is past.” Yet Jesus knew he was on safe ground with this illustration, for these Pharisees, dominated by self-interest, kept their own commandments only when it was convenient: “they say, and do not” (Mt. 23:3). So there was no answer to either miracle or argument-only red faces.

A parable of place-seeking

And these became redder as Jesus noted and reproved the small-minded way in which they manoeuvred to get what were deemed to be the places of prestige at table. He quoted them the proverb: “Put not forth thyself in the presence of the king (thus, indirectly, declaring himself to be the King), and stand not in the place of great men: for better it is that it be said unto thee, Come up hither; than that thou shouldest be put lower in the presence of the prince whom thine eyes have seen”(Pr. 25:6,7).

Then he turned it into a parable: Invited to a marriage feast, show no eagerness to appropriate one of the best seats. You may be humiliated by being told to move to the bottom of the table. So instead choose the humblest place there is, and leave it to the host to promote you, and so enhance your reputation before all the rest—that is, if your worth as a friend (philos) warrants it! (“that he may say unto thee…”).

This was not just a rebuke of Pharisaic pride. It was a parable. Jesus had better things to do than spend time giving lessons in social behaviour.

The “marriage feast” can hardly represent “the marriage supper of the Lamb,” for it is difficult to imagine any jostling for priority or shaming of the self-assertive in that time of blessedness. But see it as a betrothal feast (which would be similarly described-see Study 7), and there is no difficulty. This corresponds to the present union of the believer with Christ-his acceptance into the ecclesia.

       

It is important also to note the distinction (very easily missed) between the servant who conveys (lie invitation and who also somewhat brusquely sets the proud guest in a lower place, and the host who is providing the betrothal feast. He comes in later, picks out the humble guest deserving of greater prominence, and— greeting him as a specially close friend—insists on his exaltation to a better seat (s.w, Ex. 19:23 LXX).

Thus Jesus taught the sinfulness of pride and self-seeking in the ecclesia (1 Tim. 3:6). The lesson needed to be learned specially by the better type among these Pharisees who, impressed by the works and teaching of Christ, were hesitating whether or not they should throw in their lot with him. The parable reminded such that, once out of the synagogue, and into the ecclesia, their right and proper place for a good while to come must needs be in a position of humility and subjection. Authority must be conceded to men like the twelve, who in education and in religious and social standing were very much their inferiors.

The lesson was not well learned in the early church. “A great company of priests were obedient to the faith.” (Acts 6:7). These were trained teachers of the Law and accustomed to instruct and to exercise authority, for “a priest’s lips should keep knowledge, and they (the people) should seek the law at his mouth” (Mal. 2:7). Naturally, such men —in spite of the warning given here by Jesus—would consider themselves to be specially qualified as teachers in the ecclesia. There is reason to believe that it was men of this character who later brought the infant church near to disaster with their ill-informed emphasis on the continuing authority of Moses. And James’s trenchant exposure of possible evils arising from “the tongue’—that is, the teacher in the ecclesia (see Jas. 3:1RV)— shows that in the earliest days the danger was a very real one.

The same lesson may still go unlearned. More than one distressing example has been known of the glamour of advanced education or social standing or wealth resulting in an ill-advised exaltation to eminence, responsibility and spiritual leadership for which as yet there was no adequate qualification.

“For whomsoever exalteth himself shall be abased (Is. 14:13-15); and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted (Phil. 2:5-11).” The importance of this two-fold lesson may be gauged from the fact that the Lord spoke it on three separate occasions (18:14; Mat. 23:12).

The etiquette of heaven

The present situation justified another parable of this character, even more relevant to the company at table—this was about whom to invite to a party. Not friends, whom it is pleasant to entertain; not relations, though there is a certain seemliness about such an invitation; not the rich, though this may be advantageous. But, instead, the poor and afflicted who are in no position to offer hospitality in return (1 Tim. 6:17-19).

Once again,Jesus’ main intention was not to give lessons in etiquette. This is a parable, calling for interpretation.

The issuing of invitations to a meal is readily seen to correspond in these days to the personal duty of preaching the gospel of the Kingdom. As in the next parable (verse 21), the poor, maimed, lame, and blind who cannot give a recompense are those who know their own need and are glad enough to accept an invitation to the divine feast. The others—friends, kinsmen, well-off neighbours—are those already in the family of God who are able to make a spiritual return for the fellowship and ministration of the Word which they themselves enjoy.

Of course, Jesus was not shutting the door against extending one’s ministrations and fellowship to those in the ecclesia (Rom. 12:13; 1 Pet. 4:9; Heb. 13:2)-the Greek verb implies “do not habitually call. . .” But he was stressing the special importance of effort on behalf of those out of the way of salvation.

In modern times there is particular need to observe this principle, for after all, this is what God Himself does (v.16,21; Mt. 25:34,35,40). Lack of response to the call of the gospel has had a discouraging effect on many would-be preachers. It has also served to divert into other channels much energy which would be more happily and more profitably employed in preaching, thankless though the task may seem. Today the ecclesias are suffering from a kind of spiritual inbreeding. Content to exist as a separate little world, they are content also to “strengthen the things that remain” with-a round of Fraternal Gatherings and social meetings of all kinds. “These ought ye to have done, and not to have left the other undone”!

Resurrection and recompense

As on some other occasions (e.g. Lk. 16:31; Mt. 25:13; 20:16), Jesus ended this little parable with words not at all parabolic: “Thou shalt be recompensed at the resurrection of the just.” Clearly this was necessary because the parable itself contains nothing that can answer to the Final Recompense, even though there be a certain satisfaction in a consciousness of doing what is right and, maybe, in the thanks of those receiving the benefit. In that Day neither the satisfying memory of zealous labour nor the gratitude of those brought into the family of God through those labours will compare with the unspeakably greater blessing of being with Christ and invited by him to the marriage supper of the Lamb.

This expression: “the resurrection of the just,” has been mistakenly read as implying that at the Lord’s coming just and unjust will be raised separately. Indeed, on the strength of this passage, some would put back the resurrection of the unjust to the end of Messiah’s millenial reign. This isolated phrase is too small a peg to carry such a heavy conclusion. It needs to be recognized that not infrequently in the New Testament “resurrection” is used in the sense of “resurrection to everlasting life” (e.g. 1 Cor. 15:21,42,52; Ph. 3:11;Mt. 22:30). Inany case, there are too many places where the Bible plainly couples together the resurrection of both classes (e.g. Dan. 12:2; Jn. 5:29; 12:48; Mt. 13:41,49).

At this meal to which Jesus had been invited, so far everything had tended to create a tense atmosphere. It is not unlikely, then, that with the idea of provoking more harmonious thoughts one of the guests gave voice to a pious platitude: “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God.” He obviously thought that he would be there, or he wouldn’t have said it. Even so, is it possible to imagine such a remark being made at a meal-table today? And, pious platitude or not, Jesus quotes this man in Revelation (19:9),

The allusion was, maybe, to the “feast of fat things” promised in one of Isaiah’s finest Messianic prophecies (25:6).

The rejoinder of Jesus was as sombre as anything he had yet spoken in that house. That it should be so is a measure of the intense depression of spirit which lay on him because of i the many discouragements he encountered and the wearing abrasive criticism he had to put up with from Pharisees.

A parable of excuses

The parable he now told-lately well-named “the Parable of Excuses” (Leon Morris)—was designed to make these self-righteous men, so confident of their good standing in the sight of heaven, aware of the near certainty that they would not eat bread in the kingdom of God.

A man planned an evening dinner on a sumptuous scale for many of his friends. At the appropriate time he sent a servant with a reminder—this according to the custom of the time (cp. Esth. 5:8; 6:14). Instead of preparedness and pleasant anticipation, the servant met with one excuse after another; literally: “they all with one (voice) began to ask off” (general NT. usage of this verb is much stronger than this). It reads here as though they had agreed among themselves to evade attending the function.

One man had bought a farm and was going to inspect it—at supper time! Another had bought five yoke of oxen, and was going to try them out-at supper time! (contrast 1 Kgs. 19:19). Were these two really such fools as to invest an appreciable amount of capital without first making sure that the investment was worthwhile? Or is it that they were not averse to slighting their would-be host with trivial excuses which insulted his intelligence?

To evade attendance a third fell back one gross misapplication of the Law of Moses. It was laid down that a newly-married man should have exemption from military service and any arduous responsibility (Dt. 24:5-7; and note v.8). On the strength of this, his excuse, spoken out quite brazenly, was: “I have married a wife, and therefore I cannot come” (note v.26). He treated the invitation as though it were conscription! And he turned the Law’s permission into an imperative. Yet all three of them had evidently accepted the invitation when it was first given and so were under a moral obligation to keep that evening free from other preoccupations.

These three were examples (like the three servants mentioned in the parable of the Pounds) of what was found to be true for all the rest (17:26-28; Mt. 22:5).

When the servant reported back to his master, very naturally it made him extremely angry-not an explosion of wrath (thumos), but a settled deliberate hostility (orgizo). “Lose no time ot all,” he now instructed. “Go out into the city, and gather together any you find, whether poor, maimed, halt, or blind; and bring them for supper at my house” (cp. Acts 13:46).

So this was done. The poor, who could expect an invitation from no one; the maimed, who would probably never have a chance to marry; the blind, who could not see to inspect a farm; and the lame, who were useless with a team of oxen— these were brought in, instead. Even such people were not too disreputable. They needed the supper, but to be a success the supper also needed them. And what fellowship it would foster among them!

Yet still the banqueting hall was not full (14:22,23).

‘Then go outside the city, and bring people in from the main roads and country lanes. Use every strong persuasion you can exercise to get them here’-for God’s gospel, like His nature, abhors a vacuum. The servant was bidden use constraint to overcome the inevitable incredulity of these waifs and outsiders.

At this point the parable breaks off — far a reason which is not difficult to discern

Interpretation

The man in the parable is God Himself. The supper is the gospel of salvation intimated beforehand through His servants the prophets. Those invited were the chosen race. At the right time the servant (who surely represents Jesus himself; cp. 13:7) gave notice that now was the time for the great occasion of fellowship. But instead of joyful acceptance there was evasion of that which the nation had long declared itself to be eager for. That all made excuse is an expression of Christ’s depressing conclusion that oil the privileged classes in Israel had turned their backs on him and would continue to do so. Therefore he had made his appeal to the despised sections of the community—the poor ana uneducated, the publicans and harlots. They had responded to a surprising extent (5:29). But the grace of God had room for many others as spiritually destitute as they. So the parable of Jesus prophesied that the divine invitation would also go to those outside, the Gentiles (Acts 13:46), and that their acceptance of the gospel would make up for the crude Jewish refusal.

