Jesus' Disciples Must Recognise That Shortly Their Lives Also Would be Shaken By What Was Soon To Happen To Him. They Too Would Be At A Crossroads (18:31-34).
So Luke now draws attention to the fact that the rich ruler was not the only one unwilling to face up to the truth. Indeed without the grace of God all the disciples would have become lost to Him. For their comprehension too was dim and they had still not been prepared to face up to the realities of the future. They too therefore had nothing to boast about. They would only survive their folly by the grace of God. For they were blind and would need their eyes opened, a fact which is then illustrated by the opening of the eyes of a blind man who presses his way to Jesus and refuses to be silenced until he has come face to face with Him. In the chiasmus of the Section these passages parallel where the Pharisees, who are blind to the truth about Jesus, cavil at His teaching, while all whose eyes are opened and who come to see the truth press into the Kingly Rule of God (Luke 16:14-18).
This is the fourth time in Luke that Jesus has warned them of His coming sufferings (Luke 9:22; Luke 9:44; Luke 13:33, but see also Luke 5:35; Luke 12:50; Luke 17:25), but there are none as blind as those who do not want to see. What was to happen was so outside their conception of what they thought ought to happen that they probably thought that by the words He used He was being mysteriously descriptive of the life of discipleship. He had constantly told them that they must take up their crosses and follow Him, and they were used to Him speaking parabolically. Perhaps what He meant was that He too must be seen as taking up His cross and following God. As in Hosea 6 He would suffer some humiliation and would then come through it triumphantly. But the thought that it would happen to Him literally seemed so impossible and unlikely that it was probably not even considered. They would see His words as simply a very vivid parable.
Analysis.
a He took to him the twelve, and said to them (Luke 18:31 a).
b “Behold, we go up to Jerusalem, and all the things that are written through the prophets will be accomplished to the Son of man” (Luke 18:31 b).
c “For he will be delivered up to the Gentiles, and will be mocked, and shamefully treated, and spat on, and they will scourge and kill him, and the third day he will rise again” (Luke 18:32-33).
b And they understood none of these things, and this saying was hid from them (Luke 18:34 a).
a And they perceived not the things that were said (Luke 18:34 b).
Note that in ‘a' we have what He said, and in the parallel they understood nought of what He said. How often we do not listen to God. In ‘b' they had the prophetic word through the Spirit, and in the parallel such words were hidden from them. Until the Spirit opened their hearts they were blind. And centrally in ‘c' we have the description of what was hidden from them, God's whole plan of redemption. They probably actually thought that they were getting on quite well. In truth as yet they could not even pass the initial test.