CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 12:1. An innumerable multitude of people.—“The many thousands of the multitude” (R.V.); lit. “the myriads of the multitude.” The discourse in this chapter is evidently in continuation of what has just been recorded: the cardinal sin of the Pharisees is dealt with, and freedom of speech is commended, in spite of the dangers which it provoked. Unto His disciples first of all.—Opinion is about equally divided as to whether the words should be thus rendered, or “say unto His disciples, First of all, beware ye.” The former is retained in the R.V. So far as internal evidence is concerned, Christ’s words seemed to be addressed to His disciples rather than to the multitude; and this distinction harmonises rather with the rendering of our version than with the other, which some editors prefer. The leaven of the Pharisees.—Cf. Matthew 16:6-12. The characteristic spirit of the Pharisees, which issued in a general corruption of the characters of those influenced by it. Leaves is most frequently used in Scripture as a symbol of evil. Hypocrisy.—The word “hypocrite,” in its original sense, means an actor; one who assumes a part and adopts a name, dress, and manner of speaking, in harmony with it. The appropriateness of the figure for those who assumed an austerity and goodness which were foreign to them, for the sake of imposing upon others, is obvious.
Luke 12:2. For there is nothing covered.—Hypocrisy is not only sinful, but useless: all secret words and sayings will one day be made public and open. The words have a different application in Matthew 10:26. There the reference is to the public proclamation of what the disciples have learned in secret from the Master.
Luke 12:3. In closets.—“In the inner chambers” (R.V.); “in the store-rooms,” the most secret part of the house. The same word is used in Matthew 6:6; Matthew 24:26. Upon the house-tops.—So that all in the streets can hear. “These sayings have a strong Syrian colour. The Syrian house-top presents an image which has no sense in Asia Minor, or Greece, or Italy, or even at Antioch. The flat roofs cease at the mouth of the Orontes; Antioch itself has inclined roofs” (Renan).
Luke 12:4. My friends.—An unusual phrase. Cf. John 15:13-15.
Luke 12:5. I will forewarn you.—Rather simply “I will warn you” (R.V.). Fear him, which after, etc. Who is the person here referred to? Strangely enough, the words have been interpreted both of God and of Satan. The opinion of the majority of commentators is that God is meant as the “almighty dispenser of life and death, both temporal or eternal.” But, on the other hand, Christ is here speaking of enemies; He warns His disciples not to fear those who can only hurt the body, and says there is reason to fear One who has power to “cast into hell,” or, as St. Matthew says, “to destroy both body and soul in hell.” If Satan is an enemy of the souls of men, and if those who yield to his solicitations share his punishment, there can be no difficulty in understanding this passage as alluding to him. Fear (or terror) of a spiritual enemy of real power and malignancy is evidently meant here. No such emotion is represented in the Scriptures as belonging to man’s relations with God. Alford understands the words as referring to God, and endeavours to draw a distinction between the phrase used in Luke 12:4 and that in Luke 12:5 to denote “fear”—in the one case the preposition ἀπό (fear of something coming from such and such a quarter) being used, and in the other case the simple verb—and understands by the one, “terror,” and by the other the nobler “fear of God” so often commended to us in the Scriptures. But he does not support his argument by adducing any examples of the words being used to denote these varying ideas. Hath power.—Or “authority” (R.V. margin). The word is appropriate for indicating authority which may be used in subordination to a higher rule, and so is in harmony with the above interpretation. Hell.—Lit. “Gehenna,” the place of punishment, as distinguished from Hades, the abode of the dead. Gehenna means simply the Valley of Hinnom, outside Jerusalem, so called apparently from the name of the original inhabitants or owners of it (Joshua 15:8). It was polluted by the worship of Moloch (Jeremiah 7:31), and was afterwards used as a receptacle for the rubbish and filth of the city. Large fires were kept burning in it, to prevent pestilence.
Luke 12:6. Are not five sparrows?—St. Matthew speaks of two being sold for one farthing (Luke 10:29). Evidently if four were bought at one time, a fifth was thrown in for nothing; yet not even one of these insignificant creatures is “forgotten before God.”
Luke 12:7. Hairs of your head.—Evidently a proverbial expression. Cf. 1 Samuel 14:45; 1 Kings 1:52; Luke 21:18; Acts 27:34.
Luke 12:8. Before the angels of God.—Allusion is here made to the last judgment, at which the angels of God are generally represented as present. The phrase in the parallel passage in St. Matthew is, “Before My Father which is in heaven.”
Luke 12:10. It shall be forgiven.—I.e., on repentance. Blasphemeth against the Holy Ghost.—A wilful and deliberate state of sinning, against the clearest light and knowledge, which, from the very nature of things, must exclude from forgiveness. These words were spoken to encourage the disciples; they give assurance that God will be with them in their work, and that obstinate opposition to it would be severely condemned by Him.
