CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 17:11. Samaria and Galilee.—This mention of Samaria before Galilee is perplexing, being the opposite direction to a journey to Jerusalem. Probably “through the midst” is to be understood as meaning “along the frontiers of.” Probably the incident here recorded occurred about the time and place referred to in Luke 9:56.
Luke 17:12. Ten men.—If this miracle took place near a border village, we can understand how a Samaritan and Jews should be in the same company—all outcasts from society because of their leprosy. Afar off.—See Leviticus 13:46; Numbers 5:2.
Luke 17:13. And they.—The word is emphatic; their faith in Jesus led them to take the initiative.
Luke 17:14. Go, show yourselves.—According to the Law (Leviticus 14:2-32), Jesus did not, as on a former occasion, touch the lepers (Luke 17:13); His purpose seems to have been to test their love for Him as Healer. Faith they had; love leading to gratitude was only found in one of them. As they went.—Evidently they had not gone far.
Luke 17:16. A Samaritan.—Probably he was on his way to the priests in his own temple at Mount Gerizim.
Luke 17:17. Were there not ten cleansed?—Rather, “Were not the ten cleansed?” (R.V.) I.e., did not the cure operate on all alike? A sadness of tone is perceptible in this question. The ingratitude of his own countrymen was revealed in this want of love for benefit received by the nine lepers.
Luke 17:18. Give glory to God.—Not mere personal ingratitude to Jesus, but insensibility to the compassion of God manifested through Him. This stranger.—Rather, “alien.” The Samaritans were Gentiles, and not a mixed race. Their religion was a mixture of Judaism and idolatry. See 2 Kings 17:24-41.
Luke 17:19. Made thee whole.—Rather, “Hath saved thee” (R.V. margin). “In a higher sense than the mere cleansing of his leprosy. Theirs was merely the beholding of the brazen serpent with the outward eyes, but his, with the eye of inward faith; and this faith saved him—not only healed his body, but his soul” (Alford).
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 17:11-19
The Lord’s treatment of this case is entirely different from that with which He met the leper of an earlier narrative. When that first subject of His cleansing power came kneeling to Him, Jesus put His hand on him, effected his cure on the spot, and then sent him to the priest for confirmation. Here the procedure is almost reversed. Without cleansing them, without so much as telling them that they were to be cleansed, He bids them take the cure on trust, and proceed to show themselves to the constituted authorities, as persons who were lepers no more.
I. Thus was their faith tested.—It was a strong test, but their perfect confidence in Jesus was equal to it. They instantly set out. They had seen no charm used, had heard no words of cleansing; they felt, as yet, no change wrought upon their diseased bodies; but they went, in the firm faith that the thing would be done. They acted out their faith. Every step they took away from the presence of Jesus was a proof that they trusted Him. And their confidence was soon rewarded. The cure came: every man saw before his eyes in his follows the wonderful transformation which he felt in himself. “It came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.” Could there be a better illustration of faith, from one point of view, than the conduct of these ten men? They took Jesus at His word, and they soon realised the blessedness of so doing. This is faith. Constantly we stumble at the plainness and simplicity of this act of faith—trusting the bare word of God. We so often say, “If I could only feel something, see some improvement, experience some joy, have evidence in myself, then I would believe.” Such language, transferred to these patients of Jesus, would run, “Let us first see some signs of the leprosy removing, feel some pulse of recovered health, then we shall believe, and go to the priests for a certificate.” Put thus, it would be recognised at once as the language of downright unbelief. Yet how often we mock the message of salvation with just such treatment in our hearts, if not in speech!
II. This treatment was further intended to test their love.—I.e., it was intended to bring out whether their faith was fruitful trust in Him as God’s representative to them, or whether it was a mere formal faith in His office as a healer, so well-known that He could not be disbelieved. For these reasons He did the cure only after they had left Him. He sent them away out of His presence, and on the road to the priests, and then healed them. Thus an entirely new situation arose. When diseased folks were healed instantly by Jesus, and were still before Him, they could not withhold their acknowledgment. In a case like this it might be very different; and so it proved, for only one of the ten stood the test. No doubt the nine had a confidence in Jesus’ power which carried them through the test set them. They had that outside faith which sufficed to trust His word for healing. But they had no regard either to the Divine glory or the redeeming might of Jesus. They took His cleansing of them as a mere common thing. At first the miracles of Christ had been fresh and startling. But now, as His love repeated them, men did with Christ’s miracles as they do with His Father’s bounties—see nothing Divine in them because they are so common. This their unbelief, their seeing no glory of God in what Jesus did to them, is proved by their unthankfulness. Jesus Himself, who knew what was in man, was astonished at this instance of ingratitude and irreligion. Unbelief, with its baneful blight, counterworks the works of God at every point. Times and places there were when Jesus could do no miracle because of men’s unbelief. Then, again, when He wrought them abundantly, there were men who saw His miracles and did not believe. Now it has come even to this: there are men experiencing the miracle in themselves, and yielding no homage to their Healer. Thus unbelief brings forth its bitter fruit of ingratitude. Even in Christians it makes melancholy havoc, blinding them to the Divine hand in their deliverances, leading them to cheapen God’s marvellous grace, and coldly trace to second causes the change that once they rejoiced over as life from the dead. Of men at large unbelief and ingratitude make heathens. For it is pronounced to be the very sin of the heathen that “when they knew God, they glorified Him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened” (Romans 1:21).—Laidlaw.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 17:11-19
Luke 17:11-19. Gratitude and Ingratitude.
