CRITICAL NOTES
Luke 9:51. When the time was come.—Rather, “when the days were well-nigh come” (R.V.). That He should be received up.—The word translated “received up” means His assumption or ascension into heaven. He stedfastly set His face.—A Hebraism, with reference probably to Isaiah 50:7. Sent messengers.—The action, which contrasts with His former avoidance of publicity, is to be explained by His now formally avowing Himself to be the Christ.
Luke 9:52. Village of the Samaritans.—Samaria lay in the direct route from Galilee to Jerusalem.
Luke 9:53. Did not receive Him, etc.—The question as to the comparative claims of the Samaritan temple at Gerizim and the Jewish Temple at Jerusalem was distinctly involved: Christ’s preference of the latter led to the Samaritans’ rejection of Him.
Luke 9:54. James and John.—Whom He had surnamed “Sons of Thunder” (Boanerges, Mark 3:17):this ebullition of fiery zeal highly characteristic of them. Even as Elias did.—See 2 Kings 1:10-12. This phrase is omitted from R.V., as it is not found in some of the earliest MSS. It may be a gloss, but if so it is of great antiquity, as the words are found in nearly all other MSS., versions, and writings of the Fathers. They may have been omitted accidentally, or on dogmatic grounds—to avoid apparent disparagement of the Old Testament. The recent vision on the mountain (Luke 9:30), when Christ received honour from Moses and Elijah and from God, may have suggested the proposal to chastise the inhospitable Samaritans.
Luke 9:55. He turned.—Christ was evidently walking at the head of the company of disciples when the messengers returned with the tidings that the Samaritans refused to receive Him. And said, Ye know not … save them (Luke 9:56).—These two sentences also are omitted in the R.V., on the ground that the most important MSS. do not contain them. They do not, however, read like interpolations: they breathe too Divine a tone of thought, and are too characteristic of the Saviour, to have originated in any such way. So far as MS. evidence goes there is less authority for the doubtful sentence in Luke 9:56, “For the Son of man,” etc., than for the other in Luke 9:55. Ye know not.—I.e. “Ye think ye are animated by the Spirit that moved Elijah, but ye are mistaken: it is personal irritation, and not zeal for God, that underlies your suggestion.” Some prefer to take the sentence as a question, “Know ye not,” etc., i.e. that the Spirit of Christ is different from that of Elijah? It is doubtful, however, whether this rendering is grammatically possible.
Luke 9:56. Another village.—Probably a Galilæan and not a Samaritan village—as, if it had been the latter, we should have expected some remark upon the more noble character of its inhabitants. It would appear that when this incident occurred Christ and disciples were on the border between Galilee and Samaria.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Luke 9:51-56
The Spirit of the Old Testament and of the New.—We have here one of the memorable incidents of our Lord’s last journey to Jerusalem. Very solemnly and very sweetly does the Evangelist introduce the reference to His passion—“when the time was come that He should be received up.” It mitigates the bitterness of His Lord’s sufferings and death, looking on as it thus does to the issue and the end, to the taking up of Christ into heaven, to His reception in His heavenly home and into His Father’s glory.
I. The insult.—“He sent messengers before His face” as harbingers, to use that word in its most proper sense. “And they went, and entered into a village of the Samaritans, to make ready for Him. And they did not receive Him, because His face was as though He would go to Jerusalem.” This refusal of theirs was no piece of ordinary inhospitality such as the Samaritans were wont to show to Galilæan pilgrims on their way to the feasts at Jerusalem. It was not merely as such a pilgrim that they shut their doors against Him; for this we must remember was Christ’s solemn progress from Galilee to Judæa as Messiah, with these messengers everywhere announcing Him as such. But, as the Samaritans esteemed it, a Messiah going to Jerusalem to observe the feasts there did by His very act proclaim that He was no Messiah; for on Gerizim, as they believed, the old patriarchs had worshipped, consecrating it to be the holy mountain of God—which, therefore, and not Jerusalem, the Christ, when He came, would recognise and honour as the central point of all true religion.
II. The anger of the apostles.—The sons of Zebedee were probably with the Lord when the tidings were brought back of the village which, refusing to receive Him, had missed the opportunity of entertaining, not angels, but the Lord of angels, unawares. Upon this provocation all their suppressed and smouldering indignation against the schismatics, through whose territory they were journeying, breaks forth. At this instance of contempt shown to their Lord and to themselves (for no doubt a feeling of personal slight mingled with their indignation, however little they may have been aware of it themselves), the “sons of thunder” would fain play Old Testament parts. They feel that a greater than Elias is here; for they are fresh from the Mount of Transfiguration, where they had seen how the glory of Moses and Elias paled before the brighter glory of Him whom they served. An outrage against Him, and a rejecting of Him, should therefore not be less terribly avenged. With all of carnal and sinful which mingled with this proposal of theirs, yet what insight into the dignity of their Lord, and the greatness of the outrage directed against Him, does it reveal—what faith in the mighty powers with which He was able to equip His servants! And yet it might almost seem as though, with all this confidence of theirs, there was a latent and lurking sense upon their part of a certain unfitness in this their proposal; and thus out of no desire to intrude into their Lord’s office, but only out of a feeling that this avenging act might not exactly become Him, they proffer themselves as the executors of the judgment. It will become the servants, though it might not perfectly become the Lord.
