CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 9:18. It came to pass.—This took place on the way to Cæsarea Philippi: this was a town in the valley of the upper Jordan near Paneas, which had been enlarged and fortified by the tetrarch Philip. Praying.—This circumstance is peculiar to St. Luke. The people.—Lit. “the multitudes” (R.V.).
Luke 9:22. Elders and chief priests and scribes.—The three classes of which the Sanhedrim was composed.
Luke 9:23. To them all.—I.e. to the multitude as well as to His disciples. Will come.—I.e. “desire to come.” His cross.—A prophetic allusion to the manner of His own death: in it there is an anticipation of the part the Gentiles were to play in putting Him to death as the cross was a Roman and not a Jewish instrument of punishment.
Luke 9:24. Whosoever will save.—I.e. “desire to save,” as in Luke 9:23.
Luke 9:25. Be cast away.—Rather, “suffer damage,” as opposed to “gain”: R.V. “forfeit his own self.”
Luke 9:27. Till they see the kingdom of God.—As is evident from the connection in which it stands, the first fulfilment of these words was in the Transfiguration.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 9:18-27
The Divine Christ confessed.
I. The first section gives us Peter’s great confession in the name of the disciples (Luke 9:18-20).—Our Lord is entering on a new era in His work, and desires to bring clearly into His followers’ consciousness the sum of His past self-revelation. The excitement which He had checked after the first miraculous feeding had died down. Amid the seclusion of Cæsarea, far away from distracting influences, He puts these two momentous questions. The first question is as to the partial and conflicting opinions among the multitudes; the second hints at the fuller unveiling of the depths of His gracious personality, which the disciples had experienced, and implies, “Surely you, who have been beside Me, and known Me so closely, have reached a deeper understanding.” It has a tone of the same wistfulness and wonder as that other question of His, “Have I been so long time with you, and yet hast thou not known Me?” For their sakes He seeks to draw out their partly unconscious faith, that had been smouldering, fed by their daily experience of His beauty and tenderness. Half-recognised convictions float in many a heart, which need but a pointed question to crystallise into master-truths, to which henceforward the whole being is subject. Great is the power of putting our shadowy beliefs into plain words. “With the mouth confession is made unto salvation.” Why should this great question have been preceded by the other? Probably to make the disciples feel more distinctly the chaotic contradictions of the popular judgment, and their own isolation by their possession of the clearer light. He wishes them to see the gulf opening between them and their fellows, and so to bind them more closely to Himself. It is the question the answer to which settles everything for a man. It has an intensely sharp point. We cannot take refuge from it in the general opinion. Nor does any other man’s judgment about Him matter one whit to us. Christ has a strange power, after eighteen hundred years, of coming to each of us, with the same persistent interrogation on His lips. And to-day, as then, all depends on the answer we give. Many answer by exalted estimates of Him, like these varying replies, which ascribed to Him prophetic authority; but they have not drunk in the full meaning of His self-revelation unless they can reply with the full-toned confession of the apostle, which sets Him far above and apart from the highest and holiest. The confession includes both the human and the Divine sides of Christ’s nature. He is the Messiah; but He is more than a Jew meant by that name—He is “the Son of the living God,” by which we cannot indeed suppose that Peter meant all that he afterward learned it contained, or all that the Church has now been taught of its meaning, but which, nevertheless, is not to be watered down as if it did not declare His unique filial relation to the Father, and so His Divine nature. Christian progress in doctrine does not consist in the winning of new truths, but in the penetrating further into the meaning of old and initial truths.
II. The startling new revelation of the suffering Messiah (Luke 9:21-22).—The gospel has two parts: Jesus is the Christ, and the Christ must suffer and enter into His glory. Our Lord has made sure that the disciples have learned the first before He leads to the second. The very conviction of His dignity and Divine nature made that second truth the more bewildering; but still the only road to it was through the first. The new teaching as to the sufferings was no new thought to Himself, forced on Him by the growing enmity of the nation. The cross always cast its shadow on His path. He was no enthusiast, beginning with the dream of winning a world to His side, and slowly and heroically making up His mind to die a martyr; but His purpose in being born was to minister to and to die a ransom for the many. Note the detailed accuracy of the prevision which points to the rulers of the nation as the instruments, and to death as the climax, and to resurrection as the issue, of His sufferings; and the clear setting forth of the Divine necessity which, as it ruled all His life, ruled here also, and is expressed in that solemn “must.” The necessity was no external compulsion, driving Him to an unwelcome sacrifice, but one imposed alike by filial obedience and by brotherly love. He must die because He would save.