The principle of the parable still applies. Today men still “ask off”, pleading the claims of another field (Mt. 13:44), another yoke (Mt. 11:29), another betrothal feast (2 Cor. 11:2).

Expressing himself with very strong feeling, Jesus rounded off with a peremptory decision couched in terms of his almost self-evident parable: “I say unto you, That none of those men which were bidden shall taste of my supper” (cp. Dt. 1:35). It was a further prophecy of the rejection of Israel. And how justified it was! Jesus had now made his appeal to every part of the nation. Nevertheless in Jerusalem and in every corner of the country he had been rejected—Galilee, Decapolis, the extreme north, Samaria, Perea, Judea. “Blessed is he that shall eat bread in the kingdom of God”! Few of the nation showed any inclination to share that blessing.

The only one who came away from that meal-table in good spirits was the man who had been healed of his dropsy. The rest had been made gloomy and uneasy and maybe resentful by the severe words they had heard. And Jesus left that house dispirited and sick at heart that by neither word nor miracle could he make any impression on their armour-plated prejudices.

Notes: Lk. 14:1-24

1.	On the sabbath day. The earlier sabbath day healings were: 1. The demoniac at Capernaum (Mk. 1:21). 2. Peter’s mother-in-law (Mk. 1:29). 3. Thewithered hand (Mt. 12:9). 4. The paralytic at Bethesda (Jn. 5:10). 5. The man born blind (Jn. 9:14). 6. Thewoman 18 years bowed down (Lk. 13:14). There were also: Matthew 12:1; Mark 1:21-31.
2.	A certain man before him. The entire episode took place before the meal began: v.7.
4.	Held their peace. In OT (LXX) this word usually means rest from war.
5.	An ass (RV: son) or an ox. On manuscript evidence there is little to choose between AV and RV. And in Gk. and ‘son’ are markedly similar. If AV, was Jesus alluding to Dt. 5:14?
12.	Lest. A touch of irony here; You are risking being invited back—and so the process goes on.
16.	A great supper. There is nothing of this kind more important than the Love Feast.
19.	I go to prove them implies: I’m just setting off.
21.	Being angry. Cp. the anger of God in other parables: Mt. 18:34;22:7.
	The halt and the blind Note 2Sam.5:8;but also 9:13.
22.	And yet there is room. A different answer from 13:23, and yet not inconsistent with it.
23.	Compel them. Of course this had to be moral constraint. Could one servant drive a crowd of such recruits, to make them come to the feast?
24.	I say unto you. This can be read as the sponsor of the feast expressing his indignation to those who have already been brought in.
	Those men. The first lot. The Gk. word implies men of consequence and privilege.

The parable of the great supper had put the contrast between those invited who asked off, ond the poor and miserable who were brought in from the streets. Luke’s record goes on immediately to tell of this parable translated into reality. That previous chapter (a man-made break, let it be remembered) concludes with: “He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.” And now: “there were constantly drawing near to him all the publicans and sinners to hear him. And the Pharisees and scribes murmured.” Not content to “make excuse” against their own acceptance of the gospel, they “murmured” (Gk: strongly and continuously) because others whom they despised were finding comfort in the lord’s message. It was “murmuring” which had so often provoked the divine disgust of Israel in the wilderness. Why did they not think of this? Instead, they tried to “shut up the kingdom of heaven against men; they entered not in, and them that were entering in, they hindered” (Ml. 23:13; Lk. 11:52).

Notwithstanding, the people they despised kept on coming to Jesus, knowing well enough that he did not despise them. The ranks of the publicans provided Jesus with an apostle, and with patterns of prayer (18:10) and zeal (19:2) ond faith (Mt. 21:32).

It may surely be surmised that “eateth with them” implies at least one big feast comparable to that sponsored earlier by Matthew |Ml. 9:9,10). Perhaps Zaccheus was present, eager to hear every word and yet chafing at being unable in such a number to make more close personal contact with Jesus (lor how could he talk to them all individually?).

Nor was the criticism valid, that “this man receiveth (welcomes) sinners, and eateth with them;” for Jesus rejoiced in their coming to him os penitents (v.7), not as unregenerate sinners. So in rebuke of their hypercriticism he told two simple and very charming parables.

The Midrash has an apocryphal story about Moses going off into the wilderness to look for a lost lamb. When he found it, it was so exhausted that he carried it back on his shoulder. Pleased with this action, the angel of the Lord promised him that he should have the care of God’s own sheep, Israel.

On an earlier occasion (Study 116) Jesus had used the same illustration to emphasize the duty of seeking reconciliation with an estranged brother. Now he used it again, with suitable differences of detail, to teach the virtue and obligation of finding and recovering any member of the flock of God who is lost.

“What man of you . . .”, he began, thus stressing that if an ordinary shepherd will undertake such a search, how much more ought not he, the Son of God! David the shepherd had done this, fearlessly slaying the lion to recover his lost lamb. Then, at the very least there must be unflagging search, not just in the hope of finding, but “until he find it” (contrast here the “if so be that he find it” in the earlier version of the parable; Mt. 18:13). The prophet Ezekiel’s censure of the false shepherds of Israel harps time and again on their blameworthy neglect-they had “not sought that which was lost” (Ez. 34:4,6,8,11,12,16; Ps. 119:176).

This silly sheep hardly knows it has a shepherd. It knows how to lose itself (without even knowing itself to be lost), but not how to find itself or its way back. In a later parable, the prodigal only “came to himself” when at the crucial time Providence brought hard circumstances to bear on his witless ways.

The rest of the flock in the wilderness are not without resources. Even there, there is enough grass to deter them from wandering. Did not Jesus feed the five thousand in a desert place where there was much grass (Mt. 14:15; Jn.6:10)?

When the lost sheep is found, the shepherd does not drive or lead it back, but carries it on his shoulders (Is. 53:6; Ex. 28:12), glad to have recovered it, and not grumbling about the toil involved. Back home, he invites his friends to share in his rejoicing, and without indulging in any grumble about having to carry itl “Even so,” concluded Jesus, with an irony which bit deep, “there shall be joy in heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine just persons, which need no repentence.” It may well be pondered whether there is any joy in heaven over 99 such persons.

To be sure, the Pharisees were in need of repentance as much as any. Much more than most! Their very smugness made them less attractive to Jesus than one of these despised sinners who was altogether genuine and sincere in his aspiration for a new life. It was, this contrast, doubtless, which caused Jesus to frame his parable in a way not at all according to ordinary shepherding. What shepherd would leave his ninety-nine sheep in the wilderness whilst he went away to find the missing one? But this detail was necessary in the parable to bring out stark and clear the relative worthlessness of the Pharisees who assessed themselves as the finest and safest of the flock.

According to the interpretation supplied by Jesus himself, the “friends and neighbours” represent angels. They who sang and shouted for joy at Creation (Job 38:7) and at the New Creation (Lk. 2:13,14) are now made just as demonstratively joyful over the reclaiming of one despised sinner. Perhaps the ascension of Jesus is implied by this detail, and especially by its future tense: “joy shall be in heaven.” And this picture is powerfully filled out when the Apocalypse describes the Lord’s ascension, his receiving the Book of Life, and the heavenly anthems which acclaim the fruits of his devotion and redeeming work (Rev. 5:7-14). But even in the days of his flesh Jesus spoke his parables out of knowledge of what takes place in heaven.

Whilst this parable was primarily a justification to the Pharisees of his receiving of publicans and sinners, it was also doubtless intended as an exhortation to the ecclesia to bend every effort to reclaim any lost brother, and, when success attends such efforts, to rejoice unfeignedly, for the finding of a lost sheep is not merely a restoration to membership of the ecclesia but to the kingdom of God (1 Pet. 2:25).

Having taught this lesson so pointedly, why should Jesus need to say it all over again in the parable of the lost coin? The reason appears to be in order to emphasize that whilst a sheep can only be lost outside the fold and away from the flock, a coin may be lost whilst it is still in the housel Also, this second parable is addressed much more pointedly to the ecclesia that was to continue the work of its Master. For, like the Virtuous Woman in Proverbs 31, this woman is a fitting figure for the church betrothed to Christ, the synagogue of the Lord —each coin was a drachma, the equivalent of the half-shekel of the sanctuary (Ex. 30:12,13); and it took ten Jews to make a synagogue. Otherwise there is no numerical significance, for the three parables of Luke 15 have one sheep out of a hundred, one coin out of ten, one son out of two.

The ten coins were probably worn as a necklace. The drachma was no longer in common circulation in the time of Jesus. So either these were temple coins (thus filling o similar role to that of a crucifix on the neckchain of a devout Catholic), or else they were o wedding ornament, a token of betrothal.

The frantic eagerness of the search may be imagined. Losing one sheep out of a hundreds bad enough; losing one coin out a treasured ten is much worse; losing one son (which of them!) out of two is a massive tragedy.

Certainly the best way to find the missing coin would be to sweep the entire house, even though it would mean raising a dust. The symbolism of these details, suggested by the Lord’s parable, carries its own lesson. And as the woman swept, she doubtless blamed herself ceaselessly for the loss of something so valuable. It was precious because stamped as belonging to the King;) bore his image and superscription. And her gladness was because ‘I have found the piece which I had lost,’ not, as in the preceding parable, ‘I have found my sheep which was lost.’ The discerning reader will have no difficulty in seeing how right such variations and such details are.

Only the genius of Jesus could weave so mudi subtle and forceful significance into such short stories.

Notes: Lk. 15:1-10

4.	What man of you . . . ? But would an ordinary shepherd leave the main flock to look after itself whilst he made long search for the lost one?
	An hundred sheep. If there is any special meaning in this hundred, perhaps it suggests holiness: Gen. 33:19; Ex. 27:9; 38:27; 1 Kgs. 18:4; Is. 65:20; Dt. 22:19; and nine occurrences in Ez. 40,41.
6.	Friends and neighbours. Different classes of angels? In v.9 the words are feminine!
7.	Shall be. Then why “is” in v.10?

The spirit of Pharisaism existed in Jewry long before the time of Jesus. Indeed, in human nature of a certain sort it is endemic. “There is a generation that are pure in their own eyes, and yet are not washed from their filthiness. There is a generation, O how lofty are their eyes! and their eyelids are lifted up” (Pr.30 :12,13; and cp.28 :13). And Isaiah pilloried those “which say, Stand by thyself, come not near to me: for I am holier than thou” (65 :5). These area smoke in God’s nose, and not sweet incense. “They trusted in themselves that they were righteous” (v.9) is very close to the LXX text of Ez. 33:13; “if he trust in his own righteousness,” a passage which has a marked contrast (in v.14-16) appropriate to redemption in Christ.

Jesus feared the growth of this self-righteous spirit in his disciples and in a short parable of matchless incisiveness he warned them against it.