III. The disciples rebuked.—“He turned, and rebuked them: Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of.” “You are missing,” Christ would say, “your true position, which is, having been born of the spirit of forgiving love, to be ruled by that spirit, and not by the spirit of avenging righteousness. You are losing sight of the distinction between the old covenant and the new, missing the greater glory of the latter, and that it is the higher blessedness to belong to it.” It behoves us to see clearly that there is no slight cast here on the spirit of Elias. Both spirits, that which breathed through and informed the prophets and saints of the old covenant, as well as that which should inform the disciples of the new, are Divine. The difference between them is not of opposition, but only of time and degree. The spirit of the old testament was a spirit of avenging righteousness; God was teaching men His holiness by terrible things in righteousness. But the spirit of the new covenant, not contrary, but brighter, is that of forgiving love; in it He is overcoming man’s evil with His good. Each economy has one predominating tone from which it takes its character. The two apostles were for the moment failing to recognise this. In a confusion of old and new, and not knowing of “what manner of spirit” they were, they had fallen back on the rudiments of God’s education of His people, when it was their privilege to go on unto perfection, and to teach the world the far greater might of meekness and of love. In their missing of all this there was a fault and matter of blame, yet blame by no means so severe as some are disposed to find. They were rebuked for choosing that which, perfectly good in its own time, was only not good now because a better had come in, for returning to the lower level of the old covenant when Christ had lifted them up, if only they had understood this, to the higher level of the new.—Trench.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON Luke 9:51-56
Luke 9:51-56. The courage and meekness of Christ.
I. The Divine courage and firmness of Christ in despising death.
II. The deadly enmities produced by differences about religion.
III. With what headlong ardour the nature of man is hurried on to impatience!
IV. How ready we are to fall into mistakes in imitating the saints!
V. By the example of Christ we are called to the exercise of meekness.—Calvin.
Luke 9:51. “Received up.”—Our Lord’s agony, cross, and passion were at hand; but He looked through them all to His glorious ascension.
Luke 9:52. “To make ready for Him.”—An indication of the dignity which was mingled with the humility of the Saviour. He required some preparation to be made for His coming, attended as He was by disciples, and did not choose to subject Himself to the inconveniences of haphazard arrangements made after His arrival, when a little foresight and management might prevent confusion and discomfort.
Luke 9:53. “Did not receive Him.”—Note the disastrous effects of religious prejudice.
I. It leads to a rejection of the Saviour.
II. It prompts a rudeness and discourtesy of which worldly people would be ashamed to be guilty.
III. It robs those who are blinded by it of those rich blessings which would result from communion with the Saviour and with His true disciples.
Luke 9:54. “James and John.”—Christ had surnamed them Boanerges, or “Sons of Thunder” (Mark 3:17), and their present proposal strikingly harmonises with some aspects of the character that gained for them the name. We should do them wrong if we imagined that their proposal was a mere outburst of personal annoyance. It sprang from sincere jealousy for the honour of their Lord, though with it there may have mingled party passion—some remains of old-standing dislike of Jews to Samaritans.
Luke 9:55. “Ye know not.”—James showed, when he suffered in patience death by the sword, that he had learned the meek spirit of Christ.
“What manner of spirit.”—
1. They thought they were actuated simply by zeal for Christ, but pride and anger vitiated their zeal.
2. The spirit they manifested was not such as became the apostles of the gospel, who were sent to proclaim mercy even to the chief of sinners.
Elias’ Spirit.—Elias’ spirit, I hope, was no evil spirit. No; but every good spirit, as good as Elias’, is not for every person, place, or time. Spirits are given by God, and men inspired with them, after several manners, upon several occasions, as the several times require. The times sometimes require one spirit, sometimes another. Elias’ time, Elias’ spirit. As his act good, done by his spirit, so his spirit good in his own time. The time changed; the spirit, then good, now not good. But why is it out of time? For the Son of man is come. As if He should say, Indeed, there is a time to destroy (Ecclesiastes 3:3); that was under the law, the fiery law, as Moses calls it; then a fiery spirit would not be amiss. The spirit of Elias was good till the Son of man came; but now He is come, the date of that spirit is expired. When the Son of man is come, the spirit of Elias must be gone; now specially, for Moses and he resigned lately in the mount. Now no lawgiver, no prophet, but Christ.—Andrewes.
Luke 9:56. Give People Time.—“They went to another village.”
I. Christ’s action here illustrates the importance of giving people time to accept His claims.—This need not involve any surrender of the truth. No good is done by speaking as if the truth were less certain, less supremely important, than in our hearts we believe it to be. But who are we, that we should dare to foreclose the time of others’ growth? The impenetrable reserves of truth, its distances of unapproachable light, make us incapable of judging how God may lead men on to it. Who can tell how he may help others by his own reverent and hopeful patience!
II. This example of Christ ought to help us in the ordinary affairs of life.—How much unsuspected beauty might be disclosed around us if we gave people time! Remember that they who would foreclose the case for others would themselves be without light and hope if God had not borne with them. They are depending moment by moment on His long-suffering. And think how much forbearance we have received from others! So much, that we have been often unconscious that we needed any. If we considered these things, we would gladly give others time to amend.—Paget.
Salvation.—The love of God can pursue and convict the most lost and erring. It goes after lost sheep. But how? By our accepting the yoke of Christ we come in touch with this store of vitality. The prime aim of the new creation is to take the will of God as the motive of life. “Thy will be done” is the acceptable prayer for salvation. Salvation from what? From the crushing or subtle power of temptation—from all that harms us. Do not associate salvation merely with deliverance from a future hell: salvation is deliverance from evil habit, from disappointment, from worry. This incoming saving power of God is for daily use.—Jones.