III. The law which ruled the Master’s life is extended to the servants (Luke 9:23-27).—They recoiled from the thought of His having to suffer. They had to learn that they too must suffer, if they would be His. “If any man will” gives them the option of withdrawal. A new epoch is beginning, and they will have to enlist again, and do it with open eyes. He will have no unwilling soldiers, nor any who have been beguiled into the ranks. No doubt some went away, and walked no more with Him. The terms of service are clear. Discipleship means imitation, and imitation means self-crucifixion. A martyred Master must needs have for followers men ready to be martyrs too. But the requirement goes much deeper than this. There is no discipleship without self-denial, both in the easier form of starving passions and desires, and in the harder of yielding up the will, and letting His will supplant ours. Only so can we ever come after Him, and of such sacrifice of self the cross is the eminent example. When Jesus began to teach His death, He immediately presented it as His servants’ example. The ground of the law is stated in Luke 9:24. The wish to save life is the loss of life in the highest sense. If that desire guide us, then farewell to enthusiasm, courage, the martyr spirit, and all which makes man’s life nobler than a beast’s. He who is ruled mainly by the wish to keep a whole skin loses the best part of what he is so anxious to keep. Regard for self as a ruling motive is destruction, and selfishness is suicide. On the other hand, lives hazarded for Christ are thereby truly saved; and if they be not only hazarded, but actually lost, such loss is gain; and the same law by which the Master “must” die and rise again will work in the servant. Luke 9:25 urges the wisdom of such apparent folly, and enforces the requirement by the plain consideration that “life” is worth more than anything beside. Therefore the dictate of the wisest prudence is that seemingly prodigal flinging away of the lower “life,” which puts us in possession of the higher. Note that the appeal is here made to a reasonable regard to personal advantage, and that in the very act of urging to crucify self. So little did Christ think, as some people do, that the desire to save one’s soul is selfishness. Luke 9:26 confirms all the preceding by the solemn allusion to the coming of the Son of man as Judge. They surely shall then find their lives who have followed Him here. Luke 9:27 adds a confirmation of this announcement of His coming to judge. The question of what event is referred to may best be answered by noting that it must be one sufficiently far off from the moment of speaking to allow of the death of the greater number of His hearers; that it must also be an event, after which these survivors would go the common road into the grave; that it is apparently distinguished from His coming “in the glory of the Father,” and yet is of such a nature as to afford convincing proof of the establishment of His kingdom on earth, and to be, in some sort, a sign of that final act of judgment. All these requirements meet only in the destruction of Jerusalem, and of the national life of the chosen people. That was a crash of which we only faintly realise the tremendous significance. It swept away the last remnant of the hope that Israel was to be the kingdom of the Messiah; and from out of the dust and chaos of that fall the Christian Church emerged, manifestly destined for worldwide extension.—Maclaren.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 9:18-27
Luke 9:18. Opinions about Jesus Christ.
I. There are those who consider Him to have been the best of men that ever lived, but do not consider Him to have been perfectly sinless.—Three objections are fatal to this opinion:
1. It is contrary to the Saviour’s own claims.
2. It is founded on a prejudice against the miraculous.
3. It deprives Him of all place in connection with salvation.
II. That He was a perfect man, but not the God-man.—Two objections to this opinion:
1. It is opposed to the clear testimonies of Scripture.
2. The Christian Church has ever refused to rest in such a view.
III. That He was a Divine Saviour, but not a Saviour by atoning sacrifice.—But we have in Christ’s own teaching the doctrine of the Atonement.
1. We have a doctrine of penalty following sin.
2. It is taught by what Christ says of His own substitution.
3. It follows from our Lord’s connecting His death with the forgiveness of sins.
4. The fact that Christ connects His death with a covenant, and with a new covenant, brings it in His own teaching into line with the Old Testament sacrifices.—Cairns.