Portrait One

First, there is the picture of the Pharisee who goes into the temple court and there strikes an attitude which will impress others whether they hear the tenor of his prayer or not. The Lord’s phrase provides a withering exposure: “he prayed with (more exactly, towards) himself.”

The opening words of his prayer are a formality: “God, I thank thee . . .” He is really thanking God for nothing. Nay, he is rather cong^ratulating God on having such a fine servant as himself. Indeed he seems almost to pity the Almighty for being so short of worshippers as faithful as himself.

“I thank thee that I am not as other men, not as the rest.” Thus he proudly divides into two categories all who are there in the temple court to worship—himself, and the others (Pharisee means separatist). How different is the spirit of men like Daniel, Ezra and Nehemiah who, although actually untarnished by the wickednesses of their people, nevertheless confessed these sins as though they were their own (Dan.9 :3-15; Neh.l :5-7; Ezra 9 :6). But the Pharisee has no word about his own sins. Instead he happily writes his own testimonial and lays it confidently before the Lord of all. With what zest does he catalogue the sins of others—’extortioners, unjust, adulterers . . . this publican.” That last phrase shows that he had noticed the publican at prayer and therefore must have been aware of the man’s contrition. But he censures him none the less! He is serenely sure that in the evils he has mentioned with such relish he himself is blameless. It does not dawn on him, poor fool, that he has other sins which God abhors just as much.

Thus everything about him is deception. His parading of a life of righteous formality deceives others, he succeeds in deceiving himself (about himself), and consequently assumes that even the Almighty will be taken in.

This spirit of censure of others, which makes up an integral part of his prayers, is ever a danger signal! The reprobation of “this publican” (intended to be heard by him?) expresses the creed of the separatist. He speaks as though God needs the help of such as himself if the results of the Day of Judgment are to work out right. Yet he must have noticed the evident sincerity of the publican’s self-reproach. Eager to have himself taken at face value by other men, he is unable or unwilling to do the same for others.

Next comes a proud mention of his own positive virtues: “I fast twice in the week”— every Monday and Thursday, although the Law of Moses specified only the Day of Atonement for men to “afflict their souls” (Lev.16 :29). “I give tithes of all that I get,” even down to the trivialities of garden herbs (Mt. 23 :23; contrast Dt.14 :22). Thus he would outdo even his great forefathers, Abraham and Jacob (Gen.14 :20; 28:22).

There is no honour to God in prayer and worship of this sort, but only to himself. And of course that is the intention behind all he says and does.

Portrait Two

The contrast with the publican could hardly be greater. In all generations who has more practice than the tax-gatherer at the c 1 of reading the plausibility and deceitfulness of human nature? Yet this publican, although shrewd enough to see through the hypocrisy of the Pharisee, censures only himself, as he chooses a remote corner of the temple court and there continues to beat his breast in remorse for the life he has lived. Yet though he stands “afar off”, “the Lord is nigh unto him that is of a broken heart, and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit” (Ps.34:18).

This man does not even wish to lift up his eyes to heaven (Ps.40 ;12), but only to prostrate himself in spirit before God.

Crashaw’s version of this parable is excellent:

“Two men went to pray: oh, rather say,

One went to brag: th’other to pray.

One stands up close, and treads on high,

Where th’other dares not send his eye,

One nearer to God’s altar trod,

The other to the altar’s God.”

And with what a prayer!: “God, be merciful to me the sinner” (cp. Lk.15 :18; Ps.32 :5; and contrast and compare the Pharisee Paul; 1Tim. l:15). He sees himself as the special sinner for whom the smoke of the altar offering rises up.

This idea comes out forcefully in the word he employs: “be propitiated to me.” Its meaning, very precisely, is that of reconciliation through sacrifice (see Heb.2 :17; Rom.3 :25; 1 Jn.2 :2; 4:10). So here is no flash-in-the-pan repentance of a religiously ignorant Salvation Army convert. This publican is one who understands and appreciates the principles of the forgiveness of sins through a God-appointed sacrifice. And, in consequence, he goes down to his house justified, not having done anything by which to be justified except to offer a fervent prayer for forgiveness, firmly believing that through the efficacy of sacrifice such forgiveness is there for the asking.

But the self righteous Pharisee is not reckoned righteous before God. The idiom “justified compared with the other” means: “and not the other” (Hab.2 :4). See the examples listed in Study 35.

For disciples, not Pharisees

This parable of contrast was not spoken by Jesus to Pharisees. Had he done so, would they have greatly resented the picture of themselves, or would they have seen nothing amiss in such a cartoon? Actually, the lesson was for the benefit of his own disciples in danger of becoming tainted with the Pharisaic spirit: “certain which trusted in themselves because they were righteous, and despised the rest.” It is also likely that the Lord looked ahead to a further reference of this parable to the Jews, the Pharisee nation.

And since Luke was guided to associate this parable closely with the preceding one (which clearly has special reference to the last days), there is some ground for believing that this spirit of Pharisaic self-satisfaction is to be looked for in the ecclesias of Christ near the time of the Lord’s coming. This finds some confirmation in the parable’s conclusion: “Everyone that exalteth himself shall be abased; and he that humbleth himself shall be exalted” (cp.14 :11: Pharisaism again). The words might well be the judicial pronouncement of Christ in the day when he separates sheep from goats.

Notes: Lk. l8:9-14

9.	Trusted, This perfect participle might imply: they had been in the habit of thinking in this way, and now (in spite of Christ’s teaching) they still thought so. In themselves. Gk: epi, depending on themselves.
10.	The other: Gk: heteros, one very different. In v. 14 Jesus applies the same word to the Pharisee.
12.	All that I possess. More exactly: get. The Hebrew equivalent goes back to the name Cain. The Pharisee does not attribute what he has gotten to the kindness of God, but to his own powers.

By common consent it is the most perplexing parable of all. Yet in fact the perplexity is more in the comment with which Jesus followed on. The story itself is as vivid and fascinating in its detail as any told by Jesus.

Word reached a rich man that his steward was “wasting his goods” (the same phrase as that describing the prodigal son!). Astonished at the news, he took him to task about it and demanded that he present his accounts. Dismissal now appeared certain.

The rascal pondered the situation anxiously. What was the best course for him to follow? There was no hope of getting another lucrative job. He was not fit for farm work, and in any case the mere thought of it horrified him. And he went hot and cold at the thought of becoming a professional beggar. He who had no shame at the misappropriation of his master’s money felt shame at the mere thought of begging for subsistence. What had happened to all the money he had fraudulently diverted to his own use? He must have been a self-indulgent spendthrift as well.

All at once, as he brooded over the problem: ‘I have it! I can easily make my master’s debtors into my own very good friends.’

So he called all the debtors, one after another. ‘What do you owe my lord?’ he asked the first. ‘A hundred measures of oil? Here’s your reckoning. Do as I bid you. Sit down right now, and alter that hundred to fifty.’ That original debt (for rent) was the produce of about 150 olive trees. The farm was a big one.

Similarly the next had his debt of a hundred measures of wheat, the produce of about 100 acres, reduced to eighty—the wily fellow knew that some people can be bought more cheaply than others. The same unscrupulous process was applied also to all the other outstanding debts.

Thus he made all these men his friends, willing to help him out when the blow fell. And he had done it without directly incriminating himself; also at the same time he had bought their silence.

The employer’s surprise when the sacked steward was readily provided for by the debtors is not mentioned specifically in the parable, but is readily imagined. Completely unaware as yet of the underhand transactions, he spoke admiringly of the man for his ability to be steward and at the same time popular with the debtors. But how appropriate it is that the steward’s “doing wisely” should also be the subtlety of the serpent in Eden (same word in Genesis 3:1 LXX).

The wise use of wealth?

What was Jesus trying to teach?

That the parable is difficult of interpretation is almost the only proposition concerning it that commands general assent. Is it really possible to find an interpretation which can cope adequately with the various problems which it and its context present?

Consider, for example, the view of the parable which most commonly finds favour; its unsatisfactory nature will be immediately apparent. It is suggested that what Jesus put before his disciples for emulation was not the unscrupulous scheming of the steward, but the assiduity with which he purposefully followed the path of personal profit. ‘If only you, my disciples, would show the same business-like efficiency in pursuing what is, after all, your own self-interest! And how should you do it? By using mammon-money, and anything else which this world can offer-as a means of furthering your own standing with God. If you use such things faithfully for God, you may be relied upon to be equally faithful with the more essential spiritual truths of the Gospel.’

Thus, briefly, but not unfairly, may be summarised the best that is usually made of this parable. It is a not-very-impressive best! The difficulties which thus remain unsolved are considerable:

1. Can money, when being used in the ways of godliness be fairly described as “the mammon of unrighteousness”?
2. Who are the friends made through the right use of money who can provide “everlasting habitations”? No human friends, for certain. Then, on this view, how near is the parable to teaching justification by works?
3. Christ’s own words require an application of the parable, in the first instance, to the Pharisees, for he said of them: “Ye are they which justify yourselves before men (as did this steward)” (v.15).
4. The context of the parable, consisting of Christ’s own comment on it, especially v.16-18, has nothing whatever to do with the question of money. Any explanation worth its salt must take account of these verses also.
5. This interpretation gets, at most, one point out of the parable. Yet in other parables there is to be found a clear one-one correspondence (as the mathematician would call it) between details of the story and details of the interpretation (as, for example, in the parables of the Sower and Tares and Drag-net—the only ones for which Christ’s own interpretation is available). These objections are surely fatal.
6. On “the right use of wealth” the argument of v.11 is no argument at all, squaring neither with reason nor experience; for it would then paraphrase: “If you don’t use money properly, is it likely that God will give you the blessing of the gospel?’—this to disciples who already had the gospel and very probably no money.
7. Verse 9 is the biggest stumbling block of all: “And I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousness; that, when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations.” The natural way to read these words is to take them as a plain injunction to imitate not only the steward’s enthusiasm for his own well-being but also his shady methods! Some different approach must be attempted.

Drastic alternative

Bullinger, in the Companion Bible, has a characteristically neat solution of the difficulty of verse 9, which is, after all, the crux of the whole matter. He suggests that the words be read as a rhetorical question implying a negative answer: “And do I say unto you, Make to yourselves friends by means of the mammon of unrighteousness that when ye fail they may receive you into everlasting habitations? Certainly not!”

This suggestion evades the main difficulties by thus setting forth the steward as an example to be shunned, save perhaps in his dedication to self-interest. Unhappily, such a solution can only be reached by doing violence to the orginal-a strange oversight, this, on the part of a scholar with a well-deserved reputation for accuracy. For the sentence to be read in the way suggested would require the inclusion of the negative particle me which is absent from all the manuscripts. (Contrast its inclusion in such rhetorical questions as Luke 17 :9 and 10:15RV).

