I. The announcement by Christ of His approaching sacrifice was the announcement of the solution to the enigma which all the ages of mankind had been endeavouring to solve how to obtain peace with a justly offended God. The need of such a propitiation combined with a deep sense of human misery, runs through all heathen religious systems; all have their legends of a bygone golden age, when gods and men lived in closer union, when the earth brought forth of its own accord all that could minister to man's requirements or delight, and universal justice prevailed among mankind. All religions have been occupied with the sense of sin, its origin and its abolition. Under the deep sense of the need of reconciliation, the heathen of old thought that they could actually of themselves do what would atone for their sins. We see in their sacrifice a strange admixture of what is highest and what is lowest, a miserable delusion, and yet a near guess at the true solution of the problem that they were unable to solve.
II. The sacrifice of Christ at once sanctioned and abolished all the sacrificial worship that preceded it; and, as a matter of history, we find that after the sacrifice of Christ, animal sacrifice with shedding of blood came suddenly to an end, while henceforth sacrificial terms and expressions began to group themselves round one Person and one Head the Lamb that was slain from the foundation of the world. And this faith affords a wondrous confirmation of the death of Christ as the true atonement for the sins of the whole world, we cannot understand sacrifice rightly until we survey from the height of Golgotha; until we seek to understand it from this point of view, we are like the disciples in the text, who, when our Lord spoke of His approaching sacrifice, "understood none of these things."
R. Baker, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxiii., p. 81.
References: Luke 18:31. Clergyman's Magazine,vol. ii., p. 89; J. M. Neale, Sermons in a Religious House,vol. ii., pp. 321, 331; H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Sunday Sermonettes for a Year,p. 49. Luke 18:31-34; A. B. Bruce, The Training of the Twelve,p. 282.Luke 18:34. Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times,"vol. viii., p. 60; Preacher's Monthly,vol. vii., p. 211; J. Keble, Sermons for Holy Week,p. 1.Luke 18:35. Homilist,vol. v., p. 52.Luke 18:35-43. T. Birkett Dover, The Ministry of Mercy,p. 196; Homiletic Quarterly,vol. i., p. 56. Luke 18:36. Parker, Christian Commonwealth,vol. vi., p. 539. Luke 18:36-37 . J. Stoughton, Christian World Pulpit,vol. v., p. 113.Luke 18:37. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xv., No. 906; Christian World Pulpit,vol. xvii., p. 95.Luke 18:41. Homiletic Magazine,vol. xii., p. 80. Luke 18:42. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xx., No. 1162; Preacher's Monthly,vol. iv., p. 89; J. Keble, Sermons from Septuagesima to Ash Wednesday,p. 191.Luke 18 F. D. Maurice, The Gospel of the Kingdom of Heaven,p. 277.