Luke 9:18-20. The Master’s Prayer and the Disciple’s Confession.—The time has come for an onward step. These twelve men must be made to gather into one, and to speak out the net result of these months of silent accompanying. They must be brought to book (so to say) as to their dim, floating ideas. The time is come for confession of Christ. How shall it be done? The Divine Master takes them apart by themselves, on a journey the farthest that He ever made northward in Palestine. He had brought them thither for a sacred purpose. They were to pass from an unrealised to a realised conviction—from the spiritual stage of “believing unto righteousness” to the further spiritual stage of “confessing unto salvation.” Can you wonder that St. Luke, the historian of Christ’s prayers, tells us that this step, this leap, this bound, was prefaced by one of the prayers of Christ? While witnessing His absorbed, engrossed, unconscious solitude, He put to them this question, “Whom say the people that I am?”
I. Surely there is Divine skill, and tenderness as well, in this way of putting the question.—He asks first, What do other people say? before He goes on to propose the vital question, But what do ye, My disciples, My near ones, My own, say and think of Me? Even when the time has come for fixing their floating thoughts, for getting an answer, positive and peremptory, as to the state of their own belief—even then He will approach the subject distantly, lest haply, even then, a too sudden and abrupt interrogation might startle, perplex, or deter them.
II. Well, they say, opinions are divided.—John the Baptist, risen again from the death in Machærus—that is one idea. Elias, come again to fulfil the last prophecy of the Old Testament—that is another. A prophet—one of the prophets—without pledging themselves to a name or an identification—that is a third. In the midst of all these ignorant or superstitious imaginings, what say ye?
III. The time has come for an answer from the disciples.—The brave, sometimes too brave, Peter, as usual, is the spokesman. “The Christ of God.” Was it not for this answer, this revelation, this unveiling, that the “effectual fervent prayer” had ascended? When we think what lay in that good confession—what for future generations—what for a world about to be bought with blood—what for a Church to be founded, as upon a rock, on that brief utterance, so vital, so boundless in the thing signified,—can we imagine an occasion more suitable for the exercise, by anticipation, even of the mediatorial office, than that which required, and waited for, an unveiling, not by flesh and blood, but by a Father in heaven, to men standing here in all the backwardness, and in all the boundedness, of a fallen humanity, of a mystery kept secret hitherto from eternal times?—Vaughan.
Luke 9:21. “To tell no man.”—For these, perhaps, among other reasons:
1. Because His work was not yet finished.
2. Because as yet their faith was very weak and their knowledge partial.
3. Because they had not yet received the Holy Spirit to give power to their testimony.
4. Because the public proclamation of the truth would have precipitated the workings of God’s foreordained plan.—Farrar.
Luke 9:22. “Must suffer.”—The gospel may be stated in two propositions.
1. Jesus is the Christ.
2. The Christ must suffer, die, and rise again; or Christ by death will enter into His glory.
A revelation of the Passion.—Christ reveals—
I. Who are to inflict the sufferings.
II. The form these sufferings are to take.
III. The necessity for His enduring them.
IV. Their issue in His resurrection.
Luke 9:23-26. Three Great Lessons:—
I. Not only Christ, but also His followers, must suffer and deny themselves.
II. That all have a life to save, more precious than all else to them.
III. That the great day of account should be ever before them.
Luke 9:23. The Christian’s Journey.—
1. Those things of which he takes leave.
2. The burden he carries.
3. The road he traverses.
“Will come.”—It is a matter of choice to follow Christ; but if the resolution be formed to do so, there is no choice but to deny oneself and take up the cross.
“Deny himself.”—As Peter said when he denied Christ, “I know not the man,” so say thou of thyself, and act accordingly.—Bengel.
“Deny himself … take up his cross.”—The one is an active, the other a passive, state. Self-denial is a man’s own act, and requires the strenuous exercise of the will. “Taking up the cross” implies patient submission to the will of another.
“His cross.”—If not
(1) contempt or suffering endured for the sake of Christ, then
(2) some form of affliction connected with this earthly life, or
(3) temptations from without, or
(4) inward conflict with sin.
Requisites for Discipleship.
I. The first requisite in a disciple is self-denial.
II. The second requisite is cross-bearing.
III. The third requisite is spiritual service, true and constant obedience.—Anderson.
“No cross, no crown.”