Even if this suggestion were allowable grammatically, there would still remain the difficulty of the “everlasting habitations.” Such nefarious work as the steward indulged in can provide only an everlasting tomb: Did Jesus really mean that?

A fresh approach

There is available a much simpler solution, and one which allows of an unforced interpretation of the details in harmony with the context.

The words of Jesus are: “Make to yourselves friends of (ek) the mammon of unrightousness.” This is commonly read as signifying “Make to yourselves friends on the basis of, or by means of, the mammon of unrighteousness.” Such a translation may be perfectly correct, but it is not necessarily so. There is another common use of this preposition which actually yields an exactly opposite idea: “Make to yourselves friends away from, apart from the mammon of unrighteousness.” This meaning of ek as indicative of separation is listed in Liddell and Scott’s Lexicon, and numerous examples of it are to be found in the New Testament. The following are only a few out of what might be cited :-

Luke 16:31: “though one rose from the dead.”

Luke 16:4: “when I am put out of the stewardship.”

Luke 23:55: “which came with him from Galilee.”

Acts 1:25: “this apostleship from which Judas by transgression fell.”

Acts 3:23: “shall be destroyed from among the people.”

Acts 7:3: “Get thee out of thy country and from thy kindred.”

Acts 7:10: “delivered him out of all his afflictions.”

1 Cor.5 :13: “Put away from among yourselves that wicked person.”

Rev. 2:21: “And I gave her space to repent of her fornication.”

It is now easy to demonstrate that not only the puzzling verse 9, but also the entire parable becomes a warning against allowing worldly unscrupulousness to mar sound ministration of the holy law of God.

The details fit

The rich man is God Himself. The steward, who had neither hoarded his master’s goods nor given them away, but merely wasted them, represents (v.15) the Pharisees and lawyers who by virtue of their religious and social standing had become ministers of God’s law to the rest of the nation. The first warning of impending trouble (v.2) came through John the Baptist (Lk.3:8). Just as the steward, about to be called to account for his unfaithful service, proceeded to make friends elsewhere by unscrupulous means—so also the Pharisees, before ever God cast them off, used subtlety to ensure that, whatever the divine displeasure, their standing with men would continue undiminished. This they achieved by drastically reducing the bill of men’s religious obligations to God and their fellow men.

Like the steward they were essentially “children of this world.” In careful application to their own temporal self-interest they were wiser than “the children of light” (Christ’s disciples) would prove to be in later days in seeking their own eternal well-being.

It is to be remembered that Jesus spoke the parable to his disciples, intending the story of the steward and its application to Pharisaic casuistry to be a warning to them for the days when they would find themselves in positions of authority in his ecclesia-God’s stewards (Lk.12 :42)-with the responsibility on their shoulders of administering faithfully the principles of his teaching.

A new stewardship

So Jesus bade them: You must make better friends-myself and my Father-by scrupulous avoidance of these Pharisaic methods, so that when it shall fail (the temple destroyed and the Mosaic system ended), you will be blessed with “eternal tabernacles/’This last phrase involves a strange paradox. Tabernacles—that is, tents-are essentially temporary. “The tabernacles of the (Messianic) age” are the ecclesias soon to take the place of Judaism as the spiritual home of the Lord’s people.

“He that is faithful in that which is least (the law of Moses) is faithful also in much (the teaching of Christ): and he that is unrighteous in a very little (Moses), is unrighteous also in much (Christ).” This antithesis between administration of Law-and-Prophets and the direction of the ecclesias of Christ runs through the entire passage. The repetition of the word “mammon” has misled many into thinking that Jesus was talking about the wise use of money, whereas in fact he was alluding backto his parable and what the steward’s “mammon” stood for. It is to be noted that Jesus was not concerned with prudence, but with faithfulness.

If therefore ye have not been faithful in the unrighteous mammon (that is, if you have perverted the principles of the Old Covenant), who will commit to your trust the true riches?” This Greek word for “true” nearly always contrasts the New Covenant with the Old.

With memory of this sober warning (and perhaps with allusion to it) Paul was to write his solemn charge: “O Timothy, guard the deposit (of sound teaching)” (1 Tim.6 :20). “The good deposit which was committed unto thee keep through the Holy Spirit which dwelleth in us” (2 Tim.l :14).

Jesus continued the antithesis: “And if ye have not been faithful in that which is another’s, who will give you that which is your own?” Whereas the Law of Moses was designed to exalt the holiness and glory of God, the gospel gives greater emphasis to forgiveness and redemption of the sinner.

The Pharisees, hearing Jesus repeat his allusions to “mammon”, mistakenly assumed that he was speaking in a derogatory way about their attitude to money, and, having no argument to use, they responded with open derision. The fact that these Pharisees thought that in the parable Jesus was talking to his disciples about a wise use of money is surely as good a proof as could be wished that that is not what he intended. Not until the last parable of all did these hostile critics grasp what Jesus was after (20 :19). Even the disciples were capable of mistakes of this sort: Mt. 15 :5; 16:7.

The failures of Pharisaism

Jesus now bade them think again about his parable, for it was intended as a picture of themselves: “Ye are they which (like this steward) justify yourselves before men; but God knoweth your hearts: for that which is highly esteemed among men (the eminence and high reputation which these Pharisees sought at the expense of true religion) is abomination in the sight of God.” There Jesus used a word which the Old Testament reserved for idol-worship, but which the medico Luke would employ as a technical term for nausea. You Pharisees make God feel sick!

Jesus went on: “The Law and the prophets were until John: since that time the kingdom of God is preached, and every man presseth into it. But it is easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law to fail.”

A good paraphrase of that key expression would be: “and they all handle it roughly.” The same Greek word is used of Israel at the foot of mount Sinai: ” Let not the priests and the people break through to come up unto the Lord” (Ex.19:24LXX). At this place Bagster’s edition of the Septuagint has a footnote: “Luke 16 :16 perhaps refers to this passage.” What Israel in the wilderness had not dared to attempt physically, the Pharisees had had the effrontery to do spiritually (Jn.10 :1). With their subtle distortions of the moral requirements of the Law they far surpassed any of the later casuistry of the Jesuits. How well Jesus had summed it all up: “Take thy bill and write four score.”

He now cited a concrete example by correcting the Pharisees’ unprincipled attitude to divorce: “Whosoever putteth away his wife, and marrieth another, committeth adultery: and whosoever marrieth her that is put away from her husband committeth adultery.” The basic principles of God’s law of marriage were clear enough but these men were unscrupulously ready to “bend” them, using their religious authority to dilute divine truth and the moral obligations of the people.

The gospels furnish other examples of Pharisaic equivocation by which they adulterated the robust principles of God’s law. A man could swear impressively by the temple and his words be utterly empty of force or binding value. If, however, he swore by the gold of the temple (the golden altar of incense or the mercy-seat?) his oath was to be regarded as binding. How easy to overreach one’s fellow in business if he happened not to know of these artifical distinctions! And how dishonouring was all this to the God in whose honour the entire temple was consecrated!

Similarly, a man could callously evade his sacred obligation of providing support for an aged parent. They had a cynical fiction that all that was consecrated (in theory but not in practice!) to the temple service was therefore not available for such a profane use as ministering to the wants of a needy father or mother. It was after castigating this particular enormity that Jesus, openly angry at such hypocrisy, quoted bitterly: “In vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines the commandments of men” (Mt.15 :9).

A like danger in the Ecclesia

The parable of the unjust steward, with the commentary which Jesus appended to it, is now seen to have been a thorough exposure of the evil Pharisaic practice of adulterating the law of God with human sophistry. Specially, it was a direct warning to his apostles that the day would soon come when they would be in positions of authority and responsibility among the Lord’s own people. To them also would come the temptation to whittle down the exacting standards of Christ’s teaching for the sake of human considerations. “It is easier for heaven and earth to pass than for one tittle of the law (the law of Moses, the law of Christ now) to fail” (v.17). Paul appears to have seen the parable in this light, with apt reference to his own work in the ecclesias (1 Cor.4 :l-5).

Who shall say that the warning thus taught has never been needed? The ecclesia has always had this problem to contend with, how best to resist the eroding effect of worldly circumstances on “the good deposit” of Christian truth, both faith and practice, how best to combat the insidious temptation to live a casuistic existence on both sides of the fence at once.

This same problem has beset the present generation just as much as any other. Examples are not hard to seek.

The parable stands today as a warning to those who now lead an ecclesia of Christ, that without vigilance and scrupulous honesty in moral judgement the same will happen (has happened) again.

Notes: Lk. 16:1-18

4.	Put out; s.w. Acts 13 :22: Saul displaced to make way for David. Here, a similar new order.
6.	Bill; s.w. Jn 5:47; 2 Tim. 3 :15 etc; in each place, with reference to the Old Covenant. For the idea in this verse, cp. Mic.3:11.
9.	A few other examples of the use of ek in Luke’s gospel are: 17:7; 22:3; 23:55; 1:71, 74, 78; 4:35, 38; 5:17; 6:42.
	When ye fail (AV) is a reading which will have to be let go. There is too much MS support for RV: “when it fails.” In any case, AV can hardly mean, in line with the parable: When you are exposed as failures there will be a much better future for you. RV reading: “when it fails” speaks of the day of God’s rejection of the old Mosaic administration, the day when stewardship of the gospel is put in the hands of the apostles.

A sheep lost away from the flock, a coin lost inside the house-two parables, each designed to be the complement of the other. Next, Jesus put the two together in another parable about two sons, one lost away from home, and the other lost staying at home. It is his most detailed and most exquisite parable, one to spend long hours over. Who is there who Is not a mixture of these two personalities?

Like so many of the other parables, it has its origins in the Old Testament, yet all the superiority of the New Covenant over the Old shows here: “Surely after that I was turned, I repented … I was ashamed, yea, even confounded, because I did bear the reproach of my youth. Is Ephraim my dear son? is he a pleasant child? for since I spake against him, I do earnestly remember him still: therefore my bowels are troubled for him; I will surely have mercy upon him, saith the Lord. Set thee up way marks… set thine heart toward the highway, even the way which thou wentest” (Jer.31:19-21). “Ephraim, he hath mixed himself among the people … Strangers have devoured his strength, and he knoweth it not… they do not return to the Lord their God, nor seek him for all this”(Hosea 7:8-10; and cp. 2:7).

In this parable also, as in most, in order to be true to the spiritual, Jesus has had to frame certain details of his story in a way not true to life. How many parents, on demand, would promptly agree to share out the patrimony well before any sign of personal decay and this, too, knowing the disposition of the two sons and the evident intention of the younger to make reckless use of his share? And, with such an outcome, how many fathers would be continually on the look out for the prodigal’s return, would be able to run to greet him, and would receive him with such emotion? The average parent would be more likely to react by saying: ‘That waster is no son of mine. I do not wish ever to set eyes on him again!’ But this is not a parable about a human father, but about a compassionate gracious God.