Luke 12:11. Synagogues.—The officials in each local synagogue had certain judicial powers. Magistrates and powers.—I.e., higher tribunals, either Jewish or Gentiles.
Luke 12:12. For the Holy Ghost.—This mention of the Holy Ghost as Paraclete, or Advocate, closely corresponds with Christ’s teaching as recorded in St. John’s Gospel, and is an interesting testimony to the historical character of the latter.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 12:1-12
The Disciples Encouraged.—The hostility manifested towards Christ, as described in the closing paragraph of the preceding chapter, was calculated to intimidate weak and wavering disciples, and even to shake the courage of the bravest amongst them. For it is evident that a large proportion, at any rate, of the crowd now assembled sympathised with the attitude towards Jesus taken up by their leaders. Accordingly our Lord, in the very presence of His enemies, addresses His disciples and encourages them to steadfastness in their allegiance to Him and His cause. By various kinds of inducements Jesus would now lead them to banish their fears.
I. The promise of victory (Luke 12:1-3).—The first encouraging fact on which Jesus laid stress was that in due time the hypocrisy of their enemies would be unveiled and the triumph of the gospel be complete and final. At the present time the teaching of the Pharisees, and the rules of conduct laid down by them, had great weight in Jewish society. But the day would come when the mask would be torn away; the corruption hidden beneath a pretence of piety would be brought to light, and the authority of these present guides and rulers of public opinion would crumble away. On the other hand, the disciples of Jesus, who were now abashed in the presence of their enemies, and who, as it were, scarcely dared to whisper in secret the truth they had learned from Him, would become His heralds, and proclaim to a listening world the teaching which He had entrusted to them. This assurance of future victory was a timely word of encouragement to the followers of Jesus. Just as there is nothing more likely to damp enthusiasm and to diminish activity than a dread of defeat, so the anticipation of winning the day gives fresh spirit and strength to the soldier in the midst of the fight. The same ground of encouragement which Jesus then gave to His disciples, exists still. All who are endeavouring in His name to overcome the ignorance and sin and misery that afflict human society, have reason to believe that the time will come when their efforts will be crowned with complete success.
II. Assurance of Divine protection (Luke 12:4-7).—In the second place Jesus encourages His disciples by assuring them that they were the objects of God’s providential care. All the evil that man could do to them was, even at its worst, but trifling and insignificant. Man had power only to injure the body, and even that power could only be exercised within the limits fixed by the Divine decree. They should, therefore, be freed from all fear. The enemy, whom they had reason to dread, was one who might find an ally in their own hearts. The solicitations of the enemy of their souls to save their lives in the hour of danger, by renouncing their Saviour, were indeed to be dreaded. This was the only fear that they need entertain. Jesus, it is to be noticed, does not promise His disciples that in every time of danger their lives would be preserved. They might be called upon to forfeit life, but not without the consent of Him whom He taught them to regard as their heavenly Father. And in the most forcible terms He assures them that the providence of God extends to the minutest details of human life. The birds of the air are not forgotten by God; how much more will He care for His children! He numbers the hairs of their heads; how much more will He protect their highest interests! Let them banish all fears, therefore; they will not fall without God’s consent, and God will not consent to anything which is not to be for their good.
III. The reward of the faithful disciples; the punishment of the faithless (Luke 12:8-10).—Fidelity to the Saviour and to His cause may entail pains and sufferings upon earth: but if they persevere unto the end, a glorious reward will be bestowed upon them. Their glorified Master will recompense them for confessing Him to be their Lord by acknowledging them to be His own before the assembled hosts of heaven. But denial of Him must inevitably be followed by the loss of His love and favour in the day when all shall appear before Him for judgment. It is for them to decide, by their attitude towards Him, what is to be His attitude towards them. There will be nothing arbitrary or capricious in the rewards He will bestow or the punishments He will impose, but both will commend themselves as just to those who will receive them. For a moment Jesus turns from the disciples to the crowd that surrounds them, and speaks of a worse sin than cowardly denial of Him as Lord and Master, and of the heavier punishment which that sin entails. Faithlessness towards Him, or even misguided antipathy towards Him, are grave offences, but they may be forgiven; but deliberate resistance to the Holy Spirit is a sin that can never be forgiven. The sinner who resolutely banishes from himself the light-giving, sanctifying influences of that Spirit, and who hates goodness, shuts himself out from the possibility of salvation.