I. The cross is to be taken up, not simply borne, when laid on the shoulder.—This implies willing, cheerful suffering for Christ. Some people endure trials, but always with repining. The spirit of these words requires cheerfulness in suffering for Christ. Half the trial is gone if we meet it in this glad spirit.
II. It is one’s own cross, and not another’s, that is to be taken up.—The particular cross that God lays at our own feet. We are not to make crosses for ourselves, but we are always to accept those that are allotted to us. Each one’s cross is the best for him. If we knew what other people’s crosses were, we might not envy them, or wish to exchange our cross for theirs. What seems a flower-woven cross may be full of sharp thorns. The easiest cross for each one to bear is one’s own.
III. There is a way to remove the crosses out of our life.—Always gladly accept through love to God whatever trial, pain, or loss God sends. If my will acquiesces in His, there is no cross.—Miller.
Self-sacrifice.—Self-sacrifice represents more exactly than self-denial the idea intended to be conveyed by the Lord’s precept here. Not that “let him deny himself?” is other than a literal translation of the original phrase, but that in popular parlance self-denial has come to mean something much more superficial, much less thoroughgoing, than what is obviously denoted by Christ in this passage. Self-denial, in the sense in which it is an essential condition of coming after the Saviour, is the doing by self what St. Peter did by Christ—repudiating all connection with self, utterly disavowing it as our master.—Goulburn.
What is Self-denial?—The word is often and much mistaken in common use, as if it meant much the same as self-control—the control of lower elements of our being by higher; but this is not self-denial as Christ uses the word. To “deny” self means to treat it as non-existent. It means to ignore, to turn the back upon, to shut the eyes to self—something far different from mere self-control.—Moule.
Self-denial.
I. There are few things in which people play more wretched farces than in their efforts at self-denial.—Very few seem to have the remotest conception of what it means. The giving up of meat on Fridays, abstinence from social dissipation in Lent, and many other useless and uncalled-for sacrifices—these things do not constitute self-denial. There is no merit in giving up anything for its own sake.
II. True self-denial is the yielding of the whole life to the will of Christ.—It is self coming down from the life’s throne, laying crown and sceptre at the Master’s feet, and thenceforth submitting the whole life to His sway. It is living all the while not to please ourselves, but to please our Lord—not to advance our own personal interests, but to do His work. It is the glad making of any sacrifice that loyalty to Him requires. Self gives way altogether to Christ as the motive of life.
III. Nothing is true self-denial which is done merely as self-denial.—True self-denial, like all other forms of Christlikeness, is unconscious of self, wists not that its face shines. We deny ourselves when we follow Christ with joy and gladness, through cost and danger and suffering, just where He leads.—Miller.
Luke 9:24-26. Three Reasons for Cross-bearing.
I. We must sacrifice something—either the lower or the higher life, animal happiness or spiritual blessedness (Luke 9:24).
II. The incomparable value of the soul.—He who gains the world at the cost of his soul is a loser by the bargain (Luke 9:25).
III. At the second advent cross-bearers will receive a crown of righteousness.—To cross-spurners will be assigned shame and everlasting contempt.—Bruce.
Luke 9:25. Profit and Loss.
I. The gain here spoken of is nominal, imaginary.
II. The loss is real, and it is the greatest conceivable.
1. The soul is lost by not being exercised.
2. The soul is lost when it is perverted and corrupted.—Service.
Luke 9:26. “His own glory,” etc.—The glory is threefold:
1. His own, which He has to and for Himself as the exalted Messiah.
2. The glory of God, which accompanies Him as coming down from God’s throne.
3. The glory of the angels who surround Him with their brightness.—Meyer.
Ashamed of Christ.—This is what men are guilty of when Christians are in a minority, or when earnest Christianity is powerfully opposed. There is no temptation to be ashamed of Christ when all the world around you is, at any rate, professedly devoted to Him. But the temptation was a very formidable one when the Church was young, and when Christians carried their lives in their hands. Wonderful, however, it is how, in these first ages of the faith, men and women, boys and girls, in all conditions of life, joyfully accepted a painful death rather than be disloyal to their Lord and Saviour. But the wheel of time brings strange revolutions, and we no longer live in times when it could be said with entire truth that no one is ashamed of Jesus Christ. Many in all Christian countries professedly reject His name. And that this is so surely imposes on all true Christians the duty of explicitly confessing Christ before men.—Liddon.