The story is fascinating in its details, all of which have to be read with reference to the publicans and sinners, on the one hand, and the scribes and Pharisees on the other. There is also a wider application to the reaction of Gentiles and Jews to the gospel of Christ. In these last weeks of the ministry Jesus was turning his eyes more and more often to the new day when the door of faith would be thrown open to those whom the Chosen Race despised. In later studies this will be seen as a developing prospect receiving constantly increasing emphasis in the Lord’s teaching.

A deliberate bad choice

“Father, give me the portion of goods that falleth to me.” According to the papyri this was the usual legal term for inheritance. He assertively asked to receive by right and not by favour. His father acceded to the request, for was there not precedent for this in the family of Abraham? (Gen.25 :5,6). By and by this boy had his share— one third of all, since the double portion due to the firstborn (Dt.21:17) belonged to his brother. His wilful intention, evident enough from the start, was soon put into operation. He set about turning all his own portion into cash—sold off at unrealistic prices, no doubt. All that he had a right to he now dealt with in this way. It was an open declaration that he had no intention of coming back, and this in spite of his father’s remonstration (v.21). Blithe of spirit, he now set off for a distant land. The Greek word for “took his journey” emphasizes “leaving one’s own people” (Ez.19 :3 LXX; only occ.j. Now he is “lord of himself, that heritage of woe.” The hint supplied by Acts 12 :20 suggests that it was the glitter of Tyre,, and Zidon which drew him.

There he soon found evil companions, and under their skilful coaching learned how to paint the town red. “He that is a companion of riotous men shameth his father,” says Proverbs 28 :7. The same word for “riotous” living describes also the wanton woman (7 :11), so here is an indication of the kind of life he lived. It also hinti, not inappropriately, at another meaning: “without salvation” (Jer.2 :13).

Providential affliction

After a while his inexhaustible purse was empty, and, by a strange coincidence, his bosom friends also melted away. It was no coincidence, but the Providence of God (cp.v.4,8), which then brought a grievous famine (a famine characteristic of that land, so the Greek phrase suggests). Thus this wilful improvident young fool all at once found himself in dire straits. Almost overnight his condition changed from affluence to poverty, from popularity to loneliness, from abundance to want (not only acute need but a sharp sense of it —so the word implies). Here was the first (unheeded) summons to return (Am.4 :6; Jer.5 :3). It was the divine opportunity which man’s extremity has so often begotten.

There was nothing else for it. To keep body and soul together he must move around to seek employment. And at such a time the best he could achieve was the livelihood of a swineherd. He, a Jew, keeping pigs for a Gentile!— and for such a beggarly wage that he was even eager (s.w. Lk.16 :21; Mt.5 :28) to stave off the pangs of hunger with the animals’ food. “He that lives wantonly from a child shall be a servant, and in the end shall grieve over himself” (Pr. 29:21 LXX).

He was now friendless. The boon companions of yesterday had disappeared. Not a soul in the world took notice of him. Never a word or even a look of pity, much less any small act of charity. “No man gave unto him” seems to imply that he tried begging, but without any encouragement. Was the prodigal despised, or had people nothing to give?

Thus the goodness of God, in the guise of severity, drove him to repentance.

Repentance

At last heaven’s therapy had its effect: “he came to himself—this crazy hedonist was brought back to sanity (Ps.34 :10; Am.4 :6). He bethought him of the vastly better life his father’s lowest grade of paid workers had, back home. Like them he was a “hired servant”, but what a difference! (Hos.2 :7; 2 Chr.31 :10).

Nevertheless he still thought of his father as Father, and this was to be his salvation, even though the Law of Moses said: “An hired servant shall not eat of the holy things” (Lev.22 :10). The contrast with his own wretched plight was too much for him. Sickened at the fruits of his own incredible folly, he was miserable with a self-pity which is so often the beginning of repentance.

As he lay there on the ground, weak and dejected, he made his decision: “I will arise and go to my father, and will say unto him, Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee, and am no more worthy to be called thy son (had this prodigal even changed his name?): make me as one of thy hired servants’—asking for the meanest of jobs, and as an undeserved favour. Here self-interest and true penitence spoke together: “I thought on my ways, and turned my feet unto thy testimonies. I made haste, and delayed not to keep thy commandments” (Ps.119 :59,60). The prodigal’s attitude had now become fundamentally right, like that of David after his sin with Bathsheba: “Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight” (Ps.51:4;cp.Dt.30:l-3).

So without any delay, “he arose (it is the word which the New Testament constantly uses for “resurrection”), and came to his father.”The decision, and the decision put into action, were as necessary as the repentance.

In an eagerness to get on to the climax of the story, the parable omits all mention of the hardship, weariness and discouragements of a faltering journey home, sustained only by an unfaltering conviction that this was the right thing to do, the best, the only thing. Yet it was no easy road back. The Greek neatly hints at much hesitation as the moment of encounter with his father drew near.

Joyful Reunion

In his most optimistic moments he could hardly have dreamed that things would work out as they did. For “whilst he was yet a great way off,” his father with faculties sharpened by longing and affection, saw and recognized him (Eph.2 :16,17). There is implication here, surely, of hours of faithful prayer that the son would be brought back, of even longer hours of eager vigil from a vantage point near home.

Now, excitement imparting an unwonted youthful vigour, he ran to meet his son, greeting him with a delight and fervour he could express only in repeated embraces (2 Sam.14 :33). All this before ever a word could be said by the penitent of all that he was resolved on confessing.

At last, as the first surge of emotion subsided, he began his confession—a contrite admission of his sin, untrammelled by any kind of self-excuse (Ez. 36 :30,31 Ezra 9 :6). But he never got as far as seeking the high favour of promotion from ragged tramp to paid farm labourer. When the idea of it was first framed in his mind, it had never dawned on him that suck love and forgiveness might be possible (Ps.139 -.2; 103 :13; 32 :5; ls.64 :4-9). Yet how true it is that “if we confess our sins, he is faithful and just (superb paradox!) to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 Jn. 1:9).

By the time the returned vagrant had stammered out his confession (for the hardship and duration of his journey had in no way dulled his penitence), they were back at the house, and his father, more excited than any child having a birthday, was pouring out instructions to the servants as fast as he could talk: ‘The best robe—the best one, remember! a ring for his finger, that all may know his place of honour here; shoes on his feet; for he doesn’t return as a slave; and the finest feast you can lay on-don’t forget the fatted calf, kept against his coming; I knew he’d be back! Dead—alive! (Rom.6 :13), lost—found! Could anything happen more wonderful than this?’ The prodigal’s request that he be up-graded to the status of hired servant never got said. This amazing display of joy, love and forgiveness stifled the words in his throat.

The old rags, which once flaunted their owner’s worldly vanity, were, of course, thrown away, like the fig-leaf garments of Eden. Fit for nothing! “The first robe” may mean “the robe he used to wear,” specially kept against his return, a robe which he had deliberately left behind, being set on having something even finer? (Rev.3 :18sw.; ls.61 -.10). But more fikely it signifies “the best there is in the house.” In the Roman world, it was not uncommon to announce that a slave was now a free man by publicly arraying him in a fine new robe.

The slaying of the fatted calf for the feast of rejoicing was an outstanding token of intense religious thankfulness at the prodigal’s return, for the word used in the parable means “to kill for sacrifice” (22 :7 s.w.). This great celebration centred round a peace-offering which outstandingly emphasized the renewal of fellowship together before God (Dt.12 :7,12).

The father’s excited “Let us eat, and be merry” included the household servants and all: “Enter thou into the joy of thy lord” (Mt.25:21,23); in the parables of lost sheep and lost coin: “Rejoice with me” (v.6,9). What a contrast between this heart-felt gladness and the empty gaiety the prodigal had gone in for in that far country I

The phrase “this my son” made public acknowledgement of a lost prodigal’s reinstatement. “He was lost, and is found” |v.4,8) surely indicates that just as the shepherd had sought his lost sheep and the woman her lost coin, so also the father had done all in his power to trace his boy. Now that depressing discouraging search was over.

The older brother

The parable could have ended here, but happily, and unhappily, it didn’t.

The elder son, who had been busy on the farm, returned at the end of his day’s work, to find the house and all connected with it enjoying a splendid party. There was jollity and music (Gk: sumphonia, harmony!) such as the family had not known for many a long day. This in itself riled him (disharmony!). To think that all this should be organized, and he know nothing about it!

There is a problem here. Why had he not been told? Wasn’t it a most obvious thing to send a messenger to him in the field to tell him the great news? Why was it not done?

Now, instead of assuming that what his father did was bound to be right, he called one of the servants and in a churlish tone (so the Greek phrase neatly implies) kept on enquiring whatever it all meant, until he had got the story down to the last detail.

“Thy brother is come.” Like Abraham’s steward, this servant had taken on much of his master’s outlook—the word he used is one which nearly always has to do with divine action (e.g. Mt.23 -.36; 24 :14,50; Lk.19 :43; Jn.6 -.37; 8 -.42; 2 Pet.3:10; Rev.15:4_; 18:8). So this was his way of saying: God has brought him home safe and sound, that is, healthy—when he might have been an incurable wreck; in fact, much more healthy than when he went away!

This news made the brother intensely angry. Nor was it a sudden uncontrolled burst of indignation but a cold deliberate hostility (Gk: orge). He, whose double portion and birthright should have been used to seek out and redeem his younger brother (lev.25 :49), was positively resentful that he was back again. Did he but know it, it was himself who was the lost son (Mt.23 :13). He refused to go in and greet his brother and share in the festivities. So his father came out, as eager to reclaim this son as the other, and kept on beseeching him to share in the general rejoicing. But there was no budging him from his critical self-righteousness. He could not even bring himself to say: “Father.”

Instead: “See,” he said, “all these years I go on slaving for thee (note here his estimate of his father’s character!), and not at any time did I ever transgress a commandment of thine: (18:11) yet not at anytime didst thou give me a kid (not to mention the fatted calf), that I might make merry with my friends.” Here was a fulsome pride in his own qualities. He positively enjoyed writing his own testimonial (Mt.20 :12). Yet his own words gave the game away—that although he had stayed at home, his inclinations were (like the prodigal’s) towards enjoying life away from his father. And the crude grumble: “thou never gavest me a kid”, was downright misrepresentation, for he knew that had he wished for either kid or fatted calf he could have had them without even asking.