IV. The promised aid of the Holy Spirit (Luke 12:11-12).—Well might the disciples fear that they would not be able to bear worthy testimony to their Master when exposed to the dangers of which He now forewarned them. And therefore Jesus reassures them, and promises that in their hour of need they would be sustained by that Spirit whom their enemies blasphemed. Many and various would be the tribunals before which His followers would be called to stand; they would be confronted with the representatives of ecclesiastical and worldly power, but they would receive supernatural help to enable them to endure the trial. Let them not premeditate defence! Words would be given them to speak which their adversaries would not be able to gainsay or resist. They would be taught both what to say and how to say it, and not only to defend themselves, but also to render testimony in favour of their Lord. Thus it was with St. Peter and St. Stephen before the Sanhedrim, and with St. Paul before Felix and Festus; they not only maintained their own integrity, but also proclaimed the gospel of which Christ had appointed them ministers.
In all these ways, therefore, did Jesus seek to strengthen His disciples. He infused into their hearts the hope of victory; He confirmed their faith in the almighty power of their heavenly Father; He spoke of the glorious reward which those faithful to Him might anticipate receiving, and of the penalty which cowardice would draw upon itself; and, finally, gave assurance of a Divine aid which would enable the weakest and most timid to rise to heroism in the day of trial and persecution.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 12:1-12
Luke 12:1-2. Hypocrisy and Truth.
I. The doom of hypocrisy.—Its triumph is short-lived, for the mask that conceals the true character of pretenders to godliness will be torn away.
II. The triumph of truth.—The words now spoken by disciples in secret will resound through the whole world. Evil done in secret, and truth spoken in secret, will both come to light, and men will condemn the one and approve the other.
Luke 12:1. Two Kinds of Hypocrisy.—Hypocrisy is of two kinds:—
I. Pretending to be what we are not.
II. Concealing what we are.—Though these are so closely allied that the one runs into the other, it is the latter form of it against which our Lord here warns His disciples.—Brown.
Self-Deception.—Hypocrisy is not merely for a man to deceive others, knowing all the while that he is deceiving them, but to deceive himself and others at the same time; to aim at their praise by a religious profession, without perceiving that he loves their praise more than God’s, and that he is professing far more than he practises.—Newman.
Luke 12:2-3. The Place and Function of the Lamp.—The disciples are to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees, one element of whose hypocrisy it was to withhold from the common people the light of their own better knowledge; neither going into the kingdom of heaven themselves, nor suffering those who would have entered to go in. The disciples, unlike the Pharisees, are not to withhold any light which they possess; for God intends nothing to be concealed from any man. Whatever is covered is to be uncovered. Whatever is hidden from us is hidden, not by God, but by the limitations of our own faculty, and will be disclosed as we train our faculty of perception and outgrow its limitations. So far as we can see, we may see; and what we see not yet we shall see soon. Yes, and, as we are expressly taught here, so far as we can see we may speak, and must speak. For as it is the will of God that nothing should be covered except that it may be uncovered, so also it is the will of Christ that whatever He or His disciples have spoken in darkness shall be heard in the light; whatever they have spoken in the chamber shall be proclaimed from the house-top. The same rule is to govern their words which governed His words. What He had taught them privately, that they were to teach openly (Matthew 10:27); and now He adds that whatever they taught privately, that their successors were to teach openly. They were to have no mysteries, no “economy,” no truths reserved for the initiated.—Cox.
Luke 12:2. A Warning and a Promise.
I. A warning against the hypocrisy which comes from fear of man.
II. A promise and a consoling hope for the faithful.
Luke 12:3. “Shall be heard in the light.”—“All that ye, on account of persecutions shall have taught in secret, will, at the victory of My cause, be proclaimed with the greatest publicity.”—Meyer.
The Course of the Gospel.—St. Luke has described the course of the gospel from the closet of Mary in Nazareth to the house-tops of the city of Rome.
Luke 12:4-9. Three Arguments against Fear.
I. That drawn from the impotence or limited power of the most malicious enemies.—They can “kill the body” and can do no more.
II. That drawn from the providence of God, without whose will not even the slightest injury can befall us.
III. That drawn from the fact that in the day of judgment Christ will acknowledge as His those who have been faithful to Him, and deny those who have denied Him.
Luke 12:4-6. A Mid-Course.—The state of mind Christ here seeks to cultivate is midway between fear and implicit trust.