I. The forlorn company and their cry.
II. The command which is a promise.
III. The unthankful nine and the grateful one.
IV. The wonder, pain, and patience of Jesus.
V The larger blessings given to the thankful heart.—Maclaren.
A Remarkable Scene.
I. A gracious mission.
II. A loathsome sight.
III. Merciful interposition.
IV. Religious observance.
V. Sinful ingratitude.
VI. Joyful praise.
One in Ten.
I. What these men were before seeing Jesus.
II. What the interview did for them.
III. What it failed to do with nine of the ten.—Dingley.
Luke 17:11. Samaria and Galilee.—The notice of the scene of this miracle explains the presence of a Samaritan in the company of lepers. The same rule for the exclusion of lepers from society obtained in Samaria as in Israel and the common affliction drew these poor outcasts together.
Luke 17:12. “Ten lepers.”—Differences among them of race and religion had been overcome by their common misery. A similar company is spoken of in 2 Kings 7:3.
Luke 17:13. “Lifted up their voices.”—They were less bold than the leper in chap. 5, who came to kneel at Jesus’ feet; but as they saw Him entering the village from which they were excluded, they called upon Him for mercy and healing.
“Have mercy.”—The incident illustrates the human side of the work of salvation. There is
(1) a sense of mercy and helplessness;
(2) faith in Jesus;
(3) an appeal to His compassion.
Luke 17:14. “Go, shew yourselves.”—In many different ways did the Great Physician deal with the needs of those He healed: sometimes He seemed to resist a strong faith, that He might make it stronger yet (Matthew 15:23-26); sometimes He met a weak faith, lest it might prove too weak in the trial (Mark 5:36); in one case He forgave first and healed after (Matthew 9:2; Matthew 9:6), in another case He healed first and only then forgave (John 5:8; John 5:14). Some adequate reason moved Him, doubtless, to adopt His present course of procedure.
Luke 17:15. “Turned back.”—This man is sent with the rest to the priests. He well knew this duty was a branch of the law of ceremonies, which he meant not to neglect; but his heart told him there was a moral duty of professing thankfulness to his Benefactor, which called for his first attendance. First, therefore, he turns back, ere he will stir forward. Reason taught this Samaritan, and us in him, that ceremony must yield to substance, and that main points of obedience must take place of all ritual complements.—Hall.
“With a loud voice.”—He had been loud in prayer (Luke 17:13), so now he is loud in praise. His impurity had kept him at a distance from Christ, but now that he is cleansed he falls at the Saviour’s feet.
Luke 17:16. “Fell down.”—A. token—
1. of love for the Saviour, and
2. of willingness to submit entirely to Him.
“Giving Him thanks.”—Every miracle has its lesson, and in that lesson lies the reason why it has been recorded. There were many lepers cleansed of whose healing no record is given: but the story of these ten is told because one of them came back. “Giving Him thanks”—in these words the lesson lies.
I. It is the beautiful story of the gratitude of a “stranger.”—The story is made more beautiful by the contrast with the ingratitude of “His own.” It recalls the parable of the Good Samaritan: the two narratives are parallel in more respects than one.
II. And both illustrate in a remarkable way the great lesson of the previous series of discourses.—It was the despised Samaritan who returned: the privileged Jews held on their legal and selfish way. Legal way; for observe that the nine had ample excuse. Christ had ordered it, and the Law demanded it. But the letter killeth. Love overrules Acts of Parliament. The nine held by the Law, but the one got the grace.
III. By grace he was saved through faith.—“Thy faith hath saved thee.” Physically, he was made whole already; so were His companions. But now he gets the nobler and only noble blessing. This the others lost, through their ingratitude.—Hastings.
Christ’s Bearing in Relation to In gratitude.—To ungrateful treatment the Saviour was no stranger. Neither can we hope to be. The sting of ingratitude may be felt by all. But how do we comport ourselves under it?