The bald fact was that he resented the generous treatment accorded to his brother, and his jealousy boiled over into a tirade against him: “As soon as this thy son was come, which hath devoured thy living with harlots, thou hast killed for him the fatted calf.” “This thy son”! He could not even bring himself to speak of the prodigal as “brother”. Nor did he speak of a “return home,” but instead referred to his coming as though he were a stranger. And the bitter and unkind censure about harlots was almost certainly not conjecture. The prodigal had sought to hide nothing. Such was his penitence, the full sordid story had been told.

The father’s rejoinder could hardly have been in greater contrast. “Son,” he said gently and with affection (although there had been no disposition to address him as “Father” in the way that the prodigal had done), “thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine (had it not all been shared out?). It was necessary, a thing not to be restrained, that we should make merry, and be glad.” This was not recompense to the prodigal for his evil life, as his brother had so unkindly implied, but an overflow of irrepressible joy, “for this thy brother (note the gentle nudge towards a more kindly attitude) was dead, and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.”

An unfinished story

There Jesus stopped, his parable still unfinished. Did the older brother have a change of heart, and join the happy fellowship of father and brother and all the household? Or did he persist in his self-righteous aloofness and thus by his unforgiving spirit create a worse rift in the family at a time when bonds should have been stronger than ever? In an earlier parable Jesus, informed by the Old Testament, had already provided the inevitable discouraging end to the story (14 .-18-20). The fact that here he left out the tragedy of Israel’s estrangement is surely an intimation of the intense longing within him that the situation might even now not be past repair. In another parable a forgiven debt had been called into existence again (Mt.18 :34). So here also the elder brother’s birthright, already his, was to be taken away from him (Rom. 11). But how does the story of the younger brother continue?

Whilst the immediate context of this parable may suggest reference to publicans and sinners and to scribes and Pharisees (v.1,2), there can be little doubt that the more fundamental application of it is to the rejection of the gospel by Israel and its eager acceptance by godly Gentiles. Jesus saw the earlier situation as foreshadowing the later.

Certainly some of the details are framed with specific reference to the publicans who although belonging to the commonwealth of Israel, deliberately chose a way of life which estranged them from their own nation and from their God. The prodigal “joining himself to a citizen of that country” and “feeding swine” clearly pictures the un-Jewish activities of the publicans in the service of their Roman taskmasters. Nevertheless, at the first sign of repentance, God was glad to “spare them as a man spareth his own son” (Mal.3 :17). “Like as a father pitieth his children, so the Lord pitieth them that fear him” (Ps. 103 :13). Let the worst of sinners “draw nigh to God” (Jas.4 :8), and God will draw nigh to him. In the story how graphically Jesus represented this truth! “Yield yourselves unto God, as those that are alive from the dead,” wrote Paul (Rom.6 :13) almost appropriating the words of the prodigal’s father.

The prodigal’s destitution and contrite return home, and the father’s gladness and his eager rehabilitation of his son—these are described with detail marvellously appropriate to the redemption of spiritual castaways in a way which none but Jesus could frame. Even the word used for the slaying of the fatted calf, by its implication of sacrifice, suggests the vital essential in the forgiveness of sin.

And in part two, the hostile indignation and damaged self-love of the elder son represent with superb faithfulness the disdain of the Pharisees, holding off from Jesus and his following of forgiven sinners. It also anticipates with unerring insight the jealousy of spiritually proud Jews when the gospel of Jesus brought benighted Gentiles into fellowship with the God of Israel. From this point of view most of the details explain themselves.

Could Jesus have coined a more gracious or more telling parable than this? And is it conceivable that those able men who heard if failed to grasp its meaning?

Notes: Lk.l5:11-32

11.	Two sons.These two appear again in another parable: Mt.21 :28-31.
13.	Took his journey. Doubtless the father could have kept him at home. But here is the Bible’s doctrine of freewill.
15, 16.	Consider the relevance of these details to the publicans (v. l).
17.	Hired servants of my father’s. The Pharisees were considered models of perfection in the eyes of publicans and sinners.
25.	Music and dancing by hired entertainers?
27.	Me fatted calf… Some of the versions have this precise phrase at Pr. 15 :17.

At this point in his narrative, and with no apparent connection with what had gone before, Luke brings together three self-contained sections about Christ’s coming again:

1. 17:20,21. The Pharisees’enquiry about the coming of the Kingdom,
2. 17 :22-37. Details, nearly all of them paralleled in the Olivet prophecy, given to the disciples about the second coming,
3. 18 :l-8. Prayer for the second coming.

Since by this time the claims of Jesus had split the Pharisees into two parties—those bitterly hostile, and those vaguely and tentatively sympathetic—the question: “When does the Kingdom of God appear?” can be taken in two quite different senses. The first group would certainly put their enquiry in a mocking cynical spirit. The others would be sincere enough, even though not altogether convinced.

Happily this ambiguity does not affect seriously the meaning of the Lord’s answer, which in its own right is problematical enough.

These Pharisees asked: “When is the kingdom coming?”, their present tense indicating a real excitement or feigned scepticism about the possibility that Jesus would at any time now proclaim himself king of the Jews.

“With observation”

The Lord’s immediate answer asserted baldly: ‘There is to be no kingdom of that sort now—”The Kingdom of God is not coming (i.e. just now) with observation.”

But what did Jesus mean by that expression “with observation”? There is more than one possibility here:

1. “As you look eagerly for it.”
2. “Accompanied by signs provoking eager observation.”
3. “As you look for it in critical and hostile spirit.”

The second of these gets some support from the Greek preposition meta. The third is suggested by the use of the verb pamtereo in a hostile sense (in five passages out of six; Lk.6 :7; 14 :1; 20 :20; Mk.3 :2; Acts 9 :24).

“The kingdom within you”

But then followed one of the Lord’s most mysterious sayings: “The kingdom of God is within you.” Modern interpreters nearly all take this to mean the rule of Christ in men’s hearts. But is it conceivable that Jesus would say this to Pharisees of any type?

An alternative, made to depend entirely on a phoney reading in the Emphatic Diaglott is; “God’s royal majesty (in the person of Jesus) is in the midst of you.” Here “in the midst of” is distinctly possible but not inevitable. But “royal majesty” (for “kingdom”) is quite without adequate support.

Then what was Jesus saying? Possibly this- that just as Israel at Sinai was called God’s kingdom (Ex. 19:5,6), so now the Lord’s disciples, the New Israel, were the kingdom of God in the midst of a Jewry which did not recognize them as such.

Alternatively, this saying can be read as a striking example of the dramatic present. This idiom (in such passages as Acts 10 :11; Jn.12:8; Mt. 10:20; 26:2; 24:20 Gk; Mk. 9:2) imparts a degree of urgency or sense of suddenness into a statement where normally a past or future tense would be used. In that case the idea is: ‘All at once, when you are not aware, the kingdom is here, it has come to the complete surprise of people like yourselves, but not catching my disciples unawares (v.22-37).’

“Pray and not faint”

A very impressive idea binds together the various parts of this 18th chapter of Luke: that it is not the self-righteous Pharisee (v. 11) whose plea is heard, but those who persist in prayer (v.1-8), and such as the humble publican (v.l3 and babies (v. 15) and the blind (v.35) and those who are ready to leave all (v.22)—these are the people who have God’s ear.

Only rarely do the gospels explain, either in the words of Jesus or by way of commentary the aim and purpose of the Lord’s parables. This parable about the widow is an outstanding exception. Jesus told it “to the end that that ought always to pray and not to faint.” But this is only half the explanation, for at its conclusion Jesus provided an even more pointer application.

This parable is also an exception in another respect. Jesus quarried many of his parables from the Book of Proverbs, but this one comes from the Apocrypha! —Ecclesiasticus 35 :17-19 Quite half a dozen of the Lord’s phrases are traceable there.

“Pray always,” he said. How often is that? Jesus defined this incessant prayer as “crying flight and day unto God.” The lesson of the Law of Moses regarding this is clear and plain. Incense was to be burned morning and evening in the Holy Place before the Lord (Ex.30 :7,8). Daniel and David prayed three times a day (Dan.6 :10; Ps.55 :17). But by “always” Jesus also meant never abandoning this pertinacious seeking of help from God. And since this parable is about the Second Coming (as will be seen by and by) there is surely an implication here that the Lord’s return could happen (could have happened) at any time (note Lk.21 :36; Mk.l3:33).

The parable also describes the quality of the prayer—not the flat uninspired repetition of routine phrases, but an earnest intense persistence like that of this poor woman who knew her own need and who was convinced that help could come from one person and from him only.

It is necessary (Gk: dei) that disciples of Jesus pray like this. And it is equally necessary that they never flag or become discouraged. The antithesis: “to pray and not to faint,”’ is a plain declaration that prayer is strength, (cp. v.39,42), and non-prayer is weakness, fainting. The examples provided by the Canaanitish woman and by blind Bartimaeus show that importunity is more than just psychological in its value and power.

Unjust Judge

How well the character of this hard unprincipled judge is sketched in a mere few words. The judges of Israel were bidden remember that “ye judge not for man, but for the Lord … Wherefore let the fear of the Lord be upon you.” There must therefore be “no respect of persons” (2 Chr. 19:6,7). But this unscrupulous fellow feared neither God nor man; and he took pride in the fact. In truth he could hardly have been less suitably qualified for his judicial office. This comes out even more dearly in his soliloquy. His reason for at last taking notice of the poor widow’s plea was neither compassion nor devotion to the principles of justice but sheer personal dislike of the ceaseless pestering he was subject to: “Because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me’—a strange form of ‘respect of persons’! The expression he used so very sardonically really means: “give me a black eye” (same word: 1 Cor. 9:27; and for idea, cp. Mt. 15:23), but was probably intended figuratively, rather like the more modern word “browbeat.”

But this wearing down of the judge’s indifference was not easily achieved. The Greek verbs imply that the widow kept on coming to him, and he kept on turning her away. None would be more surprised than the widow and her adversary at the judge’s sudden willingness to put the case through. It has been well observed that, by contrast, the Righteous Judge is “wearied only when we are silent.” (For other examples of importunity, see Lk. 18:39,42; Mt. 9:27-29; 15:22-28; Mk. 4:38, but also 2 Cor. 12:8).

Second Coming

The conclusion of the parable makes very plain that the Lord designed it not with general reference to any and every personal need presented before God with importunity, but with special application to certain special circumstances—the suffering and need of God’s people in the Last Days. The discourse leading up to this parable (17 :20-37) is all about the Lord’s second coming; the parable itself is introduced with the phrase: “And he went on to say . . .”; and fts conclusion is this: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall he find faith on the earth?” So the primary reference of this vivid little parable must be to a situation at the end of this age. And since Jesus meant to teach that “men ought always to pray” for Messiah’s coming, he implies that the Lord’s return could have happened, and yet can happen, at any time, and not just at some predetermined calendar date (cp. “always” in 21:36).