I. He urges them on to earnestness by pointing out spiritual dangers to which they are exposed.
II. He preserves them from faint-heartedness by speaking of God as their protector.
Luke 12:4-5. The Place of Fear in the Gospel.—There is a place for fear in the gospel. Some readers of the Bible, some preachers of the gospel, have thought that fear was a dangerous, even a forbidden principle, under the dispensation of the fulness of times. They have made this one of the chief points of difference between the law and the gospel. This is a hasty inference. Our Lord says, “Fear Him, which, after He hath killed, hath power to cast into hell”; says it to His disciples—says it to those whom, in the very same sentence, He calls His “friends.” Paul bids his Philippian converts work out their salvation “with fear and trembling”; Peter commends a “chaste conversation coupled with fear”; and even John, who speaks of “perfect love casting out fear,” yet uses this, in the Revelation, as a characteristic of the faithful—“them that fear Thy name.” Fear has a place in the gospel, may we but find it. But it is not, as some would make it, the whole of religion. But there are three things the proper objects of gospel fear:
1. Sin and wickedness,
2. Our ghostly enemy.
3. Everlasting death.—Vaughan.
Luke 12:5. “Whom ye shall fear.”—The Christian, though having Christ for his friend (Luke 12:4), and God as His protector is not above all “fear.” The great enemy is still near, and his malice is deadly and unsleeping.
Luke 12:6-7. Divine Providence.
I. Christ here teaches that God’s government of the world extends to the minutest detail in the lives of all His creatures.
II. That this is not rule of a blind law, but of a loving Father.—Nothing is left to chance, and we have every encouragement to confidence in Him, and to commit ourselves in prayer to His protecting power.
Luke 12:7. Safety while Work is Unfinished.—The servant of Christ is immortal so long as his work is yet unfinished.
Luke 12:8-9. Confession and Denial of Christ.—The context shows plainly that it is a practical, consistent confession which is meant, and also a practical and enduring denial. The Lord will not confess the confessing Judas, nor deny the denying Peter; the traitor who denied Him in act is denied; the apostle who confessed Him, even to death, will be confessed (cf. 2 Timothy 2:12).—Alford.
I. Gentle allurement.
II. Grave menace.
Luke 12:8. The Promise.
1. How base, then, to refuse our testimony to Christ, when on His part He offers His testimony to us by way of reward!
2. How much more Christ promises than that which He requires from us! The Threatening.
(1) Not only will the names of the cowardly be blotted out of the book of life, but
(2) He will bear testimony against them and take away all hope of their admission into the heavenly kingdom.
Luke 12:10. The Sin against the Holy Ghost.—St. Luke records the utterance to the disciples of that same dread sentence which St. Matthew and St. Mark give as addressed to the blaspheming Pharisees—showing conclusively that Christians are not out of reach of that danger which in open enemies is blasphemy, and in false friends is a “doing despite.” St. Luke connects this sin with that of denying Christ. His warning is addressed to disciples. They may deny Christ and be forgiven: “to him that blasphemes against the Holy Ghost it shall not be forgiven.” Thus he prepares us for later disclosures which shall show how a Christian may blaspheme against the Holy Ghost, and, so doing, sin beyond forgiveness.—Vaughan.
Rejecting the Preaching of the Apostles.—The history of Israel fully proves the truth of this word of warning. That nation did not perish because of the sin of having nailed the Son of man to the cross. Otherwise the day of the crucifixion would have been its day of judgment, and God would not have offered for forty years longer forgiveness of this act of rejection. It is the rejection of the preaching of the apostles—the obstinate resistance offered to the Spirit of Pentecost—that filled up the measure of Jerusalem’s sin.—Godet.
Sins Against the Spirit.—Other forms of sin against the Holy Spirit are referred to in Scripture:—
I. To resist the Spirit (Acts 7:51), or to vex the Spirit (Isaiah 63:10). The action of those who refuse to turn from their evil ways.
II. To grieve the Spirit (Ephesians 4:30)—as believers do when they allow themselves to be carried away by sin. But to blaspheme is of one’s own free will, with full knowledge to hate and withstand the Holy Spirit. The reason why this sin cannot be forgiven is not that the fountain of God’s pity is closed up, but that the fountain of penitence and faith is dried up in the sinner’s heart.
Luke 12:11. Promised Help.—The disciples are forewarned that they would be cited, not only before Jewish, but also before heathen tribunals, and are promised direct, immediate help from above for all cases in which they would need it. The promise is of a twofold nature.
I. Help would be given them to frame their defence.
II. They would be assisted to deliver their testimony on behalf of Christ. The Acts of the Apostles contains the record of many instances of the fulfilment of this promise.
Luke 12:12. The Authority of the Apostles.—Not unjustly is the Saviour’s promise of the assistance of the Holy Spirit regarded as one of the strongest grounds of the high authority in which the word and writings of the apostles stand. The manner of the Spirit’s working may be incomprehensible, but it is evident that we are to understand an entirely extraordinary immediate influence; for it was to be given them “in that hour.” The promise of this assistance extended as well to the substance as to the form of their language, and this help was to support them so mightily (cf. chap. Luke 21:14-15) that it would be morally impossible for their enemies to persevere in offering them resistance.—Van Oosterzee.