I. This will test character.—In Christ’s example there is both reproof and inspiration. He was not insensible to ingratitude. Nay, He was more sensitive than we. His feelings were keener. He never became less sensitive to sin in any form by contact with it. We do. To Him it never became more endurable. To us it may. Sin within responds to sin without. We carry with us the body of sin. By this relation we are less sensitive to it than Jesus. But Christ remained ever keenly sensitive. How, then, would He feel ingratitude! One of those polar currents is sweeping over Him now.
II. His conduct in the face of ingratitude challenges admiration and imitation.—He is not made sour, misanthropical, self-contained. There is no recoil to the opposite extreme of indifference and hate. What a halo of unsullied glory is about the Christ of God! Delicate sensibility on the one hand; base ingratitude on the other. Yet the streams of good-will and blessing kept flowing perennially with undiminished volumes. The “milk of human kindness” never soured in Him. He never contracted a tinge of moroseness. He never grew weary in well-doing. Only with His life did such ministry cease. From the cross we hear “Father, forgive them.”—Campbell.
“Where are the nine!”—The question is the turning-point of the story. The nine received the gift of healing and forgot the Giver. There was only one grateful patient.
I. In the Saviour’s question we may perceive much of the mind that is in Christ Jesus toward sinful men.—He went about doing good. His whole life was beneficent. No human being did he ever hurt. Even fruitless human lives He spared. But while men cared only for the curing of bodily ailments, the Great Physician looked to both the disease of the body and the sin of the soul; and mainly to the latter.
II. He tries the lepers by sending them out of His sight to be healed.—He desired that they should return to Himself with thanks. He loves a cheerful comer as well as a cheerful giver. All were glad; only one was grateful.
III. How wistfully Jesus looks after the nine as they go away!—They took greedily the temporal benefit; they despised the more precious gift which the Lord was waiting to bestow. They snatched the lesser, and missed the greater. What would He have said to them if they had returned?
IV. We know what He said to the one who did return.—He had another faith and obtained another cure. He believed to the saving of his soul. In him the Redeemer sees of the travail of His soul, and is satisfied. In the others He sees no fruit, and therefore complains. He expects healed and delivered men to come back to Him with praise. Is He to be disappointed?—Arnot.
One of Ten.—
I. Lesson from the ten.—All need cleansing.
II. Lesson from the nine.—The sin of unthankfulness.
III. Lesson from the one.—The duty and beauty of gratitude.—W. Taylor.
I. Why men are unthankful.
II. Why we ought to be thankful.
III. How we ought to show our thankfulness.—Watson.
Unthankfulness.
I. In many cases the reason is that we do not see our Benefactor.—Just as these lepers were at a distance from Christ when healing took place.
II. A second cause is an imperfect appreciation of God’s gifts.—Health is coveted by the sick, but lightly valued when they gain it.
III. A third reason is the utilitarian one.—Men do not see the good of it.
Three results of gratitude:
1. It stimulates powerfully to active well-doing.
2. It makes worship—especially public worship—real and sincere.
3. Thankfulness here on earth is the best possible preparation for the spirit and life of heaven.—Liddon.
Why the Nine Acted as They Did.—
1. They may have thought that they had done nothing to deserve their horrible fate, and that, therefore, it was only just that they should be restored to health.
2. They may have thought that they would at least make sure of their restoration to health, before they gave thanks to Him who had healed them.
3. They may have put obedience before love.
4. It may be that the nine Jews would not go back just because the Samaritan did: misery had broken down enmity, but when the pressure of misery is removed, the Jews take one road, the Samaritan another.
5. They may have said within themselves that they could be just as thankful to the kind Master in their hearts without saying so to Him.—Cox.
Luke 17:18. “There are not found.”—The nine others were already healed and hastening to the priest, that they might be restored to the society of men and their life in the world; but the first thoughts of the Samaritan are turned to his Deliverer. He had forgotten all in the sense of God’s mercy and of His own unworthiness.—Williams.
“This stranger.”—The gratitude of the Samaritan overcame the prejudices which his race cherished against that to which the Saviour belonged; while his companions were wanting in gratitude to their countryman who had healed them.
Luke 17:19. “Thy faith.”—The true nature of faith is here very clearly displayed as consisting principally in moral qualities of obedience and love. Confidence in the Saviour’s power had led to the healing of the ten; but “this stranger” manifested a faith which secured for him higher blessings than that of bodily healing.
“Saved thee.”—The Samaritan was saved by his faith, not because he was cured of his leprosy (for this was likewise obtained by the rest), but because he was admitted into the number of the children of God, and received from His hand a pledge of fatherly kindness.