It is usual to emphasize that in telling this story Jesus was using the argument a fortiori (as in Mt.7 :11). If ceaseless importunity can cause even a hard selfish unprincipled judge to take notice, how much more readily will the counsels of heaven be influenced in the last great hour of need by intense persistent pleading to ‘he gracious God of heaven!

Reference to Israel

This approach is hardly adequate. Certain Old Testament passages show that Jesus deliberately framed the details to provide a marvellously appropriate picture of God’s relations with the people of Israel. “A judge of the widows is God in his holy habitation” (Ps.68 :5). And Israel cast off is described by the prophets as a widow: “How is Jerusalem become as a widow, she that was great among the nations and princess among the provinces” (Lam.l :1). And in the time of her restoration she is comforted: “Thou shalt not remember the reproach of thy widowhood any more” (ls.54 :4).

More than this, throughout the long period of Israel’s casting off and scattering among the Gentiles, the God who made His rich promises to the fathers must have seemed to generations of persecuted Jews rather like a judge with the power to “avenge them of their adversaries” but who has nevertheless almost cynically held off from sending the help due to them. To them he has appeared not to follow His own declared principles of fair and kindly judgment; an unjust judge, in fact (cp. Mk.4 :38).

The language of the bewildered prophet Jeremiah as he appealed to God to fulfil the early assurances of immunity from disaster is almost an anticipation of the Lord’s parable and of Israel’s calamitous experiences among the nations: “O Lord . . . remember me, and visit me, and revenge me of my persecutors; take me not away in thy longsuffering (that is, God’s toleration of the prophet’s wicked adversaries) … thou hast filled me with indignation. Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed? Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a deceitful vision, and as waters that are not sure (a mirage in the desert)?” (15:15,18).

In the parable the widow’s plea: “Avenge me of mine adversary,” has baffled the commentators, so that in desperation they (and quite a few modern translators with them) have tried to make the word mean: “do me justice.” But in truth this Greek root means “avenge”, and nothing but that, in fifteen other New Testament passages.

It may be doubted, with some justification, whether the Jews have at any time in their tragic history bombarded heaven with importunate prayers for help, like the widow in the parable. That time is still to come, in the last days, when a stricken Israel, beaten to her knees by the terror and triumph of a host of enemies, will turn in desperation from an age-long self-reliance to a pitiful agonizing plea to the God of Abraham. Then, and not till then, will God really “avenge his elect, which cry day and night unto him (cp. Acts 26 :7), though he is longsuffering (with the God-less nations) regarding them” (cp. Is.40 :27; Ps.68 :5). And then, He will avenge them speedily (2 Pet.3:9). There is a seeming contradiction between this word “speedily” and the widow’s sustained importunity, for clearly she did not get a response at first asking. In the application of the parable to Jewry in the Last Days the difficulty evaporates. Through the centuries there has been long drawn-out Jewish need, apparently ignored, But when there is repentance in Israel, if only in a minority, then God will act speedily (Mt.24 :22; see “The Time of the End”, HAW, Ch.2).

Isaiah has two powerful passages which chime in perfectly with this interpretation: “Judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off … Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the Lord saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment. . . therefore his arm brought salvation … he put on garments of vengeance for clothing . . . fury to his adversaries, recompence to his enemies…” (59 :14-18). “Thou shalt no more be termed Forsaken; neither shall thy land any more be termed Desolate. I have set watchmen upon thy walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace day nor night: ye that are the Lord’s remembrancers, keep not silence, and give him no rest, till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth . . . say ye to the daughter of Zion, Behold, thy salvation cometh” (62:4,6,7,11).

Yet there is something very wistful about Christ’s last comment on his own parable: “Nevertheless when the Son of man cometh, shall He find faith in the Land?” —as who should say: “If there is a faithful remnant among the chosen people in that day, it will surely be onlya remnant!”

Notes: Lk. 18:1-8

3.	Avenge me. But judges do not dispense vengeance. Here is another instance of a parable not being true to life.
4.	For a while. Lit: upon a time. The same sort of “time” as in Dan. and Rev.? Note again the application of this parable to Jewry.
	Afterward. Lit: after these things. What things? The events of ch. 17?
5.	This widow troubleth me. Here prayer has effect because it is urgent; in the next parable (v.13), because it is humble.
	She weary me. The Just Judge is wearied only when His people are silent. Other examples of God’s desperate for help: 2 Pet.3 :9,15; Rev. 6 :10; Ps.74 :10; 94 :3; Jn.ll :4; Mt.14 -.24,25.
7.	Which cry unto him. A loud cry of need: Jas.5 :4;Gen.4 :10.
	Longsuffering. A word used always in a good sense; 2 Pet.3 :9; Ecclesiasticus 35 :22 (and context).

Certain Pharisees came to Jesus with a warning: “Depart hence: for Herod will kill thee” (i.e. wants you killed). This was a palpable untruth; for Herod had said concerning Jesus: “This is John the Baptist; he is risen from the dead; and therefore mighty works do show forth themselves in him” (Mt. 14:2). Herod had not at all wished to kill John, so he would much less wish to kill him a second time! Moreover, at a later day, when he had Jesus in his power he sought to inflict only mockery, and wished rather to see some miracle done by him (Lk.23:8).

Jesus knew that it was not Herod who sought his life. His rejoinder shows this: “Go ye and tell that fox . . .” This word “fox” is feminine here. Could not Jesus have hit upon some masculine term of opprobrium such as “dog” or “wolf” to describe the godless wretch who reigned over Galilee and Perea at this time? This expression, then, was probably chosen to show that Jesus knew who was the power behind the throne in Galilee: the implacable enemy not only of John but of every other prophet of righteousness, Herodias, the black-hearted woman who with the cool, deliberate villainy of a Catherine de Medici had sought and achieved her ambition-the head of a prophet on a dish.

Genuine concern, or bluff?

Then, was the warning given in good faith or not? If indeed the life of Jesus was in danger from political enemies, it was surely in the interests of the Pharisees to keep him in ignorance of the fact, so that, all unsuspected, destruction might descend on him, and thus a troublesome Galilean be removed. That warning was merely a bluff, a piece of deliberate scare-raising, to rid them of the embarrassment of this trouble-making preacher.

There is an interesting parallel in the threat of Jezebel against the life of Elijah (1 Kgs. 19:2); and also in the hostility of Amaziah, the high priest of Bethel, in his collaboration with godless Jeroboam II, to quench the prophesying of Amos (Am. 7:10-17). Both examples have some impressive corresponding details (cp. also Is. 39:10,11).

It is just possible that the warning may have been a genuine one, given by some who really had the well-being of Jesus at heart, after their own fashion. The more moderate section of the Pharisees whilst shrinking from open allegiance and whole-hearted discipleship, were genuinely sympathetic (see Study 123). Conceivably, then, it may have been these who sought to apprise Jesus of impending danger.

The Lord’s reply shows how little impression this warning made on him, whether well-meant or otherwise: “It cannot be allowed that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem”. The deep irony of this saying may perhaps be paraphrased: ‘Jerusalem is the city that slays all the prophets; it has the monopoly (Is. 1:21); so it is there where my end must come; and that is not in Herod’s jurisdiction, so why should I fear him?’ Yet it was undoubtedly true that John the Baptist had been slain away from Jerusalem, and by non-Jewish hands. However, even in this instance it may be inferred that Herodias was put up to her crowning evil by the men of Jerusalem, for the comment of Jesus on that horrific episode was: “Elias is come already, and they knew him not, but they have done unto him whatsoever they listed. Likewise shall also the Son of man suffer of them” (Mt. 17:11,12; cp. also Mk.8:15 and Mt. 4:12Gk.) And was it not the men of the temple who had told an even more beastly Herod to look for the new-born Messiah in Bethlehem? (Mt. 2:4-6).

The third day

But what exactly did Jesus mean by his other words: “I cast out devils, and I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I shall be perfected”? There is also its parallel: “Nevertheless, I must walk today and tomorrow, and the day following”. There are at least four widely differing interpretations available:

1. The only one which has the merit (always a good one) of taking the words at their face value, goes like this: The three days mentioned are those covering the journey to Bethany for the raising of Lazarus, for that miracle certainly took place about this time. The details of John 11:6,17 tend to support this. So also does the word “walk” which is, more strictly, “journey”. Perhaps most impressive of all is the inter¬pretation of “and the third day I shall be perfected”. Weymouth translates this: “And the third day I finish (doing cures)”. To this the suggestion is attached that, except for the restoring of the ear of the servant of the high priest, the raising of Lazarus was the last “cure” performed by Jesus. The sequence in v.33 is also impressive: “… for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem (only two miles beyond Bethany)”.

So far as the interpretation of details goes, this is by far the best exposition available, for every single word is given its full value. The difficulty, however, is that the raising of Lazarus was not the last miracle of healing, for it was probably followed by the healing of the ten lepers (Lk. 17:12,19) and certainly by the healing of the blind men at Jericho (Lk. 18:35; Mt. 20:30), and a host of others in the temple court {Mt. 21:14). If, instead, the phrase “I am perfected” could be taken to mean “I achieve the greatest of all my miracles”, the case would surely be complete, but it is distinctly doubtful whether it should be so read.

2. Another suggestion would apply the rather dubious principle of “a year for a day” and so take “today and tomorrow, and the day following” to be an enigmatic way of alluding to his three years ministry which must needs be accomplished before his death in Jerusalem. This too, fits the context admirably. But difficulties remain and are, indeed, created.The ministry of Jesus lasted well into the fourth year (Lk. 13:7-9). Also this interpretation requires that Jesus should be in the first or second year of his public work at this time, whereas the incident belongs unquestionably to the fourth year oi ministry. Furthermore, there is no hint in the passage itself that the “year for a day” principle should be applied.

3. An Old Testament basis for the meaning of a New Testament passage should always be given specially favourable consideration, for experience shows that there is no firmer ground available to the student of the Gospels than when he has the New being interpreted for him by the Old. It is particularly interesting, therefore, to observe that it was on the third day of a journey when “Abraham lifted up his eyes and saw the place (Mt. Moriah, which is Jerusalem-2 Chr. 3:1) afar off” (Gen. 22:4). And it was there that Isaac was bound on the altar of sacrifice, a prototype of the One whose prophecy of his own sacrificial death is now being considered. Here are five impressive contacts between the two narratives. Examination of the phrase: “I am perfected”, reveals another.

Exodus 29:9 concludes with: “And thou shall consecrate Aaron and his sons.” The margin gives the literal translation of the Hebrew idiom, a very common one: “And thou shalt fill the hands of Aaron and his sons.” The Greek(LXX) version turns this into “perfect the hands.” This Septuagint phrase was carried over into the New Testament in a number of places as a synonym for the consecration of a high priest. For example: “For the law maketh men high priests which have infirmity; but the word of the oath, which was since the law, maketh the Son, who is consecrated (R.V. perfected) for evermore” (Heb. 7:28). In this instance, the RY gives the literal translation but the Common Version gives the true interpretation (see Notes),

Now back to Luke 13: “I do cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I am perfected.., for it cannot be that a prophet perish out of Jerusalem.” These words of Jesus bring together in beautiful harmony his work as Preacher and Healer, his suffering as a Sacrifice and his glorious resurrection to an Eternal High Priesthood, even as Isaac also was received back from the dead in a figure to experience the intensified love of his father. How appropriately, too, does his lament continue: “Behold, your house (the temple) is left unto you desolate: and verily I say unto you, Ye shall not see me until the lime come when ye shall say, (echoing from Ps. 118 the acclamation to the Messianic High Priest), Blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord.”

4. It turns out that “today and tomorrow and the third day” is quite possibly an Old Testament idiom like so many others that are traceable in the vivid words of Christ. Consider Moses’ words: “I am not eloquent, neither heretofore, nor since thou hast spoken unto thy servant” (Ex.4:10). The margin translates the idiom literally: “neither since yesterday, nor since the third day.” Similarly, “David was in Saul’s presence, as in times past” (margin: as yesterday third day); 1 Sam. 19:7. Here, and also in Gen.31:2; Dt.19:4,6; Josh. 3:4; 1 Chr. 11:2, the phrase evidently stands for a vague indeterminate period in the past. Hos. 6:2 applies it also to the future in exactly the same way.

Reading this meaning into Lk. 14:32,33, and appropriating also the meaning of the word “perfected” as already explained, the words of Jesus are seen to signify: ‘There is no need for me to fear Herod, for I must continue my work of healing a while longer (consider Jn. 11:9, 9:4). Nor need the Herods be at pains scheming to kill me. The evil work will be done for them. For, when I die it will certainly be at Jerusalem. And after that a great work as High Priest awaits me.’

With both this and the preceding suggestion there still remains a difficulty: What could it possibly signify to “that fox” to be told that on the “third day” Jesus would be “perfected”?

The answer must be, fairly obviously, Nothing! But it is by no means unlikely that these enigmatic words were spoken primarily for the benefit of these not-unsympathetic Bible-minded Pharisees. Recognition of the Lord’s Biblical allusion would advance their comprehension of his work considerably.

Decision which of these possible explanations is the one intended by Jesus is not easy. Is there some decisive consideration which has been overlooked? It is the very brevity of the record which leaves the door open to so many different interpretations. At least this should teach a wholesome lack of dogmatism in approaching such problems of Bible exposition.

Notes: Lk. 13:32.

32.	That fox. Literally: this fox. But why? And like “fox”, the word “this” is feminine. Yet it need not have been, for in S.S.2.15 LXX “foxes” occurs with a masculine adjective.
	Do cures. The verb always refers to performance of a religious duty; e.g. Heb, 8:5; 9:6; Rom. 15:28; 2 Cor. 8:6,11; Gal. 3:3. Accepting the views already mentioned in these Studies (30 etc.) that the healing miracles of Jesus demonstrated his authority over God’s angels of evil, this mention of demons and cures in effect says: If I have authority over such, do I have any cause to fear lesser powers of evil such as Herod and Herodias?
	Perfected; s.w. Heb. 2:10; 5:9; 10:14; 12:23; Jn. 17:23. In all of these read “consecrated”, for in each of them the context is priesthood.

The progress of Jesus through the cities and villages of the land continued. Luke brings in here the very word used to describe Israel’s journeyings in the wilderness (Num. 33:2; Ps.68:24LXX). All this time “he steadfastly set his lace to go up to Jerusalem” (9:51). That was to be the end of the journey. But the route was not direct. The intention was that on the way as many places as possible should hear the personal appeal of the Son of God.

One day, in the course of his journeying, a disciple (cp.14:22) asked: “Lord, are there few that are being saved?” The precise point of the question is not certain. It may have meant: ‘This is a fine theological point which the rabbis are always arguing about; what is your answer?’ But more likely, it signified: ‘You are not making many converts, are you?’ The man wanted to belong to a flourishing movement, and was concerned to find the nation’s response now so meagre.

The strait gate

In reply, as on other similar occasions, Jesus turned the enquiry to general profit. Addressing himself to all who were listening, he answered with a point-blank imperative: “Strive to enter in at the strait gate.” Thus there was an implied reproof of idle curiosity concerning this or any such questions. It was the Lord’s way of intimating that time and effort spent on such a problem is time wasted. So also is elaborate speculation regarding prophecies of the last days, or the philosophical harmonizing of predestination and human freewill, or concerning any such questions which have frittered away countless hours—all such things are futile unless they be made subservient to the main aim of personal salvation and the glory of God. ‘In your seeking for access through the narrow door, strain every nerve,’ Jesus commanded. Nothing in life is more important. This must have the very highest priority.

That expression: “the narrow door,” plainly implied a positive answer to the question. Yes, there are only few who are saved. Then, yet more explicitly: “For many, I say unto you, will seek to enter in, and shall not be able.” The tenses are important here. They speak clearly of a certain future occasion when opportunity of salvation will have passed, and a belated eagerness will meet with bitter disappointment.

The figure of speech here is different from that of Matthew 7:14. There, the picture is one of a narrow gate giving access to a narrow path, the only route by which the broad way, leading to destruction, may be avoided. Here, there is a narrow door of a house where a banquet of great privilege and pleasure is about to be provided.

A shut door

Jesus went on to elaborate the graphic image: “When once the master of the house hath risen up, and hath shut to the door,” then many seeking entry will not have the strength to get in. There is plain implication here that if, to qualify for the heavenly blessing, a man depends on his own powers and not on the gracious invitation of the Master, he is doomed to disappointment. The words were spoken with a strong note of urgency. At the best of times the door is narrow. But once it is shut to, neither battering on it nor forceful effort will budge it in the slightest.

On an earlier occasion Jesus had encouraged persistence of this kind: “Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened” (11:9). Yet here is no contradiction, but a salutary warning that for the man who treats present opportunity with indifference God’s graciousness does not last for ever.

The time will inevitably come when those who stand outside and knock, saying “lord, Lord, open unto us,” will hear only the reply: “I know you not whence ye are.” This is odd, for of course he will know. Also, that word: “whence” is specially significant. It implies origin, and may be paraphrased: You do not belong to the family that I have invited, the family of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets (v.28,16).

Expostulation

“Then shall ye begin to say …” (v.26) seems to suggest the Lord’s interruption of a long self-written testimonial, in which there is a marked note of surprise and expostulation in reply to this refusal.

“We have eaten and drunk in thy presence, and thou hast taught in our streets.” All unaware, they had eaten and drunk unworthily. But, without saving faith, even sound doctrine and participation in the Breaking of Bread and encouragement of the gospel message are of little consequence. Indeed, these high spiritual privileges only serve to increase the guilt of those who have not given a dedicated loyalty to Christ: “That servant which knew his Lord’s will and prepared not, shall be beaten with many stripes . . . For unto whomsoever much is given, of him shall be much required” (12:47,48).

So the only possible reply to the clamour of such people is a repeated disowning by “the master of the house”: “Depart from me, all ye workers of iniquity” (cp. Ps. 6:8,10). It is noteworthy here, and again in the parables of the pounds and talents, that to those who are conscious of their own rectitude, the Lord represents himself as austere and unyielding.

The rejected & the blessed

Those who consider that they must “qualify” for eternal blessedness by self-wrought virtue will find that for them the divine standard of admission is set far higher than any level they can hope to reach. In the day of decision th< are convicted of being “workers of iniquity”. All works without faith are iniquity. All procrastination in yielding full loyalty to Christ is iniquity. All association with Christ without real faith in him, and a corresponding lack of faith in self, is iniquity. Some will learn the lesson too late, and there (outside the shut door) shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth (Ps. 112:10; see Study 163).

This will be at a time when those whom the Lord rejects “shall see Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and all the prophets, in the kingdom of God, and themselves thrust out.” The words imply resurrection and judgment for both classes. And the fitting retribution on these, who have hypocritically professed to be Christ’s men, will be to see the blessedness of those who truly are his kindred spirits, and thus to realize the folly of a life of service which has served self in the guise of serving Christ.

The misery of rejection will bite the deeper because not only patriarchs and prophets and all the cream of faithful Israel will thus be blessed, but with them countless Gentiles from east, west, north and south will likewise be seen to “sit down in the kingdom of God.” So the Lord’s final answer is: Yes, those saved are many-and yet only few compared with the multitudes in the broad way to destruction.

And as Esau wept at the loss of his inheritance, so also do these castaways as they see others receive the fulfilment of the great Promise made to Jacob: “I am the Lord God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac… thou shalt spread abroad to the west, and to the east, and to the north, and to the south: and in thee and in thy Seed shall all the families of the earth be blessed” (Gen.28:13,14; cp. Is. 49:12; Mal. 1:11).

This solemn anticipation of the Day of Judgment, all arising out of a simple and perhaps rather superficial question, gave notice to the Lord’s Jewish hearers of an impending inversion of standards, dramatic and unexpected. Despised Gentiles who were deemed to be last were to be (and have become) first, and privileged Israelites have been set last of all. And—who knows?—that day of reckoning may bring other strange reversals. The Roman Church has always been loud and confident in its claims of continuity from the first century to the twentieth. Another small uninfluential community talks rather selfconsciously about its “revival of the Truth in the last days.”

Notes: Lk. 13:22-30

23.	Are there few... ? Lk’s expression here may be a Hebraism for an emphatic negative; cp. Heb. 4:5.
25.	When once.The Gk. phrase is notably indeterminate. No one knows when this will be (Mk. 13:32).
	And hath shut to the door. This is the only occurrence of this verb in NT or LXX. No other door is so tight shut as this. Yet there is one way to get it open: 1 Kgs 8:35,36. The mini-parable sketched here is hardly true to life.
27.	He shall say. ln Mt. 7:23, “profess”, which in that context must surely mean “speak plainly.”
28.	And all the prophets, men who bore faithful witness to Christ and to his kingdom; Acts 3:21; 10:43; Lk.24:27; and note Jn. 8:52
	Thrust out This Gk. word seems to imply inclusion for a time, only to be ejected as unworthy; cp. Is. 65:20c; 66:24; Mt. 13:41.
29.	They shall come. This Gk. word is beautifully chosen, for it seems always to imply divine action. For idea, cp. Mt. 24:31
	Sit down; s.w.Mt. 14:19;contrastv.25:”stand”.
30.	As phrased this does not mean that o//the last will be first, nor all the first last.